Trollheart

Chapter IV: Into the Lion's Den

I: Master of the Big Top

As we followed on behind the circus strongman, I reflected that I had never seen such muscles before; he made the attendant at the club we had tried to breach the previous night seem small and weedy in comparison. His biceps bulged and rippled as he walked, his great torso fairly quivering with energy. I felt sure he could, had he a mind to, pick Holmes and I up in one hand and snap us like dry twigs. Indeed, I felt he could probably pick up Nelson's Column and snap it like a dry twig. It would not do, I noted, to get on the wrong side of this man.

“Here we are, gentlemen.” The giant stopped outside a brightly-coloured tent. “Just go right in.”

We had no choice, really: there is no way of announcing oneself outside a tent, other than perhaps a cough or a whistle. No door to rap, no bell to ring. Holmes led the way. A man stood up to greet him, his red coat and black shiny top hat marking him as the ringmaster.

“So, the famous Sherlock Holmes, is it? You don't say!” The man looked up, his eyes hooded, somewhat cold but with a fire behind them that spoke of the capacity for great violence. I suddenly wondered if the big strongman was stationed outside the tent, and my throat became a little dry. “Ah've been told trouble follows you, Mr. Holmes, like an injun after a buffalo. Ah won't have it at mah circus, ah warn you. We've darned enough prejudices to deal with here, without a guy like you bringing further trouble to our door.”

Holmes looked at him narrowly, and I was reminded to be on my guard. One thing that was certainly known about the circus was that they saw themselves as a family, and would support and even perhaps protect one another from the law. Holmes was not always welcome wherever he went, but the cold reception his arrival in the ringmaster's tent engendered was a harbinger of trouble to come.

Ignoring the man's aggressive tone, Holmes blinked and declared “I am aware, sir, that my reputation often precedes me, though I had not expected it extended across the Atlantic!” He pursed his lips. “I had not time to introduce myself, and your rather large butler outside surely does not know who I am.”

The man grinned, a somewhat vindictive, even cruel smile.

“Bruno? Why, he wouldn't know who the President was back home, other than some guy on the back of a coin. But we know all about you, Mr. Detective, and let me tell you, we look after our own here.”

Holmes turned to me with a sigh. “It seems I am not the only one whose reputation is well known, Watson. Doubtless you were, despite your best efforts, recognised at the Adonis Club.”

“Ah don't know about no Ay-don-ees Club,” growled the man in the red coat. “But yeah, ah sure was warned to be on the lookout for a varmint like you.”

Holmes smiled ingratiatingly. “Varmint, as you so colourfully put it, sir, or not, you have the advantage of me. I see from your garb that you serve the post of ringmaster of this circus. Am I to understand that you are also the owner of this establishment?”

“You can believe whatever the hell you like, mister.” He did not extend his hand. “Tobias Nilsson, of Fennington and Nilsson Circus. Ah won't say like you English do that ah'm at your service, sir, for ah am not. Ah have very little time for a sonofabitch like you or your country. We ain't forgotten King George, let me tell you.”

“And yet,” remarked Holmes drily, “you choose to visit our poor country.”

Nilsson wrote something down. Without raising his eyes he muttered “We choose to share with your little country a slice of jest about the best travellin' entertainment show the United States has to offer. But you needn't worry,” he added, looking up at last. “You'll not be troubled by us for long, Mr. Consulting Detective,” he promised. “We take ship for Calais tomorrow.” He pronounced it call-aze. Holmes refrained from correcting him.

“Are all your employees American then?”

Nilsson's brow darkened more, the suspicion in his eyes growing, a man on a defensive posture.

“What business is it of yours?” he demanded.

Holmes ignored the barb.

“It is a simple question, Mr. Nilsson. Surely it deserves a simple answer?”

As if afraid he was stepping into a trap, but could see no way out that might not further incriminate him, the ringmaster grunted “Not all.”

“You have, in fact,” pressed Holmes, “a native from across the border in your ranks, do you not?”

Nilsson's eyes flashed, as if Holmes had insulted him. “You'll find no stinking Mex-ee-cans here, Holmes!” he promised. Ignoring the slur, my friend corrected him.

“The other border, Mr. Nilsson. Canada?”

The man's eyes began to shift left and right, like one who expects attack.

“And what if'n ah do?” he demanded. “Ah employ who ah like, and let no man tell me ah can't!”

“I would not dream of it, Mr. Nilsson,” Holmes said airily. “But tell me, is your circus in the habit of employing known criminals?”

Nilsson stood up, the blood rushing to his face.

“Ah'll have none of this, Holmes!” he snarled. “You think because you're this all-fired famous detective that you can come in here with your accusations and your insinuations, botherin' mah people? No, sir! Not here! Ah tell ya, ah'll befriend a goddamn ****** before ah turn over one of mah folks to your stuffy English law courts!”

Holmes gave him a faintly amused look.

“I wonder,” he drawled, “if your partner holds the same loose attitude to the law as you do. What would Mr. Fennington say about this?”

Nilsson grinned. “Mr. Fennington has been in the ground for six years now, Mr. Holmes,” he answered. “The circus may still bear his name, but it's me that runs the show. Ah'm in charge here.”

“I see.” Holmes looked momentarily nonplussed, then he shook his head and took a step towards the flap. “You may disparage our 'stuffy English law courts', Mr. Nilsson," he remarked, "but while in this country you are subject to English law. I knew a man once - believed he too was above the law."

