A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes

by Raynes, Katie

  Angelique, dressed in the finest of her gowns, approached the manager of the Fast Goose one afternoon. “I desperately need work,” she said, with a tear in her voice. “My husband is a brute and will not provide even the necessities of life for me. I was a performer before I married.” Oh, such an accomplished liar, that little chit! “I would be willing to sing for your customers for no money if I might just live in the flat above.”

  He almost drooled with avarice: a performer for nothing! He unsuccessfully pretended reluctance and Angelique followed him out into the performance area, where he whacked his ham-like hands around on the piano keys. Angelique sang in a husky tenor – or, as the fool considered it, an alluring alto – all that remained of my angelic boyish soprano. The words were innocent enough, but the subtle gestures contained unstated invitations which had been gleaned by careful observation of female performers of that type.

  I moved into the upstairs flat that very afternoon, and that night Angelique first performed. The initial awkwardness in her performance came across the gas footlights as girlish innocence and, I was certain, charmed every penis in the room. I could almost hear them snapping to attention. As Angelique left the stage the manager handed her a note, an invitation. “From him,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of a bruiser with shoulders broad as a playing field and a squashed nose with a decided tilt to the left. “Ian Conner. The Champ.”

  “Champ? Of what?”

  The manager looked as if he could not believe such stupidity. “Boxing, of course! Takes on all comers. Always wins.”

  Angelique smiled sweetly, wrote “No, thank you,” on the note and returned it to the boxer. The next night Conner invited her again and was refused. And again on the third night. He was becoming tiresome. Then, since Michael Browne and David Neesom would not have their customary rendezvous for two more nights, Angelique changed her mind. When Conner pleaded the fourth time, stating that his wife was holidaying in Europe, Angelique agreed to meet him at his home that evening.

  The disapproving butler led me to the master suite at midnight, and there my paramour waited, wearing a deep blue velvet smoking jacket. Against one wall was an elaborate buffet, complete with flowers, holding his idea of a seductive repast, oysters and Pinot noir. Needless to say, he drank three glasses to my one, and after an hour or so abandoned the wine for Irish whiskey. The combination of wine, whiskey, and a few little drops from a small brown bottle in my pocket, put him across his bed, snoring mightily. Amusing. The Champ had been knocked out by a “girl.”

  My, but he was difficult to strip. He was very large and heavy, and a dead weight. But I managed to get him undressed and under the covers before I put on a pretty nightgown, with one of his dressing gowns over it. Then, humming happily, I cut his throat, opened the window, and commenced to scream mightily.

  The butler rushed in brandishing a gun, to find his employer naked in bed, his throat cut, while an ocean of blood flowed from him and dripped to the carpet while his whore, the dressing gown covered in blood, shrieked hysterically. The police arrived soon after. By then, the butler had calmed the poor dear with wine, and she was able to tell them of two men who had broken in, overpowered the mighty boxer and murdered him, holding her at gunpoint and making terrible threats. They would have murdered her too but on hearing the approach of the butler they had exited out the window. The brutes had been sensible enough to wear gloves and though the detectives dutifully took fingerprints it was highly unlikely there would be any other than Conner’s, Angelique’s, the butler’s, and other people who belonged in the house.

  “One of them,” Angelique told the detectives, her voice shaking, “bragged that together they are the New Ripper.” In some mysterious way headlines in the newspapers the very next day declared,

  CHAMP MURDERED BY NEW RIPPER

  Eyewitness Describes the Perpetrators

  of the Heinous, Bloody Crime

  The account detailed the description given by the eyewitness, a comely female singer. The dastardly villains were large and almost ape-like in appearance, and looked amazingly like the public perception. A police artist provided a sketch of the suspects based on her description.

  On the second night after the Champ’s tragic demise, Angelique was singing a very naughty version of “Come Into the Garden, Maud” when she faltered for an instant as two well-dressed, young men came in together. The light was dim, and yet I knew they were the ones I was awaiting. As they passed close to one of the gaslights, I saw the scar on David’s face. Oddly enough even with it, he was still handsome, as was Michael. They were seated near the stage, and Angelique sang directly to them.

  They paid little attention, obviously pleased to be in one another’s company. In a rare case of short-sightedness, I had not taken into consideration that they were not the sort to be inveigled into inviting Angelique to a room for a romp. Well, well. I am nothing if not resourceful. All I had to do was find a different way to get them to the right place at the right time. Even as Angelique vocally detailed the risqué adventures of Maud in the garden – Tennyson would never recognize his silly ditty – the new plan presented itself in its entirety. It would be deliciously ironic. Though the manager of The Fast Goose didn’t know it, that night was the last appearance of his new star.

  The next day I hired a horse and rode to the ruins of my old school, a short distance from the city. It was easy enough to enter since two of the doors were missing altogether. The place was full of memories, most of them decidedly unpleasant.

  There, warped and missing the handrail, was the stairway where I sometimes was tripped and sometimes trapped beneath, as I had been when I first saw Michael. There was the dining hall where even the bland, unpalatable food was stolen from my plate. Far to the back were the bogs where I was held upside down inside a hole and forced to smell the sickening stench of shit.

