Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (2 page)

“Your name is Ann?” the man said.

“Yes. Well, Annie.” Annie held out her hand. He put several coins in her palm. Annie checked the alley behind the Hanbury Street houses, picking a spot next to a fence. She hiked her skirt and moved into the shadow between the fence and the steps leading to the back of the house. “Put it in me this way first,” she whispered, putting her hand on the wall and bending forward. “Annie’s going to take real good care of you,” she said, hiking her skirt up to her waist and poking her bottom toward the man.

He stepped close to her and hesitantly touched her waist. He squeezed the pale white flesh of Annie’s meaty bottom. “There you go,” Annie said. “That feels nice.”

“No,” the man said, taking his hands away instantly as if repulsed. “I want you to tell me that you hate it.”

Annie smiled in the shadows, burying her face quickly in her arm. He was one of those types, she thought. “All right,” Annie sighed. “Don’t do it. I hate it. Do you want me to struggle a bit?”

“Call me a beast,” he whispered, pressing close against her.

“You are quite a little beastie, dearest,” Annie said, covering her mouth to stifle a giggle. Suddenly, the man yanked her hair straight back, snapping her chin into the air, and Annie felt something sharp pierce the soft flesh beneath her jaw.

ACT I

PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES

ONE

The interior of Twenty-Two One B was dimly lit by the flickering gaslights of Baker Street far below. Their illuminations slipped through narrow gaps in the curtains as wind blew through our poorly shuttered windows, rattling the glass panes. The Great Detective sat across from me wrapped in a worn velvet smoking jacket, sucking his pipe silently. His thin face was gaunter than I’d ever seen it and his eyes drawn to serpentine slits. I cleared my throat, finally summoning the will to say, “Holmes, I have wonderful news. Miss Mary Morstan has agreed to be my wife.”

Holmes removed the pipe from his mouth and inspected its contents. He reached into the small pouch on the side-table and gathered several pinches of aromatic tobacco, packing it carefully inside the pipe and relit it. Finally, after a long time he blew out a thick, stream of smoke and said, “I expect you’ll be leaving Baker Street then?”

I paused, waiting to see if he was making a joke. “I am utterly serious, Holmes. This is no jest. I am getting married.”

“Are you waiting for me to congratulate you?”

“That would be the standard reaction to the announcement of pending nuptials, I suppose.”

“Perhaps for those who see such things as occasion to celebrate,” he said. “Personally, I cannot fathom why you would want to do something so foolish.”

“Foolish?” I scoffed. “How can you say that? Mary is quite a beauty. Also, she is loyal, intelligent, and charming.”

“Intelligent, indeed,” Holmes sniffed. Suddenly, his face grew quite grave and he leaned forward, “Have you accidentally impregnated this girl? If that’s the case, there is no need to do something so foolish. I know of a few doctors who can remedy that quite easily.”

“How dare you! That type of talk is beneath even you.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Farewell then, Watson. I will be able to find other ways to content myself with you no longer here.” Holmes reached above the fireplace for the cocaine bottle upon the mantle, and I snatched it away before he could grab it.

Holmes and I now stood face to face as I held the bottle at my side, away from his reach. “Why is it so hard for you to congratulate me?”

“I congratulate you, Watson,” Holmes said, looking hungrily at the bottle. “Does that content you? Hand it over.” When I did not move, Holmes seized my arm, trying to wrench the bottle from my hand. “Give me the cocaine, Watson! Run off with your sweetie and be out of my life forever if you want, just hand me the damned bottle!”

I shoved him and Holmes fell backwards into his chair with a cry. Normally I would never have been able to fight him off, but after weeks of heavy usage of his damned cocaine and morphine, he was like a frail old man, and he collapsed like an unstrung puppet. “You do not mean that,” I said, catching my breath. “I think your jealousy and this poison have affected your mind.”

Holmes snorted, “Jealous? Be serious, Watson. I would rather die than marry some little orphaned rantipole who cannot help but fall for the first handsome man that pays her but a speck of attention. Just give me my bottle and go away.”

I slipped the bottle into my pocket, out of his sight. “Perhaps you are not jealous of me, then, but Mary. You are afraid she is stealing me away from you.”

