Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (16 page)

“Why did he carry it all this way just to dump it here?” Collard said.

“No idea,” Lestrade shrugged. “Maybe he was carrying whatever he cut out of her in it, all bunched up? Maybe there were too many police around? Maybe he cut himself and was using it to cover up the wound?”

“Or maybe he wanted us to find it,” Collard said. “Take a look at the wall.”

Lestrade squinted at the words written in chalk across the stairwell’s wall:

“THE JUWES ARE THE MEN

THAT WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean? What is a Juwe?”

Collard shrugged. “Lots of Jews have shown up around here lately. People are not exactly welcoming them with open arms into the East End, are they now?”

“Not those Jews,” Lestrade said. “He spelled it differently.”

“Imagine that, a bloke who goes around cutting women open and stealing their organs in the middle of the night has the nerve to have bad spelling. I bet his mother will be quite disappointed in him, no?”

“You’re a right funny bastard, Collard. What I meant was how can we be certain it has anything to do with the apron? There’s police all over the place out here. Our boy was hurrying away from the crime scene and ditched a piece of evidence. Why take the time to write this? It might just be a stairwell with graffiti on it.”

“Yes, but in chalk?” Collard said. “How long could that stay up?”

Lestrade handed Collard the light. “Let’s play it safe, then. Make sure nobody touches that wall until we can get it photographed.” Lestrade stepped out of the stairwell onto Goulston Street and came face to face with his own Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren.

Chief Inspector Brett came around behind the Commissioner. His face was red and strained when he said, “What are you doing here, Inspector Lestrade? Why aren’t you at the murder scene in Dutfield’s Yard?”

“I came to assist here, sir,” Lestrade explained.

Sir Charles’s eyes widened. “This is not our jurisdiction.”

“Their murder happened an hour after ours did, sir. I came to see if I could get any information to assist our investigation.”

“In what way could these people possibly assist us?” Sir Charles sneered.

“This is a serious offense, Lestrade!” Brett barked. “You are out of your jurisdiction, working on a different police department’s murder while we have our own investigations to attend to! You will report to my office at seven tomorrow sharp!”

“Now listen—” Lestrade said.

Inspector Collard raised his hand, “Pardon, sirs. If I may, I asked Inspector Lestrade to see a piece of evidence in this stairwell because I did not know if it was significant or not. He only left Dutfield’s to assist me for a moment. He was just heading back.”

“What is the evidence?” Brett scoffed.

“There’s an apron taken from one of our victims. It’s covered in her filth. Right above it is some writing on the wall,” Collard said.

“What does it say?” Warren said.

“Something about the Jews, sir.”

“The Jews?” Warren said. “Let me see.” Warren took the lantern from Collard and went into the stairwell.

“What the bloody hell is going on over there, Inspector Collard?” Major Smith said. Both Smith and Detective Superintendent Foster hurried to the stairwell, seeing several uniformed officers from the London Metropolitan Police Service. “Constables, secure this crime scene,” Major Smith shouted to his own people.

The City constables shook their heads and walked over to the Metropolitan constables and asked them to move back. Both sides muttered at one another. Sir Charles stepped out of the stairwell, eyes narrowed. He pointed to one of his uniformed men, “You! Find a wet sponge and get rid of that writing at once.”

“What?” Lestrade said.

“Wait just a second,” Major Smith said. “You have no authority here, Sir Charles. This is a City Police investigation.”

Sir Charles ignored the Major and snapped his fingers at his men, saying, “Now. Move it. Get it off that damn wall.”

“The first man who lets one of these Metropolitans through is fired. This is a serious breach of etiquette, Commissioner Warren, one I will be forced to take up with the Home Office.”

“The Home Office?” Warren snickered. “I am sure to lie awake at night terrified of
them
. Chief Inspector Brett?”

“Yes, Sir Charles?”

“Make sure that wall is wiped clean in the next five minutes and that no one else is allowed to see it.”

“Yes, Sir Charles,” Brett replied.

“Wait one second!” Lestrade said. “We have to at least photograph it first. By Christ, this is a cock-up!”

