For the Sake of the Game

by Laurie R. King

  Holmes turned to see Mademoiselle Brett watching from across the room, her eyes shining.

  The call came for the second show. This time, Holmes got through the knock-about music flawlessly and received an approving nod from Hardwicke.

  The second time through Mademoiselle’s music, he found himself distracted by the knowledge of his predecessor’s illicit ogling. He also found the musical arrangement boring. Almost without thinking, he threw in an arpeggio for ornamentation at the end of a phrase, receiving an immediate condemnatory look from Hardwicke. Holmes lowered his own gaze in apology, hoping that he had not earned his dismissal.

  Yet on the very next phrase, another arpeggio leapt into the performance. Only this one came from Mademoiselle Brett herself, a silvery “ha ha ha HA!”

  Holmes looked up at the stage in surprise, and she threw him a smile. Encouraged, he added another arpeggio, and she improvised a response. They continued in this back-and-forth manner within the space available in the arrangement, and she finished with a cadenza into a trill that had Hardwicke scrambling to find an ending.

  Under the applause, the most tumultuous of the evening, Hardwicke pointed at Holmes, then drew his finger across his own throat.

  They finished without further incident. As the musicians exited backstage, Hardwicke stepped in front of Holmes.

  “How dare you!” he thundered. “Where do you come off tampering with our music, you impudent snail? As far as I’m concerned—”

  “I thought it was lovely.”

  They turned to see Mademoiselle Brett standing there.

  “You did?” said Hardwicke.

  “I did,” she said. “We shall keep it in.”

  “Very well, then,” said Hardwicke. “But this fellow—”

  “Should come in early tomorrow,” she said. “I will need to work out the arrangement. Shall we say three o’clock, Mr. Holmes?”

  “I am at your service, Mademoiselle,” said Holmes.

  “Until then,” she said. “Good night.”

  She walked away. Hardwicke turned back to him.

  “You’d best be careful,” he said. “I’ve got my eye on you, boy.”

  Shortly before three the next day, Holmes arrived at the theater. Mademoiselle Brett was nowhere to be found. He went down the steps to the storage room. As he entered, he was aware of a light flickering in a corner, concealed from view by the shelves.

  “Is that you, Mr. Holmes?” called Mademoiselle Brett from that direction.

  “It is,” he replied.

  “Bring your violin, and we shall get to work.”

  He removed it from its box and went to join her.

  She sat before a desk in the corner, sheaves of music piled upon it, along with inkpots and a box of pens and pencils. A small, faded rug extended under everything.

  “Cosy,” commented Holmes.

  “This is where I write,” she said, turning to him. “My sanctuary away from the bustle.”

  “You compose?”

  “All of the music for the show.”

  “I noticed the S. Brett on my score, but I didn’t know it meant you.”

  “It does. Now, what can you tell me about this?”

  She pointed to Scarpelli’s “Heaven” notation in the score.

  “By my predecessor, apparently,” said Holmes. “I had no idea what it meant.”

  “But you did look,” she said.

  “Forgive me. It shall never happen again.”

  “Yet you haven’t erased it,” she said sternly.

  He produced a rubber eraser from his pocket. “I was planning to do so today.”

  “Well, no harm done,” she said, taking it from him and removing the notation. “Now, I’ve written out those ornamentations and sketched out a call-and-response for a cadenza at the end. Shall we give it a go?”

  They rehearsed until she was satisfied with the new arrangement. At the end, Holmes bowed to her.

  “Impressive work, Mademoiselle,” he said. “I am honored to be part of your creative process.”

  “Truthfully, Mr. Holmes, I am happiest when I am down here, lost in my music,” she said. “The performing runs a distant second.”

  “I would think you’d find this place isolating.”

  “On the contrary—my mind, unfettered by the distractions of the world, runs free. And there is one thing down here in the depths that stimulates it. Shall I demonstrate?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then close your eyes—and listen!”

