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alexs_storybook) wrote2013-04-01 11:40 am
alexs_storybook) wrote2013-04-01 11:40 am
Entry tags:
FIC: OEAM Big Bang: The Case of the Stolen Heart , Chapters 8-14
Title: The Case of the Stolen Heart
Author: alexcat
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Type: General Fiction
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, literary or historical, though the original story is my own creation.
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of brutally murdered bodies.
Beta: Larry
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson
Archive: OEAM, Alex's Story Book, Ao3
Author’s Note: This is my 2013 OEAM Big Bang
Spoilers: No
Summary: Holmes and Watson take on London's most famous unsolved murders.
~~~~
Chapter Eight – A Chat with the Police
I set up a time to talk to Assistant Commissioner Anderson. He knew who Holmes was and seemed to have no objections to our investigation even if he did not seem overly enthusiastic.
“Are there suspects that Holmes and I do not know of?”
“We have many suspects from our door to door canvassing. And witnesses.”
I was surprised. I’d heard little about witnesses except the men that Holmes and I had already talked with about the Eddowes murder.
“They were men who turned up after the last murder. They saw him but one said he couldn’t turn in a fellow Jew.”
“Can you name the witnesses?”
“I believe you already talked to them.”
“The gentlemen who saw Miss Eddowes with the mustached man?”
“Yes, they gave us a fellow named Aaron Kominski. There’s not enough evidence to arrest him but I’m certain he did it.”
“Why?”
“He’s violent and hates women.”
I almost laughed out loud. That described about half of the men in the area at least.
“Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah but he seems to be sort of not all there.”
“And you think he’s a murderous mastermind?”
“How much mind does it take to kill four women?”
“Out in the open with people all around? And not get caught? Four times? I’d say it takes no small measure of intelligence.”
He disagreed with me, leaving me little else to say. I decided that maybe Holmes was right and these men had little information that would shed any light on this dark matter at all. I did not see Lestrade in the station as I left, which was just as well for I am sure I’d have given him an earful about what silliness he was working under. I’d still had a small amount of confidence that the police might be able to solve the murder or might have information helpful to us in Holmes’ investigation but after my interview with one of the main policemen in charge, I decided that we probably had a better chance than they did and that our chances were slim indeed.
Holmes was back from his mysterious errand when I got back. He did refrain from saying I told you so when I informed him of my talk with Mr. Anderson. But just barely. I could tell he wanted to say it.
To say this whole thing was grating on my nerves would be too mild a statement. I felt as if we were dogs chasing our tails and that this man was sitting back, watching both us and the police and laughing in maniacal glee.
“I think I shall take a few days and just be a doctor. We are getting nowhere and I am not feeling myself.”
“We will solve this. Of that, I am sure.”
“Before he strikes again?”
Holmes shook his head. “I don’t think so. He is not done with us yet.”
“And you think you can catch him in the act?”
“I didn’t say that. I said he will strike again.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I can look at any more mutilated women. It’s almost as if he does it just for the show. Or so it seems to me.”
Holmes looked at me oddly. “Sometimes you’re more perceptive than I think. Did Assistant Commissioner Anderson tell you why this man Kominski was a suspect?”
“Because he’s crazy.”
“Half of London is crazy,” was all he said.
I spent the rest of that day making house calls and checking on patients. I felt better for it too. At least they were breathing and I felt useful again. Oftentimes in working with Holmes, I felt as if I were superfluous, that he really didn’t need me for anything. But then again, sometimes navigating the real world was beyond his capabilities. I was more than helpful then and sometimes, he found me and my little pistol useful to have around as well.
I could not get the attitude of the police off my mind. Were they even trying? I had to wonder how much they really cared. The women who were murdered were common prostitutes. They had no influence, indeed they were almost invisible in the society in which they lived. How much did it matter to the rest of London?
It was not my place nor the police’s place to decide whose death was worth investigating. It was their job to try to solve these killings. From what Anderson said, one candidate was as good as another to them as long as they had a man they could point to as the killer.
These thoughts occupied my mind all day long as I went about my business, making me look over my own shoulder more than once to make sure no one was following. Would my death be worth investigating?
There had been no murders for several weeks and anticipation was beginning to build in all of London but especially in the Whitechapel area. While everyone hoped the killings were over, there was also that morbid need to have another one, another awful tidbit for the papers and the common folks to talk about. Perhaps such horror made them feel lucky that while their lives were far from perfect, they were certainly a lot better than those poor souls who met their end with Jack the Ripper.
When I arrived home, Holmes was not there but Mrs. Hudson met me at the bottom of the steps.
“There’s someone to see you in my apartment. He wouldn’t go up; insisted on seeing you here.”
That seemed very odd, to her too obviously, but she didn’t seem scared or alarmed so I nodded and followed her into her sitting room.
There among her neat and tidy knick knacks and bric a brac sat Mycroft Holmes, reading the paper.
I’d only seen him one time before and he was not as friendly as Holmes, if that is possible. He was as tall as Holmes but where my friend was slim, Mycroft was anything but. He was large, not in the soft way that men get when they do nothing other than sitting but in an imposing way, as if he could break me into small pieces if he wanted to.
He nodded when I came in and said, “Watson” by way of hello.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Nine – My Vacation
Mycroft Holmes looked at me hard for a moment and finally said, “Tell him to stop.”
“Tell who to stop what?” I was not being flippant. I really had no idea what he meant.
“Tell my brother to leave the Ripper case to the police. No one will solve it because it is not what it seems.”
“You do know how much he listens to me?” I asked him.
“About as much as he does to me. I wanted to warn him anyway. I suspect he already knows but I had to try.”
“I’ll give him your message. Why didn’t you tell him this when he came to see you?”
“Sherlock has not been to see me in quite a while. Now I must go.” He rose from the table and shook my hand. I said nothing about the lies Holmes had told me.
He thanked Mrs. Hudson for her hospitality and left through the back door.
I went up to our rooms and waited for Holmes to return home. When he did, I said nothing until he’d put away his hat and coat.
“We had a visitor today.”
“And what did Mycroft want?”
I didn’t even bother to ask how he knew. I had more important things to say. “He says he’s not seen you in quite some time.”
“He did?”
“He also said to tell you to leave the murders alone, that they are not what they seem.”
“I already knew that. But I don’t think I can leave them alone.”
“What did he mean, Holmes?”
“I will tell you in time, Watson. It is not something that you need to know at this time.”
Fury burned through me. I hated him when he did this to me, deciding what I needed to know or not know. My biggest desire at that moment was to punch him in the face.
But I did not do so. I got my own hat and coat and left and did not return for a few days. I was not quite as destitute as I was when Holmes and I took lodgings together so I had the coin for a room in a nice hotel for a few days. I sent a note to Mrs. Hudson, letting her know that I was fine and just had enough of Holmes for a few days and that I would be back home as soon as the anger wore off.
I found some card games to enjoy and even a lovely young lady to have dinner with on the nights that I was away from Baker Street. Whitechapel and those grisly murders seemed a world away from where I was. I felt like never going back.
But I was not without a sense of responsibility so in a few days I returned home. Mrs. Hudson was thrilled to have me back. Holmes, it seemed, had locked himself in for the entire time that I was gone and refused food, drink and all contact with the outside world. It was not the first time he’d done such a thing but it was alarming every time that he did it.
I unlocked the door but he’d put something against it to keep anyone from coming in.
“Holmes, open the door.”
“What do you want, Watson?”
“I want to get inside the apartment I live in. Open the damned door.”
“Where did you go? Go to tell Mycroft on me?”
“No. I went on a holiday for a few days. I played cards, drank too much and danced with pretty women.”
I heard him moving around. Mrs. Hudson tiptoed up the steps with a tray with some tea, some breads and jams. When he opened the door, he looked like hell. He was in his dressing gown and it was dirty, as if he’d worn it for a month. His hair was in disarray and he had several days’ growth of beard. His eyes were wild as they were when he’d been at his seven percent solution of cocaine. I might have known he’d pull such a stunt if I left him for too long in the middle of a case.
I took the tray from Mrs. Hudson and entered the room. I placed the tray on the table and turned to Holmes.
“Can’t I leave you alone for more than a day without this senselessness?”
“I have been thinking!”
