by Braven
I could scarcely recall London without the Underground, and could in no wise imagine living there without it. So much for American get-up-and-go!
"Well," said I with some impatience, looking around at the congealed mass of vehicles which surrounded us, "if they put half the transportation up in the air, and the other half underground, perhaps it will be possible to get around the streets at faster than a walking pace!"
"Hey! How do I get t'rough here?" the driver bawled to a workman in the excavation.
"You don't," came the reply. "Go back an' cut over to Seventh."
"Ah, dat'll take half an hour," the driver said in disgust. Holmes consulted his watch.
"Half past three already, Watson! No, it won't do! Driver! Where are we now?"
"T'irty-fourt' Street, just about at Sixt' Avenue."
"And the Empire's at Thirty-ninth and Broadway. Come along, Watson, the walk will do us good." So saying, he pulled out some bills from his note-case and handed them up to the driver. "Get our things to the Hotel Algonquin as fast as you're able. I'm sure this will take care of your time and trouble." As I knew, from my hasty researches at the steamship office, that New York cab fares were an American dollar a mile for four-wheelers, and the same amount by the hour, it seemed to me that the sum Holmes tendered would have taken care of the hackman for the rest of the day.
"Come on, Watson," said Sherlock Holmes, stepping briskly from the carriage. "We've walked that distance tenfold in a single afternoon in London!"
"But not," said I, falling in with his stride, "picking our way among trenchworks worthy of a battlefield!"
For the subway excavation continued along the street on which we were walking, and we were obliged to skirt banks of upturned earth and rubble and sometimes make our way across a ditch on a kind of plank walk.
"Heads up!" cried a workman toiling away in the pit, and flung a shovelful of dirt into the air.
Only by skipping nimbly aside was I able to avoid receiving it full on my person. I allowed myself the peevish reflection that George the Third, had he undergone the experience of a New York traffic block and then been showered with earth, might not have made so much of a fuss about relinquishing his colonies. Part of my discomfort was due to the temperature, which seemed inordinately warm for the end of March, but then I recalled that New York lies at a considerably more southerly latitude than London, and is therefore by comparison nearly in the Tropics.
As we walked on, my spirits lifted. The shops, restaurants, theaters, and hotels which lined the street presented a scene of colorful activity, and the air, though warm, had in it a bracing tang new to me.
By keeping an eye on the street signs and noticing that the numbers became higher as we made our way northward, I was able at last to deduce that the next street we would come to was Thirty-ninth, our destination. On its corner I saw a massive building in elaborately carved brownstone, stretching from one street to the next.
"Good heavens, Holmes," said I. "Is that the Empire Theater? It dwarfs practically anything in London except the Albert Hall."
"No, Watson, it's the Metropolitan Opera House. The Empire's just around this corner."
We turned it, and I perceived the theater's identifying sign projecting into the street. Though not as grand as the opera house, it was still on a larger scale than most of our theaters, and evidently newly constructed.
I followed Sherlock Holmes into the lobby, grateful for its musty coolness after the heat of the streets.
Holmes pointed toward the brass-grilled ticket window and said, "Watson, just try to get us two tickets for tonight, will you? I'm going to try to find out what I can inside."
"Oh, yes, of course, Holmes," I responded. "I'll join you as soon as I'm done."
He pushed open the door leading to the theater auditorium and disappeared. I made my purchase without having to try to decipher the seating plan of the Empire, as the clerk offered me no choice.
"These are the last seats for tonight's performance, mister. They're good ones. I wouldn't have 'em except somebody returned 'em just an hour ago. Take 'em or leave 'em."
I took them, pleased at the fortunate happenstance that had enabled me to execute my commission, though the two and a half dollars—ten shillings—each seat cost seemed to me excessive. I turned to follow Holmes.
A glance at the tickets, however, made me stop, staring, for an instant, and returned to the ticket window. After a brief exchange of questions and answers with the clerk, I left the lobby.
