Dust and Shadow (29 page)

“The pipe, Holmes!” I cried. “It is the only way!”

He disappeared. Seconds passed, masquerading as hours. I was fighting desperately not to fall but could not understand why. I leaned against the opposite wall and somehow remained standing.
If you remain standing,
I thought madly,
he will come out.

At last Holmes reappeared, with something tied around his neck. He leaned head and shoulders out the window and barely managed, with his arm fully extended, to reach the water pipe. Using it as an anchor to pull himself out, he swung himself over to it and, when nearing the cistern, jumped to the water barrel and the hay and then fell to the ground. I do not recall, in my entranced state, that I was at all surprised to see Miss Monk hanging limply from his shoulders.

I fumbled at the knot binding her hands and so disentangled them. They had been tied with Holmes’s scarf. When I lifted Miss Monk and laid her gently upon the ground, her head lolled backward. Her neck was entirely unmarked.

“Is she alive?” Holmes gasped raggedly.

At first, I could not tell, so shallow was her breath, but at last I identified a sluggish pulse.

“There is life in her still. She has been drugged. Holmes? Holmes, for heaven’s sake, lie back and breathe deeply. You’ve been poisoned by the smoke.”

He collapsed against the wall. “Surprising,” he managed through shuddering breaths. “I would have thought myself entirely inured to the substance.”

I laughed and felt an itching sensation at the back of my neck. I reached behind my head to touch it and my fingers returned clotted with blood.

“Holmes, we must get away from this place. The building is still burning.”

“Then let us—” Holmes began, and then his eyes fixed upon a point behind me and above our heads.

“You aren’t meant to be here yet,” said a soft voice.

I turned around, intending to rise, but managed only to fall to the stones beside my comrades.

“I doused the basement with kerosene. Then I brought Mother downstairs with an excuse about a broken window,” Edward Bennett continued thoughtfully, for I knew him from the funeral that seemed an age ago and in another country. “How could you have known the girl was missing so quickly? It ought to have been burned to the ground when you arrived.”

“Tavistock led us here,” said Holmes after a struggle for air.

“Oh, I see. I didn’t know who had broken the window. He has been of the greatest use to me. He is clever enough in his own way. Not as clever as you, of course, Mr. Holmes.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“You were the only real threat to my work, you know,” Bennett remarked. His face and figure were strikingly, disarmingly neutral. He had blond hair and queerly pensive blue eyes. Even with him standing before us, I could scarcely describe him to myself, though that may well have been the effect of the explosion upon my senses. “I was with you on the Baron Ramsden case, if you recall. The missing patch of grass. Gregson didn’t see it as we did. Of course, you lied to him. You lied to everyone. You think yourself the final seat of judgment, don’t you? Astonishing arrogance. I can’t abide arrogance. Admit that you lied.”

“I cannot think what you mean,” Holmes exhaled coldly. “Then again, the world is rather hazy just now.”

“That is a pity. I do not think I can allow you to remain in it much longer.”

“Your mother—”

“Oh, you got her out as well, did you?” Bennett’s face changed entirely as his mouth curved downward in a witheringly cruel contortion. The features twisted into the personification of hatred. I saw the letter writer staring back at us, the man who had written the words
From hell.
In an instant the look was gone. “You think of distracting me, but it won’t work, Mr. Holmes. You understand everything now.”

“I don’t,” Holmes coughed, retching slightly. “I never pretended to. I never understood any of it.”

“Come, now. You know far more than I ever intended you should.”

“I don’t know why you killed Martha Tabram.”

“Martha Tabram?” he repeated wonderingly. “Martha Tabram. I remember. The first girl. She had so much blood on her. She was crying out as she walked down the street. It reminded me of something.” He paused to consider. “They have all reminded me of something. I don’t know what it was. She was crying and I made her still. And the last girl, when you forced me off the streets—she was singing, and then all at once she was crying. I made her still too. Yes, I think that was part of it.

“Now, Mr. Holmes, I believe we should stop talking.”

It was becoming increasingly impossible to concentrate. My eyelids closed of their own accord. I forced them open again.

