The Last Sherlock Holmes Story Read online

  As for Holmes, he had his clay pipe and his pathologist’s knife, and just then he was working on the right thigh, stripping back the flesh to expose the femur. After a while he laid down the knife, lifted a piece of meat and arranged it carefully to hang from the picture-rail. He hummed a sprightly melody as he worked. I could not place it at the time, but having heard the piece since in rather different circumstances I am able to reveal, for what it may be worth, that it is known as ‘La donna è mobile’.

  * Long demolished, the Oxford Theatre went through four different incarnations at 26–32 Oxford Street. Holmes and Watson will have visited the third version, which stood from 1873 until 1892.

  Four

  As an army surgeon, I saw much of men who had sustained massive physical injuries. Those most severely wounded, strangely enough, are often the quietest. The screaming and the writhing are characteristic of the less critical cases. The most grievous seem to be protected from the full awareness of their plight; a merciful trance descends upon their senses, and if they subsequently recover they are very often unable to remember anything material from the period when their lives were despaired of. I cannot help feeling that something of this sort must have happened to me at the moment I am describing, although in my case it was the spirit rather than the flesh which had received the mortal blow. At all events, I find myself quite unable to recount in any detail the manner in which I spent that holiday Friday. All I can recall are a few vivid impressions, lacking all sense and sequence. My memory, like an idiot messenger, has forgotten all the vital items, while retaining trivia of no interest or importance. Thus I possess a clear memory of sitting on a form in a poky room lit by two oil lamps so filthy that they seemed rather to absorb light than to give it out. I stayed there for I know not how long, downing glass after glass of some liquid which the old hag behind the bar described as gin, though it tasted more like medicinal spirits. After that I am at a loss again. Where did I go? What did I do? It seems I fell on some wet tram-lines and lay helpless for several minutes together on the cobbles. Later, I think, I tried to board a cab, but the driver, no doubt dismayed by my appearance, cut at me with his whip. There were crowds everywhere by then, and bells pealing, and a procession with bands and horses and men dressed up as if for an old play, while urchins rushed past screaming about a horrible murder and people whispered together with fear in their eyes. Then all is blank.

  I came to my senses lying face down under a rose bush. The sky was dark and a strong wind was blowing. I felt shaky, but myself again. A row of lights indicated that a broad thoroughfare passed close by. A tall pillar rose into the stormy darkness, and I heard again the mournful whistle of the steam launch which had awakened me. The pillar I recognised as that obelisk popularly known as Cleopatra’s Needle. With some difficulty I climbed the railings and dropped to the pavement. I stood for a moment under a lamp, inspecting my appearance. It was not reassuring. To discover himself lying in a flowerbed in a public gardens, without the slightest notion of how he came to be there, must prove an embarrassment to any respectable person. The case is by no means improved when he discovers that his hat, his tie, his money and his watch are all missing, that he is wearing his coat inside-out, that his other clothes are all wet and filthy, and that his shirt-front smells distinctly of cheap gin.

  By turning my coat the right way again I was able to conceal the worst of my condition, and when a hansom passed by a few minutes later I was able to get myself accepted as a fare after a short parley with the driver. When he enquired as to my destination I replied unthinkingly ‘Baker Street’, and at one stroke the memory of what I had witnessed that morning came howling back into my mind. How was I to face Holmes? The thing was impossible. But I was penniless and completely unpresentable. Moreover, if I did not quickly change into some dry clothes I stood a very good chance of developing pneumonia. What was I to do? 221B or not 221B? That was the question, and by the time the cab had reached Baker Street I had arrived at an answer. I directed the cabbie to drive on to the corner of King Street,* and then to run back and see if Mr Holmes was at home. This he did, after some promised bribery. If Holmes were there I had determined to brave the stares at my club. But I was in luck. My jarvey brought good tidings, for which he was duly rewarded, and in a few minutes I was brushing off Mrs Hudson’s expressions of alarm while gratefully accepting her offer of a bath followed by something hot and nourishing. She had seen nothing of her other lodger, it appeared, but there was a telegram for me on the table in the hall. I read the wire as I climbed the stairs. It had been dispatched from Dover that afternoon, and ran this way:

  M got by us in Whitechapel but I have picked up his trail. He is seeking to escape to the Continent but he shall not escape me. Hold your ground and await further dispatches. Holmes.

  Relieved as I was to learn that Holmes’s absence was to continue for some time, his cable only intensified the mystery. I read it through once more. It was, beyond a doubt, the voice of the Holmes I had always known – a man quite incapable of the atrocities I had nevertheless watched him committing that very morning. For a moment I began to wonder if I could be losing my mind. Two equally strong and valid truths were firmly lodged in that organ, and unfortunately for its continuing welfare they contradicted one another. The first was that I had seen Holmes coolly mutilating the body of a dead woman. The second was that Holmes was Holmes, and such a thing was therefore impossible.

