A Study in Sherlock

The dark-suited man went to a spot in the nearby bushes within a yard of the brink, where water amounting to millions of gallons was propelling itself at some thirty miles an hour off a cliff. He knelt, opened his box, pulled out what looked like the tripod of a surveyor’s transom, opened it, and extended the legs. He placed a small brass scope on the top and sighted along it, making a few adjustments. He was clearly looking in the direction of the president and his hosts. Then he knelt again and worked to assemble several pieces of gleaming metal. As he rose to his feet, I could see that what he had was a metal tube a bit thicker than the barrel of a rifle, and at the butt end of it, a mechanism that looked like the receiver of a pistol. From a distance it looked like a telescope. He attached the device to the top of the tripod, adjusting a set of thumbscrews, and Holmes began to run.

I ran too, and as I did, I realized that what the assassin had was a specially designed rifle with a smaller telescopic sight mounted independently to the tripod. He had spotted his prey and aimed the gunsight before attaching the rifle. Holmes and I came close, then stopped and began to approach him silently from two directions. We walked toward him, watching him peer into the scope at the president. Then he knelt and reached into his carrying case, pulled out a box magazine, and inserted it into the now-assembled rifle.

As the assassin’s eye reached the eyepiece of the telescopic sight, Holmes and I surged forward like two rugby players lunging into a scrum. I crashed into the man’s shoulder, throwing him against the railing, while Holmes hit the tripod and pushed it over the railing, where it fell, turning over and over, toward the churning water below.

“Oh, excuse me, please, gentlemen,” said Holmes to both of us. “I tripped on that protruding rock along the path. I hope neither of you is injured.” He helped me up first, and then took the arm of the man in the black suit and began to brush the dust off him, roughly.

“I’m terribly sorry about your telescope,” he said to the man. “Or was it a camera? Either way, I insist on paying you its full value.”

“You—” The man suddenly contained his rage, like a man turning off a faucet. “You haven’t hurt me at all,” he said. Now I could hear the Spanish accent that I was expecting. “And the telescope, it was just a trifle, a toy that I bought in New York.”

“I insist,” Holmes said. He took out his billfold and produced a sheaf of American money. It looked to be a great deal, but since American money consisted of identically colored, sized, and shaped currency, I couldn’t tell how much at a glance. When the man wouldn’t reach out for it, Holmes stuffed it in the breast pocket of the black suit. “Please, sir. I’ve already ruined your day. It’s all I can do.”

And then Holmes turned and walked off quickly, leaving me with the frustrated murderer. It occurred to me that with his weapon being churned about underwater far below, the man was relatively harmless. Nonetheless I tipped my hat as a pretext for backing away, then turned and went after Holmes. Just before the pathway took a turn to the pedestrian bridge off Luna Island I looked back to see him throw the hard-sided gun case over the railing into the chasm.

As I reached the main walkway above the falls I saw that the president’s party, having observed the cataract from nearly every prospect, and seen the electrical power plant invented by Mr. Tesla on the shore below, was now walking toward the nearest city street. Holmes left the group and joined me. “They’re going to lunch, Watson.”

I was ravenous, not having eaten since my hasty breakfast of tea and toast in the hotel. “Shall we join them?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. But I believe we must feed our eyes and noses today, and not our bellies.” He broke into a brisk walk, and I noted that instead of the front door to one of the row of restaurants, Holmes headed up a narrow alley and stopped at an open door.

Hearing the noises coming from inside, I said, “The kitchen?”

He nodded. “Your medical education and experience make you the ideal man to ensure that no poison made of a medical derivative is introduced to the food—opiates, for instance—or any of the biological toxins like botulism. And I have some familiarity with most of the common substances like arsenic and strychnine, as well as a few that have seldom been heard of outside a shaman’s hut. Come, my friend. Anything that doesn’t look or smell right must be discarded.”