Dust and Shadow

by Lyndsay Faye

  Between us we dragged the struggling brute down to the street, where good fortune blessed us with a second constable patrolling his beat. I left Kidney in their capable hands and returned to where Holmes remained on the grass, adjusting his sling thoughtfully, rotating his arm in tiny circles.

  “That constable appears to have a temper,” I remarked.

  “No more than Kidney,” Holmes returned wryly. “I am grateful that he made no serious effort to fight me. He would have gotten hurt.”

  “You are a formidable match even when injured, and I am very pleased to point out that you are looking less injured every hour. But Holmes, I must know—did you find what you expected?”

  “I suppose dragging you out in this wretched damp demands some degree of explanation,” he conceded as we walked back to the open road. “Strange as it may sound, I had the same idea as Michael Kidney. These murders—their glory in excess, their delight in the press—have been conducted in the most public manner conceivable. And what could possibly be more public than the victim’s funeral?”

  “Surely the Ripper would be very obtuse to show himself.”

  “I did not imagine that he would, but there is a streak of vanity about his correspondence which had invested me with hope. He is growing ever more sure of himself and will soon enough bluff his way into a corner,” my friend predicted. “I only hope he will do so before anyone else is killed.”

  The following Monday, I returned from a game of billiards at my club to a curious spectacle in our sitting room: Holmes was stretched out upon the settee, feet propped on its arm and head supported by pillows, with the neck of his violin wedged into the cloth of his sling and his left hand scraping the eerie, vagrant chords which I associated with his most melancholic levels of meditation. I made for my bedroom, for his more abstract musical efforts were keenly disquieting to my nerves and I did not relish hearing them played left-handed, but he stopped me with a question.

  “And how is your friend Thurston?”

  I turned to regard Holmes with an expression of utter bewilderment. “How did you know I was with Thurston?”

  He set his violin on the side table and sat up. “You are returning from your club. You declared in some distress eight months ago that you did not intend to play billiards at your club anymore because your opponents were no match for your prowess. You and I have only played once, but I found you to be a daunting challenger indeed. A month later, you returned from your club only to confess that you had been bested at billiards by a new member named Thurston. Since that happy occurrence, you have neither given up billiards nor bemoaned your proficiency.”

  “But how did you know I was playing billiards?”

  “You lunched at home, and there was no rugby match yesterday to discuss with your fellow sportsmen.”

  “Am I so transparent?”

  “Only to the trained observer.”

  “You have been devoting the afternoon to music, I see.”

  “So it may appear, but in fact I attended Catherine Eddowes’s funeral. It was a study in opposites, my dear fellow; there were close to five hundred people in attendance if my calculations were correct. Polished elm coffin, open glass conveyance, mourners lining the streets—immigrant, native, rich, poor, East-enders, West-enders, both the City and the Metropolitan police forces, and one independent consulting detective. You see what a little money can get you.”

  I had hardly begun to reply when a brusque knock at the door interrupted me and Mrs. Hudson entered with a small package.

  “This was left for you downstairs by the last post, Mr. Holmes. I thought to bring it up with your tea, but the cat won’t leave off the thing, as it’s been smeared with Lord only knows what.”

  Holmes, with all the galvanized energy of a hound on the scent, leapt to his feet and hurried to his chemical table, where a powerful lamp provided better light for study. He had regained most of the strength in his right appendage and could make use of the hand while keeping the arm motionless. Slitting the paper with a jackknife, he commenced to peruse the wooden box itself with his lens. Uttering a few murmured exclamations of satisfaction, and twice removing with tweezers small indications and placing them carefully on a piece of blotting paper, he worked until I was beside myself with curiosity over what the box actually contained.

  At long last, he cautiously lifted the lid. Revealing only straw, he grasped a slender letter opener and with it disturbed the hay until he finally revealed a glint of silver.

