Locked Rooms (25 page)

“Right you are,” he said. He put some money down next to his mug, waved two fingers at the waitress, put on his hat at a rakish angle, and walked off into the fog of the evening, shambling bones in a dapper brown suit.

With the satisfaction of two lengths of old steel rod nestled in the sock-drawer across the room, Holmes slept the sleep of the just.

He was up early on Monday morning, fed and brushed and out of the hotel before eight o’clock, taking the lengths of brake rod with him. He found a photographer’s studio nearby, where he left Miss Adderley’s picture with instructions. When he left the shop, he walked a route sure to reveal anyone on his tail, but he reached the telegraphist’s office without detecting anyone. The man, rather curtly, told him that he’d barely opened his doors and that nothing had come in, try again later. So Holmes went looking for a bank.

When he found one that was open, he went in and hired a safe-deposit box, giving the name “Jack Watson.” Into the box he put his evidence. It probably would have been perfectly safe lodged with Mr Auberon, but one did not place more weight on a reed than one knew it would bear, and Mr Auberon was as yet unproved.

Next, after consulting his mental street map, he located the street-car that ran to the end of the city, to the Cliff House and Sutro Baths. There he got off, walking south in the direction of the beach where he and Russell had strolled at sunset on Tuesday. This time, he was interested less in the beach than the place where the bookseller’s father had saved the rabbi’s daughter from drowning.

The cliff on which the restaurant perched rose sharply out of the sand, with a scattering of boulders to mark the transition and a sharp tangle of white-capped rocks scattered off-shore, sunning spots for sea-birds and bellowing sea-lions. Down the beach children played in the sand; two boys flew bright kites out over the water. Holmes climbed onto a rock and took out his pipe. It was indeed a vicious spot to be taken unawares by the sea. The waves rose fast into their long, white curls to break hard against the black cliffs; every so often one would show extra vigour and reach wet tendrils around the base of the rock where he sat. He could well imagine, come the winter, that these waves would be killers.

When the pipe had gone cold, Holmes knocked it out on the rocks and retraced his steps, presenting himself at the telegraphist’s door just after noon. This time, the man glared at him, but slapped two envelopes down on the counter as well.

“You know,” he remarked sourly, “it’s much easier on everyone if you just let the boy bring it to you.”

To appease him, Holmes counted out the tip the boy would have got, not in the least expecting that it would be passed on to its intended recipient. Mollified, the man pushed the envelopes over, and Holmes left the shop.

Three doors down, the smell of cooking pulled him in. He ordered more or less at random, wanting a quiet table more than he did a meal. When eventually it was granted him, he took a swallow of the coffee (which was typically American: scalding, pallid, and apparently compulsory) and pulled out the thicker of the two flimsy envelopes, running a thumb through the seal. It was from Watson, in Marseilles, probably the longest telegram the good doctor had ever had to pay for:

FOUND YOUR PURSER BUT LETTER OF REPRIMAND FROM THE COMPANY FOR DELAYING DEPARTURE FOLLOWS. POSSIBLE FINE. SAVANNAH WOMAN LILLY MONTERA BOARDED IN PORT SAID AND JOINED WITH A BAND OF ENTERTAINERS BOUND FOR CALCUTTA FROM LONDON VIA BOMBAY. PURSER NOT CERTAIN BUT THOUGHT HER ARRIVAL WAS UNEXPECTED. MONTERA UNWELL THOUGH GOOD APPETITE THROUGH SUEZ CANAL AND DEAD SEA AND KEPT TO HER ROOM DISEMBARKING SUDDENLY IN ADEN. PURSER REMEMBERS HER QUESTIONS CONCERNING YOU BOTH REPEAT BOTH AND YES SHE KNEW YOUR TICKETS WERE FOR CONTINUED EAST INCLUDING CALIFORNIA. NO TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS MADE BEFORE ADEN BUT SHE ASKED ABOUT OTHER SHIPS EAST AND POSSIBLE AEROPLANES. DESCRIPTION TALL FULL FIGURED LIGHT BROWN HAIR BROWN EYES PROBABLY WEAK VISION WEARING DARK GLASSES AND AVOIDING BRIGHT LIGHT ALSO WEARING ENTERTAINERS POWDER AND ROUGE. OCCASIONALLY SHARED CABIN WITH NEW YORK BAND TRUMPETER FERDIE KNOLL HOPE YOU DON'T KNOW THIS WOMAN HOLMES. ANYTHING ELSE I CAN DO QUERY. WATSON.

