The West End Horror

Chapter I

Sherlock Holmes in Residence

"No, Watson, I'm afraid my answer must remain the same," said Sherlock Holmes. "You're setting down The West End Horror," he went on, chuckling at my expression. "Don't look so astonished, my dear fellow. Your thought process was simplicity itself. I saw you arranging your notes and shaking your head with an air of familiar disbelief. Then you turned your gaze to our collection of theatrical programmes and then to my little monograph on ancient English charters. Finally, you stole a surreptitious glance in my direction as I sat tuning my fiddle." He sighed and drew his bow across the strings in a tentative fashion. "I'm afraid it must still be no."

"But why?" I retorted with energy. "Do you think I would fail to do justice to the case?"

"On the contrary, what I fear is that you would do justice to it."

"I shall change the names, as I have done before," I offered, beginning to see where the problem lay.

"But cannot possibly do now. Think, Watson! Never have our clients been so well known. No substitute names could serve to disguise the principals in this affair.

"Besides," Holmes went on, "you would be obliged to recount our own part in this business. While scarcely unethical, it could not well be termed legal. Destruction of a corpse without notifying the authorities is a clear violation of law."

There the conversation ended and I tucked my notes away for another year or two until I could broach the subject again. At the moment, it was Holmes's unshakeable opinion that The West End Horror (as he liked to call it) was a story for which the world was not yet prepared.

Two things combined finally to change his views. With the passage of years, many of those involved were carried off by death and, as well, the mores of society were altered. I then advanced a new argument, saying that I should set down the case solely as a matter of historical record and that he should have proprietorship of the manuscript, to do with as he saw fit, when he saw fit.

Holmes procrastinated for several days after that, turning over this new possibility in his mind. Then, one day, in an offhand tone, he said abruptly, "Oh, you might as well do it." Thus it was that I began to write this account of an affair that began with simple murder but, before it had run its course, was very close to becoming a crime so monstrous that it threatened to blot the 19th Century and, possibly, to alter the whole course of history.

•

The winter of '94 -- '95 had been a fearful one. Not in recent memory had London been pelted so with snow; not in recent memory had the wind howled in the streets and icicles formed on drainpipes and in the eaves as they did in January of 1895. The inclement weather continued unabated through February, keeping the street sweepers perpetually occupied and exhausted.

Holmes and I stayed comfortably indoors at Baker Street. No cases appeared out of the snowdrifts, for which we were unashamedly grateful. I spent much of the time organizing my own notes, after first extracting a promise from Holmes to desist from chemical experiments. I pointed out that in fair weather it was possible to avoid the stench he created with his test tubes and retorts by opening the windows and going out for a walk. In this weather, however, such an expedient would end in our freezing to death.

He grumbled a great deal at this, but saw the logic of it and continued to be restless. I was grateful that we no longer kept cocaine lying about, for in an earlier time, such frustrations and boredom would have provoked instant recourse to its dubious comfort.

At last Holmes began to take some interest in several bundles, tied with string, that had been lying on our floor for some time unopened. He was a compulsive bibliophile, always buying volumes, having them sent round to our rooms but never finding time to read them. Now, he cut the strings with the penknife and began glancing at the titles.

"I say, Watson, look at this," he began but subsided onto the floor with the tome in one hand and his pipe in the other (full of shag almost as malodorous as his chemicals). He had become interested in ancient English charters and now prepared to devote himself to serious research on the subject with these books he had purchased at some earlier date.

Eventually, however, they were deemed insufficient and he was obliged to sally forth into the snow and make his way to the British Museum. These forays lasted for several afternoons during the last week of February, the nights that followed being spent in the laborious transcription of his notes.

It was a sunny, cold morning, March first, when he flung his pen across the room in disgust. "No use, Watson," said he. "I shall have to go to Cambridge if I am to approach this seriously."

As he hunted up his pen again, posed with hands and knees on the floor, he observed, "The mind is like a large field, Watson. It is available for cultivation only if the land is used sensibly and portions of it are permitted to lie fallow periodically. The professional part of my mind is on holiday at the moment. During its leave of absence, I am exercising another quarter of it."

"It's a pity your professional mind is out of town," I remarked, looking out of the window onto the street. He followed my gaze from his position on the floor. "For I believe that we are about to have a visitor who may be interested in that portion of your intellect that is lying fallow."

Outside, I could see stepping or, rather, hopping nimbly between the shovels of the snow cleaners and the brooms of the housemaids one of the queerest creatures I had ever beheld.

"I am not in the mood for visitors," Holmes returned, thrusting his fists into the pockets of his dressing gown. "What does he look like?" The question escaped his lips involuntarily.

"He isn't wearing a coat, for one thing. On a morning like this, he must be mad. Well-worn Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers. He keeps adjusting his shirt cuffs."

"Probably false. Age?"

"Roughly forty. He has an enormous beard, slightly reddish like his hair, that blows over his shoulder as he walks."

"Height? Gait?" Behind me, I heard a vesta being struck.

"About six feet." I pondered how to describe the newcomer's hopping, skipping pace. "The man walks like a leprechaun."

"Why, this sounds like Shaw." Holmes came up behind me, quite animated now, and we gazed together at the advancing figure. "I'm blest if it isn't Shaw! Whatever has made him change his mind and decide to pay me a visit?"

The peculiar fellow was now examining house numbers, then hopping on to stop before our door. The bell rang with a truculent jingle several times.

"I met him at a concert of Sarasate's1 some years ago," Holmes explained, turning to kick a few books out of the way in order to forge a path of sorts from the door to a chair by the hearth.

"He is a brilliant Irishman who has got hold of some of the oddest notions," Holmes remarked.

"How do you know he is brilliant?"

"Why, he told me so himself. Furthermore, he understands Wagner perfectly."

"What does he do?"

There was a knock on our door of the same energetic variety that had manifested itself in the pull at our bell some moments earlier.

"You must be careful of him, Watson." He put a conspiratorial finger to his lips as he went towards the door. "He is a critic!" With this, he flung the door open and admitted his friend.

Chapter II

An Invitation to Investigate

Mr. Bernard Shaw's resemblance to a leprechaun increased on closer inspection. His eyes, the bluest I had ever beheld, twinkled with merriment when he talked lightly and flashed when he became animated. His complexion was almost as ruddy as his hair and he boasted a disputatious nose, broad and blunt at the tip, where the nostrils twitched and flared. To add to the leprechaunish impression, he spoke with a slight and pleasant Irish brogue.

"By God, I believe your rooms are more untidy than my own," he began, stepping across our threshold. "But since they are larger than my hovel, you are permitted (continued on page 96) The West End Horror (continued from page 90) to be more creative with your sloppiness." He flashed an impish grin that managed to take away the sting of his words.

"You've no idea what a pleasant surprise this is," Holmes said, offering the critic a chair. Shaw sat down and stretched forth his slender hands and skinny legs to the comfort of our blaze.

"I can't offer you any breakfast," Holmes continued. "That's long since been cleared away--in any case, I remark by your right sleeve that you have already breakfasted on eggs and----"

Shaw chuckled. "That's yesterday's breakfast. I see you are fallible. How comforting."

"Would you like some brandy? It will take the chill off your bones."

"And shorten my life by ten years," the elf replied with a merry smile. "Thank you, I'll remain as I am."

"You aren't prolonging your life by going about in this weather without a coat," I observed.

"I was obliged to pawn it yesterday. A temporary expedient until my next week's wages from The Saturday Review. Could you manage on six pounds a week, doctor? Your writing brings you a deal more, I dare say."

"Why don't you try something in a more lucrative vein?" I suggested. "A novel or a play."

"I've tried my hand at five novels and have collected eight hundred rejection slips. As for plays, did either of you gentlemen happen to see Widowers' Houses a few years ago?" We shook our heads. "Well, no matter, I shall keep at it. After all, the great English playwrights are all Irish--Sheridan, Goldsmith. In our own day, Yeats and Oscar Wilde! One day, Shaw will be included in that pantheon!"

The man's bumptiousness was past bearing. "Shakespeare was English," I pointed out.

Shaw paled; his beard quivered and he leapt to his feet. "A mountebank who hadn't the wit to invent his own plots! I ask you, do people really 'kiss away kingdoms'--or do they hold on to power as-long and tenaciously as they can? Antony and Cleopatra--what ineffable, romantic twaddle!"

"But the poetry," I protested.

"Rubbish!" His colour was changing again to a scarlet hue as he danced about the room, occasionally stumbling over the books on the floor. "People don't talk poetry, doctor! Only in bad plays! The man had a brilliant mind," he said, calming somewhat, "but he hadn't the gifts of a playwright."

"Surely you didn't come here this morning to take on Shakespeare," Holmes said, filling a pipe from the Persian slipper on the mantel.

"You have swayed me from the point with all this talk of Shakespeare," Shaw acknowledged with a sour look. "Yes, I have come on quite a different errand." He paused, whether for dramatic effect or to collect himself I could not tell. "There has been a murder done."

