The West End Horror Read Free Page B

height.”
    “Gait?”
    I pondered this, wondering how to describe the newcomer’s hopping, skipping pace.
    “The man walks like a gigantic leprechaun.”
    “What? Why, this sounds like Shaw.” Holmes came up behind me, quite animated now, as we gazed together at the advancing figure. “Hello, it is Shaw. I’m blest if it isn’t!” he exclaimed, smiling, his pipe clenched between his teeth. ‘Whatever brings him out on a morning like this? And what has made him change his mind and decide to pay me a visit?
    “Who is he?”
    “A friend.”
    “Indeed?” No one as familiar as I with the personal life and habits of Sherlock Holmes could have received this statement with anything less than wonder. Aside from myself, his brother, and various professional acquaintances, I was not aware that Holmes cultivated any friends. The peculiar fellow advancing below us was now examining house numbers with some care before hopping on and stopping before our door. The bell rang with a truculent jingle several times.
    “I met him at a concert of Sarasates*[Saratee was a well-known violin virtuoso of the day. For a full (though not entirely accurate) account of the meeting, see Baring-Gould's biography of Holmes.] some years ago,” Holmes explained, turning to make some hasty order of our shambles. He kicked a few books out of the way, forging a path of sorts from the door to a chair by the hearth. I seldom accompanied him any more to concerts and the opera, preferring more convivial amusements of the sort he found trivial.
    “We got into a rather heated disagreement about Sarasate’s abilities, as I recall, but finally buried the hatchet. He is a very brilliant Irishman.” Holmes removed his pistol from the chair he proposed to offer our guest and put it on the mantel. “A brilliant Irishman who has not yet found his métier. But he will. He will. You will find him amusing, if naught else. He has got hold of some of the oddest notions.”
    “How do you know he is brilliant?”
    We could hear a muffled conversation taking place at the foot of the stairs, doubtless between our visitor and Mrs. Hudson.
    “How do I know? Why, he told me so himself. He has no qualms about hiding his light under a bushel. Furthermore,” he looked up at me, the coal scuttle in his hands, “he understands Wagner. He understands him perfectly. This alone qualifies him for some magnificent destiny. At the moment, miserable man, he’s as poor as a church mouse.”
    We could now hear feet rapidly ascending our stair.
    ‘What does he do?”
    There was a knock on our door of the same energetic variety which had manifested itself towards our bell some moments earlier.
    “Oh, you want to be careful of him, Watson. You want to watch him and give him a wide berth.*[Shaw wrote music criticism under the name Cornetti di Basso.] He added some coal to the fire and passed me with a conspiratorial finger on his lips as he went to the door. “He is a critic.”
    With this, he flung wide the door and admitted his friend. “Shaw, my dear fellow, welcome! Welcome! You have heard me speak of Dr. Watson, who shares these lodgings with me? Ah, good. Watson, allow me to present ‘Cornetti di Basso,’ known to his intimates as Mr. Bernard Shaw.”

TWO

    AN INVITATION TO INVESTIGATE

    Mr. Bernard Shaw’s resemblance to an outsized leprechaun increased on closer inspection. His eyes were the bluest I had ever beheld, the colour of the Côte d’Azur. They twinkled with merriment when he spoke lightly and flashed when he became animated, which was not infrequently, for he was an emotional individual and a lively talker. His complexion was almost as ruddy as his hair, and he boasted a disputatious nose, broad and blunt at the tip, where the nostrils twitched and flared. His speech added to the leprechaunish impression he conveyed, for it was tinged with the faintest and most pleasant of Irish brogues.
    “By God, I believe your rooms are more untidy than my own,”