Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (12 page)

Druitt bent down to inspect the patch of earth his sister had been placed down on so long ago. He closed his eyes, feeling the soft breeze on his face and hearing his sister gurgle, “Monty, Monty.”

He lied down on the ground, putting his face in the dirt, smelling to see if he could still find the scent of her. He dug his fingers into the dirt, and scooped a handful of it into his pocket. There was a sealed jar in his other pocket, and he’d spent the entire train ride covering it protectively as other passengers sat too close, or bumped into him.

“I am glad to take you with me, sister,” Druitt whispered, patting the soil in his pocket. He walked back into the house, taking the stairs toward his father’s locked bedroom, shouldering the door and shattering the wooden frame into splinters. He found William’s medical bag on top of the dresser. Druitt opened the bag and inspected the surgical blades within. They were rusted. He threw them back into the bag and grabbed the handle, turning to leave. He stopped when he saw William’s hatbox in the corner.

Druitt lifted the dusty lid and removed the top hat from inside. He inspected the brim and found it was still sturdy and without creases. He put the hat on his head. He shut William’s bedroom door and walked to the stairs leading up to the attic bedroom. Piles of Ann’s things covered every step. Druitt kicked them away, clearing the steps, scattering bottles of lotion and clothing and trinkets and faded photographs all across the hall. He looked at the top of the stairs at the closed door to Georgiana’s bedroom. Light poured through the edges of the door in the places it did not meet the frame, like a portal to some other place.

Druitt opened it and went up the stairs toward Georgiana’s closed bedroom door. Something was welling deep within. Too powerful to bother attempting the door handle, he reached the upper landing and kicked it in. Decades of dust covered Georgiana’s mirror, and Druitt swept his hand across its surface, from top to bottom. He looked at himself in the mirror, satisfied. Druitt emptied his pockets of Georgiana’s dirt and piled it on the floor in front of the mirror. He removed the jar from his left pocket and set it in front of the dirt. He opened his father’s medical bag and set the sharpest looking bone-handled knife next to the jar.

He stripped naked, looking at himself in the mirror for a moment. He stepped into the dirt, feeling it between his toes. He picked up the knife, studying his palm before slicing it open, letting blood leak onto the dirt below. He unscrewed the lid of the jar and reached in, lifting the clump of Annie Chapman’s wet uterus with his fingers. He squeezed it tightly with his bleeding hand, feeling its cold ichor mix into his bloodstream, stinging the wound.

Druitt closed his eyes, seeing the horror in Polly Nichols’s eyes as he sliced across her throat. He saw her body crumpled on the street. He saw Georgiana on the fence. He saw his mother, naked, shrieking at him.

“I am the beast, and I will devour the world.” Druitt lifting the dripping organ to his mouth and bit deeply of Annie Chapman’s uterus, sucking it until the cold juices burst into his mouth. Deep within, an explosion ignited, setting fire to his insides, lighting his mind and soul aflame so that he screamed in both ecstasy and horror. A new voice spoke to Druitt, born of the inferno.

“My name,” he whispered, chewing the cold flesh and swallowing, “is Jack.”

ACT II

COME ARMAGEDDON, COME

TEN

Mary and I arrived at the Forrester home precisely at seven o’clock. She spent the ride lamenting that she was arriving as a guest, rather than being there already, helping them to prepare for the event. “Poor Gordon never knows how to fix his hair. I bet it is a disaster. And Miss Mildred in the kitchen? God, if she forgot to get the—”

“Mary?” I said softly, “Perhaps I am not the only one who needs to adjust to the changes our life together will bring.”

“You are right, darling. Tonight we begin to make our mark on society. The night the future Dr. and Mrs. John Watson reveal themselves to the world.” She took my hand in hers as our cab lined up behind the others waiting to deliver their occupants to the front steps. Servants waited by the curb to assist the women from their cabs; others waited at the front doors, taking guest’s coats as they entered. Smartly dressed men bowed to the arriving couples, pointing them toward their destination within. What I’d initially thought a modest stained glass window beside the doorway was now fully lit in rich crimson that swirled with cobalt, sparkling and majestic. Shapes etched into the window appeared to shift and rotate in the flickering lights. The shadows of people in the hall appeared behind the window, giving the impression that they moved within the colors of the glass itself. I held Mary’s hand tightly, taking in the full view and whispered, “Something like this could be ours, if we put our minds to it. We could live like this.”

