The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (9 page)

The detective greeted this remark with a rueful expression which suggested that the idea was not altogether new to him.

‘There has been a certain amount of criticism, I cannot deny that. Every person in the land, from the humblest of
Her Majesty’s subjects up to and including Herself, seems to feel they could do a better job of it than us. The fact is, Mr Holmes, we are being made the whipping-boys for this country’s sins. They’ve let Sodom and Gomorrah flourish here in England’s green and pleasant land, and they’ve looked the other way. Now this happens, and they take it out on us!’

‘Aha!’ cried Holmes. ‘I always thought I could detect traces of a Nonconformist upbringing in your character, Lestrade. But you must be careful, you know! Persons who go around muttering about Whitechapel being as the cities of the plain, and its inhabitants the accursed of the Lord, are very likely, these days, to find themselves the objects of suspicion. What was it he said? “I am down on whores, and I shan’t quit ripping them till I do get buckled.”’

Lestrade exhaled a cloud of rancid smoke.

‘I’m not down on whores, Mr Holmes. They’re a commodity like any other. But there’s no doubt that this killer can only work as he does because such commerce – and worse – is a fact of life in Whitechapel. That whole district is a criminal’s paradise! No one knows anything, no one cares to know anything, and no one would tell us if they did. It’s a point of honour with them to score off the police. Their idea of sport is to get drunk and knock down a constable. So how are we supposed to go to work? Quite frankly, I believe there’s only one way we’ll ever take this man, and that’s if we’re lucky enough to come on him while he’s actually killing one of them.’

These last words were spoken defiantly, Lestrade clearly expecting a sarcastic rejoinder. It was evidently much to his surprise that he found his old antagonist agreeing with him.

‘That is the first sensible thing I have heard any policeman say since these murders started. After all this eye-wash about following up leads and investigating
clues and rounding up suspects and developing theories, it is really very refreshing to hear someone adopting a realistic attitude at long last. As you say, there is only one way to catch this man, and that’s red-handed. More port?’

‘With a dash of soda this time, if you please. I’m glad to see we are in agreement for once, Mr Holmes. It is too bad we can do nothing about it. Who’s to say when or where he will strike next?’

Holmes hovered by the side-board. He poured port for himself and me, and mixed Lestrade a brandy and soda.

‘I am,’ he replied as he brought the drinks.

Lestrade laughed politely. ‘Come now! We all admit that you are a very smart man, Mr Holmes, and can sometimes spot things that others are too busy to remark. But here you go too far! How can you possibly know what this maniac will do next?’

‘Ah, the old sweet song!’ murmured Holmes. ‘From far and wide they come to behold what the Ripper hath wrought, and cry with one accord: “The work of a maniac!” However, let us suppose that you are right, and that this affair is all madness. If it is, there is still some considerable method in it.’

‘Ha! We all know about his methods!’

‘Now if we are to take the murderer in the act, we must first know where and when he will be at work. Let us look at his record thus far. All the murders have been committed within the territory bounded by Bishopsgate to the west, the Great Eastern railway to the north, Sidney Street in the east, and the Ratcliff Highway to the south. So much is obvious. Turning to the question of timing, it is also obvious that all the killings have taken place in the morning, between midnight and six o’clock to be precise. What may be less obvious is that there is a clear pattern linking the days on which a murder occurred.’

‘What?’

‘The first death was on the 7th of August,’ Holmes
continued 
evenly. ‘On the 31st of the same month Nicholls was killed. Chapman died on the 8th of September, four weeks after Tabram and one week after Nicholls. Thus at that time the sequence ran: a murder, then three weeks’ lull, then another murder. But Stride and Eddowes were killed on the last day of September, which is to say three weeks after Chapman. With that the sequence repeats itself, enabling us to identify it as a simple alternation of one and three week periods, with a murder at the end of each.’

Lestrade had pulled out a pocket calendar, over which he bent in concentration. At length he looked up with a triumphant expression.

‘Ha! Your sequence no sooner gets started than it breaks down! It appears to have escaped you, Mr Sherlock Holmes, that there was no murder the week following the double killing! How does that fit in with your fine theory?’

