“Was it your idea or Mrs. Legrange’s?” Holmes said.
The lad said nothing.
“No matter,” Holmes said. “I fancy the idea came from the lady. She stayed in the carriage and watched while you burned the violin. Then you returned home with her, as if you’d simply been on a visit, and carried out the next part of the plan. The harder part, I daresay. It must have taken some resolution on your part to kneel there and wait for the second blow.”
Lee couldn’t help wincing from the memory of it. Holmes smiled.
“You told Mrs. Legrange that she must hit harder to make it look convincing, and the second time she managed it. A blow with a heavy brass poker is no laughing matter, even from a lady.”
“So she told you.” Lee blurted it out, a flush on his pale cheeks. Holmes did not contradict him.
“Does my father know?” Lee said.
“Not yet, but he must learn of it,” Holmes said. “It would come better from you than from me. Shall I send him in?”
Lee nodded, eyes downcast. We went out to the hall where Barratt was waiting anxiously, and Holmes said his son had something to tell him.
When the parlor door had closed on him, I turned to Holmes.
“How in the world did you know it was a poker?”
He smiled.
“You may have observed that I kissed the lady’s hand. I could see from your face that you thought I’d fallen victim to her charms. In fact, I wanted to smell her glove. I’d already observed ash on one of Lee’s boots. . . .”
“And then you smelled it on her glove. Admirable.”
“No, I confess I expected to smell it. I should have known better. She’d leave such work to her male accomplice. The smell I caught was of something quite different: metal polish. Now, a lady of her standing would hardly polish her own household utensils; therefore she’d recently handled some metal object. In view of the young man’s injuries, a poker seemed a near certainty, confirmed by his reaction.”
“But why, Holmes?”
“Surely you can see. She knew I wasn’t taken in for a minute by that romantic tale about the fiddle. Rather than have it lose the contest, she decided to destroy it—with the help of a besotted young man.”
After a while, the parlor door opened. Barratt came out, sternfaced and led us through to the drawing room.
“Gentlemen, I must apologise to you for my son’s deception.”
“I believe it was Mrs. Legrange’s deception,” Holmes said.
“Lee would not stoop to putting the blame on a lady.”
“Even a lady who deserved it?”
“I’m sure you cannot find it in your heart to blame her. She had believed in the authenticity of that violin.”
“Just as you believe in yours?”
Holmes glanced at the instrument enshrined over the mantelpiece.
“That’s one good thing to come out of it at any rate,” I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Mr. Barratt’s violin is now the only one in the field.”
Holmes and Barratt stared at each other. Barratt was the first to drop his gaze. Holmes settled himself in an armchair.
“Before we came here, Watson suggested that I should read the history of the Alamo.” His tone was conversational. “As he knows, I dislike burdening my mind with useless detail. Nonetheless, there was one aspect that interested me. The person out of step is always more interesting than the ones in step, don’t you find?”
I could not see where this was leading, but Barratt evidently did.
“Rose?”
“Yes, Louis Rose. The coward of the Alamo. The man who supposedly brought your father Colonel Crockett’s violin.”
“Supposedly? You doubt my father’s word, sir?”
“I do not doubt that your father acquired that violin under circumstances exactly as you described. Equally, I don’t doubt that he believed the vagabond at his back door to be Louis Rose. But he wasn’t.”
I expected an outburst from Barratt but he said nothing.
“I’ve done a little reading about Rose,” Holmes went on. “One detail interested me. The man was illiterate. He couldn’t read or write. You’re an intelligent man. You must have done your own research. I think you knew that he couldn’t have written that statement.”
Silence from Barratt.
“But why should any man impersonate a notorious coward?” I said.
“Because whoever the man was, he needed money and had a violin he could sell,” Holmes said. “He must have been sharp enough to realise that a hero’s violin from the Alamo would be worth much more than any old fiddle.”
Holmes took his pipe from his pocket and asked Barratt’s permission to smoke. It was given with an abstracted nod.
“I played a trick on Watson when we were walking home from your house the other night,” Holmes said. “I asked him which pocket I’d put my pipe in. He gave the matter his close attention, ignoring the obvious fact—that I hadn’t brought my pipe at all.”
“Really, Holmes, I . . . ”
He ignored me, and went on speaking to Barratt.
“You take my point, I’m sure. The question you posed to me from the start was which one of two, hoping that little puzzle would distract me from other possibilities. As it happened, it was of small importance to you which I chose. The thing that mattered above all was that the violin which eventually went on display at the Alamo should be certified as genuine by none other than Sherlock Holmes. Who would question that? I believe you expected me to pick up that point about Rose and to be so pleased with myself that I would give the verdict in favour of Mrs. Legrange’s instrument. Unfortunately, you neglected to inform Mrs. Legrange of your plan. Rather than have her violin slighted, she destroyed it—proving in the process that she’d never in her heart believed the family legend about it, or she couldn’t have brought herself to do it.”
“So neither of you believed in your violins?” I said to Barratt in astonishment. He raised his eyes and gave me a long look.
“There are things you believe with your head and things you believe with your heart. My heart said that violin should have survived.”
