Dust and Shadow

CHAPTER TEN The Destruction of the Clue

I experienced a thin thrill of anticipation on our journey as I realized we were now taking the very path used by the killer in his flight. A walk of ten minutes was reduced to a drive of three, and before we knew it we had pulled up to the aptly titled Goulston Street. The culprit had evidently fled up Stoney Lane, crossed Middlesex Street, and proceeded a block up Wentworth Street before ducking into the more secluded Goulston Street.

When we reached the doorway where Detective Daniel Halse stood guard in the starless darkness like a gargoyle over a turret, we met with a curious sight. There stood a Scotland Yard inspector smiling indomitably, holding a large piece of sponge, and there also stood a quantity of both Metropolitan and City constables, saying nothing but clearly awaiting the arrival of a superior to judge a hostile dispute.

“I still say, Inspector Fry,” declared Detective Halse, as if repeating the crux of his earlier argument for our fresh ears, “that the idea of destroying evidence against this fiend is contrary to every notion of scientific inquiry.”

“And I maintain, Detective Halse,” said Inspector Fry doggedly, “that the civil unrest which allowing this message to remain in view would foment is against the principles of conscience and of British decency. Are you against the principles of British decency, Detective?”

The two appeared as if they were about to come to blows when Inspector Lestrade interposed his lean frame between the antagonists. “For the moment, I shall decide what course we will take in this matter. If you would be so kind as to step aside.”

Lestrade lifted the lantern in his hand and directed its beam at the black bricks. The remarkable riddle, chalked upon the wall in an oddly sloping hand, went in this way:

The Juwes are

the men that

will not

be blamed

for nothing

“You see the trouble, Inspector Lestrade—it is Lestrade, is it not?” inquired Inspector Fry placidly. “Riots on our hands, that’s what we’ll have. I’ll not be the one caught in the middle of them. Besides, there is no evidence the killer wrote these words. More likely the hand of an unbalanced youth.”

“Where is the piece of apron?” Lestrade questioned a constable.

“It has been taken to the Commercial Street police station, sir. The dark smears upon it followed exactly the pattern produced by wiping a soiled knife blade.”

“Then surely he left it deliberately,” I remarked to Lestrade. “As in the past he has left no traces, there is every likelihood he dropped that bloody cloth in order to draw attention to this disquieting epigram.”

“I’m of your mind, Dr. Watson,” Lestrade replied in low tones. “We must prevent them destroying it, if we can.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” demanded Inspector Fry.

“It must be photographed!” Detective Halse shouted. “And the City Police given an opportunity to examine it.”

“I have my orders from Sir Charles, sir,” said the infuriatingly dignified Inspector Fry.

“Instead, the message might be covered over with a piece of dark cloth,” remarked a constable.

“An excellent notion”—Lestrade nodded—“permitting us to preserve a clue.”

“Respectfully, I do not think that would be in accordance with Sir Charles’s wishes.”

“You could take a sponge to the top line only, with no one the wiser for it,” said Miss Monk.

“What if,” I suggested, “the oddly spelled word ‘Juwes’ only be erased, and the rest remain?”

“By Jove, the very thing!” cried Lestrade. “Better and better—no danger, then, of the sense of it being glimpsed.”

“What if,” replied Inspector Fry in the same maddeningly courteous tone, “we were all to construct daisy chains and drape them so as to shield the words from public view?”

“With all respect, sir,” snarled Detective Halse, “in another hour it will be light enough to photograph. The sun will begin to rise at any moment. We can cover the bloody thing with whatever you like until then, but I beg of you not to throw such a clue as this away.”

“This difficult decision is not mine to make.”

“No indeed, it is mine,” called a forceful, ringing baritone, and there to my astonishment stood Sir Charles Warren himself, the decorated war veteran of the Royal Engineers and the Colonial Office, who had once attempted to relieve a hero of mine, the matchless General Gordon, when he had been hopelessly outnumbered at Khartoum. He was as methodically dressed as if he had not been awoken in the middle of the night with bitter news, and the determined curve of his high, rounded forehead, the authority of his impeccably combed walrus moustache, and the obdurate resolve behind his monocle led me to believe we were in for trouble.

“I have come from Leman Street police station,” he declared, “and I am displeased with the news I have had from that quarter. You are under orders to destroy this monstrous blot of anti-Semitism before the traffic to Petticoat Lane Market is disturbed by it.”

“If you’ll pardon my saying so, sir,” interjected Inspector Lestrade, whose presence I was beginning to welcome with enthusiastic gratitude, “there are, perhaps, less radical possibilities open to us.”

