A/N: Should be one more after this one.
No secret passages in this old place I'm renting, just spiders. I checked.
Keep safe. Keep strong. -csf
Four.
Sherlock presses his shoulder against the wooden door, jammed in its frame by a compressed brick wall. Subjected to a ton of weight above, it slowly subsides. It's the first sign I see that this time capsule – street block edition – will not last forever. We are explorers of a forgotten, suspended past in the deeper layers of London; far beyond the constrictions of a contemporary capital and a dangerous virus that still sweeps the nation, the word, ramping up destruction and suspending our normal lives. Here, deep underground, we find ourselves in the ultimate bubble. A wild, near hysterical, feeling of relief hits me as I let the quietness of lost London wash over me.
I won't need to worry about washing hands, disinfecting surfaces, carrying the virus back to Sherlock, to vulnerable patients, and general strangers. There's homely feeling to this forgotten place already, just because in here too there's a measure of safety.
Do I wish I could live here, free from worry? No, of course not. I'd miss the surface too much.
Still, it's a nice extension to 221 Baker Street.
The stubborn door in a wall between ordinary looking constructions gives in at Sherlock's bullying ministrations. It opens to a small squared area filled with a brown dry vegetation mat and a fallen tree trunk running crosswise over the ground.
'It was a private garden', I realise. Nothing more than dead vegetation now. With limited dampness and no light, most plant matter is dried up, fossilised, crunchy beneath our footsteps. I crouch to touch the dried bindweed at my feet, the last to dehydrate.
'John.'
I turn my head. He's found himself another door. He's quite fond of locked doors, old Sherlock is. It rattles him to find a closed door he cannot open and explore beyond.
He's got the same attraction going for drawers, backpacks and laptops, I can safely relay as his flatmate.
'Sherlock, there's nothing here to find. It's all gone now. Nothing but dead brambles. We're 129 years too late.'
'Nonsense, John! There's a lot to find out. And I don't mean the other silk shoe from the one we saw on the street, just there, housing a frankly beautiful collection of coloured mushrooms.'
I follow his gaze and find the oddly pleasing ensemble. How did I miss that? I only saw death and decay, Sherlock is showing me slight treasures in a sea of loss. He refuses to focus on the destruction, forever attracted to light. Being my light.
'Watch this, John', he requests of me, abandoning the second door to stand by my side. He swings the first door shut, allowing nearly no street light to flood the encases space. I raise an eyebrow at him. What is he up to? Sherlock taps his phone and the torch light changes drastically. A blue-purple light floods the area, bouncing off the walls and decaying garden matter. It brings up a myriad of bright spots in bright bleach white, twinkling all about us, clustering in some patterns too, such as a wavy lines fan atop the dead tree, glowing pleasantly.
'It's deadly poisonous, John, I wouldn't touch that saprophyte mushroom.'
I don't, but I still feel impressed.
'Ultraviolet light? Your phone gives off UV light?'
Sherlock shrugs. I must check my phone to see if it does that too. I'm fairly certain it doesn't. Not yet. I hope there's an app for that.
'There is life down here, John. Plenty of life. Just not as we know it.'
I nod, still bewildered, as he swaps lights with ease. This underground street a brave new world unexplored. Once again the detective approaches the locked door on the other wall. 'Coming?'
'Absolutely.'
'Good.'
I blink.
'Where are we going now?'
'To the theatre, John. To watch the great Chandler's act. Did you not read the poster?'
I smirk.
'Don't we know a couple of Chandlers?'
He shrugs. 'Common name. Keeps turning up. Nothing to worry about.'
I chuckle.
'Unless you're named Chandler.'
'Precisely. You get every barista in a right state, when you're yet another one.'
'Not a common problem for you, Sherlock.'
'No, but I am capable of feeling for you, John.'
.
Out of an impulsive decision I brush my fingers against the electric switch on the silk wallpaper. It resists my intentions, rusty, until I feel it clink onto the other side. With it comes a wave of unsteady electric light, flooding the audience through a beautifully intricate crystal chandelier placed over the rows of worn out velvet, and slightly worrying buzzing of current through copper wires. I shrug at that last one. Seems safe enough.
