With a sure-footedness born of long practice, the conductor walked down the aisle of the swaying railway car as it sped across the Kansas plains on a sunny spring day in 1884.
“Excuse me, sirs,” he said to the two men in the dark three-piece suits. “Would one of you be Wyatt Holmes, U.S. Marshal?”
“I am,” the larger of the two said. He was tall and dark-haired with the muscular build of a boxer. His less-than-handsome face was much improved by a large handlebar moustache. On his head was a black Stetson with a flat brim and a flat crown. He wore a pair of unusual-looking revolvers slung low on his hips.
“I have a telegram for you, Marshal,” the conductor said. “The telegraph agent gave it to me in Dodge City.”
“Thanks,” Holmes said. He handed the conductor a coin and waited for him to continue down the aisle before opening the envelope and reading the message.
“Change of plans, Doc,” he said to his colleague.
Dr. John Henry Watson was almost as tall as Holmes, but here the resemblance ended. He was slender and unhealthy-looking and wore a more modest moustache. His unruly ash-blond hair was only partially tamed by a black derby hat. A Schofield revolver rode on his right hip. “We aren’t going to Washington after all?” he asked, his accent revealing his Georgia origins.
“According to this, we’re needed in Brownsville. You used to live in Texas. How hard is it to get there from here?”
Watson thought for a moment. “Well, if we get off this train in Emporia we can take the Missouri Kansas & Texas Railway as far as Denison, just south of the Red River. The Houston & Texas Central Railway will get us from there to Galveston, on the Gulf of Mexico. Then we’ll have to travel by ship down the coast to Port Isabel, but we can take the Rio Grande Railroad from there to Brownsville.”
“So not hard at all,” Holmes said. “I wonder why we’re needed in Brownsville, of all places?”
* * * *
Bell clanging, the train from Port Isabel pulled into the Brownsville station. Behind the diamond-stacked locomotive were two tenders, the first piled high with mesquite wood, the other carrying additional water for the thirsty iron horse. A few assorted freight cars trailed behind and a short passenger coach brought up the rear.
Holmes and Watson climbed down from the coach as soon as the train clanked and hissed to a stop. After arranging for their luggage to be delivered to their hotel they set out on foot, following a tramway line that ran down the middle of Twelfth Street. They walked perhaps half a dozen blocks before Holmes pointed out a saloon that would have looked more at home in New Orleans than in Texas.
“What do you think, Doc?” Holmes said.
“It has been a very long trip,” Watson said. “I don’t think anyone would blame us if we enjoyed a drink or two.”
They walked up to the bar and each ordered a whiskey. With drinks in hand, they turned and surveyed the room.
“So, Holmes,” Watson asked, playing their usual game, “what do you observe about the people here?”
“You see those two fellows cheating at poker over there? They held up a stagecoach a while back. Also, the man at the end of the bar to your right escaped from prison not long ago and he’s been rustling cattle ever since.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Holmes. How were you able to deduce all of that?”
“Elementary, Doc,” Holmes replied. “I saw their pictures on wanted posters when we changed trains in Houston.”
Holmes set his drink on the bar and walked up to the men at the card table. “Tom Ketchum and Bud Upshaw, my name is Wyatt Holmes. I’m taking you in for armed robbery.”
The two sprang up and reached for their pistols, but before their weapons were clear of their holsters, Holmes’s revolvers were trained on them. The two badmen froze.
“I wouldn’t be doing that if I was you,” Holmes said.
“You ain’t even cocked them guns of yours,” Ketchum said.
Holmes pointed a pistol at the floor between Ketchum’s feet and pulled the trigger. With a loud report the weapon fired. Ketchum jumped back three feet and snatched his hand away from his own weapon.
“All right, all right,” Upshaw said, raising his hands as well. “You got us.” At a gesture from Holmes two bystanders came up behind them and relieved them of their weapons.
“Ruben Burrow,” Holmes said without turning around, “you’re under arrest, too, for being unlawfully at large and for cattle rustling.”
