Part 7 (1/2)
”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 ma.s.sive 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sed 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 hoa.r.s.e with embarra.s.sment, 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 a.s.sist the police . . . what's everyone going to think-”
McGraw, clearly agonized both at the noisy scene being made and the thought of what pa.s.sers-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 bombsh.e.l.ls 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 s.h.i.+p! 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 . . .