Encounters of Sherlock Holmes Page 6

  I’d read about the great man. Who hadn’t? The papers were always full of his exploits and I never missed any of Dr Watson’s little melodramas in The Strand. Violence, jeopardy and derring-do, just the thing to get a chap’s pulse racing.

  Of course, violence, jeopardy and derring-do were the last things I wanted when I became a journalist. Yes, there were newspapermen who thrived on such experiences, I just wasn’t one of them.

  I became a journalist for the money.

  There, I’ve admitted it and even today I am not ashamed. Not everyone read the news for grisly murders, blazing conflagrations or political wrangling. Many of our readers headed straight for the gossip columns. They wanted to wallow in the scandal and intrigue of high society; to be titillated by the hypocrisy, illicit liaisons and outright debauchery of those who ought to know better.

  No matter what my colleagues at The Examiner thought of our more sensational, and sometimes downright steamy, content, my column helped keep our circulation figures healthy and Mr Applegarth off our backs. It may not have been one of the most honourable ways to earn a living, but as long as there were loose-lipped servants or unscrupulous socialites in the city, my position at The Examiner was secure. I’d spent long enough waiting on the great and good of London. Now they would serve me.

  The chain of events that led to the near demise of Sherlock Holmes began on 21 October 1902. It was late afternoon and I was putting the finishing touches to my next column. I have to admit I was struggling to concentrate. My head was pounding thanks to the flagons of mild I’d been forced to consume the night before. I’d known that if Albert Wilkes became merry enough, the most indiscreet butler in Belgravia would soon start spilling his mistress’s secrets. I’d just not prepared myself for the man’s tolerance to alcohol: he had the constitution of a particularly resilient ox. Thankfully, by the time I helped the old soak home — a task all the more difficult as I was seeing double myself — I had my story. Lady Mary Crawford would wake red-faced in the morning and her lover would probably be looking for a new position. All I had to do was make sense of my increasingly erratic notes.

  I was reaching the end of my report when something slapped down on my desk, causing me to start.

  “Have you read this?” Henrietta stood in front of me, cheeks flushed with excitement and hazel eyes dancing. I recognised that look. I should, it had got me into enough scrapes in the last few months.

  I picked up the periodical she had tossed before me. “The Adventure Weekly?” I remembered the infamous little rag from my Chester Place days, one of the other boys had positively devoured each number, but I had no idea it was still being published. A quick flick through its badly printed pages told me that nothing had changed. Tales of murder most horrid and terror to curl your toenails. All pretty lurid stuff. “What’s a well-to-do young lady like you reading a penny blood like this, Hettie? Need a little more excitement in your life?”

  “If I were that well-to-do I doubt I’d spend so much time in your company, George Rayne,” she shot back, a familiar smile tugging at the corner of those devastating lips. “Look at the cover.”

  I obliged and flipped back to a garish illustration of a maiden in distress—pretty standard fare for the Weekly. A monstrous figure was looming out of the shadows, arms raised, ready to bring bloody death raining down on its terrified victim.

  “‘The Demon Slasher Strikes Again,’” I read, putting on my best music-hall voice, “‘The Terror of Tottenham’. Yes, very good. Worthy of Dickens himself.”

  Hettie snatched the magazine out of my hands, her pretty face creased in a frustrated frown.

  “You must have read the reports,” she snapped, “of the Demon Slasher?”

  “Of course I have. Applegarth’s been running them every day for a fortnight. ‘Mysterious Stranger Stalks Seven Sisters’, ‘Plucky Hero Slashed by Hideous Phantom’. I’m not surprised The Weekly has picked up on it. It’s Springheeled Jack all over again.”

  The first attack had hit the headlines two weeks previously, on a cold Thursday evening. Hilda Gledhill, a twenty-four-year-old washerwoman, had been returning home from work when she’d heard a noise behind her. She’d turned to see a man towering over her, obscenely long arms raised above his head. She screamed, barely noticing the flash of a blade before it was too late. The razor had sliced across her front, cutting through her clothes and opening her chest. Hilda had fallen back in fear, convinced she was about to meet her maker, but the stranger had leapt over her cringing body and fled into the night, leaving nothing but maniacal laughter hanging in the air.

