Sherlock Holmes In America

by Martin H. Greenberg

  “Because she left of her own free will and has no desire to return.”

  This time both of Harriet Penny’s parents gasped. “That’s impossible!” her father exclaimed angrily. “We know her disappearance could not have been voluntary.”

  “Not only was it voluntary, it was carefully planned. Shall I explain?”

  “You had better, before I throw you out of my house!” Penny said, his handsome face mottled with fury.

  “First of all, Miss Penny had arranged to be alone at the church that morning.”

  “How could she have done that?” Mrs. Penny asked.

  “She had told the other two ladies they were to meet the following day, thereby ensuring they would not be at the church that morning. Then she suggested to you, Mrs. Penny, that you should return home and spare yourself the unpleasant task of sorting old clothes. No doubt she knew you could be easily persuaded to do so.”

  Mrs. Penny had no reply to this. She just stared at Holmes in silent outrage.

  “When she was truly alone and unobserved, perhaps for one of the few times in her life, she left the church, walked to Union Station, and boarded a train for San Francisco.”

  The Pennys both protested vigorously, and even Malloy had to disagree.

  “Nobody saw her leave the church,” Malloy informed Holmes. “We asked everybody in the neighborhood.”

  “What exactly did you ask them?” Holmes asked.

  “If they had seen a young woman leaving the church with a man.”

  “But she didn’t leave with a man, and she wasn’t forced or doing anything to call attention to herself. She would have walked calmly out and disappeared into the crowd. No one in that alley would have paid the slightest heed to her, just as they paid no heed to us yesterday.”

  “My daughter would never have left her home and family, much less boarded a train to anywhere at all!” Penny insisted. “She would never have caused her mother and me so much concern!”

  “And why would she go to San Francisco?” Mrs. Penny asked. “We don’t know anyone there at all!”

  “Yes, you do. Mr. Etheridge lives in San Francisco. He accepted a call to a church there after he left Princeton.”

  “Etheridge? How would Harriet have known he was there? And why would she even have cared?” her father scoffed.

  “I believe Miss Penny had developed a fondness for Mr. Etheridge, and he for her.”

  “Impossible!” Penny insisted.

  “And they had corresponded in the months since he returned to the seminary.”

  “I would have known if she was corresponding with anyone!” Mrs. Penny wailed.

  “Mr. Penny himself told us she corresponded with missionaries,” Holmes reminded them. “She could have easily included her letters to Etheridge in those mailings and received replies in the same way.”

  “But . . . ” Mrs. Penny cast about desperately for another argument to refute Holmes’s claims. “She couldn’t possibly have left voluntarily. She didn’t take so much as a hairpin with her!” she tried.

  “You yourself told me she was carrying a bundle of clothing when you left the house that morning,” Holmes reminded her.

  “Secondhand clothing,” Mrs. Penny explained. “She collected it from our neighbors. I saw it myself!”

  “But you told me you didn’t see her sorting the clothes in that particular bundle. Would you ring for your maid, please?”

  Startled at the seemingly incongruous request, Penny pulled the bell rope. The maid appeared almost instantly, her eyes still wide with amazement.

  “Before we left yesterday,” Holmes said, “I asked your maid to go through Miss Penny’s clothing to see if anything was missing. Were her drawers empty?” he asked the girl.

  “No, sir, they were all full, just like they should be.”

  “You see,” Mrs. Penny said. “I told you!”

  “Did you notice anything unusual?” Holmes asked the girl, ignoring Mrs. Penny.

  “Yes, sir,” the maid said, nodding her head vigorously. “None of the clothes in the drawers was hers!”

  “Whose were they?” Holmes asked.

  “I don’t know,” the girl said, “but they was all raggedy and old, like something you’d throw out.”

  “Or send to the missionaries in foreign lands,” Holmes said.

  “What are you talking about?” Mrs. Penny cried.

