Sherlock Holmes In America

RECALLED TO LIFE by Paula Cohen

Paula Cohen (Lady Mary Brackenstall) has been a member of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes since 1975. Born seventy-five years too late, she is a lover of the opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, Old New York, and all things Victorian. A previous short story, “The Adventure of the Dog in the Nighttime,” appeared in Ghosts in Baker Street (Carroll & Graf, 2006). Her first novel, Gramercy Park, published by St. Martin’s Press in 2002, is set in New York City in 1894; she is currently working on a sequel. Paula lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband Roger, and her cat, Hodge.

“New York City.”

Such was the burden of the telegram I received recently, which, although terse, was instantly clear to me, as was the identity of its sender. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, from his retirement on the downs near Eastbourne, has been following my latest attempts to make known the singular successes of his career, and from time to time takes the trouble to suggest a likely candidate for, as he calls them, my “little romances.”

Although it has ever been my desire to set down the most accurate accounts of his cases, I have never succeeded in convincing Holmes that the reading public needs more than the stark facts and ineluctable logic that guide his genius. That the public has nevertheless demonstrated an abiding interest in those “romances” has been a source of some annoyance for Holmes. For the particular case to which his recent telegram refers, however, Holmes himself must bear the blame if I fail to depict his methods in all their cold rationality. I was not present at its unfolding and must rely solely upon his own later account of it for the facts, and more than usually on my own imagination for the features.

It occurred, in fact, during that interval between the spring of 1891 and that of 1894, when all the world, including I, thought Holmes dead at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls. Readers may recall that in April of 1894, and just after his “resurrection”-for so I have always thought of it-Holmes revealed to me where he had gone after his miraculous escape from death and Moriarty’s minions. He spoke of Florence, of his two years in Tibet, of his time in Arabia and Persia, and his work in the Sudan at the behest of his brother, Mycroft, and the Foreign Office.

What I was unable to relate then, because the delicacy of many of the matters he undertook required that they not be made public until long after the participants were beyond either praise or blame, was that after leaving Khartoum, Holmes headed eastward yet again, across the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, to the United States.

America had always held a fascination for Holmes; and his freedom, as an ostensibly dead man, to travel when and where he willed under different identities, as well as the ability to use his remarkable talents in the service of his country, made a stay in America both logical and advantageous. The summer of 1893 found him in Baltimore, on America’s eastern shore, once again carrying out a commission on behalf of his nation that would prove invaluable to her safety, and during which time Holmes developed a profound admiration for the American navy. He still ranks its Academy at Annapolis as every inch the equal of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.

His assignment completed on the last few days of 1893, it was Holmes’s intention to return to England. New York City, however, was the place from which he chose to embark, for the opportunity it would give him, during a fortnight of well-earned leisure, of briefly studying the ways of a city vastly different, and yet strangely similar, to his native London.

At the suggestion of a fellow passenger on the train up from Baltimore, he took a room at the Albemarle, a reputable hotel of middling size not far from Madison Square. As he made his way down to the dining room at eight o’clock that first evening in the city, his eye was caught by a quietly dressed man walking through the crowds of other guests and visitors, looking ever about him as if seeking someone he could not find. The public parlors were crowded with ladies and gentlemen in full dress, the corridors filled with parties heading out to the opera or other festive events, and Holmes, no stranger to the great houses of England, was struck by the opulence of some of the women’s finery, which would not have been out of place at a royal audience.

Still, he kept the quietly dressed man in sight, and followed him at a distance through the glittering throngs, until he saw the man approach and then touch an exceptionally well-dressed youth lightly on the shoulder, then steer him into an alcove. The two exchanged a few quiet words, something changed hands, and the young man exited quickly from the corridor and disappeared hastily down the grand staircase.

The quietly dressed man examined what he had taken from the other, slipped it unobtrusively into his breast pocket, and eased his way back into the flow of the crowd, this time heading in Holmes’s direction. As he neared, Holmes stepped aside to let him pass, but leaned toward him and spoke quietly into his ear.

“His companion is the elegant young woman in green,” he said, “sitting just over there, beneath the clock. I believe that if you examine her reticule, you’ll find the watch and chain you’re seeking.”

The man started and swiveled quickly to look at Holmes, sparing the seated woman one swift glance before he did so. His brown eyes were sharp. “Might I ask your name, sir?”

“My name is Greaves,” said Holmes. “Simon Greaves.”

“Then I would ask you to wait here for me, Mr. Greaves,” the man replied, “and please not to leave this spot.”