  He did. He heard nothing at first, then gradually became aware of the low sound of rushing water.

  “We must be—” he began.

  Then he stopped as her lips met his. He didn’t open his eyes until she had parted from him.

  “That was for your gallantry yesterday,” she said, her eyes gleaming, “and this—this is because I want to.”

  She stepped forward and kissed him again, her arms encircling his neck.

  “Have you never had a proper kiss from a girl?” she asked when she was done.

  “I’m not sure that any of this is proper,” he replied.

  “No need for propriety,” she said. “You’re in the theatre, now.”

  She took her handkerchief and dabbed at his lips, then patted him on the cheek.

  “I would have kissed your mouse, but you’re too tall,” she said. “Time for your lesson with Papa.” She gathered up her music and left.

  He stood for a long while, then looked down at the floor. Something small and reddish-brown caught his eye. He reached down and plucked a splinter of wood protruding from the base of the shelves. He examined it thoughtfully, then put it in his pocket.

  At his lesson with Brett, he once again applied a sunburn.

  “I think I did it,” he said, examining his work in the mirror.

  Brett shook his head. “Go outside,” he advised. “Come back and report to me.”

  Holmes left. He returned shortly thereafter. If a blush could have appeared through the powder, it would have.

  “People laughed at me,” he said.

  “Of course, they did,” said Brett. “Whatever works in here will be too much for daylight. Always use about half of what you think you should use. Now, wash it off and try again.”

  This time, Holmes returned looking sunburnt and happy.

  “Success,” he said.

  “Well done. Now, about that noticeable nose of yours—”

  “What would you recommend?” asked Holmes, staring at it in the mirror. “Broaden it with some form of putty?”

  “Too obvious, too time-consuming,” said Brett. “Put these on.”

  He handed Holmes a pair of spectacles with thick lenses.

  “Describe the man in the mirror,” commanded Brett.

  “A sunburnt fellow with glasses,” said Holmes.

  “Did you notice the nose?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Here endeth the lesson. Wash up and go play your fiddle.”

  Holmes played flawlessly that night. When he came to the measure where “Heaven” had been, he stared rigidly at the page, only glancing up when he came to the dual cadenza. Mademoiselle Brett’s voice soared through the hall like an angel’s, and when the applause thundered in response, she winked at Holmes as she curtsied.

  The next day was Saturday, and they had four shows to play, starting at two. Holmes rose at the crack of dawn and made his way to Dock Street. He stood outside the tavern and listened. Then he began to walk towards the river.

  He stopped periodically, cocking his head, occasionally stooping to touch his fingers to the ground. When he reached Wapping High Street, he spotted a narrow stone stairway going down to the river’s edge. It was low tide, and the bottom steps were slippery. He negotiated them with care, then stood, looking up and down as the waters swirled and flowed by him.

  To his left, a boat pulled into the dock at the rear of the Wapping Police Station. Three officers stepped out, and three more took th
eir place. Holmes watched as the new shift rowed away, then climbed the steps and walked to the precinct. The sergeant at the desk directed him to the offices of the Thames Division, where another sergeant looked up expectantly as he entered.

  “How may I help you, sir?” he inquired.

  “Do you have a recent list of bodies pulled from the river?” asked Holmes.

  The sergeant pointed to a sheet of paper pinned to a board behind him. Holmes looked at the last several entries.

  “Where are they kept?” he asked.

  “Think you might know one?” asked the sergeant.

  “I might,” said Holmes. “A man. It would have been this past week.”

  The sergeant plucked a ring of keys from the desk.

  “Come with me, sir,” he said. “I hope you didn’t have a large breakfast. This is an unpleasant experience.”

  “The dead are not strangers to me,” said Holmes. “Lead on.”

  The sergeant took him outside.

  “We pull one or two corpses out of the river every day,” he said as they walked toward a nearby church. “We take ’em to the dead-house at Saint Saviour’s until someone comes to claim ’em.”

