The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 1 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  A large man of indeterminate middle age spoke up. “I was a fighter myself, Dr. Doyle. I know what it’s like to stand in the center of a ring and hear the crowd shouting for blood after an unpopular decision.”

  The Colonel made the belated introductions. “This is Nevada Wade, Dr. Conan Doyle.”

  Doyle smiled. “Sounds like a cowboy’s name.”

  “Cowboys and boxers aren’t much different,” Wade agreed. “I was a heavyweight contender in my fighting days, but I never had a crack at the championship.”

  He looked like a man who could still hold his own in the prize ring, and Doyle wondered why he had retired. From the looks of the large diamond ring on his little finger he might well have come into money. “When will I see the site of Monday’s battle?” Doyle asked, shifting his attention back to the Colonel.

  “We’ll go out to the fairgrounds tomorrow morning. The ring and the seating are already in place, but the workmen are still adding the finishing touches.” He looked up at the ornate wall clock. “Only forty-eight hours to fight time, Dr. Doyle. Less than that, really.”

  He made an effort to introduce the others in the room – backers and managers and promoters – but Doyle found himself quickly engaged in more conversation with Nevada Wade. “I understand there’s a new Sherlock Holmes play in the Strand this summer.”

  Doyle nodded. “The Speckled Band opened last month, and it’s been quite successful.”

  “One of my favorite stories – the one with the snake.”

  Americans never failed to amaze him. This man with a cowboy’s name and callused fists had actually read his stories! “That is the one. We tried using a real snake on stage – nonpoisonous, of course – but it didn’t work out. Now we have an ingeniously jointed dummy manipulated with black thread like a puppet. It is most effective.”

  “I should like to see the play sometime,” Wade said.

  “Perhaps we will have an American production.”

  Charlie Summons appeared at Doyle’s side and whispered, “If you want to scram out of here, I’ll help you.”

  “Scram – ?”

  “On the weekend of a big fight this crowd’ll be drinking all night. I already told the Colonel you needed to rest after your long trip out here.”

  “Thank you,” Doyle said, and he was genuinely grateful.

  He ate with Summons in the hotel restaurant, listening to the slim young man’s tales of Reno’s sporting life. At one point he asked, “Just what is your connection with Colonel Grayson?”

  “Oh, the Colonel pays me. I run errands for him – things like that.”

  Doyle had earlier noticed the bulge under the other man’s coat, and now he commented upon it. “Are you his bodyguard too?”

  “What? Oh, you mean the gun? This is still the west, Dr. Doyle. You’ll find a good many men carrying weapons.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I guess they don’t carry guns in London.”

  “No, not in London. Not even our police-officers.”

  Charlie Summons took a sip of the wine Doyle had ordered with the meal. “Say, this isn’t bad.”

  “My tastes run more to French than to California wines, I’m afraid. But as you say, it isn’t bad.” He was beginning to like the young man for some reason, perhaps because he was so typically American.

  “You going to see Monica Malone?” Summons asked suddenly.

  “Who?”

  “The girl outside the hotel when you arrived.”

  “I’d completely forgotten about her.”

  “She’ll prob’ly come around tonight to see you.”

  As Doyle was to discover within the hour, the young man’s prediction proved accurate. He had barely left Summons and started up to his room when Monica Malone intercepted him. She clutched a folded newspaper in one hand, and as she spoke there were tears in her eyes. “I must see you, Dr. Doyle. You said you would talk with me.”

  “And I will. But I can hardly invite you up to my room. Let us sit in that corner of the lobby where we won’t be disturbed.”

  She followed him to a red plush sofa partly hidden by a tall fern in an ornate jardinière.

  “Thank you so much, Dr. Doyle. These last days have been a nightmare for me.”

  He sat down beside her. “I assume you are referring to the brutal murder of your fiancé near the railway station two nights ago.”

  “Someone has told you who I am!”

