Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (Gentlemen's Edition)

by Bernard Schaffer

  Someone was calling her name. “Irene? Irene? Come back to me. Can you hear me?”

  Her eyes fluttered and she realized that Sherlock Holmes was shaking her. She looked at him and nodded and he gasped with relief. “Thank God you are alive.”

  “Where is he?” Irene whispered. “Is he not dead? Go after him!”

  Holmes shook his head and said, “Be calm. He will not get far. He is critically injured. By your own hand, I might add.” Holmes lifted her chin and inspected the damage to her throat as he untied the leather strap around her neck.

  Irene noticed that Holmes was even paler than the night she’d last seen him. “What is wrong with you? You don’t look well.”

  Holmes said, “Just give me a moment. I am nearly finished.” He methodically removed the scarf that secured her bonnet and began wrapping it around her throat, keeping it pressed against the open wound to stop the bleeding.

  Irene looked down and realized there was a knife handle sticking out of the center of Holmes’s chest. She gasped and struggled with him to try and pull the knife free. Holmes calmly held her hands steady so that he could continue to tend to her. “Leave it. I must stop your bleeding.”

  “No,” she rasped. “Go and find Watson. Save yourself. Please!”

  “Hush now, my love,” Holmes said. He tied the scarf tight around her neck and secured her wound. He reached down for the severed, blood-soaked leather strap that had been wrapped around her neck and said, “It must have been this that saved your life tonight. Did my Watson make this? It is quite…ingenious.” With that, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed beside her on the street.

  ~ * * * ~

  Mickey Fitch grabbed the skin of my privates and pulled it flat, preparing to saw with the edge of his knife. I begged him not to, and the bastard just grinned. “I’m going to feed these to your woman when I find her,” he hissed. He held up the knife, “Say goodbye to your nutmegs!”

  A hand grabbed the top of Fitch’s head and yanked him back by the hair. Inspector Gerard Lestrade stood looming over Fitch with a nightstick in his hand, pointed directly down at Mickey Fitch’s widened eye. “I think it’s about time you saw the light, Mickey.” Lestrade drove the tip of the nightstick down as far as it would go into Fitch’s skull through his eyeball. Vitreous fluid and blood exploded across Fitch’s face as Lestrade ratcheted his nightstick deeper and deeper into his skull.

  Fitch shrieked and flopped around on the pavement. His screams were so loud and horrific that everyone stopped fighting to stare gaping at the yellow and red streams of thick fluid spilling down his face and into his wide, wailing mouth.

  A sea of constables flooded into the alleyway, their truncheons cracking the head of every Old Nichol boy they could reach. Constable Lamb charged through the crowd, “Where’s Wensley? Fred! Fred!”

  I pulled up my pants and crawled over to where Wensley was lying unconscious, but still breathing. Lamb and I shook him by the shoulders until his eyes opened. I asked if he could see how many fingers I was holding up. “How many fingers are you holding up?” he whispered.

  “Yes, lad. How many do you see?”

  He pushed my hand out of his face and sat up to look at the melee surrounding him. “What I see is a few bastards that aren’t bleeding yet. Give me your sap!” he barked at Lamb.

  It was then that I heard the gunshot ring out from Irene’s direction. I sprung to my feet and raced down Brick Lane, calling for her through the thick white mist. The alleyway ended at Hanbury Street where I saw her huddled over a man lying on the street.

  Irene looked up at me, weeping profusely. I saw blood stained around her neck through a makeshift bandage and gasped, “My God! What the hell happened?”

  She grabbed handfuls of my coat and yanked me down to look at the man. I first saw the knife buried in his breastbone and then finally realized it was Holmes. “Oh no,” I whispered. “No, no, no.” I leapt over his chest, tapping his face frantically, “Holmes! Holmes! Answer me! Holmes!’

  His eyes opened to narrow slits. “Watson?” he said. The corners of his mouth curled into a tiny smile. “Is that you?”

  “Shhh,” I said, wiping his forehead. “Try not to talk. I have to get you into surgery.” I leaned my head toward the alley and shouted, “Lestrade! Help! Come quickly! Lestrade!”

