“A man. It’s just something I have to do.”
“Want me to wait?”
“Yes.”
A heavy mist hung over the entire pool area when they reached it, and Susan hurried from the taxi toward the open gate. She could not see if anyone was there before her and she moved cautiously through the mist. It was a foolish thing to be doing, she told herself, feeling a bit like Nancy Drew in some of those books she’d read as a child. Alone in the dark with a murderer—that was some brilliant idea!
She circled the big pool once and began to suspect he wasn’t coming at all. Then she heard a sound and saw a figure looming up ahead of her. “Here I am,” she called out. “Looking for me?”
Patrick Culhane stepped forward. “I was worried about you. Thought I should make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine.”
“No one here yet?”
“I don’t see anyone, but the gate was open.”
“Sometimes kids break the lock to get in for a late swim.” He moved a bit closer.
“I wanted to ask you about something strange at the mill this morning, during the robbery. You pushed Mike and me to the ground and said you knew shooting when you heard it, but the only shot wasn’t fired till an instant later, when we were already down.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sjofn had a new boyfriend, one she met when he gave her a ride home. Isn’t that what cabdrivers do—give people rides home?”
His hand came up, and there was enough moonlight for her to see the knife. “I threw away the hammer,” he said quietly. “It’ll have to be a blade this time.”
Trembling, Susan backed toward the edge of the pool. “You won’t use that. You went to a lot of trouble to save us from harm this morning. You waited at the mill because you were afraid we might come out just when we did, while your friends were stealing the payroll. You didn’t want American visitors killed, and you don’t want to kill me now.”
“It would be bad publicity for our cause,” he admitted, and in that instant Susan understood.
“You came here from Ireland. The robbery was to raise money for the IRA, wasn’t it?”
He lunged at her then and she went backward into the warm water. There were shouts and indistinct visions of running men, and suddenly hands were reaching for her, pulling her out soaked but alive.
“Sorry I waited so long,” Sergeant Oxara told her, “but we had to hear it all.”
At the airport the following afternoon the sergeant was there to see them off. He shook hands with Mike Brentnor and told him, “This is a brave lady, brave and smart both. She phoned last night and asked me to meet her at the swimming pool. I never dreamed she was going to deliver the killer of Sjofn Kristjan and solve the payroll robbery for us too.”
“What about the other four who actually pulled off the robbery?” Susan asked.
“Culhane is talking. We rounded them up this morning and recovered the money. Your guess was a good one. They all have IRA connections. It appears the Irish Republican Army would have profited to some extent from the robbery.”
“He did try to protect us from harm,” Mike said. “Do you really think he would have killed you last night?”
Susan didn’t know. She didn’t want to think about it. It would be a long time before she’d forget that nightmare of Culhane coming at her through the mist. He was different from her in many ways, but in one way there could be no doubt. She would never have his fondness for steam.
A PARCEL OF DEERSTALKERS
For Susan Holt, it all began the morning her assistant Emmy Spring gasped and fainted in the outer office. Susan heard the thump of her body hitting the floor and came running, along with a half a dozen others in Mayfield’s promotions department. Emmy was a dark-haired young woman in her mid-twenties, pretty in a delicate way, who’d been working there about a year. She had a desk in the outer office, and Susan saw at once that she’d been opening the morning mail.
While the others crowded around the fallen young woman, trying to revive her, Susan glanced at the open parcel, about the size of a breadbox. She was not particularly surprised to see that it was filled with deerstalker hunting caps with their visors in front and back. The Sherlock Holmes promotion, of course. They’d been expecting the parcel for a week. What they hadn’t been expecting was the small, pale object that lay on top of the caps. It was a severed human ear, and when she saw it Susan felt a bit faint herself.
It was Mike Brentnor, who had an answer for everything, who first suggested a Sherlock Holmes story. “It’s ‘The Cardboard Box,’” he told them. They were seated in Susan Holt’s office an hour later, trying to explain it to Detective Sergeant Mulligan of the NYPD. He was one of those types who take copious notes, writing all the time, asking questions without ever looking up at the speakers.
