Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (35 page)

Frigid, polluted water filled Montague Druitt’s nose and mouth as he spun down and down and down. His ears roared, popping, bursting. His lungs filled with mud and water. The heavy chain and rocks in his coat dragged him toward the muddy bottom, toward the silt and dirt and centuries of trash that the people of England had thrown into the river.

Toward India.

ACT V

A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

THIRTY FIVE

Irene wrapped her hands around the knife’s handle and tried wrenching it from Holmes’s chest. “No!” I shouted and shoved her hands out of the way. “We must leave it in, it is plugging his wound!” She fought with me and tried getting free of my grip, but I pinned her arms to her sides to keep her from killing Holmes by trying to save him.

Lestrade was commanding Lamb to whip the donkey harder over the sound of the carriage’s clanking wheels. “That way, you daft bastard!” he barked. “Turn right, the doctor’s office is on Bishopsgate.”

“Listen to me, Irene,” I said. “That knife is the only thing keeping Holmes alive right now. If we remove it, we’ll kill him instantly.”

She looked down at Holmes and slumped forward as if someone had undone her at the waist. I put my arm around her. “I need you to sit back and keep your head and knees up above your heart. You are not out of the woods yet, either, my dear,” I said. The makeshift bandage around her throat was saturated, and the wound needed to be sutured or it risked becoming septic.

“There it is!” Lestrade shouted. Lamb stopped the cart and both men raced around the back to undo the gate and lift Holmes.

There were no lights on within the office. I ran straight at the front door with my shoulder and the frame shattered. I toppled onto the floor near two surgical chairs and cabinets of chemicals and instruments. “Come on, come on,” I shouted. “Bring him in.” They carried Holmes past me and placed him into one of the chairs, while I returned to the cart to fetch Irene.

Holmes was now trembling. His pulse slowed to a crawl and his skin was cold to the touch. I told Lestrade to cut off Holmes’s shirt while I rifled the cabinets, tossing things over my shoulder in my haste. “Where the hell is it?”

Finally, I came upon a large brown bottle and syringe. I told Lestrade to stretch out Holmes’s arm while I prepared the injection. There were no track marks on his skin. The veins were solid and bright blue. He’d done it. He’d managed to wean himself from the poison that I was now injecting into him. I worked at it quickly, begging his forgiveness.

I administered several more injections, and his pulse returned. I covered him with a blanket and turned to Irene. Her throat needed twenty stitches. I could see the quivering ends of several vocal chords within the wound that no surgeon’s hand could repair. While I was sure she would survive, I doubted her arias would ever ring out over an audience again.

I tied Irene’s last suture and returned to Holmes. “You both have to hold him down,” I said to Lestrade and Lamb. I climbed onto the operating chair and straddled Holmes’s chest. Whatever demon possessed The Ripper to the last, it gave him enough strength to drive his blade through Holmes’s breastbone. “Hold him down so I can wrench this thing out of him,” I grunted. “I’ll have to rock it back and forth until it comes loose.” I grabbed the handle and started rocking it back and forth.

“Christ, he’s bleeding like a fountain, Watson,” Lestrade hissed.

“Hold him tightly, damn it! I am almost there!” Finally, the blade came loose with a pop and I tossed it across the room, lifting my hand to shield my face from the sudden crimson spray.

~ * * * ~

The next morning, Chief Inspector Brett stood on the street waiting anxiously for the carriage to arrive at the Whitechapel Division Police Station. His entire future was aboard that carriage, he thought. Brett adjusted his tied and straightened his hair as it pulled up to the sidewalk and he moved to open the door. “Welcome home, sir,” Brett said, snapping a salute at the tiny, bearded man in back. “How was France?”

“Far away from all this mess, is how it was,” Sir Robert Anderson grumbled, ignoring Brett’s attempt to help him out of the carriage. “I was hoping this would blow over while I was away, but it seems as if you people have done nothing but stoke the fires, hmm? Becoming a bit fond of seeing your names in the papers, I suppose?”