  Holmes frowned, covered his hand with a cloth, and reaching in, pulled out a small cigarette case. Turning it over under the light, he looked for traces on the surface of the metal, but the case appeared to be brand new. He tossed it on the table and drew out a short note, which read:

  Mr. Holmes,

  Sorry you’ve lost your case I didn’t have time to monnogram this one but you could always have it done of corse if you wish it. I have a deal of work to do sharpening knifes (they have been so much used of late) but never to busy to wish you and your frend the Doctor my compliments. Back to it then, I hope you don’t think I’ve finished, for there’s much work still to be done.

  Yours,

  Jack

  PS—Had no time to clean my knife between you and the last girl what a jolly red mix that was.

  I stared in disbelief. “You lost your cigarette case when you encountered the killer! I distinctly remember your asking for mine.”

  He did not answer.

  “My dear Holmes, this is nonsensical. Why should he return you a cigarette case which is not your own?”

  “Page torn from a notebook, standard pocket size, black ink, and with any luck…” He fetched a piece of graphite and ran it lightly over the surface of the note. He gave a cry of delight when a pattern revealed itself.

  “What have you found?”

  He passed me the scrap of notepaper with evident satisfaction and I squinted at the writing he had revealed:

  245

  —11:30

  1054

  —14

  765

  —12:15

  “Holmes, what could this possibly mean?”

  “It is an impression from the previous page. I confess I make nothing of it at the moment, but that surely does not mean it is beyond human imagining. No finger marks on either the paper or the case, which is very odd indeed and means he either wore gloves from its moment of purchase or else wiped it carefully. He is a collector of trophies, fair-haired, meticulous, and I doubt not that there is a stable very close to where he lives, for this hay has recently been in the immediate vicinity of a horse. He was in attendance at Catherine Eddowes’s interment today. And when he packed this box,” Holmes concluded triumphantly, “he was smoking a cigarette. The ash has fallen in the hay.” Scraping a flake of fluffy white ash onto another piece of blotting paper with the jackknife, the detective held up his lens.

  “I can see the hair follicle you discovered between the paper and the box, and the postmark no doubt revealed he was in the vicinity of the funeral. What of the ash? Will it help us to trace him?”

  My friend dropped his lens in deepest disdain, crushed the paper in his fist, and drew a very deep, very slow breath before replying, “Afraid not, my boy.”

  “But why not?” I inquired hesitantly.

  “Because he was smoking my cigarettes.”

  I could think of no reply to this repulsive piece of information and thus attempted none.

  “As for the trophies,” Holmes continued more evenly, lifting a glass test tube from its holder and switching on his blue-flamed burner, “he has amassed, so far as we know, a womb and a kidney. And now my cigarette case is certainly in his possession, for how else would he know it was monogrammed?”

  “Holmes, what are you doing?”

  My friend fixed me with a sly glance as he set a container of water on the burner and drew a vial of snow white crystals out of a small leather case. Reaching for the soiled paper and cutting the dark stain free of the r
est, he tossed it into the steaming water. “What do you imagine this stain to be, Watson? Ink? Mud? Dye?”

  “I hardly like to think of what it—oh, but Holmes—of course!” I cried, as he drew drops of various liquids from their jars and carefully combined them in a test tube. “How could I forget? At the very moment I met you, you were quite incoherent over your discovery.”

  “That is because the Sherlock Holmes test for hemoglobin represented an incalculable breakthrough in criminal science, and may I add it took me nearly four months to perfect,” he returned airily.* He unstopped the vial and shook a few pale crystals into the water in which the dark paper was beginning to break down, switching off the burner as he did so. “It was an historic day, friend Watson, in more ways than one, in celebration of which I invite you to do the honours.”

  I took the clear liquid he had prepared and hesitantly tipped a few drops into the water. Before our very eyes, it turned from transparent to a menacing maroon.

