alt.sherlock.holmes

by Gini Koch

  He flipped over the page and chuffed out a rueful laugh.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Have a look.”

  I took the paper. While the front had only the single line of handwritten text, the back was all flourishes and tiny drawings. Like something from an illuminated manuscript, the figures were ornately detailed. They decorated large letters.

  Memento Mori

  Something about the drawings bothered me. One of them—a mermaid—was too long. Her body stretched the length of the old paper before joining up with her tail. And another, this one a teddy bear, was bifurcated. One half of its body was on either side of the page. My gaze fell across a seam in the paper. A crease. It had been folded many times. I followed the crease as I brought my hands together. The mermaid shrank into a more average body. The teddy bear became whole. A new word appeared.

  “Moriarty?” I asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “I was about to ask you.” I looked up from the paper and offered it to Crash. He pocketed something—a pearl, from the looks of it—and put the can down. I hadn’t even noticed him pick it up. I began to realize that Sanford Haus was full of talents.

  Crash took the picture from me, unfolded it and re-folded it again. Several times.

  “Moriarty,” he whispered. “Moriarty.”

  I turned at a knock on the door to see Agent Trenet lowering her hand. “Something you’ve found, boys?”

  Crash swept the can to her. “Another note from our killer. Seems he’s enjoying himself.”

  Agent Trenet looked at the paper. “A game? That’s what this is to him?” Peering into the can, she frowned. “There’s nothing else here. He always leaves something else, like the necklace or the foot. Crash, was there anything else?”

  “Just the paper,” he said, lips pressed thin and colorless.

  Weary, Agent Trenet brushed her hair over her ear. She grabbed her earlobe with surprise. “Damn! I’ve lost an earring.”

  “Could be anywhere,” Crash said quickly. “It’s likely gone out on the lot somewhere.”

  As Crash swept Agent Trenet out of the wagon, I noticed the pearl in her other ear.

  My stomach fell. How had her other earring landed in that can?

  In that moment, my years of wandering ended. All of the steps I’d taken—from Harlem, to South Carolina, to the beaches and trenches in France, to Alabama and now to this mud show in the middle of Arkansas—all roads seemed to have led to this moment. To this puzzle with the answer already filled in. A decision was made as I followed them out, although I’d not even asked myself the question.

  “Moriarty,” I said under my breath.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  Over her head, Crash gave me a stern glance.

  “Nothing, Adele,” I answered.

  She shrugged and ran toward the crumb car, where a beefy man with a broad moustache waited. “Excuse me, Mr. Mars. A word,” she called.

  I lingered behind, watching the work of a Pinkerton Agent at the top of her game, now a pawn in someone else’s. Moriarty. Our killer. He was there, somewhere at the circus, watching us. He’d followed us enough to pluck up the pearl earring when Adele dropped it. Had slipped into Crash’s wagon and had been kind enough to lock up on his way out.

  The case was here. The answer to it all was here. Not on the road or behind a desk at the Pinkerton home office.

  Crash put his hands in his pockets and sidled up beside me leisurely. “Payday is every Friday. First of May like yourself would get three aces a week for your pocket. Until we get something else square, you can kip in my bunk.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Unless you would rather stay with Mrs. Hudson. She’d enjoy that.”

  I laughed. “A dwarf and a one-legged negro. That belongs in your freakshow for certain, Crash.”

  “Everyone works,” he continued. “Normally I’d start you as a candy butcher, but that requires a lot of walking the lot. No, you’re not a vendor. Though you might make a good talker. Inside talker, I’m thinking. You catch details. You’re not as good as me, but then, who is?”

  “Humble son of a gun, aren’t you?”

  “You can start tomorrow, Dandy. I’ll introduce you around tonight while Adele is questioning my folks.”

  “Wait, wait,” I said. “I didn’t say I’d run off and join your circus.”

  “Of course you did,” he said. “And you’re going to. It’s settled.”

  “Shouldn’t I think about it?”

  “You’ve already decided.”

  I had, of course. But... “And just how do you know?”

