by Lyndsay Faye
A few polite murmurs broke out as we shifted our feet and waited for the pair to complete this transaction. When they had finished, my friend thanked the mystified inspector and turned back to the group.
“Quick march, lads!” he cried. “This is no atmosphere in which to linger. I’ve had drafts of shag that were cleaner—onward and upward, and Hopkins, feel free to disband the guards. Oh, but just arrange for a photograph to be taken of the footmarks first! Would that inconvenience you?”
“I—not at all,” our friend managed. “You heard Mr. Holmes, gentlemen! Back to the station and I’ll assign a pair of you to photograph the scene.”
Upon regaining the platform, Holmes made our swift goodbyes and strode for the stairs, vaulting up them as if the devil were in pursuit. When we reached the near-blinding daylight aboveground, I registered with chagrin that Holmes’s zealous gaze had turned positively feverish.
“It’s the nearest restaurant possible for us, and there you shall tell me about your findings,” I announced.
“There isn’t time, Watson.” Already casting about for a cab, he spied one and gestured with his stick to the driver. “By all means, refresh yourself. I can suggest nothing better, for I’ve a tedious hour or two ahead you needn’t assist me over, and so I shall meet you back at Baker Street. Enjoy your meal, my good man. I’ll have a cup of coffee at my destination.”
“Which is?” I demanded helplessly.
“Scotland Yard.”
“But why?”
“To follow a hunch.”
“Holmes, you are a person, not an automaton, and therefore you require sufficient nourishment to remain alive in order to follow hunches.”
“Watson, your intentions are doubtless as pure as the shores of Eden, but I am so tired that should I so much as ingest a biscuit, I would be unable to lift a finger for forty-eight hours. Wish me luck!”
“Best of luck, but Holmes, what did you see on the tracks?”
He turned back as he stepped upon the rail, every vein aquiver with the intoxication of the chase. “Hopkins has always been dismal with footprints—you recall the business of Black Peter, and that matter over the Russian woman’s pince-nez was even worse. I do not blame him for being blind to the only possible conclusion in this case, however, for it is rather incredible.”
“And it comprises?” I managed to keep the frustration from my tone only with severest effort.
“I have seen a great many queer tracks in my time,” Holmes said, leaning out the hansom’s window at a jaunty angle after he had slammed it shut. “But even I have never before seen a set that clearly indicated the party had emerged from a solid brick wall. Great Scotland Yard, driver! And quickly!”
Needless to say, I returned home and partook of lunch provided by Mrs. Hudson with a gnawing anxiety in my belly. Surely Holmes could not be serious in his suggestion that Hyde had essentially materialized in a tunnel only to be shot to death, and my fellow lodger’s relentless energy was beginning to verge upon a frenzy I had seen more than once prior and grown to dread. After a bowl of lamb stew had been eradicated, though, I began to feel more optimism. Never had I heard that tone of giddy secrecy in Holmes’s voice save when he was convinced beyond a doubt. So I took occupation of the settee, with a pillow under my head and a novel propped upon my chest, intending to await his return.
When the sitting room door flew open with a bang, the shadows had made significant advances, the expiring sun having commenced a tactical retreat. My eyes flew open as Holmes swept into the room, muttering of notions too soft to catch and too abstruse to comprehend anyhow, more than likely.
“Apologies, Holmes, I must have drifted off while waiting for you. What did you discover?”
“It has to be right, it has to be right,” he hissed, striking his palm with his fist. “Oh, the odds are a thousand to one in my favor, but as to proving it, I cannot work miracles!”
“Good heavens! Sit down and explain, if you are willing.”
Holmes did sit, the bags under his eyes beginning to be lightly etched with lavender. “Watson, do you know how valuable you are to me as a sounding board?”
“Whatever I can do, including nothing at all, I shall gladly attempt.” Pouring a small pair of whiskeys, I passed one to him and took my accustomed chair.
