The Oxford Book of American Det (8 page)

Born Francis Bret Harte in Albany, New York, in 1836, he was a precocious child who at the age of five burlesqued his school primers. He was raised in the eastern United States, where he moved from school to school according to his father’s varying ability to pay tuition. His father changed the family name to Harte a year before he died. Soon afterward, the teenage Harte began to support himself, establishing a lifelong pattern of moving from job to job while pursuing his writing.

At the age of eighteen, Harte joined his remarried mother in California, where he was to spend the next sixteen years of his life. His first six years out west were not successful in terms of either literary or ordinary employment. But in drifting from job to job and dabbling in experiences like riding shotgun on a stagecoach and tutoring ranchers’ children, he gathered a wealth of material that he would mine for years as he put ‘Bret Harte Country’ on the literary map.

Harte’s connections with literary journals and newspapers ranged from writing for them to physically printing them. He simultaneously lost his job and made a name for himself when, in February 1860, he strongly editorialised about a massacre of Indians perpetrated by whites. Left in charge of the
Northern Californian
while the editor was away, he printed such bold statements about a rival paper and the local sheriff that he was fired within the month.

In his non-fiction and lectures, Harte revealed that he despised the corruption and lawlessness of the very world in which he chose to set his fiction. In his literary criticism, he disdained the use of formula and stock characters while unabashedly using both to his advantage in his highly popular fiction.

If
The Stolen Cigar Case
is one of Harte’s most lasting gems, it may be because in it he could dissect and use to his advantage both formula and someone else’s stock characters. And at the same time he could indulge a bad boy’s sense of play.

The
Stolen
Cigar Case

I found Hemlock Jones in the old Brook Street lodgings, musing before the fire. With the freedom of an old friend I at once threw myself in my usual familiar attitude at his feet, and gently caressed his boot. I was induced to do this for two reasons: one, that it enabled me to get a good look at his bent, concentrated face, and the other, that it seemed to indicate my reverence for his superhuman insight. So absorbed was he even then, in tracking some mysterious clue, that he did not seem to notice me. But therein I was wrong—as I always was in my attempt to understand that powerful intellect.

“It is raining,” he said, without lifting his head.

“You have been out, then?” I said quickly.

“No. But I see that your umbrella is wet, and that your overcoat has drops of water on it.”

I sat aghast at his penetration. After a pause he said carelessly, as if dismissing the subject: “Besides, I hear the rain on the window. Listen.” I listened. I could scarcely credit my ears, but there was the soft pattering of drops on the panes. It was evident there was no deceiving this man!

“Have you been busy lately?” I asked, changing the subject. “What new problem—

given up by Scotland Yard as inscrutable—has occupied that gigantic intellect?” He drew back his foot slightly, and seemed to hesitate ere he returned it to its original position. Then he answered wearily: “Mere trifles—nothing to speak of. The Prince Kupoli has been here to get my advice regarding the disappearance of certain rubies from the Kremlin; the Rajah of Pootibad, after vainly beheading his entire bodyguard, has been obliged to seek my assistance to recover a jewelled sword. The Grand Duchess of Pretzel-Brauntswig is desirous of discovering where her husband was on the night of February 14; and last night”—he lowered his voice slightly—“a lodger in this very house, meeting me on the stairs, wanted to know why they didn’t answer his bell.”

I could not help smiling—until I saw a frown gathering on his inscrutable forehead.

“Pray remember,” he said coldly, “that it was through such an apparently trivial question that I found out Why Paul Ferroll Killed His Wife, and What Happened to Jones!”

I became dumb at once. He paused for a moment, and then suddenly changing back to his usual pitiless, analytical style, he said: “When I say these are trifles, they are so in comparison to an affair that is now before me. A crime has been committed,—and, singularly enough, against myself. You start,” he said. “You wonder who would have dared to attempt it. So did I; nevertheless, it has been done.
I
have been
robbed!”

“You
robbed! You, Hemlock Jones, the Terror of Peculators!” I gasped in amazement, arising and gripping the table as I faced him.

