by Braven
"That's Furman, the producer," I heard a man in front of me mutter to his neighbor.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the man on stage called, his voice quavering in evident nervousness. "I ask your indulgence, please!" Next to me, Holmes stirred uneasily. "Due to the sudden indisposition of Miss Irene Adler—"
Holmes was on his feet in an instant, fairly wrenching me out of my seat with a painful grip on my arm.
"Watson! Quick!" said he, and set off down the aisle. I followed him, and turned with him to race across the space in front of the first row, seeing the astonished faces of the theater patrons flicker past me. From the stage above, I could hear Furman continuing his explanation to the audience.
"—the role of Paula will be played at this performance by Miss May Robson. Thank you."
Exclamations of surprise and disappointment were just beginning to rise from the crowd as we pushed through the exit door and pounded along a short corridor and up a flight of stairs that led us to the wings.
Furman was now standing there, watching the opening scene of the performance. Somewhat behind him, I noticed the doorman with whom Holmes had conversed that afternoon.
"I demand to be taken to Miss Adler at once! My name is Sherlock Holmes!"
I had half expected the producer to be affronted at this unceremonious and assertive introduction, but Furman's eyes widened, and he grasped the lapels of Holmes' tailcoat as a drowning man might hold to a life-preserver.
"Mr. Holmes, thank heaven you're here!" said he.
"Where is she?"
"So far as I know, at home."
"I must know exactly what has happened," said Holmes.
Furman wiped his glistening brow, and replied, "All I can tell you, sir, is that when she didn't appear after the half-hour call, I sent the call boy to her house."
"And?"
Furman produced an envelope from an inner pocket of his jacket.
"He returned with this."
"Let me see it!" Holmes demanded, although, as he twitched it from Furman's grasp as he spoke, his words were unnecessary.
He removed from it a folded sheet of paper and scanned it rapidly.
"As you see," said Furman, "all it says is that she is ill and cannot perform." His hands clenched and unclenched, as if looking for something solid to grasp. "With the house already full—and for the first time this season, darn it!—and the curtain already delayed fifteen minutes, I had no alternative but to go out front and make the announcement you just heard. Mr. Holmes, can you shed any light on such behavior? It's absolutely unlike Miss Adler!"
"I can shed some light on it, Mr. Furman," Holmes replied somberly. "This note—it was not written by a person suddenly taken ill. In such a case, there might well be signs of weakness, though the writing would be formed with all the more care to compensate for that. But this—the hasty scrawl, showing that the hand shook so that it was scarcely able to hold the pen . . . And here—here—and here—the pen has actually dropped from her hand! I have seen such missives in the past, sir, and I tell you that this letter was written by someone in the clutches of extreme terror! Mr. Furman, I must have Miss Adler's address at once!"
Furman was pale, and his eyes registered dismay and fear.
"It's number four, Gramercy Park West, but—"
"This is no time for 'buts,' Mr. Furman! Four, Gramercy Park West! Come, Watson!"
Sherlock Holmes turned on his heel and made for the stage door, with myself in hot pursuit. I was for an instant somewhat surprised not to see the stage doorman at his post, but supposed that he was mingling with the stagehands in the wings, eager to pick up gossip about what had happened.
A rattling ride in a hansom brought us to our destination in not much above five minutes. I do not know whether it was the extra money Holmes promised for speed, or the electric sense of urgency about him that galvanized our Jehu. We stepped from the cab to find ourselves on a quiet street that might have been a London square: a row of narrow houses fronting a lamp-lit park surrounded with an iron grill. Number four was a house much like its neighbors. I paid the cabby the fare Holmes had promised, while my friend bounded up the broad steps, the tails of his coat streaming behind him, and vigorously rang the bell beside the front door.
As I came up the steps behind him, the door opened, and a tall man in dark jacket and striped trousers stood in the doorway.
"Yes, sir?" said he.
"Miss Irene Adler, if you please, at once!"