“Less radical possibilities? The only radical sentiments being expressed here are written upon that wall and are about to be permanently expunged.”

“This detective, sir, has sent for a photographer—”

“To what purpose?”

“That the message might be made available also to the City force, sir.”

“I do not care two figs for the photographers of the City of London Police. They do not answer to the Home Office over riots, as I undoubtedly will should that absurd phrase remain.”

“Perhaps if we were to cover it, Sir Charles, only for half an hour—”

“I will not be coddled, nor will I be bargained with,” the former military commander averred. “What is your name?”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade, Sir Charles.”

“Well, Inspector Lestrade, you show an admirable passion for police work. You seem to me to have the very best interests of the populace at heart. You will therefore now take this sponge from your colleague and erase that vile scribbling so that we may return to real detective work.”

Inspector Lestrade’s lips set into a forbidding line while Detective Halse, rage twisting his knotted brows, slammed his palm against the wall and stepped aside. Lestrade took the damp sponge from Inspector Fry and approached the writing, stopping to shoot me a significant glance.

“No fear, Doctor,” Miss Monk whispered, “I’ve copied it down during all that racket.”

I nodded to Lestrade, who then proceeded to erase the curious clue. When finished, he shoved the damp sponge against Inspector Fry’s chest and turned to his Commissioner.

“It has been done, as you ordered, Sir Charles.”

“You have averted what could have been a powerful spark to the kindling of social unrest. I’ve business elsewhere. My thanks, gentlemen. As you were.” With that, Sir Charles Warren strode off in the direction of the station and the men began to disperse.

Lestrade regarded the blank wall with pained disquiet. “Dr. Watson, Detective Halse, a word with you please.”

The three of us strolled toward the waiting cab, Miss Monk trailing three or four feet behind.

“I’m not ashamed to say that was a bad business,” began Lestrade, with a dignity I had never before observed in the quick-tempered, rat-like investigator. “Dr. Watson, I expect you to forward copies of that message to both the Metropolitan and the City of London Police.”

“It shall be done immediately.”

“I had never met Sir Charles, you know,” he reflected. “I’m not anxious to repeat the experience—though he is right in that little good it would do us to plunge the entire district into chaos.”

“Surely that is not the point,” I began angrily, but Lestrade held up a hand.

“I’m no spinner of fanciful theories, Dr. Watson, and there are times when, sharp as he is, I think Mr. Holmes would be as well off in Bedlam as in Baker Street. But I am a believer in facts, and that chalked writing was as sound a fact as I’ve ever seen. Good night to you, Detective Halse. You’ll tell your superiors, no doubt, that we were given no choice.”

The City detective, still visibly suppressing his fury, bowed to us and left.

“Lestrade,” I ventured, “I cannot tell you how glad I have been of your presence, but I’m afraid we must leave at once. We have a great deal to report to Holmes, and I fear very much for the condition in which we are likely to find him.”

“Believe me, Dr. Watson, it has been heavy on my mind. I must return to Dutfield’s Yard, but I’ll leave you the cab. This night would have gone a sight differently had Mr. Holmes been here to the end. Next time our police commissioner takes it into his head to expunge a clue, I’d give fifty pounds to have Sherlock Holmes in my corner. I should be grateful if you would tell him so.” Lestrade tipped his hat to us both and strode off into the first brightening light of dawn.

It was then I noted that Miss Monk had grown singularly pale and drawn. I took her arm.

“Miss Monk, are you quite well?”

“It ain’t nothing to speak of, Doctor,” she replied. “Queer stroke of luck that led us to be so in the thick of it, but oh, Dr. Watson—did you ever in all your life even think on a deed so horrible as what he’s done?” She quickly hid her face in her hands.

“No, I have not,” I said quietly. “I feel just as you do, my dear. Get into the cab with me and I shall return you to your lodgings at once. You’ve found better ones, is that not so?”

“If you could drop me at Great Garden Street, Doctor, I’d be grateful. I’ve taken rooms there. Mr. Holmes will want to know everything, and make no mistake we’ll tell him plain what we saw, but not now. I couldn’t rightly bear it now.”

I shook my head as I helped her into the four-wheeler, searching for words of comfort, which rose to my lips and died there in mute sympathy. Miss Monk had been out all night in the cold, pursuing a creature whose great impulse was to brutally slay women exactly like her. She buried her head in the lapel of my greatcoat and we spent the short journey in silence. We soon reached her street, and I saw her to the door.

“You require complete rest for the remainder of the day. Come to Baker Street when you are able. I haven’t words to express my admiration for your courage, Miss Monk, and I know Holmes would say the same.” I left her, returning to the hansom heartsick and defeated as the first true rays of sunlight stole along the cracks of the paving stones.

