The West End Horror

Synopsis: London lay under a blanket of snow on the morning of March 1,1895, when an eccentric-looking bearded man appeared at the Baker Street lodgings of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The caller, as it was soon revealed, was the Saturday's Review's critic, Mr. Bernard Shaw. He had come to request Holmes to investigate the murder of a fellow critic, the feared and hated Jonathan McCarthy.

Upon reaching McCarthy's flat, they discovered Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard on the scene, at work with his assistant, Sergeant Stanley Hopkins. They were awaiting the arrival of Police Surgeon Brownlow to remove the body. The clues to the murder were puzzling. Evidently, McCarthy had been drinking brandy with someone who smoked a strange kind of cigar--Indian, as it later appeared--and who wore new boots. The visitor had stabbed McCarthy and left, but the critic, with his last strength, had crawled to a bookshelf and opened a volume of "Romeo and Juliet" to the duel scene between Tybalt and Mercutio. In McCarthy's engagement diary, the name Bunthorne was noted and the page for February 28 had been torn out.

Since Bunthorne was a Gilbert and Sullivan character modelled on Oscar Wilde, the trail led to the poet, whom Holmes and Watson found just about to launch his famous legal action against the Marquess of Queensberry--the action that was to end in Wilde's downfall and imprisonment. Wilde, however, revealed that McCarthy had kept a mistress, a girl named Jessie Rutland, an ingénue in the cast at the Savoy Theatre.

Following this lead, Holmes and Watson went to the Savoy, arriving minutes before Miss Rutland's throat was slit in her dressing room. Dr. Benjamin Eccles, the theater physician, soon took charge of the body and Holmes and Watson repaired to a restaurant to meet Shaw. There, Holmes revealed that a page from McCarthy's diary showed the faint impression of the name of another Gilbert and Sullivan character--Jack Point, a jester whose sweetheart left him for another man.

Shaw left the restaurant abruptly. Then Holmes and Watson, both feeling ill, departed separately a short time later, to encounter the same strange experience in turn--a man seized each from behind and forced him to drink a bitter-tasting liquid.

The next morning, a warning letter arrived at 221B Baker Street, adjuring Holmes and Watson to "stay out of the Strand." Holmes noted that the paper was Indian.

The next person to be interviewed was Sir Arthur Sullivan, at the Lyceum Theatre. Before seeing him, however, Holmes and Watson met Bram Stoker, a menacing-looking man who was business manager of the theatre, and Ellen Terry, the famous actress. Sullivan, at first reluctant to talk, finally admitted that Miss Rutland had confided in him the fact that she had had a second lover, an unnamed man about whom she had let slip only one clue--that his wife was confined to a nursing home in Bombay. As Holmes and Watson left Sullivan's quarters, they discovered Stoker just outside the door. Apparently, he had been eavesdropping. Stoker--who, according to Wilde, kept a secret flat in the depths of Soho--now became the object of suspicion.

Chapter X

The Man with the Brown Eyes

Sherlock Holmes refused to volunteer any further observations on Bram Stoker--his boots, his eavesdropping or his Soho flat. "Later, Watson," said he as we stood on the kerb before the theatre. "Things are not so simple as I had first supposed."

Then he took me by the sleeve and added, "I must spend the afternoon in some research and I'd like to prevail upon you to find Bernard Shaw and learn the meaning of his eccentric behaviour last night."

"You begin to attach some importance to my theory, then?"

"It may be," he answered, smiling. "At all events, I think it would be well to have every thread of this tangled skein in our hands. I fancy you will come upon him at lunch at the Café Royal. Good luck--we shall meet again at Baker Street."

When he had rounded the corner, I wasted no time in hailing a cab and hastening the snowbound half mile to the Café Royal.

As I entered, I noticed that the place was crowded and, it seemed to me, in a collective state of some confusion. Clusters of nervous people huddled round tables and whispered intently together.

"Dr. Watson!" I peered about at the sound of the voice and beheld Shaw seated at a table with another man, whose coarse appearance disturbed me at once. He was short and squat, with eyes too closely set and a pug, prize fighter's nose. His head sat awkwardly atop a thick, muscular neck that threatened to burst the confines of his shirt and collar.

"This is Mr. Frank Harris, my publisher," the critic informed me as I dropped into a chair opposite them. "Like everyone else here," he added sardonically, "we are speculating."

"About what?"

"About Oscar Wilde's folly," boomed Mr. Harris in a voice that must have carried across the room. My face must have betrayed my confusion.

"You recall my running out of Simpson's last night?" Shaw asked, leaning his cheek upon an open palm and stirring his coffee. "It was the beginning of a horrible night. In the first place, some maniac assaulted me outside the restaurant. A strange practical joke, no doubt, but it served to delay me from rushing here. I was trying to prevent the arrest of the Marquess of Queensberry. Frank and I sat here at this very table trying for a long time to dissuade poor Oscar."

"We bent his ear," Harris agreed in a stentorian bellow, "but it was no use. He sat through it like a man in a trance." Harris' accent was impossible to place; it sounded variously Welsh, Irish and American.

"He cannot prove he was libelled?"

"Worse than that," Shaw explained. "According to the law, he leaves himself open for Queensberry to prove he wrote the truth."

"The marquess was arrested this morning," Harris concluded in a dull rumble. They returned glumly to their coffee. At this juncture, I wondered if I dared turn the conversation backwards.

"What of your assault? I take it you were not injured?"

"Oh, that." Shaw wiggled his fingers airily. "I was seized from behind, forced to swallow some disagreeable concoction and then released. Can you imagine such nonsense right in the heart of London?" He shook his head at the thought, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

"Did you get a look at the man?"

"I tell you, I was paying no attention, doctor! I simply wanted to get here and do what I could to keep Wilde from destroying himself."

"Is it a foregone conclusion, then, that he will lose the case?"

"Utterly foregone. Oscar Wilde, the greatest literary light of his time"--I noticed Shaw wince slightly at this--"and in three months of less he will be in total eclipse. People will speak his name in derision." Harris intoned all this as though delivering a sermon; yet, for all his vocal posturing, I sensed a very real distress on his part.

"I should not be surprised if his works were proscribed," added Shaw.

At the time, I could not understand how grave the issue was. But in three months, as all the world now knows, Frank Harris' prophecy was proved correct and Oscar Wilde was sentenced to prison, his glorious career in ashes.

Shaw then looked at me as if perceiving my own train of thought and enquired with a rueful smile, "Well, how's the murder?" It was as much to say, Here's a more cheerful topic.

"It's two murders, as I expect you'll discover in this afternoon's editions." I then recounted the events at the Savoy Theatre.

"Murder at the Savoy!" Harris gasped when I had done. "What is happening? Is the entire fabric of our community to be rent by scandal and honor within the narrow space of four days?" Somehow, he managed to convey the impression of relishing the prospect.

"Does either of you know Bram Stoker?" I put in at this point. "Sherlock Holmes in interested in him."

Shaw hesitated, exchanging glances with his publisher. "Well, he's an odd one," Harris allowed. "His name is actually Abraham. He was born in Dublin or thereabouts and he has an older brother who is a prominent physician."

"Dr. William Stoker?"

Shaw nodded. "As for Bram, I know that he was once athletic champion of (continued on page 170)The West End Horror(continued from page 118) Dublin University. He's a sometime author--of the frustrated variety--and before he entered Irving's employ, he was a drama critic."

"He must have known Jonathan McCarthy, then?"

"Everyone knew McCarthy."

"And Mrs. Stoker is a friend of Gilbert's?"

Their eyes widened. "And where did you learn that?"

I did my best not to appear smug. "I have my methods." I stood up. "Thank you, gentlemen. I'm afraid that my business takes me elsewhere now."

Leaving them, I hastened to Baker Street, eager to impart the results of my interview to Holmes, but he was not there. I spent a dreary afternoon pacing about the place and trying to reconcile the pieces of our puzzle into a coherent whole. At times, I thought I had mastered the thing, only to recollect some item of importance I had omitted.

At last, I sat down and I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I recall was being roused from an armchair revery by the familiar knock of our landlady.

"There's a gentleman to see Mr. Holmes," she informed me, "and, as Mr. Holmes is away, he insists on seeing you. He says his business is most urgent."

"Well, show him up. Stay, Mrs. Hudson, what's he like?"

The good woman regarded me cannily. "He says he's an estate agent, sir. Certainly, he's well fed and wined--if you take my meaning." She tapped the side of her nose suggestively with a forefinger.

Presently, there was much huffing and puffing on the stairs and the door opened to admit a gentleman of advancing years and enormous girth. He must have weighed close to 19 stone and his every move was accompanied by gasps of effort.

"Your ... very ... humble ... ah, servant, doctor," he wheezed, presenting his card with a feeble flourish. It identified him as Hezekiah Jackson of Plymouth, estate agent. The place fitted his accent, which was Devonshire in the extreme. I glanced and took in the beefy, corpulent, puffing countenance of Mr. Jackson. His bulbous nose was almost as red as a beet and the veins running over its tip as pronounced as a map of the Nile Delta. They declared Mr. Jackson to be a tippler of no mean proportions. His wheezing breath tended to confirm that declaration, as it was liberally laced with alcohol. His brown eyes had a glazed, staring look as they endeavoured to take in their surroundings. Perspiration glistened on his cheeks and forehead, dribbling down from his close-cropped white hair. In another age, he would have been the Lord of Misrule.

"Mr. Jackson?" said I. "Pray, have a chair."

"Thank you, sir, I don't mind if I do." He looked round, swaying on his feet, for a seat large enough to accommodate his bulk. He chose the stuffed leather by the fire that Holmes preferred and squeezed into it so heavily that it creaked alarmingly. I shuddered to think of the detective's response should he return and find it exploded by this obese character.

"I am Dr.--"

"I know who you are, doctor. I know all about you. Sherlock's told me a good deal about you." He said it in a knowing tone that I found vaguely disquieting.

"Indeed. And what can I do for you?"

"Well, I think for a start you might have the courtesy to offer me a drink. Yes, a drink. It's devilish cold out there." He said this with the greatest conviction as he sat before me, sweating like a stuck pig.

"What can I give you?"

"Brandy, if you have it. I most always take a little brandy at this time of day. It keeps up the strength, you know."

"Very well. Tea is about to be laid on, if you prefer."

"Tea?" he gasped. "Tea? Great heavens, doctor, do you wish to kill me? Being a medical man, you must know about tea. The great crippler--that's what tea is. More men my age drop dead as a result of reckless and intemperate consumption of tea than from almost any other single cause save the colic. You were unaware of that fact, sir? Dear me, where have you been? Do you read no other pieces in The Strand magazine but your own? Do you honestly suppose I'd be the living picture of health that I am if I took tea?"

"Brandy it is, then," said I, suppressing an overpowering impulse to laugh and fetching a glass for him. Holmes certainly knew the queerest people, though what his connection with this aged toper was, I couldn't for the life of me fathom. "And what is your message for Mr. Holmes?"

"My message?" The brown eyes clouded. "Oh, yes, my message! Tell Mr. Holmes--this isn't very good news, I'm afraid--that his land investments in Torquay are all wet."

"Wet?"

"Yes, wet, I'm afraid. Dropped into the sea, they have."

"I was unaware that Mr. Holmes had invested in land in Torquay."

"Everything he had," the estate agent assured me gravely, picking up his glass and burying his nose in it. He nodded, shaking his massive head from side to side in a despairing attitude.

"Poor man. For years he's been instructing me to buy up property overlooking the sea--seems to have been an idea with him to build some kind of hotel there--but now, you see, it's all gone to smash. You've heard about the storm we've been endurin' there these past four days? No? Well, sir, I don't mind telling you I've lived in those parts all my life and never seen anything like it. Plymouth almost destroyed by floods--and huge chunks of land toppling right into the Channel. The map makers'll have to get busy, make no mistake." He buried his enormous nose in the brandy once more as I digested this information.

