BE GOOD OR BEGONE, by Stan Trybulski

Having retired to a small villa on the Riviera where I have been living comfortably for the past dozen years, I found myself bored to tears. After endless days of morning gardening, followed by large noon-time repasts and long afternoon naps under the Mediterranean sun, I longed for the days when I assisted my good friend Sherlock Holmes. Sifting through a carton of notes of old Holmes cases, my hands came to rest on that most tragic of all adventures: the time Holmes inveigled me to travel to New York City with him on what he called a “long get-away trip.”

It was in the middle of February and we were staying at the Waldorf-Astoria where Holmes had rented a suite for a fortnight. Lounging on a sofa, drinking my third cup of morning tea and reading the local papers, I was surprised to suddenly see a cream-coloured envelope slide under the door.

Setting down my tea cup in its saucer, I walked over and picked up the envelope. Inscribed in beautiful handwriting on the front was “Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” I set it on a side table and went back to my now lukewarm tea and my reading. About ten minutes later, the door to one of the inner rooms opened and Holmes appeared, freshly shaved and clad in his favourite smoking jacket.

“Tea still warm, Watson?” he asked, briskly rubbing his hands in anticipation.

“Don’t get too excited, Holmes, it’s not exactly our English breakfast tea.”

He tapped the teapot, then tipped it and poured some of the liquid into a cup and sipped it. He didn’t bother with sugar, no longer needing as much as when he still used heroin on a daily basis.

“Hot, and it’ll do, I dare say, on a morning like this.”

“There’s an envelope for you on the table,” I said, gesturing with the newspaper.

Holmes walked over to the table and picked up the envelope. I went back to my reading, trying to find the sports section and the cricket scores. There had been a test match the day before between England and the West Indies and the two teams were very competitive, their records against each other just about even. I was keen on finding a story, any story on the action. But there was none. I was about to throw the newspaper down in disgust when Holmes’s voice broke in.

“It seems we’ve been invited out tonight, Watson.”

“By whom?”

“The Honourable John McSorley Pickle, Beefsteak, Baseball Nine, and Chowder Club.”

“It doesn’t sound like a very reputable organization.”

Holmes fingered the invitation. “It will be held at McSorley’s Old Ale House,” he said.

“Holmes, you’ve brought me all the way to New York to take me to an ale house?”

“Not just any ale house, Watson. McSorley’s is the most famous ale house in New York City, quite possibly the Western Hemisphere, old boy. Good ale, raw onions and no ladies. What more could a man ask for?”

“It doesn’t seem that appetizing, I think I’m going to pass.”

“How about steaks and ale, then?”

“Steaks and ale? Seems rather mundane.”

“This is a beefeater, Watson.”

“A Beefeater, you mean …”

“No, Watson, not one of your Tower of London hearties. This is a McSorley’s beefeater. A veritable feast, a meat eater’s paradise. Think of T-bone steaks, prime ribs, broiled pork chops and sausages, washed down with all the ale you can drink.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Let me see the invitation.” I took the card from his hand and turned it over.

“Your presence is requested for an evening of steaks and ale. 6 p.m.” with the address 15 East Seventh Street, New York City, all inscribed in a fancy scroll.

“I thought you were vegetarian now, Holmes.” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“We simply cannot refuse an invitation like this,” he said.

“Who on earth knows that we are here in New York?”

“That is exactly what we are going to find out, dear fellow.”

* * * *

The cab dropped us off in front of a run-down brick tenement building. Wet snow was falling and the streets and sidewalks were slushy.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked Holmes.

He pointed upward with his walking stick to where a sign hung over a pair of battered wooden doors. It read, “McSorley’s Old Ale House.” A sign in the window announced, “No back room for women.”

We opened the door and went inside and pushed through a second set of swinging doors that served to keep out the cold. A bar was set on one side and scarred wooden tables were scattered on the other, a cast-iron pot-bellied coal stove set smack in the middle of the room. The floor was covered with sawdust and the walls were adorned with all manner of memorabilia: photos, newspaper articles, drawings. The bar was crowded with ale drinkers being served by a sour-faced man with a grizzled, worn face. Spread along the bar were plates of cheese and crackers and mugs filled with mustard to add piquancy to these snacks. Two grey-jacketed waiters hustled back and forth from the bar, carrying multiples of mugs of light and dark ale to the tables. Each table held a mustard-filled mug similar to the ones on the bar.

