The Scarlet Band

"Brilliant deduction!" Dr. Walton said. One of Athelstan Helms' elegant eyebrows rose. Surely the good doctor could not be displaying an ironical side? Surely not...

Gun shops flourished in Thetford. They sold all manner of shotguns and rifles for hunting. That made a certain amount of sense to Walton; the countryside surrounding the city was far wilder than any English woods. Despite the almost certain extinction of honkers, other native birds still thrived there, as did turkeys imported from Terranova and deer and wild boar and foxes brought across the sea from the British Isles and Europe.

The gun shops also sold an even greater profusion of pistols: everything from a derringer small enough to be concealed in a fancy belt buckle to pistols that Dr. Walton, a large, solidly made man, would not have cared to fire two-handed, let alone with only one. "Something like that," he said, pointing to one in the window, "you're better off clouting the other bloke in the head with it. That'd put the quietus on him, by Jove!"

"I daresay," Helms replied, and then surprised his friend by going into the shop.

"Help you with something?" asked the proprietor, a wizened little man in a green eyeshade who looked more like a pawnbroker than the bluff, hearty sort one might expect to run such an establishment.

"If you would be so kind," Helms said. "I'd like to see a police pistol, if you please."

"A .465 Manstopper?" the proprietor said. Walton thought the pistol had an alarmingly forthright name. The man produced one: a sturdy revolver, if not quite so gargantuan as some of the weapons civilians here seemed to carry.

Athelstan Helms broke it down and reassembled it with a practiced ease that made the proprietor eye him with more respect than he'd shown hitherto. "A well-made weapon, sure enough," Helms said. "The action seems a bit stiff, but only a bit. And the ammunition?"

"How keen on getting rid of fouling are you?" the gunshop owner asked.

"When necessary, of course," Helms replied. "I am not averse to reducing the necessity as much as possible."

"Sensible fellow." The proprietor produced a gaudily printed cardboard box holding twenty-five rounds. "These are the cartridges the police use. Sell you this and the pistol for thirteen eagles twenty-five cents."

Dr. Walton expected Helms to decline, perhaps with scorn. Instead, the detective took from his pocket a medium-sized gold coin, three large silver ones, and one medium-sized silver one. "Here you are, and I thank you very much."

"Thank you." The proprietor stowed the money in a cash box. "You'll get good use from that pistol, if you ever need it."

"Oh, I expect I shall," Athelstan Helms replied. "Yes, I expect I shall."

* * * *

"I say, Helms--this is extraordinary. Most extraordinary. Not your usual way of doing business at all," Dr. Walton said, more than a little disapproval in his voice.

"Really?" Helms said. "How is it different?"

Walton opened his mouth for a blistering reply, then shut it again. When he did speak, it was in accusing tones: "You're having me on."

"Am I?" Helms might have been innocence personified but for the hint of a twinkle in his eye and but for the setting: a large lecture hall at Bronvard University, the oldest in Atlantis, a few miles outside of Hanover. The hall was packed with reporters from the capital and from other Atlantean towns with newspapers that maintained bureaus there. Rain poured down outside. The air smelled of wool from the reporters' suits and of the cheap tobacco they smoked in extravagant quantities.

In the middle of the mob of newspapermen sat Inspector La Strada. He stared ruefully at the remains of his bumbershoot, which had blown inside out. Water dripped from the end of his nose; he resembled nothing so much as a drowned ferret.

"Shall we get on with it?" Walton inquired. At Helms' nod, the good doctor took his place behind the lectern more commonly used for disquisitions on chemistry, perhaps, or on the uses of the ablative absolute in Latin. "Gentlemen of the press, I have the high honor and distinct privilege of presenting to you the greatest detective of the modern age, my colleague and, I am lucky enough to say, my particular friend, Mr. Athelstan Helms. He will discuss with you the results of his investigations into the murders of certain opponents of the House of Universal Devotion and of Mr. Samuel Jones, otherwise known as the Preacher, and especially of his investigation into the untimely demise of Mr. Benjamin Morris in Thetford not long ago. Helms?"