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THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA
Richard L. Boyer
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The further adventures of
SHERLOCK HOLMES
THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS
EDWARD B. HANNA
TITAN BOOKS
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS
ISBN: 9781848569225
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St
London
SE1 0UP
First edition: October 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 1992, 2010 Edward B. Hanna
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Printed and bound in the USA.
“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.” — A Scandal in Bohemia
For Marcia, the woman in my life
Contents
Foreword
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Notes
Mea Culpa
Foreword
Edward B. Hanna was a dedicated bibliophile. He had thousands of books on hundreds of subjects, not the least of which was the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
He was most in his element surrounded by the written word and steeped in history. In the later years of his life he researched and wrote in the privacy of his study with his patient cat, Mystère, distracting him only to remind him that it was dinnertime.
Always the harshest critic of his own work, he constantly wrote, rewrote and destroyed his work. He spoke of his book subjects to no one, saying that when shared he lost interest in his subjects.
When Hanna completed The Whitechapel Horrors, he revealed to his beloved wife that the ending surprised him. Hanna had a certain conclusion in mind when he began the book, however, the writing of the tale of Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson took on its own life. It is fair to say that in the composition of this work the characters became alive for Hanna and created their own destiny.
I hope that you find enjoyment from The Whitechapel Horrors.
Leigh Hanna
March 2010
Prologue
“Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox & Company, at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch-box with my name, John H. Watson, M.D., Late Indian Army, painted on the lid.”
— The Problem of Thor Bridge
One of the first official acts of Mr. Ronald F. Jones upon taking up his new position as director and general manager of London’s venerable Claridge’s was to inspect the contents of the safe in his office. There were two surprises.
The first was an unopened basquaise, or flat, long-necked flagon of very old and equally fine Armagnac, a Reserve d’Artagnan, if the faded label was to be believed.
The second was a thick leather portfolio, also very old and once very fine, with the initials JHW embossed in faded gold leaf in the center.
The presence of the Armagnac has never been explained; it had been there when Mr. Jones’s predecessor arrived many years before and, as far as he knew when queried, when his predecessor arrived many years before him.
The leather portfolio was more easily explained. It had been left in the care of Claridge’s management by a gentleman who had been a permanent resident for as long as even the oldest staff member could recall. He was a retired surgeon by the name of Anstruther who, being a childless widower and the last of his line, had no family, and being quite elderly, had outlived all of his friends and contemporaries.
It seems that Mr. Anstruther had little faith in banks, having lost a sizable part of a large inheritance during the Great Depression, and no trust in the legal profession, upon which he blamed most of the ills of the world (“First, kill all the lawyers,” he was fond of misquoting Shakespeare). Therefore, he chose the strongbox of Claridge’s, which he considered the second safest depository in all of England. Banks could fail, Britain could lose her Empire, but Claridge’s? Claridge’s would remain unchanged, untouched, untroubled for as long as that other great monument to the English race and Western civilization, the Tower of London. And since its vaults were otherwise occupied, Claridge’s safe would simply have to do.
But then one day old Mr. Anstruther died, and the worn, cracked leather portfolio remained quite forgotten until the occasion, several years later, when Mr. Jones took up his new position.
Having more pressing matters on his mind at that time, it was not until a number of months had passed and Mr. Jones once again had occasion to rummage through the contents of the safe, that the presence of the portfolio (and the Armagnac) came to mind. The temptation to open both came upon him, the portfolio because he was curious, the Armagnac because it had been a particularly arduous day. But one just doesn’t break the seals of a bottle of old and rare brandy on a whim or without proper occasion, especially since it had remained undisturbed in its sanctuary for how many years? Its very presence, though known to few, had become as much a part of Claridge’s as the marble and mahogany and gleaming brass of the public rooms, and though there was little likelihood of a rightful owner returning
to reclaim it, or of some hidebound traditionalist writing an indignant letter to The Times, good form and Mr. Jones’s integrity demanded the bottle be returned undisturbed to its place of rest. Besides, if the truth be known, he was really partial to cognac.
The portfolio? Ah, well, that was another matter.
