by David Marcum
After they shook, Moriarty spoke once more. “Another thing. If you’re going to work for me, I’ll need to know your name.”
The man nodded, reaching up to stroke his moustache before standing up straighter, heels clicking together. It was the move of someone used to standing at attention in front of a superior officer. “Of course. It’s Colonel Sebastian Moran, sir. At your service.”
The Case of the Vanishing Stars
by Deanna Baran
My friend Holmes was never happier than when his formidable intellect was captivated by some abstruse problem. Contrariwise, ennui was abhorrent to him. October of 1885 was an intense month for Holmes. After the adventure of the cyclist’s cipher came quick upon the heels of the problem of the change-ringers’ society and the Armenian carpet affair, the comparative sluggishness of November left him morose and dissatisfied. Only so many hours could be filled by cutting articles from the papers and updating scrap-books. Although the weather was hardly conducive to such outings, and my wound ached at every change in the glass, I found myself taking wholly unnecessary turns through Regent’s Park to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Baker Street, as the steely November skies had nothing on the gloom of a Holmes without a challenge. He had work, mind you, for rarely a day passed without the page admitting some colorful individual or another to our sitting room, but the parade of petty problems that beleaguer humanity did little to stimulate his mental machinery.
Thus it was, when I descended to breakfast early in December, that I was pleasantly surprised to find Holmes in better spirits than I had seen for several weeks. The night before, we had taken an evening’s entertainment at St. James’s Hall, and he was anxious to resume conversation on the subject.
“Mind you,” he said, “I don’t care much for Gallic glitter. Give me German introspection on the program any night. Still, that was rather a unique interpretation. Berlioz clearly specified agitato. One might even tread towards vivacci territory. Yet to give his Fantastique such an andante delivery - the character of the piece was completely transformed, and I doubt Berlioz would have thanked him for it.”
The succeeding meal consisted of his humming of passages from four or five different interpretations of the piece in question, punctuated with approving or disapproving comparative analyses of the varying approaches. While I enjoy music, I have not the musician’s brain that permits one to reduce a concert piece from its whole into its parts, as though there were no difference between the performance hall and the dissecting-room, and I found the majority of his criticisms too technical to appreciate. Still, I was heartened by this spark of enthusiasm on an otherwise dreary morning, and I did all I could to encourage his exuberant opining.
So it was, that after the meal was cleared away, and he had substituted his violin for his egg-spoon for the purpose of illustrating his points, and the subject of conversation had meandered into the influences of French Romanticism upon Wagner, and from there upon programme music versus Gesammtkunstwerk, that when the bell rang to indicate a caller, he was visibly annoyed at this check upon his discourse. But he was ever the gentleman, and by the time our visitor had been shown into the room, she would never have suspected her timing was unwelcome or inconvenient.
She divided a cautious smile between the two of us. As I made my greeting and offered her a seat by the fire, it occurred to me that she must have been quite the beauty in her day. Holmes gave her fashionable appearance his customary swift analysis. “Watson and I were just discussing programme music,” he said amicably. “How serendipitous to find someone who has trod the boards in our midst. Although now, perhaps, you seem to busy yourself with costuming, although that is not your primary occupation?”
Just as the jackdaw cannot maintain its charade once it speaks, neither could her charming appearance survive speech. For all the expense of her costume and the glitter of her ornaments, she possessed the harsh metallic twang of a costermonger.
“I toured the Continent and America in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s,” she said. “Perhaps you remember ‘Daddy, If You Love Me.’ It was my big hit on the music-hall circuits, though some prefer ‘The Big Noise at Brighton’. I don’t mind taking a turn onstage to give the audience a treat, though I’ve run my own music hall these last ten years. I’ve worked both sides of the lights, and I knows what things belongs. A woman must always have an eye for tomorrow, what ‘as no one’s showered with diamonds forever.”
It was hard to imagine this woman as a chanteuse, showered with jewels by an adoring public. But Holmes’s cordiality didn’t waver. “That is a very practical mindset-”
“Mrs. Hughes,” she supplied. “The posters say another, and my Jimmy’s gone to glory, but it’s Mrs. Hughes all the same.”
“Perhaps you can tell us what has brought you so far from Mile End on such a chill morning, Mrs. Hughes?”
Our guest’s visible surprise confirmed the accuracy of his statement, but, never one to deny an audience’s request, she launched upon her narrative. She possessed the singular inability of her class to relate a sequence of events in linear fashion. Yet Holmes was patient with her, permitting her to drift into side channels of expository, but always drawing the threads of narration back towards their original point, here summarized for expediency.
Having spent the better part of fifteen years on stage, Mrs. Hughes determined to yield the limelight to a younger generation of performers. Although she had married a stolid, sensible stockbroker, she wished to additionally secure her future. She discovered a song-and-supper room for sale in Mile End, whose owner wished to forsake the overcrowding of the East End in favor of market gardening in Fulham. She purchased the premises, and between the depth of her purse and her considerable experience, launched a successful business providing cheap edibles and entertainment for the immigrants and laborers of the area.
