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 ormulu 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.
‘It was a deception which they could not use too often, otherwise Sinclair and the club members would have suspected them of cheating. So they took pains to choose their victims with care, not experienced card-players but rash young men with plenty of money who might be expected to plunge in too deeply.’
‘And always on a Friday,’ I pointed out. ‘Why was that, Holmes?’
My old friend shrugged.
‘Possibly because it was the only evening in the week when Gaunt could persuade the manager of the Cambridge to change his placing on the bill, allowing him to leave a little earlier than usual so that he had time to remove his stage costume and make-up and take a cab to the Nonpareil.’
As he was speaking, he drew me quickly into a doorway, from the shelter of which we could watch unobserved the main entrance as well as the stage-door of the theatre. A few seconds later, we saw Eustace Gaunt, alias Rakoczi, emerge from this side entrance, dressed in street clothes, and walk hurriedly along to the main thoroughfare, where he hailed a hansom.
As it drew away, Holmes remarked with a chuckle, ‘I think we may guess Gaunt’s destination, my dear fellow. If I were, like you, a gambling man, I would wager half a sovereign that he is on his way to Colonel Upwood’s to lay my ultimatum before him.’
Holmes was, of course, correct, as usual.
The following day, he received two letters, one from Colonel Upwood, the other from Eustace Gaunt who signed himself as Alfred Tonks, presumably his real name. Both men unreservedly accepted the terms which Holmes had laid down.
That same morning, Godfrey Sinclair arrived to thank Holmes for his successful handling of the case and for avoiding the scandal which would have ensued had the affair been made public.
The two men had resigned their membership of the Nonpareil, and Upwood, who presumably was in charge of their finances, had enclosed a list of names of all those they had cheated together with enough bank notes to repay the money their victims had lost.
‘A most satisfactory ending, my dear fellow,’ Holmes remarked, rubbing his hands together gleefully after Sinclair had left. ‘I suppose your faithful readers can expect a written account of the inquiry, suitably embellished in your own inimitable style. What will you call it? “The Adventure of the Colonel’s Cardsharping” or “Scandal at the Nonpareil Club”?’
In fact, I decided to call it neither, nor shall I publish an account of the case.
A few days after this exchange, I received an answer to a letter I had written to my old army friend, Colonel Hayter,12 asking if he knew anything about a Colonel Upwood, as he had maintained closer contact than I with our former regiments13 and was better acquainted with army gossip.
He wrote back to tell me that, although he had never met Upwood, he knew a little about his background and his service record, in particular one episode which my old friend thought would interest me, knowing of my own army experiences.
Colonel Upwood had taken part in the relief of Kandahar,14 the garrison town in Afghanistan to which the British forces, including myself, had retreated after our tragic defeat at the battle of Maiwand on 27th July 1880. The town was besieged by a vastly superior Afghan force led by Ayub Khan, and was relieved twenty-four days later by the heroic action of a British force of 10,000 men, led by Major General Frederick ‘Bobs’ Robert, which, after a forced march from Kabul to Kandahar of 320 miles across the mountains in the scorching summer heat, attacked Ayub Khan’s camp, killing thousands of his men and putting the rest to flight. Compared to these losses, our own, thank God, were mercifully light, amounting to only 58 men killed and 192 wounded.
Without the intervention of that gallant force, those of us at Kandahar might have been starved into surrender with consequences which do not bear contemplating.
Among that relieving force was Upwood, then a Major, who was wounded in the left arm during the attack and was consequently, like myself, invalided out of the army with a pension.15
One might therefore claim that my life was saved as much by the action of Upwood and his brave comrades as by that of Murray, my orderly, who, after I myself was wounded, threw me across the back of a pack horse and joined the general retreat to Kandahar.
