Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

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?”

“Mr Jenks refuses to say anything about them until he has spoken to you in confidence, sir. Perhaps you can advise him of his own best interests, Mr Holmes. I believe we shall soon have finished our investigations here. Then he must come with us—or show us why he need not.”

“I presume you have not found any replies from Sir Caradoc addressed to Mr Jenks?”

“No, sir.”

“Where is my client at the moment?”

“In the sitting-room of the Dome. He is accompanied by two of my uniformed men, Sergeant Witlow and Constable Royston. He maintains his innocence but refuses to discuss any further questions. He says he will swear to his innocence upon Holy Writ—but he will not deal with me. You must make what you can of that, sir. I assume you wish to see him before we take him elsewhere?”

“Presently, Mr Bradstreet. Seeing him at once would complicate my own investigation. First, I should like to examine certain evidence for myself.”

“And so you shall, sir. Would you like to begin with the stage? That seems to be where the root of this mystery lies.”

Holmes’s mouth tightened with impatience.

“I think not. I have seen quite enough of the stage.”

I was surprised by this. So far as I could see, we had hardly been near it.

Holmes was saying, “I have no doubt that your police surgeon’s analysis of the contents of the goblet will confirm his suspicions. A fatal dose of prussic acid is the least that we can expect. However, I would appreciate a few minutes to survey this dressing-room.”

“There is a plain mortuary van outside, sir,” said Hopkins quietly. “It was waiting only for Mr Holmes to see the body. Sir Caradoc could be moved now.”

“Thank you,” said Holmes courteously. “Sir Caradoc will not inconvenience us. Let him remain, if you please.”

Bradstreet was visibly concerned that my friend’s requests should be so modest and apparently irrelevant.

“There really is not much in here, Mr Holmes. His key to the door was lying on the carpet, close to the tasselled cord of the dressing-gown. The evening paper is on the desk. It seems that he usually read it after the performance, while he smoked his cigar. I believe he liked to do the puzzles which they print at the back. It relaxed him.”

Holmes brightened up at this. Bradstreet continued.

“We have not touched nor moved the ash-tray, nor the half-smoked cigar lying in it. Still, it may save you time if I tell you that there is no trace of poison that Dr Worplesdon or Dr Hammond from Scotland Yard could detect in the cigar or its ash.”

“Nor I,” said Stanley Hopkins apologetically.

“Capital!” said Holmes enthusiastically, “I wonder if these two medical gentlemen have chanced to read a slight monograph of mine, printed in 1879, ‘Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos.’ It would be of the greatest assistance to them. Unfortunately, at the time, I was insistent that it must be illustrated with colour plates. I was therefore obliged to defray the cost of having it privately printed. In consequence it now changes hands at a premium and has become something of a rarity.”

The two policemen shook their heads sympathetically.

“No matter,” said Holmes amiably. “If you would be so good as to leave us, we shall not keep you very long.”

Bradstreet hesitated, but Hopkins forced the issue by walking into the passage at once. The superintendent followed reluctantly and Holmes closed the door behind them.