Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly (37 page)

“The play probably ran for ten or fifteen minutes after he came off. Plus, of course, the curtain calls, compliments and little speeches. No sign of him. I'm told he disliked being present when anyone else was applauded as the hero. He'd even started talking of playing Claudius under a
nom de plume
. A joke, I expect.”

Hopkins fell silent and I took my chance to establish the order of events.

“He left the stage at about twenty-five minutes past nine. After the final speeches and the curtain calls, the performance was over by quarter to ten. No one saw him until his dressing-room was opened. Why did they become suspicious?”

“Why, doctor? He never missed his chance to perform at the green room supper on New Year's Eve. It was to be at half past ten, and by just after ten there was still no reply to knocks on his door. Lady Myfanwy had tried once or twice by then. The door was locked, but they checked that he hadn't gone up to the Dome. Where else could he be?”

“And this was some three-quarters of an hour after he came off the stage?”

“If you put it like that, Mr Holmes. Lady Myfanwy lost her patience. She seems to have been sure he was in there. There was certainly a light on. Harry Squire the stage-door keeper said it was shining out into Maiden Lane. The windows are frosted glass so that's all you can see. He might have been taking a bath—or he might not have been alone. There is that sofa in there, Mr Holmes.…”

“So I understand.”

“The trouble was, sir, if they used the pass-key to open the door, everyone was crowded in the main passage waiting to see what was going on. And all the world would hear about it.”

“I assume this was not the first time that the problem had occurred?”

“Once before, Lady Myfanwy had gone outside into Maiden Lane which runs along the back of the building. After what she saw when she opened the window, there had been all hell to pay, if I may use the expression. She did so again tonight. The dressing-room windows are at street level, of course. That's why they have iron bars on the outside to keep out sneak-thieves. Being sash windows, they are also fastened by a catch at night when the stage-door keeper goes round last thing. During the day they are free for ventilation. The bars still keep intruders out.”

“There was no interference with the bars?”

“Perfectly secure, Mr Holmes. Lady Myfanwy put her hands through the bars and raised one of the windows to see if he was there. Supposing he was in the adjoining bathroom, she could call out and he would hear her. What she saw was Sir Caradoc dead on the floor.”

“And what was happening on the stage all this time?”

“No one was on stage just then, except passing to and fro. Fortunately the goblet hadn't been touched. It was kept for Sir Caradoc to finish his wine at supper. No one would have dared to drink it meantime!”

“When does Dr Hammond suggest that he died?”

“It must be by about ten o'clock or soon after. That's all anyone can say at present. It could easily have been half an hour earlier.”

“I know something of poisons,” I said hastily. “Prussic acid is notorious for acting quickly. Contrary to popular belief, however, death is not always instantaneous. If it were, presumably Sir Caradoc would have died on the stage. The victim may not be aware of what is amiss for ten or fifteen minutes. Even so, I should be surprised if he was alive at ten o'clock. How was he found precisely?”

“The doublet and hose from his costume were hung over a chair. He was wearing his green silk dressing-gown but the tasselled cord was lying halfway between the desk and the door, as if it had dropped there. The key to the door lay close by it. Sir Caradoc was on the floor by the desk, looking as if he had toppled from his chair. Lady Myfanwy first thought he must have suffered an attack or a fit of some kind. She ran back and the door was opened with the pass-key. Everyone could see that he was dead.”

“Face convulsed and bloated?” I asked. “Wet around the mouth?”

“Just so, doctor. Dr Worplesdon was called at once. Mr Gwyn, the stage manager, sent to Bow Street police station to report an unexplained death. After Superintendent Bradstreet arrived, he put through a call to the Yard. Being duty CID inspector tonight, I was here about twenty minutes later with Dr Hammond. So far as location goes, Mr Holmes, I'd say this was about the most convenient murder I've ever known.”

“A little too convenient,” said Holmes sardonically.

“Mr Gwyn ordered that nothing should be touched—onstage or off. Very helpful. Both goblets were still on the table. As soon as Dr Hammond smelt the second one, the look on his face said everything.”

