A Study in Sherlock

Later in the morning Holmes and I were at the railway station to board a train which was to take us to Niagara Falls. I noticed that there seemed to be a large number of prosperous-looking and well-dressed gentlemen waiting on the platform, even after Holmes and I had climbed aboard. The train was held up at the last moment, to take on a particular passenger. The president and his party arrived by coach and were ushered to a special car. The local dignitaries were far too numerous to be admitted to the car, but they filled in on the nearest alternative cars as well as they could, with little jostling.

I whispered to Holmes, “Where is Mrs. McKinley?”

He whispered back, “She’s still at the Milburn house. Her husband fears this heat would be too much for her.” He paused, significantly. “And she has a great many preparations to make. She will have a large role to play in the next few weeks.”

The train took us along the Niagara River, which I judged to be a half-mile wide with a current of three to five knots for most of its length. It was pleasant to ride along at a brisk pace in the heat. But Holmes insisted on standing and walking the length of the train. I said, “What are we doing?”

“Looking,” he said. “Look for faces that are familiar, faces that don’t belong here, faces that don’t want to meet our gaze, faces that look at us with too much interest.”

We walked from one car to another, with a leisurely gait, looking at the many passengers. At times Holmes would stop and speak to someone in a seat. “A wonderful day to visit the falls, isn’t it?” he would say. Or “Do you have any idea when this train reaches the falls?” Or even, “Is this seat taken?” The person would reply, he would nod and touch the brim of his hat, and then go on. I can be sure that nobody who was in the public sections of the train escaped his scrutiny. At the end, when we were standing at the back railing of the front car, staring ahead at the coal car and the engine, I said, “Well, we’ve looked. What have we seen?”

“Not enough,” he said. “But we’ll see more on the way back.”

“What do you expect to see?”

“You and I have a plan. But what if someone else has a plan of his own? This is a fine day for it. The Exposition is a fine place for it. But an even better place might be the falls.”

“You mean—”

“I mean nothing more than that. Search the faces, Watson.” He opened the door and went up the aisle. This time we were facing the passengers, and had a better opportunity to stare at each one.

At the end of the last carriage before the president’s, he whispered, “We shall have to be vigilant today. There are three on this train who are not what they seem.”

“Which ones?”

“There is a man in a coal black suit in the third car up. He is thin, with long elegant fingers that play idly along the length of his walking stick. He has on the floor between his feet a hard-sided case. I wondered at it because he didn’t put it in the luggage rack.”

“Do you suspect it holds a weapon?” I asked. “Perhaps something silent like the air gun that the blind craftsman Von Herder made and Colonel Moran used in his crime some years ago?”

“The same idea crossed my mind when I saw it, but then I noticed that the clasp on the case bears the emblem of Bergmann-Bayer, a maker of military firearms for the Spanish army,” he said. “The weapon needn’t be silent if he intends to fire it after we reach the falls. I’m told that the roar of the water is so loud that you could fire a field piece and the report would seem no more than a pop. No, I think with him, we have time.”

“An angry Spaniard, trying to get revenge for the war. Who are the other two?”

“One is the middle-aged lady, quite small, wearing the brown dress with green trim in the front car.”

“A lady? Surely you can’t be serious.”

“She’s an unusual lady. She has a very slight but fresh cut, half an inch and nearly vertical, along her jaw line on the left side. I noticed from her movements that she is right-handed. And that is why she cut herself on the left side while shaving. It’s harder to reach with her razor.”

“So it’s a man.”

“And one who shaved extra closely this morning. The makeup powder she must have applied after it happened has run in this heat.”

“Incredible,” I said. “She … he could be carrying anything under those skirts. A brace of pistols. A cavalry sword. Even a rifle.” I thought for a moment. “If we’d only had time, we could have devised a way of ensuring safety.”

“Oh?” said Holmes.

“A device of some kind—perhaps an archway that each passenger had to walk through that had powerful magnets hanging from strings. They would detect the iron and steel of a weapon, swing right to it, and stick.”

“We may consider the idea another time, perhaps,” he said. “I believe we must get close to the third man before the train arrives. He is the one who seems to offer us the most imminent competition.”

“Who is he?”