“No. You’ve been avoiding thinking and you’ve been pouting. Now it’s time to get your head cleared up and clean yourself up.”
He looked like a petulant toddler when he said, “Or what?”
And I answered in childish kind. “I’ll send for Mycroft.”
It worked and he backed down, visibly shrinking as he sat back on the sofa. He looked at the food and tea and finally poured himself a cup of tea.
“So are you over your tantrum?” He asked me and I laughed at him.
“I’ve not been the one locked up in a drugged stupor for days! Do you know how aggravating you are sometimes?”
He nodded. “I got bored. The Ripper is boring because all we do is wait. Wait for him to kill, wait for him to write, wait for him to give himself up.”
“Perhaps he is done and will not strike again. We may not find him but as long as he does not kill again, I think I can live with that.”
“He’s not done. He has our attention finally.”
I stopped what I was going to say and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this is all just to get our – my attention. He has it. He’s not done yet though. He means to show me who is the smarter of us – him or me.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. Was this just some crazed idea that his drug addled brain had come up with to entertain itself? No, Holmes might be a bit odd at times but he was not crazy nor was he so paranoid that he’d imagine this. If he believed that this killer was doing this for his attention, then there was merit in the idea and some truth to it somewhere.
I was just not yet sure how or even if that might benefit us in our hunt for him.
*
~~~~~
Chapter Ten – Mary Jane Kelly
Holmes and I did not speak of his revelation for several days. The end of October came and went with no more killings and Whitechapel began to relax a little. The rest of London had been assured that no one outside the area was in danger anyway, a comfort to the rest of the city, if a bit of an insult to Whitechapel itself.
Holmes and I talked little of the case since it was at a stalemate as far as new evidence was concerned. The police were throwing about more names in their ever growing pool of suspects. Never mind that most of them were preposterous candidates. At least to the public it looked as if they were doing something.
I was awakened very late on the morning of November 9th by someone beating on the door downstairs. Mrs. Hudson was not yet dressed so I threw on my robe and ran down the steps to the door.
It was a very young policeman.
“Come to Miller’s Court as quick as you can, sir. There’s been another one and it’s awful! They’re waiting for you there. Hurry!”
I rushed back up the steps to find Holmes already dressed and combing his hair. By the time I dressed and we got there, it was sometime after noon. Policemen and onlookers were standing all about, milling around in what seemed a daze.
Holmes and I walked up to the little room and looked in. No one had gone in yet but there was blood everywhere and I could see what I supposed were human remains on the bed. I saw piles of innards and other parts lying on the bedside table and all over the bed.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked Lestrade, who had arrived before us.
“They thought the bloodhounds were coming. But Commissioner Warren has resigned and no one is sending them. We have to get someone to break the door down. It’s locked from the inside.”
Commissioner Warren had resigned the day before as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He had been responsible for forcefully disbanding protestors at the “Bloody Sunday” riots at Trafalgar Square back in ’87 and had recently taken a beating in the press for his handling of the Ripper affair.
The owner of the place, John McCarthy, finally broke down the door and though it never shows in the official reports, Holmes and I were among the first through the door of what can only be described as the slaughterhouse on Miller’s Court.
She was on the bed with her head turned toward the window. The only recognizable parts of her face were the two dead eyes that seemed to reflect the horror of what happened in that room. The smell, dear God, the smell was nearly overwhelming even with the stench of garbage, coal and industry in Whitechapel. I opened my mouth to say something to Holmes but no words came out. Catherine Eddowes had been a practice run compared to this scene of pure terror.
Holmes said nothing either and seemed to have no reaction at all.
The room was blazing hot as something had been burned in the fireplace, something that smelled like cloth. A pair of women’s boots sat in front of the fireplace and what may have been the woman’s clothes were folded neatly in a chair.
On the bed lay what was left of Mary Jane Kelly. Mary had lived here on Miller’s Court and occasionally plied her trade as a prostitute. She’d last been seen last night by some neighbors who’d heard her singing as she was wont to do. She would sing no more.
The killer had not been hurried this time and had taken all the time he needed to carve her up. He’d cut her face beyond recognition, skinned it and slit her throat almost to the bone. Then he’d done his real work, removing almost all her insides and placing them all about the room. He’d cut her breasts off and left them with some of her intestines on a table. He’d skinned her here and there aside from her face and there were cuts all over both arms and both legs as well as her the backs of her hands.
Mary Jane Kelly had not let him kill her as easily as he’d killed the others. She’d fought hard, as evidenced by all the cuts on her hands and arms. But she’d lost her battle and had paid with her life.
I could not tell yet but I suspected that some of her organs would be found missing when the doctor had taken her away for a postmortem examination.
Drs. Bond and Phillips were on the scene too and came into the room right after Holmes and myself. They looked around as we had and Bond began to write down what he saw. He looked as horrified as I had.
“Who would do such a thing?” Bond muttered to himself as he moved closer to the bed to see just exactly what condition the body was in.
I looked around and Holmes was examining the window and looking at the floor and such. I wondered what he was thinking. He did not seem to be upset but then I’d never seen him show much emotion either way.
A large crowd was gathering outside Miller’s Court and even more people were crowded in the area where the room was. Police were questioning all the people that lived nearby and others were trying to keep the onlookers and gawkers back a ways. I had no idea how they were going to get any usable information out of such a crowd.
I found Lestrade and told him that Holmes and I would like to talk to any witnesses and I’d like to be there when the doctor got her back to the morgue and did his postmortem. He said that the Metropolitan Police would be glad of our help and that he’d message us as soon as he knew something.
I made my way outside and followed Holmes to a quieter place.
“Is this what you were expecting?” I asked, my voice sounding angry even to my own ears.
“Yes, it was. I will tell you now. These killings, this Ripper business, has all been done for one purpose. It is a challenge and an insult aimed at one person. Me.”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Eleven – Holmes’ Theories
I was fairly sure that Sherlock Holmes had finally lost his mind entirely and I told him so in some very colorful language. He held a hand up and smiled indulgently. I hated him when he did that to me.
“I am not insane, Watson. None of this made any sense from the beginning. The first two murders we took no note of or if we did, we did not get involved. The third may or may not have been our man but the fourth one was in the City of London’s police jurisdiction thus bringing our intrepid Investigator Lestrade into it.”
“Coincidence, Holmes, nothing more.”
“Not this time. This came while you were gone on your - sabbatical.”
He handed me a folded letter.
Mr. Holmes,
We are very happy to have you working the case of the Whitechapel Ripper, or Saucy Jack, if you prefer. We were so hoping you’d notice and agree to play. Bloody lot of work to get your attention though.
Catch us if you can.
“We?”
“Well, I think ‘we’ are the killer and his employer.”
“Employer? You think someone would do this for money?”
“Dear Watson, there is always someone who will do anything for money. Everything can be bought and paid for.”
“But why are they after you?”
“How many bank robberies and embezzling schemes of one sort or another have we foiled?”
“Quite a few but I don’t see what that has to do with this.”
“I think I have come to the attention of someone very dangerous and that he or they have taken an interest in us.”
I felt a shiver run down my spine. I couldn’t imagine someone so evil that he would do these things simply to get someone else’s attention. There had to be more to it than that. Holmes must be wrong.
We returned to Baker Street where I found myself pacing restlessly. What I saw today was worse than anything I’d seen in war or in a hospital. I’d been to slaughterhouses and no animal there was ever treated with such disregard as poor Mary Jane Kelly.
I was still sure that Holmes was mistaken.
Late in the afternoon, Inspector Lestrade came calling on us. He said that he had a written summary of all the interviews with those who’d seem Mary Jane Kelly out and about on the last days of her life.
“She had a man, a Joseph Barnett. He provided for them both when he had work but he’d moved out because he was out of work. He still saw her every day and says he saw her the night of the murders.”
“Did he know why anyone would kill her?”
“No. He said she was a sweet girl.”
Lestrade handed Holmes the papers and left us. Holmes took a stack and handed me the other half.
“Read.”
We sat quietly and began to read the scribbled notes.
“Listen to this: A tailor on Dorset Street said he saw Mary Jane only about half an hour before she was found. Said he’d seen her last night and then he saw her again this morning.”
“She was most certainly dead by that time. It took more than his customary fifteen minutes for our man to do all the things he did to Mary Jane Kelly.”
