The West End Horror (19 page)

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 worst fears were confirmed. For three days she refused to speak to 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 obstades 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. Just as it had done in the past, it struck not at me 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 said 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 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 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. Having come to my senses,
it
was now borne in upon me with a rush–the full impact of what I had done. The terrible forces I had unleashed must be contained before they could wreak havoc on a scale unknown in modem 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. No-one 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, and in halting but urgent sentences, I told him what I had done.”

Eccles 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 with 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 could not 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 the time I reached her. 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 mercifully as I could–” real tears were rolling down his cheeks, now in addition to the pus–“and then I walked ‘round to the front of the theatre and entered as though on my evening tour. Stunned, as though that were 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 he 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 I, 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.”

“While watching us through the window, you perceived that we were joined by a third gentleman–” he gestured to Shaw but Eccies, his 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 I 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. “I knew when he recognised 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.”

Eccles 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 door frame, as though about to faint.

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritu 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
,
1895, a fire broke out at 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 of the door and into the new day.

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 Parsee 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 shackles–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, lest the panic which would inevitably follow prove worse than the plague itself. The detective managed to suppress all reference to Sergeant Hopkins’s nocturnal initiative, and the inspector, preoccupied with the meat of the case, never thought 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 their bodies. There was some question as to the health of the Savoy chorus, and both Gilbert and D’Oyly Carte were ordered 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 wealthy 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 one another less as Shaw grew more in demand, but they maintained a lively correspondence, some of which is in my possession and which includes the following exchange of telegrams: