“Homes!” I said crossly. “What are we doing here at this hour? The place is obviously closed.”
“Exactly, Watney,” he said with a tinge of excitement in his voice. “Much better that we get into their kitchen when there are no chefs about with cleavers! And should they have left guards on the premises, we have our weapons! Come!”
“Come where, Homes?” I asked a bit petulantly.
“I said — but never mind! We are wasting time. Once we have located the kitchen and discovered the whereabouts of this arsenic and have removed it, I shall leave the proprietor a note telling him that all is known. I rather doubt they will attempt this malfeasance in the future.”
As he had been speaking we had arrived at the rear of the building, and Homes immediately tackled the door-lock with his set of picks. A moment later and we could hear the click as the tumblers gave way to his skill. “Come, Watney,” he said in a whisper, “and have your pistol ready!”
“Ready for what, Homes?” I began, but he had already turned the knob and was prepared to enter. With one last look over his shoulder to make sure I was with him, he took a deep breath and swung the door wide.
There was total silence for a moment, and then we seemed to hear a faint murmur of sound from somewhere below. Homes slid back the cover of his bull’s-eye lantern and swung the steady beam about. We were in some sort of storehouse, it appeared, although in one corner we were able to see a set of steps leading downward.
“Of course,” Homes whispered. “The advertisement said basement.”
He withdrew his gun and with his weapon ready and his lantern beam on the stair steps, he led the way. Slowly we descended, and as we did so the strange sounds we had been hearing seemed to grow louder. At the bottom of the steps we saw a heavy velour curtain which seemed to contain a good portion of the strange sounds we had been hearing.
Homes instantly covered the lantern and in total darkness we groped our way to the curtain. A quick touch on my shoulder to assure me he was ready and to warn me to be prepared with my own weapon, and Homes in a sudden dramatic move swept aside the curtain.
It was close to his final move, for there before us, bearing down on us, was a huge locomotive. I at once recognised the sounds we had been hearing through the intervening curtain. The engine was getting closer as we stood, transfixed, while the great monster loomed nearer and nearer, its stack spewing black smoke, its wheels clattering over the rails, its whistle screaming its warning.
Suddenly Homes woke from his trance and had grasped me and dragged me back through the curtain, our weapons forgotten. We hurried up the steps and out into the evening air. Once clear, Homes leaned against the wall, wiping perspiration from his brow.
“A close call, that, Watney,” said he and took a deep breath. “But at least we need not worry about the future of that murderous establishment.”
“How is that, Homes?” I asked, awake at last from the terrible fright I had just suffered.
“The fools have located their restaurant on the tracks of the King’s Cross railway tunnel,” said he, and despite our close call he could not help but smile. “I doubt they will have any customers at all, with all that noise and smoke!”
And he walked calmly to the kerb to hail a cab.
I came to breakfast a bit late the following morning. For some unknown reason I had awakened with a headache and had remained abed a while to allow it to abate. Homes had already completed his repast and was seated at his desk, poring over the London Directory. I seated myself and had scarcely begun to butter a chutney, shuddering a bit as I did so, when suddenly Homes looked up with a loud exclamation.
“Not so loud, please, Homes,” I said. “What is it?”
“I am a fool!” he cried.
“Could I answer that later, Homes?” I began. “At the moment I really am in no state—”
But he was paying me no attention. “The misdirected letter!” he cried, his finger pressed tightly to an entry in the directory. “I should have considered the possibility that the writer was dyslectic! Of course! The letter was meant to be addressed to Mr. Theodore Bagel at 221B Resident Street!”
He swung about, bringing down another volume, swiftly leafing through it to the entry he sought. He looked up, his face grim.
“As I suspected, Mr. Bagel is a chemist, undoubtedly with the ability to obtain arsenic at his convenience! And although his scheme may have failed in this one instance, there is no telling where and when he may try it in another place. A letter to this Mr. Bagel, if you will, Watney! Possibly once he knows that Schlock Homes is onto his murderous scheme, he will desist!”
Detectiverse
by Marguerite Buranelli
© 1979 by Marguerite Buranelli.
The Jury Box
by Jon L. Breen
© 1979 by Jon L. Breen
The Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Kyd holds a peculiar fascination for mystery writers — or at least his name does. When the renowned Shakespeare scholar Alfred Harbage wrote mystery fiction, he chose Kyd’s name as his pseudonym, and now one of the newest in the long roll of California private eyes also bears the name.
**** Timothy Harris: Good Night and Good-bye, Delacorte, $8.95. Thomas Kyd’s second recorded case (and first in U.S. hardcover) tells the old tale of the mendacious, enigmatic beauty and the smitten shamus but tells it exceedingly well. The quality of Harris’s writing, more than any special originality in plot, character, or background, makes this the best private-eye novel I’ve read in quite a while.
**** Thomas Gifford: Hollywood Gothic, Putnam, $10.95. A fugitive screenwriter tries to prove somebody else used his Oscar to brain his estranged wife. This is another scintillating writing job, offering a vivid if downbeat picture of Southern California and the movie colony. Some of the characters-particularly an aged Hollywood mogul and a teenaged Edward G. Robinson mimic — should live long in the reader’s memory, as should the rain-drenched atmosphere.