Sherlock Holmes and the Shakespeare Globe Murders Page 14

  “Doctor Watson,” he said, “in your colleague’s absence, I think you had better look at this.”

  In a moment I was by his side and snatching the note from his hand. There at the bottom was the familiar drawing of a rose and above it the legend …

  TOO MUCH OF WATER HAST THOU, POOR OPHELIA,

  AND THEREFORE I FORBID MY TEARS.

  Hamlet

  Without realising it, I found I’d been reading the words aloud. As if in answer, there was a shout from the other side of the table. Simon Phipps, white and trembling, had risen to his feet, knocking over his chair as he did so. Shock had dispersed the fumes of the drink, as it so often can.

  “That’s my speech,” he cried … “it’s Laertes’ speech to his sister, Ophelia … to her body … after she’s drowned!”

  There was a moment while that sank in. Then Adler looked up at me. “And Pauline is to be our Ophelia—and she isn’t here.”

  I was seized with a sudden dread intuition. It had to do with the peaceful river I’d been admiring on my way to the dinner, its surface sparkling with light and colour. Now through the window it was dark and threatening. I could imagine it reaching our hungrily for the body of a young woman whose only sin was to find herself accidentally caught up in the machinations of a deranged mind. The vision was all too real and at that moment I knew what had to be done—what Holmes would have done, had he been here.

  “Adler,” I said, “you’d better come with me. You, too, Tallis.”

  “Where to, Doctor?”

  “Why, to the Globe, of course. And the river that runs by it …”

  Chapter Twelve

  The bobbing lights of lanterns reflected from black water realised my worst fears. I have noticed in the past how at times of particular stress small details imprint themselves on the brain. I found myself staring at the plumes of steam rising from the flanks and nostrils of the cab horse that had rushed the three of us here. As the vehicle came to a shuddering halt in the lee of the dark playhouse, we scrambled out and rushed across the river walk to the steps of the temporary jetty that had been erected to receive Her Majesty’s barge for Tuesday’s gala opening.

  A group of dark figures appeared to be bending over a white bundle that was lying on the decking. As we drew nearer, I heard a familiar voice urging the others to be careful. “Lestrade?” I cried. “That you, Doctor Watson?” the answer came back. “You’re a regular godsend, Doctor, and no mistake. Here, boys, make room for the Doctor …”

  With Adler father and son close behind me I made my way through what I now saw to be a half dozen or so uniformed policemen. I dropped to my knees beside the sodden white bundle I’d seen from above. It was a woman wearing a diaphanous white dress bizarrely woven with strands of artificial flowers. Someone had put a police uniform jacket under her averted head to act as a pillow but a pool of water was slowly forming around the poor creature. It was obvious that she had been pulled from the river only moments before we arrived. Not only was her face turned away from me but her long black hair—also garlanded with the same flowers—was pasted to the part of it that was visible. Gently I took her chin in my hand and turned her head towards me, combing back her hair with the fingers of my other hand.

  As I had feared, I found myself looking at the beautiful impassive face of Pauline French. But, thank God, we were not too late. Her eyes flickered and opened, then gradually focused on me. “Doctor Watson?” she whispered, “how did you …?” Then a look of terror crossed her face and she cried out—“Don’t let them …” I patted her hand to reassure her. “Don’t you worry, my dear. Whoever they are, they can’t hurt you now.” This seemed to calm her and her eyes closed.

  A cursory examination told me that she was in no immediate danger and, rising to my feet, I turned to Lestrade and the Adlers. “Have a couple of your men use our cab and take her to the hospital as soon as possible. I don’t think she’s come to any real harm but we can’t afford to take any chances. She doesn’t appear to have been in the water long or her skin would show more signs of it. Adler, you must have something in your costume department they can wrap her in. She mustn’t be allowed to catch cold.”

  Adler was a man who knew how to take instructions as well as how to give them. With a nod, he and Tallis hurried off to the Globe’s stage door. While Lestrade’s men were carefully carrying Pauline French up the jetty steps, I pulled Lestrade away from the crowd, so that we could talk without being overheard.

