Sherlock Holmes In America

THE SEVEN WALNUTS by Daniel Stashower

Daniel Stashower is the Edgar-winning author of Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle and a coeditor of Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. He is also the author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder, as well as five mystery novels, the most recent of which is The Houdini Specter. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Mystery Stories and The World’s Finest Mystery and Best American Mystery Stories and The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories. His work has also appeared in newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, and American History.

We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage on East 69^th Street, but I cannot recollect anything more startling and distasteful than the sudden appearance of Mr. Gideon Patrell, the celebrated sideshow entrepreneur. It was a brisk October morning in 1898 when Mr. Patrell presented himself at my mother’s kitchen table and, after submitting his mouth to a thorough examination, promptly cleared his throat and began to regurgitate a handful of walnuts, summoning them from the depths of his stomach, one by one.

Mr. Patrell arrived at this singular moment by slow degrees. A tall, rail-thin gentleman of elegant bearing and impeccable wardrobe, he had arranged to join us for breakfast so that he might discuss the possibility of engaging the services of my brother, Harry Houdini.

Harry was all of twenty-four years old at the time; I had just turned twenty-two. Professionally, my brother had hit the skids. Try as he might-and no one ever tried harder-he couldn’t quite manage to break out of the small time. Whatever small reputation he had rested entirely on his value as a novelty act. He spent weeks at a stretch working various odd turns in traveling circuses and midway tents, sleeping in swinging hammocks on carnival wagons and eating campfire meals at railway sidings. It was a life we both knew all too well. Harry and I had done an act together from the time we were kids, but of course that had changed five years earlier when he married Bess. From that day forward, she became his partner onstage and off, and I handled the booking and backstage work. To speak plainly, my duties as Harry’s advance man were not terribly rigorous. In later years the theatrical world would unite in a roaring clamor for his services; in those days, the call seldom rose above a dull murmur. The note I had received from Mr. Patrell, mentioning a sudden vacancy in his program, was our first prospect of employment in several weeks.

I had arrived at my mother’s flat early that morning. In those days I fancied myself as something of a man about town, and kept a room at Mrs. Arthur’s boardinghouse several blocks away, so as to be free to enjoy the lively and vigorous social life befitting an eligible young bachelor in New York City. In point of fact, my social life was largely confined to solitary walks in the park and reading books at the public library. I lived in hope, however.

Harry continued to live at home even after his marriage to Bess, an arrangement that appealed not only to his all-encompassing sense of devotion to our mother but also to his frugal nature. Harry and Bess were already seated at the breakfast table when I arrived. Mother stood at the stove, as always, busying herself with a pot of oatmeal.

“Sit,” she said as I came through the door. “I’ll get you something to eat. You look thin.”

“Good morning, Dash,” said my sister-in-law. “Is that a new tie? It’s very spruce.”

“Not exactly new, Bess,” I said. “They made me a deal at Scott’s bazaar.” I fingered the wide pukka silk tie at my throat, which, if I had unbuttoned the jacket of my double-breasted windowpane suit, would have displayed a grease stain left by the previous owner. “I was hoping to make a good impression on Mr. Patrell.”

I turned to my brother. “Good morning, Harry,” I said. He scowled and did not look up from buttering a piece of brown toast.

I looked back at Bess. “What’s the matter with him?”

“He’s sulking,” she said. “He doesn’t want to go back to the Ten-in-One.”

“It’s beneath me!” Harry cried, brandishing the butter knife. “Ten different acts for a dime! Ten performers lined up along the platform, displayed like prize hogs at a county fair! Jugglers and bearded ladies and rubber men and tattooed girls and-”

“All right, Harry,” said Bess. “Calm down. It’s just that there isn’t much-”

“I am Harry Houdini, the justly celebrated self-liberator! The man whom the Middletown Daily Argus called ‘a most winning and competent entertainer.’”

“High praise indeed, Harry,” continued Bess in a soothing tone, “but even Houdini has to pay the rent. We haven’t worked in nearly a month.”

Harry grunted and resumed buttering his toast.

Bess pressed her advantage. “And Mr. Patrell was good enough to come and see us here at home, rather than bring us all the way downtown.”

“Ha!” cried my brother. “Dash would have been perfectly happy to ride down to 13^th Street. Mr. Patrell offered to come here only because Mama gave him a slice of blackberry torte the last time.”

Harry was undoubtedly correct about this, as my mother’s skills with a pastry brush and dough docker were legendary. “Look, Harry,” I said, “the important thing is that he has an opening. Nobody wants to work in the dime museums forever, but we need to keep the wolf from the door. At least let’s hear what Mr. Patrell has to say, all right? If you don’t like his offer, we’ll find something else.”

“Very well,” said Harry. “I will listen. Apart from that, I promise nothing.”

At the appointed hour Mr. Patrell appeared at the door of the flat, greeting my mother with elaborate courtesy. His mood was buoyant, but his face looked pale and gaunt, and he wore his left arm in a heavy canvas sling. Stepping inside, he waved off our questions about his bandaged arm, assuring us that it was only a minor injury. Placing his dove-grey homburg on the sideboard, he took a seat at the breakfast table and grinned broadly as a slice of dobos torte was placed before him. Bess, meanwhile, chatted amiably with him about the potentially ruinous effects of the recent consolidation of New York’s five boroughs. At length, when Patrell had submitted the misdeeds of Mayor Van Wyck to a lengthy analysis, my sister-in-law attempted to guide the conversation to business.

“Do I understand, sir,” said Bess, “that there may be an opening at Patrell’s Wonder Emporium?”