  I pushed this dilemma aside while I had my bath, changed, and ate the ample fare provided by Mrs Hudson. But once my immediate needs had been taken care of the larger question returned in full force and would no longer be denied. I reconsidered the matter, inclining first one way and then the other. No sooner had I convinced myself that Holmes was himself the Whitechapel murderer and his tale of Professor Moriarty just a blind than my instincts rose up and threw out such a preposterous notion. But then the memory of that barbaric scene returned, and I no longer knew what to think. Was it possible I had dreamt the entire episode? If so, the consequences for myself must be very serious, for I would have lost the use of my reason. But would it be any easier to admit that my best friend, my honoured mentor, with whom I had lived on terms of the greatest intimacy for more than seven years, was a maniacal homicide?

  At length I realised that certain aspects of my morning’s experience could be checked. If there had been a murder, it would have been reported in the papers. I assembled the great mass of newsprint which Holmes had delivered to our rooms daily, and sat down to sift through it. There seemed to be nothing to the point in the morning papers, and for a moment my sanity seemed to hang in the balance. But of course the reason was simply that the body had not been discovered until late morning. In the evening editions I soon found what I was looking for. The victim was believed to have been one Mary Kelly, twenty-four years old. The murder had taken place in Miller’s Court, an alley off Dorset Street. The body had been mutilated in a manner surpassing description. There could be no doubt that Jack the Ripper had struck again, and with a ferocity and daring that eclipsed even his previous outrages.

  I was still reading these reports when the bell rang. It was ten past eleven. Holmes used to say that after eleven o’clock callers were invariably either criminals or policemen. In this case, it proved to be the latter. I opened the door to Inspector Lestrade, who pushed past me with an assurance that comes with years of paying official visits.

  ‘Good evening, Doctor. I hope you don’t mind me calling so late, but I saw your lamp was lit. I was wanting a word with Mr Holmes.’

  I hardly knew what to say. Had the police then discovered already what I still could not bring myself to believe?

  ‘Holmes? Oh yes, Holmes. Ah! No. He’s not in. That’s to say, he’s out. Away, I should say –’

  But Lestrade had already spotted the buff form, which he picked up and read without compunction.

  ‘Hm. Off to the Continent, is he? Well, well!’

  He looked up at me with a slight sneer
. I determined to brazen it out.

  ‘It will be well indeed, if he succeeds in running this fiend to earth.’ I declared roundly. ‘We at least have not come away utterly empty-handed, Inspector. What about you?’

  ‘Well I certainly can’t go running off to Gay Paree the moment things go wrong, if that’s what you mean,’ growled Lestrade. ‘As for Mr Holmes’s precious charts and time-tables, I’ve had a bellyful of them!’

  I felt immensely reassured. This was the old Lestrade, and he clearly suspected nothing.

  ‘Come now,’ I rallied him, ‘you cannot deny that Holmes predicted the murderer’s attack with complete accuracy.’

  The detective sneered. ‘So he did, Dr Watson, so he did. Unfortunately it wasn’t his fortune-telling we were interested in so much as catching the Ripper. We weren’t quite so successful there, were we? Mr Holmes had Whitechapel packed with policemen, all except one little area in Spitalfields. And that’s where our Jack walked in, did his business, and got clean away again, while we were all cooling our heels at the police station. Well I was, at any rate. I don’t know what became of you two.’

  I avoided this question by offering Lestrade a drink, which he readily accepted. Then, assuming that I was quite ignorant of what had happened, he began to describe the scene of the murder.

  ‘The funny thing is, it all happened in the very same street that Mr Holmes has his room, where I sent for him the last time. Right under his very nose, in Dorset Street. “Do as you please”, they call it around there, and that’s what the murderer did all right. I’ve never seen anything like it. He’d locked the door somehow, and we had to take out the window to get inside. And let me tell you, it’s just as well I’d had my lunch before I went down there, for it’ll be a good few days before I have a stomach for meat again. You have no idea what that poor girl looked like, Doctor, and you may thank your lucky stars you don’t. It’s a sight a man would never forget if he lived to be a hundred. That’s what people don’t understand when they go on at the police. No one wants this devil locked up worse than we do. God only knows what he’ll dream up to cap this, but one thing is sure – we’re the ones who are going to have to go down and look at it.’

  For a minute or two we sat silently thinking our separate thoughts. Then, almost inaudibly, Lestrade began again.

  ‘That’s not the worst of it, either. We had to keep it from the press, but it can’t hurt to tell you. There is one final horror.’

  ‘What can be worse than this?’

  ‘The girl was pregnant.’

  ‘My God.’

  ‘Three months gone, and her womb cut up like cat’s-meat.’

  I felt an icy finger touch my spine.

  ‘“He must kill twice on the same spot!”’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Oh, nothing of importance. But tell me, what paths of enquiry are you following?’

  The detective laughed hollowly.

  ‘“Paths of enquiry”? What paths? There are no paths. No one saw him come, no one saw him go. One old whore heard someone cry out, and then went back to sleep. In Dorset Street folk screaming and yelling is like the birds singing down in Kent. What are we supposed to do? We’re not second-sighted, you know.’

  ‘Did the killer leave no clue to his identity?’

