SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (17 page)

"Watson, I asked how far down the lift went. I was
told one hundred fifty feet. That means the vaults must be one hundred fifty feet below the bank. But the depth
of the subway excavation at that point was
also
one hundred fifty feet. When I looked up at the overhead
cable while the lift was presumably at the bottom of
the shaft, I could see several coils of it wound round
the drum at the top; if inspected on the spot, I dare
say one would find about fifteen feet of it."

He lit the pipe and puffed out a cloud of pungent
blue smoke.
"Mr. McGraw told me," he continued, "that the rate
of descent was two hundred feet a minute, meaning it
should have taken the lift forty-five seconds to reach
the vaults. It took thirty-nine. And I am sure you
noticed that the tunnel from the vaults to the excava
tion slopes
downwards!
"

"Why, so it does! Then—"

"Watson, there is only one inescapable conclusion.
The vaults we examined were
not
the vaults containing
the gold. They were an exact replica built directly
above
the actual vaults. It will be discovered, I am
confident, when the floor of the lift is removed, that
iron bars will have been inserted into the shaft to
prevent the lift descending the remaining ten feet to
the actual vaults—where all of the gold still safely
resides!"

Sherlock Holmes had laid it all out clearly and, as he
had said, the conclusion was inescapable. Neverthe
less, it was still hard to credit.

"But, Holmes, the vault door, the combination lock
—the cages themselves—
everything?
"

"Duplicated down to the smallest detail. Some mem
ber of Mr. McGraw's staff has thrown in his lot with
Moriarty and provided him with all the necessary
details."

"It must have taken months!"

"Yes! And with so many hundreds of men employed
in construction of the underground, who would notice
a handful of Moriarty's cohorts tunneling for pur
poses of their own?"

Hands behind my back, I paced the room, pondering
this incredible, but moment by moment more con
vincing, solution. I then turned to Holmes, who was
lounging comfortably and puffing at his pipe.

"One thing, Holmes," said I. "You were quite cer
tain of all this while we were still with Inspector
Lafferty. Yet you said nothing. Why?"

Sherlock Holmes' expression grew grave, and he
removed the pipe from his mouth.

"I still fear for the boy's life."

"But he's safe at home now!" I protested.

"Safe only so long as Moriarty thinks him still a
prisoner. Tomorrow's newspapers hold the key. If the
theft is reported, he will know that I have obeyed his
orders, and it will be safe to release Scott. If the
financial page carries news of the exchange transaction, he will know I have tricked him, and he will
hasten to seize the boy from Mademoiselle Romaine. He will learn that I have forestalled him, and his rage
will be towering. He will not rest until he has had his
revenge on me—through Scott!"

He rose and paced the room, and I stood to one
side in order to avoid getting in his way.

"I must know where Moriarty is," he said, "and he
must be in the custody of the police, before I can
safely reveal the location of the gold. No other course
of action is permissible!"

"Perhaps so," I replied, "but how on earth do you
expect to manage that? It took you half a year to
ferret out the man's lodgings in Limehouse."

Sherlock Holmes regarded me for a moment, appearing to ponder deeply. Then a smile lit up his face.
"I'm not too proud to learn, Watson. Why not em
ploy the methods
he
used in ferreting
me
out?"

He started for the door, taking up his cloak and
cap once more.

"Here—where are you going?" I called.

He paused with his hand on the doorknob.
"Back to that most admirable establishment, the
Eaves Costume Company!"

Then he was gone.

Alone in the hotel room, I wondered what strange
role he would assume this time. It could hardly be
more bizarre than that of the Great Bandini!

———«»——————«»——————«»———

Shortly before six o'clock that late-March night, the
pavement across the way from the Haymarket Hotel
was adorned by the presence of a shabby but impres
sive figure clad in flowing robes and sandals, hairy
and bearded as a desert patriarch, and carrying a
crudely lettered sign reading: "Repent For the End Is
Near." The prophet of doom cast frequent glances
both at all who traversed that particular section of
sidewalk and at the window of a certain third-floor
room in the hotel.

At six precisely, a young man in a flamboyant suit
and tweed cap stopped for a moment nearby, looking across the street. The curtain in the third-floor window
moved, and a woman who now stood framed in it
nodded her head once, slowly. The young man im
mediately stepped out into the street and halted a
passing cab, climbed into it, and was driven off.

The robed man, his beard flying, raced into the
traffic, waving his sign frantically, and calling, "Cab!
Cab!"

Some twenty minutes later, the young man's cab
deposited him at the same dank waterfront area that
the theater doorman had visited two days earlier. He
slipped into the alleyway, and thus missed seeing a
second cab disgorge the old religious fanatic who had
briefly shared the pavement opposite the Haymarket
Hotel with him.

The bewhiskered man, still carrying his sign, looked about him with interest.
"Of course," he murmured. "Moriarty's attraction
to rat-infested buildings at the water's edge. Some
vestige of his ancestry, perhaps."

A few minutes later, the sound of a creaking door
alerted him, and he stepped back into a shadowed doorway. As the young man emerged from the alley
once more, he was suddenly confronted by the bearded man, whose ascetic appearance was marred by the
very businesslike revolver he had produced from his
robes and had trained on the young man's head.

