The West End Horror

by Nicholas Meyer

  “You’ve as good as told me she had, Sir Arthur.”

  Sullivan frowned, reached into his breast pocket, and withdrew a cigarette case. He extracted a cigarette, tapped it several times in a nervous tattoo against the box, then allowed Holmes to light it for him, throwing his head back gratefully as he blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “You must understand first that Gilbert runs the Savoy,” he began. “He runs it like a military outpost, with the strictest discipline, on stage and off. You may have observed that the men’s and women’s dressing rooms are on opposite sides of the stage. Congregation betwixt them is strictly forbidden. Conduct of the company while in the theatre—and to a very great degree outside of it—must satisfy Gilbert’s mania for propriety.

  “If his attitude seems to you gentlemen somewhat extreme, let me say that I understand and sympathise with what he has been trying to accomplish. The reputation of actresses has never been a very good one. The word itself has for many years been accepted as a synonym for something rather worse. Mr. Gilbert is attempting at the Savoy to expunge that particular synonym. His methods may seem severe and ludicrous at times, and—” he hesitated, tapping an ash—“individuals may suffer, but in the long run, I believe, he will have performed a useful service.

  “Now, as to Jessie Rutland. I engaged her three years ago and never had any cause to regret my decision. She was, I knew, an orphan, raised in Woking, who had sung in various church choirs. She had no family nor income of her own. Gaining a position at the Savoy meant everything to her. For the first time in her life, she not only earned a decent wage, she had a home, a family, a place to which she belonged, and she was grateful for it.”

  He stopped, momentarily overcome, whether by mental or physical anguish it was impossible to say.

  “Go on,” Holmes ordered. His eyes were closed and the tips of his fingers pressed together beneath his chin—his customary attitude when listening.

  “She was a dear child, very pretty, with a lovely soprano—a little coarse in the middle range, but that would have improved with time and practise. She was a hard worker and a willing one, always ready to do as she was told.

  “My contact with the theatre is generally of the slightest I engage the singers after auditioning them, and as the songs are written, I play them over for the company and soloists until they are learned. And I conduct on opening nights if I am able.” He smiled grimly. “Mr. Grossmith is not the only member of the company who has used drugs to get through a performance.”

  “I am no stranger to them myself, Sir Arthur. Please continue.”

  “Normally, Mr. Cellier rehearses the chorus and soloists. It was a surprise to me, therefore, when several weeks ago, Jessie approached me after a rehearsal in which I had gone over some new material with the chorus, and asked if she might speak with me privately, as she was in need of advice. She was clearly distressed, and looking at her closely, I perceived that she had been weeping.

  “My first impulse was to refer her to Gilbert. He is much more popular with the company than I—” this stated with a wistful air—“for through he sometimes tyrannises them and plays the martinet, they know he loves them and has their interests very much at heart, whereas I am a relative stranger. When I suggested this course of action to her, however, she started to cry again, saying that it was impossible.

  “’If I confide in Mr. Gilbert, I am lost!’ she cried. ‘I will lose my place, and he will be harmed, as well!’” The composer sighed and dusted an imaginary speck of ash off his sleeve. “I am a busy man, Mr. Holmes, with many demands upon my time, both musical and otherwise.” He coughed and. put out his cigarette, his eyes avoiding our own. “Nevertheless, I was touched by the girl’s appeal and I agreed to listen to her story. We met the next afternoon at a little teashop in the Marylebone Road. We were not likely to be recognised there, or if we were, it would be difficult to place any sordid construction on our presence.

  “Tell me,’ I said, when we had given our order. Tell me what has upset you.’ ‘I will not take up your time with preliminaries,’ said she. ‘Recently I made the acquaintance of a gentleman to whom I have become most attached. He is quite perfect in every way, and his behaviour towards myself has never been less than proper. Knowing the stringent rules governing conduct at the Savoy, we have behaved with the utmost circumspection. But, oh, Sir Arthur, he is so very perfect that even Mr. Gilbert must have approved! I have fallen in love!’ she cried, ‘and so has he!’ ‘But my dear,’ I responded warmly, ‘this is no cause for tears. You are to be congratulated! As for Mr. Gilbert, I give you my word of honour he will dance at your wedding!’