As Holmes spoke, an image came to my mind of the great African explorer Dr. Leon Sterndale, his blustering arrogance gone, his love dead at the hand of the man he has just slain, his life in my friend's hands.

"Yeah? So what?" Nilsson sneered. Holmes shrugged.

"He told me, at the last, that he had got into the habit of taking the law into his own hands. Had it not been for our, ah, coming to an understanding about his crime, sir, I can assure you the English judicial system would have - ah, what is that quaint phrase you Americans use? Had him for breakfast?"

"Ah still don't see what..." Nilsson was looking a little less certain. Holmes gave him a razor-thin smile, a smile I had seen all too often, quite aware what it portended.

"The point, my dear sir," Holmes enlightened the ringmaster, "is that you may not agree with our legal system, and I don't know what it is like out there where you come from, where there is what I am led to believe is termed, ah, frontier law? But here we have very clear laws, sir, and as you have just confirmed your partner is deceased, then I should say that by Her Majesty's laws, the responsibility for sheltering a murderer is yours, and yours alone.”

An abrupt change came over the owner, and he sat back down heavily.

“Murderer? You never said nothin' about no murder, Holmes.”

“Didn't I?” Holmes picked at his lapel. “Well, we shall just have to see what the police...”

But Nilsson had risen and grabbed at his sleeve before he could exit the tent.

“You'll forgive me for speaking so harshly, sir,” he said, his attitude entirely different now, “but we have a sayin' here: when a man joins the circus he unhitches his past an' leaves it in the dust. Many of our people have had run-ins with the law, an' we tend not to ask questions. But we ain't no shelter for killers, no sir!”

“Come now,” said Holmes, his tone also gentler, “you once helped defend the law, Mr. Nisson – Texas, unless I am much mistaken? Though I see you have since fallen foul of that very law, so no doubt you have your own secrets to protect. I have no intention of dredging up your past. All I want is the man you know as Deschamps.”

“See, you have to understand – wait jest one gold-darned minute!” sputtered the owner. “How in the sam hill do you know all that? ” He looked at Holmes suspiciously, and I saw his hand stray to his hip. “You ever been to the States, Mr. Holmes?”

He may have been used to settling disputes by the expedient of the gun, as I had been told was often the norm in America, but I doubted Mr. Nilsson was so rash as to have brought such a weapon into the country. No doubt the move was a reflex, born of his days as a law officer in the United States, if Holmes was correct.

“Although I have a great affinity for the New World,” Holmes told him, as unconcerned with the gesture as I was concerned – he had obviously already concluded that there was no gun to be drawn, “and some of my cases have involved America, I have never myself set foot upon its soil.”

“Then how in the name of Robert E. Lee...?”

“Oh, it is a simple matter of observation, sir. That medallion you wear around your neck, for example. It is a silver dollar, with a bullet hole in it. It is given to members of the Texas Rangers who reach a certain rank. The idea is, I believe, that the coin is given to the officer, who throws it into the air and then has to shoot the hole through it. The recovered coin is then put on a lanyard and worn as a badge of honour. You, however, wear yours reversed, which speaks of your discontent with the force. Your pride, however, in having been a Ranger keeps the medallion around your neck.”

Nilsson nodded, his eyes betraying a dawning new respect for Holmes. “We'll ah'll be hornswoggled!” he declared. “Right in every detail.”

“But surely, Holmes,” I interjected, “that does not prove Mr. Nilsson has fallen foul of the law? He may merely have left their service.”

Holmes gave the owner a level look. “To take up managing a circus across America, Watson?” He sniffed. “Hardly likely. Besides, you wear your collar fully buttoned up, sir, in the manner of an Englishman, whereas our American cousins are somewhat, ah, freer about the neck. Something to do with the heat, possibly.” Nilsson's hand unconsciously moved towards his collar. “No doubt you tell anyone who may ask how you can stand to be so attired in the midst of a heatwave that this heat is nothing compared to a Texas summer – or, indeed, I might venture to guess, winter?”

Nilsson's eyes had that dangerous look in them again. “You wouldn't survive for spit in a Texas spring, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” It was almost, but not quite, a threat, but it certainly carried with it a modicum of disdain. Holmes shrugged.

“Quite possibly true,” he allowed. “The current weather has me struggling. But it is not the heat which keeps you buttoned up, is it, Mr. Nilsson? Your collar does not quite cover the marks, I'm afraid.”

“Marks?” I could see nothing, but Holmes had obviously hit a nerve with the American. Again he made the move for a gun that was not there.

“By thunder, Mr. Holmes, if we were back in the States ah'd shoot you down where you stand for such an accusation!” His eyes were fire, but Holmes did not seem in the least bothered.

“Ah, but we are not, Mr. Nilsson.” he pointed out. “We are in England, and were you to, as you so colourfully put it, shoot me down where I stand, I fancy our legal system would ensure the task that was begun in America would be completed here. Why you were hanged I have no idea, nor am I interested in why or how you escaped. It is of, as you quite rightly pointed out a moment ago, no business of mine.”

Nilsson seemed to relax. His eyes darted from Holmes to me, and then to the tent flap. He looked like a man considering making a run for it.

“What does concern me, Mr. Nilsson,” Holmes went on, “is the sheltering of a criminal – a murderer, sir! - within the bosom of your circus family here. I tell you now,” he raised a warning finger, “if any of your people attempt to detain me in my pursuit of this Deschamps, I will make it my business to ensure they answer for it in an English court.”

And so saying, he strode from the tent imperiously. I followed, leaving the American fuming behind.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018