“Harry . . . ”
But he sank back in his seat and would say nothing more.
We were riding a horsecar down Seventh Avenue, with our collars pulled up against a stiff autumn wind. Bess wore a long cloak over the gauzy outfit that I always thought of as her “sugarplum fairy” costume, designed to show her legs to advantage. “I’m freezing,” she said, pulling the folds of the cloak tighter. “I hope Mr. Patrell has managed to find a warm spot this time. Do you remember when he was running the show out of an old fish market? I thought I’d never get the smell of mackerel out of my hair.”
Patrell’s Wonder Emporium had occupied dozens of locations over the course of its twenty-year history. It began as a tent-show on the outer reaches of Central Park, in the days when Wild West demonstrations were still a familiar summer entertainment. Gradually, Patrell took his business downtown in hopes of attracting patrons throughout the year. It was his custom to swoop down whenever a warehouse or dry goods concern went out of business, buying up the remainder of the owner’s lease at a discount and setting the run of his show accordingly.
We alighted at 14th Street and approached the Wonder Emporium from the west. From half a block away we caught sight of the banner line, a row of brightly-painted canvas panels depicting the “wondrous and edifying” novelty acts presented within—a bearded lady, a contortionist, a frog boy, a “Wild Man of Borneo,” a snake charmer, a living skeleton, a “genuine leprechaun,” a fat lady, a sharp-shooter, and a King of Kards. It should be admitted that the illustrations were eye-catching but also highly fanciful. The leprechaun, for example, was depicted as standing in the palm of a normal-sized man, brandishing his tiny hat and dancing a merry jig. “A tiny marvel!” read the bold, up-tilted caption. “Will you find his pot of gold?” The actual performer—Benjamin Zalor, with whom I often played a hand or two of whist—stood somewhat over four feet. If he had ever owned a pot of gold, he neglected to mention it to me.
“That looks nothing like me,” said Harry, pointing to the panel depicting the King of Kards. This was certainly true. The figure on the canvas panel resembled a blond Satan, with playing cards shooting from his fingertips like lightening bolts. A trio of undersized red imps were seen cowering at his feet, averting their eyes.
“These are just stock images,” I said. “Show people come and go. Patrell couldn’t possibly have a new banner painted each time his snake charmer gets a better offer. None of these illustrations looks anything like the actual performer.”
“I know that,” said Harry, “but my public will be disappointed.”
We had only twenty minutes until the start of the first show, and Patrell was waiting for us at the door. He led us inside and showed us to a makeshift stage—a narrow platform fronted with red and blue bunting that ran along one wall below a line of windows. The other performers had already taken their places on stage, waiting for Patrell to drum up the day’s first audience. The proprietor made hasty introductions, then showed Harry and Bess to their place on the platform, between the living skeleton and the snake charmer.
This done, Patrell pulled out a large silver turnip watch at the end of a chain. “Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “Dash,” he said, turning to me. “Would you mind filling as frog boy?” He gestured to a strange assemblage of wood and cloth at the third position on the platform. At the center stood a raised column painted to resemble a tree stump. If you settled yourself behind the stump in a sort of crouch and poked your head through a hooded yoke of green cloth, it created the impression of a human head atop an elongated frog body. It was a nice effect, but tough on the knee joints.
“Don’t tell me,” I said, “Addison Tate was also filling the frog boy slot?”
“No,” said Patrell. “Actually, we hired a young lady last month. Mathilda Horn. Lovely girl, but she hasn’t turned up yet. I believe last night’s events may have unsettled her.”
“I’ll need three dollars a week, just like my brother.”
“Two.”
“Two-fifty.”
Patrell snorted as he reached into his pocket for a walnut. “Dash, it’s not a talent slot.” He picked up a rock from the “Wild Man of Borneo” exhibit and cracked the nut with it. “Your mother could do the frog boy act. I’m offering you two dollars a week until Miss Horn returns. What do you say?” He held out the cracked walnut and I helped myself to half.
