by Lyndsay Faye
“We’d set on two o’clock to have a glass of beer just round the corner, and after what happened I was fair sick over whether he’d show up at all, for there’s something in this business he knows more about than he tells. But at two there he is, sure enough, and when he sees me he smiles right out and calls my name. The Knight’s Standard is a right den of fighting cocks now, the ladies all huddled together, whispering over what’s to be done—the hop picking’s good as spent, so even the judies what prefer to leave the city won’t have any means to buy bread and tea. So there they are, wondering just as everyone is what’s best to do, though with a sharper interest than most.
“Well, we’d stowed ourselves in a corner when he says, with an odd look, ‘I’m glad you’re all right, for you must have seen by now what has happened.’
“‘The whole Chapel’s well-nigh set on fire over it,’ I says back.
“He looks at me right close and then asks if I’ve been putting myself in any sort of careless danger. Of course I says no, though I can’t think why he should ask, and we’re back to the question of finding Blackstone before the worst happens again. He allows as he’s sure he’s on the trail. ‘But,’ he says, ‘I’ll not hear of you running around in dark alleys and corridors.’
“Now I’m wondering what cause he could have to warn me special when every ladybird this side of the City is shivering at the thought of a knife ’cross her neck, so I asks him whether I’ve any choice but to take a plunge into the dark every now and then.
“He grabs my hand and then he says, ‘Rely on your income from this West-end benefactor. I have high hopes of success, but I beg that you will keep low until I can manage to set things right.’
“Well, that couldn’t help but strike me as queer, and when he’d left the pub with a promise to meet again, I duck out of sight into a tobacconist’s and wait until he’s a fair ways off afore I follow him. He goes into the same crib he’d done before, comes out in fresh togs—not the uniform he sometimes wears, but dressed like a toff—and then sets off again. I follows at a safe distance until he turns into a passage what leads to a few rookeries. I waits a good piece before dogging him down the corridor, and when I does I’ve a story to tell him about knowing he’s after another woman if my luck runs out and he spies me. When I reach the end of it, I watch as he goes into a set of digs there on the ground floor.
“I figure the chances a window or a door is open enough for me to hear are long odds considering the London particulars* we’ve had of late, but I creeps up to the house to be certain. And when I does, I hear something, so I duck around the side. Would you believe it—the window’s clear cracked and all broken at one edge, as half of them are thereabouts, not covered by anything more’n a scrap of paper, and if I sets my ear to the broken part careful enough, I can hear every blooming word.
“‘You are certain he stayed here for the duration of his leave?’ Dunlevy asks.
“‘Oh, yes,’ says a woman’s voice. ‘It was but a few days shy of the Bank Holiday and both my daughters away with their aunt in Yorkshire. Naturally I hadn’t the heart to leave the attic room empty when I knew there’d be visitors to the city, and soldiers on leave.’
“‘Indeed not. But the day after the holiday, he disappeared without warning?’
“‘It was the strangest thing,’ says she. ‘My Joseph is naught but ten, and that Blackstone swore he would show him the right way around a pistol the next morning. Then we come to find he was clean gone. Though he did leave his money all laid out on the table there. It’s a shame he left no trace of himself, for as you know he’s a charming fellow and was very well spoken to the children.’
“‘Quite so, ma’am. If I should discover his whereabouts soon, I shall be glad to give him your regards.’
“And on they go, but I’ve heard a fair piece and’ve always had rum enough luck without tempting it, so I legs it back here. I thought best to leave all to Mr. Holmes.”
“Undoubtedly, Miss Monk!” I affirmed. “Back to Baker Street and Holmes will sort this out. Stephen Dunlevy was right about one thing—we must exercise all necessary caution.”
Holmes was awake when we arrived but still ashen of countenance, leaning heavily against the sitting room mantelpiece in his shirtsleeves and mouse-coloured dressing gown. He had swept all objects from the ledge and replaced them with a hastily sketched map of Whitechapel covered in scrawled markings and obscure street references. Its legibility was not aided by the fact that my friend was right-handed, and unable to make use of that particular limb. Disheveled as he was, staring fixedly at a jumble of erratically scribbled byways, he could as easily have been an escapee from an asylum as the final court of appeal in criminal detection.
