NTIL NOW it has been my strictest policy to put away into the deepest files those certain cases which would have sensationalized the small operation at 221B Baker Street beyond profitability. Through Mycroft, Sherlock’s older brother, we were at an informal understanding with Her Majesty’s government, sealed by a trust in the extraordinary reputations of both brothers and their unassailable sense of duty and patriotism.

I remember well the fiery June during which the events I have titled ‘The Adventure of the Bronze Emblem’ took place. Having just weeks ago married Miss Mary Morstan, daughter of the late Col. Morstan, I received an unexpected visit from my friend.

“Holmes!” I cried. I clasped his hands. “How wonderful to see you.”

“Watson, you look healthy,” said he, looking about the barely furnished doings. He said nothing of Mary, whom he considered as one might a woodland sprite stealing away an infant. I meant to correct this unfortunate happenstance, but Holmes flitted in and out of my life, at once seemingly busy and utterly bored.

We sat in the hard back chairs that faced the large open window looking onto the street. The outside air was much more polite than at my old residence, and several boxes of petunias were just now flourishing outside the window.

“How is Baker Street?” I asked.

“There is a horrid draft,” he said.

“I suppose there’s a handiman about the job now, and you’ve abdicated for the day?”

He nodded. I handed him one of my cigarillos, an import from Venezuela. He took it without comment and lit it up. His thin lips opened as he clamped the cigarillo with his teeth.

“There’s been a development in the case of the missing government papers from the Home Office on May 25th,” I remarked, referencing the opened pages of the newspaper.

He said nothing but tilted his head back, smoking, peering through the corner of the window beyond the street.

“This Morgan Delco...the one who stole the papers from Bilacki Jonson. If he had the foresight to take the last train back to London last night, it would suggest to me that he had indeed known of the theft beforehand, and was not on holiday. That suggests to me that he not only worked with Bilacki Jonson, but mightn’t he be the whole brains behind the theft?”

I was quite assured my friend had a different explanation, and indeed would furnish some new fact, which after all was his business.

“On the main,” said Holmes after a long draw, “you are on the trail.”

“Indeed?” I said, shocked. “You have been on the case, then?”

“No, no. They have not called. I do not blame them.”

“Why on earth not?”

“Mycroft is on the case. Under no circumstances must he come to me for help.”

“Again, why on earth not?”

“It is a mystery too tangled for the public—too tangled for the government to recover in the eye of the public, rather. A scandal wholly without sympathy, revealing too much callousness and braggadocio on the part of these mid-level officials. To involve me would be to employ my apparatus.”

“What apparatus?”

“You, Watson. Despite your departure from Baker Street, you have ensconced a legend forever in the mind of the public, and therefore the upper echelon. They may forgive us, but they will never forget who we are.”

“Over stolen papers, Holmes? I would venture that public opinion would be sympathetic to their recovery. Remember the case of ‘The Naval Treaty’. The papers had not been discovered of course, but the scandal was several months in the making before you solved it. They would have been better off with you on the case, seeing as it’s in the news.”

Here I attempted to lean back in the chair, but the top crested uncomfortably beneath my neck. I sat upright. Holmes strode to the open window and looked up the street.

“Yes, but in that case Watson, a simple opportunistic theft, motivated by money, perpetrated by a fool who could himself not fathom committing a murder...no, here we have a network the likes which Moriarty himself would shake and tremble to counter. It makes our government look very foolish.” 

He turned from the window and sat on the sill. His eyes glowed like a tiger’s.

“And there is nothing I am able to do,” he said. “The most complex, interesting case in the world, and I have been shut out!”

“Not for the first time,” I reminded him.

“You are right of course. I have endeavored to give up detecting. Not from pride, mind you,” he held up a finger. “But as a protest.”

I could not help laughing.

“And why not, Watson?” he said. 

“What will you do?” I said.

“Ah. There you may be surprised. Indeed it is an ironic turn of events that just as you leave me alone at Baker Street——no, Watson, I could not be less angry with you——Mrs. Hudson takes the greatest care for me, and I do not have to put up with your shambolic habits——”

“What——” said I, agape.

“I have been booked,” said Holmes, foregoing my argument. “At the Hotel Cosmopolitan no less, for a recital upon the violin.”

“How perfectly wonderful!” I exclaimed. “We shall come of course.”

“Of course,” said he. “I am glad to see that you are impressed. But you need not elide any past criticism of my talents, they were indeed mediocre.”

“No, not mediocre, Holmes. It’s a very difficult instrument.”