“Ah!” said the proprietor brightly, waving his good arm in the air. “Allow me to demonstrate!” Pulling a linen pocket square from his coat, he dabbed at his lips and gave a discreet cough. Then, with a brief flourish, he reached into his mouth and withdrew a large, whole walnut in its shell. “My mouth is empty,” he said, turning to my brother to allow a brief examination, “and I shall take a sip of tea to demonstrate that my esophageal passages are clear. But see!” With a sweep of his hand he withdrew a second walnut, placing it beside the first on the edge of the kitchen table.

This peculiar display was repeated four more times until there was a neat row of six walnuts arrayed before him. “What do you think?” he asked, waving a hand over the harvest. “Rather good, is it not?”

I should perhaps explain that Mr. Patrell’s exhibition was not without precedent. At that time the sideshows and carnivals were experiencing a modest vogue of what was called the “regurgitator act,” an outgrowth of sword-swallowing and water-spouting. The regurgitator act would take many curious forms before the fad had run its course. Some regurgitators would swallow and then reproduce small stones and rocks, while other even hardier souls turned their skills to goldfish and frogs. One inventive practitioner found a means of swallowing assorted small objects-coins, thimbles, and the like-only to reproduce them in the order called for by his audience. It must be said that regurgitators were not my favorite class of entertainer, and I disliked sharing a stage with them. The act, depending as it did upon grotesquerie, tended to put the audience in a skittish, even hostile frame of mind. Worse yet, it produced a foul odor.

My sister-in-law shared my sense of distaste. “Mr. Patrell,” said Bess, “I have always found acts of this type to be unseemly.”

“Still,” I said, eager not to offend a potential employer, “six walnuts! That’s rather good.”

“I can do seven,” said Harry. “Plus a potato.”

“Can you?” asked Patrell, looking a touch crestfallen. “Well, I’m still something of a novice. My difficulty is this accursed arm sling. I can’t juggle with one arm, and if I can’t juggle, how am I going to get the marks to pony up their dimes?”

It was a fair question. The sight of Gideon Patrell juggling a set of Indian clubs was a familiar one in New York City. He would stand on the sidewalk outside of his Wonder Emporium before each show doing wondrous cascades and showers as a crowd gathered to watch. This was his version of the time-honored “bally,” the free act performed outside a carnival tent while the outside talker-we didn’t call them “barkers” in those days-enticed the crowd to “step right up” and pay their admission. I was a competent juggler myself at that stage of my career, but Patrell was an artist. His overhand-eight pattern was a wonder to behold.

“Mr. Patrell,” said Bess, folding her hands, “I am truly sorry for your difficulty, but surely there are better options than this? Do you honestly believe that coughing up a handful of walnuts will bring in paying customers?”

Patrell’s face clouded. “What am I to do?” he asked. “I need something to go along with the spiel.”

“I could do my handcuff act,” said Harry. “That will bring them running!”

“God, Harry, don’t start blathering on about that handcuff act again! What do I need with a-what do you keep calling yourself? An escapitator?”

“An escapologist.”

“Whatever. Nobody’s ever going to want to see a guy slip out of a pair of handcuffs, Harry. Stick with your magic act.”

Harry folded his arms.

“You’ll forgive me for asking, Mr. Patrell,” I said, “but if you don’t want Harry to do his escape act, why are you here?”

“I need a magician-I need a ‘King of Kards.’”

“What happened to Addison Tate?” I asked. “Only last month you were telling me that he was the best card mechanic you’ve ever had.”

“Tate!” Patrell’s face darkened. “I took that man into my troupe when no one else would have him! Gave him two slots on the bill! And this is how he repays me!”

Harry leaned forward. “He skipped out on you?”

“Skipped out on me! No, Houdini-he shot me!”

Bess and I were too startled to speak, but Harry appeared delighted by this news.

“Ah!” he cried, bridging his fingertips. “A mystery!”

“A mystery? There’s no mystery about it,” cried Patrell. “He took out a gun and shot me! And when I get my hands on him, he’ll regret the day he crossed my path. Even with one arm, I’ll give him a thrashing.”

“Your case fills me with interest,” said my brother. “Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important. Omit nothing. It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”

Patrell stared. “I must say, Houdini, you’re acting very strangely. What in the world are you going on about?”

The answer, of course, was Sherlock Holmes. My brother, though not a great reader, was a devoted admirer of the Great Detective, whose adventures he followed religiously in the pages of Harper’s Weekly until the death of Mr. Holmes at the hands of Professor Moriarty, an event that left Harry despondent for several weeks. Even now, roughly five years later, Harry refused to accept that the detective’s adventures had come to an end. Whenever the subject was broached, he would simply shake his head and insist that Dr. Watson’s account of the events at the Reichenbach Falls must have been a deception of some kind. “The good doctor must have had his reasons,” he would say.

If anything, Harry’s enthusiasm had increased since the Great Detective’s passing. The previous year we had been thrown quite inadvertently into the investigation of the murder of a Fifth Avenue tycoon, under a set of circumstances, as Dr. Watson might have said, that I have recorded elsewhere. Our unexpected success in this matter left Harry with the distinct, if unwarranted, impression that he had been anointed as the heir apparent to Sherlock Holmes.

“Perhaps you should tell us a bit more about this unusual turn of events, Mr. Patrell,” said Bess. “I can’t say I’m entirely at ease with the idea of a Ten-in-One where the performers are apt to shoot one another.”

