This was signed at the bottom by a Boston minister whose name meant nothing to Holmes or myself, but whose train of honorary degrees behind his name signified local prominence.
When the name of Sherlock Holmes was announced at the door, the president of the League was immediately sent for at his home as we waited in the parlor reading the literature about the place. A female employee worked diligently at a desk. A sign on the wall read, “If every person would give at least five cents we could care for several hundred more dogs and cats every year,” and another, “Kindness uplifts the world.” The latter phrase, displayed in bold lettering before us, seemed to perplex and entrap my friend Holmes’s gaze as few things I had ever seen.
“It is an honor to have you distinguished gentlemen as my guests,” said Colonel Brenton, the president, with a deep bow and hearty handshakes. “Our little League has been open to the public but a few months.”
“I should like very much to see your headquarters, if you would be so kind,” said Holmes.
Brenton led us into the League’s parlors, where animals were gathered and being pet by visitors. Brenton explained how the League was the first and only central location in the city where homeless cats and dogs could be taken to be given new homes or put to death in a humane manner rather than to starve and suffer abuse and torture in the streets.
“We wish to spread a sympathy for dumb animals too often hardened inside our hearts. Why, sometimes even I will see a dumb animal I wish to help stuck in some ash barrel, and by the time I have reached it, I have thought about something else and forgotten all about it.” He rubbed his thin moustache thoughtfully. “Sympathy is a good deal like electricity, gentlemen. The world is full of it, but before you can press the button with any effect you must have the line connected. And after connection is established the circuit is easily broken.”
“There is much poetic sentiment in that, Colonel,” Holmes said agreeably. “I wonder, though, if you might now turn over the guidance of our tour to the actual person in charge of the League. A woman, if I am not mistaken.”
We both turned and stared at Holmes in awkward disbelief.
“Why, Mr. Holmes, I am the president of this organization! You may well look at the stationery for evidence of that!” he cried.
Holmes stood and waited. After a moment of shuffling and protesting, and Holmes still impassive, Brenton’s face fell in inevitable surrender. “Wait here, gentlemen. I shall call for Mrs. Huntington Smith.”
“Did you not see, Watson,” Holmes said when we were alone, noting my confusion, “that the good colonel’s steps inside were taken with a tentative, semi-familiar measure, looking ahead at all times, as one who has been inside a structure perhaps but three or four times. Nor did a single one of the animals having the liberty of the place note his presence with recognition or happiness. An animal knows its friend is present long before he is even in sight.”
“I suppose you are right, but how did you know that a woman was the true head?” I asked, baffled.
“Simply enough, my dear Watson. If he is a man, then the real authority must not be. The only reason for his appointment would have been for the public legitimacy a man brings in the role. Then there is the fact that most organizations devoted to the humane treatment of animals and children are founded by women in this country, as in England, so that I had absolute certainty as to my trifling deduction. I had no desire to cause any embarrassment to the lawyer (or such I perceive him to be by his stance and inflection), but he can give us nothing we require.”
I was about to ask what that was, as this all seemed to me a strange detour away from more pressing enquiries, but at this point there entered a small, quick-moving woman who presented herself as Anna Harris Smith, wife of Huntington Smith, editor of the
A mongrel terrier ran up and pawed at Mrs. Smith’s leg for affection.
“Ah, there is a happy dog then!” I commented.
“You see,” she said to us, “the animals are happy because this is not an institution, but a real home. We do not like to keep any animal in limited quarters. You need not explain who you are. I have read of your arrival in my husband’s newspaper.”
“I wonder if we might have the pleasure of seeing a specific animal under your care, Mrs. Smith,” Holmes said. “Would that be much trouble?”
“We keep a very accurate account of the animals, entering upon our books every day where each animal comes from, in what condition it is when received, and how it is disposed of. When the animal is given away, an agreement must be signed in which a promise is made to treat the animal kindly, and if it is not desired, to return it to the League. We must be able to see for ourselves that the home is a good one. This may seem strict, but in this enlightened age there are still men and women who regard the lower animals as less than machines, using them if convenient, treating cats as animated mouse traps, then giving them less care than they would bestow upon a bicycle or a sewing machine.”
“That is very true!” Holmes said exuberantly, as though he had worked a difficult case to its conclusion which, looking back upon the surprises of the case, it was very possible he had.
Holmes having described the circumstances of this particular kitten’s arrival, Mrs. Smith took us at once to an enclosed room like a conservatory filled with fresh light from a roof of skylights. There, cats and kittens played, stretched, slept. Mrs. Smith began sorting through the menagerie with swift but gentle hands.
“When summer approaches, the number of animals given away or homeless increases greatly. It is a rather cruel habit of people to turn out their cats, or leave them inside to suffer and starve, while they leave Boston for the summer. Horses standing out in the heat become weak with thirst and hunger because of brutal owners who can pay less for another horse than to feed their own. They collapse in the street, or are taken by horse thieves and traded to be slaughtered. That is the end for the most faithful servant that mankind has. Does it not seem time to expect more of a Christian country?”
“There surely must be some recourse in the law, Mrs. Smith,” I suggested.
“Not presently. This summer, we have kept a score of men constantly employed in the streets following the more wretched horses and listening for alarms of theft. Here. The ribbon on her neck said her name was ‘Mollie.’”
The kitten had a flowing coat of orange and white, and she looked out and blinked at us with one blue eye and one granite gray.
“A beautiful puss,” Holmes said after the briefest look. “Now that I see your labors, I am certain my colleague Dr. Watson would agree that we have taken entirely too much of your day.”
On the way to the stairs, we passed by a room that held approximately a dozen boys and girls. They were playing very gently with some snoozing fat cat on a sofa and a sprightly kitten, while each youth stood up and told of a good deed performed toward an animal.
“That is our Kindness Club,” said Mrs. Smith to us proudly. “The children come nearly every day through the summer vacation. Many of these children would spend their evenings on the streets if not for our club, boredom leading to abuse of each other and any helpless beings. If we can teach humanity to the generation growing up, there will be no cruelty to grapple with in generations to come.”
One chubby boy was speaking about how he gave water to an emaciated horse on the street that was in weak, uncared for condition from pulling a heavy wagon. The other children applauded with sincere appreciation. After finding myself rather moved in observing, I turned back to see Holmes was speaking quietly to our guide. The only words I heard Holmes speak were “a good bargain.” The strength in that woman’s bright eye could only remind me of my very first glimpse at Holmes himself.
As we climbed into our waiting carriage again on Carver Street, an agent from the Animal Rescue League appeared at the window holding a small green bag with perforations along the side. He handed this into the carriage to Holmes. I presumed this package was connected to Holmes’s hushed talk with Mrs. Smith. The agent said that yarn was the preferred plaything, but never to be ingested.
“I believe I saw a piece of yarn at the bottom of my wardrobe. Watson, did you notice it?” asked Holmes as we drove on our way.
“What is this about, Holmes?”
Holmes opened the top of the bag. Mollie peered over the side, then fell on her back as she tried to climb onto the carriage seat. For the next several days, Holmes hardly ever left the side of the mischievous kitten in the humble confines of our rooms.
