Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (30 page)

“It has all gone wrong, Will,” Druitt said, as tears swelled in his eyes. “Everything! Nothing is happening the way it was supposed to. I tried, Will. I tried and tried, but it was not enough.”

“Everything will be fine, Monty. We just need to get you cleaned up and back to Blackheath. I promised Mr. Valentine that I would have you at that big cricket meeting. Can you walk?”

Druitt ignored Will, staring at his hands. “What have I done, Will? Why did this happen to me?”

Will grabbed Druitt and began lifting him to his feet. “I see that I have let you down, little brother. I put too much upon you at once. It is my fault, and I am sorry. Starting now, I am going to do better, but first I am going to get you to that blasted meeting so we can get this all sorted out. All right? On your feet.”

“I cannot be this thing any longer, Will. Please save me.”

“Of course, Monty. Just as soon as we get on the train back to Blackheath, all right?”

“All right, Will.”

They made it to the train station in time to board one leaving for Blackheath. Will managed to scrub Monty’s clean face enough that no one stared at them on the train. As the whistle on the towering steam engine’s stack blew and the wheels began to turn, Druitt put his arm on the cabin window and watched flakes of ash scatter past just as they had so many years ago when he first went to Portsmouth. He looked at Will sitting next to him, whose beard and face resembled their father’s so much. Druitt put his head against Will’s shoulder and closed his eyes, imagining that he had never come to Whitechapel at all.

~ * * * ~

The board members of the Blackheath Cricket, Gottball, and Lawn Tennis Company were sitting and talking quietly as they smoked cigars and sipped tea. George Valentine stood before them and said, “Thank you so much for coming today, gentlemen. I appreciate the Special Finance Committee scheduling this session to discuss something that is so near and dear to all of us.” From the corner of his eye, Valentine saw Montague Druitt coming up the steps toward the room. Druitt was neatly dressed, but his eyes were red and darted about the hallway nervously.

“I would like to present a most extraordinary young man. In just one year in Blackheath he has served our community in ways that many of us would do well to emulate. He is an Assistant Headmaster at my school, a barrister for the court, and a valued member of this very club. There is nothing closer to this man’s heart than encouraging the young men of Blackheath in the sport and etiquette of cricket, and today he will explain how you can help him do that very thing. Mr. Montague Druitt,” Valentine said and began to clap.

Druitt walked toward Mr. Valentine, who put his arm around Druitt, waiting for the applause to die down. Valentine glanced suspiciously at him, but returned to his seat.

Druitt straightened his collar and checked his tie, feeling that the knot was too big. He fussed over it for moment, then took his notes out of coat pocket and cleared his throat. “Gentlemen and fellow members, thank you for attending today. We have an order of business to discuss that pertains to Mr. George Valentine’s school for young men. The school is asking for this committee’s assistance in obtaining an extra acre of land to erect a grandstand. You see, we would like to host the cricket championships here in Blackheath next year…” Druitt’s voice trailed off as he stared at the back of the room.

Some of the members shifted in their seats, turning around to see what had stolen Druitt’s attention, but seeing only a wood-paneled wall with a few paintings hung on it. Druitt did not move, did not even blink. Fat droplets of sweat streamed down his forehead, balancing for a moment on the tip of his nose before dropping to the floor.

Five women, clothed in gowns as fine and white as wedding dresses stood at the rear of the room, watching Druitt silently.

Blood drained from Mr. Valentine’s face as everyone in the audience began to murmur. Valentine jumped to his feet, “Gentlemen, I apologize. Mr. Druitt has been quite ill and only recently returned to us. Allow me have a moment with him-“

“Be gone from here, you filthy whores,” Druitt growled. “You are as unfit to walk the earth in death as you were in life.” Druitt threw down his speaker notes and stormed toward the back of the room, knocking chairs from his path as the members of the committee dove out of his way. “How dare you return to mock me from the grave! I sent you to hell!”

“Monty!”

Druitt looked back at the man standing in the doorway and froze for a moment. He was dressed in a familiar top-hat and carried a black leather medical bag. “Father?”

“Yes, Monty. Come here, son. It is time for us to go.”