  “Miss Penny had packed her belongings in the bundle that was supposed to be clothing for the missionaries and left the old clothing she had collected in her drawers. I am guessing she had secreted a carpetbag in the church at some time in preparation. When you left the church that morning, she put her own belongings that she had carried from home into it, and took it with her to the train. Then she used the ticket Mr. Etheridge had sent her and went to join him.”

  “This is all conjecture,” Mrs. Penny exclaimed, her face now crimson with outrage. “I refuse to believe a word of it.”

  But Mr. Penny had calmed down a bit, and he was studying Holmes with a contemplative frown. “I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have concocted this wild tale with the best of intentions, to reassure Mrs. Penny and myself that our daughter is safe on the other side of the country when you really believe her to be a fallen woman held captive someplace where we will never find her. If this is the case, I assure you, we are strong enough to hear the truth, whatever it may be.”

  Mrs. Penny’s cry of anguish proved she wasn’t as strong as her husband claimed, but Holmes ignored her. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the telegram he had received earlier today. “I took the liberty of telephoning Princeton Seminary yesterday. They were kind enough to give me Mr. Etheridge’s direction in San Francisco, and I sent him a telegram informing him that Miss Penny’s disappearance had caused a sensation in New York. He was completely ignorant of this unfortunate development. Most probably he and Miss Penny felt certain no one but her parents would even notice she was gone. Under the circumstances, they wish you to know that your daughter and Mr. Etheridge were married three days ago in San Francisco. I believe congratulations are in order.”

  Holmes held out the telegram, and Malloy snatched it from him before the Reverend Mr. Penny could gather his wits.

  “It’s true,” the detective confirmed when he had scanned it.

  “The ungrateful baggage,” Penny snapped. “How dare she be so selfish? Frightening her mother and me so terribly and all for her own purposes!”

  “Why, she asked me only a few weeks ago what I would say if someone wanted to marry her,” Mrs. Penny recalled furiously. “I told her not to be ridiculous, that no one was going to marry her, and besides, her duty was to care for her father and me. Yet still she chose to desert us!”

  “I’ve got some friends at the newspapers,” Malloy said. “I’ll give them the word. The real story will be in tomorrow’s papers, and that should calm the city down again.”

  “You should also put an announcement of the marriage in the society pages,” Holmes suggested. “To at least give the illusion that you approve the match. That will go a long way to stopping the gossip.”

  We left the Pennys still in shock at the treachery of the daughter they had believed to be without a mind or spirit of her own.

  “Who would’ve believed Harriet Penny had so much gumption? How did you figure it out?” Malloy asked as we strolled down the tree-lined street in search of a cab. It was as close as he would come to complimenting Holmes.

  “When you told me Miss Penny was as plain as an old boot,” Holmes recalled with a small smile, “I wondered why one of those young men who work for the madams . . . What did you call them?”

  “Cadets,” Malloy supplied.

  “I wondered why a cadet would select such an unattractive girl—who was already a bit old for the trade, by the way—when the city abounds with much more likely prospects. So the theory that she had been kidnapped to a brothel seemed unlikely. As I mentioned, when a young woman disappears, there is usually a
man or a theater troupe involved. Since the minister’s missing daughter never attended the theater, I simply had to identify the man, no matter how unlikely a candidate he might seem.”

  “She was clever,” Malloy said.

  “She had to be to escape from those two,” Holmes said.

  But not more clever than Sherlock Holmes.

  THE CASE OF COLONEL CROCKETT’S VIOLIN

  Gillian Linscott

  Gillian Linscott is the author of the Nell Bray crime series, featuring a militant suffragette detective in Britain in the early years of the twentieth century. One of the series, Absent Friends, won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger for best historical crime novel of 2000 and the Herodotus Award. She has worked as a news reporter for the Guardian and a political reporter for BBC local radio stations. She lives in a threehundred-and-fifty-year-old cottage in Herefordshire, England, and in addition to writing, now works as a professional gardener. Interests include mountain walking and trampolining.

  “Admit it, Watson. Texas has not come up to your expectations.” My old friend lounged in a cane chair on our hotel balcony, the hint of a smile on his lips. Our days at sea had done wonders for his health and spirits. His face was lightly tanned, shaded by the brim of a Panama hat.