Another gunshot rang out, but Holmes showed no sign of being startled. “Keep them covered, boys,” he said and turned to see Burrow slumped on the floor with his head and left shoulder resting against the bar.
“He must have thought he got the drop on you,” Watson said, returning his Schofield to its holster. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
“I should think so; I shot him in the arm. I do believe he has fainted.”
A man wearing a sheriff’s badge stormed into the saloon, followed by two deputies. “What is going on here?” he asked. His hoarse, high-pitched, Spanish-accented voice sounded like a saw hitting a spike.
“Everything’s under control, Sheriff,” Holmes said. “There’s three men here that belong in jail cells, but that one will need a doctor first.”
The sheriff organized a party to carry Burrow to the doctor’s office and another to escort Ketchum and Upshaw to the jail, with a deputy in charge of each. Then he turned his attention towards Holmes. “I am Santiago Brito. Unless I am greatly mistaken, you are Wyatt Holmes, yes?”
“Guilty as charged. This is my deputy, Dr. John Watson.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Dr. Watson,” Brito said.
“Call me Doc,” Watson said.
“I publish El Demócrata, the local Spanish-language newspaper,” Brito said to Holmes, “and your picture has appeared many times in its pages. That engraving was the best investment I have ever made. Many people have purchased my newspapers just for your picture, because the Daily Cosmopolitan and my other English-language competitors cannot print one. My typesetter always keeps it within reach against news of your latest exploits in Arizona. And speaking of that, what brings the two of you here, so far away from Arizona?”
“We’re not sure,” Holmes said. “We’re supposed to meet Agent Ross of the United States Secret Service at the Miller Hotel. Where is that, by the way?”
“It is on Elizabeth Street, a few blocks that way,” Brito said, pointing, “a large three-story building that looks like a Spanish mission—you will know it when you see it. It is by far the finest hotel in town. You can have your boots polished overnight and left outside your door and have the newspaper of your choice delivered to your room every morning. But my curiosity gets the better of me. May I ask what kind of pistols you are carrying?”
“They’re prototype Webley revolvers with seven-and-a-half-inch target barrels,” Holmes said, pulling one from its holster. “They’re double-action, so you don’t have to cock them before firing them—pulling the trigger does both. They break open like Doc’s .44 Schofield, so they’re easier and faster to reload than a Colt, but they fire .45 Colt cartridges. I sent my cousin in England a case of cartridges and he talked Philip Webley into designing revolvers to fire them. Now my cousin says Webley wants to sell pistols based on these to the British army but using a different cartridge. He’s going to call his a .455, even though it’s exactly the same caliber.”
“Perhaps you would allow me to try one of them while you are in town?”
“It’d be my pleasure. But right now, Doc and I should be getting over to the Miller Hotel, so we can find out why we’re here.”
* * * *
“Let’s get right to it,” said Agent Robert Ross, a tall, fair-haired, clean-shaven man whose features were almost a parody of rugged handsomeness. “Representatives of our government and Mexico’s are meeting at Fort Brown to negotiate a convention to solve a problem with the border between us and Mexico.”
“What problem might that be?” Watson asked.
“The treaty that ended the Mexican-American War set the Rio Grande as the border in these parts. The problem is that whoever wrote up the treaty assumed that rivers always stay in the same place and the Rio Grande doesn’t. The two sides are negotiating a convention that says what happens to the border whenever the river changes its course. My boss thinks someone wants to disrupt the negotiations. We need the two of you to help prevent that and to capture the parties responsible.”
“That task would seem to be outside our mandate,” Watson said. “Furthermore, our jurisdiction is Arizona, not Texas.”
“Marshal Holmes has just been appointed a Special U.S. Marshal whose jurisdiction covers these entire United States. I have your copy of the appointment here,” he said, handing an envelope to Holmes. “As his deputy, that goes for you as well, Dr. Watson, so you can both pin your badges back on now.
