Dust and Shadow

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The East-end Division

As I sat at the breakfast table next morning, feeling not a little self-satisfied, I turned the envelope over in my hands pondering the best way to get it to Holmes. No doubt he had made excellent arrangements, for he was continually darting off to the country or to the Continent and never had I seen him without prompt postal service. However, perhaps from a sense of innate pride in our accomplishment and perhaps from a certain leery caution, I found myself in midafternoon with the hard-won object still resting in an inner pocket and realized that I had grown irrationally determined to deliver it to my friend in person. How I could go about that task I had barely begun to surmise, but circumstances soon occurred which lifted the burden of ingenuity from my shoulders entirely.

The frail light had begun to fade and the combative autumn winds come to blows with the last of the dry leaves when the pageboy arrived with a hand-delivered note from Holmes. The message was addressed to Dr. John Watson and read:

Am on our quarry’s scent. Meet me at the corner of Commercial Street and Brick Lane at once, on foot, and bring your medical bag, as I fear we may have need of it.

Sherlock Holmes

I need hardly say that not only my black bag but my cleaned, loaded revolver were at hand in an instant, and I bounded into the street to hail a cab. It was just past seven o’clock in the evening as I set off, and the stolid, pastel houses passed by me in a darkening blur. Descending from the hansom just as night officially triumphed over day, I cast about for the correct orientation.

To my complete dismay, almost instantly, my direction grew twisted and confused due to the bizarre fact that the streets Holmes had indicated ran parallel to each other. After some deliberation, I determined to follow Brick Lane to see whether it intersected any roads of a similar name to Commercial Street, for often the names of London thoroughfares repeated themselves, and after turning off Stoney Street, one would hardly be surprised to find oneself in Stoney Lane. It was not a mistake typical of Sherlock Holmes’s exhaustive memory, but I could account for it in no other way and so determined to find the true cross street even if it took me all night.

I fell victim to nothing more than a few haphazard jeers for the first half hour, but as I retraced my steps down Brick Lane past Hebraic fellowship halls and the smell of frying sausages, sick at the thought I might have failed Holmes at the culmination of his labour through a simple misdirection, I became aware that the shouts of the locals were increasing in frequency as they narrowed in scope.

“Oy, you doctor! Out to sew up a whore?”

“Looking for a fresh one to patch together, are you, or will you do it yourself?”

These gibes soon became so antagonistic that I ducked down a quiet alley to think of a way to contact Holmes, if that were even possible. I had not been there two minutes, however, leaning against a barrel and straining to recall every detail of Whitechapel’s topography, when a group of five men approached me from the left, their mean figures silhouetted by the single jaundiced lamp. Even had I not been accustomed to the advent of sudden danger, my instincts would have alerted me to their postures and the cudgels they carried in slack, cavalier grips.

Initially I hoped they had some other object in mind and would pass me by, but the leader of the gang, a heavyset man with bristling hair and weighty jowls, nodded to the others to stay back and advanced toward me, tapping his stick against a meaty palm.

“Good evening,” I began. “Is there a problem?”

“Well, lads? What say you? I believe Underhill thought there might be a problem, is that not so?”

His four footpads laughed, slapping a thin, evil-eyed man with a wicked gash for a mouth upon the back. “That’s it! Underhill! He’s not easy in his mind, he isn’t,” one of them chuckled.

“Look here, sir,” I attempted, “I am—”

“Wait just a tick, guv. These is dangerous times we find ourselves in. So let’s say it comes to our attention that there has been sighted a bloke, a medical type of bloke, what’s pacing the area as if he’s…well, he has a prowling manner about him, if you understand me.”

“Now, see here, my good man—”

“And let’s further suppose that I, Ezekiel Hammersmith, being a chap of upstanding character, let’s say I calls me lads from the pub so as to get a better look at this medical bloke what’s lying in wait in a dark alley ten yards from me sister’s lodging house.” The brute smiled evilly and glanced up at a dingy hellhole of red brick.

