Holmes on the Range

by Steve Hockensmith

  It was the smell of gunsmoke.

  Twenty-five

  OLD DICKIE

  Or, Gustav Needles the Duke, but It’s My Brother Who’s Cut to the Quick

  I peeled off a peek at Old Red to see if he’d caught wind of that oh-so-familiar yet oh-so-surprising smell. He clearly had, for his face wore an expression of such unbridled self-satisfaction it would have made a strutting gamecock appear humble by comparison.

  I knew what he was thinking: We’d found “the scene of the crime.” But it seemed to me it was nothing to get cocky about, as the discovery raised more questions than it answered.

  Why didn’t anyone in the castle recognize the gunshot for what it was? Why move the body to the privy of all places? And, knottiest of all, was it possible one of our visitors had killed Boudreaux—and if so, why?

  The first place to start hunting for answers was in the office. But there was a considerable obstacle between it and us—an obstacle who wasn’t pleased to see us.

  “Well?” the Duke demanded as he entered the parlor. He moved with the plodding confidence of a saloon strong-arm about to roust a drunken deadbeat, but his appearance wasn’t quite as intimidating as he seemed to think. His hair was thick but gray, his body heavy with muscle turned to blubber, his face flushed not just with indignation but with heat and strain. He was, in a word, old—and he apparently didn’t know it.

  He didn’t bother taking a seat, and I could tell from the way his eyes burned into us he wasn’t pleased to see us on our rumps while he remained on his feet. But my brother kept himself buried butt-deep in cushion, so I did the same.

  “Thanks for makin’ time for us, Your Grace,” Gustav said, his words coming out so offhanded and relaxed he might have been gabbing with another hand over a plate of beans. “I got a couple questions to ask you. Just tryin’ to be thorough, y’see.”

  “Yes, yes. Get on with it, then,” the Duke grumbled.

  “Okeydokey,” Old Red replied cheerfully. He turned to me, throwing a casual nod toward the old man. “Maybe you’d like to get this rollin’, Brother.”

  This unexpected honor put a grin on my face—as did my suspicion that it was being granted merely to annoy old Dickie. I cleared my throat and looked thoughtful for a moment.

  “Tell me, Your Grace—did you notice anything out of the ordinary last night or this mornin’?”

  Gustav nodded his approval, while Lady Clara and Brackwell kept their eyes on the Duke like a couple of railroad stokers watching a boiler they half-expected to explode.

  “I did not,” the old man said.

  I opened my mouth, then quickly closed it again. I’d had my next questions all set—”What time did you hear it?” and “You didn’t step outside to take a look?” But now it looked like this interview wasn’t going to follow the same trail as the last few, and I found myself at a loss for words.

  “Uhhh. . .you didn’t hear a sort of. . .well. . . bang-type sound?”

  The Duke glowered at me, his bushy eyebrows pushing down so hard I had to wonder if he could see anything through the foliage.

  “I heard nothing.”

  I recalled what Emily had said about the unrousable depths into which the old man fell once in bed. But for all their lack of size, der-ringers don’t entirely lack for sound. They might be easier to muffle than your larger artillery, but they’ll still put out a pop. The gun that had been fired last night—inside the house, if the smell from the office was any indication—had kicked up enough noise to awaken Emily on the first floor and Lady Clara, Brackwell, and Edwards on the second. Could the Duke have really slept through it?

  “Ummm. . .you sure?” I asked, unable to think up a more subtle way of getting at my doubts.

  “Of course I am!” the Duke barked. He didn’t top that off with you imbecile, but his tone said it plain enough.

  I shot my brother a panicky look that pleaded with him to grab back the reins of the conversation. He took them, alright—and jerked them in a whole new direction.

  “Did Mr. Perkins know you were comin’?”

  “What?” the Duke said, so taken aback he momentarily forgot to bellow and fume. Behind him, Lady Clara and Brackwell looked equally bewildered.

  “Did Perkins—or anyone else here at the ranch—know you were comin’ thisaway?”

  “No. What has that got to do with—?”