Silence filled the room. Holmes and I instinctively exchanged glances. "Who has been murdered?" Holmes enquired quietly, crossing his legs, all attention now.

"A critic. You don't read the drama reviews? Ah, well, Jonathan McCarthy wrote for the Morning Courant."

Holmes picked up a pile of newspapers by his chair. "As a rule, I confine my attentions to the agony columns, but I can't have missed a story such as----"

"You won't find it in the papers yet," Shaw interrupted. "Word of the deed was just circulating in the Review offices this morning. I left off the piece I was writing and came straightway to tell you. And to ask you to investigate the matter." He maintained a jocular demeanour; yet, beneath it, I sensed a very real anxiety. Perhaps the murder of a colleague threatened him in a way he could hardly have acknowledged.

"Is it so very complicated? Will not the police suffice?" Holmes asked.

"Come, come, we both know the police and their inefficiency. Then, there is always the possibility of a concealment if the facts prove embarrassing to powerful people. I should like an unbiased and complete examination of the kind Dr. Watson recounts in The Strand. Are you not up to the challenge?" He added, as incentive, "The man was stabbed."

It was clear that Holmes was interested. "Had he any enemies?"

Shaw laughed long and heartily. "You ask that question about a critic? It is obvious that he possessed at least one--and probably a score of others." Shaw winked roguishly in my direction. "He was even less agreeable than I."

Sherlock Holmes considered this for a moment, then rose abruptly and threw off his dressing gown. "Come, let us have a look. Have you the man's address?"

"Number twenty-four South Crescent, near Tavistock Square. But, one moment--you are forgetting the matter of a fee. I haven't a brass farthing to pay for your services."

Holmes 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 said, slipping on 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. I long to see you in action. Perhaps I can put you on the stage."

"Pray do not," Holmes responded, opening the door. "I have little enough privacy as it is."

Chapter III

The Business at South Crescent

"Well, Watson, what do you make of him?" my companion demanded in the hansom on our way to 24 South Crescent to meet Shaw, who had left us to attend to some business matters of his own.

"I must say I find him insufferable. Shakespeare a mountebank, indeed!"

Holmes chuckled. "Admit, though, I warned you that he holds some queer ideas. With Shakespeare, you stumbled onto his bete noire. One might say, '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. I looked out the window at snowbound London and found myself wondering if the leprechaun could be dangerous.

"Here we are!" my companion cried, interrupting my reverie. We found ourselves in Bloomsbury, in a pleasant, well-kept semicircle of houses that faced private gardens maintained with devotion. The houses were four-storied and painted white, evidently boarding establishments of a superior kind. Number 24 occupied a place in the centre of the crescent and it was immediately evident because of the crowd and the uniformed constables who barred the curious from access to the open door.

Holmes being well known to the members of the force, we had no difficulty in being admitted. The murdered man's flat occupied a suite of rooms on the first floor facing the gardens and was easily reached at the top of the stairs.

As we opened the door, a familiar voice assailed our ears. "Well, if it's not my old friends, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson! What brings you gentlemen to twentyfour South Crescent? As if I didn't know."

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

"How do you know there is any?" The lean, ferretlike little man shifted his gaze from one to the other of us.

"I have my sources," Holmes assured him smoothly. "May we have a look?"

"I don't mind if you do," was the lofty reply. "But you'd best be quick. Brown-low 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 inspector confessed, watching him narrowly. "Just for a cup of tea," he added, apparently for the benefit of a sandy-haired, (continued on page 164) The West end Horror (continued from page 96) young sergeant who was standing by to assist him.

"Can't make head nor tail of it, eh?" Holmes shook his head over the mess Lestrade and his men had made of the carpet and I heard him mutter, "Will they never learn?"

The room was a combination library and sitting room with many books on its shelves. It boasted a small tea table on which were two glasses containing what looked like brandy. One glass had been knocked on its side but not broken. A long, oddly shaped cigar, which had been allowed to go out of its own volition, lay in a brass ashtray.

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

Those walls devoid of bookshelves were literally papered with portraits of 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 almost assailed by the testimonials of affection and awed by the likenesses of Forbes-Robertson, Marion and Ellen Terry, Beerbohm Tree and Henry Irving.

All these furnishings, however, were but as set decorations for the pièce de théâtre. 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 produced a truly horrible impression.

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.

"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. As to what happened, that's clear enough, up to a point. He came in late last night, accompanied by someone. They sat down to brandy and cigars here at the table when an altercation began. Whoever was with him reached behind to the writing desk and seized this." Lestrade 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 the material to reveal an ivory letter opener, its yellowish blade tinged with red, some of which had run onto the finely worked silver hilt.

"Javanese," Holmes murmured, examining it with his magnifying glass. "It came from the desk? Ah, yes, here is its sheath. Go on, pray."

"Whoever it was," Lestrade resumed with a self-important air, "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 still burning in the tray. McCarthy stayed beside 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."

"What is less obvious," said Holmes, "is this cigar." He picked it up carefully. "I cannot recall having seen one like it. Have you, Lestrade?"

"You're going to tell me about all those tobacco ashes you can recognize," the inspector scoffed.

"On the contrary, I am trying to tell you about one I cannot. May I have a portion of this?"

"As you wish."

Holmes 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. At this moment, a noise was heard below, followed by a rush on the stairs. Shaw arrived, breathless but triumphant.

"Your name's a regular passe partout, Holmes!" he cried. "Well, where's the carrion?"

"And who might this gentleman be?" Lestrade growled, advancing.

"It's all right, Inspector Lestrade. Mr. Bernard Shaw is a colleague of the deceased and a writer for The Saturday Review." The two men bowed slightly.

"Very good. Well, gentlemen, as you can see----" Lestrade began.

"You haven't yet told them about the book, Inspector," interposed the young sergeant shyly. He had been following Holmes's every move with eager interest.

"I was going to, I was going to!" Lestrade shot back, growing suddenly annoyed. "You just stay in the background, young man, and 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. How did you know it was a book he was after before he died?"

"I can't think of another reason for him to have struggled so gallantly towards the bookshelves," Holmes replied mildly, "the more so as your assistant has just mentioned a book. I perceive that a volume of Shakespeare is missing from its place."

Shaw heard this information with a snort, but, with the rest of us, he watched as the sergeant brought forth and unwrapped from its handkerchief another object. Before us on the table lay a volume of Romeo and Juliet, published by John Murray and obviously one of the set that rested on the shelf above the corpse. Holmes brought forth his glass again and conducted a careful examination of the book, pursing his lips in concentration. The bottoms of several pages were smeared with dried blood.

"With your permission, sir," the sergeant spoke, "when we found the book, 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 dropped it before he died."

"But it was opened--to what page?"

"Somewheres in the middle," Lestrade grumbled. "It's a perfectly ordinary book with 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, evidently, have failed to do."

"It was opened to page forty-two," the sergeant volunteered. Holmes favoured him with an interested look, then began 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, if you know the lad, why not say so?" his superior broke in.

"Know him? Why, I've only just now clapped eyes on him. But 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 could have hazarded Hull or Leeds, but in these last six years, he has acquired a local overlay that makes it difficult to be precise. You live in Stepney now, don't you, Sergeant?"

"Aye, sir." The sergeant's eyes were wide with wonder and admiration. 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?"2

"Within thirty miles--if it's in English. I'd know your Dublin origins despite your attempt to conceal them," Holmes answered. "Ah, here we are, page fortytwo. It concludes act three, scene one."

"The duel between Tybalt and Mercution," Shaw said. The detective looked at him sharply. "Well, of course I've read it," admitted the Irishman, colouring slightly. "Romantic twaddle."

"I doubt if the book tells us anything," Lestrade persisted. "The pages may have turned over after it fell from his hand."

"They might," Holmes agreed. "But we must infer that he meant to tell us something by means of the volume. It could hardly have been the man's whim to pass the time with a little Shakespeare while he bled to death."

"Even McCarthy would not have been capable of such a gesture," said Shaw.

"You don't seem to be very disturbed by his murder," Lestrade observed suspiciously.

"I'm not disturbed in the least. The man was a charlatan and a viper and probably merited his end."

"Shakespeare?" Lestrade asked, totally perplexed.

"No, McCarthy. You see those signatures on the pictures? Lies, every one of 'em. Proffered in fear of bad reviews, malicious gossip, scandal in print. Do you remember the suicide of an actress named Alice MacKenzie? Well, that was almost certainly provoked by an item with this blackguard's name on it."

Sherlock Holmes was not listening. He crawled about on all fours, peering through his glass; he examined the walls, the shelves, the desk, the table, the divan and, finally, he made the minutest inspection of the corpse itself.

At last, 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.3 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 finger tips and the opened page. Do you understand?"

"And what have you uncovered with all your crawling about that I haven't?" Lestrade demanded with a sour grin.

"Nothing very much, I grant you. The murderer was a right-handed man. He had a working knowledge of anatomy and he was very powerful, though somewhat under six feet--as computed by the length of his stride. He wore new boots, expensive and probably purchased in the Strand, and he smoked what is definitely a foreign-made cigar, purchased abroad. And, before he left, he tore out the page in McCarthy's engagement diary for the twenty-eighth, with his name on it. Good day, Inspector Lestrade."

