The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (14 page)

The first thing we saw on alighting from the train was a large wall poster for the Rover Brothers Circus featuring Vittoria, the Circus Belle. A banner had been pasted across the bottom corner of the poster announcing a new wild animal act with a man-eating tiger, to be introduced that very afternoon. Having now seen Vittoria in person I was reminded again of how little the drawing revealed of her true charm and beauty. Holmes studied it for a moment before we continued to the street, where he hailed a carriage to take us the short distance to the circus grounds.

Vittoria had arranged that two admission tickets would be left for us at the box office. As we passed through the main gate I caught the odor of tanbark, so slight on our client but now bringing with it my own memories of childhood. “You ’re right, Holmes,” I said. “There is a pleasant, nostalgic smell about a circus.”

A small tent near the entrance bore a sign indicating it was the office of the Rover Brothers Circus, and Holmes made for it without hesitation. A slender dark-haired young man with a bushy mustache was at work inside, scanning the pages of a ledger. “Mr Rover, I presume?” Holmes addressed him.

The man looked up with a scowl. “Mr Charles Rover. Do you want me or Philip?”

“Either one will do. I am Sherlock Holmes and this is Dr Watson. One of your star performers, Vittoria, has invited us here to investigate the suspicious death of the Spanish knife-thrower known as Diaz.”

Charles Rover grunted with something like distaste. “Nothing suspicious about it! An accident!”

“Vittoria believes he was poisoned and that the poison was meant for her.”

“Who would want to kill that sweet child? She is the star of our show!”

“Then we have come here for nothing?” Holmes asked.

“It would seem so.”

“Since we have made the journey from London, perhaps we could speak with some others – your brother Philip, if he’s available, and one of the acrobats, Edith Everage.”

Charles Rover consulted his pocket watch. “It’s noon already. By one o’clock we will be preparing for the afternoon performance. See who you wish before one, then be gone.”

“Where might we find Miss Everage?”

“In the main tent, rehearsing her act. We are introducing an Indian tiger into the show today, and the timing must be adjusted accordingly.”

I followed Holmes as we left Rover and headed for the main tent. Along the way food venders were beginning to set up their wares and a pair of brightly painted clowns were inspecting each other’s greasepaint. With the gates open, the trickle of arrivals was building to a steady flow, exploring the sideshows but not yet allowed into the main tent. Holmes and I ignored the signs and slipped through the closed tent flap.

In the big circus ring a half-dozen acrobats, clad in the tight-fitting garments developed by Leotard, were tumbling, somersaulting and cartwheeling. One was even swinging from a trapeze. When they came to rest for a moment, Holmes asked the nearest of the women, “Are you Miss Edith Everage.”

“Edith!” she called out to one of the others, a brown-haired girl who appeared to be of school age. Her fine figure in the skin-tight garment made me blush as she walked up to us, though her face seemed too hardened for one so young.

“You want me?” she asked with a trace of London cockney in her voice.

Holmes introduced himself and came directly to the point. “We are investigating the recent attempts upon the life of Vittoria Costello, the so-called Circus Belle. Do you know anything about a riding accident?”

“The horse threw her. That wasn’t an attempt on her life.”

“She thought it was. And what about the poisoning of Diaz?”

Edith Everage shook her head. “They say that was an accident.”

“Didn’t he cut her once during his knife-throwing act?”

“Naw. They were thick as thieves.”

“But you would like to replace her as the Circus Belle.”

“I deserve it! I worked for the Rovers since I was fifteen. I’m even learning to do a trapeze act. They hired her with no experience at all, just because she won that bleedin’ contest. And Mr Philip, he makes sure she treats him nice, if you get what I mean.”

While they talked a cage had been wheeled into the ring. Though its bars were covered with canvas the growls emanating from inside left no doubt that the tiger had arrived. The trainer, armed with a whip, and a man in a frock coat accompanied the cage. Even at a distance I could recognize an older version of Charles Rover. Holmes must have had the same impression, for he asked her, “Is that Philip Rover?”

“It is,” Edith acknowledged. “It’s a wonder we ever see him, between Vittoria and that blonde doxy he brings on the road with him.”