As I entered the rear of the theater, I saw Holmes down front, just commencing a conversation with a man in a rumpled jacket, evidently the stage doorman, who was emerging from behind the scenes.
"Yes, sir?" this fellow called.
"How do you do? Is Miss Irene Adler in the theater, do you know?"
"Nobody's here but me."
"I must see her at once! Can you tell me where I might reach her?"
The doorman shook his head.
"No one is to be disturbed before curtain time. Mr. Furman's orders."
"But this is extremely urgent!"
I slowed my steps and remained in the gloom at the back of the auditorium, feeling it best to let Holmes handle this problem without the extraneous factor of my presence.
"So are Mr. Furman's orders," the doorman said complacently.
Holmes persisted.
"Do you know her address?" he inquired.
The doorman moved to the edge of the stage and confronted Holmes.
"Look, I just finished telling you—"
"Yes, yes, quite," said Holmes testily. "Look here, my good man, when did you last see Miss Adler?"
"This morning, at line rehearsal."
Holmes stiffened, his next words freighted with eagerness. "Was she all right?"
"Letter perfect."
"Was she? I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear you say so! Now, if I might prevail on you for a further service . . ." I saw him take out his note-case and pass up a bill and one of his calling-cards to the doorman. "Would you be so kind as to give Miss Adler my card directly when she gets here, and tell her that I am at the Algonquin Hotel and must speak to her as soon as possible?"
The doorman's eyes widened as he inspected the card, and he glanced sharply at Holmes.
"I guess I can do that for you, all right, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!"
I felt a small glow of pride at the thought that my modest chronicles of my friend's adventures had made his name famous and respected, even here.
"You shall have earned my eternal gratitude," said Holmes, and turned to walk up the aisle.
I moved to meet him, flourishing the theater tickets which had so perplexed me. The doorman, evidently not needed at his post while the theater was largely deserted, sank into a chair at the left of the stage and appeared to fall into that somnolence which men in tedious but inactive jobs learn to cultivate.
"I say, Holmes—" I began.
"Well, we've one bit of reassurance in any event," said he, as much musing to himself as sharing information with me. "As late as this morning she was apparently in good health. Now, Watson, what have you been able to accomplish?"
"It's a rum go, Holmes, a deucedly rum go. Look at these tickets—last two in the house for tonight, the chap at the window claims."
Sherlock Holmes' expression darkened as he took the slips of pasteboard from my hands and read the printing thereon.
"Row E, seats one and three—"
He whirled and made for the door leading to the lobby.
"Don't bother, Holmes," I told him. "I've already questioned the fellow."
"Have you, now?" said he, stopping and facing me once more.
"Yes. Those tickets were purchased a fortnight ago—by Irene Adler."
Holmes stared at me keenly, and nodded his head slowly. "To send to me."
"Exactly."
"Then how come they to be here?"
"They were returned."
"When, Watson?"
; "Earlier this afternoon."
"And by whom?"
"Some stranger to the man in the ticket office. Never saw him before, he says. Holmes, what on earth do you make of it all?"
Even in the gloom of the theater, its only light the single glaring bulb dangling from a flex over the stage where the resting—or sleeping—doorman sat, I could see that Sherlock Holmes' face was stern and troubled.
"Watson," said he, "all my apprehensions are returning. Those tickets sent to Baker Street were forgeries. These, the genuine ones, were intercepted before they could reach me."
What he said seemed to follow from the known facts, but to make no sensible pattern.
"But whatever for?" said I.
Holmes folded his length into one of the narrow seats next the aisle and slumped in it, staring unseeingly at the rows of seat-backs in front of him.
After a moment, he said softly, "A phrase continues to ring in my ears, Watson: 'The crime of the century—the past century, this one, and all centuries yet to come—is now in preparation.' Moriarty said that to me."
"You think that he's behind . . . whatever it is that's going on?"
