I crossed to the bar where an old, grizzled man with cataracts on his eyes poured me a glass of ale for a couple of pence and I stood there, not drinking, ignoring my own worst imaginings, trying not to think about Holmes. The majority of the men around me were sailors and dockworkers and many of them were foreign – Spanish and Maltese. None of them took any notice of me, and for that I was glad. In fact, they barely spoke to each other, and the only real sound in the room was that made by the card players. A clock on the wall showed the passing hour and it seemed to me that the minute hand was deliberately dragging itself, ignoring the laws of time. I had often waited, with and without Holmes, for a villain to show himself, whether it was on the moors near Baskerville Hall, on the banks of the Thames or in the gardens of many a suburban home. But I will never forget the fifty-minute vigil that I spent in that little room with the slap, slap, slap of the cards against the table, the out-of-tune notes picked out on the piano, the dark faces gazing into their glasses as if all the answers to the mystery of life might there be found.
Fifty minutes exactly, for it was at ten to midnight that the still of the night was suddenly shattered by two gunshots and, almost immediately, by the shrill cry of a police whistle and the sound of voices shouting out in alarm. I was instantly out in the street, bursting through the doors, sick with myself and angry that I had ever let Holmes talk me into this dangerous scheme. That he had fired the shots himself I never doubted. But had he fired them as a warning, for me, or was he in some sort of peril, forced to defend himself? The fog had lifted slightly and I hurled myself across the street and up to the entrance of Creer’s Place. I turned the handle. The door was unlocked. Drawing my own weapon from my pocket, I rushed in.
The dry, burning smell of opium greeted my nostrils and at once brought irritation to my eyes and a sharp, stabbing pain to my head, to the extent that I was unwilling to breathe for fear of falling under the spell of the drug myself. I was standing in a dank, gloomy room that had been decorated in the Chinese style with patterned rugs, red paper lampshades and silk hangings on the walls, just as Henderson had described. Of the man himself there was no sign. Four men lay stretched out on mattresses with their japan trays and opium lamps on low tables nearby. Three of them were unconscious and could indeed have been corpses. The last was resting his chin on one hand, gazing at me with unfocused eyes. One mattress was empty.
A man came rushing towards me and I knew that this must be Creer himself. He was completely bald, his skin paper-white and stretched so tightly over his bones that, with his black, deep-set eyes he seemed to have a dead man’s skull instead of a living head. I could see that he was about to speak, to challenge me, but then he saw my revolver and fell back.
‘Where is he?’ I demanded.
‘Who?’
‘You know who I mean!’
My eyes travelled past him to an open doorway at the far end of the room and a corridor, lit by a gas lamp, beyond. Ignoring Creer, anxious to be out of this dreadful place before the fumes overcame me, I pushed my way forward. One of the wretches lying on the mattresses called out to me and reached out with a begging hand, but I ignored him. There was another door at the far end of the corridor and, as Holmes could not have possibly left by the front, he must surely have come this way. I forced it open and felt the rush of cold air. I was at the back of the house. I heard more shouting, the clatter of a horse and carriage, the blast of a police whistle. I knew already that we had been tricked, that everything had gone wrong. But still I had no idea what to expect. Where was Holmes? Had he been hurt?
I ran down a narrow street, through an archway, around a corner and into a courtyard. A small crowd had gathered here. Where could they all have come from at this time of the night? I saw a man in evening dress, a police constable, two others. They were all staring at a tableau that presented itself in front of them, none of them daring to move forward and take charge. I pushed my way through them. And never will I forget what I then saw.
There were two figures. One was a young girl whom I recognised at once – and with good cause, for she had tried to kill me only a few days before. It was Sally Dixon, the older sister of Ross, who had been working at The Bag of Nails. She had been shot twice, in the chest and in the head. She was lying on the cobblestones in a pool of liquid which showed black in the darkness but which I knew to be blood. I also knew the man who lay unconscious in front of her, one hand stretched out, still holding the gun that had shot her.
It was Sherlock Holmes.
ELEVEN
Under Arrest
I have never forgotten that night and its consequences.
Sitting here on my own, twenty-five years later, I still have every detail of it printed on my mind and although I sometimes have to strain through the distorting lens of time to recall the features of friends and foemen alike, I have only to blink and there they all are: Harriman, Creer, Ackland and even the constable … what was his name? Perkins! The fact is that I had many adventures with Sherlock Holmes and frequently saw him in dire straits. There were times when I thought him dead. Only a week before, indeed, I had observed him helpless and delirious, supposedly the victim of a coolie disease from Sumatra. Then there was that time at Poldhu Bay in Cornwall where, had I not dragged him from the room, he would certainly have succumbed to madness and self-destruction. I recall my vigil with him in Surrey when a deadly swamp adder came slithering out of the darkness. And how could I complete this brief list without reminding myself of the utter despair, the sense of emptiness that I felt when I returned, alone, from the Reichenbach Falls? And yet, all of these pale in comparison with that night in Bluegate Fields. Poor Holmes. I see him now, recovering consciousness to find himself surrounded, under arrest and quite unable to explain to himself or to anyone else what had just taken place. It was he who had chosen, willingly, to walk into a trap. This was the unhappy result.
