The Tarleton Murders

by Breck England

  Holmes inspected the contents of the box, showed it to me, and bowed to Worth. Then he extended a hand to Mrs. Wells. “Are you remaining with us, Kitty?”

  “With pleasure,” she replied, removing her coat and hat and tossing a wintry glance at Worth. The baggage porters arrived and we took our leave of Adam Worth, who looked bemused at us as he followed his precious case out the door.

  “St. George has saved the princess from the dragon,” I whispered to Holmes.

  “It seems so,” he replied with satisfaction.

  Looking back at Mrs. Wells, I added, “Now you have only the princess to fear.”

  Chapter 39

  Shattered with fatigue, I dropped to sleep on the bed in our room and was aware of nothing until Holmes woke me hours later. The window light was fading.

  “Up, Tuck. We have one more task to perform.” He had shaved and dressed for the evening, while I felt like a filthy vagrant. Holmes allowed me a few ablutions.

  “What now?” I asked sleepily as I washed my face.

  “There is a public reception for General Sherman in the lobby and a splendid infantry band in the grand parlor. Mrs. Wells must be escorted.”

  The great atrium was mobbed with people of all sorts—ladies in everything from the latest Paris fashion to worn pre-war crinolines and gigantic bustles; men in tight old uniforms, their swords slapping and tripping people; rich and poor; black and white; young girls supporting their mothers in dusky silk—war widows grim-faced but respectful—all queued up to meet the congenial old Butcher of Atlanta. Katherine Wells entered the crowd like a shaft of light, and Holmes and I basked in her reflection.

  There was a fracas behind us: it developed that an old black man was trying to join the queue. “I want to see Mars’ Sherman!” A clot of rough young bloods was blocking his way, laughing at him. “It’ll cost you a quarter dollar,” they said.

  He plunged his hand into his pocket. “Here’s de money! I’se bound to see him now.”

  “That’s a quarter for each of us,” said one of the youths, a dandy with a spotted face and greasy hair.

  Holmes spoke to the dandy. “Entry to this reception is free to the public. Please return this man’s money to him.”

  “I think I won’t,” snarled the impertinent wretch.

  “I think you will. Otherwise, I shall inform your friends here that the money you have taken from them, ostensibly to invest in a stock-sharing scheme, you have spent on expensive clothes and gambled away on horse races.”

  Shock spread over the dandy’s face.

  “Is this true?” one of the young men asked. “I gave him all my savings in gold!”

  Another said, “And so did I. He said Florida land was a sure thing.”

  No longer laughing, the men closed in on the dandy. “Where is our money? What have you done with it? You scoundrel!” They began to pull at him, but Holmes put his hand on the man.

  “The quarter, please?”

  The dandy threw the coin on the floor as he was propelled into the street, and Holmes returned it to the old man, who, undaunted, took his place in the queue.

  Delighted, Mrs. Wells confronted Holmes. “I insist on knowing how you knew all of those things about that man!”

  “It was perfectly obvious,” Holmes replied. “His grooming does not match the quality of his new tweeds, so he paid more for them than he is accustomed to. His pocket is full of ripped bookmaker’s receipts, indicating heavy losses on the horses. Thus, he must have come into money and rapidly consumed it. Where would such a rotter pick up money? I inferred, from defrauding his friends with some investment scheme.”

  Mrs. Wells beamed. “It seems so simple!”

  “Mr. Homes! Mr. Homes!” The little housemaid Marta came squealing up to us. In a blue-green shawl over a bright orange dress, she resembled an exotic little bird. “My saver!” Behind her glided Sister Carolina in stolid black, upright, eyes cast down. A path opened for her through the crowd.

  “Marta!” she snapped. “Be quiet.”

  “Welcome, Sister, Marta,” I exclaimed. “Won’t you please join us? I presume you are here to greet the General.”

  “Yes, I would like to lay my eyes on the Yankee destroyer and see for myself the kind of man who could burn a city filled with women and children.”

  I disregarded this and whispered in her ear, “We have important news for you. Holmes has solved the murder of the Tarletons.” She looked at me, expressionless. “We’ll explain it all later, after the reception.”

