Michael Kurland - Professor Moriarty Omnibus

FIFTEEN — INTERSTICES

As someday it may happen that a victim must be found, I've got a little list — I've got a little list.

— W. S. Gilbert

For the next few weeks, having no instructions to the contrary, Barnett busied himself with the affairs of the American News Service, which steadily expanded. On Wednesday, June 25th, he promoted Miss Perrine — they agreed upon the title of "Cable Editor" as being the most appropriate — and instructed her to hire an assistant and a messenger boy. Then he purchased two more desks and yet another typewriter. "If this keeps up," he told Miss Perrine, as they received confirmation of their forty-third American newspaper account, the San Francisco Call, "we're going to have to search for larger quarters before the end of the month."

"The offices next door are vacant," Miss Perrine told him, "and the rental agent confirms that we can have them as of the first of July." She put her wide, red-trimmed hat on and adjusted it very carefully to the proper rakish angle before pinning it in place. She seemed unaware of Barnett's admiring gaze. "And, by the way," she said, "you are taking me to lunch."

"You've arranged for the offices?" Barnett asked.

She nodded.

"Without consulting me?"

"Yes."

Barnett shook his head. "And quite right, too," he said. "Where am I taking you?"

"Sweetings', I think," she said.

And so he did. And after the waiter had taken their order and gone away, he leaned forward across the table and regarded her steadily through unblinking eyes until she shifted her head nervously and looked away. "You're staring at me," she said.

"I am," he admitted. "But then, you're well worth staring at."

"Please!"

"And I was beginning to think you were quite without shame," he said. Seeing her shocked expression, he laughed. "You must admit that you've gained tremendously in self-assurance in the past — what is it? — three weeks."

"That is not the same thing," she said severely, "as being without shame."

"I take it back," Barnett said. "It was an ignorant, boorish comment, and I withdraw it."

"Indeed!" she said. "As for what you call my increase in self-assurance, that, I suppose, is true. It comes of discovering that I can do the job and that I can do it quite adequately."

"Quite excellently," Barnett amended. "But you told me that when I hired you."

"Yes," she said, "but I had never actually done it. Thinking you can do something, even to the point of moral certainty, is not the same as proving you can do it."

"Well, you've proven it," Barnett said. "You're a born writer and editor. You have an innate word sense, and you write good clean prose."

"Tell me something, Mr. Barnett," Miss Perrine said, "and tell me true. You don't have the phrase 'for a woman' left unsaid at the end of any of those sentences, do you? You're not saying I write well for a woman, or I have good word sense for a woman?"

"Cecily," Barnett said, "a piece of paper with typewritten words on it is entirely without gender. When we cable a story to one of our client newspapers, I don't append a statement, 'done in a feminine hand.' You are a good writer."

"Thank you," she said. "And thank you for calling me 'Cecily.' "

"Well," he said. "It just slipped out. I was afraid you'd think it forward of me."

"I do," she said.

The waiter brought their lunch, and Barnett busied himself with his salmon mousseline for a few minutes before looking up. "Say," he said, "there was something I meant to tell you. We have a new writer."

"Who?"

"Fellow named Wilde. Someone at the Pall Mall Gazette introduced him to me, and I talked him into doing a series of articles on understanding Britain for the Americans. Actually, I suppose, he'll write about whatever he chooses. These article writers always do. He's very good. We should have no trouble selling the series."

She put down her fork. "Oscar Wilde?" she asked.

"That's right."

"He's brilliant," she said. "But he tends to be very eccentric and he seems to love to shock. We'll have to watch his copy."

"I leave that to your immense good judgment," he said. "He's not doing it under his own name; maybe that will calm him down."

"What byline is he using?"

"Josephus."

"Why does he choose to disguise his name?"

"I asked him that," Barnett said. "And he told me — let me get it straight now — he said: 'Writing for Americans is like performing as the rear end of a music-hall horse — one does it only for the money and one would prefer to remain anonymous.'"

"That sounds like him," she said.

"He said it loud and clear and without pause when I asked him," Barnett said. "He's either a natural genius at the epigram, or he spends large amounts of time in front of a mirror at home, rehearsing."

They finished lunch and walked back to the office, chatting amiably about this and that. As they reached the entrance to the building, Cecily clutched his arm. "There's a gentleman to my left," she said without looking around. "Can you see him? Don't make a point of it; don't let him see you looking."

Barnett examined the fellow lounging by the door out of the corner of his eye. "I wouldn't exactly call him a gentleman," he whispered back, noting the man's ragged slop-chest apparel and the unkempt beard that fringed his chin from ear to ear. "He looks like an unemployed bargee."

"I don't know his profession," Cecily said, "but he was hanging about here all day yesterday. And I'm not sure, but I think he followed me home."

"Oh, he did, did he?" Barnett said slowly.

"Now, be careful!" Cecily exclaimed, as he stalked past her toward the sinister-looking man.

"Here, you!" Barnett said, a harsh note in his voice. He grabbed the man by his filthy collar and pulled him upright out of his slouching posture. "What do you mean, hanging around here? Do you want me to have the law on you?"

"I didn't mean no 'arm, Guv'nor," the man said, holding his crumpled hand up in front of his face as if to ward off a blow. "S'welp me I didn't. Lummy! What you want to go about pickin' on the likes of me for?" He cringed and contrived to hide even more of his filthy face behind a protecting arm.

"Say!" Cecily Perrine said, taking a step toward them, her face showing puzzlement. "Where are you from, fellow?"

"What's 'at, miss?"

"Where were you raised?"

"Whitechapel, miss. Off Commercial Road, you know, miss."

"No, you weren't!" she said positively. " 'Ow's 'at, miss?"

"Your accent is wrong," she said flatly. "It's close, but it's wrong."

Barnett looked from one to the other. "What's that?" he said.

"He is affecting that speech," Cecily said positively. "Doing it quite well, too. But he isn't from anywhere near Whitechapel. I'd say he was brought up in the North. Yorkshire, perhaps. He has spent some time in France, and was schooled at Cambridge."

Barnett released his hold on the man, who sank back down on the steps. "You're joking," Barnett said.

"Not at all," she assured him. "Whoever this gentleman is, he is not what he seems."

"Well?" Barnett said, glaring down at the man.

The man shook his head, a disgusted look on his face, and stood up. Without slouching over, he proved to be half a head taller than Barnett. "I should like to congratulate you, young woman," he said dryly, in quite a different accent than the one he had been assuming. "That is a remarkable talent you have."

Barnett started. "I know that voice!" he said.

"Indeed?" the man said.

"Yes. You're that detective — Sherlock Holmes."

"Indeed."

"What are you doing skulking about here, following this young lady home?"

Sherlock Holmes stretched and turned his head gingerly from side to side. "Accomplishing little beyond getting a stiff neck, it would seem," he said.