“You are the best of confidants, my friend. You neither know the point I am about to make nor rush me in arriving there. It’s transcendentally clarifying.”
“You flatter me unnecessarily.”
“No, no, you are like the transparent glass which nevertheless focuses the beams emanating from the lighthouse, you are—”
“Let us leave the compliments out of it, since you have urgent news.”
Holmes, sitting with his elbow propped upon the chair arm, blew a breath through his teeth. “We must go back a step or two. I’ve already reminded you that I never liked Forrester Hyde, but you will also remember how chafed I was to pin him on only one instance of theft, since we could prove no other possession of stolen property. That was singular. I had thought him frugal, and wise to make few waves—what a dunce I was! You really ought to have mentioned that I was not paying the problem its full attention, my dear Watson.”
“I fail to grasp your meaning, for it is obscure in the extreme.”
He surged forward in his chair, fanning long fingers. “When a man finds a stirring vocation at which he excels, Watson, what does he do? Does he hide his talent and return to the gutter? Does he commit himself to it piecemeal, neglect it for weeks at a time in favor of physical drudgery?”
“No.” I drew the word out, seeing his point. “No, he practices it, and with a will.”
“Yes, he does!” Holmes cried. He thrust three sheets of foolscap at me, and I took them. “Hyde contacted this trio the instant he was released from prison—Richard Black, Davy Burntree, and Stephen McKay. Take a look at my notes from the Yard’s files this afternoon, and from the city’s bureau of records, and see what you make of it.”
My friend’s handwriting was generally clear though steeply sloping, but his physical enervation had rendered it almost illegible. Thus it took me nearly a minute’s perusal of the three scribbled biographies before the pattern blazed to life before my eyes.
“Do you mean to tell me that all three of these men worked as engineers on the Thames Tunnel when it was converted from a pedestrian pleasure walk into an operative railway line, and alongside Forrester Hyde, and ten years before we ever encountered him?” I exclaimed. “Holmes, this—I cannot think what this means. Obviously, it changes everything, but in what manner? Were you serious when you said—”
“Oh, every ounce of my being was serious, Doctor. Forrester Hyde walked out of that brick wall with an eager—not to say panicked, though I think it a fair assessment based on the depth of the mud indentation—gait, and then met his end. On the surface, this seems impossible, so we must reexamine our facts and see if we have recorded any amiss, which errors might be tripping up our thought processes. We know that he died very soon after his release, implying if not presupposing that unfinished business plagued him. We know that he robbed other women besides Miss Elizabeth Gayle, and that I identified neither fences nor stonecutters with whom he worked. We know that he worked as a construction engineer when he was not fleecing female artists out of their tangible valuables in exchange for soon-to-be-useless reviews. Taking into account that I never found his hoard, and that I know for a fact he emerged from a solid wall—”
“Holmes!” I cried. “Yes, yes, I see your thoughts.”
“I had no doubt that you would, eventually.”
“Somehow he must have stashed his ill-gotten gains in a secret chamber within the tunnel. Just a moment, though—you said that it seemed as if he emerged from the wall itself, but you found no tracks leading there. Even supposing he did build a hidden room, that’s impossible.”
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“By no means. A clever pack rat would surely create multiple entrances, particularly bearing in mind that the one we know about is so inherently perilous owing to the active trains. The balance is strongly in favor of another’s existence.”
“Very well, that explains the footprints. But the rest is confused and haphazard, at least so far as I can make out.”
“I do not find it so very esoteric.” Holmes’s voice had slowed to a logician’s drone. (I surmised this was due to the fact that he was finally seated, and at home, and therefore inclined to collapse.) “Step by step, it plays out in this manner: suppose that Forrester Hyde, after discovering his native oeuvre, sought local allies to assist him in building an impenetrable vault—impenetrable because no one save his associates knew it was there at all, lodged between the decorative interior wall and the much more formidable supporting structure. He could not have accomplished this without confidants. I surmise that he paid them handsomely for assisting him, but told them that the secret room had another purpose entirely, else he would have been forced to share the bounty for the remainder of his larcenous career. An eccentric’s study, a place for his most vile illicit assignations . . . Forrester Hyde could convince people of practically anything, and when enough money enters into the equation, securing the silence of others isn’t so very difficult.”