Patrell sighed and fingered one of the walnuts lined up on the table in front of him. “There isn’t much to tell,” he began. “Addison Tate joined the troupe in late July. He’s a fine performer, and he is willing to step in wherever he is needed, but I had my doubts about him. We’ve all heard rumors that he served a stretch in prison as a young man. They say he shot a man in a gambling hall.”

“He denies it,” I said. “I’ve played cards with the man on many occasions. He says a crooked dealer got shot and the police arrested everyone at the table. He insists he had no part in any wrongdoing.”

“I know what he says, Dash.” Patrell picked up a table knife and began tapping at the shell of a walnut. “And I believed him. Truly I did. But almost from the first he began pumping me for more money. He told me his mother needed an operation! Of all the cock-and-bull-”

“I am sorry to learn that his mother is unwell,” said Harry.

“Unwell? Houdini, his mother doesn’t need an operation! That’s the oldest line of patter in the book! I’m surprised he didn’t try to sell me a share in a gold mine.” Using his bandaged arm as a buttress, Patrell wedged the blade of his table knife into the seam of the walnut and pried it open.

“This still does not explain how you came to be shot,” Harry said.

Patrell picked out several pieces of walnut and began chewing. “The night before last, Tate brought every single member of the troupe to my office after the final show-the whole lot of them, even the bearded lady. He knew that I would be tallying the receipts for the week and preparing the pay packets. We’d had a fairly good draw, so there was a considerable pile of money sitting on my desk. Tate came to me with his hat in his hand and begged me to give him the entire week’s receipts. He made a good show of it, I’ll grant you. He said he had spoken with everyone and they had all agreed to put their salaries toward his mother’s operation.”

“The entire troupe was willing to do this?” I asked.

Patrell nodded. “I couldn’t believe it. He said he would pay them all back as soon as he was able. He must have been remarkably convincing.”

“It does seem extraordinary,” said Bess, “but, if you’ll forgive me, Mr. Patrell, what business is it of yours if your employees chose to give their wages to Mr. Tate?”

“You’re quite right about that, Mrs. Houdini, but that wasn’t all he was after. He wanted me to surrender the entire gate-every last dime I made for the week. It was quite impossible. I have overhead. It would have shut us down.”

“You refused?” Harry asked.

“Of course I refused! And Tate assured me that he bore no ill will. We shook hands and parted as friends-or so I believed. But he returned later, when the others had gone. Said he was going to give me one last chance to do the decent thing. When I again refused, he informed me that I no longer had a choice in the matter. ‘It pains me to do this,’ he said, ‘but I am a desperate man.’ That’s when he pulled out his gun.”

“The Navy Colt,” I said. “With the ivory grips.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “How could you possibly know that, Dash?”

“Harry, Addison Tate does a ‘Wild West’ act. He’s the best trick shooter in all of New York. I’ve seen that pistol dozens of times. So have you. He treats that gun like precious jewel.”

Harry stroked his chin. “A regrettable lapse. I saw, but I did not observe.”

I turned back to Patrell. “I can’t believe that Addison Tate would do such a thing. I know the man.”

“I don’t think he intended to shoot me, Dash,” Patrell said, wincing slightly as his hand went to his bandaged shoulder. “I was so convinced of it, in fact, that when he reached for the money, I pushed him away and tried to scoop the money back into my strongbox. That’s the last thing I remember, apart from the sound of the gun. When I came to my senses, the room was full of people and my shoulder hurt like the devil, but Tate and the money were gone.”

“It must have been an accident,” I said. “He keeps a hair-trigger on that pistol.”

“Taking the money was no accident, Dash. And whether he meant to shoot me or not, it’s all one and the same in the eyes of the law. I’ll see him in Sing Sing before this is over. If only he can be found!”

“And so we come to the business at hand,” said Harry, spreading his palms on the table before him. “You wish to hire me.”

“Obviously,” said Patrell.

“Yes, just so. Obviously. You should have consulted me sooner. By this time, no doubt, the police have trodden on any number of vital clues, but perhaps I might uncover the truth by questioning-”

“I must say, Houdini, you don’t seem quite yourself today.” Patrell brushed the last of the walnut shells into his handkerchief. “Do I understand that you fancy yourself a detective now?”

“You’ve come to the right man. I shall locate Addison Tate for you, and I shall solve the mystery of his disappearance, or my name isn’t-”

“But there’s no mystery about it, Houdini! He simply fled after the gun went off. The police will find him soon enough.”

Harry’s face fell. “No mystery? Then why have you come to see me?”

“You’re still a magician, aren’t you?”

“I am ‘The King of Kards,’” said Harry, straightening his back. “The foremost pasteboard manipulator in the country, capable of making the cards-”

“-Capable of making the cards shimmer and dance upon your fingertips,” said Patrell, finishing Harry’s boast in the weary tone of one who had heard it countless times. “Well, Houdini, making the cards shimmer and dance is another service that Addison Tate had undertaken for Patrell’s Wonder Emporium, and rather capably, I will admit. I need someone to fill his slot. I’d do it myself, but with my arm in a sling I couldn’t possibly pull off a manipulation act.”

“Harry would be very pleased to accommodate you,” I said, assuming my de facto role as my brother’s manager, “provided that you are willing to meet his terms.”

“I’ll pay him three dollars a week,” said Patrell, “which is fifty cents more than I was paying Mr. Tate.”

“My professional charges are upon a fixed scale,” said Harry. “I do not vary them, save when I remit them altogether.”

“What?” asked Patrell.

“Three dollars a week will be fine,” I said quickly.