  “No, you say?” Old Red frowned and shook his head, making a big show of his apparent confusion. “Well, why was the house stocked up with fine linens and wines and whiskeys and whatnot? I don’t think the hired help was meant to live so soft.”

  “The board had instructed Perkins to be ready for a visit at any time.”

  “A ‘visit’? Don’t you mean a ‘surprise inspection’?”

  The Duke gave Old Red a look that suggested he was reappraising just what kind of insect my brother was—and in what manner he should be squashed.

  “I say what I mean. We were traveling to Chicago for the Exposition and I decided to visit the Cantlemere. It was a mere whim, a sudden fancy.”

  I found it hard to imagine the Duke acting on a “sudden fancy.” Gustav apparently had the same difficulty.

  “Your Grace, Chicago is more than five hundred miles east of here. That’s a mighty long way to travel on a whim.”

  “What in blazes does this have to do with that dead Negro out there?” the Duke demanded.

  “I ain’t sure yet. I’m just collectin’ data.”

  “ ‘Collecting data’?” the Duke repeated with a grimace of disgust, apparently finding this phrase more objectionable than any comment one might make about Jesus Christ, excretion, or the physical act of love.

  “Exactly,” Gustav said. “Like this, for instance—how long’s it been since the Bar VR turned a profit?”

  “This is impertinent, irrelevant, and an utter waste of time!” the Duke roared.

  “Alright, let’s say it is,” Gustav threw back at him. “That oughta make you mighty pleased.”

  “Why in heaven’s name should I be pleased?”

  “Because if I’m wastin’ time, every minute I’m at it brings you another minute closer to two hundred pounds.”

  The Duke blinked at my brother as if he’d just switched from speaking English to Chinese. Then he shook his head and spat out a laugh. It wasn’t a jolly, “Well spoken, my good fellow” kind of laugh. It was a laugh that aimed to pull down your britches, knock off your hat, and spit in your eye—a mean laugh.

  “You are an insolent jackanapes, but I must admire your cheek. You’re using your own incompetence to justify a few more minutes of idle gossip in comfortable surroundings. Just look at you! Stretched out in the shade while your friends toil outside. Would you like a glass of lemonade?” The Duke laughed again and looked back at Brackwell. “What do you think of your champion now? He’s half-simpleton, half-lunatic, and all rascal, I’d say!”

  Brackwell remained silent, though the sour expression on his face made it plenty clear what he thought of the Duke.

  Beside him, Lady Clara didn’t look too pleased, either. She took a step toward her father and put a hand on his arm. But before she could admonish the crotchety old toad—or bring the interview to an end—Old Red spoke again.

  “Ain’t no harm in humoring a ‘lunatic,’ is there? So why not answer my question? Is this ranch profitable?”

  The Duke snorted at my brother the way one might chuckle over the fumblings of a particularly clumsy kitten.

  “Fine. Why not, indeed? The Cantlemere was profitable—until six years ago. The winter of 1887 hit our stock hard. We’ve struggled to return to profitability since then. I expect us to succeed quite soon.”

  Gustav cocked an eyebrow at the old man. “What makes you think that?”

  Brackwell and Lady Clara suddenly became so attentive they all but leaned forward on their tiptoes and cupped their hands to their ears.

  “I have an instinct for these things,” the Duke said, his jowly cheeks st
retched tight by a smug smile. “Our luck is about to change.”

  “Well,” Old Red said, plainly finding the old man’s answer less than satisfying, “six years is a long time to hang in there waitin’ for your luck to change. How’d you manage it?”

  “Cash reserves, new investors.”

  “From what I hear, you ain’t got much in the way of cash reserves.”

  The Duke’s grin dimmed, and a new, hotter light took to shining in his eyes, but my brother pressed on.

  “As for new investors, I assume you mean Mr. Edwards. He bought in. . . what was it? Two years ago? That wasn’t too long after you had your little run-in with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, was it? I bet you would’ve been able to herd a fair amount of cash into your ‘reserves’ if that had turned out different. But with the wedding called off and—”

  “Enough!”

  The Duke had gone wild-eyed at the mention of Holmes, and it was a wonder his shout didn’t shatter every window in the castle. Yet his earsplitting wrath settled into a quiet seethe with surprising speed.

