Sherlock Holmes In America (7 page)

He fell quiet again, staring at the graves. We waited on his silence. “Over six hundred thousand men were killed in the war,” he said softly. “I think it is important to use the word ‘killed' rather than ‘died'. They were shattered. Blown apart. There were battles in which twenty thousand were slain in a day. Even two days after, there would yet be . . . pieces of men lying in the bloody dirt. Or in mud. Dust. There were bodies no one will ever recognize. Those who loved them will never know . . . ”

He squinted at the sky for a moment. “If I can demonstrate the genuineness of these phenomena,” he said very quietly, “then all mankind may be assured that the sting of death and the grave's victory have passed away. Death itself will have died. No,” he said fiercely, lowering his eyes again to the gravestones, “death itself will have been killed. And all the weeping will dissolve in joy. And all the blood will be as dew.”

He stood there, still as the stones around him, and I realized he had forgotten us. I touched Sherlock's arm and we moved quietly away. I looked back as we reached the gates. Colonel Olcott had not moved.

All the way back to the inn, I waited for Sherlock to say something. But he never did. At last, as we mounted the steps, I could keep still no longer. “Well,” I challenged him, “what of your plan to enlighten Colonel Olcott and save him from himself?”

He neither paused nor looked at me as he stepped ahead through the doors.

“A bad machine,” he said, “may be a very good man.”

Afternote:

The story of Henry Olcott and the Eddy Brothers is true. Three days after this tale ends, he met Madame Helena Blavatsky, and they went on to found the most far-reaching of the Victorian-era occult institutions, the Theosophical Society. Olcott wrote an account of his experiences in Chittenden,
People from the Other World
, which I used as my main source; indeed, some of Olcott's words in my story, including “Such a person may be a very bad man but a very good machine,” are direct quotes from that book. However, all speculation into his reason for belief in the Eddys are my own: the colonel remains a mystery.

Steve Hockensmith

Steve Hockensmith is the author of the popular Holmes on the Range mysteries about Sherlock Holmes-worshipping cowboy brothers “Big Red” and “Old Red” Amlingmeyer. The first book in the series was nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, Dilys, and Anthony awards in 2006, and since then, St. Martin's Minotaur has released several sequels. Hockensmith's first published crime story, “Erie's Last Day,” won the Short Mystery Fiction Society's Derringer Award and appeared in
Best American Mystery Stories 2001
. Today, Hockensmith is a regular contributor to mystery magazines and anthologies, and his short fiction has been nominated for almost every major award in the field. Hockensmith and “Big Red” Amlingmeyer share a blog at
www.stevehockensmith.com
.

S
herlockian lore is replete with tales of dusty manuscripts in musty vaults that, when found, shed surprising new light on the Great Detective. I myself have enjoyed reading many such “discoveries,” even while (no offense to the discoverers) finding their provenance highly suspect. If there really were so many heretofore unknown Holmes chronicles floating around, there could hardly be a cellar, attic, or cupboard in the world that wasn't home to at least one, if not several.

I am no longer skeptical, however. Here's why.

In June of this year, I received in the mail a most remarkable (and rather dusty and, yes, musty) manuscript that—really and truly!—sheds surprising new light on the Great Detective. It was being sent to me, a cover letter said, because of my own small successes in the world of Sherlockiana. Perhaps I could act as literary agent for the party who'd unearthed it (who wished, for reasons I can't go into, to remain anonymous)?

The timing was fortuitous—practically miraculous, really—as I'd just been queried about a possible submission to this very collection. And here one was! And one of incalculable value to historians, as well, for it backs up one of William S. Baring-Gould's most interesting claims in his classic biography
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street
: that Holmes once trod the boards, and in America, no less.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, as you will see), space does not permit us to present the manuscript in its entirety here. Not by a long shot. The verbiage is lush, thick, and, at times, tangled, and I had to hack my way through it like Jungle Jim through darkest Africa.

I think it was worth the slog, though. I hope you agree. If you don't, I would suggest this: Take a look in the attic. There's a good chance you'll find something there you like better.

