World's Greatest Sleuth!

by Steve Hockensmith

  “The lady said to give you this.”

  It was already torn open, and as we got to rolling southward, I slipped out the card inside and looked it over. It was another clue—the one the Crowes had just found tucked away along the Midway, no doubt. Diana had left it for me in case our own proved too tricky or we jumped to the wrong conclusion.

  I looked over at my brother as his cart flew up the gravel path beside mine.

  “We don’t gotta rely on Major Bacon, after all! We got the Crowes’ clue to crack!”

  “Well, get to crackin’, then!”

  So I did.

  The G___ C_____

  Its cage does not itself entrap,

  for it has no wind-borne wings to flap.

  Neither is it gray or golden hued

  (though its gleam a fortune does imbue).

  It feathers a nest, but not its own;

  just one in the hand could purchase a throne.

  You’ll find its like down man-made hole,

  yet those who dig seek not for coal.

  By now, assuredly, you know its name

  … though why it’s called that, no one can say!

  I didn’t just crack it, it practically came pre-cracked: Like our first clue of the day, this one was laughably easy. What wasn’t so laughter-worthy, though, was the fact that we were headed to the wrong place.

  “Forget the Electricity Building!” I shouted. “The Machinery Building, too! It’s the Liberal Arts Building we want!”

  “But—” Gustav began.

  “I’m tellin’ ya, the egg’s in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building!”

  There wasn’t another “But.” There wasn’t an “Are you sure?” or a “Why?” Old Red just looked back at the young men panting behind us and said, “You heard him. Manufactures and Liberal Arts. Pronto!”

  Not three minutes later, we were sprint-limping through the building as fast as our leather leggings would allow. We were behind most of the others, sure, but that didn’t mean we were out of the running. As we passed collections of porcelain and pottery, medical supplies, musical instruments, photographs, stained glass, and on and on—not to mention what seemed like a million gawping sightseers—the sound of a great, murmuring multitude grew steadily louder. I was leading us the right way … and no one was cheering for a winner yet.

  Then a deafening roar echoed through the massive hall like thunder, and a moment later Major Bacon’s band added to the din. They were playing “The Gladiator,” which told me exactly what to expect when we finally turned off the broad thoroughfare running up the middle of the building and got the Tiffany Pavilion in sight.

  There was the crowd, parted up the middle by low-slung velvet ropes and a small army of Columbian Guards. Halfway up the red carpet that lead to the Tiffany exhibit of jewelry and pearls and precious stones were Diana and Colonel Crowe. Farther on a ways was Eugene Valmont.

  Beyond them all, at the far end of the carpet, was King Brady.

  He was coming down a stepladder set up beside the rotating column of gold atop which had rested, the last time I’d been there, the Tiffany Diamond, otherwise known as “the gray canary.” The gem’s pyramid-shaped glass case was empty now, and Brady had what I knew to be its latest, temporary occupant in his hands.

  When he stepped off the ladder, he held the Egg of Columbus up for all to see, and the crowd hurrahed him again. Then he turned to the cluster of folks waiting for him at the base of the ladder—Frank Tousey, Lucille Larson, Urias Smythe, Blackheath-Murray, a small flock of newspapermen, and three overdressed swells I took to be representatives of Tiffany & Co. of New York.

  With them was William Pinkerton. Brady gave him the egg.

  And with that, the competition to find the World’s Greatest Sleuth ended in a draw. The only thing it had established for certain was who wasn’t the greatest: us.

  Yet though the contest was over, our work wasn’t. We carried on along the carpet, sweeping up the Crowes as we went. The four of us shared some hurried, whispered words before the colonel and Diana slipped under the velvet ropes and disappeared into the crush on the other side. Then my brother and I moved on to Eugene Valmont, each taking him by an arm without stopping.

  “Well done, miz-yer,” Old Red told him.

  “Excusez-moi?” Valmont said, startled to find himself being hustled along between us.

  “You’re in a mighty exclusive club,” I said. “The five greatest sleuths in the world!”

  “What say we go congratulate your newest member?”

