“Hopkins, would our going over to the laboratory and having a close look at things there place you in an awkward position?”
The young man paled. “Please, sir, you mustn’t think of doing it The fact is, they’re all of a dither down there and don’t want anyone to know what’s happened. They’ve got it in their heads this thing could make them a laughing stock—the idea of the police surgeon burning all those clothes and then absconding with two corpses. . . .”
“That is one way of looking at it,” Holmes agreed. “Very well, then. You must answer a few more questions to the very best of your ability.”
Til try, sir.”
“Have you seen the laboratory since Brownlow abandoned it?”
“Yes, sir. I made it my business to have a look”
“Capital! Really, Hopkins, you exceed my fondest hopes. Now tell me what was left there?”
The sergeant frowned in concentration, eager to continue earning the detective’s effusive praise. “Nothing much, I’m afraid. Rather less than usual, in fact. The place had been scrubbed clean as a whistle and it fairly reeked of carbolic The only thing out of the ordinary was the pile of burnt clothes in the chemical basins where he’d set fire to them. And he’d poured lye over the ashes.”
“How did you know what they were, in that case?”
“Some of the buttons still remained, sir.”
“Hopkins, you are a trump.” Holmes rubbed his hands together once more. “And have your sore throat and headache quite vanished?”
“Quite, sir. Yesterday Lestrade said it was probably just—” He stopped and gaped at the detective. “I don’t recall mentioning my illness.”
“Nor did you—which doesn’t alter the fact of your recovery. I am delighted to leam of it. You haven’t left out anything? A little nip of something on the side?”
Hopkins looked at him uncertainly. “Nip? No, sir. I don’t know what you mean, I’m afraid.”
“Doubtless not. Lestrade feels fit, too, now, does he?”
“He is quite recovered,” the sergeant answered, giving up all hope of learning the detective’s secrets. Holmes scowled and cupped his chin in thought.
“You are both luckier than you know.”
“See here, Holmes,” I broke in, “I seem to see what you are getting at There’s some matter of contamination or contagion involved—”
“Precisely.” His eyes gleamed. “But we have yet to discover what is in danger of proliferating. Watson, you saw both bodies and conducted a cursory examination of each. Did their condition suggest anything in the nature of a disease to you?”
I sat and pondered while they watched, Holmes barely able to conceal his impatience.
“I believe I stated at the time that both the throats were prematurely stiff, as though the glands were swollen. But any number of common ailments begin with a sore throat.”
Holmes sighed, nodded, and turned once more to the policeman. “Hopkins, I very much fear a discreet visit to the back of the mortuary laboratory is inevitable. The stakes are too great that we should hesitate to trifle with the dignity of the metropolitan police. We must see how one man carried out two corpses. We already begin to know why.”
“To dispose of them?” I asked.
He nodded grimly. “And it would be as well to put out a general alarm for that missing police van.”
“That has already been done, Mr. Holmes,” said the young sergeant with some satisfaction. “If it’s in London, we’ll lay hands on it.”
“That is exactly what you must none of you do,” Holmes returned, throwing on his coat “No one must go near it Watson, are you still game?”
FOURTEEN
THE WEST END HORROR
Moments later we stood in the company of the anxious sergeant on the stretch of pavement before 221b, in search of a cab. Instead of a hansom, however, I beheld a familiar figure dancing down the street towards us in the glare of the lamplight.
“Have you heard the latest outrage?” Bernard Shaw cried without so much as shaking hands. They’ve pinned the whole thing on a Parsed”
Sherlock Holmes endeavoured to inform the volatile Irishman that we were aware of the rum events had taken, but at that moment Shaw recognised Hopkins and turned upon that unfortunate young man the full force of his sarcastic vitriol.
