World's Greatest Sleuth!

by Steve Hockensmith

  Yet though Old Red snapped and snarled as much as that badger might while our tailor Mr. Cohn got him gussied up, he stood still for it. Maybe it was the fact that Cohn—a hunchbacked old fellow ever muttering around a mouthful of pins—had to spend so much time poking needles into his “inseam” to get the fit just right. Or maybe he just wasn’t awake enough to kick up a fuss: Two straight days of the collywobbles on the train had left him weary and worn, and he’d spent the afternoon catching up on his sleep in the dingy hotel that was serving as contest HQ.

  Once he was betuxed, Gustav just stood in the corner of our little room as stiff as his own starched collar while Cohn moved on to me. When Cohn was done, Smythe begrudgingly paid him, begrudgingly ushered us out of the hotel, begrudgingly hailed a hansom, and—once he’d begrudgingly packed himself into the cab with us—seemed to begrudge us every breath of air we stole from his lungs.

  “You don’t seem very enthused for a feller on his way to a free dinner,” I said as we clip-clopped north.

  We were jammed into that cab like three peas in a two-pea pod, and Smythe had to do some writhing just to look at me.

  “Why should I be enthused? You heard the questions that wretched Larson woman was asking this afternoon. It’s sure to be more of the same tonight. And if Armstrong Curtis is there as well?”

  Smythe shivered.

  “Have some faith, friend,” I said. “Me’n’my brother might make a better impression than you think. And ain’t it in the lady’s interest to make us look good? Wouldn’t reflect well on the contest if we was just a couple yokels, and it’s her bosses sponsorin’ the thing.”

  “Co-sponsoring,” Smythe corrected. “Everyone but Eugene Valmont had to pay their way into the competition. Three thousand dollars each—and now the damned Frenchman’s winning!”

  “Oh, that’s just for today. Tomorrow I betcha we’ll—”

  “Why didn’t Valmont ante up?” Old Red cut in.

  Up to then, he’d just been watching the city streets slide past with a sour glower upon his face. Now he turned away from the elevated trains and overloaded drays and clogged sidewalks and gray buildings and leaned forward to look past me at Smythe.

  “We wanted contestants from abroad. Professionals. Policemen,” Smythe explained. “To legitimize the competition. We couldn’t very well ask them to come all this way and give us money they probably don’t have.”

  “Was it the same with Pinkerton?” Gustav asked. “You needed him to ‘legitimilize’ things?”

  Smythe nodded glumly. “We thought it would shore up our credibility. Detectives don’t get much more real than the Pinkertons. And it’s not like they couldn’t use our help, what with all the anti-Pinkerton rabble-rousing in the yellow press these days. That’s why it was such a shock to see Armstrong Curtis in charge of the contest. You’d almost think Pinkerton wanted to turn the whole thing into—”

  “A trap,” my brother said.

  “I was going to say ‘circus,’ but … oh, God. You’re right. It does feel like a trap, doesn’t it? If Pinkerton wanted to crush us for good, he couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity!”

  “Oh, come now,” I chided. “Why would William Pinkerton want to—?”

  I didn’t even get to finish. Smythe buried his face in his hands and started sobbing.

  “I’m dooooooooooomed!”

  “Hmm” was all Old Red had to say to that. His work done, he turned back to the window and said no more for the rest of the ride. Which left it to me to hand our patron a hankie and pat him on the back and generally behave like a human being until he could pull himself together.

  Smythe had only just snuffed his last sniffle when we came to a stop before Rector’s Restaurant. Even from outside, it was obvious this was a far cry from the gristle-and-beans lunch counters my brother and I were used to. A long red carpet stretched out from doors held open by greatcoated valets, and candlelight shimmered softly in the lattice-glass windows. Inside, I could see, all the ladies were in evening gowns and all the men in tuxedos or black tails … even the busboys.

  Gustav followed me and Smythe in with slow, hesitant steps, as if we were leading him into a snake pit rather than the city’s swankiest eatery. Yet though he was still wearing his tinted spectacles—he never took the things off, no matter how dim the light—I knew it wasn’t just poor eyesight that was slowing him. I couldn’t help but think the same thing he was: that it must be obvious how little we belonged there. Any second, I reckoned, some freshly stuffed plutocrat would wave us over to clear his dishes.

