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charleygirlTitle: The Weeping Waxwork 6/7
Author: charleygirl
Rating: G
Words: 3656
Characters involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson
Genre: General, mystery
Disclaimer: These characters, while out of copyright, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and do not belong to me.
Summary: And now, the conclusions...
Author's Note: Though Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum features heavily in this story, the members of the family featured are my own creation and bear no resemblance to any of the real Tussauds. I have used as much accuracy in my representation of the museum's history as possible, though I have stuck to Madame Tussaud's own slightly suspect version of her life story, as this would have been known to the public at the time.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
THE WEEPING WAXWORK
CHAPTER SIX
“Watson!”
Holmes’s urgent voice galvanised me into action. I threw open the door and leapt forwards. In a moment my revolver was in my hand, and I took a firm grip upon it, announcing to the room,
“I would ask that everyone remain quite still. I am armed.”
“Bravo, Watson,” said my friend in that familiar sardonic tone of voice, “but I think the situation is under control. If you would be so good as to put the weapon away, I have need of your medical expertise.”
I unshuttered the dark lantern and moved across the room to his side. Behind me Harrison lit a taper and touched it to some of the many candles in the room, bathing us in a flickering orange glow. “You’re not hurt?” I asked anxiously.
“No, not at all. Miss Tussaud requires your assistance, however. I am afraid that I startled her somewhat when I caught hold of her arm as she passed me just now.”
“Holmes, that was rather unfair of you,” I scolded as I crouched down beside him. Miss Tussaud lay in a crumpled heap upon the expensive carpet at Lord Tennyson’s feet, her face chalk white. I checked her pulse and found it to be beating strongly – as she appeared to have no difficulty in breathing; I diagnosed a simple faint, nothing more. Holmes suddenly ‘coming to life’, as it were, must have frightened the poor girl to death.
“My apologies, my dear fellow. You know I can never resist a touch of the dramatic,” Holmes replied, sounding utterly unrepentant.
“What the devil is going on here?” demanded Claude Tussaud from behind. For a brief moment I had forgotten about him, and turned to see a tall, rather heavily-built young man with a shock of fair hair and more than a passing resemblance to his sister Louise. He stared at Holmes in amazement that quickly transmuted into anger, and his powerful hands curled into fists. “Mr Holmes? What is the meaning of this charade?”
Holmes uncurled himself and straightened to his full, impressive height, standing his ground before this perfect example of youthful aggression. “That is precisely the question I would like to ask you, Mr Tussaud,” he said calmly, looking the young man directly in the eye.
“You are trespassing upon private property, sir. It will be no trouble for me to call the constable - ”
“Oh, dear, Mr Tussaud.” Holmes tutted, shaking his head. “That is an admirable attempt, but it really will not do. I have been in this room for the past three hours, and I observed the entry of your sister and yourself. I have been privy – as, I am sure, has Doctor Watson here – to the interesting discussion in which the two of you have just been participating.”
Tussaud’s expression slowly changed once again, this time into disbelief mixed with another emotion. Was that fear I saw spark in his eyes? “What has that to do with you?”
“It has everything to do with me. I have been engaged by your father to look into the business of his resident ‘ghost’. The time, it would appear, has now come for explanations. However, I do believe it would be bad manners to proceed without Mr Louis Tussaud, which is why he should be arriving at any moment to hear what you have to say.”
“My…my father?” Tussaud’s face fell, and he looked suddenly even younger that I had at first thought, perhaps no more than five and twenty. The threat of his father’s presence seemed to stop him in his tracks. His hands relaxed at his sides, and his shoulders slumped.
I took advantage of this to lift Miss Tussaud and lay her gently down upon one of the comfortable ottomans, removing my coat and folding it under her head for a makeshift pillow. Upon the cushions sat a wicker basket, and I gave an involuntary start as I realised it was full of bloodied heads – doubtless the missing heads from the Chamber of Horrors. I had no chance to make any comment upon this, as a moment later Miss Tussaud stirred, murmuring to herself. Her eyes opened and looked into mine in confusion for a moment before they shifted to something just behind me and another scream welled in her throat, a scream which was only just choked back as Holmes said,
“It is quite all right, Miss Tussaud, I am not a vengeful spirit or a waxwork come to life. I apologise for scaring you.”
“Holmes!” I admonished him once again, glancing over my shoulder to see him standing there, his face still bearing the make-up which made him look like a waxen cadaver. No wonder the poor woman was terrified!
