9 One great mystery is how the killer continues to elude the police patrols. This would be no great feat for Holmes, since it is he who plans their timetable in the first place.
CONTRA:
1 Holmes is above all a great champion of the law – the great champion. It is unthinkable that he could be a party to, much less a prime mover of, such a monstrous series of criminal acts.
2 I have lived with this man for seven years. He is no more a murderer than I am, and that is all there is to it.
Reading through this summary proved a sobering experience. I was amazed to find so much evidence suggesting that Holmes was indeed guilty, and even more shocked to discover no single unequivocal fact that proved his innocence. The case for the prosecution was no doubt purely circumstantial, and any given item by itself might mean little enough. But taken together it had all the force of ‘a trout in the milk’, and when one added the evidence I had gathered with my own eyes that morning in Miller’s Court, it amounted to a very weighty indictment. And what could the defence produce by way of a reply? Nothing but my own testimony as a character witness; my conviction that Holmes was simply not capable of these monstrous atrocities.
Once I saw that this was the case, I naturally started to wonder just how well-founded this conviction of mine was. Not that I wished to undermine it, but if my understanding of Holmes’s character was all that stood between me and the possibility that I was sharing rooms with Jack the Ripper, I needed to test its foundations rigorously. For the remainder of that evening, therefore, I sat down and examined, as coldly and impersonally as I could, everything that I knew about Sherlock Holmes. I tried to put aside all my fixed and cherished beliefs, and to examine Holmes as though I were meeting him for the first time. The results of this exercise were startling. In the end, I found that almost everything I had come to take for granted about Holmes was at best highly questionable and at worst transparently false.
Where did this leave the case for the defence? The first of its two arguments had been that Holmes was ‘above all a great champion of the law – the great champion’. Previously, this had always seemed self-evident. Holmes had devoted his life to bringing criminals to justice. To question whether he was a champion of the law seemed on the face of it as absurd as to enquire whether the Archbishop of Canterbury was a Christian. It was of course true that on more than one occasion, having discovered the guilty party, he had summarily appointed himself judge and jury, and allowed a murderer to die in freedom, or a thief to flee the country. But these were only trivial infractions – one might even say, liberal interpretations – of the great rule. The rule itself still obtained. Or did it? As I thought about it, I came to see that for a champion of the law, Holmes’s manner of going about his work was, to say the least, eccentric. When it was a question of accepting or rejecting a case, did he listen to his supplicant’s tale of woe with the feeling that a wrong had been done which it was his duty to put right? Hardly. Moral fervour was a luxury Holmes allowed himself only after having ascertained that the problem presented the necessary features of interest. That was the criterion by which all pleas were judged, and if the case did not interest him he would have nothing to do with it. Was that the approach of a champion of the law, or of a profoundly abstract intellect, which found in criminal investigation an arena for the exercise and display of certain skills? The answer became clear when I considered that, for a true champion of the law, Utopia would be a land where criminal acts were unknown. To Holmes, such a region would truly deserve the legend: ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’
Once I had grown somewhat accustomed to seeing him in this novel light, I asked myself how I could ever have been so utterly mistaken about Holmes. But the answer was obvious enough. As a chess player must choose first of all the white pieces or the black, so Holmes, in his search for intellectual challenge, had chosen to side with the forces of the law. And since he manipulated them so well, we had all come to identify Holmes with the white pieces – as if their fate meant anything to him outside the game. The game! That was his sole delight. And when it palled, when there were no longer any opponents worthy of his powers, he did not rejoice at the overthrow of the black counters. No, he fretted and sulked, and plunged himself into a world of artificial stimulation. There it was, no doubt, in some dark and dismal cavern of the mind unlocked by the spells of cocaine, that a voice had prompted him to move to the other side of the board. It should have come as no surprise to me, of all people. How many times had I heard him bemoan the dullness and lack of enterprise of the criminal class? How many times had he muttered darkly that it was fortunate for society that he chose to spend his energies capturing felons rather than emulating them? How many times had I listened to his speculations on what he might be doing if it were his place to initiate a case instead of standing idly by until one was committed? All in all, it seemed inevitable that Sherlock Holmes should sooner or later have turned to crime.
This was all very well, as far as it went. But surely it did not go nearly far enough to account for the Whitechapel horrors. If Holmes’s very genius had driven him to crime, as I was now ready to believe, would not the basic humanity of the man have ensured that he confined his operations to crimes against property? Here at any rate I could make my stand. The entire fabric of insinuations and innuendo must fall before the simple declaration I had noted down as my second objection to this monstrous charge – Holmes was not a murderer. Amoral he might be; above the law he might consider himself; a criminal he might even have become, but a killer he was not. That, as I had written, was all there was to it.