  “At this point, Mr. Holmes, she began to cry in the midst of the restaurant, though she did her best to conceal the fact by holding a small cambric handkerchief before her face. There can be no wedding,’ she sobbed, “because he is already married. That is what he has just told me.’ ‘If he has deceived you in this fashion,’ I retorted, much surprised, ‘then he is utterly unworthy of your affections and you are well rid of him.’ Tou don’t understand,’ said she, regaining her composure, Tie has not deceived me—as you mean. His wife is an invalid, confined to a nursing home in Bombay. She—’”

  “One moment,” Sherlock Holmes broke in, opening his eyes. “Did she say ‘Bombay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pray continue.” His eyes closed again.

  ” ‘His wife can neither hear nor speak nor walk,’ she told me, ‘as she was the victim of a stroke five years ago. Nevertheless, he is chained to her.’ She was unable to suppress a trace of bitterness as she spoke, though I could not at the time—nor can I now—find it in my heart to reproach her for it. ‘He feared to tell me of his plight,’ she went on, ‘for fear of losing me. Yet when he saw the direction our affections were taking, he knew he must disclose the truth. And now I don’t know what to do!’ she concluded and pulled forth her handkerchief yet again while I sat across the small table from her and pondered.

  “Mr. Holmes, you can imagine how I felt. The woman had placed me in a most delicate position. I am part owner of the Savoy and in theory, at least, sympathise with Mr. Gilbert’s aspirations for its company; thus, my duties clearly lay in one direction. But I am a human being and, moreover, a man who has experienced a very similar problem,† and so my emotions and personal inclinations lay in quite another.”

  “What did you advise?”

  He looked at the detective without flinching. “I advised her to follow her heart. Oh, I know what you will say, but we are only here once, Mr. Holmes—at least, that is my conviction—and I believe we should seize what chance of happiness we can. I told her I would not reveal her secret to Mr. Gilbert, and I was as good as my word, but I warned her that I could not shield her from the consequences should he learn of her intrigue from another source.”

  “I begin to understand a little,” said Holmes, “though there is much that remains obscure. Did she say anything at all concerning her young man that would enable us to identify him?”

  “She was most careful to avoid doing so. The closest she came to an indiscretion was to let slip that the wife’s nursing home was in Bombay. I am quite certain she made no other reference.”

  “I see.” Holmes closed his eyes briefly and tapped his fingertips together. “And how much of all this did you tell the police this morning?”

  The composer blushed and dropped his eyes.

  “Not a word?” Holmes was unable to conceal a trace of scorn. “The woman cannot now be compromised, surely. She has no place to lose.”

  “But I, I can be compromised,” the other responded softly. “If it emerges that I knew of a liaison at the Savoy and failed to mention it to Gilbert—” He sighed. “Relations between us have never been very cordial, and of late they have become more strained than usual. He has never got over the fact of my knighthood, you know. But we need each other, Mr. Holmes!” He laughed shortly and without mirth. The ironic truth is that we cannot function apart. Oh, I grant
you The Lost Chord’ and The Golden Legend,’ but when all is said and done, I have the hideous knowledge that my forte is The Mikado and others of that ilk. He knows it, too, and knows that it is for our Savoy operas, if anything, that we shall be remembered. I have not long to live,” he concluded, “but while I breathe, I cannot afford to antagonise him further.”

  “I understand you, Sir Arthur, and I apologise for having seemed to pass judgement One final question.”

  Sullivan looked up.

  “Do you know Bram Stoker’s wife?”

  Toe question took him by surprise, but he recovered and shrugged. “His wife is a good friend of Gilbert’s, I believe. That is all I can tell you.”

  Holmes rose. “Thank you for your time. Come, Watson.”

  “I trust you will be discreet—if possible,” Sullivan murmured as we moved towards the door.