She stared at him, her eyes as wide as it is possible for a person’s to be. “…Mr…Mr Holmes? But why…?”
“All will be explained in good time,” I assured her, helping her to sit up. She was quite evidently used to grisly sights of another nature, as she did not even glance at the basket of heads beside her.
“Watson, I believe some brandy may be beneficial,” Holmes remarked, raising an eyebrow.
In the absence of the suggested spirit, we made do with a nip of gin from Harrison’s flask. When Miss Tussaud had stopped coughing and found her voice, she reached out and grasped my friend’s sleeve.
“I am so sorry, Mr Holmes,” she said breathlessly. “I would not have involved you for the world, but Claude insisted - ”
“I understand, Miss Tussaud. It is not uncommon for a younger sibling to be bullied by an elder. When employment and livelihood are at stake, it is even more difficult to resist,” Holmes replied. “It is quite obvious that your brother threatened you with dismissal if you did not agree to aid him in his plans.”
Tussaud took a step forwards, belligerence momentarily returning. “Here, I’ve done nothing wrong! No one was hurt - ”
“Perhaps not, but fraud is still a crime. You set out to deliberately deceive the populace in order to relieve them of their money. That, Mr Tussaud, is against the law,” said Holmes, fixing him with a steely gaze. “Now, you will do me a great favour by sitting down there to await your father’s arrival. It will ultimately be my decision whether to involve the police, but the money must be paid back.”
Tussaud, cowed once more, had just taken a seat beside his sister but started up again at this pronouncement. “We could never afford it! The business would go under!”
“Which is of course the very circumstance you were trying to prevent. That should be a lesson to you: when one turns to crime the exact opposite of the desired effect often occurs,” said Holmes. “Deception is a dangerous game.”
***
Tussaud was quiet after that, apparently resigned to his fate.
I did feel a little sorry for him, as it seemed he had only been attempting to save the family business, but, as Holmes had said, a crime was still a crime and fraud a very serious one. The public would not take kindly to being duped.
It was half an hour later that Mr Louis Tussaud arrived, summoned by Harrison and not in the best of tempers at being woken in the early hours of the morning. He strode through the waxwork throng towards us, a dishevelled figure in hastily-buttoned clothing and a heavy overcoat, his white hair standing virtually on end. Behind him came the night-watchman and a yawning, heavy-eyed porter, evidently roused from his slumber.
“I hope you have a very good explanation for this, Mr Holmes,” Tussaud senior declared as he reached our little group. “Surely the clearing up of such a trivial matter could have waited until the morning?”
“I regret not. The trivial matter has become a little more serious,” Holmes replied. “Now that you are here, perhaps your son would be so good as to explain exactly when he came to the conclusion that he could boost your flagging attendance levels through deception.”
“Claude? Madeleine?” Tussaud blinked as he realised his children were present. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I have caught your ‘ghost’, Mr Tussaud,” Holmes told him. “There is no spirit of a long-dead queen roaming the exhibition after dark, merely your youngest daughter at her brother’s behest.”
Louis Tussaud stared at his son. “Claude? Is this true?”
The younger man nodded miserably. “I did it to save the exhibition.”
“I don’t understand – the business is doing well. You told me only last week that Percival had reported a thirty percent increase in attendance!”
“Those were the figures for the last six months. We did well over the Queen’s jubilee, but numbers have fallen off again, sharply, since the end of the summer. We are barely scraping the running costs at present, and by the end of the year if figures do not improve we will have to consider halving the size of the exhibition to cut down on wastage.” Claude looked up at his father. “I did not know how to tell you, and then you went on that trip to Paris. I was becoming desperate.”
“And so you hit upon the idea of creating a curiosity to bring in the public,” I said.
“Yes. It seemed harmless enough – my great-grandmother would frequently manipulate public attendance by declaring that she would stay in a town just one more week before extending the run to apparent popular demand when the public came flocking to her door. I saw no harm in a little…bending of the truth. All great showmen have done so in the past.”
“Unfortunately for you, the deception began to run out of your control when Mr Harrison heard your sister crying in the gallery one night,” said Holmes. “She was upset at the thought of losing her job and her home, a consequence you pressed upon her and which affected such a nervous young lady far more that it did your sister Louise. She told you to stop being so melodramatic, did she not?”
Claude glared at him. “Lulu has no sense of uncertainty. Should she lose her position here she could make a living from her sculpting, but what have those of us without such obvious talents to fall back on?”
“You suggested something of the scheme to her, on a purely hypothetical basis?”