  “Watson, listen to me,” Holmes said, but then began coughing violently. There was blood on his teeth, coming up through his throat. “I do not have much time and I need to tell you…need to tell you…” He took me by the hand firmly and placed it over his heart. “I am so, so very sorry. I beg you to forgive me.”

  “No! No, I do not forgive you because if I forgive you, you will think it is safe to die, and it is not safe to die, Holmes. I do not forgive you so you have to fight to stay alive long enough to make me forgive you.” My words began to ramble together through thick sobs.

  “I am at the end, my friend. I am going to die.”

  “You are not!” I screamed.

  There was a gurgling sound from the wound in his chest and Holmes’s voice was little more than a whisper. “You can see this wound as well as I can. It is a fatal blow and I will soon pass on. It is a fact. It is….it is…elementary,” he said, and his eyes closed.

  THIRTY FOUR

  A carriage awaited Montague Druitt on Baker’s Row with a hooded driver standing by the side door holding the horse’s tether. “Over here, Monty! Quickly!”

  “Will?” Druitt shouted, spinning in the darkness. “Is that you?”

  “Follow my voice. We have to go!”

  “I cannot see, Will! Where are you?”

  “Just over here. Hurry, Monty, or I shall be forced to leave you. Just a little further. This way!” Once Druitt came near enough, Will grabbed him and pushed him toward the carriage. “My God, Monty. What the hell happened to you?”

  “That woman shot me!” Druitt moaned, touching his face. “How bad is it?”

  Will looked closely at the injury, seeing the scored bone between shreds of dangling flesh. “Not as bad as you might think, Monty. Get in the back and do not make a sound. We have to leave and there are swarms of police everywhere.”

  “Will,” Druitt said, bracing himself against the cab’s door. “I did not mean what I said earlier.”

  Will patted him on the shoulder and helped him up into the carriage. “Do not fret. Your older brother has everything under control. I shall take you to get help.”

  “I mean it, Will,” Druitt said. “I love you. I would never hurt you or your family. I have no idea what comes over me sometimes.”

  “I know, Monty.” Will quickly reached into his pocket and unscrewed the cap of a vial that he then poured it into a syringe. He loaded the needle’s barrel and flicked the tip so that fluid spilled out of it.

  Druitt was touching the exposed bones of his face in wonder when Will lifted him by the chin and said, “Let me just take a look for a moment.” Once Druitt’s head was tilted back, Will stuck the needle into his neck and pushed on the stopper.

  Druitt recoiled and grabbed his neck. “What are you doing?”

  “That is just to help you rest, little brother,” Will said. He watched Druitt slump over in his seat and then climbed into the front of the cab and snapped the horse’s reins.

  The launching dock for the Torpedo Workshop of Sir John Isaac Thornycroft was located in Chiswick, only a few blocks from the Brooke Asylum. At that early hour, the shop was dark and silent save for the waters of the Thames softly lapping against the dock. Will drove past the workshop, to go toward the stony field in the rear. When they came to stop he turned back to see Monty sprawled across the carriage’s floor. Will pulled Monty’s coat off of him and said, “We’re here, Monty. You must wake up.”

  “We are?” Monty said, feeling around the back of the cab. “Is this India?”

  “What? What do you mean? Why on earth would we be in India?”

  “You said you would take me there, Will.
You promised.”

  “Oh, yes,” Will said softly. “Now I remember. Did you still want to go? In fact, I think that is a capital idea and we should go there immediately after everything we’ve been through.”

  Monty tried to smile but grimaced at the pain in his face. “She really did me in. I suppose I deserved it. Is she dead?”

  “I do not know,” Will said. “I was not there, remember?”

  “She called me a monster, Will. I killed all those women. I ate the things I found inside of them. Why did I do that? Am I like mother? Is something wrong with my mind?”

  “Nothing is wrong with you, Monty. You were perfect! You were a complete revelation! In fact, you made my paltry work look childish by comparison.” Will bent to the ground and selected several of the heaviest stones he could find. He dropped them into the pockets of Monty’s coat.

  Monty’s head lolled forward from the narcotic in the syringe. “What work is that, Will?”

