‘I think perhaps those children are safer on the streets than in the workhouse, or in service to someone who will abuse them,’ I said to her.
She nodded. ‘We all find our ways to survive,’ Irene said thoughtfully. ‘Wait a moment.’
She ran into the house, and came out ten minutes later.
‘These are all the papers I have in connection with my solicitor,’ Irene told me. ‘Bills, letters, and so on. Hopefully you can find something helpful in them.’
‘Don’t you want to look through them?’
She shook her head.
‘This is your work,’ she insisted. ‘You and Mary have been the ones doing the investigation. I’ve just been along for the ride. Besides, I’m too close to this. My view is distorted. You, on the other hand, see very clearly. You have a gift for seeing the entire puzzle.’
I took the papers and folded them up tight in my hand.
‘What will you do now?’ Irene asked. Behind her, the horses stamped a little, impatient to be gone. I glanced at Mary, peacefully sleeping in the corner.
‘I shan’t do anything until tomorrow,’ I told Irene. ‘I’m an old woman, I need my rest.’
Irene snorted. ‘Old woman, not a chance! You pretend you’re fully middle-aged, creeping into old age, but I’ve been watching you. You’re not all that much older than I am.’
With that she stepped back and let the cab continue on it way.
I sat back and, for a moment, allowed myself to remember. Twenty years ago, almost to the day, my boy had died. My seven-year-old mischievous, delightful, intensely alive little boy. And when he died, instantly I became old. My hair became threaded with grey, and I pulled it back into a tight knot, taming my curls. I put away my pretty dresses and wore only black. I walked slowly and never smiled and when I sat down, I winced as if my bones ached, though they did not. My boy died, and I became a seventy-year-old matron immediately. I’d stopped being Martha and became Mrs Hudson, the respectable housekeeper and landlady. I knew when people looked at me they saw a little old lady, grey and worn, all in black.
In truth I was only forty-eight.
The cab rattled through the streets. I clasped Irene’s papers in my hand, and tried to work out what to do next. I knew now what Mr Holmes had meant about the faith that was placed in him and now in me, and I also knew what he meant about the terrible fear that you will somehow betray that faith.
When we arrived at 221b, Billy ran out to meet us and opened the door.
‘Mr Holmes and Dr Watson aren’t home yet,’ he told us, as Mary yawned herself awake.
‘No, I don’t suppose they are,’ I replied, remembering the men running past in Whitechapel. It looked as if their chase would go on for a while. ‘Mary, why don’t you take the cab and go home?’
‘I’m not tired,’ Mary asserted, just like a schoolgirl who wants to stay up late with the grown-ups.
‘Liar,’ I told her, calling up the address to the driver.
‘I shan’t sleep until John gets home anyway,’ she told me, slightly truculently.
‘Then best you “don’t sleep” in your own home,’ I told her, closing the door of the cab. It left, and I turned to Billy, who looked unaccountably angry.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘First Mr Holmes and Dr Watson off chasing down a villain,’ Billy replied, ‘and then the three of you running around goodness knows where. And don’t tell me you weren’t doing anything because Wiggins told me you took Micky! You had me worried, you know! Yeah, me, worried!’
I smiled, touched by this young boy’s concern.
‘I’m sorry,’ I apologized. ‘I should have told you. But I need you now. Would you like to help me solve this?’ I asked him. He grinned, good humour restored.
Inside, in the kitchen, I spread Irene’s papers out on the table. I gathered together all the notes I had written on Laura Shirley and the Whitechapel Lady. I sent Billy upstairs to retrieve Sir George Burnwell’s papers. Hopefully amongst this mass of documents I would find the vital clues I needed.
How to proceed? I closed my eyes, took a breath and let my mind wander. The Lady, the victims, the blackmail, the murders, the pornographer, the Yorkshire towns, the secrets, the solicitors. It all kept ringing in my head. I heard voices – Laura Shirley, begging for help, the Whitechapel Lady revealing her face, the murmurings of people on the street, Irene saying, ‘My view is distorted. You see the whole puzzle’.
My eyes snapped open. Puzzle. Games. Clues and traps and patterns.
