Sherlock Holmes In New York Part 2

Unhappily, the corridors of the Pavonia provide many choices of direction at their intersections, and I had neglected to make myself master of their maze. It was only after several wrong turnings and some delay that I regained the main deck and hurried to where I had left Holmes-to see, as I approached the spot, a silent struggle between two shadowy figures!

Both were visible only in outline, a stocky shape of medium height contending with an unmistakably tall and lean form. And, as I watched, the taller shadow suddenly lurched violently over the railing and disappeared from sight.

"Holmes!" I cried out, in shock and sudden grief, and raced toward the spot. The other shape ran off into the darkness and was lost to sight.

I reached the railing and leaned over it, scanning the shimmering water in the vain hope of spying a floating form.

"There is no need to cry 'Man overboard!' just yet, Watson, and if you will lend me the strength of your arm for a moment, we may be able to avoid the necessity entirely."

Stunned, I looked down, and saw the glimmer of an upturned face below the edge of the deck. Then I made out two hands firmly clutching the bottom of the railing posts.

I made haste to draw Holmes up and a.s.sist him in his rather undignified scramble over the railing and on to the deck.

"What-what happened, Holmes?"

"I was taken by surprise and as nearly as anything pitched into the sea," he answered. "That much is clear. The motive is not, and I find it is a subject on which I should be glad to inform myself."

I recounted to him the fragmentary conversation I had heard, or half heard, in the corridor, and my apprehension-amply justified, in the event-that it portended danger to him.

"Holmes, do you suppose some of Moriarty's men-?"

"No, no, Watson. This has the earmarks of an attack made in panic or on impulse, and the Professor's men do not allow themselves such failings. What you overheard, unfathomable as it was to you, makes it all clear to me now. As my a.s.sailant-whose name, address, and degraded habits I could easily give you if they would mean anything to you-undoubtedly supposes me dead, I think I shall allow myself to stage a resurrection for his benefit."

I followed in his steps as he strode off toward the nearest of the ship's many public rooms, dubious. What Holmes said was usually true, yet, with one murderous attack on him before the Pavonia was fairly at sea, it seemed imprudent to ignore the possibility that, by a means I could not grasp, one or more agents of the Professor had made their way on to the ship and meant to pursue their designs on him.

He peered briefly into one room and withdrew; then, another. In the doorway of the third, he stiffened and drew me quietly inside.

"That empty table over there will do us nicely, Watson. Do you stay to my left just a bit as we approach. Our quarry is at the next table, and it would be best for me to screen you."

I wondered that my friend could think me more recognizable than himself. Then I saw that, without the aid of the devices which made him a master of disguise, he altered, without in any way seeming unnatural about it, his general appearance with a slouching stride, a slump which took inches from his height, and one hand, raised as if to adjust his tie, which contrived to conceal the greater part of his face.

"The point, Watson," he murmured, "is to introduce enough unexpected and discordant elements into your walk, stance, and manner so that a possible watcher who has formed his image of you from the sum of those things will register a different impression entirely. A second glance would bring about recognition, but the great thing is not to occasion that second glance."

We reached the table, partly screened from its neighbor by a spiky kind of fern in a pot, and seated ourselves so that we might observe without being observed.

The nature of the activity at the next table was clear: a party of four men were preparing for a game of cards. One was a sleekly dressed and carefully combed man with a saturnine, predatory countenance. Another was an open-faced, burly young chap who seemed unused to the gaiety and luxury of the ship. The remaining pair appeared to be solid, unremarkable men of business, though evidently prosperous.

"I'm powerfully obliged to you gentlemen for asking me to join you in a little diversion," observed the young man in accents which I had no difficulty in recognizing as those of rural America. "A sea trip can be lonely without something to pa.s.s the time. And, say! I don't mind telling you I've enough in my poke to back up my play."

I saw the predatory-faced man dart a glance at him as he began to shuffle the cards.

I could follow the play easily enough, but soon grew restive and stirred in my chair. Holmes motioned me to silence with an impatient gesture.

"There will be drama enough in this in a moment or so, Watson," he whispered.

And so it proved. As the sharp-faced man drew in his winnings from the second hand played, the young American, at that point the major loser, sprang to his feet.

"See here!" he complained. "That jack wasn't in your hand when it was dealt-for here's the same one in mine!"

"Do you accuse me of cheating, sir?" said the winner in a bl.u.s.tering tone.

"Make of it what you will!" the American said, his face flushed. "I see what I see, and I'll not back down!"

The saturnine man's eyes shifted uneasily to the other two players, who returned his gaze sternly.

