Lyndsay Faye - Dust and Shadow

Bennett drew a knife from his coat. “I don’t like to finish it, Mr. Holmes, but I fear I must. I have to leave, you see. I do not believe I can stay in London any longer. But I promise not to hurt you. I never hurt any of them,” he whispered as he leaned down slowly toward us.

Two revolver shots went off. Bennett fell, his knife clattering beside him. It glinted in the light of the flames pouring out of the window above. I looked down at the gun in my hand and thought, It will have to be cleaned. Then I felt myself falling just as Bennett had, and the world grew swiftly dark.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE With the Respects of the Yard

I awoke in my own room to the sight of pale November light falling on the plane tree outside my window. I touched the bandage upon my head in confusion. I was extraordinarily hungry, and there was a violin playing somewhere.

When I tried to sit up, my left side flooded with a searing pain. I felt the area gently with my fingertips. No bandage had been applied, but there was a compress—a broken rib, then, or two perhaps. Using my elbow as a prop, I gradually managed to ease myself upward, until I was seated on the edge of my bed. No sooner had I accomplished this feat than I saw that it had been entirely unnecessary, for a bell had been placed within arm’s reach upon my side table.

The bell rested on a page from the London Chronicle. The most prominently placed article’s title blared out, “AN HEROIC RESCUE.”

In a striking and dramatic turn of events, a courageous rescue has been effected by the dauntless private investigator Mr. Sherlock Holmes, whose unflagging vigilance in connection with the Whitechapel murders once caused spurious doubts to be cast upon his activities in the district. A terrifying fire set in the basement of a building on Thrawl Street speedily led to the destruction of the entire house, a development which could well have caused many fatalities if Mr. Holmes and his partner and biographer Dr. John Watson had not been present at the scene. In a daring display of valour, Mr. Holmes carried two women from the inferno, one of whom had been trapped helpless upon an upper floor. Such evidence of gallantry is welcome indeed in times such as these, when the women of the district have been given so much cause for fear and discouragement. Both Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson sustained grave injuries at the scene, and though both the ladies to whom they proffered aid lived to see the hospital, the elder, a Mrs. Bennett, regretfully passed on as a result of internal wounds sustained during the blast. The conflagration, which was swiftly contained by that adept firefighting force we have all come to admire so universally, caused only one other casualty: that of ex–Scotland Yard officer Mr. Edward Bennett, who sustained extensive chest injuries during the explosion caused by the sudden movement of the fire from the basement to the ground floor. No doubt he wished to ascertain that his mother was no longer within the deadly structure. It is fervently to be hoped that Mr. Holmes’s recovery is a speedy one, that his energies may be directed once more to that protection and defense of the populace for which he is justly famous.

I threw my head back and laughed heartily at this account, though I was forced to stop when the pain in my ribs grew greater than the joy afforded me. Replacing the page under the bell, I abandoned the bed. Dressing proved such an ordeal that I stopped after my trousers, shirtsleeves, and dressing gown, and thus fractionally clad, I made my way downstairs.

Sherlock Holmes was perched on the edge of his desk, improvising a version of a Paganini air so intricate as to be nearly unidentifiable. When he laid eyes on me, the chords shifted at once to a triumphal ode ending in a dizzyingly quick flourish of exultation as he leapt to his feet.

“Thank heaven. My dear fellow, I am indescribably happy to see you about.”

“No more than I am to see you,” I returned warmly.

“I shall lose no time in sacking the nurse. These two days have been a trial. She drones comforting platitudes and whistles popular music-hall tunes in unlikely keys.”

“Then I am grateful to have only just awoken,” I said with a laugh.

“And some time you have been about it too,” Holmes added severely. “You have a concussion, you know, and Dr. Agar was rather of the opinion your ribs were broken.”

“I am of the same opinion. I read that you were also cruelly injured.” Apart from the deeply furrowed circles beneath his eyes and a small gash on his hand, Holmes appeared the picture of health.

“Oh, so you did see that? Leslie Tavistock has been affecting a sort of servile allegiance, but he has not yet added veracity to his brief list of virtues.”

“No indeed, for he said Edward Bennett was killed by the explosion.”

“That inspired falsehood was Lestrade’s notion, as a matter of fact.”

“Was it?” I murmured.

Holmes’s grey eyes searched my face solicitously. “Here, sit down, my dear fellow. The blast, though it was terribly hard on you, served one higher purpose in the end. Every relic and artifact was burned in the house; I know, for I had searched the other rooms myself, and there was nothing in them.”

“And Mrs. Bennett is dead,” I reflected. “And her son—”

“He is already buried,” my friend said quickly. “Returned to the dust whence he came. There isn’t a trace left of the man we knew as Jack the Ripper.”

“I cannot believe it is over.”

“You must give it a little time. You’ve only been conscious ten minutes.”

“And it seems there are only five people outside the British government who will ever know the truth of the matter.”

Holmes’s eyes had been dancing merrily at me, but at this remark their fires dimmed.

“Just at the moment, there are four people.”

“Four? There are yourself, Lestrade, Dunlevy, Miss Monk, and I. Five.”

My friend suddenly concentrated very hard on the ceiling. His jaw was working, but it was some time before he could bring himself to speak.

“There are four. I am afraid that Miss Monk is not herself.”

“What do you mean?” I cried. “She was alive. She is alive!”

“Calm yourself, my dear Watson.”

“The article said nothing—”

“Bennett drugged her deeply to allow him to spirit her to his mother’s rooms. I believe he found her in a pub, doctored her drink, and, under the pretense that she was intoxicated, made away with her. That opiate dosage, whatever it may have been, in combination with inhalation of the polluted atmosphere and the nervous strain of it all, had a profound effect.”

“Do not tell me she is—”

“Watson, cease overtaxing yourself, I beg of you. She is not mad. Her memory has been affected. There are gaps. She knows many of those around her, and she understands perfectly, but she is very quiet and frequently confused.”

Holmes and I had already suffered too much at the Ripper’s hands. This news, however, struck me as I have hardly ever been struck in my life.

“It is cruel, Holmes,” I whispered through the catch in my throat. “It is far too cruel. Where is she now?”

“She left hospital yesterday and is living with Mr. George Lusk and his family in their spare room.”

“They wished to extend their charity to her?”

“Not at all. I arranged it.”

“You feel responsible,” I said numbly. “I do not blame you.”

To this day, I do not know why I said it. It was an unforgivable remark. My companion did not reply, and I cannot imagine how he could have. He merely steepled his fingers and closed his eyes.

“My dear fellow, forgive me. What you have accomplished is nothing short of miraculous. You could not have—Holmes, don’t look like that, please.” In my confusion, my eyes rested on the side table. A syringe lay where it had dropped from careless fingers, and the bottle of seven-percent cocaine solution, habitually shut in a drawer, sat beside it in plain view and empty. Nearby rested a large, official-looking envelope with a rich seal and embossed coat of arms.