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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
SCANDAL, INTRIGUE AND CUNNING CRIME. DELVE INTO THE WORLD OF THE IMMORTAL SHERLOCK HOLMES. In Sherlock Holmes's London, reputations are fragile and scandal can be ruinous. In order to protect the names of the good (and not-so-good), Dr Watson comes to the decision that his accounts of some of his friend's most brilliant cases must never see the light of day. And so he conceals the manuscripts in an old despatch box, deep in the vaults of a Charing Cross bank ...Now, outlasting the memories of those they could have harmed, these mysteries finally come to light. An aluminium crutch betrays the criminal who relies upon it for support ...An Italian Cardinal lies dead in a muddy yard in Spitalfields ...What do a pair of suspiciously successful gamblers have in common with the Transylvanian mind-reader, Count Rakoczi? And can Holmes and Watson outwit the jewel thief who has the nerve to steal from the King of Scandinavia?
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Seitenzahl: 336
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes
JUNE THOMSON
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
by Aubrey B. Watson LDS, FDS, D. Orth.
Those of you who are already familiar with the four earlier collections1 of hitherto unpublished accounts of cases which Sherlock Holmes and Dr John H. Watson investigated will not need reminding of the curious circumstances under which they came into my possession.
However, for the benefit of new readers, I give this brief summary of how I acquired them through the Will of my late uncle Dr John F. Watson, a Doctor of Philosophy at All Saints College, Oxford.
Despite the similarity of the names, my late uncle was not in any way connected with Dr John H. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ friend and chronicler, although it was because of this resemblance that he had made a study of his namesake’s life and background and had become, in consequence, something of an authority on the subject. For these reasons, a certain Miss Adelina McWhirter approached my late uncle in September 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, with a proposition which she thought might interest him.
An elderly and apparently respectable spinster, she claimed to be related to Mr Holmes’ Dr Watson on the maternal side of the family and had inherited a battered tin despatch box with the words ‘John H. Watson, M.D., Late Indian Army’ painted on its lid. It was this box, she said, which had belonged to Mr Holmes’ Dr Watson and contained the papers relating to those cases which had not been published and which Dr Watson had placed for safe-keeping in the vaults of his bank Cox and Co. at Charing Cross.2
Finding herself in straitened circumstances, Miss McWhirter wished to sell both the box and its contents and approached my late uncle, who agreed to buy them.
However, soon after his purchase of the Watson archive, war was declared and my late uncle, fearful for their safety during the coming conflict, copied out the papers and, taking a leaf out of Dr John H. Watson’s book, deposited the original manuscripts, still in the despatch box, in the main branch of his bank in London. Unfortunately, the bank suffered a direct hit during the bombing of 1942 and although the despatch box was recovered from the rubble, it was so badly damaged as to be unrecognisable while its contents had been reduced to a mass of burnt paper.
My uncle was placed in a quandary. While he still had his own copies of the Watson manuscripts, he had nothing to prove the existence of the originals except for the damaged box and its charred contents, which hardly amounted to proof. Nor could he trace Miss Adelina McWhirter. She had, it seemed, moved out of the residential hotel in South Kensington where she had been living without leaving a forwarding address.
Therefore, having no means of proving the authenticity of the Watson archives, and fearful of his reputation as a scholar, my late uncle decided not to publish and, on his death at the age of ninety-eight on 2nd June 1982, his copies of the originals were left to me, his only living relative, in his Will. As for the despatch box and its contents, no trace of them remained and I can only assume that, when he passed away at the Eventide Nursing Home in Carshalton, Surrey, the staff threw them out as so much rubbish.
I, too, have hesitated for a long time over the question of whether or not to publish these accounts but, having no one to whom I can bequeath them and having no academic reputation to protect, being an orthodontist by profession, I have decided to risk rousing the obloquy of serious Sherlockians by placing these accounts before the public, together with the footnotes which my late uncle added to his original manuscript copies.
However, I must point out that I accept no responsibility for their authenticity.
1 These are: The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes (1990); The Secret Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (1992); The Secret Journals of Sherlock Holmes (1993); The Secret Documents of Sherlock Holmes (1997); and The Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes (2012). Aubrey B. Watson.
