Free The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes by Donald Thomas

The cold May wind whipped and snapped at the flags of the nations on their poles. Each gust blew clouds of sand like stinging hail from the newly laid paths.
    Inside the domed hall, as the procession formed up, rose the soaring chords of the Tannhäuser overture for organ and full orchestra. The dignitaries moved forward, led by the Knights of St Patrick in richly jewelled collars and the slim figure of Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms, in his herald’s tunic bearing the royal lions in gold, like a figure from a Tudor court.
    Sherlock Holmes stood in morning coat and trousers, still a picture of misery and boredom. I could not repress the thought that he would probably have been happier planning the assassination of the Viceroy’s court than preventing it. Life returned to his dark brooding eyes only at the appearance of the two lesser functionaries, Peirce Mahony and Frank Shackleton, who walked behind the knights. Frank Shackleton, the Dublin Herald of the Viceroy’s court, had about him that whiff of dark good looks and criminality which revived Holmes’s spirits. He was a young man of no obvious fortune and considerable debts. Yet he contrived to run a household in San Remo, as well as a far more expensive London home in Park Lane. Each establishment had a separate mistress.
    Holmes stared at the dark curls which gathered on the back of Shackleton’s head as the music drew to its conclusion with Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’. The procession halted. Cool sunlight caught the display of treasure that was borne slowly past us. I swear that my friend’s thin and fastidious nostrils twitched, as though the golden horde gave off a fine and subtle perfume.
    Glittering like broken flame, the Crown Jewels of the Irish kingdom shone in coloured fire on robes and tunics. The Viceroy’s robe bore the Star of St Patrick. It seemed the size of a soup-plate, a shamrock of rubies and emeralds set in solid gold, bordered by Brazilian diamonds that blazed with flashes of white heat in the sun, every stone the size of a walnut. The eight points of the star were encrusted with Indian diamonds of smaller size.
    Frank Shackleton bore on a black cushion the great Badge of Viceroyalty. Round its circumference was the motto Quis separabit? picked out in rose-tinted diamonds, looted by the British commanders from the Indian tombs of Golconda. With his dark curls and striking profile Shackleton looked every inch the part. Then the Knights of St Patrick walked by, each noble neck encompassed by a collar of finely wrought gold links, set with precious stones.
    As the procession paused, emeralds, rubies, and clustered diamonds set in thick gold glowed and sparkled more richly in the shadows than in the sun. I saw Holmes’s lips moving silently and mockingly for my benefit in the words that so often accompanied the music of Sir Edward Elgar, which now fairly deafened us.
    â€˜Truth and right and freedom, Each a holy gem, Stars of solemn brightness, Weave thy diadem.’
    The look of misery was gone as he gazed upon the royal treasure, not for its beauty but for its eternal appeal to human greed and criminality.
    â€˜I think, Watson,’ he said softly, as the orchestra fell silent, ‘I think we must see how all this is managed.’
    The safety of such treasures was no part of our business. However, there was no difficulty in arranging that we should accompany the jewels back to Dublin Castle. Our plain black carriage arrived immediately behind the police van containing the jewel cases, as it drew up outside the Bedford Tower, safely within the upper courtyard of the castle.
    Apart from Ireland’s Crown Jewels, the Bedford Tower contained the Irish Office of Arms with a fine collection of bound volumes and manuscripts on matters of genealogy and heraldry. It was not, strictly speaking, a tower but a classical pavilion with a fine portico of Italianate arches before the main door.