by D. R. Bensen
Summoned by the bell, Heller, the butler, entered through the archway.
“Yes, ma’am?” said he.
“Heller,” Irene Adler asked him, “will you … will you ask Frau Reichenbach to come down right away, please?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
He turned and left, moving with the deft silence characteristic of his calling. Apparently even American butlers cultivate the ideal of appearing to operate like well-oiled machinery.
“Frau Reichenbach is … ?” said Sherlock Holmes.
“It was she who was with Scott when he …” Irene Adler took another sip of the brandy. “She is the boy’s governess.”
She could scarcely have been mistaken for anything else, when, moments later, she stood just inside the archway and gave her account of the events of the afternoon. Her severely starched uniform, the hair pulled into a tight bun atop her head, the stiff stance with hands folded in front of her, the immobile face and light-blue eyes bespoke both her occupation and her nationality. I judged her age to be not far past thirty.
I had allowed myself to sink into a comfortable wingchair. Irene Adler was seated on the sofa, still holding the brandy glass. Holmes paced back and forth as he questioned Frau Reichenbach.
“I had gone to meet the young boy at school,” said she in a marked German accent, “and we were walking home, which we do each day.”
“You’re referring to this afternoon, Frau Reichenbach?”
“Ja.”
“Describe what occurred, please.”
“Three blocks from here, maybe four—we were coming up Twentieth Street—a carriage drew up beside us and stopped. A man was on top, driving a horse. It was a closed carriage and all the shades were down. A man leaped out of the inside …” She faltered in her speech.
“Yes? Go on, please!”
“He seized and kicked me!”
I was shocked.
“Good heavens! The brute!” said I.
“Watson, please! Seized and kicked you, Frau Reichenbach?”
The governess nodded vigorously.
“First by the hair, like this!” She tugged mightily at the knot of it on top of her head, in demonstration. “And then with the foot, like this!” She lashed out with the pointed, polished toe of her shoe, and added a comment which momentarily startled me: “In the chin!”
It seemed a bizarre method of attack, but a second’s thought gave me the probable solution.
“I expect she means the shin, Holmes. That would be—”
“Do you think so, Watson? Thank you so very much.”
The tone in which he said this, though of an almost exaggerated politeness, left me in no doubt that, as usual, he preferred to conduct his interrogation without interpolations, however helpful.
Holmes turned back to the governess.
“What happened then?”
“He threw me into the gutter—Gott im Himmel, was he strong!—then laid his hands on the boy and dragged him into the carriage! Then away they raced before it could be said Donner und Blitzen!”
“Did you mark which way they went? Do you recall any particular features of the carriage?”
“Nein. I was in my head confused and also in the gutter lying. When I stood and looked, there was nothing.”
“And then?”
“I hurried here, in spite of my bruises and the pain in my leg, the dreadful news to bring to Fräulein Adler.”
One or two more questions established that the governess had no more to offer, and she was dismissed.
Holmes turned to Irene Adler.
“When you learned of this, did you inform the police?” said he.
“I was on the point of doing so, when—”
She made as if to rise, and I frowned at her. With the strain she had been undergoing, the less activity the better.
“When what?” asked Holmes.
“This telegram was delivered to me.”
“What telegram?” Holmes inquired in a near-shout.
Miss Adler pushed herself up from the sofa and walked to the writing-desk.
“I am about to show it to you, Sherlock. Try not to be so impatient.”
“I ask your pardon,” said Holmes. “When a problem absorbs me, I tend to neglect the formalities.”
A hint of dryness revealed itself in Irene Adler’s voice as she said, “The problem absorbs me, too.”
She removed a buff-colored sheet of paper from the desk and handed it to him. Holmes read the telegram aloud in a rapid mutter: “‘Do nothing, stop. Tell no one, stop. Further instructions will be forthcoming, stop. Disobey these orders and you face the direct consequences—’”
“Stop!” cried Irene Adler, with ghastly appositeness.
She wavered where she stood, and I moved quickly to her side, supporting her with a hand under one elbow and another on her back.
“Here, now!” I said. “Sit back down. Have some more brandy.”
Walking unsteadily, she allowed me to guide her to the sofa and sank back on to its cushioned softness. “I’m sorry,” said she. “I thought I was stronger.” I added a small amount of brandy to her glass. Her face, normally alert and vivacious, with a quality that could convey an impression of supreme vitality to the last row of a theater, now bore a pinched, drawn look. She gave a deep sigh, and spoke in a low, almost resigned tone.
“There it is, Sherlock. I have been waiting, waiting, waiting for those ‘further instructions’ since four o’clock this afternoon!” She glanced at the clock on the mantelshelf. “And it is now nearly nine-thirty! What has happened to my son?”
The peal of the front-door bell came as if in answer to her cry. She gave a gasp of fear and half rose from the sofa.
“It’s the message!” she cried.
I sprang to the window, flung aside the curtain, and stepped on to the balcony. I saw below me a carriage and its driver, and, almost directly beneath my feet, a foreshortened form on the steps of the house. Running back into the drawing-room, I flung a quick report over my shoulder as I headed for the archway leading to the stairs.
