The Last Sherlock Holmes Story Page 5

  ‘Verified? But how could there be any question? Is it possible to have the slightest doubt whose hand inflicted those dreadful mutilations?’

  Holmes wagged his forefinger at me.

  ‘Ah! Therein lies the interest of the Berner Street killing. The body was not mutilated.’

  ’It was not?’

  ‘Not in any way.’

  ‘Then how did you know –’

  ‘Because of the way the throat had been cut. And because of what happened forty minutes later in Mitre Square.’

  In a flash I perceived the fearful pattern.

  ‘The second woman was killed because he had been unable to mutilate the first?’

  ‘Precisely. The Berner Street victim was still warm when discovered. The blood was flowing from the throat. She can have been dead no more than a few minutes. The murderer was in fact probably still in the yard.’

  ‘He was still there?’

  ‘I am certain of it. Why should he have left? Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. You have just killed your intended victim and are about to butcher her – such butchery being the object of the exercise – when you hear a pony-trap coming along the street. It is a hundred to one against it turning in, so you retire into the shadows, confident of being able to resume your work immediately. But instead of passing by, the cart pulls into the yard. The horse shies at the smell of blood, and the driver gets down to investigate. At that point, of course, you realise that the game is up, and slip away while the man is fumbling for his matches.’

  ‘You must be right, Holmes,’ I declared. ‘No doubt the murderer was hiding close by. How infuriating! If only he had been spotted! His luck is devilish.’

  ‘I doubt very much whether he would have agreed with you,’ Holmes retorted. ‘Consider the position in which he now found himself. Here is a man who has deliberately set out to appal the civilised world with abominations of such enormity that the details cannot even be set forth in print. No one knows better than he how needful it is to maintain the crescendo of horror. It is no good falling back on mere throat-cutting when his public has come to expect evisceration. There is therefore but one course open to him – another killing, instanter, and this time followed by the most thorough disembowelment of the victim.’

  I shook my head in amazement at this extraordinary series of events.

  ‘Strange indeed are the ways of fate,’ I remarked. ‘Had that hawker only been delayed a few minutes, that poor woman I saw would still be alive and whole.’

  ’No doubt, but the argument is puerile,’ Holmes replied severely. ‘Let us abstain from fruitless conjecture and devote our energies to an analysis of the known facts. Now we know that on leaving Berner Street the murderer walked west –’

  ‘I don’t see what evidence there is for that,’ I returned somewhat peevishly. ‘As you said, forty minutes elapsed before the next killing. He might have gone a longer route and still reached Mitre Square in good time. Surely it is in fact most likely that he went north to Spitalfields in search of another victim. They were saying at the club that the area is one of the best, I mean the worst, in that respect.’

  ‘Dear me, Watson, have you been at my cocaine by any chance? You coruscate this morning! But here we are in Baker Street. Let us postpone this most interesting discussion for a few minutes. Thank you cabbie, this will do.’

  Once in our rooms, Holmes threw himself down in his wonted chair and lit his cherry-wood pipe.

  ‘Perhaps you would rather turn in, Watson? It has been a long night.’

  ‘I am quite awake now.’

  ‘You were asking, I believe, how we can know that the killer did not solicit his victim in Spitalfields. The answer is simple. She was not in Spitalfields. Until one o’clock this morning she was in Bishopsgate police station under lock and key.’

  ‘Good heavens!’

  ‘One of the constables who were called to Mitre Square when the body was discovered remembered having spoken to her during the time she was in custody. She had been taken in charge earlier in the evening as drunk and incapable. Incidentally, if you still wish to indulge in idle speculation, you might care to consider the fact that had the woman chosen to get drunk in Whitechapel rather than in Aldgate she would not now be forming the subject of our conversation.’

  ‘The murderer would not have met her, you mean?’

