Chapter XIII

Surprises At The Mermaid

We returned to Baker Street to find the familiar rooms plunged into an unwonted gloom. Dr Watson had retired to his bedroom with a headache and the stated intent of cataloguing his collection of unusual Oriental artworks. Mr Holmes had taken up his violin and was filling the house with music of the most exquisite melancholy, music that made me think of silent pools in dark and distant forests. In our absence, neither gentleman had thought to light the lamps or throw any coals on the fire, even though the afternoon was a cold one and the rooms were full of shadow. On realising this, Mrs Hudson grimaced and pulled on her apron.

‘Follow me, Flotsam,’ she growled beneath gritted teeth, and I followed in her wake as she bustled into the study.

‘Now, sir,’ she exclaimed as the startled detective broke off from his playing. ‘You two gentlemen have eaten none of the luncheon I laid out for you – the shutters, Flotsam – and you’ve let the fire go quite out. I can’t see how being cold and hungry and surrounded by darkness – the lamps, Flottie, if you will – is going to help either of you solve any mysteries. Rather than catching chills here, I’m sure you’d be better off out and about, catching villains or something.’

As I saw to the lamps, she dropped nimbly to her knees and began to breath some life into the dying fire. Mrs Hudson had the sort of lungs that rendered bellows redundant.

‘Really, Mrs Hudson!’ Mr Holmes countered. ‘I cannot permit this sort of disturbance! For those who are strangers to the ways of pure reason I may appear to be idling, but I assure you that I do not need to run around in the manner of Lestrade and his men to be fully engaged in the solution of our problem.’

‘I daresay pure reason will not be hampered by a cold mutton chop, sir. Nor will it be fatigued by a bit of lamplight or a touch of warmth. Now, if you don’t mind, sir…’

And with magnificent disregard for the detective’s objections, she continued to blow life into the fire.

The cessation of the violin very quickly alerted Dr Watson to a change in the prevailing mood, and in only a few moments he appeared from his bedroom. The sight that greeted him evidently cheered him greatly.

‘Did you mention a mutton chop, Mrs H?’ he asked hopefully.

‘I did, sir. On the table by the window.’ She straightened up and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘And you’ll find a portion of curried goose there too, should you fancy it.’

‘Splendid, Mrs H!’ Dr Watson advanced to where lunch had been laid and began to load his plate with some enthusiasm. ‘Splendid!’ he said again. ‘A fine, seasonal spread if ever I saw one. There’s nothing like a mouthful of goose to raise the spirits. Why, if we only knew where that blasted ruby had got to, just think how festive we should feel!’

At this, Mr Holmes sighed wearily.

‘Oh, my dear Watson, can you not see? It is not the whereabouts of the ruby that worries us. Clear reasoning, properly applied, is quite enough to reassure me on that score. So long as Lestrade and his men show the smallest modicum of watchfulness and common sense, the nation has nothing to fear. No, it is not the where, not even the how, but the who with which I must grapple. I trust Sir John implicitly. And the Royal Jewellers are above suspicion. And yet somehow someone found a way…’

His voice trailed off, and there followed a moment of silence before Mrs Hudson cleared her throat.

‘This may be a strange time to raise the subject, sir, but perhaps I might say a few words about Mr Phillimore, the gentleman who disappeared from Ealing? His mother-in-law called here, if you remember, sir. If you were to hear a little more about his strange disappearance…’

But the great detective appeared to have made a decision and was rising from his chair.

‘That domestic dispute in Ealing, Mrs Hudson? I know you well enough to understand that you would not raise the matter if you did not think it somehow germane. Furthermore, I would be neglecting the lessons of my own experience if I were not prepared to listen. But perhaps you will humour me for an hour or two. We can return to the subject presently, but first I have a call to make.’ As he rose, I noticed his eyes were bright with purpose. ‘There is no need to disturb yourself, Watson. I have no desire to drag you from your chop. But I think, as Mrs Hudson would not doubt agree, it is time I called upon Sir John.’

‘What’s that, Holmes? Sir John? I can’t imagine he’ll be at home just now.’

Mr Holmes smiled fondly at his companion.

‘Ah, but it is not Sir John I wish to see, my friend, nor anyone else at his residence. But I would very much like to examine for myself the state of his locks and the condition of his window catches.’

If I found that statement surprising, I was even more surprised, on returning to the kitchen, to discover that Mrs Hudson also had plans for the evening.

‘Really, Flottie,’ she grumbled, as she pulled on her coat, ‘it never seems the right time to raise the subject of Mr Phillimore, does it? But I daresay it can wait until Mr Holmes returns. In the meantime I’m trusting you to look after Dr Watson, young lady. See that he eats properly. Oh, and while Mr Holmes is out, perhaps you might tidy away that violin of his…’

‘Why, ma’am, will you be out for long?’

