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

I looked up. Above our heads, there came a pause in the singing and Miss Ballantyne resumed her skipping dance.

‘It is difficult to make it out,’ I said, ‘but there appear to be four bolts, two on each of the doors, which are placed sideways, so that the doors are secured to the underside of the stage. There is also a stout wooden bar, passing across both doors and presumably secured to the ceiling at either end. At one end of this wooden bar, a length of cord is attached, which passes along the ceiling, through a metal ring and down this pillar. What the point of that is, I cannot imagine.’

Holmes nodded his head, a thoughtful expression upon his face. ‘There is a little sawdust on the floor here,’ he remarked after a moment, indicating the flagstone at our feet. ‘It was that which caught my attention. The inference is that some work has recently been done on the trap-door, or its fixings; but it is difficult to see from here what that work might be. Ah!’ he cried all at once, as he glanced rapidly about the room. ‘I see there is a long ladder lying by the wall over there. If you would help me bring it here, Watson, I shall climb up and take a closer look!’

We put up the ladder directly beneath the trap-door, its top resting against one of the large crossbeams which supported the ceiling. Then, as I held it steady, Holmes climbed to the top. For several minutes, he examined the trap-door and the surrounding woodwork very closely. As he descended, his face was grave.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘It is as I suspected,’ said he. ‘None of the bolts is fastened, so that the only thing which is now preventing the trap-doors from falling open is that stout wooden bar which runs across beneath them. Under normal circumstances, that would be perfectly adequate, but the fixings of the wooden bar have been recently altered in a subtle and ingenious way. It is evident that it was originally screwed into the ceiling, but the screws which held it have been removed. The wood in the empty screw-holes – two at either end of the bar – is very clean and fresh-looking, indicating that the screws have only recently been removed. The bar is now held in place by two metal brackets, which are screwed into the boards of the ceiling at either side of the trap-door. The brackets are fixed and secure, but the bar itself is not. It can slide along within the brackets, or be pulled out of them altogether, in which case nothing would then be supporting the trap-doors and they would at once fall open. At one end of the wooden bar is a metal ring, to which a length of cord has been attached, as you observed. This cord, as you remarked, passes along the ceiling, through another metal ring and so down to a hook on this wooden pillar, around which the end of it is wound.’

‘What does it mean?’ I asked, as there came a pause in Miss Ballantyne’s dancing and she returned to the song, very loud and clear, immediately overhead.

‘I’m very much afraid it means murder, Watson,’ returned Holmes in a quiet voice.

‘Murder!’ I cried in horror. ‘Surely you are mistaken! If some malevolent person wishes to delay the production of this play, or even to destroy it altogether, there must be a thousand subtle ways he could achieve his end without resorting to such violence. I simply cannot believe that in these circumstances anyone would contemplate such a dreadful crime!’

‘Nevertheless, that is what the evidence indicates, Watson. If that trap-door falls open, anyone standing upon it will plunge on to these flagstones and I cannot think that anyone could survive such a fall. I agree that it would mark a considerable increase in violence compared with what has gone before, but that does not make it impossible. The matter is not so straightforward as you perhaps suppose. But, come! Let us put the ladder away, leave everything down here as we found it and see what is happening upstairs!’

When we returned to the auditorium, Isabel Ballantyne had completed her rehearsal, and the stage was occupied by the dozen or so young men and women of the chorus, singing and dancing with energy and enthusiasm. Richard Hudson Hardy was personally directing the proceedings from the front of the stalls, standing with the script in his hand and shouting out instructions from time to time. A couple of rows further back, Miss Ballantyne was now sitting with her husband and Jimmy Webster, watching the progress of the rehearsal. Half a dozen rows behind them, a powerful-looking man, with dark hair and moustache, and a dark, sallow face, was sitting, smoking a cigar. For some time we stood at the side of the auditorium, watching the rehearsal, then Holmes plucked my sleeve.

‘We have seen all that is necessary for the moment,’ said he. ‘I doubt that Mr Hardy would welcome an interruption now, so I shall leave him a note in his office.’

As we approached the doors at the back of the auditorium, they were pushed open and a middle-aged man entered, who stared at us for a moment. He was what some might describe as ‘well-groomed’, but there was an affectation about both his appearance and his manner which I did not much care for.

‘Hello!’ said he in an arch tone, staring at us as he spoke. ‘Gentlemen of the press!’

Holmes shook his head. ‘Friends of Mr Hudson Hardy’s,’ said he.

‘Really?’ returned the other man. ‘I was not aware that he had any!’ Then he turned away from us and passed on into the auditorium without another word.

‘What a rude, offensive man!’ I remarked, as we made our way along to Hardy’s office.

Holmes laughed, in that odd noiseless way which was peculiar to him. ‘I think we may assume that that was Ludovic Xavier,’ said he.

In the office, Holmes wrote a brief note for Hardy, and picked up a large manila envelope from the desk, which contained, he informed me, a copy of the script of The Lavender Girl and notes he had made earlier from the record of rehearsals.

Outside, the daylight had now gone and the street lamps were lit, casting their weak, gloomy light upon the many puddles on the surface of the road. The rain had stopped falling, but the night was a bitterly cold one and I shivered as I stood for a moment on the pavement outside the theatre, while my companion paced up and down, looking about him. It was a dismal enough prospect. The road was still busy, with a constant stream of carts and wagons passing by, throwing up cascades of water and mud from the road as they did so. After a moment, I followed Holmes to the corner of the theatre, where he was looking into the little street which lay between the Albion and the blackened ruin of the Palace. It was a short cul-de-sac in which there was nothing to be seen but the sides of the two theatres and, at the end, a tall, blank wall, which was evidently the back of some other building.

‘The underground corridor we followed must pass beneath this little street,’ remarked my companion in a thoughtful tone. Then, instructing me to wait for him, he crossed to the other side of the cul-de-sac and set off along the main road, passing by the front of the Palace. Presently, when he had gone perhaps fifty or sixty yards, he abruptly stopped, turned on his heel and returned to where I was standing. As he passed, he gestured for me to follow him, and we walked the same distance in the opposite direction. I observed as we did so that he kept glancing at the other side of the road.

‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ I asked at length.

‘A post office or tobacconist’s shop,’ he replied.

‘You should have told me,’ said I in surprise. ‘I have both tobacco and stamps in my pocket. You are welcome to help yourself, Holmes.’

‘I do not require either tobacco or stamps, Watson,’ returned my companion. ‘I have some of my own. Thank you for the offer all the same.’