“I dare!” I replied, my plan now revealed.
Our growler stopped in front of the Marlborough. “Mister Pennyworth,” I said in my most formal voice, “would you care to join us for dinner at our club?”
“Delighted!” she said, giggling like an errant schoolgirl.
I felt the Three Musketeers deserved a fitting final meal together, so with considerable pride led them to the private dining room I had reserved. Here we could speak freely, and make a proper ending to our alliance.
The meal itself was nothing extraordinary, but I could tell for Margaret the act of penetrating this male bastion made the beef Wellington a veritable feast. We laughed as we celebrated our victory, though we knew we could never share our tale for fear of prosecution.
At meal’s end, we vowed to keep our secret for the remainder of our lives. Then there was a pause, none of us wanting to say goodbye. To break the silence, Margaret said, with perhaps a bit of false heartiness, “Well, gentlemen, spending time with you has been both instructive and profitable, but I suppose it is time to prepare for your departures. I shall always have a spare chair for you to sleep in, if I can’t find a cot.” The last said with a smile, tinged with sadness.
Our task done, Bell and I had our mundane worlds awaiting us to the north and south.
We concluded our evening by standing tall around the table, an ale in our hands, as we renewed our vows with fervor: “All for one and one for all!”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
JOURNEY’S END
November 1888 to August 1889
Time is often described as a wind, and in this instance the description seems most apt, for I was quickly whisked away from a lifeand- death struggle with the Ripper and back to publishers’ deadlines and patients with lumbago.
As to my parting with Margaret, I will not speak of it, even now. We knew each other’s hearts. That had to be enough.
With the passage of time and absence of further murders, the police presence slowly dwindled, and the residents of the East End returned to their difficult, though less hazardous, existence. Although I cannot truthfully say the anti-Semitism within London entirely dissipated, the threat of riots faded over time as all of London slowly returned to a life without the Ripper.
I never saw Inspector Abberline again, and I regretted the manner of our parting given the admiration I held and still have for him. I often wondered if he ever linked the cessation of the Ripper murders with my admittedly insane-sounding proclamation that I knew who the murderer was, followed by our abrupt disappearance.
We Musketeers vowed to keep in touch but, as usual, the woman among us was a more faithful correspondent than we men. Margaret’s book about the Salvation Army was published a short time later, at first under her pseudonym John Law and entitled Captain Lobe: A Story of the Salvation Army. It did moderately well and was subsequently reissued under her true name and with a new title: In Darkest London and The Way Out, in which she added elements of Jack the Ripper, careful to cast him as a gentile.
Bell returned to his surgery practice and teaching. Some years after our affair with the Ripper, he was consulted in a suspected case of murder and, by the absence of gunpowder deposition in the victim’s wound, determined the alleged shooting accident was a deliberate case of homicide.
Given his powers of observation, the growing affection between Margaret and myself could not have escaped his notice, yet he never alluded to it in any way, not even by way of a raised eyebrow. I believe his affection for the two of us, and trust in our sense of decency, assured him we would behave honorably. In the end, his trust was justified.
Meanwhile, I continued my writing of historical fiction. Micah Clarke did moderately well; I believed my best work lay in this genre. My interest in spiritualism, already kindled by an earlier study of hypnotism and attending séances, was strengthened by my experiences during the Ripper investigation. My dreams of the murdered woman with their portents of the final confrontation left an indelible impression upon me.
I also began my studies in eye surgery in earnest, going to Vienna for a time to enhance my knowledge. I was straddling two careers, wanting to commit to writing but fearful of deserting my medical career given my growing family. This state of affairs might have continued indefinitely if not for one fateful evening in August 1889, at the posh Portland Place Hotel in London, when I and a young Irish author named Oscar Wilde met with an American publisher named Stoddart.
