The Seventh Bullet

by Daniel D Victor

  “You see,” Holmes was saying as they all reached Mrs. Frevert and me, “here are my friends, just as I explained: Mrs. Carolyn Frevert and Dr. John Watson.”

  The detective pushed his bowler up at the front of the brim so that the hat rested precariously on the back of his head. He eyed both me and Mrs. Frevert, rubbed his chin, and returned the walking stick to Sherlock Holmes.

  “Okay,” he said, “I guess you really are who you said you are. But you can’t be too careful when you find somebody running down the street like that. I’m Detective Ryan. Detective Flannelly of the Central Office told me you’d be here in Gramercy Park nosing around and asking questions about a case he worked last year.”

  “The Phillips assassination,” a ruffled Holmes muttered.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know all about it,” Ryan said. “I got a call from the D.A. himself. And he got a call from Sagamore Hill. There ain’t too much that escapes us, you know.”

  Detective Ryan offered us perfunctory sympathies for being shot at and then, noting the cold, recommended that we return to Mrs. Frevert’s flat since it was close by. He talked all the way back to Nineteenth Street, complaining about the rising rate of crime in the neighbourhood and suggesting that we were probably just another set of victims, no doubt the unlucky targets of some armed thief who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Phillips case. Only a slightly upturned curl of the lips revealed Holmes’s impatience; it was an expression I had seen numerous times in our many frustrating encounters with Lestrade. I knew Holmes would not be looking forward to any further confrontations with Lestrade’s American “cousin.”

  No such opportunity immediately presented itself, however, for as soon as we had restored Mrs. Frevert to her lodgings and removed our own heavy coats, a loud pounding on the door made it rattle on its highes. The resounding rap sent the white cat, who had just arrived to greet us, leaping to the tall, stand-up writing desk of dark mahogany in the corner of the room. Detective Ryan outran the maid to discover the cause of the disturbance.

  It was an out-of-breath Senator Beveridge who confronted us all in the doorway.

  “What’s happened?” he asked between gasps. “Is everyone all right? Carolyn told me last night of your plans to visit the park. But when I arrived to join you, the grounds were nearly deserted. Some stranger told me about hearing a gunshot.”

  “Everyone’s fine, Senator,” replied the detective, who obviously knew Beveridge. I could see Sherlock Holmes surveying the latecomer as the latter entered the sitting room. Was he the person Holmes had been chasing down Lexington Avenue? I wondered, as I introduced my old friend to the man who claimed a similar affection for Phillips.

  “How is it that you’re so winded, Senator?” Ryan then asked.

  “My chauffeur is working for Mr. Holmes here in New York,” Beveridge explained. “I had to run all the way from the park.”

  “And where might the car be?” Ryan asked.

  “It’s parked down the street,” Mrs. Frevert offered. “It’s beyond the building, so we didn’t pass it when we walked by.”

  “Any idea who might want to take a shot at you, Mr. Holmes?” Beveridge asked.

  I was about to describe the man with the false beard when Holmes interrupted me. “No-one in particular,” he said, “although I do have a few general suspicions. It’s quite obvious that someone does not want to see this investigation proceed.”

  Holmes turned to Mrs. Frevert, who was in the process of lifting Ruffle from the desk. His solemn tone, however, caused her to put down the cat and face my friend directly.

  “Mrs. Frevert,” he said slowly, “I believe there can be no doubt now that a conspiracy existed to kill your brother. I believe that it is still at work, as we have witnessed today, to prevent its exposure. Having ascertained that much—or rather, having that much ascertained for us this morning at the risk of our very lives—I hope we can also establish just who it was that must have persuaded Goldsborough to shoot Phillips so publicly. For I am now convinced that another assailant must have stood close by— in all probability, just where our unknown marksman fired from today. Otherwise, Goldsborough could have shot Phillips here on Nineteenth Street. There are many good vantage points. From a window in the Rand School, for example. Instead, he waited until Phillips made himself an easy target for the crossfire of two gunmen. A steady hand with a revolver could easily have fired that elusive seventh bullet.”