  “No, not really, Miss Malone. But I noticed your agitated state, and the fact that you are carrying a copy of yesterday’s newspaper folded so that an account of the killing is visible. You also wear an engagement ring, which you twist nervously with your fingers, as if you were considering removing it. The conclusion seems a likely one.”

  “You sound like Sherlock Holmes himself!”

  “Please!” He held up a hand to silence her. “I pretend no special powers to solve this mystery. But tell me what happened.”

  “Tom – my fiancé, Tom Andrews – came out here last month to cover preparations for the fight. He was a reporter for Ring & Turf, an eastern sporting weekly. I arrived yesterday to join him and discovered he’d been murdered.”

  “I understand the fight has touched off some scattered violence because of the racial aspects.”

  “No one would have killed Tom for that reason – he was completely fair to both men! They’d more likely have stabbed Jack London – he’s been wondering aloud about the Negro having a yellow streak.”

  “What about one of the other reporters? Had your fiancé been on bad terms with any of them?”

  She shook her head, fighting back the tears, and he wanted to comfort her somehow. To give her a few moments to compose herself, he took the folded newspaper from her hand and read the brief account of the murder. There had been no witnesses, and the young reporter’s wallet was found intact. So robbery could not have been the motive. The fatal stabbing near the railroad station must have had another cause.

  “Could he have gone there to meet someone arriving by train?” Doyle asked.

  “But who? I wasn’t due until yesterday and he knew that.”

  “Still, a great many persons are arriving daily for the fight. He might have gone to meet one of them.”

  “I think he knew he might be killed, Dr. Doyle.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He left a message for me at his hotel. Just a brief note – I have it here.” She opened her purse and produced an envelope with a folded piece of paper inside.

  Doyle read it aloud. “‘Dearest Monica: If anything should happen to me before you arrive, remember the fifth day of Christmas. All my love, Tom.’” He studied the note with a deepening frown. “The fifth day of Christmas? What could that mean?”

  “That’s why I want your help, Dr. Doyle – I don’t know! I tried to talk with the police about it, but they paid no attention. They’re too busy keeping things calm before Monday’s fight.”

  He continued to study the note, the only message from a man he’d never known, a man now dead. “Did you know Tom last Christmas?”

  “Certainly. He gave me this ring then.”

  Doyle was instantly alert. “Just one ring?”

  “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “In the old carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, there is a line that goes, ‘The fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me five gold rings.’”

  “Of course! We always sang that at Christmas-time! Tom was sending me a message about five gold rings. But what rings?”

  “I don’t know,” Doyle admitted.

  “Engagement rings?”

  “One other possibility presents itself. This weekend in Reno the word ring has another meaning.”

  “A prizefighting ring!”

  “Perhaps.” He folded the note and returned it to its envelope. “He left this at the hotel for you?”

  “Yes, at the desk.”

  “Let me keep it for a time. Something might occur to me.�
�

  “Thank you, Dr. Doyle. If you can find the person who killed Tom – ”

  “We won’t go quite that far yet.” He rose. “Please excuse me now. I have had a tiring train trip, and I am anxious to get some sleep.”

  “I’ll look for you tomorrow.”

  He smiled at her. “Tomorrow I must go to the fairgrounds to inspect the scene of the action and meet the participants. But I will try to help you in any way that I can.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Holmes – I mean, Dr. Doyle.”

  He watched as she crossed the lobby to the street, and then went up to his room. Once more that confounded Sherlock Holmes had intruded on his life.

  On Sunday morning he walked down to the Reno railway station using the newspaper account of the tragedy to seek out the scene of the crime. He thought that he had found it, and was bending to examine a stain on the sidewalk, when a familiar voice hailed him.

  “Dr. Conan Doyle! What brings you out this early?”

  It was Colonel Raff Grayson, just alighting from his motorcar. He seemed to be alone. “Good morning, Colonel. I’m just exploring a bit of your city.”

  “Nothing to see down at the depot. But if you’ll wait while I pick up some freight I’ll drive you out to the fairgrounds.”

  His freight proved to be a wooden cage of pheasants, which Doyle helped him carry to the back seat of the motorcar. “Will you be having a pheasant shoot after the fight?” he asked the Colonel.

  “No, just a pheasant roast. These birds are only two to three pounds each, but at two servings a bird I have enough here for ten of us. I figure my wife and me, Nevada Wade and his lady, both fighters and their women, yourself, and Mr. Jack London. I hope you’ll be able to join us.”

  “I’d be pleased,” Doyle said, “though I don’t know whether Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jeffries will feel up to roast pheasant after fighting fifteen rounds.”

  Colonel Grayson smiled. “Oh, I think Jeffries will finish the black boy much quicker than that. Just off the record, of course.”

  Doyle was silent, avoiding any hint of favoritism on the day before he was to referee the event. He waited until they were on the road, heading for the fairgrounds, before he spoke. “Did you know the reporter who was murdered the other night?”

  Colonel Grayson turned to smile at him. “The old detective instinct getting you, Dr. Doyle? I didn’t know him, but Charlie Summons had played cards with him a few times these past weeks. Charlie says he was a nice fellow.”

  “Who do you think stabbed him?”

  “The fight is attracting a certain criminal element to Reno, Dr. Doyle. It’s unfortunate but true.”

  The Reno fairgrounds was at the northeast edge of the city. Today, under a warm July sun, it was a beehive of activity. Motorcars and wagons were parked everywhere in a haphazard fashion, while workers climbed over the grandstand putting the finishing touches on the seats and refreshment stands.

  As they approached after parking the automobile, Charlie Summons hurried forward to meet them. “You’d better come quick, Colonel! Johnson and Jeffries are both here, and I’m afraid they’ll start fighting a day early!”

  They found the two heavyweights at the center of a growing circle of partisan supporters. Jack Johnson, his gleaming black head catching the noonday sun, was taunting the grizzly Jim Jeffries. Johnson never lost his smile, not even when one of the crowd called out, “What about the yellow streak, Johnson?”

  “I will show you tomorrow who has the yellow streak.” And still smiling he turned his back on Jeffries.

  Colonel Grayson quickly interrupted to introduce the fighters to Conan Doyle. Jim Jeffries shook his hand vigorously. “I been reading those Sherlock Holmes stories – he’s a great one, he is!”

  And Johnson was no less enthusiastic. Doyle was amazed they would welcome an Englishman so warmly to referee their fight. He was really beginning to enjoy himself for the first time since his arrival when Nevada Wade approached with a short, light-haired man in his mid-thirties. At the sight of them Jack Johnson stalked away.

  “Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, this here’s a great admirer of yours – Mr. Jack London.”

  London shook Doyle’s hand with as much vigor as Jeffries had. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Doyle – or Sir Arthur.”

  “Dr. Doyle suits me fine. I read your book The People of the Abyss with a great deal of interest, Mr. London.”

  “I wrote it while living in London for some months in 1901. My funds had run out and I actually lived with those poor East End people.” London smiled. “Later I rented a room in the home of a London detective. It wasn’t 221B Baker Street, though.”

  “I should hope not,” Doyle replied with a chuckle. Summons and the Colonel went off to unload the pheasants, while Nevada Wade continued to stroll with the two authors. Doyle was anxious to see the ring itself, and to get the feel of the place. When they reached it he went up the steps and climbed between the ropes, closely followed by London.

  “There is nothing quite so invigorating as the prize ring,” the American said. “I’ve been here ten days writing up the training camps and the fight preliminaries.”

  Doyle bent to examine London’s eye. “As a physician skilled in such matters, I could not help noticing the fading after-effects of a black eye. Have you been engaging in some fisticuffs yourself, Mr. London?”

  “That happened two weeks ago, in an Oakland bar. It was in all the papers, I’m afraid. A drunken brawl, they called it.”

  “Was it?”

  London sighed, gazing out at the empty rows of seats, and changed the subject. “My wife gave birth to a daughter on June 19th. The baby only lived three days.”

  “I am sorry,” Doyle said.

  Nevada Wade joined them in the ring, “Which of you chaps has published the most?” he asked, flashing his diamond ring.

  Doyle laughed. “Oh, Mr. London is far ahead of me. How many books is it now?”

  “Twenty-four,” London answered almost mechanically. “Though I hardly have your fame.”

  “Tell me something,” Doyle pursued. “In The People of the Abyss you showed a real compassion for the poor and downtrodden of London’s East End. Yet your writings thus far about the fight have shown a decided racist slant. How do you explain this seeming contradiction?”

  Jack London shrugged. “I am what I am, Dr. Doyle. And we will see tomorrow who the better fighter is.”

  “Jeffries can’t come back,” Nevada Wade said. “Once they’ve retired they never come back.”

  “We’ll see.” London gave a slight bow in Doyle’s direction. “Until tomorrow.”

  Doyle watched the younger writer climb out of the ring, then turned to Wade. “An odd sort of chap – a real contradiction.”

  “He’s had some hard times, Dr. Doyle.”

  “He mentioned his daughter’s death.”

  “That’s only part of it.”

  Doyle was reminded of the other death in recent days, and of the message Tom Andrews had left for Monica. “Tell me, Mr. Wade, is this the only prize ring brought in for the fight?”

  “Brought in?” Wade didn’t grasp the question.

  “I mean, are there any other boxing rings in Reno?”

  “Well, sure.” He removed his western hat and scratched at his balding head. “The Athletic Club has one, and the Boxing Club. And right now each of the two training camps has a ring.”

  “Counting this one, that would make five in all.”

  “Well, I guess so,” Nevada Wade conceded. “What about it?”

  Doyle shrugged. “Now, tell me about yourself. You say you boxed professionally?”

  “That was a good many years ago, but the sport was my life then.”

  “Why did you give it up?”

  “In the west a man has to live the best way he can. Some gamblers wanted me to take a dive and when I won instead, they broke my hands. I decided it was better to be a gambler than a fighter.”

  “Are you betting on tomorrow’s f
ight?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Which way?”

  “Like I said, Jeffries can’t come back. If there’s to be a Great White Hope, it isn’t Jim Jeffries.”

  “Which side is the Colonel on?”

  “The other side,” Wade answered with a dry chuckle. “He’s always on the other side.”

  Doyle stood for a moment in the center of the ring, turning first one way, then the other, imagining himself as he would be the following day. He touched his mustache, smoothing the ends with their long waxed points. “They say Johnson is something of a clown in the ring, constantly taunting his opponent.”

  “He play-acts a lot, it’s true,” Wade agreed. “But it’ll be a Jeffries crowd here tomorrow.”

  “It should be an interesting fight.”

  Doyle dined again that evening with Charlie Summons, finding himself increasingly taken with the little man. But before they’d had time to relax over coffee and cigars, Monica Malone rushed up to the table. “Dr. Doyle, I must see you! Will you be long?” I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  Doyle excused himself and followed her out to the hotel lobby. “What agitates you so, my dear girl?”

  “I didn’t want to speak in front of that man.”

  “Summons? He was a friend of your fiancé.”

  “I doubt that,” she said. “But what I have to tell you is that I recognized someone Tom did know – a man named Draco. He’s connected with the rackets back east. Tom wrote an exposé about him – how he doped a race horse.”

  “Giving him a motive for wanting to kill your fiancé. Where can I find this man?”

  “I just saw him entering a bar down the block.”

  “Did he recognize you?”

  “I don’t think so. He wouldn’t remember me.”

  Doyle made his regrets to Charlie Summons and set off down the block to the bar Monica had indicated. She pointed out a tall, dark-haired man lounging against a corner of the bar, and Doyle approached him.

  “Mr. Draco, I presume?”

  The face that turned to him was scarred and ugly. It was plain to see how Monica had recognized him so easily. Doyle remembered Jack London’s black eye from the barroom brawl, and prayed the writer would never end up like this. “What do you want?” Draco asked.