Sherlock Holmes: The American Years

by Michael Kurland

  My companion spun around and I with him, and we now found ourselves in the company of a well-dressed man with a natural air of authority about him. The man said something that I did not fully catch but finished once more by addressing my companion by name.

  “He recognizes you!” I gasped.

  “And I him,” Holmes said. “This is the man who was following us.”

  The fellow began to speak again, and now I understood his words to be in a different language. “I assure you, I understand English perfectly,” Holmes told him.

  “Good,” the man replied. “You will come with me.”

  “We shall do no such thing!” I protested.

  The man then opened his coat and revealed a pistol tucked inside his belt, which he deftly removed and pointed in our direction.

  “It appears that we are to go with him,” Holmes said. We were marched away from the building at gunpoint and to a waiting hackney cab and instructed to get inside, which we did, since it would have been folly to do otherwise. “Please don’t try to jump out of the cab,” the man said, stepping inside with us, and keeping his gun pointed in our direction. “You won’t get far.”

  “Where are you taking us?” I demanded.

  “Waldemere. Perhaps there we can put an end to this dirty business.”

  As it turned out, Waldemere was not far away, and while it sounded like another town, it was in reality the name of a fantastic mansion, an imposingly huge structure that was gabled like a manor house, but with a high tower at its center. It sat in the middle of a large open green that overlooked the water, and was crisscrossed with carriage drives and dotted with fountains. “Who lives here?” I asked, taking it in through the window of the cab.

  “Really, Stamford, who else would live here?” Holmes said. “Obviously we are being invited, so to speak, to have a personal audience with Mr. P. T. Barnum.” Turning to the man with the gun, he added: “Since we have accommodated you thus far, may I ask who you are?”

  “My name’s Weymouth,” the man said. “I work for Mr. Barnum.”

  The cab pulled up in front of the house and stopped. Weymouth got out first and, keeping his pistol trained on us, instructed us to exit the vehicle. We were escorted inside the place, whose interior was just as impressive as its exterior, though much of the main entryway area was obscured by scaffolding and drop cloths. The smell of fresh plaster and paint permeated the area, and various workmen could be seen bustling about, at least one of whom wore a hat and kerchief over his face as protection against the dust. “A bit of remodeling?” Holmes asked, surveying the work.

  “Mr. Barnum is never satisfied with the place,” Weymouth replied, “not that it’s any of your concern. We’re going this way.” He walked us to one door in particular, but before he could open it we heard a woman’s voice call out behind us: “Charles, is that you?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Barnum,” Weymouth called back, hiding his gun from view.

  Upon hearing the name “Mrs. Barnum” I expected a matronly woman of somewhat advanced age. I was therefore surprised to see a comely dark-haired woman who appeared barely older than either Holmes or myself approach us.

  “Are you gentlemen here to see my husband?” she asked us, pleasantly.

  “So it would appear, madam,” Holmes said.

  “Is it about the problem in the drawing room?”

  “No, not at all,” Weymouth said, nervously. “Now, if you would please excuse us . . .”

  Holmes faced the young woman. “What is the problem in the drawing room, madam?” he asked, and Weymouth fired him a look that could have etched glass. Even Mrs. Barnum seemed to notice it, for she replied: “Oh, well, perhaps I should not say.”

  She took her leave and Holmes and I were walked across the entryway to a door, upon which Weymouth rapped loudly. “Come in!” a voice boomed from the other side. Opening the door, we found ourselves entering a large oak-paneled library that was filled with bookshelves and decorated with glass cases containing stuffed birds. The centerpiece of the room was a large, heavy desk that was overburdened with papers and objects (one of which looked like a miniature head in a jar!). Seated behind the desk was a man on the far side of sixty who studied us for a minute before rising and stepping toward us. He was of medium height, heavily built, and clad in a long dressing gown, pantaloons, and bedroom slippers. A diamond stickpin adorned his shirt. His features were blunt to the point of being bulldoggish, and while his pewter-colored hair was quite sparse on top of his large head, the sides and back were ringed with a natural laurel of curly locks that gave him the appearance of a Roman bust come to life. “I am Phineas Barnum,” he announced redundantly, in a voice that filled every cranny of the room.