  “How on earth did you happen to find her, Lestrade? Thank heaven you did. Even though it’s not a particularly cold evening, she wouldn’t have lasted long in that water wearing that flimsy dress.”

  “I wish I could say it was brilliant detective work on our part, Doctor,” he answered through the gloom, “but that wouldn’t be true. Since this whole Shakespeare business started, I’ve had two or three men patrolling the area around the theatre, just to be on the safe side, like. As they were due to change shifts, I thought I’d pop along and check up on things. I’d just arrived with the new fellows when we heard a splash and a woman’s scream. Naturally, we all rushed over to the river wall and there, just down by the jetty, we could see this—ghost, it seemed like—floating there. It gave me a fair turn, I can tell you, Doctor. The water had spread her dress out all round her and it looked like somebody had thrown all these flowers over her …”

  When down her weedy trophies and herself

  Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

  And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up …

  …but long it could not be

  Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

  Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

  To muddy death.

  We turned to find Allan, Phipps and Carlotta standing behind us. On the road above our heads the presence of another two cabs told how they had got here. It was Allan who had spoken the lines describing Ophelia’s death.

  Even though I was the only one whose clothes were the worse for the evening’s events—I had been forced to kneel in the water on the deck—we were a bedraggled bunch compared to the elegantly dressed dinner guests of an hour or so earlier. It was as though the near tragedy had ruffled everyone’s feathers. It was hard to read Allan’s expression in the dim light cast by the police lanterns as Lestrade’s men carefully carried Pauline French up the steps. Phipps leaned wearily against the guard rail, a small defeated figure. Carlotta Adler looked as though she was about to say something, then hurried off to attend to the welfare of the other woman.

  “What on earth is going on?” It was Phipps, staring out across the expanse of water to where fleeting moonlight was now picking out the dome of St. Paul’s. Then, turning to face us, he added bitterly—“I suppose it’s occurred to you gentlemen that whoever was responsible for this, it couldn’t be any of us. We were all at Adler’s confounded dinner party.”

  “Why, he’s quite right, Doctor,” said Lestrade, turning his questing little face in my direction. “That means either you and Mr Holmes have been on the wrong tack all along … or there’s more than one party wishes to see this here theatre stays closed.”

  “Philip Henslowe’s ghost, I shouldn’t wonder,” I replied crossly. I’d just seen the mess my dress trousers were in.

  “What did you say?” It was Ted Allan. His body was motionless and his eyes seemed to bore into mine, unless it was a trick of the shifting light. I suddenly realised that I had perhaps said something indiscreet. Holmes had said nothing about not mentioning what we knew about the Rose but I could see now that it might be a trifle tactless to go on with the subject. I was about to mutter some platitude when there came a sound that was all too familiar to a military man like myself.

  Somewhere over in the direction of the Globe someone fired a revolver. The sound echoed up and down the silent river.

  For a moment everyone stood frozen, as in a tableau. Then Lestrade cried—“Doctor, you come with me. The rest of you stay where y
ou are.” He might as well have saved his breath, for as we raced up the jetty steps and across the narrow road that separated it from the Globe, I could hear the sound of footsteps pounding behind us. As we passed the policemen clustered around the cab in which Pauline French was being placed, Lestrade shouted for two of them to follow him. I was vaguely aware of Harry Trent, frozen in the act of paying the other cabbie. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  Ahead of us was the open door through which Adler and Tallis had passed earlier to fetch the wrappings for Miss French. Both of them were standing nearby, frozen to the spot by the sound. Our arrival soon changed that. It was Florenz Adler who took the initiative now.

  “Round here to the left,” he cried. “It’s the quickest way to get to the stage!” We ran into the corridor Holmes and I had taken on our first visit that now seemed an eternity ago.

  Then, as we were about half way along it with the auditorium tantalisingly still out of sight, we heard a loud thud as of a heavy dead weight falling and with it a man’s scream. “What devilry …?” I heard myself shouting and then we burst out into the wooden ‘O’.

