Chapter 22

Author's Notes: Thank you Masked Phantom (yes he does, and you will see why), L'Wren (is this update soon enough for you?), Haley Macrae (much love), Xena (ditto), and a warm welcome to violavampire (you asked for sparks, you got sparks). In terms of caveats for this chapter, the more research I do for this story, the clearer it becomes that our modern political climate owes a great deal to the screw-ups of the nineteenth century. And I find it ironic that many of the situations echo our own. Miss Bassano's sentiments about the Dead Diplomat in the last chapter, for example, mirror some of the feelings about Yasser Arafat on the occasion of his recent funeral. Some background (here's your history lesson, kids!): Sudan had been under Egyptian control. Egypt itself had been under British military occupation since the building of the Suez Canal. The English grip loosened, and the Mahdists, a Muslim nationalist militant group, rebelled. General Gordon was sent in to quell the rebellion, but without adequate resources, he was killed in 1884. Sudan was placed under a brutal and oppressive regime (I am only quoting the historians, people! Who knows, maybe they had legitimate concerns!) but was finally reconquered by the British in 1896, under Kitchener. The British were scandalised by reports of Europeans kept prisoner, and were concerned that if they didn't conquer the Sudan, the Italians or French would. The kingdom of Brunei was a British protectorate at this time, and I assume the Sultan had a yacht. Holmes' quote comes from the last chapter of the Sign of Four. Sheik Muhammed is a figment of my imagination. The title of this chapter is from a very amusing song of the same title, which I know in the rendition of the Beatles, available on the Beatles Anthology I.

Though he had not yet fully reached consciousness, Holmes was dimly aware that he was waking up in a different place than he had fallen asleep. The question that immediately followed was, had he fallen asleep at all? As his senses returned to him, he relished in the softness and warmth that surrounded his body. Though he had chosen a life in which he could not afford many such luxuries, he valued them nonetheless. Certainly these circumstances were vastly superior to those he had so recently experienced.

There was no sense of foreboding then, as he opened his eyes. The sight which was revealed to him was surprising. He was in a bed, in a small wood-panelled room. Curtains were drawn over the narrow window, and – perhaps most surprising of all – in a chair in the corner was the sleeping form of Miss Bassano.

Holmes drew himself up in the bed, and with the effort, discovered aches which he had not remembered. The sound of the rustling bedsheets caused Miss Bassano to stir, but not to wake. The heavy woollen shawl that covered her shoulders slipped slightly. She had curled up in the chair so that her head almost rested on her knees. A strand of hair had fallen over her face, and moved in time with her breath.

Here we are again, Holmes thought. He considered his options. Clearly, he had underestimated the little woman's resourcefulness, and was once again in her debt. He sighed heavily, and coughed once, loudly, to wake her.

Miss Bassano woke with a start. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, looking around. Holmes watched her from the bed as she got up and rolled her head slightly, working out the soreness. Ignoring him completely, she slipped her stockinged feet into her shoes, and walked over to the basin under the window. She opened the curtains, and white light streamed into the room. Bending over, she rinsed her face of sleep, dried it with a towel, and turned toward Holmes. Holmes found the look in her eyes unnerving, and the sense of foreboding he had dismissed earlier settled in him, sending a thrill of danger through the nerves of his body. She sat on the edge of the bed, and quietly asked, "Now then, Mr Holmes, do you care to explain yourself?"

The inquiry, like almost everything else Miss Bassano had ever said to him, took Holmes aback. "I should like to know where I am, for a start," he answered courteously, though it was not an answer at all.

Miss Bassano took a deep breath, as though this was just the lead she had anticipated. "You are on the yacht of the Sultan of Brunei," she answered. "His Majesty has kindly lent it to me for the express purpose of extricating you from your," she paused, looking for the right word, "predicament. He has done no little work himself on your behalf, as have highly placed individuals around the world."

"As have you," Holmes added gratefully, sensing anger in her tone.

"I am the least of your worries, Mr Holmes," she answered sharply. "There is no excuse for your foolhardiness, and you have not achieved any result which would alleviate the political crisis you have caused. Ministers in the great capitals of the world are now working to undo the damage you have wrought with your rash actions."