  The following night another woman, Mary Waddington, was assaulted in the adjoining street, again by a razor-wielding rogue wearing a long, heavy greatcoat. For the next week not a night passed without a fresh appearance of the fiend the papers were soon calling the “Demon Slasher”. I glanced down at the illustration of the brute on the front of The Adventure Weekly. The artist had perfectly captured the grisly description given by the phantom’s many victims. A tall, gaunt fellow with ghastly features: a thin cruel mouth, a nose worthy of Mr Punch and wide owl-like eyes that seemed to burn with infernal fire.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. Where you and I have index fingers, the monster was said to have long, curved blades. No wonder the poor people of Seven Sisters had begun to live in terror of nightfall, although none of this explained why Hettie was so agitated.

  “Don’t you see, George?” Hettie said, a worrying glimpse of eagerness flashing across her eyes. “This is my chance.”

  “Your chance for what, exactly?”

  “To prove my worth to Applegarth once and for all.”

  She paused for effect, placing her hands on her hips and thrusting out her chest theatrically.

  “I’m going to catch the Slasher!”

  This was worse than I feared.

  “You are?” I queried, knowing full well I wouldn’t like the answer to my next question. “And how exactly are you going to do that?”

  Hettie perched herself on my desk and gave me her most winning smile.

  “That’s where you come in...”

  My headache suddenly felt a lot worse.

  * * *

  I knew from the moment I met Hettie Stead that she would be the death of me. Up to that point my life had been proceeding according to plan. I’d used my contacts to sell my first story, secured my desk at The Examiner and greased enough palms to keep the gossip columns full. I was happy, filed my stories mostly on time and looked forward to frittering away my pay packet at the weekend. An easy life, that’s all I wanted.

  Chasing violent men twice my size through moonlit backstreets had never been part of the deal.

  So why did I find myself doing just that? Oh, yes. Hettie.

  My quarry tore down the lane, heavy boots pounding against the pavement. The face that glanced over his broad shoulder was not a handsome one. Piggy eyes stared out from beneath a thick brow, ragged whiskers erupting from a nose that had been broken one too many times.

  Usually, trying to apprehend such a rogue would be the last thing on my mind. I mean, what exactly was I going to do with him if I succeeded? This was a man I’d just seen kicking another poor soul to death. I was sure it was only the element of surprise that had prompted him to flee in the first place. If he had taken the time to evaluate his pursuer, he’d soon have realised that I was no threat.

  And yet Hettie had used that tone I never seemed able to ignore, a tone developed from years of expecting people to do what they were told.

  “Get after him, George.”

  So I did.

  My legs were burning as Broken Nose darted left, barrelling down the alley that ran along the back of Birstall Road. Even if I weren’t still suffering from the excesses of the previous evening, my body wasn’t built for this kind of punishment.

  The only thing that kept me going was the thought of telling Hettie I’d let him escape, a prospect considerably more terrifying than the thought of
wrestling this chap to the floor.

  Thankfully, for once the universe seemed to smile down upon me. As Broken Nose reached the end of the road my salvation strode into view. A policeman, on his beat, crossing the junction ahead. God bless London’s bluebottles.

  Broken Nose spotted the newcomer and scrambled to a halt, not knowing where to run. Unfortunately, his indecision was so sudden that I didn’t have time to react. Still running full pelt, I barged into my prey, knocking him flying and tumbling to the pavement myself. A boot smashed into my shoulder as Broken Nose tried to get away, my second stroke of luck as I’m pretty sure he had been aiming at my face. The sudden burst of pain stunned me for a second, but my part in his arrest had been played. Broken Nose had been well and truly nabbed by the long arm of the law.

  “Calm down lad,” the burly policeman was shouting even as he slammed Broken Nose into a brick wall. “What’s all this about?”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong, guv,” the villain growled, struggling against the officer’s grip. I knew differently.