The topmost document was a letter, a sheet of heavy foolscap yellowed with age, bearing the logotype of Cox & Company, Charing Cross, London. It was dated July 30, 1929, and was addressed to Mr. Elwyn Anstruther, F.R.C.S., Harley Street. At first reading the brief contents were uninteresting, disappointing, a dry and formal communication from banker to client.
Dear Sir:
I have to inform you of the unfortunate death, on the 24th instant, of Dr. John Hamish Watson, an honored client of Cox & Company of many years standing.
It had been Dr. Watson’s custom, from time to time, to entrust to our safekeeping various notes and records of a confidential nature, the contents of which I, naturally, have no knowledge. It was his wish, as expressed in a letter of instructions to this firm, that upon his death the folio, hereunto attached, was to be delivered over to Dr. Ian Anstruther of London Hospital and Queen Anne Street whom, upon inquiry, we learned to have passed on these several years since.1 The late Dr. Anstruther was, I believe, your father.
Accordingly, upon consultation with the firm’s solicitors, and having determined you to be the only surviving son and heir of said Dr. Ian Anstruther, Cox & Company deem it will have acquitted itself of its responsibility by delivering over to you the aforementioned file.
If, sir, Cox & Company may be of any further assistance, you have only to communicate with the undersigned at the firm’s offices in Charing Cross.
I remain, sir, et cetera, et cetera...
There was a brief postscript at the bottom of the page:
I call to your particular attention that at the behest of the late Dr. Watson, included in the document attached hereunto, none of the contents of this file may be publicly revealed until the year 2000, or until such time as fifty years shall have passed from the date of his death, whichever comes later.
Inside the folder Mr. Jones found a thick sheaf of unbound manuscript paper, yellowed and somewhat brittle to the touch, the top sheet containing a dozen or so lines set down in a neat but spidery hand. Mr. Jones gasped, scarcely believing what he read. There were two names that seemed to separate themselves from the jumble of other words on the page and leap into sharp focus — two names from long ago. Both were remembered with awe, one with something approaching reverence, the other with utter horror:
Sherlock Holmes. Jack the Ripper.
EDITOR’S NOTE
The following account is based primarily on notes compiled by John H. Watson, M.D., near the end of his life, and which, as has been related, ultimately found their way into the safe of Claridge’s. The editor has tried to remain faithful to the material throughout; however, it must be appreciated there were instances when that proved to be impracticable. Because of a scarcity of detail, a conflict of dates (undoubtedly the lapses of an old man’s memory), and, as is the case in several instances, the unaccountable omission of certain established, widely known facts, it has been necessary on occasion to resort to other sources, as noted in the footnotes and bibliography. Obviously Dr. Watson never got around to organizing the notes relating to this matter in any but the most desultory fashion. It is most likely that he never intended to. Much of the information contained in the material is of such an extremely sensitive and confidential nature it is surprising that he ever reduced it to writing at all. But knowing of his reputation for discretion and great integrity and the fact that he had always respected the confidences shared with him by his friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, it must be assumed that his motives were noble, for no other assumption is acceptable. It may well be that he simply could not bear to take to the grave secrets relating to the most notorious murderer of all time. Whatever his reasons, one thing is certain: Had any of the contents of this file been revealed at the time the events occurred, or even for a good while thereafter, it would have not only ruined the reputations of several well-known, highly placed individuals, but almost certainly would have brought about the fall of the government then in power. Indeed, it may well have caused the downfall of the British monarchy.
PART ONE
“Horror ran through the land. Men spoke of it with bated breath, and women shuddered as they read the dreadful details. People afar off smelled blood, and the superstitious said that the skies were a deeper red that autumn.”
— From a contemporary account
One
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1888
“It is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor and each simple in itself.”
— The Adventure of the Dancing Men
“A perfectly marvelous, gruesome experience,” observed Sherlock Holmes brightly as he and Watson wended their way through the crowds streaming out of the theater into the gaiety and glare of the gaslit Strand. “I cannot thank you enough for insisting that I accompany you this evening, Watson. Rarely have I been witness to a more dramatic transformation of good to evil, either onstage or off, than our American friend has so ably portrayed for us.”
