Sherlock Holmes In America (16 page)

“Perspective, gentlemen. A short man standing at an angle thirty degrees higher than the man he is facing must appear taller; but the laws of physics are inviolate.” So saying, he snatched the hat off the man dressed as Holliday.

“So sorry.” The Chinese opium seller smiled and bowed to his audience. “One pipe apiece, courtesy of Mr. Holmes.”

“The thing was simplicity itself,” said Holmes, once we were settled in Mrs. Blake's boardinghouse, across from the room where Doc Holliday snored and coughed by turns, resting from his incarceration. “Woods knew Holliday's sartorial preferences and designed a similar wardrobe for himself whose cuffs fell short of his wrists and whose trousers swung free of his insteps; he was foolish enough to leave it among his scraps, where Earp found it while the rest of us sampled the fare at the Mescalero. The subliminal impression is of a man too tall for his garb, hence tall. A loose coat implies emaciation regardless of the portliness contained, and an undertaker's knowledge of cosmetics paints hollows in plump cheeks as easily as it fills in the ravages that scoop out flesh in the final stages of debilitating illness. I am guilty, through Earp, of burgling Woods's store. I also took the liberty of palming a spool of his string.

“Coughing and cursing, in Holliday's distinctive drawl, could only have contributed to the illusion,” he continued. “As Woods said himself, Holliday is a man who likes to stand out. The rest was theater.”

I said, “I'll wager it cost you another sovereign to enlist the Chinese's cooperation.”

“I rather think he enjoyed performing, and would have done it for half. But what price a man's life, be it even so tenuous and sinister as Holliday's?”

“And what of Woods's? That tiny cell won't hold off Dundy's vengeance for long.”

“Wyatt Earp has pledged to protect him until the circuit judge arrives. I do believe his sense of justice is equal to mine; as his loyalty to his friend is to yours.”

This warmed me more than I can say. I felt that a barrier between us had fallen. “And what is your gain, beyond justice?”

He rubbed his hands. “The chance to drub Wyatt Earp at the game of faro. I take my profits as they come.”

Victoria Thompson

Victoria Thompson is the author of the Gaslight Mystery Series featuring Sarah Brandt and Frank Malloy, which was nominated for a 2001 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. In her previous life, she published twenty historical romances. A popular speaker, Victoria has taught at Pennsylvania State University and currently teaches in the Seton Hill University master's program in writing popular fiction. She is a cofounder and past president of Pennwriters and New Jersey Romance Writers, and past president of Novelists, Inc.

I
have mentioned previously how busy my friend Sherlock Holmes and I were during the years following his miraculous return from being presumed dead at the hands of the villain Moriarty. After selling my medical practice, I was able to devote my full efforts to assisting Holmes in whatever way he needed me, and since his previous clients had rewarded him so generously, he was able to involve himself in any investigation that took his fancy, without regard to financial considerations.

Holmes's reputation had grown so much by this time that hardly a day passed when someone wasn't trooping up the stairs at his lodgings in Baker Street, seeking his counsel or assistance. Holmes could hardly bear to turn anyone away without at least hearing about the case in question, and as a consequence, he had very little time for rest or relaxation and was seldom even able to sleep a night through without interruption. I began to fear for my friend's health and was, at length, able to convince him to travel with me on a holiday.

Holmes had dealt with many Americans through the years, and he had always found them interesting as individuals. He had also frequently expressed his desire that England and America might one day overcome the differences that had separated them and unite as one nation again. I thought he might be intrigued by the opportunity to present his arguments toward this end in person to our former colony, but only after several weeks of persuasion was I able to convince him to make the trip.

I naïvely believed that in America Holmes would find a respite from those seeking his help, but I had not counted on my accounts of his previous cases having made their way across the ocean ahead of us. We arrived in the city of New York to discover that Holmes was almost as well-known there as he was at home. Our only advantage was that the public at large did not know where he was staying, and that saved us from being overwhelmed by entreaties.

