Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

by Donald Thomas

  Our cabbie reined in his horse, weaving into the lamp-lit traffic of the Strand. To our left, at almost equal distances, stood the white façades and Grecian columns of three famous theatres. The first was the Royal Herculaneum. Beyond it rose the Lyceum and the Adelphi. Though it fronted on the Strand, the “Herc’s” rear doors and windows looked on to the narrower and more squalid cobbles of Maiden Lane.

  Long before we reached the front of the building, the posters on its tall hoardings were legible. They proclaimed “Sir Henry Caradoc Price” in lettering about two feet high and “Hamlet” in much the same size. “William Shakespeare” was somewhat reduced. At the foot of each bill a small and discreet announcement confirmed that on Mondays, Wednesdays and at afternoon matinees the part of Hamlet would be played by Mr Carnaby Jenks. Sir Caradoc would still be seen, playing the less taxing role of King Claudius. New Year’s Eve was a Wednesday. The curtain would rise at 6.30 in order to liberate the patrons in good time for their midnight festivities.

  The octagonal lamps of the portico shone white and stark, though the carriages with the patrons of the boxes and the front stalls had departed an hour ago. Through the glass doors I glimpsed four men in the foyer. They stood by a broad flight of marble steps, carpeted in red, which led to the dress circle and the boxes.

  Carnaby Jenks, thin and angular, was waiting by the pay-box next to a uniformed constable. I had seen him only two or three times on the stage, but he was watching for a chance to step forward and open the door of our cab as soon as we arrived. With his dark, tousled hair, the neurotic energy of his walk and a look of latent anxiety. He would not be at his best under police questioning.

  Holmes stepped down, a tall figure who just managed not to knock off his hat in the process. He stood on the pavement, which had been scraped and cleaned but sparkled with ice. Looking at the pale, bony actor, he produced the sheet of paper and asked sharply, “Jenks! Will you please explain this message? Is it a Caradoc joke?”

  At that moment Jenks looked like a tramp in fear of a savage dog. He had just been able to pull on a jacket and trousers in place of his stage costume, but his hair was awry and the orange tan of stage make-up had been imperfectly wiped from his features.

  “Thank God you have come, Holmes! I am in earnest! You are a true friend, if ever there was. Caradoc is dead. I appear to have killed him.”

  “Really?” said Holmes in the same sceptical manner. “Are you under arrest then? It does not seem so.”

  “I may very soon be arrested. They will not let me out of their sight, but I have declined to answer any questions.”

  “That is, no doubt, why they will not let you out of their sight,” I said helpfully. Holmes dismissed this with a half-wave of his hand.

  “I must have a chance to talk to you first,” pleaded Jenks. “Caradoc is lying dead in his dressing-room. Cyanide! That can only be murder. Surely?”

  Holmes seemed almost relieved to hear it. It certainly clarified the situation.

  “After such a message, Mr Jenks, I was not expecting anything less. I assume you did not literally kill him with your own hands?”

  “But it seems I did! Quite literally! On the stage! Do you suppose that I should have sent for you otherwise? I gave him poison—cyanide.”

  Holmes turned to the two men whom Jenks had been watching over our shoulders. In any event, we were about to be interrupted by a tall, broad-shouldered man with wide eyes and bold features. He wore the peaked cap and frogged jacket of a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police uniformed branch. I recognised him without difficulty. He was not a detective, but we had first met Inspector Isaiah Bradstreet at his office in Bow Street police station. It was many years before, during an investigation given to the world as “The Case of the Engineer’s Thumb.” He seemed larger now, but his face had altered very little.

  “My dear Bradstreet,” Holmes said, extending his hand, “the crown upon your epaulette is new to me. I shall take great pleasure in addressing you henceforth as ‘Superintendent.’ I had not heard of your promotion.”

  “Thank you, Mr Holmes. It is recent. As to the present case, I was the first to be called, Bow Street being just round the corner from here. I was on the premises ten or fifteen minutes after the body of Sir Caradoc had been discovered. Six constables accompanied me to guard the scene of the crime and Sergeant Witlow to keep the gentlemen of the press at a distance.”