“No, no, guv’nor,” he continued sadly. “Folk of your type need a powerful reason to be in these parts after dark.” He dropped his voice to a gravelly undertone. “By God, you’ll wish you’d never seen a whore before we’re done wi’ you.”

I reached for my revolver in an effort to deter them from five-on-one hand combat, but a swarthy fellow missing the majority of his left ear leapt forward and hacked my arm away with a cane. He had attempted two more solid blows, one narrowly missing my forearm and a second aimed at the neck that I managed to take on the shoulder, when his proximity afforded me the opportunity of delivering the left-handed hook which had many years previous granted me total freedom of movement at my rough-and-tumble grammar school.

Just then a very slender man entered the alley behind me, whistling softly to himself and carrying a long-handled brush over his left shoulder. His face and all his dark clothing were obscured by soot, and I saw at once that he was a chimney sweep returning home from an engagement. In a far-off corner of my mind, I noted in confusion that the tune he whistled was from Wagner’s Parsifal, but all my thoughts were suspended when the fellow stopped short at seeing so many rough characters wedged into the narrow corridor.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“Be on your way, if you don’t want a piece of it for yourself,” Hammersmith replied, stepping aside to let him pass. “This gentleman here is down on whores, and we are helping to make his peace with them.”

Fate, as I have often had cause to reflect, is a fickle entity. At one moment, five armed brutes bore down upon two guiltless men harbouring no wish to fight. The next moment, two of the five lay on the ground howling in pain, their ribs victimized by the long-handled tool of the chimney sweep. Hammersmith, who had narrowly escaped the assault, roared with rage, threw his club to the ground, reached under his trouser leg, and charged me and my new ally with a vicious short-handled knife.

Though I at last drew my revolver, I was ultimately spared its use. The sweep dealt him a crushing jab to the solar plexus, then hissed, “Down the passage and keep at my heels.” Sherlock Holmes then took my arm and we flew through the alleyway into a series of mews, over a low fence, and into the windswept autumn night.

Though we ran for perhaps ten minutes, I had the impression we did not get very far. Holmes executed a few simple dodges and once stopped to listen intently for our pursuers, then led me through a series of interconnected alleys littered with wood and broken shipping crates before finally, to my great surprise, he ducked into a low doorway and ushered me inside.

Hastening up the dark stairway with more regard for speed than for caution, I would likely have plummeted through to the floor below had not Holmes pulled me back just in time to prevent my falling down a rotting gap. At last, after two positively archaeological flights of stairs, we reached a door at the end of a brief hallway. My friend flung it open with a flourish, so far as such a rude assemblage of slats can be said to be flung.

“May I present, with all attendant welcome and ceremony, the Baker Street Private Consulting Detective Agency, East-end Division, the pulsing nucleus of the Ripper investigation.”

Sherlock Holmes maintained, so far as his fortunes permitted, no fewer than five and more probably seven secret lairs throughout London. Some boasted no more comforts than a basin and a trunk of clothes, but he often employed these nooks when a disguise or pursuit necessitated immediate private rooms. In all my many years of partnership with Holmes, I was introduced personally to a total of three such dwellings, as my friend’s native passion for secrecy prevented me from ever so much as laying eyes on the others.

This startling Whitechapel refuge consisted of a rectangular room, slightly longer than it was wide, with no windows, walls entirely papered with maps and news clippings, and two new, stout inner bolts of differing builds which Holmes proceeded efficiently to lock, finally fastening me with a look of inquiring concern.

“I should have liked to introduce you to our secondary branch under more relaxed circumstances, my dear fellow, but in any event you have immediately seen its usefulness. We are now on Scarborough Street, just south of Whitechapel Road. You will note that we have as much relevant information as possible at our fingertips, that we are fully equipped to maintain every requirement of hygiene and civility, and that a rather fine brandy rests upon the corner table. Pray help yourself to any amenities you see fit.”

The “corner table” referred to an upended water barrel adjacent to a straw mattress and a pile of clean, if worn, grey wool blankets. The room had no other rugs or furnishings save a dangerous-looking stove next to the fireplace, a battered desk, and two chairs, one of which appeared in a former life to have been an orange crate.