  “How do you do, sir?” Holmes said, giving him a respectful nod. “My name is—”

  “You do not sound French,” Barnum interrupted, “you sound English. Charles, why is this man not French?”

  “I addressed him in French, Phineas, and he responded,” Weymouth said. “I had been watching the train depot, as you suggested, and saw them arrive. Their clothes are European and they clearly acted like strangers to the city. I followed them to the compound and when I spoke, this one . . .” he jabbed a finger in my direction “. . . acknowledged that the other one had been spotted.”

  “I was startled that you called my companion by his name, is all,” I protested.

  “Name?” Weymouth said. “I used no name.”

  “I distinctly heard you say ‘Holmes!’ ”

  Holmes was now smiling. “I believe I can clear up at least this part of the little drama into which we have all been cast,” he said. “While I am less than expert at the French tongue, I clearly heard Mr. Weymouth call ‘Voux hommes?,’ which translates to ‘You men.’ What startled my friend was the use of the word hommes, which sounds nearly identical to my surname, Holmes, particularly when pronounced by someone even less expert in the language than I.”

  “So you are Holmes,” Barnum said, then turned to me and demanded my identity as well.

  “My name is Stamford, sir.”

  “Like the town down the road?”

  “Quite.”

  “And neither one of you has ever sent me a letter?”

  “I assure you, sir, that we have not.”

  Barnum scrutinized both of us and then turned his gaze to Weymouth, who appeared to flinch. “Phineas,” he began, “I would have put money on one of them being our man.”

  “You know what they say about a fool and his money,” Barnum fired back. Then, shaking his head, he said: “Mr. Holmes, Mr. Stamford, it appears I owe you an apology and so does Mr. Weymouth. I am not in the practice of inconveniencing visitors to such a degree. I am also, I fear, rather preoccupied, so please tell me how I might recompense you for the trouble we have put you through, and then be on your way.”

  “Well, I for one should very much like to see the white elephant,” Holmes said. “Not the one on exhibition back in that animal storage building, which I assume to be a fake, but rather the real one you are concealing in your drawing room.”

  The mouths of both P. T. Barnum and Charles Weymouth dropped open. “How in blazes did you know about that?” the showman sputtered.

  Holmes smiled. “The very fact that Stamford and I were brought to this house at gunpoint—”

  “Gunpoint, Charles?” Barnum said.

  “A precaution, Phineas.”

  “If I may continue,” Holmes said. “We are here because you were clearly expecting someone in particular to arrive today, a Frenchman apparently. Why would he be coming today? To see the elephant, of course. But many people came today to see the elephant, we included. So the question stands, why were you waiting for this particular Frenchman, and why were you willing to abduct him when he arrived? The obvious inference is that he posed some sort of threat to the elephant. In fact, I would argue that the decision to exhibit the elephant was really an attempt to draw this man out into the open. That being the case, you would ha
rdly be expected to risk the actual white elephant. I imagine that the creature on display is most likely a common elephant painted white for the occasion.”

  “It is covered in plaster dust, not painted,” Barnum said, “but otherwise you are alarmingly correct.”

  “The rest is simplicity itself. Once we have established that the real elephant is not in the field building, the question remains, where is she? The agitation that Mr. Weymouth displayed when Mrs. Barnum began to speak of the ‘problem’ in the drawing room indicated that there was something in there that he wished us not to see. Given the rest of the facts, the obvious conclusion is that the so-called problem was Xanthippe herself, hidden from view in the last place anyone would expect to find an elephant.”

  “Lordamighty,” Barnum said, clearly impressed by Holmes’s deductions.

  “May we see the elephant, then?” Holmes asked.