  “Six!”

  From the hiss of his voice and the dismay on his face I knew that Sherlock Holmes was imagining the damage that might have been inflicted on the evidence during the past hour by six pairs of constabulary boots and hasty hands. Bradstreet went on as though he had not heard the sharp monosyllable.

  “We need to be well-manned on these occasions, Mr Holmes. You know how lurid stories can spread. There is strong public interest, Sir Caradoc being who he was.”

  “Murder is apt to be lurid,” said Holmes blandly. He then favoured Superintendent Isaiah Bradstreet with the quick, humourless smile which conveyed that he considered his time was passing to no useful purpose.

  The superintendent performed a half-turn towards the marblebalustraded stairs.

  “Gentlemen, may I introduce you to my junior colleague from Scotland Yard?”

  Sherlock Holmes had assumed a rather contemptuous look, but then, to my relief, his face softened. This junior colleague was a young man in quiet tweeds and cravat. One might take him for a schoolmaster or a confidential clerk. He was slightly-built by comparison with Bradstreet, yet he seemed taller than he was by an upright and obviously military bearing.

  “Introductions are not necessary,” said Holmes more affably. “Inspector Stanley Hopkins and I are well-acquainted.”

  So they were. Bradstreet was a moderately intelligent uniformed officer but not the most amenable. By contrast, Stanley Hopkins had been our companion in several recent cases. He was of a younger generation and had always shown great respect for the methods of Sherlock Holmes. He was not ashamed to act at times as though he were my friend’s pupil, inviting opinions or advice. He would even ask for assistance during investigations in which we had no part. Those of my readers familiar with our inquiries in “The Case of the Missing Pince-Nez” or “The Case of the Abbey Grange” will not need to be reminded of him. If Carnaby Jenks was in trouble, I should prefer Stanley Hopkins to our cocksure friend Lestrade or his more quick-witted colleague Tobias Gregson.

  Hopkins came forward with hand outstretched.

  “A pleasure to see you again, Mr Holmes. It seems as if this case may be rather in your line. Not quite as straightforward as we first thought.”

  I do not believe Bradstreet cared much for this. Though he was in command, the young detective officer seemed to be cutting him out. Hopkins continued his explanation.

  “Dr Worplesdon, the young houseman from Charing Cross Hospital, was here in ten minutes or so. Just across the road. He diagnosed an apoplectic seizure or something of the kind. Mr Bradstreet, more familiar with unexplained deaths, was the first who caught an odour of bitter almonds. Dr Hammond, the police surgeon, later confirmed it. An accident seems unlikely. And not many people would choose prussic acid as a means of taking their own lives. That leaves murder. All the same, sir, we should value your view and Dr Watson’s.”

  “I should not readily challenge a police surgeon of Dr Hammond’s experience,” I said generously, hoping to bring all sides together.

  Holmes took off his silk hat and white scarf, placing them on a marble-topped programme-table. Bradstreet stepped between my friend and Hopkins. The superintendent was smiling now, perhaps acknowledging the tribute which Hopkins paid him as the discoverer of bitter almonds.

  “Naturally, Mr Holmes, we cannot countenance anything irregular—anything that is not correct procedure.”

  Holmes was not the least put out.

  “My dear Bradstreet, I would not have it otherwise. I am only here because Mr Jenks has requested me to act for him. To be fair to
him, he first sent for you and young Dr Worplesdon. Mr Jenks is now, however, my client—unless and until he tells me otherwise.”

  Jenks let out a long breath, almost like a gasp. I really think he had believed Holmes might turn him away. His facial muscles relaxed.

  “In any case,” my friend continued, “I cannot believe it would be irregular for me to view the evidence and form an opinion—and of course to share my conclusions with you.”

  “I daresay Dr Hammond has done our work for us,” I added soothingly. “Our views will very likely coincide with your own, Mr Bradstreet. I do not think that we seek to do more than confirm the evidence.”

  Stanley Hopkins added his pennyworth.

  “Since Mr Holmes and Dr Watson have an interest, sir, the sooner their views are known to us, the more speedily we shall make progress.”