2 In ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’, Dr Watson writes: ‘Somewhere in the vaults of the bank Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin despatch box with my name, John H. Watson, M.D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid.’ Strictly speaking, Dr Watson never served in the Indian Army but in the British Army serving in India. The despatch box was presumably army issue. Aubrey B. Watson.
THE CASE OF THE UPWOOD SCANDAL
It was a bitterly cold November morning, not long after my old friend Sherlock Holmes and I had returned to London from Devonshire following the tragic conclusion of the long and complex Baskerville case,1 when a visitor, a Mr Godfrey Sinclair, called at our Baker Street lodgings. His arrival was not unexpected, for Holmes had received a telegram from him the previous day requesting an interview, but the reason for his visit was quite unknown, Mr Sinclair having failed to mention the nature of his business. It was therefore with some curiosity that we waited for Billy, the boy in buttons,2 to show this new client upstairs.
‘At least we know one fact about him. He is a man with a proper sense of the value of time. A businessman, would you say, Watson? Certainly not a dilettante,’ Holmes remarked when, on the stroke of eleven o’clock, the hour fixed for his appointment, there was a peal on the front-door bell.
However, I noticed when Mr Sinclair was shown into the room, that his appearance was not quite that of a conventional businessman. His clothes were just a little too well-cut and the gold watch-chain looped across the front of his formal waistcoat a touch too decorative for a banker or a lawyer, and I marked him down as having a connection with the theatre, perhaps, or some other occupation in which the fashion of one’s coat was of great importance.
He also had the bearing of someone used to the public gaze, an impression borne out by an air of social ease and almost professional bonhomie. And yet, beneath this social gloss, I fancied I detected a certain caution, as if he preferred to be the observer rather than the observed. Although only in his thirties, he gave in addition the impression of a much older man, experienced in the ways of the world and consequently wary of its practices.
Holmes was also conscious of his client’s reserve, for I noticed his own features assumed a bland, non-committal expression as he invited Sinclair to take a seat by the fire.
In accordance with his punctual arrival, Sinclair came straight to the point in a pleasant but competent manner.
‘I know you are a busy man, Mr Holmes,’ he began, ‘and I shall not waste your time with a long explanation of my affairs. To put the matter briefly, I am the owner of the Nonpareil Club in Kensington, a private gambling establishment which is, of course, by its very nature against the law.3 Two of its members are a Colonel James Upwood and a friend of his, a Mr Eustace Gaunt, who joined the club only recently and about whom I am less familiar. Although several card games are played at the Nonpareil, including baccarat4 and poker, Colonel Upwood and Mr Gaunt prefer whist. Both appear to be accomplished at the game and visit the club regularly on a Friday evening at about eleven o’clock for a rubber or two.
‘Generally speaking, the stakes are moderate and there is nothing in their play to arouse suspicion. Their gains and losses are more or less balanced. However, on two occasions in the past six months, they have won considerable sums, in one case of over £500, in another of £800. I noticed on these two evenings they were particularly careful in choosing their opponents, although it was subtly done and I doubt if anyone else observed this, certainly not the gentlemen they played against.’
‘Who were?’ Holmes interjected.
‘I would prefer not to name them, if you have no objections, Mr Holmes. Suffice it to say that all four of them were wealthy young men, scions of well-known aristocratic families and inclined to recklessness, who had on the evenings in question indulged a little too freely in the club’s champagne.
‘Their losses probably meant less to them than they would to some other members, but that is not an excuse for cheating at cards, if that is what Colonel Upwood and Mr Gaunt were doing, as I strongly suspect they were. However, I have no proof. That is why I have come to you, Mr Holmes. I would like to know one way or the other for my own peace of mind and for the good name of the Nonpareil. If they are cheats, then my response is quite clear. I shall speak to the gentlemen in question, cancel their membership and warn the other clubs to which they belong of their activities. Are you prepared to take on the case, Mr Holmes?’
Holmes replied with alacrity.
‘Certainly, Mr Sinclair! Your card-players are a refreshing change from the usual run-of-the-mill criminals. But I cannot promise immediate results. If the two gentlemen in question are indeed cheating, then they will clearly not indulge themselves every week. You said they play regularly on a Friday evening. Then I suggest my colleague, Dr Watson, and I call at the Nonpareil next Friday at half past ten and the subsequent six Friday evenings at the same time. If nothing suspicious occurs on any of these occasions, then we shall have to review our strategy. By the way, I think it prudent if we assume false identities during the investigation in case our names are familiar to any of your members. Dr Watson will therefore be Mr Carew and I shall be Mr Robinson.’