  We were now rapidly approaching the General’s party. First we shook hands with stoical army officers in blue and blinding brass, then a series of ladies. The General himself, snowy beard clipped close, hat under his arm, greeted us cordially and introduced to us his daughters, Lizzie and Ellie. I have rarely met such embodiments of grace as the two misses Sherman—their pale, mild eyes should have misted over with ennui by now, but instead gleamed with affection for every new guest. Each wore a delicate crucifix on her breast.

  I presented Sister to them. They curtsied, and Sister nodded soberly. “My servant has a remembrance, a rosary for each of you, made with my own hands. May you delight in the blessing in store for you.”

  Eagerly, Marta drew two rosaries strung with fresh berries from Sister’s bag, stepped up on tiptoe, and began to lace one of them round the soft, white neck of Lizzie Sherman.

  A hand reached out and caught both rosaries away from Marta. It was Holmes. With a courtly smile, he addressed the daughters, “I shall hold these for you until the reception is over,” then backed away bowing. The sisters nodded and turned to greet the next guests in the queue.

  Sister Carolina whipped round, her face paralyzed with fury. “What are you doing, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Come, Marta. Come quickly,” Holmes whispered as he draped the rosaries round his walking stick. Hands bleeding from the berry juice, Marta chirped questions at him but went with him into a side parlor where a few visitors were lounging with drinks at the far end of a bar.

  Sister Carolina stalked after them, and Mrs. Wells and I followed.

  “You dare? What do you mean by this … this outrage?” Sister’s voice was a hiss. “Why did you interrupt my presentation to the General’s daughters?”

  Holmes asked for a moistened bar towel and dabbed Marta’s hands with it. “To prevent an outrage of your own, Sister Carolina.” His eyes fixed hers. “Why did you want to poison those young ladies?”

  “Poison?” exclaimed Mrs. Wells.

  “Yes, Kitty,” Holmes replied. “The juice of the rosary pea, known to science as abrus precatorius, is one of the most potent of poisons. I have made such vegetable toxins a special interest of mine. One drop can produce violent illness—intense fever, hives, restricted breathing, and in many cases, death. Marta has struggled with its effects at least once, when she was waylaid by those ruffians in the forest, and possibly many times before.”

  “I … I didn’t know …” Sister stammered.

  “Please,” Holmes glared back at her. “You know full well the dangers of the rosary pea. You dare not handle it yourself without gloves, which is the reason for your copious collection of them. The dried pea presents little danger, but when it is fresh—when the liquid poison runs from it like water—you cannot afford the slightest exposure of your skin. Therefore, you send Marta to harvest fresh prayer beads for your dainty trinkets rather than doing it yourself.”

  Startled by this news, Marta began to cry under Holmes’s arm. “I been sick so many times,” she moaned. “So many times, so many times. I never touch jequirity beans again.”

  “So I repeat, Sister Carolina. Why did you wish to poison the General’s daughters?”

  Sister squared herself up to look Holmes in the face. “For the sake of justice! Justice! Why should that fiend, that fire-breathing animal Sherman, enjoy the company
of his daughters when I have lost all … all! Yankee vermin! Cursed Yankee vermin!” She was sobbing, panting for breath. “They took everything from me! Every hope, every prospect for happiness. My beautiful beau, my beautiful Tarleton… .”

  “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee,” said Holmes.

  I gasped. Mrs. Wells stifled a surprised laugh.

  “Why such mournful yelps for ‘justice’ from those who have held millions of their fellows in bondage for centuries?” Holmes barked at Sister, dangling the deadly rosaries on his cane. “Year after hopeless year, armies of men like James broke their backs in the cotton fields so ladies like you could sit all day under your parasols in your silks and flounces and sip your Sazeracs. Slave women like Marta stood sweating in the heat, fainting from exhaustion, fanning you while you took your precious afternoon naps.