“Yes,” said Harry, tapping his nose meaningfully. “Perhaps it would be best if I joined the company as a mere performer. We must not advertise the real reason for my presence. It would inhibit my investigation.”

Patrell turned to me. “Dash?”

“Three dollars a week will be fine,” I repeated.

“It is a perfect deception,” Harry said, as he journeyed downtown to join Patrell’s Wonder Emporium that afternoon. “I shall pose as a simple card manipulator. No one will suspect that I am silently observing each and every detail.”

“Harry,” said Bess with a sigh. “You are a simple card manipulator. Mr. Patrell told us to leave Addison Tate to the police. There’s nothing to investigate.”

“Bess is right, Harry,” I said. “Don’t mess this up. We need the money. Keep your mind on your act.”

“I shall perform my duties with my usual skill and professionalism,” said Harry. “Of that you may be assured.” His voice took on a faraway quality. “The stage lost a fine actor when I became a specialist in crime.”

“Harry… ”

But he sank back in his seat and would say nothing more.

We were riding a horsecar down Seventh Avenue, with our collars pulled up against a stiff autumn wind. Bess wore a long cloak over the gauzy outfit that I always thought of as her “sugarplum fairy” costume, designed to show her legs to advantage. “I’m freezing,” she said, pulling the folds of the cloak tighter. “I hope Mr. Patrell has managed to find a warm spot this time. Do you remember when he was running the show out of an old fish market? I thought I’d never get the smell of mackerel out of my hair.”

Patrell’s Wonder Emporium had occupied dozens of locations over the course of its twenty-year history. It began as a tent-show on the outer reaches of Central Park, in the days when Wild West demonstrations were still a familiar summer entertainment. Gradually, Patrell took his business downtown in hopes of attracting patrons throughout the year. It was his custom to swoop down whenever a warehouse or dry goods concern went out of business, buying up the remainder of the owner’s lease at a discount and setting the run of his show accordingly.

We alighted at 14^th Street and approached the Wonder Emporium from the west. From half a block away we caught sight of the banner line, a row of brightly-painted canvas panels depicting the “wondrous and edifying” novelty acts presented within-a bearded lady, a contortionist, a frog boy, a “Wild Man of Borneo,” a snake charmer, a living skeleton, a “genuine leprechaun,” a fat lady, a sharp-shooter, and a King of Kards. It should be admitted that the illustrations were eye-catching but also highly fanciful. The leprechaun, for example, was depicted as standing in the palm of a normal-sized man, brandishing his tiny hat and dancing a merry jig. “A tiny marvel!” read the bold, up-tilted caption. “Will you find his pot of gold?” The actual performer-Benjamin Zalor, with whom I often played a hand or two of whist-stood somewhat over four feet. If he had ever owned a pot of gold, he neglected to mention it to me.

“That looks nothing like me,” said Harry, pointing to the panel depicting the King of Kards. This was certainly true. The figure on the canvas panel resembled a blond Satan, with playing cards shooting from his fingertips like lightening bolts. A trio of undersized red imps were seen cowering at his feet, averting their eyes.

“These are just stock images,” I said. “Show people come and go. Patrell couldn’t possibly have a new banner painted each time his snake charmer gets a better offer. None of these illustrations looks anything like the actual performer.”

“I know that,” said Harry, “but my public will be disappointed.”

We had only twenty minutes until the start of the first show, and Patrell was waiting for us at the door. He led us inside and showed us to a makeshift stage-a narrow platform fronted with red and blue bunting that ran along one wall below a line of windows. The other performers had already taken their places on stage, waiting for Patrell to drum up the day’s first audience. The proprietor made hasty introductions, then showed Harry and Bess to their place on the platform, between the living skeleton and the snake charmer.

This done, Patrell pulled out a large silver turnip watch at the end of a chain. “Five minutes, ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “Dash,” he said, turning to me. “Would you mind filling as frog boy?” He gestured to a strange assemblage of wood and cloth at the third position on the platform. At the center stood a raised column painted to resemble a tree stump. If you settled yourself behind the stump in a sort of crouch and poked your head through a hooded yoke of green cloth, it created the impression of a human head atop an elongated frog body. It was a nice effect, but tough on the knee joints.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “Addison Tate was also filling the frog boy slot?”

“No,” said Patrell. “Actually, we hired a young lady last month. Mathilda Horn. Lovely girl, but she hasn’t turned up yet. I believe last night’s events may have unsettled her.”

“I’ll need three dollars a week, just like my brother.”

“Two.”

“Two-fifty.”

Patrell snorted as he reached into his pocket for a walnut. “Dash, it’s not a talent slot.” He picked up a rock from the “Wild Man of Borneo” exhibit and cracked the nut with it. “Your mother could do the frog boy act. I’m offering you two dollars a week until Miss Horn returns. What do you say?” He held out the cracked walnut and I helped myself to half.

“Ribbit,” I said.

The next three weeks passed pleasantly enough as we fell into the routine of the Ten-in-One. We did modest business throughout the afternoons, but drew rather larger and more boisterous crowds in the evenings, when young couples could be relied upon to be strolling past on their way to the theater or a dinner. I made myself useful by filling various slots behind the scenes as well as on the platform. After a couple of days, when Mathilda Horn returned to take up her duties as frog boy, I was promoted to the sharp-shooter slot recently vacated by Addison Tate. I should confess that I do not possess any native skill with a pistol, but the international success of Miss Annie Oakley-“The Peerless Little Sure Shot”-had created a public demand that every dime museum and carnival in America was now obliged to fill. Though I have never handled a live firearm in my life, only blank cartridges, I found as many others had done that sleight of hand offered an acceptable substitute. In my version of the sharp-shooter act, a volunteer from the audience made a selection from a deck of playing cards. After an appropriate interval of shuffling and cutting, I invited the spectator to throw the entire pack into the air. As the loose cards fluttered down, I gave a wild cry-the Rebel Yell, as interpreted by the son of an Orthodox rabbi-and fired my pistol. In short order the selected card was found to have a bullet hole in its center. The act drew enthusiastic applause whenever I performed it, but suffice it to say that Little Sure Shot had nothing to fear from me.

