heavy with tears. “A rat jumped out of an alley last night and set me screaming.”
“Not I. You won’t catch me in a dark corner with the Knife on the loose.”
“Aye, true enough for today, but tomorrow you’ll be wanting a drop of gin, and then where’ll I find you?”
“Back of White’s Row with her skirts over her head.”
“Leave off Molly, Michael.”
“He’s right enough. Molly no more than any of us can keep off the streets for long.”
We arrived at an area which more closely resembled the efforts of enormous moles than of any gravediggers. Much of the earth was overturned, the freshest of it piled next to a hole in the ground six feet long and six feet deep. I could see no monuments of any kind, and the scene reminded me piteously of the hasty burials I had witnessed all too often in the war.
“This is it, then, Hawkes?” asked the chaplain.
“Here she’ll stay,” growled the undertaker. “Number one-five-five-oh-nine.”
The chaplain lost no time in beginning a rapid recitation of the prayer for the dead while Hawkes and one of the male attendants lifted the shrouded body from the cart and dropped it in the grave.
“Elizabeth Stride was penniless,” my friend remarked quietly, “and the cost of her burial thus deferred to the parish. Still, it is heartless to think that a fellow creature who had already suffered so cruelly should end like this.”
Shortly thereafter the mourners, such as they were, began to disperse. Soon the only one remaining was a rust-haired, dark-eyed man of middle age, who had all along appeared more enraged than grieved by the proceedings. At length he picked up a stone and hurled it in the direction of Hawkes the undertaker, crying out, “That woman was like a queen to me, and here you’re shoveling dirt as if she weren’t of no more consequence than a dead dog to throw in the river!”
“Move along, you,” Hawkes barked in return. “I’m doing my duty, for I’m paid for naught else. Bury her yourself if you’ve a mind to.”
Passing the three of us, the wild-eyed fellow caught sight of the constable’s rounded helmet and striped armlet* and slowed ominously, cursing under his breath, “If I’d been a bluebottle patrolling the Chapel that night, I’d lose no time killing myself for the shame.”
“You’d best shove off, mister,” answered the officer. “We all of us do what we can.”
“Take a knife to your own worthless throat, and lose no time about it!”
“I’ll have you for public drunkenness, if you insist.”
“Better still, find him as killed Liz or you can go to the devil,” the man sneered.
“And who might you be, sir?” queried Sherlock Holmes.
“Michael Kidney,” said he, drawing himself up with an effort, for balance seemed to be largely eluding him. “I was her man, and I mean to find her killer while you pigs sniff about in the mud.”
“Ah, he of the padlock,” Holmes commented. “Tell me, did she come to love you after you imprisoned her, or before?”
“You sly devil!” Kidney snarled. “It was only when she drank she ever thought to leave me. Who are you, then, and how do you come to know aught of it?”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes.”
“Oh, Sherlock Holmes, are you?” This information incensed Kidney all the more. “From what I hear of you, you’re as likely as anyone to be the Ripper yourself.”
“So I have been given to understand.”
“What in blazes do you think you’re doing at her funeral, then?”
“Nothing which need trouble you. Take my advice, Kidney, and keep out of it.”
“Come to see what you’ve accomplished, have you?” he screamed. “Gloating over her funeral, before God and all who loved her!”
Kidney, disheveled and frantic, swung a fist at Holmes, but the blow was easily avoided by my friend, who sidestepped deftly. I dived to restrain Kidney’s arms, and the officer stepped in close with his truncheon under the ruffian’s nose.
“If you make so much as another sound,” he said, “I will see to it your own mother won’t recognize you. Now come with us, and remember—one more word gives me license to do as I please with you.”
Between us we dragged the struggling brute down to the street, where good fortune blessed us with a second constable patrolling his beat. I left Kidney in their capable hands and returned to where Holmes remained on the grass, adjusting his sling thoughtfully, rotating his arm in tiny circles.
“That constable appears to have a temper,” I remarked.
“No more than Kidney,” Holmes returned wryly. “I am grateful that he made no serious effort to fight me. He would have gotten hurt.”
“You are a formidable match even when injured, and I am very pleased to point out that you are looking less injured every hour. But Holmes, I must know—did you find what you expected?”
“I suppose dragging you out in this wretched damp demands some degree of explanation,” he conceded as we walked back to the open road. “Strange as it may sound, I had the same idea as Michael Kidney. These murders—their glory in excess, their delight in the press—have been conducted in the most public manner conceivable. And what could possibly be more public than the victim’s funeral?”
“Surely the Ripper would be very obtuse to show himself.”
“I did not imagine that he would, but there is a streak of vanity about his correspondence which had invested me with hope. He is growing ever more sure of himself and will soon enough bluff his way into a corner,” my friend predicted. “I only hope he will do so before anyone else is killed.”
The following Monday, I returned from a game of billiards at my club to a curious spectacle in our sitting room: Holmes was stretched out upon the settee, feet propped on its arm and head supported by pillows, with the neck of his violin wedged into the cloth of his sling and his left hand scraping the eerie, vagrant chords which I associated with his most melancholic levels of meditation. I made for my bedroom, for his more abstract musical efforts were keenly disquieting to my nerves and I did not relish hearing them played left-handed, but he stopped me with a question.
“And how is your friend Thurston?”
I turned to regard Holmes with an expression of utter bewilderment. “How did you know I was with Thurston?”
He set his violin on the side table and sat up. “You are returning from your club. You declared in some distress eight months ago that you did not intend to play billiards at your club anymore because your opponents were no match for your prowess. You and I have only played once, but I found you to be a daunting challenger indeed. A month later, you returned from your club only to confess that you had been bested at billiards by a new member named Thurston. Since that happy occurrence, you have neither given up billiards nor bemoaned your proficiency.”
“But how did you know I was playing billiards?”
“You lunched at home, and there was no rugby match yesterday to discuss with your fellow sportsmen.”
“Am I so transparent?”
“Only to the trained observer.”
“You have been devoting the afternoon to music, I see.”
“So it may appear, but in fact I attended Catherine Eddowes’s funeral. It was a study in opposites, my dear fellow; there were close to five hundred people in attendance if my calculations were correct. Polished elm coffin, open glass conveyance, mourners lining the streets—immigrant, native, rich, poor, East-enders, West-enders, both the City and the Metropolitan police forces, and one independent consulting detective. You see what a little money can get you.”
I had hardly begun to reply when a brusque knock at the door interrupted me and Mrs. Hudson entered with a small package.
“This was left for you downstairs by the last post, Mr. Holmes. I thought to bring it up with your tea, but the cat won’t leave off the thing, as it’s been smeared with Lord only knows what.”
Holmes, with all the galvanized energy of a hound on the scent, leapt to his feet and hurried to his chemical table, where a powerful lamp provided better light for study. He had regained most of the strength in his right appendage and could make use of the hand while keeping the arm motionless. Slitting the paper with a jackknife, he