  Sanford Haus smiled wide as a Cheshire cat. “You called me Crash.”

  the case of the

  tattooed bride

  one

  “BEST OF ALL mornings to you, my dark-hearted friend,” Crash sang as he barreled into the vardo.

  A gale cold as the hinges of Hell followed him into the wagon.

  I grumbled one of the more colorful turns of phrase I’d picked up from Mrs. Hudson, but most of the words stuck in the cottony numbness of my mouth. Prying my gummy eyes open, a vision of my damnable roommate came into focus.

  That particular day he’d bundled himself up in an old wool coat and a blue scarf that had seen better times. A leather satchel slung across his body bumped against the narrow doorframe and the wall as its wearer spun his back to me. As his nickname suggested, Sanford “Crash” Haus would never be mistaken for a feather-footed angel.

  My hammock swayed when he slammed the door behind him. I groaned in protest, but kept my curses to myself. Mostly.

  “Didn’t wake you, did I, Dandy?”

  “I’m fairly certain you woke everyone from here to the Devil’s door and back again.”

  “Then I must try harder next time, if I’m to rouse Mephistopheles himself,” he snickered, ruffling snow out of his ginger curls.

  Crash’s movements about the tight space were a dance: fluid, yet punctuated by percussive accents of the destruction that came part-and-parcel with him. The satchel fell to the floor, spilling its contents with a gentle whispering, as Crash reached to the shelf above my hammock. The cigar box slid easily into his hands.

  I closed my eyes, adjusting to the pain of being awake far too soon for my own liking, while my friend rustled through papers and skunky herb to make himself a morning repast. The rasp of the match was enough to relax something in me. Smoke filled the small wagon, and I massaged the stump of my left leg.

  “The cold makes it worse, doesn’t it?” Crash asked quietly.

  I nodded. “Winter ain’t my friend.”

  “Perhaps you should’ve stayed in Alabama.”

  “Humidity’s no good for me neither. Besides, I let the leg tell me where I go and what I do...? Might as well have died in the war. Now,” I said, lurching upright in the swaying hammock. “What’s got you marching out into the snow before the sun’s had time to put on her face?”

  Haus grinned at me, his pale, smooth cheeks wrinkling. “Mail.”

  “Mail?”

  “Indeed.” He bent over and upended the satchel. Letters poured out, littering the floor of our wagon. “Mail. We’ll sort it out here and deliver it to the rest of the camp.”

  “What’s this we?” I asked wryly.

  Crash folded himself up on the floor, one hand sifting through the envelopes while the other held the joint oozing its blue smoke. “Of course. What else did you have planned for today?”

  I rolled a shoulder in concession. With the Soggiorno Brothers’ Travelling Wonder Show pulled into its winter berth just east of Peru, Indiana, there weren’t crowds to fleece or balloons to fill. Just a bunch of drowsy carnies looking to fill the hours between dawn and dusk until the next tour began.

  I took up my prosthetic and stood on two feet. With the mess Crash’d made of everything, hobbling from one end of the wagon to the door proved to be a feat worthy of a barker’s busking. See the one-legged man! Look h
ow he hops and skips! I threw a swath of fabric—turned out to be one of Crash’s gypsy costumes—over my shoulders and headed out into the inhospitable December morning.

  The camp wasn’t a Monet, but I’d be a bald-faced liar if I didn’t say it was a mighty pretty sight. We’d had a week of snow, and circus folk being an industrious sort, tracks had been carved throughout. Roads spanned from this tent to that wagon, to the large fire pit we shared some nights. Most of the footprints frozen into the mud and slush led to Mrs. Hudson’s place.

  Other than the sinuous trenches, the snow was pristine. A crystalline crust had formed over the top of everything, making it glitter and shine in the wan daylight. The most colorful tents had been stored away, of course, so as to not damage them before the next season. But against the slate-grey sky and black, naked trees, the wagons and trailers of the carnies gleamed jewel-bright.

  Even the rickety old vardo belonging to Haus looked like it wore its Sunday best—well, apart from the peeling paint and the brass numbers dangling askew on the borrowed door. Wherever 221b originally stood, the address now belonged to Crash forevermore.