Harry, meanwhile, was doing yeoman service with his card manipulations, delighting the crowd with flashy overhand shuffles and hand-to-hand cascades, followed by platform effects such as the rising cards and the vanishing bird cage. If at times his stage manner appeared stiff, if not wooden, his audiences were generally forgiving. This may have had something to do with the pleasant addition of Bess striking poses at his side. She was easy on the eyes, I don’t mind telling you.

Between shows Harry took every opportunity to make enquiries about the disappearance of Addison Tate. As a rule he did not mingle easily with other performers, but his path was greatly smoothed by the trays of pecan rolls that our mother sent along each morning for fear that our new friends-especially Mr. Grader, the living skeleton-were not getting enough to eat. Even so, Harry’s attempts to strike up even the most casual conversation had the sound of a man practicing a new language. “Say, did you happen to see the newspaper this morning?” he would ask. “I see that Jimmy Sheckard got yet another hit for the Brooklyn Bridegrooms! He certainly is handy with a baseball bat, is he not? I wonder, was Addison Tate fond of baseball? Whatever happened to him, do you suppose?”

If these forays lacked subtlety, it emerged that our colleagues were not at all reluctant to discuss the abrupt departure of Mr. Tate. It was the custom of the performers to withdraw into a back room and pass around flasks of tea between shows. As the days progressed, the tea gave way to stronger restoratives, and the conversation flowed more freely. By the end of the second week, our new friends had advanced no fewer than a dozen explanations for Addison Tate’s behavior, ranging from brain fever to a sudden impulse to run off and join the French Foreign Legion. “If you ask me,” said Emma Henderson one afternoon, pulling off the “Bearded Lady” chin piece she wore, “he was up to no good from the moment he got here. I always saw him sneaking around behind the platform. Very odd, I call it.”

“Sneaking around?” Harry asked. “How do you mean?”

“Nipping off to the back alley. Like he was looking for something, or meeting someone, but didn’t want you to know. I never believed that business about his sick mother, not me.”

“That’s not what you said at the time, Emma,” said Nigel Kendricks, setting his “Wild Man of Borneo” wig and mask on an empty stool. “You were willing to give him a week’s pay, just like the rest of us.”

“Oh, he was a charmer, I’ll grant you that,” said Miss Henderson. “He certainly charmed you, didn’t he, Mathilda? Quite the rogue, that one.”

Miss Horn looked away, her face flushing scarlet. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Emma,” she said.

Miss Henderson snorted. “I’ve seen the way you looked at him, dear. A blind man couldn’t have missed it.”

I leaned forward and patted Miss Horn’s arm. “There, now. One never knows what the future holds. There’s always another trolley coming along, they say.” I gave her what I hoped was a charming, even roguish smile.

Miss Horn glanced at me as though I were some simple-minded relation with whom she was obliged to make small talk. “Perhaps so,” she said, “but I find I prefer to walk.” She stood and brushed at the folds of the green cloak she wore for the frog boy routine. “If you’ll excuse me, I must get ready for the three o’clock.” She turned and drifted toward the platform, with Miss Hendricks trailing behind her. I stood watching them with my hands in my pockets.

“Strange how that woman manages to resist your charms, Dash,” said Harry, sidling up behind me. “You of all people, with your experience of women that spreads over three separate boroughs.”

“I’m just being sociable,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be too sociable,” said Bess, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I believe Mr. Patrell has designs on Miss Horn.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“She missed a day and a half of work and he didn’t fire her,” said Bess. “For Gideon Patrell, that’s something akin to a proposal of marriage.”

“I’m sure Mr. Patrell is only concerned with the best interests of the show,” I said. “I feel the same way.” I pulled the Navy Colt from its holster and made a show of examining it.

“Perhaps,” said Harry. “Still, it might be best for all concerned if you-that’s very odd.”

He was staring at me. “What is it?” I asked

He took the pistol from my hands. “You say this is Addison Tate’s gun? The one he dropped after he shot Mr. Patrell?”

“The very one. Mr. Patrell gave it to me when I took over the sharp-shooter act.”

Harry examined it cautiously and gave the barrel a tentative sniff. “This pistol has been fired, Dash.”

“Of course it’s been fired, Harry. I’ve been firing it eight times a day for the past two weeks. Ten times on Saturday.”

“But you’ve been using blank cartridges, Dash.”

“Blank cartridges still leave a heavy odor of gunpowder. That’s what you smell.”

“Indeed?” Harry waved a hand as though the remark was beneath his notice. He turned the gun over in his hands several times. “You’ve been rather careless with this firearm, Dash.”

“How so? I’m shooting blanks. It’s not as if I’m going to hurt anyone.”

“The handle. You told me it was genuine ivory, did you not?”

I nodded.

He fingered a series of scores and ridges along the bottom of the ivory grips. “You told me that Tate was unusually careful with this gun. He even had Mr. Patrell lock it up in the strongbox each night. Now it looks as if it has been chewed by a dog.”

I took the pistol and examined the scarred grip. “Huh. I hadn’t noticed that. It must have happened when Tate dropped it.”