‘Perhaps, Flotsam. I have been invited to call on old Lord Boothroyd at his house in Berkeley Square. I was able to do his lordship a small service once in a matter involving a Swedish opera singer and a trick mirror, and his lordship has been good enough to remember me ever since. While I’m away, Flottie, make sure you keep the fires going and see if you can get on top of all the darning that needs to be done. And whatever you do, don’t let anyone touch the fruitcake in the pantry. I have plans for it.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I replied obediently, wondering absently how, at a time when so many things seemed more urgent, Mrs Hudson had time to call upon elderly peers of the realm.

*

Mrs Hudson left Baker Street at four o’clock, and after her departure the place fell quiet. Dr Watson rested fitfully in the study behind a copy of The Times; I darned socks quietly in the orange warmth of the kitchen. Despite the silence, it was easy to believe that both us were, in our own way, grappling with the problem of the Malabar Rose.

At half past four, Dr Watson could contain himself no longer and sought some refuge in action: in this case, a brisk constitutional through the winter streets. He returned a quarter of an hour later, damp of foot and red of face but looking better for the exercise.

‘Ah, Flottie,’ he smiled when I appeared to help him out of his coat. ‘Just the person. I bumped into Mr Rumbelow at the corner of the street. He was on his way here with a message for Mrs Hudson, which I insisted I could deliver for him. He kept telling me how urgent it was, as if he thought I might not remember. Now where did I put it… ?’

‘I’m afraid Mrs Hudson has gone out, sir. It’s her afternoon off. She may not be back till much later.’

Dr Watson pulled a face. ‘Out, eh? I must say, that’s a blow. Mr Rumbelow was most insistent. Ah! Here it is.’ He held up a crumpled envelope and we both regarded it with some concern. ‘I tell you what, Flotsam, why don’t you open it on her behalf? Just in case it’s something that can’t afford to wait. I wouldn’t like Mr Rumbelow to feel I hadn’t taken proper steps. Of course, you are welcome to come and find me in the study if you think it is a matter in which I can be of assistance.’

I hadn’t really imagined myself taking up this offer but one glance at the contents of the note changed my mind. Ten minutes later I found Dr Watson looking much restored in a pair of dry trousers, with a restorative glass of brandy and soda water clutched firmly in his hand.

‘Ah, Flotsam!’ he greeted me brightly. ‘All is well, I hope?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s just that I think Mr Rumbelow’s note might be quite important after all. You see, after Mrs Smithers’ visit here, Mrs Hudson placed an advertisement in a newspaper called Plays & Players.’

‘Quite right too. Just what Holmes recommended. About that man Phillips, was it not?’

‘Phillimore, sir. Well, there’s been a reply. Mr Rumbelow has received a note from an actress called Fidelma Fontaine saying that she has information about Mr Phillimore. She said she can be found at the Mermaid Theatre in Stepney after eight o’clock in the evenings. But her letter to Mr Rumbelow was delayed and only reached him this morning. And tonight is her last performance there.’

Dr Watson nodded wisely. ‘I see. So after tonight she might be anywhere. Very awkward. The Mermaid Theatre, you say? That must mean Shakespeare, I suppose. I’ve always been fond of the Bard. There’s that one about the chap in the hat…’

‘Will it really be Shakespeare, sir?’ I wondered. ‘I thought the Mermaid in Stepney might be a little more…’ I struggled for the right word but couldn’t quite find it. ‘Well, rather more popular than that.’

‘Ah, yes. I see. One of these modern melodramas, you think? Well, it’s all the same to me, so long as it’s not by that Oscar whatsisname. I never seem to get the jokes.’ He pulled out his watch. ‘I think I can see my way to a perfectly good solution here, Flotsam. Mr Holmes apparently has no need of me this evening, and although Stepney’s the other side of town, we can give it a go and try to get there in time for the performance. Very likely we’ll be able to grab a word with this Fontaine woman before the curtain goes up. What do you say?’

What I said was ‘yes’, and ten minutes later Dr Watson and I were rolling through town in a hansom cab. So excited was I at the thought of taking action on Mrs Hudson’s behalf that I had only half an ear for my companion’s stories of strange customs among the Afghan tribes. After all, I reasoned, Fidelma Fontaine was on the stage, and so was Lola Del Fuego, and that was a connection of a sort. Perhaps this might be vital evidence! Inside my shoes, my toes curled with excitement, and I thrilled at the prospect of imminent discoveries.