Still, those in certain circles were able to locate us, and we had not been in New York a fortnight before we were invited to dine at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt was rumored to be considering a position in the administration of the newly-elected American president, William McKinley, but for the moment he was still the commissioner of the New York City Police Department. As such, he felt obligated to entertain the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.

The party was surprisingly small. After meeting Mr. Roosevelt at his office at Police Headquarters and being assured he was
dee
-lighted with every aspect of our visit, as he seemed to be
dee
-lighted about nearly everything that happened to him, we had expected to encounter a legion of Mr. Roosevelt's friends, anxious to make the acquaintance of such an esteemed visitor. Instead, he seemed to have chosen his guests with care, and the party included only those who could converse intelligently with his honored guest and none of whom seemed to stand in awe of his reputation. I had begun to think we had happened upon the only remaining humans on earth who had no need of Sherlock Holmes's services. Then, halfway through the meal, when the fish course had just been removed, Holmes's dinner partner finally raised the subject of his unique vocation.

“Are you truly as perceptive as the stories about you would have us believe, Mr. Holmes?” Mrs. Brandt asked. She was an attractive woman of about thirty years of age who had been introduced as an old friend of Mr. Roosevelt's. “Or has Dr. Watson used more fiction than fact in his accounts to make you seem so?” she added, glancing over to give me a rather charming smile to take the sting out of her question. I returned it to let her know I had taken no offense.

“I have never claimed to have greater powers of observation than any other man,” Holmes replied. “I have simply trained myself to use those natural powers to the fullest extent.”

“May I ask you to demonstrate your abilities?”

Holmes raised one eyebrow at the strange request.

“Oh, dear, I've offended you,” she exclaimed. “I'm very sorry. My mother will refuse to take me anywhere with her again.” She glanced at the lady seated at Mr. Roosevelt's right to see if she had overheard, but she seemed engrossed in whatever our host was saying to her. “You see, Mr. Holmes, it isn't just idle curiosity. I have a reason for testing you.”

“Very well, Mrs. Brandt,” Holmes said with some amusement. “Shall I tell you what I have observed about you?”

This prospect seemed to please her. “Certainly.”

Holmes took a moment, as if to study her, although I was certain he had long since taken her measure. “You are a widow, Mrs. Brandt. Although you are still a young woman, your husband has been dead for some years, and he was a man your parents considered socially inferior to you. They did not approve of the match, and you married against their wishes. You have chosen to remain in reduced circumstances rather than return to your family, and you have taken pride in your ability to make your own way in the world. Although you have not yet remarried, you have a gentleman friend who has engaged your affections, but he is also your social inferior. Your mother encourages you to mingle with her friends, but you seldom do, preferring your own circle of acquaintances.”

She stared at him in amazement, so thoroughly awed she didn't even notice when the maid set the next course down in front of her. “How on earth could you know all that about me?” she asked, but then answered her own question. “Oh, of course, Theodore must have told you.”

“I promise you that our host has told me nothing about your background,” Holmes assured her.

“Then how could you possibly have known all that from simply meeting me tonight?” she challenged.

“You asked me to demonstrate my abilities, Mrs. Brandt, so I shall. First of all, I knew you were a widow because you were introduced to me as Mrs. Brandt, yet you are not wearing a wedding ring.” She instinctively looked down at her left hand as if to verify his observation. “If you had been recently widowed, you would be in mourning, but enough time has passed since you lost your husband that you are wearing colors again and have removed your ring.”

“I see,” she said, nodding her approval. “But how could you know anything at all about my late husband's social standing?”

“The name Brandt is of German extraction, and even Americans are still a bit selective about whom they accept into the upper reaches of society. Your mother is obviously a member of that group.”

“How could you know my parents didn't approve of my marriage, though?”

Holmes smiled apologetically. “Parents never approve when their daughter wants to marry a man they consider beneath her.”

She conceded the point to him. “But how could you know I didn't return to my parents after my husband died?”

“I must apologize, but I can see that gown you are wearing, as lovely as it is, has been altered slightly to fit you, which means it was made for someone else. Your mother, perhaps? Did she lend it to you for the occasion because you had nothing suitable of your own and she was determined to take you out in society?”

