“Your students have taken to patrolling the streets at night since these atrocities have begun, I have been told.”
“Quite so. As their warden, I deemed it part of their mission here to join in the hunt for the killer. I will be quite honest with you, Mr. Holmes: Even if our lads are not successful in helping to apprehend the man, the very fact they are able to show they are interested in what happens to these poor, unfortunate women is of assistance to us in our work. It brings us closer to the residents, you see.”
“I do indeed. But it is quite possible they can be of material help. I have several questions to put to you regarding where they have gone and what they have seen.”
Reverend Barnett, true to his word, answered all the questions put to him, but was able to shed little light on the murders. “I know little more than what I read in the newspapers, I fear. I have my own theories, of course, but of what use they will be to you I cannot imagine.”
It took little encouragement on the part of Holmes for Canon Barnett to expound at some length.
“He is not of the district, of that I am certain. Death is no stranger here, to be sure, and cruel, violent death is an everyday occurrence, but not this kind, no — not this satanic, ritualistic sort of thing! It is an outsider, Mr. Holmes, an individual who knows our streets well, who is no stranger to our precincts, but surely not one of our own. What makes me so certain is simply this: None of our people would have the ingenuity, or the energy.”
Holmes nodded. It was an astute observation.
Canon Barnett paused and smiled slyly. “As to how this fellow makes his escape? Ah, well, I have my theories there too. I have used your method, Mr. Holmes, in reaching my conclusions, you see. I have ruled out the impossible and have settled upon the merely improbable. If he has managed to avoid the police patrols in the streets, it must mean that he is not using the streets! There you have it, plain and simple! Look elsewhere, sir! Look elsewhere!”
Holmes rewarded the clergyman with a bow of approval from his chair. “You have missed your calling, reverend sir! That is certainly a most ingenious line of reasoning, and I vow I shall pursue it with all my heart.”
Both the Barnetts accompanied him downstairs to the front door, but he was unable to make his departure before one parting story from the canon. “You are familiar with Dr. Barnardo and his homes for children, of course? His good works are renowned throughout the district, especially those works performed on behalf of the orphaned and maimed. He took tea with us the other day and he told me this tale:
“He makes it a practice to call regularly at some of the worst of the lodging houses in the district for the purpose of chatting up the female residents known to him, his aim being both to reassure them and commiserate with them and to give them what little comfort he can. The killer’s victims, as you know, are all unfortunate creatures from the meanest of these doss-houses, all sisters under the skin, so to speak. They are terrified, of course — absolutely terrified. Dr. Barnardo encountered one such woman just the other day who told him that she knew one of the earlier victims, poor soul — I forget which one it was. And she said to him bitterly and tearfully that it was her belief that the authorities had no interest in catching the killer, no interest at all. ‘They just don’t care,’ she said. ‘They don’t care about him and they don’t care about the likes of us.’ Oh, how she ranted on and on, Dr. Barnardo told me. ‘We’re all up to no good and no one cares what becomes of us,’ she railed.
“The pathetic thing of it is, Mr. Holmes, the saddest thing, is that the woman to whom Dr. Barnardo was speaking was Elizabeth Stride, one of the two women who was murdered the other night.”
Canon Barnett looked down at the floor. “Dr. Barnardo didn’t realize it at the time, of course. He knew her only as Long Liz, the name by which she was known to everyone hereabouts. It wasn’t until after he visited the mortuary and viewed the remains that he realized it was the very same woman he had spoken to a few days earlier, the very same woman who expressed such bitterness and sadness and such fear.”
His eyes moistened. “Something must be done,” said the reverend softly, “something must be done.” He gripped Holmes by the arm and gazed earnestly into his eyes. “And I know that you are just the chap to do it.”65
Holmes awoke with a start at the sound of a footfall upon the stair. The ashes in the grate were cold, and the first wan light of dawn began to materialize at the window. He had fallen asleep in his chair and had remained there the entire night, the snifter of brandy untouched at his elbow. Stiffly he rose from his chair and went to the door. It was Abberline, his clothes rumpled, his eyes rimmed with red, his face drawn and haggard.
