Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 63, No. 2. Whole No. 363, February 1974

Another Case of Identity by R. R. Irvine[11]

Niles Brundage was the actor who played the role of Sherlock Holmes in the newest TV series, and he played it with a lilt. In fact, Niles Brundage became The Master Detective... an appetizer for Sherlockian aficionados and a hearty entree for mystery fans — not at all, as “Dr. Watson” remarks in the story, “an hors d’oeuvre at a smorgasbord for lunatics”...

“Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!” With those words Sherlock Holmes, wearing a flap-eared traveling cap, hurried past me.

“Tape is stopped!” shouted the stage manager.

We stood poised, waiting for the director’s verdict. Finally his disembodied voice boomed over the talk-back. “That’s a take, gentlemen. We’ll break for the next scene.”

Sherlock Holmes disappeared into his dressing room.

Still feeling like Dr. John Watson, I stepped to one side as our bullet-pocked wall, made famous in the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, dollied past, followed by the equally renowned wooden mantelpiece. A moment later the coal shuttle which held Holmes’s cigars swung by in the hands of an ancient prop-man. 221B Baker Street had disappeared, replaced by a London exterior complete with billowing, dry-ice fog.

The high-pitched, garbled flutter, of rewinding audio tape preceded the sound of a hansom cab. To the accompaniment of clopping horses Sherlock Holmes — Niles Brundage, actually — exited flamboyantly from his dressing room.

“Ah, Watson,” he said, clapping me on the back. “This is turning out to be quite an adventure, isn’t it?”

Ever since Dark Shadows had taken over the late-afternoon ratings with its vampires and ghouls, Channel Three had tried game shows, old movies, and even cartoons in a futile attempt to compete. Finally, our show, The Newest Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, had brought a modicum of success. But even after eleven weeks of sleuthing, Barnabas Collins, the undying vampire hero of Shadows, seemed forever beyond the reach of Conan Doyle’s immortal detective.

“Brundage, we’re not taping,” I said, “so you can drop the Holmes-Watson bit.”

He looked at me as if I were utterly mad.

“My dear fellow,” he said with a derogatory sniff. Then, with a sudden squint, he seemed to forget my admonition. “Watson, keep an eye on Inspector Lestrade. He’s been filching my tobacco again.”

Here we go, I thought. They’d been at it ever since the show began, squabbling over tobacco from our authentic-Iooking prop humidor. The rivalry had become so intense, in fact, that each morning they raced onto the stage to see who could fill his tobacco pouch first. On this particular morning, Brundage had won. Lestrade — actor Jay Wallace — had for some reason arrived on the set quite late.

“Yesterday I caught him taking two pouchfuls,” Brundage complained. “Imagine, a Scotland Yard man acting like that. The man’s a menace!”

The director gave us a “stand-by” signal.

Side by side we waited on the cardboard curb.

“Tape is rolling,” said the stage manager, his voice already weary.

We stepped into a mock-up of a hansom cab.

“Charing Cross, my good man,” Brundage-Holmes said to a nonexistent driver.

While prop-men rocked the cab and the streets of London flashed by in rear-projection, my companion sat deep in thought, his chin sunk on his chest, just as the script called for. The camera pulled back for a scene fade-out.

A moment later the director cut to a dimly lit interior, a dingy room somewhere in London; the door opened slowly, ominously; a shadowy silhouette stalked across camera. I watched critically. Brundage fidgeted at my side, always restless when someone else held the spotlight.

The director brought up the klieg lights. The shadow became an evil, laughing face — the face of the mastermind of crime, Professor Moriarty. To emphasize his evil purpose there was a slow zoom to the box which he carried under one arm. A thunderous chord of organ music accompanied the shot.

The script called for Moriarty to set a trap for Holmes. The box, therefore, held a deadly viper — a remarkable rubber replica, I might add.

