Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

“You know what it means, don’t you?” he asked, his tone still reflecting the distant, incisive diction of the pure reasoner.

“I can hardly make head or tail of it. It complicates things immensely.”

“On the contrary, it simplifies them a thousand times over.”

“But my dear Holmes, how can that be possible?”

“Because now we know,” he said softly, “that someone is lying.”

I could think of nothing to say. Holmes fell back into thought, drumming his long fingers against one another until a startled expression darted across his features.

“A killing stab with a bayonet, and thirty-eight more wounds with a common pocketknife. Dear God, it is as clear as day. Where is Miss Monk?”

“I do not know. Dunlevy escorted her home yesterday. He is more taken with her than ever.”

“Is she likely to be with Dunlevy still?”

“I could not tell you. Her loathing of the fellow certainly seems to have lessened somewhat. But Holmes—”

Holmes, already in his coat, his muffler a whirl of red as he made for the door, made no reply. His haste sent a sharp sliver of unease shooting down my spine as I scrambled after him.

We set off at a rapid pace down the street, dappled everywhere with the orange light of exultant bonfires, but whether we made for Stephen Dunlevy’s abode or Miss Monk’s rooms I could not say. As we walked, Holmes stared unseeingly with his head sunk upon his chest whilst I fought to prevent myself picturing Miss Monk lying cold and open-eyed in an alleyway. Within a few minutes, we passed the now familiar sight of the Leman Street police station, its stoic lights casting icy blue shafts through their casements of marine-coloured glass. Excepting the Bow Street station, which Her Majesty considered too close to the opera house to broadcast its existence so palpably, each Metropolitan outpost proclaimed itself a haven by its shimmering cobalt lamps.

“When one considers the police presence in the East-end, it is positively unthinkable that so many lives have been lost to this madman.”

To my utmost surprise, for I had hardly noted my muttered remark had been made aloud, Holmes stopped dead in his tracks.

“What do you mean, Watson?”

“Well,” I faltered, “the security in Whitechapel must be at its most stringent in history. Every available man has been diverted to guard the area. There ought to be dozens of them at any given time—though of course I’ve no notion of how they organize their beats.”

“Beats are between one and one-and-one-half miles long, generally requiring a minimum of ten and a maximum of fifteen minutes to traverse, barring any time-consuming incident. They do not overlap, though their routes do bring them into contact at their perimeters with other constables. Stopping for any reason other than suspicion a crime has been committed is expressly forbidden, though many officers keep a flask of tea warming at a gas lamp somewhere along their path.”

He began to pace slowly beside the police station, one hand lightly beating against the adjacent brick wall. “Watson, a deranged man kills five separate women, all in the same small area of London. Instead of fleeing the scene, he remains with the corpses in a state of perfect calm and goes about the business of cutting them open. Once finished with his task, he makes his way to safety as invisibly as a ghost…No, no, no. As I have stated it, it is impossible. Fool that I am!” he cried. “Why did I not see at once that it is impossible? The alleys, the byways, the holes in the fences, the cat’s meat and the blood-strewn butcheries and the wretched light, all these factors seemed to have allowed this madman to work with impunity. And yet the acts he has committed cannot have been enabled simply by his environment. Once or twice, perhaps, luck may have been on his side, but his success at this late date beggars belief. He is cunning and ruthless. Why would he risk everything to chance?”

He was off again, at a run this time. Boarded shop windows blurred into one another as we rushed headlong up tapering corridors, finally emerging into the pulsating spectacle of Whitechapel Road on the night of the fifth of November.

Dodging past hawkers waving crude effigies labeled with the names of Guy Fawkes and Jack the Ripper, we plunged into traffic, narrowly skirting the drays, hansoms, and carts which choked the thoroughfare. Just when I began to despair of maintaining the breakneck pace my friend had set, he turned sharply left and I recognized the wooden door of the chambers Miss Monk had taken. Holmes strode to the entrance, his brow etched with disquiet.

“We face two possibilities. One is very nearly proven, and the other almost untenable. However, as it should be exorbitantly clear now even to you, my dear Watson, I have been wrong before.”

He knocked twice, then swiftly entered. Though the door was unlocked, we saw by the low firelight in the grate that the tidy room was empty.

“She could be anywhere, Holmes,” said I, more to myself than to my friend. “After all, it is—”

“The fifth of November.” He touched the top of the wide candle sitting on her table. “The wax is still soft. She left within thirty minutes.”

“What is the time?”

“Nearly two, by my watch.”

“Is she in danger, Holmes?”

“If my hypothesis is correct, she is in no more danger than you or I. However, I have not a shred of hard evidence to back me, and the only logical alternative is not a pleasant one.”

I tried with all my might to recall the name of the tavern Miss Monk had mentioned as being the first stop on many of her reconnaissance forays. “There is a pub, Holmes, around the corner from her house.”

“The Knight’s Standard, on Old Montague Street. An excellent notion, Doctor.”

The pub in question was a cheery enough watering hole with two fireplaces, one at either end of an elongated rectangle of a room with an impossibly low beamed ceiling. Through the haze of tobacco fumes, I spied a couple seated in shabby armchairs on either side of a simple table, and the female appeared to be blessed with a halo of black curls.

“There she is! She is all right,” I exclaimed.

“Thank God for that.”

“I believe that is Dunlevy,” I added forcefully, unable to forget Holmes’s interest in his proximity to Miss Monk and chafing at the fact that I could not see what was inside my friend’s mind.

“Everything is as I thought, then,” said Holmes, but the jubilation I had expected was entirely missing from his toneless voice. I had no time to question him, for Miss Monk had spied us and was peering our way as if unsure whether to hail or ignore us.

“Shall we speak to them?”

“It can hardly matter now,” he replied with the same chillingly blank inflection.

When we had started toward them, Miss Monk’s pleasure could no longer contain itself as she rushed up to us and threw her arms around Holmes.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes, I was that worried! Where the devil have you been hiding yourself? But you look awfully pale, Mr. Holmes. Don’t tell me there’s been another murder done—”

My friend stepped back with surprised civility and cleared his throat. “Nothing of that nature, Miss Monk.” He had dropped, I noted, all pretense of an assumed dialect.

“We are very relieved to see you in one piece, Mr. Holmes. You’ve found Blackstone, haven’t you?” asked Dunlevy, his clear blue eyes searching our faces with concern. “What has happened?”

My friend resumed staring into the fire while I related, briefly and hesitantly, what had occurred. Miss Monk’s face slowly grew more hopeful.

“Then…then, do you mean…if he really is dead, is it the end of this horrid business?”

“I suppose it is the end,” I answered, my eyes fixed on Holmes. “After all, he may not have known what he was doing. And the guilt must have been unspeakable; perhaps the trauma simply unhinged his mind.”