Holmes puffed at his pipe.
“You remember Señor Alvarez wished to see me?” he said.
Barratt nodded, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. Holmes slid a rough-looking piece of paper from his pocket.
“Do you read Spanish, Mr. Barratt?”
Barratt shook his head.
“It seemed more likely to me that if Crockett’s violin had survived at all, it would be in Mexican hands,” Holmes said. “You know the saying—‘to the victor, the spoils of war.’”
Barratt snapped out of his abstraction and stared at Holmes.
“You mean, the man Alvarez and his violin? Has he proof?”
Holmes said nothing, only smoothed out the piece of paper. I could see the struggle in Barratt’s face.
“Crockett’s violin, in a Mexican’s possession?”
Still Holmes said nothing. Barratt paced the room, backwards and forwards.
“I put it in your hands,” he said at last. “If you think the man’s claim is authentic, then negotiate for us. I authorise you to go up to five hundred dollars if necessary.”
“Thank you.”
Holmes rose and thumbed out his pipe.
“You’ll go tonight?” Barratt said.
“Certainly, if you wish. Come, Watson.”
From my earlier wanderings, I knew my way to the stockyards area. The house of Señor Alvarez was a white painted cube of a dwelling, sandwiched between an ironmonger’s shop and a baker’s shop with a galaxy of brightly sugared pastries in its lamp-lit window. The house door was wide open, cheerful voices speaking Spanish coming from inside. When Holmes called, Juan Alvarez came out to meet us, like a prince welcoming an equal. We were led to seats by an open fireplace where something savoury was cooking in a pot, and introduced to his wife, children, and grandmother. After some minutes of this, Holmes brought us to
business.
“You wished to talk to me about your violin.”
“Yes, señor.”
The violin, still wrapped in the tablecloth, was lying on a shelf. Alvarez took it down and placed it in Holmes’s hands.
“Colonel Crockett’s violin, rescued from destruction by my father’s father, an officer in the Mexican army. He found it by Colonel Crockett’s body and kept it in memory of a brave enemy. No man has played it since Colonel Crockett himself. I offer you that honour now, señor.”
Holmes took the violin, nodded, and rose to his feet. A bow was produced. Holmes tightened the bow, tuned the instrument to his satisfaction, then began to play. The tune he chose was a simple melody that I had heard one of the cowboys singing, called “The Streets of Laredo.” The sight of his absorbed face in the firelight, the rapt expressions of Señor Alvarez and his family, and the thought of all that this rustic fiddle stood for brought a tear to my eye. When he’d finished there was a little silence. He bowed and handed the instrument back to Alvarez.
“Mr. Barratt is offering you five hundred dollars for the violin,” he said.
“To put in their museum?”
“Yes.”
Alvarez stood for a while, deep in thought.
“It was our victory, not theirs,” he said at last. “It was our country, not theirs.”
Then he threw down the violin to the stone-flagged floor and stamped on it time and time again, like a man performing a Spanish dance, until he’d smashed it to smithereens.
“It is the greatest of pities,” I said, still shaken, as we walked towards the hotel through the warm night. “To find Crockett’s violin and then have it end like this.”
Holmes laughed.
“My dear Watson, why should you think that fiddle was any more genuine than the other two? I’m sure Crockett was more likely to have died with his rifle beside him than his violin. No, Alvarez’s family tale was as much a fiction as the others, though I think the man himself believed it.”
“But the statement, Holmes, the paper in Spanish that you showed Barratt. Whatever it said seemed to be enough to convince you.”
He laughed.
“Did I say so? I simply showed Barratt a paper, and he chose to draw his own conclusion. I admit I took a small gamble. If he had happened to read Spanish, I should have had to do some quick thinking.”
“Holmes, what is this? What was on the paper?”
“You remember that first night, when we walked in the Mexican market, I found one of the local delicacies suited my taste. This morning, I descended to the kitchens of our hotel and was lucky enough to find a Mexican cook. She spoke few words of English but was obliging enough to understand what I wanted and write down the recipe. Tamales, I believe they’re called.”
“And you led Mr. Barratt to believe that this recipe was proof that—”
“I led him nowhere, Watson. He led himself. He had tried, for reasons that doubtless seemed honorable and patriotic to him, to take advantage of my reputation. This is a small revenge.”
“But what shall you tell him?”
“That the Alamo Museum must, alas, do without Colonel Crockett’s violin. Texas seems to be a resilient state. I hope it may learn to live with the disappointment.”
THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE CITY
Bill Crider
Bill Crider is the author of more than fifty published novels and numerous short stories. He won the Anthony Award for best first mystery novel in 1987 for Too Late to Die and was nominated for the Shamus Award for best first private-eye novel for Dead on the Island. He won the Golden Duck Award for best juvenile science fiction novel for Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror. He and his wife, Judy, won the best short story Anthony in 2002 for their story “Chocolate Moose.” His latest novel is Murder in Four Parts. Check out his Web site at www.billcrider.com.