“Yes, I know, and it was my belief that with my powerful mental instrument I could transfer the talent without trouble. That did not prove true. However—” Here he went and picked up the half-smoked cigarillo and re-lit it. “I have been practicing noon and night.”

“I anticipate it with the greatest of anticipations,” I said. “What are you performing?”

“Two great ones. Beethoven, of course, and my own arrangement of de Lassus. A meditation fashioned from two of his most sublime motets. You have read my new monograph?”

“I have not,” I admitted. He looked forlorn.

“You’ll storm the stage,” said I.

“The Duke of Marlborough will be in attendance,” said Holmes.

“Why, this is a coup!”

“He comes to hear this German violinist, Vogt, to whom he is patron. Johann Cornelius Vogt. From Hamburg. A true prodigy in the make of Mozart and Beethoven. He too was beaten by his father.”

I laughed. “He composes well, I suppose.”

“Indeed, and plays a new work in his modern style, the title unannounced.”

“But,” said I, “my suspicion is that the London public, having heard that Mr. Sherlock Holmes will play, will be there out of curiosity for you, and not for him.”

This did not warm Holmes with affection, and I knew when I spoke it that I did so against his own feelings regarding ‘the public.’

“Ah, Watson,” he said affectedly. But this time he left off the usual rant. “I’m going down the street for some new cufflinks. Then to Monsieur Vendini’s for the violin. Care for a walk?”

“Of course! That is, I’ll have to come back here after. Surely you aren’t walking to the hotel?”

“Ha! Come on, let’s go, then.”

We exited the house and met Mary and the new maid returning.

“Miss Morstan,” Holmes bowed. “We were just going out for a walk, and, Watson, hadn’t you better explain?”

“My dear, Holmes has just invited us to an evening concert at the Cosmopolitan….when, Holmes?”

“Oh, tonight, at six o’clock. Very short notice and I do apologize, Miss Morstan, but it would be such an honor.”

Mary was surprised, and perhaps I had underestimated her agreeableness to such sudden interspersions from the likes of Holmes. She looked to me for explanation.

“Oh, well, it’s an excellent program, Mary. Beethoven and Lassus.”

“And Vogt.”

“A new prodigy on the violin, from Germany.”

“Very good,” said Mary. “If you both insist on it. But I shall have to go and get ready, and I fear a disaster.”

Having left Mary, we paced briskly down the streets of London. All the while Holmes regaled me with the minutiae of the German violinist and his illustrious patron, William Bolton, the Duke of Marlborough.

“A most gregarious man, this duke,” said Holmes. “Not one to bask in the glories of his titles—for he has many—and his enemies grow among the political ranks.”

“He has an interest in Germany, I believe,” said I. “Did he not take a German wife some years ago?”

“A rumor, Watson, though widely circulated and accepted by many,” said Holmes. “No, but you are right about his interest. He is a Germano-phile, a lover of their arts. As liaison for their embassy he is a much-valued figure —and reviled by the anti-German side.”

“Anti-German?” I asked.

“Jacobites. Loyalists to the House of Stuart.”

“But that was a hundred and fifty years ago!”

“A strain which has stayed with us.”

We veered sharply into Vendini’s shop, one of those shops with a tall entrance. We entered upon a scene of two ladies in theater-going dress, attended by a short bald man, spectacled, who nodded his head constantly, yet never seemed to raise his chin from his chest.

“Observe Vendini, Watson. Whilst he has yet to notice us, what can you read from him?”

“Holmes!” I protested, sotto voce. “What use is this at the moment?”

“Simply read what you see, as I have taught you.”

I attempted to do so. Besides his tortoise-like physique, Vendini scuffed his shoes terribly. Indeed, he seemed to scrape across the shop. I was alarmed, however, to see that his shirt was of a shocking low quality for someone of his distinction—both elbows exposed through the sleeves.

At present Vendini was arguing with one of the two ladies about price.

“Seigneur Vendini appears to be a master of sticking to his price, or else he cannot afford the rent,” I let reply to Holmes, shifting away from Vendini’s line of sight.

“Beware the man who tatters his sleeves on purpose, Watson. Notice the holes are jagged, rather than oval from wearing down on a table. Ah, seigneur Vendini, Mr. Sherlock Holmes—” 

Holmes took the man’s hands in his, and was very warm.

“Our correspondence was so pleasing, and I knew only such a man as you would have the Carvahlo ‘79 and know its strengths. May I try it here now? Such an excellent establishment, Watson—” Holmes performed a dramatic wave, indicating the potpourri of string instruments (nearly all of the violin family) adorning the walls.