There was a fire and a subsequent renovation. Her husband passed away one winter of double pleuro-pneumonia. The economic depression that began five years ago took its toll on the box office receipts. Overall, however, business proceeded as normally as it could for several years.
On the other hand, life was never ordinary when one’s business model involved the employment of a motley variety of artistes. Just in the last fortnight, she’d dealt with the acrobat who’d attempted to climb the walls, the conjuror who lost his pigeons, prowlers at the basement window, and the police-whistle that interrupted a canine act. There were other peculiar things, like the matter of the drapers who had come to measure the curtains, yet she had placed no orders; or the gasfitters who had come to fix the lights, yet the lights were in perfect condition and no one admitted to having summoned them. But nothing ever happened that would require the services of a consulting detective.
However, around Martinmas, abnormalities began to accumulate. Her faithful right hand, Mr. Jacobs, who was had been with her a decade to schedule talent and oversee the technicalities of stage management, had passed away from blood poisoning at the beginning of the month. The new manager was competent enough, and had arranged for a number of intriguing performers, yet the performers themselves tended to be chronically unreliable. It was common in the business for an artiste to book his little ten-minute act, leave home fully made-up to take his turn, receive his pay, and then rush off to repeat the process at three or four establishments in one night. Despite this ambitious schedule, she rarely had a problem with individuals who failed to fulfill their contract. Recently, however, as many as a full third of the advertised “turns” on her program would fail to report for the curtain, much to the chagrin of her paying customers. Word was going around, and attendance, usually consisting of five to six hundred heads per night, had plummeted in response to the wagging of critical tongues. In a matter of weeks, she had come to a point where she was hesitant to advertise a particular program ahead of time, for fear of not being able to fulfill the audience’s expectations.
&nbs
p; The Christmas pantomime season was normally a busy and profitable time of year, and although harlequinades were no longer as fashionable as they had been mid-century, and she herself rarely ventured into dramatics due to licensing issues, those who patronized her hall would “never say ‘no’ to a good piece of business with a policeman and a string of sausages,” as she expressed it. Although she had made some small economies by doing much of the costume design and tailoring herself, she still had invested a not-insignificant sum into costumes and set-pieces. Yet just last night, the entire cast of “Harlequin and Cinderella” had reported for the curtain, then without a word, vanished! Neither Harlequin nor Columbine nor anyone had remained to take the stage. The audience was in an uproar at her attempts to make substitutions for the climax of the night’s program, and she’d had to refund the entire evening’s receipts. If she’d known that her reputation would be in shreds, she would have sold it at a tidy profit to the stranger who had offered to buy her music hall back at Hallowtide.
“How many marriage proposals have you received since the beginning of autumn?” inquired Holmes.
This was not the question Mrs. Hughes was expecting. “Three,” she said. “One, by letter, from an admirer who claimed to remember me from my ‘Daddy, If You Love Me’ days, but who never actually spoke to me in person. One from my new manager, about two weeks into his employment, but he was only fishing, and I told him what was what. One from a friendly rival from down the road. Mr. William Ferguson, of Bill’s Cyder Cellar.” She hesitated a moment. “I handed them all the mitten, of course. Not a one of them has a head on his shoulders, including the manager, and I intend to give him notice after Christmas.”
“And, apart from those three, the rest of the year?”
“I had my share of fortune hunters after I lost Jimmy. I made things clear enough then. It’s got around that it’s not worth the effort, so it’s rare what as I have to deal with unwanted attentions these days. I generally keeps to myself and my scrapbooks and don’t pay much attention to the other places.”
“Splendid. And, pray tell, when did the fire occur?”
“I bought the Aoede in January that year. It was late February. Someone placed a candle too close to the curtain. My plan was to space things out, so as it could pay for its own fix-up, seeing as the previous owner hadn’t kept up with the place at all. It cost me a pretty sum, what with the painters and the carpenters and the plasterers and half of London crawling over the place. We got the scaffolding out by March’s end, though, and was back in business by the beginning of April.”
“Half of London?”
“More like one person. He was a relative of the former owner, by name of Tull, but didn’t know the place had been sold. Came running in there with the police on his heels one day. Caused a lot of trouble.”
Holmes rose. “Thank you for your information, Mrs. Hughes. Who is generally around, and when?”
“I live in rooms onsite, sir, so it’s rare what as I’m over a moment away. I had enough of the fast life back in my day, and the fizz don’t taste so good when it’s your own shilling. The manager interviews performers on Mondays. Meals are available daily, though most grab a bun through the window as they pass. We offer a program of music and entertainment four nights a week, and a matinee on Saturday, so there’s the hands and the performers then, as well as the kitchen staff and the waiters.”
“Most excellent. I hope to bring your problems to a tidy end before a week is through.”
Mrs. Hughes looked disappointed. “I don’t know if the Aoede’s reputation can survive another week, especially after ‘Harlequin and Cinderella.’”
“Even a conjuror needs time to collect his pigeons,” said Holmes, with perfect tranquility. “There are at least nine different explanations for your recent events, and it will take a small amount of investigation to determine the cause at its root. If fortune is on your side, you may be able to make up most of your losses before Christmas. One piece of advice before you depart, however: even should a position come vacant, whether cook or waiter or anyone else, I beg you leave it unfilled for at least the week.”
