by David Marcum
“That is a factor. I also mean because Mrs. Stokeville has not yet confronted her husband on what is undeniably outré behaviour - therefore he did not return home last night.”
“He sent a telegram informing me that early morning meetings with Mr. Peregrine at his bank made it prudent for him to stay overnight in town. I have not disguised myself, as I intend to call upon Mr. Peregrine, and if Tobias has no appointment, I shall make one myself to go through his accounts and find out whether my suspicions of financial irregularities are founded. I have the paperwork authorising such an audit, as I prepared the document myself on the typewriter I use to prepare all his official correspondence. With this information, I will know better how to confront him.”
Sherlock Holmes tutted gently. “Dear me, that will not do. No, no. I think we can act more speedily, and in a manner which does not involve you committing an act of fraud. Yes, I think we need only await the few remaining miles before we arrive in London, during which I will beg silence, as I need to ponder the most vital question posed by your most thorough account.”
“That question being?” I pressed him.
“The question of whether we have two mysteries or one.” And with that he closed his eyes and sunk back into his seat, leaving me to offer only a hopeful shrug in the direction of our perplexed companion.
From the torpor that had gripped him while constrained within our compartment’s narrow confines, rose an energised Sherlock Holmes who swooped down onto the platform in that great and grimy station before we had even juddered to a halt. A long arm made longer by a deftly wielded cane extended in the direction of the left luggage office, where I deposited our baggage before joining him as he paced impatiently with Catherine Stokeville at his heels. No sooner had I displayed our baggage tickets than he galloped toward the exit and the cab rank beyond, his voice echoing above the clamour of the crowds in that vast space.
“To locate and question every driver that may have used this rank yesterday morning would involve an impractical expenditure of both time and effort. Luckily, there are one or two who recall the favour they owe me for clearing up the Counterfeit Cabman affair.” A slim finger picked out a bullish looking fellow tending to a grey horse. “Aha, there is Clayton. Well, the Waterloo rank’s loss is our gain, for he’s just the very man. This will be but the work of a moment.”
As Holmes stepped across to address the familiar figure, who greeted him with a hearty shake of a ham-sized hand, I briefly explained to Catherine Stokeville the association between Holmes and the cabbie. John Clayton had first come to our attention during the Baskerville inheritance case, having driven a fellow who, besides plotting the death of our client, had the sheer gall to impersonate Sherlock Holmes while doing so. Some years later, our paths crossed again, only now it was Clayton, along with several of his fellow drivers, who had been the subject of imposture, with vehicles carrying authentic-seeming cab numbers being driven by modern day highwaymen ready to drive their fares to out of the way places and relieve them of anything of worth. With London’s citizens growing increasingly nervous of anything resembling a cab, the livelihoods of every driver in the city were threatened. Then one unfortunate thief found to his cost that the drunken gentleman he had picked up from a society party was neither as drunk nor as genteel as he had expected, and with the locations of the gang’s bogus cabs prised from him, a half-dozen plainclothesmen masquerading as wealthy fares provided final cab rides to Scotland Yard for the lot of them.
As Holmes returned, I noted that Clayton was already walking down the line of vehicles, talking urgently to their drivers. “This may take some time, or we may yet be lucky. I’ve told Clayton that if he finds the man within the next hour, we shall be taking tea and some light lunch in that café over there. Any longer, and he’s to send him to Baker Street.”
The fortunes must have been smiling, for we were still enjoying the last of our meal when a sallow-faced cabman with drooping moustaches and a permanent sniffle strode in asking for, “a Mr. Sherlock, and the party what was looking to go down Limehouse way.”
Once on board and rattling towards that notorious riverside area, Holmes clarified the task he had set Clayton. “Asking for a fellow behaving suspiciously with a painted lady in tow might not have proved too rewarding a line of enquiry, so I charged him instead to find any of his fellows who gave a lift to a grubby-faced docker with the tone and manners of a gentleman, and who probably gave a tip beyond his appearance. You see, those unused to operating incognito often fail to maintain consistency in a disguise. To alter one’s outer appearance alone is not enough; it must go deeper, through all aspects. I have written at length on the subject.”