Moriarty opened the box. The camera dollied in for a close-up of the snake as the master criminal — in reality, actor Les Peters — fondled the reptile. Then Moriarty crossed to a table which held Holmes’s humidor. He opened the container and put the snake inside, and that made two. A look of complete surprise, tinged with horrified fascination, flushed across his face as the second snake curled back and struck him on the wrist. Moriarty-Peters staggered against the balsa-wood table.

“Cut!” the stage manager yelled as the actor crumpled to the floor.

Brundage and I jumped from the hansom and hurried to the fallen actor. Brundage, still immersed in the role of Sherlock Holmes, felt for a pulse, though I suspected he wouldn’t have known what to do if he had found one.

“You may as well have a look at him, Watson,” he said, “though I fear it’s already too late for your medical skills.”

I knelt on the cobblestone linoleum. “He’s still alive. Someone call an ambulance!”

“And the police,” Brundage added, eyeing Les Peters as though he were trying to steal a scene. Then Brundage stepped to the table and cautiously peered into the humidor. “The Speckled Band,” he muttered and called me over. As soon as I had a look he clapped a lid on the snake.

“How did that get in here?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

“Elementary, Watson, elementary!” He strolled over to what remained of our drawing room and fell onto his sofa. A moment later his face was half hidden in smoke from his famous clay pipe.

While Brundage watched with an amused smile, our crew gathered around the unconscious man, whose breathing began to rattle forlornly.

A pair of ancient prop-men, both years beyond heavy work, argued.

“Should we move him or wait for the ambulance?” one said.

The other, the shop steward, shook his head. “This could be a jurisdictional matter. I’m not sure which union is allowed to move bodies.”

“I don’t think he’s considered a prop,” said the first, pointing his nose at Peters.

I hoped they were joking.

An equally ancient gaffer seemed about to prod the stricken man, then thought better of it, and began to poke at the klieg lights with his long wooden rod. Our cameraman zoomed in on the crowd, then rolled between two bit-players to get a close-up of Peters’ bluish face. The boys in the control room must have been getting an eyeful in 21-inch color.

Two nurse-actresses from the Emergency Hospital set next door offered diagnoses.

I gulped a sharp-edged swallow to keep down my breakfast and went over to join Brundage on the sofa. But he stayed where he was, stretched out on his back, smoking; and I stood by stupidly, looking for a place to sit down.

“Obviously, Watson, that snake was meant for me. Yes, indeed.” He nodded slowly. “Someone wants Sherlock Holmes out of the way.”

As Dr. John Watson I nodded; as Bill Aldrich, actor, I shook my head in disbelief. “But—” I stammered. “It was Les Peters who was bitten.”

“Ah, yes, poor Moriarty. Obviously just an unfortunate mistake. Who would want to kill him when there’s more tempting game to be stalked — me?”

“Who would want to kill you, Brundage?”

“The question is, who would want to kill Sherlock Holmes, and the answer to that is absurdly commonplace. Proving it, however, may be another matter.”

“Sherlock Holmes is dead,” I said.

“Sherlock Holmes will never die,” boomed Brundage, “as long as there are great actors like me.”

My exasperation grew. “All right then, who would want to kill Sherlock Holmes?”

“When you eliminate the possible and all you have left is the impossible, then that must be the truth.” Brundage’s idea of humor was incredible.

“You mean you’ve solved the crime?”

“Bravo, Watson. Yes — just the details remain to be filled in.”

There’s an old saw about actors living their parts. But Niles Brundage carried it to the point of mania.

Like an aromatic specter, a cloud of smoke from his pipe trailed him everywhere, on and off stage. On the street, even at lunch in the studio dining room, he wore the deerstalker hat like a badge of office.

To Niles Brundage I had lost my identity. I was, “Watson, old fellow,” or “My dear Watson,” but never Bill Aldrich.

