Despite the never-ending flow of ale, or perhaps because of it, the three old sailors eventually muttered their way into silence, and the man who had been so free with his coppers made to get up. As he did, he was approached by the Lascar, who bent low and whispered into his ear.
The man glanced sharply at the Lascar, then nodded.
They headed for the stairs.
Kent unslumped his body and started toward the stairs, thinking to creep after them and station himself where he could listen unobserved. In the shadows of the stairs he could make out murmurs above, but nothing distinct. As he started stealthily toward the upper regions of the tavern he felt great beefy hands grip his shoulders and spin him about like a moppet’s top.
“Inspector Kent, you playin’ copper’s narc on yer own now, are you?” demanded a man nearly as wide as he was tall, heavily muscled with a face that looked as if it had come up on the poor side of a brawl. The hands that had spun Kent about now gripped his lapels. “You can’t hide a blue bottle behind a little spinach, you damned rozzer!”
It was Dinky Clabber, the nobbler Kent had sent to Dartmoor a few years back for breaking the legs and arms of a dollyshopper who had refused to buy up some nicked merchandise from a gang of petty crib-breakers. Had the victim been more worthy of the jury’s sympathy, Clabber would still be sporting broad arrows and a convict’s cap rather than a mothy brown jacket and a battered bowler.
“You’ll get yours for setting me in the dock!”
All eyes were turned toward Kent and Clabber, and Kent knew any further pretence was useless. Additionally there was some sort of commotion up the stairs demanding Kent’s attention.
Kent slammed his nearly full mug into Clabber’s face. He pushed away the hands from his lapels, kneed him hard in the dabbers, then delivered a brutal uppercut when he gasped and snapped forward. Clabber hit the floor like a tipped bull, and everyone in the Neptune went back about his business. A knock-down drag-out was not that unusual an occurrence in the Neptune’s common hall, the only aspect bringing it slightly above the usual was that such a bruiser could be despatched in such short order by a man who was, at least in comparison, such a little fellow.
As Kent made his way up the stairs, he heard the breaking of a window and knew it was too late to seek any information from the man in black who had been so interested in the Vanishments, the East End Ghosts and William Dunning. At least there was still the Lascar to hold to account.
“Hold it right there,” he told the Lascar in the shadowed corridor. “Scotland Yard. I have some questions for you.”
“Good morning, Inspector Kent,” the man said dryly. “Your encounter with Clabber seems to have bollixed it for both of us.”
“Christ Almighty,” Kent swore softly. “Mr Sherlock Holmes. Three years dead, and still the meddler.”
Chapter V
A Common Quest
“I gave Sir Reginald my word I would look into his brother’s disappearance,” Kent said. “I was not about to be put off just because some high dandies at Scotland Yard and the Home Office find the whole situation embarrassing.”
“As I intimated to Sir Reginald when he sought my assistance,” Holmes replied, now devoid of the colouring that had transformed him into an East Indian sailor and back in clothes more befitting a consulting detective dwelling in London’s West End.
“Who was the man you took up the stairs?” Kent asked. “He seemed overly curious about all the weird things been happening in the East End, and about the fate of a victim who could only have been young Dunning.”
“More desperate than merely curious,” Holmes answered. “And, yes, the man he was asking after was William Dunning.”
“As William Dunning, or as the latest victim?” Kent asked.
“How astute,” Holmes replied. “He is searching for victims of the Vanishments, and came across Dunning in that quest.”
“Who is he?”
They were in a public bath house not far from the Neptune, where Holmes had rented a locker in which to stow clothing and other necessities. After the fracas with Clabber, who had been immediately dragged into an alley by some of the regular tavern rowdies for purposes of their own, and an outburst from the landlord over the matter of a broken rear window (though he quickly settled into a surly silence when threatened with police visitation of the upper chambers), there was no more information to be had, surreptitiously or otherwise, from the tavern’s patrons.
“He did not give his name,” Holmes continued. “But I was able to discern a few facts about him before he leaped out the window, onto the lumber room roof and ran off into the darkness.”
