Free Sherlock Holmes In America by Martin H. Greenberg

too. Most of us found American “culture” so woeful we were actually looking forward to the influence of (God help us) the French.
    But Sasanoff quashed any hint of mutiny quickly, reminding us that we had all signed contracts that explicitly gave him, the acting manager, authority to add and drop tour dates—and company members—as he saw fit. If we didn’t fancy a little jaunt westward, we could always remain behind . . . and make our way back to England alone.
    This was an unveiled threat to most of us, of course. But I had the feeling it was intended for one of us—He Who Shall Not Be Further Canonized by My Pen—as more of an invitation.
    [ First introduced in Chapter Fifty-Six (“The ‘States’ of America—Filthy and Repulsive”), He Who Shall Not Be Further Canonized by My Pen is never definitively identified. Even the most casual Sherlockian scholar should recognize him, however. To facilitate ease of reading, he is henceforth referred to wherever possible by the author’s other nickname for him: “the Whelp.”—S.B.H. ]
    Our leading man’s relations with the Whelp had continued their deterioration, and though the two rarely argued about the proper approach to acting any longer—a byproduct of not speaking to each other—Sasanoff had seen fit to demote the young dilettante. No longer was the Whelp our Malvolio. He was now Priest and Musician #1 and Sailor #2 and other assorted nonentities a step up from scenery.
    Yet the Whelp, with his usual arrogance, put up the pretense that he was thankful to be a mere spear carrier.
    â€œI’ve played Malvolio for months,” he said to me. “There was nothing more to learn from the part. Blending into the background in so many new guises, on the other hand—that’s a challenge I look forward to.”
    As if it requires skill to not be noticed! It took all my own considerable powers as a thespian not to laugh in his face.
    Unfortunately, much as it would have relieved us to be rid of him, the Whelp didn’t rise to Sasanoff’s bait, and our manager was still reluctant to sack him outright. When we set off for Colorado a week later, the company was intact.
    I’ve written much already about the peculiar torments of American rail travel, so I won’t dwell on them again except to say this: [ Approximately three thousand words have been omitted here in the interest of (perhaps unattainable, given the source) brevity.—S.B.H ]
    All that was but preamble to the real tortures ahead, however. Leadville, it turned out, was a mining “boom town” not even two years old. No rail line had yet reached it, and the last hundred miles up from Denver required us to transfer to a pair of privately engaged coaches.
    And when I write of traveling up , I do not mean we went north. Leadville actually lies to the southwest of Denver. It was further up into the snow-peaked mountains we had to go. And go and go and go. Mr. Verne and the other dreamers may assure us man will soon master fantastic flying machines, but if the like of Leadville is all we’ll find in the clouds, I say it’s not worth the bother.
    After enduring nerve-racking rides along gaping gorges on rocky, hole-pocked roads plagued (the cackling drivers delighted in telling us) by both bandit gangs and bloodthirsty bands of Native warriors, we finally arrived at our destination: Gomorrah in the Alps. Or so it struck me at first. I would revise my estimation— downward —the longer I was there.
    Surrounding the town on all sides were shoddily built shacks, tree stumps without number, and the yawning black mouths of the silver mines. Closer in was a fringe of tents—lodgings for newly arrived fortune hunters and the businesses (mostly “saloons” and drafty bagnios) that catered to them. And then at last we entered the city proper (if one could apply either word to Leadville) and found