Sherlock Holmes In America (15 page)

“I was referring to his character. My training tells me he's a consumptive in the tertiary stage, but that's hardly a reason to joke about hanging.”

“Life's a joke to Doc. What part of it he's got left is too small to take serious.”

“It's not so small to you, however,” Holmes observed.

“Nor mine to him neither, comes to that. He's innocent.”

“Of that I have no doubt. A man who's so willing to accept death would sooner lie and say he's guilty.”

“It'd stick in his craw.”

“Let us see if this Chinese opium seller suffers from that condition. There is no such thing as a watertight boat or an ironclad alibi.”

Earp led us to a large tent pitched upon a slope so steep it would flood during rains and collapse before a mild rockslide. The moss growing upon it made it as dark as a cave inside, lit only by greasy lanterns suspended above rows of folding campaign cots, some occupied by men mostly insensible. Evil smoke fouled the air. Earp slid his bandanna over his nose and mouth while I buried mine in my handkerchief. Holmes took in a deep breath and let it out with a contented sigh.

“Wantee pipee?”

This invitation came from an Oriental in a black silk robe and mandarin's cap, round as Buddha and no taller than a child, albeit plainly in his sunset years. Gold shone in a wicked smile.

“No wantee pipee. Wantee straight talk, and not in pidgin. I know an Oxford accent when I hear it.” Holmes held up a gold sovereign, snatching it back when a yellow claw grabbed at it.

The old man shrugged and folded his hands inside the sleeves of his robe. “The missionary who taught me was a retired don. If you are here on behalf of a wife or mother, you may browse among these wretches for him who is lost. I do not insist upon introductions and so am ignorant as to their names.”

“If that is the case, how were you able to identify Jasper Riley among your customers the night Hank Littlejohn was killed?”

“I did not say I never pay attention to faces. In election years, many of my former colleagues in San Francisco went to jail because they failed to recognize the same undercover policemen who had arrested them before.”

“Did Riley pay you to say he was here all night?”

“Had he been here and made the proper offer, I should have accepted; but honestly, do you think a common teamster could meet my fee for such a risk? I bring in more in a night than he sees in a month, and it is nothing to hang a Chinaman here.”

“Very well. Here is your sovereign.”

The old man left his hands folded. “That is not the coin you showed me. You are not the magician you fancy yourself.”

Holmes grunted as if put out, slipped the coin into his waistcoat pocket, and produced another from inside his cuff. This the opium seller took with a mocking bow.

We went out, where Earp and I drew in great lungfuls of fresh air. Holmes chuckled, without mirth. “My good luck piece benefits me yet again. I took it from a German ironmonger who thought to ingratiate himself with Chancellor Bismarck by devaluing the British currency. Our educated friend inside is neither a liar nor a myopic. His price would exceed Littlejohn's ability to pay, and it's a very good counterfeit.”

“Then we're licked,” Earp said. “I met Woods. He's short as a rooster and fat as a hog. No one would confuse him with Doc with the moon out.”

“I should like to see the scene of the atrocity.”

We followed Earp to an open area a hundred yards from the nearest structure, barren but for rocks and scrub and grading downward from the mining camp, our guide reminding us to be alert for rattlesnakes. The dry earth was scored and spotted with wagon tracks and complex patterns made by overlapping hoof prints.

“A train of supplies and provisions came in from Tucson that night,” Earp said. “Littlejohn and Dundy came out to visit, and the teamsters sat around passing the jug. They say Doc came in to the top of that rise, coughing and cussing and calling for Littlejohn to show himself. When Littlejohn got up from the ground, Doc plugged him in the belly. That's the story they told, anyway, to the last man.”

“Where was Littlejohn standing when he was shot?”

“Right where I am.”

“Doctor, will you stand where Mr. Earp indicated that Doc Holliday stood?”

I went to that spot.

“Mr. Earp, could you mistake Dr. Watson for Holliday under these circumstances?”

“No, sir. A bat wouldn't. Watson's a head shorter and twice as thick through the chest.”

“What about at night? Disregard for the moment his mode of dress.”

“The moon was just shy of full that night. What clothes he had on don't feature. You can make a skinny man look fat in the right clothes, pillows and such, but you can't make a fat man skinny, nor a short man tall, without a pair of stilts.”

“I think it's time we met Mr. Woods.”

A crude wooden placard hung suspended by twine above the open flap of a tent with wooden framework, reading
Tailor's Shop & Undertaking Parlor, A. Woods, Prop
. in whitewash. We ducked inside and were greeted by a man who rose from a canvas chair. The fellow was neatly dressed in a striped waistcoat, black garters, and grey flannel trousers, but the first thing one noticed was his unnaturally brief stature—four feet two at the outside—and cherubic roundness. He was highly colored and close-shaven, with clear blue eyes, and were I his physician I might have treated him for obesity, but never consumption. His welcoming expression became a frown when he saw Earp.

“Mr. Algernon Woods? I am Sherlock Holmes. This is Dr. Watson, my associate, and I believe you know this other gentleman.”

“We've met.” His voice, astonishingly deep for the size of its chamber, had a harsh edge. “He accused me of hiring someone who looked like Holliday to kill Littlejohn.”

“I considered and rejected that hypothesis in the case of Jasper Riley. Youngblood is small and lightly populated as yet. Any local resident who resembled Holliday would be certain to fall under suspicion, and no stranger could fail to be noticed and questioned. In the absence of other suspects, I must conclude that one of three men is a murderer.”

“Your man's in jail.”

“I understand Holliday made use of your tailoring services.”

“He's particular. Grey coats, never black, and he likes his shirts colored. I doubled the size of my scrap pile with the stuff he rejected.” He indicated a heap of odds and ends of cloth between trestle tables covered with bolts of material.