“What did he say?”
Holmes smiled. “It is not what a man says that reveals the most about himself, but how he speaks, how he acts, how he appears.”
Kent sighed. “I’ve heard Lestrade and Gregson talk about your methods, but I admit to a certain reticence to their validity. There is room in police work for theory, you understand, but I prefer solid facts that cannot be disputed.”
“Such as the fact that you recently came into a tidy sum of money from an inheritance left by a country relative, then just as quickly lost it by speculating on ventures in the Kenya Colony?” Holmes asked.
“How the blazes did you know that?” Kent demanded.
“Your watch chain is quite new and obviously more expensive than a Scotland Yard inspector could afford,” Holmes explained. “The watch, however, is far from new, and though it was previously highly polished, it has been let go. The rim of the watch is crudely incised with the initials FJ, possibly a cousin, but more likely a favourite uncle. Only a man without access to a watchmaker would take it upon himself to engrave his own initials on a rounded casing, and it would take a certain rustic naiveté to attempt it with a pocket knife. The watch was part of your inheritance, but you bought the chain on your own, hence their mismatched quality. You invested most of the remainder on ventures in our Kenya Colony, probably one or more coffee plantations, else why would you have a copy of the Mombassa Register in your inner coat pocket, which I spied when you leaned out the rear window, folded open to commodities page with several entries underlined in heavy pencil? The continuing drought in East Africa has brought ruin to many an Englishman.”
“Correct, Mr Holmes, on every count,” Kent said in astonishment. “The watch and five hundred pounds were a bequest from my mother’s brother, Franklin Johns, a farmer in Hertfordshire. She was his favourite sister and I benefited from that association. I followed some bad advice on investments rather than putting it in the bank, and now all I have is the watch, the chain and about fifty pounds, to which I intend holding tight.” The Scotland Yard inspector paused, then said: “All right, Mr Holmes, I’ll give that you’ve lived up to Lestrade and Gregson’s claims, but your intervention in an official police investigation is unneeded.”
“Official investigation?” Holmes mused. “Shall we contact your superiors about the status of your investigation?”
Kent chewed his lip thoughtfully. “There’s no reason why we should at odds, Mr Holmes.”
“Indeed, Inspector Kent,” Holmes agreed. “My only concern is to discover the source of the terror gripping East London, though I fear we are faced with a phenomenon possessing the potential to engulf all London, and perhaps much more.”
“And William Dunning, Mr Holmes?”
“A concern, naturally,” Holmes admitted, “but the danger to all far outweighs the peril to any one man. However, if we solve the larger issue, Dunning’s rescue, or fate, will also be solved.”
“Aye, I can see that,” Kent said. “Then we will work together?”
“I would be honoured, Inspector,” Holmes said. “I have always held your abilities and accomplishments in high regard.”
“Tell me about the man in the Neptune,” Kent urged.
“First, let us quit this establishment,” Holmes said. “It is convenient enough for the purpose of regaining my identity, but it is a low place, frequented
by catamites and other undesirable elements, many who might wish for either of us what Clabber wished for you. You are armed?”
“A revolver in my coat pocket.”
“It may prove a wise precaution.”
The morning was crisp with just a hint of mist creeping up from the Thames. The streets were mostly vacant, with only vague glimpses now and then of predawn workmen or an early morning judy in search of quick flash.
“From the man’s speech, it is clear that he lived in Wales most of his life, though he was educated in London at the Royal Academy of Science,” Holmes said as they walked along. “He lives outside of London, perhaps Richmond but no farther north than Kew. He is a scientist, and yet also something of a mechanic. He has recently been under a great deal of strain, both physically and mentally, and, despite his recent energetics of escaping through the window of the Neptune, he is not far from a total collapse through mental and physical exhaustion.”
“What is his connection to the Vanishments or the Ghosts?”
Holmes frowned. “Unclear, at best, but he does have some tie to them, and they are clearly connected to each other.”
