The West End Horror (17 page)

“How so?” Shaw enquired, stepping forward.

“Because if the prosecution contends that the Parsee smoked these Indian cheroots, they will be hard put to explain the presence of this one outside the mortuary whilst Singh himself is incarcerated in a private security cell at Whitehall.”

“Are you certain it is the same cigar?” I hazarded, not wishing to question his abilities and yet, for the sake of the prisoner, feeling obliged to do so.

“Quite sure,” he returned without seeming to take umbrage. “I took great pains to recognise it should I ever see one like it again. It’s in an excellent state of preservation, as you can see. Notice the distinctive square-tipped ends. Our man simply threw it aside when the other opened the laboratory door for him.”

“The other?”

Holmes turned to Hopkins. “I take it Mr. Brownlow did not smoke Indian cheroots?”

“No, sir,” the youth replied. “In fact, to my knowledge, he did not smoke at all.”

“Excellent. Then there was another man here, and it is that other man who concerns us. Brownlow was not talking to himself but conversing with our quarry.”

“But what of Mr. Brownlow?” Hopkins demanded, his honest features revealing his perplexity.

“Hopkins–” the detective put a hand upon his shoulder– “the time has come for us to part company. Your position here becomes increasingly delicate as this night progresses. If you will be guided by me, I suggest that for your own good you go home and get a good night’s rest. Say nothing to anyone of what you have seen and heard here tonight, and I, for my part, will endeavour to keep your name out of it–unless, of course, Achmet Singh comes to the foot of the gallows, at which point I will have no alternative but to take drastic steps.”

Hopkins wavered, torn between his own curiosity and his sense of discretion. “Will you tell me what you find, at least?” he implored.

“I am afraid I cannot promise that I shall.”

The sergeant hesitated a moment or so longer and then departed with evident reluctance, his personal impulses outweighed by the obligations of loyalty he felt he owed to his superiors.

“A bright young fellow, that,” Holmes observed when he had gone. “And now, Watson, every minute counts. Whom do you know who could tell us about tropical diseases?”

“Tropical diseases?” Shaw interjected, but Holmes waved him to silence and waited for my answer.

“Ainstree*[
Watson had urged Holmes
to consult Ainstree
in his
capacity as tropical disease expert in
The Adventure of the
Dying
Detective
(1887).
] is generally regarded as the greatest living authority on the subject,” I replied, “but he is in the West Indies at present, if I am not mistaken.”

“What have tropical diseases to do with this?” Shaw demanded, raising his voice.

“Let us return to the cab, and I will explain. Only keep your voice down, like a good fellow.

“I think we had best pay a call on Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street,” he resumed when we had regained the cab. “Watson, you’ve frequently recommended him when I’ve been suffering from overwork and fatigue.”

“I did not envisage your calling upon him after one in the morning,” I hastened to point out. “In any case, the man’s not a specialist in tropical diseases.”

“No, but he may be able to direct us to the leading available authority.”

“In heaven’s name,” Shaw exploded as the cab rattled off for Harley Street, “you still haven’t said why we need a specialist in tropical diseases!”

“Forgive me, but I hope to make all plain before the night is out. All I can say at present is that Jonathan McCarthy and Miss Jessie Rutland were not killed to prevent their living but rather to prevent their dying a more horrible and more dangerous death.”

“How can one death be more dangerous than another?” Shaw scoffed in the dark recesses of the cab.

“Very easily. Different kinds of death pose different hazards to those who continue living. All bodies become sources of infection if they are not disposed of, yet a body that dies a natural death or even one that has been stabbed is less dangerous to other people than a corpse that has succumbed to some virulent disease.”

“You mean these two were slain violently in order to prevent their suffering the ravages of some malady?” Shaw exclaimed.

“Just so. A virulent disease that would have made off with them as surely as a bullet, given time. Their corpses were stolen from the mortuary laboratory to prevent further contagion, and we three, who were most prominently exposed to them, were forced to imbibe some sort of antidote.”

“Antidote!” the critic cried out, his voice rising an involuntary octave. “Then that practical joke outside Simpson’s–”

“Saved our lives, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“If your theory is correct,” Shaw returned gruffly. “But what is the malady we are speaking of?”

