World's Greatest Sleuth! (35 page)

“World’s Greatest Sleuth! World’s Greatest Sleuth! World’s Greatest Sleuth! World’s Greatest Sleuth!”

35

HIGH TIME

Or, The Amlingmeyer Boys Finally Find Themselves on Top of the World

It was Friday, October
27, 1893, and my brother and I had just had our asses chewed by some of the most powerful men in Chicago, and life was beautiful.

“How’d it go?” Diana asked as Old Red and I came down the steps of the Service Building, HQ of the Columbian Guards.

“Better than expected,” I said.

“I can tell that already,” Lucille Larson said. “I don’t see any handcuffs.”

“Oh, they weren’t gonna throw the World’s Greatest Sleuth in jail.”

I nudged my brother.

“Feh,” he grumbled. “I do wish people would stop sayin’ that.”

“What would you prefer? ‘One of the World’s Six Greatest Sleuths’ ain’t got no ring to it—though I suppose it is more accurate now.”

I couldn’t help but break out in the big, self-satisfied grin I’d been wearing, off and on, all day. That morning, we’d been informed that the other (unjailed) contestants had voted to cede us Boothby Greene’s share of the prize money. We were $2,500 richer.

And then, within minutes, $2,000 poorer once
we
ceded most of the money to Urias Smythe to help the poor man cover his expenses. Still, that put us five hundred bucks ahead, a small fortune (by our meager standards) that we immediately doubled thanks to Smythe’s offer for my next book. This one would chronicle … well, everything you’ve just seen chronicled, dear reader, for you’re lucky enough to hold it in your hands.

The day wasn’t to be all happy songs and rainbows, though. We were summoned to the White City for a private interview with various personages of an important and seriously pissed-off type. But that was behind us now, and the sun was shining, and we had money in our pockets and clean clothes on our backs and two ladies waiting for us. There was only one thing to do: promenade and bask in life’s bounty.

I offered Diana my arm, and she took it, leaving a blushing Gustav to either do the same for Miss Larson or look like an ill-mannered lout. He chose to be a gentleman—though it was touch-and-go for a moment.

Miss Larson entwined his arm in hers in a way that put me in mind of a snake wrapping itself around its next meal. Diana we’d invited along; Miss Larson had invited herself. She needed a “coda” for her article about the contest, she said, and I wasn’t inclined to deny her, given that our newly burnished reputations were hers to smudge, if she so chose. Anyway, who doesn’t love a good coda?

We started strolling north, along the western face of the Horticulture Building.

“What did they want from you?” Diana asked.

“Oh, just a pound of flesh or two. And more explanations,” I said. “I had to run through the whole thing all over again.”

Miss Larson turned a typically cool look on her escort. “You let your brother do the talking this time?”

“I’m all talked out.”

“I think he sprained his lips yesterday,” I said. “But no matter. As always, I stand ready to serve—so long as ‘serve’ means gab. Good thing my lips were ready for action, too, for there were some mighty big backsides that needed smoochin’, pardon my
français
. Daniel Burnham, Colonel Rice … why, the mayor even sent some toady over to grouse at us about spoilin’ Chicago’s image with murder talk so close to the end of the Fair. The feller from Tiffany & Co. was nice, though.”

“That must have been a relief,” Diana said.

I nodded.

After bouncing off Blackheath-Murray’s gun the day before, my shot had destroyed, of all things, a replica of a ruby-encrusted chamber pot Tiffany’s had created for the actress Lillian Russell.

“They ain’t gonna make us pay for the damage Little Sure Shot here did,” Old Red said. “There might even be a reward for gettin’ the Tiffany Diamond back.”

“I’m hopin’ for our own chamber pots,” I said, holding up crossed fingers.

Diana smiled. Miss Larson and my brother did not.

“Anyway,” I said, “that ain’t the most interestin’ tidbit we picked up. Once the poobahs had their say, we got to talk to Pinkerton and Sergeant Ryan just the four of us, and … may I, Brother?”

Gustav grimaced. “I don’t know. It’d have to stay on the q.t. Just between us.” He peeped shyly over at Miss Larson. “Not every son of a gun who picks up a
McClure’s Magazine
. Agreed?”

“Do you see me holding my notebook?” the lady said.

I shook my head. “Miss, I must point out that you just answered a question with a question.”