‘Of course. I quite understand,’ Sinclair replied, getting up and shaking hands with both of us before giving Holmes his card. ‘Here is my address. I shall expect to see you both next Friday at the time agreed.’
‘Well, well!’ Holmes declared after Mr Sinclair had left the room and we heard the street door close behind him. ‘What do you think of the affair, Watson? Gambling, indeed! A case after your own heart, would you not say, my dear fellow, although, in your case, it should be horses or billiards, not cards?5 How is your whist-playing, by the way?’
‘I play a little,’ I replied a little stiffly, for I was somewhat piqued by Holmes’ teasing manner.
‘Enough to win £400 at a sitting?’
‘Hardly, Holmes.’
‘Then we must not plunge ourselves too deeply in the game on Friday evening,’ Holmes rejoined. ‘A rubber or two should suffice, combined with a little stroll about the gaming-room to establish the lie of the land and to acquaint ourselves, if only at a distance, with Messrs Upwood and Gaunt. You know, Watson, or rather Carew, to accustom you to your new nom de guerre, I am quite looking forward to the assignment,’ Holmes continued, chuckling and rubbing his hands together. ‘It is not often one is paid a fee for indulging oneself at one of London’s better-known gambling clubs.’
The Nonpareil, as we discovered when we alighted from our hansom on the following Friday evening a little before ten o’clock, was not quite what I had been expecting. I had envisaged a more flamboyant establishment, its windows ablaze with a myriad of gas lamps and with a uniformed flunkey in knee breeches and a satin waistcoat to escort us inside.
Instead, we found ourselves mounting the steps of one of the tall, elegant houses which lined a quiet side street in South Kensington. The only decoration on its plain façade of brick and stucco was the rather severe iron railings to the first-floor balcony and the basement area. As for the blaze of gas lamps, only a subdued glow escaped round the edges of the tiers of heavily-curtained sash windows, lending the building a soft, shrouded air, like the proscenium in a theatre before the curtain goes up to reveal the stage.
There was no satin-coated footman to welcome us either, only a tall, pale-faced butler, dressed in black, who had the sombre gravity of an undertaker’s mute.
As he took our cloaks and silk hats, I had an opportunity to glance about me and was, despite the initial disappointment, impressed by what I saw, although the interior of the Nonpareil no more corresponded to my image of a gaming-house than its exterior.
The foyer was square and plain, floored with black and white marble tiles and, like the façade of the house, unadorned apart from two enormous gilt-framed looking-glasses, each accompanied by matching marble-topped console tables, which faced one another and created a bewildering profusion of reflections of Holmes and myself standing within a diminishing arcade of other gilt-framed mirrors, glittering under the lights.
When I had recovered from this momentary visual confusion, I saw that a pair of double glass doors led into a drawing-room furnished, like a gentlemen’s club, with leather armchairs, ceiling-high bookcases and low tables on which were displayed newspapers and periodicals, meticulously folded. A bar, sparkling with crystal glasses and ranks of bottles, occupied one wall.
Another pair of double doors in the far wall allowed a glimpse of a supper-room beyond, where there was a long buffet table loaded with tureens of soup and huge platters of food, together with piles of plates and silver cutlery. Small round tables, covered with starched white linen, were scattered about at which several gentleman were already seated, making use of the club’s hospitality. More were occupying the leather chairs in the drawing-room with brandy or whisky glasses in their hands, while soft-footed waiters padded about carrying silver salvers containing more glasses of wine, champagne or spirits.
The atmosphere was hushed. There were no loud voices, only a subdued murmur of conversations and the tinkling of glass, while the air was fragrant with the warm scent of cigars and wood smoke from the blazing fires, the aroma of leather, rich food and the fresh flowers which decorated both rooms as well as the entrance foyer.
Mr Sinclair must have been watching for our arrival for, hardly had we divested ourselves of our outer garments, than he came forward to greet us.
‘Mr Carew! Mr Robinson! I am delighted to welcome you as new members!’ he cried, holding out his hand to each of us in turn before escorting us up the staircase to a broad upper landing and from there into a large double salon running the width of the house. This, I assumed, was the gaming-room, the heart of the Nonpareil Club.