"You are mistaken, sir," he announced with a marked lack of conviction. "But be that as it may, I do not care to play further with you. Good evening to you!"

He pushed back his chair, rose and strode off.

"It seems as though you have saved us from an expensive lesson at the hands of a card sharp," ventured one of the businessmen. "He seemed unusually lucky, but I doubt if I or my friend would have spotted what was taking place."

"Where I come from, you have to keep an eye out for crooked play," said the American. "I've no use for such fellows, hate 'em like poison. In some of the places I've been, a man like that would be shot like a dog. Honest cards, honest dealing, honest play-that's my motto, and Uncle Sam's, too."

The game resumed, with the young man and his two companions now on the friendliest of terms.

Holmes watched keenly for a moment, then said loudly, though appearing not to address anyone in particular, "Wot price the briny, eh, Napper? Sweeter nor a cell in Wormwood Scrubs, cor strike me if it ain't."

His voice was a precise imitation of the hoa.r.s.e croak of a seasoned convict, used to speaking from the corner of his mouth to elude the warders' notice.

The young American sprang from his seat, his ruddy face suddenly ashen. Without a word to his astonished companions, he left the table and made as if to dash for the outer door. As he pa.s.sed our table, Holmes reached out an arm and drew him to a halt.

"On your way to a swim, Napper, like the one you tried to give me not an hour ago? I doubt you'd like it. Now, I don't propose to take steps about that trifling matter; a man's likely enough to see red when he runs into the man who got him four years' hard labor-was it four or five, Napper?-and give way to a touch of pique. But you've got that out of your system now, and have also exhausted your pa.s.sion for card-playing and traveling-company melodrama for the remainder of this voyage, I trust. In any case, I don't wish or expect to hear further from you. Do you take my meaning?"

The stocky young man, in whom I could now perceive a resemblance to the shadowy form I had observed in near-mortal struggle with my friend, let fall a stream of foulness from his twisted lips, in accents more redolent of an East End slum than of the American plains.

"I see you do. Be off with you, then-and I suggest that you and Nice Ned keep to your cabin for the remainder of your voyage, or my patience may not prove to be all-enduring."

The "American" stumbled off, as unsteady in his steps as a blind man. The two businessmen, alarmed and confused, made their way to another part of the saloon.

"What on earth was all that, Holmes?" said I. "I was sure that that frank-faced young chap had exposed a card cheat, whom I supposed to be the man you were observing. But that seems not to be the case."

"That, Watson, was the Nottingham Napper, who used to make quite a good thing out of appearing a b.u.mpkin among the flasher London crowds; and his a.s.sociate, Nice Ned, whose sinister appearance made him one of the less successful of confidence-men in town. It was the Napper's genius that suggested this be turned to their advantage, and that they play a drama in which Ned would be cast as the villain, and the Napper as the honest hero. He has now worked up an atrocious stage-American manner, which I am surprised to think would fool a child" (I bridled at this, but then subsided; after all, I had not committed myself to Holmes on the matter) "and uses it to great advantage. Had the game continued, those two mercantile gentlemen would certainly have found themselves a great deal poorer by morning, and yet completely unsuspicious of the honest-dealing young fellow they had enriched. For had he not, after all, detected the blatant cheat in their midst? Well, well, they have shot their bolt now, and I do not expect to be troubled with them again."

Chapter Four.

Two days at sea is enough to give one the feeling that he has lived that kind of life for a very long time, and will continue to do so for an indefinite period. Hour by hour, one becomes more attuned to the ways of the sea and more removed from those of the land. Relaxation is one important element of this feeling, and so is, I must confess, boredom. It was with a certain amount of pleasurable excitement, then, that both Holmes and I became aware of the smoking-concert being organized by the purser for the third night out. A Cunard purser must be qualified to fill most of the diplomatic or intelligence posts any government offers, for the Pavonia's seemed to be aware of the interests and capabilities of every First Cla.s.s pa.s.senger. On that afternoon, he approached Sherlock Holmes and invited him to partic.i.p.ate.

"After all, sir," he said, "your virtuosity on the violin is well-known, and I venture to say that you have your instrument with you."

Holmes admitted both to his ability and to the presence of his fiddle, and made only the feeblest of attempts to beg off performing.

"I shall be glad of the chance to give it a proper tuning," he told me, his manner a good bit less than convincing. "Without a little exercise, it will doubtless be woefully slack from the sea air by the time we reach New York."

"I dare say. The plain fact is, Holmes, that you are idle and restless, and want the chance to show off."

"And you, Watson, have your nose out of joint because you were not asked to appear at the concert-I confess it."