  “Discretion is a part of my profession. By the way—” Holmes hesitated, his hand on the knob. “I saw Ivanhoe.”‡

  Sullivan looked at him over the rim of his pince-nez. “Oh?”

  “I quite liked it.”

  “Really? That’s more than I did.” He stared moodily at the table top before him as Holmes opened the door.

  Bram Stoker was standing there.

  “Did you observe his boots?” the detective murmured softly after we had passed.

  * Sullivan succumbed to his ailment five years later.

  † Sullivan’s mistress was an American, Mrs. Ronalds, who was separated but not divorced. They remained devoted to one another throughout much of his life.

  ‡ Ivanhoe was Sullivan’s sole excursion into the realm of grand opera. It was not generally accounted successful.

  TEN

  THE MAN WITH BROWN EYES

  Sherlock Holmes refused to elaborate on his observation regarding Bram Stoker’s boots, the man’s eavesdropping, or Ellen Terry’s reaction to his enquiry after Stoker’s Soho flat Indeed, he declined to volunteer any thoughts upon leaving the Lyceum.

  “Later, Watson,” said he as we stood on the kerb before the theatre. Things are not so simple as I had first supposed.”

  I was about to ask him what he meant by this when he took me by the sleeve.

  “I must spend the afternoon in some research, Doctor. Might I prevail upon you to assist me in a small matter?”

  “Anything you like.”

  I want you to find Bernard Shaw and learn the meaning of his eccentric behaviour last night.”

  “You begin to attach some importance to my theory, then?”

  “It may be,” he answered, smiling. “At all events, I think it would be as well to have all the threads of this tangled skein in our hands. It is almost lunchtime, and I fancy you will come The West End Honor come upon him at the Cafe Royal. I know he likes to take his meals there. Good luck.” He squeezed my arm and started rapidly down the street.

  “Where shall we meet?” I called after him.

  “Baker Street”

  When he had rounded the corner, I wasted no time but hailed a cab and hastened directly to the Cafe Royal, a snowbound mile from the Lyceum. Indeed, all the events in which we found ourselves immersed at present had taken place within the space of a single square mile, a thought which made me pause as I considered it. The world of the theatre proved to be more insular than any I had heretofore encountered. All denizens of that world appeared to know one another at least slightly, creating an atmosphere so domestically intimate that in it a single sneeze would likely be overheard by a thousand people.

  The Cafe Royal was crowded when I entered, and, it seemed to me, in a collective state of some confusion. Nervous clusters of people whispered intently together, huddling ‘round tables and glancing apprehensively over their shoulders.

  “Doctor!”

  I peered about at the agitated throng and beheld Bernard Shaw, seated at a table with another man, whose coarse appearance disturbed me at once. He was short and squat, with eyes too closely set on either side of a prizefighter’s pug nose, and his head sat awkwardly atop a thick, muscular neck, which threatened to burst the confines of his collar and tie.

  This is Mr. Harris,” the critic informed me as I joined them, dropping into a chair opposite. “He’s one of our leading publishers. We are here commiserating. The whole place is,” he added sardonically, looking about “And speculating.”

  “About what?”

  They looked at one another briefly.

  “About Oscar Wilde’s folly,” boomed Mr. Harris in a voice designed to be heard across the room. My face must have betrayed my confusion.

  “You recall my running out of Simpson’s last night, Doctor, I’ve no doubt?” enquired Shaw.

  “I could hardly help remarking upon it at the time.”

  He grunted and stirred his coffee with a disinterested motion, leaning his cheek upon an open palm. “It was the beginning of a horrible night. In the first place, some maniac assaulted me outside the restaurant.”

  “Assaulted you?” I could feel the blood quickening in my veins and the hairs rising on the back of my neck.

  “Some kind of practical joke, but it served to delay me when I thought speed counted most. I was trying to prevent the arrest of the Marquess of Queensbeny. I rushed right here—to this very booth!—and sat with Frank here, doing my best to dissuade him.”

  “Wilde?”

  He nodded.