“The beefeater must be in there,” said Holmes, pointing to another room in the back.

We walked over and peered inside. Only more scarred tables occupied by ale drinkers. A waiter started to pass by with a tray of empty mugs destined for a quick washing and refill.

I tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, young man; we are here for the beefeater.”

“If you find it, let me know,” he said with a quick laugh, then dashed over to the bar and dropped off the used mugs and scooped up a half-dozen full mugs in each hand and hurried off again.

“There’s an empty table over by the stove, Watson,” Holmes said. “I suggest we sit and warm ourselves.”

Holmes was tapping his fingers on the cast iron side of the stove when the waiter came over.

“What can I can get you gents?”

“Two of your best,” I said.

“Light or dark?” he asked.

“Both,” Holmes said.

The waiter went off and returned a few moments later with four mugs, two with light ale and two with dark.

Holmes took out the invitation. “Does this mean anything to you?” he asked the young man.

The waiter took the card and looked at it, then handed it back. “Someone’s shining you on,” he said. “We don’t have a beefeater until the summertime and that’ll be at Coney Island.”

I looked around the room; all the men at the bar were working men, carpenters, masons and the like. The tables seemed to be occupied by more working men with a few down-and-out professional types mixed in. The Great Depression was as ugly here as in England. I sipped my ale, the light mugs first. Holmes occupied himself with the dusty and faded memorabilia that covered the wall behind us. The waiter came back and shovelled some coal into the stove, the added fuel renewing the heat. The warmth was relaxing and the ale was smooth and strong, as a good as Yorkshire stout, and I told the waiter to keep it coming.

“Would you gents like anything to eat?” he asked.

“Some cheddar, if you have it.”

“A large or small plate?” the man asked.

I looked over at Holmes. “What about you?” I said.

He had taken out his favourite magnifying glass, a sterling-plated Sheffield with a bone handle and was peering at some faded, tiny script in an ancient news story. “Are you hungry?” I asked him again. He waved me away with a quick motion of his free hand.

“We’ll have a large plate,” I told the waiter, “and four more mugs of ale.”

Lost in concentration, Holmes had not touched his ales, so I reached over and took one of them and drank deeply. Holmes ignored me, so after I finished the first, I appropriated the second. The waiter returned with four more. “Your cheese plate will be right out,” he said.

Finally, Holmes put away his Sheffield magnifying glass and turned back toward me.

“What was on the wall that attracted your attention?” I asked him.

“Amazing, Watson,” he said. “It was a contemporary account of the Battle of Waterloo.” He picked up one of the mugs of ale the waiter had just brought and sipped. “Glad you came, old boy?”

I was about to answer when the waiter returned with our cheddar cheese plate. Bending over to set the food down, he stumbled and fell against a chair, dropping the plate. Appalled by his clumsiness I was about to berate him when he collapsed to the floor. Several men at the bar turned at the commotion and stared at the stricken lad. Holmes bent over and knelt beside the fellow who was lying chest down on the sawdust planking, his face turned aside.

“Watson,” Holmes said sharply, “see what you can do for him.”

I eased around the table and knelt next to the man. The floor underneath him was turning red. I felt his pulse and looked at the widening stain, the sweet smell of death in my nostrils replacing the bitter taste of the ale in my mouth.

“Can you save him?” Holmes said.

I shook my head. “I’m afraid the wound has reached his heart.”

The waiter’s lips moved silently, words trying to form. Then finally, a rasp emitted from his mouth, soft sounds mingling with a bubbling froth. I heard the word but didn’t believe it. “Moran,” the man said. “Moran.” A voice soft with impending death … and something else.

Holmes started at the voice as if he knew it. He ran a hand along the nape of the man’s neck and a thick tousle of hair dropped suddenly around his shoulders. The front of the man’s jacket had turned red, bits of sawdust clung to the sogginess. Holmes turned the man gently over and pressed his right hand under the man’s left collar bone, trying to staunch the spurting of blood. The stab wound was too deep for any but the most sophisticated medical procedures, but the forlorn look on Holmes’s face told me to say nothing. He already knew. With his other hand, he touched the man’s moustache, and then with a pinch of his finger he suddenly peeled it off. There was no mistaking the lips that had once captivated him.