Mary nodded, nestling her head in my arm as we approached the house. “We would be lucky to be half as rich as the Forrester’s, John. Not by how much money they have, but how they care for one another.” She pulled me toward the house, eager to make her entrance. She laughed like a little girl, excitedly racing up the steps. “I’ve missed being here so much. I hope you take to one another, John. They are so important to me.”

“I shall be glad to know them then,” I said. “I want good people to be in our lives, people who know the value of family. This home is exquisite.”

“Aunt Mary!” came an excited shriek as we entered. A young man with hair standing straight up in the air came running up to Mary and threw his arms around her. “You’re here!”

“Of course, Gordon,” Mary said, laughing, kissing him on the cheek. She licked her palms and began flattening his hair dutifully.

“There you are!” Mrs. Forrester called out, wrapping her arms tightly around Mary’s shoulders. “Dr. Watson,” she said, lifting her hand toward me delicately.

I took her hand and kissed it, bowing my head. “Mrs. Forrester, thank you for inviting me to your lovely home.”

She smiled, “As you know, Mary is much more than someone who just works for us. She is like a daughter, which means that I expect to be seeing quite a lot of you as well.”

“I will be on my best behavior then,” I said, making both women smile. “Is Mr. Forrester about? I have not had the chance to introduce myself to him yet. I suppose it was impolite of me to not have asked his permission before I proposed to Mary?”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Forrester said. “Any man worthy to assist the Great Detective must be worthy of our approval.”

Mary waved her hand. “John is finished running all over London with Mr. Holmes. He is now concentrating on expanding his medical practice before we marry. There will be no more chasing of basset hounds for my husband.”

“Pardon me, darling, but it was not a basset-hound. It was a long fanged, phosphorous-infected devil of a-“

“Of course. Anything you say, my love.” Mary smiled knowingly as she turned back toward Mrs. Forrester, “We were hoping to make some introductions this evening, to let people know that his services are available.”

“I have a grand idea. The eldest son of the Sixth Duke of Gordon is here tonight. He’ll inherit the title soon enough. If you impress him, he might be able to introduce you to several people. He’s not yet a duke, so he can’t be offended at having you sit with him.” She leaned close to Mary, “Let me go make the arrangements.”

Mary smiled brightly at me, clutching my hand. “An-almost-Duke! You see, John? Everything is coming together nicely!”

“I do not want to push myself on people, Mary.”

“I know, and you shan’t. People are curious enough about your involvement with Holmes that they will want to meet you.” Mary paused for a moment, weighing her words. “I think it would be better to tell people that you worked alongside Holmes, acting as his advisor for anatomical and medical questions. It sounds better than always running around claiming to be his ‘biographer,’ or ‘assistant.’ What do you think?” She straightened my collar and fixed my jacket’s lapels, looking me over in a way no one had since my mother used to prepare me for church. I half-expected her to lick her thumb and swipe it across my cheek to clean away the sticky residue of a taffy. “There. Now you look presentable.” Mary diverted from her inspection when she noticed me grinning. “What is it?”

“I just wanted to look at you for a moment. No one has treated ever treated me so kindly. Thank you for taking such good care of me.”

A shadow fell over us, and I turned to see an enormous man standing with an arm placed commandingly on the shoulders of two incredibly beautiful oriental females. The women, if they could be called that, for neither could have been older than nineteen years old, bowed their heads and covered their faces with ornate fans. Their hair was pulled back tight against their heads in long braids that hung below their waists. Mycroft Holmes looked down at me and smiled, “It is pleasant to see you here, Dr. Watson.”

“Hello, Mycroft,” I said, looking past him at the two women. Their expressions were blank and soulless. “How goes the business of nation-building? Or is it their destruction? I can never be certain.”

“Never better, my dear doctor. Never better.”

“Well, you certainly look content.”

