Sherlock Holmes In New York Part 3

Holmes looked at me sharply. "Your logic is both rigorous and una.s.sailable, Watson, but you have an uncanny way of making it seem that logic is not always the answer. However, we'd best get to our packing."

As we stood on the dock, surrounded by our trunks, waiting for the ferry which would convey us to the New York side of the river, I was pleased to see that the old lady in the invalid-chair did not seem to have taken any harm from her sea voyage. As she was borne down the gangplank, she looked no worse than when I had first seen her in Liverpool. And she was clearly getting special treatment, I saw.

"My word, Holmes, Miss Jacobs has a private boat to take her to Manhattan. See there, they're lowering her into that steam launch!"

"Ah, the chair-bound old lady. How do you come to know her name, my dear fellow?"

I recounted my bizarre experiences with the ship's doctor and the old woman's uncommunicative attendant.

"You are sure of all that, Watson?" Holmes said in great excitement. "Word for word-what the doctor said and what the . . . nephew . . . said?"

"I believe I am?"

"Fool!"

"Holmes!"

Sherlock Holmes clapped me on the back rea.s.suringly. "Not you, Watson, never you! I should have seen it, should have known it. A wrapped form, kept hidden from all view . . . the one doctor with a right to investigate fed a cup of tea and somehow made suddenly incapable . . . the quick exit via a private launch . . . and, to cap it all, Miss Jacobs!"

I considered these elements, but could form no picture from them, and said so.

"Jacob is the Latin form of James, Watson. I tell you, I am as certain as I am of tomorrow's sunrise that Professor James Moriarty is even now in that launch, laughing at how he has crossed the ocean under our very noses!"

Striving to live up to Holmes' complimentary remark concerning my logical faculties, I felt obliged to demur.

"I shouldn't have thought Moriarty was that sporting, to give us a chance to catch on to him."

"He isn't, Watson. He left just enough of a trail so that I would know he was here, and not enough for me to catch him. He means me to be aware of his presence. And that means that, whatever the significance of those torn-up theater tickets, they somehow point to Moriarty. His web is spread in the streets of this great city, Watson, and we venture into it. Let us hope that we prove to be wasps-to rend it and destroy the spider that sits at its center-and not flies that will leave their lifeless husks enmeshed in it. Either way, the game is afoot!"

Not for the first time, I was struck by the thought that Holmes, for a supposedly pa.s.sionless logician, had an unnerving poetic streak to him. I could have done without that vivid comment about the flies.

Chapter Five.

Standing among our piled trunks and luggage on the pavement outside the ferry landing on the Manhattan side, I had a curious sense of double vision. From the very color of the sky to the pitch of the roof of the warehouses and dwellings and the costumes of the inhabitants, it was clear that I was in a foreign country. Yet the language about me, though couched in a variety of strange accents, was English, and the bustle of the debarking crowd, the huddle of hansoms and carriages awaiting pa.s.sengers, and the general air of busyness were not so different from what might have been encountered in London. I suppose I had been expecting something as completely strange as the first sight of India and the Red Sea ports I had seen during my Army service had been to me, and said as much to Holmes.

"The railways, the telegraph, the telephone, and the fast steamer have knit the world ever tighter, Watson," said he. "If something is thought of on Tuesday in Paris, it is known in Berlin, London and New York on Wednesday, and a uniquely tailored suit which sees the light of day in Old Bond Street may well be observed in little more than a week adorning half a dozen saunterers on Broadway. In a few years' time, any large city will be in all important respects indistinguishable from any other, I fear."

"Well, I suppose it is to our advantage that the cabs are much the same," I remarked. "I'd best get ourselves and our trunks and bags into one."

I raised a hand and gestured. A hansom driver whipped up his steed and brought his vehicle up to us, one wheel on the sidewalk causing it to tilt alarmingly.

"No, man, not you!" I called up to where he perched atop his cab. "Look at these trunks. There's no room for them and two men in a hansom!"

A well-dressed woman wearing an extravagantly wide-brimmed hat, and standing next to me on the pavement, said, "Handsome is as handsome does."

"I beg your pardon, madam?" said I. "I was referring to the cab-that two-wheeler there. Are they not called hansoms in this country?"

"Oh, yes. But I wasn't talking about the cab. You're handsome enough yourself, you know."

I blush to admit that I was about to try to reply sensibly to this odd comment until I saw Holmes fairly doubled over with laughter, supporting himself against a lamp post. In my defense, I can merely say that it seemed to me only polite to expect to accommodate to variations in manners and modes of speech between England and America. And certainly, the woman did not have the look of the sordid drabs who offer themselves in far too many quarters of our capital.

"Be off with you, miss," I said sternly. "We've no time for that."

