SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (3 page)

"You cannot imagine," said I firmly, "that I shall
allow you to embark on a matter of this moment—
though what it is, I confess I do not know—unaccom
panied. Especially in a strange country, you will need
someone—"

"—on whom I can rely absolutely. You have the
right of it, Watson, as always when it comes to ques
tions not requiring overmuch mental agility! Well,
well, I shan't deny I shall be glad to have you by my
side, though I warn you this is a dark business. I can't
see the shape of it yet, but it may well be that we
come away from it with worse wounds than that Jezail bullet-hole in your leg!"

It was not only Holmes' comment that reminded me
of my Army service that morning; I own that I felt
quite like a commanding officer planning an attack as
I studied timetables and sailing schedules, bullied the
steamship line's clerk into telegraphing Liverpool to
confirm our cabin, and arranged matters so that we would be on the high seas on a fast liner before sun
set—with the great port of New York only six days
and some hours ahead of us. I had even ferreted out
from the clerk the means by which we were to get to
the American city itself from our landing place on the opposite bank of the river, which bore the exotic name
of Hoboken—there were frequent ferries, he assured
me. I arranged for him to book rooms for us at an
hotel by trans-Atlantic cable.

The sums of money I was obliged to lay out gave me pause, but did not deter me. This was clearly a
matter of such urgency for Holmes that speed and
speed alone was important. I counted myself lucky
to live in an age when money
could
transport one
across the ocean in practically the twinkling of an eye
—less than a week.

It all went perfectly, with our trunks being tossed
aboard the luggage van a full five minutes before our
Liverpool train left Waterloo Station. As we stood on
the platform before entering our carriage, a slight fig
ure swathed in an ulster sprinted toward us. "Mr. Holmes!"

"Why, it's Lestrade! Good morning, Inspector.
What brings you here? I hope you have not come with
a problem for me to look into, for I must and shall be
on this tram."

"No, no, Mr. Holmes, you shall have your ocean
voyage. I only came to see you off in the way of friend
ship, if I may presume so far. And, though there
are
those at Scotland Yard who would feel more comforta
ble if you were at hand whilst we're seeing to this
Moriarty business, I believe we have it well enough
in hand. It is only a matter of time before some of
those fellows we have in custody decide to talk about
their master, and, thanks to your work, we shall know
where he is to be found."

"You expect Professor Moriarty to sit quietly in his den in the Victoria Docks to await your knock at the
door, do you?" said Holmes.

Lestrade shrugged. "He is, of course, under con
stant watch. No person has left that place since your
own departure, and I assure you that none will leave
without one of my smartest detectives keeping close
on his track."

"Are the river police also keeping watch? You will
recall my mention of the trapdoor in the Professor's
quarters."

Lestrade laughed heartily.

"Dear me, Mr. Holmes, you don't want to be get
ting fanciful! Dropping through a trap like a panto
mime demon into a boat that spirits him away into the
fog—that's more a scene for the magic show at Maskelyne and Devant's than what happens in real
life, I can tell you! No, sir, it's the regular police work
that does it in the end, be assured of that. I say, there's the guard signaling. You and Doctor Watson had best
be getting aboard. I wish you both the finest of
weather on your voyage!"

I could see the Inspector waving from the platform
as the train drew out of the station. Holmes looked
back at him gloomily.

"There are times, Watson," said he, "when I feel
a certain kinship with Professor Moriarty. With such
guardians of the law as that, it seems almost criminal
not to take advantage of the opportunity. You may
depend upon it that, should the police ever gather the
evidence they need, they will find their bird flown.''

"
Floated
in this case, I should say," I put in, much
pleased to have been able to correct Holmes' imagery.

He did not respond to the trifling jest, even with the
irritation that such things sometimes roused in him, but
stared out the window at the suburban landscape that
now slid past us.

"What's going through your head, Holmes?"

When he spoke, it was more as though he mar
shaled his thoughts for his own benefit than made
any effort to satisfy my curiosity.

"I am attempting to connect two events that by all
sense and logic
cannot
be connected—truly a futile
exercise, Watson."

"What are they?"

"My conversation with Moriarty three nights ago,
and the receipt of those shredded theater tickets this
morning."

"But how could one have had the remotest connection with the other?"

"That is precisely it, Watson. I don't know
. . .
I
don't know. And yet, were I Moriarty, and were my
one unwavering determination the destruction of
Sherlock Holmes, I would expend every effort at my command to discover the single, the only chink in his
armor, however small it might be. And, once I had
found it, if it exists at all, it is there I should thrust with all the strength and fury I could muster!"

I laughed heartily.

"Chink in
your
armor, Holmes? Rubbish! There's
no such thing, man!"

He took out his pocket watch and snapped open
the case, though it was too early in the journey to
check on whether the train was keeping to its schedule.
"Isn't there, Watson?" said he. "Isn't there? We must
wait and see."

