by Braven
"I see," said Sherlock Holmes. "I think I understand the object of your exchange, Mr. McGraw. Correct any inaccuracies on my part, if you will. When gold is to be transferred from one country—Russia, let us say—to another—as it might be, England—instead of making the long and hazardous journey from St. Petersburg to London, the required amount of gold bullion is merely removed from one vault and placed in the appropriate one near it."
"Exactly! Six trusted employees of the Exchange now do the work that used to take six hundred subjects of the countries involved, and the risk of theft has been reduced to virtually nothing!"
"Most ingenious," commented Holmes. "I congratulate you. I have only one question to ask."
"And that is?" McGraw said, as Holmes gave him a cool look.
"Why am I being told this at this hour of the night and under this notable precaution of secrecy?"
Lafferty drummed his fingers on the bowler he held in his lap, and let out a long sigh, as if reluctant to say what he must. Then he got to his point with a rush. "Because the gold's been stolen, that's why!"
Holmes leaned forward, keen and alert for the first time since the note had been delivered to him. It was impossible for such a man as he not to take an interest in so massive a crime, no matter what threats had been made to prevent him involving himself with the police.
"All of it?" he inquired in excitement—I might almost have written "delight."
"All but two bricks or so," McGraw answered morosely.
"Great heavens, how?" said I.
"We haven't the slightest idea." Lafferty's tone was sour in the extreme.
"When was the theft discovered?" said Sherlock Holmes.
"Four days ago, during a routine inspection of the vaults. When we unlocked the door at the bottom of the elevator shaft, the vaults were empty!" McGraw explained.
"And," the Inspector added, "there was a huge hole cut into the rear wall of the chamber!"
"A hole leading where?"
"Into the subway excavation that goes right past the bank! We found one brick of bullion in the tunnel, another in the excavation."
"And news of this incredible theft has been kept from the public?" Holmes asked.
McGraw answered this question. "So far. But, Mr. Holmes, in forty-eight hours' time a transaction is due to take place between Italy and Germany. When that happens, the theft will be discovered, and the international repercussions will be such that not even war—world-wide war!—can be ruled out!"
I shuddered. A newspaper I had been able to glance at that very afternoon during a rest I gave myself from unpacking had carried a dispatch from Berlin concerning a hysterical diatribe the Emperor had delivered to his troops, demanding their protection from a revolt that appeared to exist only in his mind. With so unstable a personality occupying the throne of one of the great Powers—and the rulers of many of the others, for that matter, not being notable for good sense—the catastrophe Mr. McGraw envisaged did not seem as implausible as I should have liked.
The Inspector now spoke with great urgency. "Mr. Holmes, we've got forty-eight hours to find that gold and get it back to its vaults with no one the wiser—and we need your help to do it!"
Mr. McGraw chimed in, "Mr. Holmes, the fate of the world may well hang in the balance!"
I joined the other two in staring intently at Sherlock Holmes, though there was this difference: they were looking for the first signs of an assent they took for granted, whilst I steeled myself to watch the torment that racked that proud face as he prepared to say what, only hours ago, both he and I would have considered unthinkable. A slight movement of his arm told me that his hand was even now clenched around the note that deprived him of his liberty of action as much as its writer had deprived Scott Adler of his.
The carriage slowed, and I realized that our course had taken us back to the hotel. As it stopped, Holmes, appearing older and wearier than I had ever seen him, looked from one to the other of the two men facing him.
"I am sorry, gentlemen. But I am unable to assist you in this matter."
He began to rise from his seat, and reached for the door-handle.
"You what!" Lafferty's voice was a yelp of outrage.
"I can be of no service to you whatsoever."
Holmes opened the door and stepped from the carriage. I scrambled after him and stood beside him on the pavement.
Inspector Lafferty leaned from the coach and said, his voice mingling incredulity with scorn, "Have I been talking to Sherlock Holmes?"
"You have been. I now must ask you to permit me to bid you a good evening."