“Yes, that follows. London is full of whimsical Bohemians. Your own brother founded the Diogenes Club, for no purpose other than to avoid friendly communication.”
“The example is apt.”
“Why should he have sought these men out upon his release, then?”
“Ah, that is a more subtle point, but I am near certain of it. Once I had arrested him, if his erstwhile colleagues happened to catch wind of his incarceration, they might easily have concluded his lair had been intended for other purposes and raided it accordingly. But supposing they were still employed as foremen, it would be highly unlikely that they had made off with a fortune, and his cache could be assumed intact. Is that reasoning clear?”
“It seems sound enough to me.”
“Very good. Now allow me to suggest a purely hypothetical scenario to you—and you realize that I would do so before no one else with so few clues to work with: Forrester Hyde has no train ticket on his person because he needs none. He accesses the entrance to the vault within the Thames Tunnel—from where originally we cannot say, but I posit from a hidden door on one of the passenger platforms—with every intention of collecting his bounty and escaping by retracing his steps. Something happens in the interim, however, an unforeseen threat, which forces him to flee onto the tracks. To no avail, of course, since his mortal foe proved to be whichever man pulled the brakes on the Wapping-bound train. It smacks of conspiracy on the part of Black, Burntree, and McKay, does it not?”
“Yes, but enacted by which of them? And for the purpose of robbery, or the still more sinister intent of ending his life?”
“I confess it freely, Watson: I haven’t the slightest idea.” Holmes appeared almost comically frustrated by this confession, draping himself over his chair as if he were as boneless as an ulster carelessly tossed there. “We know where he was killed, and therefore that he was forced to exit via the tunnel for reasons which are still obscure to us. But he found that the passage of time had been his enemy. He was fully capable of unlocking the alternative egress, presumably, but what is an unlocked door in a brick wall when ravaged by urban decay? And what would happen next, if he refused to go out the way he came in?”
“His fingers!” Shaking my head, I pictured it all too easily. “Holmes, you know already that you are a genius, but I hereby affirm it for the thousandth time. He had not accounted for natural processes and cracks plugged tight with grit and ash. Fighting the weight of the door, he found himself captured by a mere room, doubtless with some peril at his heels. Desperate to escape, he eventually clawed his way out—which caused the unexplained injuries we saw at the morgue.”
“So you are of a mind with me, then,” Holmes said softly, staring at the carpet as if all of life’s mysteries could be solved there. “When he reached the exit onto the field side of the tracks, he stumbled out in his eagerness. Shifting, he saw the light of an oncoming train. It is what happened afterward that we must determine, and that task seems to me nigh-impossible.”
“Why?”
“Well, consider our options. Any unknown crony of Hyde’s could conceivably have pursued him from Wapping. More likely, considering the fact he had recently corresponded with them, any combination of his three former coworkers could have committed this deed, and secured alibis, and lied about their doings thereafter. How can I build a case destined to fall apart at the seams? I have a body, known associates, and one hopes a photograph of some very strange footprints. We can investigate the hiding place from the tunnel side as well, knowing whence he emerged. Otherwise, the culprit is virtually untraceable.”
Holmes looked so dejected that I hardly knew how to answer him. However, within the next ten minutes of my puttering about refreshing tea and uselessly staring out the window, a telegram arrived. I recall with fondness the pale silvered tint of the overcast light in our sitting room, the quick breath my friend took through his nose as he read the missive.
“Is it bad news?” I ventured.
“On the contrary.” Holmes’s eyes flashed up to mine. “My suggestion to Hopkins has borne fruit: Forrester Hyde did have one steady correspondent when he was in prison. I cannot help thinking that same person might shed some light on this matter.”