“Yes.” The young man ran a hand through his unruly hair. “She told me I was hare-brained and would come a cropper if I tried it.”
“She was right,” his sire said, unconsciously mimicking the gesture. “Whatever possessed you to do it, boy?”
“I’ve seen the accounts – Percival showed them to me in detail while you were away. The last Napoleon purchases put us even further into debt, and the cost of the renovation of this room was astronomical. There was no possible way for us to continue as we were, not without a spectacular increase in visitor numbers. Others knew it, too – I have had an offer for the firm.” Louis Tussaud’s eyes widened, and Claude nodded. “Yes, Papa. Others have been watching and are waiting to step in.”
The older man bristled, drawing himself up to his full height, what little there was of it. “This business has always been kept within the family,” he declared. “We need no outsiders!”
Claude sighed. “Yes, Papa, we do, if we are to survive into the next century.”
There was a pause, during which one could have heard a pin drop on the other side of the building, before Tussaud sat down heavily upon the ottoman beside his children. The basket of heads was at his elbow, but he did not even register it. I could not help but wonder how many weeks, months or years of working in such a profession it would take to remain unmoved by a basket of severed heads, and ultimately decided I did not wish to know.
When nothing more was said for some time I turned to Holmes, asking, “How did you know all this?”
My friend smiled, happy as always to explain his deductions. “The fact that the ‘ghost’ appeared during the early hours but the porter had apparently mentioned no signs of any intruder gaining access to the building first alerted me to the probability of someone on the staff being responsible for the deception. As the only two people with keys to the main doors I was able to narrow my suspicions down to either Mr Louis or Mr Claude Tussaud.” He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew his silver cigarette case. The three Tussauds looked on in trepidation as he tapped one out upon the lid, struck a match and lit it, but he took no notice, inhaling an appreciative lungful of smoke. “It was possible, though highly doubtful, that Mr Louis Tussaud would agree to his daughter’s request to consult me were he behind the scheme, which left Claude. Miss Louise Tussaud was most helpful with information about the various familial relationships within the clan – I sought her out after discovering the footprint beneath Marie Antoinette’s dress yesterday.”
“The ‘Miss Tussaud’ with whom you needed to speak was Louise, and not Madeleine! Presumably you wished to check upon the size of her feet?”
“Excellent, Watson. As you no doubt saw when she came to collect the wax head from Baker Street, Miss Louise is a lady of statuesque proportions – the delicate footprint we saw could not possibly belong to her. This of course left Miss Madeleine as the only possible suspect, Claude being unmarried and there being no other woman in a prominent position within the business. I was now left with the possible motive for the deception, and there once again Louise was most assiduous. She told me that her brother had been enquiring about the manufacture of false tears from glycerine only a few days before the ‘ghost’ made its first appearance. This circumstance made her suspicious that he might be trying the scheme he mentioned to her, but with Mr Tussaud senior away in Paris there was little she could do without either confronting him or laying wait in the gallery all night. This gave me an idea, and she was more than willing to assist me in my plan.” Holmes paced the floor as he spoke, weaving in and out of the dummies. With the waxen make-up still in place he did indeed give the impression of one of them come to life, but for the cloud of blue smoke which surrounded him. “In the meantime, a visit to the offices of The Evening Standard confirmed the identity of the person who had provided the article about the ghost which appeared in its pages. A consultation with a contact in the city was most enlightening with regard to the ultimate motive: he informed me, confidentially, that while it was not widely known outside, within the Square Mile it was obvious that Tussauds were in trouble financially and offers were on the brink of being made. Several eagle-eyed investors have been anxiously watching for some weeks to see which way the wind will blow.”
“Good God.” Tussaud slumped in his seat. “My own business failing and I had no idea. Why did you not tell me?”
“We tried, but you have been so busy in Paris we have never been able to organise a meeting,” said Claude. “Percival has been trying every economy he can, but the business continues to suck in capital with little return. The world is changing – the public do not need us as a three-dimensional newspaper any more. We must change with it; radically overhaul the exhibition, if we are to survive.”
His father shook his head. “That it should come to this, after all my grandmother went through.”
“She knew the value of constant change, of the public’s desire for novelty. That is how she kept the business going all those years. We need her now.”
Holmes took another turn around the chamber, and stopped before the French royal family, aloof in their alcove. I saw that Marie Antoinette’s eyes were dry. “It was, of course, the family connection with the Revolution and the impending anniversary of the queen’s execution which caused you to base your scheme around Marie Antoinette, was it not?” he asked Claude.