“Your own violin, Mister Holmes, a most handsome example of a Stradivarius, is in excellent hands for the repair. Most unfortunate timing. That is why,” Vendini, hands pocketed, shook his head, “you do not practice on your best instrument.”

“Nor wear your Sunday best for rough-and-tumble,” enjoined Holmes.

Whatever the intentions of Holmes to placate Vendini’s suspected tightfistedness, it seemed so far to work. The result of our visit was that Mr. Vendini sent the rare instrument by special delivery to Baker Street and Holmes seemed very pleased indeed.

There I left him and went back to my house and found my wife, beautifully adorned, ready for the impromptu evening.

“You are a jewel, a shining jewel,” I said, and kissed her.

“Hurry up and get ready, John!”

***

MUST CONFESS, as we sat and watched the performances that evening, surrounded by not too few lovers of chamber music, that I had done my friend a great disservice in discounting his musical abilities. When Johann Cornelius Vogt played his new piece, a serenade of rich feeling and harmonic agility, I was moved by its powerful modern expression. When Holmes played Beethoven’s sonata, with its playful dashes, melancholy turns, and final sparkling run, I realized what justice he had done to his favorite composer, and how worthily he had studied.

When Holmes played his musical essay upon de Lassus, I turned to Mary and whispered to her. “This is Holmes entirely.” 

I dared say no more aloud, but my thoughts turned to books. My own shelves were filled with professional manuals and histories, though I was not averse to a flutter through a novel by Hardy or Dickens. Holmes put little stock in such artists, rarely acknowledging their existence. For him there was Shakespeare, and a few others. It should not have surprised me therefore that his study of the music of the Middle Ages with its long, pensive strains, increasingly complex but logical, should appeal to him. On the one hand, a playful mercurial nature that interloped between natural and airy; on the other, logical entirely.

After the concert Mary and I searched for Holmes. We found him clasping the hand of a very distinguished gentleman, and alongside him the German violinist with whom Holmes also exchanged greetings.

***

HERE WE LEFT HIM and returned to normal life. My practice was flourishing in those days and I had money enough to hire several understudies. Even so I was kept busy. Weeks passed and my mind did not return to the world inhabited by Sherlock Holmes until one evening he himself burst in again upon our doorway.

“Well, come in, and shut the door!” I said.

Holmes shed his outer cloak and boots, dripping wet from a summer night storm.

“Don’t tell me Baker Street is again uninhabitable,” I said, not a little annoyed after a long day. I called for hot tea and Holmes and I sat at the smaller table in the sidestudy.

“Perhaps,” began Holmes, “it is nothing and I really am bothering you at such a terrible hour.”

“I am very tired, Holmes.”

“You must not think me too mutable, but I have come into possession of a most interesting bauble.”

“Let’s see it then.”

He laid on the table a sort of bronze tube, no larger than a forefinger. I picked it up and endeavored to humor my friend.

“Hollow, except for this top...a symbol, a sort of seal.” I tried to discern the depiction, small though it was. “Wavy...waves, or perhaps a scimitar.” I flipped it on its side looking for an inscription. “No maker’s inscription. but there are two grooves, as if to fit into a larger piece…”

“Good,” said Holmes.

“Yes, there are two more grooves near the top that I imagine twist to interlock. I would venture it to be part of an expensive piece of furniture, perhaps a desk, or a walking stick, where the maker is proud enough to insert his personal stamp. The story that comes with this trinket is, if there is one, as interesting?”

“It is indeed, Watson,” said Holmes. He coughed lightly. “If I may grade you on your performance just now, I give my highest marks. A walking stick is a very good guess. In any case, as you observed, the grooves which interlock suggest the piece can be changed out for another. The insignia is of two elm leaves.”

“I have never observed such a piece,” said I.

“Nor have I observed the duke carrying any walking stick,” said Holmes.

Our tea was brought and Holmes sipped gratefully.

“The duke!” I reminded him. I wondered at the story he was surely about to tell me.

“Have you forgiven me?” asked Holmes tiredly but with mischief.

“Well yes, but please don’t keep me in suspense,” I said.

“You remember the night of the concert. But of course you did not have the opportunity to meet Joz Robin,” said Holmes. He drank the rest of his tea.

“Not the gentleman with you and the German?”

