Read Online Sherlock Holmes by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online Page B

whose contents will
transform you, sir, into a Mexican or a Commanche or a Chinaman
yourself… Good Heavens, Holmes, am I glad to see you! And Dr.
Watson! Captain O’Day, allow me to present Mr. Sherlock Holmes, of
London, and Dr. Watson – gentlemen who have been retained to
investigate the circumstances of Miss Redwalls’s disappearance and
to act in Mr. Li’s defense.”
    Since neither of us had spoken one word to
Diggs my surprise at this prescience must have shown on my face; as
Holmes was shaking Captain O’Day’s hand, Diggs sidled up to me and
murmured, “To the Great Oz the minds of lesser men are an open book
– particularly men with whose decency and goodness of heart he is
familiar. Why else would you have rushed from dinner to take the
last ferry over here? Thank you.”
    Meanwhile Captain O’Day – a pink-faced
Hibernian to the toes of his boots – was saying doubtfully, “And
who’ll it be that’s retaining you, Mr. Holmes? There’s not a lawyer
in the city’ll touch the case.”
    “A situation which may alter tomorrow,”
replied Holmes smoothly. “By which time, valuable evidence at the
scene of the disappearance may be inerradicably lost. Suffice it to
say that I am being retained—” He produced a letter of introduction
from his pocket and displayed the signature of Hollis Connington,
then slipped it away again as the Captain’s eyes widened. “—by one
who wishes, for the time being, to remain completely
anonymous.”
    “Of course, Mr. Holmes. Any way that I may be
of assistance to you—”
    “First, I think,” said Holmes, “we need to
visit the Californian Theater.”
    “Of course. Will you wish to see Li before
you go down?”
    “When we return. Will Mr. Rosales be at the
theater?”
    “He should be by now, Mr. Holmes. The theater
being closed today, he and Diaz – the day man – have been there
merely as watchmen, but they may be clearing the place up for
tomorrow’s performance.”
    O’Day escorted us to the theater himself – so
far did awe of Hollis Connington’s name run in California, though
as far as I knew the man himself was responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of Li’s fellow Orientals through overwork and the refusal
to implement the smallest safety precautions during the building of
his railroad lines. The Californian stood on Leavenworth Street,
halfway up one of the city’s hills, a vaudeville-house with a
seating capacity of perhaps five hundred and a truly impressive
array of backstage mirrors, hoists, electrical lights with colored
lenses, pulleys, trap-doors, and duplicate backdrops. Diaz – the
day watchman – was still there when we arrived, and Antonio Rosales
appeared a few minutes later, and repeated to us what he had told
the police last night.
    “La niña, I take her out of the cabinet at
once through the false back, while the Chinaman is still showing
the audience there is no false back. Of course she all excited, to
be part of the trick. The other cabinet, he has already raise
it—”
    I mounted the short flight of portable steps,
to examine the opening in the backdrop which would be opposite the
false back of the second cabinet – an opening too small for an
adult to pass through.
    “I help her through, in the second where Li
set off his flash-powder—” Rosales shook his head. “I swear there
was no way out of the cabinet.”
    O’Day said somberly, “They found her shoe in
that heathan cabinet, Mr. Holmes. Her shoe . Her poor mother
fainted when she saw it.”
    Holmes opened his mouth to speak, then seemed
to think better of it, and merely said, “And all else has been left
precisely as it was?”
    “The police, they come, they look around,”
provided Diaz. “Me, I stay back. Captain he say, don’t touch
nothing, and I don’t, all day I been here.”
    “Excellent,” said Holmes. “Those trunks over
there--?” He nodded toward three large steamer-trunks, lichenous
with travel-stickers, brass corners winking in the