“Out of uniform, eh?” he commenced. “And well you should be if murder is being contemplated. I wonder you’ve the face to appear in public at all with your hands so red! Do you seriously believe, Sergeant, that the British public, which I agree is gullible beyond credence, is going to swallow this particular connivance? It won’t go down, believe me, Sergeant, it won’t. It’s too big to pass the widest chasm of plausibility. This isn’t France, you’d do well to remember.* You can’t divert our attention with a xenophobic charade!”
In vain, as we waited for our cab, did Hopkins attempt to stem the tidal wave of rhetoric. He pointed out that it was not he who had arrested the Indian.
“So!” the other eagerly seized the opportunity for a literary analogy. “You wash your hands with Pilate, hey? I wonder there’s room at the trough for so many of you, lined up alongside with your dirty fingers. If you suppose—”
“My dear Shaw,” Holmes remonstrated forcefully, “I don’t know how you can have learned of Mr. Singh’s arrest—the newsboys are hawking it, very likely—but if you have nothing better to do than rouse mine honest neighbours at a quarter past twelve, I suggest you come along with us. Cabby!”
“Where to?” Shaw demanded as the cab pulled up before us. His voice lacked any trace of contrition.
“The mortuary. Someone appears to have made off with our two corpses.”
“Made off with them?” he echoed, getting in. This intelligence succeeded in doing what Sergeant Hopkins could not, and the critic fell silent as he tried to determine its significance. His shrill imprecations were reduced to a stream of mutterings as we threaded our way to the mews behind the mortuary laboratory. A street or so before the place, Holmes ordered the driver to stop and we descended from the cab. In hushed tones, the cabby was instructed to wait where he was until we should return.
There was no one about as we entered the mews, though the voices of the ostlers were audible from the police stables across the way. We proceeded cautiously on foot, our path being lit by the yellow lights of windows overhead. Sergeant Hopkins looked fearfully about as we advanced, being more apprehensive about discovery than ourselves, for obvious reasons.
This door leads to the laboratory?” Holmes enquired softly, pointing to a large, wooden, portcullis-like affair, whose base was some four feet off the ground.
Hopkins nodded, stealing an anxious glance over his shoulder. That’s it, Mr. Holmes.”
“You can see the wheel marks where the wagon was backed up to it.” The detective knelt and indicated the twin tracks, plainly visible in the meagre light from above. “Of course the police have examined it,” he added with a weary sigh, pointing to all the footprints running in every direction all ‘round the place.
It looks like they danced a Highland fling here,” I commented, sharing his indignation.
He grunted and followed the wheel marks out of the dirt to where they disappeared on the cobblestones. “He went left; that’s all we can say,” he reported gloomily, returning to the door where we waited. “Once he departed the mews there’s no telling where he was bound.”
“Perhaps we should fetch Toby,” I suggested.
“We haven’t the time to get to Lambeth and back, and besides, what could we offer him as a scent? He’s not as young as he used to be, you know, and the stench of carbolic would be insufficient. Blast! Every second gives this thing—whatever it is—more time to spread. Hullo, what’s this?”
He had been speaking bent over and almost touching the ground as he inspected it inch by inch. Now he dropped to his knees once again, directly beneath the laboratory door, and rose with something held gingerly in his right hand. “The noose aro
und Achmet Singh’s neck begins to loosen, or I am much deceived.”
“How so?” Shaw enquired, stepping forward.
“Because if the prosecution contends that the Parsee smoked these Indian cheroots, they will be hard put to explain the presence of this one outside the mortuary whilst Singh himself is incarcerated in a private security cell at Whitehall.”
“Are you certain it is the same cigar?” I hazarded, not wishing to question his abilities and yet, for the sake of the prisoner, feeling obliged to do so.
“Quite sure,” he returned without seeming to take umbrage. “I took great pains to recognise it should I ever see one like it again. It’s in an excellent state of preservation, as you can see. Notice the distinctive square-tipped ends. Our man simply threw it aside when the other opened the laboratory door for him.”
The other?”
Holmes turned to Hopkins. “I take it Mr. Brownlow did not smoke Indian cheroots?”
