SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (18 page)

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It was all very well for Holmes to make a point of
returning his prophet's regalia to the costumers—and
I suppose it wouldn't have done for him to have gone
about the streets all night in it—but the result of that
errand was a truly infuriating delay while the Inspector and I waited for him outside the Hotel Algonquin,
a wait made even less pleasant by the doorman's evi
dent mortification at the sight of Lafferty's police buggy
parked at the curb.

When Holmes did finally appear, past nine, and
looking a great deal jauntier than I recalled seeing him
for some time, I am afraid that I was less than friendly
in my greeting. "Holmes! Where have you been?
We've been waiting God knows how long!"

"What is it?" he replied, clearly startled by my
vehemence. He glanced with concern at Lafferty.
"Didn't you get my message, Inspector?"

"I did, Mr. Holmes, and the Nickers fellow revealed
the name of McGraw's man who's been cooperating with Moriarty. He's been arrested, the warehouse has
been seized, and fifteen of Moriarty's henchmen are
in jail right now."

"But not Moriarty!" I cried.

"
What!
Is that true?"

"I'm afraid so," said the Inspector. "He abandoned
his men and slipped through our net."

Holmes' face went stiff with sudden fear.
"We must get to Irene's house on the instant! Scott
Adler is in the most extreme peril!"

Lafferty did not question his judgment, but pointed
to the buggy and cried out, "The wagon! Quick!"

The three of us jumped aboard, and in a moment
were clattering down the street. It was but a few mo
ments—peril-filled ones, they seemed to me, as we
dashed through the evening traffic and careered around
corners so quickly that the buggy at times canted
over on two wheels—until we drew up at Irene Adler's
house and Holmes dashed up the steps, ringing the
bell and calling for her and Scott.

"But—they're not here, Mr. Holmes," answered the
perplexed Heller, looking past him at the Inspector
and myself, and the buggy with its lathered horse pant
ing in the traces.

"Not here? Where did they go?"

Holmes made his way into the foyer, and Lafferty
and I followed.

"Why—to meet you, sir. You sent them this tele
gram."
The butler picked up a buff-colored sheet of paper
from the foyer table.

"Give me that!" cried Holmes, and hastily read it.
"'Meet me at the fountain in Stuyvesant Square
within the hour. Sherlock.'" He crumpled the telegram
in his fist. "I've sent them directly into his hands!
Heller—how long ago did they leave?"

"Within the half-hour, sir."

Sherlock Holmes turned to us, his eyes ablaze.
"Quick, The game's afoot, and we've not a mo
ment to lose!"

Holmes, Lafferty, and I scurried down the steps to
the buggy and leaped aboard it.

The Inspector yelled to the driver, "Stuyvesant
Square! Emergency!"

We were bounced about on the seat as the wagon
got off to a racing start. Far faster than before, we scorched through the streets, very nearly overturning
at some corners, it seemed to me, and more than once
scraping a lamppost.

In a few moments, Lafferty glanced out the win
dow and said, "This is it! Now, where—?"

I looked out into the park-like square, and saw,
near its central fountain, the figure of a lone woman.
"There! That's Miss Adler. But where's the boy?"

At the Inspector's direction, the driver sent the
police wagon driving straight along the footpath to
where Irene Adler stood. Holmes fairly tumbled out
of it and ran over to her.

"Sherlock! Sherlock, they have him! They have
him again! Just now!"

I caught a glimpse of a closed carriage at the moment leaving the square, the lamplight revealing a
familiar checked pattern on the driver's coat, and
pointed at it.
"Holmes! There, just turning the corner! The chap
driving that cab!"

"Yes!" cried Irene Adler. "They're the ones!"

"Moriarty!" said Holmes. "Inspector! That cab!
We must overtake it! Irene, Watson, come!"

He and I pulled her along and into the buggy, while
Lafferty called out to his driver, "That cab heading
south! Catch up with it!"

Once again the police vehicle seemed to fly along
the streets; but this time there was a quarry in sight,
a quarry which, though we could not gain on it, did
not seem able to draw away from us.

In a few broken sentences, Irene Adler told us how she had taken the telegram as a genuine one, thinking
that Holmes, to celebrate Moriarty's downfall, meant
to meet them at the indicated spot to take them to the
late supper he had spoken of. She and her son had,
indeed, thought that the carriage which approached
them held Holmes himself, until the boy had been
snatched from her and thrust into the cab by the man
in the bright suit, and she herself immobilized by a
pistol clapped to her head.

"Thank God you came when you did!" she gasped.
"Even seconds later, and they would have been out of sight and gone forever!"

"Seconds earlier, and we should have forestalled
them!" said Holmes savagely. "Don't worry, Irene—
we'll get your lad out of this!"

I hoped his voice did not ring as hollowly to her as
it did to me.

Then, as the chase progressed, Holmes suddenly
glanced sharply out the window.
"Inspector, isn't this—?" he began.

"By heaven, it is," said Lafferty. "We're heading
straight for the scoundrel's headquarters!"

