George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

The drunk from Le Cabaret de L’Enfer stood in the corridor outside, his face no longer merry, his eyes focused and cold.

Behind him, glaring over the fellow’s narrow shoulder, stood the Banquo at my feast – John Watson.

“May we come in?” said Sherlock Holmes, not waiting for an invitation. He stepped over the threshold, already removing his false beard, which he discarded on the bed.

I wanted to slump to the floor, but forced myself to stand, tight-lipped. Holmes would have to break the silence; he would have to speak, not I.

Watson followed the detective into my room, and closed the door behind them.

When Holmes finally spoke there was no kindness in that strident voice of his, no pity. He laid out the facts as if giving evidence at a trial.

“Your husband is dead,” he began, his words like barbs. “That much was easy enough to ascertain from a simple visit to his practice. Robert Langtry’s name has already been painted from the sign. But how did he die? A visit to the local newspaper revealed that, according to the public record, Mr Langtry had been murdered three months ago during a burglary at his home, along with his maid and footman. As for his grieving widow, well, she is still missing, presumed dead.”

I sank on to the edge of the bed, the weight of the last three months too much to bear.

“Dead, or in fear of her life? Which is it?”

There was no point lying, not any more. Not to him.

“They were agents of the Tsar, sent to retrieve the… evidence I held concerning his family.”

“The photo of you and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia.”

I allowed myself a bitter smile at Watson. “How clever of Dr Watson to protect us all with pseudonyms. The King of Bohemia. Irene Adler. Godfrey Norton. No one would ever know the true identities of the characters he splashed across the pages of The Strand . Or at least that’s what you obviously hoped.”

“They worked out who you were,” Watson intoned.

“No,” I replied, quietly. “They worked out who he was.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?” I spat in fury, jumping back to my feet. “Your oh-so-dramatic visitor with his mask and his barrel chest and, what was it? Oh, yes – ‘the limbs of a Hercules’. Well, it appears that your Hercules is as unlucky in love today as he was then, and has found himself in the middle of another scandal. The vultures are circling and have seen beyond the smoke and mirrors. Once they had realised the true identity of your King of Bohemia, it didn’t take them long to work out which prima donna had so vexed him in London, the woman who still held proof of his past indiscretions.”

Watson’s face was pale, smudged only with the grime of his subterranean prison. “Evidence that could be used against him.”

“The last thing that Nicholas wanted was for his brother’s sins to be found out all over again and so the photograph that had kept me safe for so many years became my death sentence.”

“Or rather that of Robert Langtry,” said Sherlock Holmes.

The memory of that fateful night brought tears to my eyes. “They came to our house, demanding the photograph. They had already killed poor Cammi.”

“Your maid.”

“Robert tried to protect me, only to receive a knife to the stomach. They already had the photograph. There was no need for him to die.”

“You escaped.”

“Evidently. Our footman – Pierre – tackled my husband’s murderer, and in the confusion I managed to slip away. I ran from the house, from everything I owned. I had nowhere to go, no friends I could turn to. Do you think the Tsar’s agents would let me live, after what I had witnessed?”

“So you lost yourself in Paris, returning to the stage, rebuilding your life.”

I threw my hands wide and turned on my heels. “And here it is, my new nest.”

Holmes didn’t pass comment, but reeled off what I already knew, ever the showman. “The apparently fine clothes you wore this morning were as false as the name Watson gave you all those years ago, costume reproductions designed to fool an audience from the stage.”

“Or a doctor,” I added, with little humour.

“And when I kissed your hand, there was a distinctive odour, barely disguised by inexpensive soap and cheap perfume: sulphur, used to create the allusion of walking through a volcano.”

“Or an inferno,” Watson added with a grimace.

“The reason you dressed yourself as a man tonight is that you are known at Le Cabaret de L’Enfer , not as a customer, but a member of staff, perhaps one of the musicians who play from within the cauldron. There are usually six from what I can gather, although tonight there were only five. That’s where you discovered the pit. No one pays to be buried alive at the back of the cabaret. That was a fiction, designed to reel Watson in, appealing to his more melodramatic tendencies. His early grave was nothing more than a little used storage area, not opened from one year to the next.”

Watson’s eyes bored into me, bristling with recrimination. “I may never have been found. If Holmes hadn’t forced his way past the curtain…”

“Needless to say that the infernal masters of the cabaret are keen to keep the entire sorry affair out of the public eye.”

“Until Dr Watson writes an account of it…” I sneered.

“As for your accomplice,” Holmes continued, ignoring my interruption, “the obliging nymph who just so happened to remember Robert Langtry, she has vanished into the ether.”

“No doubt assisted by the two hundred francs purloined from my wallet,” Watson added.

“Not stolen,” I reminded him. “You gave it gladly.”

“To help you!”

“Instead you have helped her escape a life in the Pigalle, and for that I am grateful. At least something good has come of this evening.”

“Quite so,” agreed Holmes.

I looked the detective in the eye. “And what of me?”

Holmes walked over to my mirror to remove the last scraps of his make-up. “From the ticket on your dressing table, you are preparing your own escape, although the chances of you now catching the last train to Vienna are minimal.”

“Because you intend to turn me over to the police?”

Holmes turned to face me. “Because you will never make it to the railway station in time, that is all.”

Holmes strolled across the room with such confidence that I wanted to scream. He opened the door and indicated for his companion to take his leave. Watson walked out without so much as a backwards glance.

Before he followed his friend out into the corridor, Holmes paused, turning to face me. “Mrs Langtry, you sought to take revenge on the man you believe ruined your life. You lured him to the City of Lights with the intention of leaving him to rot in the dark. I for one am grateful that I was on hand to ensure his safety. I bear you no malice, and hope you can indeed rebuild your life.”

The man’s hubris made me sick to my stomach. “How gracious of you.”

“But know this: move against Watson again, and I will move against you. Yesterday, I was your admirer. Today, I am your enemy.”

With that, Sherlock Holmes closed the door behind him.

A chill wind blew along the banks of the Seine the following morning. As Holmes had predicted, I had missed my train. There would be others, of course, but for now I was content to sit, gazing over at the great cathedral of Notre Dame, wondering what might have been.

Would I really have gone through with it? Would I have let a man die in that pit? I told myself not, that I would have sent word when I was away. The police would have raided the cabaret and found Watson, despairing but unhurt. It would have been hard to keep such an occurrence out of the papers, the good doctor finding himself in the middle of a scandal of his own making, indirectly at least.