Ted Riccardi - Between the Thames and the Tiber

As he spoke, there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Hudson handed me two notes, one that announced that Lestrade wished to see Mr. Holmes that very morning at the morgue at Scotland Yard, if at all possible before noon.

“About time, eh, Watson? And the other?”

“Eusebio Ortiz y Vasquez . . .” said I, reading hesitantly from a card.

“Ah,” said Holmes with enthusiasm, “Eusebio Vasquez, Chief of Detectives, Santa Fe, Territory of New Mexico, and the finest detective in the Americas. A most welcome surprise. What does he say?”

“That he will call upon you within the hour,” I replied.

“Excellent, Watson, excellent. I shall be delighted to see Vasquez again. If possible, we shall have him accompany us to Scotland Yard. We met years ago, in 1885 I think, at the first criminal anthropology conference in Rome. Since then we have met at Montpellier and other places. We find each other’s company congenial, and I am anxious for you to meet him. He is one of the great detectives, worth at least fifty Lestrades. He has the sharpest of analytical faculties, enormous physical energy, and deep appreciation of minutiae, which often leads to the solution of a case. A pity that he works in a backwater like New Mexico where his talents are rarely taxed to their fullest and crime is of the most uninteresting kind. What wonders he could work in London. Were he here, we could eliminate Scotland Yard altogether.”

“I shall be delighted to meet him, Holmes. I have rarely heard you describe anyone in your profession with such words of praise.”

“He has his weaknesses, of course, Watson. We all do. His is a tendency to become obsessed with his failures. While this in itself is not a fault, there is one obsession that he refuses to let go of: the murder of a priest many years ago in the southern New Mexico desert. It was Vasquez himself who found the victim’s remains, but he has had no luck in solving the case, and through the years it has distracted him from more important things.”

Holmes stopped abruptly. Then he continued: “Let us leave Sir Jaswant for the moment. Watson, on the shelf just behind you are my files on unsolved crimes. If memory serves, the name of the murdered priest found by Vasquez was ‘Agostini.’ Let us see if I have preserved anything on him.”

As he spoke, Holmes pointed to the large scrapbooks in which he had placed innumerable clippings and had recorded in his own hand through the years a variety of strange cases that had received his attention. I handed him the first volume.

“Here we are, Watson. ‘Agostini: name of a priest hermit found murdered in southern New Mexico in 1868. He appears to have arrived around 1865 from Italy, just after the American Civil War. Celebrated in northern New Mexico because of alleged miracles and cures performed. Ensconced on top of a mountain near the trading town of Las Vegas, where he practised his austerities and saw his pious visitors. He left suddenly in 1868 without warning to his adoring flock of worshippers and disappeared. He was reported to have been seen in Las Cruces near the Mexican border in the fall of the same year. His remains were found later in a desert cave a few hours’ ride by horse from Las Cruces, presumed to be the victim of a robbery. Crime narrated to me many years later in Rome by E. Vasquez, who himself found the priest’s remains. I made several suggestions to him, none of which bore fruit. Oddities: priests are rarely killed. When found was wearing a solid gold crucifix attached to a rather odd rosary. Rather inefficient thieves.’ ”

Holmes closed the scrapbook and reached over me to place it back on the shelf.

“The case is old, Watson, very old, and will remain unsolved in all probability. There is a period of time, say in most cases three months, in which a case must be solved. Otherwise, it becomes stale and difficult, almost hopeless. All depends on the freshness of the clues, and the thoroughness with which they are preserved. My greatest successes have come within twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”

“And what is the oldest case that you have solved?” I enjoined.

Holmes thought for but an instant and said: “You have chronicled it yourself, Watson, in the case of the French savant—the case of a murder perpetrated centuries ago. By that standard, Vasquez still has a good chance. Only thirty-some-odd years have passed. We shall see . . . perhaps he has already solved it and is on to some new horror. . . . Hallo, that may be Vasquez now.”

The door opened, and Mrs. Hudson led Inspector Vasquez into our sitting room.

“Welcome, Eusebio,” said Holmes warmly. He beamed as the two shook hands.

“And this is my trusted friend and chronicler, Dr. Watson.”

I extended my hand to the American. “I am most happy to meet you,” I said. “Holmes has rarely spoken of any one with such praise as he has of you this morning.”

“Praise from such a source is enough to warm you up, even on a morning like this,” said Vasquez with a smile that showed his perfect teeth.

“I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you by coming so early. You must be preoccupied with the Singh case. I read about it in the paper this morning.”

“Not at all, Eusebio, we are delighted to see you. As to the Singh case, well. I am involved in it in several ways, but Lestrade is the chief investigator, as usual. He has sent a request that we join him this morning at the morgue. I trust that you would be able to accompany us.”

“Of course,” said Vasquez. “I am free, Sherlock, I have retired from official duty and so I have arrived in London my own man. Following your lead, I have become a consulting detective in Santa Fe, no longer attached to the New Mexico police.”

“Splendid. My felicitations to you on your new freedom, Eusebio. You must enjoy it to the utmost.”

As the two enjoyed their talk, I had the opportunity to observe the American detective. He was a short man, of powerful build, whom I judged to be somewhere in his fifties. His hair was black with a touch of grey at the temples, and he was dressed in what I took to be the uniform of the American West: blue denim shirt and trousers, black leather boots, and a light brown leather coat adorned with tassels everywhere. In his hands, he held a large-brimmed Stetson, which he played with as he talked. His most remarkable feature were his eyes: almost black in color, and piercing with a bright light that spoke of a considerable intelligence behind them.

“And what brings you to London, if I may ask?”

“My obsession, as you have called it in the past,” said Vasquez quietly, as if to deny the obsession itself. “Since my retirement, I have been free to devote my time to this unsolved murder. There are new developments and they have led me here.”

“All crime leads eventually to London, the great cesspool,” said Holmes. “Watson and I are at your disposal, and of course we may call upon Lestrade and Gregson for the facilities of Scotland Yard, should it be necessary.”

“Thank you,” said Vasquez. “I’ll need all the help I can get.”

Vasquez spoke with a heavy American accent that betrayed only the slightest trace of his Spanish ancestry. His words had a most pleasant cadence to them, one that I learned later was typical of New Mexican speech.

“Perhaps I should review my tale, if you can bear it once again, Sherlock.”

“Of course,” said Holmes. “I acquainted the good doctor with the chief facts just before you arrived. But your own account would be most welcome. We have just enough time before we must meet with Lestrade,” said Holmes looking at the clock.

Holmes stoked the fire, and our guest began his account. Sensing that we would be there for most of the morning, Mrs. Hudson anticipated our needs and brought in a new pot of tea.