The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes (21 page)

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W
e have cleared up one mystery, at any rate,’ said I as the familiar duns and greys of London rumbled past our cab window on the way home from King’s Cross Station some days later.

It was the latest in a series of half-hearted attempts I had made to rouse Holmes from the grim reverie into which he had descended upon our emergence from the hotel in Edinburgh. For days his speech had been limited to monosyllables when he chose to speak at all, which was seldom, and then only when silence became inconvenient. The parcels which lay unopened upon the seat between us were further examples of how deeply he was involved in this case; normally an omnivorous reader with an insatiable appetite for learning, he had not even bothered to glance at the numerous books which he had acquired in the course of his many visits to the Edinburgh bookstalls. He had, in fact, done little more than recharge and re-light his oily briar again and again during the entire trip across the isle.

‘Indeed?’ said he, removing the stem from between his teeth for the first time in over an hour. ‘And what mystery have we cleared up?’

‘Why, the source of the power which Edward Hyde exerts over Dr. Jekyll, of course. The villain is blackmailing him by threatening to expose his thirty-year-old indiscretion with Fanny Flanagan.’

‘I rather doubt it.’

‘Why?’

‘I said before that Universities are hotbeds of gossip. We have in addition the professor’s statement that Jekyll’s indiscretion was a matter of common knowledge within hours. Even today there must be at least a dozen people who remember the incident. The profit — and the danger — in blackmailing someone lies in the blackmailer’s being in sole possession of the damaging details. Why should Jekyll bow to Hyde’s will when there are others just as capable of ruining him? Once he has been paid off there is always the danger that the others will follow his lead. Better to bring the whole thing out into the open and brave the consequences. If, that is, there are any, which presupposes that the incident is shocking enough to reverse the effect of the many noble deeds which the doctor has performed in the course of his public life. Besides, Hyde has no evidence with which to back up his claim. No, Watson, the theory no longer holds water. Henry Jekyll is not being held up over the Flanagan affair.’

‘Over what, then?’

‘Over nothing.’

‘I do not understand. How may one man blackmail another over nothing?’

‘Obviously, he cannot.’

With that enigmatic statement, he leant his head out of the window and gave the cabby an address which I did not catch. Then he settled back into the seat with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘You are not too exhausted, I trust, Watson? I have directed the driver to make a brief stopover at Jekyll’s residence.’

‘Please, Holmes, one confusion at a time.’ At that moment I could cheerfully have strangled him but succeeded in controlling myself with an effort. ‘Explain how Hyde has managed to make Jekyll dance to his tune with nothing to back him up.’

‘A difficult equation, is it not? And yet it becomes so much simpler once we remove the blackmail theory.’

‘No blackmail?’

‘None whatsoever. Has it not occurred to you that a man may have other reasons for jeopardising his career and his reputation in order to protect an acquaintance?’

‘I can think of none.’

‘Of course you can. If, for example, you were to pick up tomorrow’s edition of the
Times
and read that your friend Sherlock Holmes was being sought for murder, what action would you take?’

‘I would of course make use of every resource I had to clear you of the charge. But what —’

‘Precisely! And I in turn would do the same for you if you were ever to find yourself in that unlikely position. What do you suppose would be our motive for behaving in this manner?’

‘The conviction that the other is innocent.’

‘That goes without saying. But would there be no other reason? Something less tangible, perhaps?’

‘Why, friendship!’

‘Bravo!’ He applauded silently.

‘But the situations are vastly different,’ I protested. ‘I can think of no two people who are less suited for friendship than Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. The pair are like night and day.’

‘Who are we to question the intricacies of attraction? I dare say that had someone informed you five years ago that you, a physician on a pension from the British Army, would soon be sharing lodgings with a man who has been known to practise his marksmanship indoors and to beat the cadavers in a dissecting-room with a truncheon in order to determine to what extent the body may be bruised after death, you would have denounced him as a madman. Opposites attract, Watson; surely you remember that from your scientific training. But here we are already. I advise you henceforth to look formidable and to let me do the talking.’

