The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

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The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Page 12

by Denis O. Smith


  ‘That way leads only to the stage door and the caretaker’s office,’ said Hardy, pointing to the right, as he turned left, into a long and dimly lit corridor, the walls of which were covered with grimy, whitewashed plaster, which was flaking off in many places. Near the top of the walls ran numerous water-pipes and gas-pipes. On the left side of the corridor was a pair of doors, which, our guide informed us, gave access to the chamber beneath the stage and, on the right a whole series of doors, closely spaced. ‘Miss Ballantyne’s dressing-room,’ remarked Hardy, as we passed the first of these; ‘Mr Xavier’s; Miss Summers’s; female chorus; male chorus; store-room for swords and umbrellas – equally dangerous objects, in my experience; store-room for hats and bonnets.’ The corridor then took a sharp turn to the right and, a few yards further on, a turn to the left.

  ‘Mr Webster’s dressing-room,’ said Hardy, as we passed another door on the right. A little further on was an open doorway. It was dark in the chamber beyond, but I had an impression of rows and rows of dresses. ‘One of the costume stores, as you can see,’ remarked Hardy, ‘for ladies’ day-dresses and historical costumes. The doors are always open, for it is important for the clothes to have air circulating about them all the time.’

  As he spoke, we passed another open doorway. The room within was, like the previous one, full of ladies’ costumes.

  ‘Ladies’ evening-dresses,’ explained Hardy. ‘This room has an interconnecting doorway with the other one, and to the rear of both of them are further rooms, containing the gentlemen’s costumes. And this,’ he continued, stopping before a closed door, ‘is the sewing-room. Further along the corridor is the boiler-room and another stair up to the main part of the theatre.’

  He pushed open the sewing-room door and we followed him in. It was a crowded room, with a very large table in the centre, several large rolls of material leaning against the walls, and three or four tailors’ dummies dressed in a variety of colourful costumes. A stove in the corner was blazing away and made the room seem very warm after the chill air of the corridor. An animated conversation appeared to be in progress, but it stopped as we entered.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies!’ cried Hardy, in a cheery voice. There were four women there, engaged in various tasks. One was standing at the large table, cutting out a piece of material with the help of a paper pattern. Another was working a sewing machine, a third was by the stove, pressing some garment with a heavy iron, and the fourth woman was seated on a chair in the corner, with a highly decorated costume draped across her lap, and a needle and thread in her hand.

  ‘These are the ladies who make the costumes which are the envy of all other companies!’ cried Hardy in a tone of great pleasure. ‘I am sure there are no finer seamstresses anywhere in London! From near and far they have come, to help make our company the success it is! Isn’t that so, Kathleen?’

  ‘From the four corners of the Earth, as you might say, Mr Hardy,’ responded the small sandy-haired woman he had addressed. ‘Greenwich, Hackney, the wilds of Norfolk and—’ she paused and glanced in the direction of the small, dark-haired girl, who was frowning with concentration at the ornate dress on her lap ‘—the North,’ she concluded at length.

  ‘Excuse me,’ responded the dark-haired girl, without lifting her eyes from her needlework, ‘but Dudley is in the Midlands.’

  ‘Well, it’s north of here, anyway,’ returned the sandy-haired woman with an air of finality.

  Mr Hardy chuckled and rubbed his hands together. ‘And how are you today, Jeanie?’ he asked, addressing the slim, auburn-haired woman, who was wielding the iron. ‘Jeanie is a woman of many talents,’ he remarked to us, ‘and has herself known the glamour of the footlights’ glare.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed the blonde-haired girl at the sewing-machine, in a quiet voice. ‘She played a duck in last year’s pantomime!’

  ‘Actually, it was the goose,’ returned Jeanie in an indignant tone.

  ‘And I am sure the goose was never played better!’ cried Hardy. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘to complete our introductions: over in the corner there is Katharine; and this very quiet young lady is Michéle.’ He indicated the blonde-haired girl, who nodded her head and mouthed some response, but so softly as to be almost inaudible. ‘Michéle has somewhat exotic antecedents,’ murmured Hardy to us.

