SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (16 page)

"By George, you're right, Holmes," said I a short
time later in our rooms at the Algonquin, as I looked
out the window into the street. "Not a sign of any
one watching us!"

Sherlock Holmes, rubbing briskly at a last wisp of
false moustache clinging to his upper lip, emerged
from the bedroom.

"I assumed as much, Watson," he replied. "We
have them round now—and they don't know it. It's
our
game from here on."

"What's the next move, then?"

"Dinner, I should say. It's almost on nine; and I
have not dined, Watson, I have not lunched, and I've
only the vaguest memory of having breakfasted. I suggest we make up for that lapse in the Algonquin's most
estimable restaurant, and look up Inspector Lafferty
as soon after that as we're able."

"Hear, hear!" said I. "I suggest you ask for some
pastromy. It's a remarkable local dish, and certainly
a hotel named for one of the aboriginal tribes ought
to be able to provide the native foods."

———«»——————«»——————«»———

We found Inspector Lafferty at his office, and, to
his credit, he wasted no time in further recriminations
or in requiring explanations of Holmes' decision to
reverse his stand on participating in the investigation of the gold theft. He quickly arranged for us to meet
Mr. Mortimer McGraw the next day at the Bouwerie
National Bank, to inspect the scene of the crime.

———«»——————«»——————«»———

It certainly seemed an unlikely crime to have taken
place. The entrance to the lift leading down to the
vaults was secured by a combination lock, as were the
controls of the lift itself.

Holmes inspected the lift with keen interest as he
and I, McGraw, and Lafferty entered it, and said, "I
presume the lock on the controls has a different com
bination from the one that unlocks the main door?"

"It does, sir," said McGraw.

"How many people know these combinations?"

"Only the six employees of the exchange and my
self. I might also add that the tumblers are changed
every three months."

The controls unlocked, Mr. McGraw tugged on a
handle, and the lift began to move downwards.

"Admirable," said Holmes. "
If
in this case futile.
Is this the only way in which the vaults can be
reached?"

"Up until five days ago it was," Inspector Lafferty
observed bitterly.

With the Inspector and McGraw sunk in gloom, and
myself at sea, only Holmes seemed perfectly at ease,
looking about the lift as if memorizing the details of
its operation.

"What sort of lift is this?" said he.

"Drum and cable," replied McGraw. "Works from
above."

"And how far do we descend?"

"One hundred and fifty feet."

"At what rate of speed?"

"Two hundred feet a minute."

Not for the first time, I felt a sense of impatience
with Sherlock Holmes' passion for facts. It was all
very well for him to be able to know the number of
steps in any staircase he used, and similar parlor-
tricks, but to continue this jackdaw accumulation of
statistics whilst his mind should have been puzzling
out the means of the theft of milliards (if that
is
what billions are) of dollars' worth of gold—that
smacked of frivolity.

A jolt signaled the end of our descent.

"Ah, we appear to have arrived," said Holmes.

McGraw slid back the iron-mesh inner doors of the
lift, revealing yet another door of solid steel. This,
too, was equipped with a combination lock, which he
proceeded to manipulate while Holmes watched.

"I take it that this combination also differs from
its fellows, and is altered every ninety days as well?"

"Correct, sir." McGraw pushed open the heavy door, and gave a mournful sigh. "And now, Mr.
Holmes, I ask you to see for yourself what I can only
describe as the most dismal sight the world has ever
seen."

It was certainly a strange spectacle. On either side
of a central corridor hewn from the living rock stood
rows of cells, uncannily like those in a jail, with their
barred doors all standing open, as though there had
been a mass release, or escape, of prisoners. A row
of
electric bulbs set into the ceiling of the corridor formed a line that led to the far end and revealed a jagged patch of blackness in the back wall: the hole that had been blasted in it. Holmes made his way to
this, and fell to examining it with his magnifying glass.

After a moment, he looked at McGraw, and re
marked, "Extraordinary. More than a foot of rock and
concrete had to be cut through. The noise must have
been deafening."

"Since they've been working on the subway, you
could set off dynamite and no one would hear it,"
said McGraw.

"A condition that doubtless was taken advantage
of."

Holmes stepped through the hole into the tunnel
leading to the subway excavation, and moved slowly
along it. Lafferty, McGraw, and I stared after him,
able to make him out only vaguely in the darkness as
he descended at a distinct angle.

He called back to us over his shoulder, "Two pieces
of bullion were left behind, you say? Where?"

Inspector Lafferty pointed past Holmes and shouted,
"One in the tunnel just ahead of you, the other about
fifty feet south of the main excavation."

Sherlock Holmes turned and started back toward
where we stood. As he approached, I ventured a com
ment.
"Well, that makes it clear enough, doesn't it,
Holmes? They made off in that direction with their
boodle."

"One would immediately accept that conclusion, Watson, I quite agree," said he, stepping through the
breached wall once again. "I should like a closer look
at these vaults now."

We stood aside and he prowled along the opened cells like a terrier questing among rat-holes in a barn
to see if any of them holds a quarry. He ventured into
one of the cells in the middle of the line, and his
voice, given a hollow, echoing quality by the confined space, came out to us: "How many actual
bars
of gold
were stored here, do you know?"