“As for your first objection,” Ross continued, “we suspect that the parties involved may include Henry Judson Raymond or Fredericka Mandelbaum. Both are fugitives from justice and recapturing fugitives is clearly within the mandate of the U.S. Marshals Service.”
“Speaking of mandates, how did you get mixed up in this?” Holmes asked. “Isn’t the Secret Service the branch of the Treasury Department that tracks down counterfeiters?”
“That’s what everyone is supposed to think. The truth is that we’ve been involved in a lot of different things over the years. In this case, our government fears the involvement of a European government and of a stateless person who doesn’t recognize the authority of any government.”
“You’re real good at talking around the point,” Holmes said, “but you might as well come right out and say that the European government you’re talking about is the German Empire and the ‘stateless person’ is the former Prince Dakkar of Bundelkund, who calls himself Captain Nemo these days.”
“But how did you know…?” Ross sputtered.
“Raymond was born in Germany as Adam Worth and Mandelbaum is from Prussia, so both have roots in the German Empire. And as for Captain Nemo, what other ‘stateless person’ could get the government so spooked?”
“But Captain Nemo is dead,” Watson said.
“I’ve never believed that,” Holmes said, “and obviously they don’t believe it in Washington, either. He faked his death once; why not do it again? If everyone thinks that he’s dead, nobody will be hunting for him.” Holmes thought for a moment. “You know, there are some folks who call Raymond ‘the Napoleon of Crime.’ I would dearly love to see him behind bars.”
* * * *
After inspecting their hotel rooms, Holmes and Watson met in the lobby. They were immediately approached by a gray-haired gentleman with a weather-lined face and a rolling gait.
“You are Wyatt Holmes and Dr. John Watson, are you not?”
“We are,” Watson said.
“Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Captain Henry Miller, the owner of this hotel. Would you do me the honor of being my guests for dinner?”
“We gratefully accept,” Watson said.
“Thank you,” Holmes said.
“Please come with me,” Miller said. “I have a table prepared in the dining room.”
Miller led them to a round table with four chairs arrayed around it, located in the corner of the room. By habit, Holmes and Watson seated themselves with their backs to the corner and Miller sat down beside Holmes.
“Shall I order for us?” Miller asked. Holmes and Watson nodded. Miller gestured to a waiter halfway across the room, held up three fingers and nodded. The waiter gave a shallow bow and turned towards the double doors leading to the kitchen.
“Impressive,” Watson said.
“I gather that you’re a sea captain and not an army captain?” Holmes asked Miller.
“Most observant, Marshal Holmes,” Miller said. “You are entirely correct.”
As they spoke, a party of five entered the dining room. In the lead was a portly, expensively-dressed man with a self-important demeanor, carrying a cane in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Following in his wake were two well-dressed men, also carrying newspapers. Behind them were a man who was trying unsuccessfully to look well-dressed and Agent Robert Ross of the Secret Service. The waiter gave the group a wide berth.
A tough-looking cowboy stood up to leave the dining room as the group entered. As he was about to pass the new arrivals, the portly man suddenly altered his course and jostled him. Taken unawares, the cowboy was knocked off balance. He spun around and fell face first across the table he just vacated. He stood up with the remains of his meal on his chest and murder in his eye.
“Turn around, you son of a…” he shouted, but Agent Ross moved between him and the portly man, his hand hovering over his pistol. The cowboy turned white. Without another word, he stalked out of the room.
“What in the Sam Hill was that all about?” Holmes asked his host.
“The fat, smug-looking ‘gentleman’ is Mr. J. Winston Duke, who has come from Washington as the U.S. government’s chief negotiator for the border convention. What you have just seen is a little game he likes to play. He deliberately gives offence and lets his Secret Service protector deal with the consequences. During the first such incident, Agent Ross demonstrated how fast he is on the draw. Nobody has dared go up against him since.”
“And the rest of the party?” Holmes asked.