The man, doubtless the butler, unless they were called something else in this country, stiffened and said, "I'm sorry, sir. Miss Adler is not at home to—"
Sherlock Holmes pushed past him; I followed, and we found ourselves in a small foyer, simply but elegantly appointed. Holmes turned to confront the indignant butler, who seemed ready to try conclusions with him.
"Not at home—to Sherlock Holmes? I must have that assurance from the lips of the lady herself! Step aside, my man!"
He turned toward the interior of the house and called loudly, "Irene! Are you here?"
"I am here, Sherlock!"
We looked toward the head of a flight of stairs leading down to the foyer, and I beheld, above a peach-colored peignoir that wrapped her form, the face of Irene Adler—scarcely changed, as far as the soft lamplight in the room could let me discern, from the way she had looked on that occasion, so many years past, when she had triumphed in the dangerous game she had played with Holmes. I found myself exchanging a glance of surprise with the butler. For myself, it was a distinct shock to hear my friend addressed by his first name; I had never done so, and had never heard anyone else employ it. As far as the butler was concerned, it was a clear signal that his defensive tactics would not be needed, and he relaxed perceptibly, though with a fleeting look of disappointment.
"It's all right, Heller," Irene Adler called. "Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson may come in."
"Yes, madam," the butler answered stolidly.
Very gravely, with measured pace, Holmes walked up the stairs toward where Irene Adler stood. I followed. As he reached her, she turned to face him.
"In here," she said, and walked through an archway leading into a drawing-room.
It was the first domestic interior I had seen in New York, and I surveyed it with interest—partly occasioned by the fact that Sherlock Holmes was examining every aspect of it as keenly as though it had been the scene of a crime he had been called upon to investigate.
Three tall windows fronting on the square were covered with drapes made of a kind of velour stuff. In a brick fireplace topped with a wooden mantel, a banked coal fire burned slowly but steadily. The usual furniture of the room of a cultivated person was here, little different from what I might have expected to find in a similar establishment in the West End of Kensington, though I had the vague sense that something about it reminded me of a stage set—a certain unused look to the plump cushions and soft chairs. Though that, I supposed, was natural enough, considering Irene Adler's profession. I could not see what there was to arouse Holmes' obvious attention.
"May I ring for some refreshments?" said Irene Adler, cool and composed as any hostess receiving invited guests, not at all indicating that she was speaking to two middle-aged gentlemen who had burst in upon her and (one of them, at least) shoved her butler aside and bawled a peremptory demand for her presence. "Coffee? Brandy? Would you care to sit down? You're looking quite well, Sherlock. You've hardly changed in the years since last we met. Dr. Watson, are you quite well also?"
I was about to reply that I was, without going into any particulars of my health, although I was aware of a certain shortness of breath which might have resulted from the excellent dinner at Delmonico's, when Holmes forestalled me.
"We were at the theater tonight," said he.
Irene Adler stood as still as a statue. "Did the performance go on?"
"With your understudy. The audience, of course, were disappointed at the substitution."
"Miss Robson is a very promising youn
g performer."
"What is this 'indisposition' from which you are suffering?"
Holmes' tone left no doubt that he was little inclined to credit the existence of such an illness, and, indeed, I myself could detect no sign of any malady in the splendid, though somehow constrained, woman who stood before us.
"A trifling matter, really. I'll be quite all right in a matter of—"
"Irene!" Holmes' voice, deep and harsh, seemed wrenched from his very depths, and Miss Adler stepped back from him, as if shaken by its force. "Why did you not go to the theater tonight?"
She could not meet his gaze, and her voice came in faltering tones.
"I . . . I . . . Didn't Mr. Furman explain that I was—?"
"I insist that I be spared this masquerade! It demeans a friendship of almost ten years' standing!"