A constable had arrived. I did not know from where. He was young and nervous but all in all he went about his business with commendable efficiency. First, he checked that the girl was dead, then turned his attention to my friend. Holmes looked dreadful. His skin was as white as paper and although his eyes were open he seemed unable to see clearly … he certainly didn’t recognise me. Matters were not helped by the crowd, and once again I asked myself who they were and how they could possibly have chosen such a night to congregate here. There were two women, similar to the dreadful old crone who had passed us by the canal, and with them two sailors, leaning against each other and reeking of ale. A negro stared with wide eyes. A couple of my Maltese drinking companions from The Rose and Crown stood next to him. And even a few children had appeared, ragged and barefoot, watching the spectacle as if it were being played out for their benefit. As I took this all in, a tall man, red-faced and elegantly dressed, called out and gesticulated with his stick.
‘Take him up, officer! I saw him shoot the girl. I saw it with my own eyes.’ He had a thick Scottish accent that sounded almost incongruous, as if this were all a play and he a member of the audience who had, unbidden, wandered on to the stage. ‘God help her, the poor creature. He killed her in cold blood.’
‘Who are you?’ the constable demanded.
‘My name is Thomas Ackland. I was on my way home. I saw exactly what happened.’
I could not stand on the sidelines any longer but pushed my way forward and knelt beside my stricken friend. ‘Holmes!’ I cried. ‘Holmes, can you hear me? For God’s sake tell me what has happened.’
But Holmes was still incapable of reply and now I found the constable examining me. ‘You know this man?’ he demanded.
‘Indeed I do. He is Sherlock Holmes.’
‘And you?’
‘My name is John Watson and I am a doctor. Officer, you must allow me to attend upon my friend. However black and white the facts may appear, I can assure you that he is innocent of any crime.’
‘That is not true. I saw him shoot the girl. I saw the bullet fired by his own han
d.’ Ackland took a step forward. ‘I, too, am a doctor,’ he continued. ‘And I can tell you at once that this man is under the influence of opium. It is evident from his eyes and from his breath and you need seek no further motive for this vile and senseless crime.’
Was he right? Holmes lay there, unable to speak. He was certainly in the grip of some sort of narcotic and, given that he had been in Creer’s Place for the past hour, it was absurd to suggest that anything was responsible other than the drug that the doctor had named. And yet there was something about the diagnosis that puzzled me. I looked closely at Holmes’s eyes and although I would have had to agree that the pupils were dilated, they lacked the ugly pinpricks of light which I would have expected to find. I felt his pulse and found it almost too sluggish, suggesting that he had just been aroused from a deep sleep rather than involved in the strenuous activity of first chasing and then shooting down his victim. And since when had opium ever caused an event such as this? Its effects might include euphoria, total relaxation, freedom from physical pain. But never had I heard of a user being driven to acts of violence, and even had Holmes been in the grip of the most profound paranoia, what possible motive could his muddled consciousness have come up with for killing the one girl he had been most eager to find and protect? How, for that matter, had she come to be here? Finally, I doubted that Holmes would have been able to shoot with any accuracy had he been under the influence of opium. He would have had difficulty even holding the gun steady. I set this all out here as though I was able to deliberate at length on the evidence in front of me, and yet, in actual fact, it was the work of but a second born out of my many years in the medical profession and my intimate knowledge of the man accused.
‘Did you accompany this person here tonight?’ the constable asked me.
‘Yes. But we were briefly apart. I was at The Rose and Crown.’
‘And he?’
‘He …’ I stopped myself. The one thing I could not do was reveal where Holmes had been. ‘My friend is a celebrated detective and he was in pursuit of a case. You will discover that he is well known to Scotland Yard. Call for Inspector Lestrade who will vouch for him. As bad as this looks, there must be another explanation.’
‘There is no other explanation,’ Dr Ackland interjected. ‘He came staggering from round that corner. The girl was in the street, begging. He took out a gun and he shot her.’
‘There is blood on his clothing,’ the constable agreed, although he seemed to speak with a degree of reluctance. ‘He was evidently close to her when she was killed. And when I arrived in this courtyard, there was nobody else in sight.’
‘Did you see the shot fired?’ I asked.
‘No. But I arrived moments later. And nobody ran from the scene.’
‘He did it!’ somebody shouted in the crowd and this was followed by a murmur of assent, taken up by the children who were all delighted to find themselves in the front row for this spectacle.
‘Holmes!’ I cried, kneeling beside him and attempting to support his head in my hands. ‘Can you tell me what happened here?’
Holmes made no response and a moment later, I became aware of another man who had approached silently and was now standing over me, next to the Scottish doctor. ‘Please will you get to your feet,’ he demanded, in a voice as cold as the night itself.
‘This man is my friend—’ I began.
‘And this is the scene of a crime in which you have no business to interfere. Stand up and move back. Thank you. Now, if anyone here saw anything, give your name and place of address to the officer. Otherwise, return to your homes. You children, get out of here before I put the whole lot of you under arrest. Officer? What’s your name? Perkins! Are you in charge here?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘This is your beat?’
