A roast-chestnut vendor crossing at Conduit Street saw Hyde coming and abandoned his push-cart in the middle of the thoroughfare, leaping backwards just as the cab plunged between them. He had seized the handles once again by the time we came along; attempting to avoid him, we swerved right and our left wheel caught the edge of the smaller vehicle, overturning it and showering smoking hot chestnuts all over the street. The vendor himself executed a perfect somersault and landed in a heap amongst his own wares in the gutter on the left side. Before he could get up an army of street Arabs descended upon the scene and made off with every available chestnut. My last memory of him as I looked back is of an excited figure jumping up and down in the middle of the street, screaming incoherently and waving two bony fists above his head.
By this time the occupants of both vehicles had grown accustomed to the keening of police whistles all round us, and so Hyde’s driver paid no attention to a constable who was directing traffic at the Burlington Gardens crossing when the latter blasted at him and held up his hands. The cab was in the middle of the crossing when a mammoth freight-wagon loaded with fresh lumber and drawn by a four-horse team came rumbling along towards it from the left. A collision was inevitable. My own cab skidded to a halt fifty yards away, nearly tipped over as it arced sideways across the treacherous surface of the street. The driver of the heavier vehicle stood up and leant back upon the reins with all of his might, teeth bared in a grimace of determination, muscles bulging beneath his threadbare coat. His horses reared onto their haunches, but the momentum of the waggon was too much for them and it slewed sideways, slamming against a gas lamp upon the corner and bringing it crashing down over the back of the waggon. The waggon itself tipped up onto two wheels, hung there for what seemed an impossible length of time, then went on over, dashing itself to splinters on the pavement and spilling its load with a series of ear-splitting reports. The driver dove headlong from the seat an instant before it struck and landed sprawling in the street. A moment later he got up, shaken but apparently unharmed. By that time Hyde’s vehicle, which had never paused, was halfway to Piccadilly.
The street was beginning to fill with people, who ignored the attempts of the harried constable to bring some order to the chaos. We steered round the wreckage carefully and continued at a crawl until we were clear of the crowds, whereupon we broke once again into gallop.
Hyde had swung east onto Piccadilly and was proceeding at a foolhardy pace for so busy a thoroughfare. Wisdom being rare that day, we pursued him at the same rate. The snow now was falling heavily in large, wet flakes which turned the pavement, already dangerous, into a sheet of glass. Most of the other traffic had slowed almost to a stop; Hyde’s vehicle cut in and out among the hansoms, four-wheelers, broughams, and carriages like a needle passing through an embroidery hoop. We did the same, ignoring as always the shouts and curses of drivers and passengers which greeted us along our journey. Once, as we drew alongside of an official-looking coach, the coachman, angered already by the effrontery of the first cab, leant over to cut at my driver with his whip, only to slice empty air when the latter swerved left sharply. The momentum of the coachman’s swing toppled him from his high seat to the pavement, where a four-wheeler attempting to miss him went into a skid and jumped up onto the left kerb. This sparked off a chain-reaction all the way down the street; shouts, screeches, and smashing sounds filled the damp winter air. In the distance the police whistles took on a more urgent note.
The situation at Piccadilly Circus was far worse. There, where seven of London’s principal streets converge, the heart of the Empire throbbed visibly and blue uniforms were the rule rather than the exception. Hyde’s cab never slackened its pace; after cutting between an omnibus and a tram-car which were travelling side by side, it described a right angle south onto Regent Street, careering violently upon the slick pavement as it did so and coming to within a hair’s breadth of skinning a gas lamp upon the corner. As it was, one wheel jumped the kerb and struck sparks off the base of the lamp when its steel hub ground against it. From there the hansom continued unhampered.
We were not so fortunate.
The tramcar which Hyde had cut off had stopped whilst the driver laboured to bring his panicky team under control. Taking advantage of this situation, my own driver sped past it and attempted to duplicate Hyde’s sharp turn; halfway through it we began sliding towards the left.
