‘Who let you in?’ he thundered. ‘By God, I’ll litter this floor with badges if just one more constable fails to carry out a direct order!’
‘Calm yourself, Inspector,’ said Holmes coolly. ‘I am not without friends here at the Yard. I have come once again to offer my services in the Carew murder case.’
‘Get out! I told you once that I’ll not have you meddling in official police business. Some of my colleagues may feel that they cannot function without you, but I am not in that number.’
‘There are those who do not agree with you.’
‘Trumble!’
The shout was answered almost instantly by the appearance of the lanky young constable whom we had last seen at Hyde’s dwelling in Soho.
‘You called, sir?’
‘See that these gentlemen are shown out of the building... none too gently.’
Trumble nodded and moved forward to take Holmes by the arm. The unofficial detective side-stepped the maneuver neatly, reached inside his coat, and drew out the missive which Mycroft had given him, flipping it open beneath the Inspector’s nose.
All the colour fled from Newcomen’s face as his eyes fell to the crest at the bottom of the letter.
‘That will be all, Trumble,’ said he in a much-subdued voice. ‘Close the door on your way out’
‘If you say so, sir.’ The youthful officer sounded perplexed but turned upon his heel and withdrew obediently, pulling the door shut behind him.
The Inspector indicated a pair of straight wooden chairs in front of his desk, which we accepted. He sank into his own seat as if his legs were no longer steady enough to support him.
‘I under-estimated you,’ said he quietly.
‘Many do,’ remarked my companion. He returned the letter to his pocket. ‘It is an attitude which I encourage, for it gives me a definite advantage. Now, Inspector; what have you found out about friend Hyde?’
‘Very little, or you would not be here now.’ Having resigned himself to the situation, the official detective warmed to the subject. ‘The man is a monster; that much is obvious, even aside from the brutality of his crime. We have sought out every one of his associates who is available and pumped them for information. What I have heard about the man is abominable. He appears to have nurtured the very lowest form of acquaintanceships, yet there is not one among those whom we have interviewed who was not appalled at his excesses. Conscience is a stranger to him, cruelty a way of life. I tell you, I have heard tales that would make your hair stand on end. But of his present whereabouts I have been able to glean nothing.’
‘Perhaps his friends are protecting him,’ I suggested.
He shook his head. ‘The man has no friends. It’s a suspicious lot, this crew with whom I have spoken, and more than a few of them have their reasons to distrust the police, but I got the impression that, had they known his hiding-place, they would have given it up like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘It’s not just the reward which we have offered for Hyde’s capture, either. There is about the man an atmosphere of cruelty and hatred from which all men shrink, no matter how vile their own station. Yet with all of this against him he has still to surface.’
‘Have you the murder weapon here?’ Holmes enquired.
Newcomen fumbled amongst the papers heaped atop his desk and drew out a stout wooden cylinder perhaps eighteen inches long, with an iron ferrule at one end. The other end was a broken shard. Holmes accepted it and studied it closely.
‘Recognise it, Watson?’ said he, showing it to me.
‘It certainly looks like the cane with which Hyde threatened us at Stürmer’s,’ said I.
‘So it does. Without doubt it has been shattered by a violent blow of some sort. I think that we may safely refer to it as the instrument by which Sir Danvers Carew met his untimely death.’ He returned it to the Inspector.
‘You had doubts?’ asked the other.
‘I doubt nothing until I have seen the evidence. It is an easy thing, however, to leap to conclusions when confronted with so disturbing an aberration as murder. Newspaper accounts are seldom to be taken upon face value.’
The Inspector fidgeted beneath Holmes’s steady gaze. ‘Yes. Well, I have given you everything we have. Except, of course, the charred cheque-book, about which you doubtless already know. I hope that you will not forget us should anything develop at your end. Not that I think it will.’
‘Oh, but it has.’