  ‘Nothing. There was a clay pipe, but it might have belonged to anyone. I don’t think the girl was too particular about the company she kept, if you take my meaning. Apart from that there was just some female clothing and the furniture, unless he burned something in the fireplace. Funny thing that – the ashes were still warm when we got in there. He must have had quite a blaze going, and I can’t see why. Something like that could attract attention, which you’d think would be the last thing he’d have wanted.’

  I gestured languidly, as Holmes was wont to do.

  ‘I see no great problem there, my dear fellow. The murderer no doubt lit the fire for the usual excellent reasons. It was none too warm this morning – outside the police station, at any rate – and if the killer removed his outer garments before mutilating the body, as I presume he must, then he would certainly have wished to heat the room. Besides, he would have needed the extra illumination. One cannot perform a satisfactory dissection, even of a crude nature, by the light of a single candle.’

  I smiled at Lestrade, who was staring at me curiously.

  ‘A candle?’ said he. ‘Did I say anything about a candle?’

  It was an uncomfortable moment.

  ‘Well, my dear Lestrade! Ha! I mean, surely one may assume with some confidence that such a hovel as the papers describe is unlikely to have the gas laid in? What?!’

  The official gazed at me blankly. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it, and rose from his chair.

  ‘That’s what this job does to you,’ he complained. ‘The next thing you know I’ll be suspecting you, Doctor! Ha ha!’

  ‘Ha, ha, ha!’

  ‘Ha ha! Oh, that’s rich! Well, thank you kindly for the refreshment. I won’t keep you up any longer. Give Mr Holmes my best wishes for his Grand Tour. Who is this M, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, that’s just a cipher. He means “the murderer”.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course. Well good night.’

  I sat up for a full hour after Lestrade left, reflecting on what he had told me, and what I already knew, and what I thought I knew, but without finding any way out of my quandary. In the morning I renewed my efforts, and eventually hammered out a solution that was to satisfy me for the next few days. It hinged on the fact that although I had seen Holmes disfiguring the woman’s corpse, I had not seen him actually killing her. Might it not be that the mutilation, on the face of it so damning, was in truth a necessary part of Holmes’s plan for trapping the real killer – Professor Moriarty? Suppose Holmes had been unable to prevent the Miller’s Court murder, but had seen a way of bringing the killer to justice. Suppose this involved mutilating the corpse to a degree undreamed of even by the Professor. If this were the case, my friend’s sternly unemotional nature would not have faltered. He would have weighed the greater good against the lesser evil, and done whatever was needful. It was true that I could by no means see how the extent of the victim’s injuries could possibly affect the capture of her killer. But then Holmes’s designs were habitually far beyond my understanding. At any rate, this explanation provided a reasonable and characteristic key to a set of circumstances which otherwise seemed inexplicable.

  For a few days, as I have said, this theory satisfied me, but a time came when I had to admit it would no longer do. On Thursday, the 15th of November, I received a telegram from Berne in Switzerland, which read as follows: ‘M is no more. Returning Saturday. Holmes.’ This terse message plunged me into a condition approaching panic. Holmes was returning! Holmes would be arriving in two days! But was it Holmes I would see walking in through the door? Was it Holmes’s sinewy hand I would grasp, or the incarnadine paw of Jack the Ripper? Could I sit down before the fire and smoke a pipe and exchange pleasantries with a man who might be the Whitechapel murderer? No! The thing was unthinkable. It was no longer enough for me simply to give my friend the benefit of the doubt. I had to know the truth – and quickly!

  Back in 1881, shortly after moving into 221B Baker Street, I had devoted an idle moment to drawing up a list of my new companion’s personal traits, as I then understood them, hoping thereby to deduce the line of work in which he was engaged. This prosaic method must be congenial to my disposition, for seven years later I once again had recourse to it. But my ‘little list’ was this time of a decidedly more sinister cast. I worked at it until the winter dusk descended outside, and then I lit the lamp and worked on. At last I felt sure that I had overlooked nothing of importance. Here is the memorandum I had drawn up:

  Could Sherlock Holmes have committed the Whitechapel murders?

  PRO:

  1 Holmes was in Whitechapel on the night of the double killing, and of this latest horror, and in each case he was alone at
the requisite times.

  2 On the other hand, when he was occupied with other work in October, and that weekend when I stuck with him every minute (despite his protests), there were no deaths.

  3 As for the earlier murders, my diary shows that Holmes was out on the night of August 30th–31st. Of August 6th–7th and September 7th–8th I have no record.

  4 Like Holmes, the killer is evidently a master of disguise, since witnesses’ descriptions of him differ widely.

  5 The killer is able to mutilate a human body quickly and thoroughly, working almost in the dark. He can locate even such inaccessible organs as the kidney. This indicates a sound training in practical anatomy, which was one of the subjects Holmes studied at Bart’s.

  6 It is agreed that the killer must be intimately familiar with every alley and courtyard in Whitechapel. No one knows this or any other district of London better than Holmes.

  7 After the Mitre Square murder the trail led by way of Goulston Street to Dorset Street, where, I now learn, Holmes’s Whitechapel bolt-hole is situated.

  8 Holmes could have made the writing in Goulston Street. The forged letter he sent Lestrade at the end of last month proves his mastery of the hand. (And was it in fact a calf’s kidney he used to smear my calling card with blood?)