  Gustav nodded ahead at Brady, who’d taken to throwing kisses to the crowd between bows.

  “Oh. Naturellement. That would be the sportsmanlike thing to do, yes?”

  “Yup,” said Old Red.

  “Exactemente,” said moi.

  Where the red carpet ended, the Tiffany Pavilion began, and strung out along its borders was more velvet rope. Strung out along that was a mixture of Columbian Guards and hard-eyed men in dark suits, all of them intent on keeping the rabble a safe distance from the treasure-packed cases on display. As we drew up close, two moved out to intercept us, but I kept my eyes locked on William Pinkerton.

  “We have come to concede defeat,” I announced. “May we humble commoners pay homage to the King?”

  The guards looked back at Pinkerton, who gritted his teeth and nodded his head. We were allowed to pass through into the pavilion.

  Brady didn’t notice our approach: He was too busy glad-handing the stuffed shirts while Tousey blocked a photographer who’d set up his tripod nearby.

  “Here you go. Someone else to kiss your ring,” I said, and we deposited Valmont before Brady—then swept past to the stepladder he’d descended but a moment before.

  Gustav started climbing. I turned and planted myself by the bottom step.

  Tousey spun around and lurched toward us. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You ready, Brother?”

  When I got no reply, I threw a quick glance back. Old Red had come around to the far side of the ladder before starting up, so as he stood there, feet three rungs from the top, he was facing our audience: a swollen sea of humanity overflowing into the exhibits and showrooms and galleries all around.

  Gustav opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  There he was. A man who could hardly look a young lady in the eye gazing out at hundreds of them, not to mention their fathers and mothers and brothers and so on. A man who hated pretension and the putting on of airs making a spectacle of himself in a red-and-white leather suit. A man who didn’t care for talking trying to address himself to more people than he’d ever spoken to in his entire life.

  “Get down from there this instant,” Tousey demanded, coming closer. Pinkerton was right behind him, and the guards were taking an interest, too.

  I squared my feet and clenched my fists. “My brother’s got something to say.”

  I just wished he’d hurry up and say it.

  Then, at last, he did.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if you would give me your attention, please! These proceedings are not yet over! There are two important matters that still need to be seen to! One is fraud, and the other, I’m afraid, is murder!”

  33

  TWO BULLS IN THE CHINA SHOP

  Or, My Brother Holds Court and Unmasks a Pretender to the Throne

  There were four hundred and sixty-seven gasps, three hundred and twenty-eight My Gods and Good Lords, ninety-five nervous titters, thirteen screams, and four faintings. More or less.

  There was also one “Don’t just stand there—get him down!” courtesy of Frank Tousey. It was directed at the nearest guards, who turned, to a man, toward William Pinkerton. As did I.

  “Gustav’s laid the cards on the table,” I said. “Best let him play ’em out, wouldn’t you say?”

  Just in case he didn’t get the point, I let my eyes dart to the side, toward the reporters clumped up behind him.

  Pinkerton had his choice of fla
ps: whatever Gustav meant to stir up or the two of us tussling with the guards in the middle of the Tiffany Pavilion, and the contest he’d overseen ending with a million or so dollars in property damage. Either way, the whole world would be watching.

  “He can have his say,” Pinkerton grated out.

  “Thank you, sir,” Old Red said, and then he looked out over the crowd again and got to orating with a boom to his voice I never would’ve guessed he had in him. “Let’s take the fraud first, shall we? A short while ago, everybody in this contest but one went tearin’ straight to the same place: the Midway Plaisance. Our second clues of the day were hidden there. Everyone’s. Includin’ his.” He pointed down at King Brady, who was gaping up at my brother with a strange mixture of hatred and helpless horror on his too-perfect face. “Yet he didn’t hurry out to the Midway right away, as the rest of us did. Nope. We saw him headin’ over to the Wooded Island first. Now, why would he do that?”

  “This is ludicrous!” Brady protested. “I made a mistake, that’s all. I went to the Japanese garden on the island when I should have gone to the Javanese settlement on the Midway. Fortunately, I realized where I’d gone wrong before it was too late.”