  “But no witnesses saw anyone else with a gun,” Beveridge said.

  “When witnesses see an assailant actually shooting someone, they don’t generally look round for others to blame. They concentrate strictly on the person with the weapon. Hence, a second assassin can make his escape while the witnesses are preoccupied with the first.”

  Detective Ryan punctuated Holmes’s explanation with a derisive laugh. “I’ve listened to all this quietly, Mr. Holmes, for despite our outward gruffness, we members of the New York Police Department do spend some time reading, and the adventures of the Sherlock Holmes, as told so entertainingly by Dr. Watson, have earned you a great deal of respect. But here in New York we deal with dangerous brutes, not the tea-and-crumpet variety of criminals you’re used to in England. And we don’t go in for theorising when speculation isn’t needed.”

  “What about Jack the Ripper?” my patriotic duty forced me to ask. “He was as beastly as any killer in the world.”

  “What about him?” Ryan retorted. “Scotland Yard never caught the man, did they? Nor did you, Dr. Watson, if I’m not mistaken.” The detective then turned to Holmes. “If you’re so smart, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, explain how these conspirators would be able to convince their pigeon to give himself up or—as in the case of Goldsborough—to shoot himself to death before a captive audience in Gramercy Park?”

  “That’s the genius of it, Ryan,” Holmes said. “It all hinged on finding a person angry and deranged enough to follow a plan. Perhaps a form of hypnosis was employed or a strong drug—to convince the assassin that, for the greatest glory, suicide would be his crowning achievement.”

  “Commissioner Roosevelt warned us, Mr. Holmes, that you’d be snooping into long-buried matters,” Ryan said. “But I don’t think even a former president of these United States could imagine the story you have concocted. Hypnosis—what a laugh!”

  I expected Ryan to leave at that point; instead, however, he opened his brown coat and produced from it a folded, yellowing envelope. “Still,” he said, “we were told to co-operate with you from very high sources—which is the only reason I would ever consent to letting you see our file on the murder of David Graham Phillips.”

  He handed the envelope to Holmes, who motioned for me to join him in perusing its contents.

  “Use my brother’s desk, gentlemen,” Mrs. Frevert suggested, indicating the writing desk. Its gently sloping top currently occupied by the Sphinx-like Ruffle whose front paws were tucked under his chest, the desk looked much like a draughtsman’s table.

  “I could never write at such a contraption,” I observed.

  “Actually, Doctor,” Mrs. Frevert explained, “you might be interested to know that Graham used it for reasons of health. He feared an appendicitis from stooping over, and he thought the ‘old black pulpit’—as he called it—could prevent that from happening. In fact, that desk over there travelled with him around the world.”

  “Remarkable” was all I could bring myself to respond.

  In the meantime, after sending Ruffle on his way, Holmes had splayed across the desktop in question the contents of the envelope Ryan had given him and bade me join in their scrutiny. Upon examination, the pages proved to be the official police report including the testimony of the witnesses who had observed the sad affair. In brief, the file added nothing more than a few new names to what we’d already learned. Newton James and Frank Davis were the two members of the Princeton Club who had witnessed the shooting. The former was a broker; the latter, a mining engineer. They were some hundred feet away, and both
agreed that they had heard six reports when Phillips was shot. They said nothing of another gunman (although, of course, their attention was directed at giving immediate aid to Phillips), not to mention the ghastly coda of Goldsborough’s own self-immolation. Jacob Jacoby, a florist in the neighbourhood, who happened to be walking past, joined James and Davis in helping Phillips into the Princeton Club where they all waited until the ambulance arrived. The coroner reported six wounds including those in the chest and bowels. The police report identified a ten-chamber revolver and a dead assassin, killed by a single bullet from the same pistol. There was no mention of Algernon Lee. He was the witness Mrs. Frevert had told us about who had called the gun a “six-shooter,” the vernacular appelation that, if accurate, rendered impossible the total of seven wounds, including the fatal blast to Goldsborough’s head.