  “Blood it is,” he said evenly. “I thought as much. Well, share and share alike. I’m off to the Yard. It would be pretty miserly of me to keep this to myself after all Lestrade’s tribulations on our behalf. Do me the favour, my dear fellow, of waiting up for me? It is just remotely possible that I may require a friend to post bail.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN What Stephen Dunlevy Had to Tell

  Sherlock Holmes was not detained at the Yard, although he remarked that night that more than one officer of the law had eyed him in barely suppressed suspicion. “The joke of it is,” he mused, “that if I were indeed engaged in any sort of nefarious activity, there’s not a man among them who’d work it out. I am under no delusions regarding my chances of success should I ever shrug off the constraints of civilization, my dear fellow. I fear I would prove entirely unstoppable.”

  My notes indicate that the eleventh of October saw the completion of the inquest into the murder of Catherine Eddowes, which I attended in hopes of extracting any relevant medical knowledge which may have come to light. However, apart from assuring the coroner that removing a kidney required at least a rudimentary anatomical education, and that such a kidney could have no value whatever on the open market, little was said about the Ripper’s second “trophy.” The verdict returned, as all the others had been, was that of “willful murder against some person or persons unknown.”

  I returned to Baker Street in the evening disheartened by the proceedings and was donning my slippers when I heard the violent ringing of our front door bell. Hastening to the bow window, I drew the curtain and peered down, but our caller had either disappeared or already entered. I had just turned back toward the sitting room door when Miss Monk flew through it and slammed it shut behind her.

  “Where is he, then?” she demanded furiously.

  “Holmes? I could not say. My dear Miss Monk, whatever is the matter?”

  “If he’s played me the crooked cross, he’ll answer for it! He’ll not charm himself out of it either, the slang cove. I’ll do him down, mark my words. I’ll not spy for him and be kept in the dark, not for a pound a week, not for a pound a day, nor yet a pound a minute!”

  “Miss Monk, I beg of you, sit down and tell me in plain English what has happened.”

  “I am being followed!” she cried.

  “Good heavens! Have you any idea by whom?”

  The door opened and Holmes entered, a brooding look upon his face, which cleared to pleased surprise upon seeing our guest.

  “By Stephen Dunlevy!” she nearly screamed.

  “You were followed,” said Holmes.

  “Christ,” she snarled, “I thought as much. You can go straight to the devil, the pair of you.” She attempted to shove past him through the door, but he took a quick step back and forced it closed while deftly pulling a scrap of paper from one of Miss Monk’s pockets.

  “This is an underground ticket from the Metropolitan District Railway. You have never once used the underground in your visits to Baker Street. Cabs are highly visible conveyances, particularly in Whitechapel; therefore, you wished to appear less conspicuous and to lose yourself in a crowd. Why would you take such a step if you were not being followed?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but Holmes stepped around her and strode to the window. “Were you successful?”

  She closed her mouth and nodded.

  “Tell me from the beginning. When did you realize you had been followed?”

  Miss Monk walked numbly to a chair and collapsed into it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes,” she whispered. “I didn’t know what to think.” To my great shock, her eyes filled with tears and she emitted an overwrought sigh before burying her face in her hands.

  “My dear young lady,” Holmes exclaimed, placing a hand on her shoulder, “I had not the slightest idea you were so distressed.”

  She looked up a moment later and dashed the water from her cheeks with a scowl. “The sooner you tell me what it all means, the better.”

  “You mentioned Stephen Dunlevy as I entered. Was it he who followed you?”

  Miss Monk nodded. “I saw as it was growing late and I left the cottage to buy some tea and see what had become of a few of the girls I’d used to pal around with.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve taken lodgings in Great Garden Street, Mr. Holmes, and I’d thought to look in on a girl what lives over Mount Street way. The evening was clear enough and I was in no hurry, so I thought I’d head t’other direction first off and redeem a book I’d pawned when I’d nary two ha’pence to rub together. I walks down Old Montague Street toward the pawnshop, but before I’ve passed two streets, I realize I’d clean forgot the ticket and turn around.

