The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (10 page)

A close account of the next four nights would offer only needless drudgery for writer and reader alike. Indeed, without considerable invention on my part it would not even be possible. I was too tired and dispirited to keep my notes, and my memory retains nothing beyond a general sense of weary futility. Our good fortune was restricted to the weather, which was unseasonably mild. As Lestrade sarcastically remarked, if one had to search Whitechapel by night for someone who wasn’t there one couldn’t wish for better weather, considering the time of year.

Holmes’s plan had been to swamp the entire area with police. He had calculated that the murderer would require at least ten minutes to kill and mutilate his victim, and he had accordingly drawn up a system of patrols which left no street unvisited for longer than that. The net was duly fashioned and thrown over Whitechapel. The three of us established ourselves at the Commercial Street police station and awaited developments. There were none. Holmes and I made outings from time to time to ensure that the patrols were observing the specified timetable. Occasionally a man would be a minute or two out, but we found no significant gaps in the mesh. There was simply nothing to be caught. By six o’clock on Monday morning it was clear that all our efforts had been in vain. The patrols were disbanded and we three assembled before a waning fire at the police station, grasping mugs of lukewarm tea. Lestrade was the only one to display any animation, and this was of a malicious cast. As the
nights had gone by without incident the little official’s habitual swank and swagger had gradually replaced the awed subservience to which he had been reduced by the brilliance of Holmes’s arguments that Thursday in Baker Street. Thus far he had said nothing, no doubt fearing that his hated rival might yet be proved right at the last. But now Holmes’s time was up, and Lestrade turned the tables with vindictive relish.

‘What do you say now, Mr Sherlock Holmes? What has become of your blessed sequence with everything worked out to the last detail, as if it was the tides we were waiting for and not a homicidal maniac? Admit it, you have failed!’

Holmes’s reply was barely audible.

‘On the contrary, Inspector, I have succeeded all too well.’

‘Oh ho, I see! That’s the way we play, is it? Heads you win and tails we lose! I only wish my job was that easy. But it’s not you will have to take the blame for this fiasco. You who are always so careful to keep your name out of the press! Very wise, I’m sure! A fine time of it I’m in for, trying to explain why every spare man on the force has been pounding the beat in Whitechapel these four nights. Mind you, there was only one thing wrong with your timetable, Mr Holmes. No one told the murderer about it! Ha ha! That’s where you went wrong! You told us when the next murder was due, but you forgot to tell him! You should have told him too, Mr Holmes, and then he might have obliged us after all!’

To my surprise, Holmes did not rise to these barbs. He listened in silence, his head bowed. It was an odd attitude for one who normally impressed all and sundry with his masterful manner. But clearly the setback he had received had shaken him severely. Lestrade was not deterred by the lack of any response. Long and bitter were the tirades he unleashed. He recalled Holmes’s overweening confidence, his arrogant refusal to consider the proposals of
others, his contempt for the traditional techniques of investigation long proved effective – in practice, mind you, not in some smoky sitting-room! – by the appointed guardians of law and order of whom he had the honour and, yes, the pleasure to be one. When he finally recognised that my friend was not going to be drawn, Lestrade revealed his ace. He took a file from his desk and withdrew a sheet of paper which he handed to us in turn. It was the original of a letter which had been published some weeks earlier in the press. It ran as follows:

From hell    

I must add that this transcription cannot possibly do justice to the impression produced by the original. The letter was written in a crabbed and violent hand, and was exceedingly difficult to make out. It was the most utterly malevolent-looking piece of writing I have ever set eyes on. Holmes glanced at it perfunctorily, and then handed it back to Lestrade without comment. The official held it up before our eyes.

‘You remember the other two letters we received, the ones signed “Jack the Ripper”?’ said he. ‘They were genuine enough, for the writer knew more than he should about those murders. However, this letter here is genuine too!’

‘How can you tell?’ I demanded, since Holmes remained silent.

‘Good question, Dr Watson! I’m glad you asked. How can we tell? Enclosed with this letter was part of a human kidney, just like it says. Mr Lusk, who heads the vigilantes, sent it to the City Police, and they sent it on to the London Hospital. There it was looked at by the pathologist, who declares there is no doubt that it came from the murdered woman Eddowes. The letter must therefore be from her murderer. But as you can see for yourselves, the writing is totally different from all the other specimens, including that on the wall in Goulston Street.’