  “And how do you explain the omission of any reference to a six-chambered revolver?” Holmes asked the detective.

  Ryan removed the bowler from his head and began fingering the hat’s inner band. “It don’t bother me, Mr. Holmes. Six bullets. Seven bullets. Maybe the doctors counted where a bullet entered and exited as two entrances. Who knows? We got the killer—that’s all that matters.”

  “Perhaps,” said Holmes as he returned the report to the detective who was now preparing to leave.

  No sooner had the door closed on the three police officers than Holmes said to me, “The police may not have any use for Mr. Algernon Lee, Watson, but you and I are going to pay him a visit. His address is, after all, just across the road. And once we speak to him, I think a visit to Bellevue Hospital might be in order.”

  We paid our respects to Mrs. Frevert, who snatched up Ruffle to prevent him from bolting through the open door. Then, after making final plans with Beveridge for our meeting in the nation’s capital early the following day, we left the National Arts Club and traversed the simple roadway separating so much more than mere brick buildings.

  If the late Karl Marx had wanted to illustrate what he regarded as the basis for class struggle, he could not have found a better study in contrasts than these two residences: 119 East Nineteenth Street, the opulent home of Phillips on one side of the street; 112 East Nineteenth Street, the modest brownstone of his assassin on the other. The latter was not rundown by any means, but it certainly lacked the plush fittings and fixtures of the building across the way. To those myopic experts on wrongdoing who, in seeking to blame the origins of crime on the influence of evil neighbourhoods, can seemingly ignore the differences that exist directly opposite each other, I might easily say “Let them come to East Nineteenth Street!”

  Algernon Lee was the secretary of the Rand Club, a society of New York Socialists. Although I offer no sympathy to any of that ilk who preach the downfall of an economic system that has brought justice and civilisation to most of the world, I must confess to having found Mr. Lee a most affable gentleman. Balding and bespectacled, he looked like a public school headmaster. What’s more, he seemed most pleased to help us shed light on a mystery that, as he put it, had never been satisfactorily resolved.

  “Understand, Mr. Holmes,” he said in his office of papers and books wedged into every possible recess, “I never actually saw Goldsborough’s pistol.”

  “Then what makes you so positive that it had six chambers?” I asked. “I believe you described it as a ‘six-shooter.’”

  “That’s correct, Dr. Watson. I used that term because it was the one I heard the police say over and over. I am not familiar with firearms as a rule, and I couldn’t possibly be expected to make up such an expression.”

  “Just when did you hear them talk about the pistol?” Holmes asked.

  Lee removed his round spectacles to rub his eyes. In the process, he seemed to be remembering. “The night of the killing,” he said after repositioning the glasses, “the police swarmed all over this place. Two assistant District Attorneys, Ruben and Strong, led the investigation, but uniformed officers were stationed throughout the building. Goldsborough lived in the back. He was merely renting the room, you see. He had no political or social ties with our organisation whatsoever. But the agents of the corporate state must be thorough in their investigations of those who threaten the status quo, and as a result they interviewed most everyone who lives here. George Kirkpatrick lived next to Goldsborough, but even George didn’t have much to say about him. Oh, Goldsborough used to complain about being followed or not being appreciated or not having enough money—although on that score he kept reminding us that he would soon be getting some. But no-one could have possibly guessed that he would kill anybody.”

  “The pistol, Mr. Lee,” Holmes reminded him, “the pistol.”

  “Ah, yes. Please, forgive me. I have a tendency to digress. I was sitting in my office making some notes for a lecture I was scheduled to give. Two police detectives—I don’t know their names—were talking in the hallway just beyond my door. One said that Goldsborough had used a ‘six-shooter,’ and the other laughed and said, ‘Who did he think he was, Wild Bill Hickok?’”

  “If that is the case, Mr. Lee,” I asked, “then why would the press say the gun held ten bullets?”

