Then, of course, I realised what I was seeing. Something in my sub-consciousness had already registered the scratched paint around the bolt and thought that it was odd. Clearly, the hand that guided the hook was more than used to pulling back the lovely Mrs Amelia Shaw's scullery bolt, entering the house and making free before pushing the lock to with a reverse action once he was back outside. There was nothing clever about it; dextrous, for sure, but nothing clever. But, even as I mused, the wire took hold, the bolt came back, the door handle turned and I trotted back into the parlour opposite as silently as I could, positioning myself where I could see into the hall through the gap of the open door.
I shouldn't have been surprised. The beefy frame of Albert Gutteridge soon came in sight, togged-up for a run in vest and long drawers with light rubber plimsolls below. I could just see him go to the rack of coats that hung in the hall and with practised ease run his hand along the shelf above, retrieve something that I couldn't make out and then turn back towards the interior of the house. But, just before he stepped off, he paused, took my coat off the hook, looked at it suspiciously before replacing it and then grabbed my old, soft cap. This he turned in his hands a number of times before, damn him, trying it on for size. It was too small, but this didn't stop him from sniffing it before hanging it up and turning back to his original task, his face a mass of confused anger.
Now, you must remember that I had no idea that Gutteridge was about to break and enter. I'd made no plan at all beyond hoping to watch him undetected and to find out what on earth it was that he was about. I suppose that I'd expected him to go upstairs to the bedroom and my mind was just reviewing all the evidence he'd find there of my extended stay when the bloody man turned sharp right into the parlour, leaving me no more than a fraction of a second to duck down behind the settee. At first I froze in horror, quite expecting him to hear my hammering heart and already wondering what excuse I could offer for my pyjama'd presence when, peeping round the side, I watched him stoop over one of those little veneered chests that so many of the furniture shops of a certain type now stock. You know the sort, they look good at a distance, but are just clap-board and lacquer and he was soon fiddling with the key that he'd found in the hall a few minutes ago before opening the door and pulling out a parcel of grease-proof paper.
I couldn't see what was in the bundle at all until Gutteridge stood up and, in the process, fumbled his burden. Two bright steel blades caught the morning light as they fell onto the carpet: knives.
"Goddammit to hell," I heard him mutter as he bent to pick them up, but then he stopped in mid movement, his hand reaching, but his head up and turning, rather like a hound trying to catch a scent. He was an age - at least, it felt like it to me - his stiff moustache going this way and that like a porcupine's arse, until he very gently put the weapons down and stood up straight before twisting round and taking two paces towards my hiding place. He'd sensed me, smelt the same smell as my coat and hat, I suppose, or just detected my body warmth. Some people are amazingly sensitive to that sort of thing, you know, and it was clear to me that things might turn very nasty indeed.
"Good morning to you, Mr Gutteridge." I stood like a ramrod, confronting him across the furniture - I guessed that a bold approach was my only one.
"Doctor Watson," he started, clearly bemused, his mouth dropping open with surprise - although that didn't last long. "Why, you dirty stoat. I knew she'd been getting tupped. I wondered what you'd been up to when I saw you on me early morning run after Lincoln had given you a towelling, but I didn't think you had it in you."
"You can save that, Gutteridge." I hoped that an imperious tone might cow him. "You've heard that the police have found the murder weapon, then? A throwing knife just like those on the floor in front of you. Now, I don't know whether such things come in sets, but I'll wager they do and I'll also wager that one of them's missing and that you've come here to recover and dispose of a vital clue that would tie you right well to the murder of Ezekial Shaw." I might as well have been talking to myself for all the notice he took.