“There is another person, a woman named Maxwell, who says she saw her at about 8:30 this morning.”
At the second report, Holmes raised his head and looked at me. “Did you see what was in the fireplace?”
“It looked like burned clothing to me and it was very hot as well.”
“I think our killer may have left in Mary Jane Kelly’s dress.”
“But could a man fit in her dress?”
“From what I could tell, she was about the same height as the man that witnesses saw at the other killings. She was not slender, I don’t think. So it might be possible for a man to wear her clothes.”
“Her clothes were folded in the chair.”
“Maybe she had more than one set or maybe they belonged to one of her friends. According to one witness, another girl stayed with her sometimes when she didn’t have a place to stay.”
“Will that help us find him?”
“No but it gives us more information, more data and if we are to find him, then data is the thing that will get us there.”
I thought of my friend yelling ‘I must have data’ in one of his cocaine induced manias and said nothing. He could figure out things quickly that would have taken me years to figure out so there was little I could say about his method and by tacit agreement, I said little about his cocaine use either.
The drug was legal and embraced by men like Dr. Sigmund Freud in Vienna as a wonder drug. All I saw as another crutch that had the possibility to change a person’s behavior and impede their thinking processes. This, to me, was not a positive thing. Holmes assured me that he used it only when bored and so far, that had been true on his part.
“What sort of data do we need? We’ve seen the murder scenes, we’ve read the eyewitness accounts and we’ve seen the poor women or seen their postmortems. This man has left us almost nothing to go on. He’s about average and might have a mustache. That’s half of Whitechapel, maybe more than half. Holmes, I’m a little too tall but I fit the description of the killer as well as anyone.”
Holmes arched a brow at me. “Well, did you do it, Watson?”
“Of course not!”
“Then there’s one we can mark off. I believe that the man who is running the operation will leave us something or send us something. He wants us to hunt him or he’d have never sent me that note.”
“That makes it sound easy - ”
“Rest assured, Watson. Easy is the last thing it will be.”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Twelve – The Postmortem and Inquest
We decided to go back to Miller’s Court the next day. It was still a circus. People were selling tickets to see where the murders had taken place. The police had blocked off the main entrance to Miller’s Court so some of the more enterprising residents sold window views from their own homes. There seemed to be no shortage of people willing to pay either.
We did not have any trouble getting in since we’d managed to enlist Inspector Lestrade to escort us. He had friends in the Whitechapel division of the Metropolitan Police and they helped us get into the room one more time.
We went in the doorway with the broken door opened now permanently by a policeman’s ax. We checked the fireplace. There was a fused wad of cloth still lying in the grate. We could also see where the hook that stood out for a teapot and the kettle lay in the ashes, and the kettle’s spout melted away by the heat. There was a candle stub on the table and a few bottles and boxes of food in a small cabinet.
“The fire had to be awfully hot to melt the metal spout.”
“Hard to tell what was burned,” Holmes agreed but he poked around in the cloth anyway. “A bit thick to be a dress. A coat maybe.”
He turned to the bed and pointed to the wall at what could have been blood spatter and run down or could have been something entirely more sinister: the letter M.
“Do you think it is anything?” I asked.
“Not sure… it looks like it could simply be some blood that dripped down the wall.”
“Does it look like an M?”
“Yes… if it is anything at all.”
We examined everything more closely and saw what a small and pitiful little room Mary Jane Kelly had lived in. There were a few cups and a plate by the fireplace. Miss Kelly did most of her eating in pubs evidently and had few possessions at all. According to those who knew her, she was young and sang a lot when drunk; she was pretty and had several friends among the denizens of Whitechapel. But all that was left of her now was her ravaged body and a few trinkets in this tiny room.
We left Whitechapel without another word.
There was a message that Dr. Bond was ready to do his postmortem and I was invited to attend if I wanted to. There were three other doctors in attendance as Dr. Bond began by looking at her and at the container that held the loose parts that had been strewn around her body and on the table beside the bed. We all assisted as need be and inventoried her wounds as well as the parts. He had not only disemboweled her; he had skinned her in places too. We found kidneys, liver, bowels, breasts, and skin but one thing was missing from her body and from the collection of parts.
Jack the Ripper had taken Mary Jane Kelly’s heart.
Holmes did not go to the autopsy, going instead on another of his mystery errands. He awaited me in a cab when I was done. I couldn’t shake the sadness nor the anger at what I’d just seen.
“Holmes, the bastard took her heart with him when he left.”
Holmes took that bit with the calm which he took most everything.
“Where did you go?” I asked him, not actually expecting an answer.
“I went to the police station. I went to look at the evidence they have and to return the papers that Lestrade brought to us. The inquest is tomorrow but I don’t think there will be anything new there. I think we may go just to see who is in attendance.”
“You think the killer will be there?”
“Not really but stranger things have happened. I am more interested in who else might show up.”
“You still think that someone is behind these murders, someone is hiring a killer to do them?”
“I do. I would stake my reputation on it. As a matter of fact, I have done just that by taking this case.”
“But why is he doing such inhuman things to them? Why isn’t he just killing them?”
“To fool us. To make fools of us.”
I have to admit that I was beginning to think that Holmes was completely insane about this case by continuing to insist on his theory. Why on earth would he think such a thing? We solved a few cases for Scotland Yard and we’d even put a few extortionists and thieves away but this? Nothing we had done was big enough to attract the attention of someone evil enough to kill all these women just to tease Holmes. Was it?
Holmes always did think about himself before anyone else but this was something else all together. Was he somehow believing that everything that happened involved him personally? Maybe I needed to talk him into going to Austria to talk to this Freud, who was doing all sorts of things with the human psyche.
We went to the inquest the next day. Only seven people gave testimony and it only lasted a few hours. It would seem there was little to say about the life or death of poor Mary Jane Kelly. In any event, Holmes seemed to be more interested in the audience than in the inquest itself. After it was done and we were on our way home, he seemed to be innervated, excited and I couldn’t figure out why.
“What is it? What has you in this state?” I finally asked.
“Did you see the man on the next to last row?”
“What man?”
“He sat by himself on the left side of the room on the next to last row. He was a math professor once. I met him once at a party given by one of the faculty at the university. He has, as far as I can tell, no connection to these women at all.”
“Perhaps he was just curious. Like us. Do you know what his name is?”
“Moriarty. Professor James Moriarty.”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Thirteen – Watson the Ripper
I had never heard of Professor Moriarty and I was not seeing any connection or reason that he interested Holmes at all.
“Why was he there?” I asked.
“I wish I knew,” Holmes answered, deep in thought already. He spoke no more on the ride home and after we got home, he went to his room and closed the door. A few minutes later, the violin began its painful screeching and did not stop for the rest of the day. I finally left to get away from the noise.
I found myself in Whitechapel again. I got out of my cab and began to walk. I walked to each and every murder site. There was nothing left to see at the first four anyway but I visited them nonetheless, trying to see if I could feel anything, could glean anything new from them.
I do not believe in ghosts or any of that spiritual nonsense that is becoming popular here in England but I swear that I could feel the sadness and despair of the women who died as I visited the scenes of their murders. Maybe it was just the desolation of the area that I was feeling but I could feel hopelessness and resignation wash over me as I moved from one place to the next.
They had all been middle aged, all prostitutes with little prospect of improvement in their sad lives, all but Mary Jane Kelly, who’d been young and still pretty. But her road was heading downward too, to the same place the other women were already.
No one deserved what they’d gotten. I did not believe Holmes’ farfetched idea that it was all done for his benefit. Sometimes Holmes’s self centeredness made me angry, as it was doing in this case. I felt that the man who killed them hated them for what they were, for their determination to keep going, no matter how bad their lives were.
The last place I came to was Mary Jane Kelly’s little room. It was the saddest of all to me. It was also the most bizarre. Why had he changed the way he did things? Was it simply opportunity? Or was it even remotely possible that Holmes was right and this one was a grand gesture to keep him involved in the case?
I stayed until darkness set in, until those unfortunate women began their nightly trek from one pub to another to attract customers for their pitiful craft. There were a few pretty women in the ones I saw, the ones who stopped me and asked me if I had a need to be filled for a few coins. Most were aging and showed it. I could smell the gin on some of them before they even approached me.
