Dust and Shadow

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Lie

It was a great blessing for Holmes and me that we appeared in the character of Blackstone’s friends, for the stunned expression that flitted across both our faces thus required no explanation.

The woman’s thin lips parted sympathetically. “My name is Mrs. Quinn. I’ve naught to offer you for refreshment, as we’ve fallen lately upon some hard times. But if you’ve no objection to sitting a moment, I’ll make it all as clear to ye as I can.”

We thus found ourselves seated upon a pew in the well-kept but achingly bare room the Quinns shared. Similar pews lined the other three walls, scorched in places as if rescued from a fire, and a statue of the Virgin Mary whose cloak had half burned away sat majestically in a corner.

“Yer wondering at my furnishings,” Mrs. Quinn observed. “There was a great fire at one of the chapels hereabouts some years ago, when Mr. Quinn was still alive. Much of it was piled up for burning, but my Colin, he said the Lord would be grieved to see us wi’out so much as a stone to sit on, and here He’s provided us wi’ benches that would remind us of His goodness every day.

“Wi’out Mr. Quinn these five years, times has gotten steadily worse, and I’d taken the notion of bringing in extra lodgers. God forgive me for saying since his death this house has seemed as cursed as any I’ve ever heard tell of back home. The first family lived happily enough upstairs before their eldest daughter took sick. The Connellys they were called, the six of ’em. Wasn’t long before Katie’d spread the pox to the others, and it was all I could do to keep ’em supplied with hot water and linens wi’out exposing our family to the sickness. After four of ’em had died, the other two just disappeared into the night. I’ve been wanting to rent the room again, for it’s months since they’ve gone, but the notion of cleaning it is a hard one, for I’ve more knowledge of how these things are passed than most, and I’ve a mortal terror of taking sick with Tim and Rebecca to think of.

“The other chamber was near enough destroyed when a kerosene lamp fell from a table, but I still had the attic room, and last August I rented it to yer friend, Johnny Blackstone, just after the Connellys all vanished. I think he liked this house, for it was so easy for him to be alone, and I hardly ever saw him from one day to the next. Whenever we did meet, often as not I’d have the little ones in tow, and he’d laugh at the sight of ’em. He’d leave treats for ’em at the foot of the stairs—harmless things, boats he’d made, and paper dolls and the like. But he always seemed in a hurry to be quit of us and would strike off for one of his dens, or run upstairs to smoke that foul pipe of his, and so it was that when he died last week, I never noticed for well-nigh three days’ time. God forgive me for it.”

“How did he die, Mrs. Quinn?”

“He hanged himself, Mr. Escott,” she replied, her round hazel eyes brimming with tears.

Holmes and I regarded her with unfeigned horror, but she swiftly recovered her self-possession.

“The parish men took his body and performed a pauper’s burial. I cast about a bit for any as knew him, but when none did, I came to think how he’d been behind in his rent, and the washing I take in hasn’t been near enough, and winter just beginning. I pawned the lot of his things today when I’d done delivering my washing, Mr. Escott. All but the blanket, for we need another one.”

“Mrs. Quinn, though I don’t like asking you to think on such things, was there any sign of why a young fellow like Blackstone might have taken his own life? Something in the lot you pawned, for instance?”

“There was nothing like that save for a letter. I believe it’s for his sister. I’d have mailed it sooner, but I’ve only just gotten the postage from the goods I pawned.”

She brought the letter and placed it upon the table. Holmes did not so much as glance at it but regarded Mrs. Quinn with an admirable display of buried grief.

“Forgive me—Blackstone’s death has come as a powerful blow to us, you must understand. That he had fallen upon evil days I knew, but that he ever entertained the notion of taking his own life…well, my mate may be beyond help, Mrs. Quinn, but I can at least set his affairs in order. What did he owe you beyond what you took in from pawning his goods?”

“Three and sixpence, Mr. Escott.”

“Here is a crown, then, for his rent and the interest. As for his goods, you’ve saved us from dealing with them.” As we arose and shook hands with Mrs. Quinn, Holmes’s eyes at last fell upon the letter. “Might I have the honour of posting this, Mrs. Quinn? Surely all the proceeds from his kit ought to be your own.”

“I should be glad if you would do so. Thank you both for yer kindness. I am sure Mr. Blackstone sees it and is grateful.”

