Sherlock Holmes: The American Years by Michael Kurland Page A

yourself—more so than in London.” I waited while he smiled with an attitude of
not bad
, then I sprang my capper on him. “Reared in Lincolnshire, were you? Among the squire set?”
    “Why, close by!” he exclaimed. “Near the Yorkshire Wolds, actually, not far distant from Lincolnshire. Splendid work, Clemens!” He couldn’t have looked more surprised if I was a monkey busting out with gospel hymns. He confessed that he’d spent his growing-up years in the countryside before attending university, which he’d recently left. Before returning to settle in London, he’d taken it on himself to see parts of the world. “You enjoyed your time in England, you said?”
    The crowd’s rumble became anticipatory as the players took up their positions again.
    “I had the bulliest stays.” I held back from saying I was hailed in London as “the greatest satirist since Swift and Voltaire” but I did recount how I’d come by my fine umbrella: namely, when a London reporter asked why I carried a cheap cotton model, I said it was the only kind Englishmen wouldn’t steal—and it was reprinted to nationwide laughter. At a banquet soon after, I was presented the one I carried today.
    “My brother sent me a clipping at university about it,” Holmes said. “I imagine it’s in my files, under
Americans
.”
    It didn’t sound wholly complimentary but I let it pass, and presented the umbrella for his inspection. After a short look he handed it back.
    “Well, what do you think of it?”
    “Perfectly satisfactory.”
    Hurrying boys pushed through the cramped space behind us. Knots of them had sped here and there throughout the afternoon, taking new routes to evade pursuing cops. I realized that I’d had a feeling of being watched again, and made sure my billfold was safe. Holmes stared after the boys in apparent fascination.
    “Satisfactory?” I said with some spirit. “Not a champion model?”
    Seeing that he’d ruffled my feathers, he extended a bony hand for the umbrella and gave it closer inspection. “Manufactured by James Smith & Sons. Very good. They are top-drawer in the field. I’m familiar with their New Oxford Street establishment—indeed, I made a study there.” He hefted the umbrella. “Fine silk canopy. Not the alpaca or oiled canvas used by lesser makers.” His hand slid along the shank and extended the spreaders. “But note here, Clemens, how these steel ribs are of recent Hanway design. Not handcrafted whalebone.” He touched a fingernail to one of the amber tips with a dismissive click, closed the spreaders, and extended the handle to me. “Pistol grip design, most common now, this one plain bone. No carved ivory or ebony figure as on Smith & Son’s finest models.”
    I boiled with resentment. The nerve of him branding my trophy second-class!
    “Sorry,” he said, “but you
did
ask.” Then, as if to divert me, he brought up the topic of the new typing machines and inquired if I knew of them. My spirits lifting a notch, I told him I
owned
one, and that with regular practice on two fingers, I’d boosted myself up to beating out “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck” at eighteen words per minute. Why was he interested?
    His thick brows drew together. “I perceive possibilities in their use for crime.”
    I looked at him; his face was perfectly sober and intent. Was the man gripped by a lunatic vision of wrongdoers everywhere? “You said you ‘made a study’ at Smith & Sons,” I reminded him. “Toward what enterprise? Do you plan to enter the umbrella trade?”
    That brought a short laugh. “Not quite.”
    “What, then?”
    “Consulting detective.”
    I chewed on it for some moments, letting it hang there in the air between us, thinking how he’d wanted to know my home dialect, been eager to get my cigar’s ashes. “You scout out clues?” I said. “In
advance
of crimes?” I’d read Poe, of course, even enjoyed some of him, and extracted an inkling of how the deductive mind