Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (33 page)

Reluctantly he returned to the courtroom. He noticed from the raised volume of noise that many of the occupants had indeed fortified themselves at the tavern while he had been gone. Their rowdiness was now bordering on belligerence.

The trial began. The first witness was called. He gave his name
as Chuck Hawkins. He told how he had heard a ruckus the night before, gone into the alleyway, and seen the Indian bending over a body. The body was still warm. He and some other men had grabbed the Indian and dragged him to the jail.

“Don’t seem no need to go any further,” the judge said. “Open-and-shut case, like I said.”

“One moment, please.” Holmes got to his feet amid groans and catcalls. “First I would like to speak to the character of the defendant. He is no killer. Only last week he saved my life when I had been robbed and left for dead in the desert.” He let his gaze move deliberately around the courtroom. “It may surprise honest men among you to know that a gang of stage robbers actually resides in this town and are here among you today.”

Murmurs rumbled through the crowd.

“But this is not the business at hand. We are speaking of the life of a man, a human being, no matter what the color of his skin. Like any other man here, he is innocent until proven guilty. I should first like to call the doctor who examined the body. I presume a doctor did examine the body.”

“Most certainly did,” the judge said. “It was me, son. He died instantly, stabbed through the heart.”

“Interesting,” Holmes said. “Stabbed from the front, you mean? Now I have just examined that alleyway and note that the Indian’s footprints go no further than where the man fell. So I can only deduce that he came upon the body, as he said, and bent to examine it from behind. Now, if he had just stabbed the man, he would have been standing in front of him, wouldn’t he? But there is no sign of his footprints beyond where the man fell. On the contrary, I could see two pairs of rather distinctive boots, running away, by
the size of their strides. White man’s boots, mark you, not Indian moccasins.”

“Footprints don’t prove nothin’,” someone near the front shouted. “Those prints could have been there for days. And the injun could have snuck up from behind, spun the poor fellah around, and then stabbed him.”

There was growled agreement to this.

Holmes took a deep breath. He could see they’d have an answer to almost any kind of evidence he produced. They wanted the Indian to be guilty and they were going to make sure he was.

“Doctor,” he said. “You examined the body. What size would you say the wound was?”

The judge thought for a moment. “About two inches, I’d say. Nasty, vicious wound. Went straight into the heart.”

“And who took the Indian’s weapons from him when he was arrested?”

“I did,” a voice called from the back. “They’re locked up now, in the jail.”

“Can you please produce them as evidence?” Holmes demanded.

They waited. A few seconds later an out-of-breath deputy placed the hatchet and the knife in front of the judge.

“This is correct,” Holmes said. “During the time I was with this man he was carrying only these two weapons. The hatchet could not have been used for stabbing. It wouldn’t make a cut deep enough to kill. Now, let us examine the knife. It is a throwing knife, you will note. Light, designed with a teardrop shape for flying swiftly and easily through the air. But at its widest the blade is only—what would you say, Doctor—one inch wide?”

The judge leaned forward to examine the blade. “Yep. About that.”

“So it could not have been the blade that killed Mr. Fletcher, could it?”

Another rumble went through the crowd. “And what’s more,” Holmes went on, emboldened, “I believe I can prove which knife in this room did kill him. If you’ll follow me outside . . .” They complied, jostling for position.

Holmes walked behind them, checking their footprints in the soft sand of the street. “Would you step forward, sir?” He went around touching shoulders apparently randomly. “And would you place your knives on the bed of this buckboard?”

He had summoned ten men. He recognized two of them.

The knives were placed. Holmes waited.

“What you goin’ to do, a magic trick? Goin’ to make the dead man appear and point to his killer?” Tyler Jensen demanded, and got a general laugh, although not from the men standing in that line.

“While we wait,” Holmes said, “let me fill you in on a little background so that you understand better. Last week I was in a stagecoach that was robbed in the desert. I tried to protect a young woman and was knocked unconscious. I was left for dead. I should surely have died if this Indian had not found me and brought me to safety. Imagine my surprise when I came into town and saw the men who robbed me. It is true that they were masked, but they each had something about them that gave them away—a peculiarly deep, rumbling voice, for example, or bright orange freckles on a forearm and a high-pitched laugh. One of them had a smooth, English-sounding accent. I surmise that he is Mr. Robert Fletcher,
who now lies in your morgue. I also surmise there was a falling-out among thieves. Mr. Fletcher was overheard to say, ‘No more. This has gone on long enough.’ I suspect his conscience was getting the better of him and he wanted out. But he could not be allowed to leave the gang, in case he betrayed his fellow bandits. So they killed him. It was purely fortuitous that the person who happened to stumble upon the body was an Indian. An obvious scapegoat, wouldn’t you say?”

“Utter rubbish,” one of the men standing in that line said. “Come on, Judge. This has gone on long enough. What’s the fellah think he can prove? He’s just making things up to protect his Indian pal. I say we string ‘em up, both of ‘em.”

Holmes held up his hand. “Only one more minute of your time, I promise you. The proof has arrived. While I was staying with Mr. Tucker, he taught me a good deal of things, including that flies will always home in on blood. The killer thought that he wiped his knife clean, but not clean enough. The flies still smelled the traces of blood on it. If you will turn your attention to the knives, you will now see which knife killed Robert Fletcher.”

There was a gasp from the crowd. One knife now had five or six flies on it. The others did not.

“Would the other men now retrieve their knives?” Holmes instructed.

He looked at the young redheaded man. His face was ashen. “Willard Jensen, is it not?” Holmes said, “And if I’m not mistaken, your boots have distinctive metal tips. I saw your prints as you ran away from the scene of the crime.”

