The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (16 page)
Read The Last Sherlock Holmes Story Online
Authors: Michael Dibdin
The next morning I despatched a letter to
221B
Baker
Street. Although I could not face the prospect of meeting Holmes again, much less of sharing rooms with him, I had every reason for wishing to remain on good terms with my former friend. Rather than make a brutal severance, therefore, I bent the truth to suit my purposes. The letter ran this way:
My dear Holmes,
Much to my regret, I am unable to welcome you home in person. But I have a good excuse – the best in the world in fact! Mary and I have married. You will no doubt be somewhat surprised at the suddenness of the nuptials – indeed, I was myself! The fact is that poor Mary has been completely unnerved by these Whitechapel horrors. After the last atrocity she broke down altogether. As you know, there is no man in the Forrester household to exert a steadying influence, and between the two of them the women succeeded in convincing themselves that they were destined to be the murderer’s next victims! Of course I pointed out that respectable women were not at risk, and that in any case the scene of the crimes was invariably Whitechapel and not Camberwell. But you know how it is once the sex take an idea into their heads! Nothing would do but we must marry without further delay. I agreed, if only to remove Mary from the influence of this unhealthy morbidity. As for Mrs Forrester, I believe she has gone to stay with relatives in Yorkshire.
I am delighted to hear that you have been able to bring Professor Moriarty’s career to a fitting end. If you have indeed ensured that these ghastly killings have reached their term, all England owes you its thanks. Naturally I am eager to have the details from your own lips. I sincerely hope that all the to-do that goes with setting up a household will not too long prevent me from satisfying this desire. By way of honeymoon, my wife and I are
vagabonding it along the South Coast, spending a few days in each town. A letter to my club will reach me without undue delay.
Yours truly, Watson
I posted this letter from Brighton, where I spent the next five days in seclusion. Counting on Mary’s acquiescence, I had made arrangements for us to be married at a small church in Marylebone. I thought it best to spend the intervening days out of town, to avoid the possibility of an embarrassing encounter with Holmes. At the end of the following week Mary and I were duly united, and we left London that afternoon for the coast of Norfolk. Cromer is scarcely at its best in November, but it is very quiet. In that quiet, with Mary at my side, I found the strength to face and master the shocking truth on which I had so innocently stumbled.
I soon realised that although I had now resolved my immediate personal problems, I was still facing a very grave moral dilemma. I had reason to believe that Sherlock Holmes had committed six brutal murders, and might well attempt more. What was I to do? Under normal circumstances, of course, I would simply have informed the police. Such was indeed my duty, and by failing to do so I was myself breaking the law. But how could I possibly walk into a police station and announce that I believed the Whitechapel murderer to be a man celebrated throughout the world for his services in the fight against crime? Even supposing I was not at once clapped into a strait waistcoat, what evidence could I adduce in support of my wild accusation? Only some scraps of circumstantial minutiae that would not convict even a known criminal, together with my unsupported word that I had seen Holmes mutilating the body of Mary Kelly. And in any event, even if by some miracle I did succeed in persuading the police to investigate a man
they doubtless considered about as likely a suspect as the Prince of Wales, what would come of it? All the objections which Holmes had advanced when I proposed telling Lestrade about Professor Moriarty applied with equal force in the present case. The police could take no measures of which Holmes would not instantly be aware, and which he could not evade with the greatest of ease. The primary advantage we possessed was that Holmes had no reason to suppose that he was suspected. This advantage could hardly be overestimated, since it virtually cancelled out the man’s natural superiority. As long as he did not exert his powers, he might yet be foiled, but if he were put on his guard it would be hopeless. Any resort to the authorities was therefore out of the question, for they were bound to bungle the affair.