“Miss Monk, where does Stephen Dunlevy keep his pocket handkerchief?”
“In the lining of his coat, if I recall.”
“Hum. I thought as much.”
She was staring at my friend despondently. “Lor’, Mr. Holmes, I knew you was bad off that night from the doctor’s dinner jacket, but to see you like this—”
“You have been considering going into business, I see.”
“How do you know that?” she gasped.
“The same process which informs me you got very drunk recently and have a young female acquaintance, possibly a neighbour, whose happiness is of some import to you.”
“Of all the rotten cheek,” cried Miss Monk, her chin up and her eyes blazing. “You’ll talk that way to the carpet if you like, for I’ll be damned if I stay to hear it.”
As she made her way to the door, Holmes, employing perhaps the last of his resources, leapt after her, catching her gently and easily by the wrist. “My sincerest apologies, Miss Monk. Dr. Watson will tell you that my powers have not the charm of tact to recommend them. Pray sit down.”
Miss Monk peered suspiciously at Holmes, but her temper waned as quickly as it had sparked. “Well, then. I’ll not say you were wrong, just a mite…forward. I’m that glad to see you alive, at any rate. There, I oughtn’t to have flared out so, but I thought the whole thing a slum.”
“My dear Miss Monk, I would never dream of using trickery to gain special knowledge,” sighed Holmes as he made his laborious way toward the settee, lying down and passing his operative hand through his hair. “Though you are not the first to think so, and if I am lucky you shall not be the last.”
“How d’ye do it, then?”
He leaned his head back, shutting his eyes. “That you are thinking of going into business is obvious from the four separate varieties of rag doll peeping at various angles from your pockets. Impoverished mothers make them, leaving it to their young offspring to hawk the wares. If you can provide materials with your new capital, you may well manage to ease the lives of all your acquaintances, at least those with rudimentary sewing skills.”
“What of the girl?”
“You’ve already examined and formed an opinion of each design. They are now well within your income, have no actual value, and yet you carry them about with you. They are a gift. What sort of person would be likely to enjoy such a gesture?”
“They are for Emily. She’s not yet four, poor little mite. And?” Miss Monk prompted, not willing to employ any further syllables.
Holmes winced gallantly and replied, “Your shoes.”
“My shoes?”
“The right shoe.”
She looked down quickly and glanced up again at Holmes.
“You recently replaced your worn boots with new ones, and thus when I last saw you, they were relatively unmarked. There is now a significant marring of the leather, in more than one place, on the right boot: you have been kicking something heavy, and quite violently.” The clinical tone in an instant gave way to easy charm. “I congratulate you that, while it is the nature of drink to compel one to lash out physically, it is the nature of a thinking person to confine her rage to one foot.”
“I’ll own up to it. Saturday night gave me a turn, and I was finding a bit of e
ase at the bottom of a glass.”
“My dear Miss Monk, I cannot tell you how—”
“Oh, bollocks to you both! I’ve had my fit, don’t you see, and all that’s left is a scuffed boot, and what’s a scuffed boot to the likes of us?” she cried, and sat quite naturally on our sitting room floor, Indian-style, next to Holmes’s head. “So what are we to do?”
“Wait a moment.” He laughed. “I have not all my data about me. You continue to meet with Private Dunlevy, do you not?”
“How the devil did you—”
“You do, then.”
“Well, yes.”
“Then if you would be so kind as to make me aware of any recent developments.”
Miss Monk did so, omitting nothing she had told me, although her narrative had smoothed through repetition.
“There it is, Mr. Holmes,” she concluded at length. “What am I to do with the blighter?”
Holmes considered briefly. “Have you any objection to continuing in his company?”
“No objection, save that I know what I’m in for.”