Sherlock Holmes' words and manner were dramatic enough for the scene, but I found myself as much fascinated by the change I saw in him as by the drama that was going forward. I had seen my friend in a variety of moods, and in the grip of many kinds of emotion in the course of my association with him: a savage exultation at bringing to book some particularly vile criminal; regret and mourning at the fate of a victim which a turn of luck might have prevented; deep concern, once, when it seemed that I had been gravely wounded; morose despair when one of his private fits of depression was on him. Yet this vigorous urgency, which seemed somehow the attribute of a younger and less cerebrally inclined man, was new to me.
He continued in the same vein, giving a stern nod in response to her anxious look.
"Yes! It's time for the truth, Irene! What is it that holds you in the grip of almost unbearable terror? What message are you awaiting, and why are you prepared to remain up the entire night—and not leave this house until you receive it?"
I blinked, wondering, in spite of my long familiarity with his methods of deduction, how he had arrived at this conclusion. There certainly seemed nothing anywhere I could see to sustain it.
Irene Adler, however, did not trouble herself with that sort of question, and gave a short, harsh laugh with a high pitch to it I didn't like the sound of.
"I should have remembered," she said. "One cannot pretend in front of Mr. Sherlock Holmes!"
Her tacit confirmation of what her inquisitor had said bewildered me.
"Yes, but look here, Holmes," said I. "How did you know about—what was it?—a message. Staying up all night? Not leaving the house? Surely—"
"It's simplicity itself!" Holmes seemed to find relief in reverting to his long-established custom of making things clear to me, and for the moment virtually ignored Irene Adler, whose gaze remained bent steadily upon him. He strode to the centermost of the three windows fronting on Gramercy Park, and pointed to the drapes that concealed it. "This curtain hangs untidily. Again and again, someone has thrust it aside—like this—so that the street below— Aha! The windows leading out on to the balcony—which I am sure you noticed, Watson, as we entered the house—are unlatched!"
He flung open the center window, which I could flow see was more like a glass-paneled door, and stepped onto the balcony.
"As I say," he continued, "someone has repeatedly stepped out here to look in all directions! Waiting. Waiting for what?"
Holmes stepped back into the room and continued his exposition. A sweeping gesture took in the chairs and cushioned sofa.
"Not a single piece of furniture in this room shows the imprint of a human form! Irene, you have spent the time since at least eight tonight pacing this floor, sitting only at that desk in the corner to write your note to Mr. Furman! Ah! What's this?"
His aquiline nose seemed almost to sniff the air as if picking up the scent of crime as he strode to the sofa and lifted up a framed picture lying on its face. Turning it over, he gazed at it long and inquiringly.
Determined not to distract him, but consumed with curiosity, I made my way to Holmes' side and had a look for myself. It was a sepia-toned photograph of a boy of some nine years of age, thinner of face, perhaps, than a healthy lad ought to be, yet with an appearance of vigor and an inquiring cast of countenance.
"Who is this child?" said Sherlock Holmes.
Irene Adler was silent for a moment, then said evenly, "His name is Scott. He is my son."
I stirred uneasily. As a doctor, I have seen much of the unconventional side of life—and much more of it as a result of joining Holmes in his work—and I am also aware that Mr. Bernard Shaw and Herr (if that is how Norwegians style themselves) Ibsen have in their work raised flouting of the conventions to the status of a positive moral duty. Yet I felt distinctly awkward at hearing Miss Irene Adler speak of her son.
Holmes looked sharply at her and then back to the picture.
"Where is the boy now?" he inquired.
"He is . . . upstairs. In bed." Irene Adler appeared to be looking intently at a point on the wall considerably to Holmes' left.
"May I see him?"
"He is asleep."
"I shall be very quiet." Something of his old sardonic manner was creeping back into the detective's tone.
Irene Adler was silent for a moment, and Holmes' lips thinned in an almost mocking smile.
She sighed deeply and said, "I am afraid I cannot oblige you."
Holmes nodded.
"I am convinced that you cannot!" he said.
He looked at her keenly for a moment, then turned and walked to the delicate writing-desk that stood against one wall. He bent over it, nodded his head, and ran a finger along one corner of the top. As he straightened from his crouching position, Irene Adler's eyes were on him, wide with fear.
