SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (11 page)

"Good night, Holmes."

There was no reply, so I provided one.

"'Night, Watson. Sleep well," said I to myself.

———«»——————«»——————«»———

Apparently I took this injunction literally, for I was
asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, and awoke,
feeling refreshed—although with a slight soreness in
my feet as a result of our long trek the night before,
and the twinge in the leg with which my legacy from
the Battle of Maiwand reminded me of its accuracy as
a herald of damp weather. The well-rested feeling
was tainted with a slight sensation of alarm, as though
some danger portended, such as fire. I glanced at the
open transom over the bedroom door. Of course!

Wrapping my dressing-gown about me, and noting
that the cord that held it at the waist seemed to be
shrinking slowly (probably a characteristic of the
cheap Egyptian cotton now flooding the English mar
ket), I entered the sitting-room. Except that the pre
vailing tone was blue-gray rather than yellow, I might
almost have been walking into a London pea-souper.
The stale smoke that filled the room stung my eyes
and throat, and, until I became accustomed to it, made
Holmes' seated form—unchanged, as far as I could
tell, from the position in which I had last seen it—difficult to discern. No wonder I had awakened to a
feeling that something was burning!

"Phew!" I exclaimed. "I'm surprised nobody's
called the fire brigade."

I went to the window and opened it, savoring the
damp morning air, and at the same time observing,
though careful to appear to be looking in another di
rection, the post where last night's watcher had stood.

"Hello! Chap's been replaced, Holmes. This one's
wearing stripes, not checks." With the air a little clearer, I turned back to the room, and noticed that
the heap of tobacco on the table had been reduced to
a few scattered crumbs. "Well, Holmes, what have
you come up with?"

Though he had clearly not slept at all, and looked
quite drawn about the cheekbones, he was as alert as
I have ever known him, and said briskly, "Two points
of interest, Watson, about which I shall be delighted
to enlighten you while you're dressing."

It was actually while I was shaving that Holmes
expounded his first "point of interest," and, had I not
been steeled to surprises from my friend, I might well have given myself a veritable Heidelberg dueling scar with the keen blade.

"Scott Adler's abductor was a woman."

I hastily withdrew the razor from my throat and
looked at it. There were only shaving soap and
whisker-ends on the cutting edge; no tinge of red.

"But that's impossible!" I said.

"The conclusion is inescapable."

I returned to my task, and Holmes to his expound
ing.

"How did Frau Reichenbach's assailant begin the
assault?" he asked.

"Grabbed her by the hair," said I.

"The instinctive target of a
woman
when she finds
herself in combat with another of her own gender.
And what did the good lady's assailant do then?"

"Kicked her," answered I, as clearly as I could,
considering that I was engaged in that tricky part of
the shave where one has to stretch the upper lip very tightly in order to get at the corners of the mouth.

In the event, Holmes appeared to understand me
well enough.
"In the shins," he said. "Another instinctive form of
female attack!"

I washed the shaving soap from my face and went
into the bedroom in search of the shirt and tie I had
laid out.

"I must say, Holmes, none of the ladies
I've
had
anything to do with—"

"I never mentioned ladies, Watson, I merely said
a woman.
And
one of sufficient strength to fling Frau
Reichenbach to the ground, seize young Scott Ad
ler—"

Part of my mind was aware that the brown-and-
gray tie I was putting on seemed rather drab in this
vivid city, and I was speculating about whether I
might have time to visit one or two New York shops. The main portion was objecting to Holmes' proposi
tion.

"Holmes, now you're assuming too much! It's all
very well to say a woman struck that governess and
pummeled her in the manner you describe, but that's
a far cry from seizing a nine-year-old boy who's struggling and crying out!"

Holmes' reply to this trenchant objection was an
unrepentant "Aha!"

A knocking at the hallway door now summoned
him to the sitting-room.
As he went, he turned and said, "Admirable, my
dear Watson!—Come in, then, waiter!—You've hit
upon the
second
point."

As I entered the sitting-room, a hotel waiter was
pushing in a rolling cart covered with a profusion of
covered dishes.
"Eh? I have?" said I. "What is it, then?"

Holmes lifted the metal covers from some of the
dishes and sniffed at them appreciatively. From one
there arose a tempting aroma of egg, though what
was visible was a strange yellow mass, all scrambled together.

