“Originally I used sodium hydroxide as the reducing agent,” he rambled on, “but I find the sodium tungstate more effective. Now for the catalyst. If you will be so good as to hand me the acetic acid in that large vessel over there. Excellent! Thank you. Now, as you see, I combine the two and mix them thoroughly, add the mixture to the sample thusly, agitate vigorously, and — voilà! There you have it!”
“Have what, for pity’s sake?” Abberline peered at the liquid in the test tube, which had turned a dull brownish color.
“Blood, Inspector, human blood! The sample tests positive!” Holmes’s eyes were gleaming triumphantly.
“You mean to say that the fingerprint on the postcard was made in blood?”
“That is precisely what I mean to say. I suspected as much, but this little test of mine confirms it. The chemistry involved is a simple oxidation-reduction reaction in which the valance number of the iron in the hemoglobin is increased from two to three and therefore precipitates out of the solution. But I need not bore you with the details. The point is, it is human blood without question!”
Abberline’s face went blank. Clearly he had not the faintest idea of how Holmes had arrived at his conclusion.
“Blood?” he said again.
Holmes rose from the stool and returned to his chair by the fireplace, wiping his hands with a handkerchief. “Human blood,” he corrected the inspector. “Our friend Jack probably used his victim’s blood, but more sophisticated tests will be required to prove that assumption. Lamentably, I have no way of determining the actual blood type with the meager resources at my command, you understand.”
“No, of course not,” said Abberline, clearly not understanding at all.60
Holmes returned the handkerchief to his sleeve and eased himself into a more comfortable position in his chair. His ribs still pained him abominably. “That settles the question once and for all, I should think,” he said. “It is all the more likely that he is our man, this Saucy Jack.”
Abberline considered this new information. “But knowing that doesn’t help us very much, does it?” he said ruefully.
Holmes stared up at the ceiling. “Well... one never knows. Every little bit of information gathered is of use, no matter that its significance is not immediately apparent to us. Every puzzle is made up of several pieces, each having its place and all required to make up the whole — even if the placement of any one particular piece at any given moment remains obscure. At the very least, we know a little something more about the man with whom we are dealing. And that could prove to be of incalculable assistance in tracking him down.”
“Oh? I fail to see that we know all that much, or how it can be of any assistance whatsoever.”
“Well, take the postcard, for one thing, and the previous note as well. One may deduce something of very great significance from those — particularly the postcard.”
Abberline went back to the deal table to retrieve the object in question and peered at it with an expression of fierce determination. After a moment he shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t see that it tells us anything,” he said disgustedly.
“Ah, dear fellow, you must read between the lines,” said Holmes. “For one thing, it tells us, I think, that this fellow desires to be caught.”
Abberline looked at him as if he had gone mad.
Holmes gave the policeman a quick sidelong glance and smiled happily at his reaction: Watson could have served him no better. He continued in the same vein: “Yes, I do believe he wants us to catch him, is even desperate for us to do so.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Oh, but I am, my dear chap, I am. The man is quite mad, you see. He is not in control of his own actions. He is unaware of it, of course, but he wants someone to stop him from what he is doing.” Holmes frowned and shook his head. “No, that’s not quite correct. He does indeed want to be found out, and he wants to be identified: He doesn’t necessarily want to be stopped. He’s enjoying himself far too much for that, deriving a great deal of personal satisfaction not only from the killings themselves, but from the stir his actions are causing. Obviously, he’s quite proud of himself. Quite proud indeed.”
“Proud of himself? Why it’s pure blood lust! You said so yourself! How could anyone be proud of these vicious, cowardly acts — even a madman?”
Holmes explained his reasoning: “It’s clear to me now that blood lust is not the only reason he is committing these atrocities. Nor is he simply a religious fanatic or ‘down on whores,’ as he phrased it himself in that first missive of his, though all of that surely may be part of it.
“No, I believe he is doing it as a means of attracting attention to himself. He wants to be noticed, you see. He wants to be admired or feared, I don’t think he cares which: To his twisted mind it is probably one and the same thing. If he cannot achieve the consideration he desires by acceptable behavior, then he will resort to other means.
Holmes leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers in front of him, gazing up at the ceiling. His voice took on a different tone, as it always did when he thought aloud, formulating a theory in his mind as he spoke.
“He is like a little boy who is being naughty so someone will pay attention to him,” he said half to himself. “His father perhaps, or his chums, or the older boys whose acceptance he seeks. No doubt he is incapable of achieving notice in any other way. He is probably a failure at everything he has tried, and has been scorned as a result. He has no one to admire him, no one to look up to him, no one to render him the slightest degree of respect. He is not capable of being best at something, or good at anything. His schoolmates think him useless, his teachers consider him a dullard, and little girls consider him clumsy and feckless. And his father is ashamed of him, probably — or at the very least ignores him or favors another of his progeny.” Holmes shrugged. “So he resorts to mischief. He murders helpless women.”
Abberline shook his head vehemently. “Really, Mr. Holmes! I can’t accept that. Aren’t you going just a bit too far? I mean, all boys are somewhat mischievous at a certain age — even I was to a certain extent — but very few of them grow up to become callous, fiendish murderers!”
