by Barry Day
“Where is the package?” I asked impatiently. But a true narrator with a story to tell must not be hurried.
“Then, just as I’m picking it up, I looks up at the window again and a couple of men have grabbed her and are trying to pull her away from the window. One of them’s one of them undertaker fellers …”
“And the other?”
“Why, the one who calls ’is self Cain.”
He then produced a small and by now grubby paper package from the recesses of his clothing and handed it to Holmes.
“So I reckoned I’d better get it to you toot sweet. I took a cab—and it wasn’t no picnic, I can tell you. Had to break into that sovereign wot you gimme before the cabbie would take me. Then, when I got to Baker Street, Mrs. ‘Udson told me where you was—so ’ere I am,” he ended triumphantly.
“And you have done every bit as well as I would have expected, Wiggins,” said Holmes, so warmly that the boy flushed with pleasure. “Watson, would you be kind enough to reimburse our colleague?” Then seeing the expression on my face—“I shall, of course, settle up with you later.”
Now the theatre attendants, accustomed to recalcitrance in their patrons, were politely but firmly shepherding us towards Wilde’s box, where Wilde and Mycroft were anxiously waiting. If they were surprised to see a street urchin added to their party, they hid it well.
At that moment the curtain rose.
I have to confess that my attention was totally divided. On the stage people seemed to be saying consistently witty things—if the laughter from the audience was anything to go by—while eating quantities of cucumber sandwiches. At the back of the box I could see Holmes and Wiggins, using what little light there was, poring over what looked like a map.
I don’t know if you have ever had the experience but, when one has something on one’s mind, everything you see, hear or read seems to refer to it, even though their context is quite different. It can be quite uncanny.
From what I could gather, several of the characters were pretending to be people they weren’t and at one point one of the men, when asked to tell the pure and simple truth, said something like—“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
If ever that applied to one of our cases, it applied to this one, I thought wryly. A mass murderer masquerading as a priest … an actress who became other people for a living and was now risking her life pretending to be a man … Holmes and his own disguises … even Wilde, using a foppish exterior to hide a brilliant mind. This line of speculation was starting to trigger another thought in my mind when …
… there was a thunder of applause as the first act ended and Wilde turned to us.
“Oh, aren’t they performing well? I refer to the audience, of course …”
If he expected an answer, he was to be disappointed, for Mycroft and I were gathered round Holmes and the map. It appeared to be of London but it was no London that I knew. Instead of the familiar streets and landmarks, it consisted of a series of lines—some solid, some dotted—and a series of coloured circles from which the lines radiated.
Over to the right was a large square, the most prominent thing on the whole map.
“I think we can safely assume that, whatever the rest stands for, this …” and Holmes tapped the square with a bony forefinger—“represents the Church of the New Apocalypse. Which at least gives us our orientation. Now, that leaves us with these three other circles that are clearly indicated as the most important focus points of this network of lines, with this one …”—and he tapped the largest of the three that sat in the centre of the map—“as apparently the most important …”
I suppose, if I’m honest, I’ve always been inclined that way, but I find, as I get older, I often say things as they come into my head before I’ve entirely worked out their implications. On this occasion I heard myself saying—
“Hm, looks like map of the Underground railway to me …”
“I think not, Doctor,” Mycroft shook his head. “I regret to say that after only ten years the network is not nearly as advanced as that. Next year Her Majesty’s government hopes to electrify one of the lines but, alas …”
But Holmes interrupted his brother almost violently. These piercing eyes bored uncomfortably into mine.
“Say that again, Watson, if you please!”
“I said it reminds me of the Underground railway …”
Holmes leapt to his feet, almost knocking Wiggins over in the process.
“Not railway, old fellow. Not even Underground. But under ground. Oh, Watson, what a blind beetle I have been! The next time I seem to be getting above myself, I implore you to remind me of this evening.
“Don’t you see, it all fits. You recall Porlock’s clues? He said there were two …”
“One was his own name …”
“The ‘person from Porlock’. Coleridge. The poem ‘Kubla Khan’ …” and Holmes began to recite …
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree …
“And that is as far as we went, Watson. I foolishly thought it referred to the Church. But the verse continues …
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea …
“But, Holmes, I still …”
“Bear with me, Watson. Porlock’s second clue?”
“Remember Musgrave.”
“Something I shall hardly care to do, now that I have made the identical mistake twice! You will remember the piece of doggerel I quoted to you—the Musgrave Ritual?”
“Indeed.”
“When I first encountered it, I followed its instructions to the letter and number—and it took me precisely nowhere. Except literally to a blank wall. For the simple reason that I had ignored the three little words that were the key to the whole puzzle—just as I have ignored them in this case …”
“And they were?”
“‘And so under.’ I was standing on top of the solution to the problem which was literally ‘under’ my feet. As it is in this case—under all our feet. Gentlemen …”—he flourished the map—“I will stake what is left of my reputation that what we are looking at is a map of the London sewer system.”
