on the left side. I noticed from her movements that she is right-handed. And that is why she cut herself on the left side while shaving. It’s harder to reach with her razor.”
“So it’s a man.”
“And one who shaved extra closely this morning. The makeup powder she must have applied after it happened has run in this heat.”
“Incredible,” I said. “She … he could be carrying anything under those skirts. A brace of pistols. A cavalry sword. Even a rifle.” I thought for a moment. “If we’d only had time, we could have devised a way of ensuring safety.”
“Oh?” said Holmes.
“A device of some kind—perhaps an archway that each passenger had to walk through that had powerful magnets hanging from strings. They would detect the iron and steel of a weapon, swing right to it, and stick.”
“We may consider the idea another time, perhaps,” he said. “I believe we must get close to the third man before the train arrives. He is the one who seems to offer us the most imminent competition.”
“Who is he?”
“Think about this. We bought a ticket. We got on the train. We walked from back to front, then from front to back. We’ve stopped to talk. I just saw a sign that said we were entering La Salle, which is the last place before Niagara Falls. Has the conductor punched your ticket?”
“Why, no.”
“He hasn’t checked anyone else’s either. When I looked at him he avoided my eyes and stared ahead as though he were driving the train. The conductors I’ve observed can practically feel where they are on a line without looking. They have an almost miraculous sense of the exact duration of the journey. I would guess that in a moment he will be making his way to the back of the train looking very conductorly, if you’ll permit me to coin a term. But what he’ll be doing is using his uniform to be admitted to the car where the president sits.”
And within minutes, there he was. As we were reaching the outskirts of a larger city that could only be Niagara Falls, the false conductor suddenly came down the aisle, taking tickets and punching them. He punched them without looking closely at them, which made him seem very experienced, but he was actually too engrossed in judging the distance to his destination, the door of the last car.
Holmes sat in the aisle seat on the right of the car, and I sat in the seat across the aisle from him as we watched the man’s progress. I waited for Holmes to make a move, but he allowed the conductor to continue his advance. I looked at Holmes repeatedly, but saw no sign in his expression that he had even noticed. He actually was gazing out the window at passing glimpses of the river between the quaint buildings of the City of Niagara Falls. The conductor continued his approach. He was ten feet from the door, then five, but Holmes never moved. Finally I could stand it no more. I had my cane across my lap, and as he stepped to the door of the presidential car, I jabbed it between his ankles, tripped him up so he sprawled on the floor, swung the stout ivory handle across the back of his skull, and then threw myself on top of him. I could tell he was dazed, half-conscious, and somewhat deprived of wind. Holmes rather casually reached into his waistcoat pocket and handed me a pair of handcuffs without even standing up. The sight irritated me, but I could see I had only a single choice to make—accept them or reject them, and either must be without comment. I chose to accept them because the conductor was a man of some size and probable strength, and I pulled his arms behind his back and clasped the irons on his wrists quickly before his senses fully returned.
Holmes helped me roll him to his side, and patted his blue uniform tunic. He pulled from the man’s uniform a loaded .45 caliber Colt revolver, a quite sizable weapon for concealment. Holmes slipped it under his coat, and looked up at the nearby passengers, who were all members of the group of local dignitaries not important enough to sit with the president. He fanned the fallen culprit with his conductor’s hat and said to the others, “This heat can make a man faint with just light exercise.”
The man had planned his crime rather well. The train was already pulling up to the platform at Niagara Falls. He had clearly intended to go in, shoot the president, then jump from the last car as the train slowed while approaching the platform. He could have thrown away the conductor’s hat and coat in a second and looked like anyone else in the crowd gathering at the station to see the president’s arrival.
The train stopped, and we waited for the other passengers to make their exit. Then Holmes knocked on the president’s car, and a young soldier opened the door. We could see four other soldiers behind him. “This man was attempting to get in and shoot the president,” Holmes said. “Be sure he is locked up in the Niagara Falls police station right away. Take no chances. You are dealing with a murderer.” He handed the soldier the gun, helped the failed assassin to his feet, and walked down the aisle toward the exit at the front of the car.
Seeing that we were alone, I said, “Why did you do nothing while I fought an armed assassin?”
“Untrue, Watson. I cheered you on—silently, for reasons of security.”
I straightened my clothing as we walked out onto the platform and soon caught up with the American president and his party. They made their way down a broad street lined with trees to a series of staircases that led down to the very brink of Niagara Falls. The blue, wide river narrows at this point into the brink of a semicircular cliff, then drops 170 feet to a churning white cauldron below. The sheer volume of water pouring over the falls was astonishing. It threw a white cloud of mist hundreds of feet into the firmament that was visible for miles. The roar of the water was constant, unchanging, hypnotic. It didn’t matter that the falls were so loud, because their immensity and beauty rendered all sensible men mute, and made all commentary inadequate. Whatever we might have said would have seemed irrelevant.
I noticed as we approached the giant falls and the sight and sound overwhelmed all else, Holmes’s visage seemed to cloud and then freeze in a stoic expression. He walked along, and for a moment, his eyes lost their focus.
“Steady, Holmes,” I said. “I know what you’re remembering, but right now, I need you here and on duty.”
Holmes patted my arm. “Good point, my friend. Reichenbach Falls is a good ten years behind us. It is uncanny how sounds and smells can bring back moments from the past. But we linger in them at our peril.”
We walked along about three hundred feet behind the presidential party, and I could see that Holmes was not watching them, but studying the faces of the people in the crowd. Seeing so many well-dressed men and women in a single group on a promenade along the railing that separated them from the chasm made an impression on all the strangers who were there on holiday. It was difficult for me to tell whether the average American citizen recognized William McKinley, but it was also often difficult for me to tell whether any individual was an American or not. I heard speech that was French, German, Spanish, and several kinds of central European Slavic. There were several Asian voices also, including some speaking Hindi or Punjab. We were, after all, at one of the seven wonders of the modern world, and people had come from all the continents to see it. Very few took their eyes off the water except to watch their steps to keep from falling into it. Presidents, kings, or emperors were tiny, paltry sights compared with nature’s titanic spectacle.
But suddenly Holmes picked up the pace. He walked straight away from the group along the railing, then ran up the stairs toward the street level. I followed him at a distance, not wanting to draw attention to myself, and consequently, to him.
As soon as I was up at the level of the street, I could see that he was watching a man in a dark suit. He followed him to the south, along the river above the falls. He went two blocks, and I could not quite imagine what harm the man could cause going away from the president’s party at the brink of the falls. But then I saw what Holmes must have perceived instantly: the man was making his way along the path to the footbridge to the largest of the islands above the falls, which I later learned was called Goat Island. His approach was rendered nearly invisible by the many trees growing on the island, shading the paths. From there, he moved along the shore of Goat Island to a second footbridge that led to a much smaller island called Luna Island, a tiny wedge of land right at the edge of the falls.
Holmes was moving at a terrific pace now, running along, hat and cane in hand, jumping over low bushes, always staying out of the man’s sight by taking a longer way around. I felt that because he was circling the man, I should walk along in a more leisurely and direct way on the well-marked footpath, so we could capture him in a pincer maneuver, if necessary.
As I came to a straight stretch of pathway, I feared the man would turn around and see me, so I too moved onto a more verdant route, walking along beyond a row of rather large trees. As it happened, I had the man in clear sight when Holmes came into view again. The man was the tall, thin man with the black suit from the train, and I
