Dust and Shadow

CHAPTER EIGHT In Pursuit of the Killer

Heading in a southwesterly direction, we were soon avoiding heaps of debris and rivulets of sewage on our way to Dunlevy’s abode. Miss Monk, freed from the gaze of our fellow bar patrons, let go of my forearm with a comradely squeeze and we traveled three abreast. We had passed a board school, and were nearing a two-story barn housing what sounded like a gentleman’s club in the midst of a celebration, when a pony-driven cart blocked our path as it approached an open gate. The workman sitting upon the small seat of his costermonger’s barrow, a stooped man with spectacles and fingerless gloves, called out impatiently to his animal. To his surprise, his pony shied backward with a nervous neighing sigh. Another attempt to enter met with the same resistance, and as a result, our party trod into the street to cross to the other side.

We had continued for several more paces when Holmes cried, “Wait! The reins, Watson! The reins in that man’s hand, they were slack, were they not?” Without awaiting a reply, he turned on his heel and flew back toward the gate and the fretfully pawing pony, whose owner had temporarily abandoned the project and gone inside the club.

Miss Monk turned a quizzical eye toward me. “They were slack, right enough. But what could that mean?”

I intended to reply, but some instinct instead caused me to run with all my speed after Holmes into the long space between the two buildings. The walls rose at an impossible angle for any light to penetrate from the street beyond, and I could barely make out my friend’s tall form against the opposite mouth of the corridor.

“Holmes!” I called, proceeding forward with one guiding hand on the cold wall. “What is it, Holmes?”

The spark of a lit vesta flared out, revealing my friend’s thin hand and a patch of stone wall. “It is murder, Watson.”

When Holmes lit the bull’s-eye, the sight which had been invisible to my duller senses caused me to gasp in alarm. There lay the very gaunt, sable-clad woman I had noted in the Bricklayer’s Arms not two hours previous. Her eyes were now open and staring, seemingly in disbelief at the rivulets of blood which ran from the gaping gash through her neck onto the ground.

I immediately knelt to see what could be done, but she had breathed her last mere seconds before our arrival. At this observation, a new thought struck me, and I looked urgently up at Holmes as I drew my service revolver, indicating the enclosed yard beyond. He nodded once. Lantern in hand, the detective cautiously advanced the remaining fifteen feet down the end of the corridor until he reached the edge of the threshold and stepped into the shadowy yard.

The attack happened so quickly that it was difficult for me to know exactly what occurred. A dark figure, who had clearly been waiting flat against the wall beyond, focusing all his senses upon our movements, darted behind Holmes and dealt me a powerful blow near the left eye, momentarily stunning me as he tumbled out the street side of the passageway. My next memory, which could only have been a split second later, was of Holmes shouting, “Remain here!” as he left the lantern and took flight after the murderer of the unidentified female, whose eyes, though my own were still painfully blurred, I gently closed as I leaned against the wall.

After bitterly regretting my own stupidity in allowing myself to be assaulted in such a manner, I reflected that the terrain had been far from in our favour—to walk from a narrow entrance into unknown landscape is to invite ambush—and I soon left off cursing my ill luck to ponder what use I could be where I was.

Upon approaching the gate, I nearly collided with the workman from the pony cart, which remained where we had left it, the animal still tossing its head in indignation at the proceedings. The driver had evidently gone inside and brought back with him a few lit candles and several of his comrades, many of foreign appearance, all respectably dressed and glaring at me suspiciously.

“My pony was afraid, and I stop to see why,” he began in slightly accented but perfectly comprehensible English. “He is not usually this way, and I saw a dark shape. You—you were hiding? In the yard?”

“No,” I replied, “but a terrible event has occurred there. We must summon the police at once.”

The knot of men exchanged worried glances. “I am Mr. Louis Diemschutz,” declared the cart driver. “We are members of the International Workingmen’s Educational Club, through that door. My house, my wife—they live off this yard. I must see what has been done.”

I nodded and stood aside. Mr. Diemschutz approached the body and gave a small exclamation at the pool of blood surrounding the victim’s head.

“This is not my wife,” he cried, “but another woman has been killed! This man is right. We must find help.”

Fortunately, that task required negligible effort, for before we had traversed ten yards of the street, Miss Monk rounded the corner in a visible rage with an exceedingly recalcitrant police constable in tow.

“You’ll leg it sharp, or I’ll begin screaming and I won’t stop till you’ve done what’s right. Bloody hell, do you think I spend my time chatting up every crusher I see trudging along his little circle?” She stopped short at the sight of me. “Oh, Dr. Watson,” she cried, leaving the policeman and flying to my side. “Your eye is bleeding. I knew summat was wrong. What’s in that alley? What’s happened to Mr. Holmes, then?”