Mycroft laughed, patting his rotund belly. “It is called dim-sum, Watson. I swear, these two have put an extra three stone on me.” Mycroft looked down at the women and spoke to them in Chinese. They nodded and shuffled off into the crowd. Mycroft watched them go, chuckling. “So,” he said, turning back toward us, “who is this little beauty?”

Mary held out her hand, and Mycroft took it, kissing it delicately and bowed. “This is my fiancée, Miss Mary Morstan. Mary, this Mycroft Holmes.”

“Charming,” Mycroft said, eyeing the length of her. “I wish you both the utmost success in both life and love.”

“Mary, please excuse Mr. Holmes and me.”

Mary smiled and left us to mingle with other arrivals who she wanted to greet. I leaned close to Mycroft and whispered, “Who are the two Oriental girls?”

He smiled. “A gift of thanks from the Empress Dowager Cixi for assisting her in the Sino-French war.”

“But, the Chinese lost control of North Vietnam to the French,” I said. “It was a complete routing.”

Mycroft smiled and nodded, “Yes, indeed it was. But the Tonkin Affair made it all worthwhile. I dare say France has seen its last Republican Government for quite awhile.”

“And that was your doing?” I asked.

Mycroft patted me on the back, “Watson, my boy, there are some things at work in this world which are best left unexamined. Now, I want to ask you about my brother. What makes you so sure that he is truly ill? He’s pulled this trick before, playing the sickly role while he maneuvers and cavorts about unattended.”

“He is not pretending this time, Mycroft. Why not come see for yourself?”

“Things are a bit sketchy at the moment. There is some bad business to attend to out in Dufile. Damn Indians are always up to something.”

“I suppose that happens when you show up in someone else’s backyard and try to tell them how things should be done. Especially when you do it at point of bayonet.”

Mycroft looked at me for a moment, eyes searching as thoroughly as his brother’s ever had. “I can see why Sherlock keeps you close to him. You appear to be somewhat soft-brained and it lulls people into a sense of false confidence with you. That is a mistake, I suppose.”

I grunted and looked around us, making sure no one else could hear. For all intents and purposes, we were just two men making polite conversation. “Perhaps I am somewhat soft-brained, Mycroft. I went into the army thinking I would be protecting the people of England from foreign threat. Then I realized we were all nothing more than cannon-fodder for a wide-array of Imperialistic schemes. In Afghanistan, I watched men I considered to be my brothers get blasted to bits at Asmai Heights because of people like you.”

Mycroft removed a thick cigar from a silver case and took his time lighting it. Soon, he was drawing in large mouthfuls of smoke and blowing them toward the sky. “I envy you, Watson. I wonder what it would be like to see the world in such simplistic terms. The fact is, my boy, if you understood the true nature of how things work, you would run screaming into the ocean.”

“If you say so, Mycroft.”

He took out his cigar and licked his thin lips, spitting flecks of tobacco leaf from them. “I mean no offense, Watson, truly I don’t. You have a heart, and it must be hard for you to understand people like my brother and me. You see, neither of us is in possession of one.”

~ * * * ~

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your fullest attention?” A man at the far end of the room spoke, tapping his spoon against a glass.

“Is that Mr. Forrester?” I asked Mary. She nodded, but held her finger to her lips for me to be silent.

“Can everyone hear me?” Cecil Forrester said. “All right, we have a lovely surprise for you all this evening.” A man walked onto the stage behind Forrester and took his place on a stool in front of an enormous Packard organ.

“She has stood upon the finest stages in every part of the world, captivating audiences with a voice so singularly beautiful that it has been known to bring grown men to tears. Napkins are available from your servers,” he said, laughing. “Without any further ado, I present, the one and only, Miss Irene Adler.”

Two servants held the kitchen doors open as Irene Adler entered the ballroom in a long flowing gown, her trailing train held up from the floor by another servant. She walked up several steps to the small stage where Forrester stood waiting. Her skirt fluttered and a band of brightly shining diamonds reflected at her ankle, as if even beneath the confines of her clothing, rich gems could be found for someone willing to explore-

“Dr. Watson?” Mary said, so sharply that I turned my head.