  After a few words with the maître d’ (and it soothed me somewhat that I knew what a maître d’ was), we were led through the restaurant and up a set of stairs to a private room on the second floor. Here we found the dinner party already under way.

  Or the dinner, at any rate. “Party” would suggest gaiety and laughter, and the gathering we walked in on was about as festive as a Baptist wake.

  Everyone was gathered around a long table set with a dizzying array of plates, bowls, goblets, glasses, and so much elaborate silverware I wouldn’t have been surprised had George Hearst clawed his way from the grave to stake a claim to it. One didn’t just see all these beautiful settings, either—one heard them, for every clink of metal or glass against china seemed to crack like thunder in the awkward silence hanging over most of the room.

  Of all those present (and I saw nearly everyone who’d been up on the bandstand that afternoon), only King Brady was talking. The handsome young “monarch of the New York detectives” had my preferred seat—the one next to Diana Crowe—and he was blathering away at the lady about the time he fought off a gang of bank robbers with his feet tied together, a blindfold over his eyes, and an orphan tucked under each arm. Or something like that. I was gratified to see the look of dubious boredom on Diana’s lovely face—and even more gratified when she spotted me and Gustav and smiled. It was a small smile, though, and one she tucked away fast with a glance at her father.

  “Ahhhh, so glad you could join us,” said our host—Boothby Greene’s publisher, Blackheath-Murray. At least I assumed it was Blackheath-Murray. I’d noticed the fleshy, middle-aged, mustache-sporting gent standing next to Greene in the gazebo that afternoon, and he was at the head of the table now. Beside him was an empty seat, and the only contestant I didn’t see in the room was Greene himself. “I hope you’ll forgive us for beginning the préludes without you.”

  “Of course, of course,” Smythe mumbled as he claimed the free spot next to the man.

  That left three chairs for Old Red and me to choose from, and it was obvious why Smythe hadn’t wanted any of them for himself. They were at the opposite end of the table, clustered around William Pinkerton and Armstrong B. Curtis.

  Once we had ourselves seated—Gustav next to Curtis, me between my brother and a sullen Colonel Crowe—there was a quick round of introductions. Most everyone we’d already encountered in one way or another, including the French sleuth Valmont and lady journalist Lucille Larson. So that left only one person I didn’t already know to put a name to: the flashy-dressed swell who’d whispered to Smythe about being “stabbed in the back” by Pinkerton that afternoon. He, it turned out, was one Frank Tousey, publisher of New York Detective Library, King Brady’s magazine. His neck had to be stuck out as far as Smythe’s, money-wise, and though he was doing no blubbering about it you could see the strain. The fellow was throwing down champagne like he was trying to douse a fire in his belly.

  “So where’s Mr. Greene?” I asked once all the unenthused how-dos were out of the way.

  “Delayed, I’m afraid,” Blackheath-Murray said. “He’ll be along shortly, though.”

  A silver bucket sat on a stand near the table, and Curtis lurched to his feet and snatched a bottle from it.

  “Still,” he said, and just from that one word I could tell he’d been matching Tousey chug for chug, “there’s no use waiting any longer for our first toast.”

  He sloshed
fizzy gold into the tall, narrow glasses before me and Gustav, and after refilling his own with the last foamy drops, he plopped the bottle back into the bucket upside down.

  “To the World’s Greatest Sleuth!” he said, raising his champagne high.

  The rest of us reached for our glasses—Old Red almost upending his in the process. Between the restaurant’s dim light and his own dark spectacles, it was a wonder he could even see the thing in the first place, let alone get a hand around it.

  “The World’s Greatest Sleuth,” everyone repeated, and me and Gustav finally got our first taste of champagne. To my considerable disappointment, it was basically ginger ale without the bite.

  Curtis waited till everyone was midslurp to finish his toast.

  “May he rest in peace!”

  He flashed a demented grin, then drained his glass.

  A waiter appeared out of nowhere to replace the bottle our Puzzlemaster had emptied, while another swooped in to place plates before Old Red and Smythe and me. On each was a single puff of flaky pastry sandwiching something brown and gooey that oozed out over the sides.

