by Marvin Kaye
“Yes, but he was not so easily fooled into believing, like our sailor friends, that she had been entrusted to hide the money.”
The hour was late, so I knocked out my pipe and retired, leaving Holmes in the armchair, deep in thought.
When I finished with my toilet in the morning and had gone down to breakfast, Holmes was pacing in front of the sofa, still clad in his dressing gown from the night before. “How could I have been such an idiot, Watson?” he pleaded, with self-loathing. “The fact that no one has attempted to exchange the dollars for pounds tells us something of great significance. Why could I not have seen it before this? I hope we are not too late.” He implored me to go with him to Southampton and to hope we arrived there before the Friesland set sail for America.
“Consider me in on your plans,” I told him, oblivious to what lay ahead.
“Put your service revolver in your pocket—we might need your sure aim,” he cautioned, reaching into a drawer of the sideboard for his own weapon, a five-shot Walther.
On the way to Charing Cross, we stopped to take Jones along. Holmes spent an interminable amount of time persuading him to accompany us to the ship. Jones was reluctant because he said there was insufficient evidence to arrest anyone, particularly someone whose name was unknown and whose connection to the crime was tenuous at best. Nonetheless, he came along, with the understanding that there would be no official action unless the man Holmes confronted confessed to the murder.
“I fully expect to know his name before I confront him, and I am confident he will be in possession of the ransom money,” Holmes predicted.
“Now that certainly will go a long way in changing my attitude,” said Jones. “But be forewarned, Mr Holmes, I’m only going because in the past, once or twice, your hunches have produced the desired results.”
The Friesland was still docked when we arrived in Southampton and it was not scheduled to leave port until four o’clock in the afternoon.
Holmes, Jones, and I waited at the top of the gangway while a deckhand went off to find Mr Woodson, the first mate, after Holmes requested to speak with him. The main deck had been cleared of cargo, and seamen were busy making preparations to set sail. Occasionally, passengers came aboard bearing luggage, checking in with a sailor holding a clipboard at the end of the gangway. He would match them to the names on his list and tell them the numbers of their cabins.
Woodson’s demeanour had changed radically since Holmes spoke with him last. He was curt and uncooperative.
“What is it this time?” said he when he approached us.
“I presume you know Inspector Jones of Scotland Yard,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“Of course I do,” said Woodson. “He took two of my men and left me shorthanded with the cargo.”
“And he is about to take one of your passengers,” said Holmes, confidently.
“Which one?” Woodson asked.
“I can’t tell you that until after you have shown me the old passenger manifest again and let me compare it to the new one on that clipboard,” said Holmes, pointing to the sailor.
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” Woodson bristled.
“Then I shall be back in two hours,” said Jones, “with a writ and you will accompany me to headquarters in London with the manifest. If the ship sails without you, so be it.”
“Wait here,” said Woodson, reconsidering his position, and he turned to climb the steps toward the bridge.
To avoid looking conspicuous, the three of us engaged in idle conversation until Woodson returned. He handed the manifest to Holmes and called to the seaman with the clipboard to come to where we were gathered. Woodson took the clipboard and handed it to Holmes, too. Holmes examined it for some time, leafing through the pages with determination on his face. He appeared frustrated at one point and asked me to help him cross-reference the names by calling out those that were printed on the old manifest. When I came to the name Charles Wolker, he stopped me and announced: “That is it! He is on both manifests. This must be our man, the missing member of Garber’s gang. He is not yet marked as being aboard.” Jones suggested we go through the remaining names to make certain no others were duplicated. We found a married couple returning to New York, but that was all.
Holmes gave back the clipboard to the seaman checking in the passengers, with instructions that when Charles Wolker boarded, the seaman was to take off his hat. That would serve as a signal to us. So as not to attract attention to ourselves, we separated, taking up positions at different places on the main deck, all within sight of the sailor with the clipboard.
The wait seemed like an eternity. At irregular intervals, passengers would board the ship but the sailor kept his hat on his head. Every male passenger was scrutinized to see if he matched the description of Garber’s killer, but each one passed us unchallenged. Holmes, Jones, and I would glance in one another’s direction after the passengers came aboard just to make sure the description was off the mark, in case the sailor had forgotten his cue.
My pocket watch said twenty minutes to three when, at long last, a tall, muscular man with flaxen hair plastered down, carrying a satchel and one suitcase, hurried up the gangway.
He stopped to check in and I saw the sailor’s right hand reach for his hat. I sprang forward, while Holmes and Jones went toward the man at the same time.
“Good afternoon, Mr Wolker,” said Holmes as he introduced himself. “And this is Inspector Jones of Scotland—”
With one motion, Wolker dropped the suitcase, reached inside his coat, and produced a pistol. He did not hesitate before he pulled the trigger. I saw Jones fall to the deck as if his legs had turned to rubber. Holmes took several steps backward and I found cover behind a wooden railing. I had withdrawn my revolver from my coat pocket but could not return fire because there were people standing behind Wolker, stunned and unable to move. Holmes, from his angle, had a clear shot and took it, but not before Wolker squeezed off two more shots in Holmes’s direction. He missed, but Holmes scored with a bullet in Wolker’s chest.