  “Then the war came, and your beaux went out to fight for their evil prerogative to enslave others. It ended badly for them, as God knows it should, and you found out for yourself what it meant to break your back in the fields. I do not diminish your suffering, but instead of chastening you it has made you bitter. Along with so many of your countrymen, it has filled you with malice.

  “My advice to you is to go straightway into the cloister and contemplate your own history of hellish cruelty. And before you do so, read this!”

  Holmes handed Sister a copy of Beaufort’s confession. Curiosity overcame her anger; her whitish skin became inflamed as she read it.

  “I presume, Sister, you will now cease persecuting James, who, as I have maintained all along, is innocent of the Tarleton murders. May you find in your new life of prayer a balm for your bitterness.”

  Wordlessly, she backed away from Holmes and fled, with a more sober Marta hopping along behind her; however, leaving the room, Marta turned and tossed a spritely grin at Holmes.

  Surprised, he grinned back.

  Mrs. Wells and I looked at each other utterly flummoxed, then despite ourselves we laughed out loud.

  Holmes’s grin instantly dissolved into a scowl. Wiping the toxic sap from his walking stick, he let the lethal beads drop into a waste basket. As he did so, I murmured to myself, “St. George no longer need fear the dragon—nor the princess.”

  “What did you say, Tuck?” Holmes asked.

  “Just remembering something my nephew once told me.”

  “All right now,” said Holmes, “I am beginning to feel listless with hunger.”

  “We’ll have dinner,” said Mrs. Wells, collecting her skirts, “but dancing first. You deprived me once before, Mr. Holmes, but you shall not deprive me tonight.”

  “Well, then,” Holmes exclaimed, “strike up, pipers!”

  The reception had ended, the band blared out the grand march, and we followed the General’s party into a radiant ballroom. Waiters spiraled round carrying trays of shimmering champagne. With one of his superb daughters in hand, Sherman himself led the first quadrille. I watched as Mrs. Wells gracefully swept Holmes into the maze of swirling figures, and was pleased to see that he could dance very creditably. The night had turned all light, and although a priest, a Jesuit, and a chaplain to the Order of Our Lady of Mercy, I could not help but dance a little jig myself.

  Chapter 40

  My door and my head crashed open at the same time.

  “Sorry to knock you up so early, Tuck,” Holmes said, striding into my room and throwing himself down on my bed.

  “Don’t think of it,” I was struggling to open my eyes. The previous night’s champagne was exerting some kind of hydraulic pressure on my eyelids.

  “But I must return to England,” he announced.

  “Now? Today?”

  “Without delay. This side of the Atlantic has become too hot for Mr. ‘Moriarty,’ so he will be on the first steamer for London, where his web of crime remains intact. Remember, he is the manager, director, and controller of half that is evil and nearly all that goes undetected in that great city. His agents remain numerous and splendidly organized. If it requires the rest of my life and the devotion of all of my energies, he must be exposed, broken, and brought down. So I have come to say goodbye.”

  “At least, stop for breakfast. I shall join you.”

  “Very well. I would not mind a cup of insipid American coffee, if I could indulge a pipe of excellent American tobacco before I go.”

  In the hotel restaurant I consumed an English breakfast superior to any I had experienced in England—except for the coffee, which as Holmes said was quite without character—while he sipped, smoked, and talked quietly.

  “This morning I have seen Mrs. Wells off on the train to New York. With the money and jewels she had of Adam Worth, she should be able to establish herself independently.”

  “She just left?”

  Holmes nodded. I felt a twinge of disappointment that she had not taken her leave of me. “She asked me to express her gratitude to you, and her best wishes.”

  “Thank you,” I said, although a sad little ache caught at my heart. “Do you think Moriarty will keep his word? To leave her in peace?”

  “He has no choice but to keep his word, Tuck. Kitty will stay in the States, while he and I will be in England under one another’s watchful eyes. Beyond that, I don’t believe he’s truly inclined to harm her … or myself, for that matter.” He took a last sip of coffee, scowling. “I give him too much sport.”

  “Perhaps the reverse is also true,” I said between bites of bacon.