Holmes' expression hardened and he narrowed his eyes. Darkly, he said, "When you have finished your appalling hyperbole, will you see to some breakfast?" His tone was icy, but it incensed Miss Bassano to such a degree that he received a stinging slap across the cheek in response. The sound of it made them both freeze. For a moment, they stared at each other, fury meeting fury. In unison, as though images in a mirror, both parties withdrew, crossing their arms, with fires of anger and shame mingling in their faces. Minutes crept by; Miss Bassano dropped her gaze first.

As the heat subsided in him, Holmes saw her more clearly. She was looking down, her eyelashes touching the curve in her cheek. There were dark circles under her eyes, and lines around her mouth he had not seen before. Her hands, which had so struck him at their first meeting, had lost some of the plumpness that had made them so soft. They were clenched into fists in her lap, and her knuckles sharply assaulted the thin skin above them. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgement, he thought, bitterly remembering his words to Watson. He extracted one long, thin hand out of the sheets and extended it to cover Miss Bassano's angry fists. The touch startled her, and she looked back up at him, her black eyes flashing. The glance they exchanged was one of mutual apology.

"What did you really hope to accomplish?" she asked him pleadingly.

Though it would win him no accolades, Holmes began his tale. "When I left you that afternoon, I had already formed suspicions in my mind of the dangerous plots fomented by Moran and his accomplices. I made my way back to the funeral, and ingratiated myself with the dignitaries who had corresponded with Moran. I had anticipated a long process of elimination, but it was soon clear which of them was most involved. Sheik Muhammed was too belligerent, too deprecating of the Empire not to have been somehow involved.

"I followed him under the guise of an eager explorer. I expressed interest in the customs of his people, and he was only too happy to show me anything I liked, so confident was he in the defeat of the English. The disguise served me well, and soon I was installed in his palace, invited to be present at his side. Life at his court bored me; the ceremony and etiquette made every day seem like a week. But I waited, knowing that my chance would come.

"One day, quite unexpectedly, the Sheik announced to me that I would have the rare and special honour of travelling in his entourage to a festival. I confess, I was ill-prepared for this mission, and did not know of the many customs that make up the religious calendar of Islam. I did not know what Mecca symbolised.

"Clothed only in lengths of white cloth, we approached the city. There were streams of pilgrims, and their crude tent encampments stretched for miles into the desert. The smell of smoke and sweat hung in the air. My patron's party did not pause to rest outside the city gates. I was taken up to the head of the procession, and walked alongside the Sheik himself until we reached the high brick walls.

"We were met with another procession, the head of which exchanged words with the Sheik in Arabic. Though I did not understand the words, it was clear to me that they were well-rehearsed. Several times, the Sheik gestured at me, and the crowd became restless. I sensed danger, but could do nothing.

I expect that I was denounced as a heathen, a traitorous infiltrator from the outside. My European countenance was enough to prove my guilt to the crowd, and yet I was not harmed. I was removed to a cell, where for many days I contemplated my fate. It was clear enough that their religious laws forbade them to harm me on their holy days. Yet, what was to befall me when the festival was over?

"The reason for the Sheik's betrayal was revealed to me in time. At the end of the festival, I was taken from my place of captivity to face a new audience. The Sheik and the head of the earlier procession were there, but there was another whom I recognised immediately. He was the Khalifa, the leader of the Sudanese rebels, sworn enemy of Britain. The Sheik had plotted this all along – I would be given to the Mahdists as a prisoner, and used to feed the nationalist fervour in the Sudan.

"In the following weeks, I had much time to reflect. I was transported to Khartoum, and although I was occasionally paraded out, accompanied by speeches that I presumed to be about the British disregard for Islam, and the importance of further rebellion, I was mostly left on my own in a small prison cell. I reached the conclusion that Moran had been playing cat-and-mouse with the Sheik. Perhaps he desired more intrigue in his old age, and made promises that his death made clear he was not willing to fulfil. In me, the Sheik saw his opportunity for revenge. I expect I was useful for a time. Eventually, though, they stopped coming for me. I was left without food, presumably to die."