“Irene,” he said. “Irene. My God, it’s you.”

“It’s a woman,” someone at the bar muttered.

“The woman,” Holmes said, his words a furious assault at the man who had just spoken. Irene Adler, whom he always called “the woman,” and here she was dying on the floor of a New York ale house.

Her eyes fluttered open and tried to focus on him. “Sherlock,” she said, “Thank God.” Her eyes closed and her head listed to one side, like a ship making its final bow before it sinks beneath the waves. Holmes held her in his arms.

“She’s gone, Holmes,” I said, my back to him, as I looked around the tavern, trying to both fathom who had killed Irene Adler, and who might now try to assassinate Holmes. From the minute I had heard Irene whisper the name “Moran,” I knew my companion was in mortal danger. Moran was Colonel Sebastian Moran, the right-hand man of that Beelzebub of crime, Professor Moriarty, who had sworn to kill Holmes before he left this mortal earth.

“Lock the door and call the police,” I shouted to the barkeep. I turned back to Holmes. He had placed his overcoat over Irene’s lifeless body and was looking at the sawdust on the floor.

“I thought Irene had been dead these many years, captured with Sidney Reilly in Russia. I don’t know how or why, but she came here to warn you, Holmes, she may have saved your life.”

Holmes stood. Taking out his handkerchief, he placed a few bits of sawdust into it and wrapping it up, stuffed it back into his breast pocket. His face was ashen, filled with a deadly combination of anguish and fury. For only the second time in his career had he been this emotional. The first time was when I stood in the way of a bullet during that business of the three Garridebs.

Holmes took several deep breaths, exhaling slowly each time. “She wasn’t sent here to warn me, Watson,” he said. “She was sent here to die.”

I reached into my pocket for my service revolver, suddenly realizing that I had left it in the hotel suite, not wanting to run afoul of New York’s strict gun laws. “You still are in danger,” I said. “Whoever killed Irene could still be here.”

“Undoubtedly so,” Holmes said. “But killing me was not the purpose of the assassin’s visit.”

I looked at the crowd sitting at the tables and standing at the bar. “Well, the New York police will be here soon, hopefully they find him.”

“I will find him first.”

“How?” I asked. “Among this mob of ale-swillers? Not unless someone points him out to you.”

“Watson, once again, you denigrate the power of deductive reasoning.” He looked at the bar. “There were twenty-three drinkers, ale-swillers as you call them, at the bar only a few moments before Irene was struck down. Now, there are twenty-four. So that is where I will start my search.”

“But still, Holmes, it is surely an impossible task. Let the police handle it.”

“Impossible? Was it impossible in A Study in Scarlet, “The Five Orange Pips,” “A Case of Identity,” or the several dozen other of my solutions you wrote about and were so handsomely rewarded? At least in this moment of grief, do not disparage my abilities and do not stop me from bringing Irene’s killer to swift justice.” His right hand was in his jacket pocket, where I knew he carried the gold-plated derringer he always took with him when he was out for the evening.

“You won’t have much time before the police arrive,” I said.

“Whoever killed Irene stabbed her from behind and did it quickly, just as she was at our table. It was intended that we see her die.”

“By who and why?”

“Professor Moriarty, of course. He has vowed to kill me, but his diabolical mind would take more intellectual pleasure in having me suffer by seeing the woman struck down before my eyes. But right now, that is a distraction, we must concentrate on the stabbing itself. For there lies the solution to the problem.”

“What was Irene doing in New York?”

“I’ll explain later, Watson, it’s inconsequential to the problem at hand.”

A chill ran through me as I listened to Holmes describe the brutal killing of the only woman he had ever totally respected as “the problem at hand.” I suddenly seized up the unfinished mug of ale and swallowed it, then drank another.

Holmes ignored me, staring down at the floor. “When the killer withdrew the blade, blood would have immediately started to spurt out. Look at the side of the pot-bellied stove.” He pointed out a trail of tiny brown-red spots on the black metal surface.