I had hardly crossed the three shallow steps leading to our front door, nor breathlessly turned my key in the lock, when the door flew open to reveal Mrs. Hudson’s kind, familiar face, spectacles perched upon her head, and oddly done buttons upon her left sleeve.

“Oh, Dr. Watson!” she cried, grasping me by the shoulders. “When I think of what you must have been through! And Mr. Holmes! Seeing him as he was a few hours ago when he arrived here—oh, Dr. Watson, who has done this to him? He wouldn’t speak a word on the subject. I’ve only just finished scrubbing the blood from the kitchen.” The brave woman then dissolved into a brief sob of long-suppressed tears.

“Mrs. Hudson, you shall know all about it,” I returned swiftly, taking her hand. “But first, tell me, is Holmes in any danger?”

“I can’t say, Doctor. I was awoken in the night by a terrible banging. When I saw Mr. Holmes, I thought he had lost his key, but he leaned on the doorframe in such a peculiar way, his arm tied up in black rags, that I knew something was terribly wrong. I let him in at once, but he had hardly walked two steps before he fell against the balustrade and looked up the stairs to your rooms as if they were the side of a mountain. He said, ‘Kitchen, Mrs. Hudson, with your permission,’ and once inside, he fell straight into a chair. ‘Go at once and fetch a doctor,’ he said, in that masterful way of his. ‘Watson cannot be the only one in the neighbourhood. There is that chap at two twenty-seven—mass of dark hair, boots thrice mended, coming in and out and leaving a trail of iodoform—knock him up, if you will be so kind.’ Then he leaned his head back in a kind of faint. I was in such a panic at leaving him that I sent the pageboy instead, and Billy soon enough came back with the fellow. His name is Moore Agar, and he is indeed a doctor. Between them they took Mr. Holmes to his room. Billy has been up and down the stairs four times to fetch the water I heated. But that was hours ago, and Dr. Agar has not come down at all.”

I took the seventeen steps up to our sitting room two at a time and found a tall, handsome, round-featured young man with a determined jaw, a generous shock of wavy brown hair, and deeply set, thoughtful brown eyes checking our mantelpiece clock against his watch. He was dressed as a perfect gentleman in dark tweeds, and I noted an elegantly styled bowler hat thrown carelessly upon the settee, but the elbows and knees of his garments had worn nearly through, and the edges of the hat were beginning to fray. He looked up at my hurried entrance.

“Dr. Moore Agar at your service,” he said earnestly. “I had the honour of stitching up your friend in the next room. He has lost a considerable amount of blood, I am afraid, but I believe he will come out of it all right.”

“Thank God for that.” I exhaled in relief, collapsing into the nearest chair. “That is the very first piece of good news I have had this night. Forgive my exhaustion, Dr. Agar, but I have been taxed in every way possible. Mrs. Hudson tells me we are neighbours.”

“And so we are! I am quartered a mere two doors down. I am just beginning in practice, which is a black mark against me, but you will corroborate my findings, no doubt, and ensure that all will be well with your friend. You are the celebrated Mr. Holmes’s physician, Dr. Watson, no doubt?”

“Merely his biographer. Sherlock Holmes is elaborately uninterested in the state of his own health,” I replied, warmly grasping the hand before me.

Dr. Agar laughed. “It is of no surprise to me,” he replied. “Men of genius are often cavalier about physical trifles. This injury could hardly be termed trifling, however. No fear of muscular impairment, but the tissue damage is quite extensive and the blood loss, as you know, severe.”

“My friend will be very grateful.”

“Mr. Holmes has no reason to be. Perhaps when you have both recovered, you can relate to me more of these extraordinary circumstances, but for now I will leave you in peace. I have injected morphine, but if it is convenient to you, Doctor, I’ll not leave any of my own supplies behind. I imagine you have access to fresh bandaging and so forth; poverty compels me to be rude. Or practicality has trounced my manners. Whichever it may be, I apologize. A better morning to you, Dr. Watson,” the young physician said as he saw himself out and down the stairs.

I made my way quietly into Holmes’s bedroom, where I was peered at malevolently from every angle by the images of infamous criminals carelessly tacked to the walls. My friend, though deathly pale, was breathing regularly and at last, blessedly, unconscious. I swung the door to but did not shut it and returned downstairs for a soothing word with Mrs. Hudson. Then finally, retrieving a quilt from my bed and a generous glass of brandy from the sideboard, I made my home on the sofa within easy call and fell asleep just as the sunlight poured over the windowsills and struggled to flood the room in defiance of the closely drawn curtains.