“The taller of the two better-dressed men is Charles Pinder, Mr. Duke’s secretary. The other, Roberto Alvarez, is here as a translator. Like Agent Ross, he is from Galveston. Although Mr. Alvarez is most proud of his Spanish heritage, he is very much a Texan—one of his grandfathers died defending the Alamo and the other was killed in the massacre at Goliad. The man in the ill-fitting suit is a local named Manuel Garcia. Another translator became severely ill and returned to Galveston, and Mr. Duke hired Garcia to take his place.”
The group seated themselves at a nearby table. All but Garcia opened their menus.
“Excuse me,” Holmes said as he got up and made for the door, motioning Ross to follow.
As soon as they were out of sight of the dining room, Holmes turned to Agent Ross. “Does he do that often?” he asked.
“Yes, but especially when he’s having a bad day,” Ross said. “He got a telegram this morning, and he’s been in a foul mood ever since.”
“He’s a lowdown snake. How can you stand to work for him?”
“I have to agree with you, but protecting him is my job. Fortunately, that job is almost over. There was an unexpected breakthrough at the talks today and they finalized the provisions of the convention. The Mexican representatives are translating the document into Spanish this evening. All we have to do is check the wording tomorrow and I can take it to Washington to get it printed up and signed.”
“They won’t sign it here?” Holmes asked.
“No. I never met Duke before this assignment, but from what I’ve seen and heard he’s a good negotiator. It’s probably because underneath his smug, pompous exterior, he’s an arrogant, self-centered son of a bitch. That said, people at his level don’t sign international agreements. It will be signed in Washington, probably by Secretary of State Frelinghuysen and by Matías Romero, the Mexican envoy to the United States. Then it will be ratified by the presidents of both countries—at that point, a formality—and the convention will be made public.”
“Well, it’s a good thing Duke won’t be around here much longer. He might rile someone who’s faster on the draw than you are.”
“Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me,” Ross said.
* * * *
The bushwhacking was planned for next morning and went off without a hitch.
As Duke, Pinder, Garcia, and Agent Ross entered the dining room, Watson intercepted Ross and steered him back into the lobby without attracting Duke’s notice. Holmes, wearing a long coat, contrived to walk past the group as they trooped to the table they used the previous evening. As anticipated, Duke altered course in order to bump into the well-dressed stranger. Holmes anticipated this and compensated for it. The resulting collision saw Holmes keep his feet and Duke fall unceremoniously on his ample posterior. The newspaper Duke was carrying flew out of his hand and fluttered down to land on his head.
The enraged Duke turned to set Agent Ross on Holmes, but Ross was nowhere to be seen. Duke turned back to Holmes and, fist tightening on his cane, sized him up. Perhaps it was the breadth of Holmes’s shoulders, or maybe it was the matched revolvers that became visible when Holmes swept back his coat; whatever the cause, Duke’s demeanor changed so suddenly that Holmes nearly laughed out loud.
“Excuse me, sir, for jostling you,” Duke said, his tone an amazing simulation of sincerity. “I must not have been watching where I was going. I most certainly did not mean to give offense.”
“I accept your apology,” Holmes said, matching Duke’s feigned sincerity perfectly, “but you’d best be more careful while you’re in these parts. There’s lots of folks around here who might well take offense—deadly offense.” And with that, Holmes returned to his table, to be joined by Watson.
A few minutes later, as Holmes and Watson surveyed the huge portions of food served by their grateful waiter, Duke put down his newspaper and rushed over to Holmes’s table.
“Until just now, I did not realize you were the illustrious Wyatt Holmes. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Winston Duke of the U.S. State Department.”
“How do you do, sir,” Holmes said, rising from his chair.
At that moment, Agent Ross strode up. “Gentlemen, could you come with me please? There is a…problem,” Ross said.
Once in the lobby, Ross turned to Duke. “I checked on Mr. Alvarez to find out what was keeping him. His door was unlocked, and I found him in his room, dead. I’ve sent a bellboy to find the sheriff, but I’d like Marshal Holmes to take over the investigation, assuming you have no objection.”
