Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (20 page)

“That is precisely what we are trying to do, gentle fellows! Now, I must insist that you excuse me, I have much to do before morning. Off I go then. Back to Baker Street. Vital information to report to Sherlock Holmes concerning these killings.” I inched past them, walking quickly, trying to look determined and important. As I reached the middle of the street, I was confident that I had escaped them.

“Get him.”

Let it never be said they took John Watson without a fight. I hit the closest one square in the jaw with a solid right hook, dropping him instantly. The second came around on my left, trying for a tackle and I drove a knee into his collarbone with a crack. A wooden truncheon whistled through the air into my gut, instantly folding me in half, dropping me to the street to retch on both my coat and the cobblestones.

The bastards stomped me with their boot heels. I covered my head, though my ribs and groin suffered the worse for it.

“That is enough!” Lusk shouted. “Mr. Fitch, call your men off!”

“All right, all right,” Fitch said. “Hold on a second.” The pounding of their heels paused for a moment. My attackers sucked air, waiting eagerly for the order to begin again.

I wept like a fool. “I am not the Ripper! You bloody bastards! I am not the Ripper!”

“You two grab some rope. Find us a lamp post or a tree branch in case we need it,” Fitch said, and two of my attackers left off immediately.

Lusk bent down, prodding me with the butt of his cane. “Perhaps you are exactly who you say you are. Perhaps there really is a Great Detective whom you are assisting. Perhaps what we heard you say in the bar really was just a misunderstanding. Perhaps not. These are perilous times, Mr. Watson. It pays to be prudent.” Lusk stood up. “I suggest that we search the suspect.”

“No!” I gasped. My emergency surgical kit was in my coat pocket, containing a small assortment of scalpels, scissors, and knives. Exactly the tools a Ripper would need. I screamed for help as the men tore my hands away from my pocket as I tried to cover it. The body of John Watson would soon hang over Commercial Street, tried, convicted and hanged forevermore as the notorious Jack the Ripper.

Lusk suddenly shouted over the other voices, “Get back, woman! We are acting in the name of Lord Salisbury!”

A gunshot cracked the air.

Smoke poured from the barrel of Irene Adlers’s handgun, and the muzzle was pointed directly at a small hole in the ground between George Lusk’s feet. Irene clinched one eye and lifted the gun and so that it was aimed directly between Lusk’s legs. “My next shot will be placed considerably higher, sir. I doubt even Lord Salisbury could find much use for a eunuch Ripper-Hunter. I’ll take Doctor Watson and I’ll take him right this bloody second.”

Mickey Fitch pushed Lusk out of the way, stepping in front of Irene’s line of fire. “Put that barker down, girl. There’s more of us than you have bullets.”

Irene cocked the hammer back and trained it on Fitch’s remaining eye. “I have more than enough bullets to make sure you never see what happens after you speak one more word, you little prat.”

Lusk grabbed me by the arm and hefted me from the ground. “Go!” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here!”

I struggled to my feet, snatching my coat. “I am not the Ripper,” I said, slamming my shoulder into Fitch as I passed. “I’m not the bloody Ripper, you bastard.” I limped to Irene, eyes still fixed on the men. I held out my hand, “Give me the gun.”

“Shut your mouth and keep walking.” She nudged me toward the nearest alley, keeping her gun aimed at the group. “Goodnight gentlemen. Best of luck in your endeavors, sodomizing small rodents, etc.” She leaned her head toward me, “Can you run?” “I refuse to run from them.”

Irene’s eyes flared, “Damn it, John! Are you too stupid to realize I am trying to rescue us both?”

“That’s it,” Fitch snarled. “Best to get going now, laddie. Run while you can. We’ll be seeing each other again, though, Doctor Watson. Trust that! Nobody does this and lives! I am going to cut your bullocks off and feed them to you! Then I am going to take a machete to your whore! You wait!”

“I believe I can manage a light sprint, Miss Adler,” I said.

“Good. Get going, I am right behind you.”

SIXTEEN

“Oy, Fred, listen. Listen! Put down the damn book and look at this.” Constable Lamb shook the Evening News at Wensley, pointing to an article on the cover. “Hammerton is calling us a disgrace.”

Wensley looked up from the book of procedure directives and said, “Who is Hammerton?”

“A police surgeon out in Bow Street. Who gives a damn what some bloke all the way out there has to say about the job we’re doing? Seen any dead bunters lately in Convent Gardens? No, we got ‘em all here in Whitechapel, but that bastard wants to see his bloody name in the newspaper so he goes spouting off this load of bollocks. It’s ridiculous!”