  “He’s lying, constable,” I wheezed, dragging myself back to my feet. “We saw him beating a man back on Greenfield Road. There were three of them, all laying into the chap.”

  “We?”

  “Me and my friend, Hettie.”

  “And where is this Hettie, sir?”

  “Back with the victim. He’s badly —”

  A scream cut me off mid-sentence. A girl’s voice. Hettie’s voice.

  No! I should never have left her alone.

  * * *

  “Hettie!”

  The plan had been predictably foolhardy. The Slasher had so far attacked eight women and two men, always between dusk and midnight. The police had failed to apprehend any suspects and tensions were running high along the terraced streets of the area. No one had been killed, but folk were understandably nervous about being on the streets at night.

  Not so Henrietta Stead. She had decided to trap the Slasher by offering herself as bait. A young woman alone and vulnerable, waiting beneath the lamppost on the corner of Roselyn Road, a treat no self-respecting, razor-blade-fingered maniac could resist.

  My job was to lie in wait, ready to pounce on the criminal as he struck. Simple, if reckless, traits shared by most of Hettie’s schemes.

  What we hadn’t expected was happening across a bunch of rogues kicking the living daylights out of a chap beneath the selfsame lamppost. I’d been all for turning about and returning to the safety of the offices of The Examiner, but Hettie wasn’t having any of it. Her defiant yell had scattered the mob and I had taken off after Broken Nose, leaving my friend alone with a badly beaten man.

  Alone and vulnerable.

  If anything had happened to her...

  Accompanied by the sound of police whistles I tore back down Birstall Road, turning into Greenfield, already fearing the worst.

  Then I saw Hettie, standing where I’d left her, the bodies still at her feet.

  Wait a minute. Bodies? Plural?

  “Hettie,” I wheezed as I ran to her side, “what happened? I thought I heard you...”

  The second body—the new body—let out a groan.

  “George,” she gasped, turning to me, a lock of her usually immaculate russet-brown hair hanging loose against her pale face, “he grabbed me as I was examining this unfortunate fellow.” I glanced from the moaning figure to the man I’d hoped we had saved from the beating. It was obvious that we had been too late.

  “What did you do?” I asked, pulling her into the gaslight to check for any razor-marks. Thankfully, while she looked a little dishevelled, my impetuous friend seemed unhurt.

  “Why, hit him with this of course.” Hettie raised the velvet chatelaine bag that usually hung from her waist. I took it from her and, surprised by its weight, flicked open the clasp.

  “Since when have you taken to carrying around half a brick in your purse?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  “Since I’ve been offering myself up as a lamb for the slaughter,” came the reply. “Do you think I’d put myself in peril without a means to defend myself?”

  “I thought I was your means to defend yourself?”

  The look I received for that comment told me everything I needed to know.

  “What’s going on here?” said a gruff voice behind me. I turned to see my fortuitous policeman from Seven Sisters Road, accompanied by a further two officers.

  “My friend was attacked,” I explained.

  “By the Demon Slasher no less,” Hettie cut in, her nose held high in victory, “who I have single-handedly managed to apprehend.”

  I couldn’t help but think that the word “single-handedly” was aimed squarely in my direction.

  “I hate to disappoint you, young lady,” came a voice somewhere near our feet, “but I am no demon. I was merely attempting to stop you destroying vital evidence by moving the body.”

  The befuddled policeman pushed past me to help Hettie’s victim to his feet. The stranger took the officer’s arm gratefully, rising shakily to his feet, a trickle of blood running down from an angry-looking graze on his high forehead.

  “Then who are you?” I asked, putting myself between Hettie and the fellow.

  “I, sir, am Sherlock Holmes.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Hettie was still apologising. Once the police had taken our statements, she had insisted that we take Holmes to the hospital to be checked over, but the detective refused. He had, however, been persuaded into accepting an early supper in a nearby hotel.

  Hettie had taken this as evidence of her powers of persuasion, but I couldn’t help but notice that Holmes had only agreed when she revealed she had already interviewed one of the Slasher’s victims. I must admit it had come as news to me. Hettie had obviously been planning tonight’s activities for days.

