Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (32 page)

“Her breasts, Inspector. Who the hell would think of such a thing?”

“Get your coats on, both of you,” Lestrade said. “Move, move, move.”

“What the hell are you getting so excited for?” Collard whispered.

“The bird on Miller’s Court had both her breasts lopped off. We never gave the press that information. I want you to take us to your brother’s apartment immediately, Mr. Druitt.” Lestrade winked at Collard and said, “We are going to beat that bastard Holmes to the killer. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he sees us!”

Lestrade and Collard raced one another to the front door of the George Valentine Boarding School. Lestrade grabbed the handle and yanked it open triumphantly. “We’ve done it, Collard, we’ve beaten that bastard Holmes to the punch!”

A tall man with a pronouncedly bent nose stood in the lobby, and turned toward them as they entered. “Good evening, Inspectors,” Sherlock Holmes said. “Welcome to the Valentine Boarding School. I confess that you arrived sooner than I thought you would.” Holmes looked at the man with them and said, “William Druitt, I presume?”

Collard let out a soft whistle and said, “By God, he really is good.”

“What are you…how did you…Aw, bloody hell!” Lestrade shouted and stomped his foot on the ground.

“Language, sir!” A small man stood up from behind the desk and wagged his finger at Lestrade. “I have been through quite enough today, and I refuse to have to stand for it in my own school!”

“I was just explaining to Mr. Valentine that I intend to search Montague Druitt’s apartment. He was just refusing to allow me entrance,” Holmes said.

“You know the way to your brother’s room, Druitt?” Lestrade said.

“Yes, sir. I do,” Will said, looking nervously at Valentine. “But I would really prefer-“

“Don’t start,” Lestrade said. “Get up those stairs right now before I become seriously irritated with the entire lot of you.”

“This is an outrage!” Valentine cried, chasing after them.

“It is an outrageous world, sir,” Lestrade said, turning toward the smaller man. “I suggest you stay out of our way before I show you just how strange and dangerous it really has become.”

The men followed Will Druitt up the stairs. Lestrade leaned close to Holmes, “Just had to do it, right, Holmes? Just had to get here first.”

“I assure you I have no idea what you are talking about, Inspector.”

“Yes you do, you smug bastard. Somebody open this door before I kick it in.”

George Valentine called down the hall for Mark Mann to come open up Druitt’s room. “Has anyone been in this room since Montague Druitt left it last?” Holmes said.

“I was in it once to look for him,” Valentine said.

“Perfectly understandable, sir.” Once Mann opened the door, Holmes said, “I would like everyone to please put their hands inside their pockets. Under no circumstances is anyone to touch anything. Is that clear?” All the men nodded and stuffed their hands either into their coats or trousers. “Mr. Valentine? Does this room appear as it was the last time you saw Druitt inside it?”

“Yes, sir. It looks just as it did before.”

“Did you see him touch anything before you left?”

“No, sir,” Valentine said, confused by the question. Suddenly he looked at a half-full glass of water sitting on the table next to Druitt’s bed and said, “Well, he was drinking from that glass before I left.”

Holmes walked over to the table and inspected the glass without touching it, moving around the table to see the glass from every angle. “Are you certain this is the same one?”

“I watched him drink out of it myself, sir,” Mark Mann said. “Why?”

Holmes saw the faint impression of several finger-marks on the outside of the glass. He put his fingers inside the rim and pressed outwards with his fingernails to lift it into a better light. “This will have to do, I suppose.”

Inspector Collard pointed to a stack of cut-out newspaper articles about the killings on the table. “Looks like our boy has been reading his own press clippings.”

“We need two things, gentlemen,” Holmes announced. “First, a photograph of Montague Druitt, and then something to put this in so that it does not get disturbed on the way back to Whitechapel.” Holmes poured the water inside the glass into an empty vase.

Collard looked around the shelves of books, and came upon the photograph of a slender man in a buttoned-up suit, his right arm bent in pensive thought over a stack of large books. The man was soft-featured, with a kind expression. “This isn’t him, is it?”

“Why, yes, in fact, it is,” Valentine said.