  Again and again, my thoughts returned to the day Michael rescued me. My resolve wavered. I sat down on the rickety bottom stair. Perhaps I could do away only with David, and then, when Michael’s grief had run its course, I could take his place in Michael’s life. A lovely, short-lived dream; reality took over. The expression in Michael’s eyes when he looked at David, both in the past and in the present, would never be there for me. They both had to die.

  With a sigh, I went into the ghostly library. Some of the shelves were still there, though most had fallen and all were thick with dust and spider webs. Here and there was the dusty corpse of a book, left behind. I picked up a broken length of wood that would serve admirably as a truncheon. In this room I had twice, when spying, seen Michael and David in each other’s arms in the farthest nearly invisible corner. The first time, they were whispering with their heads close together. The second time they were kissing and holding each other so closely a thought could not have come between them.

  The rage I had felt at that long-ago moment suddenly flared back to life. David had stolen Michael from me before I even had one moment with him. He had turned me into nothing in Michael’s eyes. It was their fault I had become a monster, and it was only fitting that on this night they would pay.

  I returned to my room over the Fast Goose. It was time to bait the trap. By messenger, I sent a letter to each of them, to be delivered at their respective residences. There was only one difference in the two letters.

  To Michael I wrote:

  We have your friend captive at the gymnasium at the old Greystone School. Only you can save his life. Come exactly at Midnight. If you come early or late or if you bring in the law or anyone else or if you are armed, we will cut his throat from ear to ear and throw his body on the rubbish heap. You know we will do it. We have done it before.

  The New Rippers.

  David’s letter was the same with the difference of the time. I demanded that he arrive exactly at 12:30.

  I gathered my project materials. Stiletto. Knife. Six rein leathers with strong buckles, as I was unsure of my ability to tie rope knots that would hold. A b
rown bottle of chloroform which Angelique had coaxed from a besotted apothecary. Rags torn from one of Angelique’s petticoats, for applying the chloroform. I had hesitated for a while between ether and chloroform; either one would serve. But I had learned in my studies that chloroform acted faster and kept the patient deeper asleep longer. I started to snap the Gladstone’s clasps shut, and then on impulse added a frock and my wig, even though I never expected to dress as Angelique again. I took one last look around, satisfied. It was a pity to leave the rest of the nice clothes, but I had no need for them. After this night I would be wearing prison garb.

  And so I have come to the school to wait, to the place where my career began.

  After they are dead, I will surrender myself and tell all. The world will gaze in wonder at the killer who proved the Ripper to be an amateur, and who has outsmarted the best minds in England. I will walk to the gallows as the proudest felon ever convicted in England.

  It angers me that, even now, with David Neesom due to arrive any moment, niggling little pricks of doubt jab at me. What, after all, did David Neesom ever do to me except rob me of something that had not belonged to me in the first place? And what had Michael ever done to me except be kind, as he would have been to a stray spaniel? Are there not hundreds of men in London much more deserving of a violent death? Perhaps…but it’s too late. I hear footsteps on the filthy floor. I hear Michael’s voice, calling for David. His voice is full of fear. As well it should be.

  I now end the journal. It is time. Soon David Neesom and Michael Browne will find out whether there is a God. Tomorrow I will be in police custody and the world will know my name.

  Part Two

  24 September 1902, 4:00 P.M.

  In the Channel on a tub generously called a boat.

  To my surprise, I find myself once again taking up my journal. The water is rough, the boat heaves and tosses about like my stomach, but continue it I must, though it is damnably difficult to write.

  I am not in police custody after all. The world does not know my name, though the London police do and, thanks undoubtedly to the wonders of the telegraph, police across the Channel do as well. Things obviously did not turn out as I planned. Before I can look to the present and future, I must dispose of the past.

  So then. To continue where I left off.

  I heard Michael calling, “Davy? Davy, are you here? Are you all right? You men, whoever you are – come out where I can see you! What do you want of us? What do you want of me? Tell me what you want in exchange for my friend’s life. I have little money but you can have it all. I’ll pay anything, do anything!” From the shadows I watched as he turned slowly in circles, pleading all the while, trying to see what he could see in the darkness.

  I spoke, unseen. “Stop. Stand still.”

  Michael obeyed instantly. I slipped out of the shadows behind him, the truncheon in hand. One quick blow and he was stretched out on the floor. I laid the truncheon aside, soaked a square of petticoat with chloroform, and clapped it over his nose and mouth. Moments later he was deeply asleep, one strap passed around his chest to secure his upper arms, the second around his belly and his forearms, and the third around his ankles.

  I heard a sound and knew it was David. Yet even as I saw his silhouette, yes, even then, I was tempted to creep away unseen. He could rescue Michael, and they could live happily ever after, or a reasonable imitation of it. Then, in the pale light through one glassless window, something metal glinted in David’s hand. A pistol. Well, then. The doughty lieutenant had not followed instructions. My sense of purpose returned two-fold.

  “Come out, you bloody cowards!” David’s voice rang out with fury. “If you harm one hair on Michael Browne’s head I will kill you. You shan’t leave here alive.”