I considered this, and finally nodded my head. "Well . . . I don't suppose I should have cut much of a figure reciting 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' which is about my only concert turn!"

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" We turned and saw a tall man in his twenties crossing the deck toward us. "Say, could I talk to you about the concert this evening?"

Though, to my ear, his accent was twin to that of the fraudulent Napper's, Holmes appeared to accept him as a genuine American, and was soon in amiable conversation with him.

"You see, they've got me booked to sing some cowboy songs, things the range hands sing around the campfires, and I don't know's I'm so set on doing it solo. I hear you're going to be playing the fiddle just before me, and I wonder if you could kind of stay on and give me some kind of accompaniment."

Holmes shook his head.

"I pretend to some expertise on the violin, Mr.-"

"Mix. First name, Thomas. Though n.o.body uses it in full, much."

"-but having, many years ago, traveled in America and heard your country fiddlers, I know my limitations too well to try to compete with their spirited performance. I shall look forward to hearing your songs. Many such, I believe, contain the history of notable crimes of the past-which touches on my professional interest. You were, then, yourself a cowboy?"

Mix shrugged.

"Have been. Got to know horses that way. Served in Cuba in 'ninety-eight, with the cavalry, then joined up with your army in South Africa."

"You were with Kitchener and Roberts?" said I, excited to meet a partic.i.p.ant in that epic struggle, American though he might be.

"The generals didn't trickle down to my level much," he observed. "But yes, I was there-at Ladysmith, for one."

It seemed an odd thing to me that this ingenuous youth should have been engaged in a battle which had made history for the Empire, and I said, "Even though a foreigner, you must have been thrilled at our victory."

He gave me a squinting look.

"Well, Kruger's army's out of it now," said he, "but the war's not over. And the way it's going on is one reason I left. 'Mopping up' is what the dispatches call it, but it's fighting against the farmers on their farms, getting backshot from behind a koppie, burning people out of their homes, and herding old men, women, and children behind barbed wire so's you can keep an eye on 'em all in one place . . . What do the staff fellows call 'em, now- Oh, yes, 'concentration camps.' It's a pretty-sounding name, but it don't look so pretty when you see it."

I was not well-pleased to hear this sort of pro-Boer sentiment from one who, though he had admittedly been on the scene, did not have the instinctive viewpoint from which to understand these matters. Holmes divined my irritation, and attempted to compose matters by saying: "Mr. Mix comes from a land which established itself little more than a century ago by just such a struggle. Whatever the deeper significance of the conflict, an American is bound to have a feeling for embattled farmers."

He turned to Mix and said, "I am always glad to meet an American, and, in spite of the business which brings me on this trip, happy to renew my acquaintance with your country. Your rebellion against the Crown was a sad loss to us, but I believe we have been the gainer by seeing the old English spirit of Liberty reborn in even stronger form. It would be a grand thing, would it not, if one day our two nations, in a time of greater understanding, might rejoin and truly form what your Const.i.tution calls 'a more perfect union.'"

As always, when mounting one of his few abstractly philosophical hobby-horses, Holmes was close to being feverishly animated.

"We have the age and experience of Empire," he went on-almost declaiming-"you, the generosity and vigor of youth. Should Britain and America have been united two years ago, for instance, I doubt that this unhappiness in South Africa would ever have taken place-for who can imagine America exerting its might to force its will on a distant, poor nation of peasants, whatever the cause?"

Mix bent on him the same quizzical look he had at first given me. "When you get to the States," said he quietly, "you might look up old Geronimo. He and you could have a right interesting talk on that point. See you at the concert tonight, gentlemen."

I had to admit, as I sat in the lounge that night, that Mix's songs, delivered in a pleasant, slightly nasal baritone, were simple and affecting, dealing with star-crossed lovers, the work of cattle ranching, and duels on fine points of honor, set to tunes that mostly seemed English or Irish. My neighbor, a red-faced man in a rumpled dinner jacket, seemed much moved, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

Because of a change in the original order, Holmes was next to appear; and, though I had become inured to his abstracted sc.r.a.ping on his instrument during those times when he was brooding on some case-or the lack of any case-I responded to the richer tones and more a.s.sured performance that he now gave with enthusiasm. He eschewed the severely cla.s.sical, and played several warmly haunting tunes reminiscent of Austria (lilting waltzes and pyrotechnic Gypsy melodies), though finishing, for reasons which escaped me, with "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes."

As the last strains of Holmes' violin died away, the man next to me muttered, "Beau'f'l song. Swee'st song ever . . ."

I looked at him sharply. His eyes were gla.s.sy and through his open mouth his breath came raspingly. He was clearly quite drunk or under the influence of some opiate, and I felt a professional obligation to see him in surroundings where he could avoid further injury to his system.