He bowed to the men in the carriage, turned, and made for the hotel. He was forced to wait for an instant as the sandwich-man with the puffery for the philocular chop-house proprietor I had observed earlier passed by on yet another lap of his nightly rounds. Before Holmes and I could gain the shelter of the lobby, a bellow from Lafferty halted us.
"Wait a minute! You can't just turn us down like this! We've come to you because of your world-wide reputation! Mr. McGraw's explained the seriousness of the—"
With an icy manner that told me of the pain he was concealing, Holmes turned and said, "I'm afraid I have nothing further to say to you."
Lafferty was now leaning out of the carriage, carried away by honest rage. "Well, I've got something to say to you, Mister!"
"Inspector!" McGraw's voice was hoarse with embarrassment, and he plucked futilely at the policeman's sleeve.
"When the crime's found out, and it's learned it could lead to a world war—"
"Inspector, please! Shh!"
"—and Sherlock Holmes knew about it and wouldn't lift a finger to assist the police . . . what's everyone going to think—"
McGraw, clearly agonized both at the noisy scene being made and the thought of what passers-by might guess at from it, called quickly up to his coachman, "Drive on!"
The vehicle started with a jerk that dumped Lafferty back into his seat but did not stay his tirade. "—of Sherlock Holmes then?" That was the last we heard of him as the carriage trundled off and was lost to view. I did not dare to look at Holmes' face in that moment. I had seen him tried sorely, but never humiliated to his face without the possibility of defending himself. As I followed him up the broad flight of marble stairs off the lobby to our room, I found myself fuming at the Inspector's savage attack.
"The scoundrel!" I muttered. "How dare he?"
Holmes' voice was soft and emotionless. "Now do you understand what I meant when I spoke of being manipulated? Now do you fully appreciate the art, the genius, of this Napoleon of crime?"
"What Napoleon are you talking about?" I fear that my mind was battered by the succession of bombshells exploded against it that evening, and for a moment the meaning of my friend's not very difficult metaphor eluded me. "Oh! Well, he's had his Austerlitz and Marengo, but I dare say Moscow and Waterloo are—"
Holmes slapped his right fist in the open palm of his left hand. "He knew those mutilated tickets would bring me to New York—and contrived, by the Devil's luck or shrewd intelligence work, to travel on the very same ship! He knew I would be at the theater tonight, and that the announcement of Irene Adler's 'indisposition' would make me rush to her home, so that he could deliver that note to me!"
Outside our room, numbered 215, although it was on the first story above the lobby—Americans, I believe, count the ground floors of their buildings as the first, which makes little sense—Holmes drew a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. Before turning it, he addressed me yet again.
"He knew that Inspector Lafferty would be waiting for me here at the hotel, would enlist my aid in the recovery of the gold—and that, because of Scott Adler, I would be forced to refuse to offer it."
Inside the room, after having tossed aside his hat and shrugged out of his opera cloak, he sank dejectedly into a chair and continued his monologue.
"Every single thing Moriarty promised that night in London has come true! The crime of the
century has been committed. And I am helpless to do anything about it!"
I carefully folded my cloak and placed it in the wardrobe, draped the tailcoat over a chair, as the hotel valet would need to sponge and press it in the morning, undid my carefully knotted tie, and let out a sigh of relaxation as I removed my front collar stud, allowing the collar's two crimped ends to spring apart like the tips of an unstrung bow and the two halves of my starched shirt bosom to part company. I had been too keyed up to be aware of it, but full evening dress is not the most comfortable of uniforms for such activity as Holmes and I had undertaken that night.
"Then you think," said I, "that Moriarty made off with all that gold?"
"And with Scott Adler, I'm convinced of it!" I was willing to credit the Professor with the will to undertake any kind of villainy, but was not yet convinced of all points in this case. For one thing, moving that amount of gold seemed to me more a job for a firm of carters than for a master criminal; for another . . .
"What the deuce can he do with all that bullion?" I asked Holmes.
"You heard McGraw. He can bring the nations of the world to the brink of a war that would engulf the planet."