"'. . . it will take place before your very eyes! And you will be powerless to prevent it!' It smells of greasepaint, Watson, the bluster of a melodrama villain—yet Professor Moriarty is not the man to boast idly! I am nine parts certain that he's in New York at this very moment, and that this business with the tickets is his doing." He glanced up at me. "There's deviltry afoot, Watson. I feel it in my very marrow!"
"Well, what do we do about it?" said I.
Sherlock Holmes held up the tickets.
"Until it chooses to reveal its nature to us," he replied, "we can do nothing but dress, dine, and attend the theater this evening. Moriarty has all the strings, it seems, and when he pulls, we needs must caper. But each move he makes, I tell you, Watson, brings us closer to finding what drama he means us to play. And when we know that, I fancy we may provide him with a different last act than that he has written!"
He fairly sprang out of his seat and strode from the theater. I followed him, pondering on the dark and twisting path that lay ahead of us. That it led through perilous territory, I was sure; but the worst of it was that the shape of those perils was unknown.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
I know now that, had I chanced to glance behind me as I made my way from the Empire Theater, I might have gained some inkling as to the reach of Professor Moriarty. I did not see what I now tell, but am satisfied that it is a true account of the events.
As the doors swung to behind us, the doorman rose from his seat, pulled a cloth cap from his pocket, and ran backstage, out the stage door and into the street, where he hailed a cab. Spurred by the promise of a double fare, the driver soon dropped his passenger in a mean district on the East River waterfront, as dismal and decrepit as a certain section of the Victoria Docks that has already figured in this narrative.
Slipping into a narrow space between two sagging, boarded-up buildings, the theater doorman rapped on a scarred door, which immediately opened to reveal a man in a tightly fitting, loudly checked suit.
"Is he in?" asked the doorman.
The man in the checked suit had no need to ask to whom the pronoun referred.
He gestured with his thumb, saying, "Upstairs."
The stage doorman scurried up the flight of stairs, knocked at a door, and opened it after hearing a brusque "Come in!"
Colonel Sebastian Moran, or any other of Professor Moriarty's minions now languishing in the Bow Street jail, would have paused a moment in astonishment upon entering the room. So might Sherlock Holmes. It was a replica, exact in every detail—except for its still-whole chandelier—of Moriarty's quarters in the Victoria Docks. The Professor, having found an arrangement that suited him, saw no reason not to have it available to him wherever he might be.
The doorman, being ignorant of this circumstance, took no notice of the room beyond his usual pang of envy at its richness. He did observe, with fleeting surprise, a woman's black dress and a straggling white wig tossed in a chair in the corner. He did not, even in his mind, speculate on their meaning; it didn't do to wonder about what he was up to.
"Do you have something for me, Zimmer?" said Moriarty.
The doorman held Holmes' card out to him. The banknote he had received, he decided, was not relevant to the Professor's purposes.
"He's here."
The Professor smiled broadly. "Indeed he is . . ." He looked up at Zimmer. "All right, back to your post. You know what to do."
The doorman nodded and made a sketchy gesture akin to a salute, then turned and left the room.
Professor Moriarty leaned back in his chair, his pale face aglow with a satisfied look of the sort that, in years past, would have been elicited by the final working-out of a complex equation. He opened the top drawer of the desk, and slid out a folded sheet of thick paper: a playbill for the Empire for that evening. One spatulate fingertip touched the printed name of Irene Adler, almost caressing it.
"Act One," he murmured. "And, with the cast assembled . . . the play begins!"
Chapter Six
The walk to our hotel, unpacking and bestowing our belongings, freshening up and dressing for dinner, and dinner itself, occupied the remainder of the time until the curtain was due to rise at the Empire; and occupied it, I must confess, in spite of the apprehensions both Holmes and I entertained regarding the future, quite agreeably. Dr. Johnson is supposed to have said that life affords few greater pleasures than riding with a pretty woman in a post-chaise, but I submit that to be for the first time in a great foreign city on an early-Spring evening, venturing forth in search of the best dining the place affords, with a major theatrical opening to follow, must come close to matching Johnson's ideal.