I offered nothing to them for their services or even for charity. I simply shook my head and moved on. I was coming out of Miller’s Court when a policeman stopped me.
“What are you doing here?” He was openly hostile.
“Walking, constable. I’m having a walk.”
“I’ll wager a fine fellow like you has no decent business here. You need to find another place to walk.”
It was beginning to dawn on me that he thought he’d caught the Ripper.
“My name is John Watson and I’m an associate of Sherlock Holmes.”
“And I’m the Queen’s nephew! I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in.”
I decided not to fight him, or argue further. I was not the Ripper and he’d know that soon enough. I went with him to the lockup and sent a message to Mrs. Hudson. I was put in a cell with two large drunken fellows who seemed to think that fighting me might make them feel better about themselves.
Before they could do anything more, I was removed from the cell and a policeman that I didn’t know took me into a small room and set me down at a table. He sat down across from me.
“Did you know Mary Ann Nichols?”
I answered no and he went through the whole list, even adding a few that Holmes and I had decided were not Ripper killings. I said no to each and every one.
“Then why did you kill them?”
“I didn’t. I’m John Watson from 221B Baker Street. I have been investigating the case in an unofficial capacity with Sherlock Holmes. I came down here late today to look at the murder scenes one more time and it got dark before I realized how late it was.”
“What did you do with Mary Jane Kelly’s heart?”
I sighed and stopped talking. He did not stop asking questions, however.
“What do you carry in your parcel? How many women have you killed? Would you write your name for us?”
I simply sat there with my arms crossed and said nothing. The policeman asked and asked and his face got redder and redder as he talked. I wondered if he might die of a stroke soon if he did not calm himself somewhat, but I said nothing.
“Dammit, man! Answer me!” He rose up behind the table and leaned close to me.
“I told you who I am and why I was here. It is easy enough to check and you have not bothered so I will say no more, Sergeant White.”
And I said no more. He tried the questions again and when I ignored him, he had me returned to my cell.
“So are ye the Ripper?” One of my cellmates asked me.
“Not today. Are you?” I shot back.
He grinned a toothless grin and said, “Nah, it’s not a knife I like to stick in the ladies, if ye get my meanin’.”
I did. I suppressed a shiver of disgust.
I was evidently not much fun to play with as my cellmates stopped bothering me and went about their own business. I sat on the hard bench and waited.
I checked my watch and it was after 10:00 pm when I heard a commotion out front. No sooner had I stood than Mrs. Hudson marched back to my cell.
“Let him out now!” She was furious, angrier than I’d ever seen her, even when Holmes had done something to upset her.
The constable mumbled something I didn’t understand and she shot back. “I already told you who he is and why he’s here. Are you going to let him out or do I need to contact your superior at home at this time of night?”
I was actually enjoying the show.
About that time, a second ally showed up in the person of Inspector Lestrade. He had no jurisdiction here but apparently he’d heard I had been jailed.
“White, let this man go. He’s John Watson and he and Sherlock Holmes are working for the City Police Commissioner.”
“What was he doing out at night?”
“I told you that I was walking. I came here to look at the murder sites again.”
Sergeant White looked as if he were going to balk but in the end, he unlocked the cell and let me out.
“It’s about time!” I said to Lestrade when we got outside.
“I am sorry but I was out and did not get your message until a few minutes ago.”
I looked at Mrs. Hudson. “Why are you here?”
“Holmes said he’d just fetch you in the morning. I didn’t want you to have to sleep with those… those men! You might catch something!”
I was touched by her devotion and her stubbornness in the face of Holmes. I might just give him a piece of my mind when we got home.
*
~~~~~
Chapter Fourteen – The Game is Afoot
Holmes was surprised when Mrs. Hudson showed up with me in tow.
“You’re an awful man, Sherlock! You should be ashamed!”
She fussed over me and brought me tea and some biscuits after she’d had a bath run for me. She would not leave until I was tucked safely in my bed.
Holmes did not come into my room but neither did he go to bed. I heard him rambling about until I fell asleep sometime in the wee small hours of the morning and I did not awaken until the sun shone in my window.
I am not sure he ever slept for he was up when I arose. He was reading the papers, the classifieds to be specific. He looked at me when I walked in and sat at the table. There was hot tea ready.
“Mrs. Hudson just brought tea for you. She said if I wanted any, I could make it myself.”
I had to smile at Mrs. Hudson’s thoughtfulness. What a dear. I poured a cup and looked at Holmes.
“Anything of interest in the paper?”
“I’m just beginning to read this one but so far, nothing in the others.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I think we will be contacted soon and I do not intend to miss it.”
“By whom?” Jack had sent messages directly to people, not taken ads out in the classifieds.
“Our killer, of course.”
“You still think he’s out to impress you?”
Holmes nodded.
I shook my head and left to see some patients.
I returned to Baker Street late in the day. Holmes was out but had left me a note.
Meeting a man about our friend. If not back by dinner, advise Lestrade that I am missing.
I puzzled over what he meant and finally decided that he was still pursuing the hired killer angle and had gone to get more information on who he thought might be doing this. I was clueless but Holmes often told me only what he wanted me to know. This one, however, he was playing closer than usual.
As it turned out, he was back shortly after I came in.
He was pouring over the evening editions of the papers. There were more suspects being hauled in every day and none of them seemed to be the right man. London, especially Whitechapel, was holding its breath, ready for another one.
Holmes showed me a tiny ad in the classified section: My dear friend, stop eating your heart out. It’s over and all’s that left is the curtain.
“What do you make of it?” Holmes asked me.
“Sounds like a jilted lover to me.”
“Does it?”
“Obviously it has more meaning to you. What does it say?”
“He’s telling me the killings are done. I must find him before he leaves London.”
“So where do we start? I am still not really convinced that you’re right in this case. It makes no sense.”
“Watson, when I have been gone, I have not gone to visit Mycroft, as you well know.”
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“From the beginning, when Lestrade bade us join the investigation, something seemed odd to me. As horrendous as the killings are, they are not personal. These were random victims of opportunity, more or less. While I realize there is a certain type of killer who does this, these are not done by one of those.”
“Why?’
“They are too contrived, too obvious. The killer kills two women and I take no notice at all. He sends letters to the papers and kills again. Instead of killing in Whitechapel, he makes sure to kill Catherine Eddowes in the police jurisdiction of London City Police thus bringing Inspector Lestrade into the mix and with Lestrade comes Sherlock Holmes. He stopped for a month to let us stew in our own juices then gave us the grand finale. Now he waits for me to find him, to solve the case.”
“What does he get out of it?”
“The game. Watson. It’s all a game.”
“Who would play such a game though?
“A man who is bored with the normal and seeks something beyond that.”
“So where have you been?”
“I have been visiting various contacts that I have in the criminal element of London. They all say that there has been an upswing in crime, especially crime having to do with large sums of money.”
“And do they know why?”
“It would seem that someone is organizing criminals, someone who has managed to do this without one group knowing of the other and no one group seems to know who the boss is either. He has underlings who do his bidding and no one ever sees him.”
“And what is his goal?”
“Money? Power? Enjoyment? Who can say unless they ask him? Maybe he’s just bored.”
“Like you?”
“Exactly! Maybe he is someone who has a superior intellect and is bored with life on a daily basis. Maybe he is looking for some stimulation.”
“And killing and slaughtering women is stimulating?”
“No, of course not. Besides, he’s not doing the killing. He’s looking for a playmate, an adversary to offer him some challenge.”
“And that’s where you come in?”
“Yes. That’s where I come in. He knows me from the papers and perhaps we have inadvertently broken up some of his crime rings when we’ve shut down an embezzler or caught a bank robber. He has decided that he wants me and the murders are his way of inviting me to come out and play.”
“Do you know him?”
“I have a suspicion. Remember when I told you about the man who was at the inquest, a mathematics professor?”
“Yes, Moriarty or something was his name. What does a math professor have to do with any of this?”
“His name is James Moriarty and he is a brilliant man. While a mathematics professor at Leeds College, he wrote a treatise on the Binomial Theorem and has even published a book called The Dynamics of an Asteroid. But academics became boring to him and he left the university under a cloud of mystery and dropped out of sight for several years.”
“When did he surface again?”