“I want to go home,” Druitt whined, turning away from the awful looking women who would not stop staring at him. He had stolen their faces and still they stared. He had un-sexed them and removed their organs of regeneration, even consuming them to make their power his own, and still they mocked him. “Take me away from this place, father. Away from all of you!” he shrieked, flailing wildly at the members of the committee who lifted their arms in self-defense and fled, yelling that Druitt was mad.

Mr. Valentine turned at the doorway and shouted, “Do not return to my school ever again!”

William Druitt closed the door on George Valentine and turned to Monty, smiling gently. “It is time to take our leave of this place, and these people. Your work is finished my son.”

“At last,” Monty said, gasping in relief. He felt his chest seize as he staggered toward his father, about to embrace him, when he stopped. Druitt blinked rapidly, realizing it was only his older brother. “Will? Why did you try and trick me?”

“What are you talking about, Monty?” Will said, lifting the brim of his hat.

Druitt snatched the medical bag from his brother and began cracking the latches. “How dare you play games with me, Will! I am not the little boy you knew in Dorset.”

“Of course I know that, Monty.” He watched Druitt shuffling things around inside the bag. “You must try and calm yourself, there is still much work we can do.”

Druitt whipped a blade from the bag and held it at Will’s throat, forcing him back against the wall. “Look at me, brother. What do you see?”

Will looked down at the knife. “Put the knife down, little brother. There is much that you do not understand. Let us find a quiet place to talk, and I shall make everything clear to you. Put the knife down at once, before you hurt someone.”

Druitt put his face close to Will’s. “I asked you a question. Answer me or I’ll chop your precious wife’s bosoms and feed her bits to your children. What do you see?”

“I see a beast.”

TWENTY EIGHT

Nearly all of the knowledge available to the known world was housed on Piccadilly Street at The Burlington House; an enormous mansion with steep archways and high-reaching spires, housing no fewer than seven of Her Majesty’s royal institutions of learning.

The Royal Academy, Geological Society, Royal Astronomical Society, Society of Antiquaries, Chemical Society, and Linnean Society, were all set within the enormous confines of Lord Burlington’s former residence. Deep within, located beneath a brass sign inscribed with the words: Nullius in Verba (
“On The Words Of No One”
), sat the entrance to the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge.

The Royal Society was founded in 1660, and since its inception had worked toward its goal of building an empire of learning that stretched across continents. One could only become a Fellow of the Royal Society by election, and elections were held on one day a year. Of all the eligible candidates, only forty-four fellows could be entered into their esteemed ranks. Charles Darwin had been a member of the Royal Society, and after him, his son Francis, and their half-cousin, Francis Galton.

Dr. Henry Faulds was not a member. In fact, he was never even nominated.

As Constable Lamb led the old man toward the “Nullius in Verba” sign, the old man grumbled, “This is an insult! Those bastards are making me come here so they you can lord their status over me. Well, it will not work! I will sod off back to Stoke-on-Trent if they even try it!”

“I’m sure no one is going to insult you, Dr. Faulds. Everyone appreciates you making the long journey here,” Lamb said as he knocked on the door.

Francis Darwin opened the door and thrust his hand out toward Dr. Faulds. “It is the Royal Society’s great privilege to have you visit us, sir.”

“Piss off!” Faulds said. “And don’t try lording any of this Society bollocks over me either.”

“No one is lording anything over anyone, Henry,” a second man reassured as he came up to stand behind Darwin. “Just come in and sit down.”

“Galton…” Faulds whispered. “I did not think you’d have the courage to show up.”

“It is my understanding that Sherlock Holmes has requested our aid in catching this monster loose in Whitechapel. I think it is our obligation as men of science to assist as we can.”

“You look like your father, Mr. Darwin. How I used to admire him,” Faulds said. “Tell me, was the Theory of Evolution his or was it simply the result of reading a letter some other scientist happened to send him?”

“Gentlemen,” Constable Lamb tapped the table with his finger. “That’s quite enough of this, now. I have no clue what exactly you are all on about, but time is of the essence, right? All of Scotland Yard is—”

“Screw Scotland Yard! When I tried to explain all of this to that bastard Warren, he stared at me like I had three heads and a forked tongue.”