He paused significantly. Holmes yawned and consulted his watch. ‘And what conclusion do you draw from that?’ he murmured.

‘Why, surely a smart man like yourself doesn’t need to ask me that!’ cried the detective with a great show of surprise. ‘The conclusion is quite obvious, as far as I can see.’

‘No doubt, Inspector, but I have never been able to determine just how far that is. At all events, what do you conclude from the difference in the hands?’

‘But it can mean only one thing! There must be two murderers!’

The slight figure in the raffish check suit visibly preened with triumph. His eyes glinted with pride. I noticed, not for the first time, how remarkably close-set they were.

Holmes got to his feet. He fetched his coat and put it on. ‘Well, I think we should be going. Are you ready, Watson? Many thanks for your hospitality, Inspector. You will doubtless present us in due course with an opportunity of returning it.’

Lestrade could scarcely control his fury. He danced from one foot to the other, waving the letter at Holmes.

‘Is that your reply? Is that all you have to say? Well that’s what I call grateful! Your fancy theory goes all to smash, and when I offer you a helping hand you haven’t a word to say!’

‘As a matter of fact I have several, but I very much
doubt whether you would wish to hear them. Good morning, Inspector. Come, Watson!’

We walked briskly to Shoreditch High Street, where we found a cab to take us home. Not one word would Holmes say, and I was too exhausted to make conversation. As soon as we arrived at 221b, Holmes disappeared into his room, locking the door after him. For my part, I stretched out on the sofa and leafed through the papers. Within a few minutes I dozed off, and slept until I was awakened by the maid come to dust.

At lunch I was both surprised and delighted to find that Holmes was once more his usual urbane self. He dispatched Billy to Dolamore’s for a bottle of hock, and while we ate and drank he held forth on a number of subjects ranging from the art of the troubadours to the possibility of using electricity as a means of capital punishment. He did not mention the subject that was, however, uppermost in both our minds. When we were both settled before the fire with our cigars, I decided that the time had come to grasp the nettle.

‘I say, Holmes, what did happen? What went wrong?’

For a moment I thought I had blundered. My friend looked up at me with hurt in his eyes, and an expression that seemed to say ‘
Et tu, Brute
?’ But the next instant he laughed, though it was perhaps rather forced.

‘Are you a Brother of the Angle, Watson?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Have you fished?’

‘Upon occasion.’

‘Then you will be aware that the critical juncture occurs just when your game is nibbling at the bait. Pull too fast and the hook will miss him; too slow, and he will be off with his supper, leaving you with none. These four nights past we have been angling for Moriarty. The unfortunates of Whitechapel were our bait and my patrols the hook. But I was too eager. Not that our time was by any means
wasted, for we certainly prevented another murder. But I had set my sights on taking the Professor at his work, and there I failed.’

I regarded Holmes steadily through a haze of cigar smoke.

‘Moriarty was there, then?’

‘Certainly he was there. He studied the network of police patrols I had instituted, noted that it was flawless, and retired, gnashing his teeth.’

‘Then you did not fail! We have beaten him!’

Holmes shook his head slowly.

‘No, Watson. On the contrary, we may have lost everything. If he were to change his method or his sequence, we should be all at sea once again. Ah, but Watson, imagine his rage! Think what frustration and resentment must be his! He challenged me to a duel, and I have forestalled him. There can be little question that he will now step up his attempts to eliminate me. And therein lies our salvation.’

‘Holmes! What are you saying!’

‘That we must keep him to his sequence at all costs! His next attempt is not due until the weekend after next. Somehow or other we must occupy his attention until then. Now if I can lure him out of London and keep him entertained until Thursday week, I believe there is an excellent chance that we may still come out of this affair with credit.’

I was horrified by this proposal, and protested long and volubly, but to no effect. Holmes argued that his life was at risk in any case, and that it was actually to his advantage to leave town.

‘Moriarty knows and uses this city as if it were a machine he had personally designed. In the country we shall be on a more equal footing. I rather fancy Wiltshire would suit. It has always attracted me from the train; here is a splendid opportunity to know it better.’

