Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

“It is undoubtedly a sad circumstance which brings harm to the faultless health of the great Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” growled Mr. Rowland K. Vandervent, “but I will be damned, my good lady—and I use the word damned only in the presence of those it will affect—I will be damned if his condition prevents me from saving his character!”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Vandervent,” I said sternly. “I should like to have a word with you in private. Your gross disregard for both courtesy and Holmes’s frail state of health has been well noted, I warn you. Mrs. Hudson, I will deal with this person.”

Thanked with surreptitious glances of gratitude from both parties (neither of whom, providentially, observed the other), I proceeded with Mr. Vandervent up the stairs. I roused the coals into a blaze as he finished the few laboured steps required to propel him into our sitting room.

“I say, she isn’t a distant extraction of any of the Borgias, is she? I’ve never had such adjectives trowled in heaping mounds upon my person. What I mean to say is, Doctor,” continued Vandervent, suddenly lowering his raspy voice and glancing toward Holmes’s door, “the gawky fellow isn’t about to die on us, is he?”

“By no means!” called the detective’s piercing tenor from his bedroom.

“It is common enough knowledge,” declared Holmes when we had entered the room and Mr. Vandervent had cast himself into the armchair, “that spoken low tones, provided that the s consonant is disguised, are far more easily masked than a whisper.”

“So it’s true, then?” returned Vandervent, running his hand through his frenzied hair. “You were knocked about by Jack the Ripper?”

“I am at death’s door,” my friend replied acidly. “Therefore, I beg of you to come to the point.”

“I only mean to tell you that I am sorry about the late edition of the London Chronicle. I had nothing whatever to say about it.”

“How fascinating. I have barely finished the early morning editions. Look it up, would you, Watson?”

I cast about the chaotic room for some moments in search of the periodical in question, finally extracting it from the vortex of newsprint. The article was titled, in the usual gaudy capitals, “A MURDEROUS STRUGGLE,” and read as follows:

It has been brought to the attention of this publication that further circumstances pertaining to the infamous double event, which may enhance our knowledge of the killer whose savage acts have brought terror to our streets, have recently come to light. It was not well known before today that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the eccentric and reclusive consulting detective, was in the area upon the night of the double murder. We have learned that his time was spent in dalliance with a number of ladies of questionable vocation, consorting in the dens of vice so prevalent in those dark streets. It is also evident that it was Mr. Holmes who “discovered” the murder in Dutfield’s Yard during its very execution, and that in pursuit of an unknown suspect, he then disappeared during the time the second victim met her own hideous demise. Whether those lost minutes point the finger of suspicion at one of London’s most cloistered characters remains to be seen, but it is an established fact that Mr. Holmes returned to the site of the first murder in a state of bloody disarray. In addition, Mr. Holmes arrived without prior summons by the police at the scene of Annie Chapman’s brutal slaying three weeks ago, and the peculiar gentleman offered no satisfactory explanation of his being there. To suggest that Mr. Holmes’s self-imposed mandate to combat crime in all its forms has taken a turn against the destitute would be the lowest form of conjecture; however, we can state with greater positivity that the unconventional vigilante must be questioned to the closest degree regarding his activities and his strange foreknowledge upon the nights in question.

To my immense surprise, at the conclusion of this trash, Sherlock Holmes threw his head back and laughed heartily in his inner, noiseless fashion until he had entirely exhausted himself.

“I fail to see the humour you have, in your greater wisdom perhaps, detected,” remarked Mr. Vandervent.

“As do I, Holmes.”

“Oh, come, Watson! Really! It is quite too preposterous.”

“It is libelous!”

“It is superb. It clears up a small mystery, for this piece was written by the enigmatic Leslie Tavistock. However, it presents a fresh one, for the article is factually irreproachable. Where could Tavistock have obtained these particulars? Before the press even learned of the first murder, I had been carted off like a sack of oranges and you had left the scene. Do you imagine Miss Monk was interviewed about the events of the evening?”

“It seems very unlikely.”

“Or perhaps the regular Yarders spread the word that their peculiar amateur reinforcements frequent pubs of ill repute?”

“Even less probable.”

“I don’t imagine you’ve forgone your usual custom of appallingly florid biography and gone straight to the gutter press?”

“You may put the thought from your mind.”

“There is something about this article I do not understand,” Holmes confessed. “It is peculiarly malignant.”

“I don’t see anything so peculiar about that. Journalists rarely worry about malignancy,” Mr. Vandervent corrected him. “They are far too concerned with selling papers, you see.”

“I cannot help but think that the business of journalists is to report the news, and not to sell newspapers,” Holmes returned dourly. “Be that as it may, I cannot imagine any newsman would take it upon himself to write such rubbish without cause.”

“You have more faith in my industry than do I, perhaps because you have suffered from less prolonged exposure. Nevertheless, you are right in thinking he has a clever source. Apart from your friends and the Yard, who are diligently shutting as many open mouths as they can, it is difficult to know who could have dogged your movements that night. Speaking of your allies, I don’t suppose any of them are false?”

“I don’t suppose they are,” my friend stated flatly.

“Quite right. In that case, I believe we have exhausted the subject of your delightfully rendered portrait in the local press. Consider, then, a postcard we received the morning after. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading, but I am clearly no judge as to what will amuse you.”

Holmes’s face changed swiftly when he viewed the card, betraying his eager interest. After scrutinizing it, front and back, he tossed it to me.

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, youll hear about saucy Jacky s work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldnt finish straight off. had not time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper

“Curiouser and curiouser,” mused Holmes. “The hand at first appears to differ, but on closer examination, it is merely very hastily and agitatedly written. What do you intend to do with this beauty?”

“The papers will be falling over each other to publish it. That previous letter has already been printed in facsimile by the Daily News. Every man, woman, and child is referring to the mad devil as Jack the Ripper.”

“So I observed. What do you hope to accomplish?”

“We shall sell newspapers, no doubt. In addition, I have not despaired that the handwriting may be recognized.”

“You have been of immense help.”

“Well, it was my duty to warn you and warn you I did. I was also determined to absolve myself of blame, and I congratulate myself on both counts. I shall see myself out, thank you. It would be a waste of ten minutes to accompany me, Dr. Watson. Good day to you both.”