"You've been galloping my Amelia, have you Doctor bloody Watson? Why did you have to get involved with her? Why couldn't you keep your trousers on and let that soldier bloke do the dirty work? Now I'm going to teach you to keep your hands to yourself." And with one flick, he'd chucked the sofa across the room where it lay obstructing the doorway, yet clearing a space in the middle. "Right, I'll give you a sporting chance seeing as how you fancy yourself in the ring. Well, this is the ring, now," he said, sweeping his hand about the room. "Get your dressing gown off, get here and put your dandies up. Me and you is going to fight for her - a fight to the very death and the one still standing gets to keep her. Agree the terms? Bollocks to you if you don't, get your fists up." And with that began a few minutes for which I would had willingly swapped every horrid moment of Maiwand.
It was clear to me that the date was more than a coincidence. As his first fist broke my nose and sent me crashing into the fire place, I believed that Charles and I would both die on the same day. I tried to defend myself, but as a flurry of bare knuckled blows bruised my ribs and knocked the breath out of me, I began to see the fatal symmetry of what was about to happen.
"Try my 'Bendigo' for size!" He advanced on me as I pulled myself up and just managed to side-step a great roundhouse of a right hook.
"Ha, too damn quick, eh? This'll slow you." But to my great credit, I dodged a right and left, bounced off the arm of a sitting chair and caught him a fair crack on the right ear. Even in my daze, I was delighted with it - though it only seemed to upset him more.
"You cheeky rogue, I'll not have that. Watch how Ben Caunt would have done it - if your eyes are still working, that is," and he pranced about like an old-style champion, fists milling, knuckles leading, preparing himself for the coup-de-grace. But even as my fate came darting towards me I realised why he seemed so difficult to counter - he was southpaw.
The realisation came as suddenly as the next blow. I parried his first right jab, took the next one harmlessly on the shoulder and would have been better placed to resist the big left hook had I not collided with the mantel piece above the fire. I was pinned by the damn thing, but even as his left smacked between my eyes and sent me crashing into the corner of the room, part of the puzzle began to clear for it was his left that was his master hand and Ezekial Shaw had been stabbed by a right-hander. Now, when it comes to stabbing or thumping, you use your stronger hand for the heavy work: Gutteridge hadn't murdered Shaw. But that, of course, was cold comfort, for he seemed to be making every effort to honour his word and to murder me instead.
"This is how it used to be done, Doctor, remember?" I thought those were the last words I was going to hear as his plimsolled feet stamped on my head interspersed with his iron fists cracking into my cheeks and lips. He was in a killing frenzy, a frenzy from which I only expected to emerge when I stood next to my poor dead brother Charles in Purgatory. But, just as I was losing consciousness, just as I was hoping for a merciful release, the pounding stopped and through the mist and singing in my ears, another sound emerged. It was a shrill voice, a hating voice, an Irish voice that was accompanied by violent crashing as bodies fell and limbs flailed.
Now, I couldn't really give a coherent account of the next few minutes even when I was asked to later on in the Old Bailey. All I knew as I sat up in my battered, half-conscious state was that Amelia was lapped across Gutteridge's fallen form; all I could see was her hand rising and falling holding a long, thin knife blade that she was digging time and again into the poor man's vitals. And all I could hear was a grunted, rhythmic, "leave my jewel of a man alone, you monster!" as the furious attack made blood splash around the walls.
Chapter 7, Revelation.
It had all the charm of one of those hospital mortuaries in which I'd spent so much time when I was a dresser. Vast, cold, silent corridors, gas lights turned low and the paint the colour of January I knew that behind each locked door humani
ty breathed but, I suspected that they all slept unnaturally long hours, trying to pass the time, the empty time of which they had so much. The warder was the same. She said not a word and her face was as icy as the walls, only her iron-shod shoes clicked on the cold stone floor in time to the jangling of her keys. I was let into a tiny cell, told to sit and to wait - which I did, staring at the miniature, barred window and the night outside. Had it really come to this?
Finally, a key rasped in the other door in the cell, and another black-clad screw, her hard little hat pulled low, her silver buttons and collar numbers providing the only colour on an otherwise wan canvas.
