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

We returned to the men’s costume store, where Holmes took from his pocket the little envelope and compared the thread within it to the material of which the monks’ robes were made. ‘It is undoubtedly the same,’ said he.

‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

‘I have an idea about that,’ replied my companion. ‘But first, let us get along to Miss Ballantyne’s dressing-room and take a look at Mr Hardy’s historical scrapbook.’

We made our way to the other end of the corridor, our footsteps ringing hollowly in the silent basement. The gas was lit in Miss Ballantyne’s room and on a table near the door lay the scrapbook. Holmes lifted it up and turned the pages over for a moment, and I saw that the yellowing cuttings touched on every conceivable topic of relevance to the theatre: Solomon Tanner’s nights of triumph, occasions when the performances had been less well received, an occasion when a gas leak had obliged the audience to be quickly ushered from the theatre in the middle of a play, records of when parts of the building had been freshly painted and many other such matters.

‘What a fascinating record!’ I remarked.

‘If you would be so good as to take a look through it, Watson,’ said Holmes, handing it to me, ‘I shall attend to the other matters in Hardy’s office, and return shortly.’

I sat down at the table and began to study the history of the Albion Theatre. The door had swung shut as Holmes had left and, once the sound of his footsteps on the stair had faded away, the basement had fallen utterly silent and still. As far as I was aware, there was no one else there save the four seamstresses and they were far out of my hearing, at the other end of the corridor. For some considerable time I turned the pages over, absorbed in what I was reading. Once, some slight noise came to my ears and I looked up and listened, expecting to hear my friend’s footsteps approaching. But all was silence, and I returned after a moment to my perusal of the scrapbook. Clearly something had delayed Holmes upstairs.

I had just finished reading of a gala night at the old theatre, attended by the Duke of Balmoral, when a faint sound, as of the soft closing of a door, made me pause and look up. For a moment I remained motionless, but could hear nothing. As I sat there listening, it seemed to me that the air in the basement had become colder in the past twenty minutes and I shivered. At that moment, I heard a footstep, soft and furtive, in the corridor outside. I turned down the gas, opened the door cautiously and peered out.

The light in the corridor was poor, for only one gas-jet was lit and that appeared to have been turned lower than before. But even by this dim light I could see quite clearly that there was someone in the corridor. Not more than thirty feet away, a dark figure in a long black robe and hood was moving silently away from me. For a moment, it was as if an icy hand had touched the back of my neck and I was frozen into immobility. Then, gathering my senses together, I licked my dry lips and called out, my own voice sounding strange and almost startling to me after the silence in which I had been sitting for so long. The dark figure stopped abruptly as I called, then, very slowly, turned round. Within the shadowed cowl, no face was visible; nothing but a dense blackness.

‘What are you doing?’ I called out.

No reply came, but next moment, the figure began to advance, slowly and in complete silence, towards me. Every muscle in my body seemed to have become paralysed and unresponsive, and the blood seemed frozen in my veins. Then, with an effort of will, I took a step forward. I gave no credence to apparitions, I told myself, and wanted to know who this hidden villain was, and what he was up to. But I confess that it is easier to write these words now than it was to speak them to myself at the time, as I stood facing this dark menacing figure in that cold and dimly lit underground passage.

For what seemed an age, but was probably, in reality, but a second or two, the figure continued his slow, silent approach.

‘What do you want?’ I called out loudly, my voice ringing round the hard walls of the corridor, and sounding forced and unnatural.

As the echo of my words faded, and silence returned, the dark figure halted and remained for a moment motionless. He had drawn level with the one gas-jet in the corridor. Now, in one swift movement, and before I realised what was happening, he had raised his hand, the gas-tap was turned off, and the corridor was plunged into utter blackness.

For a moment, it was as if a heavy shutter had descended before my eyes. I could see nothing whatever and held myself absolutely still, so that I might hear if the dark figure approached any closer. But a faint glimmer of light came from beneath the door of Miss Ballantyne’s dressing-room and, as my eyes adjusted to this dim illumination, I could just make out that the dark figure had not moved. Even as I screwed up my eyes, however, struggling to see more clearly through the darkness, I had an impression that the figure was stooping. There then came a swifter movement, of his arm, and I knew at once that he had flung something at me. Instinctively, I put up my arm to shield my face, but I was not quick enough, and something – a small lump of wood, perhaps – struck me on the side of the head. At the same instant, I heard rapid footsteps and when I looked again, as the footsteps faded into the distance, the corridor was empty. Without pausing for thought, I at once gave chase. But in advancing along the corridor, I was moving further away from the faint illumination from the dressing-room, so that in a matter of seconds, utter blackness had closed in about me. I cursed myself for my stupidity in not re-lighting the gas as I passed it. But I was reluctant now to stop and even more reluctant to retrace my steps, and thus turn my back upon what might lie ahead of me. I therefore pressed forward, but very slowly and with great caution. I knew that I must be approaching the point at which the corridor took a right-angled bend, so I held my hands out in front of me until they touched the cold corridor wall. Then, slowly feeling my way along the wall, I followed the passage round to the right and, a few yards further on, round to the left. For a few seconds, then, I stood perfectly still in that impenetrable darkness and listened. The whole basement was in utter and complete silence. For all I could tell, my assailant might be far away by now, or might be within a few feet of where I stood, waiting to spring at me. After a moment, I took a step forward, with no great enthusiasm, I must admit, and advanced very slowly along the corridor, ready at any moment to defend myself if attacked. A sensation of colder air upon my face told me that I was passing the first open doorway of the costume store, and it occurred to me that the mystery figure might have gone to ground there. But it was pointless attempting to look in there without a lamp of some kind, so, tense and breathing heavily, I continued along the corridor.

A little further on, I again felt a draught of cold air and knew I must be passing the second doorway of the costume store. Then I caught the faint murmur of voices and saw a thin line of light upon the floor to my right, which I knew must come from the narrow gap at the bottom of the door to the seamstresses’ room. For some time, I felt for the door-knob, then, just as I had my hand upon it, the door was abruptly opened from the other side. Light from the room within seemed to burst about me and I put my hand up to my eyes to shield them. The woman who had opened the door stepped back with a sharp cry of alarm as she saw me.

‘Oh, sir!’ cried she, as I stepped forward into the room. ‘I thought you was the ghost!’