  ‘Not unless he was arrested himself, and put in the same cell. In Whitechapel, you see, she would have been apprehended by the Metropolitan Police, whose Commissioner, Warren, is a teetotaller who insists on the letter of the law. The woman would have spent the night in the cells, to be haled before a magistrate in the morning. The City Police, on the other hand, are in the habit of releasing any revellers who have sobered up sufficiently by one o’clock in the morning. Kate Kelly, which was the name she gave, was duly inspected at that hour and found to be presentable. Thus at the very moment that the costermonger was frustrating the Ripper in Berner Street, his next victim was being set free less than a mile away in the City. For the next twenty minutes or so each proceeded, all unknowing, towards the other.’

  Holmes fell silent. It seemed as though even his coldly rational mind had been overcome by the sensation of an implacable fate permeating every aspect of these dreadful crimes. We both sat staring into the cold ashes in the grate, no doubt sharing the same thoughts, but both unwilling to voice them for fear of ridicule. What impressed me above all was how everything conspired to further the murderer’s schemes. He was always at the right place at the right time, his prey close to hand, whilst his pursuers could do no more than trace the trail of gore and say, ‘He has been here, and here.’

  At length I rose, hoping to lose these gloomy notions in sleep. Holmes bade me a subdued good night, and I made my way upstairs to bed once more. But there too I could think of nothing but the violated body of that pathetic old woman. The image loomed up in the darkness on every side. Finally the light of dawn dissolved the screen on which the horrid peep-show was displayed, and I slept.

  * The standard strength of a cocaine solution for hypodermic injection was set at 10 per cent in the British Pharmacopoeia of 1898. According to ‘The Sign of Four’, Holmes used a 7 per cent solution.

  † For further details of the Cushing case, see Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Cardboard Box’.

  ‡ William Burke and William Hare murdered at least fifteen persons in Edinburgh during 1828, selling the corpses to a local surgeon for prices ranging from £8 to £14.

  § Tonga, the Andaman Islander and bosom companion of Jonathan Small, features prominently in ‘The Sign of Four’.

  ¶ The ‘Commissioner’ referred to is Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Smith, then Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police.

  || Sir Charles Warren was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. His peremptory handling of a procession and demonstration by the Radical and Socialist Clubs the previous year had resulted in the Trafalgar Square riots (13 November 1887) and aroused much adverse criticism.

  Two

  If this narrative of mine tends to substantiate the old adage that fact is stranger than fiction, it also demonstrates how very much less well-ordered it is. If this were one of A.C.D.’s tales you may be sure the action would follow fast and furious. If my notes showed that such-and-such a case took three months to complete, why! a slip of the pen would make it three days, and a much more satisfying story. But this is not a story, and I do not undertake to satisfy those seeking light relief from their daily cares. I must therefore record that during the two weeks immediately following the events just described, Holmes and I had nothing more to do with the mystery of the Whitechapel murderer. The reason, to quote another proverb, is that it never rains but it pours. From the 2nd until the 12th of October, Holmes was unexpectedly occupied with two brief and perhaps rather superficial cases. These were, respectively, the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and recovery of the famous racehorse Silver Blaze, and the bizarre business o
f Lord Robert St Simon’s illusory wedding. A.C.D. later included both cases in his collection of stories based on my notes, and since the events are in any case quite extraneous to my present purpose I do not propose to dwell on them any further.

  I have said that during this period Holmes and I had nothing more to do with the Ripper murders, but this statement demands qualification. Hardly a literate person in the country, and certainly no devourer of newsprint as voracious as Holmes, could have remained unconscious of every new development in the case, whether substantial or merely sensational. Whatever they may have been to the people of London, the events of the 30th of September were a godsend to the press. Periodicals notorious for their ailing circulations, including several long given up as hopeless by their financial advisers, suddenly sprang to life with special editions which were snatched from the presses and eagerly perused before the ink was well dry. And should a copy or two remain unaccountably on their hands, the newsboys had only to holler, ‘Murder, Ghastly, Horrible, Mutilations, Terrible,’ etc., and in the twinkling of an eye their stock would be exhausted.

