THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING THREE QUARTERS by Jon L. Breen
Jon L. Breen, the winner of two Edgar Awards in the biographical/ critical category, has contributed to six previous Sherlock Holmes anthologies. He is the author of eight novels, including the Dagger Award-nominated
Although I was a freelance American correspondent for several English newspapers, joining the crowds of ink-stained wretches attending the latest famous personality’s arrival in Chicago was never part of my usual regimen. So it was purely by chance that autumn afternoon in 1907 that I was at Grand Central Station on West Harrison Street to see Sherlock Holmes’s unheralded arrival. I had known him years before, and apart from my pleasure at seeing him again, I had hopes of an exclusive story to impress my Fleet Street masters.
“Clive Armitage, Mr. Holmes. We met-”
“I remember you well, Armitage, and I am pleased to greet a fellow Londoner. You are fully Americanized, I see.”
“It’s true I’ve been here several years now, and some say I’m developing an American accent, though I can’t hear it myself. Why do you think me Americanized?”
“Your tiepin and cufflinks identify you as member of some sort of baseball supporters club, and the handle of your walking stick depicts an ornate American eagle. You appear to be chewing gum, a habit that has not yet infected British journalists in my experience.”
“A representative of the Wrigley Company gave me some samples when I was working on a feature article about them,” I said somewhat defensively. “Wrigley is something of a Chicago success story, and I was assured their products will one day span the globe, so be warned.” Then, like a thespian belatedly remembering his lines, I exclaimed, “That was a truly amazing demonstration of your undiminished powers.” It wasn’t actually so amazing once he explained it, but I was not above flattery in search of a journalistic coup. “When I came to America, I feared I would miss reading about your adventures in
“That is essentially correct.”
“And how is Dr. Watson?”
“Well. I see little of him since his most recent marriage.”
Finally, I reached the obvious question. “What brought you to America?”
The answer proved frustrating: “A matter too delicate to reveal. Perhaps one day the full story can be told. For now, consider me an ordinary tourist, hoping to see some of this invigorating young city before returning home. I seek no publicity of my presence here, and in fact explicitly discourage it.”
“Do I gather though that you still do some detective work?”
“On rare occasions. A problem with truly singular elements is difficult to resist.”
I immediately offered to be his guide to the city of Chicago, and he readily accepted. In the days to follow, we saw (and smelled) the stockyards, visited the site on De Koven where Kate O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern and started the great fire of 1871, viewed such towering architectural masterpieces as the Rookery and the Schiller Building, rode the “L” trains, marveled at the great collections of the Art Institute, attended a concert of the Chicago Orchestra, and sampled the varied cuisines that immigrant populations offer a great city’s diners. On his third morning in the city, I suggested a visit to the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago’s 1893 world’s fair, and casually asked if he would consent to meet a friend of mine while we were in the area.
“I am too much in your debt to refuse,” he said, “but I trust I can rely on your friend’s discretion.”
“Absolutely. He’s an interesting chap. Athletics coach. I met him when I was in France seven years ago covering the Olympic Games. A man of unshakable moral principles.”
“They can only be deemed unshakable if they have been put to the test.”
“Oh, his have. He was planning to bring several runners to the Games but cancelled the trip when he learned the finals of all their events would take place on Sunday. Then a cablegram from Paris said the French had decided to change the finals to a weekday, so he made the trip with his athletes after all. But when he got there, he found the original schedule still in place. He withdrew his team from the competition. Americans take the Sabbath seriously, you see. Don’t ask my friend his opinion of the French. But he’s a splendid fellow, really, has played and coached nearly every competitive sport under the sun. At present, he is most renowned for football.”
“Is that Association football or rugby?”
“Neither. American football. Closer to rugby but different. It’s a college game primarily, but some institutions have banned it on grounds of excessive violence, including fatalities. In response, the coaches keep adjusting the rules, whether to save the sport or outfox their fellows, I’m not certain, but it is enormously popular and draws huge crowds.”
Conveniently for my ulterior motive, the former site of the World’s Fair overlapped the campus of the University of Chicago, a highly experimental, daringly coeducational institution established only a few years earlier thanks to a series of gifts by John D. Rockefeller. For all the university’s modernist innovations, its buildings were of a traditional gothic design, combining with the artistically landscaped quadrangles to create an aesthetically stimulating environment for learning.
“That gymnasium resembles a cathedral,” Holmes remarked at one point of our walk across the campus.
“That’s what Rockefeller thought. But in a way it’s appropriate. One of the new ideas that enliven this place is a well-funded Department of Physical Culture and Athletics. It’s given equal status with other academic disciplines and headed by an athletic director with professorial rank. And he, it happens, is the man we are going to see.” As I pointed out to Holmes the buildings and other landmarks, I had been following the most direct route to the office of Amos Alonzo Stagg.
Stagg was a large, powerfully built man in his forties with chiseled features and a steady, penetrating gaze. Though he already had a visitor, he waved us into his office with a broad smile. As he walked around the desk extending his hand, he seemed to be moving somewhat gingerly, but his handshake was firm as ever. His younger companion, slight, pale, and alight with nervous energy, was Perry Garth, a reporter for one of the Chicago dailies. Respecting Holmes’s desire for privacy, I introduced him as Mr. Benson. Shaking hands with Stagg and Garth, he nodded amiably but said nothing.
“Not given up, Perry?” I twitted my colleague.
Garth shrugged. “One can only keep trying.” As always, his manner had a studied nonchalance, as if nothing in the world mattered, but I sensed an undertone of desperation.
Stagg explained, “Mr. Garth would like me to write some articles for his newspaper, and every time he darkens my door, he increases his offer. I have repeated over and over that it’s not a matter of money, but apparently he subscribes to the notion that every man has his price. As the athletic director of the University of Chicago, I must make myself available to all of the city’s daily newspapers equally. It would not be appropriate for me to favor one over the others.”
“Sure, I can understand that,” said Garth. “But with all the scandals and bad publicity visited on your sport in the last few years, I thought you would welcome the chance to defend it against the hordes of bluenoses. My editor agreed, and I sort of went out on a limb promising your cooperation.”
“That’s the danger of going out on a limb without testing its strength first.”
“Maybe. But writing something for us about the character-building you do out on the practice field might be in service of a higher good, don’t you think?”
Stagg smiled. “I hope I always act in service of a higher good, Mr. Garth.” I knew they had rehearsed this argument many times before, and the journalistic grapevine suggested enticing Stagg to write for his paper was crucial to Garth. Some said his job depended on it.