Unlike the discreet apartments on the lower floor, this huge chamber was sumptuously furnished and brilliantly lit. Four large chandeliers hung from the coffered ceiling, their radiance enriching the already flamboyant splendour of the gilded leather chairs, the ormolu and silver mounts on the furniture and the towering swags of scarlet and gold brocade which hung at the windows. The walls were painted with scenes from an Olympian banquet at which gods and goddesses, draped in diaphanous robes and crowned with gilded laurel leaves, dined to the music of lyres and flutes.
It was all much too extravagant and elaborate – a deliberate effect, I suspected, designed to create an atmosphere of excitement and hedonistic pleasure in order to encourage the players seated at the baize-covered tables placed about the room to indulge themselves more freely than they might have done in a more decorous setting. Although there were no overt signs of excitation, no raised voices or boisterous behaviour, the atmosphere was vibrant with an almost inaudible ebullience, like the faint humming from a hive of bees or the trembling left in the air after a violin has played its last note.
Mr Sinclair paused with us in the doorway, as if to let us, as new members, grow accustomed to our surroundings, murmuring as he did so, ‘Look to your left, gentlemen, at the table nearest the far wall.’
We moved on, Sinclair stopping now and again to introduce us to those members who were not engaged in play, and both Holmes and I took the opportunity to glance covertly towards the table he had indicated.
Colonel Upwood was immediately identifiable by his military bearing. A bulky man, he sat stiff and upright in his chair, his tanned, weather-beaten features suggesting he had served in the East. During my own service in Afghanistan,6 I had seen many faces similar to his. The flesh becomes dry and lined, like old leather, particularly about the eyes, where the effort of continuously squinting into the bright tropical light forms a myriad of tiny wrinkles in the skin, the inner crevices of which remain pale where they have not been exposed to the sun. These tiny lines created the impression of a jovial man, much given to laughter, but the eyes themselves were cold and watchful, while the mouth, under the clipped white moustache, had a grim, humourless twist to it.
His companion, Eustace Gaunt, who faced him across the table, was, by contrast, a thin, weak-chinned man, with reddish-brown hair and moustache. Although generally of a very undistinguished appearance, his most striking feature was his brilliant, dark-brown eyes, which were never still but were constantly darting to and fro. His hands were delicate, like a woman’s, and had the same restless quality as the eyes, fluttering over the cards laid out upon the table or moving up to finger his cravat or the white rose in his buttonhole. The rest of him remained curiously immobile, like a dummy on display at a fashionable tailor’s.
They made a strange, ill-assorted couple and, as Mr Sinclair drew our attention to them, I saw Holmes give a small start of surprise, followed by a stifled chuckle of amusement.
‘Most interesting, Watson!’ he murmured in my ear – a reference, I assumed, to their incongruous partnership. But there was no opportunity to follow up his remark, as Sinclair was arranging for partners to join us in a rubber or two of whist.
It was an uneventful evening. Holmes and I won a little and lost a little, our gains almost cancelling out our losses to our final disadvantage of three guineas. However, after the initial excitement of the novelty and sumptuousness of our surroundings had worn off, the occasion became rather prosaic. Because of his phenomenal gift of storing information which he can later recall at will,7 Holmes was potentially an excellent card-player, for he could remember exactly which cards had been played and which remained in our opponents’ hands. But the mental challenge was too trivial to keep him occupied for long and his attention soon strayed from the game, his gaze wandering from time to time in the direction of Colonel Upwood and Mr Gaunt. Neither man, however, seemed aware of his interest.
I, too, am not a dedicated card-player. After the excitement of the race-course, where the physical prowess of both horse and jockey can send the blood tingling through the veins, I found whist too static for my taste. I missed the roar of the crowd and the thunder of hooves on the turf. Even billiards had more allure, for in that sport the players at least have the opportunity to move about the table, while the co-ordination of hand and eye calls for real skill. In comparison, card games seemed quite tame.
It was two o’clock in the morning before Colonel Upwood and Eustace Gaunt left the club, having won, according to Holmes’ calculation – for he had been surreptitiously assessing their play – the modest sum of about twelve guineas, not enough to warrant a charge of cheating.
We waited for half an hour before taking our own leave, so that our departure should not coincide too closely with theirs and perhaps arouse suspicions.