  This, apparently, was the préludes.

  “Cassolette d’escargots au beurre persille,” Valmont said, and he kissed the tips of his fingers.

  “Oh. Uh. Lovely. One of my favorites.”

  I speared the thing with my fork and popped it into my mouth. It wasn’t bad, though perhaps a tad slimier than the steak and potatoes I would have preferred.

  Old Red just let his be. In fact, he seemed reluctant to so much as touch the cutlery lest he be accused of trying to pocket it.

  “Tell me, Brady,” Curtis said as he refilled his glass again. “That robbery ring you were describing to Miss Crowe a moment ago. The one you broke up single-handed. I’ve been following all your recent cases quite closely, but that one isn’t familiar to me.”

  “That’s because it hasn’t appeared in the magazine yet. It’ll be in next month’s issue. The title’s ‘The Adventure of the Silver Dwarf.’ ”

  Brady spoke with such breezy ease I had to conclude this particular King had no clothes when it came to detecting: He hadn’t even noticed that Curtis was baiting him.

  His publisher didn’t miss it, though. Tousey was giving Curtis the kind of look you see on a cat just before it spits at you.

  “Well, it’s an incredible story,” Curtis said. “Truly in … credible. So many narrow escapes! So much derring-do!” He put on a rueful expression and shook his head. “I’m afraid that sort of thing won’t help you much this week, though.”

  “That’s too bad,” Brady replied with a cocky shrug. “Because it’s not all puzzles and ciphers out in the real world. Nine times out of ten, it’s pure muscle that wins the day.”

  “That sounds more like your philosophy, Mr. Pinkerton,” Lucille Larson said. Her tone was languid, detached, even as her gaze bored into the man like an auger. “When it comes to strikebreaking, at least.”

  Pinkerton looked pained.

  “Force has its place,” he said, “but I believe what I said in my speech this afternoon. The most important components of true detective work are diligence and professionalism, plain and simple.”

  “Ohhhhh, much too plain! Much too sim-PELL!” Valmont protested. On his blocky face was an eyeball-bulging expression that conveyed either surprise or an overexcess of coffee consumption. “You are not descri-BING a sleuth. You are descri-BING a ban-KARE. A druggist. A shoe sellsman.”

  “Precisely,” Pinkerton said. “At the end of the day, there’s little that separates the successful detective from the successful businessman.”

  “Lee-tell? Lee-tell? Ohhhhhh, there is so much that sep-a-rates them. It is infinite what sep-a-rates them! Yet it is all contain-ED here.” The Frenchman tapped the side of his head. “Imagination. Vision. To see not just the pee-says on the chessboard but the invisible pattern of their porpoise.”

  Valmont snatched up a salt shaker and zigzagged it through the air.

  “Why does the rook go wee-wee-wee?”

  He slammed the salt down in front of a startled Blackheath-Murray, then grabbed a roll and whipped it this way and that, sending crumbs flying.

  “Why does the knight go zeeeee-blow, zeeeee-blow?”

  The roll was flattened in front of Miss Larson’s plate. Then it was a stray fork’s turn to fly.

  “To what end does the queen go vish-vash!”

  Valmont plopped the fork into Blackheath-Murray’s ice water, then moved a pop-eyed stare slowly around the table.

  “The sleuth will look about himself and ask, ‘Why are these pawns and kings doing what they do? Are the pawns really pawns and the kings really kings? Indeed, can one even say what game they truly play?’ To dis-en-tingle all this … it is the greatest game of all!”

  “Piffle!” Colonel Crowe scoffed. “Detective work isn’t some diversion for our amusement. It’s life and death, and all that matters is getting the job done and done right. Only amateurs and fools take it lightly.”

  He might have been rebuffing Valmont, yet by the time he finished he was glaring at me and Gustav.

  Other than the toast to Holmes, my brother hadn’t made a sound since we’d sat down. Now, though, he wheezed out something whispery and incomprehensible.

