Sherlock Holmes and the Dance of the Tiger Read online

  CONTENTS

  Illustration

  Praise for Suzette Hollingsworth’s novels

  Also by Suzette

  Front page

  Dedication

  Chapter One - St. Petersburg, Russian Empire

  Chapter Two - Scotland Yard

  Chapter Three - London from a Hansom Cab

  Chapter Four - A Wish Come True

  Chapter Five - 221B Baker Street

  Chapter Six - Palace of Westminster

  Chapter Seven - The Winter Circus

  Chapter Eight - rue des Filles Calvaires, Paris

  Chapter Nine - The Girl Who Danced on Horses

  Chapter Ten - Out of the Schoolroom and Into the Ring

  Chapter Eleven - All for Show

  Chapter Twelve - Tiger Girl

  Chapter Thirteen - The Bend in the Road

  Chapter Fourteen - Key to the Case

  Chapter Fifteen - Napoleon and Josephine: Le Grand Véfour

  Chapter Sixteen - The Walking Dead

  Chapter Seventeen - Aladdin's Lamp

  Chapter Eighteen - The Seeds of Revolution

  Chapter Nineteen - Animal Attraction

  Chapter Twenty - Le Grand Hôtel de la Paix, Paris

  Chapter Twenty-One - The Ring of Fire

  Chapter Twenty-Two - First Kiss

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Jump Ship

  Chapter Twenty-Four - On the Clock

  Chapter Twenty-Five - One's Patriotic Duty

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Ebony Butterfly

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Voodoo Murder

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - A Crime of Passion

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Time for Reflection

  Chapter Thirty - Blackmail

  Chapter Thirty-One - The Royal George

  Chapter Thirty-Two - Office of the Okhrana

  Chapter Thirty-Three - A Former Lover

  Chapter Thirty-Four - Poison

  Chapter Thirty-Five - La Santé Prison

  Chapter Thirty-Six - The Royal Mistress

  Chapter Thirty-Seven - A Prisoner of his Own Mind

  Chapter Thirty-Eight - Alone in a Man's Boudoir

  Chapter Thirty-Nine - A Meeting of the Minds

  Chapter Forty - A Terrorist Plot

  Chapter Forty-One - Loyalty

  Chapter Forty-Two - A Criminal Offence

  Chapter Forty-Three - Isandlwana

  Chapter Forty-Four - A Good Beginning

  Chapter Forty-Five - The World is my Oyster

  Acknowledgements

  Author's Notes

  About Suzette

  Copyright

  Praise for Suzette Hollingsworth’s novels

  “Best Holmesian Book of 2015” – Amazon customer

  “This is an excellent, gifted writer, with a true future ahead of her.” – CHARLOTTE CARTER

  “Sir Doyle would enjoy. It has all the classic trappings of one of his novels. From the language to the descriptions of London and its denizens, it is historical fiction at its best.” – Christopher Gallagher

  "A Sherlock tale with Hepburn and Tracy flair . . . It had the feel of a classic old Hollywood mismatched romantic comedy to me.... Hepburn and Tracy. It was charming and would really appeal to people who love the idea of a kind of Jane Austen meets Conan Doyle mash-up." - RaynaRed, Audible reviewer

  "Cumberbatch/Sherlock meets his match!" - Jan, Audible reviewer

  "Sherlock in Mr. Darcy mode . . . " - PandaRS, Audible reviewer

  "Irene Adler has competition" - Mary, Audible reviewer

  “This is a very fascinating novel. All the characters are very vibrant and come to life while reading them.” - Coffee Time Romance & More

  “Her humor is refreshing, I laughed out-loud on a few occasions, shed a few tears, and sat on the edge of my seat for most of it.” AnaMaree Ordway, owner Wenatchee Book Co.

  Also by Suzette Hollingsworth

  Sherlock Holmes & The Case of the Sword Princess

  THE PARADOX: The Soldier and the Mystic

  THE SERENADE: The Prince and the Siren

  THE CONSPIRACY: The Cartoonist and the Contessa

  To be released in 2016:

  Sherlock Holmes & The Chocolate Menace

  Sherlock Holmes

  and the Dance of the Tiger

  by

  Suzette Hollingsworth

  The Great Detective In Love #2

  Sherlock Holmes solves the most perplexing mystery of his life—

  unlocking the human heart

  Dedication

  The subtext of this book and the original title was

  Sherlock Holmes and the Spy Who Danced on Horses

  Hence, the dedication.

  To Donna Weiss

  who is not a spy (to my knowledge), but who certainly dances on horses

  to Bill Green

  who is a spy—and probably a mad scientist as well. Watch out Moriarty!

  CHAPTER ONE

  St. Petersburg, Russian Empire

  13 March 1881

  “I signed it this morning,” stated Alexander II, Czar of Russia.

  “You signed what, Father?” Alexander III, Czarevich and next in line for the throne, asked with trepidation. He sat across from the Czar and beside his twelve-year-old son and the Czar’s grandson, Nicholas II.