The younger Tussaud nodded. “She has always been popular with visitors. The public love a good tragedy, particularly one concerning a beautiful woman.”
“So, having illicitly obtained the glycerine for the tears, you enlisted the help of Madeleine by preying upon her vulnerability. You and Louise are too alike in temperament and she would stand up to you, but Madeleine is timid by nature and easy to manipulate. It was she who entered the building with your key, you having first ensured that Rigsby the porter was sleeping soundly and Harrison occupied with his patrol of the working areas.”
“Of course!” I cried. At Holmes’s words the solution to Rigsby’s mysterious ailment finally fell into place in my mind. “The coffee!”
The porter stared in astonishment. “You mean that when you offered to fetch me a drink, Mr Claude - ”
“He slipped a sleeping powder into your flask. That is why you were so sluggish when you woke,” I explained.
Claude groaned and sank his head into his hands. “There was no other way to keep him in ignorance – he never leaves his booth unless there is an alarm.”
“I do not believe what I am hearing,” muttered his father. “My own children…”
“I am not proud of my actions, Mr Holmes,” Claude said, raising his head once more to look directly at my friend. “I am not a brave man. I have little financial acumen, and so a more prosaic solution was out of the question. I did what I believed I had to do to save our livelihood.”
“Unfortunately, the scheme collapsed when you exhorted your father, through Madeleine, to retain me to investigate the bogus hauntings,” Holmes replied, looking down at the young man with disdain. “Presumably you though that my association with the story would increase public interest, especially if Watson here were ever to include it in one of his chronicles.”
Claude nodded miserably. “I confess that I did not properly consider the implications, being unaware of the true extent of your deductive powers. I did not realise you would be quite so thorough in your investigations.”
“But your sister Louise, a devotee of Watson’s stories, did. She tried to tell you but you dismissed her concerns. You should have listened to her.”
Silence once again descended upon the Grand Chamber, hanging heavy in the air. This time I did not wish to be the one to break it. The Tussaud family seemed thoroughly crushed. Despite Holmes’s obvious anger at being used in such a manner by Claude, I could not bring myself to feel contempt for the two siblings. When faced with ruin, do we not do all we can to survive?
“There is one matter left to discuss,” Holmes said at last. All eyes turned to him in surprise.
“What is that, Mr Holmes?” Louis Tussaud asked, confused.
“The question of whether or not the police should be involved.”
The director’s eyes widened, and he started up from his seat. “Now, Mr Holmes, surely there is no need for that! A harmless deception -”
“Nothing less than fraud. The false story was knowingly placed in the newspaper by your son, and the people of London have been cheated out of their hard-earned money,” Holmes said seriously. “The law does not take kindly to such behaviour.”
“But surely, as no one was harmed…a little false advertising…”
“You planted a story about the display of your own likeness, Holmes,” I pointed out. “That was a lie.”
“Not entirely, Watson, as the likeness is in fact here. But it will not go on public display, having mysteriously disappeared in the night. The morning paper will have the report, and no harm will have been done in this instance.” Holmes moved his cigarette to a hold between his index and middle fingers and turned back to Tussaud. “I will agree not to take the particulars of the case to Scotland Yard on the condition that all monies are returned from today’s opening. You cannot profit from the lure of the public under false pretences.”
Tussaud looked at his son, and the two exchanged a meaningful glance. After a moment, he nodded, resigned. “Very well, Mr Holmes. We are all in your hands.”
“Then you have my word that, as long as my name does not appear anywhere in connection with the matter, it will go no further than these four walls.” Holmes drew in more smoke and added, “I will tell you what to announce to the press.”
He and the director, together with Claude, drew to one side, leaving me with the dejected Miss Madeleine. I did not know what to say to comfort her, and settled for merely sitting companionably at her side in case she wished to talk. As I sat there, however, I found my eyes continually straying to the basket of heads so incongruously left amidst all the opulence, and finally felt compelled to ask,
“Were these for your brother’s Revolutionary coup de grace? Some dramatic show for the anniversary of the queen’s execution?”
She blinked tear-filled eyes at the grisly objects for some moments before shaking her head.
“Then why were they removed from the Chamber of Horrors?”
“Louise must have left them there last night,” Madeleine said quietly, as though discussing a basket of eggs. “She was going to clean them.”
As she lapsed into silence once more, I found myself confirmed in my opinion that a waxworks was indeed a peculiar place.
