‘Hello!’ said he in an arch tone, staring at us as he spoke. ‘Gentlemen of the press!’
Holmes shook his head. ‘Friends of Mr Hudson Hardy’s,’ said he.
‘Really?’ returned the other man. ‘I was not aware that he had any!’ Then he turned away from us and passed on into the auditorium without another word.
‘What a rude, offensive man!’ I remarked, as we made our way along to Hardy’s office.
Holmes laughed, in that odd noiseless way which was peculiar to him. ‘I think we may assume that that was Ludovic Xavier,’ said he.
In the office, Holmes wrote a brief note for Hardy, and picked up a large manila envelope from the desk, which contained, he informed me, a copy of the script of The Lavender Girl and notes he had made earlier from the record of rehearsals.
Outside, the daylight had now gone and the street lamps were lit, casting their weak, gloomy light upon the many puddles on the surface of the road. The rain had stopped falling, but the night was a bitterly cold one and I shivered as I stood for a moment on the pavement outside the theatre, while my companion paced up and down, looking about him. It was a dismal enough prospect. The road was still busy, with a constant stream of carts and wagons passing by, throwing up cascades of water and mud from the road as they did so. After a moment, I followed Holmes to the corner of the theatre, where he was looking into the little street which lay between the Albion and the blackened ruin of the Palace. It was a short cul-de-sac in which there was nothing to be seen but the sides of the two theatres and, at the end, a tall, blank wall, which was evidently the back of some other building.
‘The underground corridor we followed must pass beneath this little street,’ remarked my companion in a thoughtful tone. Then, instructing me to wait for him, he crossed to the other side of the cul-de-sac and set off along the main road, passing by the front of the Palace. Presently, when he had gone perhaps fifty or sixty yards, he abruptly stopped, turned on his heel and returned to where I was standing. As he passed, he gestured for me to follow him, and we walked the same distance in the opposite direction. I observed as we did so that he kept glancing at the other side of the road.
‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ I asked at length.
‘A post office or tobacconist’s shop,’ he replied.
‘You should have told me,’ said I in surprise. ‘I have both tobacco and stamps in my pocket. You are welcome to help yourself, Holmes.’
‘I do not require either tobacco or stamps, Watson,’ returned my companion. ‘I have some of my own. Thank you for the offer all the same.’
Then, without further explanation, he whistled for a cab and within a minute we were rattling along towards Waterloo Bridge, just as the rain began to fall heavily once more.
V
For a long time that evening, my companion sat silently curled up in his chair by the fire, puffing away at his pipe, and poring over the script of The Lavender Girl and the notes he had made earlier. I did not question him on the matter. I knew that he disliked being questioned about a case upon which he was still working and that he would enlighten me of his own accord when he was ready to do so. I occupied myself, therefore, in writing up my own journal and in attempting to bring a little order to my somewhat chaotic records of the previous year’s experiences. But my thoughts kept wandering from the old cases on the table before me, to ponder the present singular business at the Albion Theatre. My association with Sherlock Holmes had led me over the years into some very strange affairs, in unlikely places, but none, surely, was more bizarre than our present investigation, and I returned again and again in perplexity to the question of what it all might mean. Outside our chambers, the wind had risen, hurling rain and hail against our windows with ferocious violence, and moaning like an angry beast in the chimney. As I reflected upon Hardy’s fear that the weather might affect the attendance at the opening night of The Lavender Girl, I wondered again who the mysterious enemy might be who appeared so determined to wreck the production and to what lengths such a person might go. Holmes’s suggestion that murder was planned struck me again as utterly beyond belief, and yet it could not be denied that the way the fixings of the trap-door had been interfered with could mean nothing else. At about nine o’clock, my meandering thoughts were abruptly interrupted, when, scarcely audible above the howl of the elements, there came a sudden sharp peal at the bell.
‘You are not expecting anyone?’ asked Holmes, looking up from his papers.
‘Not I.’
‘No doubt it is some friend of Mrs Hudson’s, then,’ said he, and returned to his study.