"And do you mean to tell me that Mr. Holmes's land--all of it--has been washed into the ocean?"

"Every square inch of it, bless you, sir. He's ruined, doctor. That's the melancholy errand that brings me up to town."

"Great Scott!" I leapt to my feet in agitation as the full force of the catastrophe made itself felt. "Ruined!" I sank into my chair, stunned by the suddenness of it all.

"You look as though you could do with a drink yourself, doctor, if you don't mind my saying so."

"I think perhaps I could." I rose on unsteady legs and poured a second brandy while the fellow broke into a low laugh behind me.

"You find this amusing?" I demanded sternly.

"Well, you must admit it is rather humourous. A man invests every cent he owns in land--the safest possible investment, you'd say--and then it falls right off into the water. Come, now, sir, admit in all honesty that there is a kind of humour to it."

"I fail to see anything of the kind," I returned with heat. "And I find your indifference to your client's plight positively revolting! You come here, drink the man's brandy and calmly report his financial reverses and then laugh at them!"

"Well, sir, put that way--" The fellow began some clumsy show of remorse, but I was in no mood for it.

"I think you'd better go. I shall break the news to him myself, and in my own way."

"Just as you say, sir," he replied, handing me back the brandy glass. "Though I must confess I think you're taking a very narrow view of all this. Try to see the humour of it."

"That will do, Mr. Jackson." I turned on my heel and replaced the glass on the sideboard.

"Quite right, Watson," said a familiar voice behind me. "I think it time to ring for tea."

Chapter XI

Theories and Charges

"Holmes!"

I spun round and beheld the detective sitting where I had left the estate agent. He was pulling off his huge nose and stripping his head of white hair.

"Holmes, this is monstrous!"

"I'm afraid it was," he agreed, spitting out the wadding he had held in his cheeks to inflate them. "Childish, I positively concur. It was such a good disguise, however, that I had to try it on someone who knew me really well. I could think of no one who fitted that description so conveniently as yourself, my dear fellow."

He stood and removed his coat, revealing endless padding beneath. I sat down, shaking, and watched in silence as he divested himself of his costume and threw on his dressing gown.

"Hot in there," he noted with a smile, "but it worked wonders for me. Still, I'm afraid there are still loose ends that my new data fail to tie up. By all means, let's have tea."

He rang downstairs and Mrs. Hudson shortly appeared with the tray, much astonished to find Sherlock Holmes in residence.

"I didn't hear you come in, sir."

"You let me in yourself, Mrs. Hudson."

Her comments at this piece of intelligence are not relevant here. She departed and Holmes and I pulled up chairs.

"Your eyes!" I cried suddenly, the kettle in my hand. "They're brown!"

"What? Oh, just a minute." He bent forward in his chair so that he was looking at the floor and pulled back the skin by his right temple, cupping his other hand beneath his right eye. Into his palm dropped a little brown dot. As I watched, nonplussed, he repeated the operation with his left eye.

"What in the name of all that's wonderful--" I began.

"Behold the ultimate paraphernalia of disguise, Watson." He stretched forth his hand and allowed me to view the little things. "Be careful. They are glass and very delicate."

"But what are they?"

"A refinement of my own--to alter the one feature of a man's face no paint can change. I am not the inventor," he hastened to assure me, "though I venture to say I am the first to apply these little items for this purpose."

"For what purpose are they intended?"

"A very specific one. Some twenty years ago, a German in Berlin discovered that he was losing his sight due to and infection on the inside of his eyelids that was spreading to the eyes themselves. He designed a concave piece of glass--rather larger than these and clear, of course--to be inserted between the lid and the cornea, where they were held in place by surface tension, retarded the disease and saved his sight.1 I read of his researches and modified the design slightly, with the results that you have seen."

"But if the glass should break!" I winced at the thought.

"It isn't likely. Provided you don't rub your eye, the chances of anything hitting it directly are remote. I use them rarely--they take some getting used to and I find I cannot wear them for more than a few hours. After that, they begin to hurt and if a speck of dust should enter the eye, you find yourself weeping as though at a funeral."

He took the little circles back and placed them in a small box, evidently designed to contain them.

"You may be doing yourself an irreparable injury," I warned, feeling obliged, as a medical man, to point out some of the obvious pitfalls to him.

"Von Bülow wore them for twenty years without ill effect. In any event, I consulted your friend Dr. Doyle about them. He is so caught up in his literary whirl that we forget he is also an ophthalmologist. He was extremely helpful in his suggestions for the modifications I had in mind. Zeiss ground them for me," he went on, pocketing the box, "though I fancy they can't have imagined why. Now," he filled his pipe and held out his teacup, "what of Bernard Shaw?"

Doing my best to adjust to these successive shocks, I poured out the tea and recounted in a few words the tale of my meeting at the Café Royal. He heard me out in silence save for an occasional pointed question but otherwise puffed steadily on his briar and sipped his tea.

"He thought it a practical joke, then?" was his comment regarding Shaw's account of the mysterious assailant. "What a whimsical turn of mind he must have."

"I don't feel he thought about it much at all--or wanted to." I found myself defending the critic. "He was in such a hurry to reach Wilde."

"Hmm. I wonder who else has been pressed to sample this tonic."

"You don't think it a practical joke, then?"

He smiled. "Most impractical, wouldn't you say?"

"And what did you discover this afternoon?" I demanded in turn.

He rose and began a perambulation of the room, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his dressing gown, smoke emanating from his pipe as from the funnel of a locomotive.

"First, I paid a visit to Mr. Stoker's clandestine flat in Porkpie Lane," he commenced. "I ascertained, without his knowing it, that he cannot account for his whereabouts during the time of either murder. I learned, as you did, his true Christian name and his former calling as a drama critic. Next, I called upon Jessie Rutland's former lodgings--off the Tottenham Court Road--and spoke with the landlady. She was guarded but more help than she knew."

"This fits in perfectly with a theory I have been developing all afternoon!" I cried, jumping to my feet. "Would you care to hear it?"

"Certainly. You know I am endlessly fascinated by the workings of your mind." He took the chair I had left.

"Very well. Jessie Rutland meets Bram Stoker. He does not reveal his name or true identity but pretends instead to have recently returned from India, where he has left his invalid wife. He even smokes Indian cigars to bolster this impression. He lets a room in Soho to pursue his intrigue, but somehow Jonathan McCarthy, an old rival from the drama desk--who patronizes the Savoy--discovers his game and threatens the girl with exposure unless she succumbs to his attentions. Fearing for herself and also for her lover, she agrees. Stoker learns of her sacrifice and contacts McCarthy, who feels free to change his game and asks for money. They agree to a meeting to discuss the price of discretion. During their conversation--which begins leisurely enough, over brandy and cigars--tempers flare and Stoker, seizing the letter opener, drives it home. He was perfectly capable of this," I added excitedly, as more pieces of the puzzle began falling into place pell-mell, "because he was not only athletic champion of Dublin University but brother to the well-known physician William Stoker, from whom he had received a cursory but sufficient introduction to anatomy. As you yourself have pointed out, he is the right height and wears the right shoes."

"Brilliant, Watson. Brilliant," my companion murmured, relighting his pipe with a warm coal from the fire. "And then?"

"He leaves. McCarthy is still breathing, however, and he forces himself to the bookshelf. The copy of Shakespeare in his hand was meant to indicate the Lyceum, where the specialty is the Bard. Irving is even now producing Macbeth. Stoker, in the meantime, has begun to panic. He knows that when Miss Rutland learns of McCarthy's death--as assuredly she must--there will be no doubt in her mind as to the identity of his murderer. The thought of another living soul with his secret begins to gnaw at him like a cancer. What if the police should ever question her? Could she withstand their enquiries? He decides there is only one solution. The Savoy is no great distance from the Lyceum. He slips backstage and leaves the theatre through the old Beefsteak Club Room, and runs quickly to the Savoy, where he accomplishes the second crime during the rehearsal of The Grand Duke, which he knows is in progress. Then he retreats hastily to the Lyceum again with no one the wiser. There! What do you think of that?"

For a time, he did not respond but sat puffing on his briar with his eyes closed. Had it not been for the continuous stream of smoke, I should have wondered if he was awake. Finally, he opened his eyes and withdrew the pipestem.

"As far as it goes, it is quite brilliant. Really, Watson, I must congratulate you. I marvel, especially, at the many uses to which you have put that volume of Romeo and Juliet. Why did McCarthy not choose McCarthy, then, if he wished--as you say--to point a finger at the Lyceum?"

"Perhaps he couldn't see by then," I hazarded.

He shook his head with a little smile. "No, no. He saw well enough to turn over the leaves of the volume he selected. That is merely one objection to your theory, despite the fact that there are some really pretty things in it. It appears to explain much, I grant you, but in reality it explains nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Well, almost nothing," he amended, leaning over and tapping me consolingly on the knee. "You mustn't feel offended, my dear chap. I assure you I have no theory whatsoever. At least none that will accommodate your omissions."

"And what are they, I should like to know?"

"Let us take them in order. In the first place, how did Jessie Rutland meet Bram Stoker--so that no one we have questioned knew of it? Male company is severely discouraged at the Savoy, as you know. Where, then? At Miss Rutland's former lodgings, whilst in conversation with the landlady, I learned from that reverend dame--who spoke quite highly of her boarder--that she had but once seen her in the company of a man, and it was not a man with a beard. She would not be more specific, but that information appears to rule out either of the two men in question. Now, as to friend McCarthy's engagement calendar. Can you see him, in a mood however jocular, jester? Is there anything particularly hapless about Stoker, or feeble? Or amusing? I think not. Say, rather, does he not strike the casual observer as menacing, sinister and quite powerful? And, having said that, are you prepared to explain how our Miss Rutland could fall in love with him any more readily than you reject the idea of her falling in love with the critic? And granting for the moment that she did love Stoker and he returned her affection, how are you prepared to explain McCarthy's incautious behaviour in bringing such a man to his own home, where there were no witnesses to ensure his safety? According to your theory, he had made love to the lady and now proposed to extort money from her true love. Was it wise to leave himself alone with a man he had so monstrously wronged? Would he not consider it flying in the face of Providence? Jonathan McCarthy may have been depraved--the evidence suggests it--but there is nothing in the record to support the notion that he was stupid."

He paused, knocked the ashes from his pipe and began to refill it. The action appeared to remind him of something.

"And what of the Indian cigars? Do you seriously contend they were smoked to convince Miss Rutland that Stoker was recently returned from India? I can't believe her knowledge of tobaccos was sufficient for her to make such fine distinctions. You and I, you may recall, were obliged to visit Dunhill's for a definite identification. For that matter, in the insular world of the theatre, how long could Stoker--if, indeed, it was he--hope to maintain his Indian deception amongst people who knew him so well? You heard today that his wife is a friend of Gilbert's. How long before Jessie Rutland, working at the Savoy, should stumble upon his true identity? And if, by some odd twist of reasoning, the cigars were smoked to contribute to the illusion, why bring them to McCarthy's flat? By your account, the critic knew perfectly well who he was. Indeed, how get in touch with him if he didn't? And what about the letter threatening us, its message pasted on Indian stock? Isn't it rather more likely that Jack Point--as I shall continue to call him--is, indeed, recently returned from India, and this accounts for his choice of tobacco and letter paper? Finally, your theory fails to explain the most singular occurrence in the entire business."

"And what is that?"

"The little matter of the tonics we three were forced to down outside Simpson's last night. Even allowing for Stoker's physical strength and his capacity for outré behaviour, what can he have had in mind to make us drink whatever it was we swallowed? Until we find out, this affair will remain shrouded in mystery."

His logic was so overwhelming that I was reluctantly obliged to succumb.

"What will you do now?"