“Ribbit,” I said.
The next three weeks passed pleasantly enough as we fell into the routine of the Ten-in-One. We did modest business throughout the afternoons, but drew rather larger and more boisterous crowds in the evenings, when young couples could be relied upon to be strolling past on their way to the theater or a dinner. I made myself useful by filling various slots behind the scenes as well as on the platform. After a couple of days, when Mathilda Horn returned to take up her duties as frog boy, I was promoted to the sharp-shooter slot recently vacated by Addison Tate. I should confess that I do not possess any native skill with a pistol, but the international success of Miss Annie Oakley—“The Peerless Little Sure Shot”—had created a public demand that every dime museum and carnival in America was now obliged to fill. Though I have never handled a live firearm in my life, only blank cartridges, I found as many others had done that sleight of hand offered an acceptable substitute. In my version of the sharp-shooter act, a volunteer from the audience made a selection from a deck of playing cards. After an appropriate interval of shuffling and cutting, I invited the spectator to throw the entire pack into the air. As the loose cards fluttered down, I gave a wild cry—the Rebel Yell, as interpreted by the son of an Orthodox rabbi—and fired my pistol. In short order the selected card was found to have a bullet hole in its center. The act drew enthusiastic applause whenever I performed it, but suffice it to say that Little Sure Shot had nothing to fear from me.
Harry, meanwhile, was doing yeoman service with his card manipulations, delighting the crowd with flashy overhand shuffles and hand-to-hand cascades, followed by platform effects such as the rising cards and the vanishing bird cage. If at times his stage manner appeared stiff, if not wooden, his audiences were generally forgiving. This may have had something to do with the pleasant addition of Bess striking poses at his side. She was easy on the eyes, I don’t mind telling you.
Between shows Harry took every opportunity to make enquiries about the disappearance of Addison Tate. As a rule he did not mingle easily with other performers, but his path was greatly smoothed by the trays of pecan rolls that our mother sent along each morning for fear that our new friends—especially Mr. Grader, the living skeleton—were not getting enough to eat. Even so, Harry’s attempts to strike up even the most casual conversation had the sound of a man practicing a new language. “Say, did you happen to see the newspaper this morning?” he would ask. “I see that Jimmy Sheckard got yet another hit for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms! He certainly is handy with a baseball bat, is he not? I wonder, was Addison Tate fond of baseball? Whatever happened to him, do you suppose?”
If these forays lacked subtlety, it emerged that our colleagues were not at all reluctant to discuss the abrupt departure of Mr. Tate. It was the custom of the performers to withdraw into a back room and pass around flasks of tea between shows. As the days progressed, the tea gave way to stronger restoratives, and the conversation flowed more freely. By the end of the second week, our new friends had advanced no fewer than a dozen explanations for Addison Tate’s behavior, ranging from brain fever to a sudden impulse to run off and join the French Foreign Legion. “If you ask me,” said Emma Henderson one afternoon, pulling off the “Bearded Lady” chin piece she wore, “he was up to no good from the moment he got here. I always saw him sneaking around behind the platform. Very odd, I call it.”
“Sneaking around?” Harry asked. “How do you mean?”
“Nipping off to the back alley. Like he was looking for something, or meeting someone, but didn’t want you to know. I never believed that business about h
is sick mother, not me.”
“That’s not what you said at the time, Emma,” said Nigel Kendricks, setting his “Wild Man of Borneo” wig and mask on an empty stool. “You were willing to give him a week’s pay, just like the rest of us.”
“Oh, he was a charmer, I’ll grant you that,” said Miss Henderson. “He certainly charmed you, didn’t he, Mathilda? Quite the rogue, that one.”
Miss Horn looked away, her face flushing scarlet. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Emma,” she said.
Miss Henderson snorted. “I’ve seen the way you looked at him, dear. A blind man couldn’t have missed it.”
I leaned forward and patted Miss Horn’s arm. “There, now. One never knows what the future holds. There’s always another trolley coming along, they say.” I gave her what I hoped was a charming, even roguish smile.