“Yes! Listen. I would confess it to no other. But
you
who have followed my career, who know my methods; you, for whom I have partly lifted the veil that conceals my plans from ordinary humanity,—you, who have for years rapturously accepted my confidences, passionately admired my inductions and inferences, placed yourself at my beck and call, become my slave, grovelled at my feet, given up your practice except those few unremunerative and rapidly decreasing patients to whom, in moments of abstraction over
my
problems, you have administered strychnine for quinine and arsenic for Epsom salts; you, who have sacrificed anything and everybody to me,—
you
I make my confidant!”

I arose and embraced him warmly, yet he was already so engrossed in thought that at the same moment he mechanically placed his hand upon his watch chain as if to consult the time. “Sit down,” he said. “Have a cigar?”

“I have given up cigar smoking,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

I hesitated, and perhaps coloured. I had really given it up because, with my diminished practice, it was too expensive. I could afford only a pipe. “I prefer a pipe,” I said laughingly. “But tell me of this robbery. What have you lost?” He arose, and planting himself before the fire with his hands under his coattails, looked down upon me reflectively for a moment. “Do you remember the cigar case presented to me by the Turkish Ambassador for discovering the missing favourite of the Grand Vizier in the fifth chorus girl at the Hilarity Theatre? It was that one. I mean the cigar case. It was incrusted with diamonds.”

“And the largest one had been supplanted by paste,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, with a reflective smile, “you know that?”

“You told me yourself. I remember considering it a proof of your extraordinary perception. But, by Jove, you don’t mean to say you have lost it?” He was silent for a moment. “No; it has been stolen, it is true, but I shall still find it.

And by myself alone! In your profession, my dear fellow, when a member is seriously ill, he does not prescribe for himself, but calls in a brother doctor. Therein we differ. I shall take this matter in my own hands.”

“And where could you find better?” I said enthusiastically. “I should say the cigar case is as good as recovered already.”

“I shall remind you of that again,” he said lightly. “And now, to show you my confidence in your judgment, in spite of my determination to pursue this alone, I am willing to listen to any suggestions from you.”

He drew a memorandum book from his pocket and, with a grave smile, took up his pencil.

I could scarcely believe my senses. He, the great Hemlock Jones, accepting suggestions from a humble individual like myself! I kissed his hand reverently, and began in a joyous tone:

“First, I should advertise, offering a reward; I should give the same intimation in handbills, distributed at the ‘pubs’ and the pastry-cooks’. I should next visit the different pawnbrokers; I should give notice at the police station. I should examine the servants.

I should thoroughly search the house and my own pockets. I speak relatively,” I added, with a laugh. “Of course I mean your own.”

He gravely made an entry of these details.

“Perhaps,” I added, “you have already done this?”

“Perhaps,” he returned enigmatically.

“Now, my dear friend,” he continued, putting the note-book in his pocket and rising,

“would you excuse me for a few moments? Make yourself perfectly at home until I return; there may be some things,” he added with a sweep of his hand toward his heterogeneously filled shelves, “that may interest you and while away the time. There are pipes and tobacco in that corner.”

Then nodding to me with the same inscrutable face he left the room. I was too well accustomed to his methods to think much of his unceremonious withdrawal, and made no doubt he was off to investigate some clue which had suddenly occurred to his active intelligence.

Left to myself I cast a cursory glance over his shelves. There were a number of small glass jars containing earthy substances, labelled ‘Pavement and Road Sweepings,’ from the principal thoroughfares and suburbs of London, with the sub-directions ‘for identifying foot-tracks.’ There were several other jars, labelled ‘Fluff from Omnibus and Road Car Seats,’ ‘Cocoanut Fibre and Rope Strands from Mattings in Public Places,’ ‘Cigarette Stumps and Match Ends from Floor of Palace Theatre, Row A, 1 to 50.’ Everywhere were evidences of this wonderful man’s system and perspicacity.