‘Hang on, guv’nor!’ came the driver’s shout.
No further encouragement was necessary. I held on for dear life to the sides of the vehicle as the scenery reeled past in a dizzying kaleidoscope of buildings, vehicles, and faces for what seemed an eternity. I felt a sickening sensation of suspension. Then it ended suddenly with a deafening crunch, the world tipped, and the next thing I knew I was crumpled into a heap in one corner of the vehicle, staring up at the sky and the spokes of a whirling wheel through the opposite window.
Excited voices buzzed all round me. Beneath the buzz there was something else: an insidious hissing noise, faint at first, but seeming to increase in volume the more I became aware of it. I was reminded unpleasantly of the sound made by the infamous Speckled Band as it descended the bell-cord to do the evil bidding of Dr. Grimesby Roylott of Stoke-Moran in an adventure which I have chronicled elsewhere. I sniffed. The air reeked of gas.
Indeed, the cab was filled with it, as I noted when I looked round and found the features of the vehicle swimming before my eyes. Dimly I was able to put it together: we had broken off a gas lamp when we struck, and now the contents were pouring into the air.
Under ordinary circumstances I might have become alarmed, but now I felt a curious sense of well-being as if this were all a bad dream from which I was confident I would soon awake. With one part of my mind, of course, I knew that this was a delusion brought on by inhaling the deadly fumes, but it was the other part, that which told me that all was as it should be, which was the stronger. Lulled by this sensation, I drifted off into sweet unconsciousness.
I came awake reluctantly to find the driver’s florid face a few inches from my own and his strong hands shaking me by the shoulders. So tight was his grip that I felt a sharp stab of pain in my old wound; in my semi-conscious state, however, I was scarcely aware of it, or of the urgent words which he was whispering in a voice taut with anxiety. At length he gave up his endeavours to make me understand and, throwingmy arm across his shoulders, lifted me to my feet and dragged me from the cab.
The air outside was sweeter, in spite of both the crowd which pressed in round us and the stronger odour of gas as we passed the broken lamp, which had been severed at kerb level when the cab tipped over and struck it. I was vaguely aware of a man in a blue uniform at the far edge of the crowd, blowing a whistle and fighting his way towards the centre; we turned in the opposite direction and hobbled away as fast as my rescuer could manage whilst supporting my bulk. The crowd parted grudgingly before us.
Gradually my senses returned until I was able to move under my own power, albeit with the added support of my companion’s wirey shoulders. We were walking fast, prodded on by the screech of the police whistle behind us.
We had passed the Haymarket Theatre and were well on our way towards Pall Mall when it occurred to me that the driver had just saved my life. I spluttered inadequate words of thanks.
‘Later, Watson, later,’ said Sherlock Holmes, smiling at me briefly through his ruddy make-up.
Twelve
DEEPER WATERS
We made the Evening Standard, Watson.’
We had been back in our rooms some hours when Holmes, after delivering the above statement, chuckled dryly and folded the periodical which our news agent had sent up a few moments before to the lead column on an inner page.
A report, as yet unconfirmed, has reached these offices concerning a wild chase through the streets of the West End this afternoon involving a pair of hansom cabs [he read]. Although it appears that no-one was injured as a result, three vehicles are reported to have been dem
olished. A constable who claims to have witnessed the episode speculates that this was yet another of those incidents which inevitably ensue whenever the exuberance of youth is allowed to combine with alcoholic spirits, and pledged his support to those who would strengthen the laws prohibiting the sale of such stimulants to minors.
‘I never cease to marvel at what the Press is able to do with something so mundane as the truth,’ said he, laying aside the paper to ignite a fresh cigar.
His witticism was lost upon me. I glared at him above the pages of the seafaring novel in which I had been endeavouring to interest myself without success ever since our return. ‘Are you not going to tell me why you were spying upon me today?’ I demanded.
‘My dear fellow, I had no intention of spying upon you. As difficult as it may be to believe, it was merest coincidence that we bumped into each other at all, and nothing short of a miracle that we ended up sharing the same cab.’
