Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes Page 16

  “I’m looking for a boy,” I said to the landlord. “A young man. He has been in here several times, perhaps Friday last. I am afraid he has not been seen since.”

  “You with the coppers?” he asked, suspiciously. I sensed ears pricking up around the bar.

  “No. I am here on behalf of the lad’s fiancée. She is most concerned about him.”

  “What’s ’is name?”

  “Toby. He pretends to be a local, but is actually a young gentleman. I am sure you would have seen through his ruse.” I slid a shilling across the bar.

  “We gets a few of that type in ’ere, time to time. If he’s the lad I’m thinkin’ of, he’s a dandy sort. Might be he wouldn’t have known what to do with ’isself when trouble came a-callin’.”

  “So you think you know him?”

  “Seen him, maybe. Fresh-faced, dark hair in need o’ a trim.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  “As I said, dandy sort.”

  One of the customers at the bar, a weasel-faced man, leaned toward me. “You’re a dandy sort, an’ all,” he said, and grinned, revealing broken and yellowing teeth.

  I ignored him and turned back to the landlord. “Was this youth here last Friday?”

  “Can’t say as I recall.”

  “There was a show on at the Paragon that night,” I said. “The Magnificent Balthazar. I imagine you had a few people through your doors when the music hall closed.”

  “Too many to remember one face,” he said.

  I was about to ask another question when a woman’s voice piped up from behind me.

  “The Magnificent Balthazar! ’Ee made my Polly disappear.”

  “Oh, lordy,” muttered the landlord. “You’ve woke ’er up now. On yer own head be it.”

  I spun around to see the woman who’d been sleeping on the bench now teetering towards me. Rouge was smeared up one side of her face and her powdered hair had taken on the aspect of a precarious crow’s nest. She reeked of gin.

  “My Polly’s been gone three munfs,” she rasped. “An’ it were him, Balthazar. ’Ee made ’er vanish on the stage. Then she vanished for real!” The woman let out a heartfelt sob.

  “She’s not right,” the landlord said. “In the ’ead I mean. She weren’t right before Poll went missing. Been worse since.”

  “This Polly… did she really go to see the Magnificent Balthazar on the night she disappeared?” I frowned.

  “So Bess says.”

  “She did, sir, she did!” Bess chimed in. “But the coppers, they didn’t do nuffin. Said she were on the game and run off wi’ some fancy man.”

  I looked to the landlord for assistance. He shrugged and said, “She wasn’t that sort o’ girl. Polly was a good lass.”

  “When you find your lad, will you find my Poll an’ all?” the woman pleaded.

  “O’ course he won’t,” the weasel-faced man said. “His sort only care for their own.”

  “It’s true enough what Dipper says,” another man said. “Papers round here have been full o’ missin’ East End youngsters. Police are turnin’ a blind eye, an’ if they keep on turnin’ a blind eye there’ll be blood on the streets, mark my words. But then one young toff goes walkabout, an’ suddenly we got the likes o’ you askin’ questions.”

  “Yeah!” snarled the weasel-faced man—or “Dipper”— his hands bunched into fists.

  “Look here,” I said, “I certainly will not be turning a blind eye, but I didn’t even hear of these disappearances until just now.”

  “Bet you ’ave,” said the other man. “But you’d have put it out of mind soon enough, ’cos they was from the East End. You wouldn’t notice if we all disappeared, ’cept you’d have nobody to fetch and carry for you.”

  “You have made your feelings clear,” I said. “But regardless, I intend to find my friend. If your loved ones are with him, I will do what I can; you have my word.”

  “What good’s the word of a ponce?” said Dipper, leaning in close.

  “I shall not stay here to be insulted,” I said, doffing my hat. “I must go forthwith and find Toby… and young Polly.” I stepped away briskly. I saw Dipper step with me menacingly, but Bess intercepted him.

  “You leave ’im be, Dipper, you lout,” she slurred. “We need all the ’elp we can get. He’s a true gent, looking for my Polly…”

  I did not stop. Thankful that my plan had worked, and the woman had risen to my defence, I marched confidently from the pub.

