by David Marcum
But why dwell upon the macabre?
You can read of his horrific escapades and nightmares yourself in the story by Mr. Poe that bears your father’s name. As for the two of us, William and I remained together until I discovered I was with child. When I told him I would not rid myself of it - of you - he wanted nothing more to do with me. Not even Mr. Poe, famous for his tales of the depraved, could bring himself to include my tragic chapter in his history of William Wilson.
And yet I must give the devil his due. Thanks to the vanity of his parents, your father was awash with money; and William, quite the cheat at Écarté, raised his own small pile at the same time. As a result, he was willing enough to supply me with enough funds to live quite comfortably. He required but two conditions. I was to give my child his name (if I was lucky enough to have a son), and I was never to reveal the source of my income. I am pleased to say that the fund was generous enough to allow us to live comfortably and for me to send you to school even after William’s death. To spare you the pain, I invented all that business about a military father who had served his country nobly and died in battle. Although secrecy no longer matters, not even when you came of age did I have the courage to inflict upon you the ugly truth of your conception. That you have become a solicitor with a successful practice could make no mother more proud.
Though I have said that your father, despite his latent cruelty, could never bring himself to completely forsake his former mistress and his son, neither did he ever wish to see us again. So utterly damning did I find his rejection that I began to fear that you, my only child, might have inherited some aspect of his deeply distorted nature - as he himself explained the origins of his own twisted development. That is why I never encouraged you to marry or to start a family of your own, but rather to stay by me and care for your aging mother. Read the words of Mr. Poe to understand your awful beginnings. Even as my time on Earth draws to a close, you must become aware of the hidden dangers lurking within your soul; they threaten every fibre of your being.
Take heed and avoid the fate of your father.
Your adoring Mother
After I had finished reading the letter, Holmes addressed Mr. Wilson: “With all due respect to the deceased, one cannot treat the account of an illusory Doppelgänger as Truth. Even your mother, the authoress of this fable, admits that she never saw the alleged simulacrum, that she had only read Poe’s account of it. Not to speak ill of the dead, sir, but perhaps your mother had become delusional towards the end of a very long life.”
Our visitor nodded. “So I thought too, Mr. Holmes, and following her death, I read Poe’s story just as she had instructed. Though the plot substantiated many of the events described in her letter - and, by the same token, made me question the basic touchstones of my life - what else could I do but consider her fears the ravings of a demented mind? I continued to doubt her warnings - continued doubting until a week ago. That was when I saw him.”
“Saw whom?” I asked.
Wilson ran a hand through his thick black hair. “I know you will find this hard to believe, gentlemen,” said he. “In fact, I fully expect you to resort to all the predictable explanations - delusion, dream, hallucination. But as I sit here now in Baker Street, so last week did I see a man who looked very much like me - very much indeed. He’s followed me to and from work for most of the last few days. Sometimes he waits across the road from my club to dog my heels. When I attended the opera last week, I saw him lurking in the shadows of Covent Garden. And always, he follows me home. On one occasion, he got close enough to whisper my name.”
Sherlock Holmes showed his teeth in what can only be described as a condescending smile. “I must confess, Mr. Wilson, that your situation prompts my curiosity, yet I must also caution that in no way should my interest cause you to assume my belief in your imaginings.”
Our visitor’s face flushed. “See here, Mr. Holmes, I’m willing to pay you to look into this affair. The police are not interested.”
“I should think not. I doubt the name Poe means anything to the Yarders - let alone the name William Wilson. At the very least, you have come to the right place to register your fears. I will admit that yours is a case not without interest. It is simply that I make no promises about how it may be resolved.”
“But you will look into the matter, Mr. Holmes? You will uncover whoever or whatever it is that tracks me? I shall go mad if you turn me down.”
Holmes placed his pipe in a nearby ashtray. “The addresses of your chambers and rooms, if you please,” said he, offering Wilson a sheet of paper and pencil. “Give it to Dr. Watson.”