“No, sir,” the youth replied. “In fact, to my knowledge, he did not smoke at all.”
“Excellent Then there was another man here, and it is that other man who concerns us. Brownlow was not talking to himself but conversing with our quarry.”
“But what of Mr. Brownlow?” Hopkins demanded, his honest features revealing his perplexity.
“Hopkins—” the detective put a hand upon his shoulder—“the time has come for us to part company. Your position here becomes increasingly delicate as this night progresses. If you will be guided by me, I suggest that for your own good you go home and get a good night’s rest Say nothing to anyone of what you have seen and heard here tonight, and I, for my part, will endeavour to keep your name out of it—unless, of course, Achmet Singh comes to the foot of the gallows, at which point I will have no alternative but to take drastic steps.”
Hopkins wavered, torn between his own curiosity and his sense of discretion. “Will you tell me what you find, at least?” he implored.
“I am afraid I cannot promise that I shall.”
The sergeant hesitated a moment or so longer and then departed with evident reluctance, his personal impulses outweighed by the obligations of loyalty he felt he owed to his superiors.
“A bright young fellow, that,” Holmes observed when he had gone. “And now, Watson, every minute counts. Whom do you know who could tell us about tropical diseases?”
Tropical diseases?” Shaw interjected, but Holmes waved him to silence and waited for my answer.
“Ainstree† is generally regarded as the greatest living authority on the subject,” I replied, “but he is in the West Indies at present, if I am not mistaken.”
“What have tropical diseases to do with this?” Shaw demanded, raising his voice.
“Let us return to the cab, and I will explain. Only keep your voice down, like a good fellow.
“I think we had best pay a call on Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street,” he resumed when we had regained the cab. “Watson, you’ve frequently recommended him when I’ve been suffering from overwork and fatigue.”
“I did not envisage your calling upon him after one in the morning,” I hastened to point out. “In any case, the man’s not a specialist in tropical diseases.”
“No, but he may be able to direct us to the leading available authority.”
“In heaven’s name,” Shaw exploded as the cab rattled off for Harley Street, “you still haven’t said why we need a specialist in tropical diseases!”
“Forgive me, but I hope to make all plain before the night is out. All I can say at present is that Jonathan McCarthy and Miss Jessie Rutland were not killed to prevent their living but rather to prevent their dying a more horrible and more dangerous death.”
“How can one death be more dangerous than another?” Shaw scoffed in the dark recesses of the cab.
“Very easily. Different kinds of death pose different hazards to those who continue living. All bodies become sources of infection if they are not disposed of, yet a body that dies a natural death or even one that has been stabbed is less dangerous to other people than a corpse that has succumbed to some virulent disease.”
“You mean these two were slain violently in order to prevent their suffering the ravages of some malady?” Shaw exclaimed.
“Just so. A virulent disease that would have made off with them as surely as a bullet, given time. Their corpses were stolen from the mortuary laboratory to prevent further contagion, and we three, who were most prominently exposed to them, were forced to imbibe some sort of antidote.”
“Antidote!” the critic cried out, his voice rising an involuntary octave. Then that practical joke outside Simpson’s—”
“Saved our lives, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“If your theory is correct,” Shaw returned gruffly. “But what is the malady we are speaking of?”
“I have no idea and hesitate even to venture a guess. Since all the evidence points to someone recently returned from India, I take the liberty of postulating some tropical disorder, but that is the best I can do with such insufficient data.
“The bodies were no doubt stolen, also, to prevent an autopsy from revealing what would have killed them had the murderer permitted them to live.”
“What of Brownlow, then? Did he collaborate with Jack Point?”
“He opened the door to him, that much seems certain. The evidence suggests he had come upon the truth—why else scrub down the laboratory, force the stretcher-bearers to shower, and bum their clothes?”
“Where is he now, then?”