  “There’s a chap passes me on the street dressed all in rags, hat pulled down close and a muffler over his face, and over the top of the muffler you can just see two eyes looking out from a great tract of dirt. He was walking the way I’d been before I remembered my ticket. I don’t think twice of him but leg it quick to the lodging house and find the ticket in a tobacco pouch I’d stuffed under a floorboard.

  “Now I’m off again down Old Montague Street to the jerryshop, and I picks up the book, and I’m back outside quick as anything. The dirty muffled chap’s still there, but people’s always thick as fleas in the Chapel, and I turns back toward the hospital without thinking much of it.

  “I’d got a few more paces along when I’d a queer feeling that the dirty fellow hadn’t just been there begging, or waiting, or standing, or sleeping, or anything he’s a perfect right to do. I might have left off stewing over it if there hadn’t been something familiar about the blighter, but I makes up my mind to duck into a doorframe when I’m a bit further ahead. For by now I’m walking back, and as I’ve passed my own street going the opposite way, if he’s still behind me, I’ll know he’s on my tail.

  “I sees a likely deep entrance, there’s a pack of the Salvation Army behind me, and I cuts away into the shade of the door. Soon enough the muffled chap passes, but he’s looking around like he’s lost sight of summat, and when he turns his head just as he passes me, I see that it’s Dunlevy, sure as I’m sitting here.

  “Lor’, but it gave me a turn, Mr. Holmes. If I hadn’t turned back, I might never have seen him, and who knows but that he’s been following me ever since I’ve met him? It ain’t right for a cove you’ve been following to follow you that way. I dived out of that doorway with my heart pounding in my ears and the chiv you gave me in my hand, and I cut across Great Garden Street to Whitechapel Road, and I didn’t stop running till I’d reached that great mob riot of a station across from the hospital.”

  My friend pulled a telegraph form out of a drawer. “Miss Monk, does Stephen Dunlevy know where you reside?”

  “He’s seen me go in often enough.”

  “Has he ever caught sight of you tailing him, to your knowledge?”

  “I’d have sworn he hadn’t this morning, but I’d sound a proper flat, saying such a thing now.”

  “Miss Monk, I give yo
u my word that I never expected Dunlevy to do anything so precipitate as to dog your movements, but I admit that I have long suspected him of being more than meets the eye.”

  “Well, that’s clear enough!” I scowled. “What business would a common soldier have trailing Miss Monk?”

  “He’s no soldier,” said Holmes and Miss Monk, very nearly at the same time.

  “What?” I cried. My companions eyed each other warily.

  “Well, one or the other of you is going to have to make clear to me why he is not a soldier,” I declared in exasperation.

  The replies, “His stride” and “His pocket handkerchief,” once more vied for my attention.

  Holmes cleared his throat. “Every serviceman who’s been in more than a fortnight’s time carries his pocket handkerchief in his sleeve, not in his coat pocket,” he explained. “You do so yourself, my dear fellow. You were saying, Miss Monk?”

  “Oh, I—that is to say, I noticed where he kept his billy when you asked after it, Mr. Holmes—but in any case soldiers don’t walk that way. Least none I’ve ever laid eyes on. Not even orderlies.”

  “Very well, then,” I said testily. “Leaving aside what Stephen Dunlevy is not, may I inquire what he, in fact, is?”

  “You will both know as much as I do tomorrow,” Holmes stated firmly. “This telegram will settle the matter for good or ill. I am happy to say that few shadows remain to confound us, but if you would both agree to meet here at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, all will be made clear to you then. Miss Monk, have you any objection to continuing your use of the underground just for the day?”

  “I may have a pound a week, but I’m not such a lady as all that.”

  “And would it trouble you to sleep away from your rooms tonight? I’ve an address where you will be well looked after.” Holmes handed her a card. “It is entirely a matter of precaution, but I would prefer if you weren’t left to fend for yourself. My friend has an amiable housekeeper and an extra room.”

  “‘Mr. George Lusk, One Tollet Street, Alderney Road…,’” she read. “It’s all one to me. Nearly everything I need’s in my pockets. But what happens tomorrow?”