“Perhaps. It is but a trifle, of course, but there is nothing so important as trifles.”

“Harry, why do you insist on making a mystery out of it? Next you’ll be telling me that it’s a three-pipe problem.”

He sighed. “That’s exactly what it is, Dash. What a shame that I don’t use tobacco.”

“Harry, face it. You’re not going to get to the bottom of this one. Addison Tate shot Mr. Patrell and now he’s on the run. With the money he took he could be anywhere. We may never know where he went.”

“You’re wrong, Dash; I will solve it. I’m simply looking at things the wrong way. I must shake things up-turn them upside down. And I know just how to do it.” Harry smiled mysteriously. “Indeed, I have already taken the necessary measures.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll say no more. I must be discreet.”

“What is he going on about now?” I asked Bess.

She slipped her arm through Harry’s and led him toward the stage. “Hasn’t he told you? He’s written a letter to-”

“Shhh!” cried Harry, pulling us off to the side. “The others will hear!”

“Hear what?” I asked.

Harry looked around to make sure that no one else was listening before he continued. “Very well,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I shall confide in you. As the solution has thus far eluded me, I took the liberty of laying my case before an expert. I have written a letter to the world’s foremost consulting detective.”

“The world’s foremost consulting detective?”

“Exactly.”

“You wrote a letter to-”

“Sherlock Holmes. That is correct. I gathered the facts into a most interesting narrative, with certain literary flourishes that I hope will appeal to Dr. Watson.”

“But… Sherlock Holmes. Harry, isn’t Sherlock Holmes a-well, isn’t he-”

“Dead? You are referring to the unfortunate happenings at the Reichenbach Falls? You know my views on that matter, Dash. Sherlock Holmes is not dead. He has simply withdrawn from public life for reasons that he is not at liberty to divulge. I feel confident, however, that when he hears the particulars of this case, he will make an exception.”

“An exception?”

“Yes.”

“An exception to being dead?”

“Yes, if you insist on phrasing it thus. He has undoubtedly heard of the exploits of the great Harry Houdini. I am the only escapologist in the world, just as he is the only professional consulting detective. He and I are two originals, charting a bold new course and bringing comfort to the downtrodden.”

“Comfort to the downtrodden?”

He continued as if he had not heard. “It is a singular honor, but also a burden. He and I share this unique bond, like brothers. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“Like brothers,” I repeated, as we climbed the platform for the next performance. “No, I guess I wouldn’t understand.”

The following weeks passed quickly and we began to lose track of time, as one often does when caught up in the grind of a Ten-in-One. As the days melted away, the name of Addison Tate was heard less frequently among the performers, and even Mr. Patrell seemed eager to put the episode behind him. For my part I enjoyed the routine thoroughly, but for one detail. Though I persisted in pressing my attentions upon Miss Horn, she continued to resist me with polite but firm resolve. Each day at the end of the final show, she would hurtle through the door as if propelled from a cannon, vanishing from sight before I had a chance to offer to escort her on the walk home.

One morning in early December, as I arrived at my mother’s flat to collect Harry and Bess, I found my brother slumped over the breakfast table looking thoroughly despondent.

“What is it?” I asked, glancing at my mother. “Is anyone-”

“His letter has come back from Baker Street,” said Bess.

“Come back?”

“Unopened. See for yourself.” A thick envelope lay on the breakfast table, addressed to “Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esq.” in Harry’s blocky script. The surface was covered with postal markings and transfer stamps, and as I picked it up for a closer look, I could see a line of instructions printed along the bottom edge in a firm, slanting hand. It read: “Mr. Holmes no longer resides at this address. Return to writer.” An arrow scrawled in the corner directed attention to the reverse side of the envelope, where Harry’s name and address were carefully printed on the flap.

“Harry,” I said, setting the envelope back on the table. “I’m sorry. You must be very disappointed.”

“Extremely.” His voice was heavy and listless. “I feel so terribly foolish.”

“Still, you couldn’t have really thought-I mean, you couldn’t actually have believed-”

“That Sherlock Holmes would assist me in solving the case? Of course I believed it.”

Bess reached across the table and placed her hand on his. “Let’s put all this foolishness behind us and concentrate on the business at hand. Dash, we’ve been working for Mr. Patrell for nearly two months now. Don’t you think it’s time we-Dash? Dash?”

“Sorry? Were you speaking to me?”

“What is it? You have the strangest look on your face!”

“I-well-I’m not sure, but I think-I think-”

“What?”

I picked up Harry’s letter and turned it over in my hands. “I think Sherlock Holmes just solved the case.”

“It’s bad enough that I have to spend eight straight hours standing on the platform. Now I have to remain afterwards?” Emma Henderson tore off her bearded chin piece. “And why does it have to be in Mr. Patrell’s office? We’d all be more comfortable in the back room.”

This was certainly true. Harry and I had asked all of the performers to gather in the relatively cramped confines of Patrell’s office, which left most of us standing and others leaning awkwardly against the rear wall. It was a necessary measure. In answer to Miss Henderson’s question, however, I merely shrugged.

“Be patient, Emma,” said Mathilda Horn, gazing up at me with an unfamiliar expression of warmth and affection. “Dash has his reasons.”

“Does he now?” asked Miss Henderson. “When did you two get so friendly?”

“You hadn’t noticed?” asked Benjamin Zalor, settling his undersized frame on the edge of an unused packing crate. “They’ve spent half the day whispering at the back door.”

Gideon Patrell took his usual seat behind his desk. “Are there any more of those pastries your mother sent, Dash?” he asked. “What did you call them again?”

