Dust and Shadow

“Good afternoon, Miss Monk.”

“Mrs. Hudson’s just offered tea, though it ain’t my usual time. She is a dear one, isn’t she?”

“Please sit down. I am delighted to see you, considering—”

“Considering I’ve been sacked?” she asked with the trace of a smile.

“Good heavens, no!”

I handed the note to her, and her eyes flew back to mine in alarm. “What’s he up to all alone, then?”

“I am afraid that Sherlock Holmes is the most solitary man I have ever encountered in my travels on three separate continents. I have no more idea what he is doing than you do.”

Biting her lip, she approached the fire I’d allowed to die down and stabbed it combatively with the fire iron. “I’ve had a telegram from him this morning before breakfast. I ain’t getting paid for sitting in pubs chatting up drunken judies,” she declared, straightening. “What can we do?”

“Your sitting in pubs certainly led us to some intriguing results last time.”

“It’s a gift, I’ll own. But the well’s run a mite dry. Thought I’d hit a good line t’other day, but her idea the Knife can transport himself by electricity sort of threw a wet blanket on the rest of her story. Poor Miss Lacey. It’s the laudanum, I promise you. What else?”

“Miss Monk, as much as may be dark to us, I’ve learned that most of it is generally clear to Holmes,” I pointed out. “It may be foolish to take any precipitate steps.”

“I’ll be damned if there isn’t something we could do, even if it’s to patrol the streets with little striped wristbands.”

“Well,” I replied slowly, “it would certainly profit Holmes to have Leslie Tavistock discredited.”

“The journalist? I’d give a good deal to see his face in the mud.” My companion shot up again and took a turn around the carpet, her freckled brow tense with concentration.

“Miss Monk?”

“It may not wash. But if it worked…”

“My dear Miss Monk, what is it?”

“Doctor, it would do Mr. Holmes a world of good if we could discover where Tavistock digs up his trash, wouldn’t it?”

“I should think so indeed.”

“I know I can do it.”

“What precisely do you have in mind?”

“I don’t rightly like to tell you, as it may come to naught. But if it works, it might be a ream flash pull. It’ll take a bit of conniving on my part, perhaps, but if he can get it…” She came to a breathless halt. “Tell you what, I’ll bring it here to you and you can decide.” She retrieved her black gloves and waved them at me from the door.

“My dear Miss Monk, I absolutely forbid you to take any risks in this matter!” I called out.

It was to no avail. A moment later she was halfway down the stairs. I could just hear her good-natured apologies to Mrs. Hudson over the tea things as she lilted out the front door into the fog like a melody on the breeze.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The Fleet Street Enterprise

As it happened, I did not see Miss Monk again until Tuesday, the thirtieth of October, during which heart- wrenching period I heard not a single word from Sherlock Holmes. According to Lestrade, the men of the Yard were greatly discouraged. Rumours of mad kosher slaughtermen and deranged doctors ran so wild in the district that it was all they could do to keep the peace. And as if it were not enough that they suffered defamation from every quarter for their failure to locate the Ripper, they now faced the burden of diverting a significant portion of their force to police the Lord Mayor’s resplendent annual procession on Friday, the ninth of November.

It may be imagined that, with the weight of the Whitechapel problem bearing down upon me, not to mention the disturbing absence of Holmes, I spent my days endeavouring to relieve my tumultuous state of mind without straying too far from Baker Street should matters come to a head. Novels were intolerable, and the atmosphere of my club stale and wearisome. On that sleepless Tuesday night, while attempting to defy all my friend’s injunctions against recording a case I had filed under “The Adventure of the Third Candle,” I had just determined that a glass of claret would do me more good than harm when I heard the avid ringing of the downstairs bell.

Knowing Mrs. Hudson to be long abed, I hurried down the stairs, fully dressed, for I had not yet entertained any thought of sleep. When I unlatched the door, I discovered, to my great surprise, Miss Monk and Stephen Dunlevy.

“Forgive the lateness of the hour, Dr. Watson,” Dunlevy began, “but Miss Monk was determined not to let the matter wait.”

“You are most welcome. I have been expecting Miss Monk, in any event.”

Once upstairs, I opened the claret and located two more glasses. Dunlevy sat in the basket chair, while Miss Monk stood proudly before the fire with the air of an orator who has been asked to make a statement. When I had seated myself, she set her glass upon the mantel and drew a small object out of her garments.

“It’s a present for you, Doctor.” She grinned broadly as she tossed a piece of metal through the air and I caught it, turning it over in my hand.

It was a key. “All right,” I said, laughing, “I’m game. What does it open?”

“Leslie Tavistock’s office.”

“My dear Miss Monk!”

“I’d a mind to see whether Dunlevy here was good for anything apart from shadowing decent folk,” she said happily, settling herself upon the arm of the sofa. “But I know you was worried about taking any steps wi’out Mr. Holmes, for good reason too, so once we’d got it, we legged it straight here to turn it over.”

“Mr. Dunlevy, would you care to elaborate how this came into your possession?”

The young man cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Monk did me the honour of appearing at my door the Thursday before last, and explained to me her belief that, as I am a journalist and journalists are a clubbish sort of folk, always rubbing shoulders to be apprised of the latest developments, it was inconceivable to her that I would not have an acquaintance at the London Chronicle. Miss Monk’s conjecture was not entirely correct, but it may as well have been, for I’ve a friend at the Star who has a very close connection with a chap by the name of Harding, who is employed there.”

“I see. And then?”

“The young lady’s idea, and a very clever one if I may say so, was to coerce Harding into taking an impression of Tavistock’s key. As it happens, no coercion proved necessary.”

“Tavistock’s a complete rotter,” Miss Monk interrupted. “We might have known as much, the way he went after Mr. Holmes.”

Dunlevy quickly suppressed what appeared to be the beginnings of a fond smile and went on. “As Miss Monk says, there is no one so universally reviled at the London Chronicle as Leslie Tavistock. It took a couple of days’ management, but I met with Harding in the company of our mutual friend for a glass of beer, made the suggestion, and was instantly heaped with praise for my idea of playing a prank on the most friendless man in journalism.”

“A prank,” I repeated, beginning to see the inspired simplicity of their plan. “What sort of prank do you intend?”

“Oh, I daresay we could accomplish something nice with paint, and there’s always dead rats to consider,” Miss Monk remarked with an air of delighted nonchalance. “There’s a horse slaughterer not far from Dunlevy’s East-end digs. And of course, once we were in the office—”

“This little pleasantry may take us considerably more time than one would think,” I finished.

“With all his papers just lying about, it would be a shame not to glance through them, eh, Doctor?”

“Wait a moment. We know nothing of Tavistock’s hours, or indeed, those of the building itself.”

“Harding has proffered very eager cooperation,” Dunlevy explained. “It seems he was once investigating a