Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(18)
That day in our sitting room, I crossed out an errant word and stacked my completed sheets with satisfaction. Since I could not resist the attractions of the great cesspool that is London, I strove to keep my tendency to riotous life at bay. I had not slid into old, bad habits for nearly a week, and between being paid, and frugal living, I was quite pleased with myself. “Quite right, Holmes. I finally paid Mrs. Hudson my share of last month’s rent, and better still, have stashed away next month’s as well in our strongbox. I hope you have something coming in soon?”
“Sooner than I had expected, it seems.” He stood by the window and motioned for me to join him. “You will please tell me what you think of the gentleman who hesitates just beyond our doorstep?”
I gladly obliged him, rising to peer out our window. The fog had cleared. “Well-off, in the first rank of fashion, though perhaps a foreigner—I have not seen that style of boots before, on the high streets or in the more fashionable districts. A gentleman, as you say, of robust health, but perhaps troubled by arthritis recently; his gait is somewhat unsteady, and as he pauses, he seems to rest his weight on his left leg.”
“Well done, Watson! You give me hope for the British university system!”
I was so pleased at the idea of getting another case before Holmes that I smothered the retort I had ready regarding my considerable talent for diagnostics and a remark regarding his questionable parentage. “Well, then, go ahead. Tell me what I missed.”
“Almost everything of importance, that is all.” He had the all-too familiar look and tone of a schoolboy’s superiority. “Yes, a foreigner, American—those boots are made by the New York firm of Getzler and Son. He walks stiffly, I would suggest, not because he has arthritis, but because he has not gained his land legs—you will notice that he does not have the characteristic scuffing mark on those fine shoes that is often found in chronic patients.”
I did not interrupt Holmes with a lecture on the variability of symptoms from case to case. My heart was greatly eased to see that vacant restlessness gone from his face, and his eyes sharp and clear.
“So, he’s come directly from the wharves, without even stopping at his hotel. If memory serves—and you can confirm this by handing me the papers—thank you, ah, yes. The private steam yacht Anna Hoyt docked earlier today, coming from Boston, in the United States. Therefore he had such a pressing need to see me that he could not wait for the scheduled commercial liner and then, on arrival in London, all but flew from the wharf—but why not cable beforehand? Why not a letter, even, than go to all this trouble and postponed haste of a lengthy ocean voyage? Perhaps—”
“He had a secret too valuable to trust to post or an emissary?”
Holmes shot me an irritated look that suggested I’d hit solid in the gold. “Yes . . . perhaps. And yet, what commands such haste and secrecy in a man so well off? Only two things—”
I mouthed the words as he spoke them, so accustomed were they to me. “Much money or vast power.”
The bell rang, and the new maid, Aggie, showed him in. Although she was gone as soon as she’d announced “Mr. Habakkuk Sewall,” I couldn’t help admiring the trim profile of Aggie’s posterior. Mrs. Hudson knew my tastes down to the boot button and was determined to taunt me. A dalliance between us, born of equal parts mutual desire and my occasional tardiness with the rent, had cooled recently, but I soon hoped to find my way back into Margaret’s good graces. The rent now caught up, this was now entirely dependent on my ability to resist the temptations she put before me in the shape of our most recent maid of all work. We went through housemaids at an alarming rate, given the eclectic nature of our callers, the irregularity of our hours, and the odors generated by Holmes’s chemical experiments. I have been subject to more than one angry lecture on the adverse effects of chemical fumes on damask upholstery.
Mr. Sewall was, as we had observed, of elegantly tall proportions, with fair hair, fine teeth, and shrewd, watchful eyes. His rude good health, as much an American trait as a caricature, was carefully restrained with mannerly movement; he had a reserved and contemplative air.
Having assured us that he had dined, Mr. Sewall did not refuse our offer of brandy. “I’ve come a very long distance to see you, Mr. Holmes. I hope you can help me.”
Holmes and I had agreed early on in our association that, with clients, it was best for him to sink the hook with a display of his not inconsiderable detective acumen, followed by a faint pretense on my part to an overfull schedule, playing the fish before we finally landed the hefty fee. And so, I sat back and listened to Holmes recite what we’d just now observed, with a few embellishments drawn from his immediate assessment of our client. The more I saw of Mr. Sewall’s gold cigar case, the quality and weight of his cuff links, and the exquisite taste in buttons, the better I liked him. Rather, the more I liked our odds of getting paid, and handsomely.
Doctors, detectives, and writers of detective fiction—or, semi-fiction—must make a living, you see.
At the end of a scintillating performance, Mr. Sewall’s mouth opened and closed. “I had thought to come in here with my broadest Chicago hick accent, playing Eustis Goodfellow, the Corn King of the Midwest, but I see I would have failed almost instantly, Mr. Holmes. My hat is off to you.
“My goal in coming to England is of the utmost importance,” he continued, in accents that were polished, by American standards. “I hope you will forgive my doubts and my aspirations to test you.”