‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘Only kitchen maids who were going to tell their mistresses. Prostitutes who held back their secrets.’
‘You liked it,’ I told him, trying to sit up. My stomach hurt so much, and I could barely catch my breath.
‘Aren’t you clever?’ he said, surprised. ‘No, not you. Did Mr Holmes tell you all this?’
I wasn’t sure. True, what I had come up with was half deduction, but also half guesswork. It just so happened my guesses were right. Was this how Mr Holmes worked? Deductions and clever guesses?
Mary’s eyes were fluttering.
‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘He’s so close now. He is in the lane outside. He will be here soon. Please, tell me it all. I have to know.’
‘That look in their eyes as you slide in the knife, Mrs Hudson,’ he said to me. ‘Their own blood dripping to the floor as they watch. Looking at you, knowing they will die, but not yet, not until you decide they will—that’s power, too, Mrs Hudson. Although I admit it’s not quite as good as destroying their minds. I have always loved watching someone slip into that moment of destruction. Which path will they choose? Anger, sorrow?’
He stepped towards me, his pale eyes burning, the gun wavering in his hand. He had to tell someone.
‘Why you?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Why am I telling you this?’
‘People always tell me things,’ I said, pulling myself up, hanging on to the table. I held his gaze calmly.
‘Sometimes they begged, sometimes they pleaded. Sometimes they became autocratic and ordered me to stop. That always made me laugh! And sometimes they offered me things. I have been offered fabulous jewels, and women’s bodies, men’s bodies, and huge amounts of money.’
‘I can’t imagine that would appeal to you.’ Behind him, Mary’s eyes opened. She slowly wiped the blood away from her face, and glanced down at her dress. She was awake, but was she aware? Could she help? Because truth to tell, I had run out of moves to play now. I had reached the end of my game, and I had no idea how to win this. The only ending I could see was with the two of us dead.
‘You should know,’ he said to me. ‘Now it’s about to end for you too. There’s no real loyalty in the world, Mrs Hudson. No love. No one would die for anyone else. Romantic novelists’ claptrap.’
He’d never loved, never touched, never had a moment’s affection. He had been damaged and never saved.
‘Blood’s different,’ he told me. ‘It never lies. It’s real, when it’s warm and sticky on my hand. The secrets were important, the secrets were life, but the blood—I didn’t want it at first. He insisted.’
‘Who?’
‘Him,’ he said, as if it were obvious. Did this figure even exist? Had the solicitor imagined a force driving him onwards to commit even worse acts? I was no longer sure who he meant by ‘he’. Mr Holmes, his guide, or someone else entirely?
‘Once the blood was there, my heart beat like a lover’s, and I wanted more. Secrets and blood, the two sweetest, truest things in all the world.’ He was lost now. No one was coming. Mary was pulling herself up on the bookcase, hand over hand, but how could she help? He was so fast, so strong.
‘I see.’
‘Life is full of secrets,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve always known the biggest one. There is no love.’ This was it. He had gone as far as he could go. The end was here. He looked up at the garden and knew it was empty.
I had moved, just slightly, whilst he talked, to keep his back to Mary, and now I realized I had made a mistake. He was between me and the garden. There was no escape route now.
‘Is he here? Is he listening? Please tell me he’s here,’ he said, looking at me. He seemed so tired, and I swear there was a tear in his eye. ‘It needs to be over now.’
‘Soon,’ I promised. ‘It’ll all be over soon, for both of us.’
‘Soon,’ he mocked. ‘See, I was right! They didn’t even come for you. Not even his own wife. He was right. Time to end this.’ He raised the gun so I could see directly down the barrel. Mary couldn’t see, blinded by her own blood. Play dead, Mary. Maybe you can escape if he believes he’s already killed you.
‘Do you know why I blackmailed women? Why I killed them?’
‘No,’ I said, lying. I had realized that ages ago. Just for the same petty reason all the Law and the Church and the men in charge were against us. The same stupid lie.
Please, Mary, don’t try again, he’ll kill us both. I wished this so hard, as Mary began to move, but I didn’t dare speak, or even look at her.