“That’s what I have been trying to tell people!” Kent snapped. “They don’t want to believe a force can move through London at will, vanishing citizens without a trace.”
“From what I learned before leaving France, the Vanishments are most heavily concentrated in the East End, but not exclusively,” Holmes said.
“That is correct,” Kent replied. “The full range of disappearances has been kept out of the papers. The same with the so-called Ghosts.”
“An ill-considered name,” Holmes remarked.
“It probably came from the sodden mind of some Fleet Street scribbler, but I would not dismiss the idea it was put forth by some under-clerk in the Home Office to encourage disbelief.”
“Pale figures appearing from nowhere and vanishing just as abruptly,” Holmes mused. “Ghosts to the common and undiscerning mind.”
“You’ve not a supernatural twist, do you, Mr Holmes?” Kent asked.
“What is the supernatural but nature poorly observed or misunderstood?” Holmes replied. “Our ancestors painted themselves blue and built stone circles to please spirits they believed moved among them, making the sun to rise and the crops to flourish. We observe the stars through telescopes and practice scientific agriculture, but modern man has yet to completely divorce himself from that blue-skinned savage, hence we still have among us astrologers, hex-makers and people who believe in ghosts.”
“The things seen in the East End are not ghosts,” Kent insisted.
“Obviously not,” Holmes agreed. “Those who believe they are will not connect them with the Vanishments, while those who disbelieve will have nothing to connect to the Vanishments.”
“The Ghosts are not supernatural, but I do believe they are evil,” Kent said.
Holmes nodded. “In that, we are in complete agreement.”
As they walked along, they quietly shared information about the Ghosts and the Vanishments. The Vanishments were noticed about three months earlier, but likely started before then. The victims were usually from among those wretched masses unlikely to be missed, whose disappearances were easily ascribed to an avoidance of responsibilities, to an unlucky fall after too much gin, or to the murderous activities of London’s somewhat considerable criminal element. It was only when numbers of the missing became legion that people began to take notice, and most Londoners hoped the metropolis was merely experiencing another rash of murders, looking to the waters of the Thames for bodies that failed to rise.
Sightings of the “Ghosts” started later, one of the reasons why the city’s journalists and social theorists had failed to connect them to a common cause. Those who had spied the pale flitting shapes usually described them as seeming to rise from the earth, but those who were often in the best position to observe them were often the least likely to be believed, common labourers and those who engaged in no sort of honest labour at all. The Ghosts were short, slight, very quick and favoured dark nights and thick fogs. Those who refused to believe in their reality were quick to blame alcoholic delusions, too quick in Inspector Kent’s opinion.
“When so many people see something similar,” he said, “you have to look beyond the characters of the observers and concede there might be something behind it. If the word ‘Ghost’ sticks in your throat, call it something else, but don’t deny it simply through unreasoned prejudice.”
“Have you formed any opinions, Inspector?”
“People or some strange animal, I cannot say, Mr Holmes,” Kent asserted, “but I do believe they are using the city’s sewer system to travel about.”
“I agree, but what is the basis for your deduction?”
“I plotted the sightings on a Baedeker map of metropolitan London,” Kent explained. “The correlation was nearly exact; more often than not they corresponded with access to either a main sewer track or one of the branches.”
“Sound work,” Holmes told him. “Did you plot the Vanishments similarly?”
“I did. Though there was not as equal degree of correlation, it was still too high to dismiss, and to my mind soundly linked the two events.”
“And your superiors…”
“Totally denied the implications.”
Holmes sighed and shook his head. “Your method was a thoroughly conventional approach to the problem, not totally lacking in imagination, yet not bristling either. I am quite accustomed to people being unable to see at all what I see so easily and, but it takes a particularly dull and coarse mind to so cavalierly dismiss the undeniable reality of demonstrable incidents so marked plainly on a commercial map of the city.”
Kent suddenly halted, grabbing Holmes’ arm.
They stepped into the shadows of a building’s wall.
“The alleyway on the other side of the street,” Kent whispered. “Some small figure keeping out of the light.” He started to reach for his revolver, but Holmes put a restraining hand on his.