"Smoke. It is quite a three-pipe problem--I am not sure but it may be more."

With this, he settled himself down amongst a pile of cushions on the floor and proceeded to smoke three additional pipes in rapid succession. He neither moved nor blinked but sat stationary, like the Caterpillar in Alice, contemplating I knew not what as he polluted our rooms with noxious fumes of shag. Familiar with this vigil, I occupied my time by trying to read, but even Clark Russell's fine stories could not engage my attention as the dark settled over London. They seemed tame, indeed, when compared with the mystery that confronted us--a mystery as tangled and complex as any I could recall in the long and distinguished career of my friend. Holmes had been correct when he spoke of the liquid we had been correct when he spoke of the liquid we had been forced to swallow as the key to the business. Try as I might, however, I could scarcely remember what it tasted like and my inability to recall anything of the persistent host who served it--save for his gloves--teased me beyond endurance.

Holmes was in the act of filling a fourth pipe--his disreputable clay--when his ritual and my impatience were brought to a simultaneous end by a knock on the door, followed by the entrance of a very cocksure Inspector Lestrade.

"Found any murderers lately, Mr. Holmes?" he demanded with a mischievous air as he removed his coat. The man's idea of subtlety was elephantine.

"Not lately." The detective looked up calmly from the centre of his mushroomlike arrangement of cushions.

"Well, I have," crowed the little man.

"Indeed? The murderer of Jonathan McCarthy?"

"And the murderer of Miss Jessie Rutland. You didn't know these crimes were related, did you? Well, they are, they positively are. Miss Rutland was the mistress of the late critic, and they were both dispatched by the same hand."

"Indeed," Holmes repeated, turning pale. It would cut him to the quick, I knew, should this fool manage to solve the two murders before himself. His vanity and professional pride were at stake. Everything he stood for in the way of criminal detection demanded that his methods not be beaten by any so haphazard and clumsy as those of Scotland Yard.

"Indeed," he echoed a third time. "And have you found out why the murderer should smoke Indian cigars?"

"Indian cigars?" Lestrade guffawed. "Are you still on about them? Well, if you must know, I'll explain it to you. He smoked them because he's an Indian himself."

"What?" we exclaimed together.

"That's right, a sambo; a Sikh. His name is Achmet Singh and he's been in England just under a year, running a used-furniture and curio shop in the Tottenham Court Road with his mother." Lestrade walked about the room, chuckling and rubbing his hands, scarcely able to contain his self-satisfaction and glee.

If Sherlock Holmes felt chagrined by. the policeman's news, he did his best to conceal the fact.

"Where did he meet Miss Rutland?"

"His shop is just down the road from her boardinghouse. The landlady identified him for me, saying he used to call for her there and take her out walking. She was so scandalized by the thought of her lodger taking up with a brown devil that she didn't open up to you about it--" He laughed again. "At least I assume it was you she was talking to earlier in the day." He gestured with his hands, delineating a corpulent belly, laughing some more. "That's where being official police comes in handy, Mr. Holmes."

"May I ask what he was doing with tobacco if he is a Sikh?"

"What's he doing in England? you might as well ask! But if he went to mingle with white folk, he'll 'ave taken to some of our ways, no doubt. Why, the fellow was even attending evening classes at the University of London."

"Ah. A sure sign of the criminal mind."

"You can jeer," the inspector returned, undisturbed. "The point is"--he placed a forefinger emphatically on the detective's chest--"the point is that the man cannot account for his time during the period when either murder took place. He had the time and the motive," the policeman concluded triumphantly.

"The motive?" I interjected.

"Jealousy! Heathen passion! You can see that, surely, doctor. She dropped him and took up with that newspaper chap--"

"Who invited him to his home, where the Sikh drank brandy," Holmes offered mildly.

"Who knows if he drank a drop? The glass was knocked on its side with the drink still in it. He might have accepted the offer of a glass simply as part of his plan to gain admittance to the place."

"He went there, of course, knowing a murder weapon of some sort was bound to be ready to hand--"

"I didn't say the plan was murder," Lestrade countered. "I didn't say anything about premeditated murder, did I? He may simply have wanted to plead for the return of his white woman." Lestrade stood up and took his coat. "He's almost the right height. He's right-handed, too."

"And his shoes?"

Lestrade grinned broadly.

"His shoes, Mr. Holmes, are three weeks old and were purchased in the Strand."

Chapter XII

The Sikh and Porkpie Lane

After Lestrade had gone, Sherlock Holmes sat motionless for a considerable period of time. He looked to be in such a brown study that I did not like to disturb him, but my own anxiety was so great that I was unable to remain silent for very long.

"Hadn't we best speak with the man?" I asked, throwing myself into a chair before him. He looked up at me slowly, his countenance creased with thought.

"I suppose we had," he allowed, getting to his feet and assembling his clothes. "It is as well, in such circumstances, to go through the motions."

"Do you think, then, they can have apprehended the guilty party?"

"The guilty party?" He considered the question, thrusting some keys into his waistcoat pocket and taking a bull's eye lantern from behind the deal table. "I doubt it. There are too many explanations, and phrases such as 'almost the right height' give away the holes in their case. However, we'd best take a look, if only to find out what didn't happen." He came forward with the gravest expression I had ever beheld on his face. "I have an inkling about this that bodes ill, Watson. Lestrade has built up a neat circumstantial case in which the hideous spectre of racial bigotry plays a large and unsubtle röle. Achmet Singh may not be guilty, but the odds are against him."

He said no more on the subject but allowed me to ponder his view of the situation on a silent cab drive to Whitehall. There was no great difficulty in our being admitted to interview the prisoner, Lestrade's visit having included an invitation to see the man for ourselves.

The moment we were shown to Achmet Singh's cell, Sherlock Holmes breathed a sigh of relief. The man we studied through the small window of his cell door was diminutive in stature and wiry of build. He appeared neither large enough nor strong enough to perform the physical feats counsel would have to attribute to him. Moreover, he wore a pair of the thickest spectacles I had ever seen and was reading a newspaper held up to his nose at a 90-degree angle.

Holmes nodded to the guard and the door was unlocked.

"Achmet Singh?"

"Yes?" A pair of dark-brown eyes squinted up at us from behind the glasses. "Who is that?"

"I am Sherlock Holmes. This is Dr. Watson."

"Sherlock Holmes!" The little fellow came forward eagerly. "Dr. Watson!" He made to seize our hands but thought better of it and drew back suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"To help you, if we can," said Holmes kindly. "May we sit down?"

He shrugged and vaguely indicated his meagre pallet.

"There is no help for me," he responded in a trembling voice. "I cannot account for my time and I knew the girl. Also, my shoes are the right size and purchased in the wrong place. Finally, I am coloured. What jury in the world could resist such a combination?"

"A British jury will resist it," I said, "provided we can show that the prosecution cannot prove its case."

"Bravo, Watson." Holmes sat down on the cot and motioned for me to do the same. "Mr. Singh, why don't you tell us your version of events? Cigaret?" He made as if to reach for a case in his pocket, but the other declined it with a distracted wave of his hand.

"My religion denies me the consolations of tobacco and liquor."

"What a pity." Holmes could scarcely conceal a smirk. "Now tell me what you know of this business."

"What can I tell you, since I did not kill poor Miss Rutland and do not know who did?" Tears stood in the miserable wretch's eyes, magnified pathetically by his which lenses, which almost seemed to double his sorrow.

"You must tell us what you can, however unimportant it may seem to you. Let us begin with Miss Rutland. How did you come to know her?"

The prisoner leaned up against the brick wall next to the door and directed his voice to the corner.

"She came into my shop, which is just round the corner from her room. I deal in curios from the East as well as secondhand2 English furniture and she liked to look at the things there when she had some time to herself. I would answer her questions about the pieces she liked and tell her what I could of their origins. Slowly we began to discuss other matters. She was an orphan and my mother had passed away not long ago. Aside from my customers and her friends in the theatre, we neither of us knew many people." He paused and swallowed painfully, his Adam's apple protruding from the tightened muscles in his scrawny neck, as he turned and faced the detective across the cell. "We were lonely, Mr. Holmes. Is that a crime?"

"Indeed it is not," said my companion gently. "Go on."

"Then we began to go for walks. Nothing more, I give you my word!" he added hastily. "Only walks. In the evening before the weather turned cold and she had to leave for theater, we strolled. And we continued our conversations."

"I understand."

"Do you?" He emitted a laugh that resembled nothing so much as a sob. "That is good. Inspector Lestrade does not. He places a rather different construction on my behaviour."

"Do not concern yourself with Inspector Lestrade for the moment. Pray, continue your narrative."

"There isn't any more. Wherever we walked, people stared at us and whispered as we passed. At first, we paid no attention. We were so lonely our loneliness lent us the courage to defy conventions."

"And then?"

He sighed and his shoulders shook.

"And then we began to notice. It frightened us. We tried to ignore our fears for a time, but we were too frightened even to mention them to ourselves. And then--" He hesitated, confused by his own recollections.

"Yes?"

"She met another man." His low voice made it difficult to catch the words. "A white man. It pained her to tell me," he continued, tears rolling freely down his cheeks now, "but our awkwardness together increased. Our fears grew greater. There were little incidents--a word overheard as we walked by a knot of tradesmen--and she became more terrified and reluctant to go with me when I came to call for her. Still, she did not know how to tell me of her fears or about the man she had met. I do not think she wished to tell me." He paused. "So I told her. I said our being seen together so frequently was beginning to excite comment in the neighbourhood and I thought it better that such talk be stopped lest it injure her reputation or get back to the theatre. She tried not to show her relief when I said these things, but I could see a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was a good person, Mr. Holmes, kind and generous to a fault, and it was not her way to abandon a friend. It was then that she told me about the man she had met. The white man," he repeated in a tone so helpless that it wrenched my heart to listen to it.

"What did she say about him?"

"Why, nothing, but that she had met him and come to love him. The rules at the Savoy are terribly strict regarding such things and she was forced to be discreet. Also, I think she did not wish to pain me with the details. That is why we never ventured into neighbourhoods other than our own," he added, "because it would have meant ruin for her at the theatre had she been recognized in my company." He looked up at us from the posture to which he had succumbed on his knees. "That is all there is to tell."

"What are you studying at the university?"

"Law."

"I see." Holmes went over and shook his hand. "Mr. Singh, I beg of you to be of good cheer. The matter stands against you for the time being, but I shall see to it that you never appear in the dock."

The Indian studied him searchingly from behind his thick spectacles for some moments. "Why should it matter to you whether I stand there or not? I do not know you and cannot possibly pay you for any trouble you take on my behalf."

Sherlock Holmes's grey eyes grew moist with an emotion I had seldom seen there.

"To pursue the truth in this world is a trouble we all undertake gladly on our own behalf," said he.

The Sikh looked at him, the tears still streaming down his face, swallowing and unable to speak.

"The man's vision is hopelessly astigmatic," Holmes observed as we emerged from the gloomy building. "Did you notice how he was forced to read his paper?" His customary detachment of voice and facial expression had been forcibly restored. "To imagine that he can even see clearly across a table the size of the one in McCarthy's flat is as difficult as it is to envisage someone of his size striking a single fatal blow from that distance with a blunt-tipped letter opener."

"What do you propose, then?"

He looked at his watch in the light of the street lamp.

"A little past eight," he noted. "The theatres are busy. Would you care to accompany me on an excursion, doctor? To number fourteen Porkpie Lane, Soho."

"To Bram Stoker's flat? We are going to burgle it?"

"If you've no objection."

"None whatever. But why, if you reject my theory, does the place interest you?"

"We have no choice, in view of recent developments"--he gestured with a crooked thumb in the general direction of the Sikh's cell--"but to eliminate even the outside suspects in this matter. I can emerge with no theory of my own and Stoker taunts us like an apparition. Perhaps we can exorcize his influence on our thinking. For this purpose, I have brought a bull's-eye and some keys that may be useful to us. Are you coming? Good. Cab!"

