“My pony was afraid, and I stop to see why,” he began in slightly accented but perfectly comprehensible English. “He is not usually this way, and I saw a dark shape. You—you were hiding? In the yard?”
“No,” I replied, “but a terrible event has occurred there. We must summon the police at once.”
The knot of men exchanged worried glances. “I am Mr. Louis Diemschutz,” declared the cart driver. “We are members of the International Workingmen’s Educational Club, through that door. My house, my wife—they live off this yard. I must see what has been done.”
I nodded and stood aside. Mr. Diemschutz approached the body and gave a small exclamation at the pool of blood surrounding the victim’s head.
“This is not my wife,” he cried, “but another woman has been killed! This man is right. We must find help.”
Fortunately, that task required negligible effort, for before we had traversed ten yards of the street, Miss Monk rounded the corner in a visible rage with an exceedingly recalcitrant police constable in tow.
“You’ll leg it sharp, or I’ll begin screaming and I won’t stop till you’ve done what’s right. Bloody hell, do you think I spend my time chatting up every crusher I see trudging along his little circle?” She stopped short at the sight of me. “Oh, Dr. Watson,” she cried, leaving the policeman and flying to my side. “Your eye is bleeding. I knew summat was wrong. What’s in that alley? What’s happened to Mr. Holmes, then?”
“There has been another murder, and Holmes has gone after the killer,” I replied, half for the benefit of Miss Monk and half for that of the bewildered constable. As I uttered those words, I wondered with a sudden stab of fear whether it was remotely possible for Sherlock Holmes to be outmatched, and I lamented even more keenly that I was not with him.
“You saw the man what’s done it?” Miss Monk questioned. I nodded. “And there’s—there’s another woman in there? She’s dead, you’ve said as much, but is she—?”
“We interrupted her killer. Nothing of the sort that was done to Annie Chapman has happened here.”
“That’s a blessing, then.” Miss Monk exhaled. “Right. You want me to see her? The poor soul. I may know her, after all.”
I considered this suggestion and, knowing that time was of the essence, reluctantly gave my assent. The startled policeman likewise had no objection. I had left the lantern by the corpse, so together we approached the harsh halo of illumination delineating the arm and head of the body. Miss Monk bit her lip in distress at the sight of the victim but slowly shook her head. I took her arm and led her away.
“Are you all right, Miss Monk?”
“I’m like to be fine in a moment, Doctor.”
“Perhaps one of the men associated with the Educational Club will escort you inside.”
I had expected words of protestation either from Miss Monk, who looked stalwart but very pale, or from the club members, each of whom appeared to be attempting to work out my exact relationship with the shabbily clad young woman. No dispute was forthcoming, however, and a thin fellow with a pince-nez offered Miss Monk his arm and led her into the light and noise of the club.
“You’re Dr. Watson?” demanded the policeman. He was a ruddy-faced youth with a blond moustache and weak chin. “I am Police Constable Lamb. The area must be secured, and no one is to leave the club until we’ve settled this matter. Pray God Mr. Holmes has caught the fiend by this time.”
His words echoed my fervent hopes. I informed Constable Lamb I’d seen the dead woman two hours previous at the Bricklayer’s Arms, and Mr. Diemschutz, who was much distressed, then described his pony’s fright and his subsequent foray into the men’s club for assistance. By this time many of the neighbours had been roused, and word of the fresh crime spread rapidly from house to house as other policemen arrived on the scene.
After twenty minutes had elapsed, I was anxious; twenty minutes beyond that saw me fretfully pacing the pavement, wondering whether it would be possible for one man, in the dead of night in an unfamiliar and tortuous setting, to find another man when his initial trajectory had not even been observed. At nearly a quarter to two by my watch, feeling vaguely ill, I made up my mind simply to cast about the adjacent streets and had just set off when an unyielding hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Watson, that Mr. Holmes has not returned,” said Constable Lamb firmly, “but it is in direct violation of police procedure to allow you to exit the scene of a crime you…well, discovered, sir.”
“Sherlock Holmes is at this very moment attempting to bring in the man responsible for these vile acts, and I mean to help him in whatever way I can.”
“With respect, sir, you can’t find Mr. Holmes without even a notion of where to look.”
“He may be in desperate need of our assistance!”
“We can hardly provide him that without any idea where he is.”
“I can at least determine he is not nearby.”
“Not without violating the Yard’s procedure, sir.”
“I do not think that, even at this dark eleventh hour, we need entertain any notion of violating the procedure of the Yard,” said a familiar sardonic voice.
“Holmes!” I cried, whirling around in relief. There he stood, not five yards away, holding himself in a peculiarly stiff manner as he slowly advanced. “The killer—did you encounter him? Did he disappear?”
“I am afraid the answer to both questions is yes,” my friend replied, and then, taking another step, he seemed to suffer a loss of balance and staggered slightly.
“Dear God, Holmes, what has happened?” I rushed to his side and grasped his arm, and was all the more troubled when he did not protest but leaned on me heavily.
“Help me get him inside,” I ordered the constable.
“Thank you, Watson, I believe you and I can manage it. Although, perhaps, the ‘inside’ to which you refer ought to be somewhat private.”
One glance through the windows of the boisterous men’s club, confined to their quarters for questioning and gesticulating wildly, was enough to convince me Holmes was right, and I led my friend instead to the building on the south side of the enclosure, which I had come to understand was called Dutfield’s Yard. In the hallway between two families’ living quarters, Holmes lowered himself onto a filthy stoop, and in the better light I finally caught sight of the massive bloodstain seeping across his right shoulder.
“For the love of God, Holmes, if I had seen this, I should not have allowed you to walk under your own power more than two paces,” I cried, carefully pulling off his overcoat and his evening jacket, both of which were saturated with blood.
“I’d anticipated as much,” he murmured, wincing only occasionally as I furthered my attempts to expose the actual wound. “I am relieved to see you well, by the way. You were dealt a considerable blow.”
I threw off my greatcoat and began tearing apart my own dinner jacket, which I knew to be relatively sanitary, with Holmes’s pocketknife. “It was nothing. My own carelessness. Drink this,” I directed, handing him my flask.
Holmes took it from me with an unsteady hand. “I have seldom myself encountered so fleet or agile an opponent.”
“I wish to hear no explanations, nor do I wish you, in strict point of fact, to speak at all.” I marveled at the forceful injunctions I was laying upon my friend, whose total authority, outside of a medical emergency, I would never have challenged.
“No doubt you are right, Doctor. But allow me to enlighten the constable here, whose testimony may be called upon by the Yard in our own absence.”
“Briefly, then,” I growled. “What happened?”
“This fellow couldn’t hold a candle to the devil when in a tight corner. He ran off in the direction of some deserted warehouse byways, I imagine to prevent my shouting to any passersby to help me stop him. He knows these streets like the back of his hand, and I admit he had the advantage of me, for it has been months since I had a case here and one or two new gates and boarded-up alleys caught me by surprise. We had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when he darted into a maze of passages. I made every effort to keep him in sight, for we both knew that once he had shaken me off, I would never regain the trail. Finally I did lose the culprit, or thought I did.”
“Brace yourself a moment,” I directed, pressing a hastily constructed compress to Holmes’s shoulder. He turned even a shade paler but made no sound.
“I came to a very narrow crossroads of dripping stone corridors,” Holmes continued. “He appeared to have