“One of my Irregulars seeking me out to make a report.”
“Irregulars?” Kent said, frowning in puzzlement. He peered at the figure coming from out the alley and his eyes widened. “A child?”
Chapter VI
Ghosts of the East End
“Over here, Jimmy,” Sherlock Holmes called softly, stepping into the dim light of the flickering gaslamps.
The boy was not more than ten or eleven, but he carried himself with the swagger of a man twice his age. He was decently clothed, but poorly, and Kent was willing to bet the bulge on his left calf was either a knife or bludgeon strapped into place. His hair was bright red even in this dismal light and his face was as freckled as that of a country cousin.
“Mornin’, Mr ‘Olmes,” the lad greeted cheerily enough, though he glared warily at Holmes’ companion.
“It’s quite all right, Jimmy,” Holmes assured him. “This is Detective Inspector Kent. You may speak freely”
The policemen and the street Arab allowed each other a desultory nod, adversaries meeting on suddenly neutral ground.
“Me and me mates done walked Chapel and charters lookin’ for blow on the Vanishments and bleedin’ Ghosts like you wanted, Mr ‘Olmes.” the lad explained.
“To what effect?”
“Like you said, Mr ‘Olmes,” Jimmy continued. “People seed more’n’s been said or writ, but all one’s got to do is ask, and we asked. People are willin’ to tell, wantin’ to tell, waitin’ to tell, if’n only to make sure they ain’t alone in their screamy dreamies when they put loaf to weepy willow.”
“Make your report, Jimmy,” Holmes instructed.
The wandering poor of the East End had witnessed much more than had ever been reported in any of London’s five hundred newspapers. Some had been threatened to silence, but many more had simply never been asked.
At no time since the ghastly murders of ’88 had so many of London’s poor clove so closely to the ho
vels from which they usually yearned to escape. Only those without any other option ventured forth by night, especially when it particularly dark or foggy. A sense of terror had gripped the eastern half of London – a man staggers out of a bar, never to be seen again; a mother turns away from a wailing babe, only to have the child silenced in mid-cry; a man stumbles or is yanked off his feet, and never hits the ground.
In the Causeway of Limehouse, the superstitious Chinese whispered of pale demons more deadly than the yetis of their homeland’s snowy mountains.
Sewer workers told ale-house tales of white beasts flitting though the hidden passages of London’s noxious underworld, of the muffled thumping of mysterious machinery heard in the unknown depths where silence should have reigned.
Ships at dock and offloaded cargo were pilfered by unseen hands when no man could have approached the goods undetected.
No one dared venture into London’s parks by night.
In odour-saturated London, a new stink occasionally drifted to nose, either upon the night-breezes channelling through the ancient streets or from out the foetid depths, a fume having nothing to do with horses or men, the two greatest populations of the metropolis, nor with the myriad coal-burning, sulphur-belching chimneys that rose from every abode no matter how mean or grand like skeletal fingers clawing the low leaden clouds.
“Folk be plenty scared, Mr ‘Olmes, ‘n’ not withou’ cause.” Jimmy glanced at the Scotland Yard inspector. “’Specially since ain’t none of the rozzers seem too keen to do nothin’ to ‘elp us poor blokes.”
Kent’s nostrils dilated with anger at the lad’s words, but he kept his words behind his teeth. Though the comments had stung, he knew there was more truth behind them than anything else. He had, quite foolishly as it turned out, uttered similar sentiments to his superiors at the Yard; in a way, he wished he could have been as direct as young Jimmy, but had he been so he would have received censure much more severe than a simple reassignment, a post he had ignored to follow his own interests and to keep his word to Sir Reginald. There would be a reckoning, he knew, for his dereliction, but a successful conclusion to the case of William Dunning, which would necessitate, of course, a solution to the mysteries of the Vanishments and the East End Ghosts. After all, Kent reasoned, his superiors could denigrate his accomplishment, but Sir Reginald was a very important man.
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