“Very much.”
“Excellent! I was hoping to take in a performance of Die Meistersinger on Monday evening, and as I know no one in this city I was fully prepared to go alone. But if you are not working that night, Mr. Battle, and have no other encumbrances, perhaps you would care to join me? I can think of no more congenial a companion. And should you need any further inducement, Eames and de Reszke are singing that night.”
Holmes spent the intervening days, and one or two nights, on the icy streets of New York City, disguised as an Irish laborer in shabby overalls, peacoat, and grimy cloth cap. The cold was severe enough that he needed no artifice to redden his nose and rime his brows, but the three-day growth of beard that appeared magically each morning had somehow vanished by evening as he sat down to dinner among the well-to-do of New York City.
“Admirable,” Robert Battle chuckled, as he caught Holmes sauntering from the hotel one morning through one of the tradesmen’s doors. “Did I not know who you were, Mr. Greaves, I’d have stopped you and asked you to turn out your pockets.”
Holmes merely touched a finger to his cap and vanished into the raw January mist. His destination each day was different, and suggested to him by Battle, who knew New York as well as Holmes knew London. Within a few days Holmes had at least a nodding acquaintance with areas that were as foul as anything in Limehouse or Whitechapel.
“Remember, Watson,” he told me later, “that London had been a great midden of humanity for more than a thousand years before the white man ever set foot on Manhattan Island, and then think of the depths of wickedness, cruelty, and despair that could create such squalor in such a brief period of time.”
And as with London, so were the contrasts between the high and the low in the much younger city. On the following Monday night, Holmes and Battle passed through the bland, yellow-brick façade of the new Metropolitan Opera House and into a blaze of splendor wholly unimaginable to the denizens of airless tenements and filth-strewn streets. Battle had retained some of the friendships made during his years on the police force, and through connections had been able to obtain places for that evening in an unoccupied box in the first ring.
The two men settled themselves into their seats with time to spare, and Holmes took in the gorgeous scene around him. Present were many of the names that had made New York a byword for both riches and rapacity, and the wives and daughters who accompanied them glittered with gems. Battle quietly pointed out to Holmes the various well-dressed men, detectives all, stationed in key positions around the house to prevent anything that would interfere with the evening’s enjoyment.
As the house lights dimmed, there was a flurry in the box opposite. Holmes, his eyes upon the unobtrusive detectives, felt Battle stiffen beside him, and saw his jaw clench. Following Battle’s gaze, he saw two older men and a very young woman just taking their seats.
Dainty and exquisitely dressed, with pearls at her throat and in her dark hair, the young woman held fast to the arm of one of the men, her gloved fingers tightening on his sleeve, and shrank from the gaze of the audience below as they, and the occupants of the all other boxes, turned to look at her. A murmur arose throughout the house as her escort, silver-haired and straight-backed, settled her into a seat placed back from the rail of the box, where she would be less visible, then took his own seat.
But it was the second man at whom Battle stared, his fists closed into hard knots.
“You know him?” said Holmes.
“I know him,” Battle replied, his eyes never wavering.
“An interesting trio,” Holmes remarked. “May I ask who they are, and why the girl is of such inordinate interest?” The whispering of the crowd had not abated, and many eyes, although not those of Battle, were still turned to her as the conductor stepped to the podium.
“The taller man is Henry Ogden Slade. He is one of our leading citizens, rich as Croesus, and a great philanthropist.” Battle’s voice was quiet, and revealed nothing of the emotions that clearly gripped him. “The girl is his ward. She is, or so the received wisdom would have it, the daughter of a Jew banker with whom Slade has done business. He took her in several years ago, although no one knows why, and therein lies the mystery. There appears to be nothing whatever improper in their relations, although many would love to believe otherwise.” Battle fell silent.
“And the other?” Holmes said. The object of Battle’s relentless gaze was a portly, many-chinned man, shorter than Slade by a head. His spectacles and his small, perpetual smile gave him a pleasant, avuncular look.
“The other is Thaddeus Chadwick. He is Slade’s attorney, and also his closest friend. Each is rarely seen without the other.”
The first notes of the overture brought the conversation to a close. Holmes, with his keen ability to compartmentalize his mind, leaned back in his chair and became utterly absorbed in the music, his long fingers waving in accompaniment, but nevertheless remained aware of the fact that his companion was utterly insensible to what was occurring on the stage.
Wagner, as the world knows, is not succinct in his composition, and by the time the curtain came down on the first act, Holmes was grateful for a chance to stretch his legs. By common, wordless consent, he and Battle left the box and headed downstairs. Holmes waited until they were off to the side of the main vestibule, where the crowd was thinner, before he raised the subject of Thaddeus Chadwick again.
“I could not help but notice that his appearance was distracting to you. Please tell me if it is overstepping the bounds of our brief acquaintance if I ask you why?”
Battle set his jaw and answered. “Mr. Chadwick was the reason I left the police force. Or, rather, the reason I was thrown off it. I would rather not have told you this, Mr. Greaves, lest you think ill of me, for I have come to enjoy our acquaintance, but you will soon be returning to England, and your opinion of me will be of little matter.
“How could I judge you before I have heard the evidence?” Holmes said.
“How, indeed? But many have, and many who were once dear to me are strangers to me now.” He took a deep breath and began.
“Mr. Chadwick’s reputation as an attorney is above reproach, of course, and he has, in addition to Mr. Slade, many clients in the highest reaches of the city. But Mr. Chadwick is also known to the police. Threads leading back to him have been found in many unsavory schemes; and his name, through the names of those who front for him, is linked to some of the worst places, and some of the most ghastly conditions, to be found anywhere in the city.”
Battle looked squarely at Holmes. “I will be brief. I said that Chadwick is known to the police, but not necessarily as an adversary. Many of the places you’ve seen these last few days sit on land owned by Mr. Chadwick, and although he takes no part in their actual business he still makes a great deal of money from them, and his hands are stained with their filth. I was investigating some of them, some houses where children, boys and girls as young as six… I will say no more, Mr. Greaves, for you know that places such as these exist. But I could have wiped at least some of them, and those who profit from them, off the face of the earth, and I was close, very close, to having my case airtight.
“But as I said, there are things in New York… Chadwick is openhanded to those who can help him, and many in the upper levels of the police… ” He swallowed hard and wiped his face; his hands were shaking. “I was told to drop the case. I said I would not. I was told that if I did not drop it voluntarily, I would be made to do so. And still I refused.
“I took what precautions I could, but it was not enough, and those I had asked to guard me were paid to turn a blind eye. The night before I was supposed to present my evidence in court, a half-dozen men burst into my home. They overpowered me, held a chloroform-soaked cloth over my face, and dragged me out. I awoke hours later, in a room in one of the houses that I had investigated-alone, thank God-but reeking of alcohol, as though someone had emptied a bottle over me, and as I staggered to my feet I could hear whistles and screams. It was a police raid, and I was caught, just as surely as if I had been a patron there for years.”