If the matter had been less pressing I would have been content to leave it thus. But the news of Holmes’s imminent return had put me to the question in no uncertain fashion. I could not afford the luxury of a suspended judgment. I had to decide whether or not I was to continue to live in Baker Street, and the decision could not be postponed. Yet again I strove to concentrate my mind. But I was too tired, and I could no longer focus my attention. I lay back in my chair and lit a cigarette. Midnight had struck, and it was now the morning of Friday the 16th. Seven days had passed since I stood petrified before that terrible tableau. Now the full horror of it seized my soul again, and like a boreal blast it swept away the fog that had been obscuring my vision of the truth. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, I knew! Holmes’s manner – that was the key! All my sophistry fell to pieces as I recalled with chilling vividness not what I had seen Holmes do, but how he had done it. That relaxed deliberation! That air of a master admiring his handiwork! Sherlock Holmes incapable of murder? Nonsense! The man who could coolly flay and gut the body of a pregnant woman while whistling airs from Italian opera – though it be for the best reason in the world – was capable of anything and everything.
Thus far, in this trial in camera, I had relied exclusively on the form of argument I had learned from Holmes to call the inductive. Working from the facts as I knew them, I had tried to assess the probability of Holmes being the murderer. Now my vision of the scene in Miller’s Court suggested another way. If my friend was capable of murder, what kind of murder would he be likely to commit? I could not imagine him killing anyone whose life was of the slightest value to mankind, or a source of pleasure to themselves or others. He would therefore choose for his victims those whose lives were brutal, brief; and beastly. Moreover, his legendary coldness to women made it marginally more likely that his victims would be female. Thus the evidence already suggested that he would seek his prey among the unfortunates of the East End. But there was a further clue, furnished by Holmes’s character, which virtually clinched the matter. This was his almost pathological abhorrence of any reference to the act of which that class of female is but a walking incarnation. If he were to kill, therefore, he might well kill Whitechapel prostitutes. It was, after all, the absolute minimum murder – a mere step away from euthanasia.
And the mutilation? That, of course, followed of necessity once he had come thus far. For killing Whitech
apel prostitutes would present no challenge to a man of Holmes’s calibre. It was too easy. In order to make the game difficult and dangerous enough to be satisfying, he would have to handicap himself; and the best way of doing this would be to alert the press, the public, and the police to his intentions. But how was he to attract their attention in the first place? As Lestrade had complained, Whitechapel was a criminal’s paradise. Violent death was an everyday occurrence there, and Holmes’s murders, without embellishment, would have aroused no more public interest than a report of a dog-biting incident in Westminster. But if the same dog was savagely to maul several people in the same area, disappearing each time without trace, then the press would sit up and take notice. Thus Holmes had hit on his final tactics. After killing the unfortunates, he would gratuitously mutilate their remains and leave them in the street for the next passerby to stumble on. The effect was all he could have desired. How strange it was, I thought, that the solution should hinge upon the idea of Holmes disfiguring the dead. One of the first things young Stamford had told me about Sherlock Holmes before he introduced us, back in 1881, was that he was in the habit of beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms at Bart’s with a stick. It all fitted together. I had come full circle.
On this positive note I fell asleep in my chair. When I awakened I found all my certainties in ruins again. Sherlock Holmes – my Holmes! – the face behind the Ripper’s mask? In the cold light of dawn my conclusion seemed utterly fantastic, and the arguments which had led me to it had all fled. But I could no longer delay. I packed my meagre possessions into two trunks, and moved that very morning to an hotel. The same evening I summoned Mary to dine with me, unchaperoned. We had sherry with the soup, hock with the lobster, Beaune with the beef, and champagne with the soufflé. Over coffee I begged her to let us be married immediately. I explained with passionate insistence that I was finding it quite impossible to sleep soundly whilst these dreadful murders continued, knowing as I did that my all was living in a household bereft of any male defender. In vain Mary protested that respectable women were not threatened, that the scene of the crimes was Whitechapel and not Camberwell, and that the risk was therefore insignificant. I brushed aside these objections. How could she tell what such a maniac might do next? No one could deplore indecent haste more than I, but I could not help my tender feelings. As she had observed, I was looking unusually pale and strained. The remedy was in her hands. Not until the light of my life was safe under my own roof would I recover my health once more. At length she yielded to my importunate demands, and we parted on the understanding that our union would take place as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made.
The next morning I despatched a letter to 221B Baker Street. Although I could not face the prospect of meeting Holmes again, much less of sharing rooms with him, I had every reason for wishing to remain on good terms with my former friend. Rather than make a brutal severance, therefore, I bent the truth to suit my purposes. The letter ran this way:
My dear Holmes,
Much to my regret, I am unable to welcome you home in person. But I have a good excuse – the best in the world in fact! Mary and I have married. You will no doubt be somewhat surprised at the suddenness of the nuptials – indeed, I was myself! The fact is that poor Mary has been completely unnerved by these Whitechapel horrors. After the last atrocity she broke down altogether. As you know, there is no man in the Forrester household to exert a steadying influence, and between the two of them the women succeeded in convincing themselves that they were destined to be the murderer’s next victims! Of course I pointed out that respectable women were not at risk, and that in any case the scene of the crimes was invariably Whitechapel and not Camberwell. But you know how it is once the sex take an idea into their heads! Nothing would do but we must marry without further delay. I agreed, if only to remove Mary from the influence of this unhealthy morbidity. As for Mrs Forrester, I believe she has gone to stay with relatives in Yorkshire.