Mr. Brownlow, the police surgeon, and his men had arrived with their van as we left the house. Holmes nodded and exchanged a few words with that grey-bearded individual while his assistants were carrying the stretcher up the stairs. I felt something sad and final about that sight--even for such a malicious man as Jonathan McCarthy must have been.

Chapter IV

Concerning Bunthorne

We were seated in the Holborn Restaurant, whither we had repaired for sustenance, and Holmes was examining the menu. "Watson," he said, "what do you say to some Windsor soup, beefsteak pie, roly-poly pudding and a respectable claret?"

"That would suit me down to the ground."

"Shaw, my dear fellow?"

"Certainly not. I am no carnivore, preying upon my fellow creatures. You may order me a small salad."

It nettled me, I confess, to have my eating habits rebuked by this waggish fellow, but Holmes, now lost in thought, seemed impervious both to Shaw and to the hubbub round us, the chat of the many customers, the clatter of cutlery and the incessant sound of the swinging doors that led into the kitchen. With his great hawk's bill of a nose, he resembled nothing so much as a sleeping bird of prey.

"Well?" Shaw demanded at last. "Will you take the case?"

Holmes did not move nor raise his eyes. "Yes."

"Excellent!" The Irishman's face was wreathed in smiles. "What must we do first?"

"We must eat." At that very moment, our waiter arrived with the tray. As Holmes refused all enquiry for the next 30 minutes, we addressed ourselves to our victuals until, at length, Holmes patted his mouth delicately with his napkin and proceeded to fill his pipe.

"The case is not without interest," he began. "Are there any points that occur to you, Watson?"

"I must confess I was perplexed by the manner in which rigor mortis had set in," I replied. "One does not expect to find it so pronounced in the neck and the abdomen and so conspicuously absent in the fingers and the joints."

"But what about the book?" Shaw interposed excitedly.

"I do not underestimate its importance, I assure you," returned Holmes. "In a man's dying extremity, he tries to convey either the name of his murderer or the motive. But, knowing little of Jonathan McCarthy's personal affairs, at present we cannot force this clue to yield much of value. What are we to infer from it? That he saw himself as Mercutio? As Tybalt? That he was involved in a familial vendetta? Do we look for a particular word, phrase, passage, character?" He threw out both hands in an expressive gesture. "It tells us nothing--though it might be obvious to a specific individual for whom he intended it."

"Then where do we begin?" Shaw demanded, brushing his beard forward with his fingers into a rather fierce attitude.

"Dunhill's would be as likely a point of departure as any. They may be able to assist in identifying the origins of the murderer's cigar. I shall call on them. In the meantime, suppose we begin with Bunthorne. Any idea of who that might be?"

"Bunthorne?" I, for one, had never heard the name.

He smiled broadly, drew forth his pocketbook and extracted a torn piece of paper. "This is a page from McCarthy's engagement diary. It contains but one entry, for six-thirty at the Café Royal with someone named Bunthorne."

"I thought you said the murderer had pinched the engagement page for the twenty-eighth."

"And so he did. This, as you can see, is for February the twenty-seventh and I pinched it."

Shaw broke into an amused chuckle. "I can tell you who Bunthorne is and so could anyone else in the West End. I fancy, but, as you don't frequent anything but Covent Garden and Albert Hall, you have missed him."

"Is he famous, then, this Bunthorne?"

"Quite--one might even say infamous, but not under that name. McCarthy seems to have noted his engagements in a kind of code. It's the restaurant that makes it certain." Shaw jabbed at the paper with a thin forefinger. "He is usually to be found there, holding court."

"Who the devil is he, then?" I ejaculated. "The Prince of Wales?"

"He is Oscar Wilde. Playwright. Genius. Since you never go to the Savoy, thus missing the greatest combination of words and music since Aristophanes, you would not know the comic operas of Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan. Bunthorne is a character to be found in Patience."

"I have heard the tunes, I expect, on the barrel organ."

"Of course you have. Every hurdy-gurdy in London grinds out Sullivan's music." He regarded Holmes with a trace of scorn. "On what planet do you spend your time?"

Although he was amazed by the detective's ignorance of such matters, I was not. Holmes had once said that it was a question of utmost indifference to him whether the sun circled the earth or vice versa, provided it did not affect his work.

"Just a moment!" I cried, rubbing my forehead. "It comes to me now. When I returned from Afghanistan in '81, I saw this play. I remember it because I couldn't understand what it was all about--soldiers and someone with long hair who was liked by all the chorus."

"Can you be more precise than that?" Holmes asked Shaw.

"The opera parodies the whole Oscar Wilde cult of aestheticism in a rather smart fashion. That was lost on you, doctor, because you were out of the country when Wilde and his cronies burst upon the scene. Wilde is depicted in the piece as Reginald Bunthorne, 'a fleshly poet.'" Whereat, Shaw broke into a pleasant, not quite robust baritone:

"If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line as a man of culture rare,

You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere.

You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind,

The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind.

And every one will say,

As you walk your mystic way,

'If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,

Why what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!'"

Here, he broke off, looking slightly embarrassed. "Anyhow, that's Bunthorne--and, depend upon it, that's Oscar. But now I must be off. When and where shall we meet again?"

"I suggest Simpson's in the Strand for dinner. About eight o'clock," Holmes said. "But stay a moment. I am trying to understand the dramatis personae in this business. Oscar Wilde, now--is he really a genius?"

"The cleverest people in London suppose so--Frank Harris, Max Beerbohm, Whistler. And I must say that I agree. His plays, which are the least of his creations, will be remembered as among the most scintillating in the language. Definitely a genius, but"--Shaw seemed to hesitate--"but I fear he is courting ruin."

"How so?"

Shaw sighed and seemed in difficulty. "I am not at liberty to be specific."

"Then be general," Holmes advised.

Shaw thought again, his Mephistophelean eyebrows arching in concentration. "Oscar delights in antagonizing the world," he began carefully. "He doesn't take it seriously. But the world takes itself seriously and is not inclined to forgive him when he flouts its sacred conventions."

"I don't believe it," I said. "Mr. Gilbert, in his plays, has flouted them for years."

"Mr. Gilbert's private life is beyond reproach. The same cannot be said of Oscar Wilde." Shaw rose abruptly. "Good day, gentlemen."

Holmes looked up languidly. "Where can we find Wilde?"

"I believe he puts up at the Avondale in Piccadilly." He bobbed his head and left with that curious, dancing gait.

Holmes and I proceeded to Dunhill's in Regent Street, where Mr. Fitzgerald, a lively Scot, was pleased to be of assistance. He examined the cigar by turning it back and forth between thumb and forefinger, holding it to his ear and listening to the crackle and sighting along its length.

"An Indian cheroot," he pronounced. "The lads in the Indian army--who will smoke anything--have made them great favourites. Since they're too tough for civilians, they aren't sold here, but the soldiers bring 'em home by the boxful. Does this one figure in a case?"

"Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald," Holmes said. "It may figure. It may."

Chapter V

The Lord of Life

Holmes and I had, of course, seen caricatures of Oscar Wilde. His strange haircut, corpulent physique and outlandish mode of dress had been made familiar by the papers. And, although we had not seen them, we were aware that two comedies of his were playing to packed houses. The Importance of Being Earnest had opened only a fortnight or so before. Yet none of this prepared us for his living embodiment.

When we presented ourselves at the Avondale and enquired after the playwright, the clerk, with a sour impression, informed us that we should find him in the lounge. There was a great deal of noise coming from that direction--the clinking of glasses, the babble of voices, punctuated by sudden, shrill hoots of laughter.

My first impression upon entering the room was that we had travelled backwards in Mr. Wells's time machine and had stumbled upon the satyrs, cherubs and elves of a Roman Saturnalia. A second glance reassured me that the young men gathered there, singing, reciting poetry and drinking to one another's health, were all dressed in the garb of the present century. Standing in the centre of the room and towering over his guests was the leviathan, Oscar Wilde himself. His long hair was wreathed with laurel, or something very like it, and his deep, sonorous voice was declaiming a poem having something to do with Daphnis and Chloë. He had his arm draped over the shoulders of a slender young man whose blond curls framed the face of an angel.

After a moment or two, our presence on the threshold made itself felt and the songs and jests subsided. Wilde turned and faced us, one disagreeably flabby hand tugging the vine leaves from his hair. He was astonishingly comely and youthful, though I knew he must be 40. Too much food and drink had bloated his girth and his features, but his grey eyes were clear and alert.

As he gazed at us, subdued whispers circulated and, more than once, I heard the word policemen. "Policemen?" Wilde echoed. He came forward, inspecting us intently. "No, I think not. A policeman is undeniably the least aesthetic thing on the planet." When he spoke, he had an odd trick of covering his mouth with a crooked finger. Holmes stared back at him and their grey eyes locked.

