Disclaimer: I do not own the character Sherlock Holmes. He is the creation
of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I write this story because I believe imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery. The character Christine is not fully my
responsibility either. She is loosely based on a real person and this story
on real events. If any offense is taken, I apologize beforehand. It was
written to honor memories, not make mockery of them. All the other
characters are my creation. (P.S. If you are a die-hard
Sherlockian/Holmesian, don't flame me please. I formulated some of my own
theories and they don't quite correspond with others made. Thanks.)
The Undocumented Case
Chapter 1
Watson never knew this story. Watson wasn't there. He could never tell my darkest fears, deepest loathings, greatest love as I could and therefore could never construct this narrative. The years passed and the case built up inside my soul like water against a faulty dam, until I knew that if I didn't commit pen to paper, that dam would burst, spilling my secrets like so many rivers of water.
-Sherlock Holmes
I had not yet left the university when my life was changed forever. The subject of a happy childhood, my future stared me bleakly in the face as having only one direction, Accountancy. Although I was still young and full of the innocence of home life, I recognized that any form of monotony would drive me to an early grave. My older brother submitted willingly to my parent's suggestion that he pursue the exact field of occupation I feared was my destiny, and my parents expected my compliance as well.
Therefore, to save myself, I proclaimed to my parents that I would attend school and study forensic pathology and criminology, quite unsure what I would apply this knowledge to at the time. Within the first week, I was emotionally battered, loaded to the eyes with useless information and thoroughly disgusted with my accommodations. Luckily for my academic career, I also happened to meet the Dr. Powell Smith. He was my inspiration for many long months. I never liked his given name and after a few of pleasant conversations, I asked him what I should call him. He chuckled jovially and glanced down at the book in his lap. The Iliad and The Odyssey. "Call me Ulysses," he told me. Although he did not possess the gift of observation, his intelligence and good-natured quality made me proud to call him my mentor, my teacher, and one of the greatest friends I would ever have.
At this time he occupied a small two-bed-roomed flat that looked out over the college campus. One afternoon when I expressed my hostility toward my drab campus quarters, Ulysses kindly offered his unused second room to me. Being a man of science he tutored me in the concoction of various chemical formulas that have proved invaluable to me in my work. I remember those summer afternoons, however, when the fumes of the liquid over the Bunsen burner scorched my nose and throat and caused my eyes to tear. The heat would become so unbearable that Ulysses would proclaim, "We have had enough for one day."
It was such a day as this when the case walked into my life. Hot wind had been blowing all afternoon and few people could be seen, excepting those whose business demanded their presence out of doors. I had just washed my hands and was gratefully mopping my brow with my already damp handkerchief in preparation for clearing the experiment away. Ulysses had been acting oddly all morning, checking the clock often and increasing the heat of the burner to nudge the chemicals reaction along. He was now straightening newspapers and clearing away various piles of rubble in obvious preparation for some visitor, most likely, I thought, a patient.
"Would you like me to clear your lab table now, or would you prefer me to wait so that you and your guest may speak in private. It could take me longer than you have time for." I asked him, knowing it was normally his policy to shoo me from the building when he did have a patient.
He glanced at me thoughtfully, already used to my quickly assessing calculations to comment. "Perhaps you should stay Holmes, I don't believe this shall be an appointment I'm accustomed to." I must have looked interested because he pulled from the recesses of his shabby jacket a telegram. I had received it for Ulysses, but gave it to him without question. He received many telegrams during the week, and few, if any, he ever shared with me. I thought this one was no different. Passing me the paper I held it up so that I may see by the light of the window.
TO: MR. POWELL SMITH
FROM: MS. NINA
WILL CALL AT THREE. MATER OF MOST IMPORTANCE. URGENT FOR YOU TO SPEAK WITH ME. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.
I lowered the paper and raised my eyebrows at Ulysses. "You know this woman?" I asked with something short of a smile on my face. " Perhaps I should leave, I don't want to be an inconvenience."
"Don't joke like that Holmes," Ulysses said his brow furrowed in thought." I have no idea who this person could be."