"Doctor Watson, sir?" She consulted a chit in front of her. "To visit W357 Prisoner Shaw? I'll get her, sir, you can only have ten minutes though, I'm afraid. "
Then another wait until the room lit up. It lit with a strength and beauty that no prison weeds could subdue. In fact she looked shockingly good in a rough dress and pinafore, her hair pulled back yet somehow with a dab of powder and rouge that some kind soul must have allowed her.
"You poor, wee man." She seemed more shocked by my bruises and plasters than I was by her circumstances. "I taught him not to lay his hands on you, didn't I? At least he's still alive, though, more than my poor Ezekial," Amelia said, her voice as level and normal as if we were taking tea together.
"Aye, he lives, but only due to my man Bowler pulling you off him." I'd been too faint to take in all the details, but I was aware that Bowler had burst into the parlour and pinioned her, stopping Amelia from turning the place into an utter charnal house before I passed out.
"Ha, he's a brave man, so he is. I wouldn't like to tackle Amelia Comiskey when the passions are upon her - she's the girl who laid the twice champion of England low, you know." She stared at me, "And all for love, my jewel; I carved both Ezekial and Albert for love. I wasn't going to have my husband, the first man I truly loved, in the arms of some trollop. And I wasn't going to have the man I hoped would be the last one I loved beaten to death by some gouger. I know it hasn’t been long, John, but I love you with all my heart and as the trapdoor opens you’ll be the last thing I think about."
It would have taken a far harder man than I am not to be moved by her last sentence. We'd known each other less than a month and in different circumstances I might have been able to detach myself from her devotion. If it had all been like it usually was, I'd have sheered off as I'd done so many times before when love was declared, no matter how charming or expert the woman had been. But, damn me, this woman’s love for the honest Dr John Watson MD had placed her on the gallows. Was there any wonder that I could hardly listen as she pieced together the jigsaw of the last few months?
I was all but passing out with sadness when she told me how she'd over-boiled one night and followed her husband to his assignation with Kitty Vavasour. She'd taken one of the throwing knives that still hung about Gutteridge's office as much to threaten Shaw rather than kill him, hoping to confront and frighten him and then bring him to his senses, but he'd just laughed at her when she faced him in the park, laughed and then turned away. She told me how she'd nearly stabbed the sailor in Liverpool before Gutterdige's intervention and that letting the life blood out of her husband had been the most natural thing in the world because, "I'm just like that about love and loyalty and things." I felt so miserable that her feral single-mindedness hardly registered.
Anyway, I'll put words in her mouth and sum things up as accurately as my destitution lets me. After the murder, she'd then run back to the gallant Albert - her "wee pet dog" as she described him - who at first had been utterly dumbstruck. Whilst he'd certainly wanted Amelia to leave Ezekial and had been prepared to provide the evidence to make it happen, he'd not expected this. I swore she chuckled when she told me, "Why, he knew I had a temper on me - I'd slapped him about often enough. Why'd he tell me if he didn't want me to do something about it, hey?" Then Albert had sat down and thought hard, using Amelia as his confederate throughout. He knew what an uproar there would be when the defending champion of England was murdered just before a fight, the preparations for which had been swamping every tu'penny rag for months. He knew what interest there would be if the nation's favourite Jezebel had even a smidgen of suspicion levelled at her, for she attracted public outrage and delight in equal measure. He knew that even this tigress would confess sooner or later under the intense pressure. He knew what a dangerous, blood-stained beserker Colonel James Moriarty could be. And he also knew that he'd need a plan so eye-catching that Scotland Yard would be forced to act, relieved that a culprit other than the famous trainer of the champion of all England had at last come to light.