"That photograph ordinarily stands here on this desk," said Holmes. "A faint line of dust marks where its base usually rests." He walked slowly back to where the woman stood, holding the framed picture up. "You seized it up while you were pacing, didn't you? I can see you . . . holding it, casting a longing, anxious look upon it, even giving way to a sob of anxiety—and then flinging it to the sofa!"
He performed the same action as he spoke, and the picture spun through the air to land in the same position in which I had first noticed it.
"The boy is not upstairs in bed, Irene! The boy is not in this house at all! The boy has been kidnapped!"
Irene Adler raised two clenched fists and struck at his snowy shirtfront, not as if attacking him but as if in a frenzy that demanded some physical expression. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes! He has been kidnapped, and I am out of my mind with grief and terror!"
Chapter Seven
I started toward Miss Adler in alarm, saying "Holmes! Great heavens, man, the lady's at the end of her tether!"
Holmes snapped, "Watson, fetch some brandy!" then grasped her firmly by the upper arms and looked at her with an intensity that was almost ferocious. "Irene, get hold of yourself!" said he. "We have no time! I must know precisely what happened."
She seemed on the verge of struggling in his grasp, then relaxed and looked up at him with a calmer expression. Her voice was even when she spoke.
"Yes, yes, of course."
Holmes opened his hands and dropped them to his sides. Irene Adler stepped away from him, went to the tasseled bell-pull that hung down one wall, and tugged it once.
"The brandy's on the sideboard, Dr. Watson, in the decanter. I will have a drop, thank you."
"Of course, my dear lady. Of course, of course!"
I poured out what I judged to be a medicinal doze of the liquor into a crystal balloon glass that stood next to the cut-glass decanter; enough to relax the tension that was fairly tearing her apart, not so much as to dull her wits. Its aroma proclaimed it to be of excellent quality, but now was not the time for either Holmes or myself to sample it; it looked as though we should need the clearest of heads, even the tightest-strung of nerves, in order to see this ominous business through.
I handed Irene Adler the glass, and she took a sip. I could see her relax perceptibly, as much, I judged, from the realization that her dread secret w
as now shared and that she was to have the help of Sherlock Holmes (and John Watson, though I doubted that my presence weighed very heavily in the balance with her) as from the warming effect of the brandy.
Summoned by the bell, Heller, the butler, entered through the archway.
"Yes, ma'am?" said he.
"Heller," Irene Adler asked him, "will you . . . will you ask Frau Reichenbach to come down right away, please?"
"Of course, ma'am."
He turned and left, moving with the deft silence characteristic of his calling. Apparently even American butlers cultivate the ideal of appearing to operate like well-oiled machinery.
"Frau Reichenbach is . . . ?" said Sherlock Holmes.
"It was she who was with Scott when he . . ." Irene Adler took another sip of the brandy. "She is the boy's governess."
She could scarcely have been mistaken for anything else, when, moments later, she stood just inside the archway and gave her account of the events of the afternoon. Her severely starched uniform, the hair pulled into a tight bun atop her head, the stiff stance with hands folded in front of her, the immobile face and light-blue eyes bespoke both her occupation and her nationality. I judged her age to be not far past thirty.
I had allowed myself to sink into a comfortable wingchair. Irene Adler was seated on the sofa, still holding the brandy glass. Holmes paced back and forth as he questioned Frau Reichenbach.
"I had gone to meet the young boy at school," said she in a marked German accent, "and we were walking home, which we do each day."
"You're referring to this afternoon, Frau Reichenbach?"
"Ja."
"Describe what occurred, please."
"Three blocks from here, maybe four—we were coming up Twentieth Street—a carriage drew up beside us and stopped. A man was on top, driving a horse. It was a closed carriage and all the shades were down. A man leaped out of the inside . . ." She faltered in her speech.
"Yes? Go on, please!"