“At the inquest into the death of Mary Jane Kelly. He came there to see me. And to let me know that the game is afoot.”
*
~~~~~
Author: alexcat
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Type: General Fiction
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, literary or historical, though the original story is my own creation.
Warnings: Graphic descriptions of brutally murdered bodies.
Beta: Larry
Characters: Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson
Archive: OEAM, Alex's Story Book, Ao3
Author’s Note: This is my 2013 OEAM Big Bang
Spoilers: No
Summary: Holmes and Watson take on London's most famous unsolved murders.
~~~~
Chapter Eight – A Chat with the Police
I set up a time to talk to Assistant Commissioner Anderson. He knew who Holmes was and seemed to have no objections to our investigation even if he did not seem overly enthusiastic.
“Are there suspects that Holmes and I do not know of?”
“We have many suspects from our door to door canvassing. And witnesses.”
I was surprised. I’d heard little about witnesses except the men that Holmes and I had already talked with about the Eddowes murder.
“They were men who turned up after the last murder. They saw him but one said he couldn’t turn in a fellow Jew.”
“Can you name the witnesses?”
“I believe you already talked to them.”
“The gentlemen who saw Miss Eddowes with the mustached man?”
“Yes, they gave us a fellow named Aaron Kominski. There’s not enough evidence to arrest him but I’m certain he did it.”
“Why?”
“He’s violent and hates women.”
I almost laughed out loud. That described about half of the men in the area at least.
“Have you talked to him?”
“Yeah but he seems to be sort of not all there.”
“And you think he’s a murderous mastermind?”
“How much mind does it take to kill four women?”
“Out in the open with people all around? And not get caught? Four times? I’d say it takes no small measure of intelligence.”
He disagreed with me, leaving me little else to say. I decided that maybe Holmes was right and these men had little information that would shed any light on this dark matter at all. I did not see Lestrade in the station as I left, which was just as well for I am sure I’d have given him an earful about what silliness he was working under. I’d still had a small amount of confidence that the police might be able to solve the murder or might have information helpful to us in Holmes’ investigation but after my interview with one of the main policemen in charge, I decided that we probably had a better chance than they did and that our chances were slim indeed.
Holmes was back from his mysterious errand when I got back. He did refrain from saying I told you so when I informed him of my talk with Mr. Anderson. But just barely. I could tell he wanted to say it.
To say this whole thing was grating on my nerves would be too mild a statement. I felt as if we were dogs chasing our tails and that this man was sitting back, watching both us and the police and laughing in maniacal glee.
“I think I shall take a few days and just be a doctor. We are getting nowhere and I am not feeling myself.”
“We will solve this. Of that, I am sure.”
“Before he strikes again?”
Holmes shook his head. “I don’t think so. He is not done with us yet.”
“And you think you can catch him in the act?”
“I didn’t say that. I said he will strike again.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure I can look at any more mutilated women. It’s almost as if he does it just for the show. Or so it seems to me.”
Holmes looked at me oddly. “Sometimes you’re more perceptive than I think. Did Assistant Commissioner Anderson tell you why this man Kominski was a suspect?”
“Because he’s crazy.”
“Half of London is crazy,” was all he said.
I spent the rest of that day making house calls and checking on patients. I felt better for it too. At least they were breathing and I felt useful again. Oftentimes in working with Holmes, I felt as if I were superfluous, that he really didn’t need me for anything. But then again, sometimes navigating the real world was beyond his capabilities. I was more than helpful then and sometimes, he found me and my little pistol useful to have around as well.
I could not get the attitude of the police off my mind. Were they even trying? I had to wonder how much they really cared. The women who were murdered were common prostitutes. They had no influence, indeed they were almost invisible in the society in which they lived. How much did it matter to the rest of London?
It was not my place nor the police’s place to decide whose death was worth investigating. It was their job to try to solve these killings. From what Anderson said, one candidate was as good as another to them as long as they had a man they could point to as the killer.
These thoughts occupied my mind all day long as I went about my business, making me look over my own shoulder more than once to make sure no one was following. Would my death be worth investigating?
There had been no murders for several weeks and anticipation was beginning to build in all of London but especially in the Whitechapel area. While everyone hoped the killings were over, there was also that morbid need to have another one, another awful tidbit for the papers and the common folks to talk about. Perhaps such horror made them feel lucky that while their lives were far from perfect, they were certainly a lot better than those poor souls who met their end with Jack the Ripper.
When I arrived home, Holmes was not there but Mrs. Hudson met me at the bottom of the steps.
“There’s someone to see you in my apartment. He wouldn’t go up; insisted on seeing you here.”
That seemed very odd, to her too obviously, but she didn’t seem scared or alarmed so I nodded and followed her into her sitting room.
There among her neat and tidy knick knacks and bric a brac sat Mycroft Holmes, reading the paper.
I’d only seen him one time before and he was not as friendly as Holmes, if that is possible. He was as tall as Holmes but where my friend was slim, Mycroft was anything but. He was large, not in the soft way that men get when they do nothing other than sitting but in an imposing way, as if he could break me into small pieces if he wanted to.
He nodded when I came in and said, “Watson” by way of hello.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Nine – My Vacation
Mycroft Holmes looked at me hard for a moment and finally said, “Tell him to stop.”
“Tell who to stop what?” I was not being flippant. I really had no idea what he meant.
“Tell my brother to leave the Ripper case to the police. No one will solve it because it is not what it seems.”
“You do know how much he listens to me?” I asked him.
“About as much as he does to me. I wanted to warn him anyway. I suspect he already knows but I had to try.”
“I’ll give him your message. Why didn’t you tell him this when he came to see you?”
“Sherlock has not been to see me in quite a while. Now I must go.” He rose from the table and shook my hand. I said nothing about the lies Holmes had told me.
He thanked Mrs. Hudson for her hospitality and left through the back door.
I went up to our rooms and waited for Holmes to return home. When he did, I said nothing until he’d put away his hat and coat.
“We had a visitor today.”
“And what did Mycroft want?”
I didn’t even bother to ask how he knew. I had more important things to say. “He says he’s not seen you in quite some time.”
“He did?”
“He also said to tell you to leave the murders alone, that they are not what they seem.”
“I already knew that. But I don’t think I can leave them alone.”
“What did he mean, Holmes?”
“I will tell you in time, Watson. It is not something that you need to know at this time.”
Fury burned through me. I hated him when he did this to me, deciding what I needed to know or not know. My biggest desire at that moment was to punch him in the face.
But I did not do so. I got my own hat and coat and left and did not return for a few days. I was not quite as destitute as I was when Holmes and I took lodgings together so I had the coin for a room in a nice hotel for a few days. I sent a note to Mrs. Hudson, letting her know that I was fine and just had enough of Holmes for a few days and that I would be back home as soon as the anger wore off.
I found some card games to enjoy and even a lovely young lady to have dinner with on the nights that I was away from Baker Street. Whitechapel and those grisly murders seemed a world away from where I was. I felt like never going back.
But I was not without a sense of responsibility so in a few days I returned home. Mrs. Hudson was thrilled to have me back. Holmes, it seemed, had locked himself in for the entire time that I was gone and refused food, drink and all contact with the outside world. It was not the first time he’d done such a thing but it was alarming every time that he did it.
I unlocked the door but he’d put something against it to keep anyone from coming in.
“Holmes, open the door.”
“What do you want, Watson?”
“I want to get inside the apartment I live in. Open the damned door.”
“Where did you go? Go to tell Mycroft on me?”
“No. I went on a holiday for a few days. I played cards, drank too much and danced with pretty women.”
I heard him moving around. Mrs. Hudson tiptoed up the steps with a tray with some tea, some breads and jams. When he opened the door, he looked like hell. He was in his dressing gown and it was dirty, as if he’d worn it for a month. His hair was in disarray and he had several days’ growth of beard. His eyes were wild as they were when he’d been at his seven percent solution of cocaine. I might have known he’d pull such a stunt if I left him for too long in the middle of a case.
I took the tray from Mrs. Hudson and entered the room. I placed the tray on the table and turned to Holmes.
“Can’t I leave you alone for more than a day without this senselessness?”
“I have been thinking!”
“No. You’ve been avoiding thinking and you’ve been pouting. Now it’s time to get your head cleared up and clean yourself up.”