To be concluded…
Author: charleygirl
Rating: G
Words: 3656
Characters involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson
Genre: General, mystery
Disclaimer: These characters, while out of copyright, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and do not belong to me.
Summary: And now, the conclusions...
Author's Note: Though Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum features heavily in this story, the members of the family featured are my own creation and bear no resemblance to any of the real Tussauds. I have used as much accuracy in my representation of the museum's history as possible, though I have stuck to Madame Tussaud's own slightly suspect version of her life story, as this would have been known to the public at the time.
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five
THE WEEPING WAXWORK
CHAPTER SIX
“Watson!”
Holmes’s urgent voice galvanised me into action. I threw open the door and leapt forwards. In a moment my revolver was in my hand, and I took a firm grip upon it, announcing to the room,
“I would ask that everyone remain quite still. I am armed.”
“Bravo, Watson,” said my friend in that familiar sardonic tone of voice, “but I think the situation is under control. If you would be so good as to put the weapon away, I have need of your medical expertise.”
I unshuttered the dark lantern and moved across the room to his side. Behind me Harrison lit a taper and touched it to some of the many candles in the room, bathing us in a flickering orange glow. “You’re not hurt?” I asked anxiously.
“No, not at all. Miss Tussaud requires your assistance, however. I am afraid that I startled her somewhat when I caught hold of her arm as she passed me just now.”
“Holmes, that was rather unfair of you,” I scolded as I crouched down beside him. Miss Tussaud lay in a crumpled heap upon the expensive carpet at Lord Tennyson’s feet, her face chalk white. I checked her pulse and found it to be beating strongly – as she appeared to have no difficulty in breathing; I diagnosed a simple faint, nothing more. Holmes suddenly ‘coming to life’, as it were, must have frightened the poor girl to death.
“My apologies, my dear fellow. You know I can never resist a touch of the dramatic,” Holmes replied, sounding utterly unrepentant.
“What the devil is going on here?” demanded Claude Tussaud from behind. For a brief moment I had forgotten about him, and turned to see a tall, rather heavily-built young man with a shock of fair hair and more than a passing resemblance to his sister Louise. He stared at Holmes in amazement that quickly transmuted into anger, and his powerful hands curled into fists. “Mr Holmes? What is the meaning of this charade?”
Holmes uncurled himself and straightened to his full, impressive height, standing his ground before this perfect example of youthful aggression. “That is precisely the question I would like to ask you, Mr Tussaud,” he said calmly, looking the young man directly in the eye.
“You are trespassing upon private property, sir. It will be no trouble for me to call the constable - ”
“Oh, dear, Mr Tussaud.” Holmes tutted, shaking his head. “That is an admirable attempt, but it really will not do. I have been in this room for the past three hours, and I observed the entry of your sister and yourself. I have been privy – as, I am sure, has Doctor Watson here – to the interesting discussion in which the two of you have just been participating.”
Tussaud’s expression slowly changed once again, this time into disbelief mixed with another emotion. Was that fear I saw spark in his eyes? “What has that to do with you?”
“It has everything to do with me. I have been engaged by your father to look into the business of his resident ‘ghost’. The time, it would appear, has now come for explanations. However, I do believe it would be bad manners to proceed without Mr Louis Tussaud, which is why he should be arriving at any moment to hear what you have to say.”
“My…my father?” Tussaud’s face fell, and he looked suddenly even younger that I had at first thought, perhaps no more than five and twenty. The threat of his father’s presence seemed to stop him in his tracks. His hands relaxed at his sides, and his shoulders slumped.
I took advantage of this to lift Miss Tussaud and lay her gently down upon one of the comfortable ottomans, removing my coat and folding it under her head for a makeshift pillow. Upon the cushions sat a wicker basket, and I gave an involuntary start as I realised it was full of bloodied heads – doubtless the missing heads from the Chamber of Horrors. I had no chance to make any comment upon this, as a moment later Miss Tussaud stirred, murmuring to herself. Her eyes opened and looked into mine in confusion for a moment before they shifted to something just behind me and another scream welled in her throat, a scream which was only just choked back as Holmes said,
“It is quite all right, Miss Tussaud, I am not a vengeful spirit or a waxwork come to life. I apologise for scaring you.”
“Holmes!” I admonished him once again, glancing over my shoulder to see him standing there, his face still bearing the make-up which made him look like a waxen cadaver. No wonder the poor woman was terrified!
She stared at him, her eyes as wide as it is possible for a person’s to be. “…Mr…Mr Holmes? But why…?”