  Though my pride was somewhat bruised by my hasty retreat, at least it was the only thing injured. My head was swimming with possibilities, however. There was certainly a chance that the aforementioned disappearances had nothing to do with Toby. My suspicions that he had been robbed and even murdered still held water; he could just as likely have found his way to an opium den and spent the last week in the blissful smoke of the dragon. But Dipper had spoken of other missing youngsters…

  My network of paid contacts and society spies were of little use in the poverty-stricken districts of London. If he was not dead, I would have called at once on my old associate, Sherlock Holmes, for what I had before me now was a true mystery.

  I flagged down a hansom. “Baker Street, quick as you like,” I said to the cabbie, and I finally allowed myself to relax as we left Mile End Road behind us.

  The idea had struck me all at once. Sherlock Holmes might not be available, but Dr Watson was. Someone at 221B Baker Street would be able to direct me to Watson, and then I would persuade him to assist me, as he had assisted Holmes for so long.

  * * *

  “Send in the next patient please,” Watson said, his voice muffled by the door.

  I tipped my hat to the nurse, and entered the small consulting room, where Dr Watson sat behind a large desk, scribbling notes.

  “Take a seat,” he said, without looking up.

  “Thank you, Watson, but I prefer to stand.”

  At that he looked up at me, recognition crossing his features. “You,” he muttered.

  “Manners, Doctor.”

  He stood. “What can I do for you, Mr Pike? I doubt you are looking for a new physician.”

  “I am not. I am here because I need the help of a consulting detective.”

  “Then I am afraid you have had a wasted journey.” Watson looked grave. “There was only one consulting detective in London, and he is gone.”

  “But his notoriety lives on through your stories, Doctor.”

  “Perhaps, but there are no new stories.”

  “There could be. For no one knows Holmes’s methods as well as you.”

  “You flatter me. I am not the detective. Holmes was—”

  “Pish! It is clear from the way Holmes spoke of you that he held you in high regard.”

  “He… spoke of me? To you?”

  “Several times. He would want you to continue the legacy that you forged together.”

  “How would you know what Holmes would have wanted!” he snapped. “He was my friend.”

  “And mine also. He was not a detective out of sheer vanity. It was his vocation.”

  Watson’s grief played across his face plainly, and then his features set again. “Mr Pike, given your somewhat… distasteful… habit of holding scandal over the heads of socialites, it has always struck me that Holmes and I should have investigated your exploits, on more than one occasion. Why should I help you?”

  “I shall answer candidly. It is true that my business is intelligence, and that I have many times been the enemy to those who lack it. And yet I have never brought harm to the doors of any who did not deserve it.”

  “Now I say ‘pish’!” Watson retorted. “Lady Devonshire, and the scandal of the ruby coronet?”

  “Simple. She had attempted to blackmail a member of the royal family, placing in jeopardy a diplomatic visit to Turkey. I used the information that I held for the good of Britain.”

  Watson narrowed his eyes. “Do you think you are the man to make such moral judg
ements? After all—”

  “I am sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Watson. What I do know, however, is that a young gentleman has been missing for the past week, and that his disappearance is somehow linked to a spate of similar incidents amongst the poor of the East End. I need help finding the lad, if he still lives.”

  “Have the police been consulted?”

  “They have. They care not for the paupers, and do not deem even a wealthy boy’s whereabouts to be of concern to them at present. He leaves behind a heartbroken fiancée.”

  Watson rubbed at his chin; his attitude softened. “What makes you think the boy’s disappearance is linked to these poor East End folk?”

  “Magic,” I said, trying to suppress a smile. Watson stared at me like I were an imbecile. “One of the girls vanished on the very night she had attended a magic show, performed by a man called the Magnificent Balthazar. My missing lad, Toby, attended the same show on the night he disappeared in Mile End. I doubt I could persuade the police to trouble themselves, but two men, acting covertly, might be able to observe something untoward at this conjurer’s show.”