“No, that was our illustrious duke. Joz Robin is the equally illustrious hotel bellman. A wonderful fellow. A predecessor of our Baker Street irregulars, but he has gone far in the world. Just about an hour ago Joz Robin knocked. He presented me with this…” he held up the bronze piece. “A most singular piece left behind when the duke revisited the hotel.

“Two days ago, as Joz prepared to leave the hotel for the day he made his way through the back into the alleyway. He stopped behind some bins when he noticed a carriage, a polished brougham with the windows shuttered, despite the fair weather. No stranger to seeing people among the high set, Joz knew this was someone of importance, though he did not instantly recognize to whom the carriage belonged. 

“Two men emerge. They help the duke from his carriage—a handsome, whiskered man of middle age—the duke, though Joz was not sure. The two men help him inside the hotel. Joz waits in his spot for the carriage to move on, but it remains. Some few minutes later the doors are thrown open and the same men are now carrying his grace back to his carriage, for the man is now knocked cold. He is put into the carriage and his hat tossed in after him, and driven out of the alley. This piece, knocked out by chance, was all they left behind, which our intrepid friend picked up in the gravel.

“You observed, did you not Watson, as I shook hands with his grace?”

“Indeed I did,” said I. “Why should he in one moment be the spectacle of health, and the next carried out?”

“When I shook the duke’s hand it was gloved,” said Holmes. “But it was a strong grip. There are more clues yet to be discovered. On these we must take Joz Robin at his word, or his best recollection. For one thing, why, if the duke had been staying at the hotel, did he return inside after mounting his carriage?”

“Recalled, probably by some intimate business inside the hotel,” I offered.

“Rarely have I known such men to inconvenience themselves so, but it is true the duke is a spirited aristocrat. He has been known to visit tailor shops rather than recall them to his house.”

“Was there blood, or bruising, on the duke as they carried him back to his carriage?”

“I do not expect Joz to have gotten quite so close a look,” said Holmes.

“Of course,” said I. “What business brought the duke to the hotel in the first place?”

“Oh no, surely that is not so important. These are their haunts, Watson. To meet, by devised coincidence, some other luminary. It is all in the manner of their class.”

“I believe you are wrong there, Holmes. It must surely explain why he waited with his carriage in the alleyway rather than in the front.”

“In fact, he was visiting his wife’s mother, who stays close to her doctor in the city. But as to your latter point, now that is a matter that I have considered carefully. For instance, the direction in which one arrives and exits at the hotel. But I must have more facts. I must go back to the hotel and make my enquiries.

“Promise me,” said Holmes, “you will keep this case, if it is a case, quite closed, and do not write anything down until we have determined more what can be done.”

“I shall do nothing without your saying so,” I said.

***

T WAS DURING the inopportune surgery hours that Holmes sent me a telegram, three days later, urging me to come to Baker Street. I had had several house visits the evening before.

Watson. Duke in grave danger. Again I urge you to say nothing until I send for you. Come to B Street when called.

“Edith, will you reply for me, saying I am very busy?” I asked. My fatigue overcame me and I returned home, leaving the practice in the care of my younger colleague, Dr. Croft.

“Do not give that patient any other medicine,” I instructed the young doctor. “She has had the generous end of both of us. The cost of the next bottle is two guineas.”

At home I took some extra hours for sleep. My wife brought me the day’s paper.

“Thank you dear.”

“An interesting column today,” she commented. “Page 8, upper left corner, two sections down.”

“Oh?” I flipped to that section.

Big M the Germano-phile, it read. What sort of chokolad does he eat? And another: Does Big M know he is suspected at home?

Through the following days Mary would bring me the snippets in the newspaper. I scanned over three days of new columns.

On Thursday: Worried for his future? Four wheels going far away.

On Friday: P’raps B.M. should say something. Public speech.

On Saturday: Does B.M. have soft hands?

“We must send these to Holmes,” I said. “I can make nothing of them, except I believe the duke’s life may be in danger.”

Finally I sent a message to Baker Street to see if Holmes would come. If not, I would leave surgery early to see him there. My scruples were at an urgency I had never felt before. Holmes was secretly on the case, but what if he had not seen the columns or yet connected them?

But Holmes never came and Baker Street, I learned from Mrs. Hudson, had been without Sherlock for over a week.

News of the duke in the papers became increasingly concerning. A minor riot erupted outside the Tussaud museum as the duke was seen entering.

The shocking news came on a Tuesday. It read:

Duke of Marlboroough’s private secretary, Preston Wood, found dead.

I knew Mycroft must be informed, and after one more day of surgery, on a day I knew the Diogenes Club met, I took it upon myself to break Holmes’s command to keep silent, on the token that I had not yet betrayed his own involvement in the case.

