The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes (26 page)

Susheena nodded. “He has always been trouble, that boy. I had no idea that he betrayed me. He helped in the replacement of the piece, then put it back once the fear of getting caught was at hand. I was resigned to the papers being where they belonged. It was the governor's choice to document our time together, and I couldn't protect him forever.” She paused, looked to the sky, then back to Holmes. “It will all come out anyway, won't it? The knowledge of our love will be a scandal.”

“I'm afraid so,” Holmes said.

“Is there nothing that you can do?” she pleaded.

“No, I'm afraid not,” Holmes said. “I'm afraid not.”

The trunks were stacked on the dock, awaiting loading onto the ship that would see Holmes and I back to London. The sky was perfect, cloudless, and the air was comfortable in its temperature. It was as pleasant a day as one could ever hope for in a paradise like the Bahamas.

“I feel bad for the governor,” I said, standing in wait next to Holmes. “He had no choice but to resign his office and return home, without Susheena.”

“He knew the risk.”

“Risk? Do you really think it is that simple, Holmes, that matters of the heart are just a calculation of risk?”

“You really don't want my answer, do you, Watson? So why ask?”

I exhaled loudly. “You are destined to spend your life alone, with nothing more than the thoughts that swirl inside that thick head of yours, and the pleasure of being right more than you are wrong.”

“Oh, Watson, please. I am not alone. I have you, and that's not a calculation at all. It's a matter of fact. You are my friend, and there's nothing more that I could wish, or hope for, than that.”

P
redating Sherlock Holmes by a year (1886), Nick Carter is the American bridge between Holmes and Bulldog Drummond: clean-cut, two-fisted, cerebral, and a master of disguise. The creation of Ormond G. Smith and John R. Coryell, he appeared in hundreds of dime novels and pulp magazines—including
Nick Carter Weekly
—but is virtually forgotten today, despite a 1972 pilot for a TV series starring Robert Conrad. (He's not to be mistaken for the “Nick Carter” who appeared in a flurry of paperback spy novels in the 1970s.) In
The Adventure of the Plated Spoon,
he teams up with Holmes, Watson, and Mrs. Watson to smash a conspiracy that still plagues us: human trafficking. It is published here for the first time, by permission of the author.

Readers who are unfamiliar with the chronicles involving my friend, Sherlock Holmes, may not assign much weight to an appalling tale cast with unspeakable villains, all centred upon so homely an item as a table utensil; yet I ask them to be patient until I have presented all the evidence.

In April of 1897, my wife, Mary, and I were preparing to join another couple for an evening at the Lyceum, where Henry Irving and Ellen Terry were appearing in
Hamlet
after a triumphant tour of the Continent. I was laying out my tailcoat when the bell rang.

“It can't be the Anstruthers,” said Mary. “It's too early, and we're to meet them on the way.”

“Perhaps it's a patient. I'll try to be brief.”

It was a commissionaire, with a message:

“How impertinent.” Mary looked sternly at the uniformed courier. “Tell him we weren't at home.”

“You know him as well as I,” I said, reaching for my overcoat. “He's only brusque in matters of urgency.”

“The rest of the time he's merely rude. What about our engagement?”

“We have two hours. If I'm late, I'll meet you at the theatre.”

“Be sure you have time to dress. Bad enough to miss the curtain without arriving looking like a vagabond.”

I shan't try the reader's patience with the details of our evening's excursion, although they present interest sufficient to support a full accounting elsewhere. The conundrum turned out to be child's play (if only for Holmes), but it took time enough to deprive our friends and my wife of the pleasure of my company in our box.

The house was dark when I returned. I crept up the stairs as quietly as possible, cursing inwardly the lateness of the hour and the impossibility of finding an open florist's shop, however inadequate a bouquet of posies would prove towards raising my marital stock. Grateful as Mary was to Holmes for the affair that had first brought us together, his continuing dependence upon my aid, to the detriment of my domestic responsibilities, had sorely tried her stores of good will.

It was a clear night. A three-quarter moon shone brightly through the bedroom window, falling full upon my tails laid out on the counterpane exactly as I had left them. Mary wasn't there. To her pillow was pinned a note in her hand on her personal stationery:

I spent a sleepless night in pursuit of some gesture that would repair the rift; but here at last was one problem even my friend, the world's first (and so far the greatest) consulting detective, could not solve. Bright and early I bathed and shaved carefully, put on the morning coat that was Mary's favourite, and hastened to the Harley Street home of Dr. and Mrs. Anstruther, stopping along the way to buy the showiest floral display in Piccadilly and a five-pound box of Vienna chocolates. The bell was answered by Gloriana, their maid from South America, who informed me her master and mistress had left for a holiday in Scotland by the first train.

