SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (7 page)

"It's all right, Heller," Irene Adler called. "Mr.
Holmes and Dr. Watson may come in."

"Yes, madam," the butler answered stolidly.

Very gravely, with measured pace, Holmes walked
up the stairs toward where Irene Adler stood. I fol
lowed. As he reached her, she turned to face him.

"In here," she said, and walked through an arch
way leading into a drawing-room.

It was the first domestic interior I had seen in New
York, and I surveyed it with interest—partly occa
sioned by the fact that Sherlock Holmes was examin
ing every aspect of it as keenly as though it had been
the scene of a crime he had been called upon to in
vestigate.

Three tall windows fronting on the square were
covered with drapes made of a kind of velour stuff. In
a brick fireplace topped with a wooden mantel, a
banked coal fire burned slowly but steadily. The usual
furniture of the room of a cultivated person was here, little different from what I might have expected to find
in a similar establishment in the West End of Kensing
ton, though I had the vague sense that something
about it reminded me of a stage set—a certain unused
look to the plump cushions and soft chairs. Though
that, I supposed, was natural enough, considering
Irene Adler's profession. I could not see what there
was to arouse Holmes' obvious attention.

"May I ring for some refreshments?" said Irene
Adler, cool and composed as any hostess receiving in
vited guests, not at all indicating that she was speak
ing to two middle-aged gentlemen who had burst in
upon her and (one of them, at least) shoved her but
ler aside and bawled a peremptory demand for her
presence. "Coffee? Brandy? Would you care to sit
down? You're looking quite well, Sherlock. You've
hardly changed in the years since last we met. Dr.
Watson, are you quite well also?"

I was about to reply that I was, without going into any particulars of my health, although I was aware of
a certain shortness of breath which might have re
sulted from the excellent dinner at Delmonico's, when
Holmes forestalled me.

"We were at the theater tonight," said he.

Irene Adler stood as still as a statue. "Did the per
formance go on?"

"With your understudy. The audience, of course,
were disappointed at the substitution."

"Miss Robson is a very promising young per
former."

"What is this 'indisposition' from which you are suf
fering?"

Holmes' tone left no doubt that he was little in
clined to credit the existence of such an illness, and,
indeed, I myself could detect no sign of any malady
in the splendid, though somehow constrained, woman who stood before us.

"A trifling matter, really. I'll be quite all right in a
matter of—"

"Irene!" Holmes' voice, deep and harsh, seemed
wrenched from his very depths, and Miss Adler
stepped back from him, as if shaken by its force.
"
Why
did you not go to the theater tonight?"

She could not meet his gaze, and her voice came in
faltering tones.

"I
. . .
I
. . .
Didn't Mr. Furman explain that I
was—?"

"I insist that I be spared this masquerade! It de
means a friendship of almost ten years' standing!"

Sherlock Holmes' words and manner were dra
matic enough for the scene, but I found myself as
much fascinated by the change I saw in him as by the drama that was going forward. I had seen my friend in a variety of moods, and in the grip of many kinds
of emotion in the course of my association with him:
a savage exultation at bringing to book some particu
larly vile criminal; regret and mourning at the fate of
a victim which a turn of luck might have prevented;
deep concern, once, when it seemed that I had been
gravely wounded; morose despair when one of his pri
vate fits of depression was on him. Yet this vigorous
urgency, which seemed somehow the attribute of a
younger and less cerebrally inclined man, was new to
me.

He continued in the same vein, giving a stern nod
in response to her anxious look.

"Yes! It's time for the truth, Irene! What is it that
holds you in the grip of almost unbearable terror?
What message are you awaiting, and why are you
prepared to remain up the entire night—and not leave
this house until you receive it?"

I blinked, wondering, in spite of my long familiarity
with his methods of deduction, how he had arrived at
this conclusion. There certainly seemed nothing any
where I could see to sustain it.

Irene Adler, however, did not trouble herself with
that sort of question, and gave a short, harsh laugh
with a high pitch to it I didn't like the sound of.

"I should have remembered," she said. "One can
not pretend in front of Mr. Sherlock Holmes!"

Her tacit confirmation of what her inquisitor had
said bewildered me.

"Yes, but look here, Holmes," said I. "How did you
know about—what was it?—a message. Staying up
all night? Not leaving the house? Surely—"

"It's simplicity itself!" Holmes seemed to find relief
in reverting to his long-established custom of making
things clear to me, and for the moment virtually ig
nored Irene Adler, whose gaze remained bent steadily
upon him. He strode to the centermost of the three
windows fronting on Gramercy Park, and pointed to
the drapes that concealed it. "This curtain hangs un
tidily. Again and again, someone has thrust it aside
—like this—so that the street below— Aha! The win
dows leading out on to the balcony—which I am sure you noticed, Watson, as we entered the house—are
unlatched!"

He flung open the center window, which I could
flow see was more like a glass-paneled door, and
stepped onto the balcony.

"As I say," he continued, "someone has repeatedly
stepped out here to look in all directions! Waiting.
Waiting for
what?
"

Holmes stepped back into the room and continued
his exposition. A sweeping gesture took in the chairs
and cushioned sofa.

"Not a single piece of furniture in this room shows
the imprint of a human form! Irene, you have spent
the time since at least eight tonight pacing this floor,
sitting
only
at that desk in the corner to write your
note to Mr. Furman! Ah! What's this?"

His aquiline nose seemed almost to sniff the air as
if picking up the scent of crime as he strode to the sofa
and lifted up a framed picture lying on its face. Turn
ing it over, he gazed at it long and inquiringly.

Determined not to distract him, but consumed with
curiosity, I made my way to Holmes' side and had a
look for myself. It was a sepia-toned photograph of a
boy of some nine years of age, thinner of face, per
haps, than a healthy lad ought to be, yet with an
appearance of vigor and an inquiring cast of counte
nance.

"Who is this child?" said Sherlock Holmes.

Irene Adler was silent for a moment, then said
evenly, "His name is Scott. He is my son."

I stirred uneasily. As a doctor, I have seen much of
the unconventional side of life—and much more of it
as a result of joining Holmes in his work—and I am
also aware that Mr. Bernard Shaw and Herr (if that
is how Norwegians style themselves) Ibsen have in their work raised flouting of the conventions to the
status of a positive moral duty. Yet I felt distinctly
awkward at hearing
Miss
Irene Adler speak of her
son.

Holmes looked sharply at her and then back to the
picture.

"Where is the boy now?" he inquired.

"He is
. . .
upstairs. In bed." Irene Adler appeared
to be looking intently at a point on the wall consider
ably to Holmes' left.

"May I see him?"

"He is asleep."

"I shall be
very
quiet." Something of his old sar
donic manner was creeping back into the detective's
tone.

Irene Adler was silent for a moment, and Holmes'
lips thinned in an almost mocking smile.

She sighed deeply and said, "I am afraid I cannot
oblige you."

Holmes nodded.

"I am convinced that you cannot!" he said.

He looked at her keenly for a moment, then turned
and walked to the delicate writing-desk that stood
against one wall. He bent over it, nodded his head,
and ran a finger along one corner of the top. As he
straightened from his crouching position, Irene Ad
ler's eyes were on him, wide with fear.

"That photograph ordinarily stands here on this
desk," said Holmes. "A faint line of dust marks where
its base usually rests." He walked slowly back to
where the woman stood, holding the framed picture
up. "You seized it up while you were pacing, didn't
you? I can see you . . . holding it, casting a longing,
anxious look upon it, even giving way to a sob of anxiety—and then flinging it to the sofa!"

He performed the same action as he spoke, and the
picture spun through the air to land in the same po
sition in which I had first noticed it.

"The boy is
not
upstairs in bed, Irene! The boy is
not in this house at all! The boy has been
kidnapped!
"

Irene Adler raised two clenched fists and struck at
his snowy shirtfront, not as if attacking him but as if
in a frenzy that demanded some physical expression. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes! He
has
been kidnapped, and I
am out of my mind with grief and terror!"

I started toward Miss Adler in alarm, saying "Holmes!
Great heavens, man, the lady's at the end of her
tether!"

Holmes snapped, "Watson, fetch some brandy!"
then grasped her firmly by the upper arms and looked
at her with an intensity that was almost ferocious.
"Irene, get hold of yourself!" said he. "We have no
time! I must know precisely what happened."

She seemed on the verge of struggling in his grasp, then relaxed and looked up at him with a calmer ex
pression. Her voice was even when she spoke.

"Yes, yes, of course."

Holmes opened his hands and dropped them to his
sides. Irene Adler stepped away from him, went to the
tasseled bell-pull that hung down one wall, and
tugged it once.

"The brandy's on the sideboard, Dr. Watson, in the decanter. I will have a drop, thank you."

"Of course, my dear lady. Of course, of course!"

I poured out what I judged to be a medicinal doze
of the liquor into a crystal balloon glass that stood
next to the cut-glass decanter; enough to relax the ten
sion that was fairly tearing her apart, not so much as
to dull her wits. Its aroma proclaimed it to be of ex
cellent quality, but now was not the time for either
Holmes or myself to sample it; it looked as though we
should need the clearest of heads, even the tightest-
strung of nerves, in order to see this ominous business
through.

I handed Irene Adler the glass, and she took a sip.
I could see her relax perceptibly, as much, I judged, f
rom the realization that her dread secret was now
shared and that she was to have the help of Sherlock
Holmes (and John Watson, though I doubted that my
presence weighed very heavily in the balance with
her) as from the warming effect of the brandy.

Summoned by the bell, Heller, the butler, entered through the archway.

"Yes, ma'am?" said he.

"Heller," Irene Adler asked him, "will you . . . will
you ask Frau Reichenbach to come down right away,
please?"

"Of course, ma'am."

He turned and left, moving with the deft silence
characteristic of his calling. Apparently even Ameri
can butlers cultivate the ideal of appearing to operate
like well-oiled machinery.

"Frau Reichenbach is
. . .
?" said Sherlock Holmes.

"It was she who was with Scott when he . . ." Irene
Adler took another sip of the brandy. "She is the boy's
governess."

She could scarcely have been mistaken for any
thing else, when, moments later, she stood just inside
the archway and gave her account of the events of the
afternoon. Her severely starched uniform, the hair
pulled into a tight bun atop her head, the stiff stance
with hands folded in front of her, the immobile face
and light-blue eyes bespoke both her occupation and
her nationality. I judged her age to be not far past
thirty.

I had allowed myself to sink into a comfortable
wingchair. Irene Adler was seated on the sofa, still
holding the brandy glass. Holmes paced back and
forth as he questioned Frau Reichenbach.

"I had gone to meet the young boy at school," said
she in a marked German accent, "and we were walk
ing home, which we do each day."

"You're referring to this afternoon, Frau Reichenbach?"

"
Ja.
"