The very next street-corner to the west of our hotel, at Fifth Avenue, afforded two restaurants, Delmonico's and Sherry's. (It struck me as distinctly odd that New Yorkers could attach the same rich associations to their numbered thoroughfares as we do to our street names which speak of a thousand and more years of history, yet it must be so; for, to them, there is as much difference between Fifth Avenue and Ninth as we would perceive between Park Lane and Wardour Street.) I was at first attracted by the thought of Sherry's, as the name indicated that they had a civilized regard for that estimable drink, but the sign outside proclaiming that Mr. Louis Sherry had "Family and Bachelor Apartments to Rent," dissuaded me.
"After all, Holmes," said I, "if the man is concerned with providing accommodations, it follows that he has the less attention to give to the food he serves, and is in fact apt to set the sort of table one would expect at a superior lodging-house." I will defend the logic of my deduction, but must in fairness say that later experience persuaded me that Louis Sherry, in spite of taking in lodgers, deals most estimably with those who dine in his establishment.
In any case, Delmonico's proved to be an excellent choice for our first evening in New York. A white limestone building rising some six floors above the street level, and dominating its near neighbors, it had the aspect of a Renaissance palace, viewed from the outside. Once entered, it offered the alternatives of the Palm Room, a dining-room in the Louis XIV style, an oak-wainscoted café, and an upstairs dining-room that afforded a view down Fifth Avenue.
The airy, yellow-and-white color scheme of the Palm Room seemed the most attractive to me, and, as Holmes was, as nearly always, indifferent to his surroundings, I settled upon it. I suppose that London may provide scenes of greater elegance and luxury in its great hotels and restaurants, but the plain fact is, I was not much acquainted with them, my association with Sherlock Holmes tending to steer me toward a hastily downed cup of tea and a bun in an A.B.C. shop while we prowled the streets after a miscreant—a well-grilled sole at Simpson's in the Strand representing the height of our culinary adventures at home.
At Delmonico's, the bill of fare seemed half as tall
as a man, and I confess that I rather let myself go in sampling it: some oysters Rockefeller to start, then a cold soup, a portion of an exotic fish known as red snapper, for the game course a nicely done piece of venison . . . A full account of that repast would both impede my narrative and, I fear, establish me as a glutton in the reader's eyes, so I shall stop near the beginning. Holmes, never one to appreciate much what he ate, so long as it was ample and fresh, contented himself with beef and potatoes.
Half an hour before curtain-time, we left the restaurant and entered on to the brightly lit avenue, even at this hour crammed with cabs, coaches, drays, and omnibuses—I was glad that at least on this one thoroughfare, the speeding trams were not in evidence. With the theater just about half a mile away, Holmes suggested that we walk to it, and I acceded enthusiastically. After doing myself so well at Delmonico's, I felt that I needed some exercise before preparing to wedge myself into a theater seat for a period of two hours or so.
As it turned out, I need not have been concerned, either about a long period spent sitting in the theater, or lack of exercise.
When we took our two fifth-row seats just off one of the aisles, it lacked five minutes to the stated curtain-time. Ten minutes later, the curtain remained down, and I had become tired of glancing around at the glittering assembly that filled the Empire, a crowd that gave far more of an impression of both opulence and raw vigor than do our London theatergoers.
I observed Sherlock Holmes take out his watch, open the case, and glance inside.
"Time they were getting on with it, eh, Holmes?" said I.
He gave me a quick look and remarked, "I hadn't noticed the time, Watson—but, yes, I do believe you're right. It's five minutes past time now, and no sign—"
He cast a worried frown toward the stage, and I was left to wonder why he might have been looking inside his watch if not to see what time it told.
As the moments passed, a buzz rose from others in the audience who were concerned or irritated by the delay. Then the murmurs rose to a peak and were stilled as a worried-looking man in a dinner jacket entered from the wings and strode to the center of the stage, holding up both hands in a gesture beseeching silence.