by D. R. Bensen
As I watched this curious drama, the man’s face brightened, in spite of the pain occasioned by the kicks now landing regularly on his shins and ankles, and he called out to a fashionably dressed man of about twenty sauntering nearby, “Sir! Sir!”
The young fellow turned, and an expression of weary distaste crossed his face. Reluctantly, he approached the odd pair.
“I saw you earlier with your brother, sir,” the shabby man said, “and when I noticed the lad wandering by himself, I ventured to take hold of him and seek you out.”
“Decent of you,” the young man responded gloomily.
“Um … now that I have restored him to you, as it were … I wonder if some pecuniary recognition might not be in order?”
The shabby man smiled ingratiatingly. The young man looked at his brother and shuddered.
“Very well,” he replied. “Tell you what. I don’t want to do you down, so how about you handing over two dollars, and I’ll take him back off your hands. Fair?”
As I left the scene, the shabby man looked torn between disappointed anger and a serious consideration of the proposition.
The sun was beginning to decline, and I thought it best to make my way toward Gramercy Park, to be sure of being there at the appointed time. The elevated tram, however, which I took in a spirit of daring, and which afforded me a remarkable new perspective on the city, whisked me downtown far faster than I expected, leaving me another half-hour or so if I wished to use it. I had eaten little and, passing an establishment calling itself Viemeister’s, from which came a pleasant scent of food and good beer, I stepped inside.
Though primarily a barroom, it had much of the atmosphere of some of our London public-houses, with an etched glass mirror behind the long, dark bar, and much wood paneling throughout. I did not care to sit at the bar, and found a booth with two padded benches in it vacant, one of a row on the wall opposite the bar. One indication that I was in the mechanized New World rather than the Old, was a push-button let into the wall above the table that occupied the space between the two benches. I pushed it, and in a moment a waiter appeared to take my order for a glass of ale and a meat sandwich of some kind.
“Whatever your cook does best, eh?” said I.
The sandwich, when it came, consisted of a prodigious amount of a highly spiced meat, remarkably pungent in aroma, between two slices of a dark and rather tough bread. It was all unfamiliar, but I was footsore and hungry, and the “pastromy,” as the waiter called it, went extraordinarily well with the rather over-chilled ale.
“‘Scuse me, sir.”
I looked up to see a stocky man, a few years younger than myself, with a plump face and thinning, curly hair, standing in the aisle next to the booth. He was carrying a large glass of lager and a plate laden with several different sorts of delicacy.
“Would I be imposing if I shared the booth?” he asked in accents which retained a touch of the American South, or possibly West, in their softness. “The others are taken, and I don’t cotton to the bar. It’s too easy to fall off one of those stools.”
I indicated, with a gesture, that he was welcome. I had spoken to scarcely anyone that day, and, still savoring my holiday from the pressing concerns that had brought Holmes and myself to the city, was glad of the chance to prolong it for a few moments of casual conversation.
“Actually,” said my new companion, seating himself, “I wanted to get a good look at a paying customer for the kitchen. Most everybody that comes in here dives into the free lunch.”
He indicated his heaped plate.
“I wasn’t aware that there was such a thing as a free lunch,” said I.
“There ain’t, but it’s like perpetual motion. There’s a powerful lot of people think they can find it, and keep looking.”
It was clear that I had happened upon an original—or he upon me—and I greatly enjoyed our half-hour of talk. My new friend had a vast fund of information and anecdote upon many topics: the Far West, prison life, revolutions and curious customs in Central America. But his main love seemed to be the city of New York.
“It’s the new Arabian Nights,” he assured me. “Haroun-al-Raschid and his Baghdad aren’t in the game, alongside Gotham.”
“Well once you’ve got your Underground completed, I suppose you could call it Baghdad-on-the-Subway,” said I.
“Say, so you could!” said the man opposite me.
Having regaled me so entertainingly, he now attempted to draw me out in exchange, and I found myself somewhat at a loss. The delicate matter of the kidnapping of Scott Adler, to say nothing of the missing gold from Mr. McGraw’s Exchange, were certainly not to be bandied about in idle talk; and the very fact that Sherlock Holmes and his associate and chronicler were in the city would be bound to excite speculation of the most troublesome kind, if it became known. I must, therefore, remain incognito. It followed that much that I had to tell that might have interested my companion could not be referred to. I turned the conversation to my experiences of the day in the city, ordinary though they had been.
He was fascinated by the story of my encounter with the pawnbroker Hahnzähne, though it seemed to me nothing remarkable that a man in London should have a cousin in New York; his eyes went positively round at the business of the trapped dog; and the sad narrative of the unnatural fellow at the zoo who cheated his brother’s rescuer out of his due reward seemed to strike him as hugely funny.
“Say, if you were a writer,” said he, “you’d have just about paid for your trip from England with those. Lord! I don’t know when I’ve come across story material like that!”
“Well, I do write now and then,” I ventured, for a moment forgetting my resolve to avoid revealing my identity. “But I don’t see any possibilities in what I’ve told you. I mean, they’re the kind of thing that happens in your city—every day, I’m sure—and nothing to take notice of, unless you’re a foreigner wandering about.”