‘It has?’ The expression upon the Scot’s haggard countenance was not as appreciative as it should have been, under the circumstances. ‘What?’
‘A pattern. Don’t you see it? Sir Danvers’ murder, the trampling of the little girl, the assault upon the crippled beggar — remind me to tell you about that last later, it’s a remarkably repelling narrative — every one of Hyde’s known crimes has sprung from no motive other than malice. Personal profit does not enter into it, nor even revenge. As far as my own extensive knowledge of the history of crime reaches, it is without precedent. The grisly excesses of Burke and Hare would not have taken place had not the impossibly restrictive medical practices of the day placed a premium upon the carnal goods they delivered. Betsy Frances and Mary Tirrell might be alive today had not the fears of young George Hersey driven him to introduce massive doses of strychnine into their delicate systems. The will to survive turned the members of the pioneering Donner party into murderers and cannibal...’ One by one Holmes ticked off examples from his extensive studies into the black side of human nature with his right index finger upon his left palm, until it began to appear as if even a hardened soul like Newcomen might grow pale, whereupon the unofficial detective abandoned his reverie. ‘The point is, Inspector, that we are dealing with evil personified. The popular explanation that Hyde is mad simply will not do. I have met the man, and I assure you that there is none saner.’
‘And your conclusion?’
‘I have none as yet. I am convinced, however, that somewhere in that hypothesis lies the key to the entire affair. Perhaps with both of us working upon it from opposite ends —’
‘I shall thank you not to explain my job to me, Mr. Holmes.’ The Inspector’s manner now was icy. ‘But I appreciate your efforts, inconclusive as they are. Should by chance you stumble upon something important through them, I am sure that you will have the good sense to get in touch with this office.’
‘You will be the first to know.’ Holmes rose. ‘Good day, Inspector, andthank you for your co-operation.’
‘What did you accomplish by that?’ I asked my companion as we stepped from the gloomy interior of the Yard into the minimal mid-morning sunlight. There was more snow in the air.
‘If nothing else, self-satisfaction,’ said he, pausing to light his pipe in the shelter of a doorway. ‘The memory of Newcomen’s expression upon beholding my royal authorisation will warm many a cold night when I am in my dotage. On the practical side, I have made my part in the affair known amongst those who are in the best position to hinder my investigations, which may spare us some difficulty in the long run.’
‘Speaking of runs,’ said I, ‘Utterson seems to be quite done in by his.’
I had been watching as a cab rattled to a hasty stop across the street and the long, gaunt figure of the lawyer came barrelling out, scarcely pausing to pay the driver before he took off on foot in our direction, dodging between and around the jolting vehicles which made up the traffic in that busy quarter; as he drew near I could tell by his gasping and the cherry-red hue of his face that this had not been his first exertion of the morning. He was about to be run over by a wagon piled high with whiskey-kegs bound for some public-house or other when Holmes and I rushed forward and pulled him up onto the kerb just as the horses clattered past. We helped him across the pavement to the building which we had just vacated, where he leant against the wall, wheezing and mopping perspiration from his brow with a soggy linen handkerchief.
‘Utterson, are you all right?’ Holmes demanded.
The
lawyer nodded, panting.
I seized his wrist and timed the palpitations which I felt there against the sweep hand of my watch.
‘His pulse is slowing,’ I informed the detective after a moment, returning the timepiece to my waistcoat pocket.
‘It very nearly ceased altogether.’ Holmes’s tone was concerned. ‘What has happened, Utterson? Is it Jekyll?’
Again he nodded. ‘Your landlady told me where you had gone.’ The words tumbled out between gasps. ‘I feared I’d missed you.’ Drawing a crumpled scrap of paper from his greatcoat pocket, he held it out for Holmes to take. He did so and, after a glance at the writing upon it, looked up with impatient eyes.
‘I’ve seen this before. It’s Hyde’s note to Jekyll, which you showed me three months ago. What of it?’
