The West End Horror

by Nicholas Meyer

  “You ask that question about a critic? In any case, it must surely be obvious that he possessed at least one. For McCarthy I should postulate a score.” He winked roguishly in my direction. “He was even less agreeable than I.”

  Sherlock Holmes considered this for some moments, then rose abruptly and threw off his dressing gown.

  “Come, let us have a look. Have you the unfortunate man’s address?”

  “Number Twenty-four South Crescent, near Tavistock Square. One moment”

  Holmes turned and regarded him.

  “You are forgetting the matter of a fee.”

  “I haven’t yet said that I will take the case.”

  “Nevertheless. I must tell you I am not capable of paying a brass farthing for your services.”

  “I have worked for less on occasion, if the matter interested me.” He smiled. “Are you still writing your treatise on Wagner?”

  “The Perfect Wagnerite, yes.”

  Then perhaps I shall trouble you for a signed first edition.” Holmes slipped into his jacket and ulster. “If I take the case.” He moved to the door, then stopped. “What is your real reason for wishing me to look into this business?”

  The leprechaun threw out his hands. “The satisfaction of my own curiosity, I give you my word. If Dr. Watson pays his share of the rent with prose accounts of your work, perhaps I can do the same by putting you on the stage.”

  “Pray do not,” Holmes responded, holding open the door for us. “I have little enough privacy as it is.”

  THREE

  THE BUSINESS AT SOUTH CRESCENT

  “Well, Watson, what do you make of him?” my companion demanded. We were sharing a hansom on our way to 24 South Crescent, where Shaw had promised to meet us. He had some business matters of his own to attend to in the mean time. I huddled into the recesses of my coat and pulled up my scarf against the biting wind before replying.

  Think of him? I must say I find him insufferable. Holmes, how can you tolerate the conversation of that know-all?”

  “He reminds me of Alceste, I fancy. At any rate, he amuses me as much as Alceste. Don’t you find him stimulating?”

  “Stimulating?” I protested. “Come now, do you really suppose Shakespeare would have been better occupied writing essays?”

  Holmes chuckled. “Well, admit I warned you that he held some queer ideas. With Shakespeare, unfortunately, you tumbled on to his bite noire. There, I confess, his views appear radically unsound, but then, his prejudices can be explained. He reads plays not as thou dost, Watson, but rather to take the measure of himself against the minds of other men. ‘Such men as he be never at heart’s ease whilst they behold a greater than themselves.’”

  “ ‘And therefore are they very dangerous,’” I concluded the passage for him. I looked out of the window at snowbound London and found myself wondering if the big leprechaun could be dangerous. Certainly, he was handy enough with words to turn them into lethal weapons, but there was something so impishly ingratiating about the man that I found it hard to reconcile my opinions of him.

  “Here we are,” my companion cried, interrupting my reverie. We found ourselves in Bloomsbury, in a pleasant, well-kept semicircle of houses which faced private gardens maintained with equal devotion. The area was at present covered with snow, but the outlines of a formal garden peeped through and affected the contours of the drifts. The houses themselves were four-storeyed and painted white. They were all boarding establishments, but I noticed no signs proclaiming vacancies and decided the location was too desirable and the charges probably too high for that. Number 24 occupied a space in the middle of the semicircle. It looked no different from its neighbours to the left and right, save for the crowd gathered before it and the uniformed constables who barred the curious from access to the open front door.

  “I have a premonition we are about to meet an old friend,” Holmes murmured as we descended from the cab. There was no great difficulty in our being admitted to number 24, as Holmes was well known to the members of the force. They assumed he had been summoned to view the situation in his capacity as consulting detective, and he did nothing to discourage this belief as they passed us in.

  The murdered man’s flat occupied a first-floor suite of rooms facing the gardens and was easily reached at the top of the stairs. We hadn’t opened the door (which stood slightly ajar) before a familiar voice assailed our ears:

  “Well, if it’s not my old friends Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson! What brings you gentlemen to South Crescent, as if I didn’t know. Come in, come in!”