The cab took us into a part of the West End with which I was not familiar. We threaded our way at first through well, if garishly, lit neighbourhoods, listening to raucous laughter and tinny music, and then passed into an area where even the occasional street lamp provided scant illumination. Looking about in the gloom, I felt little inclined to remain in one place and did not like the thought of being stranded there. Not many folk were about in this quarter of the town; at any rate, not many were visible, but I sensed them behind windows, round corners and in the menacing shadows of buildings. Our cab was obviously a novelty in the vicinity, a distinction keenly felt by the driver, whom I could hear muttering an unceasing string of maledictions above us. The horse's hooves echoed eerily on the deserted cobblestones.

Number 14 Porkpie Lane was a three-storey affair that looked positively squeezed between its neighbours, two seedy constructions on either side of it. Somewhat taller, they leaned towards each other over the roof of number 14, creating a viselike impression.

"Which is it?" I asked, looking up at the queer structure.

"On the second storey, in the middle. The window's dark, as you can see. It has a little ledge beneath it."

"Someone thought of putting a balcony there, once."

"Very likely."

We descended from the cab and made arrangements with the unwilling driver to come back in an hour and fetch us home. He was not loath to go and I could not blame him, for the setting was not in any way appealing. I only hoped he would prove as good as his word and return.

We waited in the shadows of the nearest edifice until the horse had clattered round the corner. Then, looking carefully about, Holmes produced a latchkey from his pocket and held it up to the faint light.

"A very useful item, this," said he softly. "I had it from Tony O'Hara, the sneak thief, when I nabbed him. You recall the case, Watson? It was a sort of parting gift, an entire ring of these little beauties. Each will tackle a great many simple locks of the same make. Or if it fails, you have only to move round the ring."

"You chose only two this night," I pointed out as he inserted the key in the front-door lock and began to fiddle and twist it. "How did you know which to bring?"

"By examining the locks this afternoon."

"I had no idea you were so adept at breaking and entering."

"Quite adept," he replied cheerfully, "and always ready in a good cause. It is always the cause that justifies little felonies such as these." His eyes twinkled in the dark. "L'homme c'est rien, l'oeuvre c'est tout. Come along, Watson."

The lock had yielded to his gentle ministrations and now the door opened before us, the small passage on the other side of it leading instantly to a rickety flight of stairs. We ascended without hesitation, judging that the less time we spent exposed to view, the safer we should be. I looked about as we climbed, wondering what sort of place it was. A step or two behind me on the stairs, the detective read my thoughts.

"It's a sort of boardinghouse of the kind that caters for transient characters," he informed me. "Keep moving."

It took rather more time to open the door to the flat, but after some delicate manipulations, this obstacle was also overcome and we found ourselves in the private sanctuary of Bram Stoker.

Holmes opened the bull's-eye and we surveyed the small room.

"Not suffused with romance," he commented dryly, holding the lantern high above his head and turning slowly. The room, though shabby, was nonetheless neat and spare. There were only three articles of furniture to be seen--a desk, a chair and a small divan. On the desk was a lone inkwell and a blotter. The cracked and peeling walls boasted not a single picture or decoration of any sort.

"Scarcely a trysting place," I agreed, looking at Holmes. He grunted by way of reply and moved towards the desk.

"I begin to see the logic of it, Watson. Our Mr. Stoker's secret mistress is the muse of literature. But why all the circumspection?" He sat down before the desk, setting the lantern on top of it, and began pulling open drawers. I advanced behind him and looked over his shoulder as he drew forth bundles of paper covered with small, neat, surprisingly feminine handwriting.

"Have a look at some of this." He passed me a sheaf and I began to read, standing next to him for want of a chair or other source of light. The man had apparently copied out a series of letters, extracts from diaries and personal notes written or exchanged between people named Jonathan Harker, Lucy Westenra, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, Arthur Holm-wood and Mina Murray.

"This must be some sort of novel," Holmes intoned softly, bent over a portion of it.

"A novel? Surely not."

"Yes, a novel; written in the form of letters and journals. Does nothing strike you about the name Jonathan Harker?"

"I suppose it vaguely resembles Stoker's real name."

"Vaguely? It contains precisely the same number of syllables and they are distributed between Christian and surnames in exactly the same manner. Stoker and Harker are almost identical, and Jonathan and Abraham are culled from the same source, the Bible. Harker must be his literary self."

"Why, then, is there a Dr. Abraham Van Helsing?" I asked, showing him the name. He read it, frowning.

"Name games, name games," he murmured. "Obviously, that part of my assumption was incorrect--or, at any rate, incomplete." He continued reading, turning over the pages of the manuscript in an orderly fashion, his lips pursed with concentration.

"Look at this," he said, after the space of a few minutes' silence. I returned from an idle tour of the room and read over his shoulder again:

On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed, and breathing heavily, as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the edge of the bed, facing outwards, was the white-clad figure of his wife; by her side stood a tall, thin man, the Count. His right hand gripped the back of her neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare chest, which was shown by his torn open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child's forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.3

"Great heavens!" I exclaimed, looking up and passing a hand before my eyes. "This is depraved."

"And this." He set down another passage before me:

"And you are now to me, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin; my bountiful wine press for a while." He then pulled open the shirt with his long, sharp nails, and opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I might either suffocate or swallow some of the--oh, my God, what have I done?

"Holmes, what sort of mad work is this?"

"No wonder he writes in secrecy," the detective agreed, looking up. "Have you noticed anything else?"

"What do you mean?"

"Only that our Mr. Stoker knows how to induce swallowing." I looked at the two passages again and we stared at each other, horror written on our faces.

"Can we have been forced to drink blood?" I whispered in awed tones.

Before he could answer, we were both made aware of the clip-clop of horses' hooves entering the lane.

"The cab's not due back yet," Holmes observed, snapping shut the bull's-eye and plunging the room into darkness. He peered through the shutters into the street. "Great Scott! It's him!"

"The cabby?"

"Stoker!"

Chapter XIII

The Missing Policeman

"Hurry, Watson." Rapidly, Holmes assembled the papers and replaced them in the drawers from which they had been taken. As we heard the cab door slam in the stillness, he leapt to the door of the flat and locked it from within.

"But, Holmes--"

"The balcony, man! Quick!"

In less time than it takes to report, we threw open the window and passed out onto the precarious ledge, closing the shutters behind us as Stoker's heavy tread was audible on the stairs.

"Don't look down" were my companion's last instructions as we flattened ourselves against the building wall and awaited developments.

We had not long to wait. Within seconds of our gaining tenuous positions of safety, the door to the flat was reopened and Stoker entered the room. He closed and locked the door behind him, then proceeded to his desk, lit the gas and pulled open the drawers. He took out pens, fresh paper and what he had already written, spent some minutes ordering his materials but did not appear to notice anything amiss. Without further preamble, he settled down to work on his ghastly manuscript.

How long we stood on that slender shelf, clutching the bottom of the window frame for support, it is difficult to say. The moon had risen, pinning us like specimens beneath an observation light. We dared not move, for we were so near the clandestine novelist that our merest sound was certain to excite his suspicions. As the time passed and we prayed for the return of our cab, our hands, even in their gloves, began to lose sensation. The stillness round us was broken only by an occasional cough from within.

After what seemed a year, the silence was abruptly shattered by the hoofbeats of another horse. Holmes and I exchanged looks and he signed for me to peer under the shutters. I did so and was able to discern the bending author in pursuit of his story, happily indifferent to any disturbance outside his mad world. I looked again at Holmes, indicating with a blink of my eyes that all was well, and he gestured with a free hand, explaining that we must jump onto the roof of the cab as it stopped underneath.

The poor cabby entered the alley nervously and looked about. Holmes signalled from our perch above and waved him over, placing a finger on his lips in a theatrical plea for silence. The man appeared quite dumbfounded by the sight of us, hanging, as it were, from the moon, but responded to the detective's repeated gesticulations and moved the vehicle hesitantly forward. When he had arranged the cab's position perfectly, we lowered ourselves gingerly to the roof before him, making but little noise in the process. Holmes clapped the cabby on the back when we had landed, in a grateful embrace.

"Baker Street, again," he urged quietly, and we returned to our lodgings, leaving the fiendish Mr. Stoker to his queer literary efforts.

"Your theory has had another hole punched in it," Holmes remarked as we climbed the 17 steps to our rooms. "Bram Stoker's secret lair is used for his writing, not his rendezvous, and his pastime is one of which his family and employer disapprove."

"I can see why," I acknowledged, "but what about the passages in the book--the ones in which folk are compelled to drink--"

"I've been thinking about them on our way back," he returned, stopping on the stairs. "You will find that if you wish to induce swallowing, there is only one way to go about it. No, Watson, I am afraid matters have come to a very serious pass. We might wish Bram Stoker to be our man, but he is not--no more than that miserable wretch Lestrade has arrested. The only difference between them," he added, opening the door, "is that if we cannot find the true murderer, Achmet Singh will hang. Hullo! Who is here? Why, it's young Hopkins!"

It was, indeed, the sandy-haired policeman, who was just being shown to a chair by our landlady as we entered. He rose awkwardly at once and explained that Mrs. Hudson had told him he might wait for us there.

"Quite right, Mrs. Hudson," Holmes assured her, interrupting her own flow of oratory on the subject. "I know that you don't like policemen standing about in your parlour."

The long-suffering woman referred briefly to the strange goings on of late (by which she meant, I knew, Holmes's appearance in disguise that afternoon) and withdrew.

"Now, then, Hopkins," Holmes began as soon as the door had closed, "what brings you to Baker Street at an hour when most off-duty policemen are at home resting their feet? I perceive that your route here has been a circuitous one and that you have taken great pains to avoid being seen."

"Heavens, sir, how can you tell that?"

"My dear young man, you have divested yourself of every vestige of your police uniform, which means you probably stopped off home, first, and then, look at your trouser leg. There must be seven different splashes there, each evidently from a different part of town. I believe I recognize some mud from Gloucester Road, the cement they are using at the Kensington H--"

"I have had to be extremely circumspect." The youth blushed and looked from one to the other of us uncertainly.

"You may speak before Dr. Watson here as before myself," Holmes promised smoothly.

"Very well." He sighed and took what was palpably a difficult plunge. "I must tell you gentlemen straight off that my appearance here tonight puts me in a very awkward situation--with the force, I mean." He eyed us anxiously. "I've come on my own initiative, you see, and not in any official capacity."

"Bravo," Holmes murmured. "I was right, Hopkins. There is hope for you."

"I very much doubt if there will be at the Yard if they learn of this," the forlorn policeman replied, his face falling further at the thought. "Perhaps I'd best be--"

"Why don't you pull that chair up to the fire and begin at the beginning," Holmes interrupted with soothing courtesy. "There you are; make yourself quite at home and comfortable. Would you care for something to drink? No? Very well, I am all attention." To prove it, he crossed his legs and closed his eyes.

"It's about Mr. Brownlow," the sergeant commenced hesitantly. He saw that Holmes's eyes were shut and looked at me, confused, but I motioned him to go on. "Mr. Brownlow," he repeated. "You know Mr. Brownlow?"

"The police surgeon? I believe I passed him on my way downstairs at twenty-four South Crescent yesterday morning. He was on his way for McCarthy's remains, was he not?"

"Yes, sir." Hopkins ran a tongue over his dry lips.

"A good man, Brownlow. Did he find anything remarkable in his autopsy?"

There was a pause. "We don't know, Mr. Holmes."

"But he's submitted his report, surely."

"No. The fact is," Hopkins hesitated again, "Mr. Brownlow has disappeared."

Holmes opened his eyes. "Disappeared?"

"Yes, Mr. Holmes. He's quite vanished."