Wilson scribbled the information about his rooms near Long Acre Street and his law office in the Inns of Court. He handed the paper to me, and in exchange Holmes gave him one of his visiting cards, upon which he had written his fee. Wilson nodded his approval and thanked us both.
“One final question, Mr. Wilson,” said Holmes as he opened the door.
Wilson turned to face him.
“I must ask if you have recently committed some ‘folly of vice’?”
“I beg your pardon?” asked Wilson.
“A folly of vice - the expression employed by Poe to describe an immoral act that might have summonsed your father’s double. A less-discerning critic might call that double a conscience.”
“I - I should say not,” replied Wilson with a bit of hesitation. Seemingly uncertain about the merits of his response, he walked hesitantly out of our sitting room and down the stairs.
Once Holmes heard the outer door close, he moved to the window and drew back the white curtain.
“From this vantage,” said he, still facing the glass, “it would appear that no one is following our Mr. Wilson. Tomorrow, however, we shall investigate more thoroughly.” Holmes settled back into the armchair. Steepling his fingers and narrowing his eyes, he observed, “If Wilson’s tale is accurate, we are in deep waters, old fellow. Tomorrow, we shall put to the test the question that underlies Wilson’s story - whether Edgar Poe was merely inventing diversions, or whether the insightful writer - as our client seems to believe - was, in fact, relating a frightening historical truth.”
I nodded. Holmes’s conflicting views of the American writer could not have been expressed more clearly.
I came down to breakfast the next morning expecting to find Holmes at table. Instead, I encountered an officious, grey-haired fellow with a clipped painter’s brush moustache. He was dressed in dark-blue kepi and uniform and seemed to be inspecting the gas lines leading to our light fixtures.
“May I help you, sir?” I asked rather sharply, wondering why Mrs. Hudson would let so nosy a personage into our rooms without gaining our permission - unless, of course, Holmes himself had admitted him. But there was no sign of my friend, and the inspector had moved from examining the pipelines to rearranging some of Holmes’s laboratory equipment.
“I say, take your hands off that test tube,” I commanded.
“I’m simply trying-”
“Nevermore!” I interrupted, surprised at how easily a refrain from Poe had crept into my vocabulary.
“Why, Dr. Watson,” the intruder began in a high-pitched squeak, “cannot a fellow-” and suddenly his voice became more familiar “-move about his own paraphernalia?”
The inspector, of course, was Sherlock Holmes, and I had been taken in. I looked to the heavens for solace.
“A test, Watson. If I can fool you, I should easily be able to fool someone who does not know me at all, eh?”
“And what sort of costume are you in today?”
“I am whatever kind of inspector I need to be. I shall follow Mr. Wilson from a distance, stopping when necessary to examine whatever is close by - metal pipes, street lamps, broken window glass - whatever would not cause commotion by having a uniformed person like myself scrutinizing it. In such a manner, I
should be able to blend into the scenery.”
“And I? What am I to do?”
“As you are not an early riser and also have your patients to attend in the morning, I thought that you might follow Wilson home from work.”
I could find no fault in his logic. “And do you have a disguise for me to wear?”
“No need,” Holmes chuckled. “Just put on your bowler and a suit, and you will look like all the other barristers and solicitors running about the Inns of Court. No one will notice you.”
With a wave, he was off, and for the moment, at least, I was free to sit down with a breakfast of Mrs. Hudson’s eggs and a rasher of ham before setting off to see my patients.
Wilson’s law chambers were located just beyond Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the large square laid about by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century. In spite of the dark clouds that afternoon, it seemed safe enough to eschew a hansom. My good fortune continued, and I had no need to open my umbrella as I walked the two miles from our rooms to the very centre of the British legal system.
Sherlock Holmes correctly predicted that, dressed in a navy suit and black bowler, I would blend in with the similarly attired barristers, solicitors, benchers, and clerks parading through the Inns of Court. On grey days like the one in question, even my furled brolly appeared de rigueur.