He looked like a petulant toddler when he said, “Or what?”
And I answered in childish kind. “I’ll send for Mycroft.”
It worked and he backed down, visibly shrinking as he sat back on the sofa. He looked at the food and tea and finally poured himself a cup of tea.
“So are you over your tantrum?” He asked me and I laughed at him.
“I’ve not been the one locked up in a drugged stupor for days! Do you know how aggravating you are sometimes?”
He nodded. “I got bored. The Ripper is boring because all we do is wait. Wait for him to kill, wait for him to write, wait for him to give himself up.”
“Perhaps he is done and will not strike again. We may not find him but as long as he does not kill again, I think I can live with that.”
“He’s not done. He has our attention finally.”
I stopped what I was going to say and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this is all just to get our – my attention. He has it. He’s not done yet though. He means to show me who is the smarter of us – him or me.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. Was this just some crazed idea that his drug addled brain had come up with to entertain itself? No, Holmes might be a bit odd at times but he was not crazy nor was he so paranoid that he’d imagine this. If he believed that this killer was doing this for his attention, then there was merit in the idea and some truth to it somewhere.
I was just not yet sure how or even if that might benefit us in our hunt for him.
*
~~~~~
Chapter Ten – Mary Jane Kelly
Holmes and I did not speak of his revelation for several days. The end of October came and went with no more killings and Whitechapel began to relax a little. The rest of London had been assured that no one outside the area was in danger anyway, a comfort to the rest of the city, if a bit of an insult to Whitechapel itself.
Holmes and I talked little of the case since it was at a stalemate as far as new evidence was concerned. The police were throwing about more names in their ever growing pool of suspects. Never mind that most of them were preposterous candidates. At least to the public it looked as if they were doing something.
I was awakened very late on the morning of November 9th by someone beating on the door downstairs. Mrs. Hudson was not yet dressed so I threw on my robe and ran down the steps to the door.
It was a very young policeman.
“Come to Miller’s Court as quick as you can, sir. There’s been another one and it’s awful! They’re waiting for you there. Hurry!”
I rushed back up the steps to find Holmes already dressed and combing his hair. By the time I dressed and we got there, it was sometime after noon. Policemen and onlookers were standing all about, milling around in what seemed a daze.
Holmes and I walked up to the little room and looked in. No one had gone in yet but there was blood everywhere and I could see what I supposed were human remains on the bed. I saw piles of innards and other parts lying on the bedside table and all over the bed.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked Lestrade, who had arrived before us.
“They thought the bloodhounds were coming. But Commissioner Warren has resigned and no one is sending them. We have to get someone to break the door down. It’s locked from the inside.”
Commissioner Warren had resigned the day before as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. He had been responsible for forcefully disbanding protestors at the “Bloody Sunday” riots at Trafalgar Square back in ’87 and had recently taken a beating in the press for his handling of the Ripper affair.
The owner of the place, John McCarthy, finally broke down the door and though it never shows in the official reports, Holmes and I were among the first through the door of what can only be described as the slaughterhouse on Miller’s Court.
She was on the bed with her head turned toward the window. The only recognizable parts of her face were the two dead eyes that seemed to reflect the horror of what happened in that room. The smell, dear God, the smell was nearly overwhelming even with the stench of garbage, coal and industry in Whitechapel. I opened my mouth to say something to Holmes but no words came out. Catherine Eddowes had been a practice run compared to this scene of pure terror.
Holmes said nothing either and seemed to have no reaction at all.
The room was blazing hot as something had been burned in the fireplace, something that smelled like cloth. A pair of women’s boots sat in front of the fireplace and what may have been the woman’s clothes were folded neatly in a chair.
On the bed lay what was left of Mary Jane Kelly. Mary had lived here on Miller’s Court and occasionally plied her trade as a prostitute. She’d last been seen last night by some neighbors who’d heard her singing as she was wont to do. She would sing no more.
The killer had not been hurried this time and had taken all the time he needed to carve her up. He’d cut her face beyond recognition, skinned it and slit her throat almost to the bone. Then he’d done his real work, removing almost all her insides and placing them all about the room. He’d cut her breasts off and left them with some of her intestines on a table. He’d skinned her here and there aside from her face and there were cuts all over both arms and both legs as well as her the backs of her hands.
Mary Jane Kelly had not let him kill her as easily as he’d killed the others. She’d fought hard, as evidenced by all the cuts on her hands and arms. But she’d lost her battle and had paid with her life.
I could not tell yet but I suspected that some of her organs would be found missing when the doctor had taken her away for a postmortem examination.
Drs. Bond and Phillips were on the scene too and came into the room right after Holmes and myself. They looked around as we had and Bond began to write down what he saw. He looked as horrified as I had.
“Who would do such a thing?” Bond muttered to himself as he moved closer to the bed to see just exactly what condition the body was in.
I looked around and Holmes was examining the window and looking at the floor and such. I wondered what he was thinking. He did not seem to be upset but then I’d never seen him show much emotion either way.
A large crowd was gathering outside Miller’s Court and even more people were crowded in the area where the room was. Police were questioning all the people that lived nearby and others were trying to keep the onlookers and gawkers back a ways. I had no idea how they were going to get any usable information out of such a crowd.
I found Lestrade and told him that Holmes and I would like to talk to any witnesses and I’d like to be there when the doctor got her back to the morgue and did his postmortem. He said that the Metropolitan Police would be glad of our help and that he’d message us as soon as he knew something.
I made my way outside and followed Holmes to a quieter place.
“Is this what you were expecting?” I asked, my voice sounding angry even to my own ears.
“Yes, it was. I will tell you now. These killings, this Ripper business, has all been done for one purpose. It is a challenge and an insult aimed at one person. Me.”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Eleven – Holmes’ Theories
I was fairly sure that Sherlock Holmes had finally lost his mind entirely and I told him so in some very colorful language. He held a hand up and smiled indulgently. I hated him when he did that to me.
“I am not insane, Watson. None of this made any sense from the beginning. The first two murders we took no note of or if we did, we did not get involved. The third may or may not have been our man but the fourth one was in the City of London’s police jurisdiction thus bringing our intrepid Investigator Lestrade into it.”
“Coincidence, Holmes, nothing more.”
“Not this time. This came while you were gone on your - sabbatical.”
He handed me a folded letter.
Mr. Holmes,
We are very happy to have you working the case of the Whitechapel Ripper, or Saucy Jack, if you prefer. We were so hoping you’d notice and agree to play. Bloody lot of work to get your attention though.
Catch us if you can.
“We?”
“Well, I think ‘we’ are the killer and his employer.”
“Employer? You think someone would do this for money?”
“Dear Watson, there is always someone who will do anything for money. Everything can be bought and paid for.”
“But why are they after you?”
“How many bank robberies and embezzling schemes of one sort or another have we foiled?”
“Quite a few but I don’t see what that has to do with this.”
“I think I have come to the attention of someone very dangerous and that he or they have taken an interest in us.”
I felt a shiver run down my spine. I couldn’t imagine someone so evil that he would do these things simply to get someone else’s attention. There had to be more to it than that. Holmes must be wrong.
We returned to Baker Street where I found myself pacing restlessly. What I saw today was worse than anything I’d seen in war or in a hospital. I’d been to slaughterhouses and no animal there was ever treated with such disregard as poor Mary Jane Kelly.
I was still sure that Holmes was mistaken.
Late in the afternoon, Inspector Lestrade came calling on us. He said that he had a written summary of all the interviews with those who’d seem Mary Jane Kelly out and about on the last days of her life.
“She had a man, a Joseph Barnett. He provided for them both when he had work but he’d moved out because he was out of work. He still saw her every day and says he saw her the night of the murders.”
“Did he know why anyone would kill her?”
“No. He said she was a sweet girl.”
Lestrade handed Holmes the papers and left us. Holmes took a stack and handed me the other half.
“Read.”
We sat quietly and began to read the scribbled notes.
“Listen to this: A tailor on Dorset Street said he saw Mary Jane only about half an hour before she was found. Said he’d seen her last night and then he saw her again this morning.”
“She was most certainly dead by that time. It took more than his customary fifteen minutes for our man to do all the things he did to Mary Jane Kelly.”
“There is another person, a woman named Maxwell, who says she saw her at about 8:30 this morning.”