"Charles Nickers, I presume," said the prophet.
"My name is Sherlock Holmes. I dare say you've
heard of me."

"Cor blimey!" was all that Nickers could say.

"Yes, I often wonder why He hasn't chosen to do
just that on many an occasion . . . Now then, my man,
unless you wish to go the way of your brother, Bill,
tell me who is in that building!"

"The
. . .
the Professor . . ."

"And how many others? Speak up smartly, or you'll
swing for it!"

Holmes did not see an upstairs window in the
moldering building slide partly open, or a pallid face crowned with wispy white hair stare out at the scene below, and then become distorted with rage. Professor Moriarty watched his bizarrely clad enemy march his
underling off to the next street in search of a police
man, and, quivering with fury, sank back into the chair behind his desk. A pawn had been taken, and soon
most of his pieces might be swept from the board—but Sherlock Holmes was a long way from placing
James Moriarty in check!

A block away, Holmes was handing over his pris
oner to an astonished New York policeman, "Here's my card, constable. Take this man in charge
and get word at once to Inspector Lafferty that the
building at the far end of this alley is to be surrounded
and its occupants arrested. Tell him that I'll provide
him with full details directly."

The policeman had trouble enough taking in this un
usual message, but the name on the card, contrasted
with the outlandish figure before him, was even harder
to credit.

He looked from the pasteboard to the prophet, and said, faintly, "You
are?
"

———«»——————«»——————«»———

A
quarter of an hour after this encounter, Sherlock
Holmes, still robed, sandaled and bearded and carrying his sign, descended from a cab in front of number 4, Gramercy Park West, and made for the steps lead
ing to the house. Hesitating, he crossed the street, and
strode up to the still-present watcher in the checked
suit, who eyed him curiously, then ducked as the sign
was thrust in front of his eyes.

"I strongly suggest you take these words to heart,
my man!" said Holmes in an eerie, quavering voice.

He then re-crossed the street and entered the house,
leaving Moriarty's spy wondering what sort of crazy
crew was gathering at the Adler woman's lodgings.

Inside, Sherlock Holmes quickly penned a note outlining his discoveries and emphasizing the need for im
mediate action on Moriarty and his henchmen, sealed
it, and passed it to the waiting butler.

"There you are, Heller. To Inspector Lafferty as
quickly as possible!"

"Yes, sir." As the man hurried out with the note,
Holmes began to remove his beard and wig. To Irene Adler, standing close to him with young Scott, he said,
"Within the half-hour, Moriarty and his entire Amer
ican organization will be in custody. Irene, your
fears are at an end."

He looked down at Scott and put his hands on the
boy's shoulders.
"Well, well, young man, you've had more than an
adventure—much more! You've aided in the capture
of the world's most notorious criminal, and you've been
instrumental in preventing a devastating world war."

"Well, I wish I'd known all that, sir," said the boy.
"I wouldn't have slept through so much of it!"

"Well said!" Holmes turned to Irene Adler. "Bright
lad. Well, I must be off now. Good-bye, Scott."

"Good-bye, Mr. Holmes."

"Must you go?" said Irene Adler.

Holmes, nearly through the archway, indicated his
costume.
"Yes. These must go back to the costumer, and
I'm anxious to learn of Inspector Lafferty's success."

Irene Adler nodded, and followed him through the
arch, walking beside him down the stairs. Halfway in
the descent, he paused and looked thoughtfully at
her.

"You've not changed, really," said he, "since that
week in Montenegro . . . when was it, 'ninety-one?"

"Not changed in ten years? Sherlock, how gallant
of you. But come, now—ten years?"

"I notice nothing."

There was an undertone of laughter in her voice.
"What? Sherlock Holmes notices nothing?"

"Why, am
I
so different, then?"

"No. Far from it. That was my first thought when you burst in here: My heavens, it's as though it were
yesterday!"

"Well, then?" He studied the woman for a mo
ment, seemed about to continue down the stairs, and
then glanced back toward the drawing-room and the
now unseen Scott. "I hadn't known . . . after that first
misadventure from which I managed to extricate
you . . . that you'd married again."

She held his gaze steadily.

"I have never remarried, Sherlock."

"I see . . . You were appearing in—
Rigoletto
, wasn't
it?"

Irene Adler nodded. "And you were on a walking
tour."

"Yes, I remember thinking to myself, what an un
likely place to come across you: Montenegro. You
were always so attracted to
. . .
the bright lights of
the Metropolis."

"I remember thinking the same of you. What
an unlikely place to come upon someone who was
never at home outside of London."

Sherlock Holmes said, very softly, "Never . . . until
then
, perhaps."

Their gazes locked silently for another moment.
Then Holmes reached inside his robes, fetched out
his watch, and checked the time.

"Almost eight," said he. "If things have gone well,
and they cannot fail to have done, I'll get word to
you. Perhaps the two of us could—the
three
of us
could—take supper together." He looked at her with
the hint of a grin. "And I don't mean Watson."

Irene Adler held out her hand as she spoke. "I'll
wait for your message."

Holmes took her fingers very gently, his face grave,
as if studying and memorizing the faint, enigmatic
smile she now gave him.