Chapter VII: The "Gehenna" is Chartered

The Pursuit of the House-Boat

by John Kendrick Bangs

It was about twenty-four hours after the events narrated in the
preceding chapters that Mr. Sherlock Holmes assumed command of the
Gehenna, which was nothing more nor less than the shadow of the ill-
starred ocean steamship City of Chicago, which tried some years ago
to reach Liverpool by taking the overland route through Ireland,
fortunately without detriment to her passengers and crew, who had the
pleasure of the experience of shipwreck without any of the
discomforts of drowning. As will be remembered, the obstructionist
nature of the Irish soil prevented the City of Chicago from
proceeding farther inland than was necessary to keep her well
balanced amidships upon a convenient and not too stony bed; and that
after a brief sojourn on the rocks she was finally disposed of to the
Styx Navigation Company, under which title Charon had had himself
incorporated, is a matter of nautical history. The change of name to
the Gehenna was the act of Charon himself, and was prompted, no
doubt, by a desire to soften the jealous prejudices of the residents
of the Stygian capital against the flourishing and ever-growing
metropolis of Illinois.

The Associated Shades had had some trouble in getting this
craft. Charon, through his constant association with life on both
sides of the dark river, had gained a knowledge, more or less
intimate, of modern business methods, and while as janitor of the
club he was subject to the will of the House-boat Committee, and
sympathized deeply with the members of the association in their
trouble, as president of the Styx Navigation Company he was bound up
in certain newly attained commercial ideas which were embarrassing to
those members of the association to whose hands the chartering of a
vessel had been committed.

"See here, Charon," Sir Walter Raleigh had said, after Charon
had expressed himself as deeply sympathetic, but unable to shave the
terms upon which the vessel could be had, "you are an infernal old
hypocrite. You go about wringing your hands over our misfortunes
until they've got as dry and flabby as a pair of kid gloves, and yet
when we ask you for a ship of suitable size and speed to go out after
those pirates, you become a sort of twin brother to Shylock, without
his excuse. His instincts are accidents of birth. Yours are
cultivated, and you know it."

"You are very much mistaken, Sir Walter," Charon had answered to
this. "You don't understand my position. It is a very hard one. As
janitor of your club I am really prostrated over the events of the
past twenty-four hours. My occupation is gone, and my despair over
your loss is correspondingly greater, for I have time on my hands to
brood over it. I was hysterical as a woman yesterday afternoon--so
hysterical that I came near upsetting one of the Furies who engaged
me to row her down to Madame Medusa's villa last evening; and right
at the sluice of the vitriol reservoir at that."

"Then why the deuce don't you do something to help us?" pleaded
Hamlet.

"How can I do any more than I have done? I've offered you the
Gehenna," retorted Charon.

"But on what terms?" expostulated Raleigh. "If we had all the
wealth of the Indies we'd have difficulty in paying you the sums you
demand."

"But I am only president of the company," explained Charon.
"I'd like, as president, to show you some courtesy, and I'm perfectly
willing to do so; but when it comes down to giving you a vessel like
that, I'm bound by my official oath to consider the interest of the
stockholders. It isn't as it used to be when I had boats to hire in
my own behalf alone. In those days I had nobody's interest but my
own to look after. Now the ships all belong to the Styx Navigation
Company. Can't you see the difference?"

"You own all the stock, don't you?" insisted Raleigh.

"I don't know," Charon answered, blandly. "I haven't seen the
transfer-books lately.''

"But you know that you did own every share of it, and that you
haven't sold any, don't you?" put in Hamlet.

Charon was puzzled for a moment, but shortly his face cleared,
and Sir Walter's heart sank, for it was evident that the old fellow
could not be cornered.

"Well, it's this way, Sir Walter, and your Highness," he said,
"I--I can't say whether any of that stock has been transferred or
not. The fact is, I've been speculating a little on margin, and I've
put up that stock as security, and, for all I know, I may have been
sold out by my brokers. I've been so upset by this unfortunate
occurrence that I haven't seen the market reports for two days.
Really you'll have to be content with my offer or go without the
Gehenna. There's too much suspicion attached to high corporate
officials lately for me to yield a jot in the position I have taken.
It would never do to get you all ready to start, and then have an
injunction clapped on you by some unforeseen stockholder who was not
satisfied with the terms offered you; nor can I ever let it be said
of me that to retain my position as janitor of your organization I
sacrificed a trust committed to my charge. I'll gladly lend you my
private launch, though I don't think it will aid you much, because
the naphtha-tank has exploded, and the screw slipped off and went to
the bottom two weeks ago. Still, it is at your service, and I've no
doubt that either Phidias or Benvenuto Cellini will carve out a
paddle for you if you ask him to."

