Dust and Shadow (23 page)

“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.”

I awoke the next morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing over me in his pea jacket and rough red scarf, tossing a heap of worn clothing in the corner. He was distressingly energized, and I knew from the deep arcs under his eyes that his night had been a sleepless one.

“What is the time?”

“Close upon eight.”

“You have been out?”

“I have been rambling about town and took the liberty of making a few purchases on your behalf.”

“Indeed? Have you eaten?”

“A cup of coffee. Now, Watson, I trust you won’t mind exercising a small precaution I’ve been forced to employ when traveling in these circles. I would appreciate your donning the exceedingly shabby attire to your immediate left, topped with that old coat. Forgive me for having torn it in a few places. Just at the moment, you appear far too affluent to be associated with Jack Escott, but that hearty fellow will meet you downstairs in ten minutes’ time, and we will take our morning wet at the Ten Bells public house, preceded by a good brisk walk.”

In less than the time specified, I met Holmes (or rather, Holmes in the guise of the seafaring type I took to be called Jack Escott) downstairs, and we struck off in the coarse beige light of morning.
Twenty minutes had passed before the tavern appeared on the corner of Church Street, its doorway flanked by simple columns and its sign, black with “The Ten Bells” marked out in white lettering, swaying gently in the breeze. The single room inside was littered with chairs and knife-scarred tables, while the walls boasted pictorial tiling degraded nearly to ruins by a tenacious layer of grit.

“You are wondering what our intent may be,” Holmes responded softly, though I had said nothing. “Never fear—just be sure to agree with me at every turn, and we’ll soon come out all right.”

The bar was far busier than I would ever have guessed at that hour, the locals industriously draining their cups before setting off to accomplish the labours or leisures of their respective days. A knot of bedraggled half-pay soldiers soon spied Holmes and waved us lazily over to their table.

“Where’d you pick up this one, then, Escott?” hailed a short fellow of middle years, with regulation side-whiskers and the peering red gaze of a man who is seldom if ever free from the influence of strong drink.

“This is Middleton, an old mate of mine just back in town. Murphy! A round of porter for the table.”

“How are you, Middleton?” asked the soldier as more brews were poured. I was formulating a reply when my friend interjected.

“Oh, never mind him, Kettle. He was in Afghanistan, you know. Saw more of life than any of us should, or so I’ve gathered. Only talks when he’s had a drop too many, and even then it’s of Ghazis, bless him.”

“What was it, then? Kandahar?”

Holmes laughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing so pleasant as that. Maiwand.
*
You’d best leave him be.”

The former guardsmen squinted sympathetically. “Well, then, what about you, Escott? Back to the Three Cobras tonight?”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed dreamily. “It had crossed my mind. Middleton here’s a ruddy connoisseur of the stuff. We’ve been rambling about all night. Stumbled onto that fellow Blackstone, what was in Egypt a few years back.”

“Johnny Blackstone? Haven’t run into him for over a week now. Your friend here may keep mum more than is usual, but it’s a sight more peaceful than that Blackstone’s balmy talk.”

“That’ll be the black drop. He means no harm.”

“I daresay you’re right. But he was in a dark mood last I laid eyes on him.”

“I meant to stop by his digs last week—he allowed as he’d be the better for company, but damned if there weren’t a pipe in my hand when I said it. It was as much as I could do to recall it were in Spitalfields, let alone the address.”

“He lives in Sandy’s Row, over Widegate Street area. Keeps himself to himself for the most part, but I dropped in for a nightcap, last month it must have been, though I’ve not been back since. There he is up at the back of the building, windows all stopped up with scraps. Small wonder he’s so few folk looking in.”

“Maybe he likes it that way. At any rate, I’ve Middleton to share a morning pipe if Blackstone’s too deep in the dumps to crawl out of ’em.” My friend shrugged, finishing the last of his beer.

“You don’t mean to stop by now, do you?” Kettle asked. “Lord knows what den he’s holed up in. He’s that cracked—sets off at one or two in the morning on his rambles and never thinks of his rooms till late the next day. If you want to find him there, look in tonight before midnight.”