I have written little about Sherlock Holmes’s adventures in the United States, not least because Sherlock Holmes himself requested that I refrain from any attempt to tell how he occupied himself there. Both he and I agreed that it was best for me to confine myself to setting down what he did in his native England, if I had to set down anything at all. His inclination always was to believe that I exaggerated somewhat when reporting the events of his career.
Now, however, because Holmes has left London again and lives in pleasant anonymity, enjoying his view of the Channel and his bees, I believe that he would not take it amiss if I were to set on paper at least one of his adventures in the New World. He said as much at one time. The story that comes to mind happened the year after the strange events at Wisteria Lodge, and Holmes and I had special reason to remember it, as we discussed one evening as we sat in our rooms at 221B Baker Street.
I remember the night well. The moon was full, and its light shone through the windows overlooking the street. The windows were closed, and a brisk wind swept down the street, occasionally rattling a somewhat loose pane. Holmes, whose powers of concentration far exceed my own, showed no sign that the faint noise bothered him, or that he heard it at all. He sat reading the day’s news, and I said to him, “It must bother you a great deal, Holmes.”
He lowered the newspaper, looked at me over the top edge of it, and said, “Whatever do you mean by that, Watson?”
“The fact that you share a name with one of the most shockingly brutal and cruel murderers of this century.”
“You surprise me, Watson,” said Holmes, lowering the newspaper into his lap.
“Furthermore,” I said, “it must disturb you greatly that you were in the same city with him and knew nothing of his frightful depredations.”
“You are positively brilliant this morning, Watson,” said Holmes. “For those are my thoughts exactly. How, pray tell, did you come to fathom them?”
“I know your methods, Holmes,” said I, perhaps a bit too smugly. All too often in the past, Holmes had amazed me by seeming to read my mind, when in reality he had merely been observing me. Being able to turn the tables on him was a pleasant diversion.
Holmes put the newspaper aside and went to the chimneypiece to fetch the Turkish slipper in which he kept his tobacco. Having done so, he reached into the pocket of his robe and brought out a briar pipe.
When Holmes had filled it with tobacco and lit it, he looked at me and said, “You, of course, saw the newspaper earlier and read about the trial of the notorious ‘Torture Doctor,’ known as H. H. Holmes, and surmised the rest.” He paused and puffed on the pipe to make sure the tobacco was burning to his satisfaction. “I do not believe we have mentioned the similarity of the names before, but you are quite correct, Watson. It does bother me a bit that Mudgett should have chosen for himself my own patronym, but that is not his only alias. He has had many others.”
“And he will soon meet his well-deserved end under the original name of Mudgett,” said I. “Was the other point I mentioned also correct?”
“That I am bothered by having been in some proximity to Mudgett without knowledge of his crimes? Yes, Watson. I wish that I had known something of them at the time. With that knowledge I might have been able to put a stop to him before he had killed so many.”
“How many? Is the number even known?”
“No,” said Holmes. “Some surmise he may have done away with more than a hundred victims, but I suspect the number twenty-seven is much more likely.”
He resumed his seat in the chair and took up the newspaper once more.
“I remember your desire to visit the Columbian Exposition in Chicago,” I said. “And to see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West once again.”
Holmes had become quite a student of the history of Buffalo Bill Cody and the American West after his first meeting with the man. He put aside the newspaper again and glanced at the patriotic V. R. formed by bullet holes in the wall.
“Yes, indeed, Watson. Meeting Colonel Cody at the time of the Golden Jubilee was quite interesting. He and I have something in common, I believe.”
I merely nodded
at that. I did not have to ask Holmes what he meant. More than once he had expressed his opinion that the wild tales of Buffalo Bill, as related by Mr. Buntline and Mr. Ingraham, contained no more excesses than those I myself composed about him.
“While you did not hear about Mudgett while we were visiting the White City,” I said, “you did find opportunity to exercise your skills in the service of good.”
Holmes smiled a thin smile. “Ah, Watson. While you know my methods, I know yours. You are ever on the alert for something with which to fill your notebooks, some item you can later spin into a tale of adventure for your readers.”
I laughed. “You have caught me out, Holmes, for that was indeed the very thought that crossed my mind. We are even, then, for I have read your thoughts, and you have read mine. I should very much like to tell of our American adventure some day.”
“I do not believe the events of the story will be of interest to your readers, as they occurred so far away.”
“Even in America there are many who know of you,” I replied.
“Very well,” said Holmes. “Perhaps in later years you will find occasion to tell the story.”
And so at last I have.
After the bizarre affair at Wisteria Lodge, the idea of a trip to the White City to see “the highest and best achievements of modern civilization” had a great appeal to Holmes and me. We were certain that the sight of the Exposition’s grounds would be one to inspire even the dullest of souls.
Surprisingly enough, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was not a part of the fairgrounds. Colonel Cody had, I believe, wanted to be a part of the Exposition, but he was denied the privilege. He was too much of a showman, however, to let that stop him. He simply set up his tents just outside the grounds, taking up several blocks with his campgrounds and arena. His extravagant advertisements promised to introduce his “Congress of Rough Riders,” with more than 450 horses, ridden by vaqueros, Cossacks, gauchos, Indians, cowboys, and more.
Sherlock Holmes In America Page 17