  The moon, which had been playing hide and seek all evening, chose this theatrical moment to break free of a cloud and bathe the surrealistic setting in the kind of spotlight the theatre was never intended to see.

  All around us towered the empty galleries, as if tenanted with ghostly spectators. Above the stage was the roof that sheltered the ‘Heavens’ with its painted ceiling now in deepest shadow. Even since our last visit the workmen had been busy with the decoration. The bare wooden stage pillars now had the effect of marble and the painted effigies of classical gods and goddesses stared down on us from every surface. It was as if we had wandered into some strange underworld.

  But it was the pool of light on the stage that drew every eye. The noise we had heard was easily explained. A large sack was lying precisely in the middle of it. The fall from the heavens had caused it to split and it was spilling sand from one corner. But what caused me to hold my breath was what lay under the sack. The body of a man, face down where he had clearly fallen under the impact. To his credit, Lestrade was the first to recover his composure. He rushed forward and vaulted on to the stage, no mean feat for a man no longer in his first youth. I was about to follow him when, from the corner of my eye, I saw a hint of movement in the gallery immediately above the stage.

  It was the work of a moment to draw my service revolver and take aim. “Stay right where you are,” I shouted, “or I shall fire!” Again that slight movement. I let off two shots but heard no sign that I had found the target. I was about to fire again when Lestrade called out in a tone that brooked no argument—“Doctor, I think you’d better come up here. The rest of you, please do as I ask and stay where you are.” By now I could see that we had been joined by Carlotta, Allan, Phipps and Trent. The whole of our dinner party, in fact. They were talking among themselves in the kind of hushed whispers usually reserved for church.

  With a little help from the Adlers, I scrambled up on the stage and went over to join Lestrade, who was bending over what was clearly a body. “Who is the poor devil?” I asked. “Is it anyone we know?” In a tone I had never heard him use before, Lestrade said quietly—“Yes, Doctor, I’m afraid it is.” He gently turned the head of the corpse, so that I could see the face.

  I found myself looking at the unmistakable profile of my friend, Sherlock Holmes …

  Never in my whole life had I known such emptiness. At that moment I literally felt nothing. I was outside myself watching someone else go through this experience. They say a drowning man relives his life in those last few moments and something of the same sort happened to me on that bare stage. I saw Holmes sitting in his favourite chair plucking at that damned fiddle of his … I saw the light in his eye which told that the game was afoot once more … the tortured indrawn look when he fought his inner demons … I saw the two of us putting on our coats to start out on one more journey into doubt and danger …

  I thought I had plumbed the depths of despair with the episode of the Reichenbach Falls, when Holmes and his arch enemy, Professor Moriarty, had plunged apparently to oblivion and my friend had been lost to the world for three interminable years. At least then I had not been present to witness the event, though my imagination had filled in the details graphically on more than half a hundred occasions.

  But now … I was possessed with the thought that, while Holmes was in deadly danger, I had been a few short yards away chatting with Lestrade. A few moments, a few paces and I could perhaps have saved him. Now here I was, too late to be of use on this of all occasions. I had even failed to stop the assassin escaping. All of these were the thoughts of this drowning man.

  I saw that Lestrade was using his ulster to cover the body. Out of regard for my grief, he covered the waxen face first. “Ingleby … Croker …” he called out to two of his men, who responded with alacrity, “Take good care of—of Mr ’Olmes. Or you’ll have me to deal with. Hop to it, now.” The two constables bent over my dear friend like two professional pall bearers and bore the body slowly off the stage into the darkness. I was sure this was not the first time they had been required to perform such a duty.

  I found myself rooted to the spot. What had Holmes been doing here instead of joining me at the Adlers’ dinner? Why hadn’t he confided in me? At least if I’d known the face of our enemy I could and would have pursued him to Doomsday. I felt Lestrade’s hand on my arm. “Come along, Doctor, nothing to be gained by staying here. We’ll get the devil who did this, don’t you worry. Best thing for you is to go home and he down. Tomorrow morning we’ll have all the resources of Scotland Yard on to this.”

