“From November of ‘84 through the end of spring of ‘85 I had a small practice in Post Street.” I tried to cheer him up. “It should be a welcome change for you, Holmes. San
Francisco is a pretty city, not without its attractions—and distractions.” And then it was my turn to fall silent, held prisoner by a sudden flood of painful memories.
“Then I take it you would not mind seeing it again.” Holmes stoked his pipe for the third time with shag. “I imagine your partner could handle your practice; we should be back in London in less than two months.”
“You can’t ask me to go!” I protested. “The city holds nothing but unpleasant memories for me!”
Holmes was startled by my outburst, and I felt it necessary to explain.
“I met my first wife there, Holmes. She worked as a nurse in the Marine Hospital, and we fell deeply in love and married within a fortnight. Two months later, she was dead of cholera.”
“I am sorry, Watson,” he murmured. “I had no idea, you never told me.”
“It is not the sort of thing I talk about,” I said stiffly.
We continued to sit in silence, nursing our respective wounds and watching the fog swirl past the panes. For once I wished there were a seven percent solution that might help me bury the painful past if only for an hour or so. Finally Holmes said simply, “My dear Watson, I should be lost without you.”
It was the closest thing to a plea that Holmes had ever made to me and so, of course, I agreed to go. Three weeks later we were sitting in front of a fireplace in San Francisco’s Palace hotel, drinking sherry and listening to the clop of the carriages outside, the ringing of the bells on the cable cars and, of course, the low moaning of the foghorns on the bay. I noticed with some amusement that outside the gaslights were mere blurs of light, as useless in a San Francisco fog as their counterparts were in one that was London made.
The furnishings of our suite were lavish while the dining room of the Palace was the equal of any restaurant in London. We had been there for the better part of a week, dining sumptuously at Prince Edward’s expense but, alas, no nearer to solving the riddle of Leona Adler’s disappearance.
Holmes fiddled with his pipe, unhappy that he hadn’t been able to find his favorite shag in San Francisco.
“This morning, Watson, you said you were going to Leona Adler’s rooming house, her last known address, but instead I see you spent your time rummaging through files of the local newspapers.”
I stared at him in surprise. “The landlady was absent and the two roomers I talked to—both ruffians—were not disposed to give me any information about Leona Adler. But how did you know I had read through the papers?”
“I could not help but notice your waistcoat and your sleeves. Those little specks of paper could only have come from searching through stacks of newsprint. And your cuffs, Watson—they are black with printer’s ink where you’ve rubbed them across a hundred different pages!”
I inspected my cuffs with shock, then brushed irritably at the tiny pieces of paper clinging to my waistcoat.
“You can repair your appearance later, Watson. What did you find out?”
I dug around in my pockets for my notes, adjusted my reading glasses and moved closer to the light of the fire.
“Leona Adler gave her first concert at the Opera House, October 2, 1884. She sang a number of arias from Puccini’s La Boheme and La Traviata and reprised the role of Arsace in Rossini’s Semirande. From the reviews it is obvious the audience was no more than polite. The critics were less so, especially her assaying of Arsace.”
Holmes looked at me impatiently. “It is a role for a contralto, and she undoubtedly sang it because it was in Irene’s repertoire and Irene excelled at trouser roles. Don’t forget the rivalry between the two, Watson. How long was the review, incidentally?”
I wondered what on earth that had to do with anything. “As I recall, almost a full column. She was new to the city then and they went into some detail.”
“And the reviews for recitals after that?”
By now, I was thoroughly confused.
“Her reviews varied, Holmes; at times she was better received than at other—”
“I meant the length of them, Watson!”
“They seemed to get shorter and shorter, when I could find any reviews at all.”