  ‘She certainly has,’ said Kathleen. ‘Her father used to keep a pub out Hackney way.’

  Hardy chuckled again. ‘Now, ladies,’ said he, ‘this is Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, who have kindly agreed to help me get to the bottom of our recent troubles. Was it you, Katharine, that had the – hum! – unpleasant experience yesterday?’

  The small, dark-haired girl nodded her head.

  ‘I wonder then, Katharine, if you would be good enough to show these gentlemen where the unfortunate incident took place?’

  The girl put down her sewing with an air of reluctance, and led the way out of the room and along the corridor to the open doorway of the costume store. Hardy lit a lantern which hung on a hook beside the door and we followed him inside.

  ‘I was standing by this rail, sir,’ said the girl, indicating a long row of elaborate evening-dresses which hung from hooks on a rail by the left-hand wall. ‘I heard a noise behind me.’

  ‘What sort of noise?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘It’s hard to say, sir,’ she replied after a moment. ‘A little noise. I thought it might be mice – that sort of noise. There are lots of mice down here.’

  ‘But not so many as there used to be, I trust,’ interrupted Hardy quickly. ‘We took steps to deal with them,’ he explained to us.

  ‘Not so many, but still a few,’ the girl responded. ‘Anyway, I stopped what I was doing and listened, but the noise had stopped, too, so I thought perhaps I had imagined it. I went back to looking through the dresses and the noise came again. It sounded as if somebody was pushing through a rail of clothes and seemed to be right behind me. I stood very still and the noise stopped again. Then something touched me on the shoulder, like this.’ She raised her right arm and touched her right shoulder lightly with the tips of her fingers. ‘I thought it was a spider and tried to brush it off, but there was nothing there. Then I turned. Just here, where you are standing, sir, was a horrible dark figure, all in black, with a black hood on, just standing, looking at me.’

  The girl shut her eyes tightly and put her hand up to her face, as if to ward off the memory of the evil figure.

  ‘It must have been a horrible shock for you,’ said Holmes in a sympathetic voice. ‘I regret the necessity of asking you these questions, and thus rekindling the unpleasantness in your mind, but we must have all the facts. You say this figure was looking at you. You saw his face, then?’

  ‘No, sir,’ the girl replied, her breath short and sharp. ‘For he had no face.’

  ‘No face?’

  ‘There was nothing there, sir. Inside the big hood it was all blackness, just as if it was empty. Only the eyes showed, sharp and glittering.’

  ‘He was wearing a mask, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps, sir. I don’t know.’

  ‘What happened next?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘He lifted his hand up. It was all white and bony. He was holding one of these hooks.’ She pointed to the large ‘S’-shaped metal hooks, like pothooks, which hung on the rail, and from which the dresses behind her were suspended. ‘He held it up, then brought it down at me. I screamed and turned away, and covered my face with my hands. Everything went black and I heard him run off into the corridor. I don’t know what happened after that, sir. The next thing I remember, Kathleen and the others were here, telling me to stop screaming.’

  ‘And there’s no possibility, I suppose,’ asked Hardy, in a vaguely hopeful voice, ‘that you imagined it all?’

  ‘Certainly not, Mr Hardy!’ replied the girl indignantly.

  ‘You say the figure was all in black,’ said Holmes. ‘Were you able to see what sort of clothes he was wearing?’

  ‘It w
as like a monk’s robe, sir, with a hood attached.’

  ‘Do you have any costumes of that sort in your wardrobe?’ Holmes asked Hardy.

  ‘We do indeed. I’ll get Kathleen to show you. Among her other duties, she acts as wardrobe mistress and knows where all the costumes are hung.’

  The sandy-haired woman was sent for and took us through to the chambers at the rear, which contained the men’s costumes.

  ‘These are the monks’ robes, sir,’ said she, stopping before a long rail of assorted clerical garments and holding up a lantern. ‘These are the white friars, these are the black friars and these are some brown ’uns.’