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The carriage containing Scott Adler and the white-faced man who menaced him with a pistol, and driven
by the man in the checked suit, jolted to a halt at the
derelict warehouse.

"They're hot on our heels, Professor!" the driver
called.

"Step lively, boy!" Moriarty ordered Scott. "Through
that door and up the stairs! March!"

The driver pulled the door closed behind them.
In the Professor's study, Moriarty snapped orders to
his remaining henchman.
"You know what to do! Ready the launch!"

He grasped a long lever at the side of his desk and pulled it. A section of the bookshelves along one wall
slid open, revealing a moldy, brick-lined passage. The
man in the checked suit entered it and was lost to
sight.

"We'll follow, once I've completed one final bit of business," said Moriarty. He flung an arm around the
boy's neck and dragged him behind the desk, then
raised his pistol and barked, "Don't move, boy! It'll be
the finish of you if you do!"

His weapon trained on the door, he waited . . .

———«»——————«»——————«»———

As the police buggy dashed up, to halt beside the
now-empty carriage that had brought Scott Adler
and his captors to this dreadful place, the four of us
jumped from it.

Lafferty ordered his driver, "Round up a squad as
fast as you can!" The buggy turned and clattered off
once more. "Shall we burst in and seize them?" he
asked Holmes.

"No! I must go in alone. Who knows what harm he
might do Scott if cornered—and I'm sure the prem
ises blaze with hidden pitfalls. When you see the lad
come out that door—unharmed—
then
you may come
in after me."

He walked toward the warehouse door, then halted
briefly and turned as Irene Adler moaned hopelessly,
"Oh, Scott, Scott . . . !"

"You shall not long be parted."

Holmes said the phrase as solemnly as a man taking an oath.

———«»——————«»——————«»———

He moved cautiously but certainly up the steps.
Light leaked around a door at the edge of the landing, and he knew that here was where the final confronta
tion must be. Once at the door, he did not hesitate,
but pushed it open.

Professor James Moriarty, a gun trained squarely
at Holmes' chest, and grasping Scott Adler about the
throat, sat crouched behind his desk.

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" said he in venomous, husky
tones. "I thought it might be you."

"I've no doubt of that at all." Holmes looked about
the room, and a touch of grim amusement passed
across his face. "Well, well! A little touch of London
far from home, I see! You must really feel at home in
that chamber of horrors to want to duplicate it wher
ever you go." He took one step nearer the desk.
"You may release the lad now, Professor.
I'm
the one you want, and here I stand. Let the boy return
to his mother."

Moriarty sneered.
"Dare you cross the room to fetch him?"

Sherlock Holmes took another step. With the speed
of a striking cobra, Moriarty let his pistol fall to the desk, gave a sudden tug at one of the levers protrud
ing from its edge, and snatched the weapon up again.
Holmes leaped to one side just in time to avoid the
smashing plunge of the heavy chandelier to the floor.

"Wrong, Mr. Holmes!" cried Moriarty in shrilly
triumphant tones. "I've
got
what I want—the boy!"
He indicated the open passageway with the pistol, then
returned it to its bead on Holmes. "D'you see that
passage? It leads to the river, where a steam launch
waits! The boy comes with me, and you'll never
see him again, neither you nor his mother!
That's
the revenge I'll have of you, Mr. Holmes! You'll nei
ther of you ever see this precious boy again!"

Holmes' leap had brought him next to the mantel
piece, on which, he noticed, stood a vase identical to the one he had smashed in the Professor's London quarters. He reached for it—and flung it squarely
at the hand which held the gun. It shattered, and
Moriarty gave a howl as the weapon spun to the floor.
In making a grab for it, he momentarily released his
grip on Scott.

"Scott! Run!" Holmes cried, leaping at Moriarty.
"Back down those stairs to your mother! Quick, lad—
show me your heels!"

As the boy disappeared, Holmes and Moriarty
grappled in what each meant to be their final struggle.
The Professor snatched the gun from the floor as
Holmes closed with him, forced his arm upwards, and
the pistol fired harmlessly into the ceiling. Holmes was
able to wrench it away from him, and flung it aside;
then Moriarty broke free, grabbed an umbrella from
a stand and brought it down in a vicious arc armed at
his opponent's head. Holmes parried the blow and
struck the umbrella from his adversary's hands.

The struggle had taken them almost to the fireplace,
against which the Professor now violently shoved
Holmes. Then Moriarty darted back to his desk to pull
another lever, which sent a knife flashing across the
room to within a fraction of an inch of the detective's
head. Holmes grabbed up a fire iron and advanced
on Moriarty, but was obliged to leap backwards to
avoid the impact of a heavy suit of standing armor
which the Professor attempted to tip over onto him.

With another bound to his desk, Moriarty gave a
final tug to a lever, and the section of flooring im
mediately behind Holmes—in fact, partly under his
heels—dropped away, leaving him teetering precari
ously. Moriarty gave a savage roar of triumph and rushed for him. Together they grappled, and swayed
on the edge of the open trapdoor, as they had on that
May day ten years before, on the brink of the
Reichenbach Falls.