“There has been another murder, and Holmes has gone after the killer,” I replied, half for the benefit of Miss Monk and half for that of the bewildered constable. As I uttered those words, I wondered with a sudden stab of fear whether it was remotely possible for Sherlock Holmes to be outmatched, and I lamented even more keenly that I was not with him.

“You saw the man what’s done it?” Miss Monk questioned. I nodded. “And there’s—there’s another woman in there? She’s dead, you’ve said as much, but is she—?”

“We interrupted her killer. Nothing of the sort that was done to Annie Chapman has happened here.”

“That’s a blessing, then.” Miss Monk exhaled. “Right. You want me to see her? The poor soul. I may know her, after all.”

I considered this suggestion and, knowing that time was of the essence, reluctantly gave my assent. The startled policeman likewise had no objection. I had left the lantern by the corpse, so together we approached the harsh halo of illumination delineating the arm and head of the body. Miss Monk bit her lip in distress at the sight of the victim but slowly shook her head. I took her arm and led her away.

“Are you all right, Miss Monk?”

“I’m like to be fine in a moment, Doctor.”

“Perhaps one of the men associated with the Educational Club will escort you inside.”

I had expected words of protestation either from Miss Monk, who looked stalwart but very pale, or from the club members, each of whom appeared to be attempting to work out my exact relationship with the shabbily clad young woman. No dispute was forthcoming, however, and a thin fellow with a pince-nez offered Miss Monk his arm and led her into the light and noise of the club.

“You’re Dr. Watson?” demanded the policeman. He was a ruddy-faced youth with a blond moustache and weak chin. “I am Police Constable Lamb. The area must be secured, and no one is to leave the club until we’ve settled this matter. Pray God Mr. Holmes has caught the fiend by this time.”

His words echoed my fervent hopes. I informed Constable Lamb I’d seen the dead woman two hours previous at the Bricklayer’s Arms, and Mr. Diemschutz, who was much distressed, then described his pony’s fright and his subsequent foray into the men’s club for assistance. By this time many of the neighbours had been roused, and word of the fresh crime spread rapidly from house to house as other policemen arrived on the scene.

After twenty minutes had elapsed, I was anxious; twenty minutes beyond that saw me fretfully pacing the pavement, wondering whether it would be possible for one man, in the dead of night in an unfamiliar and tortuous setting, to find another man when his initial trajectory had not even been observed. At nearly a quarter to two by my watch, feeling vaguely ill, I made up my mind simply to cast about the adjacent streets and had just set off when an unyielding hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Watson, that Mr. Holmes has not returned,” said Constable Lamb firmly, “but it is in direct violation of police procedure to allow you to exit the scene of a crime you…well, discovered, sir.”

“Sherlock Holmes is at this very moment attempting to bring in the man responsible for these vile acts, and I mean to help him in whatever way I can.”

“With respect, sir, you can’t find Mr. Holmes without even a notion of where to look.”

“He may be in desperate need of our assistance!”

“We can hardly provide him that without any idea where he is.”

“I can at least determine he is not nearby.”

“Not without violating the Yard’s procedure, sir.”

“I do not think that, even at this dark eleventh hour, we need entertain any notion of violating the procedure of the Yard,” said a familiar sardonic voice.

“Holmes!” I cried, whirling around in relief. There he stood, not five yards away, holding himself in a peculiarly stiff manner as he slowly advanced. “The killer—did you encounter him? Did he disappear?”

“I am afraid the answer to both questions is yes,” my friend replied, and then, taking another step, he seemed to suffer a loss of balance and staggered slightly.

“Dear God, Holmes, what has happened?” I rushed to his side and grasped his arm, and was all the more troubled when he did not protest but leaned on me heavily.

“Help me get him inside,” I ordered the constable.

“Thank you, Watson, I believe you and I can manage it. Although, perhaps, the ‘inside’ to which you refer ought to be somewhat private.”

One glance through the windows of the boisterous men’s club, confined to their quarters for questioning and gesticulating wildly, was enough to convince me Holmes was right, and I led my friend instead to the building on the south side of the enclosure, which I had come to understand was called Dutfield’s Yard. In the hallway between two families’ living quarters, Holmes lowered himself onto a filthy stoop, and in the better light I finally caught sight of the massive bloodstain seeping across his right shoulder.

“For the love of God, Holmes, if I had seen this, I should not have allowed you to walk under your own power more than two paces,” I cried, carefully pulling off his overcoat and his evening jacket, both of which were saturated with blood.