‘You’re so weak!’ he announced. ‘So feeble. You can’t even think straight. You never knew, none of you ever knew. As for fighting—you couldn’t! You all just whimpered and cried and begged. You, all you women, you made it all so easy!’ he exulted.
It all came back to me. The patronizing smiles. The men who told me ‘not to worry my pretty little head’. The doors that were closed to me, the rules that barred me, the small, pointless role I was forced to play in my own life. I thought of all the women who were afraid and alone, all the women he had destroyed, all the women he had been allowed to destroy, and I thought to myself: I can fight. I can fight the same way he does. He destroys with words—well, I can do that too.
‘All those women weren’t enough of a challenge,’ I said to him.
‘No, not quite. I needed a game worth the playing.’
‘But Mr Holmes didn’t play!’
‘Oh, he will. I have been assured he will. I thought tonight was the final move, but it was only the beginning of the end. The check before checkmate. Remove the queen, leave only the king.’
‘Holmes?’ I said, disbelievingly. ‘He’s not the one here now, is he?’
‘What do you mean? You said he was coming!’ he cried. His grip was tightening on that gun. It may not have been a weapon he used often, but he seemed to like the feel of it in his hand more and more.
‘I lied,’ I told him, with as much contempt as I could muster. ‘Mr Holmes didn’t follow the clues. He knows nothing about you. I followed the clues. I came tonight, and I came alone. Sherlock Holmes is not coming.’
‘You’re just the housekeeper. You’re nothing. You are background detail!’
‘Yes, I was in the background, and standing there, I have watched. I have listened. I have learnt. Mr Holmes, your great adversary, found the puzzle too boring, so he passed it on to me, his housekeeper.’ I stood up straight, my anger blazing, daring him to kill me. I poured all the scorn I was capable of into my voice. ‘Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Get Sherlock Holmes’ attention? Like a boy sitting at the back of the class, raising his hand and begging, “oh please, sir!” whilst the teacher ignores him? You just weren’t clever enough, I’m afraid. Even I’m bored by you now.’
‘Stop it!’ he screamed.
‘So this is your final battle, is it?’ I demanded. ‘Go on, shoot me, forget her, kill me, but I swear I’ll make you suffer before I die, you miserable little worm of a man. Not with the great Mr Holmes, not even with Dr Watson, but with an ordinary little housekeeper. A woman. What an ending for your game.’
The hammer of the gun clicked as he drew it back, but I would not flinch. I would not close my eyes. I stared into his eyes. He didn’t understand. He was shaken. He was…afraid! I’d had my moment of triumph, even as I was certain I was about to die.
In the background Mary had stood up, picked up the chair she had been bound to, and with a great cry, swung it round at his head. This time it connected, knocking him sideways, knocking the gun out of his hand, and he staggered against the desk. The gun fired as it hit the floor, but the bullet struck the window and it shattered. Mary fell backwards, against the bookcase again, this time grabbing onto a shelf—but something clicked and the bookcase began to move. She had, unawares, revealed a secret door.
‘Well, look what I found!’ Mary breathed, as she straightened up again.
I stepped towards her, reaching out for her, and saw what she saw. Behind the bookcase
was a secret room, at least five feet by five feet. The walls were covered with shelves, and the shelves were full to bursting with files and boxes and pictures.
His secrets. His precious secrets.
Seeing it revealed like that pushed him too far. He half crawled, half lurched into the room, gathering the papers to him. I ignored him, rushing to Mary’s side.
‘Are you all right?’ I demanded. ‘He shot at you!’
‘No, it’s fine; it just missed me, I just hit my head on the bookcase. But look, Martha!’
I walked up to the open door of the hidden room, and looked around at its overflowing records.
I live in a house of secrets. Dozens of secrets, told day after day. All those people who climbed the seventeen steps up to Mr Holmes, and said to him, ‘Help me, rescue me, save me—but no one must know’. And Mr Holmes and John took those secrets and liberated them and destroyed them, and let the light shine into the darkest corners, and saved their clients. All secrets were uncovered in 221b Baker Street, eventually.