“A man of distinction,” Holmes said.

“A man who likes to stand out.”

“In his condition he can hardly hope not to. As undertaker, did you conduct a post-mortem examination upon Littlejohn?”

“I dug for the slug, but it passed on through.”

“Hardly thorough. Has he been interred?”

“Buried? Not yet; he's in back. What are you, Pinkerton?”

“I am merely a visitor who desires justice. Would you object if Dr. Watson examined the corpse?”

Woods began to speak, but at that moment Wyatt Earp spread his coat casually, exposing the handle of his revolver. The small man closed his mouth and led us with a waddling gait around the edge of a canvas flap bisecting the tent.

I won't belabor the reader with the clinical details of my examination. At Holmes's direction I probed the ghastly wound, then covered the naked body with a sheet and wiped my hands.

“Downward trajectory through the abdomen,” I said. “Thirty degrees.”

“Holliday was taller than Littlejohn,” Woods said. “It's natural he would fire at a downward angle.”

Holmes didn't appear to be listening. “Mr. Earp, would you say the ground sloped thirty degrees at the scene of the crime?”

“About that. I worked on a track gang once and learned a thing or two.”

“Thank you. My compliments, Mr. Woods, upon your reconstructive skills. With rouge and wax you've managed to make Mr. Littlejohn appear in excellent health. Would you allow me to buy you a whisky at the Mescalero Saloon, to apologize for having wrongly suspected you?”

“I won't drink with Holliday's friend. I don't trust him.”

Holmes took Earp aside. The pair spoke in low tones. At length the frontiersman left, but not before casting a dark glance back at Woods over his shoulder. “Mr. Earp understands and has recused himself from our celebration,” Holmes said.

One whisky became three, then four. I am not a man of temperance, but neither am I bibulous, and I measured carefully my ingestion while marveling at the little man's capacity and Holmes's. Their speech grew loud, their consonants less crisp. I had not seen my companion in a state of inebriation and felt embarrassed for him and for my country. I became distinctly ill at ease as darkness fell and the saloon filled with teamsters and miners, all of whom seemed to share my tablemates' fondness for spirits. I remembered what Holliday had said about a bright moon being ideal for a hanging. The guard at the jail could not withstand them all.

Holmes was insensitive to the danger. He suggested we walk Woods back to his establishment, but in truth, when he rose he was as unsteady on his feet as was our guest. I kept my hand in my revolver pocket as we walked through that den of smoke and evil plans, feeling very much upon my own.

My fears for my companion's clouded faculties were realized when he steered Woods in a direction opposite the path to his tent. “Holmes, this isn't—”

He cut me off with a sloppy hiss, a finger to his lips and his other hand clutching the little man's collar, essentially holding him up; Woods was nearly walking upon his ankles. Holmes winked at me, and in that moment I knew that he was sober.

Confused and only partially encouraged, I accompanied the pair outside the mining camp and down the slope where the murder of Hank Littlejohn had occurred. “Holmes!” I jerked out my revolver. A group of men stood at the base of the descent. I recognized Elmer Dundy, Littlejohn's truculent teamster partner, and the miners who had been with him when he'd accosted us in the saloon.

“Spare them, Doctor,” Holmes said. “They're witnesses.”

“Let's get this done with.” Dundy's tone now was free of bluster. I considered him more dangerous in this humour than ever. “I came prepared.” He held up a length of rope ending in a noose.

“One moment. Mr. Earp?”

“Here.” That fellow strode out of the shadow of a piñon tree into the light of a moon, in Holliday's words, “as big as a pumpkin.” His revolver was in his hand.

Dundy and his friends fell into growling murmurs. Algernon Woods, who until this moment had been talking and singing to himself, grew silent, and to a great measure less incoherent. “What's this about? Where's my tent?”

“It's Holliday! He's busted out!” One of the miners pointed.

We turned to observe a tall, emaciated figure at the top of the slope, wearing a voluminous pale coat and a broad-brimmed hat that shadowed the top half of his face and the hollows in his cheeks. One bony arm stuck far out of its sleeve as the figure raised his arm to shoulder level and pointed a long-barreled revolver directly at Holmes and Woods.

Several of Dundy's friends clawed at their overalls, only to stop at a command from Earp, accompanied by the crackling of the hammer as he leveled his weapon at the crowd.

Holmes, with a foolhardiness I could attribute only to the bottle, left Woods weaving to ascend the slope. When he stood beside the figure at the top, he said, “Observe his stance. Is it habitual with Holliday?”

“Ask anyone,” Earp said. “Only a fool fires from the hip.”

“Mr. Dundy?”

The teamster conferred with his friends, nodded. He was hesitant. All could see that Holmes stood two heads higher than the man identified as Holliday.

Holmes produced a ball of string, one end of which he tied to the barrel of the gunman's pistol, then relieved him of it and assumed the former's stance. “Watson!”

I abandoned my weapon to its pocket, the better to catch the spool as he threw it in my direction.

“Mr. Earp, you are Littlejohn's height, are you not?”

“Give or take an inch. I only saw him horizontal.”

“Kindly take Mr. Woods's place.”

There was nothing kind in the way Earp shoved the little tailor aside and supplanted him. He stood, holding his aim upon the group of witnesses, as seeing Holmes's purpose, I unwound the spool.

“Taut, dear fellow! A bullet observes no principle other than the shortest distance between two points.”

I pulled the string taut and placed the spool against Earp's person. It touched him high on the chest.

“Littlejohn was struck low in the abdomen. You will observe, gentlemen, that I stand at about Holliday's height.”

No objections were raised. Holmes then returned the pistol to the much shorter man at his side, who raised it to shoulder level and aimed it down the slope. When at this angle I tightened the string, it touched Earp at his abdomen.