  He coughed and tugged at his collar and tried again.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, sir,” he said. “I may still be an amateur, as you figure it, but I take detectivin’ as serious as anyone at this table. I been makin’ a study on it for some time now—and been through one calamity after another for my trouble. This much I’ve learned, though: You can’t boil sleuthin’ down to a simple set of rules and homilies and expect that to get you to the truth or justice or whatever you wanna call it.”

  “I’m surprised to hear that from you, Old Red,” Curtis said. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost your faith in Mr. Holmes.”

  “Not in the Man, exactly. But I’ve come to have my doubts about followin’ in his footsteps. I ain’t so sure anymore another feller could do what he done. Outside of a magazine, anyhow.”

  Curtis aimed one of his big sickle-blade grins at King Brady and Frank Tousey. “On that much, at least, we’re entirely in agreement.”

  “I, on the other hand, beg to differ,” someone said from across the table, and when I glanced that way I was surprised to see it was one of the waiters.

  He was an olive-skinned fellow with a thick black beard—a Greek or Turk by the look of him—and after sliding a mixture of greens, cheese, and what seemed like sagebrush in front of Pinkerton, he shocked us all by sliding himself into the empty seat to the man’s right.

  “I’m sorry to hear your faith has been shaken, Mr. Amlingmeyer,” he said. “Let me assure you, however: Sherlock Holmes’s spirit remains very much alive. His intellect. His love of a challenge.”

  The waiter scratched at his beard high up near his left ear. A little strip of skin and hair seemed to come loose, and the man pinched at the dangling flap and peeled it away.

  “His flair for theatrics…”

  In a moment, the waiter’s whole beard was gone, and with a few swipes of a napkin most of his swarthy darkness had smeared away as well.

  What remained was Boothby Greene.

  There were gasps and stunned laughs, and Curtis even applauded.

  “You been servin’ us the whole time?” asked Old Red, looking so awestruck you’d have thought Holmes himself had just materialized before us like Jesus appearing to the apostles.

  Greene gave him a nod. “Soup to nuts—or escargot to salade de chèvre chaud, at any rate. I do hope you’ll all forgive my childishness. I have a weakness for the dramatic, and I put on such a poor showing this afternoon I couldn’t resist a little prank to even the score.” He offered Curtis a small bow. “Unofficially, of course.”

  Curtis bowed back. “Too bad I won’t be awarding bonuses for clever charades, Mr. Greene. You wouldn’t be the only one to pick up a few extra points.”
/>   “What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank Tousey said.

  He’d never stopped glowering down the table at Curtis, and even Greene’s little floor show hadn’t wiped the frown from his face. The man was a wick soaked in alcohol, and now it took but the slightest spark to light him up.

  “You’ll find out,” Curtis said.

  Tousey swung himself toward Pinkerton before finally exploding.

  “What’s this all about? We came to you because we wanted this thing to have some kind of integrity, and what do you do? Hand us over to the very loon who’d like nothing better than to show us all up as frauds!”

  “If you want to convince people your ‘sleuths’ are real,” Pinkerton grated out, “who better to test them than the man who proved Nick Carter doesn’t—?”

  “Oh, please!” Tousey howled. “A stupid schoolboy scavenger hunt for a golden egg? That was no test. It was horseshit, pardon my French.”

  “Sir! There are ladies present!” Colonel Crowe protested.

  “Can I quote you on that?” Miss Larson asked Tousey.

  “Actually, en français it would be merde de cheval,” Valmont said.

  Tousey ignored them all.

  “If your little friend there doesn’t stop his insane insinuations—now—I’ve half a mind to sue you for … where do you think you’re going?”

  Pinkerton was pushing back his chair and tossing his napkin onto his plate.

  “I told you this would happen,” he said to Curtis.

  “Yeah.” Curtis nodded eagerly. “Perfect, isn’t it?”

  Pinkerton glowered at him a moment, then stood. “My apologies, Mr. Blackheath-Murray. This was no way to repay your hospitality.” He looked down at Curtis like the man was something unpleasant stuck to the heel of his shoe. “We’re leaving.”

  “Just when it’s getting fun?”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “Alright, fine,” Curtis sighed. “I’ve got an egg to lay anyway.” Instead of standing, though, he turned to the rest of the guests. “Before I go, let me leave you with a few choice morsels to chew on along with your snails and cheese.”