The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

by David Fable

  I had also learned, from my evening visit to Scotland Yard, that a black 1912 two-seater Renault had been stolen from the home of a Nigel Loughlin in Kensington two days prior, confirming my theory regarding the cause of death of Mr. Holmes. I researched Mr. Loughlin and quickly concluded he was but an innocent victim in the matter.

  I hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours and still had several bloodstains to test from swatches I had cut from Holmes’s clothes. I also intended to examine more carefully Lilah Church’s file, which I had “borrowed” from Bedlam while Dr. Leeds was occupied with a stack I had “accidentally” knocked over. Then, quite unexpectedly, the telephone rang.

  “I know it’s late, Christopher,” came Watson’s voice from the other end of the line. “But I need you to accompany me on an errand, and night is the only time to accomplish this task. Please pick me up. We are going to the East End.”

  His voice sounded surprisingly energetic. When I left him earlier, he seemed to barely have the strength to make it up his stairs. Now he sounded twenty years younger and wanted to take a midnight outing to the most unsavory part of the city. At this time there would be no one but villains, whores and drunkards wandering those streets. No respectable person would be found in the East End at night unless they were seeking something unrespectable. It seemed to me an inspection of the area could wait until tomorrow. I had hoped to fit in at least a few hours of sleep. I learned to survive on very little sleep during my time at Oxford, but always found that two nights without rest diminished my abilities to function at top level. I pulled on my boots, locked up the flat and drove to Stafford Street.

  7

  WATSON

  W aiting out front of my flat for Christopher to pick me up, I realized that my resentment toward him was purely a product of my grief over Holmes. The purging of emotions followed by the dream had made that more clear to me. Three hours earlier, when I entered my apartment, I found the evening air chilly and disagreeable, now I found it bracing and refreshing. I could hear Holmes’s voice in my head saying, “Come, come, my dear friend, there is work to be done.”

  After a few minutes, Christopher pulled up in Mrs. Hudson’s red Daimler and I climbed in. “Take us to the East End. I’ll show you where,” I instructed Christopher.

  “Doctor Watson, I admire your stamina, but what is the mission which requires us to go to the East End tonight?” he asked.

  “I want to speak to Wiggins, and he’s a man who can only be found at night.”

  We parked on Butchers Road, a wide street lined with brick buildings. Most were crumbling structures that housed as many as ten families to a dwelling. Activity was sparse. A group of children was going through the pockets of a man lying drunk and unconscious in the gutter. They were scattered away by two men who dragged the victim into the shadow of a doorway for their own purposes.

  Before we exited the car, I felt in my pocket for my revolver. I always found when visiting questionable areas it was advisable to cut short unwanted conversations by displaying a willingness to defend oneself. I had rarely had to use my Webley since leaving Afghanistan, but I would not hesitate if the circumstances required it.

  I directed Christopher to a sturdy, well-lit, three-story brick building that a reliable source had told me was Wiggins’s present headquarters. Wiggins had been leader of the Baker Street Irregulars and now, in his forties, was the head of the largest criminal network in the East End of London. He was a dangerous character, but had remained deferential to me. I had not spoken to him in several years, not since I had inquired about the whereabouts of a friend’s daughter who had gone missing. Wiggins helped me locate her. She was in a flat paid for by a married barrister twice her age with whom she planned to run off. Unfortunately, he had no intention of running off with her. She was returned to her family and, within weeks, fled to the States with the first American she met.

  I had intended to visit Wiggins about Holmes’s murder and was frankly surprised he hadn’t been in touch with me already. This visit became even more necessary in light of the Lilah Church situation. I was confident he could assist me in finding his former “Irregular.”

  We climbed three steps up to the building and pressed the buzzer next to an extremely thick oak door. Within seconds, a speakeasy swung open and a fleshy face peered out at us. “What’s your business?” the face demanded.

  “Please tell Wiggins that Doctor Watson would like to see him,” I responded authoritatively. Without hesitation, the door opened to reveal that the owner of the face was a massive man wearing a pair of pants with such girth that you could have fit a barrel in them. He was wearing suspenders and an undershirt, which gave the impression of an overgrown child, however, the Colt .45 holstered at his side did not give that impression. He closed and bolted the door behind us and, comporting himself with a practiced manner worthy of a head butler, said, “Follow me if you please, gentlemen,” and led us toward a sweeping stairway with a wrought-iron railing. This first floor of the building looked as if it were an abandoned factory. Where once there was some kind of heavy machinery, there were now stains and divots on the concrete floor. The place was empty except for a card game going on in a halo of light about fifty feet from where we ascended.