I was conscious that what I said might have been better phrased.

Holmes, still chuckling, helped me superintend the loading of our effects into a four-wheeler which had come up to replace the hansom, and instructed the driver to take us to the Empire Theater.

"I can't imagine what she hoped for from a crowd of arriving pa.s.sengers from the ferry," said I, still somewhat in a huff. "It stands to reason that they would all have some sort of immediate business elsewhere."

"Well, well, Watson, she is in a profession older than either of ours, and I suppose she knows her trade. And Americans have a reputation for get-up-and-go, of being born salesmen. I dare say many a businessman is persuaded to arrive ten minutes or so late to an appointment with some tale of a traffic block."

The high good humor which my discomfiture had occasioned lasted only a few moments, and a brooding, impatient look settled on Holmes' face as we proceeded through the crowded streets. Now that I was fully immersed in New York, I began to see it as more truly foreign in spite of its many resemblances to London. The streets were all straight, giving a curiously disconnected and blocky appearance to the ma.s.sed buildings, which were uniformly modern-none I saw could have been more than a century old, though some, in their architectural detail, aped every period of the past from Egyptian to Gothic. The trams which coursed the major streets and avenues, some drawn by horses and some propelled, as I later learned, by cable snaking beneath the street, dashed along at a pace which would have done credit to a fire engine or an ambulance in London. The people, too, moved along far more briskly than Londoners, in the aggregate flowing like a swift-moving stream past such obstacles as organ-grinders, chestnut-vendors, and persons hawking strange machines, the nature of which I could not make out from our carriage.

In spite of our driver's efforts, our speed slowed as the traffic thickened about us, with other hacks, drays, pleasure carriages-even a few automobiles, though far more than I would have expected to see on a London street-vying for the advantage of position.

We were now heading eastward on a wide street lined with shop buildings, some of them many stories in height. I looked ahead, startled, and saw a curious construction much like an iron roadway, ahead of us, suspended some twelve or fifteen yards above the level of the street.

"Whatever is that, Holmes?" said I.

"Dat's de El," replied the driver, leaving me no wiser.

"The elevated railway, Watson," said Holmes-and, even as he spoke, his explanation became unnecessary, as I could see a train of cars hastening at a great pace along the track, bizarrely sustained in the air.

We inched our way to a point just short of this aerial phenomenon, then came to what seemed to amount to a near-final halt: no carriage, wagon, or automobile around us was moving. The reason was apparent. Where the major cross street we were on, a north-and-south avenue running underneath the elevated railway, and another which ran diagonally to both, met, there was a giant hole in the ground, a scene of feverish activity in which pick-and-shovel-wielding laborers and ungainly machines chuffing steam joined.

"What's that?" I inquired of the driver.

"De subway, er it will be, when's dey finishes it."

Again, the answer, though in something close to English, did not enlighten me.

"An underground railway," said Sherlock Holmes, now clearly almost beside himself with impatience.

"They're only getting round to that now?" I asked in genuine surprise.

I could scarcely recall London without the Underground, and could in no wise imagine living there without it. So much for American get-up-and-go!

"Well," said I with some impatience, looking around at the congealed ma.s.s of vehicles which surrounded us, "if they put half the transportation up in the air, and the other half underground, perhaps it will be possible to get around the streets at faster than a walking pace!"

"Hey! How do I get t'rough here?" the driver bawled to a workman in the excavation.

"You don't," came the reply. "Go back an' cut over to Seventh."

"Ah, dat'll take half an hour," the driver said in disgust. Holmes consulted his watch.

"Half past three already, Watson! No, it won't do! Driver! Where are we now?"

"T'irty-fourt' Street, just about at Sixt' Avenue."

"And the Empire's at Thirty-ninth and Broadway. Come along, Watson, the walk will do us good." So saying, he pulled out some bills from his note-case and handed them up to the driver. "Get our things to the Hotel Algonquin as fast as you're able. I'm sure this will take care of your time and trouble." As I knew, from my hasty researches at the steamship office, that New York cab fares were an American dollar a mile for four-wheelers, and the same amount by the hour, it seemed to me that the sum Holmes tendered would have taken care of the hackman for the rest of the day.

"Come on, Watson," said Sherlock Holmes, stepping briskly from the carriage. "We've walked that distance tenfold in a single afternoon in London!"

"But not," said I, falling in with his stride, "picking our way among trenchworks worthy of a battlefield!"

For the subway excavation continued along the street on which we were walking, and we were obliged to skirt banks of upturned earth and rubble and sometimes make our way across a ditch on a kind of plank walk.

"Heads up!" cried a workman toiling away in the pit, and flung a shovelful of dirt into the air.