I looked at the clock. It was eight at night.
‘Billy, I need a map of London,’ I told him.
‘I’ve got lots of maps of London, all kinds. Mr Holmes says I should learn every street in London.’
‘Do you have a large map of London including its suburbs, with all streets named?’
‘I do. I’ll get it.’
I may not have known how my deductions would end, but I knew where to start them.
A few weeks ago, Mary had been sitting at my kitchen table, turning over the pages of one of Billy’s books. It was an old history book one of his tutors had left behind. Billy had expressed an interest in the Wars of the Roses – sparked, I am sure, by lurid tales of the battlefield John had told him.
‘I could teach Billy,’ Mary said suddenly. John was out with Sherlock, on one of their four-hour-long walks around London. Mr Holmes hadn’t had any new cases for a few weeks, and he was restless. Billy was out with Wiggins somewhere, and I was trying a new bread recipe.
‘Why?’ I asked, mixing the flour and baking powder and only half paying attention to Mary. ‘I thought you were happy to stop being a governess.’
‘I was happy to stop being a governess because I didn’t like the position,’ Mary said, restlessly playing with a teaspoon. ‘It can be very lonely, and not at all satisfying. But I did quite enjoy the teaching. It was a challenge, trying to find a way to impart complicated information to a child’s mind. I like a challenge.’
‘Well, you could teach Billy, if you wanted to,’ I said, leaning over the table to read the recipe. ‘He has tutors, and Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, of course, but he is always willing to learn more.’
‘He doesn’t really need me, you mean,’ Mary said disconsolately. ‘I could teach Wiggins, perhaps, and the Irregulars.’
‘I’m not sure they’d be quite so eager,’ I told her over my shoulder as I went into the pantry. Would I need more eggs? These recipes always needed a little adjusting. ‘They might see it as interfering in their lives.’
‘I’d like to know more about their lives, as a matter of fact,’ Mary said, putting the teaspoon down with a clatter.
‘Their lives are dangerous,’ I said, meaning to warn her off.
‘A little danger would be very enjoyable,’ Mary said wistfully. ‘Just enough to make life interesting.’
I wasn’t listening. I was paying attention to the bread. I didn’t hear the yearning in her voice.
Mary was, however, far from my thoughts right now. I had sent her home, she was safe, with John when he came back, and I had work to do right here in my kitchen. Billy brought the large map to me, and we spread it out on the kitchen table, weighing down the corners with the tea, coffee, sugar and spice caddies. The map covered all of London and its suburbs, for several miles, with most streets named, albeit in tiny writing. I took my pen, and the red ink I used for checking the butcher’s bills – he could never be relied on to add up amounts correctly.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s begin.’
‘What are you doing?’ Billy asked. I had given him a summary of the evening as we had laid the map out, and had told him about the names, and the clues, and the solicitor himself, with his network of spies and informers and victims.
‘I’ve already found one pattern,’ I told him. ‘The solicitors’ names all come from Yorkshire. And where there is one pattern, there is often another.’
I looked through the papers Irene had given me, and f
ound a bill with her solicitor’s address on it. Billy found this on the map, marking it in red ink. I read out the address on the card from Mr Sheldon, and again he found it and marked it.
Together we looked through Sir George Burnwell’s papers. He was terribly disorganized. If Lillian Rose could have found anything quickly in this mess, she deserved an award. Eventually a crumpled piece of paper covered in wine stains proved to be a solicitor’s bill, complete with address. We again marked it on the map.
Three red dots. They seemed to form no discernible pattern. They were scattered all over the city, in middle-class areas. I needed more data.
‘Yorkshire names,’ I murmured to myself.
‘Why do that?’ Billy asked. ‘Why use the names of villages in Yorkshire? Surely he realized someone would notice it, sooner or later?’
‘Well, no one did notice until now,’ I said to him. ‘Maybe it’s like Irene said, it’s just easier to remember the aliases better if they’re all linked. He probably grew up in Yorkshire. Perhaps he has no idea he’s doing it. Or perhaps . . .’
Another thought crept its way into my mind. Games . . .
