The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (9 page)

lashes, she wore a simple costume of blue with narrow white frills at the wrists and throat.

There was grace as well as timidity in her gestures.

Yet her delicate hands trembled. Very prettily she identified Holmes and myself,

apologizing for this late call.

"My—my name is Eleanor Baxter," she added; "and, as you may have gathered, my poor

grandfather is the night attendant at Madame Taupin's exhibition of wax figures in the

Marylebone Road." She broke off. "Oh! Your poor ankle!"

"My injury is nothing, Miss Baxter," said Holmes. "You are both very welcome. Watson,

our guests' coats, the umbrella; so. Now, you may be seated here in front of me. Though I

have a crutch of sorts here, I am sure you will forgive me if I remain where I am. You were

saying?"

Miss Baxter, who had been looking fixedly at the little table in evident distress at her

grandfather's words, now gave a start and changed colour as she found Holmes's keen eye

upon her.

"Sir, are you acquainted with Madame Taupin's waxworks?"

"It is justly famous."

"Do forgive me!" Eleanor Baxter blushed. "My meaning was, have you ever visited it?"

"Hum! I fear I am too much like our countrymen. Let some place be remote or inaccessible,

and the Englishman will lose his life to find it. But he will not even look at it when it lies

within a few hundred yards of his own front door. Have you visited Madame Taupin's,

Watson?"

"No, I am afraid not," I replied. "Though I have heard much of the underground Room of

Horrors. It is said that the management offers a large sum of money to anyone who will

spend a night there."

The stubborn-looking old man, who to a medical eye showed symptoms of strong physical

pain, nevertheless chuckled hoarsely as he sat down.

"Lord bless you, sir, don't you believe a word of that nonsense."

"It is not true, then?"

"Not a bit, sir. They wouldn't even let you do it. 'Cos a sporting gentleman might light a

cigar or what not, and they're feared to death of fire."

"Then I take it," said Holmes, "that you are not unduly troubled by the Room of Horrors?"

"No, sir; never in general. The' even got old Charlie Peace there. He's with Marwood,

too, the hangman what turned Charlie off not eleven years ago—but they're friendly like."

His voice went higher. "But fair's fair, sir; and I don't like it a bit when those blessed

wax figures begin to play a hand of cards!"

A drive of rain rattled against the windows. Holmes leaned forward.

"The wax figures, you say, have been playing at cards?"

"Yes, sir. Word of Sam Baxter!"

"Are all the wax figures engaged in this card game, or only some of them?"

"Only two, sir."

"How do you know this, Mr. Baxter? Did you see them?"

"Lord, sir, I should hope not! But what am I to think, when one of 'em has discarded

from his hand, or taken a trick, and the cards are all mucked up on the table? Maybe I

ought to explain, sir?"

"Pray do," invited Holmes, with some satisfaction.

"You see, sir, in the course of a night I make only one or two rounds down in the

Room of Horrors. It's one big room, with dim lights. The reason I don't make more rounds

is 'cos of my rheumatics. Folks don't know how cruel you can suffer from rheumatics!

Double you up, they do."

"Dear me!" murmured Holmes sympathetically, pushing the tin of shag toward the old

man.

"Anyway, sir! My Nellie there is a good girl, in spite of her eddication and the fine work

she does. Whenever my rheumatics are bad, and they've been bad all this week, she gets

up every blessed morning and comes to fetch me at seven o'clock—that's when I go off

duty—so she can help me to a omnibus.

"Now tonight, being worried about me—which she oughtn't to be—well, Nellie turned

up only an hour ago, with young Bob Parsnip. Bob took over my duty from me, so I said,

'I've read all about this Mr. Holmes, only a step away; let's go and tell him.' And that's

why we're here."

Holmes inclined his head.

"I see, Mr. Baxter. But you were speaking of last night?"

"Ah! Well, about the Room of Horrors. On one side there's a series of tabloos. Which I

mean: there's separate compartments, each of 'em behind an iron railing so nobody can step

in, and wax figures in each compartment. The tabloos tell a story that's called 'The History

of a Crime.'