“I saw the glow of your lamp through the window as I drove by,” he explained, “so I assumed you were already up and about. I hope you don’t mind a caller at this uncivilized hour.”
Holmes stifled a yawn. “Like you, Inspector, I never did make it to my bed last night. Come in, come in. Mrs. Hudson shall no doubt have a good hot pot of coffee before us very shortly. What news do you bring?”
“News? Oh, no news, I fear. We’ve been chasing shadows, wills-o’-the-wisp. Just the ordinary routine sort of thing with nothing to show for it. Another sleepless night, is all.”
Holmes grunted noncommittally as he busied himself turning up the table lamps.
“You’ve seen the new description given out by the City Police, I presume,” asked Abberline.
“Yes, in the Gazette. It bears a vague similarity to that of the man I saw in Mitre Square, insofar as his height and approximate age and costume are concerned. But it differs in some of the other particulars. The red handkerchief around his neck is a bit fanciful, I think, though I was never really close enough to him to see all that much, and the suggestion that he had the overall appearance of a sailor is utter rubbish. Since when does a man of the sea wear a deerstalker hat and a cutaway coat? How they ever reached that conclusion is beyond me.”
“I understand it was based on the observations of a passerby who claimed to have seen our friend with the Eddowes woman in the square — just minutes before the murder took place. The man had the gait and bearing of a seaman, he said.”
“And this passerby, he could tell that the neckerchief the suspect may or may not have been wearing was red? In the darkness of the night? What enviable eyesight this passerby must have. He would put a cat to shame!”
“Well, he claims the moon was very bright — almost as light as day.”
Holmes made a face. “I would not be surprised if he claimed the murderer had horns and tail and cloven feet! Do me this, will you: Go out on the next brightly moonlit night and hang some colored bunting from a line and stand off twenty yards or so — make it five yards, if you wish. I defy you to distinguish what colors they are! What unmitigated rubbish!”
Abberline shrugged. He was too weary to argue. Holmes, on the other hand, was now wide awake and was just getting into stride.
“I am being foolish perhaps,” said he, “but I find it difficult to subscribe to the theory that in the absence of concrete fact, it is not only permissible but desirable to fabricate one. How convenient, how very efficacious! Grasp at a straw if you must, but at least have the good sense to grasp at a real straw!”
Abberline shrugged again. “At least it’s the City force to blame this time, not the Yard.”
Holmes snorted. “I am certain the Yard shall make up for it, given time,” he replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm. He got up from his chair and took a turn about the room. “Wherever is Mrs. Hudson with the coffee?” he muttered irritably. “I’ll tell you how it is, Abberline,” he continued. “We now have three separate descriptions of the killer being circulated. One indicates he was dressed in something like blue serge with a deerstalker cap, another indicates he wore a black diagonal coat with a hard felt hat and collar and tie, and the third indicates he wore a loose-fitting pepper-and-salt tweed jacket with a gray cloth cap and red neckerchief tied in a sailor’s kno
t. All in one night! This man is a wonder! I shouldn’t be surprised if he turned up in a clown suit next — ah, there she is.”
Mrs. Hudson’s unmistakable tread was heard upon the stair at last, and Holmes moved swiftly to the door to open it for her.
“Morning, Mrs. H. Thank you so very much. Allow me to take it from here. You need not trouble yourself further.”
She handed the tray over without a word and threw an ugly glance at the early morning visitor before turning on her heel to descend the stairs.
Holmes nudged the door shut with his foot and carried the tray of coffee service to the table. “Sugar? Milk?”
“No, I take it neat, thanks.”
“There’s some toast here if you wish.”
“Thank you, no.”
Holmes poured the coffee and handed Abberline his cup. “Aside from this sudden plethora of eyewitness descriptions, what else is new that you can tell me?”
