by Kim Newman
“I believe he may try to take his own life,” Holmes told him.
The guard snorted. “It’d save us the trouble.”
My friend flashed the guard a look of distaste. “Watson, let us take our leave of this place…”
As we walked out of the prison, and as I was attempting to match Holmes’ stride, I commented, “You cannot blame the guard. Miss Cartwright’s cousin offers no defence.”
“Watson,” Holmes said, suddenly rounding on me, “did you not see it in the man’s eyes? That man is an innocent.”
“But how can he be?” I argued. “You’ve heard all the—”
He held up a finger. “And yet he is still innocent. I cannot explain it, but I do believe it. He has no recollection of committing these acts, but I am certain he saw them being committed.”
I rubbed my chin. “He’s definitely a troubled man, but guilt can block out memories. Or are you perhaps suggesting a split personality?”
Holmes pursed his lips. “You have the medical knowledge, Watson…”
“Well, I’d need to study him more to—” I was interrupted this second time by the blowing of whistles and policemen running past us. There was something afoot, a crime in progress, and even though we were already committed to this first investigation Holmes is never one to let an opportunity for observation — or to lend assistance — pass him by.
We followed the police to a house but a few streets away. Holmes completely ignored Lestrade’s warnings to stay back until they could ascertain what had happened and, dashing after my friend, I too witnessed the tail end of what occurred.
Later, we would learn that the house belonged to a Mr. and Mrs. William Thorndyke. An ordinary couple in every single way — Mr. Thorndyke being a retired schoolteacher.
Screams had been heard bursting from their home; a woman’s screams. As we entered the dining room, Lestrade still trying to keep us back, we saw that these screams had indeed come from Mrs. Thorndyke, but not because she was being assaulted in any way. No, these were the screams of a woman holding a dinner-knife in her hand, standing, staring at the body of her husband, sprawled across the dining table. From what I could see, confirmed by later examination, I can tell you that he had been stabbed repeatedly by the instrument clutched in his wife’s hand. It had been a frenzied attack; gore covered the table and dripped from the tablecloth. It would not be the final such scene we would witness in the course of this investigation.
As the police moved in closer, Mrs. Thorndyke stopped screaming and looked over in our direction. She wore that same lost expression that had so recently adorned the face of Miss Cartwright’s cousin.
One of sheer and utter disbelief.
“Lestrade!” cried Holmes, but his warning came too late. Mrs. Thorndyke looked at the body of her husband, looked down at the bloodied knife in her hand, then before anyone could move to stop her she swiftly drew the blade across her own throat. A thick jet of blood sprayed across the room.
The police let me through then, but there was nothing that could be done for the poor woman. She had made a very thorough job of cutting through both the jugular vein and carotid arteries. My attempts to stem the tide of blood were in vain. As Holmes joined me we both heard her final gurgling gasp. “I … I didn’t…”
Though we were fresh to the scene of this incident — able to examine it before, as Holmes would say, Lestrade and his men could contaminate it — we found nothing amiss … save for the brutal murder of Mr. Thorndyke.
As you know, I have long been a student of Holmes and his methods, so it was with a heavy heart that I watched him pace the room, sniffing the air, taking out his glass to pay close scrutiny to a piece of carpet here, the edge of a table there, only for him to concede that — as she must have done — Mrs. Thorndyke had plunged the knife into her husband during the meal. Holmes pressed a gloved finger to his lips. “Ah, but it is the way it happened that is the most curious, Watson,” said he. “Note the way the plates are scattered on the table. The look of shock and surprise on Mr. Thorndyke’s face. This happened quickly. As if something unimaginable came over the woman. One moment they sat eating dinner together, the next…” His sentence trailed off.
I nodded. “But what could have come over her?”
“Once again, you are the physician, Watson. I would suggest that you examine the body of not only Mr. Thorndyke,” he encouraged, “but his wife as well. We shall also be needing access to the body of Miss Judith Hatten.” Holmes looked over at Lestrade as he said this.
“I beg your pardon? What has the one to do with the other?” the policeman asked.
“Oh, come now, Inspector. Surely you can see the connection here?” The man could not, but I could. Two people murdered by their partners, both surviving halves — though Mrs. Thorndyke did not survive for long, I grant you — claiming that they did not commit the crime, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Lestrade allowed us to examine the body of Miss Hatten anyway, along with the others. But even as Holmes watched my explorations from a distance down in the icy morgue I could offer him no new leads.
“The causes of death are accurate,” said I, “a head injury in the case of Miss Hatten and repeated stab wounds in the case of Mr. Thorndyke.”
Holmes looked past me to the grey bodies on the tables, breathing in deeply — something I would not readily advise in such a situation. “But what of Mrs. Thorndyke?”
I shook my head. “Nothing that I could see, at any rate. Perhaps an examination of her blood…”
However not even that afforded us an explanation; no abnormalities that would have accounted for sudden changes in personality. Nor did Holmes’ trip to the Hatten residence uncover a thing, largely because Judith’s father would not grant us permission to view the crime scene once he learned who had enlisted our help.
“No matter,” Holmes said as we climbed back into the cab, heading towards Baker Street once more. “After so long, I doubt whether it would have yielded anything of interest.”
While Holmes attempted to make some kind of sense of the incidents thus far — littering his room with everything from articles on insanity to reports alleging bodily possession by demons (“You cannot seriously be considering that?” I said to him when I discovered his notes, but he just waved me away with his hand), playing his violin into the small hours of the morning — more incidents occurred.
In Kentish Town an antiques dealer named Falconbridge used an ornamental sword to disembowel his housekeeper then turned the weapon on himself. At Westminster Hospital a middle-aged builder’s merchant called Robertson took it upon himself to secrete a hypodermic needle about his person and inject his elderly mother with an overdose of morphine … a mercy killing, you might assume, but the woman was actually recovering from her malaise and was expected to be discharged within a matter of days. Colleagues of mine who were present informed me that the son, in a state of confusion and remorse, ran away. His body was later found in the Thames. Finally, passengers on a train bound for Waterloo described hearing piercing screams, only to witness a woman backing out of a carriage covered in blood and holding a fire axe. According to the ticket inspector her hands were trembling, as she looked left and right, then she dropped the axe and fled, eventually flinging herself from the moving vehicle. Inside the carriage were found the dismembered bodies of her husband and their twelve year old daughter.
It was the latter, I fear, that had the most telling effect upon Holmes. As we stepped onto that train, Lestrade now very glad of any assistance, my friend wavered, almost turning back. But he forced himself to look upon those remains. And I swear to you now, that in all my years and service in Afghanistan I had never seen the likes of it before — nor would I care to again.
“I should have been able to prevent this,” Holmes said, under his breath, his gaze fixed upon the contents of that carriage.
“How?” I asked him, my own mouth dry as sandpaper.
“There is a pattern to these eve
nts… I simply cannot see it yet.”
When we returned to Baker Street that evening, silence prevailing in the cab along the way, Miss Cartwright was waiting for us. She said nothing as Holmes stepped into the room, but merely strode towards him and slapped his face; before departing without a word.
We discovered not long afterwards that Simon had committed suicide in his cell by swallowing his own tongue. Lestrade said that there was nothing that could have been done, but I knew Holmes disagreed.
I did not see him for some time after that. On the single occasion I did knock and enter his chambers, I found the room empty apart from the usual detritus of the case. However, on the table I spied the means by which he was administering his seven percent solution; a habit from which I never did manage to free him.
Holmes staggered from his bedroom then, unkempt and wearing a dressing gown. He looked drawn and pale, a ghost of his former self.
“Holmes, I really must—” but before I could get out another word, he flew at me, enraged. I thought for a moment he might attack me in a murderous rage, but instead he simply shouted:
“Get out! Get out! Get out!”
I did as instructed, retreating and allowing him to slam the door behind me. I heard a lock being drawn on the other side and considered it was for the best that I should leave him alone, despite my grave concern.
An equally concerned Lestrade contacted me several times over the course of those next few weeks, informing me of yet more murders — drownings, beatings, stranglings — as well as suicides, asking if Holmes would be continuing his investigations. I lied and told him that the great detective was looking into several quite promising leads.
In reality, I feared that he had finally met his match. It is a conviction that I still hold to this day.
When I heard Holmes leave 221b Baker Street, it was the middle of the night. He told neither Mrs. Hudson nor myself where he was going, but after his tirade I was not at all surprised. When Lestrade called at the house, protesting that he was no longer able to prevent the papers from reporting this insanity that seemed to have gripped London, I had to admit that Holmes was not present.
“Then where is he, Doctor? And why aren’t you with him?”
I said again that he was chasing a line of enquiry, but the Inspector’s words struck a nerve with me. It wasn’t the first time Holmes had retreated into himself, nor the first occasion he had vanished without warning — and Heaven knows he had justification this time — but Lestrade was right; I should be with him. I was deeply distressed about his condition, and if there was a connection between all of these bizarre events then I should be working with Holmes to uncover it.
I set out to look for my friend, searching all the places I could think he would go. Sadly I even tried some of the opium dens that he had been known to frequent from time to time. In Limehouse, I discovered that he had been spotted enjoying some of the more questionable vices it had to offer, but had departed some considerable time ago.
It was not until I had exhausted every single possibility that it struck me where I might find him. My years observing Holmes’ methods have left me with some degree of aptitude for deduction myself.
When I arrived at my destination, he was indeed present. Standing, staring out into the middle distance just as the ‘victims’, those left behind after the murders, were wont to do. He looked no better for his absence; worse in fact, than he had in his chambers. I approached cautiously, after my last encounter with him — not knowing what kind of reception I would receive.
“Ah, Watson,” said he in a quiet voice. “My faithful friend and companion… I knew that you would find me here eventually.” Holmes looked down at the grave by which he stood, the one containing the bodies of the family who had died on the Waterloo train. “I am so sorry for my behavior when last we saw each other. I was … not myself.” He gave a slight laugh, perhaps realizing the significance of his words, but there was no humour in it.
