“You have no trust in God,” she said sadly, hanging her head. “God knows how and when to put an end to evil deeds.”
“I don’t know about God. And I cannot be an impartial observer. In my view, that is the worst sin of all. No more, Angelina, I’ve decided.”
Erast Petrovich spoke to Masa in Japanese: “Take him out into the yard.”
“Master, you have never killed an unarmed man before,” his servant replied agitatedly in the same language. “You will suffer. And the mistress will be angry. I will do it myself.”
“That will not change anything. And the fact that he is unarmed makes no difference. To hold a duel would be mere showmanship. I should kill him just as easily even if he were armed. Let us do without any cheap theatrics.”
When Masa and Fandorin took the condemned man by the elbows to lead him out into the yard, Angelina cried out: “Erast, for my sake, for our sake!”
The Decorator glanced back with a smile: “My lady, you are a picture of beauty, but I assure you that on the table, surrounded by china plates, you would be even more beautiful.”
Angelina squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears, but she still heard the sound of the shot in the yard—dry and short, almost indistinguishable against the roaring of the firecrackers and the rockets flying into the starry sky.
Erast Petrovich came back alone. He stood in the doorway and wiped the sweat from his brow. His teeth chattered as he said: “Do you know what he whispered? ‘Oh Lord, what happiness.’ ”
They stayed like that for a long time: Angelina sitting with her eyes closed, the tears flowing out from under her eyelids; Fandorin wanting to go to her, but afraid.
Finally she stood up. She walked up to him, put her arms round him and kissed him passionately several times—on the forehead, on the eyes, on the lips.
“I’m going away, Erast Petrovich; remember me kindly.”
“Angelina…” The Court Counsellor’s face, already pale, turned ashen grey. “Surely not because of that vampire, that monster…”
“I’m a hindrance to you; I divert you from your own path,” she interrupted, not listening to him. “The sisters have been asking me to join them for a long time now, at the Boris and Gleb Convent. It is what I should have done from the very beginning, when my father passed away. And I have grown weak with you. I wanted a holiday. But that is what holidays are like: they don’t last for long. I shall watch over you from a distance. And pray to God for you. Follow the promptings of your own soul, and if something goes wrong, don’t be afraid: I will make amends through prayer.”
“You can’t go into a c-convent,” Fandorin said rapidly, almost incoherently. “You’re not like them; you’re so vital and passionate. You won’t be able to stand it. And without you, I won’t be able to go on.”
“You will; you’re strong. It’s hard for you with me. It will be easier without me…And as for me being vital and passionate the sisters are just the same. God has no need of cold people. Forgive me, goodbye. I have known for a long time we should not be together.”
Erast Petrovich stood in silent confusion, sensing that there were no arguments that could make her alter her decision. And Angelina was silent too, gently stroking his cheek and his grey temple.
Out of the night, from the dark streets, so out of tune with this farewell, there came the incessant pealing of the Easter bells.
“It’s all right, Erast Petrovich,” said Angelina. “It’s all right. Do you hear? Christ is risen.”
Guardian Angel
GWENDOLYN FRAME
Gwendolyn Frame is the pseudonym of an American graphic designer who has published two books, both short story collections featuring Sherlock Holmes. The first, At the Mercy of the Mind: A Journey into the Depths of Sherlock Holmes (2011), contains one hundred short-short stories, including tales of Holmes’s infancy, childhood, and teenage years; stories involving Professor Moriarty; depictions of events from the days leading up to Reichenbach Falls to the Great Hiatus, to Holmes’s return; pieces involving the Baker Street Irregulars; and tales of World War I.
Her second book, Sherlock Holmes: Have Yourself a Chaotic Little Christmas (2012), is a response to a Christmas advent challenge in which the author wrote stories prompted by fellow Sherlockians, including tales featuring graveyard picnics, vampires, Mycroft, Professor Moriarty, the twelve days of Christmas, and, of course, Jack the Ripper.
Frame prefers to retain her anonymity, saying only that she is a prolific writer about Holmes, but that “most of her work is unfinished and clamoring for her attention.”