“Closed carriage, Holmes—one horse—man at the reins—another at the door!”
A shouted “Wait!” from Holmes brought me to a momentary halt. He dashed past me and down the stairs. I paused at the top landing, and was aware that Irene Adler had come up behind me.
I could see Heller in the doorway, just turning to look at the fast-approaching Sherlock Holmes. The butler was holding in his hand an envelope apparently just received from the man who had rung the doorbell. Holmes brushed past him, and the sound of his shoes clattering on the front steps mingled with the rumble of a departing carriage and the swift tap of shod hooves on the cobbles.
In a moment he re-entered the hallway, his face dark with anger. Evidently, like Frau Reichenbach, he had been unable to gain any useful information from his brief view of the carriage. His gaze fell upon Heller, and, with an uncharacteristic show of temper, he vented his ire upon the unfortunate man.
“What are you standing there for? What is it? Deliver the letter to your mistress at once!”
“But, sir,” the butler said in an injured tone, “it’s not addressed to Miss Adler.”
“Not? Not addressed to her? To whom is it addressed, then?”
Heller held out the envelope.
“To you, sir.”
“What? What? Here, hand it over, then!”
Holmes ripped it open savagely and snatched out a sheet of heavy notepaper. As he read it, he stiffened, and the febrile irritation that had animated his actions and speech for the last few moments seemed to fall away from him. When he looked up to the head of the stairs where Irene Adler and I stood, his face was grave.
After a moment, he spoke, and there was a world of weariness in his voice.
“I had better read this to you.” He glanced down at the note again. “‘The life of Scott Adler depends upon one thing alone, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, your refusal to cooperate with the police. You will
refuse, and you will give no reason for your refusal or … the boy … will die.’”
Holmes had managed to finished reading the note aloud only with difficulty, and seemed to dread looking once more at Irene Adler.
By the time he raised his eyes, he did not have to be concerned about meeting her gaze: upon hearing the contents of the letter, she had turned perfectly white, and then fainted in my arms.
“Holmes!” I bellowed; and he rushed to help me support her.
Together we carried her to the sofa and set her down in as comfortable a position as possible. Though she was pale, and her pulse was both light and rapid, she seemed to be in no real trouble, and in fact might take some benefit from her short period of unconsciousness. My greatest fear, in fact, was that, once recovered, her concern and agitation—bound to be increased by the contents of the letter—would prevent her from sleeping at all, thus putting a dangerous strain on her nervous system.
I took one of my cards from my note-case, scribbled on it the ingredients of a mild sleeping-draught, and handed it to Heller.
“Here, take this round to the nearest chemist’s, and—”
“A chemist, sir? Do you mean a scientist? I don’t—”
“A pharmacy, man! A drugstore,” said Holmes impatiently.
“Oh, yes, sir. There’s one on Fourth Avenue.”
“Whatever you call the place, give the man there this card. I doubt you’ll need a prescription; he’s probably got the powders made up under some trade name I’m not familiar with. Be off with you, now!”
Though Irene Adler was stirring fretfully by the time Heller returned, a packet of the powders dissolved in water allowed her to sink into a calm drowsiness which, by the time we left, had not yet deepened into sleep.
“If she’s still awake in an hour’s time,” said I as we took our leave of Heller on the front steps, “see that she takes another packet of those powders.”
The butler gave a slight bow.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Good night, gentlemen,” he said.
He closed the door, and Holmes and I made our way down the steps to the street that fronted on the small park.
“That ought to take care of matters until morning, Holmes,” said I. “Shall we look for a cab? We ought to be able to find one on the next street over, I should say.”
“I should prefer to walk,” said Sherlock Holmes in a colorless tone.
I looked up and saw from a sign at a street corner that we were at Twenty-first Street. I subtracted that number from forty-four, the number of the street that our hotel was in, and quickly enough saw that we had some twenty-three streets to traverse in a northward direction, plus one or more avenues to the west. I had no notion, however, how far apart the streets were, so was unable to estimate what sort of distance Holmes’ projected walk involved. It was a mild night, though, and, after the stuffiness of the closed house and the atmosphere of fear and depression that pervaded it, I was glad of the fresh air and exercise.
“Whatever you say,” said I cheerfully.
As we walked along, eventually turning to the north on an avenue which, curiously enough, bore the name of one Madison rather than a number, I looked about me with interest. The area, with its shops and blocks of flats and offices, was not unlike certain parts of London, say the eastern end of Oxford Street, yet the shapes of the buildings and their uniform modernity never failed to make it clear that we were in a foreign land.
I had hoped that the walk might enliven Holmes’ wits and encourage him to discuss with me his notions of the problems we faced, but he seemed sunk in morose introspection, and strode heavily along with bowed head, taking no notice of his surroundings. At length, when the mounting value of the street numbers told me we were not far from the Algonquin Hotel, I ventured to speak.
“Can you make head or tail of it at all, Holmes? I can’t.”
In the same dead voice with which he had last spoken, Sherlock Holmes answered, “I am being manipulated.”
“Eh? What’s that? Manipulated? How d’you mean?”