‘I suppose,’ I remarked when we were inside a hansom, rattling our way through deserted streets towards Baker Street, ‘that the whole wretched experience will have to be repeated next Friday.’
‘I am afraid so, my dear fellow,’ Holmes agreed.
‘What a waste of an evening!’
‘Not entirely,’ he corrected me. ‘We have gained some very useful information about Gaunt and Colonel Upwood, including their methods.’
‘Have we, Holmes? I saw nothing out of the ordinary about their play. They were apparently not cheating or they would have won more than they did.’
‘So it would seem,’ Holmes conceded. ‘But we must wait upon events, Watson, rather than anticipate them. Like all greedy men, sooner or later they will succumb to the temptation of easy money. Meanwhile, I suggest we bear our souls in patience.’
He said nothing more about the case until the next Friday evening, when we again presented ourselves at the Nonpareil. As we mounted the steps to the front door, he remarked to me casually over his shoulder as he rang the bell, ‘Perhaps tonight the game really will be afoot!’
But events were to prove otherwise.
As before, Godfrey Sinclair again introduced us to a pair of partners in the gaming-room and the four of us sat down together at one of the small baize-covered tables to play. On this evening, however, the ennui was broken a little by Holmes’ insistence that we rose from the table from time to time to stretch our legs by sauntering about the room as other gentlemen were doing, pausing on occasion at other tables to observe the play.
We halted for less than a minute at our suspects’ table, no longer than at any of the others, and no one in the room, I am convinced, saw anything suspicious in either our expressions or our bearing. Holmes’ face, I observed when I took a sideways glance at him, registered nothing but polite interest. Only someone who knew him as well as I would have been aware of his inner tension. Like a fine watch spring wound up almost to breaking point, he was vibrant with suppressed energy, every nerve alert, every sense concentrated on the two men who sat before us.
As far as I could see, there was nothing unusual about their behaviour. Colonel Upwood sat four-square upon his chair, hardly moving or speaking apart from an occasional jovial comment to the other players about the fall of the cards.
‘My monarch has been defeated in battle, I see,’ he remarked as his King of Clubs was trumped. Or, ‘Never trust a woman!’ when his partner’s Jack of Hearts was taken by an opponent’s Queen.
As for Eustace Gaunt, I noticed his nervous habit of touching his cravat or his buttonhole, a red carnation on this occasion, was still in evidence. So was the restless movement of his eyes.
The play was not very inspiring and we soon moved on to halt briefly at other tables. As we did so, I noticed that, as soon as we were no longer in the suspects’ vicinity, Holmes’ nervous tension subsided and he became merely bored, his eyes hooded with lassitude while his lean profile bore the pinched expression of insufferable weariness.
The next two Friday evenings followed much the same pattern. Upwood and his partner neither lost nor won any large sums of money and even they seemed to be growing fatigued with the play, for they left early at half past midnight, to my inexpressible relief.
I half expected the next occasion would be the same and I had to brace myself for the extended tedium of an evening of whist.
Holmes, too, seemed in low spirits, sitting in silence as we rattled in our hansom towards the Nonpareil Club. I felt that, like me, he had begun to despair of ever reaching an end to the inquiry and that it would continue indefinitely as a weekly torment, much like that suffered by the man in the Greek legend who was forced to keep pushing a large stone up a hill, only to have it roll down again.8
But as soon as we entered the gaming-salon, I detected an immediate and dramatic change in his demeanour. His head went up, his shoulders went back and he gave a low, triumphant chuckle.
‘I think we are about to witness the dénouement of our little investigation, my dear fellow,’ he murmured to me under his breath.
I followed his gaze to the table where Eustace Gaunt and Colonel Upwood were already seated in the company of a pair of young men who, judging by their heightened colour and over-loud voices, had indulged themselves too liberally in the bar downstairs.
‘The sacrificial lambs are on the altar,’ Holmes continued in the same low tone as Colonel Upwood dealt the cards. ‘The ritual fleecing of them will begin any moment now.’
We retired to another table and played a rubber of whist with two gentlemen who often acted as our opponents, but neither of us were at our best. Both of us were distracted by the game going on across the room, where soon a small, interested group of fellow members had started to gather. Even our opponents’ interest began to shift to this new centre of attention until eventually all four of us by mutual consent laid down our cards and, getting to our feet, strolled across the room to join the company, which now numbered about fifteen.