“Who would that be?”

“Milly Hogan. She was in a show at the Lyceum Theatre once and she considers herself above mere circus performers. She usually stays in his tent during the performance, but I saw them out playing with the new tiger this morning.”

“All right,” Philip Rover called to the acrobats. “Everyone out of the ring. We’re going to start letting the crowd in soon. I want them to see nothing but that cage as they take their seats.”

Edith hurried off with the others and Rover turned his attention to us. “You must be Sherlock Holmes. My brother told me you were in here, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why. That Spaniard’s death was an accident. The poison bottle had been prepared to dispose of an aging python. Diaz drank it by mistake.”

“Your star, Vittoria, tells a different story. She fears for her life. Does she have any enemies here?”

“None,” Philip Rover assured us.

“What about Edith Everage?”

“Everage? She’s one of the acrobats, isn’t she?”

“So I understand,” Holmes told him. “Was she ever considered for billing as the Circus Belle?”

“Edith Everage? Certainly not! We ran a nationwide contest to choose a beautiful woman for the part. Vittoria was the winner. Edith was never considered.”

“Yet there have been two attempts on Vittoria’s life, possibly by Edith.”

“Did you get these ideas from my brother?” Philip asked, anger beginning to show on his face. “I must tell you our Circus Belle is a popular woman with the younger men here.”

“Including Charles?” Holmes studied the man with his piercing gray eyes, but before he could say anything else there came a shout from the direction of the tiger’s cage.

Philip Rover turned and started toward one of the clowns who’d yelled. “What is it?” he barked.

The clown came running over, trying to keep his voice low. “Mr Rover, something’s wrong! I just looked under the canvas and Vittoria’s in there with the tiger. I think she’s dead.”

The minutes that followed were a nightmare. Pushing the great beast back with long poles, the handlers finally were able to unlock the cage and pull the body out of its grasp. As a physician it fell upon me to examine Vittoria’s body when it was removed from the cage. I had no trouble-pronouncing her dead, but the sight of that clawed, bloody face, with the dress virtually torn from her body, moved me to a great sadness. From her tiny feet to a gaping wound in her neck, there were claw marks everywhere.

Holmes watched it all in silence, and did not speak until I had finished my examination. “What do you think, Watson? Did the tiger kill her or not?”

It was not the first time I had found Holmes’s reasoning a step ahead of my own. My eyes focused on the gaping neck wound. “His claws couldn’t have made a wound like that and there seems to be no blood on his jaws or teeth.”

“Exactly my thought! The woman was already dead when she was placed in the cage. It was covered with canvas and the killer expected it would not be found until show time.” He turned to a pale Philip Rover. “Who had a key to this cage?”

“Only the animal’s trainer. And I keep a spare one in my tent.”

“Does your brother have one?”

“I don’t think so.”

Charles Rover joined us then, summoned by the ringmaster. “What happened here?” he asked.

“Someone killed Vittoria and put her body in the tiger’s cage,” his brother told him.

“My God! Should we cancel the afternoon performance?”

Philip Rover scoffed at the idea. “We have five hundred people out there already, with more arriving every minute. The show will go on, but get this tiger cage out of here. The police will want to examine it.”

I could see something was troubling Holmes, beyond the traumatic fact of the crime itself. “Did you gentlemen carry any insurance on the life of Vittoria Costello?” he inquired.

Philip brushed aside the question. “We have enough other expenses. I know of no circus that insures its performers. Why would you ask that?”

“In a death where there has been facial injury, one has to be certain of identification. Fraud of some sort is always a possibility.”

“Go and look at the body,” Philip told his younger brother. “Assure Mr Holmes of its identity.”

Charles returned after a moment, the blood drained from his face. “It’s Vittoria,” he assured us. “There’s no doubt. The ringmaster identified her too.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded. “Then we must go about finding her killer.”

“The circus isn’t hiring you,” Philip stated quite clearly. “This is a job for the local police.”

“Ah! But they did not do well in Oxford, did they? The death of the Spaniard is still unsolved.”