“Is Mrs. Watson alone, then?” I was somewhat relieved to know my self-abasement would be private.

The girl's brow creased. “She is not here, sir. It's just me and Cook.”

“When did she leave?”

“Sir, she was never here. Doctor and the missus came home alone from the theatre.”

I proceeded directly to New Scotland Yard, where a sergeant informed me that Inspector Lestrade was away on an investigation but that his colleague, Inspector Gregson, was at his desk.

Tobias Gregson, a large, bluff, red-faced mastiff of a man, more given to immediate action than his counterpart—and almost invariably misdirected—sat behind a mountain of papers and ledgers, muttering over the necessity of an active soldier in the war against the criminal classes being reduced to the duties of a clerk. So involved was he in his plaint, several moments lapsed before he noticed my presence.

“Humph! Chang without Eng. I should think Barnum would have the whole force out looking for you.”

“Holmes and I are not joined at the navel, nor are we Siamese,” I retorted. “Might it not have occurred to you—even you—that I might be here upon my own behalf as a British subject?”

As is frequently the case with bullies, my sharp tone put him into retreat. He rose, his face assuming a deeper shade of scarlet, and turned his great bear's-paw of a palm towards the chair facing the desk. “There's no reason to take on so, doctor. It's just that with Lestrade gallivanting off on another of his fool's errands, I'm left with his paperwork as well as my own. Have a seat.”

I ignored the invitation and gave him a full account of the reason for my visit. Moment by moment his colour faded to its normal shade of ruddiness. He lowered himself back into his seat, interlaced his fingers across his broad middle, and heard me out.

“I shouldn't be alarmed if I were you,” he said when I'd finished. “Where you see a tragedy, I see a tiff between a man and his wife. Odds are she's gone to stay with her mother.”

“Her mother died long ago. She has no blood relatives. Will you issue a bulletin?”

“My hands are tied. When an adult goes missing, regulations require twenty-four hours must pass before action is taken.”

“Anything could happen in twenty-four hours! Inspector, I entreat you.”

“I can't go about flaunting the rules as a favour to a personal acquaintance.”

“Shall I go to the superintendent?”

“You'll hear the same from him.”

I straightened, seething. “Holmes once said you and Lestrade were the best of a bad lot. He was being diplomatic.”

His face darkened again. “At least neither of us has gone and lost track of his wife like an old umbrella.”

“One moment, Watson.”

When I entered the sitting room we once shared at 221B Baker Street, Holmes was perched on the stool before his acid-scarred deal table, looking for all the world like a gigantic bird of prey. He wore his old mouse-coloured dressing gown and was pouring a bilious-looking liquid from one test tube into another, staring intently at the reaction. A greenish cloud of thick vapour rose from the freshly filled vessel, further staining the plaster ceiling directly above the table, a palimpsest created by dozens of chemical experiments and at least one explosion. For a moment after he returned the empty tube to its stand he continued to watch the phenomenon until the last wisp vanished, then to my horror lifted the phial to his lips and drank down the contents at a gulp.

“Holmes! Whatever—?”

“Rest easy, old fellow,” said he, touching a handkerchief to his mouth. “The criminal situation isn't so stagnant that I've chosen the Socratic method to escape it. It's a mixture of pulped avocado and quinine, with soda for effervescence.” He belched delicately into his handkerchief. “I beg your pardon. I suspect a bad oyster at Simpson's to be the culprit.”

“Promise me you'll never do such a thing again without warning me first.”

“You have my word. I trust you've made amends with Mrs. Watson for last night's desertion.”

“I never told you we'd quarrelled.”

“Supposition, aided by evidence. I've prevailed upon your leisure frequently of late. A domestic contretemps seemed as inevitable as the lingering odour of violets and bird-of-paradise on your person. You buy her flowers only when you've transgressed. Old friend, what's happened?”

I'd collapsed into my old armchair, alarming him out of his musings. He was on his feet and halfway towards me in a lunge.

“For once,” said I, “I wish you'd deduced it all at a glance. Might I trouble you for a whisky at this improper hour?”

He reached for the siphon at once and poured a stiff tot. I seized the glass and drank off half. “I scarcely know where to begin.”

“At the beginning is not only customary but the most conducive to understanding.” He sat in his basket chair, tented his long narrow hands, and closed his eyes, as I had seen him do so many times when a problem was being placed before him.