Spider Dance (10 page)

I’d been led directly there, so swiftly that I knew he hoped his wife would never glimpse hide nor hat of me. For one who has not been unwelcome at Windsor, this sense of being hustled in and out like an unwanted tradesman was irritating.

What an odd notion—not brandy in the morning after a severe shock—but situating a library overlooking a busy metropolitan street. However, the rows of gilded book spines marching across the shelves in perfect formation told me
that effect, rather than function, was the major purpose of this room.

That and the amber brandy decanter sitting amid a flash of silver and crystal.

Vanderbilt was swift enough to read my glance. “Yes, there was a brandy service in the billiards room, but . . . that’s no place for partaking at the moment. I have cigars as well.,”

“I am an almost exclusive pipe smoker, Mr. Vanderbilt, and I bring my kit with me.”

I produced the old briarwood I had packed for foreign travel and accepted the light my host offered.

He poured for himself, a generous amount. Then he gestured to an armchair while he settled behind the long rococo library table. Obviously the air of an office soothed a man of business.

These American empire builders are quite an intriguing breed. I confess that my interest has always perked up when one has found his way to Baker Street. What a pity Watson is not here to capture this one with his pen. Vanderbilt appears surprisingly youthful for the richest man in America, the richest of continents.

Had I not known his particulars I still would have known him for what, if not who, he was. An American nabob, certainly. He radiates the hallmarks of a man of business. Under the library table I could see that his high-polished shoes were scuffed on the left side over the small toe and on the right over the large toe. The habitual desk sitter often crosses his feet behind the closed-in skirt of his office desk; not even rigorous polish can obscure the scuffs of daily habit.

To the contrary, the right jacket sleeve and cuff edge of his shirt bore the polish of frequent sweeps across papers and bare mahogany. Even a man of millionaire’s means can’t replace suits and shirts fast enough to prevent the wear of daily work from showing.

As for his character, I judged it extraordinarily amiable for a man of such power. No doubt he needed to be to tolerate his wife’s extravagant social ambitions.

“You come highly recommended, Mr. Holmes,” he said after two long swallows of brandy, “but I hadn’t planned to confront you with slaughter in my billiard room.”

“What first convinced you that you needed a consulting detective at all?”

“Not just a consulting detective. There are Pinkertons aplenty in New York City, for all their home office is in Chicago. No, this matter is . . . delicate, and even more so now, after this atrocity.”

I waited. I wanted him to speak unhalted, tumbling out his thoughts in one unconsidered rush.

He picked up a fountain pen and twirled it between his forefinger and thumb. Yes, truly right-handed. “We Vanderbilts are the third generation of New York wealth, yet only recently vital to New York society, Mr. Holmes,” he explained. “Mrs. Astor queened it over Fifth Avenue for years, with her balls and ‘Four Hundred’ guests deemed worthy of inviting to them. No Vanderbilt was on the list.”

“We in England have been familiar with that sort of quandary since the time of the Conqueror.”

“This is our time of the conqueror. The great fortunes are being made here and now in this century, and this city is the crown jewel of our industrial kingdoms. Here we establish fiefdoms, we Vanderbilts, Astors, Morgans, Belmonts, Goulds, and Fisks. This section of upper Fifth Avenue between Fifty-first and Fifty-eighth is known as Vanderbilt Row since we began building our latest town houses in the past decade, were you aware of that?”

“I am now, but I am more aware of the dead man in your billiard room, and in fact, know more about him than I do of American millionaires.”

He waved a vapid hand. “I merely bring you up to date on these matters because a scandal of this sort . . . a man slaughtered in the billiard room of six-sixty Fifth Avenue would destroy what my wife has worked for, and spent lavishly on, for years. This house is an architectural wonder of New York City, yet she would not abide in it a moment longer if she knew what lay in the billiard room.”

“So you require discretion in order to not upset your wife.”

“Women can be very odd about such things, you know.”

“That is not an area in which I am expert.”