I had no time to enquire into his meaning, for at that moment he bounded to the kerb in front of Jekyll’s elegant home, directed the driver to wait, and strode up the flagstone walk to the front door.

Poole, the elderly butler, answered his knock in a trice.

‘We wish to see your master upon a matter of extreme importance,’ snapped Holmes in a tone which brooked no protest.

‘I am sorry, sir, but that is impossible.’ The manservant’s voice was cool. He appeared to recognise us, though it had been well over a year since our only meeting. ‘Dr. Jekyll is indisposed and cannot receive visitors. Perhaps you would care to leave a message?’

‘The time for playing the dutiful domestic is past, Poole. I have reason to believe that Edward Hyde, the Westminster murderer, is concealed beneath this roof. If you do not let us in I shall summon the police and they will be here by nightfall with a warrant to search the premises. Which shall it be?’

For a space the two stared at each other, the butler’s eyes of washed-out blue fixed upon the grey fire of my companion’s. The former wavered and their owner appeared about to give in when they altered their focus suddenly to something beyond Holmes’s shoulder and relief swept his withered features.

‘I believe that these gentlemen are leaving, Bradshaw,’ said he. ‘You may escort them to their cab.’

We turned. Bradshaw was an enormous man whose footman’s livery barely contained the bulging muscles of his arms and chest. From his spotless white collar sprouted a neck and head like those of a bull, with a broad blank face and innocent-looking eyes spread wide beneath sandy blond hair cut in bangs over his forehead. He towered over Holmes by several inches. Responding to the butler’s command, he stepped forward to escort us in what was probably the only way he knew, his arms bowed in the fashion of a wrestler advancing towards his opponent.

Holmes struck his boxer’s stance and let fly with a resounding right cross to the big man’s jaw. Bradshaw’s head turned a fraction of an inch. The detective’s eyes widened ever so slightly at this evidence of his impotence.

‘Let us go, Watson,’ said he, grasping my wrist and ducking beneath the footman’s outstretched left arm.

As we returned to the cab I glanced back towards the top of the steps, where Poole and the hulking Bradshaw stood watching us. It struck me that, for the professed gentility of West End society, the landscape was overrun with sinister servants.

‘Round the corner, cabby,’ Holmes whispered to the driver. We proceeded as directed, observed all the way by the two men at the front door. Once out of sight, Holmes signalled the cabby to halt.

‘When all else fails, go directly to the source,’ said my companion as we alighted before the bleak facade of that part of Jekyll’s home which faced upon the bystreet.

Again the driver was asked to wait, and as we descended the short flight of steps which led from the street to the door, Holmes drew from a pocket of his coat a slim leather case which I recognised. From it he selected an instrument of shining metal which ended in a flattened point.

‘Tell me, Watson,’ said he, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, ‘have you any reservations concerning unlawful activity when it is directed towards a noble end?’

‘I suppose that would depend upon the end,’ said I.

‘Would you consider justice noble enough?’

‘Decidedly.’

‘Then be good enough to stand guard whilst I explore the possibilities of this lock.’

I took up a position at the top of the steps whilst he inserted the instrument into the keyhole of the door’s ancient lock. It was a stubborn mechanism, and more than once as he struggled with it I heard him curse beneath his breath. At length, however, there was a metallic snap, Holmes uttered a small cry of triumph, and the door was pushed open.

A narrow corridor led us into a large theatre, which, illuminated greyly through a dingy skylight, contained laboratory apparatus and a profusion of opened packing crates heaped with straw upon the flagstones. To our right, a short flight of steps communicated with a red baize door, whilst to our left stood a row of narrow plank doors which appeared to conceal closets. Holmes chose our most promising course and together we climbed the stairs to the red door. Here he placed both of his hands upon the plain knob and turned it carefully, leaning into as he did so. The door moved a fraction of an inch and stopped.

‘Bolted.’ He hesitated, then rapped sharply upon the door.

‘Go away, Poole!’ snarled a voice from within. ‘I left specific instructions that I was not to be disturbed.’