"Bah!" retorted Raleigh. "You might as well offer us a pair of
skates."

"I would, if I thought the river'd freeze," retorted Charon,
blandly.

Raleigh and Hamlet turned away impatiently and left Charon to
his own devices, which for the time being consisted largely of
winking his other eye quietly and outwardly making a great show of
grief.

"He's too canny for us, I am afraid," said Sir Walter. "We'll
have to pay him his money."

"Let us first consult Sherlock Holmes," suggested Hamlet, and
this they proceeded at once to do.

"There is but one thing to be done," observed the astute
detective after he had heard Sir Walter's statement of the case. "It
is an old saying that one should fight fire with fire. We must meet
modern business methods with modern commercial ideas. Charter his
vessel at his own price."

"But we'd never be able to pay," said Hamlet.

"Ha-ha!" laughed Holmes. "It is evident that you know nothing
of the laws of trade nowadays. Don't pay!"

"But how can we?" asked Raleigh.

"The method is simple. You haven't anything to pay with,"
returned Holmes. "Let him sue. Suppose he gets a verdict. You
haven't anything he can attach--if you have, make it over to your
wives or your fiancees"

"Is that honest?" asked Hamlet, shaking his head doubtfully.

"It's business," said Holmes.

"But suppose he wants an advance payment?" queried Hamlet.

"Give him a check drawn to his own order. He'll have to endorse
it when he deposits it, and that will make him responsible," laughed
Holmes.

"What a simple thing when you understand it!" commented
Raleigh.

"Very," said Holmes. "Business is getting by slow degrees to be
an exact science. It reminds me of the Brighton mystery, in which I
played a modest part some ten years ago, when I first took up
ferreting as a profession. I was sitting one night in my room at one
of the Brighton hotels, which shall be nameless. I never give the
name of any of the hotels at which I stop, because it might give
offence to the proprietors of other hotels, with the result that my
books would be excluded from sale therein. Suffice it to say that I
was spending an early summer Sunday at Brighton with my friend
Watson. We had dined well, and were enjoying our evening smoke
together upon a small balcony overlooking the water, when there came
a timid knock on the door of my room.

"'Watson,' said I, 'here comes some one for advice. Do you wish
to wager a small bottle upon it?'

"'Yes,' he answered, with a smile. 'I am thirsty and I'd like a
small bottle; and while I do not expect to win, I'll take the bet. I
should like to know, though, how you know.'

"'It is quite simple,' said I. 'The timidity of the knock shows
that my visitor is one of two classes of persons--an autograph-hunter
or a client, one of the two. You see I give you a chance to win. It
may be an autograph-hunter, but I think it is a client. If it were a
creditor, he would knock boldly, even ostentatiously; if it were the
maid, she would not knock at all; if it were the hall-boy, he would
not come until I had rung five times for him. None of these things
has occurred; the knock is the half-hearted knock which betokens
either that the person who knocked is in trouble, or is uncertain as
to his reception. I am willing, however, considering the heat and my
desire to quench my thirst, to wager that it is a client.'

"'Done,' said Watson; and I immediately remarked, 'Come in.'

"The door opened, and a man of about thirty-five years of age,
in a bathing-suit, entered the room, and I saw at a glance what had
happened.

"'Your name is Burgess,' I said. 'You came here from London
this morning, expecting to return to-night. You brought no luggage
with you. After luncheon you went bathing. You had machine No. 35,
and when you came out of the water you found that No. 35 had
disappeared, with your clothes and the silver watch your uncle gave
you on the day you succeeded to his business.'

