Dust and Shadow

by Lyndsay Faye

  “When shall you return?” I called as he disappeared into his bedroom.

  “The answer to that conundrum, friend Watson, I could not even begin to guess,” came his reply.

  “If you should need me—”

  “Never fear. I’ll scale a tree and raise the flag. England expects that every man will do his duty.” With a nod and a wave, the unofficial investigator departed; I did not see him again that day.

  The events in question left me in such a state of unease that I spent much of the night staring at my ceiling. When morning at long last lifted her golden head above the brickwork of the neighbouring houses, I was seized with an irresistible urge to get out of doors. Thankfully, I had given my word to a young medical friend that I would look in on an invalid patient of his, as he had left London for the weekend and would not return until Monday. I am quite certain that old Mrs. Thistlecroft was taken aback by my strenuous advice on no account to allow castor oil through her bedroom window, nor to forsake her daily dose of cold draughts. Mercifully, I did her no harm, as she brooked no traffic with the foolish or distracted, and I very narrowly avoided being thrown out on my ear with the ringing declaration that my friend Anstruther should soon hear of her treatment at my hands.

  Making my way back up Oxford Street, I stopped for a copy of the Times, to see what progress Holmes had made. I swiftly found the column, as the papers were concerned with little else:

  Annie Chapman, alias “Sivvey”—a name she had received in consequence of living with a sieve maker—was the widow of a man who had been a soldier, and from whom, until about 12 months ago, when he died, she had been receiving 10s. a week. She was one of the same class as Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, residing also in the common lodging houses of Spitalfields and Whitechapel, and is described as a stout, well-proportioned woman, as quiet, and as one who had “seen better days.” Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who has been engaged in special inquiries surrounding the murder of Nichols, at once took up the latest investigation, the two crimes being obviously the work of the same hands. A conference with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known private consulting detective, resulted in the experts’ agreement that the crimes were connected, and that, notwithstanding many misleading statements and rumours, the murders were committed where the bodies had been found, and that no gang were the perpetrators. It is feared in many quarters that unless the culprit can speedily be captured, more outrages of a similar class will follow.

  Suppressing a smile at Lestrade’s new views, I tucked the paper under my arm and dashed upstairs to see whether my friend was at home. He was not, but affixed to the mantelpiece with my letter opener was a note he had left for me:

  My dear Watson,

  Investigating the fascinating inner workings of the cat’s-meat trade. Might I suggest that you await the arrival of Miss Monk.

  SH

  I must admit to some surprise at Holmes’s afternoon appointment, and no less intrigue. I spent an hour organizing the notes I had made at Hanbury Street into some coherence, and just as I laid down my pen to stretch my legs, Mrs. Hudson peeped into the room.

  “A young person to see Mr. Holmes, sir. Are you expecting her? She gives her name as Miss Monk.”

  “Send her straight up, Mrs. Hudson. She is an associate of ours.”

  Lifting her brows delicately, Mrs. Hudson departed. A minute later, the door burst open to reveal the petite frame of Miss Mary Ann Monk, clad this time in her own attire: a dark green cotton bodice fastened with seven or eight varieties of carefully salvaged buttons, a skillfully altered man’s vest, and a midnight blue figured coat which hung to the knee, revealing a profusion of skirts, the outermost an ancient green wool so much abused that it had deepened nearly to black. Her riot of hair was pinned and then tied back over the crown of her head with a narrow strip of cotton fabric, but it nevertheless showed signs of impending escape. She approached me and extended her hand.

  “Very pleased to see you again, Miss Monk. Do sit down.”

  She did so, with a poise implying that she had not always been in her present circumstances. However, she was soon up again, perusing the assortment of curiosities above the fireplace and tossing an ancient spearhead nervously from hand to hand before speaking.

  “I can’t say as I know why Mr. Holmes asked me to tea, nor how he come to know I was lodged at Miller’s Court. Though,” she added, smiling, “I think Mr. Holmes does what he likes and knows a great many things he oughtn’t.”