‘This is Sherlock Holmes.’ My companion spoke sternly. ‘An audience with me now may spare you a visit with the police later.’

There was a long silence. Finally the doctor’s heavy tread was heard approaching and the bolt was shot back. The door opened to reveal Henry Jekyll in a white smock.

He had changed little in the fifteen months which had elapsed since our last and only meeting, but he had changed. Creases underscored his crisp blue eyes where before there had only been smoothest skin. The eyes themselves were restless in their socket, as though he expected danger from some quarter but was not sure when it would come or what form it would take when it did. Lines of concern had etched their way from his nostrils to the corners of his wide mouth. The silver at his temples had spread to encompass his widow’s-peak, which was itself perceptibly thinner. The changes themselves might not have been noticeable even to his closest friends, but to the trained medical eye everything about him — his appearance, his nervous mannerisms, the agitated way in which he stood — suggested an air of general dissipation. That he had been operating under great strain for some time was self-evident.

In his right hand he held a pair of those metal tongs which I had seen Holmes use many times to lift a test tube filled with steaming liquid from atop his Bunsen burner, and these he waved angrily as he addressed us.

‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ he demanded. ‘Explain yourself or, by thunder, I shall be the one who summons the police!’

For all his rage it was evident that he was striving valiantly to hold himself in check. Just why, I did not know. But his entire being shook with the effort.

Holmes presented a calm exterior. ‘I rather doubt that you will choose that route, Dr. Jekyll. A cobra does not invite a troupe of mongooses into its den.’

‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh, very well, if you insist upon carrying through with this charade. I am speaking of Edward Hyde, the accused murdered of Sir Danvers Carew, and the fact that you are harbouring him in your home.’

It may be that the tension of the moment, combined with my own exhaustion after the long journey from Scotland, caused my imagination to soar to ridiculous heights, but it seemed to me that an expression of immense relief swept across the doctor’s open features after Holmes had levelled his charge. Whatever it meant, however, it was gone in the next instant, replaced by indignation.

‘That is a serious accusation,’ said he warningly. ‘Were you to repeat it in front of witnesses I should have you up on charges by tomorrow morning.’

‘Spare me your rhetoric,’ Holmes countered. ‘Will you submit to a search of the premises?’

‘I most emphatically will not!’

‘It is your house, and that is your right. But that will not be sufficient to stop the police when they arrive with a warrant.’

Jekyll’s anger altered visibly to consternation. His dynamic eyes took on an introspective look; I could almost see the workings of his magnificent brain. Presently he drew back and flung the door wide.

‘I am a busy man,’ said he. ‘I cannot afford to leave my work whilst a battalion of ill-mannered oafs in uniform snoop about the place, smearing my slides and knocking over my equipment. Conduct your search and be done with it.’

It was a homely little room, an ordinary study but for the presence of numerous scientific paraphernalia. These included a number of glazed presses filled with retorts and test tubes, some of which contained chemicals of varying hues and density, and a powerful microscope beneath which a slide bearing a quantity of white powder was clamped. In the centre of the chamber stood a deal table upon which a glass vessel filled over atop the blue flame of a Bunsen burner. Well-thumbed volumes bound in leather and bearing titles of a chemical nature crowded a pair of tall bookcases along the left wall and formed precarious stacks upon the tables. Some of these were propped open for easy reference. A cheval-glass, curiously out of place in these surroudings, stood in a corner, its polished face turned inexplicably towards the ceiling. A fire crackled in the grate at the far end of the room before which was placed a shabby but comfortable-looking armchair. Upon one arm was balanced a dish containing the remnants of a meal. Three barred windows overlooked a closed court, upon the opposite side of which loomed Jekyll’s fine old residence.

Holmes circled the room briskly and returned to our host. ‘Thank you, Doctor. I think that we have seen enough.’ He stared suddenly at the scientist. ‘Dr. Jekyll, are you all right?’

All the blood had drained from the older man’s face, leaving it nearly as pale as the smock he was wearing.