“Quite so, quite so,” said Mr Townsend in a mournful tone. “Do you see any glimmer of hope in the matter, Mr Holmes?” he continued, addressing my friend and shaking his head in a forlorn manner.
“More than a glimmer, Mr Townsend,” returned Holmes, who had selected a newspaper from the pile and was glancing at it as he spoke. “Indeed, I fancy I could set my hand on the men, the house and the cigar case, in under the half-hour.”
“What!” Townsend and I cried together incredulously.
“Take a look at this,” continued Holmes, holding out the newspaper for us to see. “It is last Monday’s Daily Chronicle.”
He folded the paper over, and pointed to an advertisement in the corner of the page, which ran as follows:
CAPTAIN OSTRALICI’S CIRCUS – FINAL WEEK!
THE WORLD-RENOWNED “FLYING
HORSES”, personally supervised and trained
by CAPTAIN OSTRALICI himself!
THE INCOMPARABLE HIPPOLYTA: Queen of
the Circus Ring and Mistress of the Flying Horses,
the most daring and graceful female rider in the world!
THE GREAT TADEUSZ: the greatest
knife-thrower ever seen!
VIGOR, “THE HAMMERSMITH
WONDER”: Unsurpassed feats
of strength and energy by the world’s strongest man!
CEDRIC, THE EDUCATED LION:
will amaze and amuse you!
THE LAST OPPORTUNITY THIS SEASON
TO SEE
THE FINEST SPECTACLE IN LONDON!
NEAREST STATION: HAMMERSMITH.
“I rather fancy, from your description of the men that these are your abductors,” remarked Holmes to Townsend. “The man with the knives would be this man, Tadeusz, and his immensely strong companion Vigor, ‘the Hammersmith Wonder’. The woman whose charms so struck you might well be this Hippolyta. Indeed, it appears you were only wanting ‘Cedric, the educated lion’ to make up a complete troupe! Have you visited Ostralici’s circus this summer?”
Townsend shook his head. “No,” said he, “but I have heard that it is very good. The horses, especially, are said to be most spectacular.”
“There have been posters advertising the circus outside Paddington station all summer,” I remarked, “and there was an article about it in one of the illustrated papers last week-end, which my wife showed me. Several of the leading performers are, I understand, Polish. The woman who goes under the name of ‘Queen Hippolyta’ is in fact Vera Buclevska, who at one time had a well-known riding act with her sister. She is said to be the finest horsewoman in Europe.”
“But if these are the men who abducted me,” said Townsend in a puzzled tone, “what possible motive could they have had? Why should they seize me in broad daylight in Oxford Street? I have done nothing to them. The whole business is quite pointless!”
“It appears certain,” responded Holmes, “that their kidnapping of you was a mistake. The woman’s reaction when she saw you, and the quarrel that ensued, is clear enough evidence of that, as is the fact that they then deposited you unharmed in Hyde Park. You did not give them your address?”
“They never asked me for it,” replied Townsend, shaking his head.
“And yet you heard them mention ‘Gloucester Terrace’ when they were talking together. They therefore knew the address already, and had quite possibly followed you from there until an opportunity presented itself for them to accost you. You say that your fellow lodger’s name is Smith?”
“Yes, Jacob Smith. I have occasionally seen his post lying on the hall table.”
“There are no other lodgers in the house?”
“No.”
“Then it must be Smith that they were after. You usually leave the house before nine o’clock in the morning, but yesterday you left at ten and encountered Smith on the stair. He appeared about to leave the house until you startled him. The inference is that ten o’clock is his usual time of departure. It seems likely, then, that the kidnappers seized you in the belief that you were he. If that is correct, then it follows that although they know Smith’s address, and something of his daily habits, they do not know him well enough to recognize that they had got the wrong man, and had to wait for ‘Hippolyta’ to inform them forcibly of the fact. What lies behind it all we cannot at present say, but it seems likely that your fellow lodger is in some danger. Having realized their mistake, these people are likely to try again to get their hands on him. We had best call at Gloucester Terrace first to warn him, before attending to the little matter of your cigar case.”
“Of course, the cigar case is not important if Mr Smith is in danger,” said Townsend, “but I am surprised you are so confident of finding it. Why, the house in which they held me might be anywhere in London!”
“When your captors went to bring the woman, they were gone for only a few minutes, and she appeared as if she had hurriedly left her business to come. The inference is that you were being held at no great distance from the circus encampment at Hammersmith.” As Holmes was speaking, he took his hat from the peg and opened the door. “There is no time to lose,” said he, in answer to our surprised expressions. Two minutes later we were in a cab and on our way to Gloucester Terrace.
Despite our haste, however, we were too late. Mr Townsend’s fellow lodger was not in the house, and we were informed that he had had visitors at ten o’clock that morning.
“There were three of them,” the housekeeper informed us: “a very handsome young lady, a tall, thin man with a waxed moustache, and a large, thick-set man.”
“Hippolyta, Tadeusz and Vigor,” said Holmes tersely. “Did Mr Smith leave with his visitors?” he asked the housekeeper.
“That I could not say, sir,” the woman replied, “for they let themselves out, but shortly afterwards, when the maid went up to clear away Mr Smith’s breakfast things, there was no sign of him in his rooms at all.”
“The matter grows serious,” said Holmes as we hurried out to our cab. “We will go at once to Hammersmith.”
“Should we not inform the police?” I suggested.
“It will only delay us unnecessarily,” responded my friend. “We can find a policeman when we need one.”
The traffic was dense, and it took us a good half-hour to reach Hammersmith. The cabbie knew where the circus was camped and took us straight there, but as we stepped from the cab, Holmes groaned with dismay, for all about us was a chaotic scene of activity. Poles and planks were being carried this way and that and it was evident that the circus was being dismantled.
“Of course, the advertisement stated that this was the last week of the season!” cried Holmes, as we threaded our way through the crowds of people and past the stables and animal cages. “The circus is breaking up, and these villains must have believed that they could make good their escape! Let us hope that we are not too late!”
A stout man in a billycock hat appeared to be in charge of one of the gangs of workers, and Holmes asked him where we might find the manager.
“If it’s Captain Ostralici you’re after,” he responded in a gruff tone, “you’ve missed him. He only stayed long enough this morning to supervise the loading of the ’osses, and then he left, along with Miss Buclevska and the others. I’m in charge here now, until everything is cleared away.”
“Where have they gone?”
“That depends who you mean. The ’osses have gone down to Petersfield for the winter, the other animals go tonight, and Captain Ostralici’s party left on the noon train for Dover, bound for Warsaw.”
Holmes consulted his watch as we turned away. “This makes it a little difficult,” said he. “Still, their train will not have reached Dover yet, and if we can convince the police here of the seriousness of the matter, they can wire their colleagues in Kent to prevent Ostralici and the others from boarding the boat.”