‘Perhaps he’s doing it deliberately,’ I said slowly, thinking as I talked. ‘He is hoping that one day, someone will look at all these names and see they are connected. He wants someone to realize that it’s all a puzzle. He’s playing with us. It’s a game to him – one great game.’
‘He wants to entice you?’ Billy said, uncertain. ‘I mean, you, specially?’
‘With anyone clever and dedicated to start to track him down,’ I explained. ‘I doubt he was expecting it to be Mary and me, he was probably hoping for . . . oh. Oh, Billy, it wasn’t meant to be us at all!’ I suddenly understood.
It had puzzled me for a while. Mary and I should have been victims by now. If he could kill the Whitechapel Lady, he could easily hurt us too. We had been getting so close, he must have noticed us. He should have turned on us. He had had us followed. He had even talked to me. He was capable of great violence, yet we had not been so much as threatened. We had not even had a letter, and he had written so many letters. Why?
This man had been playing games for years. He had worked so hard, been so clever, found the weakness, found the almost invisible cracks in these women’s lives and bit by bit played his game until he had all the pieces in the right place and then destroyed these women. But he was too good at it. The game had become too easy. His victims were too guileless, not subtle or devious enough to fight back. He had become bored.
He wanted a bigger game. He wanted a more dangerous, more complicated game. He wanted to play with an adversary worthy of giving him a fight. He wanted the ultimate adversary. He had laid out an invitation. I laughed, all of a sudden. He hadn’t threatened us because he thought we were just pawns of someone else. He thought he was battling someone else. He thought his great opponent was Sherlock Holmes.
I smiled to myself, and it was not a kind smile. It was this man, in the disguise of a solicitor, who had sent Laura Shirley, and perhaps Adam Ballant, to 221b. This man had laid down an invitation for Mr Holmes to play, and I had picked it up.
I’d been underestimating my own skills for years. I’d been a clever landlady and a skilled cook, but I’d never appreciated what else I could do. I never knew I could think like this, put the clues together, jump from idea to proof to theory to certainty. I’d barely known what I was capable of. If I could solve these problems, what else could I do? I’d be damned if I let this evil sod underestimate me too. I’d play the game he’d set for Mr Holmes, and I would play it well. I, at least, had the element of surprise.
I looked at the map. Giving myself stirring speeches was all very well, but I still had to perform the task itself.
‘Mary’s better at this sort of thing than I am,’ I muttered.
‘What sort of thing?’ Billy asked. I had been lost in my own thoughts and I hadn’t actually realized he was sitting at the table watching me, his chin resting on his folded arms, looking up at me.
‘This,’ I said, waving at the map. ‘The practical elements. The clues. The science.’
‘Then what do you do?’ Billy asked.
‘People,’ I said to him. ‘I think I’m good with people. And patterns. I see patterns Perhaps. I hope so.’
‘I think so,’ Billy said, standing up and stretching. ‘Do you want to leave this until morning?’
‘Yes . . . no,’ I told him. I was restless and wouldn’t be able to sleep or read or bake anyway. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else. ‘Let us at least make a start. Occupy ourselves until Mr Holmes returns. Is there such a thing as a register of solicitors?’
‘Yes, Mr Holmes has one,’ Billy replied. I asked him to get it, and a gazetteer of Yorkshire.
Ten minutes later we crouched over the table, matching names from the gazetteer to names from the register. Some of these names would be innocent, of course – many solicitors were called Leeds or Halifax without being cold-hearted murderers. But some of them would be him. They must be. If he was playing a game, he would insist on sticking to the rules.
Bit by bit, the scattered red crosses on the map grew. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them. His offices were scattered all over London, with no particular pattern to them. Poor areas, rich, middle-class – he was everywhere. It worried me, how many names could be him.
As we were marking the twentieth cross, I heard a commotion from upstairs. Someone was banging on the door, and shouting.
‘That’s John,’ I cried out. Billy ran up the stairs and opened the front door, with me just behind him.
‘Sorry, couldn’t get my key,’ John gasped. ‘Give me a hand.’
He was supporting a pale and collapsing Mr Holmes. We helped them over the threshold. Blood dripped from Mr Holmes’ arm, his jacket draped over it, the shirt torn where John had treated the wound. I gave a cry when I saw the injury, I must admit.