“I certainly have no objection,” Duke said.
“Of course, Agent Ross,” Holmes said. He looked through the dining room door, where Duke’s secretary sat reading his paper and Garcia sat staring into space. Turning to Duke, he said, “You’ll want to be the one to tell the others. We’ll keep you up to date.” Then he turned back to Agent Ross. “Why don’t the three of us go on up and take a look?”
* * * *
“Well, at least he didn’t die with his boots on. They’re still outside his door,” Holmes said.
“I’m a dentist, not a physician,” Watson said as he examined the body, “but we can be quite certain that the cause of death is lead poisoning.”
Ross was incredulous. “Lead poisoning?”
“That’s Doc’s way of being funny,” Holmes said. “He means that Alvarez was shot. Probably one bullet through the heart, fired from the pistol lying on the floor under the sofa.”
Ross knelt down and retrieved the weapon, which looked better suited to a child-sized pirate than an assassin. It was no more than six inches from end to end, with a rounded walnut stock, a caplock mechanism on its right side, and a short barrel with a sizeable bore.
“An old-style Philadelphia Deringer,” Ross said, “like the one John Wilkes Booth used to shoot Abraham Lincoln. I wonder why no one heard the shot?”
“There’s powder burns on that sofa cushion,” Holmes said. “Whoever did this used it to deaden the sound.”
“Obviously this is an attempt to disrupt the conference, so we’re probably dealing with Henry Judson Raymond,” Ross said. “He couldn’t have known that the negotiations are complete and that killing Alvarez gained him nothing.”
“Watson and I will wait here for Sheriff Brito,” Holmes said. “You might as well go tell Mr. Duke to get on with things. There’s a private banquet room off the dining room. When you’re done for the day, bring everyone straight there. Don’t let them go back to their rooms first.”
As Ross left the room, Holmes took up a newspaper from the end table next to the sofa and handed it to Watson. “We may as well read the Daily Cosmopolitan while we’re waiting.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Sheriff Brito said as he entered the room, followed by his two deputies.
“Well, now that you’re here we’ve got better things to do,” Holmes said. “I’d be obliged if one of your deputies could stay here and keep an eye on things. Have the other one hunt down Captain Miller for us. Doc, I need you to go to the telegraph office and then meet us at the courthouse. There’s a lot of things we’ve got to get done if we’re going to finish this up today.”
* * * *
“What are those two doing here?” Winston Duke asked as his party filed into the banquet room.
“They’re here because I want them here,” Holmes said. “There was a murder today, so it should be pretty plain why Sheriff Brito is here, and Captain Miller has information that bears on this case. Any objections?”
Holmes stared Duke down before he continued.
“Now the three things you have to know to solve any crime are means, motive, and opportunity. In this case, the means was the pistol on the table here. The assassin left it behind in Mr. Alvarez’s hotel room because he didn’t want to take the chance that someone might find it on him. It’s the sign of a professional criminal.
“The opportunity is straightforward as well. The assassin got into Mr. Alvarez’s room without breaking the door down, so either he picked the lock or Alvarez knew the assassin and let him in. Then he drew the Deringer with one hand, picked up the sofa cushion with the other, and used the cushion to muffle the sound of the shot.
“That brings us to motive. Alvarez was one of two translators sent from Galveston. The other one got sick and went home a week back, which took him out of the negotiations. This murder has taken Alvarez out of the negotiations, too, just in a different way.”
“What are you getting at, Holmes?” Agent Ross asked.
“After the other translator left, Mr. Duke hired Mr. Garcia here to take his place. Now he probably talks good English and Spanish, but I’m thinking there’s something he can’t do. Last night at dinner everyone else at his table was reading their menus except him. This morning at breakfast, Mr. Pinder was reading a newspaper, but Mr. Garcia was just sitting there doing nothing, even though there was a newspaper right beside him. Unless I’m wrong, Mr. Garcia here can’t read. Isn’t that right, Mr. Garcia?”