  They went around the back of the church where a small, badly painted building stood at the rear of the graveyard. The sergeant unlocked it, then tied his handkerchief over his mouth and nose. Holmes did the same, and the sergeant opened the door.

  There were no coffins or mortuary tables. The dead, in various states of decomposition and bloat, were unceremoniously laid out on stone slabs that might be fashioned into tombstones when no longer used here. The only protection allowed to each corpse was a filthy sheet. The collective stench in the closed quarters was horrendous, much worse than anything Holmes had experienced in his previous summer’s employment.

  The sergeant consulted his list, then uncovered the body of a man. Holmes squatted down, looked, then shook his head.

  The sergeant replaced the sheet, then moved to another.

  This time Holmes looked more closely at the deceased, who appeared to have reached the end of his life in his forties. There was a large bruise near his left temple, as well as some older mark on his neck.

  “Where was he found?” asked Holmes.

  “Washed up at the Isle of Dogs on Wednesday,” said the sergeant.

  “Any inquest yet?”

  “On Monday, one o’clock at Daughtry’s Pub.”

  Holmes looked at the bruise on the temple.

  “Any other marks on him?” he asked.

  “Back of the head,” said the sergeant. “Worse than the front.”

  “May I see?”

  “You may not,” said the sergeant. “You may not touch him in any manner or— Here, what do you think you’re about?”

  Holmes had pulled a pair of calipers from inside his jacket and, to the sergeant’s bewilderment, measured the fingers on both of the man’s hands.

  “What on earth is that for?” asked the sergeant.

  Holmes stood, absentmindedly tapping the calipers on the palm of his left hand.

  “The fingers on his left hand are longer than those on the right,” he said. “Did the surgeon note that?”

  “He did not,” said the sergeant. “Does it mean something?”

  “It means everything,” said Holmes. “Was there water in his lungs or not?”

  “There was not,” said the sergeant. “Which means what, clever boy?”

  “That he was dead before his body went into the water,” said Holmes impatiently.

  “Do you know this man?” asked the sergeant.

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  “Right,” said the sergeant. “I’ll be wanting your name and address now.”

  “Sherlock Holmes, 17 Montague Street.”

  “Sherlock Holmes,” repeated the sergeant. “I know that name.”

  “It’s on a list at the station house,” said Holmes. “But it’s only of interest if I’m arrested as I was last Tuesday. Talk to your land-based colleagues, they’ll tell you. Thank you, Sergeant. I will see you at the inquest.”

  He walked quickly out of the dead-house, then ripped the handkerchief from his face and bent over, retching. The sergeant followed him out and observed him with amusement.

  “Happens to everyone the first time,” he said sympathetically as he locked the door. “You get used to it.”

  “Wonderful,” muttered Holmes as he straightened and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. “I look forward to that. Good day.”

  He glanced at his watch. There was no lesson on Saturday due to the extra shows. He stopped at a tea shop to replenish his emptied stomach, then went to the theatre, hoping the stench of his breath had dissipated with his lunch. He arrived some twenty minutes before the first show. He ran down the stairs to retrieve the violin from the storeroom, then ran back up to tune it and warm up.

  His thoughts raced, even as the part of his brain responsible for producing music operated by some automatic process. He made no errors, but there was little interaction with his fellow musicians, and none at all with Mademoiselle Brett.

  At the supper break, he had no appetite, taking only a mug of porter. Mademoiselle Brett came over to him, her lovely face cast in an expression of concern.

  “What is the matter, Mr. Holmes?” she asked. “You’ve barely acknowledged my existence today. Were my kisses so distasteful to you?”

  “Quite the contrary,” said Holmes. “In fact, I can think of little else at the moment, but I don’t want to lose my place in the music because of the distraction.”

  “That’s more like it,” she said.

  “Perhaps you could distract me again later?” he asked, smiling.

  “Perhaps I could,” she said, smiling back. “Now, go play the overture.”