“And the sawdust, too, I take it.”

“Very good, Watson, but unimportant. Not to worry, however, good fellow, for look at the sawdust on the floor just to right of the corpse.”

I shuddered again at the cold steel emotion of this man. Yet, I knew the total sublimation of his feelings to scientific examination had a purpose. I looked down and saw that there was a circular scuffing in the sawdust. “But what does it mean, Holmes?” I said.

“Aha, Watson, it could mean everything. Or it could mean nothing. You see, when the killer reached around to stab Irene, he set his right foot forward. And he would have had to keep it forward as he withdrew the blade from her bosom.” His voice quavered as he said those words but suddenly once again, he was only steel.

“So Irene’s blood spattered onto the killer’s right shoe.” I was able to follow his reasoning so far. “Holmes, please sit back down for a minute.”

“I’m all right, Watson.”

“You may be the detective, but I am the surgeon. So sit down.”

Holmes took the chair next to the stove and I sat across the table from him.

“Holmes, you have told me many times that detection is an exact method, an exercise in logic and science, that there is no room for emotion. Only analytical reasoning.”

He sipped some of the ale. “Yes, but to what purpose, Watson? The law can never provide the justice that the fiend behind this deserves.” He reached into the watch-pocket of his vest and withdrew a small sack of tobacco and some papers. I watched as he deftly rolled a thick cigarette.

“Reminds me of the time we were in Jamaica,” I said. “The Problem of the Rum Keg.”

“Those were the days, Watson. Heroin, cocaine, all still legal.”

“The police are outside,” the barkeep announced, walking towards the front door. He unlocked it and went back to his station by the ale pumps.

“Let the police do their job,” I said.

“Much of this is elementary, as you know, but I cannot let the hired hand get away.”

Again, Holmes fumbled with the derringer in his pocket.

I grabbed Holmes by the wrist. “Just don’t doing anything foolish. The killer might provide something useful against Moriarty.”

“Good old Watson. Don’t you see, the woman’s death was a mere taunt to let me know how helpless I am to stop what devilish machinations the fiend is conjuring up? Nevertheless, I intend to bring him to justice. But I’ll need help. Lestrade always acts as a spur to my deductive reasoning as he always seems to get it wrong. But since he’s not here, you’ll have to do.”

“Me, Holmes? Once again, you’re asking me to assist you in solving a crime?”

He nodded slowly, a wan smile on his face.

A rush of cold air caressed my neck as the inner doors flew open and were held by two uniformed police officers. They stood at attention as a short stout man in a long grey coat and bowler hat strode in behind them. An unlit cigar was jammed into a pair of grim lips that were as red as his face. Wisps of snow drifted to the floor as he shook his coat.

Holmes looked at the New York detective. “Yes, Watson, let’s see if you’re up to the task.”

The detective took the cigar out of his mouth and looked around the tavern room, his eyes stopping when they saw the body of Irene Adler on the floor. He moved towards the bar, the crowd in front of him parting like the Red Sea before Moses. The barkeep had already pumped two mugs of cold dark ale for the detective and slid them down the damp wooden surface. Without blinking, the detective seized the mugs of ale and lifting one to his lips, drained it without taking it away from his mouth, then set it down and polished off the second one, again in one long swig.

The detective leaned back against the bar and nodded slightly towards the barkeep, who immediately drew two more ales from the tap. Stretching his right arm out, he caught the two fresh mugs as they slid towards him. This time, he sipped the ale more slowly. Looking at Holmes, his face broke into a mischievous grin.

“So you’re the famous Sherlock Holmes,” he said,

The crowd in the room all turned towards us, gawking to see the British consulting detective they had read about in the barbershops while waiting to get their hair cut.

Holmes lifted his fedora. “Aloysius G. Murphy, I presume. Vicious Aloysius, to be more precise.”

Murphy’s grin widened. “You Englishmen and your preciseness. Yes, Vicious Aloysius is a name I’ve picked up over the years.” The grin was still on his face.

“My gawd, Holmes, he looks like a common street hoodlum,” I said.

“This is New York, Watson. Societal distinctions such as we have in that blessed little plot called England don’t matter very much here.”

