The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [273]
At that instant, James Phillimore vanished!
There was no question of a trap-door beneath him. With my own eyes, I had seen Mr James Phillimore disappear into thin air. On the Vitascope screen, the people and conveyances of West Fifty-Eighth Street maintained their kinetographic cavalcade, utterly oblivious to the fact that a man had vanished from their midst.
“Quickly, Watson!” In a trice, Sherlock Holmes bounded into the theatre’s gangway and made a dash for the nearest exit. And once again, as so often in the past, I found myself following at his heels, in pursuit of our quarry.
“James Phillimore is in Manhattan, Watson, for that kinetograph was photographed today!“ Holmes declared as we pelted through the lobby of the Edisonia Amusement Hall. “I have promised the officers of the Continental Insurance Company that I shall be aboard tomorrow’s train to San Francisco, and I am honour-bound to keep that pledge. Therefore we have a trifle less than sixteen hours in which to find a man who has eluded me for thirty-one years. Watson, come! The game is afoot!“
We raced out of the theatre, emerging into Broadway. My friend made haste to flag down a passing hansom. Holmes instructed the cabman to convey us to Broadway and Fifty-Eighth, the scene of Phillimore’s latest disappearance. The cabman whisked up his reins, and a moment later the pursuit of Phillimore had begun.
“There must be some mistake, surely,” I said to my companion, as we settled into the seat and our hansom proceeded northwards through difficult traffic. “How can you be certain that the Vitascope we saw was photographed today?”
“It was obvious, Watson. You saw the newsboy in the image? The caption scrawled across his hoardings duplicated the headline in today’s New York Herald.”
I still was utterly astounded at having seen a man vanish. “But are you certain that the man on the screen was really James Phillimore? We are in Manhattan, Holmes: perhaps this fellow was an American who bears a chance resemblance to Phillimore.”
Sherlock Holmes shook his head. He had withdrawn a jotting-book from his pocket, and was busily sketching within this as he spoke. “Depend upon it, Watson: that man on the Vitascope screen was an Englishman.”
“How can you be certain, Holmes?”
“No man can hide his heritage, Watson. I can tell an American from an Englishman by the arrangement of his boot-laces: the man we saw just now was British … or else he has an English valet to tie his shoes for him. And did you observe the salute that Phillimore gave as he vanished?” Holmes duplicated it now – cocking his right elbow, Holmes’s hand went to his forehead: the upper edges of his finger-tips went flat against his brow, whilst his thumb pointed downwards. “That is how a soldier in the British army salutes … as you know full well from your own campaign in Afghanistan.” Now Holmes saluted again; once more the hand went to his brow, but this time his fingers were parallel to the ground, and his thumb pointed rearwards. “This is the American military salute, Watson: it is also the salute of our own Royal Navy. When I investigated Phillimore’s background in 1875, I found no record of military service. Yet he must have been a boy once, and boys play at being soldiers. They learn their drill from observing real soldiers, and copying them.”
Holmes was right: the man in the Vitascope had displayed a British salute.
“Furthermore,” Holmes went on, sketching furiously in his jotter as our cab progressed, “did you remark, Watson, that the man on the screen briefly glanced to one side?”
“Of course.” I nodded. “As he stepped off the kerb into the road, he glanced sideways to see if there was oncoming traffic.”
“Quite so, Watson. But he glanced to the right. That is as we do in