  He sailed through the last show, then almost fled to the storage room. He placed his candle on her desk, made his arrangements, then tucked the violin under his chin and began to play softly.

  She appeared at the other end of the room as if the music itself had summoned her, stepping from the darkness into the pool of light cast by the candle.

  “I may not have much time,” she whispered. Then she stopped and stared down at Holmes’ feet.

  He had rolled back the ancient carpet by her desk, revealing a circular grating set flush with the floor.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He placed the violin and bow gently in their case, which rested on her desk.

  “Every occupation takes its toll on the body over time,” he said. “Even music leaves its traces.”

  He pressed his hands together in front of his chest in an attitude of prayer. “Notice anything?” he asked.

  “No. What am I supposed to see?”

  “I may not be a professional, but I have played for years,” he said. “Anyone who plays a string instrument from childhood will end up with longer fingers on the left hand, due to the constant reaching up and down the neck in pursuit of larger and larger intervals. The fingers on the right, whether they bow or strum, will remain the same.”

  “I never knew that,” she said.

  “Now, a longtime violinist or violist will end up with a mark on his neck where the instrument meets the skin. There is a man in the Saint Saviour’s dead-house with such a mark and with the disparity of length in his fingers. He also bears signs of violence upon the front and back of his head.”

  “What are you saying, Mr. Holmes?”

  “You loved a man who sank in the river,” Holmes sang softly. “It’s too bad he’s surfaced again.”

  “I never loved him!” she shouted hotly. “Never!”

  “He died here,” said Holmes. “In this room. On this spot. He was struck with his own violin case on the side of his head, tumbled back, and struck the back of his skull there.”

  He pointed to a crate, which had one corner sawn off. Traces of sawdust were still clinging to it. Then he tapped the grating with his foot.<
br />
  “There are many streams that have been buried under the spread of this city,” he said. “This grating has been removed and replaced recently. You tumbled his body into it, and he was carried off into the Thames. Then you cleaned this area of any traces of his blood. It’s always suggestive to find one section of a storage room to have been cleaned, while the rest is not.”

  “This is where I work,” she said, regaining her composure. “I like it orderly.”

  “No doubt,” said Holmes, reaching into his pocket, “but you missed this.”

  He pulled out the fragment of wood that he had found.

  “Rosewood,” he said. “Lovely color, often used for the better violin cases.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Is it? Your father led me to believe that Mr. Scarpelli had failed to return last week.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “His chair wobbles,” said Holmes. “He used a folded piece of cardboard under one leg to steady it. It was still on the floor by the stage when I came for my first performance. Had it been removed when he failed to turn up last week, that piece of cardboard would have been swept away before I began my tenure in that chair.”

  “Unless the boy who does the sweeping didn’t do a thorough job,” said Master Brett, stepping behind her. “Forgive the intrusion, Mr. Holmes. I was in search of my daughter, and couldn’t help but overhear your most interesting analysis. So, you believe that you have found Mr. Scarpelli among the dead? A pity—I had advanced him a small sum against his future wages. I fear that I shall not get it back now.”

  “It doesn’t seem likely,” agreed Holmes.

  “But do you really think that you can prove a killing based on a splinter of wood, a piece of cardboard, and some missing dust?” continued Brett.

  “There is this,” said Holmes, picking up the violin. “I had my suspicions the moment I picked it up.”

  “Why?” asked Mademoiselle Brett.

  “Because no violinist, no matter how desperate his straits had become, would have left this instrument behind or put it in a plain wooden box without padding. This is a Stradivarius, one of the finest violins ever made.”

  He put it under his chin and began to play.

  “Your kisses were exquisite, Mademoiselle,” he said, “but this is what I will miss most of all when I leave here. Most violinists only dream of playing such an instrument. When you heard me play it in my audition, you recognized its unique tone. Hence your scream, your pallor, all the reactions of shock thinking that a man you believed dead had somehow returned.”