Sherlock Holmes In America (28 page)

If anything, Harry's enthusiasm had increased since the Great Detective's passing. The previous year we had been thrown quite inadvertently into the investigation of the murder of a Fifth Avenue tycoon, under a set of circumstances, as Dr. Watson might have said, that I have recorded elsewhere. Our unexpected success in this matter left Harry with the distinct, if unwarranted, impression that he had been anointed as the heir apparent to Sherlock Holmes.

“Perhaps you
should
tell us a bit more about this unusual turn of events, Mr. Patrell,” said Bess. “I can't say I'm entirely at ease with the idea of a Ten-in-One where the performers are apt to shoot one another.”

Patrell sighed and fingered one of the walnuts lined up on the table in front of him. “There isn't much to tell,” he began. “Addison Tate joined the troupe in late July. He's a fine performer, and he is willing to step in wherever he is needed, but I had my doubts about him. We've all heard rumors that he served a stretch in prison as a young man. They say he shot a man in a gambling hall.”

“He denies it,” I said. “I've played cards with the man on many occasions. He says a crooked dealer got shot and the police arrested everyone at the table. He insists he had no part in any wrongdoing.”

“I know what he says, Dash.” Patrell picked up a table knife and began tapping at the shell of a walnut. “And I believed him. Truly I did. But almost from the first he began pumping me for more money. He told me his mother needed an operation! Of all the cock-and-bull—”

“I am sorry to learn that his mother is unwell,” said Harry.

“Unwell? Houdini, his mother doesn't need an operation! That's the oldest line of patter in the book! I'm surprised he didn't try to sell me a share in a gold mine.” Using his bandaged arm as a buttress, Patrell wedged the blade of his table knife into the seam of the walnut and pried it open.

“This still does not explain how you came to be shot,” Harry said.

Patrell picked out several pieces of walnut and began chewing. “The night before last, Tate brought every single member of the troupe to my office after the final show—the whole lot of them, even the bearded lady. He knew that I would be tallying the receipts for the week and preparing the pay packets. We'd had a fairly good draw, so there was a considerable pile of money sitting on my desk. Tate came to me with his hat in his hand and begged me to give him the entire week's receipts. He made a good show of it, I'll grant you. He said he had spoken with everyone and they had all agreed to put their salaries toward his mother's operation.”

“The entire troupe was willing to do this?” I asked.

Patrell nodded. “I couldn't believe it. He said he would pay them all back as soon as he was able. He must have been remarkably convincing.”

“It does seem extraordinary,” said Bess, “but, if you'll forgive me, Mr. Patrell, what business is it of yours if your employees chose to give their wages to Mr. Tate?”

“You're quite right about that, Mrs. Houdini, but that wasn't all he was after. He wanted me to surrender the entire gate—every last dime I made for the week. It was quite impossible. I have overhead. It would have shut us down.”

“You refused?” Harry asked.

“Of course I refused! And Tate assured me that he bore no ill will. We shook hands and parted as friends—or so I believed. But he returned later, when the others had gone. Said he was going to give me one last chance to do the decent thing. When I again refused, he informed me that I no longer had a choice in the matter. ‘It pains me to do this,' he said, ‘but I am a desperate man.' That's when he pulled out his gun.”

“The Navy Colt,” I said. “With the ivory grips.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “How could you possibly know that, Dash?”

“Harry, Addison Tate does a ‘Wild West' act. He's the best trick shooter in all of New York. I've seen that pistol dozens of times. So have you. He treats that gun like precious jewel.”

Harry stroked his chin. “A regrettable lapse. I saw, but I did not observe.”

I turned back to Patrell. “I can't believe that Addison Tate would do such a thing. I know the man.”

“I don't think he intended to shoot me, Dash,” Patrell said, wincing slightly as his hand went to his bandaged shoulder. “I was so convinced of it, in fact, that when he reached for the money, I pushed him away and tried to scoop the money back into my strongbox. That's the last thing I remember, apart from the sound of the gun. When I came to my senses, the room was full of people and my shoulder hurt like the devil, but Tate and the money were gone.”