I was fascinated with the wit of Mr. Wilde, and quite flattered to learn he had read Micah and was sincerely complimentary of it. I was also well pleased with the conclusion of our meeting when we each were given a healthy check for some unspecified work to be published in one of Stoddart’s magazines. Wilde’s commission resulted in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I was preparing to leave when Mr. Stoddart made it clear he was expecting more Holmes stories, and this brought me up short. My jaw clenched as I recalled the odious Mr. Collier, sneaking into the morgue to sketch the bodies of those who had died violently, and of the crowds leaving the Lord Mayor’s procession in hopes of glimpsing a mutilated corpse.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said to Mr. Stoddart, “but I want nothing more to do with crime stories.”
“I quite agree, Doctor Doyle,” said Mr. Wilde. “Crime writing would be most distasteful for anyone with decent sensibilities.”
Then leaning forward and placing his hand upon my shoulder, he said, “Write about Justice.”
My jaw slowly relaxed as I thought of the dedicated Inspector Abberline, the Jews who had been in danger of being killed merely for being different when their neighbors were frightened and angry. I thought of Mary Kelly, whose murder I had in some small way caused, and then helped avenge. And, finally, I thought of Margaret, kneeling in the dark with a knife to her throat. I realized one could write a crime story focusing on the horrific nature of the crime, or one could focus on the victims and on putting the scales of justice back into balance.
The Ripper’s cruelest act may have been his theft of hope. Perhaps my Mr. Holmes, like some modern-day knight errant, could restore the belief that there could indeed be justice for all, not only for the rich and powerful but for any man or woman who found their way to his consulting room.
“Excellent suggestion, Mr. Wilde,” I said, smiling as I considered his words.
I turned to Stoddart and extended my hand, which he clasped warmly. “Agreed, sir! We have a deal.”
And thus was my consulting detective reborn. I certainly gained much experience that would inform me in the coming years as I wrote his adventures, but I believe my greatest reward was gaining the insight I needed to enter into the larger world that Bell inhabited. I learned that doormen, bobbies, and, yes, “laundresses” were also human beings worthy of my notice and sympathy.
Truly, I could never have contrived a woman as intelligent or resourceful as Irene Adler, the only woman to ever equal Sherlock Holmes both in intelligence and resourcefulness, had I not found my way to a shabby flat on Vine Street.
THE LETTER
January 1, 1924, Windlesham
Thirty-six years have passed since we faced and ultimately defeated one of the vilest men to ever cast a shadow. Professor Bell left us in 1911, dying in his beloved Edinburgh. To my great regret, I was afflicted with a severe case of rheumatism at the time, and was unable to travel. I sent flowers, and Margaret later wrote to me movingly of the service. There are few men whose heart and intellect are grand in equal measure, but surely he was one.
Margaret would suffer from some illness, the nature of which she never shared with me. Apparently, she fared better in warmer climes; thus she lived at times in Australia, America, the South of France, and Calcutta, India. She published various works, never losing her ardor in defense of the poor and, at one time, managed and owned her own periodical. Her final work was a novel entitled A Curate’s Promise: A Story of Three Weeks, September 14 to October 5, 1917, published in 1921. She died in modest c
ircumstances in the Pensione Castagnoli in Florence, in the year just past, and was buried the following day in the Allori Cemetery in a tomba di seconda classe.
I never told her, but when I refreshed my memory of Dumas’s classic, The Three Musketeers, I decided Bell must be Athos, the older man who was a father figure for d’Artagnan. Since I was obviously Porthos, that left Margaret as Aramis, the Musketeer conflicted by his desire for the sacred and the profane but passionate for both—similar to her desire to better the life of those at the mercy of the powerful, yet with a fierce enjoyment of life no matter what challenges fortune threw her way.
Following her death, I was surprised to receive this small cardboard box. It came from one of the nursing sisters who tended to Margaret in her final days. But now, finally, I must open it and consign the past to the past, however unwillingly.