I became serious again. "No last name at all? She must not want to be detected by someone other than you, but that still doesn't explain things, unless..." I sighed in disgust and glanced at the clock on the mantle. "She's almost a half an hour late. Perhaps we will never know who your mystery caller is Ulysses." About fifteen minutes later I had cleared the chemicals and packed them away on their shelf. Growing tired of Ulysses' pacing, I went and stood by the window, watching the few cabs go by. His flat was situated on a corner so the cabbies slowed slightly before turning. One, however, didn't continue around the corner, but stopped in front of the door. A woman, not waiting for a hand to help her, leapt to the ground. A large cartwheel hat with fading violets stuck hideously around the brim obscured her face. She looked down to a scrap of paper in her hand and back up to the numbers on the door. Straightening herself she seemed to square her shoulders to brace for whatever was to come next. From my angle at the window, the only part of her face I could see was her upturned chin as she strode purposefully down the walk.
"I believe your guest has arrive Ulysses, you can stop pacing now." I turned from the window, "She appears to be of low income, determined but not ill. I cannot conclude what she would want with you." We listened for the ring of the bell downstairs, the hushed footsteps of the maid, the murmur of voices and the sound of more footsteps on the stairs.
The maid quietly knocked on the door and when Ulysses opened it, she introduced the woman as Ms. Nina. Ulysses, forgetting his agitation at the tardiness of our caller, graciously invited our guest to remove her hat and bade her sit down, promising her not tea, which would be his custom on any day not nearly as sweltering as this, but lemonade. I could not immediately place an age on our guest. She bore the features of a young woman of twenty, but from her soulful eyes shone a subdued creature, those of an animal that has been shown little affection in it's long, piteous existence. She did remove her hat after a moment's deliberation, and sat uneasily on the settee.
She flicked her eyes around the room and rested on me. Curiosity and suspicion seemed to be playing a game of tug-of-war behind the veil of her sight. Her dress had at one time been blue, but over the course of many years and many letting-outs and taking-ins it had faded to a graying shade. Her hair was shining black, and pulled up into a twist at the back of her head, yet the heat and humidity, which was moistening her face and coloring her cheeks a ruddy pink, had caused a few curls to fall out and around her face. Her boots bore old mud stains that I could not identify. On closer inspection of the hem of her skirt I found telltale traces of soot from a train engine. Obviously she had traveled from somewhere I had never encountered.
A moment's silence passed in which Ulysses waited expectantly for an explanation he was sure would come. The woman flicked her eyes back at me and I understood why she refused to speak. "Dr. Smith, perhaps your guest would be more comfortable if I were to leave you in private to speak with her."
She relaxed momentarily, apparently assured by my perceptiveness. "If you are a trusted friend, I would not protest to your staying." I could tell by her voice that she had spent a good deal of her life in America, yet it lacked the characteristic harshness of that country. I thought she must have spent a good deal of her childhood in England. Ulysses smiled and nodded at me. "This is a very good friend of mine, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may trust him as you trust me." I took my seat in the desk chair and gazed out the window at the dry color of the sky. Ulysses scrutinized Ms. Nina as she sat across from him sipping lemonade. He finally put down his own glass and shook his head. "I'm afraid my dear, I cannot place where I have seen you, although your face is strikingly familiar."
She too put down her glass and stared intently into Ulysses' face. " You knew my father in Basildon, Mr. Henry Charles?"
Ulysses concentrated, before his face lit up. "Ah, yes! You're Henry Charles' Daughter? The only girl of his I knew was Christine, I don't believe I ever met you."
Relief swept over the girl's, Miss Charles', face. "I'm Christine. I didn't want to put my real name on the telegram in case it was traced."
"Well, I must say," Ulysses began leaning back in his chair. "Where have you been Miss Charles? If I remember the story correctly you disappeared from your parents company on a trip to America, San Francisco I believe. That must have been ten years ago."
She nodded. "Tell me Mr. Smith, is my father well? And my mother also?"
"I couldn't say Miss Charles. I left Basildon to take up my position at the university before your family had even left for America. I did remain in correspondence with you mother for quite some time. Your father sent her back to England and continued searching for you in San Francisco. I'm afraid that's all I know," Ulysses shrugged apologetically. "The correspondence ended abruptly about two years ago."