“By all means,” Holmes said. “I will remain here.”

With a last look at Holmes, the man turned and made his way across the corridor to the woman in green. As he bent to speak to her, he turned back the lapel of his coat slightly, and the woman flushed, half rose, and then fell back into her seat. Her hands shook as she opened her reticule, reached inside and withdrew something which glinted briefly in the light as she placed it in the man’s upturned palm. A few more words were exchanged between them, and then she rose, and she, too, swiftly disappeared down the staircase, her face pale.

“You let them go,” Holmes said, as the man returned to where he waited. “Was that wise?”

The man sighed. “They are very young, and this game was for the thrill of it, not for gain. Neither the watch nor the money has as yet been missed, and the gentleman from whom they were lifted will have received an object lesson in guarding his person when I return them to him.”

“And the young couple?”

“Newlyweds, on honeymoon, and well able to afford to stay here. What they need, and what I gave them, is a good fright. They are not of the criminal class, and neither of them is suited to a night in a jail cell.” He shrugged his shoulders. “If I’m any judge of character, they’ll behave themselves from now on.”

He gazed at Holmes. He was slim in build, an inch or two shorter than Holmes, but his eyes were cool as they sized him up.

“They say it takes one to know one, Mr. Greaves. You are from England… from London if my ear isn’t wrong. Are you with Scotland Yard?”

“I am not, Mr…?”

“Battle. Robert Battle.”

The detective extended his hand and Holmes took it. “A good name,” he said, “for one in our line of work. I work independently. My practice is a private one, and Scotland Yard considers me an amateur.”

Battle snorted. “An amateur? No one has ever ‘made’ me before, Mr. Greaves. I should say you are no amateur.” He glanced quickly at Holmes’s attire. “You arrived this afternoon, you have not left the hotel since, and you were near the dining room when you saw our young friend boost the watch and money from his victim’s pocket and slip the watch to his wife. My surmise, therefore, is that you’d like your dinner, as would I… and as my shift is now over, might I invite you to join me, if you have no other plans? Just one moment, please, while I let my replacement know that I’m going off duty.”

The headwaiter showed both men to a table with an unobstructed view of the entire dining room, and not too far from the entrance, permitting them to see everyone who came and went. Holmes took in the table’s location and nodded.

“‘When constabulary duty’s to be done,’” he smiled at his host, “‘a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’ You said you were off duty. Are you not permitted to eat in peace?”

“The Pirates of Penzance.” Battle smiled in turn. “Strange you should quote from that. I was at the very first performance of Pirates on New Year’s Eve in ’79, here in New York, at the Fifth Avenue Theater. Sullivan himself was at the podium. It ran for three months in New York before it ever even opened in London,” he said, with no small local pride, as he unfurled his napkin and laid it across his lap. “As for eating in peace, I prefer to be aware of what’s happening around me. I must be able to observe my surroundings. Call it habit, if you will.”

“Yes,” said Holmes. “I agree entirely. We appear to have much in common, except that I trust I am correct in saying that you once served on the police force, Mr. Battle.”

“What gives me away?” Battle laughed.

“Your manner of looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A good detective focuses on what will aid his investigation, but a policeman must be Argus-eyed and aware of what’s behind him, as well as in front, to stop any mayhem before it begins. You have been on the streets.”

Battle grunted. “For fifteen years, before I left the department. Worked my way up to captain.”

“Yet you left?” Holmes raised a mollifying hand at the sudden tensing of the other man’s jaw. “Forgive me, please. I meant no offense in asking, I was merely surprised.”

After a moment of silence, Battle said, “I am largely ignorant of the inner workings of Scotland Yard, Mr. Greaves, but there are things in New York… politics and whatnot. Suffice it to say that much of what would put ordinary men behind bars is routinely practiced by the police here, and after a while I had had enough.”

Holmes said nothing, and after a few moments Battle smiled again. “But I have hopes,” he said, signaling the waiter. “Reform is in the air. And now, Mr. Greaves, what would you care to drink? I myself take no alcohol, as it does not agree with me. But please don’t feel constrained on my account. The wine cellar here is quite excellent, and they have a bourbon-I don’t know if you’re familiar with bourbon-which I have heard roundly praised.”

Holmes, though a man who generally loathed all forms of society, could be exceedingly charming at will, and was an excellent conversationalist; and in Battle he had found a rare kindred spirit. Throughout the course of a long and enjoyable dinner, the two men regaled each other with numerous “war stories,” as Battle called them, of criminals with whom they had dealt, and as the coffee arrived Holmes was feeling unusually expansive.