A moment later, however, the door of our sitting-room was opened and I looked up in surprise as our landlady ushered in a broad-chested, powerful-looking man, with dark, sallow features and a large dark moustache. I recognised him at once as the man I had observed watching the rehearsal in Hardy’s Theatre, earlier that day.
‘Count Laszlo of Sipolia,’ read Mrs Hudson from the card in her hand.
‘It is a wild night to be abroad, Count Laszlo!’ said Holmes, putting down his papers and rising to his feet. ‘Pray, take a seat!’
Our visitor shook his head. ‘If it is all the same to you, I will remain standing,’ he returned. ‘I do not expect to be here very long. I regret the lateness of this visit, but I was unable to cancel my earlier engagements and I was determined to see you this evening. I understand,’ he continued after a moment, ‘that Mr Richard Hudson Hardy has asked you to look into certain matters for him. That is so, is it not?’ he queried, as Holmes did not reply.
‘May I enquire who gave you this information?’ asked Holmes.
‘Hardy himself did. I observed you in the theatre this afternoon and later asked him who you were. He told me that he had engaged you this morning.’
‘If Mr Hardy has elected to give you that information, you must suppose that it is true,’ said Holmes. ‘I cannot see that there is anything I can add to the matter. I do not understand what it is you expect me to say.’
‘I have come here to ask you what you have learnt – if anything – since you have been looking into the matter.’
Holmes raised an eyebrow. ‘You must surely realise, Count Laszlo,’ he replied, ‘that I am not at liberty to answer that question, even supposing for a moment that I wished to do so. Anything I learn in the course of my professional work is a matter of the strictest confidence between my client and myself. Your question is therefore a most improper one and I am surprised at your even thinking to ask it. It is an offence at law in this country, Count Laszlo, to seek to learn confidential matters with which one has no business.’
A look of impatience and annoyance crossed the nobleman’s face. ‘Not my business?’ cried he. ‘How dare you speak so! Quite apart from any other consideration, I have invested a large amount of money in Mr Hardy’s present production. Anything which might affect that production, and my investment in it, is therefore certainly my business.’
‘What your interest in the matter may be is for you to judge, Count Laszlo. For myself, my duty is clear. If I am indeed retained by Mr Hardy, it is to look into certain matters and report back to him. I am not retained to retail his private business to anyone who happens to drop by of an evening.’
‘Bah! You are making a mistake, Mr Holmes, to trifle with me in this way!’
‘I assure you it is no trifling matter to me,’ returned Holmes.
‘And nor to me, sir! I must insist upon your answering my questions!’
‘And I must insist upon declining. May I make a suggestion?’
‘What is it?’
‘That if there is anything you wish to know, you put your questions to Mr Hardy.’
‘But he tells me he knows nothing! He says that you have not yet reported to him!’
‘Well, well. No doubt I shall do so within the next few days, if I have anything to report. You can ask him again then.’
‘You refuse to tell me anything?’
‘It is not a matter of refusal, Count Laszlo; the questions you are asking are quite improper and as such are not questions which it is in my power either to refuse or allow. Indeed, it may be that I am guilty of a professional lapse by even standing here, speaking to you at all.’
‘Bah!’ cried our visitor again. ‘You have not heard the last of me, Mr Holmes! This matter is not closed!’
‘But I regret, Count Laszlo, that this interview must be.’
With a look of anger in his eye, our visitor thereupon clapped his hat on his head and left the room without another word. A moment later, I heard the front door slam.
‘What a modest, unassuming gentleman Count Laszlo is!’ remarked Holmes with a chuckle, as he resumed his seat by the fire. ‘If he would but exercise a little patience, he will discover soon enough what I have learnt! As I remarked earlier, Watson, we are wading in deeper waters than was at first apparent!’
VI
Holmes was out all the following morning, but returned at lunch-time. He appeared in good spirits and, as he helped himself to bread and cheese, he described his morning to me.