  I let him lead me to the edge of the stage, where helping hands reached out to assist me down. I walked numbly through what was by now a small crowd—Florenz and Carlotta Adler, who pressed my hand in lieu of words. Tallis (as I still thought of him) … Allan, Trent and Phipps biting nails that had long since vanished … the rest of Lestrade’s men. I was conscious of an inarticulate hum of sympathy as Lestrade and I walked past them.

  So this was how it all ended—a real life tragedy in the replica of a three hundred year old theatre that had seen some of the greatest fictional tragedies ever staged. Except that this one had an audience of less than a dozen to witness its moonlit drama. Another line from Shakespeare drifted to the surface of my mind—don’t ask me why. “Ill met by moonlight.” How damnably apt this fellow could be!

  The cab ride to Baker Street passed in a blur. I was vaguely aware of Lestrade’s helping hand and Mrs Hudson’s anxious face as I crossed the threshold of the front door. I remember thinking—“How can she have heard so soon?”—but being guiltily glad that I would not have to be the one to break the dreadful news.

  Then I was walking into the familiar sitting room—to be confronted by the massive figure of Mycroft, his hands clasped behind his back. He spoke, more to Lestrade than to me. “I am grateful you sent your man ahead to find me, Inspector. Your courtesy is much appreciated.”

  Then to me—“Doctor, we have been here before, you and I. I think deep down both of us knew this day would come. You’ll forgive me but I have no words to offer you. My brother asked me to give you this …” And he handed me an envelope addressed to me in that well known scrawl.

  Somehow, I managed to open my friend’s final missive.

  My Dear Old Friend,

  I hope you never need to read these words, since that will mean my plans have failed. But as your compatriot, Robbie Burns, has observed, “the best laid plans of mice and men …” Somehow I find it reassuring to remember that there have been poets other than Mr W S! I know that you have had occasion to call me insensitive from time to time in relation to people’s feelings but I am deeply sensitive of how you will now be feeling. The Reichenbach business proved that in no uncertain terms and I have no intention of having you relive those days. In the past I have often asked you to attempt the impossib
le and I do it one last time. I cannot bear to think that Holmes and Watson failed Queen and Country when the great call came and I know I can count on you to act for us both. Lestrade has his instructions. Work with him, as you would with me, and all will still be well.

  Let me tell you here what I could never find the words for in your presence. Without Watson, there would be no Holmes.

  Your friend—SHERLOCK HOLMES

  I felt myself clutching the paper as the room spun round and a black mist enclosed me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I presume Mycroft and Lestrade somehow got me to bed and I have a vague recollection of someone—presumably a police doctor—bending over me and administering a sedative. After that I fell back into the abyss.

  I found myself dreaming the strangest things. I was standing on the stage of the Globe totally alone. All around me the galleries of the wooden ‘O’ were packed with all the people I had ever known in my life. Although none of them appeared to be speaking, I could hear the sounds of their voices inside my head.

  There were men I’d served with at the battle of Maiwand, many of whom I’d seen fall in action. There was my first wife, Mary, looking as young and lovely as the day I met her. There were faces from the various cases Holmes and I had investigated—Irene Adler, the glowering Grimsby Rylott from “The Speckled Band,” the carrot topped Jabez Wilson of “The Red-Headed League.” Some appeared more than once. I could see several Mycrofts and Lestrades. Dotted among these familiar faces were the characters from this latest drama … a much younger Dame Ivy, whispering into the ear of Simon Phipps, who appears more concerned to arrange his green carnation just so … Allan and Trent staring at each other impassively from opposite galleries … the three Adlers sitting together like a model family … Pauline French dressed as Ophelia and appearing not to notice the water streaming from her clothes. And everywhere I look there is Holmes. Holmes in all the moods I know so well … pensive, brooding, ironic … and always staring right into my eyes and saying—“Don’t worry, old friend, all will be well. All manner of things will be well.”