“I grant you that.”
“A normal person doesn’t resort to killing because he was no good at climbing trees as a lad or because his mates made him the butt of jokes in the third term, for God’s sake!”
“Yes, I grant you that too. But we are not dealing with a normal person, are we?”
“Well, no. Of course not. But still, I think you’re going too far. I mean, I subscribe to most of your theories pertaining to the scientific method and all of that, but this? This is sheer, sheer... I don’t know what!”
Holmes cocked an eyebrow. “Nonsense?”
Abberline had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Well, you said it, not I. Though I don’t mean to be insulting, of course.”
Holmes smiled wryly, rose from his chair, and walked to the bow window to gaze down at the street, holding his left side as he did so.
“Our problem is that we have an absence of data, Inspector. Given our predicament, we must abandon the analytic or scientific approach and resort to other means, synthetic means if needs be — to even what might appear to be a fanciful explanation.” He raised a cautionary finger. “As long as it fits with known events.” He turned from the window and looked at Abberline. “What was it that Shakespeare said? ‘Imagination bodies forth the form of things unknown?’”
He reached for a pipe. “I grant you this approach may appear to be inconsistent with my often-expressed axiom that it is a capital mistake to theorize before having all the facts, but then, it is also a capital mistake to be rigid in one’s thinking merely for the sake of consistency.” Holmes smiled, and added: “I believe it was the American Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, ‘Consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind.’ They do say useful things on occasion, Americans.”
Abberline picked up the postcard from the side table, where he had p
laced it and studied it for a moment. He shook his head and put the card down again. “Well, even if you are right, I don’t see that this is getting us anywhere further along.”
“Oh, I don’t know. ‘Know thine enemy,’ and all of that. I think it always helps to place yourself in the other fellow’s shoes, try to figure out what makes his mind work, what he’ll do next.”
“Yes, but we don’t know that, do we? That’s just it! We don’t know what he’ll do next.”
“Oh, no mystery there, I think. He’ll kill again, and keep on killing until he’s stopped — or until he’s achieved the attention he seeks.”
“Yes, yes. But how do we prevent him from killing again? That’s the question. We had the area saturated with men, yet he managed to evade us and commit murder twice. Then he managed to evade us again and vanish into thin air! And talk about attention! He’s getting all the attention in the world right now. He couldn’t possibly ask for more.”
“Yes, just so. But is he getting it from those who matter most? Matter most to him, I mean. Is he getting it from those whose attention he seeks? Obviously not.”
“Well, a man who has committed murder just doesn’t walk up to one’s chums at a dinner party and say, ‘Guess what I did last night!’”
Holmes laughed. “No, but I suspect he does derive considerable pleasure by fantasizing about what those chums would think and how very shocked they would be if only they did know: A vicarious thrill of sorts.”
Abberline took a turn about the room. “All of this falls into the realm of speculation,” he snapped. “We cannot know what is in his mind or what drives him to do murder, nor do I think it would necessarily help us if we did. In any case, I believe he’s a lone wolf without friends, holed up in a garret someplace and avoiding society altogether.”
“Oh, no,” replied Holmes. “That is quite impossible. My analysis of his handwriting indicates just the opposite. He is a very social animal. He is a man who cannot abide solitude, who abhors — even fears — being alone. What we are dealing with, I think, is a man who lives two lives, a Jekyll and Hyde existence, if you will forgive a somewhat melodramatic metaphor — it is the one that readily springs to mind. He has two distinct personas, one of them craving social intercourse, human companionship, the acceptance of his peers; the other... well, you know of the other.”
Abberline made a face. “All too well.” He plopped himself down in a chair. “Good Lord, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
Holmes laughed again. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m rather enjoying it.” He turned serious again and pulled at his chin thoughtfully. “Let us assume for the moment that my hypothesis is correct, that we are dealing with a deranged individual who seeks both attention from society and wishes to wreak revenge upon it. How do we draw him out? How do we flush him from the trees? We must appeal to his vanity, I think. We must acknowledge him to be a very, very clever little chap indeed — the cleverest of all. We must render him the homage he seeks.” He paused, frowning. “Or do we do the opposite?”
Abberline sighed heavily.
Holmes put his pipe down and began pacing the room, hands clasped behind him, chin on chest.
Abberline watched him pace with growing impatience. “Well, I for one am willing to give him first prize at the fair if it’ll help, but I don’t see where this is getting us, I really don’t. Even if all of what you say is true — and to be brutally frank, Mr. Holmes, I’m not certain I believe a word of it — what do we do about it? Induce the Queen to include him in the new year’s honor’s list or something?”
Holmes stopped his pacing and looked up sharply. Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think that would do at all,” he said in all seriousness.
Abberline looked heavenward and rolled his eyes.
“Perhaps,” said Holmes half to himself, “perhaps we should write to him.”
“What?”
“Yes, that’s what we should do. Write to him.”
Abberline looked at him with jaw agape.
Holmes went over to his desk and reached for pen and paper. “After all, he’s written to us, hasn’t he? The least we could do is favor him with the courtesy of a reply.”