  “Enough,” he said again. He took a deep breath, and by the time he was through exhaling, a hint of his spiteful smile had returned. “Your name is. . .Apple-something, isn’t it?”

  “Amlingmeyer,” Old Red corrected.

  The Duke nodded. “It just so happens, Amlingmeyer, that the Montana Stockgrowers Association is meeting in Miles City in three days’ time. I assume you’re aware that the Association maintains a list of men who are not to be employed by its members—a blacklist. The name Amlingmeyer is going to be placed at the very top of that list. And it won’t end there. Most of the ranches in this state are owned by English peers like myself, and that same group of men controls the cattle trade in Wyoming, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico—the entire West. It won’t be difficult to have you blacklisted everywhere. Once my wager with young Brackwell is concluded, I plan to see you and your oafish brother escorted from the Cantlemere without a penny in your pockets, and you won’t find a ranch within a thousand miles willing to spare you so much as a crumb of bread.”

  Old Red had been giving the Duke a little push to get the man’s dander up and his mouth open, but obviously Old Dickie could push back a hell of a lot harder. Gustav’s a proud, even conceited fellow in his own quiet way, yet I saw real fear in his eyes now, or at least the realization that he wasn’t as slick as he’d thought.

  The Duke saw that look, too, and his smile grew larger.

  “I suppose you’ll be needing a new livelihood. Well, I wouldn’t suggest continuing your misadventures as a consulting detective. You attempt to ape Sherlock Holmes, that’s obvious. But I’ve encountered the man’s work firsthand, and I assure you, you possess neither his subtlety nor his cunning. And even if you did. . .well, just look what happened to him.”

  Gustav’s eyes had slowly been drawing closed, perhaps to mask the panic they might reflect. But they popped wide now, and Old Red found his voice again.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” The Duke peered at my brother for a moment before cutting loose with another of his acid laughs. “Oh, you poor, ignorant buffoon!”

  “What?” Gustav demanded. “What don’t I know?”

  “Your hero is no more,” Old Dickie choked out between guffaws. “Sherlock Holmes is dead!”

  Twenty-six

  MR. HOLMES

  Or, Old Red Goes into Mourning, and I Go into Shock

  When I was twelve, my father and my brother Conrad were carried off by smallpox, and it fell to Gustav and me to bury them. The only words we spoke as we did so were on the order of “Over there?” and “That’s deep enough” and “Vater first.” Gustav left the farm not long afterward, sending back cash from ranches and cow towns up and down the Old Western Trail. The next time I saw him was four years later, at a train station in Dodge City. Our mother and our sisters were barely one month gone, as were our last remaining aunt and cousins and even the farm itself, all washed away by a flood so merciless it hadn’t even the decency to leave behind the gravestones in the family plot.

  And after all that, Gustav just looked me up and down, nodded once, and said, “I got jobs lined up for us at the Cross J in Texas. Can you keep yourself atop a horse?”

  I said yes, and that was that—no eulogizing, no weeping, not so much as a sigh.

  I don’t relate this to suggest that my brother is a heartless man, but simply to illustrate that he’s not a fellow who’s given to displays of sentiment. I’m certain that a loving soul lurks within him, for there’s no other way to explain why he’s stuck by me all these years. He could’ve cut me loose after that flood, as I was all of sixteen at the time and had some of the skills—if none of the wisdom—a man needs to make his own way in the world.

  Yet my brother chose to saddle himself with a big, clumsy kid who couldn’t ride, rope, or shoot any better than a cross-eyed catfish. And when that kid got fired from his first two jobs, Gustav quit and stayed alongside him, teaching him what he could, rolling his eyes at the occasional foolishness, and never once complaining of any burden. True, dark moods and long silences there were aplenty, but tears I never did see.

  So you can imagine my dismay when I saw them there in the castle. Not that Old Red busted out bawling upon hearing of Mr. Holmes’s death. But his eyes did get to glistening, with droplets of moisture pooling and threatening to spill out over the lower lashes.