Wolker did not fall, but retreated against the wall beneath the bridge. With no one in the background, I now had a clear shot and took it. Wolker went down onto the deck, face up. Holmes and I approached him with our revolvers pointed. Wolker tried to raise his pistol, but he fell back, dead. I checked for a pulse and could get none, so I left him and Holmes there and went to the aid of Jones. It was hopeless. The bullet had struck him square in the forehead, killing him instantly.
A crowd began to gather, and Woodson came down from the bridge with the captain to see what they could do to calm the passengers. I went back over to where Holmes was kneeling over Wolker’s body counting the bundles of hundred dollar bills in the satchel. I told Holmes about Jones, and he said he had expected the worst because he had seen the wound.
“There was no attempt to exchange the bills for pounds, Watson,” said Holmes, “because Garber, and later Wolker, intended to take the money back to America. My guess is either of them likely would have boarded a train in New York and gone to some other city where the police would have no suspicions.”
The next day’s newspapers were filled with praises for Jones, who was both mourned and credited with solving the murder of Garber and recovering the ransom money by downing the criminal who tried to escape with it. There was a vague mention of Holmes assisting Jones.
Scotland Yard communicated the developments to the New York Police Department and in return there was word that the family of the kidnapped businessman had offered a thousand dollar reward for the return of the ransom money. Miss Maker was ecstatic and offered to share the reward with Holmes, but he politely accepted his normal fee instead.
“You realize, my dear Watson,” said he one evening afterward by the fire, “the hangman could not have achieved better results in the case of Mr Garber and Mr Wolker. Naturally, I regret the loss of Jones in the proc
ess, but seldom has the criminal element reaped its just desserts as in this instance.
“If Wolker had not reacted as he did, Jones would be here to bask in the glory, and I would have had the opportunity to confront Wolker with this.” He held up the button he had found on the floor of Room 211. “It would have fit perfectly into the space from which it was torn on his waistcoat.”
KILLING SAM CLEMENS, by William Burton McCormick
August, 1867, Odessa
“My theory of fiction,” said Sam, sitting at the café table across from me, “is that there are no new stories. The same tales repeat generation to generation, civilization to civilization. Only the details change.” He paused to taste his whiskey. “The modern author earns his keep only in the manner of his telling, Joe.”
I smiled, sipped my cognac as Sam drank his Scotch. My name wasn’t “Joe,” but I wished him to think it was. “And our personal stories, Sam? The true ones, I mean. Are they as repetitive as fiction?”
“I think so. But who knows the roles we’re assigned? That’s where Providence will have her say…A smoke?”
“No, I’m trying to quit.”
“I imagine you’ll succeed. I quit every week.” Sam struck a match, concentrated on lighting his cigar. As he did, I sized up this stranger across my table. Sam looked about my age, early thirties, dressed tolerably enough, nothing distinctive in his appearance really except a briar of unruly red hair and a bushy moustache. He talked more like a literary theorist than a routine travel writer with a few fiction publications to his credit.
In fact, it was his talking—and his use of English, rare as it is in Odessa—which had caught my attention at the harbor. Two Americans so far from home, we’d naturally struck up a conversation, then spent the afternoon in the café talking over spirits. I sensed Sam was growing a bit tipsy.
It would make him easier to rob.
“So, this ‘frog tale’ was quite a success?” I asked.
Sam blew smoke rings into the humid air. “It was.”
“Published in New York?”
“Nationally.”
An exaggeration? That’s the trouble with artists, you seldom know. My last two swindles weren’t worth the effort, and I had no hankering to repeat my mistakes. An American abroad should carry silver dollars or at least rubles here in the Russian Empire, but as a writer he might be flat broke. I certainly had never heard of Samuel Clemens.
I rubbed my bad knee beneath the table. It’d been a month since the Spaniard’s wallet brought any livable monies. And I had to kill him to get it.
Sam checked his pocket watch—silver plated, a good sign—then frowned. “I’ve two hours ’till my ship leaves. I’m sorry to say, we should adjourn this gathering, Joe.”
Well, here’s the moment then. The watch was proof enough, I guess.
A pity, Sam had wit.
“There’s a church near here,” I said as deftly as I could. “It might make an interesting account for your readers back in San Francisco.”
“I’ve seen a half-dozen…”
“Yes, but this one has the most astonishing display of artifacts. The works are exquisite, beyond anything I’ve seen.” I pushed my cognac away, it would be best to be sober. “They say these relics are from the days of Olga and Prince Vladimir themselves. It’s your duty as a travel writer to relay such wonders to your readers, isn’t it?”
He frowned. “If we hurry, the harbor’s a ways off…”
“Twenty minutes, Sam. It’s all the time we need.”
We soon arrived at Pokrovskaya Cathedral, a square-ish white-marble structure dominating a small park off the city center. At the sight of the cathedral’s golden dome, Sam shuffled through his shoulder bag, withdrawing a leather-bound notebook into which he scribbled:
Spire-topped roof resembles a great bronze turnip turned upside down.