"We may be less aesthetic than you think," Holmes told him, presenting his card.

"Dear me," he murmured, "more detectives. I shan't dissemble, however, and pretend that I have not heard of Mr. Sherlock Holmes." The revellers passed the name round in reverential tones, a lone giggle marring this response. "And this must be Dr. Watson," he said, swivelling his luminous eyes in my direction. He gave us his charming smile. "What is it you wish, gentlemen?"

"A moment of your time in private, sir."

"Is it about the marquess?" he demanded, his voice rising and beginning to tremble. "If so, I must refer you to my solicitor, Mr. Humphreys."

"It is about Jonathan McCarthy."

The playwright's dreamy eyes bulged briefly. "Ah, so he has dared after all...." His thick lips compressed with a show of both annoyance and resolve.

"He has dared nothing, Mr. Wilde. He lies dead in his flat this day, the victim of an assault by person or persons unknown--some hours after his rendezvous with you. I really think this interview might be conducted better elsewhere," Holmes concluded in a low tone.

"Murdered?" Bacchus seemed aghast at the word. In that instant, I perceived that underneath the carefully nurtured decadence and show of depraved ideas, the man was an utter innocent, far more shocked at the idea of murder than I.

Once in the adjacent writing room, Holmes and I took seats and Wilde dropped heavily onto a sofa opposite. Now he made no pretence to grace but sat with his fat hands dangling between his knees, like a cabby on the box.

"I take it I am under suspicion in the matter?" he began.

"Dr. Watson and I do not represent the police nor do we have any way of knowing where their suspicions may fall," Holmes replied. "Can you account for your whereabouts after your meeting with Jonathan McCarthy at the Café Royal on February twenty-seventh?"

"That's no trouble. I was with Lawyer Humphreys all that evening. And I can account for myself yesterday as well." Now he seemed to brighten a bit. "But what of the scene? Was there incense burning? Did you find the naked footsteps of a woman who had danced in his blood?"

Ignoring this, Holmes briefly outlined the circumstances, omitting all mention of the book but adding that no one we had spoken with thus far appeared surprised or grieved by the news.

Wilde shrugged. "I can't imagine the West End will consider him a great loss."

"At the moment," Holmes said, "the police do not know of your appointment with him, but I wonder if you will tell us the nature of it?"

Wilde's eyes flashed with hope and he straightened up in his seat. "Then all may be well!" He looked from one to the other of us, then, his elation subsiding, "Better you than the police, is that it?"

After a pause, during which he rubbed his lips meditatively with his crooked forefinger, he began, "I assume you have heard of Charles Augustus Milverton?"

"The society blackmailer? Our paths have not yet crossed, but I do know of him."4

"Well, Jonathan McCarthy pursued a similar line of country, preying upon us denizens of the theatre. He had his little spies and he squeezed hard. In any event, I've had experience with blackmailers who get hold of my letters and threaten me and I have a cure for that."

I asked him what that might be and he smiled behind his crooked finger.

"I publish the letters." A serious expression replaced the smile. "McCarthy was threatening me with several letters. He'd heard about the business at the Albemarle5 earlier in the day and had sent me an earnest of his intentions."

"You'll have to speak more plainly, I'm afraid. I know of no business at the Albemarle."

Wilde sat back, astonishment writ large upon his features. "But you've surely heard! It must be across all of London by now!" Wilde licked his purplish lips. "The Marquess of Queensberry, the father of that splendid young man back there in the lounge--but no more like him than Hyperion was like to Hercules--left a card for me at the Albemarle yesterday. I do not propose to tell you the words that barbarian wrote on the card--except to say that he misspelled him.6 I was advised by friends to ignore the matter, but, instead, I went round to Mr. Humphreys. This morning, he accompanied me to Bow Street, where I swore out a complaint for criminal libel. By this time tomorrow, the marquess will have been arrested and charged and I shall be forever rid of that monster in human clothing." With a sheepish grin, he concluded, "Hence that little celebration next door."

"And did McCarthy know of Queens-berry's intentions beforehand?"

Wilde nodded. "His threat was to furnish the defence with certain correspondence of mine that would prejudice my case. But," he added, "I had cards of my own to play and I played them."

"I think it may be as well to lay them on the table now."

"As you like. To be brief, I myself am the repository of certain colourful secrets of theatre people in the West End. For example, I know that George Grossmith, who does the patter songs for Gilbert--and who played me, you know!--has been taking drugs. That's because Gilbert scares him so at rehearsals. I know that Bram Stoker keeps a flat in Soho, the existence of which is unknown to Mrs. Stoker and Henry Irving. My intuition tells me that he doesn't use it as a place to play chess. Then, again, I know about Sullivan's games of chemin de fer with----"

"And what did you know of McCarthy?" Holmes interrupted, concealing his distaste.

"He was keeping a mistress named Jessie Rutland, an ingénue at the Savoy. For a man who played the part of middleclass British rectitude to hypocritical perfection, such a disclosure would mean instant ruin. Once I had mentioned the girl, he had little left to say. A sordid story, I fear, but mine own."

Holmes stared at him for some moments, then rose abruptly. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Wilde. You are certainly a mine of information."

The poet looked at him and there was something so ingenuous and pleasant in his countenance that I found myself charmed despite everything he had said. "We are all as God made us, Mr. Holmes--and many of us much worse."

"Is that yours?" I enquired.

"No, doctor," he said lightly, "but it will be." Turning to Holmes, he said, "You do not approve of me, I fear."

"Not altogether."

"I find myself wishing that you did."

"It may be that one day I shall."

Chapter VI

The Second Murder

It was twilight when Holmes and I left the Avondale and joined the rush-hour crowds in Piccadilly. The wind had risen and it cut our faces, biting our throats, too, as we walked. Cabs were not to be had for love or money, but the Savoy Theatre was no great distance from the hotel. We simply trudged in that direction, elbowing our way amidst the throng and avoiding as best we could the dirty snow that shovels had piled up next to the kerbs.

I remarked as we walked that I could not remember encountering a more singular set of people than those we had met in connection with the murder of Jonathan McCarthy.

"The theatre is a singular calling," Holmes concurred. "A noble art but a dreary profession, and one that reveres that which the rest of society condemns." He favoured me with a sidelong glance. "Deception. The ability to dissemble and deceive, to pass for what you are not. You will find it better expressed in Plato. These, however, are the actor's stock in trade."

"The chief difficulty with this case," he observed at length, as we entered the Strand, "besides the fact that our client cannot afford to pay for his meals, let alone our expenses--the chief difficulty, I say--is the superfluity of motives. If half the tales Wilde told us just now are true, there may be upwards of a dozen people whose interests would be well served by eliminating McCarthy--and they all dwell within that circumscribed world of the theatre, where passions--real and feigned--abound."

"What is more," I pointed out, "their professional gifts are likely to render their complicity in a crime rather more difficult than usual to detect.

"Has it occurred to you," I went on, "that McCarthy's use of Shakespeare was meant to be taken generally?"

"I don't follow you."

"Well, your friend Shaw--our client--cannot abide Shakespeare. The Morning Courant, for which McCarthy wrote, is well known as a rival to The Saturday Review. There can be little doubt that with McCarthy out of the way, Bernard Shaw's star and literary following would rise more or less together. Can McCarthy's reference to Romeo and Juliet really mean not the Montagues and Capulets but rather the two periodicals? Doesn't Mercutio, dying, refer to 'a plague on both your houses'?" I continued, warming to my theme. "At the same time, the use of Shakespeare, whom Shaw detests, may serve to point an unerring finger in his direction as the assassin."

"Watson, what a devious mind you possess!" He stopped, his eyes twinkling. "That is positively brilliant. Brilliant! Of course, you have neglected all the evidence, but I cannot fault your imagination." He resumed his steps. "No, I'm afraid it won't do. Can you honestly envision our Shaw drinking brandy? Or smoking a cigar? Or running his rival through--apparently on impulse--with a letter opener?"

"He's almost the right height," I contended feebly, not wishing to abandon my theory without a struggle. "Besides, his objections to drink and smoke might merely have been lodged for our benefit."

"They might," he agreed, "though I have known of his prejudices in those directions for some time. In any event, why come to me at all if he wished to remain undetected?"

"Perhaps his vanity was flattered by the prospect of deceiving you."

He considered this in silence briefly. "No, Watson, no. It is clever, but rather too cumbersome, and what is more, his shoes do not match the impressions left by the assassin. Shaw's footwear is quite old--it pains me to think of his walking about in this weather--whereas our man wore new boots, purchased, as I think I said, in the Strand. Oscar Wilde, at least, was wearing the right shoes."

"What of Wilde, then? Did you notice that when he spoke, he continually covered his mouth with his finger? Do you accept at face value his story of having checkmated McCarthy's blackmail scheme with knowledge of the man's illicit liaisons?"

"I neither accept it nor reject it at the moment," he returned, undaunted. "That is why we are at the Savoy. As for Wilde's peculiar habit of covering his mouth, you surely observed that his teeth are ugly. It is merely vanity on his part to conceal them in conversation."