But here, in this house, were secrets too. Secrets recorded, stolen, hidden, kept to fester and rot and burn in the dark. Another house of secrets, but this house was where despair and death and darkness spread.
He stood there, staring into this room full of lives already destroyed, and he smiled. His eyes shone like a lover’s, he glowed with desire for those secrets.
‘He’ll be so impressed,’ the solicitor murmured. ‘He’ll be so proud. Look at the power I have!’
I was no longer certain of whom he spoke. Holmes, or his own mysterious mentor? Instead, I moved away, back to the desk, and motioned Mary towards the French window. Time to end this ridiculous farce. No more talking.
‘No, no more,’ I said to him. ‘This ends, here and now.’ I picked up the oil lamp from the desk. It was heavy, and the oil splashed about in it. The lamp was almost full. He turned and saw me, and knew what I intended to do. He jumped up, snarling, meaning to rush me and strike me down once more, but instead I threw the lamp towards the room of secrets. It shattered, the oil spreading over his shirt, then pooling into the room full of dry, dusty old papers. Amongst the oil, the wick lay, the flame sputtering.
I had only meant to burn the papers, I swear. I thought he’d get out. He was supposed to run!
The draught from the window blew in and caught the flame. For a moment I thought it would go out, then it flickered, grew stronger and brighter, and then leapt up, hungry for the fuel all around it.
‘Oh God,’ I breathed. He was covered in oil, he should have moved away, but instead he cried, and reached out for his precious papers. His secrets, all those letters and papers, his only reason to live, his pride and joy, about to burn. He could not help himself. Without them he did not exist. He walked into the flames.
‘Martha!’ Mary called. I dashed to the window, but I could hear him cry out. The flames spread up and over and around that room, burning the papers and files and pictures, and in the centre he stood, seemingly untouched, gathering scraps of paper to his chest, scraps of scorched paper.
‘Run!’ I cried to him, but he would not. He was nothing without his secrets. He was just an empty man, losing the only game he could ever play. He reached for a scrap as it floated past him—and the oil on his shirt finally caught flame.
I remembered the Whitechapel Lady, and Adam Ballant. I remembered blood. I remembered loss, and pain. I remembered what he had done, and I remembered that he had enjoyed it. Calmly, I stepped out of the window, into the garden, into the night.
His house of secrets had claimed one last victim.
CHAPTER
21
The Suspicion of Lestrade
The cab was still waiting for us as I slipped out of the garden door and into the street, Mary beside me. All that had taken only an hour. The driver was staring at the flames beginning to show above the fences. The entire house was going to burn.
‘Baker Street, please,’ I said calmly to him, as he watched the fire. He turned to look at me.
‘Was that you? Did you do that?’ he demanded, gesturing towards the burning house. Mary clambered inside the cab.
‘Of course not, I’m just an old woman,’ I told him. ‘Baker Street. Two-two-one-b Baker Street,’ I repeated, but he did not move.
‘We’re making a daring escape!’ Mary called from inside the cab.
‘Daring escape—oh, I see, Baker Street!’ he realized. ‘You work for Mr Holmes?’
‘If you like,’ I said wearily, climbing into the cab.
Mr Holmes was well known amongst the cabbies of Baker Street. He was forever ordering them to follow some other cab, or leading them on some improbable journey to the unlikeliest of places. It seemed easier to use that reputation.
We set off slowly, through the half-built homes of Richmond. It would be dawn soon, but for now, the sky was still an intensely dark shade of navy blue. I stared out of the window into London, passing by—safer now, but who would know? From somewhere I could hear clanging bells. The fire engines were already on their way. And then the story would be spread through the telegraph wires, told over the telephone, printed in the papers— but no one would ever know what really happened.
I sat back, looking at Mary. Her face was still covered in dried blood. I took out my handkerchief and tried to clean it off. She smiled shakily at me, and I smiled back. After all that, we were alive.
‘He deserved it,’ Mary said firmly to me. ‘He deserved to die like that.’