The detective blew air soundlessly from his cheeks. With automatic gestures, his slender hands began nervously packing a pipe that had been lying near to hand.

"When was he last seen?"

"He was in the mortuary all day at work on McCarthy--in the laboratory--and he began acting very strangely."

"How strangely?"

The sergeant made a funny face, as though about to laugh. "He threw all the assistants and stretcher-bearers out of the laboratory; made all of 'em take off all their clothes and scrub down with carbolic and alcohol and shower. And you know what he did while they were showering?"

The detective shook his head. I found myself straining to catch the sergeant's low tones.

"Mr. Holmes, he burned all their clothes."

My companion's eyes grew very bright at this. "Did he, indeed? And then disappeared?"

"Not just yet. He continued to work on the corpse by himself, and then, as you know, Miss Rutland's remains were carried in and he went briefly to work on them. He grew excited all over again and again summoned the stretcher-bearers and his assistants together and made them take off all their clothes once more, scrub with carbolic and alcohol and shower." He paused, liked his lips and took a breath. "And while they were showering--"

"He burned their clothes a second time?" Holmes enquired. He could not suppress his excitement and rubbed his hands together with satisfaction, puffing rapidly on his pipe. The young man nodded.

"It was almost funny. They thought he'd started to play some sort of prank on them the first time, but now they were furious, especially the bearers. They all had to be wrapped in blankets from the emergency room and in the meantime, Mr. Brownlow'd barricaded himself inside the laboratory! They brought Inspector Gregson down from Whitehall, but he wouldn't open the door to him, either. He had a police revolver with him in there and threatened to shoot the first man across the threshold. The door is quite solid and has no window, so they were obliged to leave him there all afternoon and into the night. Now he is gone."

"Gone? How? Surely they had sense enough to post a man outside the laboratory door."

Hopkins nodded vigorously. "They did but didn't think to post one outside the back of the laboratory."

"And where does that door lead?"

"To the stables and mews. The laboratory receives its supplies that way. The door is bigger and easier to lock, so that they never thought to challenge it. You see, Mr. Holmes, it never occurred to any of us that his object was to leave the laboratory. Quite the reverse. We assumed his purpose was to make us leave and remain in sole possession. Besides, they could hear him talking to himself in there."

Holmes closed his eyes and leaned back one more in his chair. "So he left the back way?"

"Aye, sir. In a police van."

"Indeed. Have you checked at his home? Brownlow's married, I seem to recall, and lives in Knightsbridge. Have you tried him there?"

"He's not been home, sir. We've men posted by it and neither they nor his missis has seen hide nor hair. She's quite worked up about it, needless to say."

"How very curious. I take it none of this activity at the morgue has had the slightest effect on the consensus at the Yard that Achmet Singh is guilty of a double murder?"

"No effect whatsoever, sir, though I venture to suppose there must be a connection of some sort."

"What makes you suppose that?"

Young Hopkins swallowed with difficulty. "Because there's one other thing I haven't told you, Mr. Holmes."

"And that is?"

"Mr. Brownlow took the bodies with him."

Holmes sat forward so abruptly that the sergeant flinched. "What? Miss Rutland and McCarthy?"

"That is correct, sir." The detective rose and began pacing about the room as the other watched. "I came to you, sir, because in my limited experience, you appear to think much more logically about certain matters than ..." he trailed off, embarrassed by his own indiscretion, but Holmes, deep in thought, appeared not to notice.

"Hopkins, would our going over to the laboratory and having a close look at things there place you in an awkward position?"

The young man paled. "Please, sir, you mustn't think of doing it. The fact is, they're all of a dither down there and don't want anyone to know what's happened. They've got it in their heads this thing could make them a laughing-stock--the idea of the police surgeon burning all those clothes and then absconding with two corpses--"

"That is one way of looking at it," Holmes agreed. "Very well, then. You must answer a few more questions to the very best of your ability."

"I'll try, sir."

"Have you seen the laboratory since Brownlow abandoned it?"

"Yes, sir. I made it my business to have a look."

"Capital! Really, Hopkins, you exceed my fondest hopes. Now tell me, what was left there?"

The sergeant frowned in concentration, eager to continue earning the detective's effusive praise.

"Nothing much, I'm afraid. Rather less than usual, in fact. The place had been scrubbed clean as a whistle and it fairly reeked of carbolic. The only thing out of the ordinary was the pile of burnt clothes in the chemical basins, where he'd set fire to them. And he'd poured lye over the ashes."

"How did you know what they were, in that case?"

"Some of the buttons still remained, sir."

"Hopkins, you are a trump." Holmes rubbed his hands together once more. "And have your sore throat and headache quite vanished?"

"Quite, sir. Yesterday, Lestrade said it was probably just--" He stopped and gaped at the detective. "I don't recall mentioning my illness."

"Nor did you--which doesn't alter the fact of your recovery. I am delighted to learn of both. You haven't left out anything? A little nip of something on the side?"

Hopkins looked at him uncertainly. "Nip? No, sir. I don't know what you mean, I'm afraid."

"Doubtless not. Lestrade feels fit, too, now, does he?"

"He is quite recovered," the sergeant answered, giving up all hope of learning the detective's secrets. Holmes scowled and cupped his chin in thought.

"You are both luckier than you know--"

"See here, Holmes," I broke in, "I seem to see what you are getting at. There's some matter of contamination or contagion involved--"

"Precisely." His eyes gleamed. "But we have yet to discover what is in danger of proliferating. Watson, you saw both bodies and conducted a cursory examination of each. Did their condition suggest anything in the nature of a disease to you?"

I sat and pondered while they watched, Holmes barely able to conceal his impatience.

"I believe I stated at the time both throats were prematurely stiff--as though the glands were swollen. But any number of common ailments begin with a sore throat."

Holmes sighed, nodded and turned once more to the policeman. "Hopkins, I very much fear a discreet visit to the back of the mortuary laboratory is inevitable. The stakes are too great that we should hesitate to trifle with the dignity of the metropolitan police. We must see how one man carried out two corpses. We already begin to know why."

"To dispose of them?" I asked.

He nodded grimly.

"And it would be as well to put out a general alarm for that missing police van."

"That has already been done, Mr. Holmes," said the young sergeant with some satisfaction. "If it's in London, we'll lay hands on it."

"That is exactly what you must none of you do," Holmes returned, throwing on his coat. "No one must go near it. Watson, are you still game?"

Chapter XIV

The Scourge of God

Moments later, we stood in the company of the anxious sergeant on the stretch of pavement before 221B, in search of a cab. Instead of a hansom, however, I beheld a familiar figure dancing down the street towards us in the glare of the lamplight.

"Have you heard the latest outrage?" Bernard Shaw cried, without so much as shaking hands. "They've pinned the whole thing on a Sikh!"

Sherlock Holmes endeavoured to inform the volatile Irishman that we were aware of the turn events had taken, but at that moment, Shaw recognized Hopkins and turned upon that unfortunate young man the full force of his sarcastic vitriol.

"Out of uniform, eh?" he commenced. "And well you should be if murder is being contemplated. I wonder you've the face to appear in public at all with your hands so red! Do you seriously believe, Sergeant, that the British Public, which I agree is gullible beyond credence, is going to swallow this particular connivance? It won't go down, believe me, Sergeant, it won't. It's too big to pass the widest chasm of credibility. This isn't France, you'd do well to remember. You can't divert our attention with a xenophobic charade!"

In vain, as we waited for our cab, did Hopkins attempt to stem the tidal wave of rhetoric. He pointed out that it was not he who had arrested the Indian.

"So!" the other eagerly seized the opportunity for a literary analogy. "You wash your hands with Pilate, hey? I wonder there's room at the trough for so many of you, lined up alongside with your dirty fingers. If you suppose--"

"My dear Shaw," Holmes remonstrated forcefully, "I don't know how you can have learned of Mr. Singh's arrest--the newsboys are hawking it, very likely--but if you have nothing better to do than rouse mine honest neighbours at a quarter past twelve, I suggest you come along with us. Cab!"

"Where to?" Shaw demanded as the cab pulled up before us. His voice lacked any trace of contrition.

"The mortuary. Someone appears to have made off with our two corpses."

"Made off with them?" he echoed, getting in. This intelligence succeeded in doing what Sergeant Hopkins could not and the critic fell into a revery as he tried to determine its significance. His shrill imprecations were reduced to a stream of mutterings inside the cab as we threaded our way to the mews behind the mortuary laboratory. A block or so before the place, Holmes ordered the driver to stop and we descended from the cab. In hushed tones, the cabby was instructed to wait where he was until we should return.

There was no one about as we entered the mews, though the voices of the ostlers were audible from the police stables across the way. We proceeded cautiously on foot, our path being lit by the yellow lights of windows overhead. Sergeant Hopkins looked fearfully about as we advanced, for obvious reasons more apprehensive about discovery than ourselves.

"This door leads to the laboratory?" Holmes enquired softly, pointing to a large, wooden, portcullislike affair, whose base was some four feet off the ground. Hopkins nodded, stealing an anxious glance over his shoulder.

"You can see the wheel marks where the wagon was backed up to it." The detective knelt and indicated the twin tracks, plainly visible in the meagre light from above. "Of course, the police have examined it," he added with a weary sigh, pointing to all the footprints running in every direction all round the place.

"It looks as if they danced a Highland fling here," I commented, sharing his indignation.

He grunted and followed the wheel marks out of the dirt to where they disappeared on the cobblestones.

"He went left, that's all we can say," he reported gloomily, returning to the door, where we waited. "Once he departed the mews, there's no telling where he was bound."

"Perhaps we should fetch Toby," I suggested.

"We haven't the time to go to Lambeth and back, and besides, what could we offer him as a scent? He's not as young as he used to be, you know, and the stench of carbolic would be insufficient. Blast! Every second gives this thing--whatever it is--more time to spread. Hullo, what's this?"

He had been speaking bent over and almost touching the ground as he inspected it inch by inch. Now he dropped to his knees once again, directly beneath the laboratory door, and rose with something held gingerly in his right hand.

"The noose round Achmet Singh's neck begins to loosen, or I am much deceived."

"How so?" Shaw enquired, stepping forward.

"Because if the prosecution contends that the Sikh smoked these Indian cheroots, they will be hard put to explain the presence of this one outside the mortuary laboratory whilst Singh himself was incarcerated in a private security cell at Whitehall."

"Are you certain it is the same cigar?" I hazarded, not wishing to question his abilities and yet, for the sake of the prisoner, feeling obliged to do so.

"Quite sure," he returned, without seeming to take umbrage. "I took great pains to recognize it should I ever see one like it again. It's in an excellent state of preservation, as you can see. Notice the distinctive square-tipped ends. Our man simply threw it aside when the other opened the laboratory door for him."

"The other?"

Holmes turned to Hopkins. "I take it Mr. Brownlow did not smoke Indian cheroots?"

"No, sir," the youth replied. "In fact, to my knowledge, he did not smoke at all."

"Excellent. Then there was another man here and it is that other man who concerns us. Brownlow was not talking to himself but conversing with our quarry."

"But what of Mr. Brownlow?" Hopkins demanded, his honest features revealing his perplexity.

"Hopkins," the detective put a hand upon his shoulder, "the time has come for us to part company. Your position here becomes increasingly delicate as this night progresses. If you will be guided by me, I suggest that for your own good you go home and get a good night's rest. Say nothing of what you have seen and heard here tonight to anyone, and I, for my part, will endeavour to keep your name out of it--unless, of course, Achmet Singh comes to the foot of the gallows, at which point I will have no alternative but to take drastic steps."

Hopkins wavered, torn between his own curiosity and his sense of discretion. "Will you tell me what you find, at least?" he implored.

"I am afraid I cannot promise that I shall."

The sergeant hesitated a moment or so longer and then departed with evident reluctance, his personal impulses outweighed by the obligations of loyalty he felt he owed his superiors.