  I felt this harmony was too good to last. Bradstreet, however, agreed that Holmes might be told the facts and allowed to “look around.” Yet the superintendent still seemed to fear, as the old saying has it, that Holmes might get a spade under him and assume command of the investigation.

  “The play being Hamlet,” said Hopkins confidentially, “it had reached the final scene with Mr Jenks deputising as Hamlet tonight and Sir Caradoc playing King Claudius. As you know, sir, in Shakespeare’s story Claudius poisons one of the two goblets of wine that are brought in. But his tricks are turned against him. Queen Gertrude unknowingly drinks the poison. In revenge, his step-son Hamlet forces the King to drink from the poisoned goblet before running him through with a rapier.”

  “How many times have I acted that in youth!” said Holmes wistfully.

  “Indeed, sir. In Sir Caradoc’s production this final scene is set on the terrace of Elsinore castle behind the battlements. Usually I believe it is an interior hall. Hamlet drives the King to the battlements, holds him over on his back, forces him to drink from the goblet and stabs him. He rolls him over so that King Claudius falls to his death on the rocks below. That is to say, he falls on to two inclining mattresses about three feet below, out of view of the audience. Very dramatic, they tell me. A little variation that has proved popular with the public.”

  Jenks said not a word during this. I thought the poor fellow looked ill. He was deathly pale, and the bright gaslight caught a sheen of perspiration on his face. For a moment I wondered whether he might not have been poisoned as well! He straightened up but said nothing.

  “I saw the production last season,” Holmes was saying quietly to Hopkins. “You describe it admirably. May we assume that Sir Caradoc picked himself up from the mattresses and made his way off-stage to his dressing-room? Over the next ten minutes or so the performance would have been concluded and followed by the usual series of curtain calls. In my youth I played this last scene frequently. I believe that the time from the death of the King to the final curtain and then the usual compliments would take up about a quarter of an hour.”

  “So it would seem,” said Bradstreet, “that Sir Caradoc had a private sitting-room and a bedroom in the Dome of the theatre. Its balcony overlooks the Strand. However, he would have gone straight to his dressing-room, in the passage behind the stage. He did not appear for the curtain call.”

  “A cause for alarm?” I asked. Hopkins shook his head.

  “It had happened several times of late, doctor, when he was merely playing King Claudius. Once the performance was over, his dressing-room door appears to have been locked on the inside. Not usual but not a cause for alarm. There was nowhere else he could be—alive or dead.”

  “And Mr Jenks was on stage until the end of the play?”

  “He was. It ended about quarter to ten, after an early start for New Year’s Eve. There was the big green room supper for the cast at ten-thirty with guests, speeches and compliments. They thought Sir Caradoc was preparing his speech. A real piece of spite that could be, even about his friends, let alone Mr Wilde, George Alexander and his rivals. His actors dreaded it, but he was their paymaster. With his dressing-room door locked, it seemed he was not ready to be disturbed just yet.”

  “Then he was out of sight for about three quarters of an hour in all?”

  “Quite so, Mr Holmes. No one thought it necessary to give him a knock until about ten minutes past ten. There was no response. In the end, one of the cast opened a sash window from the street outside. There are bars, but the window can be raised for air and to give a view into the room.”

  “Someone looked and saw him dead?”

  “He was lying on the floor, sir, by the chair of a small desk that he kept in there for business purposes. The dressing-table and mirror are in the adjoining bathroom. It looked as if he must have toppled from his chair. They managed to get him onto the sofa. He was lying there when I came with Dr Hammond, the duty police surgeon.”

  “And Dr Hammond spoke of cyanide?”

  Bradstreet had been waiting to get his word in.

  “Dr Hammond concluded it was prussic acid, Mr Holmes. I had previously suspected it. You might say Sir Caradoc had it on his breath. The goblet he drank from was still on the stage and was examined. It had the same odour as he did. Thank God it was reserved for his supper and no one else had touched it. I suppose that would have put anyone else off drinking from it. And that’s how the case stands, sir.”

