Martin Greenberg - Sherlock Holmes In America

“The gun,” said Zalor.

“Exactly. And the same thing happened on the night Mr. Patrell was injured-the night he claims that Addison Tate shot him. But Tate didn’t shoot anyone. Gideon Patrell shot himself, accidentally, while cracking a walnut.”

“Tonight, the gun didn’t go off,” Harry put in, “because Dash had adjusted the trigger mechanism. But Tate liked a lighter touch-almost a hair trigger-so the gun went off when Mr. Patrell cracked the handle against the nut. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed.”

“This is absurd!” shouted Patrell, his face darkening. “It’s crazier than the story about the swamp adder!”

“The wonder of the thing is that you did it twice,” I said. “You’d think that a man who had shot himself once would be a little more careful.”

“That’s why I had to distract you with my spellbinding story,” Harry said. “So that you wouldn’t notice what you were doing. As long as your arm has been in that sling, you’ve simply grabbed for whatever object was close at hand.”

Emma Henderson was staring at Patrell with an expression of fascination mixed with horror. “Why would he do such a thing? If it was an accident, why would he blame Addison Tate?”

“Two reasons,” I said. “First, with Tate out of the way, he believed he had an opportunity to win the affections of Miss Horn.” The young lady blushed deeply and turned away. “At the same time,” I continued, “it allowed Patrell to salt away the money for himself. I have to give him credit. At the very instant that he shot himself, he figured out a way to turn it to his profit. He certainly showed a cool head.”

“I don’t understand,” said Miss Henderson. “Why didn’t Addison Tate simply speak up and defend himself? He left Mr. Patrell’s office that evening when all the rest of us did. We would have vouched for him.”

“Tate returned later that evening. That part of the story is true. He wanted to try again to convince Patrell to let him have the money. When Patrell refused a second time, Tate saw that it was hopeless. He turned to go, leaving his gun behind as he always did, to be locked up in the strongbox overnight. Later, when he heard that Patrell had been shot and the police were looking for him, he panicked and ran.”

“Incredible,” said Zalor. “So that whole cock-and-bull story about recreating the crime, about snakes in the ventilator-you were just waiting for Mr. Patrell to crack a walnut?”

“Exactly,” I said.

“It’s a pack of lies,” said Patrell, his voice sinking to a menacing register. “You’ve made the whole thing up.”

“Not at all,” said Harry. “Once we realized what had happened, it was a simple matter to find Addison Tate-with Miss Horn’s help, of course.”

“You found him?” asked Miss Henderson. “Where?”

“Why, visiting his mother, of course,” said Harry. “She’s in the hospital awaiting an operation, just as Mr. Tate had said. He has been at her bedside every day, though he took the precaution of shaving off his ‘Wild West’ beard and moustache so that he wouldn’t be easily recognized. This afternoon, he told the entire story to a friend of ours down at the police department.”

“More lies!” insisted Patrell. “He’ll be halfway across the Atlantic by now.”

Just then, there was a stirring at the back of the room as the “Wild Man of Borneo” struggled to pull off his wig and mask, revealing not the familiar sight of Nigel Kendricks but a younger, smoother face.

Patrell gave a hoarse cry. “You! This is-”

“Hello, Gideon,” said Addison Tate. “Would you mind returning my Colt?”

“But it was ridiculous!” I told Harry at breakfast the next morning. “Ridiculous on a grand scale!”

“All part of the plan,” said Harry. “You told me to keep talking until he reached for the gun.”

“I know,” I said, “but really… a swamp adder in the ventilator?”

“I thought it was a rather tidy explanation,” said Harry, reaching for a slice of brown toast. “And after all, there was a poisonous snake in the room, if you count Mr. Patrell himself. But come now, Dash, you still haven’t explained how Sherlock Holmes provided the solution to the matter.”

“No, I suppose not,” I said. “Things got a bit chaotic last night.”

“For a few moments I thought Tate really would shoot Patrell,” said Bess. “And once the police arrived and demanded explanations, it seemed as if we’d never get out of there. Lieutenant Murray is a good man, but he’s a fiend for details.”

“Even he wasn’t quite sure what to do with Mr. Patrell,” I said. “Patrell never made a formal complaint against Addison Tate, so the nature of the crime is unclear.”

“I overheard Mr. Patrell offering to pay the medical expenses for Tate’s mother,” said Bess. “I’m guessing that Tate will let the matter drop, especially if Mathilda Horn has anything to do with it. She clearly wants to run away with him and live happily ever after.”

“A remarkable woman,” I said. “She never wavered in her belief that he was innocent.”

“Indeed,” said Bess, patting my arm. “We knew there had to be some reason she was able to resist your attentions.”

“But what about Sherlock Holmes!” demanded Harry. “My letter came back unopened!”

“Actually, Harry, it began with something you said. When the case began to get frustrating, you said something about ‘turning things upside-down.’ That put a seed in my head. Then, when I saw the letter to Sherlock Holmes, it all fell into place.”

“But how?” Harry took the envelope from his pocket and studied it. “It’s simply an unopened letter.”

“With a message on the outside. And what is the message instructing us to do?”

“I don’t understand. The message is simply telling us to-ah!” A smile broke across Harry’s face. “The message is telling us to turn it over! Turn it over and look at the other side. Which is exactly what you did with the gun. You turned it over and looked at the other side.”

“And once I did that, I saw that it hadn’t been used as a weapon, but as a nutcracker.”

“You turned things upside-down, just as I said.” Harry leaned back and gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I must say, Dash, you have been positively brilliant in this business.”

“My blushes, Harry.”

“Almost as brilliant as-”

“As the man who wrote the message on that envelope?”

He fingered the envelope tenderly for a moment. “Really, Dash,” he said, slipping it back into his pocket. “Now who’s being ridiculous?”

Matthew Pearl is the author of the historical novels The Dante Club , The Poe Shadow , and The Last Dickens . His nonfiction writing has appeared in the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal , the Boston Globe , and Legal Affairs . He has taught literature and creative writing at Harvard University and Emerson College.

“‘More morphine!’ ‘More chloral!’” he cried, his eyes small and restless. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe, Watson, how American patients order you about as if you were the stable boy.”

This commentary I heard over breakfast with Dr. Joseph Lavey, the surgeon who had ministered to my injuries in Afghanistan, during my restorative tour through America. Lavey, formerly of London and now of Commercial Street, Boston, had remained in disconsolate and solitary spirits in the years since his wife had died of pneumonia. He was highly distracted and complained of matters large and small, whether the dwindled profits in his medical practice, or the incompetence in recent weeks of his housemaid.