As Sherlock Holmes shut the watch and returned
it to its pocket, I recalled that its inner lid bore a care
fully cut and fitted miniature portrait of Irene Adler.

The trouble with split-second arrangements is that
un-
split seconds have a way of adding up into minutes.
An accretion of delays in our railway journey, no one
of them significant in itself, came near in their sum to
making us miss the
Pavonia
. Its tall stacks were al
ready trailing smoke as the cab which had whirled us from the station clattered on to a nearly deserted pier.
Porters, galvanized by the ten-shilling note I waved
like a banner, trotted up the gangplank with our
trunks, Holmes and I striding behind them.

I leaned against a rail, puffing slightly, I fear, with
the exertion.

"We made it, Holmes, but only just," I said. "I
don't know how we could have cut it any finer!"

Sherlock Holmes cocked his head toward the still-
emplaced gangplank.
"Evidently one passenger has done so," said he.

I turned to look, and saw two burly fellows carrying
an invalid-chair containing a black-swathed form,
picking their way nimbly up the steeply angled board.
A slighter young man in a dark frockcoat followed
this strange entourage. As its bearers brought the chair on to the main deck, I caught a glimpse of a horridly
emaciated, almost mummy-like face, with luxuriant,
though unkempt, white hair straggling under the
shawl which covered the head. Then the procession
passed through a door to an inside corridor.

"Good Lord, Holmes!" said I. "I doubt that old
lady's in any condition to stand five days at sea!"

"You forget, Watson, that the modern ocean liner
is as comfortable and well-appointed as any hotel in a great city—and a great deal more so, I fear, than
most hospitals and rest-homes! In any case, you med
ical men are always talking of the marvelously re
vivifying effects of the ocean breezes. Doubtless she
is counting on that. Though I must admit," he re
marked, looking over the rail to the dark surface of
the water below and wrinkling his nose, "that Liver
pool Harbor seems to be another matter. Let us go
below and see how to dispose our effects so that our
shins, if not our tempers, survive the next six days!"

The
Pavonia
was well out into the Irish Sea by dusk,
and Holmes sniffed the air with keen appreciation as
we strolled on the deck.

"By Jove, Watson," said he, "this is a strange po
sition for me to find myself in! I am on grave business,
but can do nothing about it. Logic and deduction have
taken me as far as they will; I have no way of being
in touch with anyone on either side of the Atlantic to
gain information or give instruction; I am, for very
nearly the first time in my life, isolated and perforce inactive. Well, well, there it is—and I propose to make the best of it. It is a holiday I have not taken by choice,
but a holiday nonetheless. I have not had much prac
tice at it, but I believe I shall see what I can do about
enjoying myself!"

In the event, Sherlock Holmes' recreation turned
out not to be very different from his profession. His
main delight, that first evening, was to observe his
fellow-passengers as they promenaded, or were vis
ible through the portholes of the several public rooms and saloons of the great liner.

"Why, it's a whole world, Watson, in miniature! A
throng of people going about their business, unthinking
and uncaring of the genius and workmanship that con
structed the vessel on which they travel, and scarcely more mindful of the perilous depths they traverse. Just
so does the great globe itself plow through the ether,
with its voyagers equally ignorant of its motive
power."

"I believe the
Pavonia
has twin screws," said I, "and
the engines are—"

He halted me with an impatient gesture, which he
then amended to a friendly slap on the shoulder.

"Good old Watson," said he. "I can always count
on you to deflate the hot-air balloon of my fancy
when it gets too elevated! In any case, whether one
considers the world or a ship, it matters not to me what
makes it move; it is the passengers and their doings
that provide the true fascination. And—hello—
is
that?—I do believe . . . Hum. Yes, Watson,
some
passengers are extremely interesting!"

I followed the direction of his gaze but saw nothing
save a small group of men entering one of the sa
loons.

"Whom did you see, Holmes?" I asked.

"No one of any consequence," he responded. "I
am, after all, on holiday, and life aboard ship must
be considered in some sense like that of a water-hole
in the veldt, where creatures normally inimical ob
serve a truce, and even the lion and the jackal do not trouble one another."

The deck was almost deserted now, and Holmes
turned to lean on the rail and observe the lights on the
Irish coast slipping by.

This last glimpse of the shores of Europe, seen
across the moonlit water, stirred me profoundly, but
the air was keen and uncomfortably cool, and I felt
the need of a sturdier covering than my tweeds.
Holmes, as was his wont, was indifferent to the tem
perature, and I left him by the railing as I went below
in search of my stoutest coat.

Picking my way down the corridor, in spite of my
self tacking from wall to wall as the ship pitched in the waves, I stopped suddenly as I heard a familiar
name spoken by a voice which seemed to come from
nowhere. The sound was an eerie, distorted murmur,
and I soon realized that it was some trick of the ventilating system that brought it to my ears. The speaker,
or speakers, might be in any cabin on the corridor, and
I looked helplessly at the line of closed doors on
both sides of it, filled with an urgency to know their
location.