“It must have been an accident,” I said. “He keeps a hair-trigger on that pistol.”

“Taking the money was no accident, Dash. And whether he meant to shoot me or not, it's all one and the same in the eyes of the law. I'll see him in Sing Sing before this is over. If only he can be found!”

“And so we come to the business at hand,” said Harry, spreading his palms on the table before him. “You wish to hire me.”

“Obviously,” said Patrell.

“Yes, just so. Obviously. You should have consulted me sooner. By this time, no doubt, the police have trodden on any number of vital clues, but perhaps I might uncover the truth by questioning—”

“I must say, Houdini, you don't seem quite yourself today.” Patrell brushed the last of the walnut shells into his handkerchief. “Do I understand that you fancy yourself a detective now?”

“You've come to the right man. I shall locate Addison Tate for you, and I shall solve the mystery of his disappearance, or my name isn't—”

“But there's no mystery about it, Houdini! He simply fled after the gun went off. The police will find him soon enough.”

Harry's face fell. “No mystery? Then why have you come to see me?”

“You're still a magician, aren't you?”

“I am ‘The King of Kards,'” said Harry, straightening his back. “The foremost pasteboard manipulator in the country, capable of making the cards—”

“—Capable of making the cards shimmer and dance upon your fingertips,” said Patrell, finishing Harry's boast in the weary tone of one who had heard it countless times. “Well, Houdini, making the cards shimmer and dance is another service that Addison Tate had undertaken for Patrell's Wonder Emporium, and rather capably, I will admit. I need someone to fill his slot. I'd do it myself, but with my arm in a sling I couldn't possibly pull off a manipulation act.”

“Harry would be very pleased to accommodate you,” I said, assuming my de facto role as my brother's manager, “provided that you are willing to meet his terms.”

“I'll pay him three dollars a week,” said Patrell, “which is fifty cents more than I was paying Mr. Tate.”

“My professional charges are upon a fixed scale,” said Harry. “I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether.”

“What?” asked Patrell.

“Three dollars a week will be fine,” I said quickly.

“Yes,” said Harry, tapping his nose meaningfully. “Perhaps it
would
be best if I joined the company as a mere performer. We must not advertise the real reason for my presence. It would inhibit my investigation.”

Patrell turned to me. “Dash?”

“Three dollars a week will be fine,” I repeated.

“It is a perfect deception,” Harry said, as he journeyed downtown to join Patrell's Wonder Emporium that afternoon. “I shall pose as a simple card manipulator. No one will suspect that I am silently observing each and every detail.”

“Harry,” said Bess with a sigh. “You
are
a simple card manipulator. Mr. Patrell told us to leave Addison Tate to the police. There's nothing to investigate.”

“Bess is right, Harry,” I said. “Don't mess this up. We need the money. Keep your mind on your act.”

“I shall perform my duties with my usual skill and professionalism,” said Harry. “Of that you may be assured.” His voice took on a faraway quality. “The stage lost a fine actor when I became a specialist in crime.”

“Harry . . . ”

But he sank back in his seat and would say nothing more.

We were riding a horsecar down Seventh Avenue, with our collars pulled up against a stiff autumn wind. Bess wore a long cloak over the gauzy outfit that I always thought of as her “sugarplum fairy” costume, designed to show her legs to advantage. “I'm freezing,” she said, pulling the folds of the cloak tighter. “I hope Mr. Patrell has managed to find a warm spot this time. Do you remember when he was running the show out of an old fish market? I thought I'd never get the smell of mackerel out of my hair.”

Patrell's Wonder Emporium had occupied dozens of locations over the course of its twenty-year history. It began as a tent-show on the outer reaches of Central Park, in the days when Wild West demonstrations were still a familiar summer entertainment. Gradually, Patrell took his business downtown in hopes of attracting patrons throughout the year. It was his custom to swoop down whenever a warehouse or dry goods concern went out of business, buying up the remainder of the owner's lease at a discount and setting the run of his show accordingly.