I’ve heard it said that insanity may be caused by a virus. If so, Brundage’s particular strain was extremely contagious, infecting those with the least immunity. Our studio pages, for example — the young men who seated audiences, kept order during raucous game shows, and ran errands for the stars — were most susceptible. Their jobs depended on the good will of people like Brundage. And he took advantage of that fact, forming them into what he called “my Baker Street Irregulars.” At his orders two pages followed him everywhere on the studio lot.

Brundage interrupted my thoughts. “Well, Watson, you may want to add this case to your annals.”

Suddenly I felt the need for a second opinion on my own sanity. Indeed, maybe I was Dr. Watson! I sucked in my well-rounded stomach, trying unsuccessfully to flatten a shape that was reminiscent of the English actor, Nigel Bruce, who had played Watson in so many films. In fact, it was my resemblance to him that had got me the part.

It’s been years, thank God, since I yearned to see my name in star billing. The choice had been clear cut: a life of starvation diets or happiness as a fat and sassy character actor. Anything was better than being lean and crazy like Niles Brundage.

To escape his face — which is far too handsome for Sherlock Holmes in my opinion — I pulled Hank Thatcher out of the crowd surrounding Les Peters. Thatcher, who wrote our show, was his usual half-drunk self.

“Who am I?” I asked as a pair of ambulance men rolled in a collapsible stretcher.

“Dr. Watson, I presume,” Thatcher answered.

“Dead,” announced one of the attendants. “No hurry now.”

“What am I going to do?” Thatcher complained immediately. “My God, I’ll have to write out Professor Moriarty!”

I could hardly believe it. Les Peters, alive and well this morning, dead just like that, and from a poisonous snake. It was something out of Sherlock Holmes.

I answered Thatcher mechanically, without really thinking. “If I remember correctly, Moriarty didn’t even appear in the original story of the Speckled Band.”

He smiled wanly, his arms stretched toward the heavens. Then he craned his head slowly, as if searching for the station censor, and fished a narrow silver flask from his hip pocket and swallowed furtively. As a half-hearted afterthought he offered me a snort.

“Not while I’m working.”

“That’s the only time I drink,” he said. After a long sigh he added, “I hate messing around with Sherlock Holmes. It seems like blasphemy.” The liberties he had been forced to take in the script still rankled him. Mrs. Hudson, for example, originally an elderly and faithful housekeeper, was now a young starlet with eye-filling cleavage.

I tried to console him. “It shouldn’t be so hard to edit out Moriarty.”

“There may be more editing than you think, Watson,” Brundage called to us as he approached holding the tobacco humidor at arm’s length, one hand underneath, the other clapped over the lid. “There’s murder afoot,” he said with a knowing glance at the humidor. He turned to Thatcher. “Soon we may have to strike another character from our adventures.”

Thatcher went to work on his flask again.

“An accident,” I said. “It must have been an accident.”

Brundage’s laugh began as a low flutter, quickly worked its way up the scale like an hysterical mockingbird, and ended just as abruptly. “Watson, deadly swamp adders do not come in tobacco humidors.”

I nodded. He had me there.

“Definitely murder,” Brundage said with a sage nod.

“Murder! Did I hear someone say murder?” Our own Lestrade of Scotland Yard, Jay Wallace, joined us. An English actor who had played Sherlock Holmes on the London stage, Wallace had been lured to Hollywood by the Channel Three casting department, only to lose the title role to Brundage’s greater sex appeal. Wallace looked like my idea of the famous detective, with facial features so sharp they seemed dangerous to the touch.

He immediately began to needle Brundage. “Maybe you need me to solve this crime?”

“Hardly,” Brundage answered.

Wallace’s mouth tapered to a knife-edged grin. “This is one mystery you can’t solve, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

Brundage clicked his tongue. “I already have.” His fingers drummed on the humidor. “Ever the bungler, eh, Lestrade?”

As the two squared off I had the unshakable feeling they were about to fight over custody of the snake. But before they could come to blows, the police arrived and ordered everybody to remain on the lot until they had been questioned.

