by D. R. Bensen
“I take it that this combination also differs from its fellows, and is altered every ninety days as well?”
“Correct, sir.” McGraw pushed open the heavy door, and gave a mournful sigh. “And now, Mr. Holmes, I ask you to see for yourself what I can only describe as the most dismal sight the world has ever seen.”
It was certainly a strange spectacle. On either side of a central corridor hewn from the living rock stood rows of cells, uncannily like those in a jail, with their barred doors all standing open, as though there had been a mass release, or escape, of prisoners. A row of electric bulbs set into the ceiling of the corridor formed a line that led to the far end and revealed a jagged patch of blackness in the back wall: the hole that had been blasted in it. Holmes made his way to this, and fell to examining it with his magnifying glass.
After a moment, he looked at McGraw, and remarked, “Extraordinary. More than a foot of rock and concrete had to be cut through. The noise must have been deafening.”
“Since they’ve been working on the subway, you could set off dynamite and no one would hear it,” said McGraw.
“A condition that doubtless was taken advantage of.”
Holmes stepped through the hole into the tunnel leading to the subway excavation, and moved slowly along it. Lafferty, McGraw, and I stared after him, able to make him out only vaguely in the darkness as he descended at a distinct angle.
He called back to us over his shoulder, “Two pieces of bullion were left behind, you say? Where?”
Inspector Lafferty pointed past Holmes and shouted, “One in the tunnel just ahead of you, the other about fifty feet south of the main excavation.”
Sherlock Holmes turned and started back toward where we stood. As he approached, I ventured a comment. “Well, that makes it clear enough, doesn’t it, Holmes? They made off in that direction with their boodle.”
“One would immediately accept that conclusion, Watson, I quite agree,” said he, stepping through the breached wall once again. “I should like a closer look at these vaults now.”
We stood aside and he prowled along the opened cells like a terrier questing among rat-holes in a barn to see if any of them holds a quarry. He ventured into one of the cells in the middle of the line, and his voice, given a hollow, echoing quality by the confined space, came out to us: “How many actual bars of gold were stored here, do you know?”
Mr. McGraw answered, “Just prior to the theft these vaults held eighteen million pounds of gold, consisting of three hundred and sixty thousand fifty pound blocks, each valued at twenty-eight thousand dollars.”
Holmes’ head popped out of the cell he was inspecting. He stared hard at the president of the Exchange. “Three hundred sixty thousand blocks? And they were shifted out of here without anyone noticing it? I believe I would not be putting it too strongly to say that is a remarkable circumstance, gentlemen!”
I looked at him closely. When that mild, almost playful tone came into his voice, it was a clear sign that Sherlock Holmes believed he had a card or so up his sleeve.
Inspector Lafferty’s reaction was to snort, while Mortimer McGraw said impatiently, “Remarkable! If we weren’t standing here looking at these empty vaults, I’d say it was impossible!”
“Yes” said Holmes. “I should say so, too.” He gave a final look around at the vaults. “I should like to return to the lift now.”
Once there, he pointed to a small trapdoor in the ceiling of the lift.
“That hatchway there. Does it provide access to the overhead drum and cable?”
“Yes,” answered McGraw.
“Watson, might I trouble you for a leg up?”
“Of course. Here you are,” said I, and formed a stirrup with my hands.
Holmes stepped on to it, and with the increased distance from the floor, was able to open the trapdoor, then hoist himself partway through the hatchway by grasping its sides. His voice, muffled by the ceiling, came back to us. “Very sensible of you, Mr. McGraw, to have the drum housing illuminated by electricity. Very convenient for repairs, I’m sure; and it always helps to shed light on things.”
McGraw was beginning to have a sour look, as though he had come to question the value of Sherlock Holmes’ help in the case. Meanwhile, the detective dropped back to the lift floor.
“Thank you. I think I’ve seen everything I need to see, gentlemen. I have one final inquiry to make elsewhere, following which I believe I shall be able to fit all the pieces together and provide you with a satisfactory solution.”
McGraw seemed taken aback at this display of confidence. “And the gold?” he inquired.
“The gold, of course, will be forthcoming with the solution of the problem.”
Inspector Lafferty appeared to be evenly divided between disbelief and hope.
“In time for the transfer of the bullion tomorrow morning?” he asked.
Holmes gave him a cheerful smile, and said, “It is my fondest wish.”
He amiably fended off any further questions, and, once back at the street level of the bank, we took our leave of two sorely confused men.
Holmes set off at a brisk pace through lower Manhattan, a section which, except for the height of the buildings, might almost have been London. It had many winding streets, some of them even bearing familiar names, such as Maiden Lane, and I was given quite a turn when I saw a church that might have been twin to St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields.
My friend appeared to have a definite destination in mind, and I asked, “Where are we off to now?”
“To pay a call on Thomas Vallence and Company, the firm that designed the underground. I want to ascertain the depth of the excavation at the point at which it passed the Bouwerie National Bank. I shall be most astonished if we are not told that the figure is precisely one hundred fifty feet.”
The engineers at the Vallence office proved most cooperative; and so did their blueprints and field notes, which bore out Holmes’ estimate of the excavation’s depth precisely.