“I have never known you not to go on at length when you have chosen a subject,” I remarked, amiably. “But how did you know he wouldn’t have disguised his voice?”
“It seemed unlikely, as Tobias Stokeville had no reason to believe anyone would pick up on his trail. His sole reason for needing such a disguise is that he was heading somewhere a man in the finery of a gentleman of even modest means might be obtrusive. He was not evading pursuit, for he had no idea anyone was pursuing. He merely wished to avoid being needlessly accosted.”
“Limehouse is certainly a sordid enough place to make it seem a wise precaution,” said I, growing suddenly aware of my own country tweeds, and recalling also that my revolver was still in my luggage and would need redeemed before being of any use to me at all.
“Mrs. Stokeville, you have already spoken of how painful it was for your husband to relive the loss of his family, and I apologise if it causes you further pain, but I must ask you to recall the exact words he used.”
The lady drew in a deep breath, her gaze drifting to the ceiling of the cab, though it was still possible to see the tears that formed there as she repeated, “He told me that he had woken to their cries in the night. ‘She was screaming. My mother cried out that she was burning. She was ablaze. And father, who had always been so strong, screamed louder still. My brother, though, was silent. Poor Thomas had already gone, I think. I could smell them, the acrid stench of their burning flesh... and I couldn’t breathe. It was choking me. It was only when my Ayah carried me outside, into the air, that I could breathe again. Then she told me... she told me they were...’ And then his hands were at his throat, as if he could get no air. It was as if he were reliving every dreadful second of it, so I held him and quieted him and he never tried to speak of it again.”
Holmes lightly placed a gloved hand on hers’ as they folded and unfolded, and we drove on in silence for a few minutes longer, until the vehicle drew to a halt and we disembarked in a squalid and cramped square surrounded by grim and noisy tenements.
“This was where they was let off,” said the cabbie, sniffing loudly with clear distaste. “Not what I’d have taken them much further, nor would I wait for them ‘ere.”
“Nor shall we ask you to wait for us. Yes, we are fully aware of the area and its reputation, thank you.”
“No fare, sir,” he sniffed as Holmes proffered a coin. “Mr. Clayton told us as how you was a special party.”
As the cab clattered off and out of sight, I muttered, “I’m not surprised he won’t go further; a ferret would have trouble manoeuvring in this filthy warren, let alone a horse and carriage. And while I have no real desire to investigate this rookery further, I suppose I must ask where now, Holmes?”
“Onwards,” said he, striding forward with his head tilted curiously at an angle, “and listen out for any cries and groans of pain and anguish, for those will lead us to the house we seek.”
“You wish us to locate a house of pain?” I cried in horror.
He silenced me with a raised hand, his ear cocked to the cracked and grimed windows in the various haggard buildings we passed, as yells and laughter, and even music of a surprising sweetness played on some unknown and exotic instrument, mingled a
round us.
“There would be little gain in simply knocking on a few doors and asking if anyone knows the place we’re seeking?” muttered Catherine Stokeville, glumly.
“The only people in this neighbourhood who knock on doors are landlords, bailiffs, or the police,” I replied, “often all at once, so it’s an action hardly guaranteed to prompt a swift or welcome response, I fear.”
Just then a muffled yell, a distant whimpering, and a sudden shriek of misery assailed our hearing, and as I caught up with Holmes’s quick steps, I found him reaching for the sturdy door of a low, crumbling building with boards on the windows that failed to keep in an array of familiar, yet entirely incongruous scents. When the door did not yield to his push, undeterred he turned to me, saying in a hushed voice, “My dear Doctor, the sound a man with acute appendicitis might make...”
“I am familiar with it, of course.”
“But could you repeat it? And with gusto!”
He threw his arm around me as if to support my weight, as I let loose the most pained howl I could muster.
