Martin Greenberg - Sherlock Holmes In America

“What is it?” I asked when she had concluded.

“‘Love’s Old Sweet Song,’” she whispered. “Come on, James-sing it with me now.”

It was the first time she had called me by my Christian name, and even though it was not really mine, I felt a thrill run through me.

And so we sang. The song ended. She searched my face for what seemed like hours, questions unposed flitting across hers. “You know, Jim,” she said at last, “you’re really something.”

And so time passed…

In the portrait that Watson has so generously drawn of me, you may perhaps have noticed that disguise comes as second nature with me; indeed, I think I do not flatter myself by acknowledging that the stage in fact lost a great talent when I chose instead to become the world’s first private consulting detective. Still, no role I had played, neither stable boy, nor wizened bookseller, nor even Sigerson-when the world, including Watson, thought me dead after Professor Moriarty’s unfortunate accident at the Reichenbach Falls-could rival my new persona as Jim McKenna. With every passing day, he was becoming more and more real to me, and there were days when I hardly thought of Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street.

The irony was unmistakable: in search of the solution to the greatest mystery of my life, I had become my own client.

Therefore, I could not help but reexamine many of the tenets of my previous faith. Of course, it was impossible that I could descend to the level of the common Irish among whom I found myself. And yet, perhaps my forcible indoctrination was offering me another perspective on a people I had long dismissed as either congenital drunkards or habitual criminals-if often, like Moriarty and Moran, criminals of genius-whom I had now come to see, mostly thanks to Miss McParland, as human beings.

It was in the midst of this brown study that I took my place at our evening table, Mrs. Murphy’s boardinghouse writ large, but with as dangerous a band of cutthroats as I had ever associated with. As a series of names was called out, it was clear to me at once that the die had finally been cast: Lefty Louie, One-Eye, Happy Jim, and Paddy the Priest; the Americans were on a first-name basis with the world. And then…

“Jim,” said the Boss. “And Maddie. That’s the team. You leave two days hence for New York.”

Morey rose in anger. “But Boss-,” he sputtered. “What about me?”

“Shut yer gob, Charlie,” retorted the Boss. A parcel bound up with twine landed with a plop in front of me. New clothes, to complete my transformation from British gentleman to Irish-American ruffian. Among the accessories, I noticed, was a revolver. “Wear it in good health, Jimbo,” he said. “And use it if you have to.”

Once again, all eyes were upon me, Morey’s most especially. Only this time, it was not a rain of brickbats and chamber pots, but rather the hushed breath of expectancy that accompanied their attention. Though her gaze was modestly diverted, I could sense Maddie’s blushes from across the room. “Terrific, Boss,” I said, then turned my glance to her. “Let’s blow this dump, Maddie. I’m goin’ bughouse here.”

The plan was that she and I were to pose as father and daughter. But Maddie demurred, arguing that despite our difference in age, it was far more common among our class that an older man take a younger wife than be seen traveling with a marriageable daughter. And so it was agreed. Over one objection, as you might well imagine. Indeed, Morey had been quietly but steadily seething in a corner of the room, and I did not like his look.

We were but small cogs in a much greater wheel of intrigue, so the exact use to which our “charitable” funds were to be put was never spelled out. But I had long since caught the drift: the Fenians, the IRB, and the Irish Republican Army were planning some kind of an uprising in the near future, perhaps in conjunction with some agents of the Kaiser based in rebellious Ireland; there were mutterings about the Dutchmen, which I knew was an American term for the Germans, and a rendezvous in Skibbereen.

And then it struck me-this was, perhaps, the reason Mycroft had sent me on this mission: to infiltrate the gang and find out what the Irish-American brethren were planning for the Ould Sod. What a fool I had been to mistrust him!

There was just one last missing piece of the puzzle. And only she could help me, help me see what I could not see for myself. At long last, I was piercing the veil.

Silently, she came to me that night. We spoke not a word. I slipped off my shirt. With her tender hands, she traced the markings on my back: a triangle within a circle. And suddenly, it was all clear to me. It was the same brand that Birdy Edwards once bore, and the corpse he had so devoutly wished to pass off as his own at Birlstone in order to make his escape from the Scowrers of Vermissa Valley a quarter of a century ago. The hand of a man long dead had reached out and touched my shoulder. The hand of Fate.

She kissed the back of my neck and then, moving lower, the wound, kissing the brand, kissing the mark of Cain that had been forever laid upon me.

I could hear the rustle of her shift as it dropped to floor, then felt her warm flesh upon mine. “Now we’re both comfortable,” she said.

There was revelry the next night in what passed for the Altamont’s ballroom to celebrate our departure on the morrow. The beer and spirits flowed.

Morey had been glaring and glowering at me all evening, and I smelt trouble brewing from this bonehead-trouble for which I was fully prepared, or so I thought.

“Come, Jim, let’s dance,” said Maddie. “If we’re to,” she blushed, “pretend… to be married, then we ought to act like it.” I took her sweet hand in mine and led her to the dance floor.

In a flash, the glowering Morey was upon us. “Take your filthy paws off her, you damned bastard!” he shouted. “Or, by God, I’ll send you straight to hell.” He shoved me, hard.

“No, Charlie,” cried Maddie.

“You belong to me!” he snarled.

“No,” she replied, with a quiet dignity that I shall never forget. “I belong to him, and there’s the end of it.”

Enraged, Morey lunged for her, bringing him directly into my path. I could not bear to let Morey’s Irish temper spoil that which now lay before me, nor its promise of happiness.

I struck him in the face with all my might. The same strength that unbent my poker after Dr. Roylott’s ministrations was summoned forth one last time. The whole room could hear the crack of the bone. For an instant, I thought I had killed him.

He stumbled backwards, reaching for his pistol as he fell. A shot rang out. I felt nothing. He had missed! I moved in for the kill. My Irish, as they say, was well and truly up. As I made ready to finish him-

– I heard my Maddie cry out. Instantly, all thoughts of further violence were forgotten; I turned to see her, lying on the floor. As I rushed to her side, I could see at a glance that the wound was fatal.

“Water!” I shouted.

The best I could do was make her as comfortable as possible before her final journey into that land of Mor that the Irish know so well. I cradled her dear head in my arms. Her eyes were wide and so blue.

“Be true to me, Jim,” she gasped. “On the blood of my father, be true to me!”

“Birdy Edwards,” I said, quietly. Her eyes told me the truth. She had known all along.

The chastened crowd moved forward, to hear the dying colleen’s last words. “God, how I hated him for his treachery, even as I admired him for his bravery. How I love the people he betrayed! And how I love him for betraying them!”

Somehow, she found the strength to raise her arms and point at the people in the room, sweeping them all up in her dragnet. “And you!” she cried. “How I hate you for what you did to him, and for what you made him do.” Her head dropped back into my arms.