Suddenly, the detective’s voice bellowed out. “My name is Aloysius G. Murphy. Police Captain Aloysius G. Murphy.”

He grinned at the assemblage. “That’s right. Vicious Aloysius. But only my enemies call me that. Is anyone here my enemy?” His bellow was higher pitched now, just below a scream.

The tavern room was silent.

“My worst enemies just call me Vicious. Is anyone here my worst enemy?”

The room stayed silent.

I leaned towards Holmes’s ear. “Still,” I said, “can we trust him? A policeman who goes by the moniker of Vicious Aloysius?”

“A well-earned moniker, no doubt,” Holmes whispered back. “But the only thing we have to fear is that he will find and kill Moriarty before I do. And that is something I cannot allow.”

Murphy suddenly slammed one of the ale mugs on the bar top, the sharp sound bringing my attention back to him. “This is a homicide investigation. That’s murder to you louts. No one can leave. Everyone is a suspect and everyone will be searched. And then we will all have a little talk.” His grin turned to a leer with that last pronouncement. “Barkeep, close down the kitchen, I’m going to need it. But leave the stove on.” He made a circular motion with his hand, walked over to our table and sat down.

“So, Holmes,” he said, “do you think your vaunted deductive reasoning can solve this case before I can?”

“Undoubtedly,” said Holmes. “Are you turning the investigation over to me?”

Murphy reached into a back pocket of his trousers and pulled out a leather covered, lead weighted sapper and set it on the table. Then he reached into the outer pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a pair of brass knuckles, their inside surfaces covered with a pink padding. He set the knuckle dusters down next to the sapper.

One of the waiters came over and set a half-dozen mugs of ale on the table. “These are on the house, Captain,” he said to Murphy.

Murphy ignored the man and kept his eyes locked on Holmes. “Since the barkeep locked the door right away, the killer is still in this tavern. When I leave here, I’ll have him in cuffs and a written confession in my pocket.”

“You mean you’ll beat a suspect in front of all the witnesses?” I said.

The evident shock on my face made Murphy’s grin even wider. “Anybody here wanna be a witness?” he yelled out. The uniformed officers guarding the front door laughed. Everyone else was silent. Murphy stood up and placed his fists on his hips. He stared at the crowd and pointed to a large wooden sign above the ice cooler.

“Be Good or Begone,” he read the sign out loud. “This is me precinct and that’s me motto.”

He sat back down and nodded towards Holmes. “Okay, let’s see what you can come up with.”

Holmes nodded back and then stood. Now Murphy, the hoodlum detective, would be receiving a lesson in how a fine mind would triumph over his crude police methods. Holmes looked at the men drinking at the bar and then slowly sauntered along the row until he reached the end, then started walking back. Midway, he stopped and seized the collar of a rough-looking fellow who tried to twist loose. Holmes held the collar tighter. “He’s all yours, Vicious,” he said.

Murphy picked up his sapper and knuckle duster and walked over to the bar. “Come along you,” he said to the man as he shoved him towards the kitchen. The door closed behind them. I sat there stunned. What had Holmes done? Or rather not done. What kind of detecting had that been? Where were the connected principles of deductive reasoning, where were the repeated applications of modus ponens? Had Holmes’s mind gone soft over the murder of Irene Adler?

My worrisome fugue was interrupted by a fearful slamming and banging from the kitchen, followed by sharp screams of anguish. Everyone in the tavern turned towards the closed door. More slamming and banging caused some of the patrons to turn back to their ales. This was followed by more screaming, muted and mixed with long sobs. The kitchen door flew open and Murphy stood there, wiping sweat off his face with an apron. Kneeling on the floor, moaning in pain was the suspect, his face bruised and bloodied. Murphy latched onto his collar and dragged him across the sawdust floor to the front door. “Let him go, boys,” he said to the pair of uniforms.

The hoodlum-detective came back to our table and sat down. “You were wrong, Holmes. The great Sherlock Holmes was wrong. That man is innocent.”

“Holmes is never wrong,” I said.

“No, Watson, this time I’m afraid Captain Murphy is right. I seem to have made a terrible mistake.”

“Don’t you worry, old-fashioned police methods will get the right man.” A smirk crept over Murphy’s face. He drank another mug of ale.