Miss Horn glanced at me as though I were some simple-minded relation with whom she was obliged to make small talk. “Perhaps so,” she said, “but I find I prefer to walk.” She stood and brushed at the folds of the green cloak she wore for the frog boy routine. “If you’ll excuse me, I must get ready for the three o’clock.” She turned and drifted toward the platform, with Miss Hendricks trailing behind her. I stood watching them with my hands in my pockets.
“Strange how that woman manages to resist your charms, Dash,” said Harry, sidling up behind me. “You of all people, with your experience of women that spreads over three separate boroughs.”
“I’m just being sociable,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be too sociable,” said Bess, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I believe Mr. Patrell has designs on Miss Horn.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“She missed a day and a half of work and he didn’t fire her,” said Bess. “For Gideon Patrell, that’s something akin to a proposal of marriage.”
“I’m sure Mr. Patrell is only concerned with the best interests of the show,” I said. “I feel the same way.” I pulled the Navy Colt from its holster and made a show of examining it.
“Perhaps,” said Harry. “Still, it might be best for all concerned if you—that’s very odd.”
He was staring at me. “What is it?” I asked
He took the pistol from my hands. “You say this is Addison Tate’s gun? The one he dropped after he shot Mr. Patrell?”
“The very one. Mr. Patrell gave it to me when I took over the sharp-shooter act.”
Harry examined it cautiously and gave the barrel a tentative sniff. “This pistol has been fired, Dash.”
“Of course it’s been fired, Harry. I’ve been firing it eight times a day for the past two weeks. Ten times on Saturday.”
“But you’ve been using blank cartridges, Dash.”
“Blank cartridges still leave a heavy odor of gunpowder. That’s what you smell.”
“Indeed?” Harry waved a hand as though the remark was beneath his notice. He turned the gun over in his hands several times. “You’ve been rather careless with this firearm, Dash.”
“How so? I’m shooting blanks. It’s not as if I’m going to hurt anyone.”
“The handle. You told me it was genuine ivory, did you not?”
I nodded.
He fingered a series of scores and ridges along the bottom of the ivory grips. “You told me that Tate was unusually careful with this gun. He even had Mr. Patrell lock it up in the strongbox each night. Now it looks as if it has been chewed by a dog.”
I took the pistol and examined the scarred grip. “Huh. I hadn’t noticed that. It must have happened when Tate dropped it.”
“Perhaps. It is but a trifle, of course, but there is nothing so important as trifles.”
“Harry, why do you insist on making a mystery out of it? Next you’ll be telling me that it’s a three-pipe problem.”
He sighed. “That’s exactly what it is, Dash. What a shame that I don’t use tobacco.”
“Harry, face it. You’re not going to get to the bottom of this one. Addison Tate shot Mr. Patrell and now he’s on the run. With the money he took he could be anywhere. We may never know where he went.”
“You’re wrong, Dash; I will solve it. I’m simply looking at things the wrong way. I must shake things up—turn them upside down. And I know just how to do it.” Harry smiled mysteriously. “Indeed, I have already taken the necessary measures.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll say no more. I must be discreet.”
“What is he going on about now?” I asked Bess.
She slipped her arm through Harry’s and led him toward the stage. “Hasn’t he told you? He’s written a letter to—”
“Shhh!” cried Harry, pulling us off to the side. “The others will hear!”
“Hear what?” I asked.
Harry looked around to make sure that no one else was listening before he continued. “Very well,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I shall confide in you. As the solution has thus far eluded me, I took the liberty of laying my case before an expert. I have written a letter to the world’s foremost consulting detective.”
“The world’s foremost consulting detective?”
“Exactly.”
“You wrote a letter to—”
“Sherlock Holmes. That is correct. I gathered the facts into a most interesting narrative, with certain literary flourishes that I hope will appeal to Dr. Watson.”