  The inquests on the two women were reported in lurid detail. The leading articles severely criticised the police for their incompetence, while in the correspondence columns theories as to the murderer’s motives and identity were heatedly debated. Respectable gentlemen living in sedate suburbs offered their services to the authorities, who were already inundated with letters accusing the writers’ friends and relations, or merely issuing illiterate and often illegible threats. This last class were for the most part blatant plagiarisms of the letter signed ‘Jack the Ripper’, of which the authorities had issued a reproduction in the form of a poster. Following the inquests, the witnesses’ depositions were checked and compared, and three dissimilar descriptions of the wanted man were issued. A reward of £500 was even offered for information leading to his arrest. But all the trails proved false, all the openings blind alleys, and every clue circular and ambiguous. The public mood was an ugly mixture of hatred and terror that was very close to panic.

  To outward appearances, Holmes was totally absorbed all this time by the two cases to which I referred, but it was clear to me that his energies were by no means wholly engaged by the problems they presented. One might liken his mood to that of an artist who pauses during the creation of some vast epic canvas to paint a pair of portraits – light, straightforward, employing only his superb technical skill – while his spirit rests from its intense labours and prepares for renewed struggle. On several occasions he brought up the subject of the double murder, which clearly continued to occupy his thoughts. Thus my notes reveal that at breakfast on Friday the 5th, following our return from Dartmoor on the night express,* Holmes looked up from his paper with a triumphant air.

  ‘Ha! She was going to Bermondsey, Watson.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Catherine Eddowes, alias Kate Kelly – the Mitre Square victim. I always wondered why she did not go home to her lodging-house in Fashion Street when they released her. She was seen to go off down Houndsditch, you know. Why?’

  ‘Does it matter, Holmes?’ I enquired grumpily. I tend to be a trifle sullen first thing in the morning, and nothing is less congenial at such times than vigorous interrogation.

  ‘Of course it matters! Everything matters in a case as obscure as this. That is, Doctor, unless you are possessed of some private knowledge which allows you to determine what is material and what is not?’

  I was silent, studying the interior of my egg.

  ‘My provisional theory,’ continued Holmes in his earlier discursive tone, ‘was that she was going down to the Minories to recoup her finances in the way she knew best. But according to her male companion, one John Kelly, she had a daughter living in Bermondsey from whom she had spoken earlier on the Saturday of borrowing some money. She was no doubt bound thither when she met up with the killer.’

  I felt obliged to make some comment.

  ‘What puzzles me is why the murderer was in such a hurry. Why did he not return to his lair and clean himself up instead of dashing round the streets with bloody hands? He seems to have taken incredible risks for no very good reason.’

  ‘His reason was the best in the world,’ cried Holmes. ‘He had been foiled, don’t you see? This Jew Diemschutz, this common costermonger, had interfered with his grand designs. He must have been seething with fury as he stalked off in search of a substitute victim. He had to show the police and the public – and himself – that he was still the same supernatural and impersonal force which the press has made him appear. He had to demonstrate conclusively that his will cannot be thwarted for more than a few minutes. How he must have fretted over his rebuff! How he must have burned to avenge it! You saw the result.’

  Once again I was forced to marvel at Holmes’s ability to penetrate to the core of the mystery, and to unravel the twisted strands of the murderer’s character.

  As I mentioned above, the authorities issued posters in the wake of the killings, printing a facsimile of the letter Lestrade had shown us together with a postcard in the same hand which had been received at the Central News Agency the day after the murders. A superscription requested any person recognising the writing to communicate with the police. Lestrade deposited a copy of the poster at 221b during a visit in connection with the St Simon affair. I still have it, more than forty years after. The letter I have already transcribed. The card, which was badly smeared with blood, ran this way:

  I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip. youll hear about saucy Jackys work tomorrow. double event this time number one squealed a bit couldnt finish straight off. had no time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

  Jack the Ripper

  Holmes wrenched the knife which secured his unanswered correspondence from the mantelpiece, and then drove it angrily back into the wood.

