Dust and Shadow

CHAPTER FIFTEEN The London Monster

Holmes remained in his room for some time after Lestrade had made his way out. The sun had set entirely when he emerged, asking, “Care to pay a call guaranteed to be more civil than your earlier endeavour?”

“I am at your service, Holmes.”

“Then help me into my coat and we shall settle a problem that has been plaguing my mind.”

“Certainly. Where are we going?”

“To consult a specialist.”

“A specialist?” I repeated in surprise. “But you are the world’s foremost specialist in crime detection.”

“I do not dispute it,” he replied smoothly. “We shall consult a specialist in another field entirely.”

“But are you strong enough for a journey tonight?”

Holmes tucked one of his commonplace books under his good arm with a slightly puckish smile. “I appreciate your solicitude, Doctor. However, in this instance, I fear it is misplaced.”

Once out of doors in the bracing cold, Holmes turned and proceeded down Baker Street. He had passed two houses when he stopped abruptly. “If you wouldn’t mind ringing the bell, Watson. You are better acquainted with the fellow than I, I’m afraid.”

Suppressing a smile, I did as he asked. We had not long to wait before the door flew open to reveal Dr. Moore Agar with a pair of not unbecoming spectacles perched on his nose.

“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed delightedly. “I thought you a client, but this is even more gratifying.”

He escorted us into a cheerful, well-appointed chamber with a striped Venetian carpet on the floor, an economical fire in the grate, and more bookshelves than there were bare walls. Dr. Agar insisted that Holmes take the entire settee, deposited me graciously in an armchair, then stood before the fireplace in unabashed pleasure.

“Your uncle is a kind gentleman to have set you up in practice,” said Holmes.

“Is he, now!” Our host laughed, clapping his hands silently in approval. “I had hardly ventured to hope for a demonstration. If I were a less thoughtful man, I might have guessed that I mentioned my Uncle Augustus to you on Saturday night—or was it Sunday morning? But I did no such thing, and you must trot out your reasoning before a devoted admirer.”

Holmes smiled ruefully. “You may be amused to learn that I cannot recall the smallest detail of your visit.”

“My apologies, Mr. Holmes. Dr. Moore Agar, at your service,” he replied, extending his left hand to shake my friend’s unharmed limb. “Now, how did you deduce that Uncle Augustus financed this operation?”

“Certain indications suggest that you are forced to employ economy in your practice. However, your library is extensive, a few of your books quite rare, and your rooms well appointed. You have a benefactor, but not one from whom you receive regular sustenance. A single endowment, then, from a party whose fortunes do not permit more frequent aid. In my experience, the only folk in this world who donate large sums without fortunes to back them are close relatives. The box photograph on the mantel clearly depicts your own parents, who are dressed very simply. An unlikely source, then, for setting a young doctor up in practice. However, I observe a framed document behind your desk certifying one Dr. Augustus Agar a licensed physician. Your uncle, upon his retirement from practice, made you a gift of monies and, I daresay, a significant portion of his library. His medical license you retain as a keepsake.”

“It is marvelous! But how did you know Augustus Agar was my uncle and not my grandfather?”

“The date on the certificate, not to mention the typeface and the colour of the paper, rather precludes that notion.”

Dr. Agar shot me an appreciative glance. “I admit that I wondered whether your account of Mr. Holmes had embellished his powers, but I am now prepared to believe Mr. Holmes a genius, and yourself a man of unimpeachable honesty.”

“It is merely a matter of drawing inferences based on the visible data,” Holmes demurred with his usual withdrawn composure, but I could see he was flattered by the young doctor’s approval.

“Tush! There is nothing ‘mere’ about it. You are a pioneer in your field, a characteristic I wholeheartedly admire. I am also guilty of a unique course of study, which you have noted has not yet made my fortune.”

“You are engaged in an unusual branch of medicine, then?” I queried.

“And not a very popular one, I am afraid,” he smiled. “We tend to run the gamut from pathological anatomy to mesmerism, with all manner of phrenology, craniometry, and neurology thrown in. I am a psychologist.”

“Are you indeed?” I exclaimed.

“I studied in Paris for a year under Charcot at the Salpêtrière Hospital.* If Uncle Augustus had possessed the funds, he would certainly have set me up in Cavendish Square, and my expertise would thus be certified geographically. I am afraid Baker Street is the revered locus of criminal detection, not of the cure of mental disease. At present I subsist on referrals: the nervous, the hypochondriacal, and the merely sick. And of course, the occasional stabbing comes my way.”

“Yes, well,” coughed Holmes, “as it happens that is just the matter in which I require your assistance.”

“That is wonderful news!” Dr. Agar grinned. “I was burning with curiosity, but as a gentleman, I could hardly ask. What sort of assistance may I render?”

“Dr. Watson’s Medical Directory informed me you were a specialist in nervous disorders, and a glance at your shelves tells me you may be just the expert I require. Textbook of Brain Disorders, Mental Pathology and Therapeutics, Psychopathia Sexualis*—if you are the doctor your library proclaims, you could be of the greatest use.”

Holmes related briefly the circumstances which led to his grisly introduction to Dr. Agar. When he finished, the doctor nodded with an expression of deepest interest.

“I have, of course, followed the Ripper’s crimes very closely. I had an inkling from the press reports that it was his work I stitched up the other night. But let me understand you, sir—do you seek aid that is in some way psychological?”