I wanted to feel guilt. I wanted to feel remorse. I wanted to feel even just a trace of sorrow for the man that had just died, and the part I had played in his death, but there was nothing there. There was no triumph either, no gloating. Not even satisfaction. Just a feeling that now the job was done, and I could stop. There was just—a blankness. Had I forgotten how to feel?
‘Perhaps he should have had a fair trial,’ I ventured.
‘Do you honestly think he could have had a “fair trial”?’ Mary cried indignantly. ‘What with all those secrets he had? He would have had the prosecuting barrister and the judge and half the jury and the police and, for all we know, the Home Secretary in his pocket. Who would have dared testify against him, and ruin themselves in court? In the end, he would have just walked away.’
‘And yet, to die like that…’
‘Listen,’ Mary told me, sitting up and taking the handkerchief off me. ‘I knew it was a trap, as soon as I got into the carriage. I thought, this is stupid, Sherlock would never send for me like this. But I went into that man’s home anyway, because I wanted to know. I wanted to ask him questions.’
‘I can understand that,’ I agreed, watching her. Dawn was rising, not a dull grey as usual, but as an opalescent sheen that lit up Mary’s face.
‘So I asked him, and he wanted to tell. No one had ever known what he had done, and he wanted to boast. Don’t we all want someone to know how clever are we are, otherwise what’s the point of being clever? So he told me.’
She shivered, and looked away, into the half-dark of the morning.
‘He’d done horrific things,’ she said softly. ‘Those he’d driven to suicide, those murdered by others because of what he said, those he murdered himself. He told me things I will never tell you, because no one should speak words like that ever again. He gave those women slow, painful, agonizing deaths, and he gave others perpetual pain, and he enjoyed every last second of it. You heard some of it yourself! I heard far more.’
She turned back to me, her face fierce and strong in the first of the light.
‘He had an easy death compared to them. He deserved much worse.’
She was right. Yet still I felt empty now, a drained and echoing shell. Outside, people had started to stir, to go about their daily business, calling to each other and walking about, and I felt oddly disconnected from them, as if either they or I weren’t real. I did not know how to get back to my normal life after what I had done. It had all gone now, the excitement, the chall
enge, the stimulus, the danger, and it felt like nothing was left behind.
For the first time I understood why Mr Holmes used his 7 per cent solution of cocaine.
I thought back. The solicitor had said there was someone who had guided him, pointed him towards Mr Holmes, nurturing his darkest urges. Was this person real, or just another aspect to his personality, his own personal Jekyll?
‘We can’t tell anyone,’ Mary said suddenly.
‘About tonight, or all of it?’ I asked. ‘I wasn’t planning on telling anyone what we did tonight. I don’t think it reflects well on us.’
‘All of it,’ Mary said seriously. ‘All those secrets. We know so much; if we went to the police, we’d have to tell everything we knew. All about the Whitechapel Lady and Adam Ballant and Irene, and then everything would come out in the inquest and end up in the papers and everything we worked for would just fall around our ears.’
‘That’s not all,’ I added. ‘Did you hear him say there was someone else in the background? Someone with an interest in Mr Holmes?’
‘Do you think he was real?’ Mary asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I mused. He had mentioned a name in his ramblings, just the merest murmur under his breath that he hadn’t wanted me to hear. But my hearing was excellent. ‘Perhaps not. But if so that could be anybody, and if he knows what we did…’
‘He could take revenge on us.’
‘Use us to take revenge on Mr Holmes,’ I interjected. What was the name? Moore? Morris? ‘If this person believed Mr Holmes carried out tonight’s work, then killing us would be a suitable response. No, you’re right. No one must know.’
I stared out of the window again. No one would know what we had done—both the good and the bad. We had been working as much in the dark as the solicitor had.
I’d never even found out his real name. I don’t suppose it mattered.
‘I’m so tired,’ Mary said sleepily, resting her head on my shoulder.
‘I’ll ask the cab to drop you off at home,’ I said to her.
All Roads Lead to Whitechapel Page 24