“What man is? At any rate, Alva was planning to be out most of today, thankfully. Wilson will collect us when the . . . er, undertakers arrive so we can supervise them. Or you can. I understand you are most particular about observing every action before and after a crime has been committed. Or so Astor has told me.”

“The forgery of the ancient chess set Astor bought was hardly this sort of crime. It was committed in Cremona three centuries ago. I merely detected the minuscule but unmistakable marks the forgers left in turning an ancient curiosity into a thing of false provenance and outrageous profit. A million dollars indeed! You men of Fifth Avenue are multimillionaires in extravagance as well as worth, though I suppose that is what the game is all about.”

“A million? Astor paid a million for a worthless forgery?”

“Not quite worthless.” I smiled, and left him to wonder why. “Perhaps he will next be envying your interesting corpse.”

“Heaven forbid! Much as the thought of an Astor envying a Vanderbilt is enjoyable. No one must know of this.”

“There is more to this conviction of yours than worries about your wife’s repudiating this house.”

Vanderbilt laid his cigar in a huge cut-crystal tray and watched the smoke idle upwards from its end. I puffed contentedly on my pipe. I could have been camping out in Central Park at this moment and have been just as content there with my humble shag. Great wealth brings great worries.

“Why did you wish to engage my services?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes, that the problem I’m facing became so evident before our appointment later today, and in a way I’d never dreamed. The matter seemed to involve only absurd but disquieting threats. Now this, which must be part of the puzzle! When I wrote to engage your services after Astor mentioned you were in New York, I had no idea that a stranger would be murdered so brutally in my house.”

I waved away his apology. I wanted to hear what he thought was the matter. Only then could I begin to determine what was actually wrong. And, indeed, he might well be part of it.

“I’ve been getting threatening communications, Mr. Holmes. I know, all of us millionaires do. But these are beyond the offerings of the ordinary crackpot. They warn me that if I don’t go along with what the men, or man, wants, there will be dire consequences.”

“The state of your billiard room is indeed dire. I must see these ‘communications.’”

He went to a tall cabinet, unlocked it, and brought out a green leather letter box. After lifting the cover, he placed the box on the table beside me.

I reached into my pocket for a pair of tweezers. The dark Vanderbilt eyebrows rose as I used the implement to turn over what soon proved itself to be seven pieces of paper.

“Hmmm.” I flipped my way through the collection. “Ha! And ha again!”

“What have you found? Something incriminating?”

“Something nonsensical. These threats are vague and their form is laughable.”

“I fail to see the hilarity.”

I held up a sheet of cheap yellow paper in the tweezers I always carry. Childish as the collection was, the papers still merited close study. “A cablegram. Really, Mr. Vanderbilt, one of the simplest things in the world to trace. The time, date, and place of origin are represented by the numbers above the message. And this . . . this note on plain paper with the words formed from letters cut out from the daily newspaper . . . the
New York Herald
if I recall the typeface rightly. And then, this! It is beyond the amateur to the point that I truly sense something sinister behind it. Such well-calculated buffoonery can only be serious. The typeface is delicate, even arty. It is from some weekly or monthly journal that I am sure no menacing party would subscribe to or even know about. All these were addressed to you, not to your wife?”

“Alva knows nothing about it, and matters must remain that way.”

“I shall take these for study.”

A knock at the door made us look up.

“Enter,” Vanderbilt said uncertainly, then told the butler to return later.

It was plain he was not truly master in his own house, but then a man whose bedroom slippers stuck slightly to the carpet would not be.

“Have you a gymnasium in the house?” I asked him. The traces of rosin I had noticed on the slippers he wore earlier was obvious.

He blinked at the apparent inanity of my question. “Why, yes. On the third floor. The children, you know. But how did
you
know?”

“And your bedchamber is located nearby?”

“Next to it.”

I nodded. Mrs. Vanderbilt, no doubt, had a palatial suite to herself on the second floor (which we should call first in England.) Why a wealthy man might marry to be relegated to a Cinderella’s lot, I cannot say.

