Part 11 (1/2)

I saw other curious and striking things during the remainder of the day, but was most struck by an incident at the Central Park Zoo, where I found myself in mid-afternoon, contemplating a polar bear and wondering why it persisted in swinging its head back and forth like an animated toy.

There came an outcry next to me, and, turning, I perceived a boy of perhaps ten, a sullen expression on his fat face, kicking a man who was holding him by the hand. I should have taken them for father and son, except that the boy was overdressed to a degree, in velvet knee-breeches and jacket and patent-leather shoes, and the man, who had the appearance of an out-of-work clerk, was verging on shabbiness.

As I watched this curious drama, the man's face brightened, in spite of the pain occasioned by the kicks now landing regularly on his s.h.i.+ns and ankles, and he called out to a fas.h.i.+onably dressed man of about twenty sauntering nearby, ”Sir! Sir!”

The young fellow turned, and an expression of weary distaste crossed his face. Reluctantly, he approached the odd pair.

”I saw you earlier with your brother, sir,” the shabby man said, ”and when I noticed the lad wandering by himself, I ventured to take hold of him and seek you out.”

”Decent of you,” the young man responded gloomily.

”Um . . . now that I have restored him to you, as it were . . . I wonder if some pecuniary recognition might not be in order?”

The shabby man smiled ingratiatingly. The young man looked at his brother and shuddered.

”Very well,” he replied. ”Tell you what. I don't want to do you down, so how about you handing over two dollars, and I'll take him back off your hands. Fair?”

As I left the scene, the shabby man looked torn between disappointed anger and a serious consideration of the proposition.

The sun was beginning to decline, and I thought it best to make my way toward Gramercy Park, to be sure of being there at the appointed time. The elevated tram, however, which I took in a spirit of daring, and which afforded me a remarkable new perspective on the city, whisked me downtown far faster than I expected, leaving me another half-hour or so if I wished to use it. I had eaten little and, pa.s.sing an establishment calling itself Viemeister's, from which came a pleasant scent of food and good beer, I stepped inside.

Though primarily a barroom, it had much of the atmosphere of some of our London public-houses, with an etched gla.s.s mirror behind the long, dark bar, and much wood paneling throughout. I did not care to sit at the bar, and found a booth with two padded benches in it vacant, one of a row on the wall opposite the bar. One indication that I was in the mechanized New World rather than the Old, was a push-b.u.t.ton let into the wall above the table that occupied the s.p.a.ce between the two benches. I pushed it, and in a moment a waiter appeared to take my order for a gla.s.s of ale and a meat sandwich of some kind.

”Whatever your cook does best, eh?” said I.

The sandwich, when it came, consisted of a prodigious amount of a highly spiced meat, remarkably pungent in aroma, between two slices of a dark and rather tough bread. It was all unfamiliar, but I was footsore and hungry, and the ”pastromy,” as the waiter called it, went extraordinarily well with the rather over-chilled ale.

”'Scuse me, sir.”

I looked up to see a stocky man, a few years younger than myself, with a plump face and thinning, curly hair, standing in the aisle next to the booth. He was carrying a large gla.s.s of lager and a plate laden with several different sorts of delicacy.

”Would I be imposing if I shared the booth?” he asked in accents which retained a touch of the American South, or possibly West, in their softness. ”The others are taken, and I don't cotton to the bar. It's too easy to fall off one of those stools.”

I indicated, with a gesture, that he was welcome. I had spoken to scarcely anyone that day, and, still savoring my holiday from the pressing concerns that had brought Holmes and myself to the city, was glad of the chance to prolong it for a few moments of casual conversation.

”Actually,” said my new companion, seating himself, ”I wanted to get a good look at a paying customer for the kitchen. Most everybody that comes in here dives into the free lunch.”

He indicated his heaped plate.

”I wasn't aware that there was such a thing as a free lunch,” said I.

”There ain't, but it's like perpetual motion. There's a powerful lot of people think they can find it, and keep looking.”

It was clear that I had happened upon an original-or he upon me-and I greatly enjoyed our half-hour of talk. My new friend had a vast fund of information and anecdote upon many topics: the Far West, prison life, revolutions and curious customs in Central America. But his main love seemed to be the city of New York.

”It's the new Arabian Nights,” he a.s.sured me. ”Haroun-al-Raschid and his Baghdad aren't in the game, alongside Gotham.”

”Well once you've got your Underground completed, I suppose you could call it Baghdad-on-the-Subway,” said I.

”Say, so you could!” said the man opposite me.