“An exemplary investigation, Mr Hopkins. How conveniently the obvious facts present themselves to us. That is the one thing which causes me to treat them with suspicion. If you do not mind, I should like to see the scene of the crime for myself. It may help to point us in the right direction.”

“The stage, sir?”

“Dear me, no, Hopkins. The dressing-room.”

3

I
had never before been “behind the scenes” of a great theatre. A baize-covered pass-door at the right of the dress circle led to the dressing-room passage at the rear of the stage. Sir Caradoc's room was about half-way along. By the standards of my own profession, this secret interior of the theatre was inexcusably higgledy-piggledy. It was a cross between a woodworker's shop and the deck of an old-fashioned sailing ship.

We passed ladders and rolls of carpet, an upright piano, heights of blank, dark wood. There were structures of canvas and ply-wood painted as chairs, tables and armoires—makebelieve furniture that could almost be lifted with one hand. Here and there we managed not to stumble over counterweights of rope and iron that supported scenery as a guy rope supports a tent. The main curtain was still raised. Through a gap we glimpsed the set, looking strangely small from this angle, and the darkened auditorium of a great theatre beyond it. The angled mattresses below the rear of the set remained where they had been. Nothing appeared to have been moved since Caradoc Price tumbled onto them.

The dressing-room passage itself was distempered in cream above and dark green below, a black dado running its full length. At its far end was the stage-door which came out near a corner of Maiden Lane. As we approached it, I noticed a young couple coming towards us. I had the strong impression that they had stepped outside for a moment, perhaps to find privacy for a conversation. They were both in their early twenties. She had the youthful flaxen beauty of a Dutch doll. He was tall and lean, with a certain fair-skinned handsomeness.

The young man's grey herring-bone overcoat and calf-skin gloves suggested that he had not long arrived from somewhere else. His care, as he kept one arm about her in almost brotherly comfort, caused him to walk with a slight stoop. When they came closer, the girl's simple beauty was blemished by flushed cheeks and reddened eyes. She had been weeping but was doing so no longer. Yet this theatrical tragedy had struck her with a shock that looked like fright. Poor child, I thought, how ill-prepared she was at such an age. Her escort's folded arm remained comfortingly round her shoulders and he had the look of one who is lost.

We stood back as they passed us and went into one of the dressing-rooms further on. I turned to Hopkins.

“Poor girl looks most dreadfully shocked. What was Caradoc to her?”

“She was Madge Gilford to him,” he said casually. “The young man is her husband, William. They were married a year or so ago. Mrs Gilford is Lady Myfanwy's dresser and general wardrobe mistress. During the last scene tonight, I understand she was with Lady M. in the wings until her ladyship went on-stage. The goblets were carried on about a minute and a half later. They were in the stage manager's care before that. I think we may rule out young Madge and Lady M. from our list of suspects as never being within reach of the bottle or the goblets. Madge was, in any case, one of the charmed inner circle devoted to Sir Caradoc. A young woman with no experience of sudden death is apt to take it hard, sir.”

“Most interesting,” said Holmes. “And her husband?”

“William Gilford came to collect her from the theatre as he usually does. He did not arrive until after the wine had been drunk on stage and the play was ending. We know pretty well when he got here. He stopped to speak to Harry Squire at the stage door. He asked Mr Squire where the play had got to, the timings being earlier on New Year's Eve. Mr Squire said the last scene had gone on. And he reminded Mr Gilford to move about on tiptoe, if he had to move about at all. The worst sin in these theatres, Mr Holmes, is to make a noise backstage during the performance. They fine them for it.”

“As I am aware from my own experience. Then it seems you must rule out Mr Gilford and his wife from any part in this crime?”

“I should say so, Mr Holmes. William Gilford is a polite and well-educated young gentleman of charitable instincts. He has no personal connection with the theatre, though he is often here to take his wife home. He makes his way to the wardrobe room and waits for her there.”

“What is his profession?”