"But by that time I had already left California," she stated before sipping her lemonade and staring at the ring that the condensation on the glass had made on the table. The comment was more to herself, however Ulysses looked toward me, sure that we had finally come to the purpose of her visit.
"Why don't you tell us what happened to you in California Miss Charles" He began with the air of a physician attempting to ascertain when symptoms had started.
She looked up. It was as though shades had gone up in front of her eyes to guard her soul from the rest of us. "I'm afraid," she began slowly, haltingly, "I fell in with poor company. But that is not what I wished to discuss with you, I need advice about a very severe criminal problem in a place called the Port of Portland in Oregon. That's where I have resided these past ten years. The police there don't know about it, don't care, or don't have enough evidence to support their suspicions and conduct a case."
"How does this relate to you?" Ulysses asked her. "Why not just keep out of the way of the criminals?"
"I believe I have enough information to allow an investigation into this issue by the local authorities, however in my position..." she trailed off and allowed Ulysses to pick up the thread.
"Because you are a woman, you don't believe the police will listen to you or trust your information?" He finished for her.
"Precisely," She agreed fervently. "I realize that you are foreign to the United States, especially the West, however you are the only man I am sure I can trust, you were the doctor who delivered me. I trust you with my life. Please won't you help me?"
Ulysses smiled warmly. "I could never refuse such a desperate plea from the daughter of one of my friends. I will do whatever you need of me." He looked up at me. "This seems to be along the line of occupation my friend studies here, what is it Holmes? Criminology and Pathology? This is right up your alley."
I nodded, "Yes Sir." There was something unusual in Miss Charles treatment of the case. It seemed as though she had a kind of reckless reason for ending whatever crime problem there was. I wondered why.
"Alright Miss Charles, our ears are all yours." Ulysses leaned back in his chair, preparing himself for her story.
She took a moment, putting her facts in order before beginning. "Have you ever heard of the term Shanghaiing Mr. Smith? Or perhaps crimping is more common." Ulysses shook his head. "It is a form of kidnap in which men are knocked out and sold as slaves to ship captains. Sometimes they slip a drug into the drinks of strong-looking men, sometimes they are just hit in the head. The men are taken under the city in a network of tunnels and held there until they can be sold."
"Don't people realize that the men are missing?" Ulysses asked her.
"I'm sure they do, but the crimpers are careful, only the men without rights are taken. Sailors, loggers, miners, Indians, men of African or Asian decent, people who the general public won't miss."
"And what of women Miss Charles," I asked her, "I would be surprised if women weren't a large market in a place such as this."
My question had flustered her. "Yes, women are taken as well, but for reasons other than hands on a sailing vessel."
"Indeed," I agreed. "I'm sorry, pray continue."
"How many men are 'Shanghaied' per year would you say?" Ulysses asked.
"There is no way to really know, however I would wager to guess over two thousand annually."
"Two Thousand? And no one has done anything about this?" Ulysses asked, a shocked look upon his face.
"With great effect? No. There is a small number of religious missionaries who set up 'sailors missions' in hopes of ending the problem, yet no one will listen who can put a stop to it all." She looked down into her hands "I don't know if you can help me sir, but there is nothing else left that I can do." I'm leaving tomorrow morning on the boat to New York. From there we go by train to Portland. If you will help me, please be on the boat tomorrow."
She looked up at the clock above the mantle. "I'm afraid I must be going, I've already stayed too long" We stood and Ulysses grasped her hand.
"I promise I will do whatever I can my dear." He smiled a smile of false confidence that seemed to reassure her nonetheless and she left, confident I think that we would be on the boat in the morning.
I moved to the window to watch her turn the corner. The only other figure on the lonely thoroughfare was a man crossing the street from the alleyway. He walked with a limp with his face was halfway obscured under a tattered hat.
"Well, what do you think of that?" Ulysses asked me, settling back into his chair.
"I don't believe there is any reason why we shouldn't believe she is telling the truth. Yet I must wonder, what is her motive for seeking help. If word is leaked out to the men who solicit this trade that she acted as an informant, she could very well be killed."
A dark look of concern fell over his face. "We must do something to help her. Had you any plans for the summer?" he asked me.