  ‘Could your assailant have been wearing one of these?’ Holmes asked the dark-haired girl. She nodded, averting her eyes as she did so. ‘Are all the black robes here?’ he continued, addressing the other woman.

  ‘I think so,’ she replied, as she counted them. ‘No, wait a minute, there’s only five of the black ones here now and I think there should be six. Isn’t that right, Mr Hardy?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Hardy, nodding his head. ‘We definitely made six of them, eighteen months ago, for The Gipsies of Bohemia.’

  ‘So it appears that your mystery intruder is indeed wearing one of these robes,’ said Holmes, ‘which he has still got with him, wherever he is. They are certainly commodious garments, perfectly suited to anyone wishing to conceal his identity. Now,’ he continued after a moment, addressing the sandy-haired woman again, ‘when you had calmed Katharine down, did you search these rooms to see if there was anyone still about?’

  ‘No, sir, we did not. We didn’t know what we might find! We went straight to Mr Hardy to tell him what had happened.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Holmes. ‘Thank you, ladies. That is all, for the present.’

  ‘What do you make of it?’ asked Hardy, when the women had left us.

  Holmes shook his head. ‘It is a puzzling little problem,’ he replied. ‘The point of all this mysterious activity is not yet clear to me. In this latest incident – the first, it seems, in which your mysterious persecutor has been seen – his appearance was threatening and he no doubt frightened the girl out of her wits; but in the end he did not harm her.’

  ‘Perhaps he was deterred by her screaming,’ I suggested. ‘He would have realised that that would bring others here.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Holmes. ‘But he had raised his arm as if to strike her, yet did not do so, even though it would have taken him but a moment. The inference is surely that he never really had any intention of harming her.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘He has never previously shown any inclination to reveal himself. It is possible, then, that the girl’s encounter with him in here was the merest chance and that he simply took the opportunity to frighten her which that chance had presented to him.’

  ‘Whatever the explanation, it certainly must have been unnerving for her,’ I remarked. ‘What do you make of the white, bony hands she described?’

  ‘Perhaps he was simply wearing a pair of these,’ replied Holmes, indicating a wooden box which stood on the floor by the wall. Inside the box were several dozen pairs of white evening-dress gloves. He took a pair and slipped them on to his long, thin hands. ‘Observe,’ said he, ‘how, if one clenches one’s fist, one’s hands appear more bony in these than if one were not wearing gloves at all.’

  ‘But if, as you suggest, this villain did not deliberately set out to frighten anyone, but encountered the girl by chance, why should he have been wearing these white gloves at all?’ asked Hardy.

  ‘Perhaps simply to conceal his hands from anyone who did happen to see him,’ replied Holmes. ‘The human hand is a very individual thing and a man’s hand can sometimes identify him every bit as precisely as his face. Now, let us proceed: the women did not search these rooms when they found their colleague in distress. It is possible, then, that the girl’s assailant remained hidden in some dark corner here until they had gone.’

  ‘She says she heard his footsteps in the corridor,’ I interjected.

  ‘That is true, but it is possible that he ran only a few yards along the corridor, then turned in at the next doorway, the other entrance to these rooms. He would certainly not wish to encounter anyone else who might be drawn into the corridor by the girl’s screams, and these dark rooms would probably offer the best hiding place. He could lie low in here for a while, wait until the hue and cry had died down, and then make good his escape. Can you recall the whereabouts of the various members of the company yesterday evening, Mr Hardy, at the time of this incident?’

  ‘All members of the chorus, both male and female, were on stage at the time,’ replied Hardy. ‘We had the orchestra in and were rehearsing some of the musical ensemble pieces. I know that Miss Ballantyne had left for home by then, but I am afraid I cannot tell you offhand where anyone else was. I have been so preoccupied lately that the days have passed as if in a blur. Except for those members of the company with whom I am rehearsing at any given moment, I am generally unable to say who is present and who is not. I have all the rehearsal details in my office upstairs, however, if you would care to consult the book.’

  ‘In a moment. First, let us take a look round these chambers. I see that there are yet more rooms behind these. What are they used for?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. This theatre is full of dusty old store-rooms and cupboards, a good half of which we do not use at all. Come, I will show you!’

