The West End Horror (2 page)

Getting Holmes to change his mind once he had got hold of an idea was like trying to reverse the direction of the global orbit. Once it had begun spinning on its course, it was virtually impossible to stem the momentum, let alone alter the axis. An idea would fix itself in his brain, take root there, and flourish like a tree. It could not be uprooted, only felled–and this only when struck by a better idea. It was Holmes’s unshakable conviction in the present instance that “the West End Horror” (as he liked to call it) was a story for which the world was not yet prepared and that it could not be revealed save with consequences he wished to avoid.

Several things finally combined to change his views on the topic. The passage of years and the deaths of many of the principals involved, as well as the changing mores of society, wrought a subtle alteration in his obstinacy. Then I advanced a clever argument myself, which was designed to allay his fears of publication.

I told him in so many words that my chief concern was setting down the case as a matter of historical record (there he conceded its usefulness) and not as sensational literature for the scandalmongering Press. So far from looking for a pubusher, I offered Holmes sole and exclusive proprietorship of the manuscript, to do with as he saw fit,
when
he saw fit. My only stipulation was that it not be destroyed.

He procrastinated for several days following my offer, during which he appeared to have forgot entirely our latest discussion (I think perhaps he was trying to) and busied himself with his criminal index, which demanded constant revision if it was to be of any use. I did not press him, knowing that his mind was turning over this new possibility without my having to say anything further.

“How could you possibly organise it?” he asked me once, while we were at the Turkish baths. “The cast of characters and events is large and diffuse. It will provide you with none of the compact symmetry of my more typical cases, the kind of material with which you work so well.”

I answered that I should simply set down what happened in the order in which it happened.

“Oho,” he laughed. “Resorting to the tricks of cheap fiction, are you? No one will believe you, you know.”

I added that remark to my arsenal of incentives and aimed it back at him. He brooded over it amidst the rising steam and said nothing.

Another week went by, and then, quite abruptly, he looked up from his chaotic filing arrangements and said in an offhand tone, “Oh, well, you might as well do it. But see that you give it to me, as you promised, when you have done.”

I did not dare say anything to provoke second thoughts on his part but replied with equal offhandedness that I would. And so I shall, making only one disclaimer before beginning. Since the case which follows involves a great many of the greatest names on the British stage, there is a great temptation to write the story today (Another bit of evidence for the latish dating.) with the benefit of that comforting hindsight, which allows us to claim with a certain smugness that we knew all along who was destined for greatness and other like matters. It may also strike the contemporary reader –should Holmes ever let this manuscript out of his hands!– that some of my suspicions at the time were nothing short of preposterous. I will resist the temptation to modify or dilute those suspicions. I did not at the time, nor do I now, believe that positions of power or influence render a subject immune from investigation. My suspicions (Another bit of evidence for the latish dating.) may seem absurd today, but I will let them stand, for all that, and tell my story as it fell out at the time.

All theatrical London gossiped and speculated about the murder of Jonathan McCarthy when news of it first appeared in the papers. Theories were rife concerning the acerbic writer and the many enemies his pen had made. But curiosity, unsatisfied, eventually dies a death of boredom. McCarthy’s assassin was never caught, much less discovered, and as no new facts were forthcoming, the police were finally forced to join the public and own themselves baffled. The case was never closed, but their interest was inevitably arrested by more current events. The mysterious death of the actress at the Savoy had the same tongues wagging for weeks, and Scotland Yard was hard put to explain the peculiar disappearance of its police surgeon–who vanished, taking two corpses along with him from the mortuary, and was never heard of again. In McCarthy’s case the police ignored, as well (or forgot, because they could not understand it), the bizarre clue the dead man had left behind.

How the populace would have trembled had they deciphered it! Instead of being idly (or in the case of the police, professionally) interested in an affair which, however sensational, held no personal concern for them, they would have found themselves–all of them!–very real participants in a crime so monstrous that it threatened to blot the nineteenth century and alter the 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 organising 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 dispel the stench he created with his test tubes and retorts by opening the windows and going out for a walk, but that should he become carried away now by his hobby we would inevitably freeze to death.

He grumbled a deal at this but saw the logic of it and settled down for a time to indoor target practise, one of his favourite recreations. For an hour at a time–as I sat at my desk and endeavoured to work–he reclined on the horsehair divan, his pistol propped between his knees, and squeezed off round after round at the wall above the deal table which contained his chemical apparatus.

He had managed to spell Disraeli with bullet pocks when this diversion, too, was denied him. Mrs. Hudson knocked at our door and told him in no uncertain terms that he was menacing the neighbourhood. There had been complaints from the house next door, she said, by an elderly invalid who claimed that Holmes’s artillery was having a deleterious effect on her already unstable constitution. In addition, the reports had caused several large icicles to fall before they had melted sufficiently to be rendered harmless. One of these stalactites, it appeared, had nearly driven itself through the head of the dustman, who had threatened to bring an action against our landlady as a result.

“Really, Mr. Holmes, you’d think a grown man like yourself would be able to occupy his time in a more sensible fashion!” she exclaimed, her bosom heaving with emotion. “Look at all them fine books you have, just sittin’ there, waiting to be read. And
there–”
she pointed to several bundles on the floor, tied with string–“some you haven’t even opened as yet.”