“Guardian Angel” was first published in Sherlock Holmes: Have Yourself a Chaotic Little Christmas (London, MX Publishing, 2012).
GUARDIAN ANGEL
Gwendolyn Frame
She did not walk so much as she flitted from lighted window to lamppost to lighted window. No lamp could pierce far into a London Particular, but she took what help she could get. Jemima had begged her to stay the night, but Mary wanted—needed—to get home.
For Jemima’s sake, she could visit Whitechapel, but she drew the line at staying the night.
She picked up her old skirts as she trod through a small stream on the kerb, forcing herself not to think about what she was stepping in. Whenever she came here to visit her old friend, she wore old, ragged clothes so as to blend in with the inhabitants of London’s most notorious district. Were she to wear clothes marking her out as a member of the middle class, she had no doubt that she would be assaulted, whether for her money or for other things.
—
John sighed as he clasped his Gladstone closed and turned to bid his patient farewell. There wasn’t a blessed thing to be seen out the window. He loathed Particulars—the damp chill seeped past cloth and skin and settled into the damaged bones in his left shoulder and right thigh. From a purely practical standpoint, London was a foolish place for an injured war veteran to make a home, and yet, after seven years, he could not dream of leaving.
He opened the door and stepped out into the atmospheric pea soup.
—
Mary heard footsteps behind her for a mere four seconds before she was pulled back by her arm. She screamed and whirled on her attacker, her free hand reaching for the derringer John insisted she carry on her at all times. The man—he was a man, but she could tell nothing beyond that—reached for her left arm as he twisted her right one. Screaming again (dear God in heaven, let someone hear!), she tried to aim the gun at the man.
His hand wrapped around her left wrist, and they struggled for the derringer. Mary squeezed the trigger.
The little bullet went wide and might have struck a lamppost—she couldn’t be sure. His hand constricted around her wrist, and she cried out in pain. He pulled her to him with her captive arm and, irresistibly, twisted her left arm around behind her to join the other. She screamed again as she was jerked back against him, the pain in her arms white-hot and blinding and leaving her unable to struggle.
“Now, now, my pretty,” her attacker whispered in her ear. “Just you relax now.”
She whimpered in pain, hot tears rolling down her face.
“Ah, you are a spirited one, aren’t you? Just relax, and this shall be quick.”
He began to drag her away, and she found she could toss in his grip. “No! No! No! No…” But he was much stronger, and she soon felt the cold iron of a lamppost against her back as her arms were pulled around it.
“Shh, shh.” She could just make out the glint of the man’s teeth, feeling rather than seeing his grin as he bound her forearms roughly to the post. “I’m not worried about being overheard, mind you, thanks to this rum fog, but I don’t see the sense in putting up a fuss.”
“Let me go!” Mary half-screamed, half-sobbed, jerking away from her captor. “Let me go!”
“Shh, dearie, shh. None of that, now, or I shall have to be rough with you, see?”
Her arms bound securely to the post, he sidled around in front of her and p
ut his hands on his hips, whistling in surprise. “Well, now, seems I caught me a lady.” She caught the flash of his teeth again. “And here I thought I was getting me a dollymop.”
“Don’t, please, don’t,” Mary pleaded. “I can give you money—anything. Just please don’t—”
But her pleas were muffled by lips forcefully covering her own, eliciting whimpers deep in her throat. Then his body was pressed up against hers once more, sending thrills of terror through her. She writhed beneath him, but he pressed her tightly against the lamppost, his lips still locked around hers and his hands busy with her clothes.
Father in Heaven, if ever You loved me, help me now!
—
John was trudging a bit less than gamely through the fog when he heard a wail that stopped him and chilled him to the bone. He knew that kind of wail. Then the woman—for female the voice was—screamed.
He took off running, adrenaline compensating for the debilitating ache spreading through his bad leg. He drew his revolver as the woman screamed again, and he would have sworn the voice sounded familiar. Please, dear Lord, let me arrive on time.