"Well, but what good's a world war to Moriarty?"
"None to him, or anyone, of course—it's the prevention of it! With mankind poised over the abyss of unimaginable devastation, Professor Moriarty will come forward, reveal that the gold is in his possession, and that the world's bankrupt nations are in his power! Moriarty, ruler of the world! The crime of all centuries to come? Indeed it is, Watson, indeed it is! And I?"
Eyes glaring like those of a trapped eagle, he snatched the note from his pocket and held it up in a clenched hand. Its pallid hue seemed to infuse the air with the menace of Professor Moriarty's evil presence.
Holmes' voice was almost cracking with fury and self-contempt as he cried, "I am powerless to circumvent it!"
He crumpled the note and dashed it to the floor, then rushed from the sitting-room into the bedroom. I stooped to retrieve the wad of paper, smoothed it, and placed it on a table. It was evidence, after all, and it made no sense to destroy it. I sighed, grieved at my friend's trouble—and concerned for the dreadful repercussions that Moriarty's audacious enterprise might bring about—and set to work on removing the last of the studs from my shirt. I have always, in taking studs from a dress-shirt, tried to leave the stiffly starched surface unmarred; a legacy, I suppose, from my student days, when laundry charges loomed very large in a limited budget, and a stiff-bosomed shirt spared for a second wearing meant a distinct savings. That is not a consideration now, but I take a modest pride in maintaining my skill. I was, therefore, somewhat vexed when a discordant noise from the bedroom startled me as I was easing the stud out, and caused me to wrench it loose, crumpling and distorting the stiffened fabric around the button-hole. Sherlock Holmes was at his blessed violin again, not drawing from it the gay, smooth sounds that had enlivened the ship's concert, but those harsh scrapings, growlings, whines, and eerie drones that he made it produce when improvising to fit his mood. As always, something in the sound jangled deep in my being, making me first uneasy, then distinctly edgy, and finally positively short-tempered.
I rose and passed by the open bedroom door, clearing my throat ostentatiously, in the hope that Holmes would take the hint and desist. He paid no attention, and the noise continued. He was hunched over the instrument, sawing away with an abstracted glare in his eyes, and a flood of impatience with the whole business—Moriarty, Irene Adler, the wretched bricks of gold, Holmes' moods—welled up in me.
I stood in the bedroom doorway and said sternly, "Holmes!"
He looked up, his eyebrows raised in an expression of surprise, said, "Yes?"—and, thank goodness, ceased playing.
"Forgive me for saying so, Holmes," I ventured, letting the words come in a rush, "but if you're prepared to—to sit there and . . . fiddle while the world goes up in smoke, well, then, your precious Professor Moriarty deserves to sit on his mountain of gold and—and—tell the rest of us to go jump!"
I was aware, as I strode away from the bedroom, that I had not been totally coherent or reasoned, but at least I had, for once, let Mr. Sherlock Holmes know pretty clearly how I felt! However, when I heard him enter the sitting-room behind me, and turned to face him, I confess that I felt rather abashed at my show of pique.
Holmes, holding his violin and bow loosely, looked at me with what appeared to be respectful interest. If he was, perhaps, amused at my outburst, at least he no longer wore the tragic expression that had been his for so many hours.
"Well," said I. "Well . . . I've never made any bones about what that infernal fiddle does to my nerves!"
"It's quite all right," said Sherlock Holmes. "You've no need to apologize, Watson. Indeed, it is I— Hello!"
He had stiffened, and was looking out the window that gave on to the street, nostrils flared and eyes ablaze, his whole form possessing that eager tension which resembles that of a hunting dog at the point.
"What . . . have . . . we . . . here?" he enunciated slowly.
I crossed to stand beside him, my long experience with him and his work prompting me to stand to one side of the window, and peered into the street. On the opposite side, the sandwich-man for the chop-house whom I had taken note of twice during the evening was leaning against a wall. Though he was at some distance, the lurid eye on the sign was unmistakable.
"What is it, Holmes?" I asked.
