stagehand on the floor and saw instantly that the wound was fatal. I looked up and Mlle La Victoire was gone. Leaving the dying man in the arms of a colleague, I ran backstage.
Chaos! In a dark room lit by a piercing ray of white light aimed at the back of the screen, struggling figures bashed into large wooden frames on wheels.
The spotlight was blinding. I tried to shield my eyes. ‘Mademoiselle!’ I cried.
I heard nothing but the shouts of men. I dodged as the highly flammable light crashed to the floor next to me. There was a small explosion. The room went black and flame erupted near my feet. There was more shouting as several stagehands rushed towards it to put it out.
Mlle La Victoire’s voice rang out. ‘Jean!’
Two large stage doors swung open to a nearby courtyard dimly lit by a single street lamp. The fight spilled into it. The cobblestones gleamed with black ice and the struggling men slid and tumbled on its slick surface, falling with sharp cries of pain.
I recognized the mysterious Frenchman of Holmes’s acquaintance, and two of the black-clad men I’d observed earlier. I drew my revolver and followed.
Mlle La Victoire dashed out from backstage into a circle of light. Brandishing a large vase, she brought it down on one of the black-clad men. The vase glanced off his shoulder. He grunted, whirling to grab her wrist. She screamed.
The thug, his bald head gleaming in the lamplight, pointed a knife under her ribs and backed her towards the wall of the adjacent building, as the tall Frenchman continued to battle one of the others.
‘Bitch!’ snarled the bald villain, raising the knife to her face. ‘I’ll cut you good for that.’
American? I aimed but had no clear shot. Pocketing my gun, I dashed forward at the exact moment the Frenchman downed his red-haired attacker and did the same. Both of us leapt towards the man with the knife, and as if we were choreographed, the Frenchman knocked the weapon from the man’s hand, as I threw a punch straight at the kidneys. The bald man in black dropped to the ground, his knife flying into the darkness.
Two were down. But there had been four at the table.
‘Jean!’ cried Mlle La Victoire, flinging herself into the Frenchman’s arms.
‘Allez-y!’ he said, pushing her away. Run!
She hesitated. In that instant, her bald assailant rose from the ground like Lazarus, and in a flash knocked me into the wall. We struggled as the second attacked the Frenchman with renewed vigour.
The four of us slid and tumbled on the ice like drunks. My revolver fell from my pocket. It skittered away into the darkness.
As I struggled with my attacker, a third man grabbed Mlle La Victoire and slapped her, hard.
Furious, I tried to wrench free, but at my momentary distraction, my attacker took his chance. I felt myself choked from behind, and gasping for air.
It was then that the fourth man in black, the small man whom I had spotted as the leader, moved into the light. The odds had worsened. He ran towards me, butting me hard in the stomach. My knees buckled.
He pulled out a long stiletto which glittered like a deadly icicle in the pale light. The man choking me altered his grip and grabbed me by the hair, forcing my head back. The small man now slowly raised the stiletto to my throat, and began caressing it with the flat of the knife.
It was a strange gesture, like a surgeon cleansing the skin with carbolic before his incision. Time slowed.
His pale face and beady eyes were strangely rat-like. ‘The dangerous one dies first,’ he said. The sharp side of the blade pricked my skin. I felt a warm trickle of blood down my neck and it seemed the end. I closed my eyes.
But the Frenchman had prevailed and suddenly the Rat was knocked aside!
Seizing the moment, I yanked the man who was choking me off balance. Dimly I was aware of the Frenchman struggling in the corner of my vision but I could not dislodge my assailant and his chokehold tightened. I dropped to my knees, growing faint.
We were outmatched.
The Rat regained his footing, and charged. But a sharp crack of something hard on bone caused the small man to tumble before me with a high-pitched cry of rage. Somersaulting skilfully out of his fall like a circus acrobat, he leaped to his feet and turned to face a new attacker.
Backlit by the streetlamp was a tall, cloaked figure brandishing a stick. It was Sherlock Holmes!
The odds were looking up.
I slammed an elbow into the gut of my assailant. He loosened his grip and staggered back. I turned and we grappled, slipping in the ice and landing on the ground.
Holmes’s voice pierced through the sounds of the mêlée. ‘Your pistol, Watson!’
‘Gone!’ I cried. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
In a single glimpse I saw the Rat now facing the Frenchman, as two others advanced on Mlle La Victoire.
‘Busy!’ shouted Holmes, as he ran to her aid.
Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed him battling two assailants, walking stick held out before him in both hands, like the trained singlestick fighter he was. He whirled it above his head and then rained it down in a series of quick blows on the men facing him.
My own assailant leaped on top of me, and as we struggled, I heard Holmes’s stick connect and the cries of his attackers.
I landed a sharp uppercut to the thug charging me and he fell. I turned to see if Holmes needed help. But he had one man down, and as Mlle La Victoire cowered behind him he neatly felled the second of her attackers with a blow to the legs.
Then he took the lady’s hand, and pulled her away from the light and off into the darkness.
Where? I wondered.
The Rat, across the small courtyard and advancing on the Frenchman, saw it, too. But he did not follow. Instead, he uttered a curse, and turned, slashing at my tall ally. The Frenchman fell with a cry and the Rat leaped on him.
Without thinking, I plunged towards the two and for a moment the Frenchman, the Rat and I rolled like marbles on the icy cobblestones. I managed to land a sharp blow on the Rat’s collarbone and he screamed but rolled free and up on to his feet.
The Frenchman lay unmoving. I was on my own!
The Rat gave a quick glance to my mysterious ally. Dead? He barked a short command and his three cohorts – two downed by Holmes and the third trying to help them up – froze and looked up. Then all four vanished into the darkness.
I paused, waiting for a further attack. Silence.
From the ground came a sigh. ‘Ah,’ said the Frenchman. ‘Enfin, c’est fini!’ He stood up with barely a wince, brushing off his elegant suit.
I was panting, exhausted. What in the hell had just happened?
I felt my neck; it was still bleeding. I took out my handkerchief and pressed it to the cut. I looked over at the Frenchman. His face was now a mask of pain, and he had a hand to one shoulder.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘I am a doctor.’
He flashed me a look I did not understand. Guilt? Embarrassment? Then it was immediately replaced by an impudent grin.
‘I have never been better,’ he said, straightening up and shaking off his pain like a man would fling a bead of sweat on a summer’s day. For the first time I noticed his size. He had at least two inches and fifty pounds on Holmes, hardly typical for a Frenchman. Could he really be French? He glanced around and casually retrieved his top hat, lost in the struggle, replacing it at a jaunty angle.
My doubts were at rest; he was most definitely French.
‘Jean Vidocq,’ he said. ‘And you must be Dr Watson.’