"A bright young fellow, that," Holmes observed when he had gone. "And now, Watson, every minute counts. Whom do you know able to tell us about tropical diseases?"

"Ainstree4 is generally regarded as the greatest living authority on the subject," I replied, "but he is in the West Indies, at present, if I am not mistaken."

"What have tropical diseases to do with this?" Shaw demanded, raising his voice.

"Let us return to the cab and I shall explain. Only keep your voice down, like a good fellow.

"I think we had best pay a call on Dr. Moore Agar of Harley Street," he resumed when we had regained the cab. "Watson, you've frequently recommended him when I was suffering from overwork and fatigue."

"I did not envisage your calling upon him after one in the morning," I hastened to point out. "In any case, the man's not a specialist in tropical diseases."

"No, but he may be able to direct us to the leading available authority."

"In heaven's name," Shaw exploded as the cab rattled off for Harley Street, "you still haven't said why we need a specialist in tropical diseases!"

"Forgive me, but I hope to make all plain before the night is out. All I can say at present is that Jonathan McCarthy and Miss Jessie Rutland were not killed to prevent their living but rather to prevent their dying a more horrible and more dangerous death."

"How can one death be more dangerous than another?" Shaw scoffed in the dark recesses of the cab.

"Very easily. Different kinds of death pose different hazards to those who continue living. All bodies become sources of infection if they are not disposed of, yet a body that dies a natural death, or even one that has been stabbed, is less dangerous to other people than a corpse that has succumbed to some virulent disease."

"You mean these two were slain violently in order to prevent their suffering the ravages of some malady?"

"Just so. A malady that would have made off with them as surely as a bullet, given time. Their corpses were stolen from the mortuary laboratory to prevent further contagion and we three who were most prominently exposed to them were forced to imbibe some sort of antidote."

"Antidote!" the critic cried out, his voice rising an involuntary octave. "Then that practical joke outside Simpson's--"

"Saved our lives, I shouldn't wonder."

"If your theory is correct," Shaw returned gruffly. "But what is the malady we are speaking of?"

"I have no idea and hesitate even to make a guess. Since all the evidence points to someone recently returned from India, I take the liberty of postulating some tropical disorder, but that is the best I can do with such insufficient data. The bodies were probably stolen, as well, to prevent any autopsy from revealing what would have killed them had the murderer permitted them to live."

"What of Brownlow, then? Did he collaborate with Jack Point?"

"He opened the door to him, that much seems certain. The evidence suggests he had come upon the truth--why else scrub down the laboratory and force his assistants and the stretcher-bearers to shower whilst he burned their clothes?"

"Where is he now, then?"

Holmes hesitated.

"I very much fear that Mr. Brownlow is dead. If the murderer's purpose was to contain a spreading epidemic, the police surgeon, by virtue of his occupation, was more contaminated than any of us."

Next to me I could see Holmes's jaw tighten and in his expression, I beheld that which I had never seen before in all the years I had known him. I beheld fear.

It was almost two o'clock when the cab deposited us before Dr. Moore Agar's imposing residence in Harley Street. Remarking that our intrusion was not likely to be rendered less irritating to Dr. Agar by our waiting, Holmes proceeded up the steps and rang the night bell vigorously several times. It took some moments before a light appeared in one of the overhead windows, followed shortly thereafter by another on the floor above. In another few moments, the door was opened by the housekeeper, an elderly woman, half-asleep, who stood upon the threshold in her nightcap and dressing gown.

"I am extremely sorry to disturb you," the detective informed her briskly, "but it is absolutely essential that I speak with Dr. Agar at once. My name is Sherlock Holmes." He handed her his card.

She gaped at us, her eyes blinking away sleep.

"Just a moment, sir, please. Won't (continued on page 188)The West End Horror (continued from page 184) you gentlemen step into the hall?"

We were obliged to stand there while she closed the door and went upon our errand. Sherlock Holmes paced furiously in the confined space of the vestibule, gnawing at his knuckles.

"It is staring us in the face, I know it," he cried in exasperation, "but I cannot fathom it, cannot for the life of me!"

The inner door of the hall opened and the housekeeper, somewhat more alert now, admitted us and showed us to Dr. Moore Agar's consulting room, where she turned up the gas and closed the door. This time we had not long to wait. Almost at once, the doctor himself, tall, spare and distinguished, swept into the room, tying the belt of his red-silk dressing gown but otherwise appearing wide awake.

"Mr. Holmes, what is the meaning of this? Are you will?"

"I trust not, doctor. I have come to you in a crisis, however, for a piece of information upon which the lives of many may well depend. Forgive me if I do not take time for introductions, though I suspect you know already Dr. Watson."

"Tell me what you need to know and I will try to help you," Agar informed him without standing on ceremony. If he was in any way discomfited by the lateness of the hour or perturbed by our unannounced arrival, he gave no outward sign of it.

"Very well. I need the name of the leading specialist in tropical diseases here in London."

"Tropical diseases?" He frowned, passing a graceful hand across his mouth as he considered the request. "Well, Ainstree is the man who--"

"He is not at present in England," I pointed out.

"Ha. No, indeed not." The physician suppressed a yawn that was meant to attribute his lapse of memory to the hour. "Let me see, then--"

"Every minute is of the utmost urgency, Dr. Agar."

"I understand you, sir." He thought a moment longer, his blue eyes unblinking; then suddenly he snapped his fingers. "It comes to me now. There is a young man who might be able to assist you. His name escapes me, but I can look him up in my study and it won't take but a minute. Wait here."

He took a piece of paper from his desk and disappeared from the office. Holmes continued to pace restlessly, like a caged animal.

"Just look at this place," Shaw growled, taking in the plush surroundings with a sweep of his small arm. "Fancy bound books and gadgets galore! The medical profession could easily compete with the theatre as a house of illusion if it wanted to. Does any of this paraphernalia really assist in curing folk of their ailments, or aren't these all a collection of stage props designed to impress the patient with the majesty and power of the shaman?"

"If they are cured by illusion, that is no less a cure," I protested, whereat he regarded me with a curious stare. I confess that once again I was nettled by the fellow's caustic observations, but Holmes, seemingly oblivious to the exchange, continued to pace about the room.

"So," Shaw went on, "if a man contracts the plague and goes to see a physician about it, by your argument, a roomful of books and instruments, such as these--"

"Plague!"

Holmes spun round, his face dead white, his hands shaking. "Plague," he repeated in an almost reverential tone. "That is what we are dealing with."

Never had a single word struck such terror to the very roots of my soul.

"Plague?" I repeated faintly, suppressing a shudder of dread. "How can you know?"

"Watson, invaluable Watson! You held the key in your own hands from the first! Do you remember the line you quoted from act three, scene one, of Romeo and Juliet? 'A plague on both your houses!' He was being literal! And what did they do when the plague came to London?"

"They closed the playhouses," Shaw interjected.

"Precisely."

At that moment, the door opened and Agar returned, a folded piece of paper in his hand.

"I have the name you asked for," he informed the detective, holding forth the paper.

"I know already what name it is," Holmes responded, taking it. "Ah, you have included his address. That is most helpful. Ah, yes, before me all the time and I was blind to it! Quick, Watson!" He stuffed the paper in the pocket of his Inverness. "Dr. Agar," he grabbed the astonished physician's hand and pumped it in passing, "a thousand thanks!" He tore from the room, leaving us no alternative but to pursue him.

The cab was waiting for us as ordered and Holmes leapt in, yelling to the driver, "Thirty-three Wyndham Place, Marylebone, and don't spare the horse!" We had barely time to clamber in after him before the vehicle was tearing through the nocturnal city of London with an echoning clatter of hoofbeats.

"All the time, all the time" was the insistent litany of Sherlock Holmes, intoned again and again as we raced through the deserted streets on our fateful errand. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. If only I had heeded that simple maxim!" he groaned. "Watson, you are in the presence of the greatest fool in Christendom."

"I believe we are in the presence of the greatest lunatic," Shaw broke in. "Pull yourself together, man, and tell us what's afoot."

My companion leaned forward, his grey eyes flashing like lighthouse beacons in the dark. "The game, my dear Shaw! The game's afoot and such a quarry as I've never been faced with yet! The greatest game of my career and should I fail to snare it, we may all very well be doomed!"

"Can you not speak more plainly, in heaven's name? I think I've never heard such melodrama outside of the Haymarket!"

Holmes sat back and looked calmly about him. "You don't need to listen to me at all. In a very few minutes, you shall hear it from the lips of the man we are seeking--if he is still alive."

"Still alive?"

"He can't have toyed with the disease as much as he has done without succumbing to it sooner or later.

"Sometime in the mid-Fourteenth Century, three ships carrying spices from the East put into port in Genoa. In addition to their cargo, they also carried rats, which left the ship and mingled with the city's own rodents. Shortly, dead rats began appearing in streets everywhere, thousands of them. And then the human populace began to die. The symptoms were simple: dizziness, headache, sore throat and then hard black boils under the arms and around the groin. After the boils, fever, shivering, nausea and spitting blood. In three days, the victim was dead. Bubonic plague. In the next fifty years, it killed almost half the population of Europe, with a mortality rate of ninety percent of all it infected. People referred to it as the Black Death and it must easily rank as the greatest natural disaster in human history."

"Where did it come from?" We found ourselves talking in whispers.

"From China, and from thence to India. The Crusaders brought it home with them and then the merchants--it destroyed Europe and then disappeared as suddenly as it erupted."

"And never returned?"

"Not for three hundred years. In the mid-Seventeenth Century, as Shaw recalled, they were forced to close the playhouses when it reached England. The Great Fire of London appeared to have ended it then."

"But it's not been heard from since, surely."

"On the contrary, my dear Watson, it has been heard from, and only as recently as last year."

"Where?"

"In China. It erupted with an old vengeance, sprang out of Hong Kong and is presently ravaging India, as you know from the papers."

It was difficult, I owned, to associate the bubonic plague that one read of in the newspapers with something as primitively awesome as the Black Death--and even more difficult to envisage another onslaught of the fatal pestilence here in England.

"Nevertheless, we are now facing that possibility," Sherlock Holmes returned. "Ah, here we are. Hurry, gentlemen!" He dismissed the cab and dashed up the steps of number 33, where we discovered the door to be unbolted.

Cautiously, Holmes pushed open the door. Almost at once, our nostrils were assailed by the most terrible odour.

"What is it?" Shaw gasped, reeling to the front step.

"Carbolic in enormous concentrations. Cover your noses and mouths, gentlemen. Watson, you haven't your revolver with you? No? What a pity. Inside, please." So saving, he plucked forth his own handkerchief and, pressing it to his face, moved into the house.

The lights were off and we dared not light the gas for fear of disturbing the occupants, though how anyone should have passed a decent night in that pungent atmosphere I could not imagine.

Gradually, making our way back along the first floor, we became aware of a rasping, rhythmic sound, rather like the pulse beat of some piece of machinery in need of an oilcan.

Instinctively, we made our way towards that pumping sound and found ourselves in a darkened room, almost on top of it.

"Come no nearer!" a voice rasped suddenly, very close by. "Mr. Holmes is it? I have been waiting for you." I was aware of a shrouded figure slumped in a chair next to a desk and lamp across the room, by the windows that faced the street.

"I hoped we would find you in time, Dr. Benjamin Eccles."

Slowly, the figure moved in the dark and, with a groan of effort, managed to turn up the gas.

Chapter XV

Jack Point

It was, indeed, the theatre doctor who was revealed to us by the faint light of the lone lamp.

