The West End Horror

by Nicholas Meyer

  He stopped to catch his breath, the whites of his eyes winking madly at us, rolling about in their sockets.

  “She was very distraught at first, and I thought my worst fears were confirmed. For three days she refused to speak to me, and during that time I thought I must become lunatic I was ready to do away with myself when she relented and told me that she loved me still. I cannot tell you into what transports of joy that knowledge put me. I felt there were no obstacles that could not be overcome, nothing I could not accomplish with her at my side and her love in my heart!

  “But Fate had not yet done with me. Just as it had done in the past, it struck not at me directly but through the woman I loved. A man—an ogre, I should say—approached Jessie without my knowing of it and told her he knew of our intrigue. He had made enquiries of his own and said he knew I was married. He twisted our love into something sordid and terrifying. His whispers were without shame and without remorse—and she succumbed to them. She acted partly for my sake, as well as for her own, in submitting to his lecherous fancy, for he had played upon her fears in that respect, and she told me nothing of what she had done, lest she compromise us both and add my ruin to her own.

  “But she couldn’t keep secret her emotions, Mr. Holmes. That intuitive bond that exists between two people in love had already sprung up between us and without knowing what had happened, I knew something was wrong. With many sighs and tears I pried the tale of her humiliation from her, promising beforehand that whatever I heard, I would take no action.

  “But it was no use my making such a promise! What she told me was too monstrous to be believed, let alone endured. There was something so incredible about such casual, yet total malevolence that I had to see it for myself.

  “I went to his house and spoke with him—” he paused, coughing slightly and shaking his head. “I had never met such a man in all my travels. When I confronted him with his shameful deed, he laughed! Yes, laughed to hear me throw it to his face and said I didn’t know much about the ways of the theatre! I was so taken aback by the colossal effrontery of the thing that I found myself pleading with him—yes, begging him—to return to me my life, my world. And still he laughed and patted me jovially on the shoulder, saying I was a good fellow but warning me to stay clear of actresses, as he escorted me to the door of his flat!

  “For the entire night I walked the streets of London, venturing into places I didn’t know then and couldn’t name now as I forced myself to digest my own damnation. During that interminable odyssey something snapped in my mind and I became mad. It was as though all my ill luck had resolved itself into one crystalline shape and that shape belonged to Jonathan McCarthy. On his shoulders I heaped my catalogue of misfortune and travail—my wife’s illness, my parents’ deaths, the plague itself, and finally, that for which he was truly responsible, the debauch of the woman I loved. She, who was all in the world that was left to me. To picture her in the arms of that bearded Lucifer was more than flesh and blood could bear, and a horrible thought came to me in the early hours of that morning as I stumbled about the city. It had all the perverse logic of the truly insane. If Jonathan McCarthy were Lucifer, why should not I let him wrestle with the scourge of God? I chuckled madly at the notion. Gone were thoughts of science, responsibility, my work; the implications of my fantasies, even, did not exist. All my sinews were bent upon vengeance—horrible and terrible retribution that knew neither reason nor restraint.

  “It scarcely matters how I did it; what matters is that I exposed Jonathan McCarthy to pneumonic plague. I know how you are looking at me now; I know full well what you must think of me, gentlemen—and in fact, as the hours ticked by afterwards, I came to share your opinion of the deed. No man was worthy of such a death. Having come to my senses, it was now bome in upon me with a rush—the full impact of what I had done. The terrible forces I had unleashed must be contained before they could wreak havoc on a scale unknown in modern times. All England, possibly all of Western Europe, had been threatened by my folly.

  “My conversion to sanity lasted roughly twelve hours. At the end of that time I rushed to McCarthy’s flat to warn him of his danger and do what I could for him—but he was not there. In vain I searched all London for the man, stopping at the theatres and restaurants I knew were frequented by members of the literary profession. No-one had seen him. I left a message at his flat finally, and he sent word that he would see me that night I had no choice but to wait for him while every hour took him further and further from my power to save him and increased the danger to the world. My tincture of iodine solution I had now perfected for induction by mouth, but it still depended on being administered within the first twelve hours.

  “I found him at home that evening, as he had promised, and in halting but urgent sentences, I told him what I had done.”

  Eccles began to cough again and spat great quantities of blood as we watched, our handkerchiefs still pressed to our mouths and noses to avoid the stench of carbolic and putrefaction, our minds numb with horror. He fell back in his chair, exhausted, when he had done, his breath coming more painfully now with every inhalation. Were it not for the noise he made breathing, we should have thought him dead.

  When next he spoke, his words were slurred as though he could not form them with the muscles remaining at his disposal: “He laughed at me again! Oh, he knew what my real work was, but he didn’t think me capable of such an action. Jack Point, he called me and laughed when I tried to make him swallow my tincture of iodine solution with a little brandy. ‘If I am infected,’ he chuckled, ‘you must be sure and call upon Miss Rutland with your potion. Shell be in a worse way by far!’ He laughed again, long and hard this time, until I knew and understood why I had been unable to find him for the past twelve hours. And when I did comprehend, comprehend that my actions and his had doomed all three of us—and perhaps millions, besides!—I seized a letter opener from his desk and stabbed him with it.”