“Why is secrecy so vital in your own house?” I asked Vanderbilt. Beyond the heavy draperies, I heard the ceaseless sounds of passing horses and equipages, again struck by the folly of situating a library facing the street

Obviously, the room was for show rather than retreat, yet my host appeared more at ease in this room than anywhere else in the house, including the masculine sanctuary of the billiard room.

“Vital? Of course it is, Mr. Holmes. The markets are volatile. We are the richest family in America. Any whisper of upset in our well-being, and fortunes would fall. Not just ours but those of the hundreds and even thousands who have caught on to our coattails. It is a crushing responsibility.”

“And these extortion notes have been coming for how long?”

“Two, perhaps three months.”

I considered the contents of the letter box again.

“Who has handled these?”

“Myself alone. At first I took them for a joke. Some of the social maneuvers among the first families of New York are so intense that such distractions would not be unexpected. One would think kingdoms depended on which grand dame’s grand ball is deemed the most successful.”

I carefully arranged the collection of notes, letters, and cablegrams into chronological order. The first was a cablegram that stated only “Pay what thou owest.”

“This first cable seems more a platitude than a threat,” I noted.

“So I thought. The phrase is merely a foundation of good business.”

“The second cable embroiders on that theme, but only slightly: ‘Pay what you know you owe.’ It’s dated two weeks after the first. Did you grow uneasy then?”

He shrugged and opened a brazilwood humidor on his desk. The scent of tobacco as well aged as a fine brandy pervaded the room. By now he knew better than to offer me a cigar, and lit his own ceremoniously before answering.

After an inaugural puff, he replied. “I must have been feeling ever so slightly uneasy already, because I’d put the first cablegram in this box. I can’t say I was surprised to receive a third communication in the same vein.”

I lifted the envelope postmarked three weeks earlier. From Paris.

“This paper is of German manufacture. It’s called Dresden deckle and has been manufactured for perhaps forty years.” I opened the single sheet within. Hand printed thereon was another phrase: “Do what thou wilt, but pay what thou owest.” “This correspondent favors the mode of biblical exhortation, I see. The authors of most threatening communications prefer that tone.”

“I am amazed.” Vanderbilt had sat forward, still puffing on his cigar. “You’re sure the paper originated in Germany?”

“Of course. That doesn’t mean to say it was used in Germany, although it is suggestive. This is the first personal correspondence
and may be either a clue or a deliberate attempt to force wrong conclusions.”

I plucked up the fourth communication. Another letter, this time on the thin paper intended for trans-Atlantic passage. This one was postmarked London, two weeks earlier.

“Victoria Station posting,” I observed. “From the very heart of London, where millions pass by each week. Your correspondent both advertises his movements and despises the usual means of tracking his movements. He is not to be underestimated.”

“You assume a personal enemy?”

“I assume only someone who wishes to be paid what he believes is owed. Have you any ‘debts’ of that sort?”

“Of course not. In an unstable business climate, any breath of insolvency is suicide.”

“Are you operating in an unstable business climate?”

“Anyone of my wealth is, Mr. Holmes, but the United States government is particularly vulnerable at the moment, with the argument for the silver standard versus the gold standard at white-hot fever. That is why the subsequent messages become more sinister.”

By now our correspondent had arrived at local New York City postmarks and the use of innocuous small envelopes, the sort that might include invitations to the lady of the house. Yet the contents were hardly invitations.

I read one message: “Pay what you owe or the consequences will be dire.”

“Do you have any notion what payment is demanded?” I asked Vanderbilt.

He shook his dapper head. With his center part and dark waves to either side, I could not help but think of some of the slipperier variety artistes I had briefly encountered during my excursion into Madam Irene Adler Norton’s rather lurid American past. I almost smiled, but of course Vanderbilt would misinterpret mirth at this juncture.

“This next billet-doux, for it is on quite frivolous paper, finally becomes specific and demands ‘the gold and the jewels.’
Have you any idea what gold and which jewels are meant?”

“Mine, I suppose. My gold and my wife’s jewels, which are formidable.”

“Are they also in safekeeping?”

“Some in banks and others in our own safes.”