“Good Lord,” said Abberline half aloud, “I do believe he’s serious!”
Fourteen
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5-SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1888
“What a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings! What a rag-bag of singular happenings! But surely the most valuable hunting-ground that ever was given to a student of the unusual!”
— The Adventure of the Red Circle
Holmes completed the last mournful bars of the Paganini, lingering lovingly on the final notes, drawing them out just a little longer possibly than the composer had intended. He had been reasonably successful that evening in coaxing from the Stradivarius much of what the instrument was capable of producing in the way of tone — that clear, rich, exquisite quality that was the signature of the Cremona master, a quality unsurpassed by anyone anywhere, before or since.
Of course, Holmes characteristically was not completely satisfied with the result; he was seldom completely satisfied with anything he was able to accomplish on the violin. Or in life, for that matter.
Gently, he wiped the instrument with a soft cloth, admiring the wood’s graceful curves and the warm glow of its patina. It was his most cherished possession, this object — his one great extravagance. It was one of only 540 of its kind known to exist in all the world. Simply to hold it in his hands, to caress it, gave him pleasure. To play it, to cause it to make music, was an experience that transported him to the very altar of heaven.
Anyone who thought they knew Sherlock Holmes and had never seen him with his violin had never seen the passionate side of Sherlock Holmes. They had never beheld the dreamy look, the soft, gentle smile, the ethereal otherworldly Holmes; not the distant austere figure of piercing logic and decisive mien, but someone else entirely. Was not this the man who declared, “Whatever is emotional is opposed to that true, cold reason which I place above all things?”61
It was this that transformed him, this gracefully formed contrivance of old polished woods and wire, painstakingly shaped and cunningly assembled, which inexplicably produced sounds known to make hardened men weep, sounds only the gods should be privileged to hear. Curiously, it was an acquisition over which he still suffered occasional pangs of guilt. Occasional, minor pangs.62
Carefully he replaced the violin in its case, making a mental note to change the D string, which stubbornly refused to permit itself to be tuned to that point precisely above middle C, where he felt it should be. Little matter that it would be the fourth time in as many weeks that the string had been changed. And little matter that the sound he was seeking was probably unobtainable. For to Holmes’s ear, even a Stradivarius, this masterpiece of man’s ingenuity and craftsmanship — even a Stradivarius was not perfect.
Holmes went over to the fireplace and poked halfheartedly at the ember in the grate, deciding because of the lateness of the hour not to bother adding more coal. He had already turned the gas lamps down in preparation for bed, so the only light in the room came from the fireplace. What little flame there was cast languid, undulating shadows on the wall and ceiling, a relaxing effect, an effect to fit his mood.
Holmes decided on a last small glass of brandy before retiring, a few sips only. He went to the sideboard to pour it and then returned to the fireplace, glass in hand, easing himself into his favorite chair to gaze at the dying embers.
Unnoticed at his feet in the darkness of the room was the scattering of newspapers all around him, his sole reading matter for that day and for several previous days as well. He had been scanning the agony columns of the daily newspapers for the better part of the week, without result.
The agony columns, those long rows of personals to be found in almost every major London daily, had long been Holmes’s favorite reading matter, in addition to the crime news, of course. This “rag-bag
of singular happenings,” as he referred to them, was to him a barometer of sorts, a pulse beat, a microcosm: A daily ledger of all that was wrong, lost, misapplied, or misappropriated in the normal course of human events in the metropolis. In these columns could be found a daily dosage of man’s folly and despair, inch after column inch of dashed hopes, dismantled dreams, and unkept promises, a compendium of bizarre requests, impossible demands, and improbable claims: Truly “a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings,” as Holmes once characterized them. There was anger and bitterness and pitiable expressions of remorse; pathos in heavy measure to be sure — the outpourings of anguished and desperate souls, demanding, pleading, admonishing, forgiving, or simply reaching out pathetically for the simple touch of another.
But for Holmes the agony columns were more than founts of mindless diversion or the objects of curiosity. For in addition to the mundane, the columns contained mystery. And, most important, they provided intelligence — intelligence that had proven useful to him countless times in the past, furnishing leads and supplying answers and even, on occasion, guiding him to individuals he sought.
It had been the longest of long shots from the start, of course, this idea of his to write to this creature who called himself Jack the Ripper. He never had any real confidence the man would respond or even see the advertisement that had been placed in the city’s dailies. It had been a whim, an impulsive act, a half-silly notion half born out of desperation (and, of course, out of his weakness for the dramatic gesture).
And even if the Ripper had seen the advertisement, it was possible that Holmes took the wrong approach in his drafting of the wording of it, and succeeded only in driving him further away rather than enticing him to come closer. Perhaps he should not have challenged the man, but instead have appealed to his vanity, or offered him comfort, compassion even. He had counted on the Ripper reacting in anger to his message, had counted on touching a raw nerve, but the cursed man had not reacted at all. The problem was that Holmes had no way of determining what was the correct course to follow, no way of knowing how the man would respond. The machinations of the human brain were so unpredictable, so difficult to fathom — particularly the brain of a man so twisted — that Holmes was groping in the dark.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors Page 18