But so changed! His body, like that of a wizened old monkey, sat shrunk in its chair, and I should scarcely have recognized his face as human, let alone his, had Holmes not identified him for us. His countenance was withered like a rotten apple, covered with hideous black boils and pustules that split and poured forth bile like dirty tears. The stuff ran down his bumpy face and made it glisten. His eyes were so puffed and bloodshot that he could hardly open them--the whites rolled horribly round, glimpsed beneath the lids; his lips were cracked and parched and split with bleeding sores. With a chill shock shooting through my bones, I realized that the rasping, pumplike sound we had been listening to was his own laboured breath, wheezing like the wind through a pipe organ--and the knowledge told me that Dr. Eccles had not another hour to live.

"Come no nearer!" the apparition repeated in a husky whisper. "I am going fast and must be left alone until I do. Afterwards, you must burn this room and everything in it, especially my corpse--I've written it down here, in case you came too late--but whatever you do, do not touch the corpse! Do you understand? Do not touch it!" he croaked. "The disease is transmitted by contact with the flesh!"

"Your instructions shall be carried out to the letter," Holmes answered firmly. "Is there any way we can make you more comfortable?"

The putrescent mass shook slowly from side to side, a black, swollen tongue lolling loosely from what had once been a mouth.

"There is nothing you can do for me and nothing I deserve. I am dying of my own folly and merit all the pain my wickedness has brought me. But God knows I loved her, Mr. Holmes! As surely as a man ever loved a woman in this world, I loved Jessie Rutland, and no man since time started was ever forced to do for his love what fate made me do for mine!" He gave a choked sob that wracked all that remained of his miserable frame and almost carried him off then and there. For a full minute, we were obliged to listen to his dreadful sounds, until at length they subsided.

"I am a Catholic," said he, when he could speak again. "For obvious reasons, I cannot send for a priest. Will you hear my confession?"

"We will hear it," my companion answered gently. "Can you speak?"

"I can. I must!" With a superhuman effort, the creature hoisted himself straighter in his chair. "I was born not far from here, in Sussex, just over forty years ago. My parents were well-to-do country folk and though I was a second son, I was my mother's favourite and given an excellent education. I was at Winchester and then at the University of Edinburgh, where I took my medical degree. I passed my examinations with flying colours and all my professors agreed that my strength lay in research. I was a young man, however, with a head crammed full of adventurous yearnings and ideas. I'd spent so much time studying, I craved a little action before settling down to my test tubes and microscope. I wanted to see a little of life before I immured myself within the cloistered walls of a laboratory, so I enrolled in the course for army surgeons at Netley. I arrived in India in the wake of the Mutiny and for fifteen years I led the life I had dreamed of, serving under Braddock and later Fitzpatrick. I saw action in the Second Afghan War and, even like yourself, Dr. Watson, I was at Maiwand. All the time, I kept notebooks and recorded the things I found in my travels, mainly observations on tropical disorders I encountered in my capacity as army doctor--for I was determined, eventually, to follow my true calling and take up research."

He stopped here and broke into a series of heaving coughs again, spitting some blood upon the carpet. There was some water in a glass and a carafe just out of reach on the table beside him and Shaw made to move it nearer.

"Back, fool!" he gasped. "Can you not understand?" With an effort of will, he seized the glass and greedily gulped down its contents, the water gurgling through his distended intestines so that all could hear it.

"Five years ago, I left the army and settled in Bombay to pursue research at the Hospital for Tropic Diseases there. I had by this time married Edith Morstan, the niece of a captain in my regiment, and we took a house near my work, preparing ourselves for a happy and rewarding future together. I don't know that I loved her the way I came to love Jessie, but I meant to do right by her as a husband and a father and I did it, too, so far as it was within my power. Up until that time, Mr. Holmes, I was a happy man! Life had smiled upon me from the first and everything I had touched had turned to gold. As a student, as a soldier, as a surgeon and as a suitor, I always had my efforts crowned with success."

He paused, remembering his life, it seemed, and something very like a smile played upon what remained of his features and then vanished.

"And then it all ended. As suddenly and arbitrarily as though I'd been allotted a store of good luck and used it all up, disaster overtook me. It happened in this way. Within two years of my marriage, my wife, whose heart condition I had known of from the first days of our courtship, suffered a stroke that left her little more than a living corpse, unable to speak, hear, see or move. It happened like a thunderbolt from the blue. I had seen men die in battle or lose their limbs, but never before had catastrophe blighted me or mine. There was nothing for it but to put her in the nursing home run in conjunction with the hospital, she who only the day before had been my own dear girl.

"At first, I visited her every day, but seeing that my visits made no impression on her and only served to rend my own heart, I reduced their frequency and finally stopped going altogether, satisfying myself with weekly reports on her condition, which was always the same, no better or worse than before. The law precluded any question of divorce. In any event, I had no desire to marry again. It was the last thing on my mind as I continued my work in the hospital laboratory.

"For a time, my life took on a new routine and I came to assume that I was finished with disaster. But disaster had only begun with me! My father wrote to say he was not well, but I hesitated to return home, fearing to leave my wife. Thus, he died without seeing me again, and my elder brother succeeded to his estate. After my father's demise, my mother wrote, begging me to return, but again I refused, saying that I could not leave Edith--and soon my mother died, herself. I think she died of double grief--my father's death coupled with my refusal to come home.

"And then, last year, as if all that had gone before it were but a foolish prelude, a lighthearted glimpse at things to come, there came the plague from China. It tore through India like a veritable scourge of God, sweeping all before it. By the millions people died! Oh, I know you've read it in the papers, but it was quite another thing to be there, gentlemen, I assure you! All the Asian subcontinent turned into one vast charnel house, with only a comparative handful of medical men to sort out the situation and fight it. In all my experience as a physician, I had never before beheld the like. It came in two forms--bubonic, transmitted by rats, and pneumonic, which infects the lungs and is transmitted by humans. By virtue of my previous research in the area of infectious diseases, I was one of the first five physicians named to the Plague Board, formed by Her Majesty's government to combat the epidemic. I was put in charge of investigations into the pneumonic variety of plague and set to work at once.

"In the meantime, the plague raced through Bombay itself, killing hundreds of thousands, but my ill luck stayed with me and my wife remained untouched. Do not misunderstand me. I did not wish her to die like this"--he gestured feebly to himself--"but I knew what a burden her life was and I prayed for her to be stricken and put out of her misery. May God forgive me for that prayer!" he cried fervently.

He paused again, this time for breath, and sat there panting and wheezing like some ghastly bellows. Then, summoning reserves of strength I did not expect remained in him, he leaned forward, seized the carafe and drank from it, holding it unsteadily to his face and dribbling much water down his chin and onto his open collar. When he had done, he let it fall to the floor, where the carpet prevented its breaking.

"The Plague Board decided to send me to England," he resumed. "Someone had to continue research while others actually fought the disease. I had had some slight luck with a tincture-of-iodine preparation, provided it was applied within twelve hours of exposure, and the board wished me to experiment with the possibilities of vaccination based upon my formula. It was decided that the work could better be continued in England, as the ravages of the malady itself severely limited facilities and equipment, as well as making it more difficult to ensure absolute control over the experiments.

"This decision was by no means painful to me. On the contrary, it salved my conscience with a real excuse to quit that pestilent place, which contained so many bad memories for me, including a wife I could neither cure nor destroy. For years, I had contemplated abandoning my life in India, and now the legitimate opportunity had been afforded me. All due precautions were taken and I brought samples of pneumonic-plague bacillus with me to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital here in London, where an emergency laboratory was placed at my disposal. I continued my investigations with a vengeance, studying the plague, its cause and cure, relying heavily on the work of Shibasaburo Kitazato, director of the Imperial Japanese Institute for the Study of Infectious Diseases, and Alexandre Yersin, a bacteriologist in Switzerland. Last year, both these men isolated a rod-shaped bacterial microorganism called Pasteurella pestis, vital to the progress of my work.

"I laboured long and hard to integrate their findings with my own but found that when evenings came, I could stand it no longer. My mind was stagnating for lack of recreation or other occupation. I knew virtually no one in London and did not care to speak with my brother, so it was hard for me. And then I heard of the post vacated by Dr. Lewis Spellman, the theatre physician on call in the West End, who was retiring. I visited Dr. Spellman and ascertained that the work was not really difficult and would serve to occupy my evenings in a pleasant and diverting fashion. I had never known any theatre people and the job would certainly provide me with some human contact, sadly lacking in my life of late.

"Upon Dr. Spellman's recommendation, I was given the post some months ago, and it made a considerable difference to my life. The work was scarcely exacting and I was seldom called upon to treat more than an untimely sore throat, though I once had occasion to set a fractured arm suffered by an actor during a fall in a duel. All in all, it was a distinct contrast to the desperate search I was engaged upon at Bart's. I would scrub myself down at the end of every day, using the tincture-of-iodine solution, and eagerly proceed upon my theatrical rounds. When I had finished my tour of an evening, I returned here to my lodgings, pleasantly enervated and mentally refreshed.

"It was in this way that I came to meet Jessie Rutland. It had been years since I had thought of a woman, and it was only by degrees that I noticed and became attracted to her. In our conversations, I made no mention of my wife or her condition, as the subject never came up. Later, when it was relevant, I feared to tell her of it.

"That was the beginning, gentlemen. All was perfectly correct between us, for we had not acknowledged the depth of our feelings and were both aware of the rules governing contact between the sexes at the Savoy.

"Yet slowly we came to love each other, Mr. Holmes. She was the sweetest, most generous creature under a bonnet, with the most loving and tender disposition. I saw in her love the chance of my soul's salvation. It was then that I told her of my marriage. It caused me agony for weeks beforehand, but I decided I had no right to keep the facts from someone I loved as dearly as her and so made a clean breast of it."

He stopped to catch his breath, the whites of his eyes winking madly at us, rolling about in their sockets.

"She was very distraught at first, and I thought my first conclusions had been right all along. For three days, she refused to speak with me, and during that time, I thought I must become lunatic. I was ready to do away with myself, when she relented and told me that she loved me still. I cannot tell you into what transports of joy that knowledge put me. I felt there were no obstacles that could not be overcome, nothing I could not accomplish with her at my side and her love in my heart!

"But fate had not yet done with me. And, as it had done in the past, it struck at me not directly but through the woman I loved. A man--an ogre, I should say--approached Jessie without my knowing of it and told her he knew of our intrigue. He had made enquiries of his own and told her he knew I was married. He twisted our love into something sordid and terrifying. His whispers were without shame and without remorse--and she succumbed to them. She acted partly for my sake as well as for her own in submitting to his lecherous fancy, for he had played upon her fears in that respect, and she told me nothing of what she had done, lest she compromise us both and add my ruin to her own.

"But she couldn't keep secret her emotions, Mr. Holmes. That intuitive bond that exists between two people in love had already sprung up between us and, without knowing what had happened, I knew something was wrong. With many sighs and tears, I pried the tale of her humiliation from her, promising beforehand that whatever I heard, I would take no action.

"But it was no use my making such a promise! What she told me was too monstrous to be believed, let alone endured. There was something so incredible about such casual, yet total malevolence that I had to see it for myself.

"I went to his house and spoke with him." He paused, coughing slightly and shaking what was left of his head. "I had never met such a man in all my travels. When I confronted him with his shameful deed, he laughed! Yes, laughed to hear me throw it to his face and said I didn't know much about the ways of the theatre! I was so taken aback by the colossal effrontery of the thing that I found myself pleading with him, yes, begging him to return to me my life, my world. And still he laughed and patted me jovially on the shoulder, saying I was a good fellow but warning me to stay clear of actresses as he escorted me to the door of his flat!

