by Seamas Duffy
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Foreword
The Adventure of the Soho Picture Gallery
Prologue
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Epilogue
The Adventure of the Edmonton Horror
The Adventure of the Rotherhithe Ship-breakers
Copyright
Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks to Judy Fisher for her assiduous and cheerful assistance with the editing and proofreading of this book.
For Carol
Foreword
Doctor Watson’s delineation of the Dartmoor landscape in The Hound of the Baskervilles is rendered in such fine detail as to be able to paint a picture from it. He captures every nuance of the bleak, inhospitable moor topography: the tors, goyals, and granite peaks; the bogs and wetlands; the gorse and rolling pastures; from the Bronze Age Grimspound and the treacherous sphagnum moss of Fox Tor Mires, to the ‘dripping moss and fleshy hart’s-tongue ferns’ on the high banks of the green lanes through which the wagonette, bearing the new tenant of Baskerville Hall, is driven.
It is perhaps the most powerful description of any landscape in the Holmesian canon, yet it is in his depiction of the London streets, I think, that Conan Doyle excels. The reason for this is contained in G.K. Chesterton’s observation that ‘a city is, properly speaking, more poetic … than a countryside, for while Nature is a chaos of unconscious forces, a city is a chaos of conscious ones.’ One thing that Conan Doyle did for Victorian crime fiction was to create the atmosphere of gaslight and fog that is forever associated with Sherlock Holmes and London. Dickens, it may be argued, had already done it in the fields of both mainstream fiction and documentary writing; Robert Louis Stevenson did it for what might be called the urban Gothic; but Conan Doyle’s rendering of the murky, vaporous, lamplit streets of the capital in The Bruce-Partington Plans (where ‘the fog was so thick that a cab was useless’) remains in the memory long after the culprits have been led away by Inspector Lestrade. There are a number of such instances in the canon where the cityscape overwhelms the reader so powerfully that it compels us, if only momentarily, to forget about the plot and the obscure motives of the characters. There is a scene in the The Sign Of The Four where Holmes and Watson are following the trail of the creosote barrel with the mongrel, Toby, through the back streets of south London as the city is beginning to wake up. It is a very fine piece of atmospheric writing. Conan Doyle does it again, twice, in The Man with the Twisted Lip where he brings to life the east end of London around Paul’s Wharf with its opium dens, dark alleys, and cargo of bodies – and he does it with only a very few deft strokes of the pen, he doesn’t pile on the detail; then he repeats the trick as Holmes and Watson drive back through the sleeping suburbs to Lee, where Holmes points out that:
‘We have touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent.’
There are a number of instances in the canon where this strong sense of place floods the foreground with colour: the goose chase in The Blue Carbuncle down through Bloomsbury and Covent Garden; the ramble along Fleet Street and the Strand in The Resident Patient; the drive from the Lyceum to Thaddeus Sholto’s house in the company of the mysterious coachman as the lamplights are coming on (again in The Sign of The Four), where Holmes intones the names of the nine streets along which they pass like the runes of a secular litany. But the poetry of this particular cityscape is partly hidden: ‘there is no stone in the street and no brick in the wall that is not actually a deliberate symbol. The narrowest street possesses, in every crook and twist of its intention, the soul of the man who built it. Every brick has as human a hieroglyph as if it were a graven brick of Babylon; every slate on the roof is … a document’ (Chesterton again).
In the Holmesian canon, Conan Doyle continues what has been called a ‘great tradition of ambulatory writing’ through London and the scenes described above reveal strong elements of what would today be recognized as psychogeography. He is one our first Londonists, a term currently undergoing a notable, and welcome, renaissance. The Four Corners of Hell invites readers to lose themselves in the London streetscapes, and to savour those moments when, as Chesterton puts it, ‘the eyes of the great city, like the eyes of a cat, begin to flame in the dark.’
Séamas Duffy
Glasgow
The Adventure of the Soho Picture Gallery
Prologue:
From the Diary of Doctor John H. Watson
Looking back on the century which drew recently to a close, I take up my pen for the hundredth time and reflect that the most exhilarating years of my life have undoubtedly been those spent in collaboration with my friend, Sherlock Holmes. Those decades were more eventful than even my youthful escapades amongst the wild, lawless settlements of the Australian gold diggings, and no less perilous than my luckless stint in the second Afghan war, in which I was badly injured and narrowly escaped death, for there were many occasions when my friend and I braved the gravest personal danger with little compunction – indeed occasionally with wilful recklessness – in pursuit of the ends of justice. For it is now public knowledge that Holmes was himself quite ready to render the ultimate sacrifice to bring the arch-criminal Moriarty and his heinous gang to the gallows: ‘He promised me inevitable destruction and it has not happened yet!’ my friend would afterwards privately boast.