My friend rose with an effort and crossed the room. “Nothing perilous, I assure you, provided you keep to public areas and take no risks once the sun has set. Carry this somewhere about your person—disguised, mind.” He produced from a drawer in his desk a small collapsible blade and tossed it to Miss Monk.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered, then remembered herself and replied, “Right then. I’m to gad about with Dunlevy looking for staring, mad soldiers, eyes glazed over and trousers covered with dried blood, and report back to you, shall I?”
“If you would be so kind. Dr. Watson and I can cover most lines of inquiry, but it is essential that someone remain in the field.”
“Seems best, with Blackstone on the lam,” she returned lightly. “Hope we find him soon, at any rate. Wouldn’t want to wander the Chapel with Dunlevy wi’out a specific agenda. Poor lad might get the wrong idea.”
“By the way, Miss Monk, do any of your companions, in your experience, carry pieces of chalk about with them?”
“Chalk? Like what that batty message about Jews was written with?” She reflected. “The girls I know might carry a stub of pencil, but it’s long odds. Half of them wouldn’t know the use of it. Chalk would be used to mark lengths, I suppose—a bolt of cloth, maybe, or a piece of lumber?”
“One more thing, Miss Monk,” Holmes added as she made her way to the door. “I discovered a stalk of grapes near the dead woman. If you would be so good as to look further into the matter, I should be grateful.”
“What sort were they?”
“The stem was consistent with black grapes.”
“There ain’t but a few merchants in that area who’d be selling black grapes. I’ll ferret ’em out, never fear.”
“Thank you, Miss Monk. Please be careful.”
“That I’ll be, make no mistake,” she called over her shoulder, already halfway down the stairs. “I may work for you, Mr. Holmes, but I’m not entirely daft just yet.”
I closed the door and turned on Holmes as he lit a cigarette. “Are you quite certain you know what you’re doing, old man?”
“You mean to ask whether I am certain I know what Miss Monk is doing,” he shot back, and I was once more made aware of just how excruciating it must have been for a man of his active nature to find himself restrained by his own body. “For the moment, I am rendered physically inert. Do you imagine it possible for you to saunter into Dunlevy’s digs and demand Blackstone’s whereabouts? She’ll play the game nearly as well as I could, and one mystery, at any rate, will be solved.”
“The whereabouts of Johnny Blackstone?”
“The intentions of Stephen Dunlevy.”
“Did we not venture into Whitechapel in the first place to safeguard Miss Monk from him?” I queried bluntly.
“I know far more now than I did then.”
“That is very gratifying. But in any event, there are key discrepancies surrounding the Tabram murder. What if the thread leads us nowhere?”
“You regard the matter from the wrong angle entirely, which hardly surprises me,” Holmes replied caustically. “This thread cannot lead us nowhere, for wherever it leads, it exposes more of Stephen Dunlevy, who interests me in no small degree. And now, Watson, you are going out.”
“Indeed?”
“You are to meet with one Leslie Tavistock, in the offices of the London Chronicle, that shining beacon of ethical journalism. You’ve an appointment at half past three. And on your way back from Fleet Street, do stop by our tobacconist’s for a fresh supply of cigars,” he finished, nudging their receptacle with his foot. “The coal scuttle, I am afraid, has run entirely dry.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Lestrade Questions a Suspect
I was made to wait for a quarter of an hour after my designated time in the bustling antechamber of the London Chronicle’s headquarters, rife with shabbily appointed journalists and far too short on both light and coal. From the moment I stepped into the office of Mr. Leslie Tavistock, I knew that the experience would not be a pleasant one. The man himself sat in his desk chair with a mixture of calm insouciance and deliberate irony on his clean-shaven, calculating features. I introduced myself, and before I could utter another word, he had half raised his hand in a gesture of amiable protest.