“What about ‘The Cardboard Box’? I haven’t read Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid with the chicken pox.”
“Well, this woman receives two freshly severed ears in a cardboard box. I think her name was Susan in the story. Maybe the ear was meant for you, Susan.”
Susan Holt blushed slightly, as Brentnor would have expected. Though they no longer worked in the same office, he never missed an opportunity to chide her, to remind her he was still around even after her rejection of him. “No,” she corrected immediately. “The parcel was addressed to Emmy, wasn’t it?”
Emmy Spring was quick to agree, having recovered from her fright. “I was expecting it. When I was in Meiringen last month I arranged to have a dozen of the Sherlock Holmes caps sent to us for promotional purposes. We planned to use them for photographs and displays.”
Sergeant Mulligan glanced up briefly from his notebook. “You’re promoting Sherlock Holmes at Mayfield’s?” Somehow the idea of Manhattan’s largest department store planning a promotion around a fictional character amused him.
“Why not?” Susan countered. Holmes has been used in advertising at least since nineteen-oh-four and probably before that. We intend to feature a storewide promotion with Holmes using his magnifying glass to seek out special bargains. I know that’s hardly original, but we will supplement it with Holmes memorabilia. Emmy was in Meiringen, Switzerland, last month arranging for us to duplicate the reconstruction of Holmes’s cluttered sitting room that they have in the basement of their Sherlock Holmes Museum. We’ll also be importing some of the pipes and magnifying glasses and deerstalkers they sell there. It hasn’t decided whether or not we should include the T-shirts and postcards too. That may be a bit tacky for Mayfield’s image.”
“The ear is real, Miss Holt. It’s not part of any promotion. We’ll photograph it and send a copy to the Swiss police along with all relevant data. I suspect they have a body to match it.”
“Why would anyone send the ear to us?” Mike Brentnor wanted to know. “Are they warning us not to do the promotion? Are we being threatened by some sort of Sherlockian psychopath?”
“Hardly,” Susan answered drily, refusing to be caught up in any hysteria. “I’m sure the Swiss authorities will come up with a very mundane explanation. Perhaps there was an accident in the mailing room.” The words lacked conviction even to her own ears, but she wanted Brentnor out of there. Whatever it was, she could handle it better on her own.
Sergeant Mulligan asked a few more questions and then closed his notebook. “Well, if there’s a crime, it’s out of my jurisdiction anyhow. Let the Swiss handle it.”
After he’d gone Brentnor asked Emmy how she felt. “Maybe you should take the rest of the day off.”
“I’m all right,” the young woman insisted, glancing in Susan’s direction. “It was just the shock of opening the lid and seeing that—ear!”
Brentnor drifted away and Susan got down to business. “We’ve got a lot riding on this promotion, Emmy. I don’t have to tell you that. I need to know who you saw in Switzerland, what and who might be behind this thing.”
The younger woman smiled. “You don’t believe it
was an accident in the mailing room?”
“Hardly!”
“Well, I rented a car at Zurich airport and drove down to Meiringen, which is just a short walk from Reichenbach Falls. The place is brimming with Sherlockiana—is that the right word? —centered around the Sherlock Holmes Museum, which is housed in a former Anglican church. The people at the museum were very helpful, especially in allowing us to duplicate their reconstruction of the sitting room. The deerstalker caps are manufactured and sold at a nearby shop by a man named Bernard Wor. I took back samples to show Mike, since he’s the buyer for special promotions now. After he agreed to order a few gross I phoned Wor in Switzerland and had him dispatch a dozen deerstalkers for photography and promotional purposes. It might be cute to have some of the salesgirls wearing them too.”
“Could the ear have belonged to this man Wor?”