"That man down there is watching this room. I saw him twice this evening, marching up and down with his signboards."
"I saw him, too. But—watching us, is he? I wonder what he's up to?"
"I can tell you that, Watson!" cried Holmes, an almost feverish touch of color staining his pale cheeks. "He's wondering what we're up to!" He turned away from the window. "My dear friend, I owe you a profound debt of gratitude!"
"Come now, Holmes," said I, feeling quite ill at ease.
"I do, Watson, I do! Had you not reprimanded me as you did, I should have gone on doing exactly what you accused me of doing: fiddling while the world burned! Moriarty would, indeed, have won the day. But you broke the spell, my friend, and washed my mind clear as a sparkling brook!"
He was truly out of the dumps now, pacing the room from end to end, fairly crackling with energy and enthusiasm.
"Why are we being watched, Watson? Ask yourself that question!"
"Well, there's no need to. You just asked it."
"And I'll answer it. If Moriarty's plan is so perfect—if I am thought to be helpless, destroyed, unable to fight him—as indeed I thought myself until a moment ago—then why is it necessary to have me watched?"
There was triumph, not inquiry, in his voice as he flung out the sentence like a challenge—a challenge to mortal struggle offered to someone not present in that room.
Chapter Nine
Though I was beginning to see the direction of Sherlock Holmes' reasoning, I was reluctant to make the same leap to a conclusion.
"Holmes, that's not an answer. It's another question," said I.
"And the answer is: because the plan's not perfect! It has got one single flaw in it, and that man down there has to be there so Moriarty will know at once if I've discovered that flaw!"
"Well, and have you?"
Holmes looked almost gleeful. "Yes, but he's not going to find that out! Watson, what is it that prevents my assisting the police?"
"Why, the lad's safety, of course."
"Of course! So long as Scott Adler remains Moriarty's captive, my hands are tied! His life hangs upon my inactivity. But, Watson—what if the lad were snatched from Moriarty's claws, and set free?"
It was clear that that would indeed alter matters, but raised a pertinent question, which I put.
"By whom?"
"By us! And in such a way that Moriarty still thinks him held prisoner! If that can be achieved, the manacles fall from my wrists and I am free to turn my attention to the theft of the gold!"
"Easier said than done, I should say."
Holmes' dry manner was precisely that of his old self now. "Yes, Watson, it's what you would say, and indeed what you have said."
He turned and went into the bedroom again, and I wandered over to the window for another cautious look at our watcher. In most circumstances, such a spy would be cause for alarm, but so turned-about was this case that his sinister pretence was in fact the first sign of hope!
I observed him for a moment, and called to the next room, "Chap's still out there. Damp night, too—the pavement's getting slick. He'll have a nice touch of rheumatism by morning, and I wish him joy of it! Holmes, you're not going to start up on that wretched fiddle again, are you—? Oh!"
For I turned to see Sherlock Holmes coming into the sitting-room clad in his purple dressing-gown, holding his massive pipe and the bulging tobacco pouch he carried with him on his journeys, the knife-transfixed Persian slipper which usually served that purpose being traditionally unremovable from Baker Street and, in any case, not practical for traveling.
"We're in for one of those sessions, are we?" said I.
"Precisely."
Holmes gathered a number of cushions from the chairs in the sitting-room and placed them in a pile on the sofa. Seating himself cross-legged on this heap, he opened the pouch and poured out a conical pile of tobacco on to the low table in front of him, then set about methodically tamping pinches of it into the bowl of the pipe.
"Don't let me detain you, Watson," he said. "I expect this is a four-pipe problem, at the very least."
The pipe filled to his satisfaction, he struck a match on the polished surface of the table, leaving a scar—I calculated that would add a shilling or so, or "bits" as I believe the local term is, to our bill at the end or our stay—and sucked the flame hungrily down into the packed tobacco. As the first smoke trickled into his mouth, his face assumed the tranquil, immobile look of one in a trance, a look which, I knew of old, signaled absolute concentration on the matter at hand.