Garcia stared at the table and nodded.
“This means that Mr. Alvarez was the only translator who could have read the Spanish version of the border convention this morning. Agent Ross, do you have it with you?”
Ross opened a dispatch case and pulled out a thin sheaf of papers bound together by a ribbon.
“Sheriff Brito puts out the local Spanish-language newspaper, so his Spanish must be good. I’d like him to go over that document.”
“I must object…” Duke began.
“And I must insist,” Holmes said.
Ross shrugged and handed the document to Brito. It took him only a few minutes to read both texts from end to end. Then he turned back to the middle of the document and studied a few paragraphs with great care.
“This is an interesting translation,” Brito said at last. “The English text states that the border between the United States and Mexico lies in the center of the normal channel of the Rio Grande, even if minor changes to the course of that channel should occur through natural means. However, if there is a major change, either by natural or artificial means, the border will remain where the channel was when a survey was done in 1852. There is a subtle difference in the Spanish text. In the case of a major change to the course of the channel, this wording allows the Mexican government to accept the new channel as its border.”
“That’s pretty much what I suspected,” Holmes said. “Think about it. If someone changes the course of the Rio Grande southward—and it wouldn’t take much dynamite to do it—the American border would remain where it is, but the Mexican government could accept the new channel as its border. That would leave a no-man’s-land in the middle. Captain Miller, what can you tell us about the land directly south of the Rio Grande between here and the Gulf of Mexico? Who lives there?”
“It’s mostly sand dunes and swampland,” Miller said, “only a few feet above sea level, except for a narrow strip along the coast. Not many people live there any more. Most who remain are the last of an unfortunate group of former Texans of German ancestry. Because they supported the Union, the Confederates hunted them during the Civil War. They fled across the Rio Grande to a place called Bagdad, at the mouth of the river, but the Mexican government allowed Confederate soldiers to cross the border and hunt them. The Union took so long to send a ship to rescue them that they felt abandoned. A handful remained in Bagdad and a handful of others returned there after the war, because there was nothing left for them in Texas.
“Bagdad was an important port during the Civil War, but only because it was both accessible to the Confederacy and immune to the Union blockade. The Confederates shipped out cotton and received armaments in return and there was nothing that the Union could do about it.
“As a port, though, Bagdad was sadly lacking because the water is too shallow for ocean-going ships to dock there. They were forced to anchor in the Gulf of Mexico, half a cable offshore, and transfer cargoes back and forth in small, flat-bottomed steamboats and barges. Also, the town was in an exposed position and was devastated by every big storm that came through here. Officially, the town does not even exist any more, but some still live there and eke out a living from those few ships that still choose to transfer cargoes there.”
“Let’s suppose,” Holmes said, “that you asked these people to choose which country they wanted to belong to. How would they vote?”
“I have no idea. The South persecuted them, Mexico allowed it to happen, and for far too long the North did nothing to help them. They have no great love for either country.”
“Now supposing they could become part of a whole other country, let’s say the German Empire?”
“They would almost certainly jump at the chance.”
“Preposterous!” Duke said.
“Not if you think about it. The Germans badly want a coaling station in the Caribbean for their navy. They’d be happy to build a harbor out of nothing if they could get hold of a place to build it. We wouldn’t lose any territory, so we wouldn’t really have anything to complain about. I know all about the Monroe Doctrine, but you’ll remember that we didn’t do much when France installed Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico twenty years back. Do you think President Arthur could sell folks on going to war with Germany over a few square miles of Mexican swampland?”
“And what about Mexico?” Ross asked.
Holmes shrugged. “Porfirio Díaz may not be president down there any more, but he’s still running the show. You remember what he said? ‘Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.’ There’s nothing he’d like better than to stick a fork in Uncle Sam’s eye. Besides, the Germans would probably let Mexico share their fancy new harbor.”