He cocked his head at me and took a sip from his mug of lager. “A writer. What’s your line?”
“Detective stories,” I said, with some reluctance.
Sherlock Holmes might have spun some convincing tale under those circumstances—and would very likely have not got into them at all—but I found it impossible to answer a direct question with an outright lie.
“Hm. And, sir, your name is … ?”
“Watson.”
“I was beginning to think it might be. Mine’s Porter, W. S.—W. for William, which I don’t use, S. for Sydney, also retired, and Porter for Porter, which has been scratched at the starting gate. Say, Watson, if that’s the straight goods about your doing the ‘Lo! the poor Indian’ act with those pearls richer than all your tribe you were telling me about, d’you mind if I pick ‘em up and string ‘em together?”
As far as I could tell from his odd mixture of slang and literary allusion, he seemed to be requesting permission to make literary use of the banal anecdotes I had recounted. I granted it gladly, and, seeing that the sun had nearly set, rose and prepared to take my leave.
“I shall scan the magazines with interest to see what you have been able to make of my poor experiences, Mr. Porter,” said I.
“Well, you won’t get far if you run your thumb down the index under P,” said he. “I use a pen name—and I’m here to tell you that them that lives in the pen can live by the pen.”
This example of American allusive humor escaped me, I confess, but Mr. Porter confided his pseudonym in me, and I left, hastening to arrive at Irene Adler’s house in good time, pondering on what curious significance he might place on it.
Henry is, of course, an honored name, our nation having had eight kings so styled. But what was the point of prefacing it with the single initial, reminding one of nothing so much as the zero, of O?
Chapter Twelve
It was but a few moments’ walk from the Viemeister tavern in Eighteenth Street to number 4, Gramercy Park West, and I was there before the last rays of the setting sun had ceased from gil
ding the buildings on the northern side of the square.
The next hour or so was one of the least comfortable periods of my life. Though calm, Irene Adler was keyed up to a kind of tense stillness, and was in no mood for conversation. Her whole being seemed concentrated on awaiting the issue of Sherlock Holmes’ efforts that day. I sat in one chair, then another; looked at a newspaper and at a magazine; admired a vase on the mantel and a porcelain shepherdess on a small table; and consulted my watch each half-hour or so, as it seemed, although the hands usually proved to have moved no more than ten or twelve minutes each time. Heller’s appearance with a pot of tea and some sweet biscuits cheered me up, after an hour of this atmosphere, as much as might one of those roistering banquets Dickens describes so vividly.
It was close upon eight o’clock when the jangle of the doorbell brought Irene Adler and myself to our feet. As I descended the stairs, I saw Heller opening the door to admit a tall fellow in chauffeur’s livery and peaked cap, sporting a giant handlebar moustache.
As though he entertained doubts of Heller’s hearing, he boomed at him in a voice loud enough to carry into the street, “Mr. Holmes’ and Dr. Watson’s luggage from the hotel! Come on and give me a hand with it!”
I descended the stairs and inquired, “Good heavens, what’s this about?”
“I said,” bawled the man, “I’ve got Mr. Holmes’ and Dr. Watson’s luggage, like you ordered, and I need some help getting it in the house!”
Heller looked questioningly at his mistress.
“Help the man carry in the luggage, Heller,” said she, calmly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The butler joined the uniformed man on the steps outside.
“What’s our luggage being brought here for, anyway?” I wondered.
“I’m sure we’ll find out very soon,” said Irene Adler.
Peering outside into the street, I saw a carriage by the curb—and, beyond it, I fancied, a light blob against the darkness of the park trees that might well have been our checked-suited spy. Through the open door of the carriage I observed a number of familiar suitcases and a large trunk that had not, I knew, formed part of our effects on the trip from England. As I watched, the uniformed man pulled out two of the suitcases and handed them to Heller, who trotted up into the lobby with them and set them down.
I looked at the nearest.
“Mine, right enough,” said I, and picked it up. “Bless my soul—it’s empty!” Now quite alarmed at this turn of events, I turned to the uniformed man as he entered with two more suitcases, and cried, “Look here, my good man—”
“There’s quite a large trunk in the carriage, Watson.” Sherlock Holmes’ precise tones cut off my protest. “As soon as Heller and I have it halfway across the sidewalk so that it’s blocking the view of that chap across the street, I want you to get into that carriage as fast as you can and lie on the floor. Under no circumstances allow yourself to be seen.”
“Holmes!” I exclaimed, dropping the empty suitcase.
“Remember to do exactly as I say!”
He turned and descended the outside stairs once more. I looked in perplexity at Irene Adler, who appeared, as always, calm—and now ready to play her part, whatever it might be.
I turned to look again through the outer door. Holmes and Heller were now removing the trunk from the carriage.
I heard Holmes call out, “Careful now, buddy.”
Irene Adler placed one hand firmly on my arm. As they reached the bottom of the steps, she tightened her grip for an instant and said, urgently, “Now, Dr. Watson!”
Crouching low and using the trunk as a screen, I scuttled down the steps and flung myself into the carriage, stretching out facedown upon the floor, where I stayed during stirring events of the next few moments within the house, of which I learned only later.