“I have no idea.” Emmy Spring frowned in concentration, as if summoning up his image. “I think he was a larger man, though. That awful ear seemed smaller more delicate.”
Susan nodded. “A woman’s ear. Or a child’s. Look, Emmy, give me a list of all the people you saw in Meiringen. I have to get on the phone and see what I can learn.”
She reached Bernard Wor first, his voice clear and Germanic on the overseas line. “Yes, I sent the parcel of deerstalkers,” he quickly agreed. “What is wrong? Are they not satisfactory?” she told him about the human ear and h scoffed. “Surely you must be joking, Miss Holt. They were packed and shipped from this very building.”
“Have you had any—” she hated to use the word. “—accidents lately? Could someone have placed that ear in the parcel as a joke?”
“Certainly not!”
“There’s a Holmes story where a pair of ears—”
“I know. I have read the entire saga more than once. Be assured, Miss Holt, your ear was no publicity stunt. I knew nothing about it.”
“Could I speak with the person who actually wrapped the parcel?”
“Whoever it was, she is gone for the day. You realize it’s after five o’clock here.”
“Of course. I’m sorry. I just wanted to alert you to the problem. I expect your local police will be contacting you in the morning.”
“I will tend to them when they call.”
“I hope this won’t affect your shipment of the remaining caps. I know our buyer is still quite interested in them.”
“I understand. They will be shipped air express within a fortnight.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wor.”
“How is Miss Emmy Spring?”
“Fine, after the shock of opening that parcel.”
“Give her my best wishes, please.”
“I’ll do that.”
Susan hung up and checked off his name on the list. She called the number Emmy had given her for the Sherlock Holmes Museum but got only a recording in four languages listing their hours. She decided the rest of her calls would have to wait until morning.
But by morning it was too late. She walked into her office at 9.30 to find Emmy Spring frantically reporting to Mike Brentnor. “They’re talking about canceling everything—your product orders, the promotion, everything!”
“What’s this?” Susan asked, slipping out of the raincoat she’d worn against the threat of leaden spring skies. “What’s going on?”
“Rima Fredericks, an Englishwoman at the Sherlock Holmes Museum, just phoned to say they’re rethinking their commitments.”
Susan cursed silently. “What did Wor give you?”
“I have a letter of intent, not a real contract.” She passed over a letter signed by Wor in Meiringen on April fifth.
“We don’t need them,” Brentnor point out. “There are other Holmes sitting rooms we can duplicate. The Sherlock Holmes Pub in London has a nice one. And we can get other caps too.”
Susan Holt sighed. “But this is Reichenbach Falls, Mike—the place where Holmes and Moriarty supposedly plunged to their death! We want to be able to say Direct from Reichenbach Falls on our displays and merchandise. What’s the trouble with them, anyway?”
“Apparently the police have been causing an uproar ever since Mulligan contacted them,” Emmy told her.
“Do they have a body to go with the ear?”
“I don’t know, but they’ve managed to frighten the people we’re dealing with over there pretty badly.”
Susan debated her options, then said suddenly, “I’m flying to Switzerland, Emmy. See if you can get me a reservation on a flight to Zurich overnight. I’ll rent a car there.”
Mike Brentnor immediately brightened at the prospect. “I’d be happy to come along and help. You might need a man.”
She glanced at him distastefully. “No thanks, Mike. Not this time.”
“But I could—”
“I’ll phone you if I need anything.”
She left the office early that afternoon and went home to pack enough clothes for a three-day trip. She hoped it would be shorter than that. Russell was just making breakfast when she reached the apartment. His current off-Broadway play kept him on a crazy schedule that played havoc with their social and love life. By the time he got home most nights, after twelve, she was fast asleep.
“You’re not going off again!” he grumbled, his unkempt blond hair catching the afternoon sunlight through the southern window.
“Just for a couple of days. We have an emergency with our Sherlock Holmes promotion.”
“Where are you going this time? London?”
“Reichenbach Falls, actually. It’s in Switzerland.”