“Only those of us who care more about our own popularity than the integrity of this organization,” Brett said grimly. “That was why I sent you such an urgent telegram. This Inspector, in particular, has made quite a spectacle of things, and I am glad to have him finally removed from my division.”

“My division, you mean,” Anderson said.

“Of course, sir.” Technically, this was true, Brett thought, as he nodded politely to the Assistant Commissioner in Charge of CID. Anderson had been promoted to that rank in just August of that year, but only one month into the Ripper investigation, he’d unexpectedly announced he was going on extended vacation in France. He left with the implicit orders that he not be bothered until the damn thing was sorted out. Well, it wasn’t sorted, Brett thought, and so sorry to ruin your little jaunt, but if you don’t have the decency to retire and free up one of the higher ranks, I suppose I should make you earn your salary. “Inspector Gerard Lestrade was already in clear violation of a multitude of our ordinances when I sent you that telegram, Assistant Commissioner, but I fear it has only gotten worse. Just last night I was forced to confine him to his office. It is providence at work that you arrived this morning. I was also forced to confine one of the young uniformed constables that Lestrade managed to pollute with his wickedness.”

“Just open the door, Brett,” Anderson said.

“Yes,
sir
.” Brett pushed the door open to reveal a dozen prisoners scattered across the lobby floor. Some had thick white bandages wrapped around their heads with blood stains seeping through. Others had badly swollen eyes, or mouths of shattered teeth. All of them were shackled together, and several constables walked between their ranks with nightsticks slapping against their palms menacingly.

Constable Wensley was seated at the sergeant’s desk clutching what appeared to be a pound of raw steak to his face. Sergeant Byfield and City Police Inspector Collard glared at Brett as he came into the station.

“What is all this?” Brett said. “What happened here?”

“What happened, despite your every attempt to forestall it, was the culmination of a months-long joint investigation between the London City Police and Scotland Yard, Chief Inspector,” Collard said. “No disrespect, sir, but I must confess it is a highly unusual way to do business, and I will be forced to report it to my superiors.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Brett hissed. “Who the hell are all these men?”

“It’s the entire Old Nichol Gang!” Sergeant Byfield said. “Inspector Lestrade has been hot on the trail of these bastards since Emma Smith was killed. Who knows if they might have been responsible for some of the other so-called Ripper killings too? And then, just as Inspector Lestrade was about to put an arrest plan together to collar the whole buggering lot, you had the brilliant idea to confine him to his office.”

Sir Robert Anderson grunted, and Brett looking around the room nervously. “Why wasn’t I informed? Nobody told me about this. H-how could I have—”

“They tried to kill a civilian last night!” Byfield said. “Caught him all alone in an alleyway and were trying to do unspeakable things to him when our boy Wensley intervened. Fought the whole gang by himself single-handedly until the rest of my men got there.”

“Well, er, good show, Wensley!” Brett said, waving meekly at the Constable.

“Good show my arse!” Byfield said. “Your orders to put Watson under constant surveillance almost got the lad killed! We’d all be down at Spitalfields Church saying ‘Hail Mary’ for him right now if it weren’t for such a fine investigation done by Inspectors Lestrade and Collard. They knew right where to go. Now I have to put nearly every person in the station in for a damn medal! You know how much bleeding paperwork that is going to create?”

“Just so I am clear, you arrested an entire criminal street gang last night?” Sir Robert Anderson said.

“All except for that one-eyed bastard Mickey Fitch,” Collard said.

“So,” Brett sniffed. “Despite all this, you still failed to capture the leader?”

“Well, we’d have him by now,” Byfield said. “Trouble is, the only copper that knows how to get him was ordered to sit in his office until you got back.”

Brett and Anderson both leaned forward to see Gerard Lestrade sitting in his office with his arms folded. Anderson turned to Brett and said, “Am I correct in understanding that you confined the lead investigator to his office right in the middle of a full-scale joint operation that you never even bothered to become informed of?”

“No, not exactly,” Brett said. “I can explain, sir.”