  “Mr. H-Holmes! Father S-Simon!” It was the familiar, faltering voice of Joe Harris, who stood over our table grinning. “I t-tried … to get an interview with Sh-Sherman last night,” he chuckled, “and this is the result.” He showed us his notebook: At the reception, a modest reporter from the Constitution attempted to interview the general but was repulsed with stately dignity.

  “Your modesty, Harris, is awe inspiring,” said Holmes. “Please, won’t you sit down? We too attended the reception—for us, it was even less eventful than for you.” He shook his head once at me: there was no need to say anything to Harris about Sister or her rosaries, and I silently concurred.

  Harris leaned eagerly toward us. “So … what did you d-do with the Beaufort document? I received your note that I should not r-release it to the Pinkertons after all.”

  In a quiet voice, Holmes described our dealings with ‘Moriarty’ while Harris listened with mounting satisfaction.

  “There will b-be no railroad trust, then. No cabal of money men… ,” Harris smiled.

  “And no renewed civil war,” I added. “Incidentally, Holmes, why would Adam Worth promote a money trust in the South and at the same time plot a new outbreak of war?”

  “Worth always has more than one aim in mind. If one scheme fails, another may succeed,” Holmes explained, veiling himself in pipe smoke. “Although in this case, an even larger scheme encompassed both aims—a monopoly can be immensely profitable, but nothing is more profitable than war. Put them together … .”

  “And you have profit on a g-grand scale,” Harris concluded.

  “It all seems out of line for a professional burglar,” I said.

  Holmes barked out a laugh. “Adam Worth wants to transcend ordinary crime! He now aims to be a baron of industry, in a world where the law bends itself obediently round the money power. Thus the involvement of a magnate like Verver, who is not overly encumbered with scruples.”

  “’The law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law,’” Harris murmured without stammering.

  “Goldsmith?” I was again surprised at Harris’s erudition. “The Vicar of Wakefield?”

  “We do r-read books in America now and then,” Harris chuckled, then turned back to Holmes. “So … you let him go? You let Adam Worth go f-free?”

  “It was unavoidable. ‘We have scotched the snake, not killed it.’ It’ll close and be itself soon enough.”

>   “Shakespeare… . Macbeth, I b-believe,” Harris smirked at Holmes.

  “There is hope for America after all,” Holmes said wryly, feigning to punch Harris in the shoulder. “As for your money power, it will continue to rule, however—and your New South, despite its industrial renaissance, will continue to oppress the former slave.”

  Harris looked down at his hands. “Sadly, I see no … no end to that. Henry Grady’s belief in the New S-South is genuine, but he remains blind to that greatest of wrongs. Still,” he smiled up at Holmes, “you have saved the life and liberty of at least one poor sh-sharecropper named James. That is by itself … heroic.”

  “Not so,” Holmes replied. “James saved himself. With his courage, his cleverness in carrying out his mission to Jamaica, his unbelievable powers of endurance, he is his own salvation. I am a mere brain; James is a full-souled hero. Now, you are a fine brain yourself, Joe Harris. What heroics are in your power? What will you do to slow the mills that are grinding the poor?”

  Harris thought about this. “I intend to t-tell stories. I shall speak for the poor people I lived with, the people I loved.” Then he brightened. “I’ll tell tales about a clever rabbit who b-begs the fox not to throw him in the briar patch … even though that is exactly what the rabbit wants him to do.”

  “That reminds me of a story,” I broke in, “about a man who begs not to be thrown into the fire.”

  “So it does. I can t-tell any story I wish … so long as the people in the story are all animals. That way I c-can undermine the fortress of hatred like a sapper, and—who knows?—maybe h-help topple it.” Harris stood and shook our hands. “Goodbye, Mr. Holmes, Father Simon. I have w-work to do.”

  I bade him farewell affectionately, and then it was time for Holmes’s train. I accompanied him to the platform, where in the humid cold he was creating his own fog bank with his voluminous pipe.

  “You have been materially useful to me, Tuck,” he said, extending his hand. “I have been solitary too long. When I return to London, I shall take more spacious rooms and advertise for a congenial partner to help with expenses—and perhaps with other things as well.”