“You still haven’t told me what that load of bollocks was,” Wensley said. Lamb tossed the paper across the desk at him.

A DISGRACE TO OUR POLICE ORGANISATION.

Dr. Hammerton, the divisional surgeon of the Bow-street Police, stated last night to our correspondent that he considered the recent murders and their non-solution a perfect disgrace to our boasted police organisation, and there appears to be little room for doubt that the detective system in regard to murder is not at all a good one, looking at the great number of murders, mostly of women, that are continually occurring and never detected.

“Right there in tonight’s Evening News. As if the public was not having a difficult enough time letting us get on with catching The Ripper, now our own surgeons are stirring things up even worse,” Lamb said.

The doors to the station slammed open and Lamb and Wensley got to their feet as a crowd of loud, angry men charged toward the gate. They came directly up to the wooden rail and began banging their fists on it, shouting. “We demand to speak to whoever is in charge!” the one in front yelled.

Wensley waved his hands and told them to be quiet. “One at a time, gentlemen. Someone start off by telling us what the problem is. We’ll decide who should handle it.”

One of the men stepped forward and removed his hat. “My name is George Lusk, and these men are the members of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. We have come forth to announce the identity of Jack the Ripper.”

From inside his office, Inspector Lestrade could hear the voices of people shouting. It was nothing out of the ordinary for Whitechapel at that time of night. He looked back at Chief Inspector Brett and said, “So that is the official version, is it?”

“No, Inspector. That is the only version. Sir Charles Warren arrived on Goulston Street the night of the ‘Double-Event’ and immediately identified the threat to the Jewish populace from the obviously unrelated graffiti on the wall. The Commissioner took the necessary steps to prevent an incident, with which the City Police were in full compliance and appreciation. The graffiti in question was properly documented prior to being destroyed.”

Lestrade smiled, shaking his head, “What a load of bollocks.”

“Let us be clear about one thing, Lestrade. This version also includes that you only left a murder scene in hot pursuit of a fresh lead. It allows for you to be so caught up in pursuing the killer, you momentarily lapsed in your awareness of where our jurisdictional responsibilities are.”

“Does this version put me back on the case?”

Brett handed him his old report, most of which was crossed out by a thick black pen. Brett handed him a new report which was already written, with only a place at the bottom for Lestrade to sign. “It does the moment your recollection becomes synonymous with this report.”

Lestrade picked up the pen, scribbled his name on it, and handed it to Brett as if were something foul. Constable Wensley knocked on his office door, “Pardon me, sirs, but there is a crowd out front and one of the men says that he has discovered the identity of Jack the Ripper. He says he has proof.”

“Let me guess,” Lestrade said. “Lewis Carroll is Jack the Ripper?”

“Wasn’t he the one who wrote that children’s book?” Wensley replied. “That would be a good laugh. Anyway, no, sir, these gentlemen are claiming they have evidence that The Ripper is Doctor John Watson of Baker Street.”

“Ridiculous,” Lestrade said, jumping from his chair. He came out of his office, storming toward the gate, shouting, “What the bloody hell are you all carrying on about? You lot better have a good reason to accuse a man like…oh my God.”

Mickey Fitch looked at Lestrade and sneered. “Well, well. If it ain’t ol’ Gerry Lestrade. Heard yeh been looking for me, copper.”

Lestrade shouted, “Get them!” and dove over the gate to tackle Fitch to the ground.

Constable Wensley leapt over the counter like a deer and cracked the head of the first Fitch boy he landed near. Two of the gang members dove onto Wensley and pulled him to the ground.

Lamb leapt onto the top of the whole pile of men and started swinging and kicking in every direction.

Fitch grabbed Lestrade’s face with both hands, ripping into the skin of his cheeks with his fingernails. “Get off of me, pig! I’ll rip your eyes out!”

Lestrade grabbed Fitch’s ears and slammed the back of his head against the floor. “You killed that girl on Brick Lane! Jammed a stick so far up her you killed her, didn’t you? Rapist bastard!” Fitch’s head twisted from side to side, his eye-patch coming loose in Lestrade’s hands. Lestrade looked into the gaping hole and gasped.

Fitch hammered his fist straight into Lestrade’s nose, instantly snapping it sideways. Lestrade’s eyes swelled as blinding pain spread across the front of his face, filling his mouth with copper-tasting blood.