  He sighed with a noise like kettledrums, and I knew the sands of his clock were running quickly out.

  “From then on, events unfolded with the inevitable precision of a machine built to destroy itself. Jessie was doomed. My antidote would have no effect by the time I reached her. The only question was whether I could prevent her suffering. I waited for her in her dressing room and sent her to heaven when she walked into my arms. I did it as mercifully as I could—” real tears were rolling down his cheeks, now in addition to the pus—“and then I walked ’round to the front of the theatre and entered as though on my evening tour. Stunned, as though that were the truth, I performed an autopsy on the woman I had just slain, while the bloodstained scalpel nestled in my bag under all your noses.”

  He covered his face with swollen black hands that now resembled claws, and he seemed unable to continue, overcome not only by the ravages of his disease but by his own emotions.

  Sensing this, Sherlock Holmes spoke quietly: “If you find it difficult to talk, Doctor, perhaps you will allow me to take up the story as I understand it. You have only to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or merely shake your head if you prefer. Is that agreeable to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well.” Holmes spoke slowly and distinctly so that he might hear and understand every word before responding: “When you came through the theatre to perform your autopsy, you discovered Dr. Watson and myself already at the dressing room, exposing ourselves to contamination. From our presence there, you could not but infer that we were already involved with the case.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Gilbert and Mr. D’Oyly Carte stayed outside the dressing room during our examination; hence, they ran no risk, but Watson and I, as well as you, were now in danger. You heard me say we were going to Simpson’s, and you followed us there, waiting for us outside with your antidote.”

  “Yes.”

  “While watching us through the window, you perceived that we were joined by a third gentleman—” he gestured to Shaw but Eccles, his eyes closed now, could no
t see him—“and, wishing to take no chances, you gave him the antidote to drink, as well, as we left the restaurant, happily one by one, which simplified your task.”

  “Yes. I didn’t wish to kill anybody.”

  “Anybody else, you mean,” the detective amended sternly.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you sent a note, warning us out of the Strand.”

  “I didn’t know how else to stop you,” Eccles gasped, struggling to open his eyes and face his confessor. “There was nothing for it but to threaten. I would never have done anything.”

  “As long as we didn’t expose ourselves to the plague. For those, like Brownlow, who did, you had no choice.”

  “No choice. His job killed him, for I knew he must discover my secret Having been a doctor in the army, I knew that only the coroner would have direct contact with the corpse of a murdered man, and I counted on him to deal with his assistants and stretcher-bearers. Certainly, I could never have managed to deal with them all. But he settled my mind on that score. And we scrubbed down the lab together.”

  “Then you left together?”

  He nodded, his head moving like a drugged man. “I knew when he recognised the symptoms he would dismiss the others and make them scrub. That left only him. My time was limited now, as well. I had already begun to turn into this.” He gestured feebly with a talon to himself. “I went ‘round to the back of the laboratory and spoke to him through the door, telling him that I knew of his predicament and could help him.”

  “You helped him to his maker.”

  Eccles did not move but sat like a grotesque statue of mouldy clay. Suddenly, he began to sob and choke and scream all at once, struggling to rise from his chair and clutching wildly at his abdomen.

  “Oh, God have mercy on their souls!” He opened his mouth again, wanting to say more, but sank slowly to the floor in a crumpled heap. There was silence in the room as the light of dawn began to filter through the curtains, as though to dispel the end of a nightmare.

  “He prayed for them,” Shaw murmured, the handkerchief still pressed to his face. “The human race surprises me sometimes in a way that confounds my philosophy.” He spoke in an unsteady voice and leaned against the door frame, as though about to faint.

  “In nomine Patris et Filli et Spiritu Sancti,” said Sherlock Holmes, drawing the sign of the Cross in the foetid air. “Has anyone a match?”

  And so it was that in the early morning hours of March 3, 1895, a fire broke out at 33 Wyndham Place, Marylebone, and mingled with the rosy red and gold-tongued flames of dawn. By the time the fire brigades reached the spot, the house was almost consumed, and the body of the lone occupant was found burned beyond all possible recognition or preservation. Sherlock Holmes had poured kerosene over it before we walked out of the door and into the new day.

  * Eccles’s life almost parallels Watson’s in many ways, but in none so astonishing as his wife’s maiden name. Could Edith Morstan have been a cousin to Mrs. Watson?

  EPILOGUE

  Achmet Singh walked across the narrow confines of his cell towards Sherlock Holmes and peered at him from behind his thick spectacles.

  “They tell me I am free.”

  “And so you are.”

  “You have done this?”

  The truth has set you free, Achmet Singh. There is some concern for it yet in this reeling world.”

  “And Miss Rutland’s killer?”

  “God has punished him more harshly than any jury would have done.”

  “I see.” The Parsee hesitated, indecisive, and then, with a mighty sob, fell upon his knees, seized the detective’s hand, and kissed it.

  “You—Sherlock Holmes—breaker of my shackles—from my heart’s depths I thank you!”