I shook my head and closed the book without bothering to mark my place. ‘I am afraid that I need further convincing. What were you doing out there in the first place, and how is it that you came to be following Hyde when I hailed you?’
Again he chuckled. Blue tobacco-smoke curled about his head, blurring his angular features. ‘That, Watson, is one of those bizarre twists of fate which occur more often in life than any of us would believe, and which all of us would be swift to decry were it to appear in a work of fiction. You will remember that I asked you to interview Dr. Lanyon whilst I attended to other business. After our parting I returned straightaway to these rooms and donned that disguise which by your failure to penetrate it I fancy was a fair one. From here, I paid a visit upon an elderly acquaintance of mine, a retired cabby who for sentimental reasons had, upon leaving his company’s employ, purchased the hansom which he had driven for a decade; as luck would have it, he is moving soon to smaller quarters and was at a loss concerning what to do with his ungainly possession. I made an offer for it, it was accepted, and after renting a horse elsewhere I was set to go.
‘The reason for the disguise is obvious, since I believe I mentioned that neither of us is a desirable visitor where Henry Jekyll is concerned. You see, Watson, I have suspected for some time that Jekyll is the key to Edward Hyde’s whereabouts; he is the only man living whom Hyde could consider a friend, and experience has taught me that no-one may remain a fugitive for long without co-operation from some quarter.
‘I hardly knew what I was looking for, or even whether I’d recognise it when I found it. But every man has his own regimen, his rails upon which he runs as faithfully as any train; I was prepared to maintain a vigil at Jekyll’s home every day for a month if necessary until such time as his routine pointed in the direction I hoped it would. It is the little things, Watson, which betray us, and you should know by now that the observation of trifles is my forte.
‘Imagine my triumph when, just as I arrived, a hansom rattled off from in front of Jekyll’s house in the direction of Cavendish Square. This may be what I am after, thought I, and I immediately gave chase.’
‘You were not observed?’
He appeared wounded by my query. ‘Really, Watson, I thought that you had greater faith in my abilities than that.
‘I had been following for some time when the hansom turned a corner and the passenger’s silhouette was framed briefly in the opening. I nearly dropped my reins in my astonishment. It was Hyde!
‘I suspect that my train of thought at this point closely paralleled your own when you yourself recognised him some minutes later: What manner of man is this who would risk being seen when every constable in the city has him marked for the gallows? I do not recall ever having confronted a criminal so bold or so foolish. I was still endeavouring to make some sense out of it when you happened upon the scene. The rest you know.’
‘Not quite!’ I remonstrated. ‘Why all of the secrecy? Why did you not take me into your confidence from the first?’
‘As I recall, the last time I suggested a separation you railed against it, claiming that I was in need of constant medical supervision and demanding that you accompany me. That of course was out of the question. I think you would agree that whilst one man may, with good fortune, expect to watch a house without drawing attention, two would be pressing fate. Rather than pause to explain the situation, I thought that our time would be better served if I kept you in the dark until later, when we were both at our leisure.’
‘That may be so, but what kept you from identifying yourself when I hailed you? That was shabby treatment indeed, Holmes!’
He regarded me warmly for a moment, then leant forward in his armchair and patted my knee. ‘Watson, Watson,’ said he, sincerely. ‘I apologise for leaving that impression. I would never presume to treat in a shabby manner one upon whose friendship and loyalty I have come to depend. Had I revealed myself to you, you would then and there have asked all the questions which you are now asking, and in the meantime Hyde would have been halfway across London. Come now; what would you have done in my place?’ His grey eyes twinkled.
‘I suppose that I would have behaved exactly as you did,’ I responded, after a moment.
‘Of course you would have!’ He sat back, puffing upon his cigar. ‘Emotion is a cross which we all must bear, but there are ways of circumventing it when it is most troublesome. Not that doing so helped us in this instance, after my own incompetence in the driver’s seat cost us our quarry.’ His tone was one of bitter self-reproach.