“Now, Dr. Watson,” he began, “I have no intention of insulting either your natural loyalties or your good sense by asking what brought you here. That story is already the talk of London, and I’ve followed up with my original source in order to furnish the public with a few more salient details regarding the unconventional Mr. Sherlock Holmes. But in the meanwhile, I am delighted you are here. I should like to pose a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
“I most certainly do. Mr. Holmes has already been shamefully abused at your hands, and my sole mission this afternoon is to determine whether you would prefer to reveal your source or defend yourself against charges of libel.”
If Tavistock was surprised at my words, I had hardly expected myself to engage in a frontal attack so suddenly and so soon. He arched his brows as if greatly disappointed.
“I have my doubts as to whether that course of action would be open to you, Dr. Watson. Mr. Holmes must resign himself to the glare of public scrutiny if he wishes to continue his extraordinary exploits. The facts behind my article are entirely true; if the particulars are couched in terms you dislike, perhaps you would care to clarify Mr. Holmes’s uncanny prescience.”
“Sherlock Holmes has always been the scourge of the criminal element. His motives in this case should be abundantly clear,” I seethed.
“Does he hold himself responsible for apprehending the culprit?” Tavistock asked casually.
“He intends to do everything in his power to—”
“How does Mr. Holmes feel about having failed to capture the Ripper that night, possibly enabling further killings?”
“Come, sir! This is really intolerable.”
“My apologies. Dr. Watson, considering the terrible mutilations that have become the overriding feature of these crimes, is it possible that a doctor could be responsible for them?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean to say, speaking theoretically, as a medical man, you would no doubt be aided in such work by your own skills and training?”
“The Ripper’s ‘skills’ are the merest butchery. As for my own medical abilities, I have so far confined their use to healing the sick, both practically and theoretically,” I replied coldly.
“No doubt, no doubt. Now, Mr. Holmes, though not a doctor, possesses a very workable knowledge of anatomy. I believe I may have read so in your own account of his work—that very engaging piece in Beeton’s Christmas Annual from last year. In your opinion—”
“In my opinion, you are guilty of the most outrageous perversion of the truth I have been witness to in the public print,” I exclaimed, rising from my chair. “Rest assured that you will hear from us again.”
“I have no doubt of it, Dr. Watson,” Leslie Tavistock smiled. “May I offer you and Mr. Holmes the same assurances? A very pleasant day to you, I am sure.”
The sun had etched long shadows across the brick walls of Baker Street before I arrived home once more. Though the crimes of Jack the Ripper had sickened me beyond words, this lesser grievance infuriated me in a much more personal fashion. My arrival in our sitting room must have been more violent than I intended, for Holmes, who appeared to have appointed the sofa as his base of operations, awoke immediately upon my entering.
“I see you’ve exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Tavistock,” he commented wryly.
“I am sorry, Holmes. You ought to be resting. How do you feel?”
“A bit like the misaligned pistons of an unbalanced steam engine.”
“I shall prepare some morphia if you like.”
“Dear me. Best have it out at once, Watson.” He smiled. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”
I related, with a deal of disgust, the conversation which had passed between me and Mr. Tavistock. When I concluded, Holmes’s piercing gaze settled into an unfocused reverie as he reached for a cigarette. It was near ten minutes before he spoke again.
“It is the most confounded nuisance to be unable to light one’s pipe effectively.”
I could not help but smile at this non sequitur. “It is always trying to lose the use of an appendage, however temporary. I ought to know.”
“I have my pick of annoyances today, to be sure. Tavistock mentioned nothing that would give away a clue as to his source?”
“Nothing.”
“And he does not appear to you to be approaching a state of penitence.”
“That would be understating the matter.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the distant ringing of the bell. “That will be Lestrade.” Holmes sighed. “He purports to inform us of the new victims’ identities and habits. His call, however, was preceded by a reply-paid telegram asking after my degree of fragility, a kindly meant sentiment that you will agree does not bode well.”
Lestrade’s dogged, inquisitive features had sagged into an expression of resigned determination to see a bad business through no matter the cost. His persistence was an admirable distinction but, I now realized, a trying one as well, for he seemed not to have slept more than six hours since I had left him in Whitechapel.