“The Metropolitan Police’s reputation is in desperate need of a boost, Chief Inspector. I would suggest that firing the men responsible for cleaning up our filthiest streets is not a wise idea in these times.” Sir Robert Anderson turned and went back toward the door, carefully stepping around the arms and legs of the Old Nichol Gang as left. Brett turned, glaring murderously at Lestrade, who folded his hands above his head and smiled widely back at him.

THIRTY SIX

When the morning sun came through the windows of the doctor’s office and Holmes was still breathing, I began to feel as if he might survive.

Irene followed behind as I carried him to the carriage and set him in the back. She climbed up onto the gate and kneeled down beside him as I went to the front and began to drive. At one point I turned back to check on them and saw that Irene had laid Holmes’s head on her lap and she was gently stroking his face.

The front door to 221 Baker Street was boarded shut. I thought of the soft, weeping man I’d been when last crossing that threshold how he would recoil in shock as I pried off the wooden slats with my bare hands. Shards and jagged nails gouged my flesh, but I tore and yanked each plank until they came loose from the frame. I carried Holmes from the carriage and up the staircase to our old apartment to lay him in his bed.

I wiped his face with a damp cloth and said, “Rest, my friend. I will give you something to assist you.” I rolled up his sleeve and retrieved the bottle and syringe from my pocket. I put the needle into the vial and began to draw it into the chamber, about to inject him when his eyes suddenly flew open and he covered his arm.

“Give me no more of that, Watson,” he wheezed. “I will manage.”

“This is a special circumstance, Holmes. I promise it will not-“

“I said no. Please. Take it away.” He folded his hands on his stomach, just below the sutures and winced as he breathed. “I have not survived this night just to succumb again to the very things that nearly cost me everything. I will never again surrender my faculties.”

“If that is what you wish, Holmes. I will stay close in case the pain becomes too much.”

“You saved me, Watson,” he said, turning to look at me. “I always knew you were a good friend, but who could have guessed you were such a remarkable doctor?”

I laughed, for the first time in what felt like forever.

Irene came into the room and sat next to him on the bed. She laid down beside him and nestled into the crook of his arm. I realized I did not belong there. I left the bedroom and shut the door to sit in my old chair and stoke the fireplace.

~ * * * ~

He was certainly a handsome bastard, I had to admit. Well dressed, with a long, spotless coat and black leather shoes decorated with bright silver buckles. I had given up such a pair at the pawn shop in Whitechapel and traded them for the dirty brown boots I was still wearing while I spiked on Mary. I peeked around the corner to watch this gentlemanly fellow escort Mary to her door.

“Good evening then, Miss Morstan,” he said. He tipped his hat at her s she ascended the steps to her house.

“Good evening, Edmund.”

He paused, and by his shy smile I knew he was only a breath away from asking for some further token of her affection. I was not confident enough that she would say no, so I came around the corner and said, “Well, well, hello.”

The man flinched at the sight of me. “Oh God,” he muttered and stuffed his hand inside of his pocket. “Run inside, Mary!” he said. “Do not harm us, you scoundrel. Here! Take the money and be gone from here.” He thrust a handful of coins toward me, rattling them like seeds you would feed to an animal in a zoo.

I laughed at him and turned toward Mary. “May I speak with you?”

She folded her arms and looked at me sternly. “I do not see why I should, John Watson.”

“Wait. You know this person?” he said, scowling.

“I am her fiance,” I said. “She is my intended bride.”

“Is that so? You really have the nerve to still think so?” she said.

“You’re engaged to this…this…ruffian?”

“That she is, mate,” I said. “Madly in love we are.”

“Now see here,” he said, lifting his cane defensively. “You have no business just barging up on us like that. I have been in Miss Morstan’s acquaintance for several weeks now and she has not mentioned you once!” He tapped me on the chest with its thick brass end and said, “Slink back to whatever part of the East End you crawled forth from and leave us alone! I should warn you that I am trained in
baritsu
!”

I looked up the stairs at Mary. “Is that what you want?” She did not answer.

“Of course that’s what she wants!” He poked me in the chest with the cane again and I snatched it out of his hands. I grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the wall.