“Holmes will solve this murder,” I said. “He always has.”

“You are as stubborn as your scientific friend, aren’t you, Dr Watson?” The smirk was still on Murphy’s face. “Do you think I should let Holmes continue his ‘investigation’ or spare him further embarrassment?”

“It’s you that’ll be embarrassed.”

Murphy finished his ale and made another circular motion with his hand. “We shall see, Dr Watson, we shall just see.” He turned back to Holmes. “Although I’m in charge here, I could be induced to allow you to continue your floundering. A friendly wager as to which of us nabs the miscreant? I’ll even let you proceed first.”

Holmes stared at him. “Justice is not something that follows the turn of a roulette wheel; to be dispensed in return for pecuniary rewards.”

“I was thinking of something more to your liking,” the policeman said.

Holmes slowly sipped his ale. “Pray continue,” he said.

Murphy reached inside his suit jacket and took out a small wooden box. He casually set the object on the table in front of Holmes. “Go ahead, open it.”

Holmes ran his fingers over the top of the box, then fiddled with a small brass clasp. Yet he still waited, not undoing the clasp, only watching Murphy’s face.

“Afraid, Holmes? Afraid of what’s inside? Or perhaps you are afraid your so-called powers of deductive reasoning have abandoned you?”

“Holmes is afraid of nothing,” I said, reaching for the box.

My good friend clamped his hand over it. “Watson, I am truly touched by your support, but I think I can do this myself.” Flicking the brass clasp, he lifted up the top of the box. His face paled as he saw the contents: a small hypodermic needle, a length of rubber tubing, and a half-dozen glassine envelopes (the kind stamp collectors use) that contained a white powder. I remembered the many nights when Holmes had nodded off in our rooms at 221B Baker Street after injecting heroin, and I felt sick, for I knew the desire that must be coursing through his mind and body at that very moment.

“Holmes is not interested in your silly wager,” I said, anger filling my voice.

“Why don’t you let Holmes speak for himself, Dr Watson?”

Holmes slowly closed the box. “And if I should fail to find the killer this time?” he asked.

The hoodlum-detective leaned back in his chair and made a sweeping gesture with his ale mug. “Then you shall announce to this motley group that Aloysius G. Murphy is the greatest detective of all time, not you. Then you will salute me.” He laughed at the thought. “And you, Dr Watson, will write one of your stories, describing it exactly.”

“That’s a story that never will be written!” I declared.

Holmes tapped his fingers on the top of the box. “The wager is on,” he finally said.

Murphy made another sweeping gesture with the ale mug. “The stage is all yours.”

Holmes stood and bowed. “And I shall perform an act far greater than you have dreamt of.” He took his walking stick and strode the length of the bar, his hand running lightly over the backs of the drinkers. When he reached the end, he nodded at the barkeep and turned, walking slowly back towards the other end. When he reached the middle of the bar, he stopped and rapped his walking stick on the bar top. The man to the right of the stick swivelled his head and smiled. “You’ll never pin this me on me, Mr Sherlock Holmes.” He took a saltine cracker and daubed it with mustard from a mug on the bar. He popped it into his mouth and chewed and swallowed. Saluting Holmes with his right hand, he collapsed to the floor.

Dead.

* * * *

“I don’t know how you did it, Holmes,” the hoodlum-detective said.

“The clues were all elementary, my dear Captain. Anyone with half a brain could have followed them to the conclusion that the happily-departed imbiber was the man who stabbed the woman to death.”

Murphy stared at Holmes. “What clues? I don’t see any clues.”

“You wouldn’t. Your kind of detective never does.” Holmes took out his tobacco pouch and rolled another cigarette. Lighting it, he puffed casually and sat back. Exhaling the smoke through his nostrils, he smiled grimly. “I’ll explain it to you, although I doubt it will make a difference in how you conduct your future investigations. First, just before the woman was stabbed there were twenty-three men drinking at the bar. As I knelt beside her on the floor, I counted twenty-four. The original twenty-three imbibers I had only glanced at, as any study of their faces would have been banal compared to the first-hand account of the Battle of Waterloo.” He gestured at the ancient newspaper on the wall. “That was certainly more worthy of my intellectual attention.”

