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?”
“
“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
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 facade 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.