“All will be explained in good time,” I assured her, helping her to sit up. She was quite evidently used to grisly sights of another nature, as she did not even glance at the basket of heads beside her.
“Watson, I believe some brandy may be beneficial,” Holmes remarked, raising an eyebrow.
In the absence of the suggested spirit, we made do with a nip of gin from Harrison’s flask. When Miss Tussaud had stopped coughing and found her voice, she reached out and grasped my friend’s sleeve.
“I am so sorry, Mr Holmes,” she said breathlessly. “I would not have involved you for the world, but Claude insisted - ”
“I understand, Miss Tussaud. It is not uncommon for a younger sibling to be bullied by an elder. When employment and livelihood are at stake, it is even more difficult to resist,” Holmes replied. “It is quite obvious that your brother threatened you with dismissal if you did not agree to aid him in his plans.”
Tussaud took a step forwards, belligerence momentarily returning. “Here, I’ve done nothing wrong! No one was hurt - ”
“Perhaps not, but fraud is still a crime. You set out to deliberately deceive the populace in order to relieve them of their money. That, Mr Tussaud, is against the law,” said Holmes, fixing him with a steely gaze. “Now, you will do me a great favour by sitting down there to await your father’s arrival. It will ultimately be my decision whether to involve the police, but the money must be paid back.”
Tussaud, cowed once more, had just taken a seat beside his sister but started up again at this pronouncement. “We could never afford it! The business would go under!”
“Which is of course the very circumstance you were trying to prevent. That should be a lesson to you: when one turns to crime the exact opposite of the desired effect often occurs,” said Holmes. “Deception is a dangerous game.”
***
Tussaud was quiet after that, apparently resigned to his fate.
I did feel a little sorry for him, as it seemed he had only been attempting to save the family business, but, as Holmes had said, a crime was still a crime and fraud a very serious one. The public would not take kindly to being duped.
It was half an hour later that Mr Louis Tussaud arrived, summoned by Harrison and not in the best of tempers at being woken in the early hours of the morning. He strode through the waxwork throng towards us, a dishevelled figure in hastily-buttoned clothing and a heavy overcoat, his white hair standing virtually on end. Behind him came the night-watchman and a yawning, heavy-eyed porter, evidently roused from his slumber.
“I hope you have a very good explanation for this, Mr Holmes,” Tussaud senior declared as he reached our little group. “Surely the clearing up of such a trivial matter could have waited until the morning?”
“I regret not. The trivial matter has become a little more serious,” Holmes replied. “Now that you are here, perhaps your son would be so good as to explain exactly when he came to the conclusion that he could boost your flagging attendance levels through deception.”
“Claude? Madeleine?” Tussaud blinked as he realised his children were present. “What is the meaning of this?”
“I have caught your ‘ghost’, Mr Tussaud,” Holmes told him. “There is no spirit of a long-dead queen roaming the exhibition after dark, merely your youngest daughter at her brother’s behest.”
Louis Tussaud stared at his son. “Claude? Is this true?”
The younger man nodded miserably. “I did it to save the exhibition.”
“I don’t understand – the business is doing well. You told me only last week that Percival had reported a thirty percent increase in attendance!”
“Those were the figures for the last six months. We did well over the Queen’s jubilee, but numbers have fallen off again, sharply, since the end of the summer. We are barely scraping the running costs at present, and by the end of the year if figures do not improve we will have to consider halving the size of the exhibition to cut down on wastage.” Claude looked up at his father. “I did not know how to tell you, and then you went on that trip to Paris. I was becoming desperate.”
“And so you hit upon the idea of creating a curiosity to bring in the public,” I said.
“Yes. It seemed harmless enough – my great-grandmother would frequently manipulate public attendance by declaring that she would stay in a town just one more week before extending the run to apparent popular demand when the public came flocking to her door. I saw no harm in a little…bending of the truth. All great showmen have done so in the past.”
“Unfortunately for you, the deception began to run out of your control when Mr Harrison heard your sister crying in the gallery one night,” said Holmes. “She was upset at the thought of losing her job and her home, a consequence you pressed upon her and which affected such a nervous young lady far more that it did your sister Louise. She told you to stop being so melodramatic, did she not?”
Claude glared at him. “Lulu has no sense of uncertainty. Should she lose her position here she could make a living from her sculpting, but what have those of us without such obvious talents to fall back on?”
“You suggested something of the scheme to her, on a purely hypothetical basis?”