"Did you see his teeth?"

"Didn't I just say he makes a considerable effort to hide them?"

"Then how do you know they are ugly?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson. He does not open his mouth when he smiles. Hmm, the house is dark tonight. Let us go round by the stage door and see if there are folk within."

We walked into the alley that led to the stage door and found the door open. There was activity within the theatre, though it was clear from the bustle backstage that no play was in progress. We threaded our way amongst actors and stagehands until our presence was discovered by the manager, who politely enquired as to our business there. Holmes tendered his card and explained that we were in search of either Mr. Gilbert or Sir Arthur Sullivan.

"Sir Arthur ain't here and Mr. Gilbert's leading the rehearsal," we were told. "Perhaps you'd better speak with Mr. D'Oyly Carte. He's in the stalls. Right through this door and very quiet, gentlemen, please."

We thanked the man and stepped into the empty auditorium. The house lights were on and I marvelled once again at the lighting in the Savoy. It was the first theatre in the world to be totally lit by the use of electricity, and the resultant illumination differed greatly from that supplied by gas. I thought back 14 years and tried to recall my first visit to the place. I had worried, then, about the danger of fire originating from an electrical failure, because I could not understand who Reginald Bunthorne was supposed to be and allowed my mind to wander from the piece. My fears were apparently without foundation, because years have gone by since, and the Savoy still stands, unharmed.7

A lone figure was seated in the stalls towards the back and he favoured us with a baleful stare as we walked up the aisle in his direction. He was a small man, dwarfed by his chair, wearing a dark, pointed beard that complemented his black eyes. Something in his glower, at once so regal and so forbidding, made me think of Napoleon. It was my subsequent impression that this was his intention.

"Mr. Richard D'Oyly Carte?" Holmes asked, when we were close enough to be heard in a whisper.

"What do you want? The press is not permitted here before opening nights; that is a rule at the Savoy. There's a rehearsal in progress and I must ask you to leave."

"We are not from the papers. I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate, Dr. Watson."

"Sherlock Holmes!" The name produced a desired effect and D'Oyly Carte's countenance broke into a smile. He half rose from his chair and proffered two seats beside him. "Sit down, gentlemen, sit down! The Savoy is honoured. Please make yourselves comfortable. They have been at it all day and are rather run down, just now, but you are welcome, nonetheless."

He appeared to think we had entered his theatre on a whim, having--for some reason--taken it into our heads to attend a rehearsal. For the present, Holmes encouraged this view.

"What is the name of the piece?" he enquired in a polite undertone, slipping into his seat beside the impresario.

"The Grand Duke."

We turned our attention to the stage, where a tall man in his late 50s, of military bearing, was addressing the actors. I say addressing them, but it would be more truthful to say he was drilling them. It seemed nowise inconsistent with his military stamp, which marked him as a compulsive man of precision. The stage was devoid of scenery, making it difficult to understand what the piece was about. Gilbert--obviously the military fellow was he--directed a tall, gangling actor to repeat his entrance and first speech. The man disappeared into the wings only to emerge seconds later with his lines, but Gilbert cut him off in midsentence and requested him to do it again. Next to us, our host made several rapid notations in a book he propped upon his knees. With some little hesitation, the actor retreated once more upon his errand. Although nothing was said, it was clear that all were fatigued and that tempers were fraying. Carte, pen in hand, looked up at the stage, a scowl creasing his features. He tapped the stylo nervously against his teeth.

"They're played out," he proclaimed in a mutter directed to no one in particular. From his inflection it was impossible to determine whether he meant the players or the authors.

"Our visit here is not entirely a social one." Holmes leaned towards the impresario. "I believe there is a young woman attached to the company by the name of Jessie Rutland? Which is she?"

The manager's demeanour underwent an instant metamorphosis. The harassed but generous impresario became the suspicious property owner.

"Why d'ye want to know?" he demanded. "Is she in any difficulty?"

"The difficulty is none of hers," Holmes assured him, "but she must respond to some questions. Either to me or the police; quite possibly to both."

Carte regarded him fixedly for a moment, then slumped into his seat, almost willing it to swallow him.

"I could ask for nothing more," he mused darkly. "A scandal. There has never been a breath of scandal at the Savoy. The conduct of the members of this company is beyond reproach. Mr. Gilbert sees to that."

"Mr. Grossmith uses drugs, does he not?"

Carte stared at him from the recesses of his chair, wonder written on his face.

"Where did you hear such a thing?"

"No matter where, the story will go no further than it has. May we speak with Miss Rutland, now?" Holmes pursued.

"She's in her dressing room," the other replied gruffly. "Not feeling well--said something about a sore throat."

On stage, voices were being raised. "How many times will you have it, Mr. Gilbert?" the actor exploded.

"Until I have it right will do, Mr. Passmore."

"But I've done it fifteen times!" the unfortunate actor wailed. "I'm not Mr. Grossmith, you know. I am a singer, not an actor."

"Both facts are evident," Gilbert responded coldly. "However, we must do the best we can."

"I will not be spoken to in this way!" Passmore declared and, shaking with anger, stamped into the wings. Gilbert watched him go, then turned his attention to the floor, apparently studying something there. Carte rose to his feet.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Carte raised his voice and adopted a cheerful timbre, "let us forbear for two hours and renew our energies over supper. We open within thirty-six hours and we must all sustain our strength."

"The dressing rooms are downstairs?" Holmes asked as we got to our feet.

"Women stage left; men stage right." The impresario, absorbed by a more immediate crisis, waved us absently towards the proscenium. We had started down the way we had come, when the air was rent with an unearthly wail. So odd was the noise that for a moment no one was able to identify it. In the empty theatre, the hideous sound echoed and reverberated. The people on stage, preparing to leave, stood momentarily frozen with surprise and collective horror.

"That's a woman!" Holmes cried. "Come on, Watson!" He dashed across the footlights and into the wings, his coattails flying as I followed. Backstage, we plunged into a labyrinthine mass of theatrical apparatus that obstructed our path to the wrought-iron spiral steps that led to the dressing rooms below. Behind us we could hear the pounding feet of the chorus, hurrying in our wake.

At the foot of the steps, a passage led off to our left and Holmes flew down it. A series of doors on either side of the corridor--some of them ajar--led to the ladies' dressing quarters. Holmes flung these open in rapid succession, stopping abruptly at the fifth door and blocking my view with his back.

"Keep them out, Watson," said he quietly, and closed the door behind him.

Within seconds, a group of 30 or so members of the Savoy company surrounded me, all babbling questions. I was struck with the ironic observation that they sounded like themselves, that is to say, like a chorus of Savoyards, singing, "Now what is this and what is that and why does father leave his rest, at such a time of night as this, so very incompletely dressed?" when into their midst, parting them firmly left and right as though he were breasting the Red Sea, strode Gilbert. His muttonchop whiskers bristled, his blue eyes were very bright.

"What is happening here?"

"Sherlock Holmes is endeavouring to find out." I gestured behind me to the closed door. The large blue eyes blinked in the direction of the door, then refocussed themselves on me.

"Holmes? The detective?"

"That is correct. I am Dr. Watson. I sometimes assist Mr. Holmes. The woman who screamed, I take it, was Miss Rutland," I went on. "She complained of not feeling well and you sent her downstairs to rest."

"I dimly remember doing something of the kind." He passed a weary hand over his broad forehead. "It has been a tiring day."

"Do you know Miss Rutland well, sir?"

He answered my question automatically, too preoccupied to object to my forwardness in quizzing him.

"Know her? Not really. She is in the chorus and I do not engage the chorus." A trace of bitterness crept into his voice, undisguised. "Sir Arthur engages the singers. Sir Arthur is not here at the moment, as you have quite possibly divined. Sir Arthur is either at cards with some of his titled friends or else at the Lyceum, where he is wasting his talents on incidental music for Irving's new Macbeth. It would be too much to ask him for the overture to our piece before opening night, but I dare say he will deign to have it ready by then. Perhaps Sir Arthur will even find time to coach the singers once or twice before we open, but I am not sure." His rancour twisted itself round the word sir every time he used it. Now he turned and spoke to the company. "Here, everybody!" he cried. "Go and have your supper. We shall continue at eight o'clock sharp with act one from the sausage-roll number. Go on and eat, my dears; there's nothing of consequence that need detain you here and you must keep up your strength!"

"Now let me pass," he ordered, in a tone that brooked no objection. Before I could answer, we were interrupted by a clatter on the spiral stairs at the end of the corridor and Carte descended hurriedly with another man, whose black bag proclaimed him a member of the same profession as myself.

"Dr. Watson, this is Dr. Benjamin Eccles," Carte cried, rushing towards us, "the doctor who is on call at the Savoy." I shook hands briefly with a man of medium height and pale complexion, with deep-set green eyes and a small, delicate-looking nose.

"I make the rounds of several theatres in the district when I am on call," Eccles explained, looking past me at the closed door, "and I had just stepped into the stalls, to see how the rehearsal was getting on, when Mr. Carte saw me and summoned me downstairs."

