The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

inferred the tardiness of my train from the hour of my arrival.'

'I never memorize idle data,Watson. My mind is a workroom, not a storage room.' Holmes pointed his long fore-finger towards my feet. 'Your shoes, I observe, are freshly polished. Owing to the urgency of my telegram, you would not have chosen to delay your departure from London by devoting time to such trifles. You must have been unwillingly detained at the railway terminus, and – during the enforced wait – you availed yourself of the bootblacks who ply their trade along the Belgrave wall of Victoria station.'

'Remarkable, Holmes! What you say is the truth.'

'Furthermore,' my friend continued, 'there is one particular bootblack in the Belgrave Road whose brown boot-cream is of

a distinctive russet colour, not available commercially. I believe that he makes up the mixture himself, from an original receipt. Your footgear, Watson, bears the mark of that tradesman.'

Once again I was astonished. 'But surely, Holmes, you did not summon me here to discuss bootblacks,' I ventured.

'Indeed not.' Holmes went to the fireplace, and retrieved a folded document from the mantelshelf. 'You are doubtless aware of the recent holocaust in San Francisco.'

I nodded sadly. 'Yes, the earthquake and the subsequent fires. A dreadful accident.'

'Accident is hardly the word, Watson. Precisely one day after the San Francisco earthquake, my good friend Pierre Curie the distinguished French scientist – was struck and killed by a horse-cart in Paris. That misfortune was an accident. This San Francisco affair is something rather worse: our planet Earth has burst open at the seams.'

I nodded once more. 'In spite of scientific progress, men are still at the mercy of Nature.'

There was a dark look in his eyes as Sherlock Holmes spoke: 'It is not Nature which preys upon men, Watson. The predator who threatens humanity is man himself.' Holmes sat down and unfolded the document in his hands. 'I have received a despatch from two American gentlemen: Mr Henry Evans, the president of the Continental Insurance Company; and Mr James D. Phelan, a former mayor of San Francisco. These men have pledged themselves to the cause of resurrecting their dead city, and of seeing San Francisco rise from the ashes.'

'Strange that a former mayor, rather than the current office holder, should undertake such a mission,' I remarked.

'The current mayor is part of the problem, Watson.' Sherlock Holmes glanced at the document before him. 'Mr Phelan informs me that, during his own term as mayor of San Francisco, municipal funds were allocated for the wages and training of police officers and firemen, as well as funds for the purchase and maintenance of fire-engines and pump-waggons, and for horses to convey them.'

'A prudent investment, surely,' I said.

'Perhaps not,' Holmes's frown deepened. 'Mayor Phelan's letter goes on to state that the present mayor of San Francisco one Eugene Schmitz by name – is the agent of a ring of thieves and grafters who have systematically looted the city's coffers and enriched themselves by several millions of stolen dollars. Due to the absence of funds, the police force and fire department of San Francisco are mere skeleton crews: ill-trained, and obliged to fulfil their duties with defective equipment. In consequence, when the earthquake struck, the death- toll was far higher than it might have been. Doctor, it may interest you to know that the recent San Francisco earthquake, and the ensuing conflagrations, have claimed seven hundred human lives.'

'Good heavens!' I exclaimed.

'Indeed. But if Mr Phelan is to be believed – and I believe him, Watson – more than 300 of those deaths, as well as 20 million dollars' worth of property damage, are the direct result of Mayor Schmitz's embezzlements. Had the city's funds been allocated to their rightful needs, those people never would have died.'

'A tragedy, surely. But what has this to do with you, Holmes?'

My friend refolded Mr Phelan's epistle and pocketed it. 'The Continental Insurance Company, and several other assurance firms as well, are now threatened with bankruptcy as a result of the torrent of policy claims emanating from San Francisco. Mr Evans and his colleagues intend to make good on all claims, but they are resentful at bearing the costs for this tragedy whilst the thieves who caused it go free. Mayor Schmitz and his corrupt associates are to blame, yet no evidence of their guilt can be established.'

We smoked in silence for a moment, and then Holmes spoke again: 'Evidently my reputation has travelled all the way to California, Watson. This letter is the result. Mr Phelan and Mr Evans, joined by a syndicate of insurance brokers, have offered me carte blanche if I will but journey to San Francisco and place myself at their disposal. These men wish to engage my services in a matter of deduction and investigation. They desire me to find solid proof, such as will stand up in any American court, of the malfeasances of Schmitz and his henchmen.'

'And do you intend to accept this commission, Holmes?' I asked him.

'My dear Watson, I already have. American politics are a dark labyrinth which I have never entered before, and the challenge intrigues me.' Holmes arose and stretched himself.

'One more thing, Watson. The hospitals and emergency wards of San Francisco are filled to bursting with the injured and the dying; there are not enough doctors in that broken city to attend to them all. Your medical talents would be welcome in this crisis. And I may have need of your assistance during my own investigations. Shall I notify Continental Insurance to advance me the funds for two steamship tickets to America?'

The question was altogether unexpected. I hesitated for the briefest of moments while I considered how to inform my wife, then extended my hand. Sherlock Holmes clasped it in both of his own.

'Capital, Watson! We shall be occupied for two months at the very least. Inform your Harley Street patients to make other arrangements in your absence. As for my bees: until we return I can only hope that their new queen will rule wisely.'

And so our adventure began. We sailed from Southampton on 12 May bound for New York City aboard a steamship aptly christened the New York. During the voyage, Sherlock Holmes kept his remarkable brain occupied with the game of observing our fellow passengers and deducing their origins, vocations and personalities from the clues offered by their physical appearances and behaviours.

We arrived in New York City's harbour on the morning of 19 May. There was still the wide continent of North America to be traversed, but Mayor Phelan had arranged for us to be granted passage on any of the US Army's relief trains bringing provisions and medical aid from NewYork to the refugee camps outside San Francisco. After clearing the New York customs house, health station, and currency exchange, Holmes and I secured a four-wheeler and made haste with our luggage north and east through Manhattan to the Pennsylvania station – for Holmes was determined to begin the long transcontinental railway journey as soon as possible.

By noon we reached the New York Central terminus, where Holmes was much distrait to be told that the next relief train did not embark until tomorrow morning. 'There's nothing for it, Watson,' he said. 'We are obliged to spend a night in this metropolis. Let us quarter ourselves in an hotel, and then we shall see what diversions the island of Manhattan can offer us.'

I took charge of the transfer of our bags to the Herald Square Hotel, on the south side of West Thirty-Fourth Street, whilst Holmes sent a telegram to Continental Insurance's main office. 'I have cabled Mr Evans with the news that I shall be aboard tomorrow's train,' Holmes informed me after I had dealt with the hotel's guest-register, 'and I have told him that I am bringing with me the greatest field surgeon of my acquaintance.'

'You flatter me, Holmes.'

'I think not. Come, Watson! For this afternoon and evening, at least, let us seek such pleasure as this city affords, knowing that tomorrow morning our unpleasant task begins. In the telegraph office I overheard that Maude Adams is appearing in Peter Pan at the Empire Theatre in West Forty-Sixth Street. Let us spend tonight in Neverland, and give no thoughts to pain or San Francisco.'

Sherlock Holmes and I proceeded northwards, up the wide Manhattan thoroughfare known as Broadway. Just south of West Thirty-Seventh Street, at Number 1367, Broadway, my attention was arrested by a brown stone building papered with gaudy posters. This proved to be the Edisonia Amusement Hall, and the posters outside advised us that, for five cents' admission, we might view an exhibition of Thomas Edison's miraculous invention, the Vitascope.

'I have heard of this machine, but never seen it in operation,' I remarked to Holmes, with more than a hint of