Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street by David Marcum (books to read to be successful TXT) 📗

“What do you say to a night at the theatre? A British pantomime’s going on this evening at Booth’s. Robinson Crusoe. It’s just the thing for wandering Brits. The theatre’s at 23rd and 6th Avenue. It’s a couple of miles from here, but if you hurry, you should arrive just before the curtain goes up, even with all the rain.”

“Booth’s?” I queried. It was the only word I had retained.

“Edwin Booth,” Mitchell said with a nod, “the actor who built the theatre, not his traitor of a brother you’re probably thinking of – John Wilkes Booth, who murdered Lincoln. Edwin’s one of our greatest players.”

The sensational has always interested me, and I confess to having cultivated a ghoulish curiosity in the Booth family since I had first learned of the President’s assassination some fourteen years previous. Jones too expressed interest in seeing the place, yet our interests were dampened when Mitchell informed us that the theatre no longer belonged to brother Edwin.

“Five years ago,” Mitchell explained, “he lost the place to bankruptcy. He just hadn’t been able to make it work. The new owners wanted larger audiences. Oh, they continued to put on classical shows the way Booth did – you know, Shakespeare and the like – but to attract new people, they staged more crowd-friendly shows like these British pantomimes.”

I was impressed with Mitchell. For an American, he displayed a keen sense of British Theatre. I knew that most of his countrymen believed that the word “pantomime” suggested silent affairs. The British “panto”, of course, was anything but. In our native land, such shows were often inspired by popular children’s stories – Robin Hood or Aladdin, for example – but the pantos usually maintained their own good-natured variety of peculiar plots, along with singing, dancing, joking, and – dare I say – participation from the audience. In short, any similarity to their sources would be purely coincidental. However genteel the original story, the British panto would take it down a few pegs. You would think that democratic Americans would like the deflating nature of such stage-productions, and yet the British pantomime is a rara avis (rare bird) in the States – the very reason, according to Mitchell, that crowds fill the theatres to witness the uncommon phenomenon.

Another motivation also beckoned. I should confess that thanks in part to the current interest in the theme, I myself had been contemplating a book about the sea. What’s more, the charm of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe’s fictional account of the castaway sailor called Alexander Selkirk, has made that work a favourite model of mine. As a consequence, no matter the cost of a ticket, attending the panto became my major objective for the evening.

All this I explained to Jones. With the promise that we would have dinner after the performance, I had every expectation that he would join me. After all, did each of us not consider himself the other’s right-hand man? Such was the camaraderie we had cultivated aboard the Devonia. He moaned a bit about the cost of tickets, but when I suggested we could save money by walking to Booth’s Theatre, he acquiesced. We stored our belongings in the room we had agreed to share – I, my knapsack, small valise, and railway-rug, Jones, his travelling bag – pulled on our mackintoshes, patted down on our flat caps, and gritted our teeth. Only then, armed with Mitchell’s directions, did Jones and I emerge from Reunion House prepared to confront the elements.

How relentless the rain! It pelted us as we plodded along the flooded roadways. Massive buildings towered above, the odd awning or overhanging roof offering the most minimum of shelters. In the gloom, gas lamps flickered above empty sidewalks, the reflections of light dancing in the deserted watery streets. No pushcarts, no vendors, no police interrupted the scene. The occasional hansom or carriage might roll past, but you did not have to be a native New Yorker to know that this evening was a time to remain indoors.

Lest it sound otherwise, let me reassure you that we did reach our destination in time for the curtain’s rise. Booth’s Theatre itself was modern in its accoutrements and beautifully done up. Whilst the lobby smelled of drenched hats and sodden coats, the shiny marble floor remained continuously mopped. An imposing statue of Junius Brutus Booth, the actor’s father and distinguished Shakespearian performer, lorded over the scene. You can imagine the lobby much more crowded on days less fouled by the weather. As it was, we had no difficulty finding the ticket window and purchasing inexpensive seats. Dashing to their location at the rear of the hall, we just managed to remove our coats and settle into our chairs before the music began. During the sprightly overture, I attempted to get comfortable. My hands had begun to itch and I scratched at them. A cough racked my chest, and I covered my mouth with my arms. Finally, a chill coursed through my body, which had already lost some fourteen pounds during the voyage. My only solution was to place my old skullcap atop my head.

It was at that moment that the curtain rose, and I caught my first glimpse of William Escott. During the performance itself, you should not believe that I focused all my attention on the man. Yet in all fairness, as he thumped about on that peg leg, he was quite hard to miss. It was in light of how the evening progressed, however, that I have chosen to concentrate my attention upon him now. Jones and I came to learn the man’s history only later that night, but I believe that at the risk of upsetting the evening’s chronology, I should provide the background of the actor before describing his performance. Such a detour should serve to help you understand the troubling events that