  “Good morning to you, Inspector Lestrade. May we survey the damage?”

  “How did you come to know there was any?” The lean, ferret-like little man shifted his gaze from one to the other of us. “It wasn’t Gregson* sent you ‘round, was it? I’ll have to have a word with that cheeky—”

  “I give you my word it was not,” Holmes assured him smoothly. “I have my own sources, and they appear sufficient. May we have a look?”

  “I don’t mind if you do,” was the lofty reply, “but you’d best be quick. Brownlow and his boys’ll be here any minute now for the body.”

  “We shall try to stay out of your way,” the detective rejoined and began a cursory examination of the flat from where he stood.

  “The fact is, I was thinking of coming by your lodgings a bit later in the day,” the Scotland Yarder confessed, watching him narrowly. “For a cup of tea,” he added firmly, apparently for the benefit of a young, sandy-haired sergeant, who was the room’s only other living occupant.

  “Can’t make head or tail of it, eh?” Holmes stepped into the room, shaking his head over the mess Lestrade and his men had made of the carpet “Will they never learn?” I heard him mutter as he looked around.

  The place combined the features of a library and sitting room. Lavishly equipped with books, it boasted a small tea table, which at the moment supported two glasses containing what looked like brandy. One glass had been knocked on its side but not broken, and the amber liquid remained within it Next to the same glass, a long, oddly-shaped cigar sat unmolested in a brass ashtray, where it had been allowed to go out of its own volition.

  Behind the table was set a day bed and beyond that, facing the window, the writing table of the dead man. It was covered with papers, all related—so far as I was able to discern from a casual glance—to his calling. There were programmes, theatre tickets, notices of substitutions in casts, as well as cuttings from his own reviews, neatly arranged for easy reference. Beside these papers was an engraved invitation to the premiere of something called The Grand Duke, at the Savoy two days hence.

  Those walls devoid of bookshelves were literally papered with portraits of various members of the theatrical profession. Some were photographs, others were executed in pen and ink, but all bore the signatures of the notables who had sat for them. One was assailed by the testimonials of affection from all quarters and awed by the likenesses of Forbes-Robertson, Marion and Ellen Terry, Beerbohm-Tree, and Henry Irving, who stared or scowled dramatically down at the visitor.

  All these, however—the books, the desk, the pictures, and the table—were but as set decorations for the pièce de thétre. The corpse of Jonathan McCarthy lay on its back at the base of a set of bookshelves, the eyes open and staring, the black-bearded jaw dropped, and the mouth wide in a terrible, silent scream. McCarthy’s swarthy looks were not pleasant in and of themselves, but coupled with his expression in death, they combined to produce a truly horrible impression. I had seldom beheld a more unnerving sight. The man had been stabbed in the left side, somewhat below the heart, and had bled profusely. The instrument of his death was nowhere apparent. I knelt and examined the corpse, determining that the blood had dried on the silken waistcoat and on the oriental carpet beside it The body was cold, and parts of it were already quite hard.

  The other rooms are undisturbed, I take it?” Holmes enquired behind me. “No handwriting on the walls?”

  “G
ad, sir, but you’ve a long memory,”† Lestrade laughed. “No, the only writing on the walls is on those pictures. This room’s where the business took place, all right.”

  “What are the facts?”

  “He was found like this some two and a half hours ago. The girl came up with his breakfast, knocked on the door, and receiving no answer, made so bold as to enter. He’d overslept before, it seems, on more than one occasion. As to what happened, that’s clear enough, up to a point He was entertaining here last night—though he came home late and let himself in with his latchkey, so nobody got a look at his company. They sat down to a brandy and cigars here at the table when an altercation began. Whoever it was reached behind him to the writing desk and grabbed this.” He paused and held out his hand. The young sergeant, taking his cue, passed over something wrapped in a handkerchief. Lestrade set it gently on the table and threw back the folds of material to reveal an ivory letter opener, its yellowish blade tinged a tawny red, some of which had run onto and splattered the finely worked silver hilt.