"No mention," Holmes went on, making an em
phatic gesture with a cover he held, "was made by
Frau Reichenbach of
any
struggling or outcry. Thank
you."

This last was to the waiter, and accompanied by a
passed coin which drew a pleased response.

Holmes began laying out the dishes on the low ta
ble in front of the sofa, while I restored the piled cushions in its center to their rightful places.

"By George, you're right," I said.

"
So it must be assumed none was made.
"

Holmes turned some of the strangely treated eggs
on to a plate, surrounded the heap with several slices
of bacon, a nicely browned piece of ham, and some
sausages. As I lifted some of the covers, looking in
vain for a grilled tomato or a hearty piece of smoked
herring—even a devilled kidney, though these were
not my favorites—I made the next leap in logic.

"A lad being seized suddenly must
inevitably
cry
out, Holmes. Therefore, the report itself is false, and
Frau Reichenbach is implicated!"

"Pretty, very pretty, Watson, but I fancy it won't hold water. I am convinced that our governess' ac
count is correct, and that the strange business of the
boy who raised no outcry is akin to the affair of the
dog that did nothing in the night-time, which you have been good enough to preserve in your writings."

"The dog did not bark . . ." I recalled.

"Because it knew the intruder."

"And the boy . . ."

"Was party to the arrangement! I'm convinced,
Watson, that the lad knew of all this in advance."

I started upright in my chair and laid down my
fork.
"What! Scott Adler cooperate with Moriarty in
his own kidnapping? Now, Holmes!"

"Suppose," said Sherlock Holmes, "that it were put
to him as a joke of sorts?"

This seemed to me the sort of explanation which clears up one point only at the cost of bringing up
another as difficult.

"A joke on whom? Surely not on his mother?"

"Perhaps on Frau Reichenbach."

I considered this, taking a sip of the hotel's excel
lent coffee (I had regretted the absence of tea, but then decided that, in this country, tea would probably be a travesty in any case), and finally nodded.
I could see that a spirited boy, condemned to be es
corted through New York's exciting streets by that
starched Teuton, might well come to regard her as a
suitable butt for a prank. That part of it was all very
well, then, but
. . .

"Yes, but for what
reason?
"
I asked Holmes. "And
why a woman kidnapper in the first place?"

"Because the boy must be kept somewhere," said
Holmes, "quietly and inconspicuously, and what bet
ter place could there be than a respectable lodging-house, and what better guardian than someone who
might be taken for his cousin, his aunt, even his
mother? There's our salvation, Watson! Had he been
spirited away to some criminal den in this teeming
city about which we know so little we should have been at a standstill. In time, neighborhood gossip—
for eyes are as sharp in New York's slums as in Lon
don's, I'll be bound—might have brought the matter
to police attention, but far too late to do us any good.
"

"But take those two curious points about the ab
duction, and all else falls into place! Given the woman kidnapper and the consenting victim, we know the circumstances in which he must be being held. It only
remains to discover the actual address. And we know
one more thing: where to set about finding that!"

"Where?"

Holmes had finished what he cared to of the breakfast provided us—though there were one or two things I still fancied—and rose from the table.

"At number four, Gramercy Park West. I have
some questions I must put to Irene at once, Watson.
Will that sedative you gave her have worn off by
now?"

My watch showed it to be just short of eight—well
past noon in London, I realized with a sudden sur
prise, for the first time aware of the immensity of the distance that separated us from our homeland.

I said, "I believe so."

"Excellent."

Holmes rummaged in the wardrobe and flung on a
chair my waterproof coat and a sturdy hat, and his
own Inverness and deerstalker cap. I left the table
and joined him, eyeing with a certain regret an un
tasted heap of thin rounds of cooked dough, not unlike
the
chupatties
of India, evidently meant to be gar
nished from a nearby pitcher of sweet brown liquid.

I eyed Holmes' fore-and-aft cap dubiously.

"Ought you not to wear something less distinctive,
Holmes? With you in that rig, anyone keeping us un
der observation could do so from half a mile away."

Holmes settled the cap firmly on his head, saying,
"If Professor Moriarty wishes to keep an eye on us,
Watson, I see no need to be disobliging about it. You
recall my little lecture to you on the
Pavonia
about
disguising oneself impromptu?"

"Oh, yes. Altering one or two characteristic things
so as to throw off a watcher's expectations."

"Precisely. It also works the other way."

He said no more on the point, and, trying to work
out what he might mean, I followed him from the room.