  “Very well.” He led the three of us out of his library and through the main entryway, where we dodged workmen carrying materials, to a set of large double doors, on which he gave a coded knock and shouted, “It’s me, Davy.” Once the doors were unlocked from the other side, we were ushered in.

  The drawing room of Waldemere would not have been out of place in the doge’s palace in Venice. One wall contained an enormous hearth and fireplace; the long wall perpendicular to it contained four large windows, all of which were heavily draped. An ornate crystal chandelier that hung from the center of a decorated ceiling, and the rest of the furnishings, which included a long table, at least a dozen chairs, and two large carpets that were now rolled up, had been shoved up against the far wall. All of this was to make room for a gigantic wooden crate with several round holes in its side that sat atop a large, thick canvas tarpaulin. A bale of hay rested near the crate, which, along with the noise that was emanating from inside it (not to mention the smell), clearly identified its inhabitant.

  “These men would like to see her,” Barnum told the man named Davy, who was small and possessed the largest ears I have ever seen on a human, which gave him a decidedly simian appearance. He walked back to the crate with a pronounced limp and thrust a large key into the lock that secured the front. Swinging open the door, Davy disappeared inside the crate momentarily and then emerged leading the most exquisite creature I have ever seen.

  As elephants go, Xanthippe was not large, but she was of a star-tlingly white hue, with pink shading around her eyes and mouth. Her tusks, which actually appeared darker and more yellow by contrast, were quite small, indicating she must be young.

  “The sovereign who is to receive her shall be delighted,” Holmes said.

  Barnum patted the elephant’s trunk affectionately. “No doubt, though Xanthippe is going to him for reasons far beyond delight,” he said. “All right, Davy, you can put her back in now. We are trying to get her used to staying inside the crate, which will be necessary for her long ocean voyage. Now you have seen her, gentlemen. I must take my leave.”

  “If you don’t mind, Mr. Barnum,” Holmes said, “I should like to hear the details of this problem you are experiencing.”

  “This is no business of yours,” Weymouth snapped.

  “I don’t know, Charles,” Barnum said. “Maybe having another brain working on this will help us, and this young fellow has certainly proven he has a brain. All right, let us go back to the library and I will tell you more.”

  “Phineas, I have some things to attend to,” Weymouth said.

  “Be about your business,” Barnum said with a nod. On the way back to the library, Holmes asked him: “What exactly does Mr. Weymouth do for you?”

  “It is Charles’s responsibility to look after all of my holdings and properties here in town.” He ushered us back into the book-filled room and closed the door. After motioning for us to sit down, he installed himself behind his massive desk. “Now then,” he began, clasping his hands together, “what do you two know of the present political situation in Burma?”

  For my part, I had never stopped to consider that Burma had a political situation, though Holmes, of course, responded immediately. “The British Empire controls the lower part of the nation,” he said, “but that is not the part in question, is it?”

  “No,” Barnum said. “The part I’m concerned with is the upper part, which remains independent. King Mindon Min, who has ruled independent Burma for years, is gravely ill and there is no successor to the throne. No sooner does the king put forth a name than that man is assured of being assassinated by rivals. The situation has the potential to throw the nation into chaos.”

  “That is quite illuminating,” Holmes said, “but how does it concern you directly?”

  “Last year I received a letter from a representative of the Royal House of Independent Burma who was loyal to the king, virtually pleading for my help in finding a white elephant. My reputation for finding unusual animals has spread even to Asia, and they were willing to pay handsomely for my assistance.”

  “Why did they require a white elephant?” I asked.

  “I believe I can answer that,” Holmes said. “Burma is one of the places where creatures such as Xanthippe are genuinely considered sacred. The sudden appearance of one in the presence of a particular heir would be taken by the Burmese people as a sign that a successor had been chosen by a higher source. It would be an endorsement that even that candidate’s rivals could not dismiss. Is that it?”