On his third time reading the words, Holmes became aware that he was halfway finished with a bowl of unexpectedly acceptable fish chowder. He ate it more slowly, absorbing the information.

It was not as complete as he or Russell would have come up with, but it was enough, and it was certainly every bit as timely as he could have wished. And clearly, Watson had been forced to lay down every bit of authority he could muster to keep from being thrown off so the ship could get under way. Good old Watson.

He pulled open the other, briefer telegram.

COULD FIND NO PERSON MAKING ENQUIRIES RE HOLMES RUSSELL IN SUSSEX OR LONDON SORRY. COULD IT HAVE BEEN THE LETTER TO THE TIMES REGARDING YOUR STUNT WITH THE KENT TRAIN QUERY. IN CASE YOU MISSED THAT ISSUE OF JANUARY FIVE A READER NOTED THAT JANUARY FOUR ARTICLE OF THE STOPPED TRAIN NEGLECTED TO SAY THAT THE STOPPER LOOKED REMARKABLY LIKE ONE MR HOLMES. THE WAGES OF FAME. MYCROFT.

Holmes sat with the spoon suspended, considering the implications. He had seen the newspaper for the fourth of January, which did, as Mycroft said, contain a small piece about the train he and Russell had been forced to catch at an unscheduled stop in the snow-covered wilds of Kent. He had not seen that of the following day, as by that time they were out to sea and the papers themselves became so sporadic and delayed as to be superfluous. Plus, he’d been otherwise occupied.

And Mycroft had not, of course, thought to take the question a step further, since Holmes had not let his brother know what the problem was. Another telegram would be required.

It did, however, solve one knotty part of the problem, he thought as he broke a slice of chewy bread into pieces: that of the very beginning. Their trip to India had been sudden and unexpected: If the Savannah woman—“Lilly Montera” had to be a pseudonym—had been on their ship, it was due either to coincidence or deliberation. If coincidence, Holmes could live with that: Heaven knew he had made enough enemies over the years to stumble across one with some regularity. But if her presence had been deliberate, an entire Pandora’s box of problems opened up, for it could only indicate that she knew everything about their movements in England, almost before they themselves did. That degree of intelligence coupled with the almost instantaneous planting of an operative on board the very ship they were joining would have indicated an enormously, even frighteningly, sophisticated operation.

On the other hand, the woman had openly questioned the young American Bolshevik, Thomas Goodheart, about the older man he had befriended on board the ship. In addition, if indeed the collapse of a balcony on their heads in the Aden bazaar had been purposeful and not an accident, it was hardly sophisticated. Clever, perhaps, and very nearly effective, but a group who had been given time to plan could have arranged for a sniper on a hillside or a bomb in a cabin or any of a hundred other deadly ambushes.

Coincidence, or deliberate? Watson’s information could easily lead to the first conclusion: an old foe who boarded the ship, happened to spot Holmes before he saw her, and spent the rest of the voyage hiding in her cabin, leaving the ship at the first possible opportunity—though not without first making an attempt at murder-by-balcony. If that was right, the spectre of an organisation of considerable size and expertise receded considerably.

Mycroft’s news, however, rather complicated the issue, introducing the remote possibility that a person had seen the name Sherlock Holmes in the
Times
Saturday morning, then spent the next three days (and considerable resources) racing to Port Said before the boat put in there. It would have been very difficult, but possible.

However, no matter if she came to be there by coincidence or talent, once on board the “Montera” woman had enquired specifically about them, and knew that California was in their plans. Putting aside for the moment the question of how she came to be there, he would work under the hypothesis that, once aboard, her enquiries had not been the sign of some casual and self-effacing acquaintance, but purposeful. And as a corollary thesis, that she had come before them to California, awaiting their arrival, where she intended to take action.

He had a great deal to do before Russell returned Wednesday.