“An aficionado of Gilbert and Sullivan such as you might, perhaps, enjoy other forms of music. Are you an opera lover as well?”

“I am, indeed,” Battle replied.

“Do you enjoy Wagner?”

“Very much.”

“Excellent! I was hoping to take in a performance of Die Meistersinger on Monday evening, and as I know no one in this city I was fully prepared to go alone. But if you are not working that night, Mr. Battle, and have no other encumbrances, perhaps you would care to join me? I can think of no more congenial a companion. And should you need any further inducement, Eames and de Reszke are singing that night.”

Holmes spent the intervening days, and one or two nights, on the icy streets of New York City, disguised as an Irish laborer in shabby overalls, peacoat, and grimy cloth cap. The cold was severe enough that he needed no artifice to redden his nose and rime his brows, but the three-day growth of beard that appeared magically each morning had somehow vanished by evening as he sat down to dinner among the well-to-do of New York City.

“Admirable,” Robert Battle chuckled, as he caught Holmes sauntering from the hotel one morning through one of the tradesmen’s doors. “Did I not know who you were, Mr. Greaves, I’d have stopped you and asked you to turn out your pockets.”

Holmes merely touched a finger to his cap and vanished into the raw January mist. His destination each day was different, and suggested to him by Battle, who knew New York as well as Holmes knew London. Within a few days Holmes had at least a nodding acquaintance with areas that were as foul as anything in Limehouse or Whitechapel.

“Remember, Watson,” he told me later, “that London had been a great midden of humanity for more than a thousand years before the white man ever set foot on Manhattan Island, and then think of the depths of wickedness, cruelty, and despair that could create such squalor in such a brief period of time.”

And as with London, so were the contrasts between the high and the low in the much younger city. On the following Monday night, Holmes and Battle passed through the bland, yellow-brick façade of the new Metropolitan Opera House and into a blaze of splendor wholly unimaginable to the denizens of airless tenements and filth-strewn streets. Battle had retained some of the friendships made during his years on the police force, and through connections had been able to obtain places for that evening in an unoccupied box in the first ring.

The two men settled themselves into their seats with time to spare, and Holmes took in the gorgeous scene around him. Present were many of the names that had made New York a byword for both riches and rapacity, and the wives and daughters who accompanied them glittered with gems. Battle quietly pointed out to Holmes the various well-dressed men, detectives all, stationed in key positions around the house to prevent anything that would interfere with the evening’s enjoyment.

As the house lights dimmed, there was a flurry in the box opposite. Holmes, his eyes upon the unobtrusive detectives, felt Battle stiffen beside him, and saw his jaw clench. Following Battle’s gaze, he saw two older men and a very young woman just taking their seats.

Dainty and exquisitely dressed, with pearls at her throat and in her dark hair, the young woman held fast to the arm of one of the men, her gloved fingers tightening on his sleeve, and shrank from the gaze of the audience below as they, and the occupants of the all other boxes, turned to look at her. A murmur arose throughout the house as her escort, silver-haired and straight-backed, settled her into a seat placed back from the rail of the box, where she would be less visible, then took his own seat.

But it was the second man at whom Battle stared, his fists closed into hard knots.

“You know him?” said Holmes.

“I know him,” Battle replied, his eyes never wavering.

“An interesting trio,” Holmes remarked. “May I ask who they are, and why the girl is of such inordinate interest?” The whispering of the crowd had not abated, and many eyes, although not those of Battle, were still turned to her as the conductor stepped to the podium.

“The taller man is Henry Ogden Slade. He is one of our leading citizens, rich as Croesus, and a great philanthropist.” Battle’s voice was quiet, and revealed nothing of the emotions that clearly gripped him. “The girl is his ward. She is, or so the received wisdom would have it, the daughter of a Jew banker with whom Slade has done business. He took her in several years ago, although no one knows why, and therein lies the mystery. There appears to be nothing whatever improper in their relations, although many would love to believe otherwise.” Battle fell silent.

“And the other?” Holmes said. The object of Battle’s relentless gaze was a portly, many-chinned man, shorter than Slade by a head. His spectacles and his small, perpetual smile gave him a pleasant, avuncular look.

“The other is Thaddeus Chadwick. He is Slade’s attorney, and also his closest friend. Each is rarely seen without the other.”