‘I have been endeavouring to interest the authorities at Scotland Yard in our little investigation,’ said he. ‘It has been a decidedly uphill task, somewhat, I imagine, like trying to interest a costermonger in the subtleties of medieval Latin. I was passed in turn from one official to another, until I ended up at length with Inspector Athelney Jones. I don’t believe you have met Jones, Watson. It is a pleasure you will have this afternoon, should you care to accompany us. He is a large, burly man. Indeed, so stout is he that I have wondered sometimes if his corpulence was not perhaps designed by a benevolent Nature to compensate for his intellect, which tends in the opposite direction. Still, on this occasion he did eventually manage to grasp the relevant fact, that in my opinion an attempt at murder is in prospect, which may well succeed unless we act to prevent it. In short, he has agreed to accompany me to Hardy’s Theatre this afternoon and observe things for himself. I rather fancy that the drama off stage will prove every bit as compelling as that on stage. Will you come?’
‘Nothing could prevent it!’
‘Excellent! I may require you to hold Inspector Jones in check. He has a tendency to approach matters like a bull at a gate, and if by his lack of subtlety he reveals our intentions too soon it could be fatal to our plans. If our murderer is frightened off, we may lose the chance of making an arrest.’
‘You are confident that he will make his attempt today?’
‘It must be so. The full dress-rehearsal takes place this evening. Provided it goes acceptably well, many of the company will not come to the theatre at all tomorrow and the day after that will be opening night. Tonight, then, we may be certain, is the moment that hooded villain has planned for his diabolical scheme.’
‘We must prevent this monstrous crime at all costs!’ I cried.
‘Certainly we must,’ agreed my friend. ‘That is, of course, the paramount consideration. Nevertheless, there are others.’
‘I cannot think of any.’
‘There is the consideration, for a start, of apprehending the villain.’
‘Surely, if we prevent the crime, it will be by apprehending the villain.’
‘Not necessarily. If he realises we have discovered the truth, he will not act. Thus, although we should have prevented the crime, we would have no grounds for an arrest. The villain might be able to provide some perfectly plausible explanation of his actions and deny all knowledge of the deadly trap-door. If so, it would probably be impossible to prove that he was not telling the truth.’
‘We should have prevented his mischief, anyway.’
‘That is true, but he may find some other way to achieve his end. In my experience, those with murder in their heart rarely abandon their plans after the first setback. We must, therefore, seize the villain in the very act of carrying out his monstrous design, at the point when it will be utterly impossible for him to protest his innocence. It is for this reason that we must be in position in good time. I am afraid, therefore, that our vigil is likely to be a long and tedious one. There will be no light by which we might read and we shall have to remain in complete silence. Taken all in all, it may be that our chief occupation will be in preventing Inspector Jones from falling asleep.’
We took a cab to Scotland Yard shortly after lunch, from where Inspector Jones accompanied us to the theatre. He was, as Holmes had described, a large, burly and plethoric man, but with a pair of very keen and twinkling eyes, which had the appearance of spying furtively upon the world from behind his puffy red cheeks. As we travelled to Hardy’s Theatre, he asked numerous questions concerning the business that was taking us there, to all of which Sherlock Holmes gave patient and detailed answers.
‘So,’ said the policeman at length, in a husky, wheezy voice, ‘let us sum the matter up. Some person has, it seems, been making a nuisance of himself and now, if your theory is to be believed, Mr Holmes, this same person intends to commit murder.’
‘That is correct.’
‘If you don’t mind my pointing it out,’ remarked Jones after a moment, in a portentous tone, ‘it seems something of an increase in violence, I must say, to pass from pushing people over and turning gas-taps off, to plotting a murder.’
‘I quite agree, but it is the only conclusion possible from the care with which the trap-door in the stage has been prepared.’
‘Well, I shall have a look at it when we get there and give you my opinion.’
‘By all means.’
At the theatre, we found Hardy in his office, sorting through piles of papers on his desk. He had the air of one with much work to do and little time to do it in, and hardly seemed to be listening when Holmes explained that we wished to take another look in the basement, but would probably not stay long. I had the impression that Inspector Jones was about to hold forth on some topic or other to the theatre manager, but Holmes ushered him along the corridor.
