Halse agreed. “Quite right. We have our procedures, as you know, and woe unto us if they are not followed. You, on the other hand —”
“I, on the other hand,” interrupted Holmes again, this time with an engaging smile, “I do not have to concern myself about going through your labyrinthian official channels, a realization that gives joy to my heart and comfort to my soul. With any luck at all, we should have a reply from Kock’s in a day or two at the most.”
Thicke was scowling. “Waal, I dunno. H’its ‘ighly improper, if ye aks me.”
Holmes patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “Not to worry, Sergeant. If there is an inquiry, I shall be the miscreant, not you.”
Thicke grudgingly consented. But then another thought occurred to him. He did not like being left out of things, and it came to him there was a danger of that happening. He would never be forgiven by his superiors if the Yard was not kept in the forefront of the investigation. “Wot am I to do in the meantime, then?” he asked, his scowl returning.
Holmes took him by the arm and escorted him toward the door. “Why, you, Sergeant, have the most enviable task of all,” he said in great seriousness. “You are to start looking for a man with one gold and blue-enameled sleeve link!”
For the longest moment Thicke did not realize that Holmes was joking, for his eyes opened wide with disbelief. It was not until the others laughed at his confusion that the realization sank in, and he smiled in his embarrassment.
“Ye had me goin’ there fer a minute, ye did,” he admitted manfully. “I’ll tell ye, this case takes so many twists and turns, and ye, Mr. ‘Olmes, ‘as so many queer notions, that I sometimes don’t know wot to think. Nothin’ should surprise me no more, and that’s the truth. Why, ye know they ‘ad us bring in photograph h’experts to take pictures of our victim’s eyes before they buried ‘er. No lie! Someone came up with the idea that a photograph might capture the last thing the woman was lookin’ at and give us a picture of what the Ripper really looks lyke.”
Watson and Halse clearly did not believe Thicke, and thought that it was he who was joking now, but Holmes did not join in their derision.
“No, no, I have heard of that theory,” he said. “There is a body of scientific opinion that believes the final image seen by the deceased is retained on the eye’s retina after death and can be magnified and reproduced on a photographic plate. There was even an American physician by the name of Pollock in the city of Chicago some years ago who conducted a series of experiments with a microscope and claimed to have captured retinal impressions from the eyes of cadavers. And others have tried it as well, from what I have heard. It has one shortcoming, however: It is sheer balderdash, something of which we seem to be in no short supply nowadays.”
“Ain’t that the truth, though?” said Thicke as he departed with Halse close upon his heels, leaving Holmes to draft his cablegram and leaving Watson a moment of blessed quiet to ponder the imponderables of the case, which also seemed to be in no short supply.
Sixteen
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1888
“He loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul.”
— A Scandal in Bohemia
“Come, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I shall show you a side of London you have never seen and know nothing about. It will broaden your horizons and amaze you, that I promise.”
It was a Saturday evening and Watson was at loose ends in any event, Mary Morstan being absent from the city, visiting a sick friend in Bath, and he having nothing more absorbing to occupy his time than a newly arrived copy of Lancet and a recently published biography (yes, yet another) of Lord Nelson. Intrigued by Holmes’s invitation, he accepted readily with anticipation. Holmes was the most unsociable of men, a misanthrope to the very core; he had few close friends, exhibited a disinclination to acquire new ones, and seldom went anywhere except upon matters of a professional nature. For him to suggest an evening out was such a rare event that this in itself piqued Watson’s curiosity. That the invitation held the promise of the unfamiliar and even the exotic made it all the more appealing.
It may have been that because Holmes had spent the past eighteen hours in bed recovering from his nonstop exertions of the previous several days he simply needed to get out of doors, but Watson did not think so. Holmes was too wrapped up in this case to be interested in idle amusements at the moment. Watson suspected there was more to it than that.
“Where are we off to, then?” he asked Holmes once the two of them, resplendent in evening dress, were seated in a phaeton a short while later. But Holmes was not very forthcoming. Indeed, he was being positively mysterious, not even giving the cabby the full address of their destination, only the name of the street, one with which Watson was not familiar.
“Oh, you will see,” Holmes replied, refusing to say anything more.
Watson did not press him. Holmes enjoyed creating little mysteries when he had none to solve and was in a pawky, playful mood, and Watson knew that any effort to draw him out would not only be unavailing but would simply play into Holmes’s hands and give him the opportunity to heighten the mystery. He would have his little games, would Sherlock Holmes.
When they arrived at their destination not long after, Watson was surprised to find that it was a rather quiet, nondescript street in Chelsea, one of upper-middle-class single-family homes, affluent but modestly so, unexceptional in the extreme — a street like hundreds of others to be found in London with nothing whatsoever to distinguish it or set it apart.
“What is this?” asked Watson as he paid the fare. “Is this your idea of a night on the town?”
But Holmes would reveal nothing. He merely smiled enigmatically. “Come,” was all that he said, taking him by the arm and steering him down the street.
“Really, Holmes. You try my patience sometimes. Surely you can tell me where we are going. Broaden my horizons indeed! I shan’t move another step until you stop this childish nonsense and at least a give me a clue.”