The first notes of the overture brought the conversation to a close. Holmes, with his keen ability to compartmentalize his mind, leaned back in his chair and became utterly absorbed in the music, his long fingers waving in accompaniment, but nevertheless remained aware of the fact that his companion was utterly insensible to what was occurring on the stage.

Wagner, as the world knows, is not succinct in his composition, and by the time the curtain came down on the first act, Holmes was grateful for a chance to stretch his legs. By common, wordless consent, he and Battle left the box and headed downstairs. Holmes waited until they were off to the side of the main vestibule, where the crowd was thinner, before he raised the subject of Thaddeus Chadwick again.

“I could not help but notice that his appearance was distracting to you. Please tell me if it is overstepping the bounds of our brief acquaintance if I ask you why?”

Battle set his jaw and answered. “Mr. Chadwick was the reason I left the police force. Or, rather, the reason I was thrown off it. I would rather not have told you this, Mr. Greaves, lest you think ill of me, for I have come to enjoy our acquaintance, but you will soon be returning to England, and your opinion of me will be of little matter.

“How could I judge you before I have heard the evidence?” Holmes said.

“How, indeed? But many have, and many who were once dear to me are strangers to me now.” He took a deep breath and began.

“Mr. Chadwick’s reputation as an attorney is above reproach, of course, and he has, in addition to Mr. Slade, many clients in the highest reaches of the city. But Mr. Chadwick is also known to the police. Threads leading back to him have been found in many unsavory schemes; and his name, through the names of those who front for him, is linked to some of the worst places, and some of the most ghastly conditions, to be found anywhere in the city.”

Battle looked squarely at Holmes. “I will be brief. I said that Chadwick is known to the police, but not necessarily as an adversary. Many of the places you’ve seen these last few days sit on land owned by Mr. Chadwick, and although he takes no part in their actual business he still makes a great deal of money from them, and his hands are stained with their filth. I was investigating some of them, some houses where children, boys and girls as young as six… I will say no more, Mr. Greaves, for you know that places such as these exist. But I could have wiped at least some of them, and those who profit from them, off the face of the earth, and I was close, very close, to having my case airtight.

“But as I said, there are things in New York… Chadwick is openhanded to those who can help him, and many in the upper levels of the police… ” He swallowed hard and wiped his face; his hands were shaking. “I was told to drop the case. I said I would not. I was told that if I did not drop it voluntarily, I would be made to do so. And still I refused.

“I took what precautions I could, but it was not enough, and those I had asked to guard me were paid to turn a blind eye. The night before I was supposed to present my evidence in court, a half-dozen men burst into my home. They overpowered me, held a chloroform-soaked cloth over my face, and dragged me out. I awoke hours later, in a room in one of the houses that I had investigated-alone, thank God-but reeking of alcohol, as though someone had emptied a bottle over me, and as I staggered to my feet I could hear whistles and screams. It was a police raid, and I was caught, just as surely as if I had been a patron there for years.”

Battle sagged and leaned against a gilded pillar. His words were quiet now and matter-of-fact. “Instead of being in court that morning, giving evidence, I was in jail, and all the evidence had been destroyed. I had hidden it under some floorboards, but they didn’t even bother to search for it… they took the quickest way, and just burned my house down, and the evidence with it. The fire was laid at my door, too… I was charged with knocking over a lamp, in my drunken state, as I left for the establishment where they found me. I’ve thanked God every day since then that no one died in the blaze, for I would have been accused of that as well.

“But the worst… I had no identification on me, you see, and to verify that I was who I said I was-even though the men who arrested me knew me-they brought my fiancée and her father down to the police station to identify me. Oh, yes, Mr. Greaves, I was engaged to be married. And there I stood, unshaven and stinking, in handcuffs and leg irons, still unsteady on my feet, and having been pulled out of that… that hell… with my beautiful Frances staring at me. And the look in her eyes… ”

Holmes guided the man to an unoccupied bench against an adjacent wall and forced him to sit. The crowds were streaming back to their seats, and the vestibule was emptying quickly.

“Promise me that you will stay here,” he said. “I will only be gone a moment.”

Battle nodded, head bowed. Holmes returned in a few minutes with a glass of water, which he held to the man’s pale lips.

“There is some whiskey in there,” he said, as the man grimaced at the taste and started to push it away. “Not enough to harm you; just enough to bring the blood back to your face.”

Battle drank again, then stood up shakily. “I don’t know why I told you all that.”

“Strangers are sometimes better confidants than friends one has known for years. But possibly you are being too hard upon your Frances. Would she not still believe in you, despite appearances?”