He ran straight into someone, bowling them over. The person swore and shoved him away, and John just noticed that the person, a man, was only half-clothed. He took only a split-second to see that, because his gaze was immediately drawn to the figure sagging against a lamppost, bound and even less clothed than the man, blouse, jacket, and skirt hanging in rags about her.
She looked up, and her expression of terror changed instantly to one of shocked relief. “John!”
Good heavens…“Mary.”
With a snarl, the man at his feet leapt up and tackled him. Mary screamed again. Broader than his assailant, John stumbled but stood his ground, attempting to bring his Adams to bear. Metal gleamed dully in the lamplight, and John saw white as his bad shoulder erupted in a blaze of agony.
“JOHN!”
He squeezed the trigger, the shot shattering the air around them. The other man howled and staggered back towards Mary, the metal gleaming again. Desperate fury driving him, John leapt at the other man. Mary screamed again as they fell into the road.
They struggled for the gun, and John felt the other’s finger tighten around the trigger. The revolver went off, knocking them both down again, but the shot went wide, mercifully missing not only John but Mary as well. Then the man was struggling just to get out of John’s grip. Both men were strong, but both were hurt, and John felt the man break free. He staggered after the man, but he was gone, vanished into the fog that had disgorged him.
Panting, John turned to Mary…And fervently wished that he could have killed that…that monster…
A scarlet line ran from Mary’s right collarbone down her upper arm. John’s rugby tackle must have knocked the knife off-course, keeping it from slashing across her throat.
The Ripper.
“Mary,” he pushed out in a croak as he returned to her and fished out his knife to cut her loose.
“John!” she sobbed. “Oh, thank God you were here!”
“Shh, Mary, you are going to be all right,” he soothed as he worked at the ropes. “Why on earth were you here, and dressed like this?”
“F-friend,” Mary choked out. “Lives here. C-clothes to k-keep me from b-being a t-target…”
John understood that much, but why the devil was she out alone in Whitechapel at night in the middle of a Particular? “Mary, haven’t you been reading the papers? The stories about the Ripper? That he targets prostitutes in Whitechapel?” He didn’t mean to sound harsh, but the aftershock and the horror of the thing put an edge in his voice sharp enough to cut a person on.
“D-didn’t th-think…” She broke down completely, and John could not fault her at all for it. He shuddered convulsively to think of what would have happened had he not arrived in time.
The newspapers would have had another sensational episode to report, Scotland Yard another murder on their hands, and the Ripper another tally to his bloody score. Mrs. Forrester would have lost a daughter, the Forrester children not so much a governess as an older sister, and John the only woman he had ever really loved.
A terrible little part of his mind wondered if Holmes would have even cared.
Of course, he would not have cared, a nasty voice hissed.
He bloody well would have, John Hamish Watson, retorted another voice, and he would have because he cares about you, no matter the depths to which he sinks.
The last of the rope fell away, allowing Mary to sink gratefully into his embrace. “Oh, John,” she sobbed.
He wrapped her shawl around her partially exposed torso before carefully lifting her into his arms, mindful of his injured shoulder. It screamed in protest, but he ignored it, taking one step forward, then another. He knew he could ignore it only for so long—they had to get to a better part of town, and quickly.
—
Mary felt as if she was drowning in shame. She was ashamed of her foolishness, ashamed that her fiancé must see her exposed, ashamed that he had to rescue her at all, ashamed that she could not stop herself from sobbing like a little girl. And yet…
And yet she saw the grim determination in John’s tense features, and she suddenly felt as if she was in the presence of a guardian angel.
—
It was late in the morning when at last Watson returned home from his work in Whitechapel. Holmes had a greeting poised upon his lips when Watson staggered through the sitting room door, clothes torn, mudded, and blood-soaked, the stain radiating from his bad shoulder. “My dear Watson!” Holmes cried, leaping to his feet from the settee.
Watson looked up from returning his revolver to his desk, fatigue, residual anger, and pain dimming his hazel eyes and turning them cognac brown. “Holmes,” he began, his voice as dull as his eyes. “I beg you not to deduce what has happened.”