  “It’s not as I’d imagined,” I agreed.

  He laughed.

  “You’d hoped for cowboys with lariats and six shooters, Indian chiefs in war bonnets.”

  Since that was pretty well the vision that had come to my mind when the unexpected invitation arrived on a drizzly day at Baker Street, I tried to hide my irritation.

  “Certainly San Antonio seems peaceable enough,” I said.

  Two floors below, in the courtyard of the Menger Hotel, broad leaves of banana trees shifted gently in the breeze. Our suite, with its lounge, two bedrooms, and bathroom, was as clean and comfortable as anything you might find in London, perhaps more so. From where I was standing I could glimpse a corner of the town’s plaza, with men crossing from shade to sun and back, looking much like men of business anywhere, though moving at a leisurely pace in the heat. A neat landau, drawn by a grey pony and carrying a woman in a white dress, trotted briefly into sight and out again.

  “We’ve come too late for the wild days, Watson. Seventy years ago we might have arrived in a covered wagon, pursued by as many braves or Mexicans as your warlike heart could wish. I confess my preference for the Mallory Line.”

  We’d traveled in comfort down the coast from New York to Galveston on Mallory’s three-thousand-ton steamer, SS Alamo, then on by Pullman car. The letter of invitation had implored us to make all convenient speed and spare no expense—both admonitions quite wasted on Holmes, who would spend time and money exactly according to his opinion of what was necessary and nobody else’s. He stood up and joined me at the rail of our balcony, looking down at the courtyard. A gentleman in a white suit and hat had appeared from the reception area and was walking towards the foot of our staircase. Holmes gave a chuckle of satisfaction.

  “Unless I am mistaken, Watson, here comes our client now.”

  Benjamin Austin Barratt was a gentleman of fifty years or so, still vigorous, straight-backed, and broad-shouldered, with thick dark hair and a small moustache on an otherwise clean-shaven face. His manners were courtly, asking after our health and our journey, as if his only purpose were to make us welcome in his native town. It was Holmes who cut short the preliminaries and brought us to business.

  “You mentioned in your letter that you were writing on behalf of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Do we take it that you are their representative?”

  “Indeed so, sir. You will surely be aware that before Texas became part of the United States of America it was an independent republic in its own right by virtue of—”

  “We are aware of it, yes.”

  Holmes spoke with some impatience. Almost everybody we’d met, from our fellow passengers on the voyage down, to the lad who’d carried our cases to our rooms on arrival, had offered this fact as soon as setting eyes on us. Barratt showed no annoyance and went on with his explanation.

  “The ladies thought it preferable that you should be approached by a businessman with some standing in our community. Since I have the honour to be one of the benefactors of their Alamo project and have an interest in the matter under discussion, it was agreed that I should write to you. You will have gathered something of our dilemma from my letter.”

  “The case of Davy Crockett’s superfluous fiddle,” Holmes said.

  His tone was light. He’d responded to the letter in something of a holiday spirit because it piqued his curiosity. Barratt’s posture stiffened for a moment and there was a hint of reproach in his tone.

  “Colonel Crockett’s violin, yes indeed, Mr. Holmes. The most famous musical instrument in our country’s history. That it should have survived the battle is miraculous. That there are two of them is a matter so embarrassing that the ladies decided it could only be settled by the greatest detective in the world, who also happens to be an amateur of the violin.”

  Holmes nodded at the tribute, as no more than his due.

  “Your letter spoke of urgency.”

  “Yes, sir. This year the Daughters of the Republic of Texas took on responsibility for safeguarding what remains of the old Alamo mission building, where the battle took place sixty-nine years ago. They plan to open it as a national shrine and a museum. Naturally, the very violin that Colonel Crockett carried with him when he brought his men of the Tennessee Mounted Rifles to join the defenders in the Alamo, the violin he played to hearten them all during the siege, will be its most precious exhibit.”