“Holmes, what exactly have you been doing in this cave?” I asked, advancing without hesitation toward the spirits on the makeshift side table and shaking my head at my friend’s considerable eccentricities. Holmes sat down upon the orange crate, removing his coat and vigorously applying a damp cloth to his blackened visage.

“I have been making the acquaintance of a great many members of Her Majesty’s army who have fallen under the spell of Papaver somniferum.* In fact, I’ve every hope of discovering Blackstone’s lodgings tomorrow.” Though jubilant, freed from its mask of soot, my friend’s face showed clear signs that he skirted the edge of complete exhaustion.

“But that is marvelous, Holmes!” I exclaimed. “By the by, I suppose I mistook the instructions, but however did you happen to find me?”

Holmes’s expression of perplexity, so rarely in evidence, only increased. “Finding myself without occupation for the evening, I was patrolling the streets, and I flatter myself with more discernment than your acquaintances of the alley. My dear Watson, I believe that there is not a soul in the world I should be happier to see just now, but may I ask what on earth you were doing wandering about Whitechapel with a medical bag and a sinister expression?”

“You summoned me here. Is this not your message?”

After casting an eye over the brief letter, Holmes looked at me in dismay.

“I corresponded with no one this afternoon.”

“Then you did not send for me?”

“Not I. When did you receive this?”

“Half past five in the afternoon.”

“It did not come through the post.”

“No, it was delivered.”

“Did you ask Billy what sort of man he got it from?”

“I thought it immaterial once I had seen your signature.”

“You know nothing of this note’s origin, then?”

“Nothing whatever.”

At length he cried out, “I cannot imagine what object you had in mind to follow these instructions, but this epistle is certainly penned by an adversary.”

“What object I had in mind?” I retorted readily. “You required my help!”

“No, no, Watson, it is all wrong. These certainly are my ts, ys, and ms, and the capital A is very good, but what on earth induced you to obey a note with such a manifestly inaccurate q?”

“My training as a doctor of medicine, I regret to say, was deficient in handwriting analysis,” I returned with greater asperity. “I supposed it written under some duress.”

“A thousand small clues should have given this away! For example, you and I have known each other for over seven years, yet in this brief note, I somehow see fit to include your prefix, given, and family names.”

“Surely not surprising if the conveyor of the message did not know me.”

“The paper, then! My stationery—”

“Is irrelevant as you were not at home,” I shot back heatedly. “However, if you wish, in the future I shall treat all your emergency summonses with suspicion and disbelief.”

Holmes softened with a visible effort. “It is only your safety which worries me, after all. I regret that little business back in the alley, but now that we have it, this note…this note is of immense interest. Its author has done a very workmanlike job of my signature; however, the remainder of the lettering was formed very slowly, which is a sure indication of forgery. Still, it is quite obvious that whoever penned this message to plague us has had access to a genuine sample of my handwriting.”

“Where on earth could he have obtained such a thing?”

“Ah, but we may draw still more conclusions: the document he has in his possession, while featuring a signature at the end, evinces fewer examples of my other characters. A short note, then, and I would wager fifty pounds one lacking the letter q entirely.”

“Some villain has access to your correspondence?”

“I hardly see how.”

“Your bank?”

“The Capital and Counties is renowned for its trustworthiness.”

“Well, then, you may have dashed off a note to your solicitor or penned a response to a client. It is impossible to know where the sample was obtained.”

“I will not say that you are wrong,” my friend replied abstractedly, “but surely the balance of probability is enormously against an agent of evil happening upon my handwriting by chance. It is far more probable that he stole a missive from some party who could be assumed to possess a sample of my script. At once the field is narrowed considerably. There is yourself to consider, my brother, several inspectors of the Yard, and those agencies to which you have already so shrewdly alluded, such as my bank or solicitor.”

“But stop a moment, Holmes—forgive me, but it was for good reason that I was particularly eager to meet with you this evening.”

My friend indicated his interest with a tilt of his head, and I proceeded to tell him all that we three had accomplished in his absence. I am still delighted to recall that, when I had concluded my narrative, Sherlock Holmes himself appeared astonished in no small measure.