  I saw a gleam in Watson’s eye, and I knew that I had his interest sufficiently piqued. “Holmes would have said there is no such thing as coincidence…” he mused.

  “Indeed.”

  “I may be willing to help you, Mr Pike, but only insofar as lending my modest observational skills at the theatre. If anything is amiss, we go straight to Scotland Yard.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we must find out when this ‘Balthazar’ is set to perform next.”

  I handed a playbill to Watson, which I had obtained from a ticket-seller en route. It was emblazoned with several dates for the travelling magic show, the next being on Saturday, at the Hoxton Varieties.

  “Are you available this Saturday?” I asked.

  “It would seem so,” said Watson.

  “I shall send a hansom for you.”

  * * *

  I have spent a great deal of my life around the theatres of London and Paris, and counted thespians as my own people. The Hoxton Varieties, however, colloquially called the “Sod’s Opera”, was a world apart from the stages of the West End.

  Watson and I entered through the smoky tavern along with the rest of the audience. “I thought you said we should attend incognito,” Watson grumbled.

  I looked down at my blue suit, tartan cravat and polished white shoes. “What, this old thing?” I said, innocently. “This is one of the dowdiest suits I own.” I stifled a snigger at Watson’s expense; he was resplendent in a drab brown suit, plain overcoat and flat cap, as though a country squire had stumbled into the music hall.

  The back of the tavern was arranged in the semblance of a traditional theatre, though the stage was low and small and the curtains tatty. Small tables made up the bulk of the seating area, and I was surprised to note that several ushers were on hand to show people to particular seats. Our own table gave us a good view of the room but a poor one of the stage.

  “Do you see how the audience is being arranged?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” Watson replied. “The youngest members of the crowd are being ushered to the front. Everyone else is left to find their own place.”

  “I haven’t seen anyone in the boxes yet.” I nodded to the private booths, little more than tiny balconies reached by a flight of steps hidden behind heavy drapes.

  “Nor I. Mind you, I don’t suppose they see much custom. This is hardly the sort of venue to attract the well-heeled.”

  Customers were still noisily entering the music hall when the lights were dimmed and the act began. A voice from behind the stage curtain announced the entrance of the “Magnificent Balthazar, purveyor of the most profound mysteries”, and the magician himself then pranced into view. Balthazar was a diminutive man of middle age, with lank hair scraped over a bulbous head, and moustaches styled in the most ridiculous tight twists. As music sprang up from a lone pianist, the magician launched into a tired routine, making sparrows appear from beneath handkerchiefs, and pulling bunches of silk flowers from his sleeves. Watson and I applauded politely, our eyes scanning the room, though the gaslights were so low we could barely make out anyone beyond the first few rows of tables.

  Soon, Balthazar ordered the rear curtains to be raised, revealing his more ambitious paraphernalia, along with a “beautiful assistant”, who was a woman who had seen too many winters for the role she now played. For the next hour, Balthazar astonished at least some of the crowd by levitating his assistant and passing a steel hoop—inspected by two members of the audience—over her, to demonstrate that there were no wires at play. He had another audience member lock a set of manacles about his wrists, from which he escaped in seconds. He had a young girl come up and inspect a guillotine for its sharpness, which he then used to supposedly chop off his assistant’s head, only to reveal her waiting in the wings. Each time the volunteers from the audience were selected from the first few rows. Balthazar chose male and female spectators seemingly at random, but they were always young and at least moderately attractive.

  Watson leaned over to me and pointed to the private box closest the stage. I squinted against the gloom, and sure enough saw the embers of a cigarette glow bright, and a plume of pale smoke waft from the box. Someone now occupied it, although we had seen no one enter; most likely it was the manager taking a look at his investment.