At the second report, Holmes raised his head and looked at me. “Did you see what was in the fireplace?”
“It looked like burned clothing to me and it was very hot as well.”
“I think our killer may have left in Mary Jane Kelly’s dress.”
“But could a man fit in her dress?”
“From what I could tell, she was about the same height as the man that witnesses saw at the other killings. She was not slender, I don’t think. So it might be possible for a man to wear her clothes.”
“Her clothes were folded in the chair.”
“Maybe she had more than one set or maybe they belonged to one of her friends. According to one witness, another girl stayed with her sometimes when she didn’t have a place to stay.”
“Will that help us find him?”
“No but it gives us more information, more data and if we are to find him, then data is the thing that will get us there.”
I thought of my friend yelling ‘I must have data’ in one of his cocaine induced manias and said nothing. He could figure out things quickly that would have taken me years to figure out so there was little I could say about his method and by tacit agreement, I said little about his cocaine use either.
The drug was legal and embraced by men like Dr. Sigmund Freud in Vienna as a wonder drug. All I saw as another crutch that had the possibility to change a person’s behavior and impede their thinking processes. This, to me, was not a positive thing. Holmes assured me that he used it only when bored and so far, that had been true on his part.
“What sort of data do we need? We’ve seen the murder scenes, we’ve read the eyewitness accounts and we’ve seen the poor women or seen their postmortems. This man has left us almost nothing to go on. He’s about average and might have a mustache. That’s half of Whitechapel, maybe more than half. Holmes, I’m a little too tall but I fit the description of the killer as well as anyone.”
Holmes arched a brow at me. “Well, did you do it, Watson?”
“Of course not!”
“Then there’s one we can mark off. I believe that the man who is running the operation will leave us something or send us something. He wants us to hunt him or he’d have never sent me that note.”
“That makes it sound easy - ”
“Rest assured, Watson. Easy is the last thing it will be.”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Twelve – The Postmortem and Inquest
We decided to go back to Miller’s Court the next day. It was still a circus. People were selling tickets to see where the murders had taken place. The police had blocked off the main entrance to Miller’s Court so some of the more enterprising residents sold window views from their own homes. There seemed to be no shortage of people willing to pay either.
We did not have any trouble getting in since we’d managed to enlist Inspector Lestrade to escort us. He had friends in the Whitechapel division of the Metropolitan Police and they helped us get into the room one more time.
We went in the doorway with the broken door opened now permanently by a policeman’s ax. We checked the fireplace. There was a fused wad of cloth still lying in the grate. We could also see where the hook that stood out for a teapot and the kettle lay in the ashes, and the kettle’s spout melted away by the heat. There was a candle stub on the table and a few bottles and boxes of food in a small cabinet.
“The fire had to be awfully hot to melt the metal spout.”
“Hard to tell what was burned,” Holmes agreed but he poked around in the cloth anyway. “A bit thick to be a dress. A coat maybe.”
He turned to the bed and pointed to the wall at what could have been blood spatter and run down or could have been something entirely more sinister: the letter M.
“Do you think it is anything?” I asked.
“Not sure… it looks like it could simply be some blood that dripped down the wall.”
“Does it look like an M?”
“Yes… if it is anything at all.”
We examined everything more closely and saw what a small and pitiful little room Mary Jane Kelly had lived in. There were a few cups and a plate by the fireplace. Miss Kelly did most of her eating in pubs evidently and had few possessions at all. According to those who knew her, she was young and sang a lot when drunk; she was pretty and had several friends among the denizens of Whitechapel. But all that was left of her now was her ravaged body and a few trinkets in this tiny room.
We left Whitechapel without another word.
There was a message that Dr. Bond was ready to do his postmortem and I was invited to attend if I wanted to. There were three other doctors in attendance as Dr. Bond began by looking at her and at the container that held the loose parts that had been strewn around her body and on the table beside the bed. We all assisted as need be and inventoried her wounds as well as the parts. He had not only disemboweled her; he had skinned her in places too. We found kidneys, liver, bowels, breasts, and skin but one thing was missing from her body and from the collection of parts.
Jack the Ripper had taken Mary Jane Kelly’s heart.
Holmes did not go to the autopsy, going instead on another of his mystery errands. He awaited me in a cab when I was done. I couldn’t shake the sadness nor the anger at what I’d just seen.
“Holmes, the bastard took her heart with him when he left.”
Holmes took that bit with the calm which he took most everything.
“Where did you go?” I asked him, not actually expecting an answer.
“I went to the police station. I went to look at the evidence they have and to return the papers that Lestrade brought to us. The inquest is tomorrow but I don’t think there will be anything new there. I think we may go just to see who is in attendance.”
“You think the killer will be there?”
“Not really but stranger things have happened. I am more interested in who else might show up.”
“You still think that someone is behind these murders, someone is hiring a killer to do them?”
“I do. I would stake my reputation on it. As a matter of fact, I have done just that by taking this case.”
“But why is he doing such inhuman things to them? Why isn’t he just killing them?”
“To fool us. To make fools of us.”
I have to admit that I was beginning to think that Holmes was completely insane about this case by continuing to insist on his theory. Why on earth would he think such a thing? We solved a few cases for Scotland Yard and we’d even put a few extortionists and thieves away but this? Nothing we had done was big enough to attract the attention of someone evil enough to kill all these women just to tease Holmes. Was it?
Holmes always did think about himself before anyone else but this was something else all together. Was he somehow believing that everything that happened involved him personally? Maybe I needed to talk him into going to Austria to talk to this Freud, who was doing all sorts of things with the human psyche.
We went to the inquest the next day. Only seven people gave testimony and it only lasted a few hours. It would seem there was little to say about the life or death of poor Mary Jane Kelly. In any event, Holmes seemed to be more interested in the audience than in the inquest itself. After it was done and we were on our way home, he seemed to be innervated, excited and I couldn’t figure out why.
“What is it? What has you in this state?” I finally asked.
“Did you see the man on the next to last row?”
“What man?”
“He sat by himself on the left side of the room on the next to last row. He was a math professor once. I met him once at a party given by one of the faculty at the university. He has, as far as I can tell, no connection to these women at all.”
“Perhaps he was just curious. Like us. Do you know what his name is?”
“Moriarty. Professor James Moriarty.”
*
~~~~~
Chapter Thirteen – Watson the Ripper
I had never heard of Professor Moriarty and I was not seeing any connection or reason that he interested Holmes at all.
“Why was he there?” I asked.
“I wish I knew,” Holmes answered, deep in thought already. He spoke no more on the ride home and after we got home, he went to his room and closed the door. A few minutes later, the violin began its painful screeching and did not stop for the rest of the day. I finally left to get away from the noise.
I found myself in Whitechapel again. I got out of my cab and began to walk. I walked to each and every murder site. There was nothing left to see at the first four anyway but I visited them nonetheless, trying to see if I could feel anything, could glean anything new from them.
I do not believe in ghosts or any of that spiritual nonsense that is becoming popular here in England but I swear that I could feel the sadness and despair of the women who died as I visited the scenes of their murders. Maybe it was just the desolation of the area that I was feeling but I could feel hopelessness and resignation wash over me as I moved from one place to the next.
They had all been middle aged, all prostitutes with little prospect of improvement in their sad lives, all but Mary Jane Kelly, who’d been young and still pretty. But her road was heading downward too, to the same place the other women were already.
No one deserved what they’d gotten. I did not believe Holmes’ farfetched idea that it was all done for his benefit. Sometimes Holmes’s self centeredness made me angry, as it was doing in this case. I felt that the man who killed them hated them for what they were, for their determination to keep going, no matter how bad their lives were.
The last place I came to was Mary Jane Kelly’s little room. It was the saddest of all to me. It was also the most bizarre. Why had he changed the way he did things? Was it simply opportunity? Or was it even remotely possible that Holmes was right and this one was a grand gesture to keep him involved in the case?
I stayed until darkness set in, until those unfortunate women began their nightly trek from one pub to another to attract customers for their pitiful craft. There were a few pretty women in the ones I saw, the ones who stopped me and asked me if I had a need to be filled for a few coins. Most were aging and showed it. I could smell the gin on some of them before they even approached me.
I offered nothing to them for their services or even for charity. I simply shook my head and moved on. I was coming out of Miller’s Court when a policeman stopped me.