“The chink in my armor, Watson. That weakness, unknown to me, which Moriarty must have had in mind in making his threat. It’s been discovered.”
This sort of morbid vaporing was quite unlike Holmes, and I did not like the sound of it.
As heartily as I could, I said, “I’m sure I haven’t the slightest notion of what you’re talking about.”
Sherlock Holmes looked at me for a moment, then continued his walk in silence. I was gazing with some interest at a shop-window display of a profusion of gramophones far greater than that available in England, several placarded with claims of the highest fidelity of reproduction, and marveling at the inventive genius that had made it possible for the voices of the famous—and, to a limited extent, the music of the age—to be preserved for future centuries, when next he spoke. His remark, prompted by I knew not what vagaries of his roving mind, was of an almost alarming inconsequence.
“Do you know my full name, Watson?”
“Why, I don’t believe I do.”
I forbore to ask the reason for his question, being briefly seized with the dismal idea that he had a premonition of sudden death and wished me to have the information for his death certificate. I firmly rid myself of this dreary notion and resolved not to be infected by Holmes’ sepulchral manner.
“It is William Scott Sherlock Holmes,” he told me.
It was difficult to know what response to make to this. I might have answered in kind by telling him that my own second name was Hamish, except that he was already aware of that. But some sort of comment seemed to be called for.
“Is it, now? No, I didn’t know that. William for the Conqueror, eh, and Scott for Sir Walter, I dare say. I wonder if that’s where Irene Adler—” I still did not feel comfortable in using “Miss” in connection with any reference to her son—“picked up her lad’s name; I expect his works are popular on the Continent.” I was quite aware that this was sheer nervous driveling, and resolved to change the subject to something more nearly approaching our concerns. “I say, Holmes, there is one thing that puzzles me.”
A reluctant smile brightened my friend’s saturnine countenance. “One thing? I commend your clarity of mind, Watson. What one thing is that?”
“That bit in the letter about not cooperating with the police. Why, Holmes, nobody’s asked you to cooperate with the police!”
We were now in Forty-fourth Street, only a few yards from the hotel. The warm light from its lobby spilled on to the pavement, and, at the edge of the patch of illumination, I observed two men standing, as if in wait. I stopped Holmes with an urgent hand on his arm, and indicated the pair.
“Could they be watchers—or worse—sent by Moriarty?” said I in a voice not pitched to carry to them.
Holmes cocked his head and studied the two men for a moment, then murmured, “I fancy not, Watson. One, at least, has another look entirely.”
He strode boldly toward the hotel, though his face was tight, with the expression of a man bracing himself for an ordeal he must endure.
The taller and younger of the two men, seemingly about the detective’s own age, stepped forward. He was dressed plainly but neatly, and his voice, though not cultured, was firm.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” he asked.
“Yes—my name’s Holmes.”
My friend stopped, and I with him.
The man who had accosted us doffed his bowler. “Inspector Lafferty. New York City Police Department.”
I looked at Holmes. Moments ago, I had pointed out that the police had not asked his aid in any matter, and now here was a policeman, almost certainly on the point of requesting just such aid. If the letter spoke truth, for Sherlock Holmes to grant that request would be to sign Scott Adler’s death-warrant!
Chapter Eight
The man with the Inspector, a portly chap of perhaps sixty, dressed in a light topcoat with a velvet collar, stepped forward in turn.
“And I’m
Mortimer McGraw, President of the International Gold Exchange,” he announced.
I had a sudden sensation that we were being watched, and glanced around sharply. Then, in spite of the tension of the situation, I felt half inclined to laugh. There was indeed an eye focused upon us, but it was a huge painted one staring from a signboard, one of a pair hanging from the shoulders of one of those men employed to trudge the streets as walking hoardings, advertising various businesses. The legend around the staring orb proclaimed that one McVay, proprietor of a chop-house, had “his Eye on YOU!” As the sandwich-man, clad in a cheap but colorful checked suit, ambled by, I observed that his rearward sign was also anatomical in theme, with a crudely limned giant finger pointing at the beholder, and the printed statement that this same McVay “means YOU!” I could well imagine that that unwinking stare might induce the fainter-hearted to give their patronage to the chop-house mentioned.
Holmes gave the grotesque ambulatory advertisement a passing glance, and was evidently not inclined to be amused by it.
He said, indicating me, “Dr. Watson,” and I murmured, “Inspector. Mr. McGraw.”
“Mr. Holmes,” said Lafferty earnestly, “I only just now found out you were in the city, or I’d have come to see you earlier.”
“Oh? About what would that be?”
Lafferty gazed about him at the still-thronged street, and indicated a closed carriage standing by the curb. “Mr. McGraw,” he explained, “has been kind enough to give us the lend of his landau. Could we trouble you—both of you—to join us for a short drive?”
I darted a suspicious glance at the vehicle, but was able to assure myself that it in no wise resembled the style of the one which I had seen outside Irene Adler’s house. After all, anyone could say that he was an inspector of police … but Holmes was not the man to be taken in by any such imposture.
All the same, my friend hesitated a moment before saying, “As you wish.”