"Of course, gentlemen," observed the detective, with a smile at
Sir Walter and Hamlet--"of course the man fairly gasped, and I
continued: 'You have been lying face downward in the sand ever since,
waiting for nightfall, so that you could come to me for assistance,
not considering it good form to make an afternoon call upon a
stranger at his hotel, clad in a bathing-suit. Am I correct?'

"'Sir,' he replied, with a look of wonder, 'you have narrated my
story exactly as it happened, and I find I have made no mistake in
coming to you. Would you mind telling me what is your course of
reasoning?'

"'It is plain as day,' said I. 'I am the person with the red
beard with whom you came down third class from London this morning,
and you told me your name was Burgess and that you were a butcher.
When you looked to see the time, I remarked upon the oddness of your
watch, which led to your telling me that it was the gift of your
uncle.'

"'True,' said Burgess, 'but I did not tell you I had no
luggage.'

"'No,' said I, 'but that you hadn't is plain; for if you had
brought any other clothing besides that you had on with you, you
would have put it on to come here. That you have been robbed I
deduce also from your costume.'

"'But the number of the machine?' asked Watson.

"'Is on the tag on the key hanging about his neck,' said I.

"'One more question,' queried Burgess. 'How do you know I have
been lying face downward on the beach ever since?'

"'By the sand in your eyebrows,' I replied; and Watson ordered
up the small bottle."

"I fail to see what it was in our conversation, however,"
observed Hamlet, somewhat impatient over the delay caused by the
narration of this tale, "that suggested this train of thought to
you."

"The sequel will show," returned Holmes.

"Oh, Lord!" put in Raleigh. "Can't we put off the sequel until
a later issue? Remember, Mr. Holmes, that we are constantly losing
time."

"The sequel is brief, and I can narrate it on our way to the
office of the Navigation Company," observed the detective. "When the
bottle came I invited Mr. Burgess to join us, which he did, and as
the hour was late when we came to separate, I offered him the use of
my parlor overnight. This he accepted, and we retired.

"The next morning when I arose to dress, the mystery was
cleared."

"You had dreamed its solution?" asked Raleigh.

"No," replied Holmes. "Burgess had disappeared with all my
clothing, my false-beard, my suit-case, and my watch. The only thing
he had left me was the bathing-suit and a few empty small
bottles."

"And why, may I ask," put in Hamlet, as they drew near to
Charon's office--"why does that case remind you of business as it is
conducted to-day?"

"In this, that it is a good thing to stay out of unless you know
it all," explained Holmes. "I omitted in the case of Burgess to
observe one thing about him. Had I observed that his nose was
rectilinear, incurved, and with a lifted base, and that his auricular
temporal angle was between 96 and 97 degrees, I should have known at
once that he was an impostor Vide Ottolenghui on 'Ears and Noses I
Have Met,' pp. 631-640."

"Do you mean to say that you can tell a criminal by his ears?"
demanded Hamlet.

"If he has any--yes; but I did not know that at the time of the
Brighton mystery. Therefore I should have stayed out of the case.
But here we are. Good-morning, Charon."

By this time the trio had entered the private office of the
president of the Styx Navigation Company, and in a few moments the
vessel was chartered at a fabulous price.

On the return to the wharf, Sir Walter somewhat nervously asked
Holmes if he thought the plan they had settled upon would work.

"Charon is a very shrewd old fellow," said he. "He may outwit
us yet."

"The chances are just two and one-eighth degrees in your favor,"
observed Holmes, quietly, with a glance at Raleigh's ears. "The
temporal angle of your ears is 93.125 degrees, whereas Charon's stand
out at 91, by my otometer. To that extent your criminal instincts
are superior to his. If criminology is an exact science, reasoning
by your respective ears, you ought to beat him out by a perceptible
though possibly narrow margin."

With which assurance Raleigh went ahead with his preparations,
and within twelve hours the Gehenna was under way, carrying a full
complement of crew and officers, with every state-room on board
occupied by some spirit of the more illustrious kind.

Even Shylock was on board, though no one knew it, for in the
dead of night he had stolen quietly up the gang-plank and had hidden
himself in an empty water-cask in the forecastle.

"'Tisn't Venice," he said, as he sat down and breathed heavily
through the bung of the barrel, "but it's musty and damp enough, and,
considering the cost, I can't complain. You can't get something for
nothing, even in Hades."