“Yes.” The young man ran a hand through his unruly hair. “She told me I was hare-brained and would come a cropper if I tried it.”
“She was right,” his sire said, unconsciously mimicking the gesture. “Whatever possessed you to do it, boy?”
“I’ve seen the accounts – Percival showed them to me in detail while you were away. The last Napoleon purchases put us even further into debt, and the cost of the renovation of this room was astronomical. There was no possible way for us to continue as we were, not without a spectacular increase in visitor numbers. Others knew it, too – I have had an offer for the firm.” Louis Tussaud’s eyes widened, and Claude nodded. “Yes, Papa. Others have been watching and are waiting to step in.”
The older man bristled, drawing himself up to his full height, what little there was of it. “This business has always been kept within the family,” he declared. “We need no outsiders!”
Claude sighed. “Yes, Papa, we do, if we are to survive into the next century.”
There was a pause, during which one could have heard a pin drop on the other side of the building, before Tussaud sat down heavily upon the ottoman beside his children. The basket of heads was at his elbow, but he did not even register it. I could not help but wonder how many weeks, months or years of working in such a profession it would take to remain unmoved by a basket of severed heads, and ultimately decided I did not wish to know.
When nothing more was said for some time I turned to Holmes, asking, “How did you know all this?”
My friend smiled, happy as always to explain his deductions. “The fact that the ‘ghost’ appeared during the early hours but the porter had apparently mentioned no signs of any intruder gaining access to the building first alerted me to the probability of someone on the staff being responsible for the deception. As the only two people with keys to the main doors I was able to narrow my suspicions down to either Mr Louis or Mr Claude Tussaud.” He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew his silver cigarette case. The three Tussauds looked on in trepidation as he tapped one out upon the lid, struck a match and lit it, but he took no notice, inhaling an appreciative lungful of smoke. “It was possible, though highly doubtful, that Mr Louis Tussaud would agree to his daughter’s request to consult me were he behind the scheme, which left Claude. Miss Louise Tussaud was most helpful with information about the various familial relationships within the clan – I sought her out after discovering the footprint beneath Marie Antoinette’s dress yesterday.”
“The ‘Miss Tussaud’ with whom you needed to speak was Louise, and not Madeleine! Presumably you wished to check upon the size of her feet?”
“Excellent, Watson. As you no doubt saw when she came to collect the wax head from Baker Street, Miss Louise is a lady of statuesque proportions – the delicate footprint we saw could not possibly belong to her. This of course left Miss Madeleine as the only possible suspect, Claude being unmarried and there being no other woman in a prominent position within the business. I was now left with the possible motive for the deception, and there once again Louise was most assiduous. She told me that her brother had been enquiring about the manufacture of false tears from glycerine only a few days before the ‘ghost’ made its first appearance. This circumstance made her suspicious that he might be trying the scheme he mentioned to her, but with Mr Tussaud senior away in Paris there was little she could do without either confronting him or laying wait in the gallery all night. This gave me an idea, and she was more than willing to assist me in my plan.” Holmes paced the floor as he spoke, weaving in and out of the dummies. With the waxen make-up still in place he did indeed give the impression of one of them come to life, but for the cloud of blue smoke which surrounded him. “In the meantime, a visit to the offices of The Evening Standard confirmed the identity of the person who had provided the article about the ghost which appeared in its pages. A consultation with a contact in the city was most enlightening with regard to the ultimate motive: he informed me, confidentially, that while it was not widely known outside, within the Square Mile it was obvious that Tussauds were in trouble financially and offers were on the brink of being made. Several eagle-eyed investors have been anxiously watching for some weeks to see which way the wind will blow.”
“Good God.” Tussaud slumped in his seat. “My own business failing and I had no idea. Why did you not tell me?”
“We tried, but you have been so busy in Paris we have never been able to organise a meeting,” said Claude. “Percival has been trying every economy he can, but the business continues to suck in capital with little return. The world is changing – the public do not need us as a three-dimensional newspaper any more. We must change with it; radically overhaul the exhibition, if we are to survive.”
His father shook his head. “That it should come to this, after all my grandmother went through.”
“She knew the value of constant change, of the public’s desire for novelty. That is how she kept the business going all those years. We need her now.”
Holmes took another turn around the chamber, and stopped before the French royal family, aloof in their alcove. I saw that Marie Antoinette’s eyes were dry. “It was, of course, the family connection with the Revolution and the impending anniversary of the queen’s execution which caused you to base your scheme around Marie Antoinette, was it not?” he asked Claude.