“Sweet Jesus! What the hell are you doing!” Brett cried.

“Stop!” Lusk shouted. “Stop!” Lusk grabbed Fitch by the back of his collar and pulled him back from Lestrade.

“You broke my nose!” Lestrade howled, pulling his hand away to see the blood. “I am going to kill you, you Irish prat.”

“Come on, pig!” Fitch screamed, eye patch dangling from his ear. “Come and have at it!”

“That is enough!” Brett shrieked. “All of you stop it this instant.”

Wensley and Lamb looked at Lestrade, waiting to see what he would do. Both men took a moment to fix their uniforms and check how many buttons they had lost in the fray. Lestrade groaned in pain and told Wensley to get him a towel. “Chief Inspector, I have been looking for this bastard since the Emma Smith murder. I am placing him under arrest for intense interrogation. Let’s see how you hold up with that, you simpering little mandrake!”

“No, you are not, Inspector,” Brett corrected.

“What?”

“No one is getting arrested until we hear what these men have to tell us about the Jack the Ripper killings. You said you have evidence?”

“Irrefutable,” Lusk answered.

“Fine. Inspector Lestrade, take a statement from this gentleman. Constables, assist the Inspector by taking statements from these other ones,” Brett looked around the room. “Christ, I hate Whitechapel.”

“Stop the cab!” I shouted and threw the door open in time to vomit onto the street. Irene held me by the back of my coat to keep me from falling out. I wiped my mouth and looked up, thinking I heard someone shouting to me.

“Doctor Watson? Oy! That you?” I spat several times as a young boy ran toward us up the street. “Hang on!” he shouted. “I need to talk to yeh. What yeh getting sick all over the street for?”

“Hello, Wiggins,” I said. Wiggins was the leader of a group of juvenile street arabs that Holmes kept in his employ for conducting searches. The pay was a shilling a day, with an extra guinea going to the finder of whatever was being sought. Apparently, I was being sought, and Wiggins was about to get an extra guinea. “Watch your step.”

Wiggins looked at the sickness on the pavement beneath the cab’s door and scowled, stepping carefully around it as he climbed inside to join us. “Mr. Holmes sent us out to go find you straight away.”

“Why?”

Wiggins shrugged. “I suppose it has something to do with you getting arrested for being Jack the Ripper.”

“What!” Irene shouted, as I vomited onto the street again.

~ * * * ~

When I threw the door open to 221 B Baker Street there were two constables waiting to seize me the moment I entered. Inspector Lestrade stood in the corner, clutching a blood-soaked cloth to his nose. Beside him, a smaller man in a fancy uniform shouted at Mrs. Hudson, who was standing on the tips of her toes screaming for everyone to get out. Sherlock Holmes sat in his chair with his legs crossed, admiring the scene around him with a smirk.

The constables grabbed me by either arm and Chief Inspector Brett cried, “Dr. John Watson, I am placing you are under arrest for the murders in Whitechapel!”

“That is preposterous!” I shouted. “I did not murder anyone!”

He waved a rolled up piece of paper at me and said, “I have a sworn statement from six men who overheard you threatening to gut a whore in a tavern. When they confronted you, you savagely attacked them and even fired a gun at them!”

“A whore?” Irene said. “How dare you!”

“Who the hell are you?” Chief Inspector Brett asked.

“Dis is insane,” Lestrade said. He kept the cloth pressed against his swollen face in obvious agony but managed, “Don Wadsin is dot da Ripper. De’s Dolmdes’s assisdand.”

“Be silent, Inspector,” Brett said. “Constables, take this man away immediately!”

The two constables holding me turned me toward the door when Irene shouted, “Wait! That is not how it happened at all! I witnessed the entire incident.”

“One American strumpet’s word against that of six British men?” Brett laughed. “We’ll see what the judge has to say about that. Off we go, boys.”

“What about what I have to say about it, Chief Inspector?” Holmes said softly.

Brett stiffened, breathing sharply through his nose. “What could you possibly have to add, Holmes? Perhaps you are used to being accommodated when you go about interfering in police business, but neither I, nor the Police Commissioner, are particularly fond of interlopers who go poking their nose into official matters. The investigation of crimes in London is our responsibility, and ours alone, Holmes. I think it is time for the public and yourself to be reminded of that! If you wanted to be a police officer so badly, I suggest you file a letter of interest at Headquarters like everyone else.”