As Holmes’s chronicler, I attained a position of modest, albeit vicarious, fame to which I must confess that my own unexceptionable abilities would never have led. In the case which I now bring to public attention, I was privy to the inner history of a remarkable series of events which seems destined to keep schools of historians, not to mention a legion of obscurantist theoreticians of conspiracy, well occupied for many a decade to come. For perhaps there is no single individual in possession of all the facts of what was undoubtedly one of the most convoluted problems ever laid before Holmes. Since the events first came to light, a cloud of opprobrium had hovered over many an exalted reputation and so, at the conclusion of the case, I prudently placed these papers in the safekeeping of Cox & Co., for the guardians of our libel law, as we may discover herein, are as capricious and cruel as the deities of Greek myth. It is only with the passing of the last of the principal actors in the drama, and the retirement from public life of one who held high office at the time, that I considered it appropriate to publish the present account.
That these papers form part of that secret history of the state, over which much effort was exerted to ensure its remaining concealed from public view, is undeniable. It will doubtless be questioned by some whether these papers should ever be permitted to enter the public realm, but the accession of a new monarch to the throne has brought with it a fresh spirit. Besides, I remain firmly of the view that the case will be of enormous interest to the historians and criminologists of the future; as for the general reader, I fear he will be startled out of his well-worn grooves of contentment and his habits of complacency by the story of this extraordinary chain of events, the climax of which saw the defenestration and public disgrace of a Privy Councillor, continued with the fleeing of a belted earl to France to avoid a scandalous prosecution, and concluded with a successor to the Crown blowing his own brains out in a Rhenish sanatorium. Free of the constraints of English law to which I allude above, certain elements in the French and the American press speculated freely upon the matter (the former with lubricity, the latter with schadenfreude), and used the affair as the pretext on which to cast ridicule upon the entire system of constitutional monarchy.
If I have been
fortunate in my long years of association with Sherlock Holmes to witness the many triumphs of that great intellect, his impeccable reasoning, the subtle power of inference and remorseless logic brought to bear upon problems which defeated the capabilities of lesser men, I have also been afforded more than a glimpse of the sorrows, the miseries, the cruelties, and the raw injustices of this world, and it is to that darker side that these pages tend. Moreover, in the course of re-examining this disturbing case, I was reminded in the most salutary manner that the story of criminal detection is but rarely conducive to happy endings.
John H. Watson, M.D.,
Marylebone,
London,
August 1902
Chapter 1
Ihave recorded elsewhere in my reminiscences that the year 1895 had been marked by the continuation of a spate of robberies which had begun the previous winter. The nature of these crimes had given rise to serious concern on the part of the authorities, for they were apparently well organized and were often aggravated by an assault upon the victim. More importantly, none of the culprits had been brought to book, for although both the general press and the Illustrated Police News carried details of the attacks and made constant appeals for witnesses to come forward, none did so; and thus no criminal was ever apprehended.
However, by the middle of June, even these disquieting felonies faded from prominence due to a series of ghastly murders of street women in the City and surrounding districts, which began to fill the headlines and letter columns alike. There had been three murders within ten days, or rather ten nights, for they all appeared to have been committed under cover of darkness, a fact which brought back to many Londoners vague, disturbing memories of the terrifying autumn of 1888. The police authorities, however, went out of their way to assure the public that it was not the same hand at work this time, and there appeared to be some substance to this claim, for none of the crimes were coloured by the extreme brutality which characterized the gruesome killings of that year, where the almost inhuman savagery which had followed the murders gave rise to conjecture regarding the mental as well as the moral state of the assailant. Inexplicably, Holmes’s assistance had not been requested by Scotland Yard in the present series of incidents, which led to my presumption that they were pursuing some definite direction of their own. It was my friend’s invariable custom not to interfere without invitation; from the few remarks he had made, I could tell that although he was puzzled by the murders, he had neither propounded a theory as to their possible solution, nor had he expressed an opinion as to the conduct of the case by the police. In fact, he had been kept occupied for several weeks by his retention, at the behest of one of the oldest and most respected families in Somersetshire, in the case of the Peasedown Claimant. The story of this complicated affair, which was brought to Holmes by one of our neighbours – the proprietor of the Baker Street Bazaar – I may one day lay before the public, but in consequence of the law’s relentless delay it remains, as I write these words, sub judice.
As I pored over the newspapers one morning before Holmes appeared for breakfast, I seemed to detect a strange facet of our London mentality: for whilst the press reports contained the most disturbing allegations, emanating from the Aborigines’ Protection Society, of the most appalling cruelties – widespread murder and mutilation – practised against tens of thousands of natives in King Leopold’s Congo, these largely bypassed the public’s interest as did, it must be said, a report of thirty coal miners killed, and several hundreds injured, by the ignition of fire-damp in a Durham colliery. I recalled Señora Durando’s words from a few years ago that, to the English public, these things were like happenings on another planet, for an examination of the correspondence columns of The Times and the Morning Post showed that the attention of Londoners was riveted on the sensational reports of what had been called ‘The City Murders’ – a phrase which conjured up to me the image of an outbreak of internecine warfare amongst the stockbroker fraternity. In point of fact, the third murder had occurred just outside the City boundary though it was the City police who were the first to attend the scene. There abounded in the newspaper columns a profusion of opinions and speculations as to the motives and possible identity of the killer; comminations of the incompetence and impotence of the police authorities; indignant, if predictable, remonstrances by a certain Irish playwright, all accompanied by insolent cartoons in Punch. There were also inevitable calls for vigilance committees to be formed, as well as stern advice, no doubt well intentioned, to this class of unfortunate women of the streets to remain indoors until the murderer had been caught.