“Watson, you are asking the impossible,” Holmes murmured. You have been in a fight in Whitechapel—I know that mud—and you were not the only injured party. You smell of disinfectant—there was a victim; you were defending them. That jagged hole in your clothes was clearly made by a knife.
Even Lestrade could have put the clues together, though Holmes did not dare to do so aloud.
“Holmes. Please.” Those expressive eyes were certainly a force to be reckoned with; Holmes merely sighed and shook his head.
“At least tell me that you’ve had the shoulder tended to.”
“Yes.” The relief in Watson’s voice was profound.
“Very well, old man.” Holmes forced levity into his tone, for the doctor’s sake. “I do hope that you plan on going to bed soon; you look dreadful.”
Watson shook his head in turn and shot Holmes a grateful smile before leaving the room. Holmes frowned contemplatively and turned to retrieve his cherrywood from the pipe rack. Scotland Yard had not yet approached him regarding the Ripper Case—Lestrade and Gregson, despite multiple protests, were not allowed to investigate, either. The powers that be apparently deemed Inspectors Abberline, Moore, and Andrews to be enough to handle the case. Ha. Their incompetence was not even amusing. But…
But Watson had now been dragged into this sordid affair.
And not only dragged, but stabbed, right in the shoulder that had cast him out of the army in the first place.
Holmes puffed furiously at his pipe, his hand clenching around the bowl. Whatever this monster called himself—Saucy Jack, Jack the Ripper—he would not continue his reign of terror for long. He was about to find out just how very great a mistake it was to injure the man Sherlock Holmes called “friend.”
In the Slaughteryard
ANONYMOUS
As awful as the dark streets of Whitechapel were, as filthy and foul-smelling as the worst alley in the East End, as frightening as a fog so thick that it was impossible to know whose footsteps were approaching from behind, all paled when compared with the premises of Melmoth Brothers and the grotesque business that it conducted. It is here, described
as a devil’s kitchen by a patrolling constable, that cat food is made from an assortment of disgusting ingredients, and glue is made from dead horses, sending a stench into the night air that can be handled only by those with the strongest stomachs.
It is to this abattoir that a member of the Adventurers’ Club ventures during the scourge of Jack the Ripper and, after a close call outside its gates, relishes telling the tale to the other members of the club. It is one adventure in a very rare book that claims to have been written by six different anonymous authors but is almost certainly the work of a single person who is able to wonderfully capture the essence of hopelessly dark and chilling places.
“In the Slaughteryard” was first published in The Adventures of the Adventurers’ Club: A Shocker in Six Shocks, by Five Men and a Woman, etc. (London, Gardner & Co., 1890). One can only wonder what the “etc.” in the byline represents.
IN THE SLAUGHTERYARD
Anonymous
“You seem to have had a lively time of it, Jeaffreson; at all events you’ve got something to show for your night’s adventure,” said the President of the Adventurers’ Club, pointing to the bandaged hand of Mr. Horace Jeaffreson.
“Yes,” replied that gentleman, “I’ve got something to remember last night by; but I’ve got something more to show than this bandaged hand that you all stare at so curiously.” And then Horace Jeaffreson rose, drew himself up to his full height of six feet one, and exhibited the left side of his closely-buttoned, well-fitting frock-coat. “I should like you to notice that,” he said, pointing to a straight, clean cut in the cloth, just on a level with the region of the heart. “When you’ve heard what I’ve got to tell, you’ll acknowledge that I had a pretty narrow squeak of it last night; three inches more, and it would have been all up with H. J. I don’t regret it a bit, because I believe that I have been the means of ridding the world of a monster. Time alone will prove whether my supposition is correct,” and then Mr. Horace Jeaffreson shuddered. “Before I begin the history of my adventures, there are two objects that I must submit to your inspection; they are in that little parcel that I have laid upon the mantelpiece. Perhaps as my left hand is disabled, you won’t mind undoing the parcel, Mr. President.”
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper Page 59