  ‘“Dear old Boss”!’ he snapped. ‘“Saucy Jacky”!’ What sickening cant! And what a loathsome miscarriage of genius lies behind it all! I tell you, Watson, just thinking about this man makes me feel queasy. I would to God I might face an army of Grimesby Roylotts rather than spend another instant in the intellectual company of this pollution.’

  It occurred to me that the murderer’s reference to his attempt to cut off the woman’s ears suggested a parallel with the Cushing case, but I said nothing. In his present mood, Holmes would probably have replied with some crushing sarcasm to the effect that I at least always managed to keep my feet flat on the ground; just as, at another time, had I been guilty of his late outburst, he would have been quite capable of telling me curtly to cut out the emotional gush and stick to the facts. Living with great men is itself a minor art.

  On Friday the 12th of October, Holmes introduced Mr and Mrs Francis Hay Moulton to Lord Robert St Simon, thereby bringing to an end his investigation of what A.C.D. was to call the adventure of ‘The Noble Bachelor’. For the following week I saw very little of my friend. After a day or two of being scowled at whenever I entered the room, and then treated to encomiums on the excellence of the autumn air and references to how much my fellow-members at the club must be missing me, I took the point and left Holmes to his own devices. These proved exceedingly singular. My glimpses of Holmes were few and far between, but each was memorable. One evening I would return home to discover him seated Buddha-like on the floor, his eyes fixed unseeingly before him and the air dark with the highly unexotic incense of smouldering shag. The following day there would be no sign of him, but next morning he would burst in as I was breakfasting, attired as a sewer scavenger, complete with noxious stench.† The day after that I had barely turned out of George Street when I heard what sounded like a madman playing a fiddle. As I neared Number 221, I realised that the noise was emanating from our rooms, where Holmes was scraping out the same dozen notes over and over again, creating a terrible cacophony devoid of either harmony or rhythm. On Tuesday I found him kneeling on the rug in the front
room, slashing the body of a suckling pig with a knife from his old medical kit, and then examining the resulting incisions minutely through his magnifying-glass. Mrs Hudson roasted the pig the next evening, but I was obliged to dine alone, since Holmes had not returned from the sortie he had made that morning in the character of an officer of the Salvation Army.

  At last, one Saturday morning, the fit left him and life returned to what passed for normality at 221b Baker Street. I came down to find my friend already savouring his pipe and leafing through the papers. I greeted him minimally and rang for my breakfast.

  ‘So, my dear Doctor,’ exclaimed Holmes from behind The Times, ‘whilst I wear myself out combing London for a murderer, you spend your nights dining off Simpson’s beef and quaffing the Beaune of a comet year.’

  I started guiltily.

  ‘Pray how goes it with young Stamford?’ Holmes continued evenly.

  ‘Stamford? But – But my dear Holmes! This is incredible!’

  ‘Pooh! Elementary, my boy. Primo: our landlady informed me last night that you had wired from your club to tell her you would not be home to dinner. Secondo: that piece of paper, which you placed on the mantelpiece last night, bears an address in Pinner and a large wine-stain. Tertio: your boots have been set out to dry in plain view. You are well acquainted with my methods, so naturally I need not explain the absurdly simple argument leading from this trio of facts to my conclusion. Need I?’

  ‘Well –’

  ‘Oh very well then. When a man of your admirable regularity of character decides at the last moment that he will dine from home, we may confidently assume that he has unexpectedly met an acquaintance. In the present case we may further assume that this meeting occurred at your club, since it was from there that you dispatched the telegram. The question therefore becomes: whom might you run into at the club who could induce you to forgo Mrs Hudson’s inimitable cuisine? You will see at once that the answer can only be young Stamford. You never cease harping on the unutterable dreariness of the other members, and only last month you were bemoaning the fact that Stamford’s visits to the institution would now be few and far between, since he had just acquired a practice in Middlesex. What more likely, then, than that he should be spending the weekend in town, and that the two of you should repair to Simpson’s for dinner, in the course of which you jotted down his new address? I fear the explanation is as tedious as it is unnecessary.’