Holmes hesitated. “I very much fear that Mr. Brownlow is dead. If the murderer’s purpose was to contain a spreading epidemic, the police surgeon, by virtue of his occupation, was more exposed to contamination than any of us.”
Next to me I could see Holmes’s jaw tighten, and in his expression I beheld that which I had never seen before in all the years I had known him. I beheld fear.
It was almost two o’clock when the cab deposited us before Dr. Moore Agar’s imposing residence in Harley Street Remarking that our intrusion was not likely to be rendered less irritating to Dr. Agar by our waiting, Holmes proceeded up the steps and rang the night bell vigourously several times. It took some moments before a light appeared in one of the overhead windows, followed shortly thereafter by another on the floor above. In another few moments the door was opened by the housekeeper, an elderly woman, half asleep, who stood upon the threshold in her nightcap and dressing gown.
“I am extremely sorry to disturb you,” the detective informed her briskly, “but it is absolutely essential that I speak with Dr. Agar at once. My name is Sherlock Holmes.” He handed her his card.
She gaped at us, her eyes blinking away sleep.
“Just a moment, sir, please. Won’t you gentlemen step into the hall?”
We were obliged to stand there while she closed the door and went upon our errand. Sherlock Holmes paced furiously in the confined space of the vestibule, gnawing at his knuckles.
“It is staring us in the face, I know it,” he cried in exasperation, “but I cannot fathom it, cannot for the life of me!”
The inner door of the hall opened and the housekeeper admitted us, somewhat more alert now, and showed us to Dr. Moore Agar’s consulting room, where she turned up the gas and closed the door. This time we had not long to wait. Almost at once the doctor himself—tall, spare, and distinguished—swept into the room, tying the belt of his red silk dressing gown but otherwise appearing wide awake.‡
“Mr. Holmes, what is the meaning of this? Are you ill?”
“I trust not, doctor. I have come to you in a crisis, however, for a piece of information upon which the lives of many may well depend. Forgive me if I do not take time for introductions, though I suspect you already know Dr. Watson.”
“Tell me what you need to know, and I will try to help you,” Agar informed him without standing on ceremony. If he was in any way discomfited by the lateness of the hour or perturbed by our unannounced arrival, he gave n
o outward sign of it.
“Very well. I need the name of the leading specialist in tropical diseases here in London.”
Tropical diseases?” He frowned, passing a graceful hand across his mouth as he considered the request. “Well, Ainstree is the man who—”
“He is not at present in England,” I pointed out.
“Ha. No, indeed not.” The physician suppressed a yawn that was meant to attribute his lapse of memory to the hour.
“Let me see, then—”
“Every minute is of the utmost urgency, Dr. Agar.”
“I understand you, sir.” He thought a moment longer, his blue eyes unblinking; then suddenly he snapped his fingers. “It comes to me now. There is a young man who might be able to assist you. His name escapes me, but I can look him up in my study and it won’t take but a minute. Wait here.”
He took a piece of paper from his desk and disappeared from the office. Holmes continued to pace restlessly, like a caged animal.
“Just look at this place,” Shaw growled, taking in the plush surroundings with a sweep of his small arm. “Fancy bound books and gadgets galore! The medical profession could easily compete with the theatre as a house of illusion if it wanted to. Does any of this paraphernalia really assist in curing folk of their ailments, or are these all a collection of stage props designed to impress the patient with the majesty and power of the shaman?”
“If the patient is cured by illusion, that is no less a cure,” I protested, whereat Shaw regarded me with a curious stare. I confess that once again I was nettled by the fellow’s caustic observations, but Holmes, seemingly oblivious to the exchange, continued to pace about the room.
“So,” Shaw went on, “if a man contracts the plague and goes to see a physician about it, by your argument, a roomful of books and instruments, such as these—”
“Plague!”
Holmes spun around, his face dead white, his hands shaking. “Plague,” he repeated in an almost reverential tone. That is what we are dealing with.”
The West End Horror Page 13