“That is quite enough, Watson. I am weary of your foolishness.”

“Admit you do not want me to leave.”

“Why? Would you stay if I said so?” Holmes said.

“Say it. Admit that you are more than just some damned machine. Be honest, just this one time. ”

“As God is my witness, Watson, I would like nothing more than for you to get as far and as fast away from me this very instant.”

“Fine.” I grabbed my coat and hat. “You have made it quite clear that my companionship is of little value to you. Farewell.”

Holmes’s voice suddenly became soft, “Watson?”

“What?” I said sharply, expecting he’d finally come to his senses and was about to apologize.

“The bottle.”

I cursed and threw it at him, striking him in the chest. I slammed the apartment door shut so hard that pictures on the stairwell rattled as I descended toward Mrs. Hudson’s apartment. Mrs. Hudson opened her door and poked her head out, “What is all that racket about?”

“Him!” I said, jerking my thumb in the air. Mrs. Hudson peered at me over the tops of her spectacles down the bridge of her nose, looking like a stern nanny who’d just caught her charge snatching a biscuit without permission. I glanced back up at the top of the stairs and sighed. “I apologize for the noise, Mrs. Hudson. I am going to go for a walk in hopes that perhaps in a few hours things will have cooled down.”

“For years I have watched all sorts of masked regents and befuddled policemen come through that door, all seeking the help of the Great Detective,” she sighed, shaking her head. “Why on earth he was putting his talents to such paltry use, I never understood. I always suspected he was meant for something much greater. But then I realized that he is just biding his time before fate comes calling on him in an hour of desperation. And sometimes I fear for that moment, Dr. Watson. I truly do.”

“Why?”

“Because then the world will truly need its Great Detective, Dr. Watson,” she said, “but more than that, Sherlock Holmes will need you.”

I recalled the day fate came walking through the door of 221 B Baker Street, in the form of Mary Morstan arriving at our doorstep and begging our assistance. Actually, she begged Holmes’s assistance, since he had previously worked a case for her employer, Mrs. Cecil Forrester.

As is my custom, once Mary announced her intent to divulge personal details to Holmes, I excused myself and rose to leave. Her skin was so fair that it appeared almost alabaster, and curled wisps of light blonde hair escaped teasingly from her bonnet. “Please, do not leave, sir.”

“You do not mind me staying?” I said, accidentally touching her hand. It was warm and delicate.

Holmes cleared his throat, breaking the moment. “Oh, do sit down, Watson. Obviously the young lady feels put at ease by your presence.” I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment, and Mary looked down, stifling a smile. Holmes chuckled, “I must confess that I often feel the same way, Miss Morstan. Doctor Watson is simply essential to my success and sometimes, even, to my very well-being. Have you, by any chance, heard the story of our adventures with the horrific beast haunting the moorlands of Dartmoor?” I looked at Holmes curiously, and he winked at me.

“No,” Mary said, shifting in her seat. “It sounds dreadfully exciting.”

“We were summoned to Devon on an investigation for a series of terrible murders. During the course of this, we began hearing reports that the killings were the work of a terrifying creature. We set off in search of this beast, expecting it all to be some sort of elaborate ruse concocted to frighten the locals and allow the culprit to steal off with the fortune of the Baskervilles,” Holmes said. He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Mary, “But it was not. The beast was horribly real. We came upon it in the moor, face to face with its terrible glowing eyes, and bared fangs spilling with drool as it leapt to rip our very throats out.“

“Good heavens! Whatever did you do?”

Holmes clapped me on the back, “My stalwart friend Watson calmly pulled his pistol and shot the wretched thing dead. His hand was as steady as our Mrs. Hudson drawing a morning cup of tea.”

“Really?” Mary gasped. “Dr. Watson, you must have been in the military service, to remain so calm under such conditions.”

“Well, in fact I did serve in the army.”

“He did more than just serve, Miss Morstan,” Holmes said. “He was wounded on the Afghan front in battle.”

“Then you can be of some help to me,” she said. “My father served in the Army of India, and his involvement there lies at the heart my problem. You simply must stay.”

