Bonnie Macbird - The Devil’s Due

So, once again, I sat down with the battered tin box which had been given to me by a mysterious woman from the British Library. What might be revealed today? I opened the box and immediately my eyes were drawn to a glint of gold. A bright coin had been glued to a thick envelope sticking out from the others. I pulled it out to have a look.

The coin was old, two hundred years or more. What could it mean? Its date was long before Watson and Holmes walked the London streets. A small voice inside me said that the time was right to open the package to which this coin had adhered.

As I removed the string tied round the musty envelope, a playing card fell out. On the back was a faded design in blue. I flipped it over. It was no ordinary playing card, but a Tarot card – bearing the image of a monster with a remarkably frightening visage – horns, forked tongue and a lean, muscular body. The Devil .

And then a strange thing happened.

As I stared at it, the power suddenly went off in my flat, silencing a Vivaldi violin concerto mid- arpeggio , and plunging me into near darkness. Outside, the rainy dusk was a dim glow.

I am not the superstitious type. I got up, lit a few candles, and sat back down. I gently eased the dog-eared notebook from the envelope. On the cover, The Devil’s Due , was inscribed in Dr Watson’s distinctive, neat handwriting.

Consuming this by candlelight seemed entirely appropriate. Here is what I read.

—Bonnie MacBird

London, April 2019

‘Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together that the wonderful immensity of London consists.’

—Samuel Johnson

London could be heaven; London could be hell. I thought I knew the city well following more than eight years of adventures with my friend Sherlock Holmes, but the extremes of my adopted home had never revealed themselves to me so clearly as they did during the adventure I am about to relate.

It was in November of 1890 that Holmes faced one of the worst villains of his career, a monster responsible for a series of high profile, grotesque murders that both terrified and titillated the city. These violent deaths were strung, like so many blood-soaked pearls on a devil’s necklace.

Only Sherlock Holmes could have traced the gossamer thread that tied together anarchists and artists, politicians and prostitutes, grocers, grafters, and even royalty. But in the process, he was nearly consumed himself by the fires of hell. Or in this case, St James’s.

My name is Dr John Watson. At the time of this tale, I had been happily married to our former client Mary Morstan for close to two years, and had resumed my medical practice, now in Paddington. One icy Tuesday morning in November, Mary and I lingered in our quiet dining-room over coffee and the newspapers.

The Russian ’flu, which had kept me monotonously occupied was at last waning and no one awaited me in my surgery. The grandfather clock ticked, crisp toast cooled in its silver rack, and time stretched on. I poured myself a third cup of coffee. It had been weeks since I had seen my friend Sherlock Holmes.

Meanwhile the newspapers reported that just outside our windows, London seethed under the tumult of a rising tide of immigrants from France, Italy, and Ireland, shuddered with terror as anarchists (mainly French) set off bombs, groaned under the weight of poverty and a rising crime rate, and twisted in circles over government intrigue, royal scandal, industrialism, and ‘The Woman Question’. At the same time, the city glittered with new operas and theatrical galas, and art, music and entertainment lit up her evenings.

I flung down my paper and stared at the rain outside our window.

‘Listen to this, John,’ said Mary. ‘There’s a newly installed “Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police” – now there’s a title – named Titus Billings who “promises to make London safe from the hordes of foreign criminals flooding our city”.’