In view of this, I feel it would be disloyal of me to publish this account of Colonel Upwood’s subsequent fall from grace at the Nonpareil Club and therefore it will be consigned to my old army despatch box along with other unpublished papers, a fitting resting place, I feel, for this particular manuscript.16
1 The date when Sherlock Holmes undertook the investigation entitled ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ is disputed, but internal evidence suggests the late 1880s. The great Sherlockian expert William S. Baring-Gould has opted for the autumn of 1888. The account of the inquiry was first published in serial form between August 1901 and April 1902. Dr John F. Watson.
2 The first reference to Billy, the pageboy or ‘the boy in buttons’, surname unknown, is in ‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face’, ascribed by some commentators to 1882. There are several references to him in the canon. His duties included running errands and showing clients upstairs to the sitting-room. His wages were presumably paid by Sherlock Holmes. He should not be confused with another pageboy, also named Billy, who features in the later adventures at the turn of the century, such as ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone’ and ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’. Dr John F. Watson.
3 Until the Betting Act of 1960 was passed, all betting in public places was illegal, but gaming clubs such as Crockford’s were well established, although they ran the risk of being raided by the police and shut down. Dr John F. Watson.
4 It was because of a game of baccarat that Edward, Prince of Wales, became involved in the Tranby Croft scandal. He and some fellow guests were staying at a country house called Tranby Croft, the home of a rich shipowner, Arthur Wilson, in 1890 when a fellow guest, Sir William Gordon-Cumming, was accused of cheating at the game. He was made to sign a paper promising never to play cards again, which the fellow guests, including the Prince of Wales, also signed. But the scandal leaked out and Gordon-Cummings brought a libel action. The Prince was subpoenaed as a witness. The case was lost but the publicity damaged Edward’s reputation. Dr John F. Watson.
5 Dr Watson enjoyed betting on horses and confessed that half his army pension was spent at the races. Vide: ‘The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place’. There is no evidence that he bet at billiards. Dr John F. Watson.
6 After training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and the Army Medical School at Netley, Hampshire, he was posted to India where he joined the 66th Berkshire Regiment on foot as an army surgeon in Afghanistan. He was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880 and was invalided out of the army with a pension of 11/6 a day, approximately 57 pence. Vide: A Study in Scarlet. Dr John F. Watson.
7 Sherlock Holmes once stated: ‘I hold a vast store of out-of-the-way knowledge, without scientific system, but very available for the needs of my work.’ Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane’. Dr John F. Watson.
8 According to Greek mythology, Sisyphus, king of Corinth, captured and chained up Death, who had to be rescued by the god Ares. As a punishment, he was forced to push a large stone repeatedly up a hill, only to have it roll down again. Dr John F. Watson.
9 I have been unable to trace a Cambridge Music-Hall, except for a small establishment in the East End of London, and I suggest it is a pseudonym for the Oxford Music-Hall in Oxford Street in London, where many famous performers appeared. Dr John F. Watson.
10 The Chairman introduced the acts, usually in a comically extravagant manner, and presided generally over the performance. Dr John F. Watson.
11 This is probably a reference to Marie Lloyd, a very popular music-hall artiste who sang comic Cockney songs and performed sketches. Her real name was Matilda Alice Victoria Wood (1870–1922). She first appeared at the Eagle Music-Hall under the stage-name Belle Delmare. Dr John F. Watson.
12 Dr Watson first met Colonel Hayter in Afghanistan, where he gave him medical treatment. The two men kept in touch and, on Colonel Hayter’s retirement to Reigate, he invited Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes to stay with him. Dr John F. Watson.
13 Dr Watson’s regiment was the 66th Berkshires. It is not known which regiment was Colonel Hayter’s but he may also have served in the Berkshires. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Reigate Squire’. Dr John F. Watson.
14 Kandahar was a strategically important Afghan town situated 155 miles inside the frontier with India, which was captured and garrisoned by a force of 2,500 soldiers, both British and Indian. The siege was raised on 31st August after twenty-four days. Dr John F. Watson.