I knew well enough by now that my friend’s interest in this measurement was not another example of his mania for general information—and must bear importantly on the case. Yet I could not see how. I puzzled over this for a space, as we jogged northward in a cab—Holmes had flatly rejected my suggestion that we return uptown via the elevated railway—and finally gave it up.
“Just what is it we have found out?” I asked.
“Everything.”
“Everything? You mean you know where the gold is?”
“I knew that the moment we descended in the lift. I merely wanted to double-check my certainty.”
“Well … where is it?”
“We were standing on it.”
“We were— Holmes!”
So bizarre a statement must be a joke, yet I could not make out the point of it.
“Don’t you see what the wily devil has done, man?”
I felt distinctly put out. “No, I don’t see. And I’m sure I should be delighted if you’d tell me!”
Holmes sprawled in the seat, legs outstretched and feet resting on the opposite bench, his fingers steepled.
“Consider, Watson. Three hundred sixty thousand blocks of gold, each weighing fifty pounds. Give Moriarty a hundred—give him two hundred—men, each able to carry a fifty-pound block of gold.”
“Very well. What then?”
“Each of those two hundred men would have to carry eighteen hundred blocks out of those vaults.”
At this point we arrived at the hotel, and continued the conversation while entering it, traversing the lobby, and regaining our rooms.
“To carry a single fifty-pound block from the vaults, through the tunnel to some conveyance waiting in the excavation, and then to return for a second block, could not reasonably be accomplished in less than ten minutes. In other words, Watson, it would take eighteen thousand minutes, or three hundred hours to complete the task. That’s over twelve days—and the gold was there six days ago!”
A quick
calculation seemed to indicate that the only way the crime could have been accomplished was with the aid of an army of five hundred men working twenty-four hours a day. But I could see no point whatever in saying so.
“Mr. McGraw’s instincts were quite correct,” said Holmes. “The task appears impossible, in spite of the evidence of the empty vaults.”
“But, Holmes, they were empty!”
Now back in our sitting room, he removed his cloak and cap and reached for his pipe.
“Those vaults were,” he said.
“Those vaults? Holmes, what on earth are you suggesting?”
“Watson, I asked how far down the lift went. I was told one hundred fifty feet. That means the vaults must be one hundred fifty feet below the bank. But the depth of the subway excavation at that point was also one hundred fifty feet. When I looked up at the overhead cable while the lift was presumably at the bottom of the shaft, I could see several coils of it wound round the drum at the top; if inspected on the spot, I dare say one would find about fifteen feet of it.”
He lit the pipe and puffed out a cloud of pungent blue smoke. “Mr. McGraw told me,” he continued, “that the rate of descent was two hundred feet a minute, meaning it should have taken the lift forty-five seconds to reach the vaults. It took thirty-nine. And I am sure you noticed that the tunnel from the vaults to the excavation slopes downwards!”
“Why, so it does! Then—”
“Watson, there is only one inescapable conclusion. The vaults we examined were not the vaults containing the gold. They were an exact replica built directly above the actual vaults. It will be discovered, I am confident, when the floor of the lift is removed, that iron bars will have been inserted into the shaft to prevent the lift descending the remaining ten feet to the actual vaults—where all of the gold still safely resides!”
Chapter Thirteen
Sherlock Holmes had laid it all out clearly and, as he had said, the conclusion was inescapable. Nevertheless, it was still hard to credit.
“But, Holmes, the vault door, the combination lock—the cages themselves—everything?”
“Duplicated down to the smallest detail. Some member of Mr. McGraw’s staff has thrown in his lot with Moriarty and provided him with all the necessary details.”
“It must have taken months!”
“Yes! And with so many hundreds of men employed in construction of the underground, who would notice a handful of Moriarty’s cohorts tunneling for purposes of their own?”
Hands behind my back, I paced the room, pondering this incredible, but moment by moment more convincing, solution. I then turned to Holmes, who was lounging comfortably and puffing at his pipe.
“One thing, Holmes,” said I. “You were quite certain of all this while we were still with Inspector Lafferty. Yet you said nothing. Why?”
Sherlock Holmes’ expression grew grave, and he removed the pipe from his mouth.
“I still fear for the boy’s life.”
“But he’s safe at home now!” I protested.
“Safe only so long as Moriarty thinks him still a prisoner. Tomorrow’s newspapers hold the key. If the theft is reported, he will know that I have obeyed his orders, and it will be safe to release Scott. If the financial page carries news of the exchange transaction, he will know I have tricked him, and he will hasten to seize the boy from Mademoiselle Romaine. He will learn that I have forestalled him, and his rage will be towering. He will not rest until he has had his revenge on me—through Scott!”
He rose and paced the room, and I stood to one side in order to avoid getting in his way.
“I must know where Moriarty is,” he said, “and he must be in the custody of the police, before I can safely reveal the location of the gold. No other course of action is permissible!”
“Perhaps so,” I replied, “but how on earth do you expect to manage that? It took you half a year to ferret out the man’s lodgings in Limehouse.”
