Martin Greenberg - Sherlock Holmes In America

I visited the police headquarters. Detective Dugan, upon hearing the name Sherlock Holmes, immediately arranged for us to visit the scene. The modest three-story house was located in a dingy residential district near the waterfront of the city. Lavey had lived there for three years, having moved from a desirable street in Back Bay following his wife’s death.

“We sealed the doors upon discovery of the crime, Mr. Holmes,” Dugan said with a tone of professional pride. “The body was in the kitchen-over there. Dr. Lavey had fainted right on top of her, holding a rifle. I saw from the jump how it happened.”

“She jumped, Detective Dugan?” I asked, looking around the kitchen.

“No, Watson,” Holmes interjected. “‘The jump,’ if I am not mistaken, is like the start, the beginning. I have made a study of Americanisms since our passage, and consider doing a small monograph on the subject for publication upon our return to England. Please continue, Detective.”

“I could see that she had been smothered and suffocated, Mr. Holmes, from the moment I saw her body,” he said, with a sneering eyebrow at me. “The skin around her mouth was discolored and her nose was flattened and bruised as though it had been pushed down. He did not want anyone to hear him finishing her. There were no other marks or bruises on her head or body, and the rifle had not been discharged.”

“Excellent! I would have asked you about the latter point, if you had not anticipated it,” Holmes said.

Dugan was moved to a boyish smile by my friend’s praise. “I also thought to check the doors, but none had been forced open.”

“Was there anyone else seen near the house?” I asked the officer.

“The nearest neighbors did not look out until Dr. Lavey’s shouts for help were heard before he fainted dead away. I am sorry to say the evidence is strong against your friend, Dr. Watson,” said Dugan. “Firstly, they were the only two people in the house. Secondly, Lavey discovered the girl’s body but says he cannot remember the circumstances.”

“That is just it, Detective Dugan,” said I. “It would surprise me greatly if Dr. Lavey had not turned to a habitual usage of opiates since Mrs. Lavey’s death, which could explain his confusion and his untimely swoon. It is the vice of too many medical men here and in our own country.”

“If you’d permit, Dr. Watson. Thirdly, it has become known that he has been complaining around the neighborhood in recent weeks about Miss Pinton’s qualities as a housekeeper. Fourthly, as you testify, he had been a heavy user of opium as of late, and so could be prone to violence.”

“The Boston detective force is extremely organized,” Holmes said as an aside to me, with an amused air I could not share at the moment.

“As a point of fact, Detective,” I remarked firmly, “it is my experience that those who take opium tend to be drowsy and depressed, rather than roused to violence.”

“Even if that is the case, Dr. Watson, there is fifthly.”

“Fifthly?”

“Ah, fifthly,” Dugan resumed, “is that he feared, because of the sloppiness in her work, she was on the verge of resigning and looking for a new place, which could result in her whispering secrets of his habits around town. That would cause irreparable damage to his reputation as a doctor. There, that is the case in a nutshell.”

“Do you not think,” I said insistently, “that if a man is to take the trouble to suffocate a woman silently so that nobody will hear, he would not call for the police a moment later?”

“Narcotics can make a man act irrationally,” the Boston detective replied after a pause.

Holmes looked back and forth at the kitchen. “I think we have learned all we can from this place. I wonder only where has the household pet gone?”

“Beg pardon?” Dugan nervously avoided looking at my friend.

“The kitten,” Holmes clarified, speaking the word slowly and deliberately.

“Ah, yes,” the detective replied. “Probably it has died of starvation and heat by now-gentlemen, spread out and look for that dead cat for Mr. Holmes to examine!” he ordered the two police officers that had accompanied us. When they had left the room, Dugan shifted to Holmes’s side.

“Mr. Holmes, when we had first entered,” he said in a contrite whisper, “the kitten was pawing at my shoe and mewing. I gave her a dish of milk, though I could hear the other men laugh at me. I had read in the paper of a new organization on Carver Street that condemned the practice of leaving cats in vacant houses to die. So before we left I placed the kitten in my pocket, beseeching the creature to remain quiet, and took her there straightaway.”

“I perfectly understand,” said Holmes. “You may rest assured your good deed will remain entirely quiet with us. I would not mind in the least seeing this organization.”

Stopping on the way back to our lodgings, Holmes and I alighted at a three-story brick building bearing the name of the Animal Rescue League. Before going very far, we learned that the new organization had not escaped controversy, as circulars were posted on walls nearby with the following printed copy:

Humanity is sick of philanthropic fads and dilettante charities. The heart of Boston seems stirred over the distress of stray cats and the sensitive sympathies of the multitudes are awakened for some lonesome tabby that walks a back fence without a chaperon. But what of humanity? What of worse than homeless children of our city streets? Throngs appear to protect the sparrows, while little lives are perishing, one of which is of greater worth than many sparrows.

This was signed at the bottom by a Boston minister whose name meant nothing to Holmes or myself, but whose train of honorary degrees behind his name signified local prominence.

When the name of Sherlock Holmes was announced at the door, the president of the League was immediately sent for at his home as we waited in the parlor reading the literature about the place. A female employee worked diligently at a desk. A sign on the wall read, “If every person would give at least five cents we could care for several hundred more dogs and cats every year,” and another, “Kindness uplifts the world.” The latter phrase, displayed in bold lettering before us, seemed to perplex and entrap my friend Holmes’s gaze as few things I had ever seen.

“It is an honor to have you distinguished gentlemen as my guests,” said Colonel Brenton, the president, with a deep bow and hearty handshakes. “Our little League has been open to the public but a few months.”

“I should like very much to see your headquarters, if you would be so kind,” said Holmes.

Brenton led us into the League’s parlors, where animals were gathered and being pet by visitors. Brenton explained how the League was the first and only central location in the city where homeless cats and dogs could be taken to be given new homes or put to death in a humane manner rather than to starve and suffer abuse and torture in the streets.

“We wish to spread a sympathy for dumb animals too often hardened inside our hearts. Why, sometimes even I will see a dumb animal I wish to help stuck in some ash barrel, and by the time I have reached it, I have thought about something else and forgotten all about it.” He rubbed his thin moustache thoughtfully. “Sympathy is a good deal like electricity, gentlemen. The world is full of it, but before you can press the button with any effect you must have the line connected. And after connection is established the circuit is easily broken.”

“There is much poetic sentiment in that, Colonel,” Holmes said agreeably. “I wonder, though, if you might now turn over the guidance of our tour to the actual person in charge of the League. A woman, if I am not mistaken.”