Holmes looked grim. “Then I imagine the theaters got smaller and smaller as well. Whoever was her impressario would not have paid for empty seats—one who deals in birds always knows the commercial value of his canaries. I think we can assume that, all in all, her trip to San Francisco was a failure. She had neither the glamour nor the talents of her sister and contrary to our own naive beliefs of the American West, San Francisco audiences are hardly culturally illiterate. They have a reputation as the most sophisticated in the West, and the best performers in the country have made a point of playing here. I am afraid Leona Adler misjudged the city.”
I glanced at my last note. “Her final recital—the review was very short—was a collection of American favorites that she delivered at an establishment called the Bella Union.” “And that was when?”
“Approximately two years after she arrived in the city.” I hesitated. “If she was not a success here, I fail to see why she didn’t try elsewhere, say Seattle or Vancouver.”
Holmes stared intently into the fire as if he could somehow see Leona Adler among the dancing flames. The firelight outlined his narrow face, emphasizing his hawklike nose and casting heavy shadows over his dark brows, now creased in thought.
“Because she did not wish to leave. Because something was holding her here—I suspect the possibility of marriage that she briefly mentioned.” He prodded at the fire with the poker. “There is always the possibility that we may run into her when we least expect to, Watson. From time to time you should refresh your memory and study the studio portrait Mycroft gave us.”
I remembered the photograph quite well and resented Holmes suggesting I memorize it as if I were a schoolboy. At the time of the studio sitting Leona Adler had been a young woman with chestnut hair—at least, that is what the colorist had given her, wasp waist, and a flowing gown that formed a small train behind her. Her hair had been piled high atop her head, revealing prominent cheekbones and a faint but firm smile of great determination. She was holding a bass viol while on the wall behind her hung several other musical instruments, an obvious attempt to stress her chosen vocation and point out that she could play as well as sing. She looked, I thought, very much like Holmes’s description of her older sister.
Slightly nettled by his interrogation of me I said, “I assume that you were busy as well, Holmes?”
“A short visit to what they call the Barbary Coast.” He smiled with a grim pleasure. “As fine a collection of beer halls and brothels as I have ever seen. It would make London’s East End look like the wellsprings of civilization.” “A tourist’s trip, Holmes, they all fake it. But I fail to see the relevance to the disappearance of Miss Adler.”
Holmes laughed. “You’ve accused me in the past of ignoring the social amenities. I took your advice and made the acquaintance of the local police. One of their number offered to show me around the city in exchange for lunch and for what I hope will be an informative dinner here tonight.”
It was my turn to smile. “So you admit you sometimes benefit from my advice.”
He took a moment to knock the dottle from his pipe. “My dear Watson, I gladly give credit where credit is due. For one so often wrong, the law of averages dictates that sometimes you have to be right!”
Michael Van Dyke, despite the Dutch derivation of his name, was thoroughly American. A tall, middle-aged, dapper man with a ruddy, fleshy face, he was elegantly dressed in a checkered coat, a silk waistcoat with a thick, gold watch chain running from one pocket to the other, and wearing a carefully brushed bowler. A heavy, melton cloth coat was draped casually over one arm and he carried a walking stick in the other. He was waiting just off
the entrance to the dining room and hurried over when he saw us.
“I changed the reservation to my name, gentlemen— dinner’s on the department, the least we can do for noted guests.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Holmes said easily. “Lieutenant Van Dyke, I would like you to meet my partner, Dr. John Watson.”
Van Dyke nodded, gave his coat, hat and stick to a nearby waiter, then took us both by the arm and hustled us to a table by one side of the room so we had a commanding view of the entire dining area.
“Always sit with your back to the wall, never put yourself in a position to be surprised, that’s my advice.”
He immediately ordered whiskeys-and-sodas for all of us. After the second round, which Holmes refused, he motioned to the hovering waiter and ordered for us from the menu in creditable if accented French. I was impressed but noticed that Holmes seemed more reserved and speculative. “You’ve come a long way from London,” Van Dyke said after we finished dinner and he had passed around cigars. ‘The captain told me you’re on the trail of Leona Adler.” He exhaled a perfect ring of smoke, then slouched back in his seat and waved his cigar. “Anything I can tell you, just ask.” “Why, we would be grateful for most anything at all,” Holmes said cheerfully. He was preoccupied with his cigar, almost, but not quite, hiding his delight at its quality.
