World's Greatest Sleuth! (8 page)

“So where’s Mr. Greene?” I asked once all the unenthused how-dos were out of the way.

“Delayed, I’m afraid,” Blackheath-Murray said. “He’ll be along shortly, though.”

A silver bucket sat on a stand near the table, and Curtis lurched to his feet and snatched a bottle from it.

“Still,” he said, and just from that one word I could tell he’d been matching Tousey chug for chug, “there’s no use waiting any longer for our first toast.”

He sloshed fizzy gold into the tall, narrow glasses before me and Gustav, and after refilling his own with the last foamy drops, he plopped the bottle back into the bucket upside down.

“To the World’s Greatest Sleuth!” he said, raising his champagne high.

The rest of us reached for our glasses—Old Red almost upending his in the process. Between the restaurant’s dim light and his own dark spectacles, it was a wonder he could even see the thing in the first place, let alone get a hand around it.

“The World’s Greatest Sleuth,” everyone repeated, and me and Gustav finally got our first taste of champagne. To my considerable disappointment, it was basically ginger ale without the bite.

Curtis waited till everyone was midslurp to finish his toast.

“May he rest in peace!”

He flashed a demented grin, then drained his glass.

A waiter appeared out of nowhere to replace the bottle our Puzzlemaster had emptied, while another swooped in to place plates before Old Red and Smythe and me. On each was a single puff of flaky pastry sandwiching something brown and gooey that oozed out over the sides.

This, apparently, was the
préludes
.

“Cassolette d’escargots au beurre persille,”
Valmont said, and he kissed the tips of his fingers.

“Oh. Uh. Lovely. One of my favorites.”

I speared the thing with my fork and popped it into my mouth. It wasn’t bad, though perhaps a tad slimier than the steak and potatoes I would have preferred.

Old Red just let his be. In fact, he seemed reluctant to so much as touch the cutlery lest he be accused of trying to pocket it.

“Tell me, Brady,” Curtis said as he refilled his glass again. “That robbery ring you were describing to Miss Crowe a moment ago. The one you broke up single-handed. I’ve been following all your recent cases quite closely, but that one isn’t familiar to me.”

“That’s because it hasn’t appeared in the magazine yet. It’ll be in next month’s issue. The title’s ‘The Adventure of the Silver Dwarf.’ ”

Brady spoke with such breezy ease I had to conclude this particular King had no clothes when it came to detecting: He hadn’t even noticed that Curtis was baiting him.

His publisher didn’t miss it, though. Tousey was giving Curtis the kind of look you see on a cat just before it spits at you.

“Well, it’s an incredible story,” Curtis said. “Truly in … credible. So many narrow escapes! So much derring-do!” He put on a rueful expression and shook his head. “I’m afraid that sort of thing won’t help you much this week, though.”

“That’s too bad,” Brady replied with a cocky shrug. “Because it’s not all puzzles and ciphers out in the real world. Nine times out of ten, it’s pure muscle that wins the day.”

“That sounds more like your philosophy, Mr. Pinkerton,” Lucille Larson said. Her tone was languid, detached, even as her gaze bored into the man like an auger. “When it comes to strikebreaking, at least.”

Pinkerton looked pained.

“Force has its place,” he said, “but I believe what I said in my speech this afternoon. The most important components of true detective work are diligence and professionalism, plain and simple.”

“Ohhhhh, much
too
plain! Much
too
sim-PELL!” Valmont protested. On his blocky face was an eyeball-bulging expression that conveyed either surprise or an overexcess of coffee consumption. “You are not descri-BING a sleuth. You are descri-BING a ban-KARE. A druggist. A shoe sellsman.”

“Precisely,” Pinkerton said. “At the end of the day, there’s little that separates the successful detective from the successful businessman.”

“Lee-tell? Lee-tell? Ohhhhhh, there is so much that sep-a-rates them. It is infinite what sep-a-rates them! Yet it is all contain-ED here.” The Frenchman tapped the side of his head. “Imagination. Vision. To see not just the pee-says on the chessboard but the invisible pattern of their porpoise.”

Valmont snatched up a salt shaker and zigzagged it through the air.

“Why does the rook go wee-wee-wee?”

He slammed the salt down in front of a startled Blackheath-Murray, then grabbed a roll and whipped it this way and that, sending crumbs flying.

“Why does the knight go zeeeee-blow, zeeeee-blow?”