  I swung the truncheon from behind and the fool crumpled to the floor. I chloroformed him, trussed him, and put his pistol in my pocket.

  I dragged Michael across the floor and placed him next to David, then settled down on the bottom stair to wait. While waiting for them to awaken, I read what I had previously written in my journal. It was good.

  Michael started making little mewling noises and moving slightly. I was near enough to them that I could have touched my foot to them. They’re trussed like Christmas geese, I thought, although I have never seen a Christmas goose trussed with stout leather straps. Fools.

  David groaned. stirred slightly, and tried to move. Suddenly waking, and realizing he was bound he thrashed wildly like a fish on a line, from head to heel. I picked up my lamp and moved within his sight.

  He stared, squinted, and cried, “Help us! Thank God you’re here. Listen, there’s a pair of madman about – They’re here, somewhere. They’re holding my friend if they haven’t – haven’t killed him. What am I tied with? I can’t – cut me free won’t you? You can bring the police while I find Michael. For the love of God, hurry!”

  “Michael’s right behind you,” I said. “See?” I used my foot to roll David over so that he was facing Michael’s unconscious form. “He’s not dead. Yet.”

  “Michael! Michael! Oh, God, what have they done to –” He looked wildly up at me. “Unbind me, for the love of God! We have to get out of here, get Michael out of here, before they come back! Help me!” He struggled more violently. “What are you waiting for? They’ll be back –”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I laughed until my belly hurt and tears trickled down my face, and I turned him once again away from Michael. “They? They?” I was howling, knowing there was no danger of anyone outside hearing sounds from the bowels of the old school, out here beyond the city. “There is no they, David. There is only I, pathetic little Sebastian MacKay. I planned it all. I killed the victims of the New Ripper. I am the New Ripper.” I half-expected him to ridicule me the way the other boys had at school, me, the one with the pipe-stem legs and thin arms and squeaky voice.

  Instead he stared at me and in the flickering light from my lantern I saw bewilderment. “What? Are you mad? Are you saying I should know you? That you – you’re the one doing this for some insane reason?”

  “Oh, not just this, David. You and Michael are only the last of a long line stretching all the way back to the night the dormitory burned.” I waited for him to recognize me. His eyes remained blank of recognition. My God, the humiliation continued! Not to be remembered was – was maddening.

  “Sebastian!” I shouted, and kicked him. “Sebastian MacKay! You must remember!” Now, I thought. Now he’ll plead for his misbegotten life. And it will avail him nothing.

  “I – I don’t remember,” he said. “But if I ever wronged you in any way, my friend had nothing to do with it. Punish me for whatever it was, but let him go.”

  I held the razor-edged knife so that the lantern light danced along the blade. Rage made my hand tremble. I wouldn’t bother with the stiletto this time. From one ear to the other the wider blade would go. I crouched and touched the edge to David’s neck just under his ear.

  “Murder is remarkably easy,” I said. “If I do it quickly, you’ll feel it for only a short while. If I do it slowly…” I grinned. “Beg,” I told him. “Beg for your life.”

  “Is Michael really still alive?”

  “Yes. For a while.”

  “Please. Whatever harm I caused you, I’ll pay for. Michael never has been anything but kind to everyone.”

  It was my turn to stare at him, then at Michael. It was true. Michael Browne had never said a cross word to me. But then, he had seldom spoken to me at all. If he didn’t treat me unkindly, he also had no time for the scrawny, awkward little chap who was not manly and broad-shouldered like himself and David and their peers.

  “How can you not remember me?” I demanded. “Well, no matter now.” I pulled David to a sitting position so he could clearly see Michael and me.

  Michael’s reward for his past kindness would be a quick death while he was unconscious. He wouldn’t know what happened to him, but David would have to watch what I did to h
is lover and that pleased me no end. I touched the edge of the knife to Michael’s throat.

  “Don’t. Do what you want with me. I don’t care –”

  “Repetitions bore me,” I snapped.

  Doggedly David continued. “Cut my throat. Cut my heart out, if you want. It doesn’t matter. Just don’t hurt Michael. I beg you. Do you hear? You want me to beg? I’m begging. For his life. I don’t care about my own. Please. Please.”

  In that moment, Michael’s eyes opened, wide-pupilled in the lantern light. He stared at me. “Sebastian…?” he whispered. “Sebastian MacKay?”

  I was shaken: he remembered me. The blade plunged downward, to put an end to it all.

  Part Three

  Paris

  Christmas, 1903

  David Neesom and Michael Browne are undoubtedly still celebrating their reprieve with calf-eyed love-looks, their misbegotten lives saved by a sudden impulse.

  That night my intention had been to slash the throbbing arteries in Michael’s throat while David watched. But suddenly, as though my hand were guided by a strange force, my blade cut the leather bonds around Michael’s arms instead of ripping through flesh. To this day I don’t understand what happened. Conscience? I doubt it very much since it has never bothered me before or since.

  Leaving Michael to free himself completely, I fled into the night. Within hours the police force was in full cry looking for me. I had to call upon Angelique once more to make my escape across the Channel.