Either a brisk wind swept in off the lake or, as I had at times suspected, Miss Larson could cool the air around her ten degrees with nothing more than a look (specifically, the look she was giving me just then). Either way, I shivered.

“Fine,” she said. “This is a statement: Whatever you tell me shall remain confidential.”

“Thank you, miss,” I said. “So. Greene’s been doin’ him more talkin’. His name’s not Greene
or
Lindenbaum, by the way. It’s Eddie Pegg, but let’s not confuse things any more than they already are. Him and his pal Blackheath-Murray—not his real name—are part of some kinda crime ring over to London, he says. And according to him, Sherlock Holmes himself put their boss-man six feet under a while back, and they’ve been out to get him for it ever since.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Miss Larson asked. “They may as well have sworn vengeance on George Washington or Genghis Khan.”

But Diana saw where I was headed before I got there.

“He claims to believe what you do?” she said, turning to Old Red.

My brother nodded, looking rather pleased with himself.

“You’ve lost me,” Miss Larson said.

“Greene says Holmes ain’t dead,” I explained. “That he’s just gone to ground these past two years. Supposedly, Greene and his chum were sent here to smoke him out. Figured a man with Sherlock Holmes’s self-regard couldn’t resist the temptation to give our little tribute a look-see. They wanted the diamond, sure, but that was just another part of the lure. They were gonna get rich while gettin’ revenge on a man the rest of the world thinks is dead.”

Miss Larson gave me a long, appraising look, as if trying to figure out whether I was just telling another bad joke.

“That’s—”

“Ludicrous?” I guessed.

“The word I was going to use is ‘absurd.’ What about the story
McClure’s
is about to publish? ‘The Final Problem’—John Watson’s account of Holmes’s death. Are you saying it’s all a lie?”

“
I’m
not sayin’ it. Greene is.”

“Exactly. A cunning killer and thief. I would guess he’s simply trying to keep his head out of a noose, somehow.”

“What did Pinkerton and Sergeant Ryan think?” Diana asked.

I shrugged. “They thought enough of it to pass it on to us. I guess they figured it ain’t likely, but if it’s true, maybe the same folks that’re after Holmes wouldn’t be too pleased with us … though to my mind, you may as well worry you’ve made enemies of Little Bo Peep and Red Riding Hood, cuz they’re about as real.”

“And what do you think?” Miss Larson said to my brother.

“I think it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data,” he told her … and tucked up under his mustache was a crooked little pucker of a smile I hadn’t seen in a long, long while.

[
Note to self: X out the preceding page before mailing this manuscript to Mr. Smythe
.
Or better still, tear it up
. You
know Holmes has gone to solve the Great Mystery in the Sky, but if Gustav wants to keep talk the man hasn’t under wraps, best to humor him and avoid a lot of unnecessary aggravation.
]

“That ain’t all we got outta Pinkerton,” Old Red said by way of a conversation changer, and to ensure the palaver moved swiftly on from there, he added, “Right, Brother?”

“That’s right. Turns out Mr. Pinkerton’s not such a bad sort, after all. Not only did he admit he was wrong for tryin’ to buffalo us these past few days, he actually up and offered us the very thing we’ve spent the last six months tryin’ to get a rope on.”

“He didn’t!” Diana said.

“He did. Offered us jobs. Said the Denver office would probably be the place for us.”

“You turned him down, of course.”

“I told him we’d think about it.”

“Oh, he’s full of—” my brother began. He coughed and tried again. “Yes, we turned the man down.”

“More than that,” I said. “We told him he’s got some formidable competition to look forward to, thanks to our new partnership: Amlingmeyer, Amlingmeyer & Crowe, Detectives.”

“Don’t you mean Amlingmeyer, Amlingmeyer, Crowe & Crowe?”

“Pardon me, Miss. Tell you what. Let’s make it Crowe, Crowe, Amlingmeyer & Amlingmeyer.” I looked over at my brother. “The first Amlingmeyer is me, by the way.”

“The danged sign’s gonna have to be ten foot by ten,” Gustav said.

“Oh, we’ll come up with something more pithy,” I told him. “Howzabout the Holmes on the Range Detective Agency?”

“No.”

I was about to ask Old Red if “Holmes on the Range & Associates” suited him better when a man stepped into our path. A bearded man with, it turned out, a foreign accent.