Once the trunk had been brought into the foyer and the door tight closed behind it, Holmes lost no time in unlocking and opening it.
As the lid rose, revealing the sleeping boy, Irene Adler’s eyes widened, and she gave a low cry of relief and joy: “Scott!”
She fell to her knees beside the trunk, her head bowed, as Holmes quickly undid the straps that had kept the boy secure during his jolting journeys. As he did so, Scott stirred and opened his eyes.
“Mother?” said he bewilderedly. “How’d I get here?” He felt the metal edges of the trunk in wonder and confusion. “What’s this? Where’s Nicole?”
His mother was now weeping and clasping him to her. “Oh, Scott, Scott, Scott!”
Holmes, still on his knees beside the trunk, regarded them gravely for a moment, then stood up. Irene Adler looked into his face, and seemed about to press him for an explanation of the miracle that had befallen her and her son.
“Sherlock … ?”
“I’ve no time now,” said Holmes. “If I’m in here too long—” He gave a meaningful jerk of his head in the direction of the spot where Moriarty’s spy kept his vigil. Then he patted Scott Adler on the head and smiled. “Lad’s as fit as a fiddle. But, Irene, matters remain grave. I must ask you under no circumstances to stir from the house or let the boy be seen, until I give the word.”
“Of course.”
Sherlock Holmes turned to Heller.
“Open the door,” he instructed. The butler did so, and Holmes, standing out of any view from outside, called, in his own voice, “Thank you, my man! Here’s something for your pains!”
He then moved smartly out on to the front steps, replying to himself in his deliveryman’s boom, “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much!”
In a moment he had clambered up on to the driver’s seat of the carriage, whipped up the horse, and driven off. As the vehicle began to move, I eased myself from the floor and looked cautiously out the back window. I could see the man in the checked suit moving hastily away from his post, and, opening the hatchway at the front of the carriage, I passed this news to Holmes.
“Naturally enough, Watson,” said he. “He is even now getting word to his master that you and I have moved, bag and baggage, into the house of Miss Irene Adler—and it is there that his attention will be focused for the next few all-important days!”
———«»——————«»——————«»———
“By George, you’re right, Holmes,” said I a short time later in our rooms at the Algonquin, as I looked out the window into the street. “Not a sign of anyone watching us!”
Sherlock Holmes, rubbing briskly at a last wisp of false moustache clinging to his upper lip, emerged from the bedroom.
“I assumed as much, Watson,” he replied. “We have them round now—and they don’t know it. It’s our game from here on.”
“What’s the next move, then?”
“Dinner, I should say. It’s almost on nine; and I have not dined, Watson, I have not lunched, and I’ve only the vaguest memory of having breakfasted. I suggest we make up for that lapse in the Algonquin’s most estimable restaurant, and look up Inspector Lafferty as soon after that as we’re able.”
“Hear, hear!” said I. “I suggest you ask for some pastromy. It’s a remarkable local dish, and certainly a hotel named for one of the aboriginal tribes ought to be able to provide the native foods.”
———«»——————«»——————«»———
We found Inspector Lafferty at his office, and, to his credit, he wasted no time in further recriminations or in requiring explanations of Holmes’ decision to reverse his stand on participating in the investigation of the gold theft. He quickly arranged for us to meet Mr. Mortimer McGraw the next day at the Bouwerie National Bank, to inspect the scene of the crime.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
It certainly seemed an unlikely crime to have taken place. The entrance to the lift leading down to the vaults was secured by a combination lock, as were the controls of the lift itself.
Holmes inspected the lift with keen interest as he and I, McGraw, an
d Lafferty entered it, and said, “I presume the lock on the controls has a different combination from the one that unlocks the main door?”
“It does, sir,” said McGraw.
“How many people know these combinations?”
“Only the six employees of the exchange and myself. I might also add that the tumblers are changed every three months.”
The controls unlocked, Mr. McGraw tugged on a handle, and the lift began to move downwards.
“Admirable,” said Holmes. “If in this case futile. Is this the only way in which the vaults can be reached?”
“Up until five days ago it was,” Inspector Lafferty observed bitterly.
With the Inspector and McGraw sunk in gloom, and myself at sea, only Holmes seemed perfectly at ease, looking about the lift as if memorizing the details of its operation.
“What sort of lift is this?” said he.
“Drum and cable,” replied McGraw. “Works from above.”
“And how far do we descend?”
“One hundred and fifty feet.”
“At what rate of speed?”
“Two hundred feet a minute.”
Not for the first time, I felt a sense of impatience with Sherlock Holmes’ passion for facts. It was all very well for him to be able to know the number of steps in any staircase he used, and similar parlor-tricks, but to continue this jackdaw accumulation of statistics whilst his mind should have been puzzling out the means of the theft of milliards (if that is what billions are) of dollars’ worth of gold—that smacked of frivolity.
A jolt signaled the end of our descent.
“Ah, we appear to have arrived,” said Holmes.
McGraw slid back the iron-mesh inner doors of the lift, revealing yet another door of solid steel. This, too, was equipped with a combination lock, which he proceeded to manipulate while Holmes watched.