‘It is, sir.’
‘Well, you seem to have done reasonably good work so far. Can you tell me what you saw and what you know? Try to keep it concise. It’s a damned cold night and the sooner we have it wrapped up, the sooner we can be in bed.’ He stood in silence as the constable gave his version of events which added up to little more than I already knew. He nodded. ‘Very well, Constable Perkins. Look after these people. Write down the details in your notebook. I’ll take charge of this now.’
I have not yet described this new arrival and find it difficult to do so even now for he was quite simply one of the most reptilian men I have ever encountered, with eyes too small for his face, thin lips and skin so smooth as to be almost featureless. His most prominent feature was a thick mane of hair of a most unnatural white, which is to say that it really was completely colourless and might never had any colour at all. It was not as if he was old – he could not have been more than thirty or thirty-five. The hair was in complete contrast to his wardrobe, which consisted of black overcoat, black gloves and black scarf. Although he was not a large man, he had a certain presence, even an arrogance, which I had already witnessed in the way he had taken command of the situation. He spoke softly, but his voice had an edge that left you in no doubt that he was used to being obeyed. But it was his mercurial quality that most unnerved me, his refusal to connect emotionally with anyone at all. That was what put me in mind of the snake. From the moment I had first spoken to him, I had felt him slithering around me. He was the sort of person who looked through you or behind you but who would never look at you. I had never met anyone quite so in command of themselves, living in a world in which the rest of us could be only trespassers, forbidden to come near.
‘So your name is Dr Watson?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘And this is Sherlock Holmes! Well, I rather doubt we’ll be reading of this in one of your famous chronicles, will we, unless it comes under the heading of The Adventure of the Psychotic Opium Addict. Your colleague was at Creer’s Place tonight?’
‘He was pursuing an investigation.’
‘Pursuing it with a pipe and a needle it would seem. A rather unorthodox method of detection, I would have said. Well, you can leave, Dr Watson. There is nothing more you can do tonight. A pretty business we have here! This girl can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen years old.’
‘Her name is Sally Dixon. She was working at a public house called The Bag of Nails in Shoreditch.’
‘She was known to her assailant?’
‘Mr Holmes was not her assailant!’
‘So you would have us think. Unfortunately, there are witnesses who have a different point of view.’ He glanced at the Scottish man. ‘You are a doctor?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you saw what happened here tonight?’
‘I already told the constable, sir. The girl was begging in the street. This man came from that building over there. I thought he was drunk or out of his mind. He followed the girl into this square and he killed her with a revolver. It’s as plain as that.’
‘In your opinion, is Mr Holmes well enough to travel with me to Holborn police station?’
‘He cannot walk. But there is no reason why he should not travel in a cab.’
‘There is one on the way.’ The white-haired man, who had still not given me his name, walked slowly over to Holmes who still lay on the ground, a little recovered, fighting to regain his composure. ‘Can you hear me, Mr Holmes?’
‘Yes.’ It was the first word he had spoken.
‘My name is Inspector Harriman. I am arresting you for the murder of this young woman, Sally Dixon. You are not obliged to say anything unless you desire to do so, but whatever you do say I shall take down in writing and it may be used as evidence against you hereafter. Do you understand?’
‘This is monstrous!’ I cried. ‘I am telling you that Sherlock Holmes had nothing whatsoever to do with this crime. Your witness is lying. This is some conspiracy—’
‘If you do not wish to find yourself arrested for obstruction and also quite possibly sued for slander, then I suggest you try to find the wisdom to remain silent. You will have your chance to sp
eak when this comes to court. In the meantime, I will ask you again to step aside and leave me to get on with my business.’
‘Do you have no idea who this is and to what extent the police force in this city and, indeed, in this country, are indebted to him?’
‘I know very well who he is and I cannot say that it makes any difference to the situation as I find it. We have a dead girl. The murder weapon is in his hand. We have a witness. I think that’s enough to be getting on with. It is almost twelve and I cannot be squabbling with you all night. If you have any reason to complain about my behaviour, you can do so in the morning. I hear a cab approaching. Let us get this man into a cell and this poor little mite to the morgue.’
There was nothing more I could do except stand and watch as Constable Perkins returned and, with the help of the doctor, lifted Holmes to his feet and dragged him away. The gun that he had been carrying was wrapped in cloth and taken with him. At the last minute, as he was being helped into the cab, his head turned and our eyes met and I was relieved at least to see that some of the life had returned to them and that whatever drug he had taken – or been given – must be wearing off. More policemen had arrived and I saw Sally covered with a blanket and carried away on a stretcher. Dr Ackland shook hands with Harriman, handed him a business card, and walked off. Before I knew it, I was on my own – and in a hostile, insalubrious part of London. I suddenly remembered that I still had the revolver that Holmes had given me, in my coat pocket. My hand closed on it and the mad thought came to me that perhaps I should have used it to rescue Holmes, seizing hold of him and carrying him with me whilst keeping Harriman and the crowd at bay. But such an attempt would have helped neither of us. There were other ways to fight back and, with that in mind and cold steel in my hand, I turned away and hurriedly made for home.
The House of Silk Page 14