  Gustav shook his head. “I might be inclined to believe you if your ‘mistake’ wasn’t so typical. You’ve been takin’ these little detours all week. Why, the first day of the contest, Miss Larson there tells me, you ended up in a … a private spot when you should’ve been runnin’ for your next clue. And then yesterday, I saw you head right back to the very same…” A touch of color came to my brother’s cheeks as he debated the use of the words “privy” or “john” in his debut as a public speaker. “… uhh … location. Which was why you had to switch up and find a new place to go today.”

  “If you won’t shut him up, I will,” Tousey snarled at Pinkerton. Then he turned our way and started a step he never finished.

  My hand was on the butt of my gun. My eyes were on him.

  “Keep goin’, Brother,” I said.

  Gustav cleared his throat and carried on with only the slightest quaver to his voice.

  “It should strike us all a mite strange, friends. All week long, this feller’s been shakin’ hands, takin’ bows, everything but kissin’ babies. Yet when the time comes for the contest, he needs solitude all of a sudden. And anytime a camera’s pointed his way, why, he turns his pretty face away while his publisher jumps in front of the lens. It only makes sense if you put it together with a comment the late, lamented Armstrong B. Curtis made Monday night. Mr. Curtis had done him a little snoopin’ on us sleuths, you see, and he got to droppin’ hints as to what skeletons we had hung up our in closets. ‘Ask Mr. Brady about his birthday,’ he said. Which makes me think Curtis had dug that birthday up somehow, and it didn’t fit with what he found before him. Didn’t fit the man. It did fit someone else here, though … and I think it’s time he stepped forward and came clean.”

  There was a moment of silence that stretched on forever. It didn’t seem possible so many people could stay so quiet so long. With my brother up on a stepladder smoothly sermonizing for a horde of hundreds, though, I suppose it was hardly the time to say what was impossible and what wasn’t.

  “The jig is up, as you yourself have been known to say, sir,” Old Red said, gaze moving slowly over the crowd. “It’d go a long way toward clearin’ all this up if you’d show yourself. Otherwise, what you been up to is gonna get wove in with Mr. Curtis’s death, and I know you wouldn’t wanna make that tangle any worse than it already is.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Tousey said. I didn’t need to remind him to shut up, though. Whatever he might’ve said next would’ve been drowned out by the sound of a thousand gasps.

  A big, burly, bearded man was slipping under the velvet rope and stepping onto the red carpet about forty yards from us. Even from a distance, I recognized him straight off: It was the Unbearded Man, another fake beard in place on his broad face. A couple Columbian Guards took hesitant steps toward him, but my brother waved them back.

  “Let him come on up,” he said. “He should’ve been with us all along.”

  A great wave of murmurings arose as the man came closer, growing louder with his every step. Gustav spoke again just when it seemed no single voice could be heard above the clamor.

  “Do you wanna introduce yourself, or should I?”

  The crowd quieted down.

  The Unbearded Man stopped, feet planted wide, back straight. What with the fuzz over his face and his slouch hat pulled low and a black topcoat wrapped around his body, there was little to see of the real him. Just big hands, thick gray eyebrows, and a piercing stare. That was enough to give you the measure of the man, though. He’d been around a while and been through a thing or two and knew how to handle himself. And he wasn’t happy to be where he was now.

  “I’ll do it,” he said in a deep, gravelly-gruff voice. He turned his head to the side, speaking to the multitudes behind him without fully showing them his face. “I’m King Brady.”

  It was half a minute before the crowd quieted this time.

  “I assume the masquerade was Mr. Tousey’s idea,” Old Red said as the din at last died down.

  “Yes,” Brady said. He was ignoring Tousey, who fumed at him while the other, younger “King Brady” practically cowered behind his back. “In my line of work, it pays to keep your real looks under wraps. My clients see me, of course. My contacts and the police in New York. But that’s it. What they draw in the magazine … that has nothing to do with me, and that’s how I like it. Tousey knew that. And he knew what he wished King Brady looked like. So he found a way for both of us to get what we want.”