The younger Tussaud nodded. “She has always been popular with visitors. The public love a good tragedy, particularly one concerning a beautiful woman.”
“So, having illicitly obtained the glycerine for the tears, you enlisted the help of Madeleine by preying upon her vulnerability. You and Louise are too alike in temperament and she would stand up to you, but Madeleine is timid by nature and easy to manipulate. It was she who entered the building with your key, you having first ensured that Rigsby the porter was sleeping soundly and Harrison occupied with his patrol of the working areas.”
“Of course!” I cried. At Holmes’s words the solution to Rigsby’s mysterious ailment finally fell into place in my mind. “The coffee!”
The porter stared in astonishment. “You mean that when you offered to fetch me a drink, Mr Claude - ”
“He slipped a sleeping powder into your flask. That is why you were so sluggish when you woke,” I explained.
Claude groaned and sank his head into his hands. “There was no other way to keep him in ignorance – he never leaves his booth unless there is an alarm.”
“I do not believe what I am hearing,” muttered his father. “My own children…”
“I am not proud of my actions, Mr Holmes,” Claude said, raising his head once more to look directly at my friend. “I am not a brave man. I have little financial acumen, and so a more prosaic solution was out of the question. I did what I believed I had to do to save our livelihood.”
“Unfortunately, the scheme collapsed when you exhorted your father, through Madeleine, to retain me to investigate the bogus hauntings,” Holmes replied, looking down at the young man with disdain. “Presumably you though that my association with the story would increase public interest, especially if Watson here were ever to include it in one of his chronicles.”
Claude nodded miserably. “I confess that I did not properly consider the implications, being unaware of the true extent of your deductive powers. I did not realise you would be quite so thorough in your investigations.”
“But your sister Louise, a devotee of Watson’s stories, did. She tried to tell you but you dismissed her concerns. You should have listened to her.”
Silence once again descended upon the Grand Chamber, hanging heavy in the air. This time I did not wish to be the one to break it. The Tussaud family seemed thoroughly crushed. Despite Holmes’s obvious anger at being used in such a manner by Claude, I could not bring myself to feel contempt for the two siblings. When faced with ruin, do we not do all we can to survive?
“There is one matter left to discuss,” Holmes said at last. All eyes turned to him in surprise.
“What is that, Mr Holmes?” Louis Tussaud asked, confused.
“The question of whether or not the police should be involved.”
The director’s eyes widened, and he started up from his seat. “Now, Mr Holmes, surely there is no need for that! A harmless deception -”
“Nothing less than fraud. The false story was knowingly placed in the newspaper by your son, and the people of London have been cheated out of their hard-earned money,” Holmes said seriously. “The law does not take kindly to such behaviour.”
“But surely, as no one was harmed…a little false advertising…”
“You planted a story about the display of your own likeness, Holmes,” I pointed out. “That was a lie.”
“Not entirely, Watson, as the likeness is in fact here. But it will not go on public display, having mysteriously disappeared in the night. The morning paper will have the report, and no harm will have been done in this instance.” Holmes moved his cigarette to a hold between his index and middle fingers and turned back to Tussaud. “I will agree not to take the particulars of the case to Scotland Yard on the condition that all monies are returned from today’s opening. You cannot profit from the lure of the public under false pretences.”
Tussaud looked at his son, and the two exchanged a meaningful glance. After a moment, he nodded, resigned. “Very well, Mr Holmes. We are all in your hands.”
“Then you have my word that, as long as my name does not appear anywhere in connection with the matter, it will go no further than these four walls.” Holmes drew in more smoke and added, “I will tell you what to announce to the press.”
He and the director, together with Claude, drew to one side, leaving me with the dejected Miss Madeleine. I did not know what to say to comfort her, and settled for merely sitting companionably at her side in case she wished to talk. As I sat there, however, I found my eyes continually straying to the basket of heads so incongruously left amidst all the opulence, and finally felt compelled to ask,
“Were these for your brother’s Revolutionary coup de grace? Some dramatic show for the anniversary of the queen’s execution?”
She blinked tear-filled eyes at the grisly objects for some moments before shaking her head.
“Then why were they removed from the Chamber of Horrors?”
“Louise must have left them there last night,” Madeleine said quietly, as though discussing a basket of eggs. “She was going to clean them.”
As she lapsed into silence once more, I found myself confirmed in my opinion that a waxworks was indeed a peculiar place.
To be concluded…