  And to me too, I suppose. In the handful of months I’d lived with him, we shared the accommodation about as well has a couple of surly sardines in a can. Every day he promised we’d find something more suitable that I could call my own, but nothing had turned up. Or a problem sprouted on the lot. Or we had to duck out of a city too quickly. When we pulled into Peru, it was just assumed I’d stay with him.

  I peered around the quiet lot, eyes landing on Mrs. Hudson’s place. Hers was the largest, most ornate homestead. Smoke curled up from the chimney pipe of the “crum car”—what the carnies called their commissary. It looked to me like someone had taken the old caboose off a train and thrown a Mississippi kitchen into it. From the railing at the back, the lovely dwarf would dole out heaping plates of her wares. Off to the side was a small shelter with a few benches for people to gather and eat around a fire. Soon those canvas flaps would open to all who had an appetite.

  Squatting behind it all, wide and ample as its sole occupant, Mrs. Hudson’s canvas tent was all faded stripes and patchwork. Discarded pennants snapped in the biting wind, shaking off the frost.

  Where Crash’s wagon was a cold, hard edifice, Mrs. Hudson’s tent looked like a warm, soft place to land. Much like the woman herself. But those thoughts weren’t for entertaining.

  “Not a snowball’s chance in the pit of Hell, Jimmy,” I berated myself.

  After dodging patches of ice, and doing my business in the nearby outhouse, I carefully took the stairs back into the vardo.

  Crash had kindled a small fire in the stove, complete with a pot of terrible coffee brewing on top. Even in the short time I’d been out, Haus had managed to turn some of the chaos of the mail pile into discernible order. But I’ll be damned if I could understand his system.

  Taking up a stool nearby, I surveyed the heaps of post. “So what’ve we got?”

  Smoke trailed from the roller in his hand as he indicated each category. “Everyone’s got their own stack, you see. Mr. Mars; Miss Collette; the Canaga sisters. You get the idea. We’ll sort it out, divide the stacks and deliver them like a couple of postmen.” He paused and shot me a mischief-laden glance. “You can take Mrs. Hudson’s. I’m sure she’d enjoy the visit.”

  I snorted my response.

  “And, if I’m not mistaken,” he continued, “you’d enjoy it as well.”

  I leaned over and took up a couple handfuls of unsorted envelopes. “What I’d enjoy and what’s proper ain’t always the same, Crash.”

  Without looking at me, he raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Why, Dandy, you cad! And just what improper things do you wish to do to our dear Mrs. Hudson?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  His grin was a mite too lascivious. “Pretend that I don’t. And don’t,” he added loudly, “skimp on the details.”

  “A gentleman doesn’t speak of a lady like that, Crash.”

  “I’m no gentleman,” he murmured. “You’ll not offend my sensibilities.”

  “Yeah, well I might offend my own.”

  “How so?”

  “Do I need to spell it out?”

  “Apparently, you do.”

  He knew damn well, but seemed to take pleasure in making me say it aloud. Never did understand that about him. I sighed, weary. “I’m a negro and she’s...”

  “A well-endowed dwarf.”

  I hung my head and brought my hands to my temples, the growing ache there. Impossible carnie bastard. “There are rules, Crash.”

  “The rules are different here, Jim.”

  I kept my mouth shut and mulled it over. Mrs. Hudson had made her feelings clear since the moment she set eyes on me. Unabashed flirtations at the chuck wagon, extra helpings of dessert... the dwarf would tell anyone with ears she fancied me. For the longest time I thought it was a joke, some sort of prank on the new guy at the circus. After a while, though, I realized she meant every word and illicit promise. Didn’t matter a lick that I found her charming, lovely and altogether fine as the smile on an angel. There were some things that a negro like me couldn’t ever enjoy, and a woman with snow white skin was one of them. So, like fantasies of regrowing my lost leg, I put away my ideas regarding Mrs. Hudson and went on living.

  I spat an oath I’d never utter near my grandmother, and swiped the joint from Crash’s fingers. Taking a drag, I closed my eyes and let the cannabis ease the pain in my leg and the lump in my throat. My thoughts swam on an eddy of blue smoke, and warmth seeped into my limbs. I felt loose and at ease.