Seeing that any attempt to dissuade him was doomed to end in failure, I demanded the right to accompany him and to share whatever hardships and dangers lay in store. But once again he refused, and when I insisted he permitted himself some unkind comments on my physical capabilities. At this I fell silent. As soon as I ceased to argue, Holmes applied the balm.

‘Don’t look so cast down, old fellow. Your role may appear less glamorous than you could wish, but it is a vital one. It is up to you to hold the fort here, and to keep my base secure. And in the event of my failing to return –’

‘Holmes!’

‘If I fail to return, I say, by nine o’clock in the evening of the 8th, then you must summon Lestrade and hand him the envelope of papers which you will find in pigeonhole M. I am afraid that it will be like setting Newton’s calculus before an Esquimau, but I will naturally do what I can to ensure that the situation does not arise. No, not another word! I am going out now to attend to some business. After dinner I expect to feel a craving for bright lights and milling throngs. A visit to the music hall would, I fancy, supply both. May I count on your company? It is always salutary to remind oneself that for every man who thrills to Patti’s “Una voce poco fa” there are ten who would sooner listen to Bessie Bellwood’s rendition of “What cheer ’Ria”.’

I was agreeably surprised by Holmes’s suggestion. After some of the so-called entertainments to which I had accompanied him, it was indeed pleasant to be able to contemplate an evening of real enjoyment. We went to the Oxford,
*
and I for one had a grand time. I completely forgot all our recent tribulations in the many and varied
attractions of the skilfully arranged programme. As act followed act I willingly surrendered to the spell of each artiste – laughing with this one, weeping with that, and joining in the chorus of songs both patriotic and sentimental. I could not remember having enjoyed myself more; but all good things must end, and when the show was over my pleasure was distinctly marred by the discovery that Holmes had disappeared. I searched high and low, I questioned the attendants, I waited for fifteen minutes outside, but at last I was forced to concede that my companion had simply deserted me in mid-evening without so much as troubling to take his leave. I walked back to Baker Street in some considerable disgruntlement. But once I had given the matter some thought I ceased to be quite as surprised, though I remained extremely annoyed at his shabby behaviour. No doubt Holmes had found the proceedings at the Oxford dreadfully common. His taste, as I knew to my cost, inclined more towards highfalutin foreign fairy tales that go on and on for five hours without one hummable tune. There was indeed a distinctly snobbish strain in my friend’s blood, which caused him to shun the pleasures of the people on principle. It was one of the trifling peccadilloes which reminded one that he was, after all, only human.

There was no sign of Holmes at 221
B
, however, and when he had still not returned the next morning I began to wonder if I had been mistaken. Was the explanation of this mystery perhaps more sinister than I had realised? Then, just before lunch, a telegram arrived. It had been handed in at Devizes and read: ‘Hare off and running. Hounds hard at heel. Going moderate to heavy. Holmes.’ I looked up from this message, and in my mind’s eye I scanned the bleak windswept uplands of Salisbury Plain and the Wiltshire Downs. All at once this plan of Holmes’s appeared horribly double-edged. If Moriarty
was removed from his haunts and helpers, so too was Holmes himself from the refuges and resources of the city none knew better than he. Out in those ancient unpeopled wildernesses he was utterly alone, and might be hunted down and killed like any solitary animal.

‘No news, good news’ runs the proverb, but as the days passed with no further word from Holmes, it came to seem a very hollow comfort. Any news, however unwelcome, would at least have banished my unrestrained conjectures. But nine days passed without even a crumb of comfort. Then, on the evening before Holmes was due to return, I made a singular and rather disturbing discovery. It happened in this way. I was sitting before the fire, a book lying unread before me, thinking over the steps I should have to take the following evening if my friend did not reappear. This train of thought led me to recall the envelope of papers which Holmes had instructed me to give Lestrade. Before long I began to speculate on the contents of this packet. What further revelations of Moriarty’s character and misdeeds might it not contain? There could be no harm in my looking through papers of such an impersonal nature. I fetched the envelope from its cubicle in Holmes’s desk, and tore it open. The contents literally staggered me. The document I was to pass on to the police in the event of Holmes’s death, representing all that was known about the Whitechapel murderer, consisted of five sheets of perfectly blank foolscap.