“What are you doing here?” He was openly hostile.
“Walking, constable. I’m having a walk.”
“I’ll wager a fine fellow like you has no decent business here. You need to find another place to walk.”
It was beginning to dawn on me that he thought he’d caught the Ripper.
“My name is John Watson and I’m an associate of Sherlock Holmes.”
“And I’m the Queen’s nephew! I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in.”
I decided not to fight him, or argue further. I was not the Ripper and he’d know that soon enough. I went with him to the lockup and sent a message to Mrs. Hudson. I was put in a cell with two large drunken fellows who seemed to think that fighting me might make them feel better about themselves.
Before they could do anything more, I was removed from the cell and a policeman that I didn’t know took me into a small room and set me down at a table. He sat down across from me.
“Did you know Mary Ann Nichols?”
I answered no and he went through the whole list, even adding a few that Holmes and I had decided were not Ripper killings. I said no to each and every one.
“Then why did you kill them?”
“I didn’t. I’m John Watson from 221B Baker Street. I have been investigating the case in an unofficial capacity with Sherlock Holmes. I came down here late today to look at the murder scenes one more time and it got dark before I realized how late it was.”
“What did you do with Mary Jane Kelly’s heart?”
I sighed and stopped talking. He did not stop asking questions, however.
“What do you carry in your parcel? How many women have you killed? Would you write your name for us?”
I simply sat there with my arms crossed and said nothing. The policeman asked and asked and his face got redder and redder as he talked. I wondered if he might die of a stroke soon if he did not calm himself somewhat, but I said nothing.
“Dammit, man! Answer me!” He rose up behind the table and leaned close to me.
“I told you who I am and why I was here. It is easy enough to check and you have not bothered so I will say no more, Sergeant White.”
And I said no more. He tried the questions again and when I ignored him, he had me returned to my cell.
“So are ye the Ripper?” One of my cellmates asked me.
“Not today. Are you?” I shot back.
He grinned a toothless grin and said, “Nah, it’s not a knife I like to stick in the ladies, if ye get my meanin’.”
I did. I suppressed a shiver of disgust.
I was evidently not much fun to play with as my cellmates stopped bothering me and went about their own business. I sat on the hard bench and waited.
I checked my watch and it was after 10:00 pm when I heard a commotion out front. No sooner had I stood than Mrs. Hudson marched back to my cell.
“Let him out now!” She was furious, angrier than I’d ever seen her, even when Holmes had done something to upset her.
The constable mumbled something I didn’t understand and she shot back. “I already told you who he is and why he’s here. Are you going to let him out or do I need to contact your superior at home at this time of night?”
I was actually enjoying the show.
About that time, a second ally showed up in the person of Inspector Lestrade. He had no jurisdiction here but apparently he’d heard I had been jailed.
“White, let this man go. He’s John Watson and he and Sherlock Holmes are working for the City Police Commissioner.”
“What was he doing out at night?”
“I told you that I was walking. I came here to look at the murder sites again.”
Sergeant White looked as if he were going to balk but in the end, he unlocked the cell and let me out.
“It’s about time!” I said to Lestrade when we got outside.
“I am sorry but I was out and did not get your message until a few minutes ago.”
I looked at Mrs. Hudson. “Why are you here?”
“Holmes said he’d just fetch you in the morning. I didn’t want you to have to sleep with those… those men! You might catch something!”
I was touched by her devotion and her stubbornness in the face of Holmes. I might just give him a piece of my mind when we got home.
*
~~~~~
Chapter Fourteen – The Game is Afoot
Holmes was surprised when Mrs. Hudson showed up with me in tow.
“You’re an awful man, Sherlock! You should be ashamed!”
She fussed over me and brought me tea and some biscuits after she’d had a bath run for me. She would not leave until I was tucked safely in my bed.
Holmes did not come into my room but neither did he go to bed. I heard him rambling about until I fell asleep sometime in the wee small hours of the morning and I did not awaken until the sun shone in my window.
I am not sure he ever slept for he was up when I arose. He was reading the papers, the classifieds to be specific. He looked at me when I walked in and sat at the table. There was hot tea ready.
“Mrs. Hudson just brought tea for you. She said if I wanted any, I could make it myself.”
I had to smile at Mrs. Hudson’s thoughtfulness. What a dear. I poured a cup and looked at Holmes.
“Anything of interest in the paper?”
“I’m just beginning to read this one but so far, nothing in the others.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I think we will be contacted soon and I do not intend to miss it.”
“By whom?” Jack had sent messages directly to people, not taken ads out in the classifieds.
“Our killer, of course.”
“You still think he’s out to impress you?”
Holmes nodded.
I shook my head and left to see some patients.
I returned to Baker Street late in the day. Holmes was out but had left me a note.
Meeting a man about our friend. If not back by dinner, advise Lestrade that I am missing.
I puzzled over what he meant and finally decided that he was still pursuing the hired killer angle and had gone to get more information on who he thought might be doing this. I was clueless but Holmes often told me only what he wanted me to know. This one, however, he was playing closer than usual.
As it turned out, he was back shortly after I came in.
He was pouring over the evening editions of the papers. There were more suspects being hauled in every day and none of them seemed to be the right man. London, especially Whitechapel, was holding its breath, ready for another one.
Holmes showed me a tiny ad in the classified section: My dear friend, stop eating your heart out. It’s over and all’s that left is the curtain.
“What do you make of it?” Holmes asked me.
“Sounds like a jilted lover to me.”
“Does it?”
“Obviously it has more meaning to you. What does it say?”
“He’s telling me the killings are done. I must find him before he leaves London.”
“So where do we start? I am still not really convinced that you’re right in this case. It makes no sense.”
“Watson, when I have been gone, I have not gone to visit Mycroft, as you well know.”
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“From the beginning, when Lestrade bade us join the investigation, something seemed odd to me. As horrendous as the killings are, they are not personal. These were random victims of opportunity, more or less. While I realize there is a certain type of killer who does this, these are not done by one of those.”
“Why?’
“They are too contrived, too obvious. The killer kills two women and I take no notice at all. He sends letters to the papers and kills again. Instead of killing in Whitechapel, he makes sure to kill Catherine Eddowes in the police jurisdiction of London City Police thus bringing Inspector Lestrade into the mix and with Lestrade comes Sherlock Holmes. He stopped for a month to let us stew in our own juices then gave us the grand finale. Now he waits for me to find him, to solve the case.”
“What does he get out of it?”
“The game. Watson. It’s all a game.”
“Who would play such a game though?
“A man who is bored with the normal and seeks something beyond that.”
“So where have you been?”
“I have been visiting various contacts that I have in the criminal element of London. They all say that there has been an upswing in crime, especially crime having to do with large sums of money.”
“And do they know why?”
“It would seem that someone is organizing criminals, someone who has managed to do this without one group knowing of the other and no one group seems to know who the boss is either. He has underlings who do his bidding and no one ever sees him.”
“And what is his goal?”
“Money? Power? Enjoyment? Who can say unless they ask him? Maybe he’s just bored.”
“Like you?”
“Exactly! Maybe he is someone who has a superior intellect and is bored with life on a daily basis. Maybe he is looking for some stimulation.”
“And killing and slaughtering women is stimulating?”
“No, of course not. Besides, he’s not doing the killing. He’s looking for a playmate, an adversary to offer him some challenge.”
“And that’s where you come in?”
“Yes. That’s where I come in. He knows me from the papers and perhaps we have inadvertently broken up some of his crime rings when we’ve shut down an embezzler or caught a bank robber. He has decided that he wants me and the murders are his way of inviting me to come out and play.”
“Do you know him?”
“I have a suspicion. Remember when I told you about the man who was at the inquest, a mathematics professor?”
“Yes, Moriarty or something was his name. What does a math professor have to do with any of this?”
“His name is James Moriarty and he is a brilliant man. While a mathematics professor at Leeds College, he wrote a treatise on the Binomial Theorem and has even published a book called The Dynamics of an Asteroid. But academics became boring to him and he left the university under a cloud of mystery and dropped out of sight for several years.”
“When did he surface again?”
“At the inquest into the death of Mary Jane Kelly. He came there to see me. And to let me know that the game is afoot.”
*
~~~~~