The Merchant of Menace by Richard T Ryan

Author:Richard T Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: crime, mystery, British Museum, Louvre, Winston Churchill, jambiya, Fabergé eggs, thief, theft, Tara Brooch, The Book of Urizen, Paris, Baptistère de St Louis, The Pyxis of al-Mughira, St Petersburg, Blenheim Palace
ISBN: 9781787054400
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2019-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Over the next several weeks, Holmes was constantly busy at a variety of different tasks, and his moods seemed quite wild and unpredictable. Some nights I would return home to find him chipper and talkative while other nights he would allow himself to slip into the depths of despair. On those occasions when his mood was lighter, we would converse about an array of subjects from art to opera to theater, while on those darker nights, he would seek the solace of his pipe and shag.

One night, Holmes and I were invited to attend a run-through performance of The Emerald Isle, which is subtitled The Caves of Carrig-Cleena. It had opened the previous year and run more than 200 performances at the Savoy. Now it was headed for a revival in New York, at the famed Herald Square Theatre.

I have always loved the Savoy, and the fact that it was the first theatre to use electric lighting had made quite an impression on me—far more than the play, which was a bit of stuff and nonsense about an English professor of elocution attempting to re-educate the Irish. As we left the theatre and were riding in a cab back to Baker Street, we were forced to detour because of a fire and so we found ourselves passing the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly.

Noting the marquee, I asked Holmes, “Have you ever seen Maskelyne and Cooke perform?”

“Are you talking about the magicians?” he asked.

“Yes, I am told they put on quite a show, In fact, they say Maskelyne can even make people float in the air!”

“So I have heard,” replied Holmes. “I believe the term he employs is ‘levitation.’”

“That is it, exactly,” I said. “I believe that at some performances he even makes the woman he is levitating disappear.”

“That is why they are sometimes call ‘illusionists,’ Watson. What you think you are seeing and what you are actually seeing may, in fact, be two quite different things.

“However, I will give Maskelyne his due. I have heard that he has made thousands of pennies disappear all over London.”

“You don’t say,” I exclaimed.

“I do, indeed,” replied Holmes. “After all, when he wasn’t making people float about and vanish, he found time to invent the pay toilet. Now that is a trick indeed, to get people to pay for taking care of their bodily functions.”

I laughed in spite of myself, and the conversation quickly turned to other topics. I could see that Holmes was enjoying his respite from dealing with the Merchant and having to labor over his plans to thwart the thief’s next attempt. In fact, the evening was so pleasant that when we arrived at Baker Street, we both enjoyed a second nightcap before turning in.

The next morning, I awoke around nine and was not surprised to learn that Holmes had eaten and left our rooms sometime earlier. With nothing to do, I set about transcribing the notes from one of our recent cases. I had nearly completed my task, when Holmes returned, and said, “I do hope Mrs.

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