Holmes chuckled as he gently coaxed him along. “A clue, is it? Well, let me think, let me think. We are going,” he said finally, “to the most fashionable address in London. Is that clue enough?”
“What nonsense. Marlborough House is the most fashionable address in London,” Watson responded with some irritation, “and I do not recall being invited by the Prince of Wales to attend him there. And besides, we are most definitely in the wrong part of town.”
Holmes chuckled again. In the meantime he had managed to steer Watson around a corner into another, smaller street — a mews, really — one that was even more ordinary and quieter than the first.
“I will tell you only that things are not always what they seem, and that behind the closed doors of unpretentious, bourgeois edifices can sometimes be found a Pandora’s box of surprises. Ah, here we are, I think.”
Watson took in his surroundings with a glance. “Fashionable address indeed!” he muttered. “Place looks like it was a stable, if you ask me.”
Before them stood an ordinary green-painted door, set into the facade of a narrow, two-story brick building that indeed looked as if it could have been a coach house at one time, except that where the wide stable doors once stood was now an expanse of brick obviously newer than that of the rest of the small structure. The windows on the upper story were dark, or at least heavily draped, and the place looked totally unoccupied. Had it not been for a low buzz of voices and laughter that wafted through the door as they approached it, Watson would have sworn the building was empty.
That impression was further dispelled when the door was opened in response to Holmes rapping upon it with the knob of his stick. Out poured a flood of light and a torrent of excited chatter and raucous laughter. They not so much entered the place as were sucked into it, as if the opening of the door had created a pressure vacuum, drawing them in with a sudden rush of air that left Watson dazed and all but breathless.
In sharp contrast to the quiet street, the hou
se they now entered (for it was indeed someone’s private house), was noisy in the extreme. They were ushered into a crowded vestibule by a bewigged and powdered Negro boy servant in gorgeous livery of plum velvet, who took their sticks and outer garments — with some difficulty because of the crush — but made no effort to take their names, which Watson considered most peculiar. Glancing around him, Watson made a quick visual survey of the other guests. All of them were men curiously; there was not a woman to be seen. All of them were extremely well dressed, some even foppishly so, and all of them were engaged in furious, animated, nonstop conversation — so deeply engaged that not one had turned to take note of the newcomers to their midst, as if afraid that even a brief pause in what they were saying would result in a lost opportunity. The wonder of it all was that no one seemed to be listening, only talking: everyone at once, and everyone loudly, passionately, and unceasingly.
Through the vestibule was a room paneled in a rich dark wood, a heavy crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling. It, too, was crowded from one wall to the other with lavishly dressed young men, and some not so young, their chatter and laughter causing a din that was unholy. Through this chamber was yet another, much larger room, opulently decorated in brocade and red velvet, as heavily crowded, if not more so, than the room they had just passed through. The house was considerably larger, or at least deeper, than Watson had suspected, and if it gave the appearance of a coach house from the outside, on the inside it had the appearance of something out of the Arabian Nights.
Watson had to almost shout to make himself heard. “What is this place, Holmes? Some sort of a private club?”
Holmes shot him a sidelong glance. “One may call it that,” he said unrevealingly.
“Who are all these people?”
“These, my dear fellow, are the molders of fashion and taste, and this place, as you so gauchely refer to it, is the very center of Aestheticism.”
“Of what?” Because of the noise all around them, Watson did not hear the word.
“Aestheticism, old chap. Nincompoopiana is a word others have used to describe it,” replied Holmes with a slight smile. “It rather fits, don’t you think?”
A waiter slipped artfully through the crush with a tray in hand and paused briefly to allow them to help themselves to tall tulip-shaped glasses of champagne. Watson sipped at his while guardedly surveying the room from beneath lowered brows.
“They are all fops,” he announced out of the corner of his mouth. “Fops and exquisites and I don’t know what!”
“That is very true and most perceptive of you,” replied Holmes in a low voice, “though I might suggest it would be prudent not to share your discovery with any of them. They might take umbrage at your characterizing them in that manner. But then again, perhaps not.”
Watson let his gaze travel around the room. There was really no other way to characterize them, for they looked like caricatures out of Punch or Vanity Fair: Their evening dress, though obviously expensively made, was not the product of any conventional tailor. Their waistcoats were of velvet, and their coats were severely cut with wide satin lapels, and were set off with shocking flashes of color worn in the form of cravats and breastpocket handkerchiefs: Scarlet and bright green and blue and violet, and even some hues that Watson could put no name to. Some were wearing coats made of velvet or watered silk, and one or two were in satin knee breeches. The hair on most of the men in the room had been allowed to grow long, excessively long; they were not so much barbered as, well, coiffed, it seemed to Watson, who sniffed disdainfully once having reached that conclusion. And their conversation was accompanied by elaborate gestures, grand gestures: Waves of the hands and little flicks of the wrists and supercilious tosses of their heads, as if each one of them was vying to outdo his neighbor in outlandish statement and elaborate show.