  “Well, after I killed the first two, I knew I could never keep going. The first one survived even after I jammed a broom stick so far up into her I thought it would pop out of her mouth. I couldn’t even finish her off properly. Good thing she was too afraid to tell the police what happened, or I might have been nibbed. Such a bungler.”

  “That was you?”

  “Of course it was me, Monty. Who do you think put those newspapers under your door? I was so inept that my own wife nearly caught me after I killed Martha Tabram. She found the bloody clothes and became immediately suspicious. I am just not cut out for this type of work, Monty. But you…my God, you were genius.”

  “You did this to me? But why?”

  Will came around to Monty’s side with the coat and draped it over his shoulders. Monty grunted under the weight of it as Will fastened the buttons all the way up to Monty’s neck. He cinched the belt tightly around Monty’s waist and tied it in a complex knot. “Now, to be fair, I cannot take full credit for what you accomplished. All I did was point you in the right direction. I gave you the means, maybe even the push you needed, but it is you who achieved greatness, Monty.”

  “Is that water?” Monty whispered. “It sounds as if we are standing on a dock.”

  “Yes. We’re getting on a boat. We are going to India, Monty. Just like you wanted, and just like I said.” Will led Monty to the edge of the pier. “I have had all of this planned out from the very beginning so have no fear. I will guide you.” He brought Monty to the edge of the dock and looked down into the black shimmering water. He put his arm around Monty and said, “Just remember how much I love you.”

  “I love you too, Will,” Monty said, but his words were cut short by the sharp intrusion of Will jamming a second needle into his neck. Will held him steady so that he could not break free and squeezed the syringe’s stopper in so quickly that a bubble formed in Monty’s skin that leaked pus around the needle. Monty gasped and his knees buckled. He clutched Will’s arm and said, “No more, Will. Please.”

  “I agree,” Will said. “That is quite enough.” Will removed the needle and tossed it into the water. He found a thick steel docking chain coiled on the ground nearby and hefted the chain over his shoulder and carried it over to Monty.

  “What did you put inside of me?” Monty said, clutching his neck. He staggered around the dock, but could not see and could not find anything to hold.

  “Be careful, Monty. You don’t want to fall in,” Will said. “I gave you a mix of opium and a very special fungus called amanita muscaria. They believe it is what made the Vikings go into those berserker rages, you know. Based on your response to it, I would think they are correct.”

  Will draped the chain around Monty’s neck and held him steady. He looked once more into his little brother’s ruined face and said, “It is time to go.”

  Monty smiled weakly at him, and Will pushed his brother off of the edge of the dock and sent him crashing into the Thames with an enormous splash.

  Frigid, polluted water filled Montague Druitt’s nose and mouth as he spun down and down and down. His ears roared, popping, bursting. His lungs filled with mud and water. The heavy chain and rocks in his coat dragged him toward the muddy bottom, toward the silt and dirt and centuries of trash that the people of England had thrown into the river.

  Toward India.

  ACT V

  A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT

  THIRTY FIVE

  Irene wrapped her hands around the knife’s handle and tried wrenching it from Holmes’s chest. “No!” I shouted and shoved her hands out of the way. “We must leave it in, it is plugging his wound!” She fought with me and tried getting free of my grip, but I pinned her arms to her sides to keep her from killing Holmes by trying to save him.

  Lestrade was commanding Lamb to whip the donkey harder over the sound of the carriage’s clanking wheels. “That way, you daft bastard!” he barked. “Turn right, the doctor’s office is on Bishopsgate.”

  “Listen to me, Irene,” I said. “That knife is the only thing keeping Holmes alive right now. If we remove it, we’ll kill him instantly.”

  She looked down at Holmes and slumped forward as if someone had undone her at the waist. I put my arm around her. “I need you to sit back and keep your head and knees up above your heart. You are not out of the woods yet, either, my dear,” I said. The makeshift bandage around her throat was saturated, and the wound needed to be sutured or it risked becoming septic.

  “There it is!” Lestrade shouted. Lamb stopped the cart and both men raced around the back to undo the gate and lift Holmes.

