Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

My friend ducked into a side street, changing our direction, but still the curious trudge followed us in the gloom.

“We are walking north on Mansel Street, and any second should pass the railway depot,” he murmured. “We have to take Aldgate High Street, and in a moment we’ll be in the City.”

“I’d prefer Westminster.”

“Baker Street is but a cab fare away from us.”

As we emerged onto Aldgate High Street very near the place where it became Whitechapel High Street, it seemed for a moment as if our troubles were over. Then the man behind us began to make his presence more keenly felt.

“Is that Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” he cried out.

The better-lit, better-populated expanse of road seemed at once a hostile landscape, for every head within hearing distance swiveled round to confront my friend’s justly famous countenance.

“Here now!” the man yelled. “That’s Sherlock Holmes, it is! Strolling down dark alleys wi’out a care in the world!”

A few bystanders, men with surly faces and no better occupation, joined our unwelcome associate and marched along behind.

“Hey! You! You’ve a great deal to answer for in these parts!”

An inauspicious grumble of assent erupted from the gathering crowd.

“Turn around and tell us all what the devil you think you’re doing in the Chapel, you bleeding pig!”

Holmes rolled his eyes at this equation of him with a Scotland Yard detective but otherwise made no sign.

“You think,” screamed the fellow, whose voice I was beginning heartily to loathe, “that you’ll get away with it? Knifing all those beauties, you think there’s no one of us with a knife for you?”

“Watson, if you happen to lay eyes on an officer before I do, just signal him, will you?” Holmes remarked, his right hand in his pocket and the other tightening its grip on his weighted stick.

“So help us, we protect our own, don’t we, lads?” cried our antagonist.

“How is your arm?”

“Good for a blow or two at best. I would welcome your revolver.”

“You’ll have to make do with my fists.” Though my eyes searched the streets for police, by a great stroke of misfortune I could see none.

“We are close enough to the Aldgate underground stop,” Holmes noted.

“What are our chances at running?”

“Poor, with your leg to consider. We’ve already walked—”

“Holmes, they don’t want me.”

“If I knew that to be true, I might take to my heels. As matters stand, you’ll have to endure my company a while longer.”

Just when we reached a crossroads, several of the gang behind us burst forward and encircled us from the front. I turned slowly round. To my dismay, nearly thirty men had joined the preposterous procession, and ten more lined up to prevent our progress.

“I don’t suppose we could have a word with them?” I asked in as easy a tone as I could manage.

“We’ll serve them as they served Catherine Eddowes!” shouted the odious little devil.

Holmes at last turned with a look of deadly resolve in his iron-grey eyes. “It is not a scheme which is likely to work, you realize.”

“Still, for lack of a better one…” I hissed.

“Gentlemen,” Holmes announced, “I have no notion of what you are pursuing, but as it appears to mean a great deal to you, I am prepared to offer my wholehearted assistance!”

This remark did not soothe the mob, but it had the distinct virtue of puzzling it. One or two people chuckled morbidly, and others raised their fists.

“You know what we’re after right enough, or you’d ha’ been walking a good deal slower, you bloody ’tec.”

“It appears that you are pursuing me, ” Holmes replied pleasantly. “But I can think of no reason for doing so unless you meant to procure my help. I am known for my skills in the art of detection. I will say this once, and once only: I have been seen in the vicinity of the Ripper because I have been striving with all my might to rid your neighbourhood of him.”

Several members of the crowd regarded Holmes with fresh interest at this defiant declaration, but their sympathy proved to be short-lived.

“You were seen!” mocked a club-wielding ruffian, starting forward. “What good is the word of a cold-blooded killer?”

“You, sir, are from West Yorkshire, I observe.”

The brute stopped in his tracks. “Here now! How in hell d’ye know that?”

“You have hunted rabbits in your time, I suppose?”

“So what if I have done,” he scowled.

“You were very near them when you did so. Have you ever been mistaken for one?”

The metaphor, apt as it was, drew laughter from several patches of the assembly while others, sensing an oblique insult, tightened their grips on their makeshift weapons and advanced spitting curses at the pair of us.

“Perhaps something a shade more conciliatory,” I suggested.

“You truly imagined I could argue our way out of this?” Holmes demanded, sidestepping so that we were back to back.

“No,” I replied quietly, turning my head, “but they have now allowed a slight gap. I am going to tackle that pockmarked lad with the shovel. When I’ve knocked him down, I fully expect you to run like the devil.”

We pivoted slowly, our eyes fixed on the hostile circle. “You are mad,” Holmes hissed, “if you think I am—” Then all at once, arresting both his speech and his movement suddenly, he caught me by the sleeve and inexplicably smiled in delight.

“Man Jack!” he cried. “What possessed you to join this misguided lot?”

I stared in astonishment. A man with an enormous frame and a livid scar running straight from his temple down across his nose and deep into his cheek stepped forward through the crowd.

“Now, I know for a fact,” he said in rumbling baritone, “that this is no night for Sherlock Holmes to be abroad in the Chapel.”

“Man Jack, I am overjoyed to see you.”

“I can’t say as I feel the same, Mr. Holmes.”

“The papers say he’s the Knife!” bellowed a surly youth.

“We’ll send him to hell this very night!”

“And what say you, Man Jack?” my friend asked. “It’s quite a little work of fiction.”

“You know as well as I do it’s the boy as can read,” he growled dismissively. “Now, be off. Or I won’t spend so long talking the next time.”

“There he is safe as a lamb,” called the villain who had started it all. “We’ve jawed long enough. I’ve a knife here, will serve him!”

“And I!” cried another.

“You’re none of you fit for proper policing,” Man Jack said calmly, but his voice reverberated through buildings. “You there! Let these fellows pass. Be off, now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. They obey me when they’ve a mind, but when they don’t, God help the man they take a grudge against.”

“My thanks. This way, Watson.”

Though their faces were scowling, and a few, including the burly Yorkshireman, ventured to spit in our direction, our opponents parted as if a curtain had been drawn.

“Who in God’s name was that fellow?” I asked in amazement.

“Man Jack? He is a prizefighter.”

“You know him from the ring, then, I suppose?”

“No indeed, my dear fellow. You’re sporting man enough to know my weight class and his ought not to intermingle.”

“He saved us from a terrible brawl for no reason I can see.”

“That is because you do not know his full name. Man Jack Hawkins has a family member in my immediate employ. I must confess, my dear fellow, when I amassed the Irregular force all those years ago, I never imagined that any of their parents would be called upon to vouch for my good name. Though God knows few enough of them have any parents.” Holmes sighed, as a wave of exhaustion seemed to pass over him. “Little Hawkins has just earned another sizeable bonus. There is a cab, my dear fellow, and if we make a dash at him, I think he shall just see us.”