Sherlock Holmes In America (40 page)

“Then let it begin,” I replied.

In the days, weeks, and months that followed, the Boss and his men did nothing less than to rob me of my Britishness and turn me into an Irishman—or, rather, an Irish-American. I was schooled in the lore of that island, and in its resentful, aggrieved history. I was taught the finer points of counterfeiting, of bomb-making and pistolshooting, loosening my British inhibitions against the straightforward use of violence. At one point, my mind flashed back to that moment in what Watson had called
The Adventure of the Three Garridebs
, and I realized that never again would I strike a ruthless criminal such as “Killer” Evans with my pistol when I could more easily shoot him in lawful response to his attempted murder of Watson and myself.

As the Boss said, this was war.

I learnt of the Irish underground railroad, which moved fleeing Fenians through Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, New Orleans, Chicago, St. Paul, and San Francisco. I realized for the first time the immense amount of money being collected in the States to be remitted to Ireland, apparently to finance a very big operation to be forthcoming. I heard names bruited, names not unfamiliar to me, but never in this context: Casement and Childers and a man they called “Dev.” The thought that men such as these could possibly be traitors to the Crown stunned me.

There was more, even darker. Cut off from civilization as I was, I had little recourse to newspapers. But the ominous wind blowing from east had not gone unnoticed, even in here Buffalo. The possibility of war with the Kaiser's Germany was now openly being contemplated across the Atlantic and, to judge from the tenor of my companions' remarks, it was something devoutly to be wished—and they made no secret where their loyalties lay.

As a “cover,” I was sent to work with a motor-car mechanic. Americans were mad for motor cars, and with my natural aptitude for gadgetry, I was soon on a first-name basis with starters, sparking plugs, oil pumps, and the like. To enhance my Americanness, I even began to sport a small, although hideous, goatee beard, which lent me an uncanny resemblance to “Uncle Sam.”

That was by day. In the evenings I often visited with Miss McParland. Why she had betrayed me in Chicago, I still had no idea. She would not respond to any questions on the subject, but instead fixed me with that penetrating gaze I had come to know so well. Once, I dared ask her what was in the letter I had delivered, but her expression was that of a kindly teacher toward an especially dim pupil, and so I dropped the subject for the nonce. Instead, she handed me a “dime novel” about Custer's Last Stand and asked me to read it aloud.

I had not got ten words into it when she stopped me. “No, no,” she said. “Listen to me, then imitate.” Treating me as an especially dim pupil, forcing me to repeat words, then phrases, then sentences, correcting my pronunciation at every step, as if she were my Svengali and I her Trilby. The object was to change my manner of speaking, to expunge all traces of Britishness in my speech, and to adopt the harsh and unlovely tunes of the American. I made rapid progress.

One evening, exhausted by my labors at the motor-car shop, as I lay smoking, she entered, but this time without a book. Directly, I made to rise, but she held up her hand in that forward way American girls have, and bid me to lie still. She took the bedside chair, and without preamble, she began to sing. It was a curious, melancholy waltz, but with a kind of serenity about it that I found utterly captivating. And her voice . . . it was of such perfection that the angels themselves must have been sitting at her feet, listening. “Just a song at twilight / when the lights are low / and the flick'ring shadows / softly come and go . . . ”

“What is it?” I asked when she had concluded.

“‘Love's Old Sweet Song,'” she whispered. “Come on, James—sing it with me now.”

It was the first time she had called me by my Christian name, and even though it was not really mine, I felt a thrill run through me.

And so we sang. The song ended. She searched my face for what seemed like hours, questions unposed flitting across hers. “You know, Jim,” she said at last, “you're really something.”

And so time passed . . .