  Was the document in question an alliance with Germany? Or perhaps with France? Something told the Czarevich it was nothing so deducible.

  It was Sunday and the three royals were seated in a closed bullet-proof carriage, a gift from Napoleon III of France. They were travelling to the Mikhailovsky Manège, the riding academy, as they did every Sunday for the military roll call. The carriage was accompanied by six Cossacks sworn to protect the Czar, first in the processional, followed by two sleighs. Among the open sleighs’ inhabitants were the chief of police and the chief of the emperor’s guards. The route, as always, was via the Catherine Canal and crossing the Pevchesky Bridge. The people of St. Petersburg lined the sidewalk for miles along the narrow passage.

  “I signed a draft decree to establish a democratically elected parliament,” the Czar stated nonchalantly, as if he had just announced the name of his new tailor rather than the drastic alteration of a government which had been in place for centuries—since 1547 under Ivan IV. Adding a democratic branch to a heretofore totalitarian government.

  Is the Czar mad? Many an aristocrat thought so, and his son and heir apparent was not far behind. Alexander II had initiated even more reforms than Peter the Great.

  But this went far beyond reform. Alexander II had freed twenty-three million serfs, little better than feudal slaves, from their bondage to the landowners. And he had wrested eight-five percent of Russia’s land from private landowners. In the Czar’s mind that land belonged to all the Russian people, not only to the select few.

  Alexander III almost choked. “You signed a duma?” he asked, disbelieving. “The first step towards a constitutional monarchy?”

  “I did,” the Czar stated without apology. “Who else will help the Russian people? This is what we were born to do.”

  No, Father. We were born to rule.

  “The people they are very poor,” the Czar continued. “It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”

  “What do you mean ‘from below’?” Alexander III asked.

  “An uprising. An insurrection,” Czar Alexander II replied. “And it will happen, son, if changes are not instigated. Attempting to control will never work; you must give the people their freedom, and they will choose to follow if you are a just and good ruler.”


  “And is that how it has worked, father?” Alexander III asked, attempting to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He would never consider being anything but respectful to his father.

  “Regrettably, no,” Czar Alexander II shook his head.

  “And how have the people repaid the Czar for his unfathomable kindness which has earned him the hatred of the aristocracy?” Alexander III asked in his quietest voice because he was never to question the Czar. But he could hold his tongue no longer, a duma was madness. “And the earlier reforms, father? What have they achieved? The peasants are angrier than ever. There have been five attacks on the Czar’s life in the twenty years since the Emancipation of the Serfs was signed the first of March, eighteen hundred and sixty one.”

  “But I will correct the mistakes I have made. Hence, the duma.”

  “Your mistakes?” Alexander III sighed. “Why do you help the people when they hate you? I know that you mean well, father. But the peasants don’t appreciate anything you have done for them, as always happens when people do not earn their own reward.”

  The Czar’s expression remained resolute. “Freeing the serfs backfired. The landowners held onto the best land, while the serfs had to buy back their land from the nobles at an inflated price. The majority were unable to afford the cost. The peasant, freed from serfdom, was no better off than he was before. I see this now. And I waited much too long to correct it—twenty years. Everything can generally be reduced to the basic principles of economics: the serfs are no better off, so they think the emancipation was all a trick and that I am not to be trusted.”

  “I agree with you that they do not know the heart of the Czar,” the Czarevich muttered.

  “It is the day of my enlightenment, so to speak, and everything will be different henceforth. You will see, son.”

  What next? A democracy? In spite of his shock, Alexander III saw one benefit to a democracy: no elected official could have done such a thing as freeing twenty three million serfs and given away the noble’s land—he would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town. Only a monarch could get away with such a thing. A monarch could be true to his own principles. An elected official must answer to the powers that be.

  “What is that?” Nicholas II asked. Alexander III looked out the window in the direction of the boy’s eyes to see a man carrying a small white package wrapped in a handkerchief. In an instant the man threw the package under the horses’ hooves.

  BOOM! There was an explosion so great that it knocked the thrower of the package into the fence.

  “AEEEE!” People were screaming and running—those that were not left on the ground in pools of their own blood.

  “No! Nicholas, do not look!” Alexander III commanded, taking his son under his arm as he shielded him with his own body. While keeping his head back, the Czarevich could see through the window that there were bodies strewn everywhere. The three of them were unharmed due to having been in the bulletproof carriage.

  Police Chief Dvorzhitsky stepped over the bodies to arrive at the carriage, opening the door slightly at the Czar’s nod to report. “One of the Cossacks has been killed. Let us leave the area at once, your highness.”

  “No,” the Czar replied, proceeding to get out of the carriage.

  Alexander III bit his lip. One was never to argue with the Czar’s authority, but inside he was screaming. Alexander III touched the Czar’s arm, imploring his father with his eyes to stay in the carriage. He had no doubt that his meaning was understood. But the sovereign turned away, proceeding to get out of the carriage.