“I’ll be out, Mary. If you can, wait for me, and keep the hall lamp lit.” 

“Be careful,” said my wife. Only she among the fair sex could have uttered those words with such understanding for the grim business I was about.

I breathed in the evening night air before entering the cab. 

“Diogenes Club,” I said, closing the cab door myself. I checked my timepiece to be sure of the period Mycroft was known to be in.

I knew I could make entry into the club based on my association with Sherlock. I also abandoned my intention to parse Sherlock’s involvement, for Mycroft would surely know more than I could communicate. It was my sole purpose to warn him of the danger to the duke’s life, and all I knew to that effect.

The outside of the building was as it had always been, and I met the bellman and gave my credentials.

“Yes, Dr. Watson, you are indeed expected,” he said.

I was alarmed at hearing this, reading much into it, but as I was shown through the main area into the small conversation lounge all my worries suddenly lifted, for there sat both Mycroft, his large leonine head between broad shoulders, and Sherlock, puffing away at a cigarette.

“Good evening Dr. Watson!” exclaimed Mycroft. 

If he were not a founding member of the club the reaction his loud voice provoked would surely have caused them to be kicked out.

“Holmes!” I said, exasperated.

“Please sit down, John,” said Sherlock. “All will be revealed shortly.”

***

HE ROOM WAS one I had been in only once before, during that strange adventure of the Greek Interpreter, when Mycroft first became known to me. I now admired the room’s baroque luxuriance anew, its darkly-gilded walls, sumptuous chairs, the marbled mantel and gated fireplace, and the odd painting above Mycroft’s seat. Its subject was two lovers standing in a garden, embracing, while the girl, in aristocratic dress, attempted to tie a white kerchief around her lover’s arm as he caressed her head.

“What a very original style,” I remarked.

Mycroft turned his head to look. “Oh yes, the Huguenot lovers. You chose that one didn’t you, Sherlock?”

“Father bought it,” said Sherlock. “‘A Huguenot On St. Bartholomew’s Day,’ one of the few modern works I enjoy.”

“I prefer Constable,” said Mycroft gruffly.

Our artistic interlude ended when a strange man entered the room.

“James Avery?” asked Sherlock.

“The same,” said our visitor.

The man looked astonishingly familiar, and yet I could not place where I had met him. His tall frame sat next to me on the sofa as he faced the brothers. He was around my own age, perhaps a few years younger. From a long slender box Mycroft offered both the newcomer and myself a cigarette.

I extended my hand in introduction to the man as I took a surer look at his features.

“A pleasure, doctor,” he said, and lit his cigarette.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Mycroft, “I believe we have much to discuss. Sherlock has already informed me of your involvement, Dr. Watson, which I think will be of little interest to Mr. Avery, whose own account we are all very anxious to hear.”

***

Y NAME IS James Avery. I should first explain,” said he, “that I first was approached about this business a little less than a year ago. October, I believe. I came home to the post, and saw an envelope stamped with the address of the Duke of Marlborough. My wife urged me to take his generous offer as his second private secretary. Since this offer was outside my profession, I was hesitant to accept.

“Nevertheless, I took the letter and went to the duke’s house here in London—his estate of course is in Wiltshire, but he resides here in the summer, going back and forth between his house and the Hotel Cosmopolitan—forgive my insistence on these details, they have been my life for so long now.

“I was promptly shown into the duke’s presence. He has a very large working room, taking up nearly half a storey. He gave me an initial offer: I was to first learn the history of his family and title, and then learn to imitate his manners, and finally to stand in for the duke as an extension of his public person. And so, you must understand, I had not really been employed solely for secretarial work, but for a covert reason that the duke wished to keep secret.

‘If all goes well,’ said the duke, ‘we’ll find another occasion for you. If it goes badly, at this early stage, no harm is done.’

“So I believed, for at first my role held no official consequence whatsoever—I was merely a prop to entertain at dinner parties, presiding over those events which inconvenienced him when he needed to work. A more studious man I have never met.

“Our ritual was to exchange roles only in his office, to confine the secret only there as much as possible.

“Did his wife and household know or suspect his scheme?” asked Sherlock.

“This will be difficult to believe,” said Avery, “after you hear the rest of my story, but I believe she never suspected.”

“And the household? Who was in his confidence on this matter?” Holmes pried.

“The duke’s managing secretary and his footman, and the duke’s driver.”

“Pray continue,” said Sherlock.