Miss Bassano nodded. "I thought as much. When the documents you recovered were examined, it was clear that Sir Augustus did not intend treason. My uncle remembers him as an inveterate gambler, so perhaps it was the instinct which drove him to play the game. Or perhaps it was elderly dementia that made him contradict himself and forget important details. In any case, he had never really posed a threat to Britain. We wanted to contact you," she said earnestly, "but you had disappeared. Uncle exhausted nearly every avenue looking for you, until word reached us of a disturbance at Mecca. When that was followed by reports of riots in Khartoum, we knew that you were somehow involved." Miss Bassano was wringing her hands, reliving the anxiety of those days. "It was quite out of the question for the British government to be directly involved. That would only have aggravated the situation. In desperation, we turned to Lord Lansdowne, whose political instincts are quite possibly the greatest of anyone I have ever met. He suggested that we contact the Sultan of Brunei. Being a fellow Muslim, he urged the Khalifa to at least spare your life. The Khalifa replied that he would do nothing to explicitly harm you. I played the part of the pleading widow, desperate to retrieve your corpse."

"Did you think I was already dead?" Holmes asked incredulously.

"As it happens, Mr Holmes, you are dead. At least the Mahdists believe you to be. Your rescuers were forced to knock you unconscious to ensure that the illusion was kept up." She smiled wryly. "I have, of course, been happily reassured of your extraordinarily resilient life force. But perhaps the universal delusion of your tragic demise is for the best."

Holmes snorted. "It seems my efforts have caused a great deal more trouble than I had anticipated."

Miss Bassano covered her face with her hands for a moment, and then looked back at him. "It is not a spy's job to act. It is a spy's job to observe."

Holmes brightened. "But I have observed!" he exclaimed. "I did not merely languish in incarceration."

"What did you observe?" Miss Bassano asked dubiously.

"I observed chaos. The country is starving and the government is unstable. Why else would they have needed such desperate measures to buoy their support?"

Miss Bassano nodded. "That is true. You were not the first European prisoner, and you will not be the last, of that I am certain. So the empire still has a chance in the Sudan? Kitchener will be pleased to hear it," she mused.

"I will be glad to tell him all I know," Holmes volunteered.

"You cannot be involved any longer," Miss Bassano said with a kind of finality which suggested that the decision had been made long before. "You will detail your report, of course, but your involvement cannot be known."

The frustration which had built up inside of Holmes over two and a half years burst through to the surface. "I cannot be Sherlock Holmes, detective, for the world presumes me dead. I cannot be George Altamont, spy, for the government needs me dead. What am I to do?"

"Oh no," Miss Bassano soothed him. "You can still be George Altamont, it's just that you will no longer have the protection of the government. But you will have the anonymity you desire." She smiled reassuringly. "You will have freedom, too," she said, though it was clear that it was she who desired it more.

"Freedom to do what?" Holmes sighed in sulking, dramatic tones.

"Surely there must be some interest that you have desired to pursue, but previously could not because you were otherwise occupied?" Miss Bassano cajoled.

Holmes thought it through, carefully. Slowly, he said, "I did at one point receive an invitation to conduct chemical research at the University of Montpellier. It seems," he said, not without pride, "that they were impressed with one or two trifling monographs I had written."

Miss Bassano clapped her hands. "France! Excellent. I shall inform the captain to set a course."

She stood to leave, but Holmes touched her hand. "Could you possibly see to some breakfast?" he said, almost contritely. Immediately, she reached for a bell-pull at the side of the bed. Moments later, a servant in white carried in a steaming tray with breakfast. Holmes had begun eating before the liveried boy had left the room.

"I say, Mrs Altamont," Holmes exclaimed jovially, "this is excellent bacon!"

"It had better be," she replied sourly. "It's contraband. Pork on a Muslim ship!" she clucked. "How I'm going to explain this to the Sultan, I don't know. It's always something criminal with you, isn't it?" But there was a smile playing about her lips, and Holmes was satisfied to see that all traces of the frown that had marred her features so recently had disappeared.

Next time: Connubial bliss is interrupted by disturbing news from home. Review!