"This history of a crime is about a young gentleman—and a pleasant young gentleman he

is, too, only weak—who falls into bad company. He gambles and loses his money; then he

kills the wicked older man; and at last he's hanged as fast as Charlie Peace. It's meant to

be a—a—"

"A moral lesson, yes. Take warning, Watson. Well, Mr. Baxter?"

"Well, sir! It's that wretched gambling tabloo. There's only two of 'em in it, the young

gentleman and the wicked wrong 'un. They're sitting in a lovely room, at a table with gold

coins on it; only not real gold, of course. It's not a-happening today, you see, but in old

times when they had stockings and britches."

"Eighteenth-century costume, perhaps?"

"That's it, sir. The young gentleman is sitting on the other side of the table, so he faces

towards you straight. But the old wrong 'un is sitting with his back turned, holding up his cards

as if he was laughing, and you can see the cards in his hand.

"Now last night! When I say last night, sir, course I mean two nights ago, because it's

towards morning now. I walked straight past that blessed tabloo without seeing nothing. Then,

about a hour later, all of a sudden I thinks, 'What's wrong with that tabloo?' There wasn't

much wrong, and I'm so used to it that I'm the only one who'd have noticed. 'What's wrong?' I

thinks. So I goes down and has another look.

"Sir, so help me! The wicked older man—the one whose hand you can see—was holding

less cards than he ought. He'd discarded, or played a trick maybe, and they'd been messing up the

cards on the table.

"I've got no 'magination, I tell you. Don't want none. But when Nellie here came to fetch

me at seven in the morning, I felt cruel, what with rheumatics and this too. I wouldn't tell

her what was wrong—well, just in case I might-a seen things. Today I thought perhaps I

dreamed it. But I didn't! It was there again tonight.

"Now, sir, I'm not daft. I see what I see! You might say, maybe, somebody did that for

fun—changed the cards, and messed 'em up, and all. But nobody couldn't do it in the

daytime, or they'd be seen. It might be done at night, 'cos there's one side door that won't lock

properly. But it's not like one of the public's practical jokes, where they stick a false beard

on Queen Anne or maybe a sun-bonnet on Napoleon's head. This is so little that nobody'd

notice it. But if somebody's been playing a hand of cards for those two blessed dummies, then

who did it and why?"

For some moments, Sherlock Holmes remained silent.

"Mr. Baxter," he said gravely, and glanced at his own bandaged ankle, "your patience shames

me in my foolish petulance: I shall be happy to look into this matter."

"But, Mr. Holmes," cried Eleanor Baxter, in stark bewilderment, "surely you cannot

take the affair seriously?"

"Forgive me, madam. Mr. Baxter, what particular game of cards are the two wax figures

playing?"

"Dunno, sir. Used to wonder that myself, long ago when I was new to the place. Nap or

whist, maybe? But I dunno."

"You say that the figure with his back turned is holding fewer cards than he should. How

many cards have been played from his hand?"

"Sir?"

"You did not observe? Tcha, that is most unfortunate! Then I beg of you carefully to

consider a vital question. Have these figures been gambling?"

"My dear Holmes—" I began, but my friend's look gave me a pause.

"You tell me, Mr. Baxter, that the cards upon the table have been moved or at least

disturbed. Have the gold coins been moved as well?"

"Come to think of it," replied Mr. Samuel Baxter, after a pause, "no, sir, they haven't!

Funny, too."

Holmes's eyes were glittering, and he rubbed his hands together.

"I fancied as much," said he. "Well, fortunately I may devote my energies to the problem,

since I have nothing on hand at the moment save a future dull matter which seems to concern

Sir Gervase Darlington and possibly Lord Hove as well. Lord Hove—Dear me, Miss Baxter,

is anything wrong?"

Eleanor Baxter, who had risen to her feet, now contemplated Holmes with startled eyes.

"Did you say Lord Hove?" asked she.

"Yes. How should the name be familiar to you, may I ask?"

"Merely that he is my employer."

