The West End Horror (16 page)

“I have had to be extremely circumspect.” The youth blushed and looked uncertainly from one to the other of us.

“You may speak before Dr. Watson here as before myself,” Holmes promised smoothly.

“Very well.” He sighed and took what was palpably a difficult plunge. “I must tell you gentlemen straight off that my appearance here tonight puts me in a very awkward situation–with the force, I mean.” He eyed us anxiously. “I’ve come on my own initiative, you see, and not in any official
Capacity.”

“Bravo,” Holmes murmured. “I was right, Hopkins. There is hope for you.”

“I very much doubt if there will be at the Yard if they learn of this,” the forlorn policeman replied, his honest features clouding further at the thought. “Perhaps I’d best be—”

“Why don’t you pull that chair up to the fire and begin at the beginning?” Holmes interrupted with soothing courtesy. “There you are. Make yourself quite at home and comfortable. Would you care for something to drink? No? Very well, I am all attention.” To prove it, he crossed his legs and closed his eyes.

“It’s about Mr. Brownlow,” the sergeant commenced hesitandy. He saw that Holmes’s eyes were shut and looked at me, perplexed, but I motioned for him to go on. “Mr. Brownlow,” he repeated.
“You
know Mr. Brownlow?”

“The police surgeon? I believe I passed him on my way downstairs at Twenty-four South Crescent yesterday morning. He was on his way for McCarthy’s remains, was he not?”

“Yes, sir,” Hopkins ran a tongue over his dry lips.

“A good man, Brownlow. Did he find anything remarkable in his autopsy?

There was a pause.

“Did he?”

“We don’t know, Mr. Holmes.”

“But he’s submitted his report, surely.”

“No. The fact is–” Hopkins hesitated

Browrilow has disappeared.”

Holmes opened his eyes. “Disappeared?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. He’s quite vanished.”

The detective blew air soundlessly from his cheeks. With automatic gestures his slender hands began nervously packing a pipe which had been lying near to hand. “When was he last seen?”

“He was in the mortuary all day at work on McCarthy–in the laboratory–and he began acting very strangely.”

“How do you mean strangely?”

The sergeant made a funny face, as though about to laugh. “He threw all the assistants and stretcher-bearers out of the laboratory; made all of ‘em take off all their clothes and scrub down with carbolic and alcohol and shower. And you know what he did while they were showering?”

The detective shook his head. I found myself straining to catch the sergeant’s low tones.

“Mr. Holmes,
he burned all their clothes.”

My companion’s eyes grew very bright at this. “Did he, indeed? And then disappeared?”

“Not just yet. He continued to work on the corpse by himself, and then, as you know, Miss Rutland’s remains were carried in and he went briefly to work on them. He grew excited all over again and again summoned the stretcher-bearers and his assistants together and made them take off all their clothes once more, scrub with carbolic and alcohol, and shower.” He paused, licked his lips and took a breath. “And while they were showering–”

“He burned their clothes a second time?” Holmes enquired. He could not suppress his excitement, and he rubbed his hands together with satisfaction, puffing rapidly on his pipe. The young man nodded.

“It was almost funny. They thought he’d started to play some sort of prank on them the first time, but now they were furious, especially the bearers. They all had to be wrapped in blankets from the emergency room and in the meantime, Mr. Brownlow’d barricaded himself inside the laboratory! They brought Inspector Gregson down from Whitehall, but Mr. Brownlow wouldn’t open the door to him, either. He had a police revolver with him in there and threatened to shoot the first man across the threshold. The door is quite solid and has no window, so they were obliged to leave him there all afternoon and into the night.”

“And now?”

“Now he is gone.”

“Gone? How? Surely they had sense enough to post a man outside the laboratory door.”

Hopkins nodded vigourously. “They did, but they didn’t think to post one outside the back of the laboratory.”

“And where does that door lead?”

“To the stables and mews. The laboratory receives its supplies that way. The door is bigger and easier to lock, so that they never thought to challenge it. You see, Mr. Holmes, it never occurred to any of us that his object was to
leave
the laboratory. Quite the reverse. We assumed his purpose was to make us leave, and remain in sole possession. Besides, they could hear him talking to himself in there.”