I grinned "Should I scurry off and buy tickets to for the next steamer to New York then?"
"Of course!" Ulysses sat up in his chair, the concern changed to hard determination. He glanced at me before getting up and going to his room to pack his valise. "What are you waiting for? There's not a second to be wasted."
The Undocumented Case
Chapter 1
Watson never knew this story. Watson wasn't there. He could never tell my darkest fears, deepest loathings, greatest love as I could and therefore could never construct this narrative. The years passed and the case built up inside my soul like water against a faulty dam, until I knew that if I didn't commit pen to paper, that dam would burst, spilling my secrets like so many rivers of water.
-Sherlock Holmes
I had not yet left the university when my life was changed forever. The subject of a happy childhood, my future stared me bleakly in the face as having only one direction, Accountancy. Although I was still young and full of the innocence of home life, I recognized that any form of monotony would drive me to an early grave. My older brother submitted willingly to my parent's suggestion that he pursue the exact field of occupation I feared was my destiny, and my parents expected my compliance as well.
Therefore, to save myself, I proclaimed to my parents that I would attend school and study forensic pathology and criminology, quite unsure what I would apply this knowledge to at the time. Within the first week, I was emotionally battered, loaded to the eyes with useless information and thoroughly disgusted with my accommodations. Luckily for my academic career, I also happened to meet the Dr. Powell Smith. He was my inspiration for many long months. I never liked his given name and after a few of pleasant conversations, I asked him what I should call him. He chuckled jovially and glanced down at the book in his lap. The Iliad and The Odyssey. "Call me Ulysses," he told me. Although he did not possess the gift of observation, his intelligence and good-natured quality made me proud to call him my mentor, my teacher, and one of the greatest friends I would ever have.
At this time he occupied a small two-bed-roomed flat that looked out over the college campus. One afternoon when I expressed my hostility toward my drab campus quarters, Ulysses kindly offered his unused second room to me. Being a man of science he tutored me in the concoction of various chemical formulas that have proved invaluable to me in my work. I remember those summer afternoons, however, when the fumes of the liquid over the Bunsen burner scorched my nose and throat and caused my eyes to tear. The heat would become so unbearable that Ulysses would proclaim, "We have had enough for one day."
It was such a day as this when the case walked into my life. Hot wind had been blowing all afternoon and few people could be seen, excepting those whose business demanded their presence out of doors. I had just washed my hands and was gratefully mopping my brow with my already damp handkerchief in preparation for clearing the experiment away. Ulysses had been acting oddly all morning, checking the clock often and increasing the heat of the burner to nudge the chemicals reaction along. He was now straightening newspapers and clearing away various piles of rubble in obvious preparation for some visitor, most likely, I thought, a patient.
"Would you like me to clear your lab table now, or would you prefer me to wait so that you and your guest may speak in private. It could take me longer than you have time for." I asked him, knowing it was normally his policy to shoo me from the building when he did have a patient.
He glanced at me thoughtfully, already used to my quickly assessing calculations to comment. "Perhaps you should stay Holmes, I don't believe this shall be an appointment I'm accustomed to." I must have looked interested because he pulled from the recesses of his shabby jacket a telegram. I had received it for Ulysses, but gave it to him without question. He received many telegrams during the week, and few, if any, he ever shared with me. I thought this one was no different. Passing me the paper I held it up so that I may see by the light of the window.
TO: MR. POWELL SMITH
FROM: MS. NINA
WILL CALL AT THREE. MATER OF MOST IMPORTANCE. URGENT FOR YOU TO SPEAK WITH ME. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE.
I lowered the paper and raised my eyebrows at Ulysses. "You know this woman?" I asked with something short of a smile on my face. " Perhaps I should leave, I don't want to be an inconvenience."
"Don't joke like that Holmes," Ulysses said his brow furrowed in thought." I have no idea who this person could be."