He pondered for a while as they walked, his sharp profile silhouetted against the glow of light. It was the first of September, the night was warm and clinging, the myriad smells of the city an almost palpable presence. London, noisy, noisome, nattering London: aged, ageless, dignified, eccentric in her ways — seat of Empire, capital of all the world; that indomitable gray lady of drab aspect but sparkling personality — was at her very, very best and most radiant. And Holmes, ebullient and uncommonly chatty, was in a mood to match.
“I have no doubt the author was telling us,” he said after a time, “that we are all capable of such a transformation. Or, should I say transmogrification? — such a wonderful word, don’t you think? — capable of it even without the benefit of a remarkable chemical potion; that we all, each and every one of us, have the capacity for good and evil — the capability of performing both good works and ill — and precious little indeed is required to lead us down one path or the other. While hardly an original thought, it is sobering nonetheless.”2
But if he found the notion sobering, it was not for very long. He was in particularly buoyant spirits, having just the previous day brought about a successful conclusion to the amusing affair concerning Mrs. Cecil Forrester. And if his hawklike features seemed even sharper than usual, the cheekbones more pronounced, the piercing eyes the more deepset, it was due to an unusually busy period for him, one of the busiest of his career, when case seemed to follow demanding case, one on top of the other, with hardly a day between that was free from tension and strenuous mental effort. Though the pace had taken its toll insofar as his physical appearance was concerned — he was even thinner, more gaunt than ever, and his complexion a shade or two paler — it did nothing to sap his energy or weaken his powers. It was obvious to those who knew him — Watson in particular, who knew him best — that he not only thrived on the activity, but positively reveled in it, was invigorated by it. As nature abhorred a vacuum, he was fond of saying, he could not tolerate inactivity.3
Still, Watson was glad to have been able to entice him away from Baker Street for a few hours of diversion and relaxation. Left to his own devices, Holmes would have been content to remain behind, indeed would have preferred it, cloistered like a hermit amid his index books and papers and chemical paraphernalia, the violin his only diversion, cherrywood and shag his only solace.
Several theaters seemed to be emptying out at once along the Strand, and the street was rapidly filling with even greater throngs of gentlemen in crisp evening dress and fashionably gowned women, their laughter and chatter vying with the entreaties of the flower girls and the urgent cries of the newsboys working the crowd.
“‘Ave a flower for yer button’ole, guv? ‘Av
e a loverly flower?”
“Murder! Another foul murder in the East End! ‘Ere, read the latest!”
“Nice button’ole, sir? Take some nice daffs ‘ome for the missus?”
Holmes and Watson elbowed their way through the crowd with increasing difficulty, conversation made impossible by the press and clamor around them.
“Here, Watson, we will never get a cab in all this. Let us make our way to Simpson’s and wait for the crowds to dissipate.”
“Capital idea, I’m famished,” Watson shot back, dodging a pinched-faced little girl with a huge flower basket crooked in her arm.
Holmes led the way, stopping momentarily to snatch up a selection of evening newspapers from grimy hands. Then the pair of them, holding on to their silk hats against the crush, forced their way through to the curb and navigated the short distance to the restaurant, gratefully entering through etched-glass doors into an oasis of potted palms and marble columns, ordered, calm, genteel murmurings, and starched white napery.4 It was not long before they were ushered to a table, despite several parties of late diners waiting to be seated; for the eminent Mr. Holmes and his companion were not unknown to the manager, Mr. Crathie, who ruled his domain with a majesty and manner the czar himself would have envied. Shortly after taking their places, they were served a light supper of smoked salmon and capers, accompanied by a frosty bottle of hock.
Conversation between the two old friends was minimal, even monosyllabic, but there was nothing awkward about it or strained, merely a comfortable absence of talk. Small talk was anathema to Holmes in any case, but the two had known each other for so long, and were so accustomed to each other’s company, the mere physical presence of the other was enough to satisfy any need for human companionship. Communication between them was all but superfluous in any case, their respective opinions on almost any subject being well known to the other. And besides, throughout most of the meal Holmes had his face buried in one or the other of his precious newspapers, punctuating the columns of type as he scanned them with assorted sniffs and grunts and other sounds of disparagement occasionally interspersed with such muttered editorial comments as “Rubbish!” “What nonsense!” and, for variety’s sake, an occasional cryptic and explosive “Hah!”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors Page 1