  Indeed, he had much for which to be grateful, though he would never know how much. Securing his release from prison and having the charges against him dropped was one of the more difficult feats of Sherlock Holmes’s long and surprising career. He was obliged to make Inspector Lestrade appear ridiculous in public—something he was at pains never to do—and he did it with the full knowledge and cooperation of the inspector, first swearing him to secrecy and then divulging the entire truth behind the closed doors of the latter’s office. They sat closeted together for over an hour while the detective explained the implications of what had happened and the need to prevent the truth from becoming generally known, lest the panic which would inevitably follow prove worse than the plague itself. The detective managed to suppress all reference to Sergeant Hopkins’s nocturnal initiative, and the inspector, preoccupied with the meat of the case, never thought to ask how Holmes had learned of Mr. Brownlow’s disappearance with the corpses before knowledge of it was made public.

  In addition, we spent an anxious week waiting to see if Benjamin Eccles had accomplished his mission and truly managed to murder everyone who had contracted pneumonic plague and to dispose of their bodies. There was some question as to the health of the Savoy chorus, and both Gilbert and D’Oyly Carte were ordered intensive medical examinations, which, happily, failed to reveal a trace of the disease.

  Bernard Shaw, as most people know, continued working as a critic but remained true to his promise and kept writing plays until they made him wealthy and famous. His curious attitude towards social reform and personal wealth persisted as long as we knew him. He and the detective remained eccentric friends to the last. They saw one another less as Shaw grew more in demand, but they maintained a lively correspondence, some of which is in my possession and which includes the following exchange of telegrams:

  TO SHERLOCK HOLMES:

  ENCLOSED PLEASE FIND TWO TICKETS TO OPENING NIGHT OF MY NEW PLAY, Pygmalion. BRING FRIEND IF YOU HAVE ONE.

  G. B. S.

  TO BERNARD SHAW:

  UNABLE TO ATTEND OPENING NIGHT OF Pygmalion. WILL ATTEND SECOND NIGHT IF YOU HAVE ONE.

  HOLMES*

  Holmes and I returned to Baker Street later that day, feeling as though we’d just come back from the moon, so long had we been gone and so singular had been our experiences while away. The last few days seemed like aeons.

  For a day or so we sat around our rooms like automatons, unable, I think, to fully digest the terrible events in which we had taken part. And then, bit by bit, we fell into our old ways. Another storm blew silently outside our windows, and Holmes found himself again immersed in his chemical experiments. Finally his notes on ancient English charters were once more in his hands.

  It was a month later when he threw down the paper at breakfast one morning and looked at me across the table. “We must definitely go to Cambridge, Watson, or I shall not accomplish anything constructive with my research.† How does tomorrow strike you?”

  He stalked into his bedroom, leaving me to the coffee and paper, where I discovered his motive for leaving town so abruptly.

  Speculation was rife that Oscar Wilde would shortly be charged with offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.‡ The subject of Wilde brought back memories of our adventure the previous month.

  I followed Holmes into his room, the paper in my hand and on my lips a question that had never occurred to me. “Holmes, there is something that puzzles me about Dr. Benjamin Eccles.”

  “A great deal, I shouldn’t wonder. He was a complicated individual. As I have said before, Watson, a doctor is the first of criminals. He has brains, and he has knowledge; should he care to pervert either, there is great potential for mischief. Will you hand me that brown tie? Thank you.”

  “Why, then, did he allow himself to die?” I asked. “Had he taken his own antidote with the zeal he pressed it on others, he might have survived.”

  My companion paused before replying, taking a coal from the fire and lighting his pipe with it “We shall probably never know the truth. It may be that he had taken the potion before and in so doing had exhausted its curative properties. Or it may be that he had no wish to live. Some people are not only murderers but judges, juries, and their own execut
ioners, as well, and in those capacities they mete out punishments far more severe than their fellow creatures could devise.” He rose from a bootlace. “Do you think it too early in the day for a glass of sherry and a biscuit?”

  * For years this exchange was erroneously attributed to Shaw and Winston Churchill.

  † For details of Holmes’s Cambridge experience the leader is urged to consult the case labeled by Watson The Adventure of the Three Students. According to Baring-Gould’s chronology, this case began on April 5, 1895, almost immediately after the news about Wilde appeared in the papers. This significant jibing of dates goes a long way—in my opinion—towards certifying the authenticity of The West End Horror, added to which fact, Holmes’s work in Cambridge is not generally conceded to be his best, which also makes sense if we consider that he was operating under something of an emotional strain.

  ‡ Wilde was charged on April 6, 1895. His first trial ended in a hung jury on May 1. On May 20 a second trial was held, and on May 25, 189$, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It is again time to pay off a happy debt and thank a number of people for their help, inspiration, encouragement, and critical acumen in preparing the manuscript of The West End Horror.

  First and foremost, this book could not have been thought of but for the genius of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Without his immortal creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, nothing in the way of this story could have been written. It is a tribute to the enormous popularity of Doyle’s characters that people are interested in reading stories about them even though their creator is not around to keep supplying them.