“I do,” confirmed Holmes. “I am a consulting detective, Dr. Agar, and as such many branches of study come within my sphere, the majority of which deal with gathering and interpreting hard evidence. However, I believe the Ripper may be a variety of criminal I have never before pursued, and one against whom hard evidence is of alarmingly little use. My practice is based upon the fact that, although a given crime may appear unique, to the connoisseur of criminal history, it nearly always follows an established pattern. In this case, the template was so very rare that it took me some time to identify it. But since the events of the thirtieth, I begin to know this fellow better. The double murder eroded his mask in a profound fashion. It appears we must understand that slaying these women is a pleasure second only to afterwards ripping them to pieces.”

I felt a growing revulsion at the conversation, but Dr. Agar appeared profoundly intrigued. “He seeks out women who have wronged him and enacts these terrible crimes out of sheer hatred?” I questioned.

Holmes shook his head. “I do not believe he knows them. It is my working hypothesis that this man kills perfect strangers. In fact, I have been led to believe that we are on the trail of a complete madman who is for all appearances an ordinary person.”

I stared at him aghast. “I could well believe that the fiend is mad,” I protested, “but what you suggest is impossible. There must be another motive behind the deaths of these women. The mad do not walk among the sane unremarked.”

“Do they not?” he queried, one brow tilted toward the ceiling.

“No,” I insisted irritably. “The merely eccentric are as sane as you or I, but as for a man who butchers the most pitiable of our populace without reason or foreknowledge—can you seriously believe such malice could go about the business of day-to-day life without exciting alarm?”

“Do not ask me. That is what I wish to inquire of Dr. Agar,” Holmes replied, turning the force of his steely gaze upon the psychologist standing before the dwindling fire. “Is it possible, in your professional opinion, for a madman to enact a faultless pretense of rational humanity?”

Dr. Agar moved to his bookshelf and selected a slim volume. “I begin to guess at your meaning, Mr. Holmes. You refer to the London Monster.”

Holmes swiftly indicated a passage from his commonplace book. “I refer not only to the London Monster, although he plays a telling role. Nearly a century ago—April seventeen eighty-eight, London: first appearance of the London ‘Monster.’ Approximately fifty women knifed on the streets between the years of eighty-eight and ninety. Suspect never caught. Mark that, Watson. Moving to the Continent; Innsbruck, eighteen twenty-eight: multiple women approached and stabbed with a common pocketknife. Case never closed. Bremen, eighteen eighty: a hairdresser slashed the breasts of no fewer than thirty-five women in broad daylight before he was apprehended. All are examples of what I believe could be termed a deeply morbid erotic mania.”

“Your chain of reasoning is rather terrifying, sir,” said Dr. Agar.

“What chain of reasoning, Holmes?” I questioned apprehensively.

“If I can discover a link connecting the victims—shared knowledge of a secret is an excellent example—the hypothesis will, blessedly, shatter,” he returned. “But I have repeated to myself Cui bono? until I can feel the words burned upon my brain, and the only answer is No one. For now, it is clear that any man committing so many motiveless crimes must necessarily be mad. And yet, in order to continue freely committing them…”

“The culprit cannot have appeared to be mad,” finished Dr. Agar.

“So I put it to you, Dr. Agar,” Holmes concluded grimly. “Is such a thing possible?”

“It is a very difficult question to answer with any degree of assurance,” he replied carefully. “After all, is mental illness a sickness of the soul, degeneracy of stock, or a defect of the brain? What you propose is an entirely new form of madness—a monomania lurking beneath a rational mind, aiding itself and disguising itself. Your idea comes closer to the classical definition of pure malevolence than any maniac who lashes out with a frenzied knife. You speak of a complete moral degeneracy, assisted by an affable exterior and a shrewd intelligence.”

“Precisely,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“I’m afraid I think it entirely possible,” Dr. Agar replied.

“Then there is nothing for it,” said my friend. “My thanks for your assistance. If you will excuse me, I have a deal of work ahead of me. Payment for your past services is there, on the table.”

Dr. Agar quickly attempted to return the notes. “Mr. Holmes, as your neighbour, I would not dream of exacting payment over an emergency.”

“Then consider it a consulting fee,” my friend smiled. “This way, Watson. We’ll not intrude further upon Dr. Agar’s time.”

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes,” said the affable young fellow at the door. “If you should feel the need to intrude again, I beg that you will not hesitate! I treated three patients this afternoon—two for insomnia, and one for an ill-disguised preoccupation with opiates. Your visit has quite redeemed the day.”*

We waved to Dr. Agar and strolled the few steps back to our own door.

“You appear disturbed, Dr. Watson,” Holmes remarked.

“I cannot readily believe such men exist outside the realm of fiction designed to horrify the reader,” I admitted, casting about for my key.

“It is difficult to fathom, I know, for I required weeks to even consider such a nightmare possible.”

“And you are sure our man is of a kind?” I persisted as we made our way up the stairs.

“I have no doubt of it.”

“I cannot begin to think what steps you will take. It is a monster you describe, Holmes.”

“He is neither a monster nor a beast, but something far more dangerous. I fear that men, when possessed of both utter depravity and absolute conviction, are far more deadly than either. And I begin to fear that such men are nearly impossible to find. But I’ll do it, Watson. I shall have him. I swear to you it shall be done.” Holmes nodded a good night and then, without another word, vanished into the confines of his room.