Having regaled me so entertainingly, he now attempted to draw me out in exchange, and I found myself somewhat at a loss. The delicate matter of the kidnapping of Scott Adler, to say nothing of the missing gold from Mr. McGraw's Exchange, were certainly not to be bandied about in idle talk; and the very fact that Sherlock Holmes and his a.s.sociate and chronicler were in the city would be bound to excite speculation of the most troublesome kind, if it became known. I must, therefore, remain incognito. It followed that much that I had to tell that might have interested my companion could not be referred to. I turned the conversation to my experiences of the day in the city, ordinary though they had been.

He was fascinated by the story of my encounter with the p.a.w.nbroker Hahnzahne, though it seemed to me nothing remarkable that a man in London should have a cousin in New York; his eyes went positively round at the business of the trapped dog; and the sad narrative of the unnatural fellow at the zoo who cheated his brother's rescuer out of his due reward seemed to strike him as hugely funny.

”Say, if you were a writer,” said he, ”you'd have just about paid for your trip from England with those. Lord! I don't know when I've come across story material like that!”

”Well, I do write now and then,” I ventured, for a moment forgetting my resolve to avoid revealing my ident.i.ty. ”But I don't see any possibilities in what I've told you. I mean, they're the kind of thing that happens in your city-every day, I'm sure-and nothing to take notice of, unless you're a foreigner wandering about.”

He c.o.c.ked his head at me and took a sip from his mug of lager. ”A writer. What's your line?”

”Detective stories,” I said, with some reluctance.

Sherlock Holmes might have spun some convincing tale under those circ.u.mstances-and would very likely have not got into them at all-but I found it impossible to answer a direct question with an outright lie.

”Hm. And, sir, your name is . . . ?”

”Watson.”

”I was beginning to think it might be. Mine's Porter, W. S.-W. for William, which I don't use, S. for Sydney, also retired, and Porter for Porter, which has been scratched at the starting gate. Say, Watson, if that's the straight goods about your doing the 'Lo! the poor Indian' act with those pearls richer than all your tribe you were telling me about, d'you mind if I pick 'em up and string 'em together?”

As far as I could tell from his odd mixture of slang and literary allusion, he seemed to be requesting permission to make literary use of the ba.n.a.l anecdotes I had recounted. I granted it gladly, and, seeing that the sun had nearly set, rose and prepared to take my leave.

”I shall scan the magazines with interest to see what you have been able to make of my poor experiences, Mr. Porter,” said I.

”Well, you won't get far if you run your thumb down the index under P,” said he. ”I use a pen name-and I'm here to tell you that them that lives in the pen can live by the pen.”

This example of American allusive humor escaped me, I confess, but Mr. Porter confided his pseudonym in me, and I left, hastening to arrive at Irene Adler's house in good time, pondering on what curious significance he might place on it.

Henry is, of course, an honored name, our nation having had eight kings so styled. But what was the point of prefacing it with the single initial, reminding one of nothing so much as the zero, of O?

Chapter Twelve.

It was but a few moments' walk from the Viemeister tavern in Eighteenth Street to number 4, Gramercy Park West, and I was there before the last rays of the setting sun had ceased from gilding the buildings on the northern side of the square.

The next hour or so was one of the least comfortable periods of my life. Though calm, Irene Adler was keyed up to a kind of tense stillness, and was in no mood for conversation. Her whole being seemed concentrated on awaiting the issue of Sherlock Holmes' efforts that day. I sat in one chair, then another; looked at a newspaper and at a magazine; admired a vase on the mantel and a porcelain shepherdess on a small table; and consulted my watch each half-hour or so, as it seemed, although the hands usually proved to have moved no more than ten or twelve minutes each time. h.e.l.ler's appearance with a pot of tea and some sweet biscuits cheered me up, after an hour of this atmosphere, as much as might one of those roistering banquets d.i.c.kens describes so vividly.

It was close upon eight o'clock when the jangle of the doorbell brought Irene Adler and myself to our feet. As I descended the stairs, I saw h.e.l.ler opening the door to admit a tall fellow in chauffeur's livery and peaked cap, sporting a giant handlebar moustache.

As though he entertained doubts of h.e.l.ler's hearing, he boomed at him in a voice loud enough to carry into the street, ”Mr. Holmes' and Dr. Watson's luggage from the hotel! Come on and give me a hand with it!”

I descended the stairs and inquired, ”Good heavens, what's this about?”

”I said,” bawled the man, ”I've got Mr. Holmes' and Dr. Watson's luggage, like you ordered, and I need some help getting it in the house!”