There was a moment of stunned silence in the box. All I could hear was the subdued and cheerful background noise of the theatre audience, as they waited for Wilde’s play to recommence.
Then Holmes said heavily, looking at none of us—“And, of course, it tells us all we need to know about one old, vexed question …”
“The Ripper. This was how he could appear and disappear at will in the midst of Whitechapel and, later, anywhere he chose. He had his own private highway.”
It suddenly came to me. “The Opera!”
“Precisely, old fellow. That sound of a metal door closing. Only it wasn’t a door at all, except figuratively. It was a metal cover over a manhole. While we were busy banging doors and kicking walls, our friend was lurking inches beneath our very feet and laughing at our puny efforts.”
“But, Holmes, what is the significance of the map now and why did Irene think it so important to get it to us that she gave herself away. My God, Holmes, that poor woman! We must …”
“And we shall, old friend, never fear. Cain’s men have Irene—for the moment—but we have the map and we have Cain. As long as he is in our sights, he can hardly bring War, Famine, Death or, indeed, Pestilence upon this great city, for there is no way that he will delegate that power to underlings. His God has given the power to him alone and it must be by his hand …”
All our eyes turned to the box immediately opposite ours, where Cain and his entourage had remained throughout. I reached for a pair of opera glasses but, just as I did so, the house lights dimmed for the start of the second act.
Once again, some of Wilde’s lines seemed to carry an additional, sometimes surrealistic, resonance for me.
“I hope you have not been living a double life,” one of the
young ladies accuses the object of her affection, “pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.” The opposition of Good versus Evil and the ability to identify which was which was at the very heart of the affair we were trying to untangle.
Throughout the rest of the act there were two sets of dialogue competing for my attention, for just behind me Holmes was still poring over the map and muttering to himself—“Something more, something more.”
If I’m honest, there were three strands of thought taxing my poor brain. Something I had heard this evening that didn’t make sense. Slowly it was coming back to me—something to do with Cain.
And I was obviously not the only one whose mind had been working in parallel, for, as the curtain descended once more to even greater applause, Mycroft leaned across to his brother.
“May I look at that map again?”
Having done so, he raised his eyes to ours and said in a voice as cold as any I have ever heard …
“This is not merely a map of the London sewer system. It is overlaid with a map of the city’s water supply. You can see the conduits and the aqueducts quite clearly. This maniac means to poison London’s drinking water.”
At which point I remembered Holmes’s experiments that showed how the chemical we had removed from Cain’s church behaved in water. If Mycroft was right, thousands—perhaps millions would die.
And then the other thing came to me.
“Wiggins,” I said, “you saw Cain seizing Miss Adler at what time?”
“Seven o’clock, Doctor. I’m always outside that there window at seven on the dot.”
“And yet you, Mr. Wilde, told us that you saw Cain arrive here at the theatre well before you left to collect us? At what time?”
Wilde did not hesitate.
“Naturally, I have been here most of the day pour encourager les autres. Cain & Co. arrived, as large as life and twice as ugly, no later than six-thirty.”
“So,” I said, “there are either identical twin Cains or …”
“One of them is not Cain,” said Holmes in the silence that followed. “Watson, I declare I never get your limits.”
He carefully folded the map and thrust it into an inside pocket, as he rose to his feet.
“And now, gentlemen, I suggest we put Watson’s theory to the test.”
As quickly as we could without drawing undue attention to ourselves, we left the box and moved around the perimeter of the auditorium to the opposite side, where an identical staircase took us up to the box opposite ours.
Here it was Wilde who took the initiative. Knocking on the door, he stepped smartly inside.
“My dear Cain, I could not resist coming over to ask you how you and your friends are enjoying my little soufflé. It is written by a butterfly for butterflies. But you, I suspect, are more like blowflies …”
Cain and his two companions had risen to their feet in surprise at Wilde’s intrusion and the box was now decidedly crowded. Which was perhaps why none of us anticipated what happened next.
Holmes reached past the bulk of Wilde and grasped Cain’s long blonde beard. A moment later he was holding a large tuft of it in his hand the rest of it was hanging lopsidedly from the face of a man who was most decidedly not Janus Cain.
“If I may recommend Leichner’s patent fixative in future, my dear fellow. Far more effective and considerably less painful to remove.”
“Wiggins. Go and fetch the Manager. Mr. Holmes’s compliments and he needs to see him right away.”
The boy scuttled off and was back in moments with an impressive and portly man in tails, who looked both surprised and concerned by the sight that greeted him. However, a few words from Mycroft, whom he clearly recognised, and Wilde soon achieved the desired result. He agreed to lock our ‘prisoners’ in their box and have his men stand guard until the police arrived.
As the key turned in the lock, I heard Wilde call out to them.
“Now, I particularly want you to notice the dénouement, since I find it particularly ingenious. But I mustn’t give the plot away …”
As the third and final act began, Holmes, Mycroft, Wilde and I stood in the Stalls bar. Apart from a barman clearing glasses, we had the place to ourselves and were able to spread the map out, so that we could examine it properly.
