Sherlock Holmes: The American Years by Michael Kurland Read Free Book Online Page B

enslaved for the day by his Aunt Polly lacked ginger; infernally
tame
it was, and its repair had eluded me. In exchange for entry to only a single match, couldn’t those street-boys be employed to paint the fence in a matter of hours? The lads would gladly pour out their labor; any wretch missing out would expire of mortification! The answer came:
Aunt Polly’s fence=30 yards long and 9 feet high. Day’s end=three bright coats.
With a chortle I pulled a stub pencil from my pocket and scribbled on the back of a scorecard the capper line that popped into mind:
If he hadn’t run out of whitewash, he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.
Delighted, I tucked the scorecard in my vest pocket and told myself to come to the ball grounds more often. Here, by glory, useful work could actually get
done.
    As I’d made my notes, I grew aware of the young Englishman’s curious scrutiny. Now I took a moment to study
him.
I put him at perhaps fifteen years my junior, in his early to mid-twenties. His clothes were of current European mode, but somewhat ill-pressed. Up close he was even thinner than he’d first appeared.The pallor of his sharp features—sufficiently hatchet-edged to rival my own hawkish visage—suggested that he spent his days indoors. His slate-gray eyes seemed to hold a languid alertness, hinting at a keen brain but perhaps one not easily aroused.
    I was fixing to introduce myself when the crowd commenced to holler, “Play BALL!”
    “Is there some cause for delay?” asked the gaunt Englishman.
    Cheers broke out when the first Dark Blue batter swatted the ball over second base, but died out when a Boston infielder raced back to make a prize catch.
    Ashcroft opined gloomily that if the Bostons were to field like
that
, our gooses were halfway in the oven.
    “Your batsman spooned it up,” the Englishman countered crisply. “He’d do better with a horizontal stroke.”
    “Goose-egged in the first inning!” groaned Ashcroft after the next two Dark Blues went out.
    “
Innings
,” said the Englishman.
    During the visitors’ ups, daisy-cutters between basemen, a mis-played sky-ball, and a carnival of base running gave Boston a three-run lead.
    “Pool-sellers favor them at 100 to 70,” Ashcroft said with ponderous condescension, as if financiers alone appreciated such knotty matters. “At this rate—”
    “Am I to understand,” the Englishman interjected, “that wagering is openly conducted?”
    Color spread over Ashcroft’s neck and jowls. “Do you find fault with it, sir?”
    “To the extent that it encourages the criminal classes,” the Englishman replied, “I do indeed.”
    “
Here
?” Ashcroft said. “What criminal classes?”
    “Pray look for yourself.” The Englishman pointed to boys scurrying from the Pavilion to the bullpen. Casting furtive sideways glances, they performed some nature of exchange with one of the men there, all done very quickly, then moved back toward the Pavilion. “It requires small shrewdness to theorize that they are pickpockets fencing ill-gotten gains.” His tone said that only a simpleton would dispute it. “Gambling can do naught but increase such misdeeds.”
    Ashcroft had no ready answer. He and his wife had been rendered tight-faced and straight-backed by the stranger’s impertinence. I watched the boys for a minute; it was impossible to say they were guilty—or innocent, either. They did cast wary glances all about them, but in their place I would too if I lacked an entry ticket. Not wishing matters to grow hotter between my seatmates, I stuck out my hand. “Clemens is the name.”
    “Holmes.” He clasped my hand briefly, then gave me a start by asking for a sample of ash from my cigar. “For my collection,” he explained. “This will make 102 separate varieties of tobacco ash.” With that he produced a vial and scraped in the desired amount, leaving me to ruminate:
Ash collection?
I was fond of boasting I’d run afoul of every human