“Gawd, ‘elp a man, won’t yer?” barked a gruff and unfamiliar voice, one that it took me a moment to realise issued from Sherlock Holmes’s lips. “It’s me mate’s appendices what’s burst on him, an’ ‘e’s ‘owlin’ fit to die!”
Taking my cue, I again yelled out as if in chronic pain.
“Oh, I can’t ‘old ‘im much longer, ‘e’s slipping fast, I reckon!”
“Holmes, if you let me slide into this filthy gutter - “ I began in a hiss. However my plan of retribution was not to be heard, as bolts were drawn and the door opened a crack, revealing a dark and suspicion-filled eye in sliver of ghostly-pale face. “I apologise, for the deception, Madam,” said Holmes, leaving me still clutching at my abdomen and preparing to give vent to further cries of pain, and pushing the door ajar. “Though I can well understand your need for security, as this remarkable establishment would otherwise be stripped bare of anything that could be sold, drunk, or otherwise consumed within minutes.”
A groan of misery from somewhere deep within drew the pale woman from the doorway, and I watched her back, her dark hair tied in a ponytail in the Chinese fashion, and her dingy skirts rustling lightly, as she moved rapidly to one of the pitiable occupants of the room.
“A house of pain, you said, Watson, and you were right,” Holmes admitted. “But also one of healing.”
The flaking grey of the outer walls gave way to whitewashed inner brickwork and floors that were freshly scrubbed with strong carbolic, whose aroma was just one of those that had reached me through the cracks in the window-boards and transported me to every hospital I had ever set foot in since my long flown days as a student, while underlying scents of ether and liniment drifted through the air. Wooden pallets and benches lined the walls, and on each sat or lay some wretched specimen, be they white-skinned or Chinese or Malay, or any of the other races that jostled for employ within the district, many with bandages cleaner than the clothes they wore, binding all manner of missing or damaged parts.
“This is a hospital,” gasped Catherine Stokeville in disbelief.
“Hardly anything so grand. We are proud enough to call it a clinic,” said the young woman who now knelt at the bedside of a crone whose entire frame was violently shaking with what I recognised as delirium tremens, simply holding the poor creature to ease the shuddering. When she turned at last to look at us, the placid and compassionate expression, familiar from so many a nurse of my experience, was revealed, but on a face as pale as the whitewashed walls, with the eyebrows and lips seemingly drawn in place in cosmetics.
“This is the woman I told you of,” cried our companion in a mix of shock and anger. “Where is my husband?”
“Oh,” said the woman, before smiling rather self-consciously and turning away slightly. “You can only be Catherine. Oh, my dear, does Tobias know you have found us out?”
From behind a partition at the far end of the room voices issued. “Tobias!” cried our companion, her voice rising above the moans of the ill and injured.
A door to the cramped office space opened, and the face I had seen only that morning in a locket, only now rather comically daubed with sooty smuts, looked out in puzzlement that turned to horror. Tobias Stokeville staggered forward a few steps, as if reeling in readiness to faint. “Catherine,” he groaned, piteously. “Oh, Catherine, what are you doing here? How did you even know of this place?”
I fully suspect that Holmes was far from displeased when, in reply, Mrs. Stokeville merely introduced him by name and her husband slumped in defeat upon hearing it, his disreputable and much-patched old jacket falling open to reveal the neatly starched shirt-front and collar underneath as he sat back groaning as dismally as any on the beds around us.
“You called in Sherlock Holmes to track me? Oh, have I given you that much cause to doubt me?”
“Yes, you have,” answered Sherlock Holmes. “Your behaviour has been most questionable, but here we shall have the answers to those questions. Rather, with the founder of this remarkable clinic. Mr. Stokeville-”
“You misunderstand, I think, Mr. Holmes. I am here only to help, however I can, but had no part in founding this place.”
“No, I think it is you who misunderstands, sir. I was referring to the other Mr. Stokeville.”
In quick response, there came a muffled shuffling behind Tobias Stokeville, and I confess that in the dark form which stepped from the shadows, I saw glimmerings of that frightful limping waxwork whose unwelcome memory had been summoned up by Catherine Stokeville’s vivid and accurate description just a few hours before. I confess it and am ashamed by it, for as soon as that fleeting moment had passed, the differences between that awful apparition and the gentle soul that stood before us now became instantly apparent.