Holmes smiled like a conjuror whose bluff has elicited the correct response from the crowd.

‘It fits perfectly, my dear Lestrade. You have no doubt heard of the exception that proves the rule? I admit that the absence of any attack on the 7th of October at first surprised me. But instead of rejecting the pattern which had begun to evolve, I reminded myself of a basic principle of our trade – that any single fact which apparently confutes a long chain of reasoning will invariably prove capable of some other interpretation. The lack of any murder that week was no accident but a necessary consequence of the pattern itself. Indeed, it would have been inexplicable if a killing
had
occurred.’

Lestrade shook his head wearily.

‘This is all Greek to me.’

‘Is it? Let’s see if I can’t provide you with a crib. The question is what happened to the victim of the 7th October. The answer is simply that she had already been murdered, on the 30th of September.’

‘The double murder!’ I exclaimed.

‘Precisely! Two for the price of one. But Jack the Ripper is not a man to leave his books unbalanced. So to make up for his over-indulgence that bloody Sunday, he abstained the following week. Now then! Do you still think he is a maniac whose deeds are mere random impulses?’

Lestrade wore the expression of one whose world is being taken apart piece by piece and reassembled upside down. He made counting gestures on his fingers. He gazed up at the ceiling. His lips moved soundlessly. At length he looked over at Holmes with a deep sigh.

‘So you are saying that this man, whoever he is, has taken it into his head to kill two prostitutes a month, the first after one week and the second three weeks later. Is that it?’

‘Not to kill, Lestrade. To mutilate! That is his desire. Killing the women is a mere preliminary, as one kills a goose for the table. If he were satisfied with killing, he would have gone straight home after cutting Stride’s throat. Instead, he exposed himself to enormous danger so that he might suitably butcher the woman in Mitre Square. Do you remember that message he left scrawled on the wall in Goulston Street – the one your ineffable superiors had erased before it could be photographed?’

‘“The Jews are not the men that will be blamed for nothing,”’ I quoted from memory. Holmes nodded.

‘There have been any number of attempts to explain those words,’ he went on. ‘The spelling of Jews – J,U,W,E,S – has been analysed as learnedly as if it were an Egyptian hieroglyph, though one might have thought that this man had already given us sufficient evidence of his penchant for eccentric spellings. But what no one has been able to demonstrate is who the Jews in question are, and what it is they are to be blamed for.’

‘And I suppose you find it all very simple,’ Lestrade muttered.

Holmes shrugged nonchalantly. ‘The truth is invariably simple. The problem is clearing away the undergrowth of falsehood. The Jews referred to are the inhabitants of that courtyard in Berner Street, and more particularly Louis Diemschutz, the hawker whose untimely return home prevented the killer from mutilating Stride’s body. What they are to be blamed for is the heinous crime of upsetting our man’s timetable, so that he was forced to move his next killing forward a week. He was saying, in effect: “I apologise for the confusion, but it wasn’t my fault – those Jews are to blame.”’

Lestrade was by now swaying in his seat, like some punch-drunk boxer.

‘But how could he know the fellow was a Jew?’ he croaked. ‘How could he possibly know?’

‘Because the courtyard is occupied by a notorious Socialists’ Club run by and for European Jews. It is a hundred to one that anyone coming or going there at that time of night will be Jewish. Which all goes to prove, if any further proof were needed, how well our man knows his Whitechapel.’

At this, Lestrade’s resistance utterly collapsed. He looked helplessly at my friend.

‘What do we do?’

Holmes sprang to his feet.

‘We patrol! We shut up Whitechapel like a cage! According to the sequence, the next killing is due within a few days. But we can determine the timing even more closely than that. For one thing, the murders always take place at the weekend – with the exception of Tabram, which I am inclined to see as something of a prentice job. To be even more specific, the death days – again leaving Tabram out of account – have been Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. All of which suggests that the attempt will be made on Monday. In any event, only four nights are involved, and only four hours a night. If we
cannot adequately patrol an area of one square mile for that period of time, I think we had better retire and have done with it.’

Lestrade was now on familiar ground again, and he nodded with more assurance.

‘It can be done.’