  “Javanese,” Holmes murmured, examining it with his magnifying glass. “It came from the desk, you say? Ah, yes, here is the sheath which matches it. Go on, pray.”

  “Whoever it was,” Lestrade resumed with a self-important air, “seized the letter opener and stabbed his host, knocking over his brandy glass as he thrust home. McCarthy crumpled in a heap at the foot of the table while the other departed, leaving his cigar burning where he had left it. McCarthy stayed beneath the table for some time—you can see quite a pool of blood—and then with his last reserves of strength, he crawled to those bookshelves—”

  “So much, as you say, is obvious,” Holmes observed, drily, pointing to a ghastly scarlet trail which led directly to the body. He stepped forward and carefully picked up the cigar, holding it gently in the middle. This cigar is less so. I cannot recall having ever seen one like it. Can you, Lestrade?”

  “You’re going to tell me about all those tobacco ashes you can recognise,” the inspector scoffed.

  “On the contrary, I am trying to tell you about one I cannot. May I have a portion of this?” He held up the cigar.

  “As you wish.”

  Holmes inclined his head in a little bow of thanks. He withdrew his penknife, leaned on the edge of the table, and carefully sawed off two inches of the cigar, putting the stub back where he had found it and pocketing the sample where it would not be crushed. He straightened up ready with another question, when a noise was heard below, followed by a thunderous rush upon the stairs. Shaw arrived, breathless but triumphant.

  “Why, man,” he cried, “your name’s a regular passe-partout! Well, where’s the carrion?”

  “And who might this gentleman be?” Lestrade growled, looking fearlessly up into Shaw’s beard.

  “It’s all right, Inspector Lestrade. He’s a colleague of the deceased, Mr. Bernard Shaw of the Saturday Review.” The two men bowed slightly.

  “There’s a police wagon arrived downstairs with a stretcher in it,” Shaw informed Lestrade.

  “Very good. Well, gentlemen, as you can see—”

  “You haven’t yet told him about the book, Inspector,” interposed the young sergeant shyly. He had been following Holmes’s every move with eager interest, almost as though trying to memorise his actions.

  “I was going to, I was going to!” Lestrade shot back, growing more annoyed by the minute. “You just stay in the background, young man. Pay attention and you’ll learn something.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  His chief grunted. “Now where was I?”

  “You were about to show us the book poor McCarthy had used his last ounce of energy to retrieve,” Holmes prompted quietly.

  “Oh, yes.” The little man made to fetch the volume, then turned. “Stop a bit. Here, how did you come to know he was after a book before he died?”

  “What other reason for him to have struggled so valiantly towards the bookshelves,” Holmes replied mildly. “A volume of Shakespeare, is it not? I perceive one is missing.”

  Instinctively I stole a glance at Shaw, who heard this information with a snort and began his own examination of the room.

  Kindly refrain from trampling the clues,” Holmes ordered sharply and signed for him to join us by the table. “May we see the book?”

  Lestrade nodded to the sergeant, who brought forth another object, wrapped in a second handkerchief, which he placed on the table. Before us lay a volume of Romeo and Juliet published by Oxford and obviously part of the complete edition which rested on the shelf above the corpse. Holmes brought forth-his glass again and conducted a careful examination of the volume, pursing his lips in concentration.

  “With your permission, sir.” It was the sergeant, again.

  “Yes?”

  “When we found it, it was opened.”

  “Indeed?” Holmes shot a keen glance at Lestrade, who shifted his weight uncomfortably. “And where was that?”

  “The book wasn’t in his hands,” the little man replied defensively. “He’d let go of it when he died.”

  “But it was open.”

  “Ay.”

  To what page?”

  “Somewheres in the middle,” Lestrade grumbled. “It’s a perfectly ordinary book,” he added testily. “No secret messages stuck in the binding, if you’re thinking along those lines.”

  “I am not thinking at all,” Holmes replied coldly. “I am observing, as you, evidendy, have failed to do.”

  “It was page forty-two,” the sergeant volunteered. Holmes favored him with an interested look, then began carefully turning the bloodstained pages.

