The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective

Eighteen

FROM THE JOURNAL OF JOHN WALKER

After Holmes had left, Icovered the body of Jefferson Hope with a sheet and waited by the fire for my friend’s return. Ireally had no idea what he intended to do at Halliday’s Hotel, but Iexpected that he would drag Stangerson back to our rooms for the police to take charge of him. Although Stangerson had committed no crime in this country that we knew of, Ifelt sure there was a possibility of transporting him back to America in order to face trial for the murder of Lucy Ferrier’s father. While Iwaited, the fire crackling in the grate and the wind rattling the windowpanes as though trying to gain entry, Iscribbled down details of the evening’s dramatic events.

Some two hours after Holmes’ sudden exit, Iheard his footstep upon the stair. The door opened and he stumbled into the room. Without removing his hat or coat, he sank into the empty chair opposite me. His face was ashen and the whites of his eyes were veined red as though he had been crying.

“The man is dead,” he said.

“Stangerson?”

“Stangerson.”

“But how...?”

Holmes held Jefferson Hope’s pill-box in the flat of his hand. “The Higher Court decreed it.”

“You mean you administered poison to the man?”

Holmes shook his head. “I gave him the same choice that Hope had given Drebber.”

I shook my head in puzzlement and ran my fingers through my hair. “I don’t understand. Why on earth did you go to such an extreme?”

“Because—” he snapped, and then broke off. His voice was strident and angry, but there was emotional turmoil mirrored in his moist eyes. He paused before starting again. “Because I saw that it was the right thing to do. How was it fair or just that such a man should escape justice? He was a murderer and a coward. He was partly responsible for ruining three lives. I was wrong to stop Hope tonight. I should have allowed him to carry out the final part of his revenge. It was a righteous revenge.”

“But you yourself have now become party to murder.”

Holmes rattled the pill-box. “I let him choose.”

“What would you have done if he’d chosen the harmless pill?”

Holmes gave me a look that chilled me. “I only offered him the box containing the poisoned pills.”

“So it was murder.”

“Some would say so. And I am sure it will weigh on my conscience for a while — but not for long, for the man deserved to die.”

“It is not for you to make such a decision. You talked of a higher court. That was nonsense. You decided his fate. You intervened.”

“Yes, I did, in the name of true justice. While on earth we must strive for the best justice that this paltry existence can supply. There can be no doubt of the nature of guilt in the great crime of murder. The taking of another’s life for purely selfish reasons is the most terrible offence a man can commit — and it must be punished.”

“An eye for an eye? Surely that is too barbaric and simplistic?”

“I agree. Such rhetoric needs to be tempered to the occasion. Each case must be judged on its own merits. But often an offence cannot be dealt with fairly by the ephemeral nature of institutionalised justice. 500 years ago, if I had been caught stealing a sheep, the lord of the manor would have been within his rights to have me killed. Not so today. He would have to answer to the local magistrate, and I would probably end up with a few months in some damp prison establishment. The crime is the same — but the law is different. That is because society’s attitudes have changed. But what redress does the sheep-stealer from the Middle Ages have? Man’s law is ephemeral and arbitrary. It shifts and alters on the tide of changing perceptions of society. Believe me, Watson, it is no measure by which to judge. True, refined, objective justice is timeless.”

“I still believe that you should have let the law deal with Joseph Stangerson.”

“The law had twenty years in which to deal with both Drebber and Stangerson, and it failed. Believe me, I am not easy within myself at what I did tonight. See, my hand is still shaking. My nerves are jangling. But up here, up here where it really counts,” he tapped his temple vigorously with his forefinger, “I am calm. I am secure. The rational part of my being knows that I acted wisely, justly and in keeping with my moral beliefs. And soon its strength will subdue my errant emotions. I am a stronger man after what I have done tonight. My path is even clearer than it was before, and believe me, Doctor, the world is a better place without the likes of Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson in it.”

“I see that you are passionate about the matter and have convinced yourself that you have done no wrong.”

