Free Sherlock Holmes and The Sword of Osman by Tim Symonds Page B

you, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson’s chronicles will be translated into Turkish one by one, and they will be read to me one each night. I shall relate them to her word for word.’
    He put the chronicles down.
    â€˜I must thank Sir Edward for sending you to my country to enquire into some presumed conspiracy against my throne. Nevertheless, the idea the Sword of Osman can be stolen is quite preposterous, as you will discover when you meet my Chief Armourer Mehmed. His men guard it with their life. I hope you have a very pleasant week here in Stamboul before returning to your country.’
    â€˜Your Majesty,’ Holmes asked, ‘to assist our endeavours I wonder if you could supply us with a plan of this remarkable palace?’
    The Sultan replied, ‘I can do better than that, Mr. Holmes!’
    He gave a signal. Nadir Aga brought over a large album from a side-table. It contained photographs showing the many pavilions and the cultivated gardens and pathways that make up the Yildiz.
    â€˜An American visited us. He was an expert on photography from the air,’ the Sultan explained. ‘He sent a camera skyward aboard a silk-string kite from a ship in the Golden Harbour.’
    The Sultan pointed out places of interest including the gate where we were to meet the Head Gardener after our audience, and the Harem garden, the Prince Garden and the Sultan gardens. The American’s visit must have been in spring. The pathways were edged with a profusion of crocuses and daffodils. Sycamores, olives and lilacs, limes, elms, hackberries, laurels, the cercis, were picked out in sharp detail.
    In addition to the aerial views, photographs of the interior of the Palace had been shot at ground level - exquisite rooms with apple green walls, friezes tender rose in colour, the background of the medallions light blue and lilac or rose.
    The Sultan gave another order. The Second Black Eunuch returned carrying the most beautiful object I had yet set eyes on, a gift from fellow Sultan Abdul Aziz of Morocco upon our host’s marriage to Saliha Naciye. It was an Adams quarter-plate De Luxe with red-leather covered body and 18 carat gold fittings. ‘The most expensively produced hand camera in the world,’ the Sultan informed us gleefully. ‘It contains 130 ounces of the purest gold. See - each fitting, every screw and plate sheath is hallmarked.’
    Observing our host’s delight in his photographic apparatus, I was relieved I had asked Shelmerdine to take my precious new camera with him.
    The Sultan rose from his throne and beckoned us to observe the fine view over the three seas surrounding the Sarayburnu peninsular. A telescope was brought into the room and erected near the window. We could see the powerful British fleet amid a dozen or more Turkish ironclads dating from the past Century and the swarm of smaller craft. Several miles out I recognised the obsolete HMS Devastation . On the principle of the tortoise and the hare she must have plodded on while we engaged in gunnery and torpedo practice during the many sea miles from Gibraltar.
    A grandfather clock chimed the hour. The Sultan looked at the hands of the clock and pointed to HMS Devastation , remarking ‘Her crew has been taken off’.
    As he spoke one of Dreadnought ’s heaviest guns roared. Every window shook. An immense shell soared upwards, dropping down towards the hapless ironclad, hitting the water just beyond her. This was followed a minute later by a simultaneous salvo of three followed by another ranging shot, and a salvo of four separated by 16 seconds. The gunnery crews had got the range. A mighty explosion threw debris and water high into the air. When it settled, Devastation was no longer to be seen. To the watching eyes of the world’s ambassadors in Pera and the Kaiser’s spies aboard the S.S. Grosser Kurfürst, it was a deliberate reminder of the length and destructive power of England’s arm.
    The