———«»——————«»——————«»———

The sedative powders had evidently done their
work, for Irene Adler looked well-rested and far more
composed than the night before, as she faced us on
the sofa in her drawing-room. The window-curtains
were looped back, and watery March sunshine flooded
the room, making it seem altogether a more cheerful
place—a room in which it might be possible to plan
hopefully rather than, as had been the case less then
twelve hours ago, endure scene after scene of shock
and despair. The actress was clad in a pale-green
negligee which, though perfectly modest, made me
even more aware of the distance between London and
New York than had the time difference.

"Irene," said Sherlock Holmes, "I want to know
what you and Scott did the day before yesterday—
everything
you did."

She considered.

"Well, with
Mrs. Tanqueray
opening last night—
I saw in the papers this morning that May Robson got
good notices, by the way, and I'm glad for her—I've had a fairly constant rehearsal schedule for the last
several days, and so wasn't able to spend as much
time with Scott as I wished. So, when the tickets came,
it was a good chance for an unexpected treat—"

"What tickets?"

"The Metropolitan Opera. The management sent
round a complimentary pair of them. Scott's fond of
A
ï
da
, and has a tremendous crush on little Nicole
Romaine—"

"And who is little Nicole Romaine?"

"Why, a member of the corps de ballet at the opera
house," said Miss Adler.

Holmes snapped his fingers.

"Ah! Did you hear that, Watson? A
dancer
—and
therefore by necessity strong, quick, agile, eh?" He turned once more to Irene Adler. "Is it usual for the
management of the Metropolitan Opera to send you free tickets? Is it perhaps a customary courtesy to
members of the theatrical profession?"

Her fair brow furrowed.

"Sometimes, if one has a friend in the company, it's
possible to use a vacant seat, but . . . no, not sending
tickets round to one's house. I don't recall that hap
pening before."

"Could they then have been sent by someone
else?
"

Sherlock Holmes was evidently highly excited; Irene
Adler, merely bewildered.

"Why, I simply never thought about it," she re
marked.

"We must
now
think seriously about it! Tell me
about Scott and this Nicole Romaine."

Irene Adler brightened.

"He's her pet. Whenever we go backstage after a performance—"

"Which you did on this occasion?"

"Yes."

"And they spoke together, these two, the little
dancer and her pet?"

"Oh, my, yes. They were laughing and whispering in each other's ears for the longest time, like children
in a schoolyard. She's scarcely more than a child her
self."

Holmes rose from his chair and began pacing the
room, as though the excitement rising in him demanded
movement.

"
Whispering
in each other's ears. Did you hear that, Watson? And laughing! Hatching the plot right there,
I've no doubt!"

"Plot? What plot? Do you tell me, Sherlock, that
Scott—?"

"A plot, my dear Irene, in which you and your un
fortunate son are leading players, working from a
script you have not read but have yet followed to the
very line! But now, though—now
I
shall assume a role
in that plot, with some considerable departures from
the script which I fancy our dramatist will not be
pleased with!"

Holmes' pacing took him past the windows fronting
the park, at which he abruptly stopped, directing a
keen look out and downwards.

"Aha!" said he. "Our friend in the checkered suit
is back."

I joined Holmes and saw the watcher of the night
before, now lacking his advertising boards, leaning
against the park railings opposite.

"Chap doesn't even have a change of clothes, it
seems," I observed. "Your precious Professor doesn't
look after his troops very well, eh, Holmes?"

He ignored my comment and said in a musing tone,
"It is vital that I leave this house unobserved . . ."

"I dare say there's a back way out."

Irene Adler nodded in confirmation of my guess.
"The same thought will have impressed itself
upon
Moriarty, and I have no doubt that he has provided
for it. No. You and I, Watson, must appear to leave,
thus drawing our friend out there away from here."

He crossed the room to where his Inverness and cap
lay on a chair, picked them up, and returned to Irene
Adler.

"I seem to recall," he said, "on a not-too-distant
occasion, your remarkable impersonation of a young man." In spite of the gravity of the situation, the glance
that passed between them held some amount of amuse
ment, for it was that very impersonation that had sig
naled Holmes' defeat in their one encounter as
antagonists. "Can you be equally deceptive in the guise
of one . . . not so young as that?"

Irene Adler smiled up at him, then stood and
reached for the cloak and cap.

"
I'm
not quite so young as that anymore, Sherlock,"
said she.