  “Oh, ho!” Crash sang. “Speaking of fine women...”

  I opened my eyes to see Haus raising an envelope to his nostrils. He inhaled deeply, eyes rolling back in ecstasy, then purred, his voice a low rumble in his throat. “Oh, Adele.”

  “Miss Trenet writes to you?” I asked, a bit of jealousy making my ears hot.

  “Hang on,” he said, ignoring me. “What’s this? Why is it addressed to you?”

  I plucked it from his fingers and checked the scrawl on the envelope. Sure as sin, there was my name in Adele Trenet’s fine hand. The letter inside, I found, was written on Pinkerton stationary. Business, then, I thought. And so it was. Every last word pertaining to the last case she and I had worked on together for the agency.

  Sebastian, my new partner, fidgets like a ferret and isn’t quite as polite as you, Dr. Walker. I do hope that your current surroundings haven’t robbed you of that kindness.

  I smiled, despite myself. While I hadn’t practiced my trade in quite some time, Agent Trenet was one of the few souls of the world who still called me “doctor.”

  “It’s got to be here!”

  I eyed my roommate to see him pawing through the mail feverishly, sputtering, “Where are you, you devil!”

  I returned to reading Adele’s letter.

  I thought you should know that there are no new leads in the strange case of our killer. No new deaths. No more coffee cans. And no earthly idea what this “Moriarty” means. I’m still looking, though. And I trust you to do the same. You might not be a Pinkerton agent anymore, Dr. Walker, but you’ve a fine, agile mind. If you see or hear anything about Moriarty, do call me post-haste.

  “Damnable mail!” Haus blurted out. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “My letter from Adele, obviously. Why would she write to you and not to me?”

  “Maybe she didn’t have anything to say to you,” I said quietly, sliding the letter back in its envelope.

  “Nonsense!” Crash snatched the letter from me and his gaze darted across the page. “Nothing. Not a word? Not a single word or thought for me?”

  Disgusted and disappointed, he tossed the letter back to me, and went back to his task of arranging mail for the rest of the residents of our strange camp. A pile near the fire caught my eye. The topmost was addressed to Crash—well, to his given name of Sanford Haus, anyway�
�and bore an intriguing postmark.

  “Looks like you’ve got your own letters to peruse,” I remarked.

  Crash followed my gaze, then snorted with derision. “Those? They’re nothing.”

  “A stack from the head of the United States Secret Service is hardly nothing, Crash.”

  “Whatever my brother has to say on any matter is of absolutely no matter. Not to me or mine.”

  “Could be important.”

  “Leland and I have very disparate notions of what’s important.”

  I laughed. “For the rough-and-tumble carnie you try to be, you sure do sound like him sometimes.”

  His head shot up. “What?”

  “Your brother, Director Haus. You sound like him sometimes.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  I nodded. “Once. Didn’t take much notice of me. Though I’ve got one more working leg than the president, apparently a man needs two good stems to work for the Secret Service.”

  Crash shook his head. “Imbecile. My brother is a complete and utter moron.”

  He took up the stack of letters—presumably all from Leland—and made to toss them into the fire.

  “Wait! Aren’t you even going to open them?” I asked.

  With a patronizing roll of his eyes, he slipped out of his Crash Haus persona and into that of Madame Yvonde, seer and psychic, as he brought the topmost envelope to his forehead.

  “Sanford,” he croaked in Yvonde’s voice, “you’re an embarrassment to the family.”

  He flicked it into the fire and plucked up another. “Come home. Take your rightful place...”

  Flick. Pluck. “End this ridiculous game.”

  Flick. Pluck. “Sanford, you ungrateful basta—oh, hello, Moira.”

  This envelope interested him. He let all the others fall—along with his Yvonde schtick—then tore into the paper.

  “Who’s Moira?”

  “My niece,” he muttered. As he scanned the letter intently, his mouth formed the words. I’d rarely seen him so keenly invested in anything that didn’t have two legs and blonde hair. When he’d finished reading it, his mood had grown even more sour. “There. Have a look. Evidence that Leland and I value different things entirely.”