“I have no idea and hesitate even to venture a guess. Since all the evidence points to someone recently returned from India, I take the liberty of postulating some tropical disorder, but that is the best I can do with such insufficient data.

“The bodies were no doubt stolen, also, to prevent an autopsy from revealing what would have killed them had the murderer permitted them to live.”

“What of Brownlow, then? Did he collaborate with Jack Point?”

“He opened the door to him, that much seems certain. The evidence suggests he had come upon the truth–why else scrub down the laboratory, force the stretcher-bearers to shower, and burn their clothes?”

“Where is he now, then?”

Holmes hesitated. “I very much fear that Mr. Brownlow is dead. If the murderer’s purpose was to contain a spreading epidemic, the police surgeon, by virtue of his occupation, was more exposed to contamination than any of us.”

Next to me I could see Holmes’s jaw tighten, and in his expression I beheld that which I had never seen before in au the years I had known him. I beheld fear.

It was almost two o’clock when the cab deposited us before Dr. Moore Agar’s imposing residence in Harley Street. Remarking that our intrusion was not likely to be rendered less irritating to Dr. Agar by our waiting, Holmes proceeded up the steps and rang the night bell vigourously several times. It took some moments before a light appeared in one of the overhead windows, followed shortly thereafter by another on the floor above. In another few moments the door was opened by the housekeeper, an elderly woman, half asleep, who stood upon the threshold in her nightcap and dressing gown.

“I am extremely sorry to disturb you,” the detective informed her briskly, “but
it
is absolutely essential that I speak with Dr. Agar at once. My name is Sherlock Holmes.” He handed her his card.

She gaped at us, her eyes blinking away sleep.

“Just a moment, sir, please. Won’t you gentlemen step into the hail?”

We were obliged to stand there while she closed the door and went upon our errand. Sherlock Holmes paced furiously in the confined space of the vestibule, gnawing at his knuckles.

“It is staring us in the face, I know
it,”
he cried in exasperation, “but I cannot fathom
it,
cannot for the life of me!”

The inner door of the hail opened and the housekeeper admitted us, somewhat more alert now, and showed us to Dr. Moore Agar’s consulting room, where she turned up the gas and closed the door. This time we had not long to wait. Almost at once the doctor himself–tall, spare, and distinguished –swept into the room, tying the belt of his red silk dressing gown but otherwise appearing wide awake. *[In
the Adventure of the Devil's Foot
(1897) Watson says that one day he will recount the dramatic first meeting of Holmes and Dr. Agar. This would appesr to be it.]

“Mr. Holmes, what is the meaning of this? Are you ill?”

“I trust not, doctor. I have come to you in a crisis, however, for a piece of information upon which the lives of many may well depend. Forgive me if I do not take time for introductions, though I suspect you already know Dr. Watson.”

“Tell me what you need to know, and I will try to help you,” Agar informed him without standing on ceremony. If he was in any way discomfited by the lateness of the hour or perturbed by our unannounced arrival, he gave no outward sign of it.

“Very well. I need the name of the leading specialist in tropical diseases here in London.”

“Tropical diseases?” He frowned, passing a graceful hand across his mouth as he considered the request. “Well, Ainstree is the man who–

“He is not at present in England,” I pointed out.

“Ha. No, indeed not.” The physician suppressed a yawn that was meant to attribute his lapse of memory to the hour.

“Let me see, then–”

“Every minute is of the utmost urgency, Dr. Agar.”

“I understand you, sir.” He thought a moment longer, his blue eyes unblinking; then suddenly he snapped his fingers. “It comes to me now. There is a young man who might be able to assist you. His name escapes me, but I can look him up in my study and it won’t take but a minute. Wait here.”

He took a piece of paper from his desk and disappeared from the office. Holmes continued to pace restlessly, like a caged animal.

“Just look at this place,” Shaw growled, taking in the plush surroundings with a sweep of his small arm. “Fancy bound books and gadgets galore! The medical profession could easily compete with the theatre as a house of illusion if it wanted to. Does any of this paraphernalia really assist in curing folk of their ailments, or are these all a collection of stage props designed to impress the patient with the majesty and power of the shaman?”