The roll was flattened in front of Miss Larson’s plate. Then it was a stray fork’s turn to fly.

“To what end does the queen go vish-vash!”

Valmont plopped the fork into Blackheath-Murray’s ice water, then moved a pop-eyed stare slowly around the table.

“The sleuth will look about himself and ask, ‘Why are these pawns and kings doing what they do? Are the pawns really pawns and the kings really kings? Indeed, can one even say what game they truly play?’ To dis-en-tingle all this … it is the greatest game of all!”

“Piffle!” Colonel Crowe scoffed. “Detective work isn’t some diversion for our amusement. It’s life and death, and all that matters is getting the job done and done right. Only amateurs and fools take it lightly.”

He might have been rebuffing Valmont, yet by the time he finished he was glaring at me and Gustav.

Other than the toast to Holmes, my brother hadn’t made a sound since we’d sat down. Now, though, he wheezed out something whispery and incomprehensible.

He coughed and tugged at his collar and tried again.

“I couldn’t agree with you more, sir,” he said. “I may still be an amateur, as you figure it, but I take detectivin’ as serious as anyone at this table. I been makin’ a study on it for some time now—and been through one calamity after another for my trouble. This much I’ve learned, though: You can’t boil sleuthin’ down to a simple set of rules and homilies and expect that to get you to the truth or justice or whatever you wanna call it.”

“I’m surprised to hear that from you, Old Red,” Curtis said. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your faith in Mr. Holmes.”

“Not in the Man, exactly. But I’ve come to have my doubts about followin’ in his footsteps. I ain’t so sure anymore another feller could do what he done. Outside of a magazine, anyhow.”

Curtis aimed one of his big sickle-blade grins at King Brady and Frank Tousey. “On that much, at least, we’re entirely in agreement.”

“I, on the other hand, beg to differ,” someone said from across the table, and when I glanced that way I was surprised to see it was one of the waiters.

He was an olive-skinned fellow with a thick black beard—a Greek or Turk by the look of him—and after sliding a mixture of greens, cheese, and what seemed like sagebrush in front of Pinkerton, he shocked us all by sliding
himself
into the empty seat to the man’s right.

“I’m sorry to hear your faith has been shaken, Mr. Amlingmeyer,” he said. “Let me assure you, however: Sherlock Holmes’s spirit remains very much alive. His intellect. His love of a challenge.”

The waiter scratched at his beard high up near his left ear. A little strip of skin and hair seemed to come loose, and the man pinched at the dangling flap and peeled it away.

“His flair for theatrics…”

In a moment, the waiter’s whole beard was gone, and with a few swipes of a napkin most of his swarthy darkness had smeared away as well.

What remained was Boothby Greene.

There were gasps and stunned laughs, and Curtis even applauded.

“You been servin’ us the whole time?” asked Old Red, looking so awestruck you’d have thought Holmes himself had just materialized before us like Jesus appearing to the apostles.

Greene gave him a nod. “Soup to nuts—or
escargot
to
salade de chèvre chaud,
at any rate. I do hope you’ll all forgive my childishness. I have a weakness for the dramatic, and I put on such a poor showing this afternoon I couldn’t resist a little prank to even the score.” He offered Curtis a small bow. “Unofficially, of course.”

Curtis bowed back. “Too bad I won’t be awarding bonuses for clever charades, Mr. Greene. You wouldn’t be the only one to pick up a few extra points.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” Frank Tousey said.

He’d never stopped glowering down the table at Curtis, and even Greene’s little floor show hadn’t wiped the frown from his face. The man was a wick soaked in alcohol, and now it took but the slightest spark to light him up.

“You’ll find out,” Curtis said.

Tousey swung himself toward Pinkerton before finally exploding.

“What’s this all about? We came to you because we wanted this thing to have some kind of integrity, and what do you do? Hand us over to the very loon who’d like nothing better than to show us all up as frauds!”

“If you want to convince people your ‘sleuths’ are real,” Pinkerton grated out, “who better to test them than the man who proved Nick Carter doesn’t—?”

“Oh, please!” Tousey howled. “A stupid schoolboy scavenger hunt
for a golden egg
? That was no test. It was horseshit, pardon my French.”

“Sir! There are ladies present!” Colonel Crowe protested.

“Can I quote you on that?” Miss Larson asked Tousey.