“Very well, Mrs. Hudson. You have carried the day. I will immerse myself.” Holmes escorted her wearily to the door and returned with a disgruntled sigh. I was grateful that we no longer kept cocaine lying about, for in earlier times such frustrations and boredom would have provoked instant recourse to its dubious comforts.

Instead, Holmes took the landlady’s advice and began cutting the strings on his parcels of books with a small penknife and inspecting their contents. He was a compulsive bibliophile, always buying volumes, having them sent ‘round to our rooms, and never finding time to read them. Now he squatted down in their midst and began glancing at the titles of works he had forgot he owned.

“I say, Watson, look at this,” he began, but subsided on to the floor with the tome in one hand whilst with the other absently felt into the pocket of his dressing gown for a pipe.

He devoured the book, along with several bowslful of shag

(almost as malodorous as some of his chemicals), and then went on to another volume. He had become interested in ancient English charters and now prepared to devote himself to serious research on the subject. His preoccupation did not greatly astonish me, as I knew his range of interests to be wide, varied, and occasionally odd. He had mastered a number of arcane topics–matters quite unrelated to the art of criminal detection–and could speak brilliantly (when he chose) on such diverse matters as warships of the future, artificial irrigation, the motets of Lassus, and the mating habits of the South American jaguar.

Now English charters occupied his mind with a passion which totally conformed to his other pursuits in its single- minded application of his powerful intellect. He had apparently been interested in them at some earlier date, for most of the books he had purchased (and neglected to open) dealt with this peculiar subject, and at the end of the week the floor of our sitting room was virtually paved with them. Eventually such volumes as were at his immediate disposal were deemed insufficient for his purposes and he was obliged to sally forth into the snow and make his way to the British Museum for sustenance. These forays lasted for several afternoons during the last week of February, the nights which followed being spent in the laborious transcription of his notes.

It was a sunny, cold morning, March 1, 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. The material simply isn’t here.”

I remarked that his interest threatened to develop into a mania, but he appeared not to have heard me. He hunted up a morning like his pen on the floor whither he had hurled it and prepared to address himself again to his notes, observing the while, with a didactic formality which contrasted oddly with his posture upon hands and knees, “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. Part of my mind–my professional 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 and into the street.

He followed my gaze from his position on the floor. “Why? What are you looking at?”

“I believe we are about to have a visitor, someone interested in that portion of your intellect that is currently 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.

“He certainly appears a likely candidate for admittance to 221b,” I went on, hoping to distract my companion from the volumes which had failed him.

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

“He isn’t wearing a coat, for one thing. On a morning like this he must be mad.”

“Clothes?”

Norfalk jacket and knickerbockers—in this weather! They look well worn, even at this distance. He keeps adjusting his shirt cuffs.”

“Probably false. Age?”

“Roughly forty, with an enormous beard, slightly reddish, like his hair, which is blowing over his shoulder as he walks.”

“Height?” Behind me I could hear a vesta being struck.

“Rather tall, I should say, under medium height.”

“Gait?”

I pondered this, wondering how to describe the newcomer’s hopping, skipping pace.

“The man walks like a gigantic leprechaun.”

“What? Why, this sounds like Shaw.” Holmes came up behind me, quite animated now, as we gazed together at the advancing figure. “Hello, it
is
Shaw. I’m blest if it isn’t!” he exclaimed, smiling, his pipe clenched between his teeth. ‘Whatever brings
him
out on a morning like this? And what has made him change his mind and decide to pay me a visit?

“Who is he?”

“A friend.”

“Indeed?” No one as familiar as I with the personal life and habits of Sherlock Holmes could have received this statement with anything less than wonder. Aside from myself, his brother, and various professional acquaintances, I was not aware that Holmes cultivated any friends. The peculiar fellow advancing below us was now examining house numbers with some care before hopping on and stopping before our door. The bell rang with a truculent jingle several times.

“I met him at a concert of Sarasates*[Saratee was a well-known violin virtuoso of the day. For a full (though not entirely accurate) account of the meeting, see Baring-Gould's biography of Holmes.] some years ago,” Holmes explained, turning to make some hasty order of our shambles. He kicked a few books out of the way, forging a path of sorts from the door to a chair by the hearth. I seldom accompanied him any more to concerts and the opera, preferring more convivial amusements of the sort he found trivial.

“We got into a rather heated disagreement about Sarasate’s abilities, as I recall, but finally buried the hatchet. He is a very brilliant Irishman.” Holmes removed his pistol from the chair he proposed to offer our guest and put it on the mantel. “A brilliant Irishman who has not yet found his métier. But he will. He will. You will find him amusing, if naught else. He has got hold of some of the oddest notions.”

“How do you know he is brilliant?”

We could hear a muffled conversation taking place at the foot of the stairs, doubtless between our visitor and Mrs. Hudson.

“How do I know? Why, he told me so himself. He has no qualms about hiding his light under a bushel. Furthermore,” he looked up at me, the coal scuttle in his hands, “he understands Wagner. He understands him perfectly. This alone qualifies him for some magnificent destiny. At the moment, miserable man, he’s as poor as a church mouse.”