Mr. McGraw answered, "Just prior to the theft
these vaults held eighteen million pounds of gold, con
sisting of three hundred and sixty thousand fifty
pound blocks, each valued at twenty-eight thousand dollars."

Holmes' head popped out of the cell he was inspect
ing. He stared hard at the president of the Exchange.
"Three hundred sixty thousand blocks? And they
were shifted out of here without anyone noticing it? I
believe I would not be putting it too strongly to say
that is a remarkable circumstance, gentlemen!"

I looked at him closely. When that mild, almost playful tone came into his voice, it was a clear sign
that Sherlock Holmes believed he had a card or so up
his sleeve.

Inspector Lafferty's reaction was to snort, while
Mortimer McGraw said impatiently, "Remarkable! If
we weren't standing here looking at these empty vaults,
I'd say it was impossible!"

"Yes" said Holmes. "I should say so, too." He
gave a final look around at the vaults. "I should like
to return to the lift now."

Once there, he pointed to a small trapdoor in the
ceiling of the lift.

"That hatchway there. Does it provide access to
the overhead drum and cable?"

"Yes," answered McGraw.

"Watson, might I trouble you for a leg up?"

"Of course. Here you are," said I, and formed a
stirrup with my hands.

Holmes stepped on to it, and with the increased
distance from the floor, was able to open the trap
door, then hoist himself partway through the hatchway
by grasping its sides. His voice, muffled by the ceiling, came back to us.
"Very sensible of you, Mr. McGraw, to have the
drum housing illuminated by electricity. Very con
venient for repairs, I'm sure; and it always helps to
shed light on things."

McGraw was beginning to have a sour look, as
though he had come to question the value of Sherlock
Holmes' help in the case. Meanwhile, the detective
dropped back to the lift floor.

"Thank you. I think I've seen everything I need to
see, gentlemen. I have one final inquiry to make else
where, following which I believe I shall be able to fit all the pieces together and provide you with a satis
factory solution."

McGraw seemed taken aback at this display of
confidence.
"And the gold?" he inquired.

"The gold, of course, will be forthcoming with the solution of the problem."

Inspector Lafferty appeared to be evenly divided
between disbelief and hope.

"In time for the transfer of the bullion tomorrow
morning?" he asked.

Holmes gave him a cheerful smile, and said, "It is
my fondest wish."

He amiably fended off any further questions, and,
once back at the street level of the bank, we took our
leave of two sorely confused men.

Holmes set off at a brisk pace through lower Man
hattan, a section which, except for the height of the
buildings, might almost have been London. It had
many winding streets, some of them even bearing
familiar names, such as Maiden Lane, and I was
given quite a turn when I saw a church that might
have been twin to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

My friend appeared to have a definite destination in
mind, and I asked, "Where are we off to now?"

"To pay a call on Thomas Vallence and Company,
the firm that designed the underground. I want to as
certain the depth of the excavation at the point at
which it passed the Bouwerie National Bank. I shall
be most astonished if we are not told that the figure is
precisely one hundred fifty feet."

The engineers at the Vallence office proved most
cooperative; and so did their blueprints and field
notes, which bore out Holmes' estimate of the exca
vation's depth precisely.

I knew well enough by now that my friend's interest
in this measurement was not another example of his
mania for general information—and must bear impor
tantly on the case. Yet I could not see how. I puzzled
over this for a space, as we jogged northward in a
cab—Holmes had flatly rejected my suggestion that we
return uptown via the elevated railway—and finally
gave it up.

"Just what is it we have found out?" I asked.

"Everything."

"
Everything?
You mean you know where the gold
is?"

"I knew
that
the moment we descended in the lift.
I merely wanted to double-check my certainty."

"Well . . . where is it?"

"We were standing on it."

"We were—
Holmes!
"

So bizarre a statement must be a joke, yet I could
not make out the point of it.

"Don't you see what the wily devil has done, man?"

I felt distinctly put out. "No, I
don't
see. And I'm
sure I should be delighted if you'd tell me!"

Holmes sprawled in the seat, legs outstretched and
feet resting on the opposite bench, his fingers steepled.

"Consider, Watson. Three hundred sixty thousand
blocks of gold, each weighing fifty pounds. Give Moriarty a hundred—give him
two
hundred—men,
each able to carry a fifty-pound block of gold."

"Very well. What then?"

"Each of those two hundred men would have to
carry eighteen hundred blocks out of those vaults."

At this point we arrived at the hotel, and continued
the conversation while entering it, traversing the lobby, and regaining our rooms.

"To carry a single fifty-pound block from the vaults,
through the tunnel to some conveyance waiting in the
excavation, and then to return for a second block,
could not reasonably be accomplished in less than ten
minutes. In other words, Watson, it would take eight
een
thousand
minutes, or three hundred
hours
to com
plete the task. That's over twelve days—and the gold
was there six days ago!"

A quick calculation seemed to indicate that the only
way the crime could have been accomplished was
with the aid of an army of five hundred men working
twenty-four hours a day. But I could see no point
whatever in saying so.

"Mr. McGraw's instincts were quite correct," said
Holmes. "The task appears impossible, in spite of the evidence of the empty vaults."

"But, Holmes, they
were
empty!"

Now back in our sitting room, he removed his
cloak and cap and reached for his pipe.

"
Those
vaults were," he said.

"Those vaults? Holmes, what on earth are you sug
gesting?"