  “What you say is very true. I am afraid I cannot answer any of your questions just yet, though it is certainly within my purview to ring for tea.”

  At the mention of this precious article, a gleam appeared in her eye, which she quickly buried beneath studied nonchalance. “Well, if Mr. Holmes won’t be offended. He did say four o’clock in the telegram, and I’m before my time. First wire in British history to be delivered to Miller’s Court, like enough, and I’d still his money in my boot for paying the shoful. Don’t know the last time I’ve ridden inside a cab. You could have knocked my pals down with a feather. I waved out the window as I left.” Miss Monk laughed at the thought, and I could not help but join her.

  “As Mr. Holmes has charged me with keeping you comfortable until he arrives, I think immediate refreshment is in order, don’t you?” I inquired, ringing the bell.

  “Tea,” she said languorously. “Served in good china, I’d wager. Maybe even with cream. Oh, I am sorry, Dr. Watson,” she exclaimed, embarrassed. “Here, then, I’ve some tea in my pocket—just enough for three, I’d say. I had a run of luck last night. Should you like some?” Miss Monk produced a small leather pouch stuffed with dusty brown tea leaves, obviously an item of immense value to its owner.

  “I am sure Holmes would prefer not to accept such a courtesy when you are a guest in our home, Miss Monk. Here is Mrs. Hudson now.”

  Our landlady had indeed arrived, hefting a tray loaded with far more than the usual sandwiches required by Holmes’s erratic appetite and my discretion.

  “It’s just as it was when I was a girl! I remember trays like these—tiered, ain’t that the word? Shall I pour, Dr. Watson?”

  “By all means.” I smiled. “But do tell me, if you are not offended by the question, where were you born, Miss Monk?”

  “Here in England,” she replied readily, making surprisingly elegant work of pouring the tea. “Mum was Italian, and Dad convinced her to throw her own family over and put her hand in with him. We had land once, but there was a disputed will…I was seven, if I remember rightly. Lord knows but it’s been ages since they both died. Cholera struck ’em down, one right after t’other. So here I am. Staggered at the sight of a decent tea.”

  Though she smiled, I could not help but feel I had awkwardly broached a painful subject, and I had just opened my mouth in hopes an appropriate reply would emerge when Sherlock Holmes entered our sitting room.

  “Halloa, halloa, what have we here?” he cried. “Miss Monk, you are most welcome. I have spent my time—well, perhaps I had better just splash some water on my face and be with you directly. I have been in a most pernicious environment.” He disappeared for a brief period but returned looking quite his orderly self again and plunged a lean hand into the slipper which held his tobacco.

  “You will excuse me, I am sure, if I light my pipe. Did this spearhead interest you? It is a very ancient object, recently the instrument of death in a very modern crime.”

  All of Miss Monk’s nerves, which I flatter myself had been largely dispelled, returned at the sight of my friend. “Thank you kindly for the tea, Mr. Holmes, but I’ve already answered all the questions I could, honest I have.”

  “Undoubtedly. However, I did not invite you here to interrogate you. I brought you here to ask you plainly, Miss Monk, do you feel as if you could play a part in bringing the Whitechapel killer to justice?”

  “Me?” she exclaimed. “How do you expect me to help? Polly’s cold in her grave, and the other lass had her innards m
ucked all over the parish.”

  “And I fear I must inform you, Miss Monk, that I suspect this man may continue killing until the very day that he is caught,” replied the detective. “Though it is undoubtedly in all our interests to find him quickly, I imagined your feelings for Polly Nichols might encourage you to take a more active role.”

  “Really, Holmes, I cannot imagine what sort of role you mean,” I countered.

  Holmes drew upon his pipe languidly, always a sign of concentration rather than of relaxation. “I propose that you enter my employment, Miss Monk. I could spend the lion’s share of my days building connections in the East-end, keeping the pulse of fresh rumour ever at my fingertips, but I am afraid I cannot afford to stretch myself so thinly. You, however, are placed in an ideal position to go unnoticed, hearing and seeing everything.”