Sherlock Holmes regarded me for a moment, appearing to ponder deeply. Then a smile lit up his face. “I’m not too proud to learn, Watson. Why not employ the methods he used in ferreting me out?”
He started for the door, taking up his cloak and cap once more.
“Here—where are you going?” I called.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Back to that most admirable establishment, the Eaves Costume Company!”
Then he was gone.
Alone in the hotel room, I wondered what strange role he would assume this time. It could hardly be more bizarre than that of the Great Bandini!
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Shortly before six o’clock that late-March night, the pavement across the way from the Haymarket Hotel was adorned by the presence of a shabby but impressive figure clad in flowing robes and sandals, hairy and bearded as a desert patriarch, and carrying a crudely lettered sign reading: “Repent For the End Is Near.” The prophet of doom cast frequent glances both at all who traversed that particular section of sidewalk and at the window of a certain third-floor room in the hotel.
At six precisely, a young man in a flamboyant suit and tweed cap stopped for a moment nearby, looking across the street. The curtain in the third-floor window moved, and a woman who now stood framed in it nodded her head once, slowly. The young man immediately stepped out into the street and halted a passing cab, climbed into it, and was driven off.
The robed man, his beard flying, raced into the traffic, waving his sign frantically, and calling, “Cab! Cab!”
Some twenty minutes later, the young man’s cab deposited him at the same dank waterfront area that the theater doorman had visited two days earlier. He slipped into the alleyway, and thus missed seeing a second cab disgorge the old religious fanatic who had briefly shared the pavement opposite the Haymarket Hotel with him.
The bewhiskered man, still carrying his sign, looked about him with interest. “Of course,” he murmured. “Moriarty’s attraction to rat-infested buildings at the water’s edge. Some vestige of his ancestry, perhaps.”
A few minutes later, the sound of a creaking door alerted him, and he stepped back into a shadowed doorway. As the young man emerged from the alley once more, he was suddenly confronted by the bearded man, whose ascetic appearance was marred by the very businesslike revolver he had produced from his robes and had trained on the young man’s head.
“Charles Nickers, I presume,” said the prophet. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. I dare say you’ve heard of me.”
“Cor blimey!” was all that Nickers could say.
“Yes, I often wonder why He hasn’t chosen to do just that on many an occasion … Now then, my man, unless you wish to go the way of your brother, Bill, tell me who is in that building!”
“The … the Professor …”
“And how many others? Speak up smartly, or you’ll swing for it!”
Holmes did not see an upstairs window in the moldering building slide partly open, or a pallid face crowned with wispy white hair stare out at the scene below, and then become distorted with rage. Professor Moriarty watched his bizarrely clad enemy march his underling off to the next street in search of a policeman, and, quivering with fury, sank back into the chair behind his desk. A pawn had been taken, and soon most of his pieces might be swept from the board—but Sherlock Holmes was a long way from placing James Moriarty in check!
A block away, Holmes was handing over his prisoner to an astonished New York policeman, “Here’s my card, constable. Take this man in charge and get word at once to Inspector Lafferty that the building at the far end of this alley is to be surrounded and its occupants arrested. Tell him that I’ll provide him with full details directly.”
The policeman had trouble enough taking in this unusual message, but the name on the card, contrasted with the outlandish figure before him, was even harder to credit.
He looked from the pasteboard to the prophet, and said, faintly, “You are?”
———«»—
—————«»——————«»———
A quarter of an hour after this encounter, Sherlock Holmes, still robed, sandaled and bearded and carrying his sign, descended from a cab in front of number 4, Gramercy Park West, and made for the steps leading to the house. Hesitating, he crossed the street, and strode up to the still-present watcher in the checked suit, who eyed him curiously, then ducked as the sign was thrust in front of his eyes.
“I strongly suggest you take these words to heart, my man!” said Holmes in an eerie, quavering voice.
He then re-crossed the street and entered the house, leaving Moriarty’s spy wondering what sort of crazy crew was gathering at the Adler woman’s lodgings.
Inside, Sherlock Holmes quickly penned a note outlining his discoveries and emphasizing the need for immediate action on Moriarty and his henchmen, sealed it, and passed it to the waiting butler.
“There you are, Heller. To Inspector Lafferty as quickly as possible!”
“Yes, sir.” As the man hurried out with the note, Holmes began to remove his beard and wig. To Irene Adler, standing close to him with young Scott, he said, “Within the half-hour, Moriarty and his entire American organization will be in custody. Irene, your fears are at an end.”
He looked down at Scott and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Well, well, young man, you’ve had more than an adventure—much more! You’ve aided in the capture of the world’s most notorious criminal, and you’ve been instrumental in preventing a devastating world war.”
“Well, I wish I’d known all that, sir,” said the boy. “I wouldn’t have slept through so much of it!”
“Well said!” Holmes turned to Irene Adler. “Bright lad. Well, I must be off now. Good-bye, Scott.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Holmes.”
“Must you go?” said Irene Adler.
Holmes, nearly through the archway, indicated his costume. “Yes. These must go back to the costumer, and I’m anxious to learn of Inspector Lafferty’s success.”