“Kifli,” I said. “And I’m afraid Mr. Grader has eaten the last one.”

“Grader! I’ve never seen a living skeleton with such a sweet tooth,” said Patrell.

“Sorry, boss,” he said, patting his concave stomach.

“So, what’s this all about?” asked Patrell, cracking a walnut with a juggling club. “Where is your brother, by the way?”

“Right here,” said Harry, entering the room with the “Wild Man of Borneo” in tow. “Sorry for the delay. Mr. Kendricks and I needed to make preparations for this evening’s performance.”

“Performance?” asked Patrell. “We’ve done our eight turns today, Houdini. It’s time to go home.”

“Please indulge me for just a few moments longer,” said Harry. “I’ve planned an encore, never before seen on any stage. Tonight, my brother and I intend to recreate the dreadful crime that took place in this office.”

“Recreate the crime?” Patrell stared at him. “For what possible reason?”

“You have indicated that you would like to find Mr. Tate and recover your money.”

“Yes, but he’s long gone by now. And our money with him.”

“Perhaps not.” Harry straightened his tie. “Indeed, I believe the solution is closer than you think. Mr. Patrell, for purposes of our demonstration you will remain just as you are, behind the desk. Dash, you will be playing the role of Addison Tate in this evening’s drama.”

I stepped forward.

“Now,” my brother continued, turning to the others, “Mr. Patrell has stated that Addison Tate returned to the office to demand the money after the rest of you departed. Dash-demand the money.”

I shrugged. “Give me the money,” I said.

“No, no,” said Harry, stepping forward. “It is essential that you are believable in the part. Take out your gun! Threaten him!”

I pulled out the Navy Colt. “Give me the money,” I repeated, somewhat apologetically.

“You’re hopeless, Dash,” said Harry, snatching the Colt from my hands. “Here’s how it’s done.” He turned to Patrell and snarled at him across the desk, waving the gun menacingly. “See here, you low-down, four-flushing, no-account, miserable, rotten, lousy, cheap, dishonest-”

“I think we get the point, Houdini,” said Patrell.

“Quite so,” Harry agreed, in a much brighter tone. He set the gun down and turned away, twirling a juggling club carelessly at the tips of his fingers. “And then, when you refused to surrender the money, he shot you and stole away under cover of darkness.”

Ben Zalor squirmed uncomfortably atop his packing crate. “We know all this, Houdini,” he said.

“Indeed,” said my brother, clearing his throat, “but later that same evening, something even more remarkable occurred. I believe that Addison Tate had no sooner fled into the night than he realized that he could not leave Mr. Patrell alive to tell what he knew. Tate would never be able to show his face again for fear of being arrested. The charge would be attempted murder.”

Emma Henderson gave a horrified gasp. “You’re saying that Tate came back here to finish Mr. Patrell off?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, my dear lady. But Tate found himself in a terrible quandary. He knew that he had wounded his victim, but he could not enter the office and confront him directly. Patrell had likely summoned help by this time. What’s more, Tate had dropped his gun earlier. He was unarmed. So what did he do? Ah, here was the genius of the thing. Creeping stealthily into the back room, Tate noticed a ventilator duct that communicated directly with Mr. Patrell’s office.”

“Ventilator duct?” asked Grader, scratching his skull-like head.

“Yes, for the circulation of fresh air. Essential in a property that had once been a fish market. Tate noticed a faint light glowing through the opening, which told him that Mr. Patrell was still in his office. The absence of noise confirmed that his victim was alone, possibly even unconscious from the gunshot. Tate seized this opportunity without hesitation. Reaching into the folds of his cloak, he withdrew a small but deadly swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India, which he had secured during his dealings with-”

“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Houdini,” cried Miss Henderson. “This is the most absurd yarn I’ve ever heard!”

“It’s preposterous,” said Patrell, reaching for another walnut. “And by the way, aren’t you describing the plot of a Sherlock Holmes adventure? The Speckled Band, wasn’t it?”

Harry waved the objections aside. “Perhaps that put the idea into Tate’s head. In any event, the problem now remained of inducing the deadly snake to travel through the ventilator passage into Mr. Patrell’s office. How could this be achieved? Searching through the back room, Tate chanced upon-” Harry broke off at the sound of a walnut cracking. An enormous smile broke across his face. “You see it, Dash?” he cried, springing forward. “You see it?”

“I see it, Harry.”

“See what, Dash?” asked Ben Zalor. “I don’t understand.”

“Do you see what Mr. Patrell is holding in his hands?” I asked.

Zalor turned to the desk. “Your gun. What of it?”

“Do you see what he’s doing with it?”

“He cracked a walnut. So what?”

“He cracked a walnut with the butt of an ivory-handled Navy pistol. We know he’s done it more than once because there are markings on the handle that weren’t there when Addison Tate cared for the gun.”

“But what does it matter?” asked Miss Hendricks.

“Addison Tate didn’t shoot Mr. Patrell,” I told them. “Patrell shot himself. Again and again, we’ve seen that Mr. Patrell has a fondness for walnuts, and a tendency to crack the shells with whatever implement is at hand-a table knife, a rock, a juggling club. Tonight, Harry set the gun down on his desk and walked away with the juggling club. When Patrell had his next impulse to crack a walnut, he grabbed for the closest heavy object.”

“The gun,” said Zalor.

“Exactly. And the same thing happened on the night Mr. Patrell was injured-the night he claims that Addison Tate shot him. But Tate didn’t shoot anyone. Gideon Patrell shot himself, accidentally, while cracking a walnut.”