“Yes, and I have to convince you also, if you are to be an associate of mine.”

I shook my head in some confusion. “I’m not sure. In whatever way you dress up this business, you have taken a man’s life tonight. In the eyes of the law, that is murder. The premise goes against all the teachings of my youth. I’m really not sure.”

Surprisingly, Sherlock Holmes smiled. “Uncertainty will do for now. It is a large concept to swallow whole at the first encounter. I shall wear away at you. I know you are a good man, and that makes us brothers. You will see the light.”

“And in the mean time...”

“In the mean time, I must ask for your support. I must ask you to lie for me.”

“I thought as much.”

“Shrewdness is another of your sterling qualities. We must let the Yard know about poor Hope here, and lead them to believe he came here after he had sneaked into Halliday’s Hotel and carried out his deed. It would be as the man wanted, I am sure: to be seen as the avenging angel visiting both of his tormentors.”

I thought for a while. At that moment, I believed that Sherlock Holmes had made a great mistake, a blunder. He had taken his role of detective beyond the pale. And yet I realised that if he had not had the ingenuity to lure Jefferson Hope to our lodgings, Stangerson would most likely have suffered the same fate. While I pondered these things, Holmes threw off his outer clothes and poured himself a brandy. The smell of the alcohol brought to my mind that night under the Afghan stars, leaning against the old tree and drinking brandy... How I had suffered for that action! Holmes was not a monster, was not really a murderer, and if he had transgressed it was for the best possible reasons. I could not now elevate myself to be his judge.

“Very well,” I said at length. “I will corroborate your story and we shall not speak of this matter again. But do not at any time in the future put my loyalty to such a test again. This is the one and only time that I support such an action.”

How wrong I was.

Holmes struck my knee. “Good man. I knew I could rely on you — otherwise I would not have told you the truth.” He smiled briefly and then drained his glass. “Now, Watson, be a good fellow and arrange for a telegram to be sent to the Yard.”

Within the hour, both Lestrade and Gregson came round to Baker Street, along with a mortuary wagon. Holmes and I presented a doctored version of the night’s events, which was swallowed completely by the gullible policemen.

“We’ll get some men round to Halliday’s Hotel right away,” said Gregson. “A sad but tidy end to a baffling mystery.”

“Indeed,” agreed Lestrade. “A nice bit of work on your part, Mr Holmes. But you were very lucky not to be more severely injured by this Hope fellow. You really should leave all that heroic stuff to us professionals. If you’d have told us about it in the first place, we could have nabbed him before he set foot in the room.”

“And spoil my night’s entertainment?”

The policemen smiled, and each shook his head in bewilderment at my friend’s definition of entertainment. They bade us goodnight and departed.

Holmes and I said nothing for a while, and then Holmes rose and stretched.

“I am for my bed,” he said. As he reached the door, he turned to face me. “Thank you,” he said quietly, before leaving the room.

It was now my turn to pour a brandy nightcap. I cradled the glass in my hands as I leaned forward in my chair and stared into the dying embers of the fire. I knew that I could not reveal the truth of what happened that evening in my report to Moriarty. If I did so, I would be offering my new friend up as a sacrifice to the Professor. He would have a stranglehold on him for the rest of his life. No, Moriarty had to receive the official version of Hope and Stangerson’s death, the one that we had relayed to the police. I sighed with weariness and sadness at the delicate layers of duplicity that were surrounding my life.

I was also aware that, from the point of a fictionalised account of my first case with Holmes, it was too simplistic and short. If I were to turn the Brixton Road affair into a popular piece of literature, I would have to weave further threads into the mystery, to embellish the plot, while retaining the essential details of the true story.

One thing I was sure of was the nature of my burgeoning friendship with Sherlock Holmes, that strange creature to whom I had been invisibly shackled. The form and course of our relationship had changed that night. We shared a dark secret which inevitably drew us closer together. The more I saw of Holmes and listened to him, the more I liked and admired the man. I knew there and then that I was going to protect him, protect him from Moriarty and, more importantly, protect him from himself.