Holmes closed his eyes and leaned back once more in his chair.

“So he left the back way?”

“Ay, sir. In a police van.”

“Have you checked at his home? Brownlow’s married, I seem to recall, and lives in Knightsbridge. Have you tried him there?”

“He’s not been home, sir. We’ve men posted by it, and neither they nor his Missus have seen hide nor hair. She’s quite worked up about it, needless to say.”

“How very curious. I take it none of this activity at the mortuary has had the slightest effect on the consensus at the Yard that Achmet Singh is guilty of a double murder?”

“No effect whatsoever, sir, though I venture to suppose there must be a connection of some sort.”

“What makes you suppose that?”

Young Hopkins swallowed with difficulty. “Because there’s one other thing I haven’t told you, Mr. Holmes.”

“And that is?”

“Mr. Brownlow took the bodies with him.”

Holmes sat forward so abruptly that the sergeant flinched.

“What? Miss Rutland and McCarthy?”

“That is correct, sir.” The detective rose and began pacing about the room as the other watched. “I came to you, sir, because in my limited experience, you appear to think much more logically about certain matters than–” he trailed off, embarrassed by his own indiscretion, but Holmes, deep in thought, appeared not to notice.

“Hopkins, would our going over to the laboratory and having a close look at things there place you in an awkward position?

The young man paled. “Please, sir, you mustn’t think of doing it. The fact is, they’re all of a dither down there and don’t want anyone to know what’s happened. They’ve got it in their heads this thing could make them a laughing stock– the idea of the police surgeon burning all those clothes and then absconding with two corpses. . . .“

“That is one way of looking at it,” Holmes agreed. “Very well, then. You must answer a few more questions to the very best of your ability.”

“I’ll try, sir.”

“Have you seen the laboratory since Brownlow abandoned it?”

“Yes, sir. I made it my business to have a look.”

“Capital! Really, Hopkins, you exceed my fondest hopes. Now tell me what was left there?”

The sergeant frowned in concentration, eager to continue earning the detective’s effusive praise. “Nothing much, I’m afraid. Rather less than usual, in fact. The place had been scrubbed clean as a whistle and it fairly reeked of carbolic. The only thing out of the ordinary was the pile of burnt clothes in the chemical basins where he’d set fire to them. And he’d poured lye over the ashes.”

“How did you know what they were, in that case?”

“Some of the buttons still remained, sir.”

“Hopkins, you are a trump.” Holmes rubbed his hands together once more. “And have your sore throat and headache quite vanished?”

“Quite, sir. Yesterday Lestrade said it was probably just–” He stopped and gaped at the detective. “I don’t recall mentioning my illness.”

“Nor did you–which doesn’t alter the fact of your recovery. I am delighted to learn of it. You haven’t left out anything? A little nip of something on the side?”

Hopkins looked at him uncertainly. “Nip? No, sir. I don’t know what you mean, I m afraid.”

“Doubtless not. Lestrade feels fit, too, now, does he?”

“He is quite recovered,” the sergeant answered, giving up all hope of learning the detective’s secrets. Holmes scowled and cupped his chin in thought.

“You are both luckier than you know.”

“See here, Holmes,” I broke in, “I seem to see what you are getting at. There’s some matter of contamination or contagion involved–”

“Precisely.” His eyes gleamed. “But we have yet to discover what is in danger of proliferating. Watson, you saw both bodies and conducted a cursory examination of each. Did their condition suggest anything in the nature of a disease to you?”

I sat and pondered while they watched, Holmes barely able to conceal his impatience.

“I believe I stated at the time that both the throats were prematurely stiff, as though the glands were swollen. But any number of common ailments begin with a sore throat.”

Holmes sighed, nodded, and turned once more to the po liceman

“Hopkins, I very much fear a discreet visit to the back of the mortuary laboratory is inevitable. The stakes are too great that we should hesitate to trifle with the dignity of the metropolitan police. We must see how one man carried out two corpses. We already begin to know why.”

“To dispose of them?” I asked.

He nodded grimly. “And it would be as well to put out a general alarm for that missing police van.”

“That has already been done, Mr. Holmes,” said the young sergeant with some satisfaction. “If it’s in London, we’ll lay hands on it.”