Sherlock experiments a nearby seat. He looks like an overgrown child in the smallish seats, wooden backs, dusty velvet he sits on. The chairs are noticeably smaller than today's, tightly packed together in rows. Nowhere to hold your popcorn. What a difference a hundred years can do for a theatre audience.
The detective is deeply interested in a forgotten pamphlet and hums the printed tunes on the back as he studies the acts that will never animate the stage again.
I leave my friend to it, and walk forward, magnetically attracted to that stage (must be the story teller in me), just beyond the fantastic drapes of scarlet velvet and gold trim. The stage is raised higher by about five feet, and planked in a vastness of grey, dry wood. I have no trouble finding the lateral steps that take me to the platform. I finally see the gaudy Italian romantic gardens and misty mountains painted backdrop more clearly, but also the support areas left and right of the stage, disguised by black cloth panels, where a hall piano is seemingly forgotten on one side and a giant wooden effigy of an elephant on the other side. On the stage area itself there are trap doors among the planks, I know not how to guess where they may lead, and at the front there are dark lanterns of considerable size. I go near one, wandering what sort of last play warranted the use of those. They remind me of old fog lights in historic lighthouses.
'Limelight, John', the detective drawls from the audience, seemingly absorbed by his pamphlet still. 'Literally achieved with burning hot limestone, a fairly common method of powerfully projecting illumination onto the actors on stage.'
I grin. 'Go on, I'm on stage. What sort of play would the audience have watched? A magician?'
He hums. The sound is surprisingly clear in the small theatre. 'There was a musical act with someone on the piano and a few girls in sequins and satin, dressed up as the horticultural variety of fruits and vegetables. Apparently a vegan music ensemble was very popular at the time.'
'Really?' I blink, astonished.
'Turn on the BBC any given evening before you mock the joyous exploits of our ancestors, John', he reminds me.
'Ugh...'
'Next came The Great Chandler. Magician and illusionist, also a famed acrobat', my friend reports, getting up and walking up to the stage. 'Chandler came in through the mist – dry ice, John – riding on the back of a mechanic automaton in the shape of a fierce elephant.' A showman himself, Sherlock takes easy control of the stage around me, pacing about, stretching an arm now to the giant wooden construction backstage. 'Chandler jumps to the stage floor as the animal carries on, very disciplined, away from the stage. There are two acrobats coming on from above, doing the tight rope trick, they are his assistants. Someone has wheeled over a metal cage.' Sherlock smirks as he sees his modern audience of one engaged. 'Chandler has his assistants chain his wrists and ankles. Shackled he is lead to the metal cage.' I find myself stepping back, as if to give space for the conjured memory. 'There he is locked inside by three sturdy lockets. The keys remain in the audience sight at all times. A velvet sheet is placed over the bars of the cage. At this point you realise the cage does not have a ceiling. It is presently about to be occupied by a very heavy weight on a slab, that five men are holding above the cage by pulling on the rope with all their might. Huffing, sweating, you get the gist.' Fair enough, I see the pivot point tightly secured in the ceiling above the stage. Sherlock narrates further. 'Inside, remember, Chandler is bound tightly and he must free himself from his shackles, open the cage and escape before time is up and the five strong man drop the weight on him. It's quite certain he wouldn't survive. The audience gasps, morbidly delighted. They paid to watch a man try to defeat death and they want to see him struggle. Time feels suspended. The show master counts down the time. The lovely assistants in feathered boas are looking preoccupied. A majority of ladies in the audience gasps in concern for their idol. The gentlemen shift nervously in their seats, greeting over the worse outcome. The strong men grasping the rope glance at each other nervously. The countdown ends. The weight is dropped, the sound of impact is deafening. Someone screams in the audience. The lights go out. One beat. Two beats. The lights return. Chandler is scoffing us, sat on top of the metal cage, watching us like a flighty sparrow. A young Errol Flyn before his time. Unharmed, freed from all restraints. He jumps to the stage, bows to the audience cheering him loudly. The curtain drops as he's adamant he cannot possibly reveal his secrets, it's magic.'