In the portrait that Watson has so generously drawn of me, you may perhaps have noticed that disguise comes as second nature with me; indeed, I think I do not flatter myself by acknowledging that the stage in fact lost a great talent when I chose instead to become the world's first private consulting detective. Still, no role I had played, neither stable boy, nor wizened bookseller, nor even Sigerson—when the world, including Watson, thought me dead after Professor Moriarty's unfortunate accident at the Reichenbach Falls—could rival my new persona as Jim McKenna. With every passing day, he was becoming more and more real to me, and there were days when I hardly thought of Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street.

The irony was unmistakable: in search of the solution to the greatest mystery of my life, I had become my own client.

Therefore, I could not help but reexamine many of the tenets of my previous faith. Of course, it was impossible that I could descend to the level of the common Irish among whom I found myself. And yet, perhaps my forcible indoctrination was offering me another perspective on a people I had long dismissed as either congenital drunkards or habitual criminals—if often, like Moriarty and Moran, criminals of genius—whom I had now come to see, mostly thanks to Miss McParland, as human beings.

It was in the midst of this brown study that I took my place at our evening table, Mrs. Murphy's boardinghouse writ large, but with as dangerous a band of cutthroats as I had ever associated with. As a series of names was called out, it was clear to me at once that the die had finally been cast: Lefty Louie, One-Eye, Happy Jim, and Paddy the Priest; the Americans were on a first-name basis with the world. And then . . .

“Jim,” said the Boss. “And Maddie. That's the team. You leave two days hence for New York.”

Morey rose in anger. “But Boss—,” he sputtered. “What about me?”

“Shut yer gob, Charlie,” retorted the Boss. A parcel bound up with twine landed with a plop in front of me. New clothes, to complete my transformation from British gentleman to Irish-American ruffian. Among the accessories, I noticed, was a revolver. “Wear it in good health, Jimbo,” he said. “And use it if you have to.”

Once again, all eyes were upon me, Morey's most especially. Only this time, it was not a rain of brickbats and chamber pots, but rather the hushed breath of expectancy that accompanied their attention. Though her gaze was modestly diverted, I could sense Maddie's blushes from across the room. “Terrific, Boss,” I said, then turned my glance to her. “Let's blow this dump, Maddie. I'm goin' bughouse here.”

The plan was that she and I were to pose as father and daughter. But Maddie demurred, arguing that despite our difference in age, it was far more common among our class that an older man take a younger wife than be seen traveling with a marriageable daughter. And so it was agreed. Over one objection, as you might well imagine. Indeed, Morey had been quietly but steadily seething in a corner of the room, and I did not like his look.

We were but small cogs in a much greater wheel of intrigue, so the exact use to which our “charitable” funds were to be put was never spelled out. But I had long since caught the drift: the Fenians, the IRB, and the Irish Republican Army were planning some kind of an uprising in the near future, perhaps in conjunction with some agents of the Kaiser based in rebellious Ireland; there were mutterings about the Dutchmen, which I knew was an American term for the Germans, and a rendezvous in Skibbereen.

And then it struck me—this was, perhaps, the reason Mycroft had sent me on this mission: to infiltrate the gang and find out what the Irish-American brethren were planning for the Ould Sod. What a fool I had been to mistrust him!

There was just one last missing piece of the puzzle. And only she could help me, help me see what I could not see for myself. At long last, I was piercing the veil.

Silently, she came to me that night. We spoke not a word. I slipped off my shirt. With her tender hands, she traced the markings on my back: a triangle within a circle. And suddenly, it was all clear to me. It was the same brand that Birdy Edwards once bore, and the corpse he had so devoutly wished to pass off as his own at Birlstone in order to make his escape from the Scowrers of Vermissa Valley a quarter of a century ago. The hand of a man long dead had reached out and touched my shoulder. The hand of Fate.

She kissed the back of my neck and then, moving lower, the wound, kissing the brand, kissing the mark of Cain that had been forever laid upon me.

I could hear the rustle of her shift as it dropped to floor, then felt her warm flesh upon mine. “Now we're both comfortable,” she said.

