Scene Five

The whistles closed along the steps. Holmes slid the half page of the prompt book inside his coat and pushed Crane gently back into the barge's shadow.

"Mark this, Watson: the fourth lamp was not lit to fetch a man. It was lit to write an obituary." He spoke low into the fog. "'Scene five. Lamp out. A man in the water.' Marlowe wrote murder into the prompt book. Now he wants the police to see the lamp die, and a man go under."

Two constables broke from the mist, their lanterns dazzling. The foremost knew Holmes and panted, "A call from the river—a man overboard at St Katharine. That lamp downstream has just gone out."

Holmes raised a hand and stopped the man who would have run for the fourth light. "Do not dredge the water yet. Go to the theatre and find Marlowe the prompter. The book is still in his hands. Scene five is not finished."

Downstream the lamp went out indeed. A slap of water answered from the dark—as if someone had just jumped, or pushed something in.

❦ To be continued.