The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (6 page)

If this narrative of mine tends to substantiate the old adage that fact is stranger than fiction, it also
demonstrates
how very much less well-ordered it is. If this were one of A.C.D.’s tales you may be sure the action would follow fast and furious. If my notes showed that
such-and-such
a case took three months to complete, why! a slip of the pen would make it three days, and a much more satisfying story. But this is not a story, and I do not undertake to satisfy those seeking light relief from their daily cares. I must therefore record that during the two weeks immediately following the events just described, Holmes and I had nothing more to do with the mystery of the Whitechapel murderer. The reason, to quote another proverb, is that it never rains but it pours. From the 2nd until the 12th of October, Holmes was unexpectedly occupied with two brief and perhaps rather superficial cases. These were, respectively, the circumstances
surrounding
the disappearance and recovery of the famous racehorse Silver Blaze, and the bizarre business of Lord Robert St Simon’s illusory wedding. A.C.D. later included both cases in his collection of stories based on my notes, and since the events are in any case quite extraneous to my present purpose I do not propose to dwell on them any further.

I have said that during this period Holmes and I had nothing more to do with the Ripper murders, but this statement demands qualification. Hardly a literate person in the country, and certainly no devourer of newsprint as
voracious as Holmes, could have remained unconscious of every new development in the case, whether
substantial
or merely sensational. Whatever they may have been to the people of London, the events of the 30th of
September
were a godsend to the press. Periodicals notorious for their ailing circulations, including several long given up as hopeless by their financial advisers, suddenly sprang to life with special editions which were snatched from the presses and eagerly perused before the ink was well dry. And should a copy or two remain unaccountably on their hands, the newsboys had only to holler, ‘Murder, Ghastly, Horrible, Mutilations, Terrible,’ etc., and in the twinkling of an eye their stock would be exhausted.

The inquests on the two women were reported in lurid detail. The leading articles severely criticised the police for their incompetence, while in the correspondence
columns
theories as to the murderer’s motives and identity were heatedly debated. Respectable gentlemen living in sedate suburbs offered their services to the authorities, who were already inundated with letters accusing the writers’ friends and relations, or merely issuing illiterate and often illegible threats. This last class were for the most part blatant plagiarisms of the letter signed ‘Jack the Ripper’, of which the authorities had issued a
reproduction
in the form of a poster. Following the inquests, the witnesses’ depositions were checked and compared, and three dissimilar descriptions of the wanted man were issued. A reward of £500 was even offered for information leading to his arrest. But all the trails proved false, all the openings blind alleys, and every clue circular and ambiguous. The public mood was an ugly mixture of hatred and terror that was very close to panic.

To outward appearances, Holmes was totally absorbed all this time by the two cases to which I referred, but it was clear to me that his energies were by no means wholly engaged by the problems they presented. One might
liken his mood to that of an artist who pauses during the creation of some vast epic canvas to paint a pair of
portraits
– light, straightforward, employing only his superb technical skill – while his spirit rests from its intense labours and prepares for renewed struggle. On several occasions he brought up the subject of the double murder, which clearly continued to occupy his thoughts. Thus my notes reveal that at breakfast on Friday the 5th, following our return from Dartmoor on the night express,
*
Holmes looked up from his paper with a triumphant air.

‘Ha! She was going to Bermondsey, Watson.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Catherine Eddowes, alias Kate Kelly – the Mitre Square victim. I always wondered why she did not go home to her lodging-house in Fashion Street when they released her. She was seen to go off down Houndsditch, you know. Why?’

‘Does it matter, Holmes?’ I enquired grumpily. I tend to be a trifle sullen first thing in the morning, and nothing is less congenial at such times than vigorous interrogation.

‘Of course it matters! Everything matters in a case as obscure as this. That is, Doctor, unless you are possessed of some private knowledge which allows you to
determine
what is material and what is not?’

I was silent, studying the interior of my egg.