We took our leave of Mrs. Quinn’s ruinous house, the outside air tinged with spent powder and woodsmoke. My friend tucked the letter in his inner pocket, and we marched without a word exchanged between us back to Scarborough Street and up the precarious stairs to Holmes’s room.

Though I could see from the detective’s first glance at the address that something deeply troubled him, he proceeded with mechanical aplomb, carefully slitting it open only after he had exhausted the envelope. He glanced at the handwriting within, then promptly passed it to me and sat upon the orange crate with the tips of his fingers pressed before his nearly closed eyes.

“Read it.”

The message, written in a great, driving script on four one-sided sheets, went as follows:

My dearest Lily,

You must be very angry with me for having hidden myself away all this time, but I fear once I have told you the reason for it, you’ll be glad enough never to lay eyes on your brother again. How I’ve missed you, and Peter, and the little ones. Whatever you do, please don’t tell the children of this letter. Say I had to go back to war. Say anything. I couldn’t bear it if they were afraid of their uncle, even after the evil I’ve done. The thought that they will remember me as the man I wished to be always—but you won’t tell them, Lily. That’s a comfort to me. Maybe it’s the only one I have left.

You remember, when we were young ourselves, once in a great while I lost my wits a little. I even struck you, my darling sister, as hard as ever I could, and you only six at the time. Can you remember it still? Your lip bled and you hid from me, and after father dealt with me, I spent every spare hour in the barn for a week making you dolls out of straw so that you would forgive me. I swore I’d never fall into such a rage again.

There was a fellow in Egypt—never mind him, he came out of it all right, but we had been mates and it was never the same afterwards. And another chap after we’d come back to Plymouth who tried to cheat me at cards. I thought the opium helped make me quieter, but soon enough I saw it wasn’t any real good.

I’ve come to the part I would rather cut off my arm than tell you, but if you’re ever to forgive me and still think of me with kindness when I’m gone, you have to know the whole truth of it, for I can’t bear any more of this sham. There was a girl. We’d walked down an alley together and had hardly been there ten minutes before it happened. She said something wicked to me—no woman ought to say such a thing to a man. I was drunk, and all I could feel was that black rage burning a hole in my chest, and by the work of some devil, my bayonet was in my hand. It was over in a moment. She looked almost sad at what I’d done. I heard the sound of footsteps coming toward us, and I didn’t stop running until I fell in a ditch, where I lay until morning, and a ditch is where I’ve lived, body and soul, ever since.

I don’t deserve to see you again, and I can’t be trusted with the girls. Maybe I’ve spent time enough in a deep enough Hell since it happened that God will forgive me—or maybe there’ll be nothing anymore, just quiet, and maybe I want that most of all.

Johnny

We sat in silence for some time. I knew nothing of what Holmes was thinking, but my own mind was in a whirl. It was a terrible admission, a nightmare of guilt and self-recrimination, but knowing as much as Holmes and I did, also grossly inaccurate. Could Blackstone have fallen into such a murderous trance that he had forgotten stabbing Martha Tabram beyond all bounds of sanity? I reminded myself that his sister’s opinion was paramount to him, but it beggared belief that he would admit to a murder and then promptly obscure the manner of it.

And where, if his deranged mind even knew of them, was mention of the other killings? My friend had hinted at every opportunity that he thought this man Blackstone to be none other than Jack the Ripper. His insistence that the Tabram case was our starting point, his preoccupation with uniforms, his tolerance of Dunlevy’s spying, the very weeks he had spent in the East-end: all pointed irrevocably to Blackstone’s assumed guilt. But if he had been the culprit, were our troubles now at an end? If all five grisly murders were upon his shoulders, the confession I still held listlessly in my hand was nothing more than a monstrous lie, or else the ravings of a man so delusional that he had forgotten the bulk of his wrongdoing. So much was clear to me and yet allowed room for still one more intolerable scenario to present itself. Suppose that Sherlock Holmes had been wrong?

I stirred myself to regard my friend, who remained in the exact posture he had assumed when I began the letter. Relaxed and immobile, he could have remained perfectly still, perhaps for hours, outwardly catatonic while his mind grappled rarefied data into hard fact. Instead, he spoke.

“You know what it means, don’t you?” he asked, his tone still reflecting the distant, incisive diction of the pure reasoner.