We said our good-byes and ambled outdoors. I could see the bustling eastern side of Spitalfields Market across the road from us, and the smell of livestock and freshly unearthed onions wafted along the street. My friend was a taut whipcord of suppressed vitality as we set off aimlessly down the road.

“That’s done it,” Holmes said quietly, but with the thrill of the
chase in his clipped tenor. “I had the house number yesterday from a fellow called Wicks over three cups of gin.”

“Have you all this while been seeking out Blackstone’s lodgings?”

“Indeed yes. It is no joke to infiltrate a network of people and, through expert maneuvering, convey the impression that you have existed on the periphery for far longer than anyone can recall.”

“I was astonished at their manner toward you. You might have known them for years.”

“For the first five days, I divided no less than eighteen hours a day amongst the most popular dens between Whitechapel and Limehouse, my brain nothing more than a massive sponge. I flatter myself I had the lay of the land fairly quickly, deducing as much as I observed. Patterns began to emerge. When I felt confident enough, and these fellows had grown used to the sight of me, I began dropping names—a brother who’d reenlisted, a friend who’d died, a girl who hadn’t been seen in years. I established undisputed, unprovable connections. At last my own story came out. Where had I been? At sea, these four years. Soon I was so universally trusted that I could elicit information with very little fear of being caught.

“When Mr. Li conveyed the message that Blackstone was at the Three Cobras, I arrived mere minutes too late, but his departure easily occasioned talk of him amongst his associates. Slowly, as if I were piecing together a smashed Abyssinian urn, an image emerged. He has not lived long in the area, and no one knew him before August. He resides alone, more often than not going about in a uniform in spite of his discharge. He is a mass of contradictions: despite his rugged good looks and cynical charm, he shuns the company of women. Though his mood is nearly always black and his temper violent, he is well liked by the other lads for his clever speech and free purse.

“I desired nothing more than to find out his lodgings, but it soon became clear that the slippery devil hardly ever receives guests. It could not have been more taxing, Watson—it was a more delicate combination of deductive reasoning and guarded conversation than
I ever anticipated, but the final link you witnessed yourself, and the end of the search lies before us. I confess that I feared when you arrived, your presence would disrupt my little fiction. Thankfully, I had nearly reached my goal, and a trusty comrade will now be of inestimable use.”

“No one else could have accomplished so much, and without arousing the slightest suspicion,” I declared warmly.

Holmes waved away my compliment, but the gesture was a gentle one. “Your envelope is cause for the greatest concern. It was postmarked Saturday, the twentieth of October. Tavistock has had more damning information in his hands for over two weeks now. At any moment, he may publish another stylishly phrased defamation. Then there is the Ripper himself to consider; since he set out to terrorize the unfortunates of Whitechapel, he has never paused this long in his ungodly work. If the pattern of dates continues, he will strike again no later than the eighth of November.”

“May we run the villain down tonight, for their sakes.”

“For all of London, my dear fellow,” he replied grimly. “But above all, for their sakes.”

We passed the day easily in the ramshackle room, Holmes chatting desultorily of violins and their origins in sixteenth-century Italy until the sun had fallen. After a bowl of stew and tumbler of whiskey in a nearby tavern, we set off under the clearest night sky we had seen in some time. My friend steered us immediately north, and I quickly recognized our path as we passed the railway depot and crossed Aldgate High Street. A group of street urchins were setting off a riot of firecrackers in an old cistern, and I recalled as a shower of golden sparks fell upon the roofs of the warehouses that it was Guy Fawkes Day, the fifth of November.

“I cannot express how galling it was to have the house number from a semidelirious sot moments before he lost any pretense at con
sciousness,” Holmes remarked as the crack and hiss of gunpowder faded into the distance. “However, despite the delay, it was as well we learned of the street from Kettle, for he knows more of Blackstone’s habits than anyone.”

“What do you imagine will happen, Holmes?”

“Suffice it to say we had best prepare for anything. In any event, I don’t suppose either of us will ever again fail to remember the fifth of November.”

