The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (14 page)

The alley led into a small unlit courtyard consisting of two rows of mean cottages facing each other across a gutter. I was wondering which of these dwellings might contain Holmes and the girl, when I was greatly startled to hear my friend’s voice, seemingly at my elbow. I then noticed for the first time a door set in the wall to my right. Again I heard Holmes speak, although I could not make out the sense. I moved stealthily around the corner of the house, and soon discovered that it was possible to see through a chink in the curtains covering one of the two windows. I peered in.

The room was very small and cramped, although it contained only the barest modicum of furniture. A candle on the table before the window provided the only light. A mass of wood and coal was piled unlit in the grate. Some clothes lay scattered at the foot of the bed, upon which the female sprawled tilting a spirit-flask to her lips.

‘Don’t down it like blue ruin, woman!’

The voice was Holmes’s. He was seated in the only chair in the room, his back to the window. The girl stared at him for a moment, her head swaying in befuddled puzzlement.

‘You want some?’ she asked finally.

Holmes had taken a snuffbox from his pocket, and was
shaking the powder on to the back of his wrist. I was surprised at this, for I had never known him to take snuff. He drew the powder up into his nostrils, and then shook his head and laughed.

‘No, I have rarer pleasures. “I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life.” I meant only to point out that what you are drinking is fine cognac, not max at threehalfpence a measure.’

The woman shrugged and tossed the flask down on the bedcovers.

‘It all goes the same way home, don’t it?’ said she with a giggle.

Just then I heard footsteps in the passage. My heart raced. Was Moriarty already upon us? I waited tensely, my back to the wall. Then the figure passed by and I saw that it was only an old woman. She disappeared into one of the cottages further down the yard. A false alert, but it had served to remind me how exposed was my position at the window. Anyone leaving the courtyard could not fail to see me there, and the resulting alarm might well ruin everything. Either I had to enter the room and warn Holmes, or conceal myself somewhere in the yard and await developments. After a moment’s consideration I chose the second course. I found a spot for my bivouac at the end of the yard. From there I had a clear view of the only door to the room in which Holmes was waiting. The light rain had returned, but to an old campaigner the hardships of the post were slight and easily endured. I settled down with my back to the wall and my coat wrapped around me, basking in the inner satisfaction of knowing that for the first time since disobeying Holmes’s original order I was once again in control of events. My friend was in no present danger, and I was well placed to challenge any future threat. I felt deeply relieved at having brought the affair to this happy stage.

I was deceived, of course, but it is not of that I am now ashamed. My errors were honest, and the truth an inconceivable abomination. No, what I blush to confess is my unforgivable weakness in falling asleep on my watch. For this there can be no excuse. Even if my conjectures had been correct it would have been a monstrous dereliction of duty. And who shall say what might have happened had I been awake to hear the voice that cried murder? But enough! The facts are that after lying huddled in the corner of that yard for over an hour, my body aching and my brain exhausted, I simply dozed off.

I awoke chilled to the bone, from what I thought at first to have been only a brief nap. I was aghast to discover, on consulting my watch, that it was almost five o’clock! For a moment I lay incredulous on the cobbles where I had slumbered for close on two hours! Then, with a thrill of mortal terror, I remembered where I was. Holmes’s words suddenly echoed through my skull. ‘He must kill twice on the same spot!’ Two victims: Holmes and the young woman! What could be simpler or more effective? It would be a typically economical and elegant solution to the ‘pretty problem’ my friend had mentioned. Moriarty would at once put an end to his duel with Holmes and dispose of a witness who might otherwise embarrass him in the future, while still fulfulling the requirements of his diabolical design.

I struggled to my feet and moved silently and swiftly up the courtyard to the window through which I had earlier spied in the room. To my chagrin I found the curtains were now tightly drawn. Then I was stunned to hear someone moving inside the room! I struggled to control my excitement as I realised that though I might be too late to save my friend, I could still avenge him. As I edged cautiously around the corner towards the door I noticed that one of the panes of the other window had been broken, and then crudely stopped up with a piece of
cloth. Here was a capital opportunity to reconnoitre before launching my attack. With infinite care I worked the wadding loose. Then I inserted my hand and parted the curtains.

I was prepared for horrors, but for the sight that met my eyes there could be no preparation. At first glance it suggested some appalling natural disaster. Was it possible, I wondered, for a person to explode? Then, with sickening certainty, I recognised this mess of strewn flesh as the woman I had seen drinking and talking with Sherlock Holmes a few hours before. He was still with her, but not dead. No, much worse than dead. He was alive. Stripped to his undergarments, he seemed a giant in that tiny room. The fire was blazing and his shadow moved hugely over the bed and its monstrous cargo. His clothes had been neatly folded and piled in the chair, safe from the gore that covered his hands and wrists and arms and was spattered over his linen. As he moved, so did his shadow, and then one saw more of the girl. She lay on her back on the blood-drenched bed. Her torso was completely flayed and gutted. The bed-table was covered with her organs. Her arm had been sliced through at the shoulder, and her hand shoved deep into the shambles of her abdomen. Her gaping throat was a horror to behold, but the worst by far was her face. The nose had been ripped away, together with the ears, the skin was cut to ribbons, but a devilish discretion had saved her eyes. Undisturbed, they stared at me from out of the wreckage of her face – a look as impossible to avoid as it was to meet.

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’.

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?
221
B
or not
221
B
? 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:

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.