Fortunately, I had no difficulty locating the redbrick Georgian building whose address Wilson had provided, and beneath a plane tree near the green, I found a bench to sit upon whilst waiting for the man himself to appear.
The December night fell quickly, yet I had no problem discerning Wilson’s distinctive black mane beneath his bowler as he exited his chambers. I trailed after him at a safe distance along the narrow, gas-lit confines of Bell Yard on the way to the Strand. As he had done during his visit to Baker Street, Wilson would frequently turn his head in all manner of directions to see if he was being followed. I had no interest in his detecting me, however, and I dodged his glances by slipping into shadowy alcoves, hiding behind various walls, or turning away to ogle the contents of shop windows.
At the same time, I had to keep my eyes open for any suspicious characters among the similarly attired that were heading in the same direction. Even when Wilson reached Fleet Street and began to mix with the general populous, he remained surrounded by a cluster of legal types. Might his pursuer be mingling among them? I did identify a man of equal height and weight who was matching Wilson’s pace, yet hidden as they were by bowler and scarf, I could not distinguish the stranger’s features. When Wilson reached his home, however, the other man was nowhere to be seen; and, to be honest, I could not swear that anyone at all had been trailing Wilson in the first place.
The next few days passed just as uneventfully. In spite of leaden skies and intermittent showers, Holmes and I continued our routine of watchfulness - Holmes taking the morning shifts; I, the afternoons - but no suspicious characters made themselves known.
It was late in the evening of our third day of surveillance that an irate William Wilson burst into our sitting room. I had been reading The Times, and Holmes had been tuning his violin.
“I hired you to watch out for my double!” Wilson shouted.
“And so we have,” answered Holmes, calmly twisting a peg.
“Bah! I’ve seen no one looking out for me.”
“As it should be,” observed Holmes with a smile.
“As yet, Mr. Wilson,” said I, “we have been unable to corroborate your suspicions. When we have proof, you shall have it.”
“Indeed,” said he with an imperious look, “I do have it. I was visited by the man this afternoon.”
“But I saw no one following you,” I protested.
“That’s because he was already within my flat when I got there. No sooner did I enter than I encountered this - this - frankly - this image of myself.”
“Really, Mr. Wilson,” said Holmes plucking at some strings. “Are we to hear of a chimera again?”
“I tell you, Holmes, he is real. He warned me to stay away from you - not to let you meddle in his relationship with me.”
“And yet you are here.”
“I will not be cowed, sir - not even by the threats of a phantom.”
“Threats?” I questioned, raising my eyebrows. If the man had actually warned our client of harm, then the case had become more ominous.
“Yes, gentlemen, this bogey said he would kill me if kept on with my attempts to find him out. I did my best to be sure I wasn’t being followed when I came here tonight. But as you have already discovered, the creature is hard to detect.”
“Did you recognise his voice?” Holmes asked.
“No. It was a hoarse whisper.”
“Pity,” said Holmes, picking up his bow and pointing it at Wilson. “You must be careful, Mr. Wilson. Tomorrow, friend Watson and I will work in concert and lengthen our observations.”
On that reassuring note, Holmes and I slipped on our coats and escorted Wilson out to the sidewalk. With a cold rain adding to the night’s gloom, I secured a hansom for our caller. Only after Holmes noted no other carriages trailing the cab did he breathe a sigh of relief. There was no way to know it at the moment, of course, but that carriage ride was the last time we would ever see William Wilson alive.
Late that same night a sharp knock rattled our door. I started at the noise, but Sherlock Holmes simply rose and went to see who it was that had come calling so late. At the threshold stood a drenched Inspector Lestrade, a look of grim determination pinching his face. Holmes gestured him in, and as the policeman marched towards our fire, he held his wet bowler in one hand and passed Holmes a small white card with the other.