Behind us the door opened and Holmes stood there in his shirt sleeves. Clearly he had only been waiting for the members of the chorus to depart. I introduced Dr. Eccles, and Holmes favoured him with a curt inclination of his head.

"There has been a murder," he explained in sombre tones, "and all must remain as it is until viewed by the authorities. Watson, you and Dr. Eccles as physicians may come in. Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Carte, I must ask that you remain beyond the threshold. It isn't a pretty sight," he added under his breath, standing aside to let me in.

A young woman with dark russet hair, who could not have been more than 25, lay on her side upon a small sofa, which constituted the sole article of furniture in the room, save for a dressing table and chair. Her nap had been rudely interrupted, as evidenced by a crimson gash across her pearl-white throat, and her life's blood dripped onto the floor, where it had begun to collect in a small pool.

The sight was so horrible, the corruption of her existence so woefully and inappropriately complete, that it robbed us of articulation. Eccles coughed once and set about examining the wretched creature's remains.

"Her throat has been severed quite cleanly," he reported in a faint voice. "It is slightly hard above the cut. Can rigor have set in so quickly?" he asked himself. "It isn't present in her fingers and her blood is still...is still----"

"She complained of a sore throat," I explained, suppressing a mad impulse to giggle at the thought. "Her glands are merely swollen." As I said this, it occurred to me that my own throat felt raw--a ghastly enough identification.

"Ah, that must be it." Eccles looked about the small room. "I don't see the murder weapon."

"It is not here," Holmes replied. "Or if it is, my search has failed to reveal it."

"But why, why? Why was she slain?" Carte shouted from the doorway, his small hands clawing clumsily at his collar and tearing it asunder. "Who would want to do such a thing?"

No one was able to answer him. I looked at Gilbert. He had sunk onto a bench across from the entrance to the room and stared glazedly before him.

"I didn't know her at all well," he spoke woodenly, like one in a dream, "yet she always seemed sweet enough and willing. A sweet young thing," he repeated, his eyes beginning to blink rapidly.

"There is nothing further for us here, Watson," Holmes declared, resuming his jacket and ulster. Carte rushed forward and seized him by the lapels.

"You can't go!" he cried. "You mustn't! You know what this is about! I insist that you tell me. What questions were you going to put to the girl?"

"My questions were for her ears alone," the detective replied solemnly. Gently he removed the other's quaking hands. "You may refer the police to Dr. Watson and myself for our depositions. They know where we are to be found. Come, doctor," he turned to me, "we have an appointment at Simpson's, which now assumes greater importance."

We bowed and shook hands with Gilbert, who responded in a trance, leaving Carte and the shaken Dr. Eccles, who would write up the relevant particulars of his examination. Poor man, he was more used to sore throats than cut ones, I fancy.

As we walked down the corridor, I heard Carte suggest to Gilbert that the rest of the rehearsal be cancelled.

"We can't," Gilbert replied in a hoarse rejoinder, his voice cracking with emotion.

Chapter VII

Assaulted

Simpson's Café Divan was but a few yards along the Strand and it was no great matter to get there from the theatre.8 Nevertheless, as we left the Savoy and stepped onto the pavement, the frigid wind hit me like a wave and I stumbled against the kiosk next to the ticket office.

"Are you all right, Watson?"

"I think so; only a bit dizzy."

Holmes nodded sympathetically. "It was quite warm inside--and appalling. I confess to feeling slightly faint myself." He took my arm and we entered the restaurant.

At this hour Simpson's was by no means full. We were recognized at once by Mr. Crathie and experienced no difficulty in obtaining a table. It wanted 15 minutes of eight, granting us some moments for private reflection regarding the unexpected turn events had taken.

I felt little desire to eat but I had an overpowering thirst. I ordered a brandy and a carafe of water and found that the brandy burned my throat like fire. I drank thirstily of the water.

"If we persist in tramping about in this weather," Holmes noted, "we shall catch our death." He, too, drank a great deal of water and looked, I thought, paler than his wont.

After some moments while we studied our menus, Holmes broke silence. "The case begins to assume a familiar shape."

"Which shape is that? I am utterly at a loss, I confess."

"A triangle, if I am not mistaken--the old story of a jealous lover discarded by his mistress in favour of another patron." From his pocketbook, he carefully extracted the page torn from McCarthy's engagement diary.

"Are you asking me to believe that sweet-faced young woman took up with a man of McCarthy's stamp?" I asked. My head had begun to throb as badly as the old wound in my leg often did.

"The evidence points strongly in that direction. You will recall Wilde's remark about her. We must assume, provisionally, that he was correct. As for her looks," he mused dreamily, "what can a woman's appearance signify? Women are devious creatures, even the best of them, and capable of vastly more than we men would like to suppose. That she was McCarthy's mistress, I am prepared to credit for the moment; what her motives were for so being, I am prepared to learn."

"From whom?"

"I fancy that will depend to a degree on Arthur Sullivan. I shall turn to him for a better portrait. Hello!" He sat forward suddenly, pulled forth his magnifying glass and scrutinized the torn page.

"It must be last night's entry. Have a look." He shoved the paper over to me and held the glass above it. I was able to discern some faint impression, evidently formed by a pencil pressed down on another piece of paper.

Having importuned a nearby waiter for a pencil, Holmes threw back a corner of the tablecloth and positioned the paper carefully on the wood and began to rub the lead lightly back and forth across the surface. Slowly, like the appearance of a spirit photograph, the indentations were thrown into sharp relief. They read: Jack Point--here.

"Who can that be?" we wondered simultaneously.

"But here is our oracle in such matters," said Holmes, looking up. Shaw had just entered the restaurant and stood with his nose in the air, as if sniffing the place out. When Holmes waved him over, he advanced rapidly and slid onto the banquette as Holmes again concealed the paper in his pocketbook.

"Well, what have you learned?" the critic demanded without preamble. "I'm famished," he added and began a perusal of the menu.

"We wish to consult you, first," Holmes said easily. "Do you know of anyone named Jack Point? An actor, perhaps? Someone from the theatre world?"

Shaw looked up from his menu, knitting his brows. "I can't say that I do. Why?"

"Or could this be the name of another Gilbertian creation?" I struck in.

He brightened at once and snapped his fingers. "Of course, Yeoman of the Guard. A serious opera, laid in the Middle Ages and having to do with the Tower of London. Jack Point is the jester in it--a foolish and pathetic figure who loses his ladylove to a highborn lord, if my memory serves."

Holmes smiled sadly. "You see, Watson, we are dealing with that geometrical construction I postulated some minutes ago."

"What are you talking about?" Shaw demanded brusquely. "And why are you both so pale. Between all that mutton, drink and tobacco, you're digging yourselves early graves, the pair of you."

"Spare us your medical advice, I beg you."

"Then tell me what has happened. Did you find Wilde?"

The detective thereupon detailed our encounter at the Avondale. When he spoke of the Marquess of Queensberry and Wilde's warrant, however, the most extraordinary change came over Shaw.

He paled, leapt to his feet and cried, "The man has taken leave of his senses!" Thus, abandoning Holmes and me to stare at each other in perplexity, he ran from the restaurant.

"No matter," Holmes said and shrugged. "Our problem lies at twenty-four South Crescent and the dressing room of the Savoy." He looked at his watch. "It seems that we are not going to run Sir Arthur to ground this evening and, as I don't feel very much like dining, I suggest we go. This is quite a three-pipe problem. Not that I feel like smoking." He rose.

"I think I shall remain here for a few minutes more," I said quietly.

"My dear fellow, you're not truly ill?" He pressed a hand to my brow and then to his own forehead. "It appears we've both caught bad colds."

"I'll be myself in a little," I protested, thinking the while that this was the oddest cold I'd ever contracted. "Go along and I'll catch you up."

"You're quite sure?" He hesitated a moment. "Very well, come as soon as you are able."

When he had gone, I sat for some time, feeling the fever take possession of my body. As I finally rose, the waiter perceived that I was ill and offered to fetch me a cab.

"Thank you, I'll walk. The fresh air may do me good." I got feebly to the door and staggered out, observing that it had begun to snow quite heavily again. I struck off down the deserted street, perspiring profusely as I walked amidst the silent flakes.

And then something so unexpected happened that I could scarcely credit it. I was seized from behind by a powerful pair of arms and pulled bodily out of the glare of the gas lamps into an alley that adjoined the restaurant. In my weakened condition, resistance was useless. One gloved hand now reached round and held my nose, so that I could not breathe save through my mouth, whilst the other hand forced a vial of some liquid to my lips. It was either drink or suffocate and I drank, perforce, my head reeling, my ears pounding, my feet slipping madly about on the icy pavement.

The taste was bitter and faintly charged with alcohol. When I had drunk the whole mess, I was released and, rendered helpless by the shock of the attack and by my fever, I collapsed into darkness.

How long I remained in that alley, the snow accumulating about me, I did not learn until much later. Eventually, two constables on their rounds espied me. At first, they supposed that I had consumed too much liquor, but on being revived, I identified myself and related what had happened. They then put me into a cab and I returned to Baker Street.