Sherlock is bowing himself to the empty audience, in his effort to mimic and portray the lost act. I cross my arms in front of me.
'That's very imaginative, mate, but how would you know all that?'
Sherlock straightens. 'Because, John, on the last day he ran this act, The Great Chandler never showed up perched on the cage top. He wasn't found crushed to death within either. He simply vanished, and that was his best trick ever. Chandler would never be seen again. It helped his fame that he had vowed never to leave this theatre again. Some said he haunts it. Oh, the theatre audience and artists knew the fate this street was to suffer. Chandler opposed it wildly. All his machines, his automations, his tricks, buried in the ground. He refused to accept that. Made one last grand show and vanished in the peak of glory... Don't look at me that way, John. The description of the act and the circumstances of the last appearance are explicit in the pamphlet provided to the audience. I know Chandler never showed up again because the theatre was never cleared of the elephant or the piano. No one would have them. No buyer was found at short notice, as if the props could have been cursed by the great illusionist.'
I uncross my arms, rub my fingers over my chin, pondering the detective in front of me.
'So you're taking this case, then?'
'Indeed, John, I am', Sherlock declares, his eyes sparking fiery in the subdued theatre lighting.
.
'Trap doors. They must lead somewhere from under the stage', I say, pointing to the woodworm bit planks with some hint of wax coating still.
'Naturally, John, you presume the assistants and the strong men were in on it. I'm afraid not. The strong men were volunteers from the audience, vetted by the theatre owner. He himself was one of the men holding the rope, dropping the deadly weight.'
'Doesn't mean he wasn't in on it, though.'
'It does, if you consider that Chandler was deep in debt to many creditors, including the theatre owner. Paying for cast iron mechanics and feather boas was expensive, and he wasn't getting much revenue from the upper classes he drew to the theatre regularly as they were shying away. There was a vicious rumour circulating that the great Chandler was an anarchist, supplying the anti-monarchical movement with different tricks. Whether that was real or a defamation was surely beyond the point as he first used the controversy to attract audience, but slowly he was losing them. He lost his beloved promised fiancée. She refused to marry him just days prior to his great disappearance'
'Again, how can you possibly know that?'
Sherlock looks away to the audience, at once. 'Magician's library, a children's collection. You may be surprised to hear that I was once interested in magic as a child, John. Purely a scientific interest, I assure you.'
I grin. Of course he would be that child.
'So this Chandler guy was a well known magician?'
'A passing reference on page seventeen.'
'But you couldn't shake this mystery away.'
'I was a child that delighted in curiosity, John, hardly a freak for that.'
I keep my smile, as I start organising my thoughts.
'Chandler was angry with a society that turned his back on him. Instead of declaring bankruptcy and heading for the poor house, he decided to disappear into the night.'
'Possibly board a ship onto some overseas land, and start over.'
'But he was a showman, so he decided to do that in with smoke and mirrors, so to speak... I don't think he would have left immediately, Sherlock. I think he would have hidden to watch the consternation dawn on every face, take in the mayhem he created, the legend he was establishing.'
'A greatest genius needs an audience', Sherlock declares confidently. First hand knowledge?
'So where could he have hidden?' I look around. 'The police will have investigated that, though.'
'Then we will simply have to be cleverer than the police, John. Let's split up and investigate. Do not get into trouble, John.'
I flip him off, as we part. I'm already approaching the huge elephant backstage, mesmerised by the big beast. Built from wood and metal, trimmed with colourful silks and bells. I'm bewildered by a eight feet tall beast. Must have been quite an entrance.
The animal rights activists would approve of it, at a time when animals were regularly used in acts. This ingenious magician depended on every detail going according to plan. He couldn't accommodate the whims of an animal. So he built himself a better one. A magnificent machine, a feat of steam power engineering.
I try to wheel it to the stage area, where there's more light to be had, but it's too heavy and it won't budge. I'm feeling its round belly for a trap door access inside when I hear the cry out that chills me to the bone.
'John! Help!'
I turn around, alert, fists clenched, muscles tensed. But I can't find my friend anywhere. He is vanished.
.
TBC