It was clear from the bank notes and sovereigns lying on the table that Colonel Upwood and his partner had already won a considerable sum of money and were likely to win more, for their opponents, the two young gentlemen, although showing signs of unease, seemed determined not to admit defeat but to continue the game.
They were encouraged in this frame of mind by Gaunt and Upwood, whose tactics were subtle. Like two experienced anglers fishing for trout, they kept their victims in play, using the bait of letting them win two or three games in a row, thereby lulling them with a false promise of imminent success. The following game, of course, they lost.
From Holmes’ earlier remark about sacrificial lambs, I assumed Gaunt and Upwood were cheating. However, although I watched them with the closest attention, I could not for the life of me see anything in either their manner or their behaviour which could warrant such a charge. There appeared to be no sign of légerdemain in the way they dealt the cards. Their hands always remained in full view on top of the green baize and, unless they were accomplished magicians, which I doubted, they were not substituting one card for another.
In all respects, they acted exactly as we had seen them behave on those other Friday evenings when we had watched their play. As before, Gaunt’s nervous mannerisms were in evidence, but no more than usual. Upwood also made the occasional facetious remark, referring to the Queen of Spades as ‘the Black Beauty’ and to the Diamonds as ‘sparklers’, an exasperating habit but one which appeared to be quite innocent of deception.
After a few minutes only, Holmes touched me briefly on the arm and murmured, ‘I have seen enough, my dear fellow. We may leave.’
‘But what have we seen, Holmes?’ I demanded as I followed him to the door.
‘Proof of their cheating, of course!’ Holmes replied dismissively, as if that fact were self-evident.
‘But, Holmes …!’ I began.
There was no opportunity to add any further protest for, just outside the salon door, we met Godfrey Sinclair hurrying across the upper landing, summoned no doubt to the gaming-room by one of his subordinates, his normally urbane manner considerably ruffled.
‘Mr Holmes …!’ he began anxiously, but fared no better than I had.
‘Yes, Mr Sinclair, they are indeed cheating,’ Holmes informed him in the same brisk manner he had used to me. ‘I advise you, however, to do nothing about it at this moment. I have the matter in hand. Call on me on Monday morning at eleven o’clock and I will explain to you exactly how the situation may be resolved.’
And with that he swept off down the stairs at a rapid pace, leaving his client standing at the top, open-mouthed at the decisiveness of Holmes’ conclusion.
Knowing Holmes in this assertive mood, I did not mention the matter again and it was not until the following evening that he himself made any reference to it, although in such an oblique manner that at the time I was not aware of its significance.
‘Would you care to spend the evening at a music-hall, Watson?’ he asked in a negligent manner.
I glanced up from the Evening Standard, which I had been reading by the fire.
‘A music-hall, Holmes?’ I repeated, puzzled by Holmes’ sudden interest in this form of entertainment, which I had never known him to favour in the past. An opera, yes; or a concert. But a music-hall?
‘Well, it would make a pleasant evening out, I suppose,’ I replied. ‘Which one were you thinking of?’
‘I understand the Cambridge9 has several excellent performers on its programme. Come then, Watson. We shall leave at once.’
Seizing up his coat, hat and stick, he set off down the stairs, leaving me to hasten after him.
We arrived in time for the second half of the evening’s entertainment, which consisted of several acts, none of which I could see might be of particular interest to Holmes. There was an Irish tenor who sang a sentimental song about a young lady called Kathleen, a lady wearing a huge crinoline which opened like a pair of curtains to release a dozen small dogs which then proceeded to jump through hoops and dance on their hind legs; and a lugubrious comic with a huge nose and a check suit who told sad jokes about his wife which the audience seemed to find extremely funny.
The comic was followed by a certain Count Rakoczi, a Transylvanian of Gypsy origin, whom the Chairman10 announced with a thump of his gavel as ‘A Maestro of Mind-Reading and Mental Manipulation!’
I felt Holmes stiffen in his seat beside me and, guessing that it was this particular act which he had come to see, I myself sat up and concentrated on the stage as the curtains parted to reveal a man who, although short of stature, was of striking appearance.