—Stephen B. Hockensmith
Alameda, California
August 9, 2008

From
What a Piece of Work! My Life in the Limelight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Some Notable Shame”

Oh, St. Louis, St. Louis—if only there were anything saintly about you. Anything heavenly, anything worthy of veneration. Anything not spackled with filth! But, no, alas. Praise for you I must limit to this: You are not Indianapolis.

And this, too, I will add upon further reflection. Your odors may have assaulted me, your citizens may have insulted me, your “theatre” may have been an insult to
the
theatre, yet at no time whilst walking your dung-paved paths (I cannot grace them with the appellation “streets”) did I feel myself in danger of mortal harm . . . excepting, of course, that which I might inflict upon myself in order to escape you the quicker.

No, for that honor—the privilege of experiencing a fright worthy of Madame Tussauds Chamber of Horrors—I have Leadville, Colorado, to thank.

Leadville, of course, wasn't on the original itinerary for Sasanoff's tour of America. If it had been, I never would have signed on with the man's company. One glance at a map and I'd have seen that he was leading us deep into that infamous “Wild West” from which tales of savagery and death routinely gush like geysers of blood. At the time, the martyr Custer was but three years in his shallow prairie grave, and I certainly would have had no desire to become his neighbor. St. Louis was both as west and as wild as I ever intended to experience.

A few days before our engagement there was due to end, however, Sasanoff gathered the company to make an announcement. New Orleans would not be our next stop, as had been planned. There would be a “brief detour” to Colorado, where our
Twelfth Night
would help inaugurate “the grandest theatre west of the Mississippi.”

Never mind that there was no such thing as a “brief detour” to Colorado from St. Louis, the journey from one to the other being nearly one thousand miles long. As for us opening “the grandest theatre west of the Mississippi,” this was rich indeed given that we had yet to see anything approaching grand
east
of it, the stages of St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis (Oh! How my hand trembles to write that accursed word!), Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Hartford, etc., etc., being no more grand than an East End public house water closet.

The long delay in visiting New Orleans would be a bitter blow to the troupe, too. Most of us found American “culture” so woeful we were actually looking forward to the influence of (God help us) the French.

But Sasanoff quashed any hint of mutiny quickly, reminding us that we had all signed contracts that explicitly gave him, the acting manager, authority to add and drop tour dates—and company members—as he saw fit. If we didn't fancy a little jaunt westward, we could always remain behind . . . and make our way back to England alone.

This was an unveiled threat to most of us, of course. But I had the feeling it was intended for one of us—He Who Shall Not Be Further Canonized by My Pen—as more of an invitation.

[
First introduced in Chapter Fifty-Six (“The ‘States' of America—Filthy and Repulsive”), He Who Shall Not Be Further Canonized by My Pen is never definitively identified. Even the most casual Sherlockian scholar should recognize him, however. To facilitate ease of reading, he is henceforth referred to wherever possible by the author's other nickname for him: “the Whelp.”—S.B.H.
]

Our leading man's relations with the Whelp had continued their deterioration, and though the two rarely argued about the proper approach to acting any longer—a byproduct of not speaking to each other—Sasanoff had seen fit to demote the young dilettante. No longer was the Whelp our Malvolio. He was now Priest and Musician #1 and Sailor #2 and other assorted nonentities a step up from scenery.

Yet the Whelp, with his usual arrogance, put up the pretense that he was
thankful
to be a mere spear carrier.

“I've played Malvolio for months,” he said to me. “There was nothing more to learn from the part. Blending into the background in so many new guises, on the other hand—that's a challenge I look forward to.”

As if it requires skill to
not
be noticed! It took all my own considerable powers as a thespian not to laugh in his face.

Unfortunately, much as it would have relieved us to be rid of him, the Whelp didn't rise to Sasanoff's bait, and our manager was still reluctant to sack him outright. When we set off for Colorado a week later, the company was intact.

I've written much already about the peculiar torments of American rail travel, so I won't dwell on them again except to say this: [
Approximately three thousand words have been omitted here in the interest of (perhaps unattainable, given the source) brevity.—S.B.H
]

All that was but preamble to the real tortures ahead, however. Leadville, it turned out, was a mining “boom town” not even two years old. No rail line had yet reached it, and the last hundred miles up from Denver required us to transfer to a pair of privately engaged coaches.