Brundage pivoted on his heels, showing his back to Wallace, and presented the humidor to a wary patrolman. Then, pulling me along by the arm, he stomped off the stage.

The character of Sherlock Holmes was in many ways a distinct improvement over that of Niles Brundage. I made it a rule, for example, never to eat lunch with the actor, but I would with the detective. So this time I went along with him to the executive dining room which, I fully believed, had been decorated by a sadist and featured a chef who would one day be charged with willful murder.

We joined our producer at his usual table. Much to my surprise, Brundage dropped the Holmes façade. “Where were you,” he complained to the executive, “when we needed you?”

Our producer smiled indulgently.

“How the hell could a poisonous snake get on my set?” Brundage whined. “Criminal negligence is what I call it.”

“Not at all,” our producer said, dropping his smile for the first time. “I knew all about it. The snake disappeared during the taping of Zoo Gnus this morning. You, of all people, ought to have deduced that.”

Zoo Gnus, I should explain, is Channel Three’s answer to FCC requirements for creative children’s programming. Each week the city zoo — free of charge, of course — provides various animals for discussion by a panel of youthful experts and their guest.

“I didn’t make a formal announcement about the disappearance of the coral snake,” our producer explained, “because I didn’t want to start a panic.”

“What you’ve done,” Brundage declared, his eyes taking on a glint of Sherlock Holmes, “is cause a murder — and now I know just how it was done.”

With an embarrassed grimace the producer’s eyes scanned the dining room. “You can hardly call an accident murder,” he whispered, trying to calm Brundage.

“I call it a deliberate attempt on my life. That snake was locked in a terrarium. It just didn’t crawl out for a smoke.”

Our producer took a long look at his watch. “Excuse me, I just remembered a meeting.” He hurried from the dining room as Jay Wallace entered.

Without hesitation Wallace came straight to our table and sat down.

Brundage had changed personalities again. “Ah, Lestrade, we were just talking about you.”

Wallace bowed from the waist.

“I was just explaining to Dr. Watson how the crime was committed. You might be interested.” Brundage’s tone was mocking.

“I’m always interested in bad acting,” Wallace answered.

Brundage ignored the remark and continued, “By all rights I should have been the one to stick his hand in that tobacco jar. I usually refill my pouch about now but I brought an extra package for myself today. The criminal just had bad luck.” He glared at Wallace.

“What we need around here is a real Sherlock Holmes,” announced Wallace. He pushed to his feet and with a goodbye wave signaled that his appetite had suddenly vanished. Mine wasn’t exactly hearty.

Not more than a minute later we were joined by a plainclothes detective, and I began to feel like an hors d’oeuvre at a smorgasbord for lunatics.

The detective, a small man with precise gray hair clipped down to white-sidewalls around the ears, shook hands matter-of-factly, without a flicker of recognition. “I’m Sergeant Evans. I’m in charge of this investigation.”

“You need go no further,” said Brundage, obviously miffed because the man didn’t fawn on him like a fan. “You’re an open book to me.”

The policeman gave him a quizzical look.

Brundage — though by then I felt almost compelled to call him Holmes — filled his pipe and put up a thick foul-smelling smokescreen. “I can see,” he said aggressively, “that you are recently separated from your wife and have a skin allergy contracted in the Pacific.”

The detective looked completely startled.

“Elementary,” said Brundage. “You have a button missing from your coat, indicating that your wife has not been available to sew it on.”

“Remarkable,” I said. “It seems so simple after you explain it, Holmes.”

“As to the allergy,” my companion went on, “why else would a man wear white socks with a dark suit if it were not to combat a skin reaction to chemical dyes? Most likely contracted in the Pacific during the war.”

Evans, who looked too young even for Korea, said, “I’ll question you two later,” and then left shaking his head.

Holmes and I got back to the set just as a gang of prop-men, quarrelsome as wind-blown sparrows; rolled the interior of 221B Baker Street back into place. Holmes called over a wardrobe girl and changed into his famous dressing gown. Then, to complete the illusion, he reloaded his pipe and surrounded his head with smoke.