Not far away, I knew, were the final resting places of others who had perished during these past troubling weeks.
“What occurred was not your fault.”
He shook his head and turned to me. “I could not see it until now, but we have been facing my greatest enemy.”
“Not … the Professor,” I said, struggling to hide the alarm from my voice.
“I have seen Moriarty, Watson, I will not deny it. My own punishment, perhaps… But no … my efforts at the falls were entirely successful. He remains among the deceased. Although through this experience, I have discovered why the murderers — if one can refer to them as such — are so quick to throw away their lives. I know now what they see … afterwards.”
I frowned, conceding that I had no idea what he was talking about. If Moriarty had not returned from the grave — and the dark humour of my own musings was not lost on me, in light of where we were standing — then who exactly was it that we were up against? I ventured the question aloud.
“I’ve been a fool, Watson. It has been before my nose all along. Literally! The stench is so distinctive. But, you see, I’ve seen Him before as well, if only briefly. You recall the case of the Devil’s Foot, which you so expertly set down?”
Good Lord, I thought to myself, is Holmes making some kind of veiled reference? Surely we were not facing the Fallen One himself; such a thing would have been even more preposterous than Holmes’ theory about demonic possession. As it transpired, our foe was much more terrifying. I nodded, remembering the case well.
“It happened when I subjected us to the burning powder that was used to induce both madness and … death.”
“Are you saying a similar poison has been employed here to drive people to such acts?”
He shook his head. “No, no, Watson. The Radix pedis diaboli has nothing to do with this affair, save for the fact that the one we must stop was present during that investigation also.”
“I do not follow you.”
“I have never spoken about what I witnessed under the influence of that powder, nor have I asked you what you saw.”
“My dose appeared to be notably smaller than yours,” I told him, remembering how I shook Holmes out of his hallucinogenic trance.
“Indeed…” He looked again at the headstone before him, then cast his eye over the entire graveyard. “Consequently, I saw our enemy, Watson. A brief … suggestion, you might call it. But nevertheless it was Him, of that I am certain.” Was my friend speaking of prophecy now? “It was a state I have been attempting to recreate during my absence from Baker Street.”
“And were you successful in your endeavours?” asked I, when all I really wanted to do was voice my concern; the state Holmes was talking about almost cost him his sanity, if not his life.
“I was indeed. I saw that which I was seeking, and more besides. I finally know what I must do … actually what you must do, Watson.” I still wasn’t following his line of reasoning and I told him so. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “At this moment I have more need of your skills as a physician than a detective. Do you trust me, old friend?”
“Of course, Holmes.”
“Then I would ask you to visit your surgery, with the express intention of collecting the items we shall require for our task, and meet me back here tomorrow at sundown.”
“Task, Holmes?” said I, still puzzled.
“Yes.” He fixed me with a stare that I have never forgotten and then he said, more serious than I have ever heard him, “Watson, tomorrow evening I would ask that you kill me.”
The logistics of Holmes’ plan will soon become apparent, but you can appreciate my asking him to elaborate on his statement. However, he would not, merely indicating that the following night he would require me to end his life by stopping his heart.
“I simply refuse,” I told him.
“Then more innocent people will die before this is all over,” Holmes said to me. “The killer has a taste for this now. From what I can ascertain he is using more and more direct and person
al methods. He is taking pleasure in the tactile aspect of ending lives. If you will not do this for me, Watson, then do it for the victims yet to be claimed.”
Reluctantly, I agreed, returning to my surgery to gather what I would require. The safest way I could think of to stop Holmes’ heart temporarily was by way of administering an injection; a lethal concoction of my own devising, for which I also had the antidote. Holmes had explained that he only required me to impede the beating of his heart muscle for a short amount of time. “Just long enough to lure our prey out into the open,” Holmes informed me.
Quite how ‘killing’ my friend would achieve this, I did not know, apart from the obvious parallel it had with friends and loved ones suddenly doing the same thing across our city. Did he wish to recreate the madness of extinguishing a life in such a way? If so, he could scarcely have chosen a more apt person to perform this action; Holmes has always been and will forever remain, my best friend…
The wait of a day passed slowly, as I contemplated what I was about to do. In a few hours I would achieve what every single one of Holmes’ adversaries had failed to do. Even Moriarty. I would murder the great detective, and he had asked me to do the very deed! The thought of it boggles the mind.
Nevertheless, at the appointed time, I found myself once more travelling back to that cemetery as another thick fog descended upon London. The sky was darkening and the overall effect chilled me to the bone. As I walked through that graveyard, knowing full well that the people contained therein could not harm me, I still found myself shivering. When Holmes stepped out from the depths of a bank of fog and tapped me on the shoulder, it was very nearly I who found my heart stopping that night.
“You gave me an awful fright, Holmes,” I told him.
“My dear Watson, please forgive me…” In spite of the circumstances, and by the light of the lamp he was holding, I detected the hint of a smile playing on his lips. “Did you bring the required items?”