“You’re a fool,” Holmes murmured in a terrible, rasping voice. My friend still could not seem to breathe properly. “It will only be a moment before the police—”

“I am not a fool, and the police are a confused lot of imbeciles,” came the sharp reply. “I ought to know it. Running about like ants in their absurd circles. Take that message in the street I wrote, for example. I leave a note for them. And what do they do? They erase it.” He laughed pleasantly. “I thought they would. I couldn’t be sure until I had tried. I meant to write it in Dutfield’s Yard, next to the hall where all those Jews hold their meetings. That would have been something to see. But you arrived too soon that time as well.”

Bennett drew a knife from his coat. “I don’t like to finish it, Mr. Holmes, but I fear I must. I have to leave, you see. I do not believe I can stay in London any longer. But I promise not to hurt you. I never hurt any of them,” he whispered as he leaned down slowly toward us.

Two revolver shots went off. Bennett fell, his knife clattering beside him. It glinted in the light of the flames pouring out of the window above. I looked down at the gun in my hand and thought,
It will have to be cleaned.
Then I felt myself falling just as Bennett had, and the world grew swiftly dark.

I awoke in my own room to the sight of pale November light falling on the plane tree outside my window. I touched the bandage upon my head in confusion. I was extraordinarily hungry, and there was a violin playing somewhere.

When I tried to sit up, my left side flooded with a searing pain. I felt the area gently with my fingertips. No bandage had been applied, but there was a compress—a broken rib, then, or two perhaps. Using my elbow as a prop, I gradually managed to ease myself upward, until I was seated on the edge of my bed. No sooner had I accomplished this feat than I saw that it had been entirely unnecessary, for a bell had been placed within arm’s reach upon my side table.

The bell rested on a page from the
London Chronicle.
The most prominently placed article’s title blared out, “AN HEROIC RESCUE.”

I threw my head back and laughed heartily at this account, though I was forced to stop when the pain in my ribs grew greater than the joy afforded me. Replacing the page under the bell, I abandoned the bed. Dressing proved such an ordeal that I stopped after my trousers, shirtsleeves, and dressing gown, and thus fractionally clad, I made my way downstairs.

Sherlock Holmes was perched on the edge of his desk, improvising a version of a Paganini air so intricate as to be nearly unidentifiable. When he laid eyes on me, the chords shifted at once to a triumphal ode ending in a dizzyingly quick flourish of exultation as he leapt to his feet.

“Thank heaven. My dear fellow, I am indescribably happy to see you about.”

“No more than I am to see you,” I returned warmly.

“I shall lose no time in sacking the nurse. These two days have been a trial. She drones comforting platitudes and whistles popular music-hall tunes in unlikely keys.”

“Then I am grateful to have only just awoken,” I said with a laugh.

“And some time you have been about it too,” Holmes added severely. “You have a concussion, you know, and Dr. Agar was rather of the opinion your ribs were broken.”

“I am of the same opinion. I read that you were also cruelly injured.” Apart from the deeply furrowed circles beneath his eyes and a small gash on his hand, Holmes appeared the picture of health.

“Oh, so you did see that? Leslie Tavistock has been affecting a sort of servile allegiance, but he has not yet added veracity to his brief list of virtues.”

“No indeed, for he said Edward Bennett was killed by the explosion.”

“That inspired falsehood was Lestrade’s notion, as a matter of fact.”

“Was it?” I murmured.

Holmes’s grey eyes searched my face solicitously. “Here, sit down, my dear fellow. The blast, though it was terribly hard on you, served one higher purpose in the end. Every relic and artifact was burned in the house; I know, for I had searched the other rooms myself, and there was nothing in them.”

“And Mrs. Bennett is dead,” I reflected. “And her son—”

“He is already buried,” my friend said quickly. “Returned to the dust whence he came. There isn’t a trace left of the man we knew as Jack the Ripper.”

“I cannot believe it is over.”

“You must give it a little time. You’ve only been conscious ten minutes.”

“And it seems there are only five people outside the British government who will ever know the truth of the matter.”

Holmes’s eyes had been dancing merrily at me, but at this remark their fires dimmed.

“Just at the moment, there are four people.”