“All right, Miss Morstan. But, as I recall, Holmes, you fired your pistol at the same moment I did. And then, as the beast was about to devour poor Sir Henry, pumped five more rounds into its belly and put an end to its misery.”

Holmes shook his head, sighing. “The details are but a blur to me, Watson. I was too filled with fright to properly recall. Thank heaven the good doctor is also talented enough to make a written account of our more noteworthy adventures.”

“Oh, so you are an author as well as a man of action?”

“I have not published anything yet, but someday I hope to. Just a few short stories about our more interesting adventures, if anyone is interested in reading that sort of thing.”

“You must tell me, what is the title for your adventure with this most ferocious beast of Dartmoor?”

“I am calling it ‘
The Adventure of the Great Detective and the Evil Snarling Beast Which Massacred Most of Devon County.
’ What do you think?”

Neither Holmes nor Mary replied. Finally, Holmes cleared his throat, “So, Miss Morstan, what seems to be the trouble?”

Captain Arthur Morstan spent most of his daughter’s life serving as an officer in Her Majesty’s Indian Army on Andaman Islands. Upon his return to England, Captain Morstan vanished, never to be heard from again. However, on the first anniversary of her father’s disappearance, Mary received a small pearl in a box via post with no return address, and no explanation. Another came the next year, and another after that, until she had received six in total. Finally, Mary received a letter asking her to meet with the sender of the pearls at the Lyceum Theater. This letter advised Mary that she could bring two companions with her if she was distrustful, but that they should not be police.

The game, as Holmes likes to say, was afoot. I set quickly to the task of recording the details of the investigation, in part, I confess, to have Mary appear in my writings. I made sure to detail my thoughts on her beauty. Once I’d finished the piece, titled “
The Sign of Four
,” I stood by nervously as Mary read every page. It was the first thing I’d ever written that I felt I could be proud of. By the time Mary finished, there were tears in her eyes and she thanked me for giving her father such a noble eulogy. In the heat of the moment, I kneeled on the floor of the visiting room at the Forrester estate and confessed my love, telling her that I wanted nothing more than to spend my life with her. Much to my surprise, she agreed.

For as much as I wanted Mary in my life, I needed to keep her at arm’s length from Holmes in his present condition.

Baker Street was covered in filth and trash from the evening commute as I returned home. I called out to the man leaning against the lamp-post across the street, where I needed to go. “You there! Look sharp, lad.”

“Yes, sir!” he cried. He rushed out toward me, stepping around the piles of horse manure, hoisting his broom. “Hold on one second, sir,” he said.

“How much?”

“A tuppence, sir.”

I nodded, and waited for him to get ahead of me, sweeping the cobblestones clear of muck and grime enough so that they were fit for a gentleman to cross. Once he’d cleared a path, I dropped a two-pence coin into his palm. “Thank you, sir!” he said gratefully, as I continued toward the apartment.

“Holmes?” I called out as I made my way up the stairs. “You still awake, man? I want us to sort this out.” There was no answer. I turned the lamp on, and as it flickered on, I saw him. His hands were spread across the lid of a box made of dark Moroccan thuya burl wood. The box’s sturdy latches were painted bright gold, the kind that made a loud snapping sound when flipped open. Holmes’s left sleeve was pulled up his arm, and a leather belt was tied tightly around his bicep. One of his syringes was sunk in the crook of his elbow and blood trickled from the needle, staining his chair. He was slumped over, head hanging down, moaning.

I plucked the needle from his arm and threw it on the floor in disgust, “You are quite a sight, Holmes.”

He slowly lifted his head, eyes fluttering as he squinted, trying to focus. “You do not like what you see, Watson?” He fell back against the seat, letting out a great sigh. “Why should I care? You are looking at God’s great joke. It is his cruel trick that I was given the tools and means to fight a great evil, but damned if there is one to be found.”

TWO

Montague Druitt’s earliest memory was his sister’s body slamming onto the spikes of the wrought iron fence that surrounded their mother’s garden. The garden was just behind the Druitt’s home and the spikes Georgiana landed on were far below the window of her bedroom, which had been converted from an attic.