  The second floor of the building consisted of a hallway lined with a dozen doors. Each of these rooms was a place of short-term business. At the top of the stairs sat a woman in her early thirties, in a rather elegant floral tulle dress. Behind her was a huge armoire. She was leaning back in her chair chatting with a young “employee” who was apparently in between her assignments.

  Upon seeing me, the woman immediately leaped to her feet with a show of immense delight. “Doctor Watson, it’s wonderful t’ see ya!” She threw her arms around me and embraced me as though I were a long-lost relative.

  “Good to see you as well,” I said, a bit taken aback.

  “You don’t recognize me, d’ya?” she said.

  Christopher smiled at me playfully, implying a colorful background for the two of us.

  “And 'oly shit,” she exclaimed with increased joy. “This is the Hudson boy. Am I right?”

  Christopher’s smile faded as soon as he became a participant and not observer in this little mystery. The woman’s eyes flicked back and forth between us. “I’m Daisy. I was one of Mr. 'olmes’s Irregulars. You couldn’t 'a been more than six or seven last time I saw ya.”

  Our large escort interrupted. “Wiggins will be wanting to see our guests right away, Daisy.”

  “’E’s been in an awful state ever since 'e 'eard the word about Mr. 'olmes,” she declared, and she broke out crying.

  Our escort ushered us away and up next the flight of stairs. “Good to see you again, Daisy,” I called back to her.

  “You as well, Doctor.” And, as we ascended, I heard her tell the younger woman, “'e’s a good man, that Doctor Watson. He used to give me 'alf a crown to feed me and my li’l brother, Matthew, when we was starvin.”

  That’s when I remembered the little waif who used to stand at the back of the Irregulars holding the hand of her six-year-old brother. On the few occasions I recalled seeing them, it looked to me as if they hadn’t eaten in days. This could have gone for all the little ones who were too young to fend for themselves. The recollection only served to make me feel that I could have done more.

  The third floor was like the first, a wide-open space with pools of light. One of the pools illuminated a raised platform in the middle of the room with a figure seated on a satin armchair with matching footstool. This was Wiggins. Upon seeing us, he smiled and rose from his throne-like setting. Wiggins’s front teeth were capped in gold. The others were brown owing to a lifelong habit of chewing tobacco. Stringy yellow hair hung down from beneath a black bowler hat, which he had sported since seeing it in a photograph of an American outlaw. He was wrapped in a smoking jacket with a fur collar and holding a silver, bejeweled goblet. It was a strange combination of things that he believed made him look fashion
able and fearsome. Since his youth, Wiggins had been a high-strung individual, but recent reports were that he was a dope fiend and quite mad. His appearance did nothing to convince me otherwise. He opened his arms wide in a display of brotherhood, tears running down his cheeks. “They will not make it to trial, Doctor,” he said in his thick Cockney accent. “I promise ya that.”

  “So you know who did this, Wiggins?” His statement made me hopeful his network of informants had given him some intelligence on the case.

  “I will soon,” he responded with squinted eyes and clenched teeth, his grief suddenly replaced by a menacing fierceness. He stepped down from his platform and put an arm around my shoulder. He smelled of tobacco breath and body odor. “Good to see ya, Doctor.” He patted his palm on my chest affectionately. “Good to see ya. I knew ya’d come.”

  Suddenly, a toddler in a diaper wandered out of the shadows. “There 'e is,” said Wiggins gleefully. “Come 'ere, ya.” He held his hands out toward the boy who immediately did an about-face and waddled off in the opposite direction. The child was suddenly intercepted by a young woman in a white nightgown who seemed to appear from nowhere. She swept him up, brought the squirming lad over to Wiggins and wrestled the child into his arms.

  “Is he yours?” I asked politely. There was something disquieting about the way Wiggins handled the child. He pulled on the toddler’s ears and rubbed his head as you would a puppy’s.

  “''E’s one of five. Four different mums.” He looked up with a sly wink. “That’s what we do it for. It’s always about the children, isn’t it?” He abruptly put the lad back down on the floor. “Me back is 'urtin’ again.”

  The woman in the nightgown rushed forward, grabbed the child and hurried off into the shadows. I heard the sound of a door closing.

  “Late for him to be up, don’t you think?” said Christopher matter-of-factly.

  “Ahh…They never wanna go to bed.” Wiggins said dismissively as he remounted his platform and sat down in the armchair. “So, Master 'udson, I’m told you are makin’ quite a success of yourself in school.”

  Wiggins had given no hint that he recognized Christopher up until now, and Christopher was clearly surprised by the nonchalance of this revelation.

  “I’m considering some options,” Christopher answered warily.