Wiggins had reluctantly been sent off to Whitechapel with a note from Holmes to Lestrade. His disappointment at missing “the exciting part”, as he called it, was somewhat alleviated by the prospect of the second cab ride in one day and the feel of the additional sovereign warming the palm of his grubby little hand.
Now that we could see the map in good light, it was clear that Mycroft was right. The sewer system was certainly the means but the end—marked with the coloured circles—was a handful of junction points dotted over the map.
“It has long been a matter of contention and controversy in certain circles,” Mycroft explained, “that the conduits for the city’s water supply should lie in such close proximity to its sewers. The excuse has always been that—apart from the huge capital cost of providing an alternative and the concomitant burden on the taxpayer—the present system offered convenience. The access provided by the sewer network made it relatively easy to monitor the water supply …”
“Or, equally, to tamper with it,” Holmes added grimly. “You need not explain that aspect further, Mycroft. I am fully persuaded. And I am equally persuaded that Cain still means to carry out his plan before this day is over. Can you, with your apparently infinite knowledge of London’s intestinal system, suggest where Cain is likely to strike? Is there a vulnerable ‘heart’ somewhere in these intestines?”
“Undoubtedly. And it is not far from here …”
He placed an enormous finger on the largest circle.
“This spot represents the conflux of several streams. It was chosen originally because it happened to be the bed of an underground river that, before it was diverted, ran into the Thames …”
“Through caverns measureless to man. Down to a sunless sea.” Holmes spoke as if to himself.
“Many of us have argued that electing to focus so many key resources on a site so close to the main concentration of population was strategically unsound but, as I say, for budgetary reasons …”
“I think we may safely assume that with his access to every shade of official opinion, Daintry—and now Cain—has done his homework and could probably add a few footnotes for even you, Mycroft.”
He consulted his watch.
“Ten-thirty. We have not a moment to lose. Mycroft, may I suggest you go to Whitechapel and strengthen Lestrade’s resolve to investigate that Church, paying particular attention this time to its cellars? Not that I have any doubts about the good Inspector. What he may lack in intelligence he more than makes up for in courage and determination. He will take the rats and shake them.”
He turned to Wilde.
“Oscar,”—and this time there was genuine warmth in his use of Wilde’s christian name—“your help has been immeasurable. May I wish you every success—not only with tonight’s play but with any other dramas you may be going through?”
Wilde did not miss Holmes’s change of tone and it was clear he was moved by it but a second later the showman was in charge again.
“Sherlock, how can you possibly expect me, the leading dramatist of my age, a man who has enriched and ennobled every literary form that I have touched, to miss the last act of this tawdry entertainment? I shall accompany you to the Gates of Hell, if need be.”
“But won’t your audience expect you to appear on stage at the end of the play?” I asked.
“They may, they very well may,” he replied, “but I shall not take a call tonight. One feels so much like a German band.”
I could not be sure but I thought Holmes seemed positively glad that he had lost the argument.
He looked at the map for the last time and placed his finger where his brother’s had been.
“And so,
gentlemen, we meet at Philippi. The question is …”—and he looked up at Mycroft—“exactly where is Philippi?”
“Trafalgar Square.”
Chapter Sixteen
In the more than fifty years he has stood there Nelson can hardly have looked down on a more bizarre spectacle—not even on the rowdiest Boat Race Night—as a cordon of police restrained curious onlookers, while three well-dressed middle-aged gentlemen lowered themselves gingerly into the bowels of the earth in the middle of Trafalgar Square. For once the pigeons really did have something to coo about.
While we had been in the theatre, it had begun to snow even harder. The Square looked like a belated Christmas card and Landseer’s famous lions lay huddled under a white blanket. The only touch of black was the yawning hole at our feet.
Somehow I had envisioned having to climb down some vertiginous ladder but, in fact, we encountered a rather elaborate circular metal staircase that wound down into blackness. Being totally unprepared for such a safari, we had nothing but the clothes we stood in but Holmes had had the foresight to borrow the lanterns from two of the policemen. If they were surprised by our actions, they hid it well. Holmes, I could see, was quite touched when the sergeant saluted and said—
“Glad to be of service, Mr. Holmes. You’ve helped us often enough.”
Now the beams guided our descent until we found ourselves on a sort of half-landing, which held a substantial locker. This was clearly where the inspectors kept their equipment and it held two much larger lanterns, which were well-trimmed and we soon had them burning brightly.
At last we could see something of our surroundings and Wilde’s fanciful description of the Gates of Hell suddenly did not seem so far amiss.
We were in a cavern which, if not measureless to man, was certainly of significant size. It was like an enclosed canal with a narrow footpath running along one side of a rushing stream. By some trick of sensory balance—which I have no doubt Holmes could easily explain—now that we could actually see the rushing waters, they somehow seemed louder. What had been a subdued background noise in the dark now became a roar. While not a torrent, we were looking at more of a river than a stream.