Sir Charles Warren turned to Inspector Lestrade, “If you utter one more bloody word I will plant you beneath the streets of Whitechapel, you interfering, loud mouthed, imbecile.”

“I demand an explanation, Sir Charles!” Major Smith shouted.

“Damn it, Henry! I will be up to my neck in dead Jews if this gets out. Just because you have this little spot of land to concern yourself with doesn’t mean that I will let you rip my entire city apart. May I remind you that you are merely an Acting Commissioner? May I remind you that I answer to the Minister’s Cabinet? I will wipe my arse with your entire Home Office and send a regiment of officers to seize your police headquarters if you try and stop me from getting this wall washed.”

Lestrade spat on the ground and turned on his heels and left. Collard hurried after him to catch up. “What do we do now?” Collard asked.

“What do you mean?” Lestrade laughed. “We do nothing now. We go home now because we are dead in the water now. Let the bastards have it, my friend. Let all the nasty little bastards win tonight.”

FOURTEEN

It all started with a test tube containing a new discovery Sherlock Holmes called “haemoglobin.”

In 1881, I returned to London from the Afghan front. I met up with Stamford, a friend who was helping me get acclimated to life at home. I had no place to live at that point and no funds to afford my own dwelling. Stamford suggested a man he knew who might be interested in going halves on a second-floor, two bedroom flat in the West End.

He warned me of this fellow’s somewhat peculiar nature. As I recall, he described Sherlock Holmes as a man who is not “easy to draw out.”

When I met Holmes, he was pricking his finger to demonstrate this “haemoglobin,” a chemical he said that could verify bloodstains. In the midst of explaining how he’d achieved this considerable discovery, which anyone would rightly be busily congratulating themselves for making, Holmes took one look at me and casually remarked that I was obviously just back from fighting in Afghanistan.

No matter how astonished I appeared, or how I cajoled him to tell me how he came to know this information, he refused to explain. It bored him to bother recounting what he considered to be such a simple matter. Truthfully, when he finally revealed how he’d deduced it, it did seem rather simple. But it is the kind of simplicity that requires a unique intellect. That is my first and best answer when it comes down to why I have always been so taken with Holmes. He accepts what is seemingly impossible, and upon filtering it through the keen lens of his mind, makes it into something workable. He finds truth when there are mountains of lies. He finds hope when all is lost.

It is called The Art of Scientific Deduction, and the play on words has always amused me, though I suspect the genius of it escaped even Holmes when he termed it that. “Scientific Deduction” implies a series of mathematical calculations, or basic patterns of a problem’s reduction, stripping away the entanglements and obfuscations until all that is left is the result. In Holmes’s mind, that is the entire process, and all of us who are incapable of making such reductions are simply not thinking correctly.

You see, that is where it becomes an “Art.” If Holmes ever attempted to create a course designed to instruct others in his methods, there would be whole volumes on his approach to investigations. How he looks for clues and what intellectual traps to avoid, and so forth. But that would not even begin to approach the depth of his abilities.

Just as Michelangelo could instruct a student how to paint, or Aristotle could give lessons on reason, the actual application of the knowledge is unique to that person. There never has been, and never will be, an artist as capable of applying his talents as Sherlock Holmes had applied his.

As unto all great artists, his apologists are willing to forgive him for his shortcomings. When Holmes is engaged in the pursuit of a criminal, all is well. He is vibrant. Alert. Alive. It is between those times, in the dark recesses of inactivity that he descends into a pit of depression and narcotics. In fairness to Holmes, he’s never made any secret of his love for the needle. After we moved in at 221 B Baker Street, he celebrated by sitting in his chair by the fireplace and loading up a syringe containing a seven-percent solution of cocaine and morphine. He rolled up the sleeve of his smoking jacket, and drove the needle into his vein. I was amused, at first. “What are playing at, man?” I said. “You think that isn’t dangerous?”

Holmes’s eyes fluttered as he depressed the stopper, injecting himself until the syringe was empty. He sat back in his chair with a great sigh. “Narcotic stimulants are the only way to kill the stagnation weighing heavy on my heart and soul, Watson.”

“So, you poison yourself intravenously because you…hate feeling bored?”