There, another surprise awaited me. Sherlock Holmes, in bed with pillows propping him up, informed me that he, too, had been assaulted in the same manner after leaving the restaurant.

Chapter VIII

Mama, the Crab and Others

Breakfast the next morning at Baker Street was a subdued repast. Holmes ate in silence. In spite of my exposure in the snow, I had slept well and my fever had quite vanished. My appetite reasserted itself and I made a good breakfast.

"It doesn't seem to have done us any harm," Holmes allowed finally. "I have known parents who cozened reluctant children into swallowing medicine in that fashion." He laid aside his napkin and reached for his clay and, since we had no clue as to the motive for these bizarre assaults, tabled the matter for the time being.

"Now, as to Arthur Sullivan," he recommenced, "we must see if he can add to our negligible information regarding Jack Point. If he cannot, we shall be obliged to perform the real drudgery of detective work. I mean going to Miss Rutland's lodgings, talking with neighbours, and so forth. But first, Sir Arthur. Are you coming?"

I had started to put on my jacket when a knock at the door was followed by the entrance of our landlady.

"A boy left this for you at the door, Mr. Holmes."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson." He came forward and took the small brown envelope. Then, utterly absorbed, like a child with a new toy, Holmes walked to the bow window and held the packet up to the grey sunlight. "Hmm. No postmark, of course. Address typewritten on a Remington in need of a new ribbon. Hmm. Paper is Indian--definite watermark. No visible fingerprints."

"Holmes, for heaven's sake, open it."

"In good time, my dear fellow." At length, however, he proceeded to slit open one end of the envelope, remove a folded sheet of the same dark stock and spread it out.

"Liverpool Daily Mail, Morning Courant, London Times and The Saturday Review, if I am not mistaken."

"What are you talking about?"

"The different sources for these cuttings. Here." He passed the paper over to me. Its message read:

aS you VALUE your LiveS STAY out of the Strand

While I looked at the configuration of letters, scissored out and pasted there, I experienced a very real tingle of fear. I shuddered and my blood ran cold, as if my fever had returned. I looked up from the paper and beheld Holmes's grey eyes searching mine.

"What does the printing suggest to you?"

"As you know, I can identify twelve different periodicals by their type faces," he responded. "But, except for the fact that the sender wishes to remain anonymous, I derive little else. What does it suggest to you?"

"Why, look at the sources he has used!" I cried with some excitement. "The Morning Courant and The Saturday Review. Does that not bring us back to my theory of a deadly rivalry between those two papers?"

"Rather, does it not steer us away from your theory? Only a fool would use those two type faces in his message. And how does your theory explain the murder of Miss Rutland?"

"It fails to," I admitted ruefully. "But--on another point--what do you make of Shaw's bolting out of the restaurant like that? Could he have initiated those curious attacks in the nighttime?"

"He hasn't the strength for it, obviously. Besides, we have no way of determining if the attacks are even related to this business." Holmes threw on his coat and prepared to go.

On our way to the Lyceum, we read the morning papers in the cab. There was a brief piece on the warrant sworn out by Wilde against the Marquess of Queens-berry and, on another page, a detailed account of the murder at 24 South Crescent. Heavy emphasis was placed on the pronouncements of Inspector G. Lestrade, who promised to "lay the culprit by the heels in very short order" and whose description of the murderer was a neat paraphrase of Sherlock Holmes's summation. Holmes chuckled.

"Lestrade must be accounted one of the comforting consistencies in this reeling world, Watson," said he. "The man hasn't changed a hair in the last dozen years."

"The paper nowhere makes mention of Miss Rutland," I noted.

"I believe the Times goes to bed too early in the evening for that. It will no doubt be in this afternoon's edition and the murderer will have the dubious satisfaction of seeing himself in print twice in one day."

"You're convinced it is the same man, then?"

"It would be stretching coincidence if it were not. Besides, he has the same style--and shoes."

"Still, the crimes seem dissimilar, do they not--the first apparently committed on impulse and the second quite premeditated?"

"That is true. It is also true that a knifelike weapon was employed in both cases--fittingly by Jack Point--and, in both cases, the man displayed more than a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy. Indeed, his throat slitting had a surgical precision that must have dispatched his victim with humane immediacy."

"How do you reconcile the crime of impulse with the crime of premeditation?"

"I do not, as yet, but I will advance a provisional theory. Jack Point, our discarded lover, in talking--for whatever reason--with McCarthy, learns of the latter's affair with Miss Rutland. In a rage, he slays the man and then, with forethought, he revenges himself upon the mistress. Ah, here is the Lyceum!"

The front doors were open and we stepped into the elegant foyer.

"Can I help you?" The deep voice that spoke these words startled us, the more so as we could not determine whence it came. This mystery was quickly solved when the shuttered windows of the box office had banged open and we were confronted by a dark, bearded man with a pinched, aquiline nose and expressionless eyes. He sat behind a set of bars like those of a teller's window and my first thought was that he should stay behind them.

"We are looking for Sir Arthur Sullivan. My name is Sherlock Holmes."

The bearded apparition rose with startling decision and slammed the shutters. Then he strode out, a man just under six feet, wearing a dark, impeccably tailored suit beneath which there were signs of an athletic physique.

"Sir Arthur is occupied with Sir Henry. Can I help you with something?" There was no warmth behind the offer.

"You can help me to Sir Arthur," Holmes answered, undismayed. "And you may pay my compliments to John Henry Brodribb."

The man blinked as though a riding crop had been swung in his face, spun on his heel and entered the theatre auditorium.

"What a singular personage!" Holmes pursed his lips. "By the way, did he say 'Sir Henry'?"

I was about to reply to this when the clatter of horses' hooves upon the cobblestones outside attracted our attention. A brougham had driven up and from it there appeared the prettiest woman I ever remembered having seen. Her figure was trim and girlish, though when she drew closer, I saw that she must be nearing 50. She had blonde hair beneath a rakishly tilted hat and eyes of a radiant blue. When a smile came over her humourous mouth, I caught a glimpse of teeth white as a rope of pearls. An air of healthy common sense and warmth pervaded her whole presence.

She danced into the foyer and called cheerily, "Good morning!" and added, "Tickets do not go on sale before noon, you know--though you are quite right to be early; they've been going like hot cakes all week!"

"Have I the honour of addressing Miss Ellen Terry?" Holmes smiled and bowed.

"Yes. You look familiar, too, if you don't mind my saying so. Have you been an actor?"

"Not for many years--on the stage, that is. But once, long ago, I trod the board with John Henry Brodribb."

She burst into a peal of girlish laughter. "No! You acted for The Crab before he was The Crab? You don't look old enough to have done any such thing."

"I assure you, I wasn't. I was eight at the time and I played a page during a performance of Hamlet at York. My parents discovered me from the audience and were thoroughly appalled."

"But this is wonderful! You are here to see Irving, then? He will be so amused!"

"There was a dark-haired, bearded gentleman here a moment ago. I believe he has gone upon my errand."

"Oh, so you've met Mama?" She paused, looking at us. "But forgive my penchant for nicknames. Irving says I'm quite incorrigible. And heaven knows what he would say if he knew I call him The Crab. He's terribly sensitive about the way he walks. Mama, of course, is Mr. Bram Stoker, our business manager and general secretary. He is so very protective of us all that I call him Mama." She gave a mischievous laugh. "But here we are, gossiping like old friends and you still haven't told me your names."

"Forgive me. I am Sherlock Holmes and this is Dr. Watson. We have actually come to speak with Sir Arthur Sullivan rather than Sir Henry."

"Oh, you mustn't call him that yet, you know. It's months off.9 Mama does, of course--he's fond of titles--but it drives Irving quite wild. In any case, come with me and we'll find Arthur."

As she turned to enter, the theatre door opened suddenly and Stoker reappeared, almost as if he had been eavesdropping. Miss Terry gave a little shriek, placing her hand on her bosom. "How you startled me, Bram!"

"I beg your pardon." He then informed us coldly, "Sir Arthur will see you now."

The Lyceum, which I had not seen for some time, was a theatre lavish beyond belief and famed for the unstinting artistic efforts and money that went into its productions. Before us on the stage now was a stunning set of what I took to be the blasted heath in the first scene of Macbeth. Real trees were in evidence as well as shrubbery and a three-dimensional rocky terrain.

Soon we entered the complicated backstage of the theatre. All round us, carpenters were sawing, hammering and shouting instructions to one another. Miss Terry led on until we came to a door that gave out from the back of the building.

As we paused here, Holmes remarked offhandedly, "It seems to me that I have met Mr. Stoker before. Doesn't he live in Soho?"

Ellen Terry spun round, her finger to her lips. "Hush! Oh, please, please, you mustn't mention anything of the kind in there. It was such a sore point when it happened the first time! I don't know that Irving's ever forgiven him for it, and that was years ago."

She put her head to the door and listened intently, then signalled for us to do the same.