‘There is more.’ Utterson’s breath was coming more easily now, and his complexion had regained something of its normal colour. He again inserted a hand inside the pocket from which he had taken the note and, finding nothing there, searched each of his remaining pockets in turn until he took out yet another scrap, larger than the first, and handed it to Holmes, who pounced upon it as a hound might the trail of its quarry.
‘The afternoon of the day I showed you the Hyde note,’ explained the lawyer, ‘I was sitting with my clerk, Mr. Guest, in my business-room when my man brought in the dinner invitation which I just handed you, signed by Henry Jekyll. Guest is something of a student of handwriting, and so in the interests of curiosity I had given him the original note to see what he made of it. When he saw Jekyll’s invitation he asked to examine that as well. I gave it to him, and after some comparison he said —’
‘ — that the two specimens were written by the same hand,’ finished the detective, returning the two notes after a quick glance. ‘He is absolutely right. I told you at the time that a clumsy attempt had been made to disguise the handwriting. Since according to his butler no such note was handed in that day, it naturally followed that Jekyll himself had forged it. You were in no mood to accept such an hypothesis, however, and so I kept it to myself. You have placed me in a tenuous position, Mr. Utterson; in deference to you and your client I have committed a felony by withholding evidence from the police. Why did you not come to me with this information three months ago? You have much to answer for.’ He spoke sternly.
Utterson turned a shamed face upon him. Holmes held up a hand, staying his explanation.
‘Say no more. You were shielding your friend. I shall not waste any more time pointing out the folly of such a course, as such lectures have already proved useless where you are concerned. The question now is, what has prompted this sudden change of heart?
The lawyer glanced uneasily from side to side, where pedestrians flowed past in an incessant stream. ‘Is there a place where we may converse in private?’
‘Simpson’s is nearby,’ said Holmes. ‘If it is not too early for you, Utterson, I think that we could all do with a glass or two of sherry.’
Our erstwhile client did not object, and when we had all adjourned to a table in the aforementioned restaurant with a bottle of the rejuvenative liquid in the centre and full glasses to hand, he began his narrative.
‘My delay in coming forward with this damning evidence may seem more justified once I have explained the circumstances,’ he commenced, staring moodily into his wine. ‘At first, of course, I was sick at heart to think that the man whom I’d thought I understood more than any other would jeopardise his brilliant career to protect a murderer. I had feared that blackmail was at the bottom of it, but now I harboured serious doubts about his sanity and, knowing something of the disgraceful state of our leading mental institutions, I shrank from telling what I knew lest I condemn my dearest friend to a living death.’
‘As time passed, however, and the spectre of Edward Hyde gradually lifted from both our lives, I began to notice a definite change for the better in Jekyll. It was as if he had been born again with all the idealism of his youth intact; no longer a recluse, he renewed all of his old friendships, returned to his medical practice, which had always been distinguished for the many charity cases which he took on for no reward other than the satisfaction of healing, and even became a frequent church-goer, something which he had never been previously. His spirits soared higher than I had ever known them, as if he had at last exorcised himself of that daemon which had threatened to bear him down into the deepest recesses of Hell and made peace with his restless urges. In this light, perhaps you will understand why I deemed it best that the entire episode involving Hyde be forgotten — his disappearance, as it were, having made up in some measure for the murder of Sir Danvers.
‘It was on the morning of January twelfth that I found Jekyll’s door barred to me for the first time since the murder. His butler explained that his master was indisposed and could not see anyone. I thought little of it at the time, since just four nights previously I had dined there in a small company which included Hastie Lanyon, and the evening had been one of jolly camaraderie, with no indication of anything but bright days to come. Indeed, it looked as if the two doctors might yet bridge the chasm which had kept them apart for more than a decade. I returned on the fourteenth and again on the fifteenth, and still he would not see me. This sudden return to his old reclusive ways disturbed me, and after mulling it over for some time I went to see Lanyon on the seventeenth, last night.’