“I could not approach her again. Not until my name is cleared, which it never will be. How could I even dream of tying an innocent young woman to a man known as a sot and a debauchee?”

Holmes smiled. “Certainly, women are not my forte, Battle. But has she married anyone else since that night?”

“No. I have heard, through acquaintances, that she is still living with her father.”

“Then she is probably stronger in her faith in you than you have given her credit for, and perhaps you should have more faith in her. And now,” he said, as Battle set his glass on a nearby table, “the second act is well under way. Shall we return to our seats, or would you rather leave?”

“I would not cut your evening short. You wished to see the opera.”

“That is of no consequence.”

“No, I am well enough now. If you don’t mind being seen with me, now that you know, then let us go back… ”

“Well, well, Battle,” said the dry voice behind them. “I thought it was you, but I could not believe my eyes, so I came to see for myself. I really must ask the shareholders what they are thinking, allowing known degenerates in here.”

Battle jerked about so quickly that he nearly fell, and Holmes put a light hand on his arm, to steady him. Chadwick gazed at them mildly. Now face to face with the man, Holmes could see behind his spectacles. His small, eternal smile never reached his eyes, which looked Battle up and down with utter contempt.

“Still drinking, I see,” he said. He turned to Holmes. “I don’t know who you are, sir,” he said, “but I must warn you against associating with this man. His reputation is unsavory, to say the least.”

Holmes tightened his grip on Battle’s arm. “I thank you for your concern, Mr. Chadwick, but your warning is unnecessary.”

“Ah, an Englishman. A visitor, perhaps, to our great city,” Chadwick said. “Well, forewarned is forearmed, as they say. And since you appear to know my name, sir, although we have never met, may I know yours?”

“Simon Greaves.”

“Then, Mr. Greaves, I will leave you and your friend now.” He turned to go, snapped his gloved fingers as though he had forgotten something, then turned back.

“Oh, yes… some rumors have reached me, Battle, that you have secured employment at one of our better small hotels. I do not know what the management could have been thinking, or to whom they applied for references, but I will speak to them personally in the morning, and see to it that they have a true accounting of your history. No establishment can afford to risk its patrons with someone like you beneath its roof.

“What a shame,” he said, “that you had to be here tonight. I had almost forgotten your existence. I am not likely to forget it again. Good night to you both.”

They watched him bob across the vestibule on thin legs incongruous to the bulk of his upper body.

“A dangerous man,” murmured Holmes.

“I will kill him.” Battle was shaking.

“No, I think not. You would be an immediate suspect, for one thing, although I can well imagine that there are many besides you who would like Mr. Chadwick dead. No, you must leave that task to another, Battle.

“Besides… ” Holmes said, continuing the conversation as the two men, having lost their taste for the opera, walked back to their hotel. An icy wind pushed them south down Broadway. “You do not want him dead before your name can be cleared and your reputation restored.”

Battle stopped still on the pavement. “By all that’s holy, Greaves, you heard him! What he’s done to me so far isn’t enough, he’s out to crush me utterly! Do you think he would ever be a party to my reclamation?”

Holmes only smiled and pulled Battle along. “Let’s discuss this over a hot supper when we get indoors. It’s beginning to snow, which will benefit us greatly. It is just possible that we may bring Mr. Chadwick around.”

The chimes of Trinity Church sounded half past nine on the following morning, as the card of Mr. Simon Greaves was handed in to Mr. Thaddeus Chadwick, Esq. Chadwick was a man of rigid habits, and the heavy snow that had fallen overnight had had no appreciable effect on his regular nine o’clock arrival, although the usual thunder of ironbound wheels and horses’ hooves outside his office on lower Broadway had been replaced by the pretty jingle of sleigh bells and harness in an otherwise silent world.

Chadwick’s office was large and comfortable, and a welcome fire crackled in the grate across from his desk. He kept his visitor standing before him for more than a full minute before deigning to look up from the brief he was reading.

“Well, Mr. Greaves,” he said, tossing the papers aside and folding his thick fingers on the desk before him. “Who would have thought that we would meet again so soon?” He gestured languidly to a chair. “Do sit down, and tell me the reason for this unexpected pleasure.”

Holmes complied. “I thank you for seeing me with no prior notice, Mr. Chadwick. I guessed that the snow would result in some gaps in your appointments, and I am glad to see that I guessed rightly.”

Chadwick grunted. “And what have you come to see me about?”