So, Gutteridge had decided to make a dummy of Moriarty. It seemed that Albert had stumbled upon the Colonel one night when trying to track Ezekial Shaw to Kitty Vavasour's. He had no idea that Kitty was "patting two stallions" (as Amelia put it) and was quite shocked when Moriarty had turned on him with his cane thinking that Albert was a snooping scribbler. Even the great bruiser had taken to his heels at the sight of the choleric Colonel - a sensible move, if you ask me - and, after some pretty simple inquiries had soon found out who he was. Weeks passed and whilst some of the press bought the notion of a footpad with a knife, others pointed at Gutteridge and so he decided to bring the matter to a conclusion. He reasoned that if he could get Moriarty to beat the great Sherlock Holmes to death, then a hurricane of newsprint would be unleashed, the police would pounce, Moriarty would swing, the public would have had their revenge for the murder of their sporting hero and, although Amelia had never agreed with it, she would fall into his arms like a ripe peach, overcome with gratitude for her deliverance. At least, that was his plan.
The condemned woman went on to say that Gutteridge had been furious when Holmes had refused the case but that she had told him that the fatal thrashing of his eminent lieutenant would have almost as electric an effect upon both the press and the police. Should I have been flattered? But things had become even more complicated for Gutteridge. He had no idea that both Bowler and I had served in Afghanistan and he'd been in mental turmoil over the fact that Moriarty might not be savage enough to overcome me - how I wish that had been the case. However, my suffering at the hands of Lincoln had gone some way to re-assuring him of my weediness but, according to Amelia, his glee had been short lived when Gutteridge began to suspect Amelia's incontinence and then spotted me leaving Aldebert Terrace after our first night of passion. Apparently, from that point on he'd been unbearable. As Mrs Shaw said, "I think he sort of smelled the love coming off of me for you. The deeper I got with you, the madder he became, whirling about the place, trying to root out what was happening."
It was so odd listening to her account of things, but how lethally obsessive could she be? Whilst she was lavishing every attention - both emotional and physical - upon me, she'd been conniving with Albert, feeding him information whilst trying to keep him from discovering exactly what was going on between the two of us. She was quite blunt about the fact that when I'd shared Bowler's note with her about the police finding the murder weapon, that she'd distracted me with her femininity before running off to tell Gutteridge, claiming that she'd forgotten some shopping,
"But, you know my jewel, I couldn't have given a good goddamn whether it was Holmes or you that Moriarty beat to a pulp - I just wanted to save me own pelt. I couldn't have cared until I met you and took a header for you. So, that's why I warned you about the blood-mad Colonel - tgank God I did for I'd not like to think what would have happened to you if I hadn't. You'd have had the life thumped out of you, Albert's plan would have worked and I wouldn't be sitting here now hoping that tomorrow's dawn will never come," she said looking steadily at me, no shred of self pity showing. "But it's for the best, isn’t it? I couldn't kill another man that I loved, even if I didn't strike the blow myself."
I had to admit, she was convincing - I think she really believed that her warning had saved me. In any event, the chain of events was now clear. In a
n absolute fury, Albert had come back to get the rest of the knives thinking to dispose of the evidence and protect Amelia. But had discovered me, been overwhelmed with jealousy and ended up, I suspect, deeply regretting his stage name. I was appalled by the way she'd played us off one against the other in a most duplicitous manner, yet her love for me had prevented the most important part of the scheme from coming to fruition. I was appalled, yet I still couldn't resent her.
"Sorry, sir, that's your ten minutes. C'mon Shaw, say your farewells," the warder kept her voice low but firm and Amelia stood up straight away, stretched out her hands to me and smiled bravely, sweetly.
"No touching, Shaw, you know the rules," the same voice cut across us. So she stood there, holding me with her eyes and said the last words that I ever heard her say.
"Goodbye, Doctor."
Chapter 8, Resolution.
Prison doors are meant to slam, aren't they? This one didn't, though, for as I stepped out of the Judas gate at the front of the great, louring brick guardroom into a granite-grey winter's afternoon, it just seemed to click-to. In fact, it could have slammed but I was too numb to notice it. I'd certainly committed the cardinal sin of not being polite to the deputy governor who'd been decent enough to come to see me out - I simply ignored the man, shuffling off in my sadness and only half noticing the hansom cab that ground its iron tyres over the tarmacadam until it came to a stop next to me.
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