Only by skipping nimbly aside was I able to avoid receiving it full on my person. I allowed myself the peevish reflection that George the Third, had he undergone the experience of a New York traffic block and then been showered with earth, might not have made so much of a fuss about relinquishing his colonies. Part of my discomfort was due to the temperature, which seemed inordinately warm for the end of March, but then I recalled that New York lies at a considerably more southerly lat.i.tude than London, and is therefore by comparison nearly in the Tropics.

As we walked on, my spirits lifted. The shops, restaurants, theaters, and hotels which lined the street presented a scene of colorful activity, and the air, though warm, had in it a bracing tang new to me.

By keeping an eye on the street signs and noticing that the numbers became higher as we made our way northward, I was able at last to deduce that the next street we would come to was Thirty-ninth, our destination. On its corner I saw a ma.s.sive building in elaborately carved brownstone, stretching from one street to the next.

"Good heavens, Holmes," said I. "Is that the Empire Theater? It dwarfs practically anything in London except the Albert Hall."

"No, Watson, it's the Metropolitan Opera House. The Empire's just around this corner."

We turned it, and I perceived the theater's identifying sign projecting into the street. Though not as grand as the opera house, it was still on a larger scale than most of our theaters, and evidently newly constructed.

I followed Sherlock Holmes into the lobby, grateful for its musty coolness after the heat of the streets.

Holmes pointed toward the bra.s.s-grilled ticket window and said, "Watson, just try to get us two tickets for tonight, will you? I'm going to try to find out what I can inside."

"Oh, yes, of course, Holmes," I responded. "I'll join you as soon as I'm done."

He pushed open the door leading to the theater auditorium and disappeared. I made my purchase without having to try to decipher the seating plan of the Empire, as the clerk offered me no choice.

"These are the last seats for tonight's performance, mister. They're good ones. I wouldn't have 'em except somebody returned 'em just an hour ago. Take 'em or leave 'em."

I took them, pleased at the fortunate happenstance that had enabled me to execute my commission, though the two and a half dollars-ten shillings-each seat cost seemed to me excessive. I turned to follow Holmes.

A glance at the tickets, however, made me stop, staring, for an instant, and returned to the ticket window. After a brief exchange of questions and answers with the clerk, I left the lobby.

As I entered the rear of the theater, I saw Holmes down front, just commencing a conversation with a man in a rumpled jacket, evidently the stage doorman, who was emerging from behind the scenes.

"Yes, sir?" this fellow called.

"How do you do? Is Miss Irene Adler in the theater, do you know?"

"n.o.body's here but me."

"I must see her at once! Can you tell me where I might reach her?"

The doorman shook his head.

"No one is to be disturbed before curtain time. Mr. Furman's orders."

"But this is extremely urgent!"

I slowed my steps and remained in the gloom at the back of the auditorium, feeling it best to let Holmes handle this problem without the extraneous factor of my presence.

"So are Mr. Furman's orders," the doorman said complacently.

Holmes persisted.

"Do you know her address?" he inquired.

The doorman moved to the edge of the stage and confronted Holmes.

"Look, I just finished telling you-"

"Yes, yes, quite," said Holmes testily. "Look here, my good man, when did you last see Miss Adler?"

"This morning, at line rehearsal."

Holmes stiffened, his next words freighted with eagerness. "Was she all right?"

"Letter perfect."

"Was she? I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear you say so! Now, if I might prevail on you for a further service . . ." I saw him take out his note-case and pa.s.s up a bill and one of his calling-cards to the doorman. "Would you be so kind as to give Miss Adler my card directly when she gets here, and tell her that I am at the Algonquin Hotel and must speak to her as soon as possible?"

The doorman's eyes widened as he inspected the card, and he glanced sharply at Holmes.

"I guess I can do that for you, all right, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!"

I felt a small glow of pride at the thought that my modest chronicles of my friend's adventures had made his name famous and respected, even here.

"You shall have earned my eternal grat.i.tude," said Holmes, and turned to walk up the aisle.

I moved to meet him, flourishing the theater tickets which had so perplexed me. The doorman, evidently not needed at his post while the theater was largely deserted, sank into a chair at the left of the stage and appeared to fall into that somnolence which men in tedious but inactive jobs learn to cultivate.

"I say, Holmes-" I began.

"Well, we've one bit of rea.s.surance in any event," said he, as much musing to himself as sharing information with me. "As late as this morning she was apparently in good health. Now, Watson, what have you been able to accomplish?"

"It's a rum go, Holmes, a deucedly rum go. Look at these tickets-last two in the house for tonight, the chap at the window claims."

Sherlock Holmes' expression darkened as he took the slips of pasteboard from my hands and read the printing thereon.