“Four? There are yourself, Lestrade, Dunlevy, Miss Monk, and I. Five.”

My friend suddenly concentrated very hard on the ceiling. His jaw was working, but it was some time before he could bring himself to speak.

“There are four. I am afraid that Miss Monk is not herself.”

“What do you mean?” I cried. “She was alive. She is alive!”

“Calm yourself, my dear Watson.”

“The article said nothing—”

“Bennett drugged her deeply to allow him to spirit her to his mother’s rooms. I believe he found her in a pub, doctored her drink, and, under the pretense that she was intoxicated, made away with her. That opiate dosage, whatever it may have been, in combination with inhalation of the polluted atmosphere and the nervous strain of it all, had a profound effect.”

“Do not tell me she is—”

“Watson, cease overtaxing yourself, I beg of you. She is not mad. Her memory has been affected. There are gaps. She knows many of those around her, and she understands perfectly, but she is very quiet and frequently confused.”

Holmes and I had already suffered too much at the Ripper’s hands. This news, however, struck me as I have hardly ever been struck in my life.

“It is cruel, Holmes,” I whispered through the catch in my throat. “It is far too cruel. Where is she now?”

“She left hospital yesterday and is living with Mr. George Lusk and his family in their spare room.”

“They wished to extend their charity to her?”

“Not at all. I arranged it.”

“You feel responsible,” I said numbly. “I do not blame you.”

To this day, I do not know why I said it. It was an unforgivable remark. My companion did not reply, and I cannot imagine how he could have. He merely steepled his fingers and closed his eyes.

“My dear fellow, forgive me. What you have accomplished is nothing short of miraculous. You could not have—Holmes, don’t look like that, please.” In my confusion, my eyes rested on the side table. A syringe lay where it had dropped from careless fingers, and the bottle of seven-percent cocaine solution, habitually shut in a drawer, sat beside it in plain view and empty. Nearby rested a large, official-looking envelope with a rich seal and embossed coat of arms.

“Who has written you, Holmes?” I asked in an anguish to shift the subject.

“It is nothing. My brother’s whim. He took it into his head that I deserved a knighthood.”

“But that is wonderful!” I gasped. “There is not a man in England who could deserve it more. My deepest congrat—”

“I have refused it.” He rose from his chair to procure his pipe and tobacco.

I stared at him in blank disbelief.

“You refused a knighthood.”

“Don’t be obtuse, my dear fellow. I said I refused it, and that is what I have done. Respectfully, I need hardly add,” he pronounced, stuffing his pipe with shag.

“But in heaven’s name, why? You have single-handedly run to ground the most notorious criminal in modern British history, and no one will ever know of it. At the very least you deserve—”

“If I deserved a knighthood even by the standards of the most vermiculate logic, I would no doubt have accepted it,” he snapped viciously.

Then, more gently, Holmes added, “I told Mycroft you ought to have one. I was rather eloquent upon the subject. But I don’t think he
was listening.” He withdrew his watch. “It is now a quarter to one. Miss Monk will arrive two doors down for the first of her continuing sessions with Dr. Agar, at my behest, at half past two this afternoon. He entertains hopes that she will recover. I can think of no reason, if you feel strong enough, you should not walk over to visit her. It would please her, I am certain.”

“I would like nothing better. But surely you will accompany me?”

“Not unless you require my assistance. She doesn’t know me, you see.” He swept the evidence of his drug use into the voluminous pocket of his dressing gown. “Dunlevy will be there, no doubt. He is a most fixated chap—not to say monomaniacal.”

“Most would refer to it as love, Holmes.”

“Your theory is not without merit. But my dear Watson, you must be famished.” He threw open the door and advanced to the top of the stairs. “Mrs. Hudson! A cold luncheon for two and a bottle of claret, if you please!” I heard the distant sound of a joyful exclamation followed quickly by remonstrance. “My dear lady, what is it to me that I have already sent a meal back?” I hid a smile as Mrs. Hudson’s voice rose in conviction and force.

Holmes sighed. “I’ll be back in a moment, Watson. I think in this case capitulation is the better part of valour.”