As it happened, I had been to my club the previous evening to play billiards with Thurston, and we ran into McKenzie, who had been a fellow student of ours at London University and was now employed as a police surgeon. Soon enough, the small talk ran out and before long, the conversation edged round to more professional matters as McKenzie, who boards near Smithfield, had been called out to conduct the post-mortem examination of the first victim. McKenzie’s friend Philips had officiated in the second murder and they had naturally compared notes. In fact, although the police authorities had stated that they were not certain that all three murders were the work of the same man, both McKenzie and Philips had heard rumours through the usual professional channels that there were similarities in the patterns of the injuries, and more importantly, in the size and spacing of the murderer’s fingers which were demonstrated in the bruise marks on the corpse. They had come to the distinct conclusion that the assailant must have been the same in all three cases. Of course, as far as any conclusion drawn at the inquest was concerned, it would have been the legal prerogative of the coroner to sum up the case, and in my experience, doctors’ opinions were routinely disregarded or discounted. I was musing over this fact when my friend’s voice broke in on my thoughts.
‘Well, Watson, have they solved it yet?’ he asked, as he rang the bell impatiently to signal his appearance to Mrs Hudson.
‘Far from it, Holmes,’ I replied, looking up from the newspaper, ‘it is one of those exasperating cases where the motive seems to be as impalpable as the culprit,’ and I concluded by telling him of my conversation from the previous evening.
‘I am sure your colleagues’ opinion will turn out to be the correct one, but I did wonder why the police seemed to be so irresolute on that particular point. They make mountains out of molehills, of course, and yet ignore the most blatantly obvious. As for their hesitation,’ he shook his head in displeasure, ‘wasn’t it the great Augustine who said, “God grants forgiveness to your repentance, but not to your procrastination”? You know, I rather think I could express their method as an exact mathematical formula: D2 x P = R: dither, dither, panic, repent – for they usually conclude in these cases by jumping in with both feet and arresting everyone within a quarter of a mile and then find they have to release them without charge.’
Holmes’s musing was cut short by the sound of the front doorbell ringing, followed by a heavy, well-known tread upon the stair. Presently the door opened and in stepped the dapper figure of Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. He bore the air of a man at the limit of frustration.
‘A fresh pot of coffee is imminent if you will take a cup with us,’ said Holmes, as the visitor drew up one of the chairs to the table and sat down with a deep sigh.
‘No doubt you can guess the reason for my visit,’ the Inspector remarked.
‘I have read the headlines, at any rate,’ replied Holmes.
‘Have you given any thought to the case?’ Lestrade continued.
‘Very little, apart from noting your lack of progress in determining a motive or in obtaining even the vaguest description of the killer. I have just been remarking to Watson on the Yard’s deplorable tendency to dawdle on the job.’
Lestrade winced as Holmes continued, ‘As you know, I usually await your summons unless I have information which gives me some anticipatory knowledge of a crime about to be committed, or information to whic
h I consider you may not be party. In any case, most of the newspapers, even the less bad ones, tend to give the sensational details and omit the important facts, so it is generally impossible to form even a preliminary opinion on the basis of a press report. However, Watson and I were just discussing the particular point of whether this recent campaign is the work of one man or two. The authorities seemed to be unsure of this, and I am unable to see why.’
‘Well, I can tell you that,’ replied Lestrade, as Mrs Hudson arrived with the coffee tray.
‘I would certainly like to hear the official account of all three murders from your own lips; leave out nothing, however trivial it may seem,’ said Holmes, once our housekeeper had left the room.
‘For once, the facts are pretty much as they have been stated in the press, though some of the papers have gone a bit hysterical over it, especially the ones which pander to the cruder tastes. That’s quite surprising, since to be honest – and I know this does not reflect any credit on the Yard – the murder of a streetwalker anywhere in London is not particularly uncommon, nor does it normally make the front page. There are more than a thousand working around Spitalfields and Whitechapel, and this year alone we had one killed on the very last day in March … then two in April; we had another suspected case about a month ago, let me see … the week after the Brixton Tramway accident. Admittedly she was never identified – a particularly gruesome affair where the torso was found in the Thames with the head and limbs missing. There was another a week later in Green Dragon Yard – twenty-two stab wounds, and according to the police surgeon at the inquest, not all from the same knife. Now as to the recent spate of murders: at least two of the three seem to have followed more or less a pattern, but here’s the strange thing – the victims all lived in the West End; they were all well-dressed, respectable-looking young girls who worked around Soho and the Haymarket. They managed to keep their occupation concealed from their neighbours and families, and they catered for a much higher class of client, if you know what I mean: toffs. As far as we know, they had no connection at all with the places where they were killed. None of them was known in any of the public houses nearby, and we have no idea what they were doing there.’