“Gustav Amlingmeyer,” he said.

He was a tall, slender gentleman with piercing gray eyes, yet as the four of us stopped before him what I found myself staring at was his thick though well-tended beard. It appeared real, but who could say in this day and age when every other man you meet is hiding himself behind a wall of fuzz?

Much as I’d hated our leather cowboy outfits, I’d have felt better right then if the holsters weren’t stowed away in a drawer back in our hotel room.

“Yes?” Old Red said, and just from the hard, clipped sound of that one little word, I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was.

The man stepped toward him. “Might I congratulate you on your success yesterday?”

He held out a hand.

Gustav took it, and they shook.

“I missed the first days of the competition, but I’m so pleased I was here to witness its finish,” the stranger said. “Well done, sir.”

I tried to place his accent but couldn’t quite do it. It sounded like Swedish by way of Edinburgh, or maybe Danish with a hint of Dublin.

“Thank you, mister,” Old Red said. “It wasn’t all me, though.”

“Of course.” The Swede-Scot/Dane-Dubliner/God-only-knew offered first Diana, then me, a little bow. “What is a detective without his stalwart assistants?”

Diana accepted the compliment with a gracious nod, but I thought I noticed a little hint of irritation in the hard line of her lips. She was a detective in her own right, and it must have rankled to be dismissed as an “assistant,” stalwart or not.

“I gather you are an admirer of the late Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” the man said, turning back to my brother. “So much so that you call yourself—”

“I didn’t slap that brand on me,” Gustav snapped. Then he took in a deep breath and attempted an apologetic smile. “I’d never claim to be the Holmes of the Range. Far as I’m concerned, that’s just something to shoot for, and I can only hope I’m gettin’ closer to the mark with each try.”

The stranger nodded. “Commendable sentiments. I have no doubt, from what I saw yesterday, that you will hit your target … and do Mr. Holmes great honor in the process.”

He bowed again, then stepped around us and set off swiftly down the path. Old Red turned to watch him go with a puzzled, pensive frown.

“You should feel honored,” Miss Larson said. “Do you know who that was?”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do. I recognized him from a magazine illustration.” She nodded at the tall, thin figure that was receding from us fast. “That was Johan Sigerson, the Norwegian explorer. The first European through the Nangpa La Pass.”

“He’s a long way from Tibet,” Diana said.

“Well, sure. He just had to pop over to Chicago when he heard Old Red Amlingmeyer would be here.” I clapped Gustav on the back. “You are movin’ in illustrious circles now, Brother. Next thing you know, Grover Cleveland’s gonna step up and ask for your autograph.”

Old Red just kept watching Sigerson, brows knit, until Diana slipped between him and Miss Larson and steered him north again.

“Come along, Gustav. You have a promise to keep, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah,” my brother said.

From the sound of his voice, you’d have thought he’d promised to dip himself in boiling oil. Come to think of it, from his perspective, the truth was probably about as pleasant. He was a man of his word, however, and after a little more strolling and twenty minutes in line, the four of us left the earth behind together.

Old Red kept to the center of the compartment at first, and he left all the talking to me and the ladies. When our car finally had its turn at the top, though, Diana took him by the arm again and said, “You really should see this.”

“Yes’m,” my brother said meekly, and he let the lady lead him to a free spot at one of the long windows. There must have been fifty or sixty people in that car with us, all of them oohing and ahhing over the view from the Ferris wheel’s highest vantage, yet I didn’t hear Gustav join in. Which was fine by me. I was just relieved he wasn’t throwing up.

Beyond him and the beautiful woman on his arm, I could see blue sky and white clouds and just a sliver of the sun that had begun to sink toward the horizon from its highest height in the sky. Old Red was facing west, I realized then, and somewhere out there was the Kansas farm on which we were born and the cattle trails we’d somehow survived and the future I felt was just beginning even as this perfect day drew to a close.

Miss Larson cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry, miss,” I said. “Guess I let myself get distracted.”

She followed my line of sight—but didn’t see what I was looking at.

“She’s too old for you, you know,” she told me.

She thought I’d been mooning over Diana. For some reason, I didn’t feel like correcting her.

“Oh, I’ll catch up. I’m gettin’ older all the time.”

“You know, that’s what I like about you, Otto,” Miss Larson replied. “You always make me laugh.”