“I can hardly make head or tail of it. It complicates things immensely.”

“On the contrary, it simplifies them a thousand times over.”

“But my dear Holmes, how can that be possible?”

“Because now we know,” he said softly, “that someone is lying.”

I could think of nothing to say. Holmes fell back into thought, drumming his long fingers against one another until a startled expression darted across his features.

“A killing stab with a bayonet, and thirty-eight more wounds with a common pocketknife. Dear God, it is as clear as day. Where is Miss Monk?”

“I do not know. Dunlevy escorted her home yesterday. He is more taken with her than ever.”

“Is she likely to be with Dunlevy still?”

“I could not tell you. Her loathing of the fellow certainly seems to have lessened somewhat. But Holmes—”

Holmes, already in his coat, his muffler a whirl of red as he made for the door, made no reply. His haste sent a sharp sliver of unease shooting down my spine as I scrambled after him.

We set off at a rapid pace down the street, dappled everywhere with the orange light of exultant bonfires, but whether we made for Stephen Dunlevy’s abode or Miss Monk’s rooms I could not say. As we walked, Holmes stared unseeingly with his head sunk upon his chest whilst I fought to prevent myself picturing Miss Monk lying cold and open-eyed in an alleyway. Within a few minutes, we passed the now familiar sight of the Leman Street police station, its stoic lights casting icy blue shafts through their casements of marine-coloured glass. Excepting the Bow Street station, which Her Majesty considered too close to the opera house to broadcast its existence so palpably, each Metropolitan outpost proclaimed itself a haven by its shimmering cobalt lamps.

“When one considers the police presence in the East-end, it is positively unthinkable that so many lives have been lost to this madman.”

To my utmost surprise, for I had hardly noted my muttered remark had been made aloud, Holmes stopped dead in his tracks.

“What do you mean, Watson?”

“Well,” I faltered, “the security in Whitechapel must be at its most stringent in history. Every available man has been diverted to guard the area. There ought to be dozens of them at any given time—though of course I’ve no notion of how they organize their beats.”

“Beats are between one and one-and-one-half miles long, generally requiring a minimum of ten and a maximum of fifteen minutes to traverse, barring any time-consuming incident. They do not overlap, though their routes do bring them into contact at their perimeters with other constables. Stopping for any reason other than suspicion a crime has been committed is expressly forbidden, though many officers keep a flask of tea warming at a gas lamp somewhere along their path.”

He began to pace slowly beside the police station, one hand lightly beating against the adjacent brick wall. “Watson, a deranged man kills five separate women, all in the same small area of London. Instead of fleeing the scene, he remains with the corpses in a state of perfect calm and goes about the business of cutting them open. Once finished with his task, he makes his way to safety as invisibly as a ghost…No, no, no. As I have stated it, it is impossible. Fool that I am!” he cried. “Why did I not see at once that it is impossible? The alleys, the byways, the holes in the fences, the cat’s meat and the blood-strewn butcheries and the wretched light, all these factors seemed to have allowed this madman to work with impunity. And yet the acts he has committed cannot have been enabled simply by his environment. Once or twice, perhaps, luck may have been on his side, but his success at this late date beggars belief. He is cunning and ruthless. Why would he risk everything to chance?”

He was off again, at a run this time. Boarded shop windows blurred into one another as we rushed headlong up tapering corridors, finally emerging into the pulsating spectacle of Whitechapel Road on the night of the fifth of November.

Dodging past hawkers waving crude effigies labeled with the names of Guy Fawkes and Jack the Ripper, we plunged into traffic, narrowly skirting the drays, hansoms, and carts which choked the thoroughfare. Just when I began to despair of maintaining the breakneck pace my friend had set, he turned sharply left and I recognized the wooden door of the chambers Miss Monk had taken. Holmes strode to the entrance, his brow etched with disquiet.

“We face two possibilities. One is very nearly proven, and the other almost untenable. However, as it should be exorbitantly clear now even to you, my dear Watson, I have been wrong before.”

He knocked twice, then swiftly entered. Though the door was unlocked, we saw by the low firelight in the grate that the tidy room was empty.

“She could be anywhere, Holmes,” said I, more to myself than to my friend. “After all, it is—”

“The fifth of November.” He touched the top of the wide candle sitting on her table. “The wax is still soft. She left within thirty minutes.”

“What is the time?”