“And your tracks are entirely covered?”

“It will be thought a childish pleasantry enacted upon a particularly rank example of British journalism.”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed impishly. “What pleasantry?”

“An inspired whim of Miss Monk’s devising. Rest assured it was entirely anonymous and that he will come to no lasting harm by it. The only thing of any interest was the note. It came in this envelope.”

To my great shock, my friend’s wan face paled still further.

“Holmes, whatever is the matter?”

He rushed to the wall, where notes were tacked in jagged rows, and pulled down perfect facsimiles of the last two letters we had received purportedly from Jack the Ripper.

“I knew he had motive, but it seemed too fantastic to contemplate. Surely I was within the bounds of reason to think it a paid mercenary or a political opportunist…”

“My dear fellow, what is it?”

“Look at it!” he cried, holding up a letter next to the envelope. “They are disguised, yes, but there cannot be a doubt in the world that these are penned by the same hand!”

“Do you mean to tell me that the man who has been tracing your movements, the blackguard who has set this journalist against you, is none other than Jack the Ripper himself?”

“Identical unmarked stationery to the kidney package,” my friend murmured. “Dated only two days after I quit Baker Street. Postal district E one—Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Mile End.”

“Holmes, what can this possibly mean?”

My friend’s eyes met mine with a hunted expression I had never seen there before. “It means that the Whitechapel killer is determined to see me blamed for his crimes. It also means that my movements, in any event those before I left Baker Street, were as open to him as the pages of a book. It is not a pretty thing to contemplate, Watson, but I very much fear the author of these murders has taken it upon himself to ruin me.”

I stared at him aghast. “I am heartily sorry not to have furnished you with better news.”

“My dear fellow, I am eternally grateful.”

“Then what can we do?”

“We can do nothing yet. I must think,” said he, sitting on the edge of the bed and drawing his knees into his wiry frame.

I nodded. “In that case, I shan’t dream of interrupting you.”

Holmes eyed me suspiciously. “You are not staying.”

“Nonsense,” said I. “I am assisting you in your work.”

My friend leapt to his feet. “That is entirely out of the question,” he cried. “Whatever nightmare it was before, this has developed into an extraordinarily dangerous undertaking.”

“Precisely so,” I agreed, helping myself to a woolen blanket.

“I categorically forbid it! You could fall prey to the gravest possible consequences if I am discovered.”

“Then we must do our best to remain incognito.” It was near impossible to ignore Holmes at his most imperious, but I had never been so set on a course of action in my life.

“Watson, you are the very least apt dissimulator it has been my privilege to know: in fact, I have hardly met anyone in my life whose mind is on more open display.”

I felt my colour rise at these remarks, but then I thought of Holmes undergoing the same threats I had faced in that dark corridor, but every day and without an ally.

“Holmes, give me your word as a gentleman I could not possibly be of use to you here in Whitechapel.”

“That is not the point!”

“Given your reputation for superior mental faculties, I should have thought you’d have grasped that it was.”

After a glare of considerable acrimony, Holmes smiled in resignation.

“Well, well, if I cannot dissuade you, I suppose I must thank you.”

“It will be my pleasure.”

He returned to the pallet, spread himself across it, and crossed his feet upon the water barrel. “I daresay you’ll find the surroundings a difficult adjustment.”

“I served in the second Afghan war, Holmes. I imagine I shall be comfortable enough.”

At this my friend sat bolt upright again with an exclamation of glee. “You have hit upon the very thing! And doubtless without any knowledge you have done so. The Afghan war…well done indeed.”

“I am gratified to be of service.”

“Good night, Watson,” he called out, turning down the oil lamp and stuffing his pipe with shag. “I must beg you not to avail yourself of my razor come morning. Unshaven will do far better, I think. And Watson?” he added. I could hear from his tone he had largely recovered his good humour.

“Yes?”

“I shouldn’t venture into the near right-hand corner. I am afraid it leaves something to be desired in the structural sense. Sleep well.”