He walked out of the hotel and into the street. It was beginning to rain, and he felt the cold prickle of raindrops on his face, but he didn’t seem to care. Everything around him was grey and uninteresting. Meaningless.
He turned left and started to walk, not really caring where he was going. He clamped down hard on his thoughts, not letting any consideration of his brother, or Rufus Stone, or the trip to America that now turned out to be largely fiction, to get started. He just walked; walked and observed. Like some kind of mobile calculating machine, he took in the facts around him and let his mind join them together. The man wearing the red-spotted neckerchief over in that doorway – he had caught an illness, probably in India, and would be dead within a week, judging by the state of his skin. The watch that the gentleman in the top hat was consulting was not his own: he had most likely stolen it from someone, and the theft had only occurred in the past few days. The beggar on the corner in the trolley with the wheels, the one who was wearing a sign round his neck claiming that his legs were paralysed, actually walked several miles a day, judging by the recent wear to his shoes. All of this Sherlock deduced from the things he observed, and none of it mattered to him. None of it mattered at all.
He lost track of time as he walked, but when he checked his watch and found that it was nearly four o’clock, he realized that he was already near Whitechapel. His mind had steered him in the right direction without him realizing.
The theatre was tucked away in a side street off a main thoroughfare. Its frontage was red brick and white portico columns; four steps led up to the main doors. Sherlock trudged up them and through into the lobby. There was nobody present – the shutters were closed over the ticket booth – but Sherlock could almost sense the essence of the crowds that presumably crossed the foyer on a regular basis: a trace of cigarette smoke, eau de toilette and perfume that had been absorbed by the ornate plaster of the walls and ceiling.
Stairs led up on either side of the lobby presumably to the circle seats, but on the far side was a pair of doors which he presumed led directly to the stalls. A door to one side of the ticket booth probably led to the backstage areas: the dressing rooms, the green room and the stage itself.
Sherlock stood for a moment, breathing in the aromas of the theatre, listening to the sighs and groans as the building flexed, letting his gaze skip across the old posters which were framed behind glass on the walls. There was something almost alive about this place. He’d been in a lot of buildings which were public spaces, but this was the only one he’d ever known which felt as if it had absorbed something good from the people who had passed through its doors. Deepdene School for Boys had reeked of desperation, and the Diogenes Club felt prickly and irritable, but the King’s Theatre felt like a home he’d never been in before.
He walked to the main doors into the auditorium and pushed them open.
The space inside was smaller than he had expected. Rows of seats curved away to either side of him and sloped away in front, all of them covered in tired green velvet. The underside of the circle seating loomed like a low, dark cloud above him. It was supported by iron columns that had been wrought into artistic shapes and painted brown and red and green, like slender trees with leaves and flowers on them. Curtain-backed boxes were attached to the walls on either side, containing small numbers of secluded seats for anyone who had the money to pay for them. That was the way the tickets were arranged, Sherlock knew: the stalls were the cheapest, the circle seats the next most expensive and the boxes most expensive of all, although ‘expense’ was probably a relative term as far as this isolated little theatre went. Aisles cut through the stalls seating, leading down towards the stage.
On the stage was a group of people, including his brother. Mycroft was resplendent in overcoat, top hat and cane. For a moment, gazing at him, Sherlock could see him as a person, not as his brother. He had a natural authority to him; he radiated importance and power.
Rufus Stone was standing just behind and to one side of Mycroft. The red-haired, bear-like man Sherlock had seen earlier – Mr Kyte – was standing next to Mycroft, still wearing his massive coat, and on his other side was a group of people that Sherlock presumed to be actors and backstage staff. The actors were, in the main, wearing costumes of a bygone age: ornate velvet dresses for the women, lace shirts and puffed breeches for the men.
‘Ah, Scott,’ Mycroft said. His voice boomed through the auditorium. ‘Come and join us.’
Sherlock made his way down one of the aisles. The way to the stage was blocked by a fenced-off area that Sherlock supposed would contain a small orchestra for musical productions. He glanced left and right. Five steps led up from the floor of the stalls to the stage on either side. Arbitrarily, he chose to go to the right.
When he got up on the stage, he was surprised to see that it sloped slightly. It was about a foot lower at the front than it was at the back. He supposed that tilting the stage in that way gave the audience a better view of what was going on, especially the people in the cheap seats, some of whom would actually be looking up at the actors. The edge of the stage was lined with gas lamps behind reflectors and there was a trapdoor in the centre.
He crossed the stage to where Mycroft was standing, watched by everyone else.
‘I have already introduced Rufus Stone, who will be playing violin in the pit,’ Mycroft said grandly. Allow me, then, to introduce my protege, Master Scott Eckersley. With the kind permission of Mister Kyte, Scott will be joining the company as general factotum.’ He turned to Sherlock. ‘Scott, allow me to introduce you to the cast and crew’ He indicated a tall man with long blond hair brushed back from a wide brow. He was in costume. ‘This is Mr Thomas Malvin. He is the company’s leading man.’
Malvin nodded at Sherlock, barely even looking at him.
‘And this,’ Mycroft continued, nodding towards a beautiful pale woman with green eyes and raven-black hair who smiled at Sherlock, ‘is Miss Aiofe Dimmock She plays the romantic female leads opposite Mr Malvin.’
Sherlock smiled back. Aiofe must have been at least ten years older than him, but there was something about her smile and her green eyes that made his heart skip a beat.
Tearing his eyes away from Aiofe Dimmock, Sherlock followed Mycroft’s waving hand. ‘Mr William Furness and Mrs Diane Loran provide invaluable supporting roles to the two main actors,’ he said.
William Furness was a portly man with a fringe of dyed black hair running around the back of his scalp, from ear to ear. His nose was swollen and knobbly, and his cheeks had the red-veined appearance of the heavy drinker. Presumably the veins would be covered by make-up when he was actually giving a performance, but there wasn’t much that could disguise that cauliflowerlike nose apart from distance. He raised two fingers to his forehead in mock-salute. Mrs Loran was a matronly woman with her hair tied up into a bun. She looked as if she would be more at home in a kitchen than on stage. She smiled warmly at Sherlock. If he had been closer he suspected she might have given him a hug.
‘Along with Mr Kyte,’ Mycroft said, ‘who often appears on stage with Mr Malvin and Miss Dimmock as well as running the company, these four are the main performers. The others you see here serve to fill in crowd scenes and come on in minor parts when they are not shifting scenery backstage. From left to right we have Rhydian, Judah, Pauly and Henry.’
Sherlock nodded to the four boys of about his own age who were standing behind the main actors. Rhydian was thin and dark, with a pointed chin and heavy eyebrows. Judah was also thin, but his hair was so pale and fine that it was almost white, seeming to float around his head, and his eyes had a pinkish look to them. Pauly and Henry were twins: both muscular, both brown – eyed. The only difference between them was that Pauly (Sherlock assumed it was Pauly, as he was the one nearest to Mycroft) had lost the little finger of his left hand in an accident at some stage.