The cab-driver had been instructed to drop us at the stage door of the Mermaid Theatre in Stepney and, although the request appeared to surprise him, he clearly knew his way and had no trouble finding it. That was fortunate, for the stage door was situated down such a dark and dingy alleyway, a damp passageway so strewn with rubbish it seemed impossible the doctor and I would ever have found it for ourselves. I could see, as he handed me down from the hansom, that Dr Watson shared my doubts, but he too was determined to proceed. As the cab rattled away from us, he advanced to the low door and rapped firmly on its frame.

In response to his knock, a small panel set into the top of the door was pulled back and a pair of eyes, already narrowed with suspicion, peered out at us.

‘What jer want?’ an old man’s voice asked gruffly.

‘We’re here to see Miss Fontaine,’ Dr Watson replied. ‘At her own invitation,’ he added hastily, as the narrow eyes narrowed further. Dr Watson took out his card. ‘Tell her I am calling on behalf of Mr Rumbelow the solicitor.’

After a moment of hesitation, a thin hand was extended and the card vanished. The panel shut hastily behind it.

‘Dashed impudence!’ Dr Watson exclaimed. ‘I can hardly be taken for one of those stage door chappies who hang around and importune young ladies of the cast, can I, Flotsam?’

Before I could respond, the panel in the door snapped open again. ‘She can’t see yer now. She’s gettin' dressed. She says to go round the front. Tell the boy on tickets that Maud says you’re all right. I’ll come and find yer when she’s done an’ bring yer backstage.’

We had little choice but to follow these instructions, for the panel was slammed shut almost before the last syllable was spoken. Thankfully, when we did as we were told and made our way to the front of the theatre, we found a very different face to the Mermaid. The theatre stood on a wide and bustling street, no doubt the heart of Stepney, and despite a clear sky and the bitter cold that accompanied it, the crowds abroad that night were both loud and boisterous. In contrast to her rear, the front of the Mermaid was vibrant with activity, and Dr Watson and I were forced to join a short queue at the ticket office.

‘After you, guv’nor,’ offered a short man in a squashed hat whose arrival coincided with our own. ‘All the fun of the fair, eh? In for a treat tonight, ain’t we?’

‘Indeed,’ muttered Dr Watson rather coldly, and he tightened his grip on my arm.

At the ticket window we discovered that the mention of Maud did indeed secure for us a pair of tickets, for which all payment was refused. Dr Watson’s attempt to ask what time the performance began was met with a knowing grin.

‘Started half an hour ago,’ the ticket man told us. ‘But don’t worry, guv’nor, you’re in time for the good bit.’

By this point I think Dr Watson was already beginning to have misgivings. Indeed it was clear from his increasing pallor as we mounted the stairs towards the circle that he was really quite alarmed, but with complimentary tickets and an appointment to keep, it was nigh on impossible for him to turn back.

‘I trust, Flotsam, that we shall meet nobody we know here tonight,’ he mused as we ascended. ‘And if there is anything in tonight’s performance that is in any way, er, distasteful to you, then we shall leave at once.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I assured him, now more curious than ever to witness the spectacle that lay ahead.

Once we had reached our seats, however, the first acts on stage did a great deal to put Dr Watson at his ease. The first was a fire-eater with an enormous droopy moustache who, once he had tired of fire, turned his attention to swords, daggers, forks and any number of items of hardware. He left the stage to polite applause that the doctor joined in readily, more I believe out of relief than out of genuine pleasure. Next, a small girl appeared and sang a song about meeting the Queen and then dying, which met with rather less applause, but which Dr Watson clapped very loudly indeed.

‘Very good! Very good!’ he repeated warmly. ‘A heartrending performance!’

After that a man appeared with a dog and a tandem and, after many humorous false starts, man and dog together cycled the tandem twice around the stage. Then came a man who made shadows with his hands, and who followed the usual array of animals and birds with some rather rude shadows that I pretended not to understand.

When the shadow man came off, a curtain near the back of the stage was raised to reveal a hanging trapeze suspended between two high platforms. There seemed to be a short pause in proceedings then, for one or two later-comers were admitted right at the front of the stalls. Watching them scurry to their seats, I found that one of them stood out in particular, for she was a young lady of rather graceful and lissom appearance who appeared genuinely surprised and intrigued by the sight of the trapeze on the stage above her. Indeed such was her curiosity that she ventured to take one or two steps up the narrow stair that led to the stage itself.

‘Wrong way, love!’ a voice shouted from somewhere in the stalls, and a good deal of laughter followed it, but although she gave a vague smile over her shoulder, the young woman seemed neither to understand the import of the cry, nor to realise that by now the attention of the theatre was beginning to focus upon her. So unaware was she, indeed, that she tiptoed delicately up the remaining steps until she stood on the very edge of the stage. The sight of the hanging trapeze seemed to fascinate her, and her eyes never left it as, almost in a trance, she moved into the centre of the stage.

