Part 8 (1/2)

Holmes gathered a number of cus.h.i.+ons 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 s.h.i.+lling 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 a.s.sumed the tranquil, immobile look of one in a trance, a look which, I knew of old, signaled absolute concentration on the matter at hand.

”Yes, well . . . take care you don't set the upholstery afire the way you did that night in Ashby-de-la-Zouche,” I cautioned him.

I knew full well that he did not hear me; nor did I much care. To see Holmes himself again, and bringing the diamond-sharp point of that great intellect to bear on the problem before us, was worth any amount of scorch marks on the Algonquin's furniture.

Pausing at the bedroom door, I looked back at Holmes, already wreathed in a nimbus of blue smoke. He bore a not undignified resemblance to the Caterpillar, perched on his mushroom and puffing away at his hookah, portrayed in the ill.u.s.trations to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

”Good night, Holmes.”

There was no reply, so I provided one.

”'Night, Watson. Sleep well,” said I to myself.

Apparently I took this injunction literally, for I was asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, and awoke, feeling refreshed-although with a slight soreness in my feet as a result of our long trek the night before, and the twinge in the leg with which my legacy from the Battle of Maiwand reminded me of its accuracy as a herald of damp weather. The well-rested feeling was tainted with a slight sensation of alarm, as though some danger portended, such as fire. I glanced at the open transom over the bedroom door. Of course!

Wrapping my dressing-gown about me, and noting that the cord that held it at the waist seemed to be shrinking slowly (probably a characteristic of the cheap Egyptian cotton now flooding the English market), I entered the sitting-room. Except that the prevailing tone was blue-gray rather than yellow, I might almost have been walking into a London pea-souper. The stale smoke that filled the room stung my eyes and throat, and, until I became accustomed to it, made Holmes' seated form-unchanged, as far as I could tell, from the position in which I had last seen it-difficult to discern. No wonder I had awakened to a feeling that something was burning!

”Phew!” I exclaimed. ”I'm surprised n.o.body's called the fire brigade.”

I went to the window and opened it, savoring the damp morning air, and at the same time observing, though careful to appear to be looking in another direction, the post where last night's watcher had stood.

”h.e.l.lo! Chap's been replaced, Holmes. This one's wearing stripes, not checks.” With the air a little clearer, I turned back to the room, and noticed that the heap of tobacco on the table had been reduced to a few scattered crumbs. ”Well, Holmes, what have you come up with?”

Though he had clearly not slept at all, and looked quite drawn about the cheekbones, he was as alert as I have ever known him, and said briskly, ”Two points of interest, Watson, about which I shall be delighted to enlighten you while you're dressing.”

It was actually while I was shaving that Holmes expounded his first ”point of interest,” and, had I not been steeled to surprises from my friend, I might well have given myself a veritable Heidelberg dueling scar with the keen blade.

”Scott Adler's abductor was a woman.”

I hastily withdrew the razor from my throat and looked at it. There were only shaving soap and whisker-ends on the cutting edge; no tinge of red.

”But that's impossible!” I said.

”The conclusion is inescapable.”

I returned to my task, and Holmes to his expounding.

”How did Frau Reichenbach's a.s.sailant begin the a.s.sault?” he asked.

”Grabbed her by the hair,” said I.

”The instinctive target of a woman when she finds herself in combat with another of her own gender. And what did the good lady's a.s.sailant do then?”

”Kicked her,” answered I, as clearly as I could, considering that I was engaged in that tricky part of the shave where one has to stretch the upper lip very tightly in order to get at the corners of the mouth.

In the event, Holmes appeared to understand me well enough. ”In the s.h.i.+ns,” he said. ”Another instinctive form of female attack!”

I washed the shaving soap from my face and went into the bedroom in search of the s.h.i.+rt and tie I had laid out.

”I must say, Holmes, none of the ladies I've had anything to do with-”

”I never mentioned ladies, Watson, I merely said a woman. And one of sufficient strength to fling Frau Reichenbach to the ground, seize young Scott Adler-”

Part of my mind was aware that the brown-and-gray tie I was putting on seemed rather drab in this vivid city, and I was speculating about whether I might have time to visit one or two New York shops. The main portion was objecting to Holmes' proposition.

”Holmes, now you're a.s.suming too much! It's all very well to say a woman struck that governess and pummeled her in the manner you describe, but that's a far cry from seizing a nine-year-old boy who's struggling and crying out!”

Holmes' reply to this trenchant objection was an unrepentant ”Aha!”

A knocking at the hallway door now summoned him to the sitting-room. As he went, he turned and said, ”Admirable, my dear Watson!-Come in, then, waiter!-You've hit upon the second point.”

As I entered the sitting-room, a hotel waiter was pus.h.i.+ng in a rolling cart covered with a profusion of covered dishes. ”Eh? I have?” said I. ”What is it, then?”

Holmes lifted the metal covers from some of the dishes and sniffed at them appreciatively. From one there arose a tempting aroma of egg, though what was visible was a strange yellow ma.s.s, all scrambled together.

”No mention,” Holmes went on, making an emphatic gesture with a cover he held, ”was made by Frau Reichenbach of any struggling or outcry. Thank you.”

This last was to the waiter, and accompanied by a pa.s.sed coin which drew a pleased response.

Holmes began laying out the dishes on the low table in front of the sofa, while I restored the piled cus.h.i.+ons in its center to their rightful places.

”By George, you're right,” I said.

”So it must be a.s.sumed none was made.”

Holmes turned some of the strangely treated eggs on to a plate, surrounded the heap with several slices of bacon, a nicely browned piece of ham, and some sausages. As I lifted some of the covers, looking in vain for a grilled tomato or a hearty piece of smoked herring-even a devilled kidney, though these were not my favorites-I made the next leap in logic.

”A lad being seized suddenly must inevitably cry out, Holmes. Therefore, the report itself is false, and Frau Reichenbach is implicated!”

”Pretty, very pretty, Watson, but I fancy it won't hold water. I am convinced that our governess' account is correct, and that the strange business of the boy who raised no outcry is akin to the affair of the dog that did nothing in the night-time, which you have been good enough to preserve in your writings.”

”The dog did not bark . . .” I recalled.

”Because it knew the intruder.”

”And the boy . . .”

”Was party to the arrangement! I'm convinced, Watson, that the lad knew of all this in advance.”

I started upright in my chair and laid down my fork. ”What! Scott Adler cooperate with Moriarty in his own kidnapping? Now, Holmes!”

”Suppose,” said Sherlock Holmes, ”that it were put to him as a joke of sorts?”

This seemed to me the sort of explanation which clears up one point only at the cost of bringing up another as difficult.