  “I think it may stand a little differently,” Holmes said equably. “I am sorry to disappoint you of a public spectacle. However, I should be very surprised if Sir Caradoc allowed anything to pass his throat at the moment of his stage death. I cannot imagine a more certain recipe for choking oneself than swallowing during a struggle. In any case that particular goblet is also used in the scene by Queen Gertrude. Sometimes by Hamlet as well. Lady Myfanwy Price is in good health, I take it? And at this moment we see Mr Carnaby Jenks standing before us, suffering no ill effects.”

  The superintendent’s voice sounded a little husky, but he cleared his throat.

  “I don’t follow you, Mr Holmes.”

  “Mr Bradstreet, I enjoy the quite unfair advantage of having understudied and played that final scene many times. Two goblets of wine are brought in and set on the table, prior to a duel between Hamlet and Laertes. The first goblet is drunk from by Queen Gertrude and, in some productions, by Hamlet. King Claudius is also forced to drink from it when Hamlet kills him. The second goblet is the important one. It is brought in at the same time. Only the King drinks from it. He drinks twice before the duel of Hamlet and Laertes—as many times as you like while he watches them fight. I repeat—he alone drinks from it. Only Sir Caradoc was affected by poison because he drank from this second goblet. The first goblet, which Mr Jenks forced him to drink from, was safe.”

  There was a moment’s silence before he concluded.

  “At the risk of spoiling a good story, the audience did not see Mr Jenks poison Sir Caradoc, unless the goblets were switched at the end, which is not suggested. The poisoned wine in the second goblet had already been drunk by Sir Caradoc several minutes earlier. That was when he would have been poisoned. I concede this does not necessarily acquit my client. Indeed, he would have had ample time to tamper with the wine. As Hamlet, he is not required for an entire half-hour or more before the final act, for Hamlet has sailed to England.”

  Carnaby Jenks favoured him with the ghastly stare of a man who has been acquitted of picking pockets only to be arrested again on a charge of murder. Holmes remained unruffled. He turned to the superintendent.

  “As young men in the Sassanoff Company, it was Sir Caradoc and I who played Hamlet and King Claudius alternately—box and cox about, as they say. One man cannot play the Prince night after night. Yet we could not afford an evening with no performance. I soon noticed that when it was his turn to play the smaller part of King Claudius, Caradoc ordered real wine in his goblet, and there was very little left by the final curtain.”

  Carnaby Jenks broke forward—I cannot describe his gesture in any other way. He was still pale and moist, despite the evening c
hill.

  “I had nothing to do with his death, Holmes! You must see that! You must all of you see that! Why should I kill him? Tell them I would not!”

  Holmes gave the shrug of a reasonable man.

  “I should imagine you loathed and feared Caradoc quite as much as the rest of us used to do—and no doubt with equally good reason. I was his companion on stage but I did not care for him.”

  They stared at one another, unblinking, as if neither would be first to turn away. The two policemen watched. A flicker of white gaslight shone on the marble and the red carpeting of the foyer. Holmes broke the silence,

  “Did you like Sir Caradoc, Mr Jenks?”

  Carnaby Jenks blinked. He echoed his interrogator.

  “Like him?”

  “That is the question. Many people did not. I should like to hear your answer.”

  “He had changed for the worse—”

  “Excuse me, that was not the question,” said Holmes patiently.

  Quite unaccountably, it seemed to me, Jenks lost his temper.

  “You call me your client, Holmes! You have no business to cross-examine me like this in front of—”

  “Do you think the Criminal Investigation Division will not cross-examine you presently? If it comes to court, do you not think you will be cross-examined by men who will tear to pieces any answer based on hesitation or equivocation? I prepare my clients for what must come. I do so now in your case.”

  “How?”

  “You played the part of Hamlet, did you not? I will remind you that the wine, when it was poisoned, was presumably standing in a goblet waiting to be carried on to the stage early in the fifth act. Prior to that, Hamlet—that is to say Carnaby Jenks—does not appear in the play for above half an hour. There is not a single member of the cast who appears to have had longer access or better facility for using poison than you did. That is a serious matter and I beg you will give your attention to it!”

  For a moment it seemed as if Jenks could not find the voice to reply. Then he spoke quietly but with a flash of true melodrama.