I was thus engaged when I heard the slight creaking of a door, and I looked up as a stranger entered. He was a rough-looking man, with a shabby overcoat and a still more disreputable muffler around his throat and the lower part of his face. Considerably annoyed at his intrusion, I turned upon him rather sharply, when, with a mumbled, growling apology for mistaking the room, he shuffled out again and closed the door. I followed him quickly to the landing and saw that he disappeared down the stairs. With my mind full of the robbery, the incident made a singular impression upon me. I knew my friend’s habit of hasty absences from his room in his moments of deep inspiration; it was only too probable that, with his powerful intellect and magnificent perceptive genius concentrated on one subject, he should be careless of his own belongings, and no doubt even forget to take the ordinary precaution of locking up his drawers. I tried one or two and found that I was right, although for some reason I was unable to open one to its fullest extent. The handles were sticky, as if some one had opened them with dirty fingers. Knowing Hemlock’s fastidious cleanliness, I resolved to inform him of this circumstance, but I forgot it, alas! Until—but I am anticipating my story.

His absence was strangely prolonged. I at last seated myself by the fire, and lulled by warmth and the patter of the rain on the window, I fell asleep. I may have dreamt, for during my sleep I had a vague semi-consciousness as of hands being softly pressed on my pockets - no doubt induced by the story of the robbery. When I came fully to my senses, I found Hemlock Jones sitting on the other side of the hearth, his deeply concentrated gaze fixed on the fire.

“I found you so comfortably asleep that I could not bear to awaken you,” he said, with a smile.

I rubbed my eyes. “And what news?” I asked. “How have you succeeded?”

“Better than I expected,” he said, “and I think,” he added, tapping his note-book, “I owe much to
you.”

Deeply gratified, I awaited more. But in vain. I ought to have remembered that in his moods Hemlock Jones was reticence itself. I told him simply of the strange intrusion, but he only laughed.

Later, when I arose to go, he looked at me playfully. “If you were a married man,” he said, “I would advise you not to go home until you had brushed your sleeve. There are a few short brown sealskin hairs on the inner side of your forearm, just where they would have adhered if your arm had encircled a sealskin coat with some pressure!”

“For once you are at fault,” I said triumphantly; “the hair is my own, as you will perceive; I have just had it cut at the hairdresser’s, and no doubt this arm projected beyond the apron.”

He frowned slightly, yet, nevertheless, on my turning to go he embraced me warmly—

a rare exhibition in that man of ice. He even helped me on with my overcoat and pulled out and smoothed down the flaps of my pockets. He was particular, too, in fitting my arm in my overcoat sleeve, shaking the sleeve down from the armhole to the cuff with his deft fingers. “Come again soon!” he said, clapping me on the back.

“At any and all times,” I said enthusiastically; “I only ask ten minutes twice a day to eat a crust at my office, and four hours’ sleep at night, and the rest of my time is devoted to you always, as you know.”

“It is indeed,” he said, with his impenetrable smile.

Nevertheless, I did not find him at home when I next called. One afternoon, when nearing my own home, I met him in one of his favourite disguises,—a long blue swallow-tailed coat, striped cotton trousers, large turn-over collar, blacked face, and white hat, carrying a tambourine. Of course to others the disguise was perfect, although it was known to myself, and I passed him—according to an old understanding between us—without the slightest recognition, trusting to a later explanation. At another time, as I was making a professional visit to the wife of a publican at the East End, I saw him, in the disguise of a broken-down artisan, looking into the window of an adjacent pawnshop. I was delighted to see that he was evidently following my suggestions, and in my joy I ventured to tip him a wink; it was abstractedly returned.

Two days later I received a note appointing a meeting at his lodgings that night. That meeting, alas! was the one memorable occurrence of my life, and the last meeting I ever had with Hemlock Jones! I will try to set it down calmly, though my pulses still throb with the recollection of it.

I found him standing before the fire, with that look upon his face which I had seen only once or twice in our acquaintance—a look which I may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and deductive ratiocination—from which all that was human, tender, or sympathetic was absolutely discharged. He was simply an icy algebraic symbol!

Indeed, his whole being was concentrated to that extent that his clothes fitted loosely, and his head was absolutely so much reduced in size by his mental compression that his hat tipped back from his forehead and literally hung on his massive ears.