  “He hired him a … a…”

  “Proxy,” I whispered.

  “A proxy,” Gustav said. “A Young King Brady to do all the posin’ while the Old King Brady did the real deducifyin’. He picked up the clues, you tried to figure ’em out.”

  King Brady (the old, real one) nodded. “It was risky. If that actor there—and that’s what he is, by the way—if he got his face in the papers, someone back in New York was bound to figure out the truth. With Armstrong Curtis stirring up doubt about all us magazine detectives, I couldn’t afford for that to happen. Tousey assured me it wouldn’t come to that, though. I didn’t see any of this as cheating, by the way. It was still my wits pitted against all of yours. If anything, I put myself at a disadvantage, having to work through someone else.”

  “I reckon you did, Mr. Brady. And I appreciate that you did you a little detectivin’ after Mr. Curtis died. Followin’ Urias Smythe and whatnot. You turn anything up?”

  Brady glanced over at Smythe, who was wearing a blush so deep he looked like an overgrown eggplant. “Nothing I’d care to mention here.”

  “Excuse me,” Lucille Larson said, and she walked over to stare up at my brother from beside me at the foot of the ladder. “Is this where we finally get to the murder, Mr. Amlingmeyer?”

  I glanced back, fearing I’d see Gustav lose his nerve at last. He’d been doing fine facing things safe from his roost, like a man peeking over the top of a rampart, but perhaps one overinquisitive young lady would finally throw him.

  I needn’t have wasted even the half second I spent fretting.

  “Indeed it is, miss,” he said with but a here-and-gone peek down at the lady. He was determined to keep the crowd with him, and he knew (because I’d told him as much) that meant making each and every person there feel like he was talking straight to them, up close and one to one. This he immediately got back to doing.

  “As you probably know, we had us a tragedy the other night. The Mr. Curtis we’ve been speakin’ of—the gentlemen who whipped up the puzzles for this contest—was found dead over to the Agriculture Building. I won’t go into the particulars, so let’s just say it could’ve been an accident, but there was reason to be suspicious, and our friend Mr. Pinkerton and the Chicago Police Department embarked upon an investigation of … admirable subtlety.”


  Our friend Mr. Pinkerton remained stone-faced. I could but hope he appreciated Old Red’s uncharacteristic diplomacy, given that his “investigation” had been so subtle it could barely be said to exist at all.

  “My brother and me were a little more blunt about it,” Gustav went on. “Heck, we were two bulls in the china shop. We did get us some results, though. We learned that the killer—and yes, Mr. Curtis was murdered—might have been wearin’ shoes made overseas. We learned he paid a call on Mr. Curtis’s hotel room and threw some very odd objects into the trash, including a box of dead snails and some garlic and a ferry ticket.”

  The word “murder” had sent murmurs rippling through our audience, and with the snails and the garlic they grew louder.

  Old Red put up his hands.

  “Stay with me here, folks,” he said loud and firm, and he swept the crowd with a stern look that would do any schoolmarm proud. It worked, too. Soon there was as much silence as one could expect from a thousand-ish people packed in together.

  “Then this very day,” my brother continued, “we learned that the killer has a way with a false beard, like just about everyone else around here, it seems, and that he’s wearin’ a brown coat. But none of that’s nearly so instructive, as a certain English sleuth might say, as what happened right here not ten minutes ago.”

  Gustav looked around the hall again, and until he spoke there was such a hush a mouse fart would’ve seemed like the roar of a cannon.

  “No one won. If the killer did away with Mr. Curtis out of anger or a thirst for revenge or what have you, why go to his room and mess with the man’s things? And if he was hopin’ to win the competition by gettin’ an early peek at the clues, which were sittin’ right there atop a dresser … well, why didn’t he? Why would we have a four-way tie? What was the killer after? Miz-yer Valmont?”

  The Frenchman was still standing a few yards off, where we’d abandoned him a while before, and his eyes popped wide at the sound of his name.

  “Yes?”

  “This morning at that little breakfast of yours, you said the clues you’ve been gettin’ are in French—and it’s been gettin’ worse as the week went on.”