The West End Horror Read Online Free PDF Page A

space in the middle of the semicircle. It looked no different from its neighbours to the left and right, save for the crowd gathered before it and the uniformed constables who barred the curious from access to the open front door.
    “I have a premonition we are about to meet an old friend,” Holmes murmured as we descended from the cab. There was no great difficulty in our being admitted to number 24, as Holmes was well known to the members of the force. They assumed he had been summoned to view the situation in his capacity as consulting detective, and he did nothing to discourage this belief as they passed us in.
    The murdered man’s flat occupied a first-floor suite of rooms facing the gardens and was easily reached at the top of the stairs. We hadn’t opened the door (which stood slightly ajar) before a familiar voice assailed our ears:
    “Well, if it’s not my old friends Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson! What brings you gentlemen to South Crescent, as if I didn t know. Come in, come in.”
    “Good morning to you, Inspector Lestrade. May we survey the damage?”
    “How did you come to know there was any?” The lean, ferret-like little man shifted his gaze from one to the other of us. “It wasn’t Gregson* [ Inspector Tobias Gregson, also of Scotland Yard. A perennial rivalry existed for many years between Gregson and Lestrade. On the whole, Holmes had a higher opinion of the former. ] sent you ‘round, was it? I’ll have to have a word with that cheeky–”
    “I give you my word it was not,” Holmes assured him smoothly. “I have my own sources, and they appear sufficient. May we have a look?”
    “I don’t mind if you do,” was the lofty reply, “but you’d best be quick. Browniow and his boys’ll be here any minute now for the body.”
    “We shall try to stay out of your way,” the detective rejoined and began a cursory examination of the flat from where he stood.
    “The fact is, I was thinking of coming by your lodgings a bit later in the day,” the Scotland Yarder confessed, watching him narrowly. “For a cup of tea,” he added firmly, apparently for the benefit of a young, sandy-haired sergeant, who was the room’s only other living occupant.
    “Can’t make head or tail of it, eh?” Holmes stepped into the room, shaking his head over the mess Lestrade and his men had made of the carpet. ‘Will they never learn?” I heard him mutter as he looked around.
    The place combined the features of a library and sitting room. Lavishly equipped with books, it boasted a small tea table, which at the moment supported two glasses containing what looked like brandy. One glass had been knocked on its side but not broken, and the amber liquid remained within it. Next to the same glass, a long, oddly-shaped cigar sat unmolested in a brass ashtray, where it had been allowed to go out of its own volition.
    Behind the table was set a day bed and beyond that, facing the window, the writing table of the dead man. It was covered with papers, all related–so far as I was able to discern from a casual glance–to his calling. There were programmes, theatre tickets, notices of substitutions in casts, as well as cuttings from his own reviews, neatly arranged for easy reference. Beside these papers was an engraved invitation to the premiere of something called The Grand Duke, at the Savoy two days hence.
    Those walls devoid of bookshelves were literally papered with portraits of various members of the theatrical profession. Some were photographs, others were executed in pen and ink, but all bore the signatures of the notables who had sat for them. One was assailed by the testimonials of affection from all quarters and awed by the likenesses of Forbes-Robertson, Marion and Ellen Terry, Beerbohm-Tree, and Henry Irving, who stared or scowled dramatically down at the visitor.
    All these, however–the books, the desk, the pictures, and the table–were but as set decorations for the pièce de thélitre. The corpse of