But if I could not pass on my responsibilities to others, then I would have to shoulder them myself. Whatever my personal feelings, I would have to cultivate Holmes’s friendship and keep a close watch on his moods and movements. And if he ever again took up his knife I would have to be there to fetch the police and hand the murderer over to justice. For a moment I even regretted the impulse that had made me leave the Baker Street rooms. My surveillance would have been much easier had I stayed. But at such close quarters Holmes must have remarked the change in my manner, and that would have been fatal. Besides, my task was by no means as arduous as it at first appeared, for if Holmes maintained the pattern which he had been at such pains to point out to Lestrade (How he must have amused himself! What fearful fun!) then the only times at which a close watch need be kept were the few days at the end of each month and at the weekend immediately following. It could be done and I had to do it. What I needed, therefore, was a residence close enough to Baker Street to make frequent ‘dropping in’ appear natural, and a practice sufficiently
undemanding to free me for my larger duty – protecting the public from Jack the Ripper!
By now the end of November was drawing nigh, and with it the threat of another outrage. On the 28th I travelled back to London, leaving Mary safe in Cromer. My plan was to put up at an hotel for the weekend, but this was abruptly altered by a letter which I found awaiting me at the club. The envelope was addressed in a familiar hand, and the enclosure read as follows:
23rd November 1888
My dear Watson,
I read your communication of the 16th inst. with much interest, and with regret that my business in Switzerland made it impossible for me to attend your wedding. Please accept my best wishes for the future, and remember me kindly to your wife.
I fear that your eagerness to know more about the demise of the late and unregretted Professor Moriarty will have to be restrained for some time yet. The Russian Embassy has intimated that the Imperial authorities are prepared to offer me carte-blanche if I can shed any light on the mysterious case of a certain gentleman of Odessa. I know not who Mr Trepoff was, that the Czar’s ministers should concern themselves with his fate, but the case possesses certain features of interest which in themselves induced me to accept. It seems the man was found seated at a desk in his hotel room with a volume of Lermontov’s verse opened before him. There was no blood, no disorder. Indeed, the only indication of foul play was that the gentleman’s head was missing. The one other occupant of the room was Trepoff’s valet, who is apparently stark staring mad and unable to make any sound beyond a continuous series of farmyard imitations.
I depart for Odessa tomorrow, and whatever the
outcome I expect to remain away from London for some time. Now that Jack the Ripper is gone I find the city ‘stale, flat, and unprofitable’. I really cannot bring myself to take any interest in the petty misdemeanours of our insular criminals. Perhaps, the Continental villain has not yet erased all traces of imagination and creativity from his work, but if he too fails me I can at least purchase a Baedecker and a sketch-book and turn tourist.
At all events, do not neglect to send word of your address once you are settled. Mrs Hudson will forward all correspondence.
Yours very truly,
Sherlock Holmes
As I scanned these lines I experienced a relief that was almost physical. Every phrase seemed to breathe normality and to speak of the Holmes I had known and respected for so long, rather than the fearsome monster I had steeled myself to meet. Besides, I rejoiced to hear that he was removing himself voluntarily from the scenes that had witnessed those hideous outbursts of destructive violence. A period abroad might work a power of good. It was with a serenity I had not known for many weeks that I returned to Mary that evening, to inform her that we could complete our honeymoon without further interruption.
The hands of the clock which tells the time of my narrative must now revolve more quickly. Three months passed by. I acquired a modest practice in the Paddington district, and my days were spent quietly and usefully, attending to the ailments of my patients and to my responsibilities as a husband and a householder. But I am not penning my autobiography, and my only contact with Sherlock Holmes during this period was through the two typically vivid letters I received from him, which I shall make no vain attempt to paraphrase. The first was
dispatched from Darjeeling, in Bengal, on the 4th of January. It ran:
Dear Watson,
No doubt you have been wondering at my long silence, but I have been travelling lately in parts not noted for the regularity of their postal systems. Having cleared up the Odessa mystery I found, to my not complete amazement, that the cordiality of the Russian authorities had decidedly waned upon my discovering the identity of ‘Mr Trepoff’. When four very large gentlemen visited my hotel room in the early hours of the morning, carrying a coffin, I felt that the time had come to take my leave. Fortunately I had detected the odour of cyanide of potassium in the champagne sent up by an anonymous admirer earlier in the evening (not that I care for sweet champagne in any case – they really should take the trouble to get these details right!) and was concealed in the chimney when the cortege called.