  Wiggins laughed heartily and pointed to his temple. “In my mind, I’ll always be seein’ ya 'iding behind your mum’s skirt while the lot of us come trompin’ up the stairs of Baker Street.” He leaned back and smiled wistfully with those gold-and-brown teeth. “How many times? How many times? And Mr. 'olmes handin’ out the shillins, sendin’ us to all corners of this blessed town.”

  “What makes you familiar with my college career?” queried Christopher.

  “Oh, one thing Mr. 'olmes taught me was to be a good observer. Mr. H taught me everythin’ I know. We owe everythin’ to Mr. H.” He paused a moment for emphasis. “They say 'e was killed with an axe. That’s a crock o’ shite, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not clear yet what killed him,” answered Christopher quickly. His instinct to be mistrustful of Wiggins was perfectly justified, but, despite his disordered manner, it would be a huge mistake to underestimate Wiggins by thinking he didn’t see through to one’s true motives.

  The unseen door opened and closed again and an efficient-looking lady in a very proper high-collared dress emerged from the shadows with a velvet pouch and walked purposefully toward us. She stepped up onto the platform, kneeled down and unrolled the pouch on her knee. From it she withdrew a ten-ampule box of Boehringer morphine hydrochloride. She broke the neck off the glass ampule and filled a syringe. Wiggins unshouldered his suspenders, undid his drawstring and dropped his pants. His legs and buttocks were covered with needle marks. She gave a brief exploration until she found a usable spot on his lower hip and then smoothly injected him. She wrapped up her bag and walked off into the shadows in the same secretarial manner as she had entered.

  “Back problems,” said Wiggins as he tied up his pants and spat his chewing tobacco into a spittoon. He peacefully sat down in his chair and ran his palm over the collar of his smoking jacket. “See this?...Russian sable. Most expensive fur there is.” His eyelids began to sag noticeably as the morphine took effect and he began to ramble. “'Olmes was always special fond of ya, Master 'udson. 'E could see you were smart from the very first. Would ya like to spend a little time with one of my ladies? On the 'ouse. They can teach you things you can’t learn at Oxford.”

  “Perhaps on another occasion, Wiggins, however I appreciate the hospitality,” answered Christopher without any trace of bias toward the idea.

  “We’re always open,” smiled Wiggins.

  “We’ve come on a separate matter, Wiggins,” I said, wanting to get down to business before the narcotics took their full effect. “We’re looking for Lilah Church. Do you know where she is?”

  “The madhouse I should imagine.” Wiggins put his feet up on the stool and his hand down the front of his pants.

  “So you remember her?”

  “Certainly I remember her. Why should I forget her?

  “She has a son you know.”

  “At least one. She may have more.”

  “He checked her out of Bedlam today,” I said.

  “I’m glad to 'ear she’s feelin’ better.” Wiggins dug around in the pocket of his smoking jacket and pulled out a leather cigar case.

  “Do you know his name?” I asked.

  “I should think it’s Mr. 'Somethin’ Church.”

  “Does the name Alexander Hollocks mean anything to you?”

  “That the name 'e goes by?” He bit off the end of a cigar.

  “That’s the name he used when he signed her out. Did she have a husband?”

  “None tha’ I know of.” He lit his cigar and offered one to me. I declined but Christopher stepped forward and took it.

  “I’ll save it for later,” said Christopher as he slipped it into his pocket.

  “Do you know who the father of her son might have been?” I asked.

  “Could 'ave been any one of us.” Wiggins puffed serenely for a moment. “Do you know 'ow Lilah got the last name ''Church’?… She was left on the steps o’ the church at one day old. She was raised there until she joined up with us when she was seven years.”

  “We’d like to find her,” I said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “She was named in Mr. Holmes’s will,” interjected Christopher, surprising me with his candor.

  “And I wasn’t, eh,” said Wiggins jokingly. “I’ll locate her for ya, Doctor. Shouldn’t be too 'ard.”

  I leaned toward him confidentially. “What do you think about Moriarty?”

  “I think 'e’s still an extremely dangerous man,” answered Wiggins matter-of-factly.

  “Do you think he might have had a hand in this?”

  He flicked the ash of his cigar on the floor and then squinted at me with a sinister reassurance. “I think you should go back to Mayfair, Doctor, and let me take care of 'ooever done this to Mr. 'olmes.” He then called out, “Nurse! My back still 'urts.”

  The unseen door opened again, and I could hear the nurse’s efficient steps clicking toward us. Our oversized escort emerged from the shadows signaling it was time to leave.

  The streets were deserted on our way back. To our left the waters of the Thames ran dark and slow. The city seemed to have added grandeur in these sleeping hours. Even young Hudson seemed ready to surrender to a night’s rest.

  “I’m curious,” I said breaking the silence. “Why did you volunteer the information that Lilah Church was in the will?”