I am delighted to hear that you have been able to bring Professor Moriarty’s career to a fitting end. If you have indeed ensured that these ghastly killings have reached their term, all England owes you its thanks. Naturally I am eager to have the details from your own lips. I sincerely hope that all the to-do that goes with setting up a household will not too long prevent me from satisfying this desire. By way of honeymoon, my wife and I are vagabonding it along the South Coast, spending a few days in each town. A letter to my club will reach me without undue delay.
Yours truly, Watson
I posted this letter from Brighton, where I spent the next five days in seclusion. Counting on Mary’s acquiescence, I had made arrangements for us to be married at a small church in Marylebone. I thought it best to spend the intervening days out of town, to avoid the possibility of an embarrassing encounter with Holmes. At the end of the following week Mary and I were duly united, and we left London that afternoon for the coast of Norfolk. Cromer is scarcely at its best in November, but it is very quiet. In that quiet, with Mary at my side, I found the strength to face and master the shocking truth on which I had so innocently stumbled.
I soon realised that although I had now resolved my immediate personal problems, I was still facing a very grave moral dilemma. I had reason to believe that Sherlock Holmes had committed six brutal murders, and might well attempt more. What was I to do? Under normal circumstances, of course, I would simply have informed the police. Such was indeed my duty, and by failing to do so I was myself breaking the law. But how could I possibly walk into a police station and announce that I believed the Whitechapel murderer to be a man celebrated throughout the world for his services in the fight against crime? Even supposing I was not at once clapped into a strait waistcoat, what evidence could I adduce in support of my wild accusation? Only some scraps of circumstantial minutiae that would not convict even a known criminal, together with my unsupported word that I had seen Holmes mutilating the body of Mary Kelly. And in any event, even if by some miracle I did succeed in persuading the police to investigate a man they doubtless considered about as likely a suspect as the Prince of Wales, what would come of it? All the objections which Holmes had advanced when I proposed telling Lestrade about Professor Moriarty applied with equal force in the present case. The police could take no measures of which Holmes would not instantly be aware, and which he could not evade with the greatest of ease. The primary advantage we possessed was that Holmes had no reason to suppose that he was suspected. This advantage could hardly be overestimated, since it virtually cancelled out the man’s natural superiority. As long as he did not exert his powers, he might yet be foiled, but if he were put on his guard it would be hopeless. Any resort to the authorities was therefore out of the question, for they were bound to bungle the affair.
But if I could not pass on my responsibilities to others, then I would have to shoulder them myself. Whatever my personal feelings, I would have to cultivate Holmes’s friendship and keep a close watch on his moods and movements. And if he ever again took up his knife I would have to be there to fetch the police and hand the murderer over to justice. For a moment I even regretted the impulse that had made me leave the Baker Street rooms. My surveillance would have been much easier had I stayed. But at such close quarters Holmes must have remarked the change in my manner, and that would have been fatal. Besides, my task was by no means as arduous as it at first appeared, for if Holmes maintained the pattern which he had been at such pains to point out to Lestrade (How he must have amused himself! What fearful fun!) then the only times at which a close watch need be kept were the few days at the end of each month and at the weekend immediately following. It could be done and I had to do it. What I needed, therefore, was a residence close enough to Baker Street to make frequent ‘dropping in’ appear natural, and a practice sufficiently undemanding to free me for my larger duty – protecting the public from Jack the Ripper!
By now the end of November was drawing nigh, and with it the threat of another outrage. On t
he 28th I travelled back to London, leaving Mary safe in Cromer. My plan was to put up at an hotel for the weekend, but this was abruptly altered by a letter which I found awaiting me at the club. The envelope was addressed in a familiar hand, and the enclosure read as follows:
23rd November 1888
My dear Watson,
I read your communication of the 16th inst. with much interest, and with regret that my business in Switzerland made it impossible for me to attend your wedding. Please accept my best wishes for the future, and remember me kindly to your wife.
I fear that your eagerness to know more about the demise of the late and unregretted Professor Moriarty will have to be restrained for some time yet. The Russian Embassy has intimated that the Imperial authorities are prepared to offer me carte-blanche if I can shed any light on the mysterious case of a certain gentleman of Odessa. I know not who Mr Trepoff was, that the Czar’s ministers should concern themselves with his fate, but the case possesses certain features of interest which in themselves induced me to accept. It seems the man was found seated at a desk in his hotel room with a volume of Lermontov’s verse opened before him. There was no blood, no disorder. Indeed, the only indication of foul play was that the gentleman’s head was missing. The one other occupant of the room was Trepoff’s valet, who is apparently stark staring mad and unable to make any sound beyond a continuous series of farmyard imitations.
I depart for Odessa tomorrow, and whatever the outcome I expect to remain away from London for some time. Now that Jack the Ripper is gone I find the city ‘stale, flat, and unprofitable’. I really cannot bring myself to take any interest in the petty misdemeanours of our insular criminals. Perhaps, the Continental villain has not yet erased all traces of imagination and creativity from his work, but if he too fails me I can at least purchase a Baedecker and a sketch-book and turn tourist.
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story Page 13