Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

“Halloa, halloa, what have we here?” he cried. “Miss Monk, you are most welcome. I have spent my time—well, perhaps I had better just splash some water on my face and be with you directly. I have been in a most pernicious environment.” He disappeared for a brief period but returned looking quite his orderly self again and plunged a lean hand into the slipper which held his tobacco.

“You will excuse me, I am sure, if I light my pipe. Did this spearhead interest you? It is a very ancient object, recently the instrument of death in a very modern crime.”

All of Miss Monk’s nerves, which I flatter myself had been largely dispelled, returned at the sight of my friend. “Thank you kindly for the tea, Mr. Holmes, but I’ve already answered all the questions I could, honest I have.”

“Undoubtedly. However, I did not invite you here to interrogate you. I brought you here to ask you plainly, Miss Monk, do you feel as if you could play a part in bringing the Whitechapel killer to justice?”

“Me?” she exclaimed. “How do you expect me to help? Polly’s cold in her grave, and the other lass had her innards mucked all over the parish.”

“And I fear I must inform you, Miss Monk, that I suspect this man may continue killing until the very day that he is caught,” replied the detective. “Though it is undoubtedly in all our interests to find him quickly, I imagined your feelings for Polly Nichols might encourage you to take a more active role.”

“Really, Holmes, I cannot imagine what sort of role you mean,” I countered.

Holmes drew upon his pipe languidly, always a sign of concentration rather than of relaxation. “I propose that you enter my employment, Miss Monk. I could spend the lion’s share of my days building connections in the East-end, keeping the pulse of fresh rumour ever at my fingertips, but I am afraid I cannot afford to stretch myself so thinly. You, however, are placed in an ideal position to go unnoticed, hearing and seeing everything.”

“You’d pay me to nose? Nose on what?” Miss Monk asked incredulously.

“On the neighbourhood itself. There’s no more lucrative cover for flushing a bird than the local alehouses at which you are already known and trusted.”

Miss Monk’s emerald eyes widened considerably at Holmes’s remarkable suggestion. “But why ask a ladybird like me to spy on the Chapel? Why not use some jack or other, what’s trained to sniff about?”

“I do not think I need employ other detectives. You, Miss Monk, see more than those fellows do already. As for terms, here is an advance of five pounds for expenses, and I imagine you would do well enough on a pound a week, is that not so?”

“Would I!” cried Miss Monk, her pointed chin descending at the generous figure. “But if I’m to pitch over my daily work, how am I to explain the chink?”

Holmes considered the question. “I imagine you could tell your companions that you have arrested the attentions of a poetic and passionate West-end client who has determined to engage your services under more exclusive terms.”

This suggestion elicited a ringing peal of laughter from Miss Monk. “You’re mad, you know. I’ll be rubbish—who am I to help hunt down the Knife?”

“Is that what they’re calling him?” My friend smiled. “Miss Monk, I can think of no one better suited to assist me.”

“Well,” she said stoutly, “I’m all for it if you are. If I can help lay a hand on Polly’s killer, it’s a job well done. No more smatter hauling for me this month, gents.”

“Income garnered through theft of handkerchiefs,” Holmes murmured under his breath.

“Ah, yes,” said I. “Quite so.”

We settled that Miss Monk would confine her investigations to the neighbourhoods of Whitechapel and Spitalfields, taking note of all local speculation. She would then report to Holmes twice weekly at Baker Street, under the pretext of paying calls upon her gentleman suitor. It was a determined Miss Monk, I noted, who descended our stairs to the cab waiting at the street corner.

Holmes threw himself upon the settee as I cast about for a means to light my pipe.

“She’ll prove useful, Watson, mark my words,” he declared, tossing me a matchbox. “ Alis volat propriis, * if I am not very much mistaken.”

“She’ll come to no harm, Holmes?”

“I should hope not. Alehouses are safe as churches by comparison with the murky alleys of her usual vocation. By the way, I came by a spot of success this morning.”

“I meant to inquire. What the deuce has cat’s meat to do with the matter?”

“Although I have not yet ascertained whether Annie Chapman, for so I have discovered she was called, was tied in any way to Polly Nichols or Martha Tabram, she was nevertheless ill-starred enough to fall victim to the Whitechapel killer, who made off with possibly the most repellent token I have ever heard spoken of.”

“I recall as much.”

“Well, then. What does that aforementioned token suggest to you?” Holmes’s eyes shone and the twitch of his brow gave me every hope that he was onto something.

“Do you mean to tell me you have found a clue?”

“My dear Watson, flex your mental musculature and see if you can make note of the remarkable fact which Lestrade, in his horror at the proceedings, has seemingly not yet grasped.”

“Every one of these vile facts is remarkable enough to me.”

“Oh, come, Watson, do make an effort. You are the killer. You dispatch your victim. You open her up, and remove her womb.”

“Well, of course!” I exclaimed. “What the devil did he do with it?”

“Bravo, Watson. The blackguard certainly did not amble down the lane with it in his trouser pocket.”

“But the cat’s meat?”

“This morning I found, because I was looking for it, a quantity of cat’s meat hidden beneath one of the stones in the yard of number twenty-seven, which must make all clear for you. You recall my interest in whether Mrs. Hardyman of twenty-nine Hanbury Street, ground floor, front room, had done a brisk business that morning?”

“I see! He purchased a package of cat’s meat.”

“Excellent, my dear Watson. You make me feel as if I were there.”

“He then hid the cat’s meat, placing the organ in the bloody package and making off down the street, free of suspicion.”

“You shall master the deductive arts yet, my boy.”

“But who is he?”

“Mrs. Hardyman’s riveting description was as follows: ‘A sort of regular-looking chap, middle-sized, very polite in his ways.’ She thought she had seen him before but could not recall where or whether she had ever previously sold him cat’s meat. You see our earlier inference is confirmed; he is apparently not a man who imposes himself upon the senses. And this cat’s-meat business indicates premeditation yet again, which is more than a little disturbing to my mind.”

“What the devil could he have wanted with such a gruesome prize?”

“I cannot begin to tell you. Well, at any rate, it is certainly the best lead we’ve dug up, and while Miss Monk pans the silt, we shall see if we cannot add some fresh particulars to this shabbily dressed fellow, whose taste in souvenirs is as indecent as it is incomprehensible.”

CHAPTER SIX A Letter to the Boss

The next morning, I was interrupted whilst stoking the fading morning fire in our sitting room by a resounding exclamation of disgust from Sherlock Holmes, who sat transfixed with a newspaper upon the breakfast table in front of him and an arrested coffeepot in his hand.

“Confound the man! Well, if the fool wishes to waste his labour on squaring the circle, as it is said, we can do nothing about it.”

“What has happened?”