  “We bent his ear,” the publisher agreed in a stentorian bellow, “but it was no use. He sat through it like a man in a trance.”*

  Harris’s accent was impossible to place, partially owing to the volume at which he spoke. It sounded alternately Welsh, Irish, and American. Later I learned that his background was much in dispute.

  “He cannot prove he has been libelled?” I asked.

  “It’s worse than that,” Shaw explained. “According to the law—which, as Mr. Bumble noted, is an ass—he leaves himself open for Queensberry to prove he hasn’t”

  “The Marquess was arrested this morning,” Harris concluded in a dull rumble.

  They returned glumly to their coffee, leaving me to ponder this. I wondered if I dared turn the conversation backwards and decided to attempt it: “What of your assault? I take it you were not injured?”

  “Oh, that.” Shaw wiggled his fingers airily. “Some kind of practical joke. I was seized from behind, forced to swallow some disagreeable concoction and then released. Can you imagine such nonsense? Right in the heart of London!” He shook his head at the thought of it, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

  “Did you get a look at the man? I assume it was one man?”

  “I tell you I was paying no attention, Doctor! I simply wanted to be let go and do what I could to prevent Wilde’s destroying himself. In that I failed,” he added with a sigh.

  “It is a foregone conclusion, then, that he will lose the case?”

  “Utterly foregone,” replied Harris. “Oscar Wilde, the greatest literary light of his time—” I noticed Shaw winced slightly at this—“and in three months—” Harris held up his fingers—“in three months, less, perhaps, he will be in total eclipse. People will fear to speak his name except in derision.” He intoned all this as though delivering a sermon; clearly, he did not know how to speak below a roar. Yet for all his vocal posturing, I sensed a very real distress on his part.

  “I should not be surprised if some of his works are proscribed,” Shaw added. “Maybe all.”

  At the time I could not understand how grave the issue was. But in three months Frank Harris’s prophecy had fulfilled itself utterly and Oscar Wilde was sent to prison for two years, his glorious career in ashes.

  Ignorant of the facts surrounding the case, my mind returned to the matter at hand, and looking up at me, Shaw perceived my train of thought. “Well, but how’s the murder?” he enquired with a rueful smile, as much to say, “Here’s a more cheerful topic.”

  “It’s two murders, as I expect you 11 discover in this afternoon’s editions,” I said
and told them of the events at the Savoy Theatre, pointing out to Shaw that if he had not bolted from the restaurant the previous evening, he should have known of them earlier.

  They listened to my recital, open-mouthed.

  “Murder at the Savoy!” Harris gasped when I had done. “What is happening? Is the entire fabric of our community to be rent by scandal and horror within the narrow space of four days?” Somehow he managed to convey the impression of relishing the prospect. He was certainly a contradictory character.

  “It begins to resemble something of Shakespeare’s,” Shaw agreed slowly, his sharp tongue for once at a loss. “Corpses and what-not strewn over the entire West End.”

  “Does either of you gentlemen know Bram Stoker?”

  They looked at me, confused by the turn the talk had taken.

  “Why d’ye want to know?” Harris asked.

  “I don’t, but Sherlock Holmes does.”

  “What about him?”

  “That is the question I am putting to you.”

  Shaw hesitated, regarding me and then exchanging glances with his publisher.

  “He’s an odd one, all right,” Harris allowed, playing with his coffee spoon. “His name isn’t Bram, of course. It’s Abraham.”

  Indeed, What else?”

  “He was born in Dublin or thereabouts, I believe, and has an older brother who is a prominent physician.”

  “Not Dr. William Stoker?”

  Shaw nodded. The same. He’s due for a knighthood this spring.”

  “And what of Bram?”

  He hunched his shoulders, then dropped them. “Athletic champion of Dublin University.”

  “What was his occupation before entering Irving’s employ?”

  The Irishman chuckled and looked something like his usual elfin self.

  “All roads lead to Rome, Doctor. He was a drama critic”

  “A critic?” I dimly perceived a pattern to Holmes’s suspicions.

  “And sometime author—of the frustrated variety.”