His face and hands were of an unnatural pallor, enhanced by artificial means, I suspected, which contrasted dramatically with his black hair, dashing black mustachios and small pointed beard which gave him a Mephistophelian air. This black and white colour scheme was repeated in his apparel, in his gleaming silk hat and long black cloak which he removed with a flourish to reveal its white satin lining, as well as his black evening clothes and his shirt front, as blanched and as glistening as a bank of snow.
He passed his hat and cloak to his lady assistant who, in contrast to Count Rakoczi, was more exotically attired in a long robe which appeared to be made entirely out of silk scarves of every colour of the rainbow and which floated about her with each movement she made. Her headdress was fashioned from the same multicoloured silk into an elaborate turban and was sewn all over with large gold sequins which flashed like fiery stars under the gas lights.
As the applause died down, Rakoczi stepped towards the footlights to announce in a strong accent – Transylvanian, I assumed, should there be such a language – that he would identify by telepathic communication alone any object supplied by members of the audience, which his assistant would hold up. He himself would be blindfolded with a mask which he invited the Chairman to inspect.
The mask of black velvet was duly passed to the Chairman, who made a great show of holding it up for the audience to see before fully examining it with meticulous care. Having assured us that it would be impossible for Rakoczi to see anything through it, he then handed it back to the Count who, to a dramatic roll on the drums, pulled it down over his eyes. He then took up his position centre stage where he stood very erect, his arms folded across his chest and his blindfolded face raised towards the upper gallery. While this was happening, his assistant, gallantly aided by the Chairman, who rose to offer her his arm, descended the steps from the stage into the auditorium to a rustle of anticipation from the audience.
She moved up the aisle, stopping here and there to collect an item from individual members of the public which she held up for the rest of the audience to observe, addressing Rakoczi as she did so with various casual remarks in a strong contralto voice which also had a foreign accent, in her case more French than Transylvanian.
‘What do I have here, Maestro?’ she demanded, holding up a gentleman’s gold pocket watch and letting it spin gently at the end of its chain. ‘Oh, come!’ she protested when he hesitated. ‘It is a simple question. We are all waiting for the answer.’
Rakoczi lifted his hands to his face, pressing his fingers theatrically against his temples as if trying to concentrate his thoughts.
‘I zee somezing gold,’ he said at last. ‘Round and shining. It iz hanging from a chain. Iz it a gentleman’s vatch?’
‘Can you tell me anything more about it?’ his assistant persisted as the audience began to murmur its amazement.
‘There are initials engraved on it,’ Rakoczi continued.
‘What initials are they? Let me have your answer!’
Again the fingers were pressed against the temples.
‘I zee a J and an F.’
‘Is he correct?’ the lady assistant enquired, turning to the owner of the watch, who rose to his feet greatly astonished.
‘Indeed he is,’ the gentleman announced. ‘My name is John Franklin. Those are my initials.’
There was an outburst of applause, which Rakoczi acknowledged with a bow as his assistant moved to another member of the audience.
Altogether, Rakoczi correctly identified five more objects – a signet ring, a black silk scarf, a pair of spectacles, a silver bracelet and, as the pièce de résistance, a lady’s silk purse embroidered with roses, which he not only described in detail but named the number and the type of coins it contained.
During this mind-reading demonstration, I found my attention being drawn more and more to the Count rather than to his assistant, despite her more obvious charms, although Rakoczi, standing there centre stage in his black and white apparel, was himself a compelling figure. There was, however, something else about him which fascinated me. I felt I had met him somewhere before, quite where or when I could not remember. All the same, there was a disturbingly familiar quality about some of his movements rather than his features or his bearing.
I was still puzzling over this when the performance finished and the lady assistant returned to the stage, where Rakoczi, divested of his velvet mask, took her by the hand and, leading her towards the footlights, bowed with her to thunderous applause from the audience.
Hardly had the heavy curtains been drawn across the stage than Holmes got to his feet.
‘Come along, Watson,’ he whispered urgently. ‘It is time we left.’
Giving me no opportunity to protest that there were two turns still to be performed before the end of the programme, a unicyclist and a famous soubrette well-known for her comic Cockney songs, who was top of the bill,11 he hurried towards the exit, leaving me with no other option but to stumble after him.
‘Where are we going now, Holmes?’ I asked as I caught up with him outside the theatre, for it was clear from the purposeful manner in which he strode up the street that he had a specific destination in mind.