“Stopping your persecution of Robert Battle.”

Chadwick’s small, perennial smile broadened with incredulity, creasing his many chins.

“Mr. Greaves, I am a very busy man, and have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with fools. You surprise me, I must confess, because my first impression of you was that you were a man of some intelligence. I will have you escorted out very shortly, but before I do I should like to hear your rationale for such a remarkable request.”

“By all means.” Holmes pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and unfolded it. “You are a very busy man, as you say, so I will be very brief. Last night, between two and three in the morning, someone entered your office and opened your safe. That one,” he said, gesturing across the room to a seemingly impregnable iron vault taking up half of the far wall.

Chadwick, startled, glanced involuntarily at it, then back at Holmes, chuckling.

“You amaze me! It occurs to me, Mr. Greaves, that you and Robert Battle are well-suited after all. Both of you are hopeless. That safe cannot be opened by anyone but myself.”

“Yet it was.”

“By whom?”

“By me.”

Chadwick still smiled, but the first hint of doubt had crept into his face. “You lie, sir.”

“Do I? By all means, please open it and see. And let me thank you for locating your chambers in a modern building, one that employs the latest in safety features, and has an iron fire-stair running down the back. Eight inches of snow have served to effectively obliterate any footprints I might have left. As for your locks, Mr. Chadwick… they were simplicity itself to open, and even your safe took me no more than five minutes to breach.

“I removed several papers from it, to wit… ” he consulted the sheet of paper in his hand, “deeds showing you to be the owner, of many years’ standing, of numerous pieces of property on Cherry, Baxter, Mulberry, and Water Streets. The unspeakable establishments at those addresses are well known to the police, although there are so many leases and subleases on the properties that it would be difficult, although not impossible, to trace you as their owner without the original deeds themselves.

“It was in one of those establishments, in fact, that Mr. Battle was found, ostensibly drunk, three years ago, as a result of which he was removed from the police force. That he was investigating it, and others like them, and had begun to follow the trail of ownership, was well known to many people, including his superiors and, through his superiors, to you. That, of course, was why you had to destroy him.”

Chadwick’s face had grown red, but he held out an imperious hand. “May I see that list?” he said. Holmes passed it to him, and sat silently while the attorney looked it over.

“There is no mistake, you see,” Holmes said, when Chadwick had finished, and flung the paper back across the desk with a murderous glance. “No one could know the full list of properties who had not actually seen the deeds. And I do promise you that when you open the safe, you will find them gone.”

“And just what do you propose to do with them?”

“Why, nothing whatsoever. No… no that is not quite true. What I propose to do with them-what I have, in fact, already done with them-is post them to England, to a trusted individual in the government, where they are beyond your reach forever. I have, however, no intention of extorting money from you, Mr. Chadwick, if that is what you fear. What I will do with your deeds is keep them safe. And I will require you to clear Mr. Battle’s name of the stain you have placed upon it.”

“And how am I to do that, Mr. Greaves?”

“That, Mr. Chadwick, is not my concern. You are, as I am certain you would be the first to acknowledge, connected to people in very high places in this city. What you caused you can no doubt remedy. I leave it to a man of your intelligence to determine a way.”

Chadwick leaned back in his chair. “And what if I were to call the police, Mr. Greaves, and tell them what you have just told me?”

“What have I told you?” Holmes picked up the sheet of paper that Chadwick had flung at him, stepped across to the grate, and dropped in the paper, watching as it caught, flared up, blackened, and shriveled in the flames.

“Other than that list, now gone, there is nothing to prove that I know anything about the theft of your deeds.”

Chadwick removed his spectacles and pressed his thick fingers to the bridge of his nose. His hands were shaking. It took him several moments to master himself, but he did, and replaced his glasses.

“And what do you get from all this, Mr. Greaves? Battle has nothing any longer. I saw to that when I had his house burned. What can he possibly pay you for what you have done for him?”

“Nothing whatever.”

“Then I repeat… what do you get from all this? You have said that it is not money that you want. But what matters, then, if not money? I, unlike Battle, can pay you a very great deal for the return of those papers. I see that I was mistaken, thinking you a fool. You and I are both intelligent men. What is it you want? Name your price.”

Holmes laughed and returned to his chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him, and knitting his fingers across his vest. “As I said, I have no intention of extorting money from you. Those papers are merely a pledge of your good behaviour. Give Battle back his good name, and no one will ever know you to be the owner of a half-dozen of the worst hells in this city.” His smile faded.