“Matías Romero would never be party to such a thing!” Duke said.
“Romero and Díaz have a friendship of long standing,” Brito said, “and Díaz is married to Romero’s daughter. I cannot think that Romero would go against Díaz’s wishes in anything.”
“Now we’re getting to the motive,” Holmes said. “This little scheme could only work if the tricky Spanish wording of the convention went unnoticed. Since Mr. Garcia can’t read, he wouldn’t pick up on it, but Alvarez was sure to. If the talks went on for as long as they were supposed to, maybe Alvarez might have taken sick like the other translator. But when the talks ended all of a sudden there wasn’t time to get rid of Alvarez any other way but to kill him.”
“So did Henry Raymond do this or not?” Ross asked.
“Keep your shirt on for just a little longer,” Holmes said. “I wondered about the telegram that you told me about, the one that put Mr. Duke in such a bad mood, so I sent Doc to talk to the telegraph clerk. According to him, the telegram said that another translator was being sent here from Galveston and should arrive the day after tomorrow. That’s why the agreement happened all of a sudden—so everything could be concluded before the new translator got here.
“And then there was the newspaper in Alvarez’s room. It was the Daily Cosmopolitan. I thought it was funny that Alvarez would want to read an English-language newspaper when there’s such a good Spanish-language paper in town, so I asked Captain Miller about it. He told me that Alvarez was getting El Demócrata delivered to his room every morning. I figure the assassin was carrying the Daily Cosmopolitan when he came into the room. He put down the newspaper so he could pick up the sofa cushion. He shot Alvarez, dropped the pistol and the sofa cushion and then picked up the wrong newspaper before he left the room. When I was eating breakfast this morning, Mr. Duke here came up and introduced himself. The only way he could have recognized me was from my picture in the paper he was reading. Sheriff Brito told me when we first got here that the English-language papers don’t have my likeness, which meant Mr. Duke was reading El Demócrata. That didn’t seem right to me either, so I asked Captain Miller. Sure enough, Mr. Duke was getting the Daily Cosmopolitan.”
“This is meaningless nonsense!” Duke said.
“That may be, but when Sheriff Brito, Captain Miller, and I went to the courthouse this morning, the justice of the peace thought it meant enough to give me a search warrant for your hotel room. We found two very interesting things hidden in your luggage.”
Holmes took a small bottle out of his pocket and set it on the table. “Doc figures this would make someone sick if it was slipped into his food or drink over a period of a few days. We’ll have it checked out just to be sure. Still, this is just something extra. Here’s the real prize.”
Holmes reached back into his pocket, removed a Deringer and set it on the table.
“Deringer almost always sold his pistols in pairs,” Holmes said, “so I was counting on finding this. You can see plain as day that it’s the twin of the one that killed Alvarez.”
“All of this proves nothing,” Duke said. “When I get back to Washington I shall have you removed from your appointment.”
“You won’t be going back to Washington because you never came from Washington. I believe you’re really Adam Worth, also known as Henry Judson Raymond.”
“Preposterous!” Duke said. “Mr. Pinder will vouch for my identity.”
“I’m sure he will,” Holmes said, “but there’s one more thing. When you left Alvarez’s room, you needed to be sure that no one saw you. You needed a lookout waiting outside the door to tell you when the coast was clear. That accomplice was Mr. Pinder here, who I’m thinking is really your old friend Charlie Bullard. Bullard is a safecracker, so he could have unlocked the door to Mr. Alvarez’s room for you.
“I reckon you two got on the same ship that the real Duke and Pinder took to get here from Galveston. Somewhere along the way you dry-gulched them and threw them overboard. Nobody here knew Duke and Pinder, so impersonating them wasn’t a problem. While Doc was at the telegraph office he sent a telegram to Washington asking for your descriptions. We should get the answer in the morning and that should settle who you really are. For now, though, the two of you are under arrest for the murder of Roberto Alvarez. Sheriff Brito, they’re all yours.”