“Pardon,” I said, interrupting. “But can you say what job it was you held before your employ with the duke?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry Dr. Watson. You see, I’m an actor. I have performed on nearly every stage in London—only reputable stages, I hope. I played the role of Egeon—that’s a Shakespeare comedy—at The Lyceum, where the duke attended regularly.”

Still baffled, I sat back to hear the rest of this strange story.

“Yes, well, my performance as ‘the fake duke’ soon yielded a comfortable profit, and I was ready to leave his employment as soon as the duke—excuse me gentlemen, I’m hesitant to admit any state secrets or confidences I was forced to learn.”

“You are on no official record with us,” said Sherlock. He exchanged glances with Mycroft who nodded.

“Nor can you tell us anything we might not ourselves learn,” Mycroft added.

“Very good. Then, it will not shock you badly to learn of the duke’s struggle to gain the confidence of the government, and his ambition to become Foreign Secretary.

“Finally, he was persuaded to withdraw his name from consideration. Then all was chaos. I remember the night of your musical performance Mr. Holmes, for I had asked whether he would need my services. He laughed and gave me tickets for myself and my wife. As it happens, I never made it to the hotel. I was taken against my will by several roughs outside the property. They threatened harm to my family unless I cooperated. Later I realized that their leader was the duke’s driver. He had taken the night off, on a pretence.”

“Helmut Mehlman,” said Holmes. “An employee formerly of the German embassy.”

“I had not heard that name,” said Avery, “for he always uses the name John Harvey.

“I was taken to the uppermost storey of the duke’s house and locked in a room. It is true that there were several windows, but with nothing to make rope of, and being cautious of heights, I could make no attempt.”

“Were there no servants, groundskeepers, to whom you might call?” I asked.

“Scarce few, and I had a watchman in the room with me. Every day for the past month I was woken early, made to sit in the duke’s rooms, read his papers, entertain certain dignitaries, smile and kiss his children—even kiss his wife—under the facade of actor’s makeup and colored hair.

“You must know well from the news of the stolen government papers. This theft was committed through James Harvey.

“One week ago I was taken to the Hotel Cosmopolitan, where the duke had been staying with his ill mother, and an exchange was made in the hotel’s alley—I was ushered inside, and the duke carried out, unconscious.

“Since that moment, I have been forced to impersonate the duke not only privately in his home, but in a serious capacity. The most harrowing moment of my life was yesterday when I sat before government ministers. You see, his grace has been reconsidered for Foreign Secretary after all. Then, the whole thing was dropped, and my captors have been avoiding any contact with the outside.

“If it was not for you, Mr. Holmes, I fear what would have happened to us. This experience has made me a wiser man, I’m afraid.”

“You’ve seen the inside workings of our government,” said Mycroft. “A most uncomfortable truth. Do you think, Mr. Avery, that you will be able to return to normal life after this experience?”

“What about John Harvey,” said Sherlock. “What were his political motivations?”

“I know nothing of their motivations at all, except, by my own inference, that they wished the duke to become the new Foreign Minister. That is motivation enough, but surely, since the duke himself wished for it, why such an elaborate scheme? I tell you, I can make nothing of it, it is all sheer madness!”

“There is truth in what you say,” said Sherlock. “I’m afraid, though, that you must leave us and be content with your own account of things. You have, after all, already heard a great many secrets. Leave your curiosity in this room and return home. I have already interviewed the main persons involved. The villains are caught. At any rate I suspect you will glean something more about this affair in the papers.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Avery. Good luck, and best wishes to your wife,” I said.

I was still astonished by his tale, dwelling on many of the points.

“Good evening to you, Avery,” said Mycroft. “Take this with you...a few more left—they’ll do you good!” Mycroft gifted him the silver cigarette case.

***

E WERE LEFT ALONE now and the hour was quite late, but I gave no thought except to the mystery at hand.

“Well, it still baffles me,” I said. “Avery did not boast of it, but he made such a very convincing duke if he were able to fool all the people who knew him, including the government.”

“He was able to fool enough people, but he was not aware of our own roles in the game,” said Sherlock. “The meeting with the government ministers yesterday, although it seemed to benefit what the conspirators wanted, was arranged through my advice, unofficially, and through Mycroft, officially.”

I laughed. “What a strange adventure! Of course, now that you have revealed that fact, I see the intention was for the ministers themselves to see if this was the same person, or in this case, who he was not.”

“Of course you can see through when the door is opened for you, dear Watson. But when the door is closed—”

“That is your power, Holmes, to see behind closed doors.”