From what I could see, it appeared to be Holmes’s visiting card containing his name, our Baker Street address, and a handwritten number. It could have been any one of the numerous cards Holmes had distributed to his clients to identify himself. But in this case, its purpose was moot; tiny drops of red dappled both sides.
“Sorry to call on you so late, gentlemen,” said Lestrade, “but we found your card in the pocket of a dead man, Mr. Holmes. In rooms near Long Acre Street in Covent Garden.”
“Good heavens, Holmes!” I exclaimed. Do you suppose-”
“What’s this?” the policeman interrupted. “I left a corpse and a murder scene to come here. I need to find out straightaway what you know about this nasty business.”
“To whom did I last give a card, Watson?” Holmes asked calmly. I knew he could answer the question himself, but I reckoned he was trying to slow Lestrade’s pace.
“William Wilson,” said I. “It was just a few days ago. You don’t think-”
“Wilson, you say?” asked Lestrade, taking out pencil and note pad to record his findings.
“Not that I’m surprised,” Sherlock Holmes muttered with a furrowed brow. “Stabbed, was he, Lestrade?”
The policeman’s mouth dropped open. He often reacted in such a fashion when Holmes revealed some bit of evidence beyond the Inspector’s detecting skills. “Out with it,” he commanded. “Tell me what you know, or I’ll be forced to think you had something to do with it yourself.”
Holmes shrugged. “The man came round here Monday claiming to be one William Wilson. He appeared quite the successful barrister. Chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
“He also seemed quite upset,” I put in.
“About what?”
Holmes sighed. “All this requires some explanation.”
“I don’t have time for lengthy answers. I’ve just told you that I’ve left a corpse lying in a sitting room. In fact, when I found your card, I was hoping I could convince you to return with me - you and Dr. Watson - to make sense of this affair. I need to get back there as quickly as I can. I have a four-wheeler outside.”
Holmes shrugged again. “Care for
a ride, Watson? The weather’s not the best, but when Scotland Yard’s finest comes a-calling, we really can’t decline the invitation.”
I agreed, and Holmes and I donned our raincoats and hats. We followed Lestrade out to the kerb where a growler stood waiting in the darkness. Soon we were clattering down a wet Baker Street in the direction of William Wilson’s rooms.
“Watson,” said Holmes, “you’re the literary man. Explain to the Inspector what it was that upset our caller. I find these matters regarding Poe too tedious.”
Lestrade blinked his eyes. “You don’t mean Edgar Poe the writer? The same Poe who wrote that brilliant poem, ‘The Raven’?”
“The same,” said I in surprise, never having taken Lestrade for a fancier of poetry. The fact that he had heard of Poe’s celebrated poem, let alone liked it, showed the vast appeal of the American’s work. “There’s a story by Poe called-”
Lestrade waved me off. “I’m not interested in literary theory. Let me tell you the facts I do know before we get there. The poor bloke arrived home and entered his rooms. At some time past eight, a grand disturbance was heard by the landlady. She ran to the victim’s door, which she found ajar and entered. After taking one look at the bloody mess, she immediately sent round for the local constable, who summoned help from the Yard. I arrived, surveyed the horrible scene myself, and found your card in the dead man’s pocket. Which brings us up to date.”
We rolled to a stop in front of Wilson’s building just as Lestrade finished his description. The two constables at the door straightened up when they saw the inspector emerge from the carriage.
How to describe the horror we encountered once inside? Chairs and end-tables were overturned. Blood smears stained the walls and carpet and streaked down the window glass. Sprawled on the floor at the centre of this mess lay the body of the man we knew as William Wilson, his right leg dangling over the edge of a small table that had been knocked on its side, a large carving knife lying near the dead man’s hand. Discarded in a corner was an open copy of a book, its pages damp with blood spots. I could see the letter from Wilson’s mother spread out on the desk. It too contained spots of blood. Near us by the door, the remains of a large mirror framed by a wooden hall tree stood against the wall, shards of glass shimmering on the carpet before it.