She was speechless again, so Holmes continued.

“I surmised that you take pride in making your own way in the world because you have that air of confidence about you that women do when they are pleased with themselves.”

“Is that a compliment, Mr. Holmes?” she challenged.

“Some men might not think so,” he admitted.

“You're right there,” she said. “And finally, what makes you believe I have a . . . a gentleman friend?”

“Because when Mr. Roosevelt introduced you and your mother, your mother made no mention of your many accomplishments or tried in any way to make Dr. Watson and myself think more highly of you.”

“Why would she do a thing like that?” she asked in genuine confusion.

“Mrs. Brandt, Dr. Watson and I are bachelors of independent means. This makes us objects of interest to every woman with an unmarried daughter. The fact that we are also British for some reason makes us even more desirable here in America. You would hardly credit how many poor damsels have been thrust into our notice by their proud mamas since our arrival on your shores. Each and every one of them, to hear the mothers tell it, are paragons of virtue and achievement and perfectly suitable as wives to any Englishman, particularly Dr. Watson or myself.”

By now she was covering her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. When she had recovered herself, she said, “Please accept my apology, Mr. Holmes, on behalf of all the desperate American mothers. I'm afraid they can't help themselves.”

“Perhaps not,” Holmes said. “But your mother feels no need to thrust you under anyone's nose, Mrs. Brandt. She knows your affections are engaged elsewhere.”

The color bloomed in her face. “By yet another socially unacceptable man, I assume,” she said, feigning bravado.

“Yes,” Holmes said, “or else he would have accompanied you this evening.”

“Perhaps he was simply otherwise engaged,” she suggested.

“Then our hostess would have inquired about him.”

Before she could reply, Mr. Roosevelt drew everyone's attention by making a toast to his English guests, proclaiming himself
dee
-lighted to have us in his home. Apparently, Mr. Roosevelt had been blessed with at least ten more teeth than most humans, and his smile displayed every one of them when he was
dee
-lighted. As I have already noted, this occurred frequently.

After the change of topic, Mrs. Brandt made no further mention of Holmes's vocation until much later, when the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies in the parlor after indulging in their brandy and cigars. Mrs. Roosevelt had claimed my attention, but Mrs. Brandt drew Holmes aside, as if by prearrangement with our hosts. After only a few minutes, however, Holmes summoned me to join him in the far corner of the room where he and Mrs. Brandt had found some measure of privacy.

“Watson, I would like for you to hear what Mrs. Brandt has been telling me about a very interesting case,” he said, indicating I should take a seat beside her. “Mrs. Brandt, you may speak as freely in front of Dr. Watson as you would to me alone. Please continue.”

“As I was telling Mr. Holmes,” she began, “a young lady recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She is the daughter of one of the most highly respected ministers in the city, the Reverend Mr. Penny of Christ's Church. She was doing volunteer work in the church basement one morning, and she simply vanished, as if into thin air. No one has seen or heard from her since, and that was nearly two weeks ago.”

“I believe I read something about this in the newspapers,” Holmes said. “Although the accounts were a bit confusing, and some were even contradictory to others.”

Mrs. Brandt shook her head. “The New York newspapers pay very little attention to accuracy, I'm afraid. They are much more interested in sensation, because it will sell newspapers. I've seen theories that Harriet Penny was abducted by everything from spirits from another world to Barbary Pirates.”

Holmes smiled indulgently. “What is
your
theory, Mrs. Brandt?”

“Mine?” she asked in surprise. “I don't really have one. I only know what the police think.”

“What do they think?” he asked with interest.

“That she was kidnapped and has been forced into a brothel.”

I'm afraid I could not conceal my surprise that a lady of Mrs. Brandt's breeding would use such a word in polite company.

“I'm sorry if I shocked you, Dr. Watson, but Mr. Holmes was correct when he guessed that I have continued to make my own way in the world, as he so politely phrased it. I am a trained nurse and midwife, and I have seen far more of the world than my parents would have approved, I'm sure.”