“And to open them,” he said. “But I am again being too harsh, for you sent me those clippings from the agony columns.”

“I nearly forgot the reason I came! What did you make of them, were they useful at all?”

“Very useful. You see, I wrote them.”

“To what purpose?”

“Closed doors, Watson. Deduce.”

“To scare and flush out the conspirators,” I answered. “Of course.”

“And to let Avery know he had an ally, which he did not know until then. You did not read his secret replies in the same section. I must say that although I never saw the fake duke up close, I knew from his public behavior that he was different from his usual self.”

“Although if you had seen Mr. Avery’s performance up close,” I added, “no doubt you would have seen the game. You’ve played a number of theatrical roles.”

Sherlock smiled.

“It remains for you to explain some details, brother mine,” said Mycroft getting up, stretching his arms.

“Let us reconstruct,” said Holmes. “There are many elements, and they do not all intersect upon the same points. But each contributes a vital piece of the puzzle. In the first place, there is the matter of the duke and his political ambitions. Avery has told us how that ended. When the duke considered retracting his name for Foreign Minister, the anti-German element among the politicos died out, but the pro-German element rose up within the duke’s own household. To what degree he understands his household is crawling with spies we do not yet know. But we know their actions and intentions—they wished very much he should become Foreign Minister, foreseeing a friendly hand in dealing with Germany. When they learned he would retract his name they became fanatical. They hid the duke and put forth Avery in pursuit of their goal. I did not know until yesterday their involvement in another scheme, the one which began this series of events. May 25th. The stolen papers. Bilacki Jonson? 

“Through Avery they gained access not only to those documents in his house, but in his government file. They were easily stolen, with no signs of irregularity or of a break in, for they had the key. They were done by John Harvey with the use of Avery, and Harvey then passed them on to Bilacki Jonson for passage to Germany.

“They were retrieved by a very brave man, Morgan Delco. Delco works in the same building where the duke has his office. He recognized Jonson as an infamous seller of state secrets. By chance he sat behind Jonson in a cafe and recognized the papers. For the trouble of retrieving them he has sat in prison these past four weeks.”

Sherlock Holmes stood up and paced the windowless room, its close shadows reflected dramatically on his thin, angular face.

“And then there is the business of the duke’s disappearance, and Avery’s role. And of this.”

He held up the singular bronze tube.

“From the walking stick!” I exclaimed.

“An outdated guess, Watson. The truth I should have guessed more quickly. I told you I would make my enquiries at the hotel. I did so. I discovered that the duke was staying in the hotel and had not been back to his house. I discovered that his carriage left the hotel by a sidestreet, not in the direction of the duke’s house, but out to the old highway, going west. To Wiltshire. I learned this from the highway toll.”

“That was where they were taking the real duke!”

“Where they’ve held him, in secret, in the care of his family who suspect nothing of a wider scheme. The conspirators have for a long time been employed in his household, so there is little suspicion when the need arises for secrecy.

“First I traveled to Wiltshire, thinking that was the most urgent. I had no reason to disguise my purpose, for an ill duke is no mystery. They allowed me to observe the carriage but not look inside. Since they refused me an audience with the duke I lingered only a little. It was just as I passed through the door that the mail carrier gave the footman the household post. On the top I read one name I recognized. Avery. I remembered the papers had reported the apparent suicide of the duke’s private secretary, Preston Wood, and in the same articles John Avery was named as his colleague. I then asked myself if two tragedies added up to a mystery.

“I was prepared to drop the whole case there, for I had not yet met with any resistance from my investigation. To be sure, I went to the London house, the bronze emblem in my pocket, dressed as a repairman looking for work. 

“It was there that I spoke to the stable hands and first learned the name of John Harvey and, among other facts, that he hated his employer. 

“It was from Harvey’s wife that I began to unravel the dangerous parts of this mystery. She is superior to her husband in every aspect, and had she learned what his true purpose was she herself would have turned him in. From her I learned his real name, Helmut Mehlman, and that for some time his patriotism for his home country had reignited.

“I had forgotten about Avery, for now the mystery hinged upon Harvey. I began to think of the connection with the stolen papers of May 25th, for here was a prime suspect, either as a thief or foreign agent. 

“Then Mrs. Harvey led me down yet another road of revelation, though she was unaware of it. Every day she would take a basket down the road to another house. Its owner, she told me, was poor and had an arrangement with her husband that she should take food every day to him.