On an evening flecked with snow some three weeks later, when the groups of crass thrill seekers and vulpine pressmen had disappeared from the former residence of Mary Kelly—the final unfortunate to fall victim to Jack the Ripper—I ambled gingerly down the stairs and out our front door. The air’s bite had scarcely accomplished more than to send a feeling of invigoration through my shoulders by the time I had knocked at Dr. Agar’s residence and been shown into the immaculately clean vestibule. Even if I required direction, I could hardly have avoided the peals of merriment emanating from the good doctor’s consulting room. When I pushed open the door, I observed Miss
Monk in heady conversation with Dr. Agar while beside her on the sofa sat Stephen Dunlevy, whose eyes, after glancing genially in my direction, snapped back to the object of their affection.

“That’s the cure for hysteria, and you’ll swear to it?” she was demanding, her hand tracing her brow in disbelief.
*

“Not at this clinic, I assure you,” Dr. Agar said with a laugh.

“I granny why they’d enjoy it, make no mistake, but it’s a sight cheaper in the Chapel—Oh! Dr. Watson,” she interrupted herself, leaping to her feet and darting over to grasp me by the hand. “Have you ever treated a woman for hysteria?”

“Not as such,” I demurred as she seated herself once more. “Miss Monk, you are looking ten times better. I congratulate you, as well as your groundbreaking physician.”

“She is doing all the work and I am collecting all the credit.” Dr. Agar smiled. “It is quite shameful, but many careers are built so, after all.”

“You do yourself a disservice,” Dunlevy interjected. “Dr. Watson is right, and may I seize the opportunity to say that I have never been so grateful to anyone in my life. Apart from Mr. Holmes, of course,” he added with a grave look in my direction.

“How is Mr. Holmes, Doctor?” Dr. Agar inquired.

I must have hesitated over the question, for Miss Monk stated gamely, “I’ve recalled summat else about the fellow. He’ll think me a right nickey for having ever forgotten so much at this rate, but hasn’t he a trick of treating more or less anything in the room as if it’s a chair?”

“Yes, he has.” I smiled.

“I’m on the point of it, and then it’s—” She made a whistling sound and waved a hand in the air. “But I have the best of help.” She then looked, to my inner delight, not at Dr. Agar but directly and unmistakably at Stephen Dunlevy.

My hat in hand, I declared, “I merely wished to say hello. Holmes will be very relieved to learn how well you are doing, Miss Monk.”

“Has he left your flat yet, Dr. Watson?” Dr. Agar asked softly.

“No,” I returned, “but he will.”

“I know he will,” Dr. Agar assured me. “He has an excellent physician.”

Glaring at our front door with perhaps more dissatisfaction than the object deserved, I turned my key in the lock. However, as it happened, I was not destined for an evening of attempting to elicit speech from a companion submerged in the worst of reflections, who to my great distress had been subsisting on tobacco, tea, and narcotics. Just as I opened the door to our sitting room, I accidentally nudged the leg of Inspector Lestrade, who appeared to have arrived moments before and was facing my haggard friend with an attitude of determined cheer.

“You are looking far better than when last I saw you, Dr. Watson, and I am heartily glad to say it,” he exclaimed, shaking my hand.

Holmes waved us in from his armchair and tossed the prim little detective a matchbox in a graceful arc. “There are cigars on the side table and spirits in the decanter.”

“Thank you.”

“So you were there that night?” I prompted Lestrade, for I had my own questions to ask, Holmes or no Holmes. I’d not had the heart to force my friend into reliving that hour of painful memory, nor to ask how we had managed to escape.

“To be sure,” the inspector answered readily. “By the time the fire brigade arrived, Mr. Holmes had moved you and Miss Monk back to the courtyard. You were out of danger there, at least temporarily. Mr. Holmes here alerted the force to the existence of a body at the side of the house, and you were all taken by police ambulance to London Hospital. The constables on the scene called me in immediately. You
could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw who it was, considering the chase he had led us on the night before.”

“I read that he was injured in the explosion.”

“Quite so.” The inspector coughed. “I was able to spirit the brute to the morgue quickly enough. The coroner was not inclined to disagree with my idea that shards of glass from the exploding window struck Bennett fatally. Of course, we are still investigating the murder.”