Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

“You have enjoyed your afternoon?”

“It was in many ways remarkably refreshing. A lower species of the thug genus I’ve never before encountered. I called upon Mr. Pizer and expressed my condolences that he was shortly to be named the first definite suspect in the Nichols case. I believe I may have startled him, but he has apparently been holed up in his house since the crime occurred, so he must have had some inkling that the local tide was against him. We had a very absorbing conversation about his boot-making income and the ways in which he supplements it. I think one or two remarks of mine may have offended him, for he took a swing at me, and I was forced to consign him to his wooden floor. He protested an alibi, and I expressed doubts as to its veracity. I then quit his establishment and wired Lestrade immediately his full name and address.”

“Then you think him guilty?”

“No, my dear Watson, I’m afraid I believe him innocent. Consider: John Pizer is a coward whose notion of commerce is to rob destitute women. Is he likely to commit an audacious murder? Further, if John Pizer makes a living threatening those with considerably smaller musculature than his own, would he endanger that living by endowing them with a mortal terror of dark alleys and sinister strangers? Pizer had only his own income to lose.”

“Then why did you wire Lestrade?”

“Because I can hardly recall the last time I disliked a man quite so vigourously. If we are lucky, he will be arrested for some few days, which will at the very least prevent him from roaming the streets. I am not sorry to have seen him, though,” Holmes continued thoughtfully. “He clarified a valuable opinion of which I was hardly aware before.”

“What opinion?”

“Pizer and his ilk demand attention wherever they go. I would venture to suggest that any man who performs such acts as we have observed upon Polly Nichols’s corpse, and then walks off into densely populated streets without exciting remark, is of a far more colourless mien. Merely an indication, but entirely against the tack Scotland Yard and our beloved press have set themselves upon. And now, with thanks to Miss Monk for an engrossing afternoon, let us devote our entire attention to the cut of beef upon the sideboard. Cold weather, when mixed with thuggery, does try a man’s resources so.”

CHAPTER FOUR The Horror of Hanbury Street

Two days after my friend’s encounter with Leather Apron, at half past six in the morning, my sleep was disturbed by a whimpering cry, far off yet terrible in its intensity. The next instant snapped me into wakefulness and I left my room with a hastily lit taper in my hand, anxious to determine the source of such pitiable sounds.

Nearing the bottom of the stairs, I heard, with all the drowsy confusion of the startled sleeper, the sound of Holmes’s voice intermixed with that of the unnerving siren. I threw open the door to our sitting room, and there sat Holmes, likewise hastily clad in shirtsleeves and dressing gown, holding both the hands of a ragged child who appeared to be six or seven years of age.

“I knew you to be blessed with great strength of character,” Holmes was saying to the boy. “You behaved splendidly and I am very proud of you. Ah! Just the thing. Here is Dr. Watson. You remember Dr. Watson, do you not, Hawkins?”

The ill-fed vagabond swiveled his head in alarm at the introduction of another’s presence, and I at once recognized the pale features and dark Irish curls of Sean Hawkins, one of the youngest members of Holmes’s band of street urchins, the Baker Street Irregulars.

“Hawkins,” said Holmes softly, “it is extremely important that you tell me what has happened. You wish me to help, do you not? There, now. I thought so. And I must have all the information at your disposal, yes? I know it is very difficult, but I only ask you to try. Sit next to me upon this chair—no, no, strong back, like your father, the prizefighter. Now, tell me all about it.”

“I found a woman who was killed,” said little Hawkins, his lips trembling all the while.

“I see. That is just the sort of thing I am able to solve, is it not? Where did you find her?”

“In the yard of the building next to my own.”

“Yes, you live in the East-end. Twenty-seven Hanbury Street, is it not?” said Holmes, his grey eyes meeting mine with grave urgency. “So you saw a woman who had been killed. I know you are frightened, Hawkins, but you must pretend that you have come back from enemy territory to give intelligence.”

The lad drew a deep breath. “I quit our room this morning to see if there were any leavings on the shore. When you’ve no cases to hand, I tries my luck as a mudlark. I keep a sharp stick hidden in the back yard on a hook, and I climbed up to get at it. When I looked over the fence to the next yard, I saw her. She was all in pieces,” cried the child. “Everything meant to be inside was outside.” Hawkins then burst into a fresh assault of tears.

“There now, you are perfectly safe here,” said Sherlock Holmes, sending a hand through the boy’s hair. “You were very brave to come all the way to Westminster on the back of a gentleman’s hansom, and very clever not to be caught. I am at your service. Shall I go to Hanbury Street?”

The youth nodded feverishly.

“Then Dr. Watson and I shall leave at once. On my way down, I’ll speak to Mrs. Hudson about your breakfast, and I shall tell your mother you are sleeping upon my sofa. Oh, come now. Mrs. Hudson will be only too glad to see you as soon as I inform her she is playing host to the hero of Hanbury Street. Well done indeed, Hawkins.” Holmes shot me a significant glance and ducked into his bedroom. I was dressed not half a minute after my friend, and away we rushed in the first cab we could find, after informing Mrs. Hudson that our tiny houseguest was to be treated in every way as if he had just returned from near-fatal conflicts abroad.

Our cabman delivered us to Hanbury Street, with all the haste our equine allies could muster, by the streaks of dawn’s skeletal fingers. We strode without hesitation toward a cluster of police constables, distraught residents, and ardent reporters, who veiled their enthusiastic questions under a thin veneer of shock. Their eyes lit up when they glimpsed my friend’s singular profile, but he brushed through them as if they were so many chickens.

A clean-shaven young constable guarded the greying wooden entrance to the building’s yard. “Sorry, gentlemen, but I can’t allow you through. There’s been a murder done.”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate Dr. Watson. It is the event you speak of which brings us here.”

The constable’s relief was palpable. “Right you are, Mr. Holmes. Step through this doorway and down to the yard. Inspector Lestrade will see you’re shown the…the remains, sir.”

We hastened along the dark route through the building to the yard beyond. Holmes pushed open the swinging door at the end of the musty passage, and we proceeded down a few uneven steps into an open space paved with large flat stones, grasses pushing up through every fissure. At our feet, her body lying parallel with the short fence young Hawkins had described, was the head of the murdered woman. I saw at a glance that the lad’s mortal terror had been more than justified.

“Dear God, what has he done,” Holmes muttered. “Good morning, Inspector Lestrade.”

“Good morning!” cried the wiry inspector. “Good morning, he says! What in the name of God and the devil brings you here? Murphy! Blast it all, where are you going? Never mind about that telegram. Mr. Holmes here is some kind of clairvoyant.”

“My methods are worldly enough, I assure you. As it happens, we’ve a colleague in the neighbourhood.”