A waiter approached the table but Holmes waved him away. He puffed on the cigarette again and flicked a bit of ash on the floor. “In any event, a physiognomic study was totally unnecessary to the solution of the murder.”

“How so?” I asked. My note pad was out. Murphy still leaned back in his chair.

“It was snowing when we arrived and it was still snowing when the good captain arrived. So when I walked along the bar I was on the lookout for a damp coat.”

“But the men wore different materials,” Murphy said. “More than one coat may have remained damp.”

“Quite so. But as you can feel, the coal stove keeps the room rather warm. The men all had their caps pushed back, all, that is, except our now dead suspect, who kept his pulled down in an effort to hide his face.” Holmes puffed again on the cigarette. “Then there were the hands of the barflies, all rough. Hands built for labour, not hands made to strike down beautiful women in a crowded room. These men were, still are, shaken by the woman’s murder. I observed their hands trembling as I passed by. All except the killer, whose hands were calm, fingers unmoving, the singular mark of the professional assassin.”

He dropped the cigarette to the floor and ground it with his heel. “Unfortunately, my dear Captain Murphy, he has escaped your brutal clutches.” Holmes gestured to the mug of mustard Murphy was holding in his hands.

“But he saved the State of New York the cost of a trial and execution,” Murphy said. He walked over to the man’s body and prodded it with the toe of his boot.

I leaned forward across the table. “Holmes, you promised that you would explain to me how you knew Irene Adler was still alive and what she was doing here.”

“That I shall, dear friend. I am afraid that all these years I haven’t been quite truthful with you.”

“You mean you’ve been keeping secrets from me?”

“A secret, Watson. The greatest secret of my career.”

“Whatever do you mean, Holmes?”

“The woman and I have been together over the past two decades. We have met many times, during many cases, to renew our love for each other. Caracas, Saigon, Tangiers were only a few of the places where our love was reconsecrated during nights of heated bliss.”

“Caracas? You mean when we solved the mystery of ‘The Giant Roach of Caracas’ you were romancing Irene? And Saigon, the ‘Case of the Mutilated Agent?’ Well, strike me up a gum tree, as Lestrade would say. Your deductive reasoning was a little slow on that one. Now I know why. I had to find a new literary agent after that.”

“Slow on purpose, my dear Watson. He wasn’t getting you the contracts your recitations of my cases deserve. So he had to go. I did you a favour, old boy.”

“Good old Holmes,” I laughed. “Always looking out for me. Well, I have to admit my new agent does work a bit harder.” I sat back in my chair.“But why was Irene in New York?”

“We were to meet again; she had also reserved a suite at the Waldorf. Moriarty must have been on to her, had her followed and planted a false story that Moran was out to kill me. She thought she was warning me.”

“Holmes, you knew right away that this dead fellow was the real killer, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Of course, Watson, did you expect anything different? Remember the possibility that there were blood spots on his right shoe, they were a dead giveaway.”

“But that man you first pointed out was innocent and he took a terrific beating.”

Holmes shrugged. “I knew he was innocent, but I didn’t like his face. Besides, his assistance with the investigation was invaluable.”

“How so?”

“The dead man was known to me as Edgar, a highly trusted assassin used by Colonel Moran. There was no way I could let Vicious Aloysius take Edgar into custody. His brutal methods would have been effective and Edgar would have spilled the beans about Moran and Moriarty. I told you that I will bring them to the justice they deserve. So I had to show Edgar just how brutal Murphy was and convince him that he would talk before leaving here. I was sure Edgar had the means to prevent his being taken alive, I only had to prompt him into using it before he talked.”

“But what about the sawdust you collected, what clue was that?”

Holmes clenched his jaw. “Not a clue, dear fellow, a memento mori.”

Murphy approached the table, still holding the mug of poisoned mustard. “Our police lab will determine what poison the dead man used. Do you have any suggestions?”

Holmes shook his head, no longer interested in helping the hoodlum-detective.

“By the way, for the record, what was the dead woman’s name?”

“Irene …” I started to answer before Holmes cut me off.

“Mrs Sherlock Holmes,” he said, pocketing the box with the syringe and the heroin. “Watson, since I don’t intend to be good, let us begone.”