‘You must not blame yourself,’ said I. ‘Had fortune smiled upon us instead of upon Hyde, it would have been he piled up on that corner in Piccadilly. Your driving was impeccable.’
He waved aside the compliment listlessly, but a faint smile told me that his good humour was returning. ‘My teacher was the best who ever lived. But remind me to tell you about Fyodor the coachman and the singular adventure which we shared at some later date; it is a most interesting narrative. Had he but been wielding the whip today, Hyde might be in custody at this very moment.’
‘It’s a pity that neither of us got the number of his cab.’
‘Really, Watson, your comments this evening are the most unsettling mixture of honey and vitriol,’ he snapped. ‘The number is 5312; have my faculties slipped so far that you think me capable of missing such a fundamental scrap of information?’
I sat up. ‘Do you mean to say that you have known the number all this time and done nothing about it?’
‘On the contrary, the driver of the vehicle in question is being sought even as we speak.’
‘By whom? We came straight home from Piccadilly.’
‘We made one stop, you will recall.’
I thought. ‘Yes, you stopped to speak with a crowd of ragged street Arabs. I imagined that you were testing your disguise.’
‘Why should I test it when it had already served its purpose? As for those “ragged street Arabs,” have you forgotten the Baker Street Irregulars so quickly?’
‘I remember that they were of some use in the Drebber murder case. But surely you have not entrusted them with the task of locating this particular murderer’s cab? That is a job for Scotland Yard.’
He made a noise of derision which I found most ungentlemanly. ‘I make use of Scotland Yard only upon those rare occasions when they have stumbled across some information which I do not already possess. When it comes to laying my hands upon a witness or an article of evidence which is floating about this great city, I shall throw in my lot with Wiggins and his crew every time. Your disbelief in their abilities is shared by most people, and that is their main strength. A detective whom no-one takes seriously is a valuable tool. They located Jefferson Hope’s cab in short order; I have little doubt but that they will soon repeat their triumph in the case of cab number 5312. That’s them now, I should wager.’
The jangling of the bell-pull floated up from the floor below. Holmes unfolded himself from his seat and strolled over to the bow-window, where he stood looking down into the dust
y street, hands in the pockets of his old blue dressing-gown. ‘It’s our man, all right,’ said he. ‘I must say that it’s a relief to see the old girl standing still for a change. I am referring to the cab, Watson. There are no ladies in this case, thank heaven.’
Whilst he was speaking a small altercation had broken out at the foot of the stairs, in which I detected both Mrs. Hudson’s Scottish burr raised in outrage and the higher, cockney speech of Wiggins, the boy whom Holmes had placed in charge of his unofficial brigade of barefooted waifs, attempting to placate her. She plainly did not care for the youth’s presence in her tidy household. But accustomed as she was to such things as indoor target practice and all sorts of strange characters parading in and out of 221B, the landlady at length surrendered to this fresh invasion, and presently the tread of two distinctly different pairs of feet was heard upon the stairs. I answered the door after the first knock.
Wiggins, his round face grimy as ever despite the cleansing influence of the snow falling outside, stood grinning from ear to ear beside a large, stoop-shouldered man with a beetling brow and a great promontory of a chin dotted with circles of sticking-plaster. He was dressed for the weather in a muffler and a worn black great coat which extended nearly to the tops of his cracked boots. His hands were gloved, the ends of his fingers protruding through holes in the brown jersey material and gripping the crown of a shabby top hat which he held before him in the manner of a supplicant. A soggy red feather drooped from the band.
‘Good work, Wiggins!’ cried Holmes. ‘Here is a shilling for you and each of the others. Run along, now.’ When the boy had left, clutching the fistful of coins which the detective had given him, Holmes turned his attention to our visitor. ‘So you are the driver who eluded us so expertly this afternoon in Piccadilly. Pray come in and be seated. I am Sherlock Holmes and this is Dr. Watson, who will be taking notes during our conversation.’
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes Page 12