As hands went to grab him, Jensen whipped out a gun. “He
made me do it,” he shouted, waving the pistol at the big man in the red shirt. “He said we had to make sure Robert didn’t talk.”

“What nonsense is this?” Tyler Jensen stepped forward. “Accusing my boy? That’s a mighty stupid thing to do, stranger. You’ve been nothing but trouble since you came into town. And if you men know what’s good for you, you won’t listen to a word he says.”

“On the contrary.” The federal agent pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “I believe he has put his case extremely well. I for one am satisfied that he has arrived at the truth. If you wish to deal with him, you will have to deal with me first. And I can assure you that my colleagues in Washington would have the cavalry here in a minute flat and would take over the running of this town if anything happened to me.”

He moved to stand beside Holmes. “Judge,” he said. “I think it behooves you to release this Indian.”

The judge shot an anxious glance at Tyler Jensen. “Oh, very well. Bring out the Indian. But you guys better get him out of town pretty danged fast, or I’ll not be responsible for what happens to him, or to any of you.”

“As it happens, I planned to leave today anyway,” the man in black said. “Would you care to join me, Mr. Holmes? I am on my way to Phoenix and then to the West Coast.”

“My dear sir, I’d be delighted,” Holmes said, “if we can give my good friend Shadow Wolf a ride to safely.”

“We most certainly can,” Mr. Cleveland replied.

“Before I go,” Holmes said, turning back to the crowd. “I should like to retrieve my pocket watch. I don’t know what happened to the rest of my belongings, but that watch was dear to
me.” He walked up to the big man in red and held out his hand. “I noticed it in court,” he said.

“Hey, I bought this watch fair and square from a trader,” the man snapped. “Ain’t no way you can prove it’s yours.”

“I think that the inscription inside the back cover might convince some people that it is mine,” Holmes said. “To my dear brother Sherlock on his twenty-first birthday. It is signed Mycroft.”

Hands removed the watch and opened it, and a murmur of recognition went through the crowd. The watch was handed to Holmes.

“Now take it and get out while you’re still alive,” Mr. Jensen barked.

Shadow Wolf was brought out and climbed into the buckboard. Holmes and the federal agent climbed up beside him.

“I fear that justice will not be served in that place,” Holmes said.

“We have done the best we can do without reinforcements,” Mr. Cleveland said. “You should be glad the outcome was so positive. Had I not been there, I rather fear that both of you would be swinging from a noose at this moment. I will report the case to my superiors in Washington, but I doubt that much can be done. We shall have to wait until more women come out west. They are always a civilizing influence.”

The buckboard started off. As they swung to take the road out of town, Tyler Jensen ran forward and drew his pistol. “Take that, ya damned meddler,” he yelled. A gunshot reverberated in the clear air.

Then a surprised look came over his face and he slumped to the ground. An equally surprised smile spread over Holmes’s face as he replaced his smoking pistol into its holster.

“One of the things Mr. Tucker taught me during the time of my recuperation was how to shoot one of these things. I must have mastered it remarkably quickly.”

The horses picked up speed as the town fell away behind them.

Marta Randall writes with passion and fire and her usual grace of the Mexico of 150 years ago and what Sherlock Holmes found there.

by

MARTA RANDALL

I
had long ago lost patience with the young man who shared the carriage with me. It did not matter that my son-in-law Teobaldo had begged me to take him safely out of Mexico City, it did not matter that he was not quite the age of my youngest grandson, it did not matter that he was ill and barely fit for travel, and it mattered less and less that if he were discovered his life was forfeit, as was that of Teobaldo, and quite possibly my own. If they strung this young English señor from a lamp standard, it was only what he deserved.

Because he was here, with his long nose sticking out of his nest of blankets like the beak of a particularly annoying bird, I was missing the only performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s sublime Ninth Symphony, the culmination of
the cycle conducted by the famed Hungarian conductor Arthur Nikisch. It had been a triumphant season, our classically trained musicians rising to meet the challenge of the impressively mustachioed Nikisch so that a three-way partnership burst forth, conductor and musicians and chorus filling the grand concert hall with music as sublime as—but I digress . . .

I had agreed to forgo Sr. Beethoven’s crowning creation only because Teobaldo had quite literally fallen to his knees, taken my hands in his, and wept over them. My son-in-law was known for his melodrama, but how could I refuse him? He was the family’s bulwark against the Political storms that continue to buffet our poor country: revolutions, dictators, invasions, the shameful occupation by the hated French, and the monarchy of the pretty boy Maximilian and his poor, crazy wife, Carlota.

Teobaldo had fought at the side of Benito Juarez, a true hero, and helped drive the French from the country, but the memory of the invasion still rankled. An English army had landed together with the French, a fact not lost on Mexicans, and so periodically the English were booted out of the country. Apparently the English trade delegation had trodden on the delicate sensibilities of the mayor of Mexico City and his pocket army, led by
el maldito
General Tomás Pulgón de Coliflór. The mayor had vowed that if the Ingléses were not out of Mexico within a week, any lingering member would be shot, or hanged, or perhaps both. He was a powerful man and known for such outbursts, which usually passed within a year,
mas o menos
. Unfortunately until they subsided, General Pulgón was happy to hang, or shoot, or possibly both, any putative offenders. This one, who undoubtedly deserved it, had been too sick to travel and his brother had begged that Teobaldo save
the boy’s life. The boy was newly out of school, accompanying his older brother as an adventure, to see the New World, innocent of all evil intent, just a child, worthy of salvation. What was he to do, my son-in-law asked me as he watered my hands with his tears. It was a matter of honor. Honor! And so here I sat, while this young jackanapes muttered into his blankets and wiped at his beak with my best linen handkerchief.