  “Dlya matushki-Rossii!” For the Mother Russia! There was a scream. And then Alexander III saw it. A man standing by the canal fence raising both his arms. In an instant there was something at the emperor’s feet.

  KBOOM! A second explosion.

  “Help!” The Czar was half-lying, half sitting on his right arm. Both of his legs were shattered, and blood poured out from what was left of his limbs. Twenty or more people lay scattered about on the sidewalk and the street, some crawling, some attempting to free themselves from bodies which had landed atop them. Debris and body parts were everywhere, the red blood vivid against the white snow.

  Police Chief Dvorzhitsky, also wounded, in a matter of minutes managed to orchestrate applying tourniquets to the Czar’s body in an attempt to stop the bleeding, followed by moving Alexander II to one of the open sleighs, as it wasn’t possible to navigate placing the wounded man in the more confined carriage.

  Alexander III looked to his son Nicholas, tears streaming down the child’s face as both watched the patriarch of their family, his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated.

  Czar Alexander II was returned to his study where, almost twenty years earlier to the day, he had signed the Emancipation Edict freeing the serfs. Alexander the Liberator was given Communion and Last Rites while his family, the Romanovs, looked on.

  “I will never forget,” Alexander III murmured as he held his father’s bloody hand, looking into a face he did not recognize except for the eyes. Grief filled his being for the father he loved while hatred filled his heart for the men responsible.

  “Proklyat'ye!” He cursed the man who had murdered his father in his mind. You have just killed the only person in the world who was on your side! These vermin do not understand your liberal principles, Father. They were not educated by a pacifist romantic poet as you were. Clearly the idiocy of that education must now be clear to you as you lie dying, your life’s blood draining from your body.

  Czar Alexander II squeezed his son’s hand, a smile of pride revealed somehow through his mutilated features.

  And then Alexander II, King of Poland, Grand Prince of Finland, and Czar of Russia died.

  Things will be very different now. In his moment of grief, Alexander III, the new Czar of Russia, the largest country in the world covering more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area, knew precisely what he would do.

  I am now one of the most powerful sovereigns in the world. He was the ruler of over one hundred million people and the leader of both the Imperial Royal Army and a brutal police force. Alexander III had never known a people to hate their own ruler more than the Russian people. They did not deserve his father. He might not agree with his father’s politics—or his personal morals—but no one could have worked harder. Alexander II had instigated elected judges in the judicial system, abolished capital punishment, promoted local self-government, ended some of the privileges of the nobility, and promoted universities.

  And the very people Alexander the Liberator had done this for had killed him.

  All of which I will now reverse, the new Czar promised himself.

  Perhaps it is the greatest irony in the history of the world that the terrorist who threw the bomb wanted freedom for his people. Energized with a savage anger, he felt the bomb gave him power. And it did. The future of Russia and her ninety-seven million inhabitants was determined in that moment when this violent act destroyed any hope of democracy for his people, sentencing tens of millions to death in the century to come.

  In the process of eliminating any democratic structure, there was no system in place to fight tyranny when it arrived.

  This member of the revolutionary “People's Will” thought he was killing his enemy, but, instead, he opened the door for the enemy to enter.

  Czar Alexander III was a man of principles. He counted himself a sensible man: he knew what he was dealing with. He had been taught his views by the blood of his father and those determined to bite the hand which fed them.

  The new emperor of Russia now knew what his people needed: a supreme ruler. The only hope was no deviation: one language, one ruler, one religion. And anyone who deviated would be dealt with in the harshest manner—before they could plot and plan and hurt someone else.

  Czar Alexander III vowed then to destroy the democratic systems.

  Constitutional monarchy? Alexander III felt a tear roll down his
cheek as he released his father’s now cold hand.

  I will rule with an iron hand. I will cancel the policy my father signed only this morning.

  Autocracy will be unlimited.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Scotland Yard

  March 1882

  Crack!

  “Aim with your thumb, girl,” Sherlock Holmes admonished.

  Snap! She popped the whip. The jar shattered where it sat on the post behind Scotland Yard. Mirabella Hudson, niece to the Great Detective’s landlady and chief bottle washer of his laboratory, glanced to the water’s edge to see a police rowboat in the distance patrolling the Thames.

  The odor of hops and malt from the Lion Brewery filled her nostrils, still strange to her after a country upbringing in Dumfries in southern Scotland in the county of Dumfriesshire, the sounds and smells of her family farm unimaginably different from London life.

  “I abhor repeating myself to the inattentive.” Sherlock Holmes tapped his finger on his chin in obvious perplexity while studying her stance. “I know there was nothing lacking in my precise and expert explanation so I must ask myself why you fail to perform, Miss Hudson.”

  Mirabella breathed deeply: even the scent of the coal and the Thames—an odor which could charitably be described as “muddy” on its best day—excited her.

  Everything about this city of over four million people of every nationality thrilled her. This city of universities, government, sinister underground crime, newspapers, silk-weaving, fashion (in equal parts elegant and disturbing), tanning, exotic foods, and manufacturing.