"No, no, no, my dear chap!" came an odd-sounding deep voice, very nasal. "As music, it may be all very well, but it's not right for our purpose at all. Listen! I see the daggers and I want them heard by the audience."

"But, Henry, what do daggers sound like?" a high-pitched voice protested in a slight whine.

"What do they sound like? They sound like--" And then we heard the queerest succession of grunts and growls, alternately sounding like squeaks and a beehive.

"Oh, yes, yes! I see what you mean! That's much better!" the high, piping voice exclaimed. "Yes, I think I can do that."

Miss Terry, having amused herself sufficiently, knocked peremptorily on the door and opened it without waiting for a response.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, my dears," she adopted a businesslike, matter-of-fact tone, "but here are the two gentlemen who wished to see Sir Arthur."

The quarters were spacious. There was a long, oak table dominating the place, so ample that it might easily seat 30 guests relaxing over cold birds and bottles after a fatiguing night's work in the theatre. At the farther end of this table, beneath portraits of Edmund Kean and David Garrick, sat two conspiratorial figures.

The taller of the two was a melancholy man in his late 50s, with cavernous cheeks and grey hair, piercing eyes and a studiously grave manner. He rose and bowed. Over his shoulders was draped carelessly a massive maroon cloak that gave him an appropriately theatrical look.

Sir Arthur Sullivan rose as well. He was much shorter than Irving, wore expensive clothes and was possessed of dark, slightly Semitic good looks framed by large side whiskers. He peered at us through his monocle and, strangely enough, constantly pressed his right hand against his stomach while we talked.

"Gentlemen," said Irving in his odd, nasal voice, "we are sorry to have kept you waiting."

As we shook hands, Sullivan put in, "I've been with the police most of the morning and I don't know what I can add to the information I've given. May I ask at whose behest you come?"

He gasped and clutched spasmodically at his side, turning quite pale. Irving caught him as he stumbled and lowered him gently into his chair.

Ignoring the seizure, Holmes informed him, "We are here at the behest of justice--more prosaically, at the request of Mr. Bernard Shaw."

The reaction of the two men to this was startling. Sullivan knit his brows, perplexed, while Irving's face clouded over. "Shaw?" cried the latter. "Nelly, is this any of your doing?"

"Henry dearest, I give you my word I know nothing about it," Miss Terry replied, obviously taken aback. "I met these gentlemen only moments ago in the lobby."

Irving started ominously down the length of the table, shuffling with his right shoulder thrust forward as if in demonstration of Miss Terry's nickname for him. "I give you fair warning," he said, "I will not have that degenerate in this theatre and I will not produce his revolting plays. If he publishes any more drivel about the way we do things here, I shall thrash him personally."

"Henry," she protested anxiously, "this is not the time nor the place.... Come along and let's leave these gentlemen to their business."

This recalled the actor to himself and he turned to us with a bow. "I apologize for my outburst, gentlemen. I know I am sometimes carried away. The theatre in this country will go in one of two directions shortly and I feel quite strongly about which it's to be."

Thus, with Miss Terry leading, they disappeared out the door and we turned to face the composer.

Chapter IX

Sullivan

"Why is Shaw meddling in this?" Sullivan asked as soon as the door was closed. "The man's an infernal busybody and, aside from his knowledge of music, I find him utterly depraved."

"He engaged us specifically in connection with the murder of Jonathan McCarthy," Holmes said, moving forward and pulling up one of the large chairs.

"That makes even less sense, since they detested each other." The composer winced at another spasm. He started to rise, gave a gasp and fell back in his chair, doubled over and clutching at his side as if he wished to remove it with one savage haul. His monocle slid from its place and dangled wildly by its black ribbon.

"You are seriously ill!" I cried, rushing forward. I opened his tie and removed his collar; then I hastened to bring him some water from the nearby kitchen. He swallowed it in awkward gulps.

"You are too ill to continue this interview," I stated, drawing a black look from Holmes across the table. Sir Arthur sat up slowly and something like a smile stretched itself taut across his face.

"Ill? I am dying. These kidney stones will shortly make an end of me. When the pain disappears, I go to Monte Carlo to relax. When it returns, I work to forget it."10

"Can you continue talking?" Holmes enquired reluctantly.

"Provided you establish the importance of your questions." Sullivan rallied and refastened his collar with nervous fingers.

"Do you not find the fact that both murders occurred within the space of twenty-four hours a telling coincidence?"

"Inspector Lestrade didn't seem to find it so. He made no mention of the McCarthy affair when we talked this morning."

"The police have their own ways of functioning and I have mine," Holmes stated tactfully. "I may tell you flatly that the deaths are related. They were achieved by the same hand."

"I have read Dr. Watson's accounts of your cases with the liveliest interest. Nevertheless, you will forgive me if, in this instance, I do not deem your word sufficient proof."

Holmes sighed, realizing that Sullivan was no fool and that he would have to play more cards in his hand. "Were you aware, Sir Arthur, that Jessie Rutland was Jonathan McCarthy's mistress?"

The composer blanched as if his ailment had flared up again. "She was no such thing!"

Holmes leaned forward, his eyes bright. "Our informant, whom I am not yet at liberty to disclose, informs me that she was. His accuracy in several other small matters forces me to trust him in this."

"What small matters?"

"For one, his statement that a leading member of the Savoy company uses drug; because Mr. Gilbert makes him so nervous."

"That is a damned lie," he said without conviction and subsided into thoughtful silence.

"You resist the idea of McCarthy as Miss Rutland's lover. It isn't merely because you despised the man. You know better, don't you?" Holmes surveyed him coolly.

"It seems pointless now."

"I give you my word that it is of the utmost moment. We cannot restore Jessie Rutland to life, but there is one thing we can do and that is to bring her murdered to book."

It was now Sullivan's turn to study Holmes and he did so for a solid minute, staring through his monocle without moving. "Very well," he said at last. "What do you want to know?"

The detective breathed a barely perceptible sigh of relief.

"You can tell us about Jack Point. You see, in his engagement diary, McCarthy had a practice of substituting characters from your operas for the names of real people. On the night of his death, he was to meet someone he entered there as 'Jack Point,' the hapless jester who loses his love in Yeoman of the Guard."

"He does!" Sullivan seemed impressed by the detective's familiarity with his work. "And you think Jessie had a second lover?"

"You've as good as told us she had, Sir Arthur."

Sullivan frowned, extracted a cigarette from a cigarette case, tapped it against the box, then allowed Holmes to light it for him. He threw back his head and 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 between 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 a bit extreme, let me say that I understand and sympathize 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 income of her own, or family. 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 practice. 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 although he sometimes tyrannizes 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 ours. "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 tea-shop in the Marylebone Road. We were not likely to be recognized 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 utmost circumspection. But, oh, Sir Arthur, he is so very perfect that even Mr. Gilbert would approve! 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.' 'You don't understand,' said she, regaining her composure, 'he 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 cannot hear, speak or 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 cannot 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. As part owner of the Savoy, and one who, in theory, at least, sympathized with Mr. Gilbert's aspirations for its company, I had duties that clearly lay in one direction. But as a human being and, moreover, a man who had experienced a very similary problem,11 I had emotions and personal inclinations that 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 finger tips 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 antagonize him further."

"I understand you, Sir Arthur, and I apologize for having seemed to pass judgement. One final question. Do you know Bram Stoker's wife?"

The 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 part of my business. By the way"--Holmes hesitated, his hand on the knob--"I saw Ivanhoe."12

Sullivan looked at him through his monocle. "Oh?"

"I quite liked it."

"Really? That's more than I did." He stared moodily at the tabletop 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.

1Sarasate was a well-known violin virtuoso. This meeting is described in Baring-Gould's biography of Sherlock Holmes.

2In 1912, Shaw wrote "Pygmalion," a play obviously inspired by Holmes's feat. Professor Higgins, like Holmes an eccentric bachelor, knows the local characteristics of speech. His companion, Colonel Pickering, has, like Watson, returned from India. "My Fair Lady" is the musical version of the play.

3Holmes's prediction proved correct. Hopkins became chief inspector in 1904 and, upon his retirement in 1925, he had a forensic laboratory named in his honour.

4Later, in January 1899, Holmes's path did cross Milverton's, just before the latter's murder.

5The Albemarle was Wilde's club.

6Queensberry had written: "To Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite [sic]." Watson must have known the contents of this notorious message when he set down this case but he has tactfully omitted them.

7These words remain accurate. The Savoy still stands.

8This statement is still correct, as both Simpson's and the Savoy remain happily extant, though both have been rebuilt since 1895.

9On July 18, 1895, Queen Victoria was to knight Henry Irving, the first of his profession to be so honoured.

10Sullivan was to succumb to his ailment five years later.

11Sullivan's mistress was the American Mrs. Ronalds, who was separated but not divorced. They remained devoted to each other throughout much of his life.

12"Ivanhoe" was Sullivan's sole excursion into the realm of grand opera. It was not generally accounted successful.

This is the first installment of a condensed version of "The West End Horror." The concluding installment will appear in the May issue.