  “A good question, Dr. Watson,” Lee replied. “I’m only reporting what I heard, but one of my associates has suggested that to protect their own class, the capitalists wanted to fix the blame for Phillips’s death on a single gunman. Since a six-shooter couldn’t fire seven bullets, the police—or the people who control the police—would have to concoct a weapon that could have done all the damage itself. Ergo, the ten-chambered revolver. Mind you, this is pure conjecture, but it is indeed a plausible theory, don’t you think?”

  As he asked this question, he raised his head so that the light from the overhead lamp reflected in his glasses and concealed his eyes.

  Since it was obvious that the query required no answer and since it was equally obvious that its implications would remain unspoken, Holmes thanked Algernon Lee for his time and got up to leave. I rose to join him; but just before we reached the door, Lee stopped us.

  Surprisingly, it was I he addressed. “If you ever write up this story, Dr. Watson,” he said, “Please do one thing: please be so kind as to impress upon your readers that—guilty or innocent— Fitzhugh Coyle Goldsborough was never one of us. He was never a Socialist. Good Lord, he was one of the Goldsboroughs of Maryland. Need I say any more?”

  A brief drive brought us to the large blocks of buildings overlooking the East River that comprise Bellevue Hospital. White sea birds circled above us in the grey sky to the accompaniment of mighty blasts from the sirens of nearby ships. Not even the confines of a hospital could deaden the sounds from life on the river. We had little time for philosophising, however; we were hoping to meet a number of doctors who had been involved with Phillips after he had been attacked.

  In addition to Phillips’s personal physician, Dr. Eugene Fuller, who had been called to the scene of the shooting, we wished to speak to the team of surgeons—Drs. Donovan, Moses, Wilds, and Dugan—who had examined Phillips’s wounds at the hospital. It was Dr. Wilds, we had been told by Mrs. Frevert, who had accompanied the stricken author in the ambulance. But most of all, we wanted to converse with Dr. John H. Walker and Dr. I.W. Hotchkiss, the two men who had actually performed the surgery on Phillips.

  In fact, we spoke to none of them. Rather, an imperious nurse with heavy jowls referred us to Dr. Milton Farraday, the hospital’s director. He had apparently made it very clear to his staff that all questions concerning the Phillips assassination should be addressed to him.

  “I’m a very busy man, Mr. Holmes,” Dr. Farraday said. He had agreed to speak with us on the run, as it were, pausing in the corridor amidst the clang of metal or glass containers jarred by the nurses who were carrying them from room to room. Robed in a floor-length white coat, he was a tall, hirsute man with a single eyebrow line giving intensity to a demeanour undermined by what is commonly referred to as a wandering eye, an orb not synchronised with its
fellow.

  “I must concern myself with the health of those still living,” Dr. Farraday said, fixing an eye on Holmes, “not waste my time— or allow any members of my staff to waste theirs—by dredging up some year-old murder case that no-one cares about.” Then he turned that eye on me. “Certainly, Dr. Watson, as a medical man, you can understand my position.”

  I muttered something in response that, I trust, sounded sympathetic without denigrating the importance of conferring with the examining doctors. Nonetheless, he refused our request, agreeing only to consult his files on Phillips to answer whatever questions we would put to him as long as they were brief. So brief did he intend his remarks to be, in fact, that he obdurately refused to return to his office, requiring instead an officious nurse to bring him the appropriate hospital records right there in the corridor.

  “Please, keep it short,” he reminded us, glancing at his watch and then nervously scanning the passageway. He seemed to be searching for eavesdroppers.

  “A single question, Dr. Farraday,” Holmes said. “How do you explain seven bullet wounds in Mr. Phillips and Mr. Goldsborough caused by a revolver with only six chambers?”

  “Oh, that is your line of enquiry, is it?” Farraday said. Exhaling deeply, he seemed to relax a bit. “See the police then. Don’t talk to me. The nature of the weapon is not the hospital’s concern.”

  “We’ve already done so, Doctor. They’ve told us nothing new.”

  “Look, Mr. Holmes, that shooting was over a year ago. My memory is hazy. Phillips was brought in here, as I recall, one afternoon and died late the following night. We spent all that time trying to revive him. All kinds of people wandered in and out of his room, important people.”