  “In a nutshell, yes,” Barnum confirmed. “The plan is to have the king’s designee ride through the streets on its back as a kind of coronation ceremony, one aimed at ending the bloodshed and insurgency.”

  “As a plan, it is brilliant.”

  “Indeed. It is also risky, since there was no guarantee that I would actually be able to find such a creature. One may debate their sacredness, but there is no denying that white elephants are rare. However, my sources did locate one in India. When I was making preparations to retrieve her I received a letter from the French Office of Oriental Affairs signed by a Pierre Carraveaux, informing me that the government of France would take a very dim view of my providing the elephant to the representatives of King Mindon. Why the government of France even cares about any of this is beyond me.”

  “I can hazard a guess,” Holmes said. “If I am not mistaken, France is in control of the neighboring nation of Laos, and likely sees itself in competition with the empire for control of the remaining independent lands of Burma. It is possible that the government has negotiated directly with a rival heir for future allegiance in return for official backing.”

  For the second time today, P. T. Barnum stared at Holmes in amazement.

  “You must forgive my friend, Mr. Barnum,” I said. “He knows everything. It is quite annoying.”

  “Perhaps I should be exhibiting you as ‘The Human Encyclopaedia,’ ” the showman said.

  “You flatter me, Mr. Barnum,” Holmes said, “but we are straying from the subject. This letter, did you reply to it?”

  “Only to say that with me a business arrangement was inviolable, and I had every intention of honoring it. For a while I thought that had settled the matter, but after I had accepted delivery of Xanthippe another missive came, also from Carraveaux, and this one greatly disturbed me. He threatened to abduct the elephant and cause her great harm in order to prevent her from being transported to Burma. That was heinous enough, but the man managed to tighten the screws even further. He claimed he would publicize the torture and killing to damage my reputation.”

  “But surely you could not be found at fault,” I said.

  “Oh, my culpability or innocence has rarely mattered,” Barnum said. “There are animal protectionists out there who delight in hounding me over the methods in which my menagerie is kept and presented. I assure you, I do nothing to harm my animals. Why would I? They are my livelihood! But were a rare elephant to die violently while in my custody, whether it was my fault or not, these groups would have me run out of town on a rail. That, though, would be nothing comp
ared to the outrage that would come from the Orient upon learning a white elephant had been desecrated.”

  “So you believed that staging an exhibition would lure Monsieur Carraveaux all the way from France?” Holmes asked.

  “That letter containing the threats was mailed from New York. Carraveaux is already here, somewhere. That is why Charles concocted this scheme to lure him out. Instead he netted you two.”

  “Why not simply turn this matter over to the police?” I asked.

  Barnum smiled ruefully. “I recently served as mayor of Bridgeport. One of my civic crusades was to rid the police department of the corruption that ran rampant within it. The public applauded such a move, but many on the police force did not, and they still don’t, so I cannot expect the police to help me. I am afraid I am quite alone in this matter.”

  “Not quite,” Holmes said. “We shall be happy to help you.”

  “We shall?” I asked skeptically.

  “We are not known here,” Holmes explained. “We could watch for this man Carraveaux without being detected ourselves.”

  “Your argument has merit,” Barnum said. “Very well, as of now you two are in my employ. Where are you staying?”

  “Well, we have a boarding room back in New York,” I said.

  P. T. Barnum waved his hand impatiently. “Not good enough. You shall stay here at Waldemere for as long as you need. The Lord knows we have enough available rooms. If there is anything you require, see Charles about it.” The showman then bounded toward a circus poster on the wall behind him, which he swung away from the paneling to reveal a small wall safe. Deftly turning the knob, he opened the door and pulled out a thick stack of American currency. “Since you are working for me, you shall be paid,” he said, counting off several notes and handing them to Holmes. “Will that be sufficient?”

  “Eminently.”

  “Excellent. Now then, where will you begin?”

  “First, I should like to send a telegram,” Holmes said. “Could you direct me to the telegraph office?”