“I told you about that,” Philip insisted. “It was an accident. We have no money for you, Mr Holmes.”

“I was hired by Vittoria Costello to protect her,” he informed them. “Now I must find her killer.”

“Hired?” the younger brother repeated. “How is this possible?”

“She came to my lodgings in Baker Street yesterday, and told me of the incident with the horse and the poisoning of Diaz in Oxford. She feared the killer would succeed on his third attempt.” He repeated some of what she had told us.

“But this is untrue!” Philip insisted. “She fell off that horse, as she had done before. And I have already told you the Spaniard’s poisoning was a simple accident on his part. The poison was meant for a sick python.”

“Why would she lie?” Holmes asked. “It would seem her death is all the evidence we need that she told the truth.”

But the Rovers were already hurrying away to meet the police.

A short time later, while the body was being removed through the big top’s rear entrance, the spectators were finally allowed inside. There was a buzz of speculation among them. They had seen the police wagon draw up, and they knew something was amiss. Holmes and I took seats near the front of the grandstand, waiting for some sort of announcement. When it came it was vague and brief. The ringmaster held up his megaphone, a voice amplifier from America, and announced, “Welcome to the Rover Brothers Circus! Due to an unfortunate accident, Vittoria the Circus Belle will not appear at this performance. Settle back and enjoy the show!” There were some groans from the spectators.

First came the clowns, followed by the team of acrobats with some tumbling and trapeze acts. The middle portion of the show was devoted to the traditional equestrian performers. If Edith Everage had been responsible for Vittoria’s death she showed no evidence of nervousness as she went through her acrobatics with split-second timing. Finally the tiger cage was wheeled back out to the center of the ring and an animal trainer brought out the magnificent tiger for all to see. There was no hint that the beast had been clawing at a woman’s body only an hour or so earlier.

The performance ended with a fine equestrian display, the riders carrying flags representing Britain and its colonies. As the crowd headed for the exits I asked Holmes what we should do next. “There seems to be nothing more we can learn here,” I said.

“You are correct that we have learned everything we need to, Watson. I direct your attention especially to the curious incident of the tiger in the morning.”

“What curious incident? The tiger did nothing in the morning.”

“That was the curious incident,” said Holmes.

There was no way that the death of Vittoria could be hushed up or passed off as an accident. She had been killed and placed in that tiger cage. Both suicide and accident were out of the question. By the following morning the press had linked her murder with that of Diaz and the word was out that the famous consulting detective Mr Sherlock Holmes was on the case. The Rover Brothers Circus had been detained in Reading pending further investigation.

Holmes and I had taken a room for the night at the railroad hotel by the station. We had barely finished breakfast the following morning when Charles, the younger of the Rover Brothers, arrived to see us.

“I must speak with you about this terrible business,” he said, pulling up a chair to join our table. “Philip and I want to hire you. He’s had a complete change of heart on the matter.”

Holmes smiled. “I already have a client. Vittoria Costello.”

“I’ve found the dead aren’t too prompt in paying their bills, Mr Holmes. We want this business wound up as quickly as possible.”

“Very well,” he replied. “Will this afternoon be soon enough?”

Charles Rover was taken aback. “Do you mean that you have solved the mystery already?”

“I believe so. Are you performing this afternoon?” “Since the police are delaying our departure we have added a performance at two o’clock.”

“Very good. Please hold tickets for Watson and myself.”

When he had gone I turned to my friend in amazement. “You intend to reveal the killer this very day?”

“I need only one further piece of evidence and the case will be complete.” He finished his tea and rose from the table. “Come, Watson! The game is afoot.”

We arrived at King’s Meadow shortly after one. The publicity had attracted a crowd but they were mainly adults. The expected audience of children had been kept away by fear of further violence. We could see why the Rover Brothers needed help. Once inside the gate Holmes surprised me by not heading toward the main tent. Instead he detoured to the smaller tents where the Rover Brothers stayed. Philip Rover was just emerging from his tent with a blonde young woman who seemed vaguely familiar. She wore a long green dress and gloves, more suited to a night at the theatre than an afternoon at the circus.