“You have been out?”
“I have been rambling about town and took the liberty of making a few purchases on your behalf.”
“Indeed? Have you eaten?”
“A cup of coffee. Now, Watson, I trust you won’t mind exercising a small precaution I’ve been forced to employ when traveling in these circles. I would appreciate your donning the exceedingly shabby attire to your immediate left, topped with that old coat. Forgive me for having torn it in a few places. Just at the moment, you appear far too affluent to be associated with Jack Escott, but that hearty fellow will meet you downstairs in ten minutes’ time, and we will take our morning wet at the Ten Bells public house, preceded by a good brisk walk.”
In less than the time specified, I met Holmes (or rather, Holmes in the guise of the seafaring type I took to be called Jack Escott) downstairs, and we struck off in the coarse beige light of morning. Twenty minutes had passed before the tavern appeared on the corner of Church Street, its doorway flanked by simple columns and its sign, black with “The Ten Bells” marked out in white lettering, swaying gently in the breeze. The single room inside was littered with chairs and knife-scarred tables, while the walls boasted pictorial tiling degraded nearly to ruins by a tenacious layer of grit.
“You are wondering what our intent may be,” Holmes responded softly, though I had said nothing. “Never fear—just be sure to agree with me at every turn, and we’ll soon come out all right.”
The bar was far busier than I would ever have guessed at that hour, the locals industriously draining their cups before setting off to accomplish the labours or leisures of their respective days. A knot of bedraggled half-pay soldiers soon spied Holmes and waved us lazily over to their table.
“Where’d you pick up this one, then, Escott?” hailed a short fellow of middle years, with regulation side- whiskers and the peering red gaze of a man who is seldom if ever free from the influence of strong drink.
“This is Middleton, an old mate of mine just back in town. Murphy! A round of porter for the table.”
“How are you, Middleton?” asked the soldier as more brews were poured. I was formulating a reply when my friend interjected.
“Oh, never mind him, Kettle. He was in Afghanistan, you know. Saw more of life than any of us should, or so I’ve gathered. Only talks when he’s had a drop too many, and even then it’s of Ghazis, bless him.”
“What was it, then? Kandahar?”
Holmes laughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing so pleasant as that. Maiwand.* You’d best leave him be.”
The former guardsmen squinted sympathetically. “Well, then, what about you, Escott? Back to the Three Cobras tonight?”
Holmes’s eyes narrowed dreamily. “It had crossed my mind. Middleton here’s a ruddy connoisseur of the stuff. We’ve been rambling about all night. Stumbled onto that fellow Blackstone, what was in Egypt a few years back.”
“Johnny Blackstone? Haven’t run into him for over a week now. Your friend here may keep mum more than is usual, but it’s a sight more peaceful than that Blackstone’s balmy talk.”
“That’ll be the black drop. He means no harm.”
“I daresay you’re right. But he was in a dark mood last I laid eyes on him.”
“I meant to stop by his digs last week—he allowed as he’d be the better for company, but damned if there weren’t a pipe in my hand when I said it. It was as much as I could do to recall it were in Spitalfields, let alone the address.”
“He lives in Sandy’s Row, over Widegate Street area. Keeps himself to himself for the most part, but I dropped in for a nightcap, last month it must have been, though I’ve not been back since. There he is up at the back of the building, windows all stopped up with scraps. Small wonder he’s so few folk looking in.”
“Maybe he likes it that way. At any rate, I’ve Middleton to share a morning pipe if Blackstone’s too deep in the dumps to crawl out of ’em.” My friend shrugged, finishing the last of his beer.
“You don’t mean to stop by now, do you?” Kettle asked. “Lord knows what den he’s holed up in. He’s that cracked—sets off at one or two in the morning on his rambles and never thinks of his rooms till late the next day. If you want to find him there, look in tonight before midnight.”
We said our good-byes and ambled outdoors. I could see the bustling eastern side of Spitalfields Market across the road from us, and the smell of livestock and freshly unearthed onions wafted along the street. My friend was a taut whipcord of suppressed vitality as we set off aimlessly down the road.
“That’s done it,” Holmes said quietly, but with the thrill of the chase in his clipped tenor. “I had the house number yesterday from a fellow called Wicks over three cups of gin.”
“Have you all this while been seeking out Blackstone’s lodgings?”
“Indeed yes. It is no joke to infiltrate a network of people and, through expert maneuvering, convey the impression that you have existed on the periphery for far longer than anyone can recall.”
“I was astonished at their manner toward you. You might have known them for years.”
“For the first five days, I divided no less than eighteen hours a day amongst the most popular dens between Whitechapel and Limehouse, my brain nothing more than a massive sponge. I flatter myself I had the lay of the land fairly quickly, deducing as much as I observed. Patterns began to emerge. When I felt confident enough, and these fellows had grown used to the sight of me, I began dropping names—a brother who’d reenlisted, a friend who’d died, a girl who hadn’t been seen in years. I established undisputed, unprovable connections. At last my own story came out. Where had I been? At sea, these four years. Soon I was so universally trusted that I could elicit information with very little fear of being caught.
“When Mr. Li conveyed the message that Blackstone was at the Three Cobras, I arrived mere minutes too late, but his departure easily occasioned talk of him amongst his associates. Slowly, as if I were piecing together a smashed Abyssinian urn, an image emerged. He has not lived long in the area, and no one knew him before August. He resides alone, more often than not going about in a uniform in spite of his discharge. He is a mass of contradictions: despite his rugged good looks and cynical charm, he shuns the company of women. Though his mood is nearly always black and his temper violent, he is well liked by the other lads for his clever speech and free purse.
“I desired nothing more than to find out his lodgings, but it soon became clear that the slippery devil hardly ever receives guests. It could not have been more taxing, Watson—it was a more delicate combination of deductive reasoning and guarded conversation than I ever anticipated, but the final link you witnessed yourself, and the end of the search lies before us. I confess that I feared when you arrived, your presence would disrupt my little fiction. Thankfully, I had nearly reached my goal, and a trusty comrade will now be of inestimable use.”
“No one else could have accomplished so much, and without arousing the slightest suspicion,” I declared warmly.
Holmes waved away my compliment, but the gesture was a gentle one. “Your envelope is cause for the greatest concern. It was postmarked Saturday, the twentieth of October. Tavistock has had more damning information in his hands for over two weeks now. At any moment, he may publish another stylishly phrased defamation. Then there is the Ripper himself to consider; since he set out to terrorize the unfortunates of Whitechapel, he has never paused this long in his ungodly work. If the pattern of dates continues, he will strike again no later than the eighth of November.”
“May we run the villain down tonight, for their sakes.”
“For all of London, my dear fellow,” he replied grimly. “But above all, for their sakes.”
We passed the day easily in the ramshackle room, Holmes chatting desultorily of violins and their origins in sixteenth-century Italy until the sun had fallen. After a bowl of stew and tumbler of whiskey in a nearby tavern, we set off under the clearest night sky we had seen in some time. My friend steered us immediately north, and I quickly recognized our path as we passed the railway depot and crossed Aldgate High Street. A group of street urchins were setting off a riot of firecrackers in an old cistern, and I recalled as a shower of golden sparks fell upon the roofs of the warehouses that it was Guy Fawkes Day, the fifth of November.
“I cannot express how galling it was to have the house number from a semidelirious sot moments before he lost any pretense at consciousness,” Holmes remarked as the crack and hiss of gunpowder faded into the distance. “However, despite the delay, it was as well we learned of the street from Kettle, for he knows more of Blackstone’s habits than anyone.”
“What do you imagine will happen, Holmes?”