We strode down a slick side street littered with whimsical configurations of rubbish gathered into heaps, which I gradually perceived were actually for sale. Broken pipes, cracked cookware, split boots, rusted keys, and twisted cutlery spilled onto the cobbles, and all the smells of the thrice-mended clothing permeated the air. Through this purgatory of lost objects Holmes picked his way easily, until we emerged onto an open byway, edged with warehouses whose smokestacks churned black exhalations into the night. Here numerous bonfires blazed, with crude Guy Fawkes effigies roasting above them, and the locals turned spitted potatoes over the coals as they cheered the roar of distant detonations.

My friend stopped at a corner and pointed without hesitation to a rickety structure which leaned against its neighbour for succour in its extreme old age. Though the street was unmarked at that juncture, I had no doubt but that Holmes’s encyclopedic knowledge had led us directly to Blackstone’s dwelling place.

“You have your weapon about you, I trust?”

“My service revolver is in my pocket.”

“Very good.” He plunged off the pavement, such as it was, and we approached the sagging grey door. The detective’s knock produced nothing more than a hollow thumping which died away the instant it was produced.

“There seems to be no one on the ground floor,” he whispered, cracking the lens of his dark lantern. “Let us see if there is any sign of life on the upper levels.”

We tried the door and found it latched, but with the aid of his pocketknife, Holmes had it open in a few seconds. A mouse squeaked in the corner and then fled through shafts of lunar illumination to its sanctuary under the stair. My friend crept toward the staircase and ascended, I at his heels, each of us straining our ears for any indication that the floor we approached was occupied.

Two doors, each slightly ajar, presented themselves upon the next landing. The further one sat in shadow, the nearer lashed with bars of silver light from the cracked roof high above us. Without a sound, Holmes moved through the closer door and into the room.

Inside stood a perfect representation of a family’s living quarters, with a pot on the stove, a pile of clothing half folded on the floor, even a string of carefully collected, brightly coloured bits of broken glass hung over a tiny basket draped with blankets in the corner. A thin film of dust lay over the entire room. I caught Holmes by the wrist.

“Out. Quickly,” I ordered, and in a few steps we were back in the hallway. Holmes’s searching expression swiftly cleared when he had deduced the cause behind the uncanny scene that I, as a doctor, had once encountered before.

“Cholera or smallpox?”

“It seems to be no longer worth finding out.”

My friend nodded and immediately diverted his attention to the other door, which he opened with a gentle push before poking his head inside.

“This one is uninhabitable, at least in the winter. A fire seems to have eaten away the outer wall some years ago. Our man resides upstairs on the second floor.”

Grasping the butt of my revolver firmly, I advanced up the final set of stairs behind Holmes. Though dustier and fallen into further disrepair, I did not need his finely honed senses to inform me that someone was in the habit of passing this way.

A single unmarked door appeared at the end of the second-floor
corridor. My friend strode forward without a backward glance and threw open the final unlatched portal.

I saw at once, despite the poverty of light caused by strips of cloth hanging over the two tiny windows, that no one was there. Holmes opened the full flood of the lantern’s brilliance and handed it to me. Remaining just outside lest I trample some fragment vital to his investigation, I replaced my revolver in my pocket and examined the room from the hallway. Filth encrusted every surface and a sickly sweet smell, like burnt sugar that had been allowed to decay, permeated the very walls of the place.

Holmes set instantly to exploring every inch of the chamber with an expression of the utmost gravity, and I very soon determined why. Apart from a blanket and a broken chair, not a single object remained in the room. And despite the noxious atmosphere, I failed to spy either pipe or bag which might have contained any opium.

“There has been some deviltry at work here,” Holmes said in his coldest, most impassive tone. “Come in—there’s nothing to be learned from the floor.”

“Our bird appears to have flown,” I commented.

“But in heaven’s name, why? I was meticulous. I am prepared to swear that no one has the least idea I am even searching for him.” Holmes gestured dispiritedly with a wide sweep of his lean arm. “A blanket, and a chair. They tell us nothing. And yet…in a sense, it is very peculiar. He has clearly taken all he possessed. Why should the blanket remain? No holes, no mice…Everything else is gone. Why leave this behind?”