"Indeed?" said Holmes, raising his eyebrows. "Ah, yes. You do type-writing, I perceive. The

double line in the plush costume a little above your wrist, where the typewritist presses against

the table, proclaims as much. You are acquainted with Lord Hove, then?"

"No, I have never so much as seen him, though I do much type-writing at his town house

in Park Lane. So humble a person as I—!"

"Tcha, this is even more unfortunate! However, we must do what we can. Watson, have

you any objection to going out into such a tempestuous night?"

"Not in the least," said I, much astonished. "But why?"

"This confounded sofa, my boy! Since I am confined to it as to a sick-bed, you must be

my eyes. It troubles me to trespass upon your pain, Mr. Baxter, but would it be possible for

you to escort Dr. Watson for a brief visit to the Room of Horrors? Thank you; excellent."

"But what am I to do?" asked I.

"In the upper drawer of my desk, Watson, you will find some envelopes."

"Well, Holmes?"

"Oblige me by counting the number of cards in the hand of each wax figure. Then,

carefully keeping them in their present order from left to right, place each set in a separate

envelope which you will mark accordingly. Do the same with the cards upon the table, and

bring them back to me as quickly as you may accomplish it."

"Sir—" began the ancient man in excitement.

"No, no, Mr. Baxter, I should prefer not to speak now. I have only a working

hypothesis, and there seems one almost insuperable difficulty to it." Holmes frowned. "But it is

of the first importance to discover, in all senses of the word, what game is being played at that

wax exhibition."

Together with Samuel Baxter and his grand-daughter, I ventured forth into the rain-

whipped blackness. Despite Miss Baxter's protests, within ten minutes we were all three

standing before the gambling tableau in the Room of Horrors.

A not ill-looking young man named Robert Parsnip, clearly much smitten with the charms of

Eleanor Baxter, turned up the blue sparks of gas in dusty globes. But even so the gloomy

room remained in a semi-darkness in which the ranks of grim wax figures seemed imbued

with a horrible spider-like repose, as though waiting only until a visitor turned away, before

reaching out to touch him.

Madame Taupin's exhibition is too well known to need any general description. But I was

unpleasantly impressed by the tableau called "The History of a Crime." The scenes were

most lifelike in both effect and colour, with the wigs and small-swords of the eighteenth

century. Had I in fact been guilty of those mythical gambling lapses charged upon me by

Holmes's ill-timed sense of humour, the display might well have harassed my conscience.

This was especially so when we lowered our heads under the iron railing, and approached

the two gamblers in the mimic room.

"Drat it, Nellie, don't touch them cards!" cried Mr. Baxter, much more testy and irascible in

his own domain. But his tone changed as he spoke to me. "Look there, sir! There's," he

counted slowly, "there's nine cards in the wicked wrong 'un's hand. And sixteen in the young

gentleman's."

"Listen!" whispered the young lady. "Isn't someone walking about upstairs?"

"Drat it, Nellie, it's only Bob Parsnip. Who else would it be?"

"As you said, the cards on the table are not much disarranged," I remarked. "Indeed, the

small pile in front of your 'young gentleman' is not disarranged at all. Twelve cards lie at his

elbow—"

"Ah, and nineteen by the wrong 'un. Funny card game, sir!"

I agreed and, curiously repulsed by the touch of waxen fingers against my own, I put the

various sets of playing-cards into four marked envelopes, and hastened up from the stuffy den.

Miss Baxter and her grandfather, despite the latter's horrified protest, I insisted on sending

home in a stray cab whose driver had just deposited some hopelessly intoxicated gentleman

against his own door.

I was not sorry to return to the snug warmth of my friend's sitting-room. To my dismay,

however, Holmes had risen from the couch. He was standing by his desk with the green-

shaded lamp, eagerly studying an open atlas and supported by a crutch under his right arm.

"Enough, Watson!" he silenced my protests. "You have the envelopes? Good, good! Give

them to me. Thank you. In the hand of the older gambler, the wax figure with his back

turned, were there not nine cards?"

"Holmes, this is amazing! How could you have known that?"