I felt my brow furl. “Do editors pay for such observations?” I asked.
“Six cents a page.” He said smugly and shoved the notebook back into the bag.
Of course. Six cents for nothing.
I aptly praised Sam’s hard-earned skills and harkened him through the opened door of the cathedral. The interior was even grander than the exterior, snow-white marble inlaid with gold and bronze, the icons of a dozen Orthodox saints peering down from above. A small crowd was gathered near the altar, several black-clad priests among them, but these holy men were not the center of attention. All eyes were upon a small choir just beginning their hymns.
Caps in hands, Sam and I stood there quietly as they sang. Their hymns began as a barely audible hum, expanding to an ethereal chant that rose over several minutes to superhuman strength. An army of invisible angels joined in, the chorus’s power turning tenfold. It was a marvelous performance, perhaps the best I had known, marred only towards the end by an elderly man in the congregation, a decrepit and destitute-looking fellow whose fits of coughing nearly brought the piece to an early close.
Still Sam was moved. “I am not a great admirer of organized religions,” said he. “But that was truly inspiring. As fine a choir as I’ve ever heard.”
“They sing everyday at this hour. There will be an encore, several in fact.” I lit two votive candles, handed one to Sam. “But your ship will not wait and there is much to see.”
“Where are these artifacts?”
“In a vault below. Come.”
We hurried out the rear of the cathedral to a shaded yard loosely separated from the surrounding park by a crumbling white-stone wall. There was an antiquity in this secluded garden, the shadows of the Ottomans hanging in the air. Among the scattered stones we found a series of weathered steps leading down into the earth, the opening of a tunnel just visible.
“There, Sam.” I said. “Our passage to the vaults is within.”
At this entrance, I slowed to a read a notice affixed to the keystone. Two children—a boy and a girl—had been lost in these tunnels weeks ago. By order of Odessa’s governor, all known entrances to the catacombs were to be sealed in a month’s time to prevent further tragedy.
I paused, trying to calculate the days since posting.
“It is out of date,” said a priest who had trailed us into the yard. He reached up, tore the paper from the stone. “I should have done this much earlier.”
“What do you mean, Father?”
“The children are safe. They found their way out a day after this sign was hung.” He smiled. “To emerge unharmed, when the search parties had given up, a miracle.”
“Yes, a miracle.”
“What is happening?” asked Sam, rather flustered and reminding me he knew no Russian.
“Two children were lost briefly, but now are home. We can go.”
The priest started to protest our path, but I turned away, ushered Sam down the steps. We felt the drop in temperature as we reached the bottom, the air so much cooler than the burning summer surface. As always, I regretted the absence of a coat.
I glanced at my companion. Sam stoically squinted behind that candle, the flame light sparkling in his narrowed eyes, his attention focused on the high-but-narrow white-stone corridor stretching ahead.
“This tunnel is just one of many, Sam. These are the largest catacombs in the world, greater than those of Paris and Rome combined. Men who journey inside are often lost forever. It’s a wonder those children found their way out.”
“Where is the vault?”
“A little ways on. Not far.” I motioned ahead with my free hand. “The path is straight, we’ll have no trouble.”
Sam held his watch up to the candle flame. “My ship leaves in a little over an hour.”
“We’ll have you on the surface in ten minutes. You can get a carriage-for-hire. I know a driver who is usually at the corner this hour.”
“You visit this cathedral often?”
&n
bsp; “Four times before. You will be the fifth.”
He grew quiet. We probed the darkness in silence. With every step our light forced back the gloom, the spectral-white tunnels extending forever, our two candles birthing four shadows to keep us company.
“These passages are surprisingly sterile.” I said when we were some fifty yards inside. “I’ve never seen a rat, seldom glimpsed a bat. Even insects are rare. Lifeless, it’s like tunnels inside the moon.”
“And as cold.”
“Well, this may warm your soul, Sam.” I knocked on the dusty wall. “We are directly beneath the cathedral, and the choir above will sing momentarily. It is even more magnificent down here. I am no architect—I know nothing of acoustics—but their voices are magnified inside this tunnel. It is as if the hymns are piped from Heaven itself, Sam. Overpowering, amazing, awe-inspiring, I have seen stalwart atheists brought to tears.”
“I would welcome such rapture, if it occurs.”
“Worthy of your travel reports, yes? You will send me a clipping from your newspaper in San Francisco?”
“If it is as thrilling as you say.”
“It will be.”
I motioned ahead. In a matter of a few steps, we reached the spot where the Spaniard had died. “No mas. No mas,” he’d screamed, his cries drowned out by the chorus above. I had walked back innocently through the cathedral afterwards, no suspicious glances from priest or congregation, even pausing to put three useless Spanish half céntimos in the tithe box.
But only three. No mas.
I slowed my steps, let Sam grow closer. When the choir sings…
A strange notion entered my head then. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the scene, but I thought of Sam’s theory that all stories repeat. How many murders—real or imagined—had occurred in the murk of dungeons such as this? I recalled a favorite.
“Have you read, ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ Sam?”
“I’m no friend of the Dark Romantics.”
“But have you read it?”