  “You’d pay me to nose? Nose on what?” Miss Monk asked incredulously.

  “On the neighbourhood itself. There’s no more lucrative cover for flushing a bird than the local alehouses at which you are already known and trusted.”

  Miss Monk’s emerald eyes widened considerably at Holmes’s remarkable suggestion. “But why ask a ladybird like me to spy on the Chapel? Why not use some jack or other, what’s trained to sniff about?”

  “I do not think I need employ other detectives. You, Miss Monk, see more than those fellows do already. As for terms, here is an advance of five pounds for expenses, and I imagine you would do well enough on a pound a week, is that not so?”

  “Would I!” cried Miss Monk, her pointed chin descending at the generous figure. “But if I’m to pitch over my daily work, how am I to explain the chink?”

  Holmes considered the question. “I imagine you could tell your companions that you have arrested the attentions of a poetic and passionate West-end client who has determined to engage your services under more exclusive terms.”

  This suggestion elicited a ringing peal of laughter from Miss Monk. “You’re mad, you know. I’ll be rubbish—who am I to help hunt down the Knife?”

  “Is that what they’re calling him?” My friend smiled. “Miss Monk, I can think of no one better suited to assist me.”

  “Well,” she said stoutly, “I’m all for it if you are. If I can help lay a hand on Polly’s killer, it’s a job well done. No more smatter hauling for me this month, gents.”

  “Income garnered through theft of handkerchiefs,” Holmes murmured under his breath.

  “Ah, yes,” said I. “Quite so.”

  We settled that Miss Monk would confine her investigations to the neighbourhoods of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, taking note of all local speculation. She would then report to Holmes twice weekly at Baker Street, under the pretext of paying calls upon her gentleman suitor. It was a determined Miss Monk, I noted, who descended our stairs to the cab waiting at the street corner.

  Holmes threw himself upon the settee as I cast about for a means to light my pipe.

  “She’ll prove useful, Watson, mark my words,” he declared, tossing me a matchbox. “Alis volat propriis,* if I am not very much mistaken.”

  “She’ll come to no harm, Holmes?”

  “I should hope not. Alehouses are safe as churches by comparison with the murky alleys of her usual vocation. By the way, I came by a spot of success this morning.”

  “I meant to inquire. What the deuce has cat’s meat to do with the matter?”

  “Although I have not yet ascertained whether Annie Chapman, for so I have discovered she was called, was tied in any way to Polly Nichols or Martha Tabram, she was nevertheless ill-starred enough to fall victim to the Whitechapel killer, who made off with possibly the most repellent token I have ever heard spoken of.”

  “I recall as much.”

  “Well, then. What does that aforementioned token suggest to you?” Holmes’s eyes shone and the twitch of his brow gave me every hope that he was onto something.

  “Do you mean to tell me you have found a clue?”

  “My dear Watson, flex your mental musculature and see if you can make note of the remarkable fact which Lestrade, in his horror at the proceedings, has seemingly not yet grasped.”

  “Every one of these vile facts is remarkable enough to me.”

  “Oh, come, Watson, do make an effort. You are the killer. You dispatch your victim. You open her up, and remove her womb.”

  “Well, of course!” I exclaimed. “What the devil did he do with it?”

  “Bravo, Watson. The blackguard certainly did not amble down the lane with it in his trouser pocket.”

  “But the cat’s meat?”

  “This morning I found, because I was looking for it, a quantity of cat’s meat hidden beneath one of the stones in the yard of number twenty-seven, which must make all clear for you. You recall my interest in whether Mrs. Hardyman of twenty-nine Hanbury Street, ground floor, front room, had done a brisk business that morning?”

  “I see! He purchased a package of cat’s meat.”

  “Excellent, my dear Watson. You make me feel as if I were there.”

  “He then hid the cat’s meat, placing the organ in the bloody package and making off down the street, free of suspicion.”

  “You shall master the deductive arts yet, my boy.”