‘I do not want to tell Hardy our true purpose in being here,’ said he, as we descended the stairs to the basement. ‘I am not confident that his discretion can be relied upon, especially in his present distracted state of mind.’
In the chamber beneath the stage, we lit the gas and made a careful examination of every alcove and corner, until we were satisfied that there could be no one hiding there. Then Holmes put up the ladder immediately beneath the trap-door, and invited Jones to clamber up and take a look for himself.
‘As you can see,’ said Holmes, when the policeman had taken his burly frame to the very top of the ladder, ‘the safety-bolts are all unfastened. If you now examine the wooden bar, to which the cord is attached, you will observe that the four screws which secured it to the ceiling have been removed. It is now held in place only by the two brackets, which have been recently added. Careful, Inspector! If it slips from the brackets, it will fall and the trap-door will at once drop open!’
‘I don’t need you to tell me about screws and brackets, Mr Holmes,’ returned Jones in a husky voice. ‘I’ve seen one or two screws in my time, I can tell you. What we have to establish is why these changes have been made.’
‘Surely it is clear,’ returned Holmes in an impatient tone. ‘Dr Watson saw the mystery figure in this part of the basement. It is evident that he intends to pull out the wooden bar by tugging on this cord, in which case anyone standing up there would undoubtedly fall on to these flags and would almost certainly be killed.’
‘Well,’ said Jones as he slowly descended the ladder; ‘that is your theory, anyway, Mr Holmes.’
‘What else do you suggest?’
‘I am not much of a one for theories,’ replied the policeman, in an annoyingly complacent tone, ‘but I can see flaws in other people’s. How, for a start, can the murderer know that anyone will obligingly stand on the trap-door just when he wishes them to?’
‘Because he has observed where the various actors stood at the rehearsals.’
; Jones snorted. ‘Just because an actor stands in a place once doesn’t mean he will stand there again,’ said he dismissively.
‘But it does,’ Holmes persisted. ‘There are marks painted on the stage, to guide the actors, so that they will be in approximately the same position at each performance.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, it is the case, I assure you.’
‘Mind you,’ said the policeman, ‘I have never seen any play more than once, so I wouldn’t know if the actors occupied the same positions on different nights or not. Once is quite enough for me, I always say.’
‘I am sure you do; but may we return to the matter in hand?’
‘The matter in hand, as I see it,’ returned Jones, looking up at the ceiling, ‘is that trap-door. In my opinion, there is something decidedly suspect about it. But what makes you so sure that murder is intended?’
‘Simply because I think it more than likely that anyone falling through the trap on to this hard floor would break his neck. Would you not agree?’
‘Possibly,’ replied the policeman in a cautious tone. ‘Rather than rushing into theories, I prefer to wait and see what happens.’
‘We are not likely to see anything if we don’t conceal ourselves soon,’ said Holmes with a glance at his watch. ‘Let us put the ladder away, dowse the light, and make ourselves somewhat less visible!’
In a few moments, we had taken up our position behind a large stack of crates, packed with boots and shoes of all shapes and sizes. Above our heads, someone was sweeping the stage, but, save that soft, rhythmic sound, the whole theatre was in perfect silence. Crouching on the floor in that dark room, I found myself reflecting on the events that had brought us there. If Holmes was correct – and I could not doubt that he was – a most devilish plot was about to reach its climax. This thought appalled me beyond measure. How could anyone plan such a cruel and heartless crime? I had seen vicious fighting during my army service in India; I had witnessed death, both of friend and foe; but this cold, calculated plotting of murder, by someone probably known to the intended victim, was surely of another order of cruelty altogether. Merely to contemplate it made the hairs rise on the back of my neck and my blood run cold. And what, besides, could be the purpose of so horrible a crime? For some time, I considered the matter from every angle, but could reach no definite conclusion.
The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 15