“Nearly two, by my watch.”

“Is she in danger, Holmes?”

“If my hypothesis is correct, she is in no more danger than you or I. However, I have not a shred of hard evidence to back me, and the only logical alternative is not a pleasant one.”

I tried with all my might to recall the name of the tavern Miss Monk had mentioned as being the first stop on many of her reconnaissance forays. “There is a pub, Holmes, around the corner from her house.”

“The Knight’s Standard, on Old Montague Street. An excellent notion, Doctor.”

The pub in question was a cheery enough watering hole with two fireplaces, one at either end of an elongated rectangle of a room with an impossibly low beamed ceiling. Through the haze of tobacco fumes, I spied a couple seated in shabby armchairs on either side of a simple table, and the female appeared to be blessed with a halo of black curls.

“There she is! She is all right,” I exclaimed.

“Thank God for that.”

“I believe that is Dunlevy,” I added forcefully, unable to forget Holmes’s interest in his proximity to Miss Monk and chafing at the fact that I could not see what was inside my friend’s mind.

“Everything is as I thought, then,” said Holmes, but the jubilation I had expected was entirely missing from his toneless voice. I had no time to question him, for Miss Monk had spied us and was peering our way as if unsure whether to hail or ignore us.

“Shall we speak to them?”

“It can hardly matter now,” he replied with the same chillingly blank inflection.

When we had started toward them, Miss Monk’s pleasure could no longer contain itself as she rushed up to us and threw her arms around Holmes.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes, I was that worried! Where the devil have you been hiding yourself? But you look awfully pale, Mr. Holmes. Don’t tell me there’s been another murder done—”

My friend stepped back with surprised civility and cleared his throat. “Nothing of that nature, Miss Monk.” He had dropped, I noted, all pretense of an assumed dialect.

“We are very relieved to see you in one piece, Mr. Holmes. You’ve found Blackstone, haven’t you?” asked Dunlevy, his clear blue eyes searching our faces with concern. “What has happened?”

My friend resumed staring into the fire while I related, briefly and hesitantly, what had occurred. Miss Monk’s face slowly grew more hopeful.

“Then…then, do you mean…if he really is dead, is it the end of this horrid business?”

“I suppose it is the end,” I answered, my eyes fixed on Holmes. “After all, he may not have known what he was doing. And the guilt must have been unspeakable; perhaps the trauma simply unhinged his mind.”

“But that isn’t what Mr. Holmes thinks, is it?” asked Dunlevy, offering us two cigarettes.

The detective accepted the stimulant mechanically and drew a pocketbook from the lining of his pea jacket, handing it to Dunlevy with a stub of lead pencil. “Write something.”

Stephen Dunlevy took the items without protest, but eyed Holmes questioningly. “What shall I write?”

“Anything. ‘Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder Treason and plot.’”

When Dunlevy had finished, he tore out the page and passed it to my friend. “Is this of any use to you?”

After glancing at it, Holmes balled it up and threw it in the fire. “It is conclusive. If you will excuse me, I must see what can be done.”

“But Mr. Holmes—”

“I’ve a task for you and Miss Monk, if you would be so kind. Go at once to George Lusk’s residence in Mile End. Tell him to meet with his men. They are already arranged into beats, and equipped with police whistles and truncheons, but convey my assertion that they must be flawlessly organized and on the most stringent alert. Afterwards, Miss Monk, do please stay indoors.”

Once outside, Holmes made for Whitechapel Road. I touched my friend on the shoulder predicting resistance, but he paused at once and regarded me expectantly.

“You anticipate another murder.”

“I am in hopes of preventing it. It will require an extraordinary effort. I need Lestrade’s assistance, but…I must think of a way. Perhaps my brother can—I do not know. Perhaps it is impossible.”

I stared at Holmes in astonishment, for never had I seen him look so completely cowed by his own knowledge.

“You feared it could be Dunlevy.”

“He was one possibility. We are left with the other.”

“Then you do know who the killer is.”

“I do. It is perfectly clear now. But pray God that I am wrong.”

“But why?”

As he passed a hand over his eyes, I recalled that he could not have slept more than twenty hours in the last seven days. For the first time since I had known him, Sherlock Holmes appeared to be exhausted by work rather than by inaction.

“Because if I am right,” he murmured, “I haven’t the first idea what to do.”