The door had scarcely shut on our mystified client before I turned to Holmes. “Surely, Holmes, that was going a bit too far. You know the artistic temperament for what it is. It’s rather ungentlemanly of you to give her hopes, when you can’t possibly do a thing to transform what is undoubtedly an unreliable segment of the population into sober and dependable human beings.”
“And yet she has spent the last ten years with a perfectly sound business built upon the entertainment they provide, and had spent previous decades moving in those selfsame circles herself. She ‘knows what things belongs’, as she so quaintly put it.”
“Speaking of which, how on earth did you know she was on the stage? It seemed a charitable guess, between the expense of her clothes and her dreadful accents, yet you had her labeled before she said a word.”
“Surely you remarked upon her complexion, my dear Watson. Years of greasepaint for the stage will have an effect on the pores in a way mere powder never could.”
“And the costuming? Yet you knew she was not a seamstress?”
“Surely you spotted those stray threads which clung unheeded to her skirts, Watson. One could hardly walk around a room where sewing activity is taking place without some of the materials adhering to one’s hems, and she was distracted enough to not notice. Then there was the consideration of her cuffs. They were made of quite the extravagant silk plush, and are most excellent for retaining impressions. From the patterns of wear, one could spot the marks of long hours at the sewing machine upon the left cuff, but not both, as one would expect with, say, a professional typist. Add to that the fact that such a walking dress is unlikely to be found for less than fifty guineas, and, judging by the shape of the bustle, is quite the latest, and you have a woman far more affluent than most hirelings, especially with the economy in its current straits.”
“And Mile End?”
“I had briefly considered Bethnal Green. Even the most recent newcomer to London could not have failed to place her in the East End, merely on the strength of her abuse of phonetics and idiom. But you know I’ve made a study of the unique characteristics of the various soils to be found in the districts of London. It is the rare person who does not have crusted dirt clinging to their boots at this time of year, with the rainy days of winter upon us.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“Right now? I propose to peruse the papers. This afternoon, however, I intend to travel to Mile End.”
“To lay eyes upon the Aoede?”
“Rather, to lay eyes upon Bill’s Cyder Cellar. Would you care to come along?”
The odors of tobacco, perspiration, and onions mingled in a poisonous miasma at our destination. There was not a drop of decent wine upon the premises, but the waiters mingled through the crowds in the pauses between turns, noisily advertising the availability of gin, whiskey, and rum. Although it was presumably a supper-club, the only foods that appeared to be available were common breakfast foodstuffs: sausages, fried ham and eggs, kidneys. There were perhaps one hundred persons, of mixed company, crowded around tables, all eating and drinking with vigor and conversing loudly. A handful of infants slumbered or nursed through the proceedings; the number of children present was shocking. Most of the company present ignored the entertainment at the opposite end of the long, narrow gallery, where a stage had been erected. A pair of violinists - one blind, the other with a wooden leg - and a pianist accompanied a vocalist whose song, or as much as I could catch of it, was more crude than comic. A placard on a stand beside him suggested that this was the fifth act of the evening; I did not feel as though I had missed much by arriving late.
Holmes had tasked me with discovering what information I could from the masses, while he pursued his own separate inquiries. Disguised, he ha
d entered the premises a full ten minutes before I did, and I felt quite out of place alone amidst this raffish crew. I sidestepped a waiter peddling the sheet-music that had accompanied Number Five’s performance and settled down in a vacant seat. I had changed my customary garments for shabbier clothing, but was uncomfortable in the knowledge that I had no place amongst this society. I ordered a whiskey for which I had little desire, just as Number Six took the stage, coughed for attention, and the waiters scuttered from the floor. There was a slight decrease in the din, and he commenced an act whereupon he juggled an assortment of loaded pistols. I found I could not take my eyes from the foolhardy spectacle, and all thoughts of striking up conversation with my neighbors fled for the duration of his act. Soon enough, however, he finished his performance, relinquished the stage, and the waiters buzzed through the room once more, calling for orders, while the few whose attention had been captured by his turn resumed conversation with their neighbors once more.
Fortified by a draught, which I suspected of having been somewhat watered, I turned to my own neighbors and attempted to make conversation with them. Yet what would have proven a singularly difficult undertaking under ideal circumstances proved nigh impossible amidst the noise and smoke of this crowded hall. Realizing I would get little insight from the party of cabmen I had originally sat next to, I circulated around the room in the hopes of attaching myself to some lone individual who would be amenable to casual conversation. But my approaches were generally received without encouragement, forcing me to move on, and thus I passed my time through a series of performing cats, an American comedian, and a Scotsman in kilt and sporran.
“Buy me my liquor?” I was approached by a very free and forward woman, and I automatically acquiesced to her request - gin, neat. “Out slummin’, are we?”
“Perhaps,” I said, not a little discomfited. “In fact, I had heard of Bill’s Cyder Cellar, and I wished to see it for myself.”