“I’d anticipated as much,” he murmured, wincing only occasionally as I furthered my attempts to expose the actual wound. “I am relieved to see you well, by the way. You were dealt a considerable blow.”

I threw off my greatcoat and began tearing apart my own dinner jacket, which I knew to be relatively sanitary, with Holmes’s pocketknife. “It was nothing. My own carelessness. Drink this,” I directed, handing him my flask.

Holmes took it from me with an unsteady hand. “I have seldom myself encountered so fleet or agile an opponent.”

“I wish to hear no explanations, nor do I wish you, in strict point of fact, to speak at all.” I marveled at the forceful injunctions I was laying upon my friend, whose total authority, outside of a medical emergency, I would never have challenged.

“No doubt you are right, Doctor. But allow me to enlighten the constable here, whose testimony may be called upon by the Yard in our own absence.”

“Briefly, then,” I growled. “What happened?”

“This fellow couldn’t hold a candle to the devil when in a tight corner. He ran off in the direction of some deserted warehouse byways, I imagine to prevent my shouting to any passersby to help me stop him. He knows these streets like the back of his hand, and I admit he had the advantage of me, for it has been months since I had a case here and one or two new gates and boarded-up alleys caught me by surprise. We had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when he darted into a maze of passages. I made every effort to keep him in sight, for we both knew that once he had shaken me off, I would never regain the trail. Finally I did lose the culprit, or thought I did.”

“Brace yourself a moment,” I directed, pressing a hastily constructed compress to Holmes’s shoulder. He turned even a shade paler but made no sound.

“I came to a very narrow crossroads of dripping stone corridors,” Holmes continued. “He appeared to have turned a corner, and as both the east and the westerly branches turned yet again within a few yards, my only option seemed to be mere guesswork.”

“You never guess.”

“No,” he acknowledged, with the hint of a smile, “nor did I in this case. I listened. I could no longer hear him running. Soon I realized that the creature could have made his escape through a door and out the back entrance, which would explain the lack of audible footsteps. In any event, I could not wait indefinitely, so after a brief perusal of the area, I grudgingly turned back the way I had come.

“It was as I passed the lintel of a deep doorway that the glint of a knife caught my eye, and the unfortunate incident occurred which you are working to correct. He’d stopped just before the crossroads, not after, and I curse my own stupidity for not having noted the absence of footfalls a moment before. I am possessed of quite rapid defensive reflexes, however, and diverted the blow effectively.”

“You are very seriously injured, Holmes!”

“As the knife was aimed at my throat, you will concede I could have done worse. In any event, before I could rally, he was off again. I followed him, then began to feel I was not at my best and made my way back here.”

“Indeed, you are hardly at the top of your form,” I agreed, finishing the final knot of a makeshift brace and thanking my stars that in Afghanistan I had frequently done without proper medical supplies. “That is all I can construct for the moment. Slip your arm into this sling and we are off to hospital.”

“Yes to the former and no, I think, to the latter. There is work still to be done. Have you any cigarettes about you? I’ve lost my case.”

I opened my mouth to protest and closed it again, knowing I could no more drag Sherlock Holmes away from a murder investigation than command the world to spin in the opposite direction. Constable Lamb, who had been taking notes, rose to his feet as I passed my friend a cigarette and struck him a match.

“By the way, Mr. Holmes, how came you to suspect something was amiss?”

“Watson did not tell you? A pony on the street reared up and refused to approach the passage.”

“Many ponies are skittish and dislike entering new territory if it is dark.”

“Yes, but this pony was going home. Its master’s reins lay slack in his lap; therefore, the pony stopped upon seeing something unusual which it did not like.”

“I see,” said the constable, somewhat dubiously, I thought with irritation. “And the murderer—would you describe him?”

Holmes closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. “The damnable luck is that I never once caught a glimpse of his face. He had wrapped himself about the neck and mouth and ran with his head down. He wore an overcoat, British cut, dark material, heavy shoes, and a worn cloth hat. He was clutching a parcel wrapped in newspaper, not heavy, under his left arm. Did you see him clearly, Watson?”

I somberly indicated I had not.

“So, Mr. Holmes, you and your friend here maintain that, although you confronted this fellow on two separate occasions this very night, you would be unable to identify him? I mean to say, it seems very unlikely, does it not?”

“Well, Officer,” my friend replied, crushing the remainder of his cigarette underfoot, “I suppose I must ask whether you find it likely that a man would take up tearing apart street women as a hobby. We appear to have quit the realm of likelihood, have we not? Come, we are losing time. Where strength has failed us, let us see what we can accomplish through reason alone.”