Abberline took a sip of coffee and darted a glance at Holmes before replying. “You have heard about the dogs, of course.”
“Dogs? What dogs?”
“The commissioner, Sir Charles?”
“Yes, I know his name,” snapped Holmes. “What’s this about dogs?”
“He wants to bring in sleuth hounds.”
“Sleuth hounds?”
“You know, bloodhounds.”
“To do what? Piddle on the cobbles?”
Abberline smiled despite himself. “He has got it in his head that bloodhounds will be able to sniff him out.”
Holmes clapped his hands. “Sniff him out? Oh, jolly good!”
“He’s given instructions that if or when there is another murder, the dogs are to be brought in before the body is removed so they can be put on the scent. A breeder over near Scarborough has been contacted and has agreed to provide two of his animals. The commissioner has arranged to hold a trial in Hyde Park within the next few days.”
“Truly?”
Abberline placed a hand over his heart. “Truly.”
Holmes said nothing. Thoughtfully he took another sip of coffee, then put the cup down and walked over to the bow window to gaze down at the street. After a minute or so he turned. “Hyde Park, you say?”
Abberline nodded.
“Bloodhounds in Hyde Park?” Holmes’s thin lips curved upward in a puckish smile. “What a vision that conjures up, what a perfectly marvelous show it should be.” He turned wistful for a moment. “Pity I shall miss it, but Watson’s letters from Baskerville Hall are becoming most insistent. I am afraid I have a long-overdue appointment with another dog, this one on the moors of Devon. More coffee, dear chap?”
Fifteen
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21-TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1888
“I thought at first you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all.”
— The Red-Headed League
John H. Watson, M.D., gazed out of the rain-spattered window of the first-class rail car compartment, the monotonous, curiously soothing clackety-clack of the wheels against the track combining with the dreary weather to lull him into a state of lassitude, of semi-sleep. The bleak autumnal countryside of rural England, neat and picture perfect despite the weather and the season of the year, had given way to the industrial outskirts of London, soot blackened and grimy gray. The tall chimneys of the factories and foundries that flickered past his window vied with one another in sending aloft dark plumes of greasy smoke that rose to merge with the low-lying clouds, laying a pall over the still-distant city and over his spirits as well.
Still, he was glad to be getting back to London. The affairs at Baskerville Hall in Devonshire had been successfully concluded, but it had been a close thing and a harrowing experience, and he and Holmes were both tired and mentally drained. The homey atmosphere of Baker Street, coupled with Mrs. Hudson’s cooking and her other comforting ministrations, would do them both the world of good. Rural life was not always so settling to the nerves after all, he reflected. Not when murder was involved; not when a vicious hound roamed loose on the moors. He would spend tomorrow compiling notes about the case, he decided, in preparation for the day when he would sit down and write the story in its entirety. What to call it, was the question. The Hound of Baskerville Hall? The Beast of the Baskervilles perhaps? Yes, that had a nice ring to it.
The rain was coming down harder now, the gray, overcast skies seemed to settle lower over the dreary scene outside his window. It was a somber, depressing Sunday afternoon, one in which the fire of their sitting room and a hot toddy would be doubly welcome.
Across from him, Sherlock Holmes, donned in his familiar traveling costume of Inverness and deerstalker cap, coils of pungent smoke rising from his briar and curling about him, observed his friend from beneath hooded eyes. Good old Watson, he thought. What a pillar of strength he was; what a solid, dependable ally. Holmes could not imagine how he would have gotten along without him these past few harrowing weeks: He had served as his eyes and ears and more. That he, Holmes, was able to bring the Baskerville matter to a successful conclusion was due in no small measure to Watson’s selfless contributions.
The affair had been doubly difficult for Holmes. He was not accustomed to having two cases on his mind at once. That intricate mechanism that was his brain worked best when concentrating on one problem and one problem only, and for that reason it had always been a strict rule of his never to take on more than one case at a time. This was one of the few occasions when he had been forced to break that rule. But now that the Baskerville business was behind him, he would be able to devote his full attentions to the matter that awaited him in London.
