Fantastic Metropolis

“What do you think of this, Watson?”

Holmes was extending to me an open envelope. It departed from the standards of the Royal Post Office: elongated, blueish, it had a rectangular, and not triangular flap on the reverse side. There was no stamp nor any trace of a postmark. On the front were superscribed Holmes’s name and address, in neat, gently slanting handwriting with something of a tendency to ornamentation. The sender had made no effort to leave any trace of his own identity.

Not wishing to disappoint my friend, who in circumstances like this always goodheartedly expects that I will be nearly, if not quite as astute as he is, I brought the envelope up to my nose. Doing just this, how many times had he gleaned precious information. I was aware of a slight, bitter smell, but could not place it, though for some reason I thought of the shock to which the sense of smell is exposed upon entering a shop selling Indian spices.

Holmes looked unblinkingly at me, with that penetrating stare of his which filled even the most confident criminals with unease and caused the ladies to squirm uncomfortably, but he remained silent, though I noticed a slight curling of the fine lines at the corners of his mouth which I knew indicated a barely controlled impatience.

“How did this arrive?” I asked him, taking the letter out of the envelope. It was of the same blueish tint, on stiff paper, folded in three. I did not unfold it at once.

“Somebody pushed it under the front door. Between 16.00 hours, when I returned from my walk, and 18.15 hours, when Mrs. Simpson went off to do the evening shopping. She did not bring it to me immediately, but only after she had returned and served my meal. She said she thought it could not be of great consequence, since it had been delivered in this manner; in truth, it was too much of an effort for her to climb the stairs to the drawing room for a second time, though she would never admit it. I also tend to breathe a little harder after those nineteen steps, especially when I take them at a run, while she is sixty-seven and arthritic, but that is unimportant. Come, open the letter.”

He was right about the staircase. I could still feel my heart beating faster from the climb, as well as from my brisk walk from home. It seemed that I was not in the prime of youth either, but the communication from Holmes had been categorical: ‘Come at once! Very urgent!’ Hurrying here, even running part of the way, I thought of a multitude of troubles which might have befallen him. Thank God, all it was was an unusual letter. I was very careful not to say this aloud, though; it obviously had special importance for Holmes. Why else would he have called me with such urgency?

When I unfolded the stiff paper, a surprise awaited me: only a large circle was drawn on it. Nothing else was there—no text, no signature, initials, or, indeed, any sign at all. My first thought on seeing the accuracy of the circle was that it must have been made by a pair of compasses, but when I looked more closely at the place where the center should have been, I could not see the little hole which would inevitably have been made by the sharp point. Evidently, the drawing had been made with the assistance of some round object, probably some kitchen vessel; a largish cup, perhaps, or a saucer.

“A circle,” said I rather feebly, nothing more intelligent crossing my mind.

“Excellent, my dear Watson! A circle!” replied Holmes. His voice bore no hint of ridicule, though my perspicacity had warranted it. He spoke the words as if I really had reached some brilliant conclusion.

“Someone has decided to play a prank on us, no doubt,” I continued. “However, even from a prankster one would have expected something cleverer than an ordinary circle…”

Holmes’s reaction was so strong and violent that I almost flinched back.

“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “Balderdash! A circle is anything but ordinary! The only perfect… complete… like… like…”

Holmes was not rarely given to rages like this; but I do not remember when I last saw him speechless. What looked to me like someone’s stupid joke, to him seemed, for some reason, altogether more serious. From experience I knew that at such times he should not be contradicted. That way he would sooner regain his composure, and, indeed, when he spoke again his voice was perfectly calm, with the usual ironic undertone which constantly made his companion reexamine the reasonableness of what was being said.

“All right, let’s leave the circle aside for the time being,” said he. “We will return to it later. Observe the letter carefully and tell me what else you see on it.”

I brought the letter and the envelope closer to my eyes and looked attentively. After a few long moments of examination, I humbly admitted:

“I fail to notice anything further… The format is unusual, though. I have never seen anything like it, but from that I can deduce nothing.”

“Indeed,” replied Holmes. “Unusual it is, at least here in England. On the continent you will come across it more often. What does the paper tell you?”

I felt it again, more carefully. Now I gained the impression that it possessed, apart from stiffness, the quality of antiquity, a patina. For a moment it seemed to me that something very old, a parchment perhaps, was between my fingers, though my eyes were telling me that it was a newly made sheet of paper.

“I don’t know,” I said finally. “It gives the impression of being somehow… foreign. Most probably it also originates from the Continent.”

“Italy,” responded Holmes succinctly, as if uttering the most banal of statements. He gave me no oportunity to ask him whence he obtained that knowledge, nor was any needed, as the look of puzzlement was quite clear on my face. He approached me, wordlessly took the letter from my hand and raised it to the lamp which hung above a carved wood chest-of-drawers in the corner. “Look carefully,” he said briefly.

The glow of the lamp flame shone through the unfolded paper. I came two steps closer to study it better, so that now the flame seemed to be in the center of the circle painted on the paper, and at that moment I noticed that which Holmes wanted me to see. Brought to life by the light shining from the obverse side of the letter, a large letter ‘M’ in a rich calligraphic form appeared in the middle, but pale as a wraith, only in silhouette. When I moved a little to one side, the reflection of the flame slid towards the edge of the paper and the character disappeared.

“How…?” I asked distractedly.

“A water mark,” replied Holmes, again in a disaffected tone. Then his voice again filled with enthusiasm, and he started to explain. “The invisible trademark of unique craftsmanship. Only one man in the whole world produces such paper, my dear Watson, the maestro Umberto Murratori of Bologna. ‘Cartefficio Murratori,’ a branch of an old family of printers and publishers. The clientele for his paper is extremely select: important state offices, the Vatican, but also certain semipublic or secret societies, the Masons, for instance.”