There are two items, each with a note attached. The first I recognize immediately. A straight razor: the very one Margaret wielded that night on the railway track. Its note reads:
Dear Doyle,
Never forget:
I am the Master of my Fate,
I am the Captain of my Soul.
Margaret
The second item . . . is unfamiliar to me. Is it a religious symbol? . . . No. On closer inspection, I recognize it as a Queen Victoria penny, dated 1888. A hole has been drilled, and a tricolor ribbon of red, white, and blue runs through it, such that one could wear it as a pendant.
With it is a letter, containing Margaret’s final words:
Dear Porthos,
As self-appointed executor of Herr Graff’s estate, I took the liberty of fashioning this medallion from the penny he offered in payment for my life. I then bestowed upon myself the honorific of Monster Slayer, First Class. I have worn this beneath my garments often when faced with a difficult situation, as a means to remind myself of far graver challenges I have successfully overcome. It has been more than a penny’s worth to me, if you’ll forgive my little joke, my friend. But I now bequeath this to you and authorize its wear upon any and all suitable occasions, but most of all on each twentyfifth of September, the anniversary of the founding of our stalwart band. All for one and one for all, dear Porthos. May you raise a glass in our memory for many years to come.
I am wearing the medallion now as I finish my tale, while the glass sits patiently beside me.
I miss you, dear friends.
Happy New Year.
Arthur Conan “Porthos” Doyle, MD
AFTERWORD
This book is a work of fiction, though mostly grounded in fact. It began one day as I was reading about Conan Doyle and realized there was a four-year gap between the first Holmes story and the next. In the middle of this break were the Ripper murders. I immediately saw the opportunity to write a story that would use the Ripper as a means for Doyle to solve the murders and return to Sherlock Holmes.
Some events, particularly news articles, were moved in sequence from their actual date of publication to facilitate my storyline, but only the report of the body found with a cricket bat was fabricated.
Professor Joseph Bell
Arthur Conan Doyle met Professor Joseph Bell at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary while a medical student and became his clerk. Impressed by the professor’s ability to render diagnoses and insightful observations regarding occupation and travel history, Bell became the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Bell was in fact the surgeon in attendance to Queen Victoria whenever she was in Scotland.
An article in the Irish Times, dated November 4, 2011, states that Bell was consulted by Scotland Yard during the Ripper murders to perform handwriting analysis of the letters signed Jack the Ripper, a fact I learned only after I had already written it into the story.
Margaret Harkness
Miss M. E. Harkness (“John Law”)
(The Queen, May 1890)
This image is the only likeness of Margaret known to exist, and I’m grateful to Professor Deborah Mutch of De Montfort University, and editor of a recent reprint of Margaret’s book, A City Girl, who verified it. She in turn credits her former graduate students Doctor Lisa Robertson and Doctor Flore Janssen for unearthing it.
I do not know if Margaret was in the habit of wearing men’s clothing or carrying a derringer, but everything else I have written in the book regarding her literary career and biography, including her father’s attempt to compel her to marry, is true.
In the summer of 1888, Margaret helped organize the Matchgirls’ Strike to better the working conditions for the women who worked in the factories. Sadly, these efforts were unsuccessful, but in 1889 she persuaded Cardinal Manning, the Bishop of London, to intercede in the London Dock Strike. This resulted in the formation of trade unions for unskilled laborers and vastly improved working conditions for approximately a hundred thousand workers.
To my knowledge, Margaret and Doyle never met. When I began writing this tale, she was intended as a minor character I meant to use in only a couple of scenes to highlight the social status of women at that time. Margaret had other ideas, and you know the rest.
My favorite Holmes story has always been “A Scandal in Bohemia,” and I can think of no finer inspiration for Irene Adler, “the woman,” than this remarkable lady, who lived a life far ahead of her time.
Those interested in knowing more about her can reference the excellent article about her on the Victorian Web, a website for researchers into that era: http://victorianweb.org/gender/harkness.html.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, MD
Photo credit: Walter Benington.