"For the entire night, I walked the streets of London, venturing into places I didn't know then and couldn't name now as I forced myself to digest my own damnation. During that interminable odyssey, something snapped in my mind and I became mad. It was as though all my ill luck had resolved itself into one crystalline shape and that shape belonged to Jonathan McCarthy. On his shoulders, I heaped my catalogue of misfortune and travail--my wife's illness, my parents' deaths, the plague itself and, finally, that for which he was truly responsible, the debauch of the woman I loved. She who was all in the world that was left to me. To picture her in the arms of that bearded Lucifer was more than flesh and blood could bear, and a horrible thought came to me in the early hours of that morning as I stumbled about the city. It had all the perverse logic of the truly insane. If Jonathan McCarthy were Lucifer, why should not I let him wrestle with the scourge of God? I chuckled madly at the notion. Gone were thoughts of science, responsibility, my work; the implications of my fantasies, even, did not exist. All my thews and sinews were bent upon vengeance--horrible and terrible retribution that knew neither reason nor restraint.

"It scarcely matters how I did it; what matters is that I exposed Jonathan McCarthy to pneumonic plague. I know how you are looking at me now; I know full well what you must think of me, gentlemen--and, in fact, as the hours ticked by, afterwards, I came to share your opinion of the deed. No man was worthy of such a death, in addition to which, having come to my senses, it was now borne in upon me with a rush the full import of what I had done. The terrible forces I had unleashed must be contained before they could wreak havoc on a scale unknown in modern times. All England, possibly all of western Europe, had been threatened by my folly.

"My conversion to sanity lasted roughly twelve hours. At the end of that time, I rushed to McCarthy's flat to warn him of his danger and do what I could for him--but he was not there. In vain I searched all London for the man, stopping at the theatres and restaurants I knew were frequented by members of the literary profession. None had seen him. I left a message at his flat, finally, and he sent word that he would see me that night. I had no choice but to wait for him, while every hour took him further and further from my power to save him and increased the danger to the world. My tincture-of-iodine solution I had now perfected for induction by mouth, but it still depended on being administered within the first twelve hours.

"I found him at home that evening, as he had promised to be, and in halting but urgent sentences, I told him what I had done."

He began to cough again and spat great quantities of blood as we watched, our handkerchiefs still pressed to our mouths and noses to avoid the stench of carbolic and putrefaction, our minds numb with horror. He fell back in his chair, exhausted, when he had done, his breath coming more painfully now at every inhalation. Were it not for the noise he made breathing, we should have thought him dead.

When next he spoke, his words were slurred, as though he couldn't form them with the muscles remaining at his disposal.

"He laughed at me, again! Oh, he knew what my real work was, but he didn't think me capable of such an action. Jack Point he called me and laughed when I tried to make him swallow my tincture-of-iodine solution with a little brandy. 'If I am infected,' he chuckled, 'you must be sure and call upon Miss Rutland with your potion! She'll be in a worse way by far!' He laughed again, long and hard this time, until I knew and understood why I had been unable to find him for the past twelve hours; and when I did comprehend, comprehend that my actions and his had doomed all three of us--and perhaps millions, besides!--I seized a letter opener from his desk and stabbed him with it."

He sighed with a noise like kettledrums and I knew the sands of his clock were running quickly out.

"From then on, events unfolded with the inevitable precision of a machine built to destroy itself. Jessie was doomed. My antidote would have no effect by this time. The only question was whether I could prevent her suffering. I waited for her in her dressing room and sent her to heaven when she walked into my arms. I did it as painlessly as I could"--real tears were rolling down his cheeks now, in addition to the pus--"and then walked round to the front of the theatre and entered as though on my evening rounds. Stunned, as though that was, in fact, the truth, I performed an autopsy on the woman I had just slain, while the bloodstained scalpel nestled in my bag under all your noses."

He covered his face with swollen black hands that now resembled claws, and seemed unable to continue, overcome not only by the ravages of his disease but by his own emotions.

Sensing this, Sherlock Holmes spoke quietly. "If you find it difficult to talk, doctor, perhaps you will allow me to take up the story as I understand it. You have only to say yes or no, or merely shake your head if you prefer. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Yes."

"Very well." Holmes spoke slowly and distinctly, so that he might hear and understand every word before responding. "When you came through the theatre to perform your autopsy, you discovered Dr. Watson and myself already at the dressing room, exposing ourselves to contamination. From our presence there, you could not but infer that we were already involved with the case."

"Yes."

"Mr. Gilbert and Mr. D'Oyly Carte stayed outside the dressing room during our examination; hence, they ran no risk, but Watson and myself, as well as you, were now in danger. You heard me say we were going to Simpson's and you followed us there, waiting for us outside with your antidote."

"Yes."

"While watching us through the window, you perceived that we were joined by a third gentleman"--he gestured to Shaw, but Eccles' eyes, closed now, could not see him--"and, wishing to take no chances, you gave him the antidote to drink, as well, as we left the restaurant, happily one by one, which simplified your task."

"Yes. I didn't wish to kill anybody."

"Anybody else, you mean," the detective amended sternly.

"Yes."

"Then you sent a note, warning us out of the Strand."

"I didn't know how else to stop you," Eccles gasped, struggling to open his eyes and face his confessor. "There was nothing for it but to threaten. I would never have done anything."

"As long as we didn't expose ourselves to the plague. For those, like Brownlow, who did, you had no choice."

"No choice. His job killed him, for I knew he must discover my secret. Having been a doctor in the army, I knew that only the coroner would have direct contact with the corpse of a murdered man and so counted on him to deal with his assistants and stretcher-bearers. Certainly, I could never have managed to deal with them all. But he settled my mind on that score. And we scrubbed down the lab together."

"Then you left together?"

He nodded, his head moving like a drugged man's.

"I knew when he recognized the symptoms he would dismiss the others and make them scrub. That left only him. My time was limited now, as well. I had already begun to turn into this." He gestured feebly with a talon to himself. "I went round to the back of the laboratory and spoke to him through the door, telling him that I knew of his predicament and could help him."

"You helped him to his Maker."

The other did not move but sat like a grotesque statue of mouldy clay. Suddenly, he began to sob and choke and scream all at once, struggling to rise from his chair and clutching wildly at his abdomen.

"Oh, God have mercy on their souls!" He opened his mouth again, wanting to say more, but sank slowly to the floor in a crumpled heap. There was silence in the room as the light of dawn began to filter through the curtains, as though to dispel the end of a nightmare.

"He prayed for them," Shaw murmured, the handkerchief still pressed to his face. "The human race surprises me sometimes in a way that confounds my philosophy." He spoke in an unsteady voice and leaned against the doorframe of the room, as though about to faint.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," said Sherlock Holmes, drawing the sign of the cross in the foetid air. "Has anyone a match?"

And so it was that in the early-morning hours of March 3, 1895, a fire broke out at 33 Wyndham Place, Marylebone, and mingled with the rosy-red and gold-tongued flames of dawn. By the time the fire brigades reached the spot, the house was almost consumed and the body of the lone occupant was found burned beyond all possible recognition or preservation. Sherlock Holmes had poured kerosene over it before we walked out the door and into the new day.

Epilogue

Achmet Singh walked across the narrow confines of his cell towards Sherlock Holmes and peered at him from behind his thick spectacles.

"They tell me I am free."

"And so you are."

"You have done this?"

"The truth has set you free, Achmet Singh. There is some concern for it yet in this reeling world."

"And Miss Rutland's killer?"

"God has punished him more harshly than any jury would have done."

"I see." The Sikh hesitated, indecisive, and then, with a mighty sob, fell upon his knees, seized the detective's hand and kissed it.

"You, Sherlock Holmes--breaker of my sharkles--from my heart's depths, I thank you!"

Indeed, he had much for which to be grateful, though he would never know how much. Securing his release from prison, and having the charges against him dropped, was one of the more difficult feats of Sherlock Holmes's long and surprising career. He was obliged to make Inspector Lestrade appear ridiculous in public--something he was at pains never to do--and he did it with the full knowledge and cooperation of the inspector, first swearing him to secrecy and then divulging the entire truth behind the closed doors of the latter's office. They sat closeted together for over an hour while the detective explained the implications of what had happened and the need to prevent the truth from becoming generally known, least the panic that would inevitably follow prove worse than the plague itself. The detective managed to suppress all reference to Sergeant Hopkins' nocturnal initiative and his superior, preoccupied with the meat of the case, never though to ask how Holmes had learned of Mr. Brownlow's disappearance with the corpses before knowledge of it was made public.

In addition, we spent an anxious week waiting to see if Benjamin Eccles had accomplished his mission and truly managed to murder everyone who had contracted pneumonic plague and to dispose of the bodies. There was some question as to the health of the Savoy chorus and both Gilbert and D'Oyly Carte were ordered to have intensive medical examinations, which, happily, failed to reveal a trace of the disease.

Bernard Shaw, as most people know, continued working as a critic but remained true to his promise and kept writing plays until they made him rich and famous. His curious attitude towards social reform and personal wealth persisted as long as we knew him. He and the detective remained eccentric friends to the last. They saw each other less as Shaw grew more in demand, but they maintained a lively correspondence, some of which is in my possession and which is in my possession and which includes the following exchange of telegrams:

To Sherlock Holmes:

Enclosed please find two tickets to opening night of my new play, "Pygmalion." Bring friend if you have one.

G.B.S.

To Bernard Shaw:

Unable to attend opening night of "Pygmalion." Will attend second night if you have one.

Holmes

Holmes and I returned to Baker Street later that day as though we'd just come back from the moon, so long had we been gone and so singular had been our experiences while away. The last few days had seemed like aeons.

For a day or so, we sat round our rooms like automations, unable, I think, to fully digest the terrible events in which we had taken part. And then, bit by bit, we fell into our old ways. Another storm blew silently outside our windows and Holmes found himself again immersed in his chemical experiments; and, finally, his notes on ancient English charters were once more in his hands.

It was a month later when he threw down the paper at breakfast one morning and looked at me across the table.

"We must definitely go to Cambridge, Watson, or I shall not accomplish anything constructive by my research. How does tomorrow strike you?"

He stalked into his bedroom, leaving me to the coffee and paper, where I discovered his motive for leaving town so abruptly.

Speculation was rife that Oscar Wilde would shortly be charged with offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885.5

The subject of Wilde brought back memories of our adventure the previous month and I followed Holmes into his room, the paper in my hand and a question that had never occurred to me on my lips.

"Holmes, there is something that puzzles me about Dr. Benjamin Eccles."

"A great deal, I shouldn't wonder. He was a complicated individual. As I have said before, Watson, a doctor is the first of criminals. He has brains and he has knowledge; should he care to pervert either, there is great potential for mischief. Will you hand me that brown tie? Thank you."

"Why, then, did he allow himself to die?" I asked. "Had he taken his own antidote with the zeal with which he pressed it on others, he might have survived."

My companion paused before replying, taking a coal from the fire and lighting his pipe with it.

"We shall probably never know the truth, Watson. It may be that he had taken the potion before and in so doing had exhausted its curative properties. Or it may be that he had no wish to live. Some people are not only murderers but judges, juries and their own executioners, as well, and in those capacities they mete out punishments far more severe than their fellow creatures could devise." He rose from a bootlace. "Do you think it too early in the day for a glass of sherry and a biscuit?"

The Author of last rear's smash best seller "The seven-per-cent solution" has sherlock Holmes uncovering a Horror more monstrous than murder

1This information is entirely accurate. Contact lenses are over 100 years old.

2"Used furniture" and "secondhand furniture" are accepted English synonyms for our American "antiques."

3This passage and the names mentioned in the text make it abundantly plain that the manuscript in question was an early draft of "Dracula," begun in 1895 by Stoker and published in 1897. Ellen Terry's mention of "It happened once before" undoubtedly refers to the publication of Stoker's short stories, "Under the Sunset." Henry Irving was extremely possessive about Stoker's time.

4Watson had urged Holmes to consult Ainstree in his capacity as tropical-disease expert in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective" (1887).

5Wilde was charged on April 6, 1895. His first trial ended in a hung jury on May first. On May 20, a second trial was held and on May 25, 1895, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour.

This is the second and final installment of a condensed version of "The West End Horror."