  The notion of Gustav Amlingmeyer shedding tears over a stranger’s demise was at first so unbelievable I dismissed the evidence presented by my own eyes. Yet when my brother spoke, I heard in his voice such a tremor of raw emotion I had to accept that what looked like tears must indeed be tears.

  “What. . .? Did he. . .? Who. . .?”

  “You want to know how, hmmm?” the Duke said, taking obvious delight in Old Red’s distress. “Well, I’m pleased to report that the man’s meddling finally did him in. Oh, the exact circumstances aren’t known—that damnable quack Watson may feel entirely at liberty to besmirch whomever he chooses with his lurid scribblings, yet on this subject he has remained silent. But details have emerged. It was in Switzerland, apparently. Holmes was persecuting some poor continental, I suppose, and he ended up going over the side of a mountain, never to be seen again! Pushed or pulled or something else, no one knows. Well, Watson perhaps. If so, he’ll write about it eventually, I assure you, for the opportunity to squeeze a few guineas from his friend’s death will surely overwhelm whatever stunted sense of propriety he might possess.”

  “When?” my brother asked, the word coming out barely more than a whisper.

  “Oh, ages ago,” the Duke chortled.

  “Holmes has been dead two years,” Brackwell said. He gave Old Red a look I’d never seen directed at my brother before—pity. “I assumed you knew.”

  Gustav shook his head slowly, his watery eyes aimed at the space between his boots.

  “So, Amlingmeyer,” the Duke said, “now you see the risks you take when you interfere in the affairs of others. A pity you and Holmes couldn’t ‘deduce’ what snooping will get you!”

  Old Dickie was toying with my brother like a cat with its claws in a half-dead mouse, and Lady Clara and Brackwell looked sickened by the old man’s cruelty.

  “Of course, it’s too late for you to renege on your current obligations,” the Duke said. “Though I suppose it’s never too late to concede.”

  His tone turned mild and fatherly with these last words, and the change brought Gustav’s gaze up from the floorboards. A little jolt seemed to run through Brackwell, as well.

  “Watson’s swill about ‘the great Holmes’ filled your head with foolish notions, and you overstepped your bounds,” the Duke continued soothingly. “It’s forgivable. . .if we put this unpleasant business behind us as quickly as possible.”

  Brackwell’s face turned bright red, the expression upon it curdling into barely concealed contempt. I was a few seconds behind him in untangli
ng the real message in what the Duke had just said.

  “This unpleasant business” was not the murder—it was Old Red’s investigation. My brother had poked a thorn in the lion’s paw, and now the only way to pull it out before he got a swat was to call the whole thing off. But if Gustav were to “concede,” the Duke could declare victory.

  Old Dickie was trying to bully his way to that two hundred pounds, and he wasn’t even bothering to do it behind Brackwell’s back.

  “Your Grace, if you please, sir,” my brother said. He sprinkled no spice on the words, loathsome and toadying though they were, and it tore at my heart to hear him grovel so. “I wonder if I might have a moment alone in the office with Mr. Brackwell. I . . .” He looked at our youthful patron, his eyes heavy with the promise of disappointment soon to be delivered. “I feel I owe him an. . .well. . .we need to talk.”

  The Duke nodded and smiled, finally showing a hint of the supposed “grace” for which people addressed him.

  “Of course.”

  Gustav rose slowly, reaching out to nudge me softly before trudging toward Brackwell and the office door. I got up and followed, feeling as though I was marching my brother to an execution. His dreams and his pride were about to be strung up side by side like a pair of horse thieves. I was tempted to take a poke at the man who’d supplied the rope as I walked past him, but bloodying the Duke’s bulbous nose wouldn’t do anything more than scotch the deal for which Old Red was sacrificing all his hopes. No more detectiving, and we’d be allowed to go on drovering—until, that is, the McPhersons saw to it that our breathing days were over.

  Lady Clara beamed compassion upon us as we passed, but I was so utterly downhearted I could take no comfort from her show of sympathy. My brother had just lost his hero, and it had crushed his spirit.

  Somehow, I knew exactly how he felt.

  Twenty-seven

  THE OFFICE