And when I write of traveling
up
, I do not mean we went north. Leadville actually lies to the southwest of Denver. It was further up into the snow-peaked mountains we had to go. And go and go and go. Mr. Verne and the other dreamers may assure us man will soon master fantastic flying machines, but if the like of Leadville is all we'll find in the clouds, I say it's not worth the bother.

After enduring nerve-racking rides along gaping gorges on rocky, hole-pocked roads plagued (the cackling drivers delighted in telling us) by both bandit gangs and bloodthirsty bands of Native warriors, we finally arrived at our destination: Gomorrah in the Alps. Or so it struck me at first. I would revise my estimation—
downward
—the longer I was there.

Surrounding the town on all sides were shoddily built shacks, tree stumps without number, and the yawning black mouths of the silver mines. Closer in was a fringe of tents—lodgings for newly arrived fortune hunters and the businesses (mostly “saloons” and drafty bagnios) that catered to them. And then at last we entered the city proper (if one could apply either word to Leadville) and found ourselves rolling down actual streets . . . broad ones comprised entirely of dirt and bracketed on both sides by only slightly sturdier variations on the canvas-topped groggeries and
maisons de joie
we'd just passed.

“To such a place as this we've brought the Bard,” Sasanoff said with an incredulous shake of the head.

Only I was on hand to reply, Sasanoff having granted me the honor of sharing his private car while the rest of the company crammed themselves into the other coach like so much meat into an overstuffed sausage.

“Indeed,” I said, and I reached out and gave little Master Sasanoff a hearty slap on one of his Lilliputian shoulders. “Dr. Livingstone himself couldn't have claimed to do more for the spread of civilization!”

Sasanoff's expressive features curled into a smirk.

“Nor could he have claimed to profit so handsomely by it,” he said.

I chuckled through gritted teeth, for Sasanoff had favored me in another way, as well: by sharing an explanation for our presence in Leadville. The American silver magnate Horace Tabor had offered five thousand dollars for a week's run in the town's newly built opera house. Being under contract, of course, none of the players would see a penny's extra profit. The windfall would be Sasanoff's alone.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, however, and Sasanoff's wee little head was soon uneasy indeed. Construction of the Tabor Opera House (the tycoon, with the usual humility of his ilk, had named the theatre after himself) was behind schedule, and our premiere there delayed at least a week. It had been hard enough for Sasanoff to put off our engagement in New Orleans. If we tarried too long, our run there—and our subsequent appearances in Atlanta, Richmond, and Washington—might be cancelled. The second half of the tour could collapse like a row of dominoes.

Predictably, the days that followed saw Sasanoff in the blackest of moods, and most of the company—terrorized by both their illtempered acting manager and the town he'd marooned them in—barricaded themselves in their hotel rooms. The Whelp, on the other hand, was rarely to be found in his: he quickly took to disappearing for hours at a time. In one of my few forays into Leadville's mud-splattered fray, I entered a low tavern (drawn, of course, by simple curiosity) and spotted him standing alone at the bar, watching all around him as if it were some great drama unfolding upon the stage. He seemed to be invisible to the ruffians infesting the place, yet upon
me
their attention seized instantly with hungry-eyed insolence. My ample frame and lordly bearing always served me well on the boards, but here it put me at a distinct disadvantage.

“Ho ho ho! Lookee who just walked in!” cried a miner so blackened with soot he looked like he bathed in cinders as the rest of us do water. He reached out a hand and took the obscene liberty of patting my stomach. “It's Santa Claus a whole month early!”

“If you please,” I said, brushing away the man's grubby paw. But before I could utter another word in protest, the saloon erupted with more shouts.

“Where's yer sleigh, Santa?”

“Why ain't ya in yer red suit, Santa?”

“What'd ya bring us, Santa?”

Miners, “muleskinners,” layabouts, even the lewd women such rough-hewn rustics consort with—all were jeering and laughing at me.