There is not enough space for me to relate Doyle’s literary accomplishments, but I can mention that he made a couple of forays into detective work in later years, resulting in the ultimate release of Oscar Slater, wrongly convicted of murder, and clearing the name of George Edalji, accused of animal mutilations. When the crime writer Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared in 1926, however, Doyle hired a medium, who accurately predicted she would emerge on the following Wednesday, prompting him to advocate for a psychic to be employed by every police department.
In answer to Margaret’s query regarding Holmes—“Wherever did you get that name?”—fans of the Great Detective will be surprised to know the original name was Sherrinford Holmes, and the loyal companion and narrator of his adventures was Ormond Sacker. I, for one, am glad how things turned out, and I think most readers would agree.
The epitaph on Doyle’s headstone reads:
Steel True
Blade Straight
Arthur Conan Doyle
Knight
Patriot, Physician & Man of Letters
The words in this story are my own, but they are hopefully true to the spirit of the man who gave us that champion of justice, Sherlock Holmes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If it takes a village to raise a child, it took a tribe to write this book. First, I’d like to thank my inspiration, Mary Roach. I was fortunate enough to work with her on her latest book, Grunt, and seeing the nuts and bolts of storytelling made it less frightening. She inspired me to “give it a go,” so it is all her fault!
Next, I would like to thank my editor and mentor, John DeDakis (www.johndedakis.com). He convinced me that my early scribbles had something of value buried within my run-on sentences and meager descriptions. Like a gentle gardener, he pruned and fertilized as called for. I had the vision; he taught me the craft.
I would also like to thank my agent, Jill Marr with the Dijkstra Agency, and her reader, Derek McFadden. Derek forwarded my story enthusiastically, and that made all the difference. Jill believed in me, and helped make my dream come true. There is no greater gift, and I am indebted to them both.
To my loyal readers who have, each in their own way encouraged me, foremost of them would be my old boss, Col. (ret.) Doctor Holly Doyne. She was tough but reassured me that within my early mess I had “the bones of a good story.”
Others of my tribe include Jimmy “two-bits” Ethington, Petra W
inters (a wonderful editor in her own right,) Sarah Davis, Milyn King, Larry Philips, Chris Miguez, and my Mexican brother from another mother, Gustavo Ramirez de Toledo, a well-known author and educator in Latin America, who also encouraged me.
I would also like to thank my friends Henry Chambers and retired Major General David Rubenstein, for the use of their names, and my British friend Harvey Blair, who taught me “the difference between chalk and cheese.” Writers really are the most shameless of thieves.
Next on my list would be my patient editors, Mr. Dan Mayer and Sheila Stewart at Seventh Street and Prometheus Books. Their enthusiastic involvement got me across the finish line.
I would be remiss if I failed to thank my wife, Chere, and my mother, Mary Elizabeth Shwiller, who were my first editors, and my daughter Linnea Harper, who gave me the book that led me to Mary Roach, and my daughter Dawn Skye DiComo, who was my research librarian.
The map at the front of the book was created by Mr. Geoff Cooper (jacktherippermap.info), and I am indebted to him for his meticulous attention to detail and patience with my shifting requirements.
Finally, I would like to praise Mr. Richard Jones. His book, Jack the Ripper’s London, was a revelation. I might have been able to write a book about the Ripper, but it would never have been as rich in detail nor as sympathetic to the denizens of Whitechapel as this work attempts to be. He patiently suffered from my many unsolicited emails over the early course of the composition, and his generosity of spirit shaped this novel to a vast extent. The night we spent together walking through Whitechapel allowed me to experience the Ripper’s hunting ground in a way a book could never do, and I heartily recommend his walking tour (information available at https://jack-the-ripper-tour.com). His book mentioned Margaret Harkness, whom I had never heard of before, and I decided to research her further. I shall always be in his debt.
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