“But . . . Sherlock Holmes. Harry, isn’t Sherlock Holmes a—well, isn’t he—”
“Dead? You are referring to the unfortunate happenings at the Reichenbach Falls? You know my views on that matter, Dash. Sherlock Holmes is not dead. He has simply withdrawn from public life for reasons that he is not at liberty to divulge. I feel confident, however, that when he hears the particulars of this case, he will make an exception.”
“An exception?”
“Yes.”
“An exception to being dead?”
“Yes, if you insist on phrasing it thus. He has undoubtedly heard of the exploits of the great Harry Houdini. I am the only escapologist in the world, just as he is the only professional consulting detective. He and I are two originals, charting a bold new course and bringing comfort to the downtrodden.”
“Comfort to the downtrodden?”
He continued as if he had not heard. “It is a singular honor, but also a burden. He and I share this unique bond, like brothers. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Like brothers,” I repeated, as we climbed the platform for the next performance. “No, I guess I wouldn’t understand.”
The following weeks passed quickly and we began to lose track of time, as one often does when caught up in the grind of a Ten-in-One. As the days melted away, the name of Addison Tate was heard less frequently among the performers, and even Mr. Patrell seemed eager to put the episode behind him. For my part I enjoyed the routine thoroughly, but for one detail. Though I persisted in pressing my attentions upon Miss Horn, she continued to resist me with polite but firm resolve. Each day at the end of the final show, she would hurtle through the door as if propelled from a cannon, vanishing from sight before I had a chance to offer to escort her on the walk home.
One morning in early December, as I arrived at my mother’s flat to collect Harry and Bess, I found my brother slumped over the breakfast table looking thoroughly despondent.
“What is it?” I asked, glancing at my mother. “Is anyone—”
“His letter has come back from Baker Street,” said Bess.
“Come back?”
“Unopened. See for yourself.” A thick envelope lay on the breakfast table, addressed to “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esq.” in Harry’s blocky script. The surface was covered with postal markings and transfer stamps, and as I picked it up for a closer look, I could see a line of instructions printed along the bottom edge in a firm, slanting hand. It read: “Mr. Holmes no longer resides at this address. Return to writer.” An arrow scrawled in the corner directed attention to the reverse side
of the envelope, where Harry’s name and address were carefully printed on the flap.
“Harry,” I said, setting the envelope back on the table. “I’m sorry. You must be very disappointed.”
“Extremely.” His voice was heavy and listless. “I feel so terribly foolish.”
“Still, you couldn’t have really thought—I mean, you couldn’t actually have believed—”
“That Sherlock Holmes would assist me in solving the case? Of course I believed it.”
Bess reached across the table and placed her hand on his. “Let’s put all this foolishness behind us and concentrate on the business at hand. Dash, we’ve been working for Mr. Patrell for nearly two months now. Don’t you think it’s time we—Dash? Dash?”
“Sorry? Were you speaking to me?”
“What is it? You have the strangest look on your face!”
“I—well—I’m not sure, but I think—I think—”
“What?”
I picked up Harry’s letter and turned it over in my hands. “I think Sherlock Holmes just solved the case.”
“It’s bad enough that I have to spend eight straight hours standing on the platform. Now I have to remain afterwards?” Emma Henderson tore off her bearded chin piece. “And why does it have to be in Mr. Patrell’s office? We’d all be more comfortable in the back room.”
This was certainly true. Harry and I had asked all of the performers to gather in the relatively cramped confines of Patrell’s office, which left most of us standing and others leaning awkwardly against the rear wall. It was a necessary measure. In answer to Miss Henderson’s question, however, I merely shrugged.
“Be patient, Emma,” said Mathilda Horn, gazing up at me with an unfamiliar expression of warmth and affection. “Dash has his reasons.”
“Does he now?” asked Miss Henderson. “When did you two get so friendly?”
“You hadn’t noticed?” asked Benjamin Zalor, settling his undersized frame on the edge of an unused packing crate. “They’ve spent half the day whispering at the back door.”
Sherlock Holmes In America Page 23