We alighted at 14
^th
Street and approached the Wonder Emporium from the west. From half a block away we caught sight of the banner line, a row of brightly-painted canvas panels depicting the “wondrous and edifying” novelty acts presented within—a bearded lady, a contortionist, a frog boy, a “Wild Man of Borneo,” a snake charmer, a living skeleton, a “genuine leprechaun,” a fat lady, a sharp-shooter, and a King of Kards. It should be admitted that the illustrations were eye-catching but also highly fanciful. The leprechaun, for example, was depicted as standing in the palm of a normal-sized man, brandishing his tiny hat and dancing a merry jig. “A tiny marvel!” read the bold, up-tilted caption. “Will you find his pot of gold?” The actual performer—Benjamin Zalor, with whom I often played a hand or two of whist—stood somewhat over four feet. If he had ever owned a pot of gold, he neglected to mention it to me.

“That looks nothing like me,” said Harry, pointing to the panel depicting the King of Kards. This was certainly true. The figure on the canvas panel resembled a blond Satan, with playing cards shooting from his fingertips like lightening bolts. A trio of undersized red imps were seen cowering at his feet, averting their eyes.

“These are just stock images,” I said. “Show people come and go. Patrell couldn't possibly have a new banner painted each time his snake charmer gets a better offer. None of these illustrations looks anything like the actual performer.”

“I know that,” said Harry, “but my public will be disappointed.”

We had only twenty minutes until the start of the first show, and Patrell was waiting for us at the door. He led us inside and showed us to a makeshift stage—a narrow platform fronted with red and blue bunting that ran along one wall below a line of windows. The other performers had already taken their places on stage, waiting for Patrell to drum up the day's first audience. The proprietor made hasty introductions, then showed Harry and Bess to their place on the platform, between the living skeleton and the snake charmer.

This done, Patrell pulled out a large silver turnip watch at the end of a chain. “Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “Dash,” he said, turning to me. “Would you mind filling as frog boy?” He gestured to a strange assemblage of wood and cloth at the third position on the platform. At the center stood a raised column painted to resemble a tree stump. If you settled yourself behind the stump in a sort of crouch and poked your head through a hooded yoke of green cloth, it created the impression of a human head atop an elongated frog body. It was a nice effect, but tough on the knee joints.

“Don't tell me,” I said, “Addison Tate was also filling the frog boy slot?”

“No,” said Patrell. “Actually, we hired a young lady last month. Mathilda Horn. Lovely girl, but she hasn't turned up yet. I believe last night's events may have unsettled her.”

“I'll need three dollars a week, just like my brother.”

“Two.”

“Two-fifty.”

Patrell snorted as he reached into his pocket for a walnut. “Dash, it's not a talent slot.” He picked up a rock from the “Wild Man of Borneo” exhibit and cracked the nut with it. “Your mother could do the frog boy act. I'm offering you two dollars a week until Miss Horn returns. What do you say?” He held out the cracked walnut and I helped myself to half.

“Ribbit,” I said.

The next three weeks passed pleasantly enough as we fell into the routine of the Ten-in-One. We did modest business throughout the afternoons, but drew rather larger and more boisterous crowds in the evenings, when young couples could be relied upon to be strolling past on their way to the theater or a dinner. I made myself useful by filling various slots behind the scenes as well as on the platform. After a couple of days, when Mathilda Horn returned to take up her duties as frog boy, I was promoted to the sharp-shooter slot recently vacated by Addison Tate. I should confess that I do not possess any native skill with a pistol, but the international success of Miss Annie Oakley—“The Peerless Little Sure Shot”—had created a public demand that every dime museum and carnival in America was now obliged to fill. Though I have never handled a live firearm in my life, only blank cartridges, I found as many others had done that sleight of hand offered an acceptable substitute. In my version of the sharp-shooter act, a volunteer from the audience made a selection from a deck of playing cards. After an appropriate interval of shuffling and cutting, I invited the spectator to throw the entire pack into the air. As the loose cards fluttered down, I gave a wild cry—the Rebel Yell, as interpreted by the son of an Orthodox rabbi—and fired my pistol. In short order the selected card was found to have a bullet hole in its center. The act drew enthusiastic applause whenever I performed it, but suffice it to say that Little Sure Shot had nothing to fear from me.