“But, since you asked, I do want more. You will close those places down, Mr. Chadwick, and see that they remain shut, forever. Not just sell them to someone else, who will continue to ply the same, age-old trade, but end them, for good and all.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I am not naïve enough to believe that their elimination will stop this traffic. But at least, for a while, there will be fewer of them.”

“Others will take their place,” Chadwick said.

“Undoubtedly. But they will not be yours, and you will not be profiting from them. And please understand me… I will be leaving New York in a few day’s time. Should something happen to me between now and then, or should I not return safely to England for any reason, the individual who will be receiving your deeds will know what to do with them. And,” he said, rising from his chair, and walking to the door, “Robert Battle is under the same protection, except that for him there is no limit on the time.

“Pray that he remains safe and healthy, Mr. Chadwick. Should he be run down by a carriage, slip on the pavement and break his skull, or succumb to a sudden case of pneumonia, I will see to it that you are exposed.”

“Who are you?” Chadwick, too, rose from behind his desk, and pointed a shaking finger at Holmes. “Who are you?”

“I will happily tell you, Mr. Chadwick, once I have reached London. Expect a telegram from me, informing you that I have arrived unharmed. You will, in fact, be the first to receive the news. In the meantime, I should waste no time in restoring Mr. Battle’s good name.”

The spring of 1894 was one of the busiest of Sherlock Holmes’s long career. As the world knows, his return to London was heralded by the brilliant exercise that both solved the inexplicable murder of the Honourable Ronald Adair, and brought the infamous Colonel Sebastian Moran, the foremost of Moriarty’s gang, to final justice. The news of Holmes’s reappearance was met with universal elation by the highest in the land, as well as by the ordinary people whom he had so long aided, and the next few months were a blur of cases, with more petitions delivered to Baker Street than he could possibly accept.

My own domestic circumstances having altered during his absence, Holmes invited me to take up lodging with him once more in our old quarters, to which I gladly agreed. A crisp and clear January evening, the following year, found us ensconced before a pleasant fire, Holmes adding to his voluminous scrapbooks, and I reading. The sound of the doorbell, and voices in the hallway, caused Holmes to throw down his paste-brush with an air of distraction. So busy had he been, that his carefully organized reference works were beginning to suffer.

“Who on earth might that be?” he said. “I had hoped not to be disturbed tonight.”

His irritation turned to intense pleasure, however, when he caught sight of the man whom Mrs. Hudson showed in a few moments later.

“Robert Battle!” cried Holmes, striding forward with his hand outstretched. “How very good to see you again! And it takes no great feat of detection,” he said, turning to a darkly pretty woman that Battle drew forward, “to know that this must be Mrs. Battle. My hearty congratulations to you both. What brings you to London?”

“We are on our honeymoon, Mr. Holmes,” Battle said as we took our visitors’ things and made them welcome. “Our ship docked this afternoon, and we have just settled into our hotel. And then Frances and I could think of nothing, and no one, that we wanted to see more than you.”

“Watson,” said Holmes, as the introductions were made, “you remember that I told you of Robert Battle, and my little adventure in New York.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, shaking Battle’s hand. “It is very good to meet you. And you, Mrs. Battle.”

“I have waited for this moment,” Mrs. Battle said, as Holmes took her hand, and her husband smiled at her fondly. “It is to Mr. Holmes that we owe all our happiness.”

“It is, indeed.” Battle’s handsome face shone as he looked at his blushing wife. “She had waited for me, you see, just as you had said she would, and had never lost faith.”

“You both chose wisely and well, then, in choosing each other. Watson, some glasses… we must toast Mr. and Mrs. Battle, and their happiness. Sherry for Mrs. Battle, please. Whisky or brandy for you, Battle?” he said, then stopped me as I reached for the tantalus. “Ah, but I remember. Mr. Battle does not drink. Forgive me.”

Battle shook his head. “When we met in New York, I would have none of it,” he replied, “because I had been tarred as a drunkard the night of my arrest, and I wanted no stink of the stuff on me, ever again. But since I am among the living once more, I do indulge on occasion. And I can think of no occasion more appropriate than now. Brandy, please.”

With all four glasses filled, Battle rose to his feet and raised his glass, but was stopped by his wife’s hand upon his arm.

“May I, Robert?”

Her husband looked at her, surprised, then yielded to her with a smile, and she, too, rose, as did Holmes and I. Her bright brown eyes were shy, but she lifted her glass high nevertheless.