  We passed through an open doorway at the back of the men’s costume store, into another large, low-ceilinged chamber, stacked high with wooden crates of various sizes, most of which appeared to be empty. Hardy held up his lantern and we followed the spread of its light about the room. It was a grimy chamber, with a dank, earthy smell about it. At the top of each of the damp-stained, whitewashed walls was a small grating, through which cold air brought the sound of dripping rain into the room. In the far wall were three dirty and mildewed doors.

  ‘As you can see,’ remarked our guide, ‘this room is little used. There are a few odd stage properties in these boxes, but most of them are empty. I doubt if this room has been used for anything much since Solomon Tanner’s day.’

  Holmes took the lantern and prowled slowly about this gloomy chamber for several minutes, examining the walls and the flagstone floor very closely, until at last he paused before the rotten-looking old doors and tried the handle of each in turn.

  ‘These doors all appear to be locked,’ he remarked.

  ‘They are only dirty old cupboards,’ returned Hardy dismissively. ‘I don’t think they’ve ever been opened since we’ve had the theatre.’

  ‘Do you know where the keys are?’ enquired Holmes, peering closely at the lock of the middle door of the three.

  ‘There are two large bunches of keys somewhere in the office upstairs,’ replied Hardy. ‘The keys to these cupboards may be among them, but none of the keys is labelled, so you would have to try them all. I don’t know why you are so interested in them, Mr Holmes!’

  ‘Professional thoroughness,’ returned Holmes with a chuckle.

  ‘If you would care to accompany me to my office, then, I’ll find the keys for you – and while you are there you can look over the records of recent rehearsals.’

  ‘I shall follow you upstairs in a moment,’ said Holmes. ‘Do you also have in your office any information on the history of this theatre?’ he asked, as Hardy turned to leave.

  ‘Indeed I do. We have a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings, dating back many years, to the heyday of Solomon Tanner and even beyond. It belonged to the old doorman of the Albion, who had compiled it over many years’ service here. He is retired now, living with his daughter down Walworth way. About three years ago, however, when he heard that we had bought the theatre and were planning to reopen it, he arrived here one morning and presented the scrapbook to me, which was very kind of him. It forms a detailed historical record, of both the Albion and the Southwark Palace, next
door. As a matter of fact, Miss Ballantyne was asking me about the scrapbook only the other day and I found it for her. It will be in her dressing-room still, I should think. She won’t mind your having a look at it in there. I’ll light the gas for you as I pass.’

  The moment that Hardy had left us, and we heard his footsteps in the corridor, Holmes handed the lantern to me.

  ‘Hold it down here,’ said he, as he bent to inspect a patch of floor which lay immediately in front of the middle cupboard door.

  I did as he asked, and watched as he subjected the flagstones to the most minute examination. Down on all fours, and with his nose scarcely an inch from the floor, he resembled nothing so much as a bloodhound following a trail. Then he pulled from his pocket his powerful lens and a tape-measure, with which he made several measurements.

  ‘I cannot see what you are measuring,’ said I.

  ‘Footprints,’ replied he, jotting down some figures in a note-book.

  ‘I cannot see them.’

  ‘The marks are not very clear, but they are clear enough for my purposes. I observed them earlier. You no doubt remarked that I avoided stepping on this damp patch of floor. I did not mention the matter in front of Mr Hardy, for I wished to avoid putting anything into his head which he might inadvertently let slip to someone else. The fewer people who know what we have discovered, the more likely we are to bring the matter to a successful conclusion.’

  After a while, he stood up and began to examine the frame around the middle door, making further notes in his book and muttering to himself as he did so. Some mark on the door-frame, at about shoulder height, seemed particularly to interest him and he studied it for some time through his lens. Then, very carefully, he removed something from the woodwork at that spot. ‘A thread, caught on a sharp splinter of wood,’ said he, as he placed it in a small envelope he had taken from his pocket. Presently, he stood back, with an expression of satisfaction upon his features.

 

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