“Tonight, the gun didn’t go off,” Harry put in, “because Dash had adjusted the trigger mechanism. But Tate liked a lighter touch-almost a hair trigger-so the gun went off when Mr. Patrell cracked the handle against the nut. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed.”

“This is absurd!” shouted Patrell, his face darkening. “It’s crazier than the story about the swamp adder!”

“The wonder of the thing is that you did it twice,” I said. “You’d think that a man who had shot himself once would be a little more careful.”

“That’s why I had to distract you with my spellbinding story,” Harry said. “So that you wouldn’t notice what you were doing. As long as your arm has been in that sling, you’ve simply grabbed for whatever object was close at hand.”

Emma Henderson was staring at Patrell with an expression of fascination mixed with horror. “Why would he do such a thing? If it was an accident, why would he blame Addison Tate?”

“Two reasons,” I said. “First, with Tate out of the way, he believed he had an opportunity to win the affections of Miss Horn.” The young lady blushed deeply and turned away. “At the same time,” I continued, “it allowed Patrell to salt away the money for himself. I have to give him credit. At the very instant that he shot himself, he figured out a way to turn it to his profit. He certainly showed a cool head.”

“I don’t understand,” said Miss Henderson. “Why didn’t Addison Tate simply speak up and defend himself? He left Mr. Patrell’s office that evening when all the rest of us did. We would have vouched for him.”

“Tate returned later that evening. That part of the story is true. He wanted to try again to convince Patrell to let him have the money. When Patrell refused a second time, Tate saw that it was hopeless. He turned to go, leaving his gun behind as he always did, to be locked up in the strongbox overnight. Later, when he heard that Patrell had been shot and the police were looking for him, he panicked and ran.”

“Incredible,” said Zalor. “So that whole cock-and-bull story about recreating the crime, about snakes in the ventilator-you were just waiting for Mr. Patrell to crack a walnut?”

“Exactly,” I said.

“It’s a pack of lies,” said Patrell, his voice sinking to a menacing register. “You’ve made the whole thing up.”

“Not at all,” said Harry. “Once we realized what had happened, it was a simple matter to find Addison Tate-with Miss Horn’s help, of course.”

“You found him?” asked Miss Henderson. “Where?”

“Why, visiting his mother, of course,” said Harry. “She’s in the hospital awaiting an operation, just as Mr. Tate had said. He has been at her bedside every day, though he took the precaution of shaving off his ‘Wild West’ beard and moustache so that he wouldn’t be easily recognized. This afternoon, he told the entire story to a friend of ours down at the police department.”

“More lies!” insisted Patrell. “He’ll be halfway across the Atlantic by now.”

Just then, there was a stirring at the back of the room as the “Wild Man of Borneo” struggled to pull off his wig and mask, revealing not the familiar sight of Nigel Kendricks but a younger, smoother face.

Patrell gave a hoarse cry. “You! This is-”

“Hello, Gideon,” said Addison Tate. “Would you mind returning my Colt?”

“But it was ridiculous!” I told Harry at breakfast the next morning. “Ridiculous on a grand scale!”

“All part of the plan,” said Harry. “You told me to keep talking until he reached for the gun.”

“I know,” I said, “but really… a swamp adder in the ventilator?”

“I thought it was a rather tidy explanation,” said Harry, reaching for a slice of brown toast. “And after all, there was a poisonous snake in the room, if you count Mr. Patrell himself. But come now, Dash, you still haven’t explained how Sherlock Holmes provided the solution to the matter.”

“No, I suppose not,” I said. “Things got a bit chaotic last night.”

“For a few moments I thought Tate really would shoot Patrell,” said Bess. “And once the police arrived and demanded explanations, it seemed as if we’d never get out of there. Lieutenant Murray is a good man, but he’s a fiend for details.”

“Even he wasn’t quite sure what to do with Mr. Patrell,” I said. “Patrell never made a formal complaint against Addison Tate, so the nature of the crime is unclear.”

“I overheard Mr. Patrell offering to pay the medical expenses for Tate’s mother,” said Bess. “I’m guessing that Tate will let the matter drop, especially if Mathilda Horn has anything to do with it. She clearly wants to run away with him and live happily ever after.”

“A remarkable woman,” I said. “She never wavered in her belief that he was innocent.”

“Indeed,” said Bess, patting my arm. “We knew there had to be some reason she was able to resist your attentions.”

“But what about Sherlock Holmes!” demanded Harry. “My letter came back unopened!”

“Actually, Harry, it began with something you said. When the case began to get frustrating, you said something about ‘turning things upside-down.’ That put a seed in my head. Then, when I saw the letter to Sherlock Holmes, it all fell into place.”

“But how?” Harry took the envelope from his pocket and studied it. “It’s simply an unopened letter.”

“With a message on the outside. And what is the message instructing us to do?”

“I don’t understand. The message is simply telling us to-ah!” A smile broke across Harry’s face. “The message is telling us to turn it over! Turn it over and look at the other side. Which is exactly what you did with the gun. You turned it over and looked at the other side.”

“And once I did that, I saw that it hadn’t been used as a weapon, but as a nutcracker.”

“You turned things upside-down, just as I said.” Harry leaned back and gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I must say, Dash, you have been positively brilliant in this business.”

“My blushes, Harry.”

“Almost as brilliant as-”

“As the man who wrote the message on that envelope?”

He fingered the envelope tenderly for a moment. “Really, Dash,” he said, slipping it back into his pocket. “Now who’s being ridiculous?”