“The Adler woman,” Van Dyke puffed. “Came out here from New Jersey in 1884, apparently trying to earn a living with operatic recitals. Nice voice but not top-drawer, if you know what I mean. And this is a town that loves either top-drawer or bottom but nothing in between. Her first manager dropped her and she picked up another, but he booked her into joints that were strictly low class.”
“Low class?” I said.
He waved his hand. “Every now and then, a concert saloon will try to improve itself and book a higher grade of talent. Usually they can’t afford it and wind up with second-best, but like I said, this is a town that’s interested in the top and fascinated by the bottom but nothing in the middle.” “And then?” I prompted.
“After two years none of the better theaters would feature her. If you saw her act once, there was no need to see it again and word spread.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” Holmes said shortly. Van Dyke’s face flushed and Holmes held up his hand. “I hardly meant offense. But I cannot see why she would not have tried her luck in another city with less exacting standards.” I was flattered that Holmes had picked up on the very question that I had raised earlier.
“One of the mining camp towns like Virginia City? No mystery there. She fell in love with a William McGuire shortly after coming to San Francisco. Nice enough fellow, I knew him briefly.”
‘They never married?” Holmes asked.
Van Dyke shook his head. “McGuire had gold fever. Left town in ‘86 for the big strike on Forty-mile Creek up in Alaska. Promised to marry her when he struck it rich, but she never heard from him again. Probably got shot by a claim jumper, but I don’t know that for a fact.”
“So she waited for her lover to return and when he never did, she vanished,” I said.
Van Dyke waved to the waiter to bring us a round of after-dinner drinks.
“Vanished isn’t the word I would use.” He suddenly became apologetic. “So far, everything I’ve told you about the Adler woman is fact. But a few months ago we fished a body from the bay and as far as we could determine, it was the body of Leona Adler. My guess is that she had finally given up waiting for McGuire to return, was too proud to go home and decided to end it all.” He shrugged. “It happens more often than you might think. A lot of people come to San Francisco hoping to make their fortune. But this is the end of the continent, this is as far as they can go. You come out with dreams and then reality sets in. A lot of people can’t face it.” He drained his glass and waved to the waiter to bring the check. “I’m a gambling man and while I can’t prove that Miss Adler committed suicide, I wouldn’t bet against it.”
“You should have told us immediately!” I cried, indignant.
Van Dyke’s face hardened. “We don’t work on supposition here in the States any more than you do back in London. She’d been in the water a long time; identification was strictly circumstantial. You’re a doctor, you know what they look like when they’ve been in the drink for a few weeks and the crabs have been at them.”
We sat in silence for a long moment, I still annoyed and Holmes sunk in thought. Van Dyke finally said, “Cheer up, gentlemen. Sorry about Leona Adler, but I don’t think you really believed you were going to find her alive and kicking. Tell you what, stay for a few more days and I’ll show you the town.” He winked at Holmes. “When it comes to depravity, no city can match this one—it would give London a run for its money!”
Holmes scrubbed out his cigar in a nearby ashtray. “We might accept that offer. I have heard a lot about your Chinatown.”
“There’s a lot to see; the Chinamen live closer together than sardines. We estimate there are more than fifty thousand Chinks in San Francisco, only a few thousand of them women. And of those few thousand, ninety-five percent are whores. No surprise there, if you know the breed.”
He pushed away from the table and we stood up. “You want a guided tour of the seamy side, I’m your man. Maybe I can even show you the Phantom of the Barbary Coast.” We were collecting our hats in the lobby now and Holmes asked politely: “Phantom?”
