A Study in Terror

The Ripper Case Journal Final Note January 12, 1908

Holmes vexes me. I confess, because he was out of England for an extended period, that I took it upon myself, against his wish, to put my notes for the Jack the Ripper case into narrative form. Twenty years have now passed. For nine of these, a new heir, a distant relation, has borne the Shires title. One, I might add, who spends but a fraction of his time in England, and cares little for either the title or its illustrious history.

I had come to feel, however, that it was high time the world was informed of the truth about the Ripper case, which held an equally illustrious place―if that is the word!―in the history of crime, and about Holmes’s struggle to end the monster’s bloody reign in Whitechapel.

On Holmes’s return from abroad, I broached this to him, expressing myself in the most persuasive terms I could muster. But he is adamant in his refusal.

“No, no, Watson, let the bones lie mouldering. The world would be no richer from the publication of the story.”

“But, Holmes! All this work―”

“I am sorry, Watson. But that is my last word in the matter.”

“Then,” said I, with ill-concealed annoyance, “allow me to present you with the manuscript. Perhaps you will find use for the paper as pipe-lighters.”

“I am honoured, Watson, and touched,” said he, most cheerfully. “In return, allow me to present you with the details of a little matter I have just brought to a successful conclusion. You may apply to it your undeniable flair for melodrama, and submit it to your publishers without delay. It has to do with a South American sailing-man, who came very close to duping a European financial syndicate with a genuine roc’s-egg. Perhaps The Case of the Peruvian Sinbad will in some measure assuage your disappointment.”

And thus, matters now stand.