  Balthazar’s final feat was the “vanishing cabinet”, the announcement of which caused both Watson and I to shift in our seats and lean forward in anticipation. Another young girl was plucked from the crowd. For all her obvious poverty, she was a truly beautiful young woman. Her skin was pale, her cheeks rosy, and golden curls fell to her waist.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Balthazar announced. “I present to you the cabinet of instantaneous relocation! Our brave volunteer…” he paused and craned close to the girl, who whispered her name, “…Lucy, will step into the cabinet, whereupon she will vanish into thin air! Lucy will be magically transported to the spirit realm, until I call upon the mystic powers to bring her back.”

  The girl was led to the cabinet by the magician’s assistant, and was asked to step inside. The door of the cabinet was closed, and at once the magician wheeled it around in a circle, to show that there was nothing beneath it. To the shock of the audience, he then took up four swords, and thrust them through the cabinet. Finally the swords were withdrawn, and the cabinet opened to reveal nothing within.

  There was some posturing as Balthazar drank in the applause. A girl on the front row screeched, “Bring ’er back!”

  Balthazar bowed low and announced, “I will do exactly that, my good lady.” Here, he began a low chant, raising his arms, his unintelligible muttering growing louder, until finally he shouted, “Ala-kazam!” There was a loud crack, and a puff of smoke from the right-hand side of the auditorium. When it cleared, the magician pointed up to the private box where we had earlier observed the cigarette-smoker, and the girl was there, beaming with delight.

  As the girl returned to her table, I caught the briefest glimpse of a pale face in the box, which quickly vanished. Watson turned to me—he had seen it too. As the house lights came up, I was quite certain that the box was now empty—whoever had been there must have exited via some unseen means.

  “What do you say we steal a word with this Balthazar?” said Watson.

  “I think not,” I replied. “I have a feeling that we should look for the possible victim, and follow them.”

  “How could we possibly know who the victim will be, if there even is one?”

  “Because, Watson, the two previous victims of whom I know were called up to take part in the Vanishing Cabinet illusion, and both were of exceptional beauty, by all accounts.” I nodded towards the girl who had vanished from the cabinet as she passed by us. “We should follow her to ensure her safety, and if we find nothing we shall return.”

  “By then Balthazar will have gone,�
�� Watson said.

  “A touring stage magician with several dates left to play will not be difficult to find. A random poor girl amongst all the poor girls of East London is, however, a needle in a haystack. Shall we?”

  Watson was forced to concur. We left our seats and followed the girl as she left the tavern and headed along Pitfield Street, weaving our way through the groups of theatregoers, keeping our target in view. The young girl was fearless, marching towards the even more unsavoury environs of Whitechapel. She crossed the road opposite an almshouse garden, and slipped into a quiet side street.

  Then the girl began to falter, her steps becoming suddenly uneven. She put a hand to her head, and reached out to steady herself against a wall. As she did so, I saw movement in the shadows on the side of the street. Two figures, large and powerful-looking, lurched from an alleyway and set upon her, clapping hands upon her mouth before she could scream, and lifting her off her feet. My heart lurched—never had I been so dismayed at being proven right.

  Watson was off like a shot, racing along the street and shouting, “Here! Leave her be!” I saw one of the men peel away as the other carried the girl off. Watson landed a blow upon the ruffian’s chin, and received payment in kind for his trouble. As I reached them, with the intent of shoving into the man with all my might, I was hit with great force from the side; all I saw was the onrushing of black shadow from the alleyway, and then I was sprawled upon the cobbles, utterly bewildered.

  By the time I cleared my head, I saw Watson fending off not one, but two assailants. The gallant doctor swung his cane, landing a blow upon the cheek of one villain, but immediately fell to a clubbing from the second. Both men stepped forward and swung vicious kicks at Watson as he curled up on the pavement. One of them then patted Watson down, taking his wallet and growling, “So we know where to find you, should you give us any trouble later.” The men were all dressed in dark clothes and polished shoes, and had mufflers pulled up over their faces.

  I heard hoofbeats and a carriage pulled up at the end of the road. All three men piled inside, dragging the struggling girl. I noted a flash of gold paint upon the door as it closed, and then the carriage was gone.