‘It must be done, and done consummately! I shall call at the Yard this afternoon at five with details of such measures as I consider necessary. In the meantime you must summon every available man on the force and have them ready to commence duty at midnight.’

The official scratched his ear uneasily.

‘I’ll certainly do whatever I can, Mr Holmes. I am quite happy to accept your lead myself, you understand, but my superiors –’

‘Will back you all the way. You may be interested to learn that I now enjoy the rank of Acting Chief Inspector in your own division. As you said, criticism of the way the police have been handling this affair extends to the highest quarters. My brother Mycroft informed me last week that it was the wish of one more accustomed to command that I should exert my energies in this regard. It has been my pleasure as well as my duty to obey. I made it a condition, however, that I might implement just such measures as I have mentioned. The appropriate arrangements have been made, and you need therefore have no qualms about carrying out my instructions.’

‘Very good, Mr Holmes. I quite understand. I’ll expect you about five, sir. Good day.’

Never had I seen Lestrade so amenable. Holmes had also remarked the change in the policeman’s manner.

‘By Jove, Watson!’ said he, once we were alone again. ‘If this ghastly business has achieved nothing else, it seems at least to have taught the Yard its natural limits. However, I have no very lively hopes that the effect will last. And now would you be so good as to summon our
landlady? I am in urgent need of a bath, some hot food, and a few hours’ undisturbed sleep. I have been deprived of all three just lately. In fact it has been quite an eventful week, what with one thing and another. One of my little “Holmes from home” was set alight in the early hours of yesterday morning. No great damage was done, but I lost my night’s sleep in consequence.’

‘Good God! You mean the fire was deliberately started?’

‘I think we may assume so, in view of the three other attempts that have been made on my life recently. Any other hypothesis would seem to introduce a monstrous factor of sheer coincidence. Professor Moriarty is not a man to let grass grow under his feet! He first attempted to run me down with a delivery van. My reactions were too quick, but shortly thereafter a brick fell from a building as I was passing and almost scrambled my brains. His latest effort was delegated. I was walking down a secluded street in Islington late last night, when a pair of ruffians assaulted me with cudgels.’

‘What did I tell you? You should have kept me at your side! You might have been killed!’

‘Oh, they weren’t very competent ruffians. I exercised some of my singlestick skills on them. One fled and the other succumbed. I barked my knuckles, as you see, but I’m otherwise none the worse.’

‘But next time he will send more men, and better! You must have protection, Holmes! You must not go out alone! I absolutely forbid it!’

Holmes smiled at my vehemence.

‘My dear fellow! In a moment you will be saying: “As your physician –” But you need not distress yourself. Moriarty does not mean to kill me yet.’

‘But you told me

‘I told you that there have been attempts on my life. Attempts, Watson! If Moriarty wanted me killed, I should
be reposing in some gutter by now. No, he only means to keep me on my guard. He is playing for his life after all. It would hardly be fair if I did not stand to lose as much.’

I shook my head in disapproval.

‘I do not see how you can speak of playing fair with this kind of man. Why do you allow him his sport? Why do you delay? Why not tell Lestrade and have him arrested? Then we shall all be safe – you, me, and all these poor women.’

‘I understand your feelings, Watson. I have felt the same. But it cannot be. How can we arrest Moriarty? What grounds have we? On the basis of what evidence are we to charge him? My suspicions are at bottom all inference and supposition, and if I were to mention them to Lestrade he would laugh in my face. But Moriarty would not laugh! He would summon his legal advisers and obtain his unconditional release, and then his revenge would be dreadful to behold. No, let us be
grateful
that we know the devil with whom we have to deal, and that he is content to fight this duel with me. Let us observe the rules of honour, and press our advantage home. Believe me, Watson – therein lies our only hope of smashing this man’s tyranny.’

I was reluctantly compelled to admit the force of Holmes’s arguments. But before he retired I had wrung from him a promise that I might accompany him at all times throughout the perilous hours that lay ahead. No longer would I be content to sit patiently at home awaiting the outcome. When Holmes left for Scotland Yard that afternoon, I went with him, a revolver in my pocket and in my heart the determination to stick close to his side wherever he might go and whatever might befall. I have often wondered to what extent the holocaust that was to come was due precisely to my success in this endeavour.