“It was a very shabby house, and I easily found entrance when I knew the owner was away—a truly hideous sort, Watson, there is little doubt he was capable of murder—and went through the house. Then I heard muffled cries through the floorboards and knew there must be some poor soul hidden away, trapped by that odious ogre of a man.

“I flung open the door and found not one soul, but four. Mrs. Avery and her three young children. It was from her that I finally learned of the duke’s double, and how John Avery had become the pawn of foreign spies, and while the real duke lay ill in bed in Wiltshire, some actor was playing out his part for the public, and for reasons much more sinister.”

“Kidnapping and theft!” I cried. “He will not get far with the courts.”

“Add to your list the crime of murder,” said Holmes.

“Whom?” I asked.

“Preston Wood. There I do not have all the facts, but it is very conspicuous that he was the sole member of the duke’s inner circle who knew of Avery. He was poisoned.”

“But the fingerprints on the bottle were his own,” I protested.

“A clever trick, but not unimaginable,” said Holmes. “A man may be forced to drink poison, after all.”

“There is still the matter of the bronze piece,” I said.

“Yes, I despaired of its relevance. I knew at that point to send word to Mycroft. But Mrs. Avery knew more than she allowed, and pointed me in the direction of both the room where Avery was kept, and the carriage in which he was always transported. I made some pretence to inspect it. To my delightful surprise, upon observing the inside door of the carriage I discovered...a twin.”

Sherlock held up the bronze trinket again, and then to my astonishment, a second one beside it.

“A royal carriage emblem whose insignia is not to be found in Burke’s Peerage or any book of heraldry, for these are meant to be kept secret, and placed covertly to verify the provenance of the carriage and the person it carries. It is regularly removed by its proprietor after use, you see, and kept with the most valuable papers.

“In this case, however, the conspirators were unaware of its existence. To them all the important matters were kept in the duke’s office, and this small bauble, if they ever saw it, meant as little to them as does a piano manufacturer’s insignia.”

“To think that by chance it fell in that alley,” I said. “The most remarkable aspect of this case to me is the element of the fake duke. To think an actor could camouflage his way through so many political complications.”

“In many ways the two professions are not so far apart. Actors are very adept. Think of the theatre—Julius Caesar. To your point, Watson, the most remarkable point of this case is how closely aligned are the remarkable and unremarkable. I nearly fell into a pit of despair, for at every turn in this case I was met with helpful ordinary answers that threatened to wash away any mystery. For instance, when I knew the duke had been taken from the hotel—what of it? To fall ill is not a criminal act. Even at the point of deception, the matter remains private unless sinister. When I arrived at the Wiltshire household, though they refused to allow me to see the duke and the first carriage, they affirmed all my questions. Even these little bronze emblems. Their discovery, while fascinating, does not immediately yield true mystery. There was only one real clue of danger, one for which I still have no solid foundation, but which has led us into the light. It was my supposition that the duke, carried out to the carriage, purposefully threw down this one clue which his captors did not heed. I cannot yet verify that suspicion, but already it justifies this case as one of the most singular in my career.”

Mycroft indicated the clock above the door. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning.

“There is one more thing,” I said. We opened the door to meet an emptied Diogenes Club lounge. “The appearance of the duke in the hotel after his carriage had already left. Surely, some excuse had to be made for that, in the chance he was noticed in two places.”

“Simple enough, I should think,” said Holmes. “Avery, once inside the hotel, was made to change into his own person. In any case, the conspirators must have believed they had performed their trick quite nicely, for nobody noticed.”

There was a strong breeze that morning, lifting out the foul stink off the London streets.

***

S HOLMES PREDICTED, the results of this adventure were widely publicized, with many alterations to accommodate the government’s insistence that the true nature of the stolen papers was never known. John Harvey, or Helmut Mehlman, and his spy ring, were convicted and Germany had to deal with a less sympathetic Foreign Minister. A much harsher sentence was levied on a man called Harry Stanton, the duke’s footman, for he was a born traitor to his queen and country, and it was also discovered, he had administered the poison to Preston Wood, the duke’s secretary and his own employer. After facing much tribulation and suspicion, Morgan Delco was released from prison thanks to Sherlock Holmes, and his actions of the night of May 25th were seen in a new light—to be a ‘Morgan Delco’ became a byword for a hero. As for the Duke of Marlborough, though the facts made public exonerated him, he became a very reclusive figure, and never again was involved in politics. When he died a very interesting item of his will was made known—he wished that part of his estate be given to the German family of the Vogts, so long as the father furnished one new composition a year, to be played at the Hotel Cosmopolitan.