“The first toast must be to you, Mr. Holmes, because you are the reason for all our joy. Like a magician or a guardian angel, you appeared and our gladness appeared with you. We can never thank you enough.”

“Amen to that!” Battle cried. “To Sherlock Holmes!”

“To Sherlock Holmes!” I echoed.

Holmes lifted his glass next. “To Mr. and Mrs. Robert Battle. A most deserving couple!”

After we had drunk, Battle laughed, as we seated ourselves once more. “Actually, it’s Captain and Mrs. Battle. I’ve been restored to my rank, and both my name and my record cleared. That’s how I was able to call upon my Frances again. And speaking of names, had I but known, one year ago, that Mr. Simon Greaves was really Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, “I would have been much more circumspect with my professional advice during his visit to New York.”

“Nonsense,” said Holmes. “You know your city as I know mine, and your guidance gave a stranger invaluable assistance… and allowed us to rid the world of some places it can well do without.”

“Some people, too,” Battle replied. “You’ll be interested, I know, to learn that Thaddeus Chadwick died this past October. Murdered,” he added, “and not by me, though I certainly would have shaken the killer’s hand, had I been able.”

“Now that is news, indeed.” Holmes gestured to the nearby table with its glue-pot and scissors and the substantial pile of newspapers on the floor. “I have had little time to read in the past several months, and have only begun to catch up. How did that come about?” He leaned forward, keenly attentive.

“He was stabbed, in his own home, by a young woman of his acquaintance.”

“The motive?”

“None that we were able to ascertain.” He smiled. “Yes, I worked on the case. I was back on the force by that time. But I must admit to not trying too hard to solve the matter. It seemed a straightforward enough domestic matter. The young woman was living with him at the time. And she died in the fire that resulted from their struggle, and had no relatives who might have shed any light on the situation… ” He shrugged his shoulders.

“What was even more interesting than his death, however, was what was discovered about Mr. Chadwick several weeks later.”

Holmes smiled, and turned to me. “Chadwick was a talented man, Watson. He dies in October, stabbed by a young woman who is residing with him, yet continues to be newsworthy in November.” He turned back to Battle. “This is proving irresistible. Pray go on!”

“The short of it, Mr. Holmes, is that after his death a safe was found built into the wall of his bedroom. You will recall, of course, the gentleman and the young lady you saw with Chadwick, the night we attended the opera? The gentleman, Henry Ogden Slade, died barely a month after we saw him, and his young ward was left nothing whatever in his will. But a much more recent will was found in the safe in Chadwick’s bedroom, and it left everything to the girl, whom Slade acknowledged as his daughter.”

“The implication being that Chadwick somehow engineered his friend’s death, and meant to take control of his fortune? A good friend, indeed. Well, it would not surprise me, when you remember that you and I deprived Mr. Chadwick of a very large portion of his income.”

Battle shook his head. “I had nothing whatever to do with it, Mr. Holmes, which you well know. The credit is entirely yours, and your methods, although definitely unorthodox, were completely effective. A month after you left New York, I was summoned by the chief of police himself, and told that new testimony had been provided by several people, proving that I had been framed as I had claimed all along, and that I could have my old position back, if I wanted it. By that time, of course, I had received your letter, telling me what you had done.”

Holmes laughed, clearly pleased with himself. “Yes, it was an opportunity that I simply could not resist. As I think I have mentioned to you, Watson, I have often thought that I would have been a highly successful criminal, had I been so inclined. And I could not possibly indulge myself similarly in London, of course-Scotland Yard would be less than amused if I took to ‘second-story work’ here-but in New York, who was to know? Besides,” he said, raising his glass in the direction of the smiling Mrs. Battle, “the cause, in this case, was extraordinarily worthy.

“And what of you, Battle?” said Holmes. “What is in store for you on the police force? Is all forgiven?”

“More than forgiven. There are changes taking place, just as I had hoped, and shortly before Frances and I were wed, I was named an assistant to the new Commissioner of Police. You have heard of Theodore Roosevelt?”

“I have, indeed. A very good man.”

“As good as they come, and as incorruptible. He is the new broom that will sweep all New York clean.”

Rising to his feet, he raised his glass once more. “Another toast to you, then, Mr. Holmes. My cup runneth over, thanks to you.”

We all rose, then. “My blushes, Watson.” Holmes smiled, after we had drunk in his honour. “And now I think that we should all adjourn to Simpson’s for dinner. I can think of nothing more satisfying on a cold winter’s night than enjoying some good British beef with some excellent American friends.”