“If the patient is cured by illusion, that is no less a cure,” I protested, whereat Shaw regarded me with a curious stare. I confess that once again I was nettled by the fellow’s caustic observations, but Holmes, seemingly oblivious to the exchange, continued to pace about the room.

“So,” Shaw went on, “if a man contracts the plague and goes to see a physician about it, by your argument, a roomful of books and instruments, such as these–”

“Plague!”

Holmes spun around, his face dead white, his hands shaking. “Plague,” he repeated in an almost reverential tone. “That is what we are dealing with.”

Never had a single word struck such terror in the very roots of my soul.

“Plague?” I repeated faintly, suppressing a shudder of dread. “How can you know?”

“Watson, invaluable Watson! You held the key in your own hands from the first! Do you remember the line you quoted from Act three, Scene one, of
Romeo and Juliet?:
‘A
plague
on both your houses!’ He was being literal! And what did they do when the plague came to London?”

“They closed the playhouses,” Shaw interjected.

“Precisely.”

At this moment the door opened and Agar returned, a folded piece of paper in his hand.

“I have the name you asked for,” he informed the detective, holding forth the paper.

“I know already what name it is,” Holmes responded, taking it. “Ah, you have included his address. That is most helpful. Ah, yes, before me all the time, and I was blind to it! Quick, Watson!” He stuffed the paper into the pocket of his Inverness. “Dr. Agar–” he grabbed the astonished physician’s hand and pumped it in passing–”a thousand thanks!” He tore from the room, leaving us no alternative but to pursue him.

The cab was waiting for us as ordered, and Holmes leapt in, yelling to the driver, “Thirty-three Wyndham Place, Marylebone, and don’t spare the horse!” We had barely time to clamber in after him before the vehicle was tearing through the nocturnal city of London with an echoing clatter of hoofbeats.

“All the time, all the time,” was the insistent litany of Sherlock Holmes, intoned again and again as we raced through the deserted streets on our fateful errand. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. If only I had heeded that simple maxim!” he groaned. ‘Watson, you are in the presence of the greatest fool in Christendom.”

“I believe we are in the presence of the greatest lunatic,” Shaw broke in. “Pull yourself together, man, and tell us what’s afoot.”

My companion leaned forward, his grey eyes flashing like lighthouse beacons in the dark.

“The game, my dear Shaw! The game’s afoot, and such a quarry as I’ve never been faced with yet! The greatest game of my career, and should I fail to snare it, we may all very well be doomed!”

“Can you not speak more plainly, in heaven’s name? I think I’ve never heard such melodrama outside of the Haymarket!”

Holmes sat back and looked calmly about him. “You don’t need to listen to me at all. In a very few minutes you shall hear it from the lips of the man we are seeking–if he is still alive. ”

“Still alive?”

“He can’t have toyed with the disease as much as he has done without succumbing to it sooner or later.”

“Plague?”

Holmes nodded. “Sometime in the mid-fourteenth century three ships carrying spices from the East put into port in Genoa. In addition to their cargo they carried rats, which left the ship and mingled with the city’s own rodents. Shortly dead rats began appearing in streets everywhere, thousands of them. And then the human populace began to die. The symptoms were simple: dizziness, headache, sore throat, and then hard black boils under the arms and around the groin. After the boils–fever, shivering, nausea, and spitting blood. In three days the victim was dead. Bubonic plague. In the next fifty years it killed almost half the population of Europe, with a mortality rate of ninety percent of all it infected. People referred to it as the Black Death, and it must easily rank as the greatest natural disaster in human history.”

‘Where did it come from?” We found ourselves talking in whispers.

“From China, and from thence to India. The Crusaders and then the merchants brought it home with them–it destroyed Europe and then disappeared as suddenly as it erupted.”

“And never returned?”

“Not for three hundred years. In the mid-seventeenth cenairy, as Shaw recalled, they were forced to close the playhouses when it reached England. The great fire of London appeared to have ended it then.”