“But who was it, then?”
“Elizabeth Gayle.”
“My God.” Absorbing this signal development, I quickly recovered. “Are we to pay her a visit?”
“I can suggest nothing better to do.”
“Where does she live, then?”
“Hay’s Mews, Mayfair.”
“That’s only a hansom ride away. Holmes, why should a woman who had been so wronged by Forrester Hyde write to him in jail? She seemed a highly sensitive soul, as an artist, but hardly an impractical one, and she sought us out in the first place, after all.”
“There exist many reasons for such erratic behavior, ranging from complete delusion to the birth of a secret child fathered by Hyde.” He darted his thin arms into his jacket and adopted a contemplative look. “Or some other motive as yet unknown. I have given up attempting to plumb the depths of the female psyche, Watson. It is not unlike contemplating infinity—a worthy, even a spiritual meditation, destined from the beginning to fail entirely.”
I have already described Elizabeth Gayle, and therefore I will not repeat myself regarding her willow-thin poise or her regretful smile except to say that the years had treated her with kindness. Her dark honey-colored hair was done up in Bohemian braids, and she wore a tasseled maroon shawl over a charcoal traveling costume with draped bell sleeves. We discovered her in the act of hurriedly packing a small case, and my heart seized at the sight, because it meant that my friend Sherlock Holmes was right—surely, she knew a great deal about this dire business to move with such agitation, for her limbs as I remembered them had been svelte and graceful. She was escaping a spare, clean room papered with an ivy pattern, and her eyes when she met ours were red-veined and weary.
“Miss Gayle, please forgive the intrusion and grant me the courtesy of speaking with you,” Holmes attempted, removing his hat deferentially.
“Mr. Holmes! Why, it is you, and after all this time! What are you doing here?”
“That remains to be determined. Do sit down, for I fear that you are under some strain.”
Miss Gayle sank into an armchair, limbs quivering. “That is all too true, I fear. Mr. Holmes, before you begin to question me—for I see that question me you must, and I recall your tenacity of will with great admiration—please allow me to make my own statement, for it would save us precious minutes and as you can see
, I am in a terrible rush. I vow to tell you all—in fact, I firmly believe I owe it to you, and I always pay my debts in full—but I beg of you to let me speak my own story rather than submit to an interrogation, however genteel. There is much that you do not know. And as it will be painful to report, I should prefer to begin at once.”
“A fair request, and one I do not begrudge you in the slightest,” Holmes allowed. “In your own time, then.”
Seating ourselves after she gestured to a rather threadbare sofa, we watched her take a few agitated breaths. Miss Gayle adjusted the shawl draped over her shoulders, finally shaking her head as if in tragic amusement before beginning her account.
“First, you are under a misapprehension as to my name. Professionally, it is Elizabeth Gayle, but legally, that is not the case.”
“What in fact is your name, if you please to tell us?”
“Mrs. Forrester Hyde,” she whispered.
At our shocked expressions, she actually smiled. “From the beginning, then?”
“Please,” Holmes assented, rapt.
“You have met the man, so I will not embark upon the subject of his charm, but it was mesmerizing. When he introduced himself to me, it was as he did to so many others: as an urbane man of the world—confident, casually radiating luck. Forrester seemed somehow more alive than anyone around him, as if the streets were filled with inked illustrations of other men and he was the only person present in the actual flesh. We were wedded in secret, which he claimed would serve both our careers, because I would be free to socialize with artists and freethinkers and his praise of my skills could not be accused of bias. What a ripe fool I was then! His hotel was often our home, and sometimes my digs—modest, but nevertheless much grander than what you see now—were where we made our partial life together. He claimed to travel a great deal, and I never dreamed he had another set of London lodgings until, long suspecting him guilty of affairs, I followed him there and discovered what manner of man my husband truly was.