“Commissioner Warren resigned several weeks ago,” Galton sighed. “Perhaps news of it did not reach you all the way down in Fenton where you practice now, hmm? Bustling hub of activity that it is.”

“You dirty bastard!” Faulds hissed, reaching over the table for Galton.

Constable Lamb grabbed Faulds and yanked him back into his chair. “That is quite enough out of both of you. One more word and I’m going to start opening up some skulls, get me?” Lamb reached into his pocket and pulled out the silk handkerchief with the piece of glass inside, showing it to them. “Sherlock Holmes said this little piece of glass has a finger mark left by the man killing all the bunters in Whitechapel and he believes that you bunch of squeeze crabs are the only lot who can figure it out. Now sit down and start bloody figuring it out!”

~ * * * ~

Only one asylum for the criminally insane existed in all of England, and it was located a little more than thirty miles away from London. Sherlock Holmes entered the Broadmoor Asylum and felt stale air escape as he pulled on the cold iron handle, prying open the massive wooden door. The air carried the scent of sickness.

Broadmoor opened in 1863, intended only to house the ninety-five female lunatics then under the forced care of Her Majesty. One year later, an additional wing was added onto the building for two hundred male inmates. The asylum sat on two hundred and ninety square acres in the village of Crowthorne at the edge of the Berkshire moors, surrounded by enormous stone walls and a thick iron gate.

Many of the most famous maniacs in England called it home. There was Roderick Maclean, who fired a gun at Queen Victoria at Windsor Station in 1882. Richard Dadd had been a famous painter prior to murdering his father, and continued to paint prolifically during his many years in captivity. Dr. William Chester Minor, an American who relocated to London and wound up killing a furnace-stoker, achieved a minor bit of celebrity upon taking up the duties of acquiring quotations and citations for the much-anticipated First Oxford English Dictionary from the confines of the Asylum.

An older man in a clean white laboratory coat approached Holmes. “Good day, Mr. Holmes.”

“Thank you for meeting with me, Dr. Orange.”

“I admit that your telegram intrigued me. Of course, the series of crimes you mentioned are none other than the Ripper killings, correct?”

“Indeed they are, Dr. Orange.”

“And you think the Ripper may be an escapee or former patient, hmm? Ever since those dreadful killings began, I have been waiting for some policeman to come sniffing around Broadmoor.”

“You sound skeptical, doctor. Surely you see the logic in that theory.”

“Surely I do not, Mr. Holmes. The men and women confined to Broadmoor are ill, sir. They are capable of horrific crimes of the most violent nature, and to that I make no argument, but they have always been localized incidents brought on by a specific series of emotional events. The Ripper killings appear to be something else altogether.”

“And what are the Ripper killings in your opinion, sir?”

“A cultural phenomenon, Mr. Holmes. A new type of evil that has been visited upon us all and will not go away any time soon.”

Holmes paused for a moment, weighing his words. “Dr. Orange, I am not quite certain that I follow you. The Ripper is just a man. Just another criminal.”

“Whoever is doing these killings is not the only one responsible for the true horror taking place in Whitechapel. After you arrest him and throw him into Broadmoor, he’ll be just another of the babbling lunatics roaming these halls. But others will follow him. Pandora’s Box has been opened, Mr. Holmes, and The Ripper is only the beginning.”

“I would love to stand here and debate this with you, Dr. Orange, I truly would, but I am afraid it will have to wait. For now, please indulge me with a list of all the prisoners who have been released from your facility in the past two years.”

Dr. Orange shook his head, “I am afraid I cannot help you, Mr. Holmes. All of our lunatics are confined to Broadmoor by the court because they are not capable of understanding the ramifications of their actions. We go strictly by the McNaughton Rules. If anyone were ever found to be competent, they would be returned to a traditional prison to serve whatever sentence was seen fit. And, between you and me, that has yet to ever happen.”

“What of escapees?” Holmes said.

“There has only been one this year, a man named James Kelly. Sad soul, really. Murdered his wife five years ago and spent every night here crying himself to sleep, begging her to forgive him,” Dr. Orange said. “It is most certainly not Mr. Kelly.”