Over the years, Holmes’s dependency on narcotics increased. It was no longer an activity limited to the periods of inactivity between cases. His usage grew to several times a week and then several times a day.

During the past several weeks, I have taken advantage of the lengthy amount of time he’s spent sleeping by rooting out the implements of his addiction. Dozens of syringes were scattered carelessly around the apartment. They were also strewn across the mantelpiece and floor of his bedroom. I found them on his bed, uncapped, waiting to stab him while he slept. It was no wonder that he so often slept in his chair. I suppose I should have been glad to find only three syringes stuffed between the cushions there.

There were vials and vials of cocaine and morphine in his desk drawers and hidden between the pages of his books. I uncapped them and dumped them into the sewer, imagining thousands of rats were now feasting on his vicious powders and watching the gutters with greedy hopes of tasting more.

One morning, Holmes woke and came out into the parlor. The dark circles under his eyes were gone. His face was shaven and his skin had a new rosy tint, instead of its normally pale, sickly color. He smiled at me and sat in his chair, “Watson, I need to thank you. That was astoundingly kind of you to care for me while I was ill. I feel wonderful.”

“It was my pleasure, Holmes. I am truly pleased to see you up and about. It has been weeks since I’ve seen Mary, and she is probably ready to end our engagement.” I watched his eyes trail off to search the mantle. “Holmes?” I said. “Are you listening?”

He spun in his chair to look around the rest of the room. “Where is it, Watson?”

“Where is what?”

“My Moroccan case. What on earth did you do with it?”

“The case is safe, however, it is empty.”

Holmes’s mouth twisted in rage and I seriously thought he might strike me. “How dare you! What gave you the right to tamper with my property?”

I stood to my feet and curled my fists. Holmes was taller than me, but I was thicker. I dreaded the idea of being struck by one of his practiced boxing maneuvers, but was determined that should it come to blows, I would tackle him before he got the opportunity. Instead, to my surprise, Holmes threw his face into his hands and began sobbing. “You cannot do this, Watson! Please! I only need a little! I beg you.”

I helped him into his chair and wiped the sweaty hair from his forehead. “No.”

“Please,” he said, clenching his eyes and crying as he reached out to grab my arms. “I dream of it when I sleep,” he hissed.

I pushed him away and sat down across from him. I folded my hands and took a deep breath. “Do you know what I think about, sometimes? I wonder what you were like as a child.”

“Shut up, Watson! I want my damned cocaine!”

“My own childhood was quite simple. I was fat, lonely, and sensitive. I grew up and joined the army to prove to everyone what a man I was, intent on becoming a surgeon. I have no idea who or what you were before the first day I met you. It is as if you sprang into existence a fully formed creature capable of the most complicated deductions. For the life of me I cannot fathom you in any other way.

When I was a boy, I remember my father returning from a year long engagement in the Second Opium war. I was delighted to see him and ran to his arms the moment he came through our front door. I told him I loved him and gave him a kiss right on the lips. I was ten years old. He pushed me away and wiped his mouth off in disgust and said, ‘Do not do that ever again.’ I was not allowed to tell him that I loved him, because he thought it was not something gentlemen said to one another.

But in truth, I love you, Holmes. I love you very, very much, and that is why I would rather die than watch you stick another needle in your arm. You are finished with that poison, and I if I have to beat it, burn it, or cut it out of you, I will exorcise this demon from your soul whether you like it or not.”

“But what if I need it, John?” he whined. “I need it...so help me God, I need it…I need it…I need it.”

“Well, you cannot have it.” I opened my newspaper and ignored the sounds of his pain.

~ * * * ~

There was damn little literature to be found on a method of properly extracting cocaine from a patient’s system. As physicians, we barely understood the ramifications of using it for appropriate purposes. For years, medical researchers thought the Holy Grail was a mythical plant in South America rumored to cure illnesses and give its users special powers. Europeans were desperate to study the coca leaf, and speculation ran rampant in scientific journals as to what it was actually capable of, but no one could acquire an adequate enough crop to do research on it. The raw foliage could not survive the long journey back to our shores intact, always arriving as nothing more than a large batch of useless shriveled brown plant material.