A loud burst of laughter caught his attention, and he turned toward the source of it, a small crowd surrounding a young man seated regally on top of a grand piano in a corner of the room, one leg crossed over the other. He was a striking individual, one who would have attracted attention in any room: Dark, dreamy eyes, a heavy chin and full sensuous mouth, the whole of it framed by luxuriant waves of dark hair that reached his shoulders. He was even more flamboyantly dressed, if possible, than those who surrounded him, and had a long onyx cigarette holder in his hand, which he wielded rather than held, using it alternately as a wand, a baton, and a scepter.
“That,” said Sherlock Holmes, “is the reason for this gathering: Mr. Oscar Wilde.”
“Oh?” replied Watson disinterestedly. Then: “Oh!”
“You have heard of him, I presume.”
Watson was now peering intently at the dandified figure across the room, staring unabashedly. “Of course I have heard of him! I do read some of the more stylish magazines on occasion, though I can’t say they hold much interest for me. So that’s him, eh?”
The foremost proponent of “beauty for beauty’s sake,” Wilde in a few short years had managed to take fashionable London by storm, causing a revolution in the world of beaux arts and belles lettres with his novel ideas, eccentric dress, and outrageous utterances and behavior. “Only Beauty Brings Salvation” was his ethic. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Wilde’s.67
They edged their way closer into the growing crowd surrounding the notorious young man, who was dressed in a velvet coat edged with braid, knee breeches, black silk stockings, and a large, flowing cravat of emerald green. He was gesturing languidly with his cigarette holder as he spoke, obviously holding his audience enthralled.
“A really well-made buttonhole,” he was saying dramatically to those who surrounded him, “is the only link between Art and Nature. For what is Nature? Nature is no great mother who has borne us. She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life.”
The crowd of young men around him seemed to think this was both profound and witty, for they greeted the statement with oohs and aahs, as if a pearl of great wisdom had been cast among them. One young dandy sitting cross-legged on the floor at Wilde’s feet shook his head of golden curls with mock disdain and responded loudly in an exaggerated Oxford accent: “You are quoting yourself again, Oscar dear!”
The crowd laughed gaily.
Wilde considered the young man with a condescending look, but one that did not lack good humor. “Who, I ask you, has a better right, Dicky dear?”
The burst of laughter that greeted this remark was even louder than the one before.
Someone else called out: “What was it James Whistler said of one of your quotations, Oscar? ‘A poor thing, but for once one of his own?’”
More laughter.
“Yes,” someone else cried. “That’s when he accused you of having no more sense of a painting than of the fit of a coat. He said that you had the courage of the opinions of others.”
“Yaas,” replied Wilde with a small smile, “and I retorted that ‘With our James, vulgarity begins at home and should be allowed to stay there.’ But I was much kinder to him than he was to me. I publicly praised him as being one of the very greatest masters of painting, adding, ‘In this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs.’”
The laughter that greeted this remark was unrestrained.
“Good Lord,” remarked Watson under his breath. He turned to make some comment to Holmes, but Holmes was not there. He had simply vanished.
Watson wandered around the crowded room, champagne glass in hand, threading his way through the clusters of animated, intense, bored-looking young men in a vain effort to find him. He made a complete circuit of the room twice without having any luck, and then found himself in an outer hallway containing a staircase to the upper floor. The hallway was lined with some sort of rich flocked wallcovering and hung with several paintings in the new impressionistic style, which he did not find to his taste. Carefully, he picked his way up the flight of stairs, doing his best to avoid stepping on the young men seated upon them, to the upper
floor, where more people were milling about. A corridor with closed doors on either side led toward the rear of the house. Taking the chance that Holmes would be found behind one of the doors, Watson tapped on the first that he came to and stuck his head in. It turned out to be a lavishly furnished bedroom, dimly lit and apparently empty. A large, canopied bed, heavy draperies surrounding it, occupied the center of the room. A gas lamp with a shade of leaded Tiffany glass was the only source of illumination.
Watson started to withdraw when the sound of muffled laughter from the bed brought him up short. In the dim light of the room he had not noticed the two figures lying entwined on the coverlet.
“Well, just don’t stand there, lovey,” said a mincing voice. “Either leave the way you came or join us, why don’t you?”
Watson could not have been more shocked. Turning beet-red, he made a hasty retreat, slamming the door shut and bolting for the stairs. All he wanted now was to leave this place as quickly as possible, furious that he had ever allowed himself to be brought here. And why did Holmes want to come to begin with?
Hastily, he tripped his way down the stairs, badly shaken, muttering under his breath, and rudely pushing his way through the throngs without a word of apology. Once again on the lower level, he began his search anew, making a circuit of all the rooms. Still no Holmes.
Now, beside himself with anger, Watson had all but made up his mind to depart alone, leaving Holmes to his own devices, when he finally spotted him across the room, engaged in deep conversation with a tall, thin, narrow-shouldered young man in a full red beard, dressed incongruously, considering the setting, in a simple country suit of Irish tweed.
“Ah, there you are, old fellow,” Holmes greeted him cheerily. “I was wondering where you had gone off to. Come meet Mr. Shaw.”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors Page 22