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

Then, without further explanation, he whistled for a cab and within a minute we were rattling along towards Waterloo Bridge, just as the rain began to fall heavily once more.

For a long time that evening, my companion sat silently curled up in his chair by the fire, puffing away at his pipe, and poring over the script of The Lavender Girl and the notes he had made earlier. I did not question him on the matter. I knew that he disliked being questioned about a case upon which he was still working and that he would enlighten me of his own accord when he was ready to do so. I occupied myself, therefore, in writing up my own journal and in attempting to bring a little order to my somewhat chaotic records of the previous year’s experiences. But my thoughts kept wandering from the old cases on the table before me, to ponder the present singular business at the Albion Theatre. My association with Sherlock Holmes had led me over the years into some very strange affairs, in unlikely places, but none, surely, was more bizarre than our present investigation, and I returned again and again in perplexity to the question of what it all might mean. Outside our chambers, the wind had risen, hurling rain and hail against our windows with ferocious violence, and moaning like an angry beast in the chimney. As I reflected upon Hardy’s fear that the weather might affect the attendance at the opening night of The Lavender Girl , I wondered again who the mysterious enemy might be who appeared so determined to wreck the production and to what lengths such a person might go. Holmes’s suggestion that murder was planned struck me again as utterly beyond belief, and yet it could not be denied that the way the fixings of the trap-door had been interfered with could mean nothing else. At about nine o’clock, my meandering thoughts were abruptly interrupted, when, scarcely audible above the howl of the elements, there came a sudden sharp peal at the bell.

‘You are not expecting anyone?’ asked Holmes, looking up from his papers.

‘Not I.’

‘No doubt it is some friend of Mrs Hudson’s, then,’ said he, and returned to his study.

A moment later, however, the door of our sitting-room was opened and I looked up in surprise as our landlady ushered in a broad-chested, powerful-looking man, with dark, sallow features and a large dark moustache. I recognised him at once as the man I had observed watching the rehearsal in Hardy’s Theatre, earlier that day.

‘Count Laszlo of Sipolia,’ read Mrs Hudson from the card in her hand.

‘It is a wild night to be abroad, Count Laszlo!’ said Holmes, putting down his papers and rising to his feet. ‘Pray, take a seat!’

Our visitor shook his head. ‘If it is all the same to you, I will remain standing,’ he returned. ‘I do not expect to be here very long. I regret the lateness of this visit, but I was unable to cancel my earlier engagements and I was determined to see you this evening. I understand,’ he continued after a moment, ‘that Mr Richard Hudson Hardy has asked you to look into certain matters for him. That is so, is it not?’ he queried, as Holmes did not reply.

‘May I enquire who gave you this information?’ asked Holmes.

‘Hardy himself did. I observed you in the theatre this afternoon and later asked him who you were. He told me that he had engaged you this morning.’

‘If Mr Hardy has elected to give you that information, you must suppose that it is true,’ said Holmes. ‘I cannot see that there is anything I can add to the matter. I do not understand what it is you expect me to say.’

‘I have come here to ask you what you have learnt – if anything – since you have been looking into the matter.’

Holmes raised an eyebrow. ‘You must surely realise, Count Laszlo,’ he replied, ‘that I am not at liberty to answer that question, even supposing for a moment that I wished to do so. Anything I learn in the course of my professional work is a matter of the strictest confidence between my client and myself. Your question is therefore a most improper one and I am surprised at your even thinking to ask it. It is an offence at law in this country, Count Laszlo, to seek to learn confidential matters with which one has no business.’

A look of impatience and annoyance crossed the nobleman’s face. ‘Not my business?’ cried he. ‘How dare you speak so! Quite apart from any other consideration, I have invested a large amount of money in Mr Hardy’s present production. Anything which might affect that production, and my investment in it, is therefore certainly my business.’

‘What your interest in the matter may be is for you to judge, Count Laszlo. For myself, my duty is clear. If I am indeed retained by Mr Hardy, it is to look into certain matters and report back to him. I am not retained to retail his private business to anyone who happens to drop by of an evening.’

‘Bah! You are making a mistake, Mr Holmes, to trifle with me in this way!’

‘I assure you it is no trifling matter to me,’ returned Holmes.

‘And nor to me, sir! I must insist upon your answering my questions!’

‘And I must insist upon declining. May I make a suggestion?’

‘What is it?’

‘That if there is anything you wish to know, you put your questions to Mr Hardy.’

‘But he tells me he knows nothing! He says that you have not yet reported to him!’

‘Well, well. No doubt I shall do so within the next few days, if I have anything to report. You can ask him again then.’

‘You refuse to tell me anything?’

‘It is not a matter of refusal, Count Laszlo; the questions you are asking are quite improper and as such are not questions which it is in my power either to refuse or allow. Indeed, it may be that I am guilty of a professional lapse by even standing here, speaking to you at all.’

‘Bah!’ cried our visitor again. ‘You have not heard the last of me, Mr Holmes! This matter is not closed!’

‘But I regret, Count Laszlo, that this interview must be.’

With a look of anger in his eye, our visitor thereupon clapped his hat on his head and left the room without another word. A moment later, I heard the front door slam.

‘What a modest, unassuming gentleman Count Laszlo is!’ remarked Holmes with a chuckle, as he resumed his seat by the fire. ‘If he would but exercise a little patience, he will discover soon enough what I have learnt! As I remarked earlier, Watson, we are wading in deeper waters than was at first apparent!’

Holmes was out all the following morning, but returned at lunch-time. He appeared in good spirits and, as he helped himself to bread and cheese, he described his morning to me.

‘I have been endeavouring to interest the authorities at Scotland Yard in our little investigation,’ said he. ‘It has been a decidedly uphill task, somewhat, I imagine, like trying to interest a costermonger in the subtleties of medieval Latin. I was passed in turn from one official to another, until I ended up at length with Inspector Athelney Jones. I don’t believe you have met Jones, Watson. It is a pleasure you will have this afternoon, should you care to accompany us. He is a large, burly man. Indeed, so stout is he that I have wondered sometimes if his corpulence was not perhaps designed by a benevolent Nature to compensate for his intellect, which tends in the opposite direction. Still, on this occasion he did eventually manage to grasp the relevant fact, that in my opinion an attempt at murder is in prospect, which may well succeed unless we act to prevent it. In short, he has agreed to accompany me to Hardy’s Theatre this afternoon and observe things for himself. I rather fancy that the drama off stage will prove every bit as compelling as that on stage. Will you come?’