“I understand he was a Cambridge man, sir, Natural Sciences Tripos. Unfortunately he had to leave college after a year, when his father died. They say he proposes to read for the bar. By day he is an almoner at the Marylebone Hospital. On two evenings a week—Monday and Wednesday—he teaches Latin for an hour to working-class men and women at the university settlement in Whitechapel.”

“Toynbee Hall?” I said in some surprise. “What do they want with learning Latin?”

“To discover that they can do it, sir—and do it as well as anyone else,” said Hopkins with a suggestion of reproach. “Following his classes this evening, Mr Gilford was present at a teachers' committee meeting. We have the names of half a dozen most reputable witnesses. He was with them until about five minutes before nine o'clock. An express train could not have got him here from Whitechapel in time to poison a goblet of Nuits St Georges ‘85 before it was taken on to the stage to be drunk by Sir Caradoc.”

Caradoc's dressing-room was just ahead of us but the view through that open doorway was blocked by the bulk of Superintendent Bradstreet standing with his back to us. As he moved aside, I thought that this interior with its desk and chair looked more like a medical man's consulting room than an actor's retreat. One of the two sash windows of frosted glass had been raised a little for ventilation. The dressing-table with its makeup and wigs was just visible through the open door of the adjoining bathroom.

Turning aside I saw a crimson sofa. The bulk of the great actor, seen close up with his leonine mane, pocked cheeks and hairy nostrils, lay stretched out in death. He still wore the green silk dressing-gown wrapped round him.

Goodness knows I have seen enough dead men in my time. Yet whatever his failings I could not ignore the solemnity of that moment. This disfigured flesh was all that remained of that wonderful voice which until an hour or two ago had filled a packed auditorium with the most sublime words in our language. Now its resonant and subtle music was silent for ever.

Bradstreet turned to Holmes. The superintendent was carrying several sheets of writing-paper in his hand.

“I am not required to show you these, Mr Holmes. Indeed I am probably in breach of duty for doing so. However, it may save us all time and trouble if you see them now. They are samples of your client's correspondence, found upstairs in the Dome by Lady Myfanwy. She has handed them to us.”

I read them over my friend's shoulder. Certain lines stick in my memory but the four documents themselves now lie in the tin trunk of the Baker Street lumber room.

You have taken away the parts and plays I made famous for you. I am Romeo or Hamlet only when you cannot be bothered, I am paid like a supernumerary. I cannot live upon this. I starve at the Herculaneum and you will not recommend me elsewhere. Your talk of naming me to the Actors' Benevolent Society was a lie! They have never heard from you. You would do well to remember that if I am to perish, I have nothing to lose.

The others were in the same vein, mingling threats with entreaties. What an unsound mind was here!

For God's sake help me now! Next week will be too late! I shall have nowhere to go from here. At my age I cannot start again. I would take what I can get, but who will take me?

Had Jenks been given his marching orders after all? We came to Caradoc's behaviour with his female admirers—if they were such.

You wretch! You have paid well to discover the profession my sister was reduced to by men like you. For how many innocents have you left your street-door unlocked and your private stairs open?

A final mad outburst would surely help to persuade a jury to put a rope round the foolish fellow's neck.

You hell hound! You Judas! You have now cut me out of engagements by threats of blackmail. How dare you blackmail a fellow actor? Next time I ask you for a reference it will be at Bow Street police station, where my lawyer will expose you. If I die on the Newgate gallows, you will be to blame. It would be a price worth paying. I would advise you to take my letter to Scotland Yard this time.

“Curious,” said Holmes with remarkable unconcern. “And how have these most remarkable specimens come to light? What is their provenance?”

Bradstreet tried not to smile at the neatness of his triumph.

“Among Sir Caradoc's papers in the upstairs desk—unanswered correspondence, as you might say. There is no date, but I should imagine they are quite recent—probably arriving one a day. They would certainly suggest a motive, if nothing else does. Perhaps Mr Jenks thought that Sir Caradoc would tear them up or throw them in the fire. Unfortunately for him, he was wrong.”

“Have you questioned him about these pages?”