‘My provisional theory,’ continued Holmes in his
earlier
discursive tone, ‘was that she was going down to the Minories to recoup her finances in the way she knew best. But according to her male companion, one John Kelly, she had a daughter living in Bermondsey from whom she had spoken earlier on the Saturday of borrowing some money. She was no doubt bound thither when she met up with the killer.’

I felt obliged to make some comment.

‘What puzzles me is why the murderer was in such a hurry. Why did he not return to his lair and clean himself up instead of dashing round the streets with bloody hands? He seems to have taken incredible risks for no very good reason.’

‘His reason was the best in the world,’ cried Holmes. ‘He had been foiled, don’t you see? This Jew Diemschutz, this common costermonger, had interfered with his grand designs. He must have been seething with fury as he stalked off in search of a substitute victim. He had to show the police and the public – and himself – that he was still the same supernatural and impersonal force which the press has made him appear. He had to
demonstrate
conclusively that his will cannot be thwarted for more than a few minutes. How he must have fretted over his rebuff! How he must have burned to avenge it! You saw the result.’

Once again I was forced to marvel at Holmes’s ability to penetrate to the core of the mystery, and to unravel the twisted strands of the murderer’s character.

As I mentioned above, the authorities issued posters in the wake of the killings, printing a facsimile of the letter Lestrade had shown us together with a postcard in the same hand which had been received at the Central News Agency the day after the murders. A superscription requested any person recognising the writing to
communicate
with the police. Lestrade deposited a copy of the poster at 221b during a visit in connection with the St Simon affair. I still have it, more than forty years after. The letter I have already transcribed. The card, which was badly smeared with blood, ran this way:

Holmes wrenched the knife which secured his unanswered correspondence from the mantelpiece, and then drove it angrily back into the wood.

‘“Dear old Boss”!’ he snapped. ‘“Saucy Jacky”!’ What sickening cant! And what a loathsome miscarriage of genius lies behind it all! I tell you, Watson, just thinking about this man makes me feel queasy. I would to God I might face an army of Grimesby Roylotts rather than spend another instant in the intellectual company of this pollution.’

It occurred to me that the murderer’s reference to his attempt to cut off the woman’s ears suggested a parallel with the Cushing case, but I said nothing. In his present mood, Holmes would probably have replied with some crushing sarcasm to the effect that I at least always
managed
to keep my feet flat on the ground; just as, at another time, had I been guilty of his late outburst, he would have been quite capable of telling me curtly to cut out the
emotional
gush and stick to the facts. Living with great men is itself a minor art.

On Friday the 12th of October, Holmes introduced Mr and Mrs Francis Hay Moulton to Lord Robert St Simon, thereby bringing to an end his investigation of what A.C.D. was to call the adventure of ‘The Noble Bachelor’. For the following week I saw very little of my friend. After a day or two of being scowled at whenever I entered the room, and then treated to encomiums on the excellence of the autumn air and references to how much my fellow-members at the club must be missing me, I took the point and left Holmes to his own devices. These proved exceedingly singular. My glimpses of Holmes
were few and far between, but each was memorable. One evening I would return home to discover him seated Buddha-like on the floor, his eyes fixed unseeingly before him and the air dark with the highly unexotic incense of smouldering shag. The following day there would be no sign of him, but next morning he would burst in as I was breakfasting, attired as a sewer scavenger, complete with noxious stench.
†
The day after that I had barely turned out of George Street when I heard what sounded like a
madman
playing a fiddle. As I neared Number 221, I realised that the noise was emanating from our rooms, where Holmes was scraping out the same dozen notes over and over again, creating a terrible cacophony devoid of either harmony or rhythm. On Tuesday I found him kneeling on the rug in the front room, slashing the body of a suckling pig with a knife from his old medical kit, and then examining the resulting incisions minutely through his magnifying-glass. Mrs Hudson roasted the pig the next evening, but I was obliged to dine alone, since Holmes had not returned from the sortie he had made that morning in the character of an officer of the Salvation Army.

At last, one Saturday morning, the fit left him and life returned to what passed for normality at 221b Baker Street. I came down to find my friend already savouring his pipe and leafing through the papers. I greeted him minimally and rang for my breakfast.