I became serious again. "No last name at all? She must not want to be detected by someone other than you, but that still doesn't explain things, unless..." I sighed in disgust and glanced at the clock on the mantle. "She's almost a half an hour late. Perhaps we will never know who your mystery caller is Ulysses." About fifteen minutes later I had cleared the chemicals and packed them away on their shelf. Growing tired of Ulysses' pacing, I went and stood by the window, watching the few cabs go by. His flat was situated on a corner so the cabbies slowed slightly before turning. One, however, didn't continue around the corner, but stopped in front of the door. A woman, not waiting for a hand to help her, leapt to the ground. A large cartwheel hat with fading violets stuck hideously around the brim obscured her face. She looked down to a scrap of paper in her hand and back up to the numbers on the door. Straightening herself she seemed to square her shoulders to brace for whatever was to come next. From my angle at the window, the only part of her face I could see was her upturned chin as she strode purposefully down the walk.
"I believe your guest has arrive Ulysses, you can stop pacing now." I turned from the window, "She appears to be of low income, determined but not ill. I cannot conclude what she would want with you." We listened for the ring of the bell downstairs, the hushed footsteps of the maid, the murmur of voices and the sound of more footsteps on the stairs.
The maid quietly knocked on the door and when Ulysses opened it, she introduced the woman as Ms. Nina. Ulysses, forgetting his agitation at the tardiness of our caller, graciously invited our guest to remove her hat and bade her sit down, promising her not tea, which would be his custom on any day not nearly as sweltering as this, but lemonade. I could not immediately place an age on our guest. She bore the features of a young woman of twenty, but from her soulful eyes shone a subdued creature, those of an animal that has been shown little affection in it's long, piteous existence. She did remove her hat after a moment's deliberation, and sat uneasily on the settee.
She flicked her eyes around the room and rested on me. Curiosity and suspicion seemed to be playing a game of tug-of-war behind the veil of her sight. Her dress had at one time been blue, but over the course of many years and many letting-outs and taking-ins it had faded to a graying shade. Her hair was shining black, and pulled up into a twist at the back of her head, yet the heat and humidity, which was moistening her face and coloring her cheeks a ruddy pink, had caused a few curls to fall out and around her face. Her boots bore old mud stains that I could not identify. On closer inspection of the hem of her skirt I found telltale traces of soot from a train engine. Obviously she had traveled from somewhere I had never encountered.
A moment's silence passed in which Ulysses waited expectantly for an explanation he was sure would come. The woman flicked her eyes back at me and I understood why she refused to speak. "Dr. Smith, perhaps your guest would be more comfortable if I were to leave you in private to speak with her."
She relaxed momentarily, apparently assured by my perceptiveness. "If you are a trusted friend, I would not protest to your staying." I could tell by her voice that she had spent a good deal of her life in America, yet it lacked the characteristic harshness of that country. I thought she must have spent a good deal of her childhood in England. Ulysses smiled and nodded at me. "This is a very good friend of mine, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may trust him as you trust me." I took my seat in the desk chair and gazed out the window at the dry color of the sky. Ulysses scrutinized Ms. Nina as she sat across from him sipping lemonade. He finally put down his own glass and shook his head. "I'm afraid my dear, I cannot place where I have seen you, although your face is strikingly familiar."
She too put down her glass and stared intently into Ulysses' face. " You knew my father in Basildon, Mr. Henry Charles?"
Ulysses concentrated, before his face lit up. "Ah, yes! You're Henry Charles' Daughter? The only girl of his I knew was Christine, I don't believe I ever met you."
Relief swept over the girl's, Miss Charles', face. "I'm Christine. I didn't want to put my real name on the telegram in case it was traced."
"Well, I must say," Ulysses began leaning back in his chair. "Where have you been Miss Charles? If I remember the story correctly you disappeared from your parents company on a trip to America, San Francisco I believe. That must have been ten years ago."
She nodded. "Tell me Mr. Smith, is my father well? And my mother also?"
"I couldn't say Miss Charles. I left Basildon to take up my position at the university before your family had even left for America. I did remain in correspondence with you mother for quite some time. Your father sent her back to England and continued searching for you in San Francisco. I'm afraid that's all I know," Ulysses shrugged apologetically. "The correspondence ended abruptly about two years ago."
"But by that time I had already left California," she stated before sipping her lemonade and staring at the ring that the condensation on the glass had made on the table. The comment was more to herself, however Ulysses looked toward me, sure that we had finally come to the purpose of her visit.