“Actually,
en français
it would be
merde de cheval
,” Valmont said.

Tousey ignored them all.

“If your little friend there doesn’t stop his insane insinuations—
now
—I’ve half a mind to sue you for … where do you think you’re going?”

Pinkerton was pushing back his chair and tossing his napkin onto his plate.

“I told you this would happen,” he said to Curtis.

“Yeah.” Curtis nodded eagerly. “Perfect, isn’t it?”

Pinkerton glowered at him a moment, then stood. “My apologies, Mr. Blackheath-Murray. This was no way to repay your hospitality.” He looked down at Curtis like the man was something unpleasant stuck to the heel of his shoe. “We’re leaving.”

“Just when it’s getting fun?”

“We’re leaving.”

“Alright, fine,” Curtis sighed. “I’ve got an egg to lay anyway.” Instead of standing, though, he turned to the rest of the guests. “Before I go, let me leave you with a few choice morsels to chew on along with your snails and cheese.”

“Snails?” I said. I don’t think anyone heard me.

Curtis was turning his attention to Eugene Valmont.

“You could ask the
monsieur
there about what the French newspapers call
‘L’Affaire des cinq cent diamants.’
Or ask Colonel Crowe why he and his”—Curtis cocked an eyebrow and coughed—“ ‘daughter’ are suddenly at liberty to open their own detective agency. Or ask young Master Brady about his birthday or Mr. Greene how it is he doesn’t seem to have one.”

My brother tensed up beside me, no doubt sure his not-so-secret shame was to be aired out next: that he was putting on sleuthing airs when he couldn’t even read. Yet Curtis spared him, his gaze sweeping over us like the Angel of Death on its way to the pharaoh’s house.

“The plain truth is,” he went on, “there are more mountebanks at this table than master detectives … and proving it is going to be child’s play.”

Curtis finally stood then—a bit unsteadily—and his grin returned. It didn’t seem so much like a smile this time, though. It was more like a growling dog showing off his fangs.

“Speaking of which, I’d urge you all to turn in early. Today was just a warm-up. Tomorrow the real sleuthing begins … for you
and
me.”

“Please. Allow me,” I said to Smythe as Curtis and Pinkerton headed for the stairs.

I cleared my throat.

“Dooooooooooooomed.”

9

THE CONTEST (ROUND TWO)

Or, Curtis Flies the Coop, and We Encounter a Bad Egg

To say that the
dinner party ended awkwardly might imply that it was ever anything
but
awkward. Which it was not. Unless you want to count mortifying, horrifying, and deeply painful. Which it was. So merely “awkward” was an improvement, I suppose.

Before Pinkerton and Curtis even made it down the stairs, Tousey drained his latest glass of champagne and proclaimed that he was leaving as well.

“Come on,” he snapped at Brady as he rose to go.

King proved surprisingly pliant, for royalty, instantly hopping up to hustle after his publisher.

A moment later, Colonel Crowe announced that he’d lost his appetite, and he stood and hovered by his chair as a signal for Diana to lose hers, too. Gustav and I swapped puzzled frowns as she followed the colonel out. The Diana we’d known was daring and headstrong—certainly no slave to convention or decorum or even, on occasion, scruples. Yet now she was so thoroughly under Colonel Crowe’s little thumb her spirit seemed to have been squashed flat. Maybe, I had to think, it was more than the lady’s name we’d had wrong all along.

Next to go was Eugene Valmont, who announced that his “diges-CHON” had become “unseateld.”

“Well?” Old Red said to Smythe as the Frenchman made his escape.

He got the answer he was obviously expecting.

“Yes, yes … let’s go,” Smythe muttered. “I’ve never felt more hugger-mugger in all my life.”

That left only Lucille Larson to help Blackheath-Murray and Boothby Greene with their feast. I hoped they were all hungry.

“Well,” I said as Gustav, Smythe, and I wedged ourselves into another cab, “if that’s how the high and mighty dine, I’m glad I’m riffraff.”

Smythe mumbled a reply that may or may not have been “I’m not.”

Old Red tried to draw the man out with questions about Tousey and Pinkerton and the little innuendos Curtis had been tossing around. Yet all my brother got for his efforts were moans along the lines of “What does it matter now?” and “I don’t know anything anymore!” At last, as our cab skirted the long Midway Plaisance that jutted west out of the White City like a knife in the back, Smythe could take no more.