“Watson, are you armed?”

“Of course not.”

“Ah,” he said. “There may be another attempt on my life.”

I suddenly realized I had been caught up in Brundage’s fantasy. I shook my head but merely succeeded in bringing on a headache.

Across the set, near the mock-up of our hansom cab, Sergeant Evans launched into an animated conversation with Jay Wallace. With a squint of obvious satisfaction Brundage nodded in their direction. “Observe, my good Doctor, our two Scotland Yard terriers tugging at this case like dogs over a bone. But I’m the only one who knows where the bone is buried.”

I didn’t know whose egomania I was fighting, Sherlock Holmes’s or Niles Brundage’s. One I might have coped with, but together they overwhelmed me. To escape, I muttered something about my headache and left in search of some aspirins.

“Physician, heal thyself,” he called after me.

For some reason the remark infuriated me. At that moment I wanted nothing more out of life than to solve this murder and show up the smug Mr. Sherlock Brundage.

After washing down two aspirin tablets with a double shot of Scotch, my mind cleared enough to know I needed help if I were to conduct an investigation of my own. I stepped into the narrow hall outside my dressing room and caught Jay Wallace walking by.

“Perfect,” I said. “Who could be better than Lestrade of Scotland Yard?”

“Not you too,” he sighed.

“Come in.” I hauled him bodily into my cubbyhole and closed the door.

“I’m not sure I can take all this,” Wallace said.

As reassurance I waved my bottle of Scotch under his long sharp nose. Wallace, eyes fixed on the black label, sat down with a grunt.

“I’m not that far gone yet,” I said, pouring stiff drinks into plastic tumblers decorated with tricolored threes, the emblem of our channel. “I need your help.”

He looked at me skeptically, then his deep-set eyes scanned my cluttered dressing room which doubled as the station’s wardrobe closet. On racks next to Dr. Watson hung Sheriff Bill, Space Pirate, and the blue blazers of our news team.

As he drank I realized more than ever how much Jay Wallace looked like the original Sherlock Holmes. He swallowed the Scotch effortlessly, the only sign of its passing being the movement of his razor-sharp Adam’s apple. Then, smacking his thin lips, he said, “Well, Watson, what’s on your mind?” His humorless laugh died a muffled death in the clothes-lined room. _;

“Do you mind using my real name?” I snapped. “It’s Bill Aldrich, remember?”

“Sorry, Bill.” He held out his glass for a refill.

“Look,” I said, then lowered my voice to a whisper, “Brundage has this crazy idea that someone is trying to murder him.”

“Well, aren’t they?”

“If it was murder — and I guess it has to be — why couldn’t Jay Peters have been the target all along?”

With a careless gesture Wallace downed his second drink.

“I’ll tell you why not,” I continued. “Because Niles Brundage has an ego that demands to be the center of attention. To him no one else is worth murdering.”

“Maybe he’s right,” Wallace said.

“You don’t really believe that.” When he didn’t answer I went on, “Here’s what I think we ought to do. We’ll question everybody on the set. If anyone from our show was here this morning when they taped Zoo Gnus, he’s our killer.”

With one sentence Wallace made my plan obsolete. “Brundage was the guest expert on Zoo Gnus this morning,” he said.

I felt light-headed when I returned to the set, converted in my absence to a London waterfront. Dry-ice fog made breathing difficult.

Niles Brundage was lounging beneath a plastic replica of a gas lamp, his flap-eared traveling cap in place, pipe clenched between his teeth. My real world disappeared in the swirling mist of television.

Sherlock Holmes said, “Ah, Watson, not a moment to be lost. Follow me.” He swept from the set, leaving a foggy wake.

I staggered after him, certain that he was the murderer.

His spacious, dressing room teemed with page boys, all in Channel Three uniform.