There was revelry the next night in what passed for the Altamont's ballroom to celebrate our departure on the morrow. The beer and spirits flowed.

Morey had been glaring and glowering at me all evening, and I smelt trouble brewing from this bonehead—trouble for which I was fully prepared, or so I thought.

“Come, Jim, let's dance,” said Maddie. “If we're to,” she blushed, “pretend . . . to be married, then we ought to act like it.” I took her sweet hand in mine and led her to the dance floor.

In a flash, the glowering Morey was upon us. “Take your filthy paws off her, you damned bastard!” he shouted. “Or, by God, I'll send you straight to hell.” He shoved me, hard.

“No, Charlie,” cried Maddie.

“You belong to me!” he snarled.

“No,” she replied, with a quiet dignity that I shall never forget. “I belong to him, and there's the end of it.”

Enraged, Morey lunged for her, bringing him directly into my path. I could not bear to let Morey's Irish temper spoil that which now lay before me, nor its promise of happiness.

I struck him in the face with all my might. The same strength that unbent my poker after Dr. Roylott's ministrations was summoned forth one last time. The whole room could hear the crack of the bone. For an instant, I thought I had killed him.

He stumbled backwards, reaching for his pistol as he fell. A shot rang out. I felt nothing. He had missed! I moved in for the kill. My Irish, as they say, was well and truly up. As I made ready to finish him—

—I heard my Maddie cry out. Instantly, all thoughts of further violence were forgotten; I turned to see her, lying on the floor. As I rushed to her side, I could see at a glance that the wound was fatal.

“Water!” I shouted.

The best I could do was make her as comfortable as possible before her final journey into that land of
Mor
that the Irish know so well. I cradled her dear head in my arms. Her eyes were wide and so blue.

“Be true to me, Jim,” she gasped. “On the blood of my father, be true to me!”

“Birdy Edwards,” I said, quietly. Her eyes told me the truth. She had known all along.

The chastened crowd moved forward, to hear the dying colleen's last words. “God, how I hated him for his treachery, even as I admired him for his bravery. How I love the people he betrayed! And how I love him for betraying them!”

Somehow, she found the strength to raise her arms and point at the people in the room, sweeping them all up in her dragnet. “And you!” she cried. “How I hate you for what you did to him, and for what you made him do.” Her head dropped back into my arms.

Her strength was gone, and I knew the end was near. Somehow, she found the power to extract something from the folds of her dress and press it into my hand. It was the letter from Mycroft, now stained with her blood.

I put my ear to her sweet lips. “Promise me, Jim, you'll never waiver. Never despair. Never falter.”

“I promise, Maddie.”

“Tell me you love me,” she said, the fierce light in her eyes subsiding.

“As no other.” It was just moments now. “And forever.”

“Then sing to me. One last time. The song at twilight.” She gasped and shuddered.

I sang: “Still to us at twilight / comes Love's old song / comes Love's old sweet song . . . ”

I never stopped singing to her, even after she lay quite still and silent in my arms.

The rest of my story is quickly told. I chased Morey across the sea, to Ireland and Skibbereen. He had gone to ground, seeking shelter with the IRA, but of course it was child's play for Jim McKenna, a fellow Irish-American, to find him. As I had done so often in London, where young Irish boys had been legion among my Baker Street Irregulars, I quickly organized a flying column of street Arabs, which fanned out across all the public houses of the town. In less than a day I had my answer: “The Wild Geese.”

I slipped in incognito: cap tugged down low, hunched over, a tremor in the hand that held my walking-stick. Morey, on the other hand, was his usual loud, vulgar, and expansive self. I spotted him at a table in the corner, gesticulating wildly at a Prussian gentleman whose monocle and dueling scar proclaimed both his ancestry and his attitude.

As I edged closer, I heard him say, “ . . . von Herling. Now a deal's a deal and if you've even half a mind to double-cross me well, buster, you had better watch your step.”