The Music of the Night

From London to Paris

The telephotogram arrived by evening post at 221B Baker Street, delivered to my hands by an irritated Mrs. Hudson who had already arranged the snakes in her hair for the next morning, and who was none too pleased to be roused from her sleep. When I first moved into the flat with Sherlock Holmes, she was clear that it was exceedingly dangerous to interrupt a Gorgon's restful slumber. One of the snakes reared its tiny green head and hissed its bright red tongue out at me as she dropped the letter in my lap, and stomped her way back to her rooms.

I found Sherlock with his latest obsession, alchemical mutation, which was evidenced by the myriad numbers and shapes of glass vials, filled with colorful fluids and minerals; I came to the sitting room-cum-laboratory, to find Sherlock engaged in some kind of scientific pursuit. There must have been half a dozen small piles of powders and ground up mounds of unidentifiable materials laid out next to a gasogene.

He was currently bent over a microscope, a gold and copper contraption that held several layers of different lenses which he would periodically switch out, muttering to himself, making notes in leather bound journal he kept at his right hand. He held his hand out for the post without a word, and I placed it in his hand. As absorbed as he was, it was always startling when I was reminded he was indeed aware of things going on in the house.

He sat back from his work, unfolded the paper, and the image contained therein played again from the beginning. His old friend, Gaston Leroux of Paris, stared out at us, wearing his spectacles and ascot askew and his hair disheveled, a look of urgency on his face.

I listened to Gaston's plea for help:

"My dearest Sherlock,

I send this telephotogram to you to ask you for most urgent assistance in a matter that is confounding the Paris police. Someone or something has been terrifying the company of actors of the Paris Opera. It started out with letters sent to the actors, to management, and some even to the newspapers. Vile, threatening things they were. A dozen or so small accidents have been happening, and our lead actress, a melusine, has been repeatedly harassed and has nearly missed falling into trap doors under that stage that, I swear, was never there. Please help us find who has been sabotaging and threatening us like this. We need you, Sherlock. Please help us."

With hardly a word spoken, but with a familiar glint in his eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated that I help myself to a drink from the spirit case, which I did with much enthusiasm. The beginnings of cases always lit a spark of discovery and the need to solve problems inside me.

"The telephotogram. What do you deduce from it?" I asked of him, examining Gaston's image on the paper.

"Are there night dirigibles to Paris?" was his only response, suggesting he wanted to leave straightaway. "You'd better pack, Watson".

There were no night flights to Paris, the next dirigible was at 6 am the next day, a perfect time to see the sun rise in the direction we were headed: east, to France. When it was time to board, we found ourselves moving down the aisles of the red leather seats with the brass buttons, where we were seated comfortably and with a view of the sky. It was not our first flight, but our first flight together. We were served tea and breakfast by smiling flight attendants who took great care with our comfort and safety aboard the ship.

"Peculiar—that is the very word," said Holmes.

"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that it means? A haunting, perhaps?"