“That is exactly what you must none of you do,” Holmes returned, throwing on his coat. “No one must go near it, Watson, are you still game?”

Moments later we stood in the company of the anxious sergeant on the stretch of pavement before 221b, in search of a cab. Instead of a hansom, however, I beheld a familiar figure dancing down the street towards us in the glare of the lamplight.

“Have you heard the latest outrage?” Bernard Shaw cried without so much as shaking hands. “They’ve pinned the whole thing on a Parsee!”

Sherlock Holmes endeavoured to inform the volatile Irishman that we were aware of the turn events had taken, but at that moment Shaw recognised Hopkins and turned upon that unfortunate young man the full force of his sarcastic vitriol.

“Out of uniform, eh?” he commenced. “And well you should be if murder is being contemplated. I wonder you’ve the face to appear in public at all with your hands so red! Do you seriously believe, Sergeant, that the British public, which I agree is gullible beyond credence, is going to swallow this particular connivance? It won’t go down, believe me, Sergeant it won’t. It’s too big to pass the widest chasm of plausibility. This isn’t France, you’d do well to remember.*[We have no way of knowing what precisely was meant by this remark. In my opinion
it
refers to the trial of Captain Dreyfus.] You can’t divert
our
attention with a xenophobic charade!”

In vain, as we waited for our cab, did Hopkins attempt to stem the tidal wave of rhetoric. He pointed out that it was not he who had arrested the Indian.

“So!” the other eagerly seized the opportunity for a literary analogy. “You wash your hands with Pilate, hey? I wonder there’s room at the trough for so many of you, lined up alongside with your dirty fingers. If you suppose–”

“My dear Shaw,” Holmes remonstrated forcefully, “I don’t know how you can have learned of Mr. Singh’s arrest–the newsboys are hawking it, very likely–but if you have nothing better to do than rouse mine honest neighbours at a quarter past twelve, I suggest you come along with us. Cabby!”

‘Where to?” Shaw demanded as the cab pulled up before us. His voice lacked any trace of contrition.

“The mortuary. Someone appears to have made off with our two corpses.”

“Made off with them?” he echoed, getting in. This intelligence succeeded in doing what Sergeant Hopkins could not, and the critic fell silent as he tried to determine its significance. His shrill imprecations were reduced to a stream of mutterings as we threaded our way to the mews behind the mortuary laboratory. A street or so before the place, Holmes ordered the driver to stop and we descended from the cab. In hushed tones, the cabby was instructed to wait where he was until we should return.

There was no one about as we entered the mews, though the voices of the ostlers were audible from the police stables across the way. We proceeded cautiously on foot, our path being lit by the yellow lights of windows overhead. Sergeant Hopkins looked fearfully about as we advanced, being more apprehensive about discovery than ourselves, for obvious reasons.

“This door leads to the laboratory?” Holmes enquired softly, pointing to a large, wooden, portcullis-like affair, whose base was some four feet off the ground.

Hopkins nodded, stealing an anxious glance over his shoulder. “That’s it, Mr. Holmes.”

“You can see the wheel marks where the wagon was backed up to it.” The detective knelt and indicated the twin tracks, plainly visible in the meagre light from above. “Of course the police have examined it,” he added with a weary sigh, pointing to all the footprints running in every direction all ‘round the place.

“It looks like they danced a Highland fling here,” I commented, sharing his indignation.

He grunted and followed the wheel marks out of the dirt to where they disappeared on the cobblestones. “He went left; that’s all we can say,” he reported gloomily, returning to the door where we waited. “Once he departed the mews there’s no telling where he was bound.”

“Perhaps we should fetch Toby,” I suggested.

‘We haven’t the time to get to Lambeth and back, and besides, what could we offer him as a scent? He’s not as young as he used to be, you know, and the stench of carbolic would be insufficient. Blast! Every second gives this thing–whatever it is–more time to spread. Hullo, what’s this?”

He had been speaking bent over and almost touching the ground as he inspected it inch by inch. Now he dropped to his knees once again, directly beneath the laboratory door, and rose with something held gingerly in his right hand. “The noose around Achmet Singh’s neck begins to loosen, or I am much deceived.”