  There were no lights on within the office. I ran straight at the front door with my shoulder and the frame shattered. I toppled onto the floor near two surgical chairs and cabinets of chemicals and instruments. “Come on, come on,” I shouted. “Bring him in.” They carried Holmes past me and placed him into one of the chairs, while I returned to the cart to fetch Irene.

  Holmes was now trembling. His pulse slowed to a crawl and his skin was cold to the touch. I told Lestrade to cut off Holmes’s shirt while I rifled the cabinets, tossing things over my shoulder in my haste. “Where the hell is it?”

  Finally, I came upon a large brown bottle and syringe. I told Lestrade to stretch out Holmes’s arm while I prepared the injection. There were no track marks on his skin. The veins were solid and bright blue. He’d done it. He’d managed to wean himself from the poison that I was now injecting into him. I worked at it quickly, begging his forgiveness.

  I administered several more injections, and his pulse returned. I covered him with a blanket and turned to Irene. Her throat needed twenty stitches. I could see the quivering ends of several vocal chords within the wound that no surgeon’s hand could repair. While I was sure she would survive, I doubted her arias would ever ring out over an audience again.

  I tied Irene’s last suture and returned to Holmes. “You both have to hold him down,” I said to Lestrade and Lamb. I climbed onto the operating chair and straddled Holmes’s chest. Whatever demon possessed The Ripper to the last, it gave him enough strength to drive his blade through Holmes’s breastbone. “Hold him down so I can wrench this thing out of him,” I grunted. “I’ll have to rock it back and forth until it comes loose.” I grabbed the handle and started rocking it back and forth.

  “Christ, he’s bleeding like a fountain, Watson,” Lestrade hissed.

  “Hold him tightly, damn it! I am almost there!” Finally, the blade came loose with a pop and I tossed it across the room, lifting my hand to shield my face from the sudden crimson spray.

  ~ * * * ~

  The next morning, Chief Inspector Brett stood on the street waiting anxiously for the carriage to arrive at the Whitechapel Division Police Station. His entire future was aboard that carriage, he thought. Brett adjusted his tied and straightened his hair as it pulled up to the sidewalk and he moved to open the door. “Welcome home, sir,” Brett said, snapping a salute at the tiny, bearded man in back. “How was France?”

  “Far away
from all this mess, is how it was,” Sir Robert Anderson grumbled, ignoring Brett’s attempt to help him out of the carriage. “I was hoping this would blow over while I was away, but it seems as if you people have done nothing but stoke the fires, hmm? Becoming a bit fond of seeing your names in the papers, I suppose?”

  “Only those of us who care more about our own popularity than the integrity of this organization,” Brett said grimly. “That was why I sent you such an urgent telegram. This Inspector, in particular, has made quite a spectacle of things, and I am glad to have him finally removed from my division.”

  “My division, you mean,” Anderson said.

  “Of course, sir.” Technically, this was true, Brett thought, as he nodded politely to the Assistant Commissioner in Charge of CID. Anderson had been promoted to that rank in just August of that year, but only one month into the Ripper investigation, he’d unexpectedly announced he was going on extended vacation in France. He left with the implicit orders that he not be bothered until the damn thing was sorted out. Well, it wasn’t sorted, Brett thought, and so sorry to ruin your little jaunt, but if you don’t have the decency to retire and free up one of the higher ranks, I suppose I should make you earn your salary. “Inspector Gerard Lestrade was already in clear violation of a multitude of our ordinances when I sent you that telegram, Assistant Commissioner, but I fear it has only gotten worse. Just last night I was forced to confine him to his office. It is providence at work that you arrived this morning. I was also forced to confine one of the young uniformed constables that Lestrade managed to pollute with his wickedness.”

  “Just open the door, Brett,” Anderson said.

  “Yes, sir.” Brett pushed the door open to reveal a dozen prisoners scattered across the lobby floor. Some had thick white bandages wrapped around their heads with blood stains seeping through. Others had badly swollen eyes, or mouths of shattered teeth. All of them were shackled together, and several constables walked between their ranks with nightsticks slapping against their palms menacingly.