  “You’re very keen,” he commented, studying the leaves. “How long have you been down from Leeds? Five years?”

  “Six, sir. After my father—” The sergeant stopped short in confusion and regarded the detective with amazement.

  “Here, Holmes,” his superior broke in, “if you know the lad, why not say so?”

  “It is no great matter to infer his birthplace, Lestrade. Surely you can’t have failed to remark on his distinctive a’s and his peculiar manner of handling diphthongs? I would hazard Leeds or possibly Hull, but then, he has been in London these last six years, as he says, and acquired a local overlay, which makes it difficult to be precise. You live in Stepney now, don’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Ay, sir.” The sergeant’s eyes were wide with awe. For his part, Shaw had listened to the entire exchange with the strictest attention stamped on his features.

  “But this is wonderful!” he shouted. “Do you mean you can actually place a man by his speech?”

  “If it’s in English, within twenty miles.‡ I’d know your Dublin origins despite your attempts to conceal them,” Holmes answered. “Ah, here we are, page forty-two. It concludes Act three, Scene one—”

  “The duel between Tybalt and Mercutio,” Shaw informed Lestrade, who was still pondering, I could see, the detective’s linguistic feat. Holmes looked at him sharply over the volume, whereat the Irishman coloured slightly.

  “Well, of course I’ve read it,” he snarled. “Romantic twaddle,” he added, to no-one in particular.

  “Yes, the death of Mercutio—and also Tybalt Hmm, a curious reference.”

  “If he made it,” Lestrade persisted. “The book wasn’t in his hand, as I’ve said, and the pages might have fallen over in the interim.”

  “They might,” Holmes agreed. “But since there is no message in the book, we must infer that he meant to tell us something with the volume. It could hardly have been the man’s whim to pass the time with a little Shakespeare while he bled to death.”

  “Hardly,” Shaw agreed. “Even McCarthy would not have been capable of such a gesture.”

  “You don’t seem very disturbed by what’s happened to the deceased,” Lestrade observed suspiciously.

  “I’m not disturbed in the slightest Except by his browsing Shakespeare at the last. The man was a charlatan and a viper and probably merit
ed his end.”

  “Shakespeare?” Lestrade was now totally perplexed.

  “McCarthy.” Shaw pointed at the photographs and sketches. “You see those signatures on the walls? lies, every one of ‘em, I’ll swear to it Proffered in fear.”

  “Fear of what?”

  “Bad notices, malicious gossip, scandal in print or out of it McCarthy kept his ear to the ground. He was notorious for it Do you remember the suicide some three years ago of Alice Mackenzie? She played the lead in that thing by Herbert Parker at the Allegro§? Well, that was almost certainly provoked by an item with this blackguard’s name on it”

  Sherlock Holmes was not listening. As we watched, he proceeded to give the room a thorough inspection of the kind only he could manage. He crawled about on all fours, peering through his glass; he examined the walls, the shelves, the desk, the table, the day bed, and finally made the most minute inspection of the corpse itself. Throughout this tour, which lasted some ten minutes or more, he kept up a running commentary of whistles, exclamations, and mutterings. Part of this time was spent in examination of the other rooms in the flat, though it was clear from his expression when he returned that Lestrade had been accurate in saying that the drama had not overflowed the confines of the library.

  At length he straightened up with a sigh. “You really must learn not to disturb the evidence,” he informed Lestrade. He turned to the young sergeant “What is your name?”

  “Stanley Hopkins, sir.”

  “Well, Hopkins, in my opinion, you’ll go far,¶ but you oughtn’t to have touched the book. It might have made all the difference in the world had I been able to see the relation between the man’s fingertips and the volume. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. I shall see that such a thing never happens again. We neither of us touched the body,” he added in a gallant attempt to redeem himself in the detective’s eyes.

  “Good lad. Well, gentlemen, I think that is about all.”

  “And what have you uncovered with all your creeping and crawling about that I haven’t?” Lestrade demanded with a sour grin.