At this point the lawyer’s nerves seemed to have failed him, and he took a hasty sip of the dark liquid in his glass. Then he resumed, in tones heavy with meaning.
‘Mr. Holmes, I have never beheld so rapid a change in a man as I saw in Dr. Lanyon last night. A scant nine days before, he had been the very picture of health; now I found myself in the presence of a man as near death as any I have ever seen. Formerly robust and ruddy of complexion, he was pale as a ghost and withered horribly, his flesh hanging upon his bones like yellowed linen from a clothing-rod. His voice trembled, and when he stepped back from the door to admit me he shuffled like a man in his last extremity. I very much fear that he will not live to see spring.
‘He explained that he had suffered a shock from which he will not recover, and that there is nothing left for him but the grave. Worse, I inferred from his words that he is glad of it. When I mentioned Jekyll, crimson patches appeared upon his sallow cheeks and he forbade me to mention his name again. He said further that as far as he is concerned Henry Jekyll is already dead. That is how the matter stands at present, and I suppose that it is unnecessary to add that I spent a sleepless night before I decided to come to you.’ He shuddered and looked across at my companion with a pair of eyes in which all the anguish of the world seemed to rest. ‘Mr. Holmes, is there nothing you can do which will stem this tide of woe?’
‘I cannot say,’ responded the other, whose own wine-glass remained untouched before him. ‘It may already be too late.’
‘I know that I have no right to ask for your help.’ Utterson’s voice now was a faint whisper. ‘But I have been on this earth fifty years, and I shall not live to make another friend like Jekyll or Lanyon. I do not wish to spend the rest of my existence alone.’
When there was no response, the lawyer stood and, after murmuring a farewell to each of us, turned to collect his hat and coat. Holmes leant forward and snatched his sleeve. He turned back. Their gazes locked.
‘I shall do what I can, Mr. Utterson,’ said the detective. ‘I can promise no more.’
‘God bless you, Mr. Holmes.’ Utterson’s eyes glistened with moisture. Then he left the restaurant.
‘Watson, are you willing to try your hand as a detective?’ asked my companion on our way out.
‘Whatever skills I may possess in that line could never hope to equal your own,’ said I, my curiosity aroused by this strange request.
‘You cannot know that until you try.’
‘What is it that you wish of me?’
‘A cross-examination.’
Confidence overtook me. During my brief car
eer as a military surgeon in Afghanistan I had had ample opportunity to observe the regimental physicians ascertain by a circumspect question-and-answer session whether a would-be patient was indeed ill or shirking, and had myself often taken part in these interviews. I fancied myself proficient in the art of cross-examination, which in many ways is as vital to the medical man as it is to the court barrister. Here at last was an area in which I could win the admiration of the man whom I admired above all others.
‘And whom am I to cross-examine?’
‘Dr. Hastie Lanyon, of Cavendish Square.’
‘That would require the utmost delicacy,’ said I. ‘If Utterson spoke the truth, his death is imminent, and I should not relish the thought of being the one who brought it about.’
‘Quite right.’ He was in the act of re-lighting his pipe. ‘That is why I am entrusting this deed to you, whose sensitivity is unsurpassed by anyone else of my acquaintance. Draw him out, Watson. Find out what Jekyll is up to. It’s plain that we’re no longer welcome beneath the great man’s roof, and yet I feel certain that it is from his end that this affair will yet find its dénouement.’
‘And what will you be doing?’
He got the tobacco going and drew in a great lungful of smoke, smiling impishly as he released it. ‘Ah, but that is something which you must not ask me just yet. You must allow me my idiosyncracies. Here is a cab now. You remember Lanyon’s address? Excellent. You have a remarkable memory for details; it is one of the things which I most admire about you. Very well, then. Into the cab like a good fellow, and I shall meet you back in Baker Street for dinner.’
Ten
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes Page 10