“God, you’re crazy! Brentnor going with you again?”
“Hardly! I wouldn’t trust him within fifty feet of me outside the office.” He grunted. “Want a piece of toast?”
“Thanks.” She wolfed it down, suddenly remembering she hadn’t taken time for lunch.
“Does this have to do with the ear?” he asked, remembering what she’d told him the previous night.
“Yes. Apparently it’s caused quite an uproar over here.”
He bent to lightly kiss her own ear. “Be careful. I want you back intact.”
The distance from Zurich to Meiringen was only about fifty miles, although it was much farther over the curving mounting highways. Susan’s little rental car was a joy to drive, but it still took her better than two hours to make the trip. Driving into the quaint little town at high noon she suddenly felt as if she had stepped back a full century in time. Men and women wearing Victorian clothes and carrying walking sticks and open parasols strolled along the street in groups.
Susan had chosen to stay in the new Sherlock Holmes Hotel rather than in the nineteenth-century Park Hotel du Sauvage, which served as a model for the hotel where Conan Doyle had Holmes spend his last night. She asked the desk clerk about the people in Victorian dress and he beamed. “We hope it’ll become an annual custom on the fourth of May. It’s the anniversary of Holmes’s plunge into the falls, and a number Sherlockians dress up to honor the event.”
The date had meant nothing to Susan, whose knowledge of the stories was confined to a few of the most popular tales. “This is the fourth of May,” she agreed. “Which way is the Sherlock Holmes Museum from here?”
“The old church at the center of town. It’s a cream-and-ochre building with a rose window and a tin roof with a turret. You can’t miss it. There’s a bronze statue of Holmes out front.”
She quickly unpacked in a modern hotel room that offered a breathtaking view of the snow-capped mountains. It would be a wonderful place for a relaxing vacation but she was here on business. The museum was easy to find when she stepped out again into the May sunshine. Outside she paused to admire the seated bronze Holmes, by a British sculptor named John Doubleday.
The first person to greet her inside the remodelled church was Rima Fredericks, the Englishwoman who’d phoned Emmy. “So nice to meet you, Miss Holt. I’m sorry this business caused you to come all the way over here.” She was a woman in her forties, still
fairly attractive though she dressed plainly and wore her dark hair in an unbecoming bun. “Are you in charge here?” Susan asked.
“No, no. I’m only an employee. The director of the museum is away at the moment and Mr. Eiger is in charge. He made the decision to cancel the events at your store.”
“I guess he’s the one I should see.”
Rima Fredericks went off to find him, leaving Susan alone among the facsimiles of Conan Doyle manuscripts and other Sherlockian treasures. There was a portrait of Doyle himself, along with an etching of Stoneyhurst, the school he attended. She was just starting to read about it when a gruff Germanic gentleman joined her. “I am Fritz Eiger. I understand you have flown from New York to see me.”
She handed him her business card. “Susan Holt from Mayfield’s. You and Bernard Wor both indicated your willingness to help us in our promotion. We are planning to construct a duplicate of your Sherlock Holmes sitting room, clearly labeled as being identical with the one here at Reichenbach Falls.”
“I’m afraid we can’t allow that at the present time.” His lips had curved into a sad smile.
“Why not, may I ask?”
“The police are investigating the possibility that a serious crime has been committed. The director would never forgive me for allowing the museum’s name to become linked with anything scandalous.”
“What crime is that?”
He stared at her through his wire-rimmed glasses. “I believe a human ear was sent to you. As in the story of ‘The Cardboard Box,’ we can assume it came from a dead body.”
“Is anyone missing in the town?”
“I cannot answer for the police.”
“Will you reconsider your decision?”
“Not unless this matter is cleared up. It’s not just me. Bernard Wor feels the same way, for whatever that’s worth.”
“I’m on my way to see Mr. Wor next.”
“You will find him at the Sherlock Shoppe,” he said with some distaste. “Just down the street.”
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