At the suggestion of a fellow passenger on the train up from Baltimore, he took a room at the Albemarle, a reputable hotel of middling size not far from Madison Square. As he made his way down to the dining room at eight o’clock that first evening in the city, his eye was caught by a quietly dressed man walking through the crowds of other guests and visitors, looking ever about him as if seeking someone he could not find. The public parlors were crowded with ladies and gentlemen in full dress, the corridors filled with parties heading out to the opera or other festive events, and Holmes, no stranger to the great houses of England, was struck by the opulence of some of the women’s finery, which would not have been out of place at a royal audience.
Still, he kept the quietly dressed man in sight, and followed him at a distance through the glittering throngs, until he saw the man approach and then touch an exceptionally well-dressed youth lightly on the shoulder, then steer him into an alcove. The two exchanged a few quiet words, something changed hands, and the young man exited quickly from the corridor and disappeared hastily down the grand staircase.
The quietly dressed man examined what he had taken from the other, slipped it unobtrusively into his breast pocket, and eased his way back into the flow of the crowd, this time heading in Holmes’s direction. As he neared, Holmes stepped aside to let him pass, but leaned toward him and spoke quietly into his ear.
“His companion is the elegant young woman in green,” he said, “sitting just over there, beneath the clock. I believe that if you examine her reticule, you’ll find the watch and chain you’re seeking.”
The man started and swiveled quickly to look at Holmes, sparing the seated woman one swift glance before he did so. His brown eyes were sharp. “Might I ask your name, sir?”
“My name is Greaves,” said Holmes. “Simon Greaves.”
“Then I would ask you to wait here for me, Mr. Greaves,” the man replied, “and please not to leave this spot.”
“By all means,” Holmes said. “I will remain here.”
With a last look at Holmes, the man turned and made his way across the corridor to the woman in green. As he bent to speak to her, he turned back the lapel of his coat slightly, and the woman flushed, half rose, and then fell back into her seat. Her hands shook as she opened her reticule, reached inside and withdrew something which glinted briefly in the light as she placed it in the man’s upturned palm. A few more words were exchanged between them, and then she rose, and she, too, swiftly disappeared down the staircase, her face pale.
“You let them go,” Holmes said, as the man returned to where he waited. “Was that wise?”
The man sighed. “They are very young, and this game was for the thrill of it, not for gain. Neither the watch nor the money has as yet been missed, and the gentleman from whom they were lifted will have received an object lesson in guarding his person when I return them to him.”
“And the young couple?”
“Newlyweds, on honeymoon, and well able to afford to stay here. What they need, and what I gave them, is a good fright. They are not of the criminal class, and neither of them is suited to a night in a jail cell.” He shrugged his shoulders. “If I’m any judge of character, they’ll behave themselves from now on.”
He gazed at Holmes. He was slim in build, an inch or two shorter than Holmes, but his eyes were cool as they sized him up.
“They say it takes one to know one, Mr. Greaves. You are from England… from London if my ear isn’t wrong. Are you with Scotland Yard?”
“I am not, Mr…?”
“Battle. Robert Battle.”
The detective extended his hand and Holmes took it. “A good name,” he said, “for one in our line of work. I work independently. My practice is a private one, and Scotland Yard considers me an amateur.”
Battle snorted. “An amateur? No one has ever ‘made’ me before, Mr. Greaves. I should say you are no amateur.” He glanced quickly at Holmes’s attire. “You arrived this afternoon, you have not left the hotel since, and you were near the dining room when you saw our young friend boost the watch and money from his victim’s pocket and slip the watch to his wife. My surmise, therefore, is that you’d like your dinner, as would I… and as my shift is now over, might I invite you to join me, if you have no other plans? Just one moment, please, while I let my replacement know that I’m going off duty.”
The headwaiter showed both men to a table with an unobstructed view of the entire dining room, and not too far from the entrance, permitting them to see everyone who came and went. Holmes took in the table’s location and nodded.
“‘When constabulary duty’s to be done,’” he smiled at his host, “‘a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’ You said you were off duty. Are you not permitted to eat in peace?”
“The Pirates of Penzance.” Battle smiled in turn. “Strange you should quote from that. I was at the very first performance of Pirates on New Year’s Eve in ’79, here in New York, at the Fifth Avenue Theater. Sullivan himself was at the podium. It ran for three months in New York before it ever even opened in London,” he said, with no small local pride, as he unfurled his napkin and laid it across his lap. “As for eating in peace, I prefer to be aware of what’s happening around me. I must be able to observe my surroundings. Call it habit, if you will.”
“Yes,” said Holmes. “I agree entirely. We appear to have much in common, except that I trust I am correct in saying that you once served on the police force, Mr. Battle.”
“What gives me away?” Battle laughed.
“Your manner of looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. A good detective focuses on what will aid his investigation, but a policeman must be Argus-eyed and aware of what’s behind him, as well as in front, to stop any mayhem before it begins. You have been on the streets.”
Battle grunted. “For fifteen years, before I left the department. Worked my way up to captain.”
“Yet you left?” Holmes raised a mollifying hand at the sudden tensing of the other man’s jaw. “Forgive me, please. I meant no offense in asking, I was merely surprised.”
After a moment of silence, Battle said, “I am largely ignorant of the inner workings of Scotland Yard, Mr. Greaves, but there are things in New York… politics and whatnot. Suffice it to say that much of what would put ordinary men behind bars is routinely practiced by the police here, and after a while I had had enough.”
Holmes said nothing, and after a few moments Battle smiled again. “But I have hopes,” he said, signaling the waiter. “Reform is in the air. And now, Mr. Greaves, what would you care to drink? I myself take no alcohol, as it does not agree with me. But please don’t feel constrained on my account. The wine cellar here is quite excellent, and they have a bourbon-I don’t know if you’re familiar with bourbon-which I have heard roundly praised.”
Holmes, though a man who generally loathed all forms of society, could be exceedingly charming at will, and was an excellent conversationalist; and in Battle he had found a rare kindred spirit. Throughout the course of a long and enjoyable dinner, the two men regaled each other with numerous “war stories,” as Battle called them, of criminals with whom they had dealt, and as the coffee arrived Holmes was feeling unusually expansive.
“An aficionado of Gilbert and Sullivan such as you might, perhaps, enjoy other forms of music. Are you an opera lover as well?”
“I am, indeed,” Battle replied.
“Do you enjoy Wagner?”