Read Online The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer - Free Book Online

them,” I noted in addition.
    “You will find that in Plato, as well.”
    We walked for a time in silence.
    “The chief difficulty with this case,” he observed at length, as we entered the Strand, “besides the fact that our client cannot afford to pay for his meals, let alone our expenses–the chief difficulty, I say, is the superfluity of motives. Jonathan McCarthy was not a well-liked individual, that much seems clear, which only serves to complicate matters. If half the tales Wilde told us just now are true, there may be upwards of a dozen people whose interests would be well served by eliminating him. And they all dwell within that circumscribed world of the theatre, where passions–real and feigned –abound.”
    “What is more,” I pointed out, “their professional gifts are likely to render their complicity in a crime rather more difficult than usual to detect.”
    Holmes said nothing, and we walked in silence a few paces more.
    “Has it occurred to you,” I went on, “that McCarthy’s use of Shakespeare was meant to be taken generally?”
    “I don’t follow you.”
    “Well, your friend Shaw–our client–cannot abide Shakespeare. The Morning Courant, for which McCarthy wrote, is well known as a rival to the Saturday Review. There can be little doubt that with McCarthy out of the way, Bernard Shaw’s star and literary following would rise more or less together. Could McCarthy’s reference to Romeo and Juliet possibly mean not the Montagues and Capulets but rather the two periodicals? Doesn’t Mercutio, dying, refer to ‘a plague on both your houses’? I continued, warming to my theme.
    “At the same time, the use of Shakespeare, whom Shaw detests, might serve to point an unerring finger in his direction as the assassin.
    “Watson, what a devious mind you possess!” Holmes stopped, his eyes twinkling. “That is positively brilliant. Brilliant! Of course, you have neglected all the evidence, but I cannot fault your imagination.” He resumed his steps. “No, I’m afraid it won’t do. Can you honestly envision our Shaw drinking brandy? Or smoking a cigar? Or running his rival through–apparently on impulse–with a letter opener?”
    “He’s almost the right height,” I contended feebly, not wishing to abandon my theory without a struggle. “Besides, his objections to drink and smoke might merely have been lodged for our benefit.”
    “They might,” he agreed, “though I have known of his prejudices in those directions for some time. in any event, why would he come to me at all if he wished to remain undetected?
    “Perhaps his vanity was flattered by the prospect of deceiving you.”
    He considered this briefly in silence.
    “No, Watson, no. It is clever but rather too cumbersome, and what is more, his footwear does not match the impressions left by the assassin. Shaw’s shoes are quite old–it pains me to think of his walking about with them in this weather– whereas our man wore new boots, purchased, as I think I said, in the Strand. Oscar Wilde, at least, was wearing the right shoes.”
    “What of Wilde, then? Did you notice that when he spoke, he continually covered his mouth with his finger? Do you accept at face value his story of having checkmated McCarthy’s blackmail scheme with knowledge of the man’s illicit liaison?”
    “I neither accept it nor reject it at the moment,” he returned, undaunted. “That is why we are at the Savoy. As for Wilde’s peculiar habit of covering his mouth, you surely observed that his teeth are ugly. It is merely improbable vanity on his part to conceal them in conversation.”
    “Did you see his teeth?”
    “Didn’t I just say he makes a considerable effort to hide them?”
    “Then how do you know they are ugly?”
    “Elementary, my dear fellow. He does not open his mouth when he smiles. Hmm, the house is dark, tonight. Let us go ‘round by the stage door and see if there are folk within,”
    We walked into the alley that led