“Hello, Catherine. I am delighted to finally be introduced to you, and I am so sorry I alarmed you on our prior meeting,” said the man in a voice that carried many traces of India in its inflections.
Tobias Stokeville’s astonished face turned to the man by his side. “You two have met before? Thomas, why did you say nothing of this?”
“Thomas?” Catherine Stokeville echoed the name. “But you are a dead man. Not even a man. Tobias’s brother. You were just a boy! A young boy who burned up.”
“But not in a fire,” Holmes said. “You heard the words your husband said, but did not grasp their meaning. He spoke of burning and choking, but never once mentioned flames or smoke. Yet a fever burns, and illness may produce a most vivid stench as it sours the flesh. If your alarming ordeal when you thought yourself pursued was not a separate incident from those that already weighed upon you, then this hypothetical fever, a man with a wasted face, and your husband’s lack of contact with you, all spoke of disease or contamination.”
Tobias Stokeville rushed to his wife, reaching out finally to embrace her. It was an embrace that was not returned, as bewilderment held her in its grip. “I could not bear the thought of carrying some infection, like an unseen guest, and delivering it into your arms. Oh, I know that the fever that haunts my dreams lies thousands of miles distant and so many years in the past, but I remember so clearly our home in India when the sickness crept in like an intruder and stole all happiness and hope away.”
“You appear as fit and in good health as any I’ve seen,” said I, “though I will happily carry out a more thorough examination if it will set your mind at rest and ease this estrangement between the two of you.”
“There is no need,” he admitted. “I have been examined and declared well. It was an overzealous bout of caution that has made me fearful. Yet when my brother found me - Oh, that impossible moment that I realised this was no cruel trick, and that the person who wrote to me claiming to be the kin I believed dead spoke the truth! - how could I turn my back on him and what he is striving to do?”
It was then that the embrace was complete, as Catherine Stokeville’s arms tightened around her husband. “I could not expect you to. Of course not! But I do not see how any of this is remotely possible. How can your brother, whose memory you held so dear, have been living all these years without you knowing of it?”
Thomas Stokeville dragged wooden chairs into the centre of the room and bade us sit. I declined, instead asking the young nurse if there was any assistance I might offer as she tended to her charges. At close quarters, I saw more clearly that the pale powder coating her from jaw to hairline concealed the marks of dozens of long-healed scabs and sores. “Sometimes,” said she, noticing my attention, “the things we fight decide to fight back. And though I won the war, thanks to Tommy’s care, I’ll always carry the battle scars.”
As if in agreement, my leg gave an almighty twinge as I knelt to aid her with an emaciated old sailor’s dressings.
Despite my preoccupation, I still heard the extraordinary story Thomas Stokeville had to tell, and while his stricken face may have had difficulty expressing his feelings, his lively eyes and lilting voice more than conveyed the deep emotions at the heart of his account.
“No-one can now know how the sickness came to our district. Some said at the time that factions among our neighbours across the border harboured burning thoughts of revenge over the recent surrender in the Second Afghan War, and had rounded up lepers and the dying and had slit their throats before dumping the bodies into our wells and streams. Hysteria and suspicion, I am sure, as both these emotions ran as wild as the sickness. Father attempted as best he could to maintain order and to still the panic, but when both he and mother first showed signs of the fever, all order went to the four winds.
“The nearest hospital was too far away, so we were taken to the clinic in the village. I remember so little of this, as I too was infected and was unconscious for most of those days and nights. It was Dr. Kamran, the tireless Indian doctor in charge, who told me much later of those dreadful days, and of the decision our poor father took when, in his tortured state, he thought I had died when I was merely asleep. He knew enough still to recognise that neither he nor our mother stood any hope of survival. Yet Tobias, who had shown few signs of the sickness so far, might be saved if he was taken far away from the district.”