“Listen to this, Watson,” he said and then gave careful instructions to his “Baker Street Irregulars.”

When we were alone he said, “Well, Watson, that’s how, it’s dope — setting a trap for a murderer.”

I began to doubt my sanity again. Nevertheless, I took, a deep breath and blurted out, “Holmes, why didn’t you tell me you were on Zoo Gnus this morning? Holmes, you’re the murderer. You took the snake.”

“My dear fellow,” he began, shaking his head and stepping to my side to clap me on the shoulder. “Nonsense! Follow me and you’ll have the real killer.”

We hurried back to Baker Street. “Ah, the men from Scotland Yard. Excellent,” he said to Lestrade and Sergeant Evans.

As the prop-men began to lower a London Bridge backdrop into place, Holmes announced, “Gentlemen, I’ve called you here to unmask a killer.” He paused, head bent forward to peer first into one face and then into the other.

“What a farce,” said Lestrade-Wallace to Sergeant Evans.

Holmes smiled at Lestrade. “Inspector, may I trouble you for some tobacco?” He took the pouch and then added, “It’s probably mine anyway.” Holmes sniffed the tobacco. “Ah, just as I suspected.”

“What is it, Holmes?” I asked.

“Quite simple really. My humidor was full before we started shooting this morning. Whoever put in the snake had to take out some tobacco to make room for the viper. Lestrade, here, has a full pouch.”

“Come off it,” Lestrade said. “What does that prove?”

“I filled the humidor myself,” Holmes continued implacably. “I expected to catch a thief — you see, I was tired of your filching — but instead I caught a murderer.”

“A full pouch of tobacco doesn’t prove anything.” Lestrade looked to me and Evans for support.

“It proves you haven’t been smoking today, for one thing. If you’d lit up from this” — Holmes pinched the pouch between his fingers — “then you’d know what I mean.”

“You’re crazy,” said Lestrade.

“Not so crazy that I didn’t get suspicious this morning when you didn’t rush on the set to load up from my humidor.”

“I was late.”

“Like the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime who did nothing, you didn’t either. In the dog’s case it didn’t bark because it knew the villain. In your case you didn’t go near that humidor because you knew what it contained.”

“Guesses,” laughed Lestrade uneasily.

Holmes crinkled the pouch and then handed it to Evans. “Not at all. This isn’t just plain tobacco. I added peppercorns and cayenne this morning. And that’s what I smell in here.”

Wallace’s eyes went wide and then he bolted from the set.

“After him!” I cried.

“Don’t worry,” said Holmes. “My Irregulars are guarding the exits.”

I stood in awe.

When a trio of “Irregulars” dragged the struggling Wallace back before us, and Sergeant Evans had taken charge of him, a confession literally spilled out. “Damn you, Brundage!” he screamed. “I should have had that part. I’m twice the Sherlock Holmes you’ll ever be.”

I now had my doubts about that.

“The only thing I’m sorry about,” muttered Wallace, “is that I killed the wrong man.”

“Poor deluded fool,” said Sherlock Holmes as a policeman led the man away in handcuffs. “The English stage is one thing, Watson, television quite another. Strange, isn’t it, that a man would let the promise of fame turn him into a psychopath?”

“Only one thing wrong, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Sergeant Evans, speaking up for the first time. “We would never have been able to get a conviction with just a little doctored tobacco as evidence. These days, with civil rights and high-powered lawyers, you need a confession, and sometimes even that isn’t enough.”

“Quite so,” said Holmes, loading his pipe from his own pigskin pouch and then lighting up. “I was fully aware of that. That’s why I extracted the confession.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right job,” Sergeant Evans said with a sigh and wandered away.

“This is one case, Holmes,” I said, “that I must add to my annals.”

“Good old Watson,” he said.

Over the studio loudspeaker our director’s voice reverberated. “Stand by, gentlemen. We’re re taping in two minutes.”

“Come, Watson, come!” Brundage cried. “The game is afoot!”