“What is so special about it? It does not seem extraordinary, exept that it is rather stiff…”

“Appearances can be deceptive, Watson. Try burning it.”

“What?”

Since I naturally did not try to do as he proposed, he shrugged and, without hesitation, put one end of the letter to the top of the gas light. Had it been ordinary paper, it would have begun to smoke and then to burn. The corner of the paper which Holmes held in his hand only curled a little, but there was no sign of burning.

“You see, then, why Murratori’s product is in such demand. The writing on it cannot easily be destroyed. Oh, this paper can burn too of course, but for that to happen, a temperature far in excess of 4510 Fahrenheit is required. Similarly, it cannot be harmed by water—only by certain very strong acids.”

“I see,” said I, taking the letter again from Holmes. I touched the corner which had been exposed to the heat of the gas lamp, and then jerked my hand quickly away. It was very hot. “But, indubitably, it can be destroyed by mechanical means.” I added.

“Indubitably,” repeated Holmes. “But it would take a very sharp knife, almost a surgeon’s scalpel.”

For a moment I was almost tempted to put this claim to the test by trying to tear the letter in half. I refrained, however, from such an act, partly from respect for the mysterious document which was apparently so precious to Holmes, and partly because of earlier, unpleasant experiences related to my disputing some of his other apparently absurd claims.

“This upper-class clientele, then, purchases durability from Murratori,” I said. “What is written on this paper can do battle with time itself.”

“Exactly so,” replied Holmes. “Also, the price narrows the circle of possible buyers drastically. For the manufacture of a single sheet of this paper, several months of hard work are necessary. It is, in fact, a precious substance, more valuable even than gold to some people. No one except the master Murratori himself knows all the ingredients that go into this paper, and there are rumors that he obtains his raw materials from the Far East. They say that the secret of making this paper was brought to one of his ancestors by Marco Polo himself, from his first exploration of China, though I am of the opinion that this is an exaggeration.”

“If this is all true, Holmes, then something really puzzles me. Who would be so foolish as to squander such a treasure for the despatching of… er… trivial messages?”

For a moment it seemed to me that Holmes would again erupt in anger, and I was already beginning to bite my tongue because of my clumsily formulated thought, but his knitted eyebrows quickly relaxed again and on his lips flickered the usual smile of superior knowledge.

“The logic of the entire affair eludes you, Watson. It is precisely the fact that the communication which I have received is written on Murratori’s paper that eliminates any possibility of it being a foolish prank. No one, it’s true, would be prepared to squander such a precious item on mere childishness. Hence we are to take this message quite seriously. The means by which it was delivered exacts that from us.”

“But one would not expect that any important, and moreover, mysterious message should go unsigned. A gentleman should on no account allow himself to have a hand in any doings with anonymous letters, no matter how important they may seem to him.”

Holmes eyed me suspiciously. I do not know what he thought of my sudden moralizing, but, judging by the grimace which fleetingly crossed his face, the two of us hardly shared the same view of gentlemanly virtues at that moment. In any case, he found an elegant and unexpected escape from the trap which I had set for him.

“Who says the letter is unsigned?”

“What? But except for the circle, there is no other…” I exclaimed, quite at a loss.

“For Heaven’s sake, Watson, isn’t the signature staring you right in the face?” he said, feigning to be amazed, although he was, in fact, secretly jubilant over my confusion. Once more he took the letter from my hands, lifted it to the light, and tapped with the knuckle of his long, bony forefinger on the large letter ‘M’ when it became visible again.

“You are not saying,” said I, quite discomposed, “that Signore Murratori himself sent us this message?”

Now it was his turn to be surprised. “How did that thought cross your mind?”

“Well, it is his initial, is it not? ‘M’ for Murratori. The trademark, you yourself said so.”

“No, no,” replied Holmes, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “You fail to comprehend. The existence of the water mark is the trademark. The letter itself is the initial of the sender.”

“So, who then? Surely you do not mean the…?”

Holmes triumphantly nodded his head, without waiting for me to finish my thought. In his eyes there was now that familiar gleam which accompanied the moments when great mysteries were unravelled.

“Masons? The Freemasons, I mean?” said I, finally completing my sentence.

Lightning-fast, he turned on his heel, so that his back was to me. The sound which he made reminded me more than anything of a snarl, so that I instinctively retreated a step. Obviously I had not guessed the signatory of the letter.

He remained thus turned for a few moments more, and then directed himself again at me. The previous gleam in his eyes had clouded over with the very essence of rage.

“Freemasons! That superior bunch of do-nothings and lazy-bones! Useless intriguers, utterly undeserving of…”

He bit his thin lower lip, as he always did when trying to fight back growing wrath. When he continued, his voice was lower, though it still shook with rage.

“Please, Watson, in the name of friendship, do not ever again mention that… that breed…”

“But didn’t you yourself say that they were Murratori’s customers?” I said, in an attempt to justify myself.

“Watson—please!” His voice went up an octave.

“Very well, very well,” I countered. “Who, then, is hiding behind that mysterious ‘M’?”

Before answering he paused, sighing twice or three times, obviously trying to compose himself, but also for effect. Holmes was, in fact, an unfulfilled actor.

“My evil lot,” he spoke at last, in a voice so hushed that I barely registered it. “My curse. Moriarty…”

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This is an excerpt from The Fourth Circle by Zoran Živković, published by The Ministry of Whimsy Press. Translation from the Serbian by Mary Popović.