Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

‘Do you know who might have fallen foul of the cord if the order of rehearsals had not been changed?’ interrupted Holmes.

‘I think it might have been Lydia Summers. I cannot be certain on the point, however, and I did not mention my thoughts on the matter to anyone else. At any event, Miss Summers was not spared for long. A day or two after this incident, she came to my dressing-room. She was pale and appeared upset, and when she spoke she was very agitated. She told me that she had been passing along the basement corridor, near the wardrobe rooms, when someone had come up behind her and pushed her violently to the floor. When she looked round, there was no one to be seen. She was not badly hurt, but the incident had left her feeling shaken and nervous.

‘The following week, I was rehearsing on stage with the chorus, under the direction of Mr Hardy, when all the lights in the house abruptly went out and we were plunged into pitch blackness. It was evident that the gas supply had failed. It was very dangerous, as we could not see where we were treading, and parts of the stage were littered with pieces of half-made scenery, lumps of wood, tools and so on. Not only that, but of course if the gas supply had then been restored, the theatre would soon have been full of it, escaping unburnt from the unlit lamps. There could have been a dreadful explosion, and we might all have been killed. Fortunately, Mr Hardy had a lantern with him. He quickly lit this and hurried down to the basement, to examine the main stop-tap. It was turned fully on and it seemed the gas supply had been restored, for there was a dreadful smell of gas everywhere. He at once turned the stop-tap off, and sent everyone round the theatre to turn off all the individual taps by the lamps and open all the windows. It was some time before the gas cleared and we were able to light the lamps once more and continue with our rehearsal. Mr Hardy reported the matter to the gas company and they sent an inspector round to investigate, but he could find nothing wrong. He said that there had certainly been no interruption to the main gas supply and could only suggest that someone had turned off the main tap in the theatre basement, waited for a few minutes and then turned it back on again.

‘Mr Hardy, understandably, declared that a preposterous suggestion. ‘‘Why should anyone do such a thing?’’ he demanded.

‘At this, the gas inspector shook his head and said he was sure he didn’t know. Then he swore again that the gas supply had been perfectly in order until it reached the theatre. There was nothing to be done, so Mr Hardy let the matter drop. But although he has not referred to it since, it has caused him, I believe, some anxiety.’

‘You say you were rehearsing with the chorus, when the gas went out,’ interrupted Holmes. ‘Where were the other principal players at that time?’

‘In their dressing-rooms, I believe,’ replied Miss Ballantyne. ‘Each of us – Mr Xavier, Mr Webster, Miss Summers and myself – has a private dressing-room, in the basement. I believe I heard some of them calling out in the dark when I followed Mr Hardy down into the basement after the lights had gone out.’

‘Was there anyone else in the basement at the time?’

‘Only the seamstresses. There are four of them. The sewing-room in which they work is next to the large rooms in which the company’s costumes are stored. They have been working hard for several weeks on getting the costumes ready for The Lavender Girl . It is a sizeable task, for some of the costumes are very elaborate, and there are a lot of them.’

‘I see,’ said Holmes. ‘Did any of the seamstresses report hearing or seeing anyone in the basement at the time of the incident?’

Miss Ballantyne shook her head. ‘The door to their room is a stout one and it was closed at the time. Besides, they prattle so much while they are working that they probably would not have heard anything, anyway.’

‘Very well,’ said Holmes. ‘Pray continue with your account!’

‘One afternoon last week, I was in my dressing-room when there came all at once a terrific racket of shouting and banging. I left my room and hurried along the corridor in the direction of the noise. As I did so, it abruptly ceased, but when I turned a corner of the corridor, I ran into a crowd of people surrounding Jimmy Webster, just outside his dressing-room, which is some distance from mine, near the costume department. I gathered that someone had locked his door and turned his light off, leaving him in the dark.

‘“How did you get out, then?” I asked him. “Did someone unlock the door from the outside?”

‘He shook his head. “That’s the strange thing: when the girls from the sewing-room tried my door, they say it opened easily and wasn’t locked at all!”

‘“How do you explain it?” I asked.

‘“The door was certainly locked when I tried to open it,” said he. “There is always a key in the outside of the lock, although I never use it. Someone must have turned the key and locked it. Then, just before these ladies arrived, when I had given up trying to open the door and was reduced to simply banging on it for all I was worth, he must have unlocked the door again and run off.”

‘“Did you see anyone?” I asked the seamstresses, but they shook their heads.

‘“How was your light turned off?” I asked Jimmy.

‘He pointed to a gas-tap on a pipe which runs along the corridor outside his room. “It must have been turned off there,” said he.

‘“It’s not turned off now,” observed Ludovic Xavier, who had joined us as Jimmy had been speaking.

‘“I don’t need you to tell me that, Xavier,” returned Jimmy. “Clearly, whoever had turned it off also turned it back on again when my light had gone out.”

‘“It’s turned off inside your room,” said Xavier, putting his head into Jimmy’s dressing-room. “There’s no smell of gas in here.”

‘“Well, of course there isn’t,” retorted Webster. “I turned it off myself after the light went out! I wasn’t inclined to sit there patiently waiting to be asphyxiated!”

‘“It all seems a little odd to me,” remarked Xavier with a shake of the head.

‘“How very perceptive of you!” cried Webster in an ironic tone. “‘Odd’ is certainly the word, Xavier; and it ain’t so little, either!” With that, he pushed his way past us into his room, relit the gas, and shut the door.

‘I did not know what to make of this incident. By itself, it might have appeared merely a silly prank, but following all the other incidents as it did, I could not but think that it was connected with them in some way. Some of the things that have happened may have been simply accidents, some appear to be spiteful little tricks, unpleasant but not serious; but the recent incidents with the gas are more serious. If interfering with the gas supply is someone’s idea of a joke, then that person must have a very warped and unpleasant sense of humour.’

There was a note of great agitation in Miss Ballantyne’s voice as she spoke these last words, and she clasped and unclasped her hands in a tense, nervous manner. Sherlock Holmes opened his eyes, leaned forward in his chair and placed the tips of his fingers upon the back of her hand.

‘Madam, you are frightened,’ said he in a soothing tone.

‘I would not deny it,’ returned his visitor, in a voice which trembled with emotion. ‘You may dismiss it as a mere fancy, but I have had an apprehension of danger since the first moment I entered the Albion to begin rehearsals. It is a place of strange noises and echoes, especially in the basement. Once or twice I have been down there alone – or so I thought – and have heard footsteps in the corridor outside my room, but when I looked, there was no one there. Whether what I heard could have been caused by the odd draughts that blow down there, or by the dripping of rainwater, I don’t know. On another occasion, when I was really sure there was no one about, I had come down the stairs from the auditorium and turned into the basement corridor, when, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw someone at the other end of the corridor, who vanished round a corner at that precise moment.’