  “Beatrice Kelly was the fourth woman to be attacked,” Holmes was recalling, staring intently at my colleague, “on the Chiltern Works.”

  “That’s right,” Hettie replied, buzzing with excitement. “On Sunday the fifth. Her story matched the others exactly. The Slasher appeared out of nowhere when she was walking home.”

  “She was injured?”

  “Not seriously. Apparently, she threw up her hand to protect herself and the blade passed through her thick sleeve, only scratching her arm beneath.”

  “A lucky escape,” Holmes mused. “And you believe her account?”

  Hettie frowned. “Well, she showed me the clothes she was wearing at the time. They were cut to ribbons.”

  “And the scratch upon her arm?”

  “Healed, but still visible.”

  “Why wouldn’t Hettie believe her?” I asked, only to be ignored. I was beginning to feel like the proverbial gooseberry.

  “So you are investigating the Slasher, Mr Holmes?” Hettie asked, unable to keep the obvious hero worship from her voice.

  “It’s true I have accepted the case,” Holmes replied, taking a sip from his glass of medicinal brandy. “Usually I wouldn’t give much credence to such sensationalism, although I have been following the story in the morning papers, including your own.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interjected, “how did you know we are journalists?”

  Holmes finally looked at me, although his expression was of complete bemusement.

  “Mr Rayne, while I have received a blow to the head, I am not deaf,” Holmes replied coldly, leaving me none the wiser.

  “You told Constable Terry who we were,” prompted Hettie, her look warning me not to embarrass her. “And who we worked for. Remember?”

  “Oh, yes.” I nodded as if it had been obvious all along. “I just assumed it was part of your turn.”

  Holmes’ face darkened.

  “My... turn?”

  “You know, your act.” My head knew I should stop talking, but my mouth had yet to take the hint. “Impressing us with your observations and deductions.” I leant in, feigning an air of brotherly cons
piracy, hoping Holmes would see in me a kindred spirit rather than a young fool woefully out of his depth. I’m ashamed to say I even added a wink. “I’ve read Dr Watson’s stories. I know how this works.”

  “Do you indeed?” If Holmes’ tone had been frosty before, it was positively Antarctic now. “What a relief not to have to impress anyone, especially you.”

  I laughed and leant back in my chair, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the baleful glare that Hettie was no doubt casting over me. I willed myself to shut up, realising I’d gone too far, knowing that no good would come of continuing the conversation. At this point in the proceedings Georgie-boy needed to be seen and not heard.

  “Besides, I doubt there’s little you could deduce from me anyway.”

  Georgie-boy was an imbecile.

  Holmes smiled, although the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

  “You’re right. Nothing whatsoever. You, Mr Rayne, are a closed book. Save for the fact that you overslept this morning and were no doubt late for work. If I was performing my turn I would probably enquire if you enjoyed your lunch of beetroot sandwiches and advise you to purchase a new pen.”

  Yes, yes, I thought, forcing myself to grin like idiot, very good. You’ve put me in my place. Shall we return to the mystery in hand now? Unfortunately it appeared that while Sherlock Holmes was a man of rare talents, his abilities didn’t include mind reading.

  “Then there is the question of what led a footman such as yourself to leave service and move to Fleet Street in the first place? Or why you have never made your feelings known to the woman you love?”

  I have no idea how long I sat there, feeling my cheeks colour and my heart sink. It felt as if the entire world had paused, waiting for a witty retort worthy of a man in my profession. I wouldn’t say I hated Holmes at that moment, but I’d be lying if the thought of wiping that smug sneer off his grey face didn’t cross my mind.

  The detective held my gaze for a second longer than was tolerable and turned his attention back to Hettie, who, to her credit, was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

  “Where was I? Ah yes,” Holmes continued, barely pausing for breath, “I have been hired by a guild representing the local businesses of the area. It appears the nocturnal activities of the so-called Slasher are having rather a negative effect on trade. The streets of South Tottenham are considered too dangerous to walk alone.”