"Why don't I see you to your cabin, old fellow?" I said as heartily as I could.

"Goo' idea. Hot . . . here."

The man looked up at me as if through a pond-deep layer of water.

"And where's your cabin, eh? B Deck, or what?" It seemed to me that he muttered "flummery."

"What?"

He made a greater effort for clarity. "'Nn . . . frm'ry. Infirm'ry. 'M doctor. Ship's doctor."

I flushed with rage and shame for my profession. The one physician available for hundreds of souls on this ship, and the man was dead drunk! Brusquely, I helped him to his feet and ushered him from the lounge-aware, with little regret, that I was missing a large lady beginning an impa.s.sioned reading from her favorite poems of Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x.

Once we were out of earshot of the crowd and I was hustling him down the corridors and stairways that led to the infirmary, where he was quartered, I could not refrain from remonstrating with him.

"This is disgraceful, man! Think of those dependent on you-scores and scores of people who might at any moment suffer injury or sickness, and have only you to turn to! Why, there's an old lady aboard practically on the point of death! Do you propose to minister to her, should she require it, fuddled with drink? Or are you even aware of her presence among your . . . practice?"

"Rum ol' lady," he mumbled, his rubber-legged walk making him twist in my grasp. "Of course saw'r. She's sick. Tha's what I do, see sick people. Ship's doctor, y'know. Looked in on 'r jus' before concert, dam' fellow there wouldn't let m' see 'r. Gave me a cup of tea, chat 'bout how she's restin' com'f'bly, sent me off with flea in ear. I know that kin'. Next thing, 'll want death stifk't. No queshions 'n' a nice sea burial. Won't get it, not f'm me . . ."

During this drunken maundering, I managed to get the doctor to his quarters, place him on his bunk, and loosen his tie. Praying that there would be no calls until at least morning-preferably not until the end of the voyage-on his skills, I left him.

Outside the infirmary, I stood uncertainly for a moment.

The old lady I had seen carried on board was surely gravely ill, and the doctor who should have been responsible for her care was incapable of seeing to it. Ought I not make some effort to satisfy myself of her condition? If so, how? I had no idea of her name or her cabin, and I shrank from making inquiries of the ship's staff, which would inevitably expose the doctor to a ruinous investigation; after all, this might be only a momentary aberration, and, in spite of my indignation, I had no wish to destroy the man's career.

My problem was partially solved by the sudden appearance of a man whom I recognized as he who had followed the old lady's invalid-chair up the gangplank at Liverpool. He was emerging from a door down the corridor. He carried a book in one hand, and I surmised that he was going to the ship's library to exchange it for another, doubtless his means for whiling away the hours of his vigil.

"Sir!" I called after him.

He stopped, and I explained that I was a physician and-stretching the truth somewhat-had been asked to give a consultant's opinion on the old lady, about whom the ship's doctor was concerned.

"My aunt is well enough," the man observed. "She is st.u.r.dier than she looks, Doctor, and may well bury many who are younger than she." He seemed to find the thought amusing. "In any case; she has a pa.s.sion for privacy, and flatly refuses to see any physician or other person whatever. You may tell your colleague that Miss Jacobs is as well as her age allows her, and that she does not stand in need of his services-or yours, sir. Good night."

I was affronted at the man's curtness, but, I confess, relieved that there seemed to be no further action which duty required of me. I made my way to the lounge for the remainder of the concert.

It seemed both an age and no time at all until we were standing past the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World in New York Harbor and making our way up the North River. On our left, a jumble of docks and warehouses marked our landing place; on our right, the awe-inspiring towers of Manhattan rose from their rocky base and strained into the morning sky. The water was alive with craft of every kind, from ungainly ferries plying between New York and every sh.o.r.e facing it, through rusty steamers, square-rigged grain and cargo ships, pleasure ketches and yawls, to mighty ocean liners like the one which carried us steadily upriver.

"I fancy not London itself offers such a show, Watson," said Sherlock Holmes as he surveyed the scene. "Yet it is changing. Ten years ago, or twenty, sail would have dominated it. Now, that is giving way to steam, and soon the tall masts that reach to the clouds will be gone, all gone. It is strange to think that in fifty or seventy-five years' time the inhabitants of New York will never see a sailing vessel from one year's end to the next . . . Where have we got to now, I wonder?"

With audible cries of command from the bridge and the clangor of the engine-room telegraph, the Pavonia, abetted by nudging tugboats, was slowly turning toward the western sh.o.r.e of the river.

"If we're docking, this must be Hoboken," said I.