I could not swear to what I had heard, but it
seemed to me to have been very like: "
Holmes, yes . . .
he knew me . . . sure of it.
" And then, in the same
voice, or another: "
. . . only way . . . deal with him
immediately . . .
"

I stood irresolute for a moment. Had I heard aright? And even if I had, could there not be some innocent
construction of that fragmentary exchange? I decided
that, if there were, I could not think of it, and turned
on my heel, meaning to seek Sherlock Holmes out
and warn him of possible danger.

Unhappily, the corridors of the
Pavonia
provide
many choices of direction at their intersections, and
I had neglected to make myself master of their maze.
It was only after several wrong turnings and some de
lay that I regained the main deck and hurried to where
I had left Holmes—to see, as I approached the spot,
a silent struggle between two shadowy figures!

Both were visible only in outline, a stocky shape
of medium height contending with an unmistakably
tall and lean form. And, as I watched, the taller
shadow suddenly lurched violently over the railing and disappeared from sight.

"Holmes!" I cried out, in shock and sudden grief,
and raced toward the spot. The other shape ran off
into the darkness and was lost to sight.

I reached the railing and leaned over it, scanning
the shimmering water in the vain hope of spying
a floating form.

"There is no need to cry 'Man overboard!' just yet,
Watson, and if you will lend me the strength of your arm for a moment, we may be able to avoid the ne
cessity entirely."

Stunned, I looked down, and saw the glimmer of an
upturned face below the edge of the deck. Then I
made out two hands firmly clutching the bottom of the
railing posts.

I made haste to draw Holmes up and assist him in
his rather undignified scramble over the railing and
on to the deck.

"What—what happened, Holmes?"

"I was taken by surprise and as nearly as anything
pitched into the sea," he answered. "That much is
clear. The motive is not, and I find it is a subject on
which I should be glad to inform myself."

I recounted to him the fragmentary conversation I
had heard, or half heard, in the corridor, and my ap
prehension—amply justified, in the event—that it por
tended danger to him.

"Holmes, do you suppose some of Moriarty's
men—?"

"No, no, Watson. This has the earmarks of an at
tack made in panic or on impulse, and the Professor's
men do not allow themselves such failings. What you
overheard, unfathomable as it was to you, makes it
all clear to me now. As my assailant—whose name,
address, and degraded habits I could easily give you
if they would mean anything to you—undoubtedly
supposes me dead, I think I shall allow myself to stage
a resurrection for his benefit."

I followed in his steps as he strode off toward the
nearest of the ship's many public rooms, dubious.
What Holmes said was usually true, yet, with one
murderous attack on him before the
Pavonia
was fairly
at sea, it seemed imprudent to ignore the possibility
that, by a means I could not grasp, one or more agents
of the Professor had made their way on to the ship
and meant to pursue their designs on him.

He peered briefly into one room and withdrew;
then, another. In the doorway of the third, he stiffened
and drew me quietly inside.

"That empty table over there will do us nicely,
Watson. Do you stay to my left just a bit as we ap
proach. Our quarry is at the next table, and it would
be best for me to screen you."

I wondered that my friend could think me more
recognizable than himself. Then I saw that, without
the aid of the devices which made him a master of
disguise, he altered, without in any way seeming un
natural about it, his general appearance with a slouch
ing stride, a slump which took inches from his height, and one hand, raised as if to adjust his tie, which contrived to conceal the greater part of his face.

"The point, Watson," he murmured, "is to intro
duce enough unexpected and discordant elements into
your walk, stance, and manner so that a pos
sible watcher who has formed his image of you from
the sum of those things will register a different im
pression entirely. A second glance would bring about
recognition, but the great thing is not to occasion that
second glance."

We reached the table, partly screened from its
neighbor by a spiky kind of fern in a pot, and seated ourselves so that we might observe without being ob
served.

The nature of the activity at the next table was
clear: a party of four men were preparing for a game
of cards. One was a sleekly dressed and carefully
combed man with a saturnine, predatory countenance.
Another was an open-faced, burly young chap who
seemed unused to the gaiety and luxury of the ship.
The remaining pair appeared to be solid, unremarka
ble men of business, though evidently prosperous.

"I'm powerfully obliged to you gentlemen for ask
ing me to join you in a little diversion," observed
the young man in accents which I had no difficulty
in recognizing as those of rural America. "A sea trip
can be lonely without something to pass the time.
And, say! I don't mind telling you I've enough in my
poke to back up my play."

I saw the predatory-faced man dart a glance at
him as he began to shuffle the cards.

I could follow the play easily enough, but soon grew
restive and stirred in my chair. Holmes motioned me
to silence with an impatient gesture.