Not the least of which was to decide which of his two potential allies, Hammett or Long, he could trust the furthest.

He retraced his steps to the telegraphist, and wrote out a second telegram to Mycroft:

HIGHLY URGENT NEED KNOW IF WOMAN ARRANGED EMERGENCY TRANSPORT TO PORT SAID JANUARY SIX SEVEN OR EIGHT. HOPE YOURE WELL. SHERLOCK.

He hesitated over that last, unwonted burst of sentiment, but allowed it to stand. He did, actually, hope that his brother was well.

Outside the telegraphist’s office, he pulled out his watch. Just gone two o’clock, which gave him six hours before meeting Hammett. He took a bus down to the hotel and found two messages waiting for him. One was from the hospital where Russell had gone Friday, with the information that Leah Ginzberg had died on January 26, 1915, and that the investigating officer had been one James Roley. He started to pocket it, thinking to give it to Hammett that evening, then stopped and copied the information instead, leaving the original on Russell’s dressing-table. The other was a list of four names written in a hand so spidery and feminine he did not need the embossed address at the top of the paper to know it had come from Hermione Adderley.

This one he did pocket, then spent the rest of a frustrating afternoon trying to chase down the four individuals.

Shortly after eight o’clock, Holmes walked wearily into the Ellis Street grill to find Hammett looking even wearier, a half-full bottle on the table before him. Holmes accepted a glass of the raw whiskey without comment, and allowed the fire to warm his bones for a few minutes. When the waitress came to their table, Hammett ordered, and Holmes told her he’d have the same, although he couldn’t have said what it was the man had ordered. Hammett sat back with his second drink, lit a cigarette, and exhaled.

“You look like your day’s been as lucky as mine,” he told Holmes.

“What universal law, I wonder, determines that all potential witnesses be either missing, amnesiac, or comprehensively stupid?” Holmes reflected. “The retired milkman is off visiting his sister in San Jose; one of the Russells’ old neighbours took an hour to decide that the ‘nice Jewish girl’ he remembered was not actually Judith Russell but one of the good-time girls who moved into the park in early May; another of the neighbours insisted that I was a ‘Fuller Brush Man’ and chased me down the street with a broom he had bought which had fallen apart, only stopping when his daughter caught up with him and told me that he’d been fixed against broom salesmen ever since his wife ran off with one in 1903; and the rabbi of the synagogue Judith Russell attended is a young man who will have to consult with the elders before he submits any names for my attention. The only thing I have accomplished of even marginal import all afternoon has been to arrange for a chimney sweep, so that one corner of the house might be inhabited without risk of a conflagration.”

Hammett was grinning like a greyhound. “The fast life of a private dick—ain’t it great?”

“I hope to heaven that the stories you write don’t glamorise the job as much as Watson’s did. He was generally so occupied with his practice or his wife, he had no idea how many hours I put in while he wasn’t there to see.”

“Nah, my stuff’s a little harder edged than his. But you know, when you’re putting together a story, sometimes you just have to skip over the boring bits.”

“I suppose necessity must. In any case, Hammett, what have you to show for the day?”

“Not a heck of a lot more than you.” Their food arrived as he was taking his note-book from his pocket, but he unfolded it on the table and reported in between bites. “The paper the Southern lady used is a bust, just too common to trace. Spent a couple hours on that, and decided it was a waste of my time and your greenbacks. I’ll keep going if you want, but—”

“Let’s abandon the lady’s note-paper for now,” Holmes said. The chops on his plate were more mutton than lamb, but nicely grilled and he was hungry. Hammett went on.

“The rest of the day I spent with the cops. They’ve got nothing at all on your Chinese friend. You knew his parents were found murdered at that same address you gave me? It’s still on the books, more or less—not exactly near the top of the pile. They did question him, but he said he was at school—training as a doctor, back in Chicago—and as soon as they got confirmation of that, he was cleared. The only funny thing in the file was, someone wondered how two Chinese servants could afford to buy a three-storey building in Chinatown. There wasn’t a follow-up to that, probably decided the old folks ran an opium den on the side or something. Might be something to look into.”

“There’s nothing there,” Holmes reassured him. “What about the others?”