‘So, my dear Doctor,’ exclaimed Holmes from behind
The Times
, ‘whilst I wear myself out combing London for a murderer, you spend your nights dining off Simpson’s beef and quaffing the Beaune of a comet year.’

I started guiltily.

‘Pray how goes it with young Stamford?’ Holmes
continued
evenly.

‘Stamford? But – But my dear Holmes! This is
incredible
!’

‘Pooh! Elementary, my boy.
Primo
: our landlady informed me last night that you had wired from your club to tell her you would not be home to dinner.
Secondo
: that piece of paper, which you placed on the mantelpiece last night, bears an address in Pinner and a large
wine-stain
.
Tertio
: your boots have been set out to dry in plain view. You are well acquainted with my methods, so
naturally
I need not explain the absurdly simple argument leading from this trio of facts to my conclusion. Need I?’

‘Well –’

‘Oh very well then. When a man of your admirable regularity of character decides at the last moment that he will dine from home, we may confidently assume that he has unexpectedly met an acquaintance. In the present case we may further assume that this meeting occurred at your club, since it was from there that you dispatched the telegram. The question therefore becomes: whom might you run into at the club who could induce you to forgo Mrs Hudson’s inimitable cuisine? You will see at once that the answer can only be young Stamford. You never cease harping on the unutterable dreariness of the other members, and only last month you were bemoaning the fact that Stamford’s visits to the institution would now be few and far between, since he had just acquired a practice in Middlesex. What more likely, then, than that he should be spending the weekend in town, and that the two of you should repair to Simpson’s for dinner, in the course of which you jotted down his new address? I fear the explanation is as tedious as it is unnecessary.’

By now I had recovered sufficiently to play my part.

‘But how do you know we went to Simpson’s?’

Holmes smiled indulgently.

‘From your boots. And from that same regularity of character to which I have already alluded. My dear fellow, capriciousness is simply not one of your vices! You have but one newspaper, one club, one political party, one tobacco, and one tailor. Should you need to resort to a restaurant, you have but one, and it is Simpson’s. My conviction on this point is merely corroborated by the unmistakable traces on your boots of an interesting
argillaceous
loam, large quantities of which are at present inconveniencing pedestrians in the Strand due to the roadworks.’

‘Very well, Holmes, but the wine? You mean to tell me that you can tell one variety from another by studying the stain?’

‘I have no doubt whatever that it would be possible, but I have not undertaken any research on the subject. The British criminal is not enough of a wine-bibber for it to pay dividends. But it would be folly to order anything but beef at Simpson’s, and I happen to know that your gastronomical rule of thumb is “Beef on the bone, Beaune with the beef.”’

‘Amazing,’ I muttered, and ‘Wonderful,’ but I was actually trembling with relief. I had indeed dined out the previous evening, but not with Stamford. My companion had been Mary Morstan. Our engagement was proving rather trying. Quite apart from various tedious financial questions on which I need not dwell, I was practically speaking in the
position
of a man maintaining two households. True, Holmes had retreated from the position of extreme displeasure which he had adopted on learning of my intention to wed. But the matter was never spoken of between us – indeed, Mary’s name was never mentioned. I felt there was a tacit agreement that the whole question of my nuptials should simply be ignored at
221
B
Baker Street, and that it was only on this
understanding
that I was to remain
persona grata
there. So
whenever Mary and I wished to meet, I had to slip away secretly. On the Friday in question, tiring of visiting her in Camberwell, I had invited Mary and her friend Mrs Forrester to dine with me, but it was not until I was
sipping
a pre-prandial B. and S. at the club that I realised I had forgotten to inform Mrs Hudson of my intentions. Having sent my wire I strolled along the Strand to the Lyceum Theatre, whose portico Mary and I used as a trysting-place, for sentimental reasons.
‡
The three of us then drove to a rather entertaining little place in Mayfair recommended by Mrs Forrester. The wine was Chianti and the address that of Miss Morstan’s aunt, with whom she was to spend the weekend.