  “It is a fact that Davy . . . that is, Colonel Crockett, had his violin with him in the Alamo,” I said. “There was one evening when he had a competition with a man who played the bagpipes and . . . ”

  I’d done some reading on the subject before we left London. All it brought me was an impatient look from Holmes.

  “We can take that as established. But is there any explanation of how such a fragile thing as a violin escaped the destruction of everything else when the Mexicans stormed the Alamo?”

  “One of the violins is in my possession,” Barratt said. “I look forward to telling you its story when I hope you will do us the honour of taking dinner with us tomorrow night, but I believe its history is as well-authenticated as anybody could wish.”

  “And the other violin?” Holmes asked.

  “I’m sure Mrs. Legrange will tell you that hers has a well-authenticated history too. I know she plans to meet you. One thing I should like to make clear.”

  For the first time in our conversation, his voice was hesitant. Holmes raised an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.

  “There is no enmity between Mrs. Legrange and myself, none whatever,” Barratt said. “She is a very charming and patriotic lady and we all admire her very much. We have both agreed that this business must be settled in a quiet and peaceable manner as soon as possible, and we shall both abide by your verdict. May I send my carriage for you two gentlemen at six o’clock tomorrow?”

  Holmes told him that he might.

  As Barratt crossed the courtyard, one of the hotel’s messenger boys passed him in the opposite direction and came up the stairs to our suite carrying an envelope.

  “I believe we are about to receive an invitation from the owner of the second fiddle,” Holmes said.

  A knock sounded at the door. I answered it and was handed an envelope by the messenger boy.

  “Pray open it and read it aloud, Watson,” Holmes said.

  The signature was Evangeline Legrange, with as many curls and loops to it as a tangled trout line. I read:

  My dear Mr. Holmes,

  I hope you will excuse this informality of approaching you without introduction, but I wonder whether you and Dr. Watson would care to join us on a picnic luncheon outing to San Pedro Springs tomorrow. If I may, I shall send a gig for you at eleven.

  Holmes told me t
o ask the boy to wait while he dashed off a polite line of acceptance on hotel notepaper.

  “She gives no address,” I objected.

  “She has no need,” he said. “If you look out of the other window, you’ll see she’s waiting outside in the landau with the grey pony.”

  And I thought he hadn’t noticed.

  I spent the rest of the day exploring San Antonio, while Holmes refused to be drawn from our shady balcony, smoking his pipe and reading a book that had nothing whatsoever to do with the subject under investigation. The town proved to be every bit as calm and prosperous as on first acquaintance. In whatever direction you might stroll, you were never far away from a river bank. Breezes rustled the groves of their strange twisted oak trees and freshened the southern heat. To my pleasure, I even saw several unmistakable cowboys in broad-brimmed hats and leather chaps, lounging on their raw-boned horses in saddles as large and deep as club armchairs. I climbed the hill to the barracks in the hour before sunset to watch the soldiers drilling, then walked back down to try to persuade my companion to take a stroll before dinner. There was no sign that he’d stirred all the time I’d been away and I might have failed in my purpose if his eye had not been caught by a flare of fire in a corner of the wide plaza.

  “Good heavens, Holmes, has a building caught fire?” I cried.

  “Nothing so calamitous. Shall we go and see?”

  His keen senses had caught, as mine soon did, the smell of spices and the scent of charred meat. We strolled across the plaza in the dusk and found that part of it had been taken over by dozens of small stalls with charcoal braziers, tended by Mexicans. A band was playing jaunty music on accordions, violins, and a kind of rattling object, a woman singing in a plaintive voice that cut across the music and gave it a touch of sadness and yearning. We were surrounded by brown smiling faces with teeth very white against the dusk, women with silver ornaments twined in their black hair, and voices that spoke in murmuring Spanish. It was as if our few steps across the plaza had taken us all the way to the far side of the Rio Grande and we were in Mexico itself. Holmes seemed delighted, as he always was by things unexpected. He even allowed a woman to sell him something that looked like a kind of rolled up pancake.