Using just about every form of transport known to man, and several previously unknown to me, I made my way through the Crimea and south to Baku. I then crossed the Caspian Sea and struck out into the great Kara Kum desert, from which I emerged, after a number of interesting incidents, in Afghanistan. The Russians were of course expecting me to head into the Balkans, or across the Black Sea into Turkey, and I was determined to disappoint them. It is no exaggeration to say that the information I now possess, if communicated to certain parties, could well result in the overthrow of the present régime in Russia. You will know how little interest I have in such an event, but one can hardly blame the Czar’s men for preferring to guarantee my silence. I must therefore keep out of the way until next month, after which the matter will cease to be of any moment.
To while away the time, I have just spent a few days in
Lhasa. One of the Viceroy’s staff happened to mention in the course of conversation that no European had ever penetrated this ‘forbidden city’ of Tibet. I naturally needed no further inducement. Well, it may still be true that no European has been there, but one very ancient and venerable Buddhist ascetic visited the Lama last month
en pèlerinage
, and had he removed his magnificent beard and expression of transcendental sublimity, you might well have remarked his astonishing resemblance to
yours very truly,
Sherlock Holmes
This epistle was followed some three weeks later by another, scarcely less singular, which had been written at Colombo on the island of Ceylon:
Dear Watson,
I have, as you see, moved south, but for professional rather than personal reasons. A terrible tragedy has struck one of the leading families of these parts, and the authorities, who are utterly baffled (
Plus ça change
…!) have asked me to look into it. I must admit that it appears to have the makings of a very pretty little puzzle. I have not as yet begun my investigation in person, but from what I gather the protagonists were two brothers, Henry and Edward Atkinson, sole heirs to a large tea plantation near Trincomalee, whither I am bound tomorrow. It seems that Henry was playing cards at the Service Club when his brother rushed in, shot Henry six times with the greatest deliberation, and then calmly gave himself up. Such an affair, on the face of it, hardly seems to warrant my intervention – even poor Lestrade might be forgiven for thinking the case cut and dried. So indeed it seemed, until Henry’s body underwent a routine examination at the mortuary. It was then discovered that his corpse was entirely unmarked by any lesion whatsoever, while his
stomach contained a quantity of poison which had been the cause of death! Thus we presently have the interesting situation of Edward freely confessing to having shot his brother, which brother however turns out not to have been shot but poisoned – the whole affair having taken place before a hundred eminent members of what passes here for society. A little
recherché
, wouldn’t you agree?
If I were in fact the calculating machine some people claim, I might well decide to postpone my return to England indefinitely. ‘Go west, young man!’ may be excellent advice to the morally upright, but the cream of the unrighteous, no doubt out of sheer perversity, seem to have gone east. As it is, though, I find that with every day that passes I yearn increasingly for the dreary fogs and familiar tedium of the London scene. I shall defend myself from any charge of irrationality by claiming that it is quite natural that I should wish to see for myself how my friend Watson is adapting to the rigours of domestic bliss. Need I say how much I am looking forward to seeing both you and Mrs Watson once more? I fear that your wife may not be well pleased with me for having so long tolerated your inherent bohemianism, but since I played a humble role in bringing the two of you together she may nevertheless feel able to receive, upon his return from our eastern dominions,
yours very truly,
Sherlock Holmes
A postscript, added two days later, ran this way:
My investigations here at Trincomalee have confirmed my initial conjectures regarding the Atkinson case. I do not expect to be detained here long – indeed, I should not arrive much later than this letter, unless something else comes up. Should one of your errands of mercy take you conveniently close to our old rooms you might have the goodness just to walk up and see that all is in order.