Brito whistled sharply. His two deputies came into the room with pistols drawn, took charge of the prisoners and bundled them out the door.
“And now,” Holmes said, “I figure we all deserve a good meal.”
“Great idea,” Agent Ross said. “The State Department is buying.”
Shortly after they ordered their meals, Brito’s deputies staggered into the room. “They jumped us,” one of them said, “maybe six of them, all wearing funny-looking sailor-type uniforms. They dragged us across the river to Mexico with them on the ferry. There were two more sailors waiting there, with enough horses for all of them. They let us go and lit out, riding east.”
“They are probably heading for Bagdad,” Brito said. “They’ll have to swing south, below the bend in the Rio Grande, and then ride northeast. We can go straight down the Boca Chica road for most of the way and perhaps reach the mouth of the river before they do.”
“Doc, let’s you and me get our rifles. Sheriff, can you round up half a dozen horses? Deputy, send a telegram to Port Isabel. Tell them to form a posse and head south in a steamboat. Maybe we can get them back.”
“But they’ll be sure to stay in either Mexican or international waters,” Ross objected.
“As long as we can get them into a courtroom,” Holmes said, “the judge won’t care how they got there.”
* * * *
Their vantage point was only a dozen feet above the waves, little more than a sand dune anchored tenuously in place by a scattering of grass and scrub. Still, it was the highest ground available. Two hundred yards offshore, the full moon illuminated a large boat whose eight rowers were fighting the wind to move farther out into the Gulf of Mexico, urged on by a helmsman and two passengers. The steamboat from Port Isabel was nowhere in sight. Ross, Brito, and the two deputies looked on helplessly.
“Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Josephine,” Holmes said as he pulled his rifle out of its fringed leather case. “She’s a Purdey .470 caliber side-by-side express rifle with a telescopic sight by William Malcolm. Let’s see if she can slow that rowboat down some.”
Holmes lay down on his stomach and rested Josephine’s forestock on the top of the dune. As he was taking aim, a large black object rose from the water, blocking the line of sight to his target.
“What on earth?” Watson asked. “Is that…the Nautilus?”
“Well, that’s that,” Holmes said. “Even Josephine won’t be able to hurt that thing.”
The Nautilus remained in view for a few minutes. Then a powerful light illuminated the ocean ahead of the legendary craft as it slipped gracefully beneath the waves. It left behind the boat, which now held two men rowing awkwardly toward shore.
“I reckon those two clumsy oarsmen are the real Winston Duke and Charles Pinder,” Holmes said.
* * * *
“So Captain Nemo rescued you after Raymond and Bullard threw you overboard?” Holmes asked.
“You are entirely correct,” Duke said, still out of breath from his exertions, “and moreover, he was a gracious host. Indeed, for an imprisonment it was a most agreeable experience.”
“How did he get involved in this, anyway?”
“He needed a component for the Nautilus that was beyond his resources to manufacture. The only thing he insisted on was that there be no taking of life. That is why he followed our ship and pulled us out of the Gulf of Mexico.” Duke turned to Ross. “You will have to inform the Mexican delegation that negotiations will resume tomorrow.”
“You aren’t going to wait for the new translator?” Ross asked.
“I have asked Sheriff Brito to fill that role for the time being,” Duke said.
“It’s too bad that Raymond and Bullard will escape unpunished, though,” Watson said.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Pinder said. “Nemo’s men told him about Raymond and Bullard murdering Alvarez and he went into a towering rage. I believe he intends to have them marooned.”
“This Nemo might not be the evil monster everyone makes him out to be,” Watson said.
Holmes nodded in agreement. “It looks like there’s nothing left to do except head back to the Miller Hotel and the fine meal that Mr. Duke here is buying us.”
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Jim Robb is an accountant working as the controller of a multinational jewelry company. A former army reserve officer, he is a life member of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps Association (Cavalry). Jim and his wife Donna live in southern Saskatchewan, Canada with their canine and feline associates.