Van Dyke slipped into his coat. “I haven’t seen her myself, but by all reports, she’s a real live ghost. All dressed in white, appears late at night at the mouth of an alley off Pacific Street. Get too close, she disappears up the alley. From all accounts, so does anybody who follows her. A San Francisco legend, Mr. Holmes, though not quite as solid as our former Emperor Norton.”
“A fanciful tale,” I snorted.
Van Dyke winked once again. “But a good excuse for a tour of the local melodeons and deadfalls.”
Back in our rooms, I rang for some tea while Holmes took off his coat and tie and poked at the now cold fire.
“What did you think, Watson?”
“Of our host?” I asked. ‘The dinner? His comments about Miss Adler? Or that outrageous tale about the phantom?” “First, the dinner—I’m sure that is uppermost in your mind.”
“One of the very best I have had, Holmes. I’m afraid it has spoiled me for when I return to London.”
Holmes fed little strips of paper under the grate where they promptly burst into flame, then made a small nest of twigs on top.
“And his comments about Miss Adler?”
I shrugged. “It does not surprise me. But I don’t envy you when you have to tell Prince Edward.”
“The case is hardly closed, Watson. We will pay a visit to the boarding house tomorrow—perhaps somebody there remembers McGuire. I have a feeling that at least part of the solution lies in the nature of the man.”
The fire was roaring now and he pulled a chair closer to it, turned up a nearby gaslight and made himself comfortable with the evening paper.
“You surprise me, Holmes,” I said after a moment. “You’ve offered no comments about our host.”
He lowered his paper, frowning. “Because I am a fish out of water, Watson. My powers of deduction are almost useless in a foreign country. London fits me like a glove, I know its every wrinkle. I can tell the wealth of a man by the quality of the cigar ash he leaves behind, what section of town he lives in by the color of the mud on his boots. But to find my way around this city, I need a map.” He shot me a glance. “I still have my powers of observation but no hook on which to hang my deductions, which makes us almost even. You have a slight advantage since you have lived here before. What did you think of our host?”
“A true American,” I smiled. “Generous to a fault, as helpful as he can be though I suppose by English standards, a little crude and at times impolite. But you can hardly fault the man for that, it’s a raw city with people to match.”
“As usual, yo
u see but you do not observe, Watson. Our friend is a bigoted dandy and more than a little ostentatious, both of which are major clues as to his character. And I am very much afraid that in this puzzle, character will turn out to be everything.”
“You’re faulting him for being typically American, Holmes. After all, this is not England!”
“No, indeed it is not,” Holmes sighed. “But think of our noble Lestrade, Watson, and compare him to our American friend. Imagine them in your mind’s eye standing side by side. What is the first thing that strikes you?”
“Lestrade is obviously thinner,” I said after a moment. “And I believe not quite as tall—”
“My dear Watson, I fear there is no hope for you! The most obvious difference is in the way they dress! The suit our good Lestrade wears is at least three years old, his boots are worn, his cuffs are frayed. Our American host, unlike his compatriots in the department, looks as if he had just stepped out of a shop window. And the meal tonight—I watched when he paid the check and he settled it personally and with cash. One is led to believe San Francisco pays its police exceedingly well, which would be contrary to my experience in any city, or that police work is merely part time for our friend and he actually makes his living at a different endeavor entirely.”
I looked at him, startled. “And what might that be, Holmes?”
He turned back to his paper,
“I have no idea but I suspect we shall soon find out.” “And his fanciful tale about the ghost?”
“Ah, Watson, we shall discover the truth of that together!”
The landlady, Hattie Daniels, was as different from Mrs. Hudson as one could possibly imagine. She was thin, hard-faced, with stringy gray hair tied back in a bun and an apron over her black woolen dress that was stained with the remnants of the previous night’s cooking. The weather-beaten sign out front promised both breakfast and dinner with the rent, though if I had been a boarder, I doubt that I would have looked forward to either.
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