"Why don't you tell us what happened to you in California Miss Charles" He began with the air of a physician attempting to ascertain when symptoms had started.
She looked up. It was as though shades had gone up in front of her eyes to guard her soul from the rest of us. "I'm afraid," she began slowly, haltingly, "I fell in with poor company. But that is not what I wished to discuss with you, I need advice about a very severe criminal problem in a place called the Port of Portland in Oregon. That's where I have resided these past ten years. The police there don't know about it, don't care, or don't have enough evidence to support their suspicions and conduct a case."
"How does this relate to you?" Ulysses asked her. "Why not just keep out of the way of the criminals?"
"I believe I have enough information to allow an investigation into this issue by the local authorities, however in my position..." she trailed off and allowed Ulysses to pick up the thread.
"Because you are a woman, you don't believe the police will listen to you or trust your information?" He finished for her.
"Precisely," She agreed fervently. "I realize that you are foreign to the United States, especially the West, however you are the only man I am sure I can trust, you were the doctor who delivered me. I trust you with my life. Please won't you help me?"
Ulysses smiled warmly. "I could never refuse such a desperate plea from the daughter of one of my friends. I will do whatever you need of me." He looked up at me. "This seems to be along the line of occupation my friend studies here, what is it Holmes? Criminology and Pathology? This is right up your alley."
I nodded, "Yes Sir." There was something unusual in Miss Charles treatment of the case. It seemed as though she had a kind of reckless reason for ending whatever crime problem there was. I wondered why.
"Alright Miss Charles, our ears are all yours." Ulysses leaned back in his chair, preparing himself for her story.
She took a moment, putting her facts in order before beginning. "Have you ever heard of the term Shanghaiing Mr. Smith? Or perhaps crimping is more common." Ulysses shook his head. "It is a form of kidnap in which men are knocked out and sold as slaves to ship captains. Sometimes they slip a drug into the drinks of strong-looking men, sometimes they are just hit in the head. The men are taken under the city in a network of tunnels and held there until they can be sold."
"Don't people realize that the men are missing?" Ulysses asked her.
"I'm sure they do, but the crimpers are careful, only the men without rights are taken. Sailors, loggers, miners, Indians, men of African or Asian decent, people who the general public won't miss."
"And what of women Miss Charles," I asked her, "I would be surprised if women weren't a large market in a place such as this."
My question had flustered her. "Yes, women are taken as well, but for reasons other than hands on a sailing vessel."
"Indeed," I agreed. "I'm sorry, pray continue."
"How many men are 'Shanghaied' per year would you say?" Ulysses asked.
"There is no way to really know, however I would wager to guess over two thousand annually."
"Two Thousand? And no one has done anything about this?" Ulysses asked, a shocked look upon his face.
"With great effect? No. There is a small number of religious missionaries who set up 'sailors missions' in hopes of ending the problem, yet no one will listen who can put a stop to it all." She looked down into her hands "I don't know if you can help me sir, but there is nothing else left that I can do." I'm leaving tomorrow morning on the boat to New York. From there we go by train to Portland. If you will help me, please be on the boat tomorrow."
She looked up at the clock above the mantle. "I'm afraid I must be going, I've already stayed too long" We stood and Ulysses grasped her hand.
"I promise I will do whatever I can my dear." He smiled a smile of false confidence that seemed to reassure her nonetheless and she left, confident I think that we would be on the boat in the morning.
I moved to the window to watch her turn the corner. The only other figure on the lonely thoroughfare was a man crossing the street from the alleyway. He walked with a limp with his face was halfway obscured under a tattered hat.
"Well, what do you think of that?" Ulysses asked me, settling back into his chair.
"I don't believe there is any reason why we shouldn't believe she is telling the truth. Yet I must wonder, what is her motive for seeking help. If word is leaked out to the men who solicit this trade that she acted as an informant, she could very well be killed."
A dark look of concern fell over his face. "We must do something to help her. Had you any plans for the summer?" he asked me.
I grinned "Should I scurry off and buy tickets to for the next steamer to New York then?"
"Of course!" Ulysses sat up in his chair, the concern changed to hard determination. He glanced at me before getting up and going to his room to pack his valise. "What are you waiting for? There's not a second to be wasted."