‘Don’t fuss, Mrs Hudson!’ Mr Holmes snapped.
‘Ignore him,’ John said. ‘He always gets in a foul mood when he’s been stabbed.’
‘Stabbed?’ I gasped, as was expected of me. I wasn’t actually that worried, just mildly concerned. This was not the first time Mr Holmes had come home in such a state. In fact, I believe it was the fifth. ‘By whom?’ Was it the quarry we had seen him chasing earlier? Had he become tired of Mr Holmes chasing him?
‘A common thief,’ John said, hauling Mr Holmes towards the stairs. ‘It’s nothing really, just a graze.’ He must have seen my dubious look, for he whispered to me, as Mr Holmes shrugged him off and insisted on climbing the stairs himself, ‘It looks worse than it is. This is more exhaustion than blood loss. You know how he works himself.’
‘Too hard,’ I replied grimly, following Mr Holmes up the stairs. Honestly, he was dripping blood all over the carpets. Never mind, I had long ago come up with a chemical formula of my own to remove blood. ‘I’ll send him some warm water and hot tea.’
‘Not hot tea, I beg of you!’ Mr Holmes cried, opening the door himself, despite John pushing past me and reaching for it. ‘I’d as soon drink tepid pond water!’
‘You’ll drink it, and do as your doctor tells you!’ John insisted. To me he said, ‘That would be helpful, thank you. With plenty of sugar.’
I nodded in acknowledgement, and looked over John’s shoulder into the rooms. Mr Holmes leaned against the back of the sofa, staring, in the very dim firelight, at some bookshelves – or rather, at the gaps left by the books Billy and I had borrowed. He turned and looked at me, puzzled. I remained imperturbable, my hands folded in front of me, the very picture of a respectable, not too intelligent, very commonplace housekeeper.
‘Good night, Mr Holmes,’ I said to him, as he opened his mouth to speak, and then I gently closed the door.
I did smile as I went down to the kitchen. I didn’t know how long it would last, but for a moment there, I had confused the great Sherlock Holmes!
I sent Billy up wi
th the water, tea and sandwiches, then I quickly mopped up the worst of the blood. What was left would dry to the same red-brown as the stair carpet and be unnoticeable by morning. Once that was done, I sat down at the table and looked at the map. I heard Billy come in and sit down at the table. He was still wide awake, but, I confess, I was starting to feel a little sleepy. Perhaps it could wait until morning.
‘Mrs Hudson?’ John called, coming down the main stairs. I hurried out of the kitchen before he could come in and see what I was doing.
‘Is he all right?’ I asked, standing in the hall.
‘Mr Holmes is fine,’ John replied. ‘He’s asleep. I gave him a sedative; he won’t wake for hours. Is Mary here?’
He looked so worn. Looking after Sherlock Holmes was an exhausting job.
‘No, Mary went home hours ago,’ I told him.
‘I have to go to Scotland Yard,’ John told me. ‘I have to find Inspector Gregson. The man who stabbed Holmes is still out there, but if we wait until morning, we may lose him.’
‘I understand. I’ll send Billy to let Mary know,’ I reassured him.
‘It’s so late. I’ll be out all night,’ John told me.
‘Billy’s still awake,’ I reassured him. ‘And Mary would like to know.’
He nodded and left, briskly walking down the street. I sent Billy out a moment later, with a handful of cash for the cab. Then I went back down to the kitchen, and stared at the work I had done.
The candles had burnt down – it was almost half past nine at night. The remaining light was dim, and flickered across the room. It was so dark in there now, so quiet, after such a busy day. I had twenty crosses marked on the map. Let us say, at a conservative estimate, that just over half of those were legitimate solicitors. That left approximately nine names. Nine men taking secrets and promising to keep them safe, these nine men actually one foul fiend, a liar, a cheat, a blackmailer, a murderer. How many stories had he heard? How many women had sat before him, some weeping, some defiant, some ashamed, and confided in him, only for him to turn and bite? Only for him to bring about the very ruin they came to him to avert. All for the thrill of a game, for him.
The House at Baker Street Page 21