Holmes reached over and tapped the ashes out of his pipe. “You are quite right, dear fellow,” he said nonchalantly. “We shall be arriving at Paddington somewhat later than expected and, yes, we shall in all probability face difficulty in obtaining the services of a porter and possibly a cab as well.”
Watson, startled out of his reverie, looked across at Holmes in astonishment. “What’s this, Holmes! Have you now taken to reading my mind?”
Holmes chuckled softly. “My dear fellow, after all these years, I should be a dullard indeed if I could not at least follow your train of thought on occasion —”
“My train of thought?”
“— which is so transparently obvious: Like following a trail of bread crumbs left scattered behind you in the woods.”
“Bread crumbs?” retorted Watson. “Whatever are you talking about? I have done nothing of the kind, and I must say, Holmes, I consider your — your trickery, or whatever it is, most uncivil. It is nothing less than, than an invasion of my privacy. The very idea!”
Holmes, chuckling, leaned over and patted him on the knee. “There is no trickery involved, merely simple inference. It is you yourself who told me.”
“I? I told you nothing. Whatever do you mean?”
“Watson, what am I to think when I observe you looking out of the window, studying our surroundings for the longest while, craning your neck this way and that in an obvious effort to determine where we are? You then reach over to consult the train schedule lying on the seat beside you and pull out your watch, shaking your head in a disheartened manner. Then you glance out the window again and look up at the sky and shake your head again. Your gaze then travels to the luggage rack above my head. You frown and rub your shoulder, the one in which you were wounded in Afghanistan, and shake your head yet again. What am I to make of all of this, if not the obvious? You ascertain that the train is running late, behind schedule. It is a rainy Sunday afternoon, rapidly approaching evening, a time when porters at Paddington are in short supply, which means you will be forced to carry your own luggage. That doleful glance at your bulging grip above me and the massaging of your injured limb tells me that you are not looking forward to that laborious indignity. Nor do I blame you. But really, dear fellow, you must learn to pack fewer things; I could have traveled round the world with less.”
Holmes
inverted his pipe and blew the moisture out of the bowl. “And by the by,” he said with mock hauteur, “I do not especially appreciate being accused of trickery.”
Watson looked at him sheepishly. “You always make it sound so simple once you explain it.”
Holmes smiled indulgently. “Yaass, well, even the most abstract problem is simple once it is explained. Such as the one we have left behind us in Devon. However, my mind now dwells on the one that faces us in London. That, I fear, will not be so simple.”
Watson’s eyes narrowed. It had been a fortnight since the subject had even come up in conversation between them, so engrossed had they been in the affairs of Baskerville Hall. While it would be incorrect to say that he had not given any thought to the matter during all that time, it was not something that had loomed high in his consciousness either. London and all its cares had seemed so remote.
“At least there haven’t been any more murders since,” he said. “The fellow seems to have gone to ground. And if the papers are to be believed, the police don’t seem to have made any progress in tracking him down.”
Holmes smiled. “Nor did I expect them to.” He added ruefully: “But then, neither have I.”
Watson knew Holmes would not appreciate the consoling words he had in mind to utter, so he left them unspoken. “Any new thoughts?” he asked instead.
“New thoughts?” Holmes replied self-disparagingly. He shook his head in a gesture of hopelessness. “No, none at all.” He gazed out the window silently for a moment. “Only I continue to harbor nagging fears that there is something right under my nose that I have neglected, some obvious little tidbit of information that has escaped my notice.”
“Something to do with the cigarette ends that were found, do you think?”
Holmes dismissed that suggestion with an impatient wave of his hand. “No, not that. I have gone as far as I can for the moment in pursuit of answers there, and the possibilities that have suggested themselves as a result are totally impossible. No, there is something else. What it could be eludes me. I have no idea, no idea at all. When it finally does occur to me, I shall kick myself for it, of that I am certain. Well... it will come, it will come.”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors Page 20