“Monty,” Will said, taking the photograph and running his thumb along the surface. “God, it stabs me in the heart to think of the monster I last saw.”

“Hmm,” Lestrade said, looking at the photograph. “Not what I expected,” he said to Holmes. “Looks too normal to be out there ripping women apart.”

Holmes looked down at the photograph for a very long time, studying the details of Montague Druitt’s face. “Anyone is capable of anything, Inspector. All that is required is the proper motivation.”

Will Druitt turned and looked at Holmes for a moment, and their eyes locked on one another. Will handed Holmes the photograph and left the room.

Lestrade jiggled a desk drawer handle and heard rattling within. Upon opening the drawer, he saw several rows medical preservation jars. “Come have a look, Holmes. What do you suppose he needs all these for? The bigger ones look to be the right size to hold a uterus, do they not? And the lids seal so tightly on these that they wouldn’t spill while he made his escape.”

Holmes peered in at the rows and rows of specimen jars. He selected the largest jar of the group and placed the drinking glass inside it, screwing the lid tight. “I am beginning to suspect that matching these fingerprints is a only small formality. We are hot on his trail, Inspector.”

“How does that one saying go? The one that you like, Holmes,” Lestrade said. “Something about a game?”

“I believe the expression you are referring to is, ‘The game is afoot’.”

“That’s the one,” Lestrade said, looking down at the jars. “The game is now afoot.”

THIRTY ONE

Frederick Wensley walked into the Ten Bells bar and searched the faces of the men and women crowded inside. Not one of them resembled Dr. Watson. There were drunken sailors looking to purchase pleasures from the wide variety of whores lurking around the bar, and just as many whores looking to take advantage of the sailors in return. Off to the side of the bar sat a different group of men who kept to themselves. They all sat around a one-eyed man who Wensley recognized and quickly turned away from.

Wensley could feel Mickey Fitch’s eye fix on him, but no alarm was raised amongst the other gang members. Wensley turned to try to slide back out of the bar and just before he reached the door, five more members of the Old Nichol gang walked in. Two of them were men Wensley had fought face-to-face with at the police station.

Wensley spun toward the bar and thrust his head down between his arms, slapping his hand on the wooden surface. “Beer!” he shouted at the barman. He tapped a coin urgently against the counter until his glass arrived, then focused intently on the warm, sudsy ale. He tried to filter all of the laughing and shouting going on around him to listen to what the others were saying to Mickey Fitch.

“I saw ‘em just down the street! Hurry before they get away.”

“Settle down, and shut it,” Fitch growled. He called everyone to come closer, and as they formed a huddle around him, Wensley could no longer hear them. He checked his coat pockets for his sap and police whistle, reassuring himself that he’d brought both.

The Old Nichol gang started putting on their coats and moving toward the door. Mickey Fitch passed near Wensley and looked directly at him, but Wensley lifted his glass and started chugging it so quickly that foam spilled down the sides of his mouth. He let out a large belch and slammed the empty mug down, calling to the barman, “Another beer, man! Be quick about it!”

A cool autumn wind whispered against the back of his neck as the front door opened. The barman set another beer in front of Wensley and Wensley pulled out another coin from his pocket and put it next to the glass. As he turned, the last of the Old Nichol gang went through the door. One of them said, “I’ll take the bird. You can have Watson.”

~ * * * ~

Sgt. Byfield watched Lestrade open the station door and stomped his foot on the ground, shaking his head urgently. Lestrade froze in place at the entrance, blocking Holmes and Collard from coming in behind him.

“What is it?” Lestrade mouthed.

Byfield cocked his head at Lestrade’s office as he drew a menacing line across his throat with his finger. Lestrade leaned forward so that he could see around the corner. Chief Inspector Brett was screaming at Constable Lamb. Lamb was seated with his hands folded, looking down at the ground. “Out of uniform and out of your jurisdiction!” Brett roared. “Acting under the authority of an unauthorized person! And if you think I’ve forgotten that little stunt you and your friend pulled on Miller’s Court about Regulation One One Three, you are mistaken. I will have your arse for this if you do not tell me where Inspector Lestrade and Constable Wensley are!”