By now the audience had fallen silent but for one or two nervous giggles. ‘Really,’ Dr Watson rumbled nervously, ‘isn’t there a stage manager here to rescue that unfortunate woman from this ridicule?’

Apparently there wasn’t, for just then the young lady noticed for the first time the ladder that led up to one of the platforms. It seemed to prompt her to some sort of decision, for she moved towards it with sudden decisiveness, to the accompaniment of one or two ironic cheers from the crowd. At the foot of the ladder, however, her progress was checked, for both her wrap and her skirts stood as clear impediments to her climbing it. Apparently aware of the difficulty posed by the wrap, she reached to her neck without hesitation and unfastened its tie, letting the garment fall to the floor behind her.

If the audience had been silent before, now it was also tense and motionless. Dr Watson’s jaw appeared to have dropped several inches.

Freed from the confines of her wrap, the young lady now made haste to place her hands on the rungs of the ladder, but at the last moment a thought held her back and she began to peel off her long, elegant gloves. A sound almost like a sigh seemed to escape from the audience, as if everyone had breathed at once. Next to me, Dr Watson’s jaw closed and fell open again but words failed to emerge. Only by repeating the exercise could he make himself heard.

‘My word!’ he gasped, limply.

Now with her arms bare to the elbow, the young lady seemed happy to return to the ladder, and tried her first steps upwards. However it was instantly clear that something was wrong, for she wobbled dangerously and stepped back to the ground with a slight squeal of alarm. It wasn’t difficult to see that the cause of her difficulty lay in her elegant evening shoes, and these she hastened to kick off. But now another difficulty presented itself, for she was looking down with great concern at the pair of fine stockings that were now threatened by the forthcoming climb.

‘My word!’ exclaimed Dr Watson a second time, apparently immobilised by shock. But by now the rest of the crowd had found its voice.

‘Don’t spoil ’em!’ it cried.

‘I’ll hold ’em for yer!’

‘Too good to go climbin’ in!’

Dr Watson’s jaw dropped even lower. Next to him I bit my finger and watched with wide open eyes, too surprised and shocked and fascinated to do anything but stare. I knew I should be scandalised and I was, but I was achingly anxious to keep watching, to see what could possibly happen next.

The lady’s stockings were removed in a trice, very deftly and as discreetly as could possibly be done, but not without offering to the crowd a glimpse of creamy white calves that caused a ripple of almost anguished appreciation to run around the theatre.

‘Come, Flotsam, we must go.’ Dr Watson found words at last, but his eyes were still wide with shock and so fixed upon the stage that they defied all his attempts at moving them. As for me, I don’t think I could have moved if I’d tried, so paralysed was I by a mixture of horror and of glee.

By now the lady was halfway up the ladder, but it was clear to all who observed her that her skirts were a considerable impediment to her. The audience was now not backward with its advice.

‘Watch out! You’ll trip!’

‘They’re in yer way!’

‘May as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb!’

With a grateful glance at her advisers, she began to fumble with the hooks and eyes at her waist and for a moment I thought that Dr Watson would finally cry enough. But the effect of such outrageous indecency on the good doctor was to fix him to the spot as surely as if pinned there by an Afghan lance.

‘My word,’ he said again as the skirts fluttered to the stage.

Needless to say, the remainder of the young lady’s ascent followed a similar pattern, so that by the time she launched herself, with magnificent athleticism and to whoops of applause, on to the waiting trapeze, her remaining garments were so few and so scanty that they could only be said to protect the very last vestiges of her modesty.

It was clear to me that the young lady’s skill as a trapeze artist was very considerable, but I fear that by this stage of the proceedings the crowd was paying scant attention to it. Nevertheless they cheered and yelled encouragement at every move she made and when she finally came to take a bow on one of the elevated platforms, they rose to their feet and cried for more as if no other act could ever satisfy them. Dr Watson rose too, and blinked like one awaking from a dream.

‘My dear Flotsam, I’m appalled… That you should witness such common lewdness is unforgivable…’ He paused to mop his brow. ‘Come, we shall leave at once and complain to the manager. I shall raise a public outcry against what we have witnessed here tonight!’

However, before we could move away from our seats, a tiny, hunched old man materialised at the end of our row.

‘Oi, Mr Watson,’ he called out, gesticulating at us with strange, crab-like movements of his arms. ‘You’re the lucky one all right. Come on! Come on! She’ll see yer now.’