  “But who is he?”

  “Mrs. Hardyman’s riveting description was as follows: ‘A sort of regular-looking chap, middle-sized, very polite in his ways.’ She thought she had seen him before but could not recall where or whether she had ever previously sold him cat’s meat. You see our earlier inference is confirmed; he is apparently not a man who imposes himself upon the senses. And this cat’s-meat business indicates premeditation yet again, which is more than a little disturbing to my mind.”

  “What the devil could he have wanted with such a gruesome prize?”

  “I cannot begin to tell you. Well, at any rate, it is certainly the best lead we’ve dug up, and while Miss Monk pans the silt, we shall see if we cannot add some fresh particulars to this shabbily dressed fellow, whose taste in souvenirs is as indecent as it is incomprehensible.”

  CHAPTER SIX A Letter to the Boss

  The next morning, I was interrupted whilst stoking the fading morning fire in our sitting room by a resounding exclamation of disgust from Sherlock Holmes, who sat transfixed with a newspaper upon the breakfast table in front of him and an arrested coffeepot in his hand.

  “Confound the man! Well, if the fool wishes to waste his labour on squaring the circle, as it is said, we can do nothing about it.”

  “What has happened?”

  “Lestrade has arrested John Pizer, against all tattered remains of rational thought.”

  “At your suggestion, surely,” I reminded him.

  “I wired him there was nothing in it!” Holmes protested. “Even the Evening Standard cannot credit his having anything to do with the matter.”

  “And what more have the gutter press to say on the subject?”

  Snapping the paper emphatically, he read, “‘It would seem that there is, haunting the slums and purlieus of Whitechapel, some obscene creature in human guise, whose hands are stained with the “gory witness” of a whole series of butcheries’…ha!…‘shocking perversion of Nature…bestial wretch…unquenchable as the taste of a man-eating tiger for human flesh.’”

  “For heaven’s sake, my dear fellow.”

  “I didn’t write it,” he said mischievously.

  A brief knock at the door heralded the approach of our pageboy. “You’ve a telegram, Holmes.” I could not help but smile as my eyes scanned the correspondence. “Mr. Lusk is now the acting president of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. He sends his allegiance and his warm regards.”

  “Capital! Well, I am gratified to see that some of these active fellows are actually applying their energies in a beneficial direction. We shall follow their example, my good man—we must learn more about this purchaser of cat’s meat, and with all possible haste.”

  But throughout the week that f
ollowed, Holmes met with only the most limited success. Despite all our efforts, as the killer had left no physical trace, we could not identify the man who had vanished that morning into the cold September air. The Vigilance Committee, a truly robust organization from the start, swiftly organized neighbourhood watches and nightly patrols, but they encountered few hazards beyond the outbreaks of vicious antiforeign mobs, who took it upon themselves to beat any hapless immigrant whose “sly looks” or “crooked demeanour” proved his degenerate nature. Every citizen of Whitechapel from the most devout charity worker to the lowest cracksman cried out in chorus that no native Englishman could ever have killed a poor woman so.

  Annie Chapman was buried secretly on Friday the fourteenth of September, at the same paupers’ cemetery where Polly Nichols had been given back to the infinite little over a week before. “Pulvis et umbra sumus,” Holmes remarked that night, staring into the fire with his long arms cast thoughtfully about his drawn-up knees. “You and I, Watson, Annie Chapman, even the revered Horace himself—dust and the shadow cast by it, merely that and nothing more.”

  Though Holmes lamented during the weeks following Annie Chapman’s death that the trails grew colder with every nervous twitch of the clock, I knew he was gratified that at least his investment in Miss Mary Ann Monk had proven fruitful. As Holmes followed slender leads to their barren conclusions, we anticipated eagerly our meetings with Miss Monk, who appeared to relish her new occupation. My friend, whose casual charm all too often masked cold, incisive professionalism, seemed genuinely pleased to see her, while I looked forward warmly to the boisterous air of enthusiasm with which she infused our discouraged sitting room.