Lamb did not look up when he spoke. “I told you I do not know where they are, Chief Inspector. I was in Piccadilly on my own, nobody else knew. I wasn’t following anyone else’s orders.”

“You are a liar! I swear that by the time I am finished with you, you will not be able to find a job selling fruit in this city. I will ask you one last time, you blubbering little simpleton. What is this piece of glass being used for?” Lestrade watched Brett lift the shard with the fingerprint on it from the desk.

Lestrade looked back at Holmes and Collard. “You two need to leave.”

“Forget it,” Collard said. “You’ll need all the help you can get in there.”

“I will handle this,” Lestrade said. “Go. Do what you can in the meantime.”

Lestrade watched Holmes and Collard vanish into the night. He took a deep breath and walked through the door toward the sergeant’s desk. Byfield shook his head sadly and said, “You know, there is nothing in the rules that says you need to go in there, mate. Lamb is still a young bloke. Even if they sack him, he’ll find other work. He ain’t got no wife or kids like you do. You could just go home and pretend you never knew anything about it.”

“Is that what you would do?”

“That is what most people in your position would do, m’boy.”

“When I worked for you in uniform, you never did that to me.”

“No, I never did,” Byfield sighed. “But then again, my balls were never in quite the sling yours are.”

Lestrade pushed the front gate open and went into his office. He put his hand on Lamb’s shoulder and said, “Run along now, son. I’ll take it from here.”

“Do not move an inch, Constable Lamb,” Brett commanded. “Well, well, well, Inspector. You have done it this time. By the time I am finished with you, you will beg for mercy.”

Lestrade shook his head. “Not to offend, but you do not intimidate me, all right? Stop it before you embarrass us both. If you have something to say, just say it and be done with it. Otherwise, I have police work to do and am sorely lacking in time to stand around bantering with the sorry likes of you. Wait. I meant to say, sorry likes of you, sir.”

“You are going to lick the soles of my shoes before I get finished with you, Lestrade.”

“I doubt that.”

“What is this piece of glass that you had one of my constables traipsing all over the country with?” Brett held up the handkerchief with the glass inside it. “What is this unauthorized train ticket doing in his pocket for all the way out to Piccadilly? What was it exactly that you had this constable doing?”

“Give me that piece of glass before you hurt yourself, Chief Inspector. It’s too sharp for you to play with.”

“Do not toy with me, Lestrade! What is the significance of it?”

“It’s just a piece of glass, Chief Inspector. Give it to me before I accidentally hurt you when I take it from you.”

Brett set his jaw and let the glass drop out of the handkerchief onto the table. “Just a piece of glass, eh? Not important?”

“Not in the slightest,” Lestrade said. He moved to snatch it from the table but just missed as Brett grabbed it again. “Give it to me.”

Brett dropped the glass on the ground and smashed it with his foot, shattering it into fragments.

Both Lestrade and Lamb stared down, speechless, at the glass. Brett held his arms out wide and said, “Just a piece of glass, right? You both had better take a good look at it because I am going to do the same thing to both of your careers!”

Brett slammed Lestrade’s office door shut and walked over to the front desk, shouting, “Neither of those two men are to leave under any circumstances tonight, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Chief Inspector!” Sgt. Byfield said, snapping a salute at him.

“I will be back first thing in the morning to deal with them and anyone else who was involved in this debacle!”

Lamb watched Brett leave and turned to Lestrade with tears in his eyes, “He searched me as soon as I got into the station. He found the print, and the ticket. I am so sorry, sir.”

Lestrade looked at the shattered pieces of glass. There was no way to fix it. Each shard was cracked all the way through and broken into too many fragments. “How did you make out anyway? Did those Royal Academy blokes give you a hard time?”

Lamb shrugged, pointing at the crumpled up piece of paper on the desk. “See those numbers written across the bottom of the train schedule? Took ‘em long enough, but they finally came up with a system they could agree on and told me that’s the scientific way to write out the fingerprint on the glass.”

Lestrade looked down at the broken pieces. “This print, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Lestrade said, “we might not be sunk after all. Do you remember how to figure this gibberish out?”

“I think so,” Lamb said. “It is really, really complicated.”