‘To the stage-door,’ he replied briskly.
‘But why there?’ I asked, much mystified by his answer.
‘To interview Count Rakoczi, of course,’ he retorted, as if the explanation were obvious.
The stage-door, a dingy entrance poorly lit by a single gas flare, was situated in an alleyway which ran alongside the theatre. Once inside, we found ourselves facing a small, booth-like office with an open hatchway, behind which the doorkeeper, an elderly, bad-tempered looking man smelling strongly of ale, kept guard, who, from his glowering expression, seemed determined to refuse any request we might make. However, a florin soon weakened his resolve and he agreed to deliver one of Holmes’ cards, on which he had scribbled a short note, to Count Rakoczi’s dressing-room.
Shortly afterwards he returned to conduct us to this room, where we found Rakoczi standing facing the door as we entered, a look of acute anxiety on his face.
He had stripped off his stage persona, not just the evening clothes, which he had substituted for a shabby red dressing-gown, but also the appurtenances of his physical appearance, including the pallid complexion, the curly black mustachios and pointed beard together with the jet-black hair. He stood before us totally transformed from the dashing figure he had presented on the stage to a very ordinary man with reddish hair and a slightly undershot chin.
‘Mr Gaunt!’ I exclaimed out loud.
Those restless eyes which I had noticed at the Nonpareil Club darted from Holmes to me and then back again to Holmes, while one hand went up in a characteristic gesture to pull nervously at the lapel of his dressing-gown.
‘You received my card and read the note, I assume?’ Holmes remarked in a pleasant voice which nevertheless held a touch of menace. When Gaunt failed to reply, Holmes continued. ‘I have several courses of action open to me, Mr Gaunt. I could go straight to the police or alternatively I could inform Mr Sinclair or the manager of this theatre of your criminal activities. Any of these choices could lead to your arrest and imprisonment. Alternatively, I could leave you to remedy the situation yourself without my interference.’
Holmes paused and raised his eyebrows but Gaunt still failed to speak, although a slight inclination of his head indicated agreement with my old friend’s last suggestion.
‘Very well,’ Holmes continued in a brisk, business-like manner, ‘then this is what you must do. You must go immediately to Colonel Upwood and explain the situation to him. The two of you will then arrange to send to Mr Sinclair at the Nonpareil Club your resignations together with a full list of all the club members whom you have cheated and a precise record of the amounts. With that letter, you will send the money owed, so that Mr Sinclair can return it to your victims.
‘Furthermore, you and Colonel Upwood will send me a written guarantee, making sure it is signed with your real name, that neither of you will ever play cards again for money. If either of you break that undertaking, I shall make sure that every gentlemen’s club is told of your past misdemeanours, as well as every music-hall manager and Colonel Upwood’s commanding officer. As a result, your reputations will be ruined. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, yes, indeed you do, Mr Holmes!’ cried Gaunt, beating his hands together in so frenzied a manner that I feared he might burst into tears. To my great relief, Holmes nodded in my direction and we left the room before the man succumbed to this final humiliation.
‘It was sheer good luck that I realised Gaunt was none other than Count Rakoczi, the self-styled telepathist,’ Holmes remarked as we left by the stage-door and stepped out into the narrow alley. ‘I saw a poster of him several weeks ago outside the Cambridge Music-Hall and recognised Gaunt as the same man the moment we entered the gaming-room at the Nonpareil. Of course, you realise how he and Upwood arranged the fraud?’
‘I think so, Holmes. They used a form of code, did they not, to communicate secretly between themselves?’
‘Exactly so, Watson. In the case of the music-hall act, it was certain words or phrases used by Rakoczi’s assistant which told him what she was holding – a watch, say, or a purse. Other words indicated colour, number, initials and so on. No telepathy was involved; only a good memory and a convincing stage presence. Of course, the assistant also had to make sure that she chose only those items for which their system already supplied a code word.
‘I am convinced that Colonel Upwood saw their performance and realised it could be adapted for cheating at whist, using not just words and phrases but also certain gestures to indicate which cards each of them held in his hand, thereby controlling the play. Gaunt already had several nervous mannerisms which he made a point of using habitually so that no one would think it suspicious when he fingered his collar, for example, or stroked his chin at the card table.
