“And what did you discover?” I asked carefully.
“There were jars upon—no, no, it is far too revolting to speak of. I will be pilloried! My character decimated, my career ended.”
“What a pity,” said I, rising deliberately. “By the by, whatever possessed you to follow your source?”
“I was suspicious. I wish to heaven I had never thought to trail him, but I wanted to know how he’d got his miraculous information.” He commenced sobbing bloodily into his coat sleeve. “If he finds me out, he will kill me, I know it!”
“When did you follow him?”
“Last night. After he stopped by my office to ask for his letters back. He said the force would come after him if they discovered he had spoken to the press.”
“The force?” I repeated, praying my tone was as casual as I hoped. “What have they to do with it?”
“He is a police constable. His name is Edward Bennett. You cannot know how horrible it was, Dr. Watson. God help me! I am done for.” His head collapsed once more upon his arm.
“Come upstairs at once,” I said.
“Oh, bless you, bless you, Dr. Watson!”
“Get a hold of yourself, and follow me.” I advanced up the stairs and into our sitting room with the thrill of new-sparked hope shining in my breast.
“Watson!” called Holmes when he heard me enter. He had divested himself of his mud-bespattered clothing and was as immaculate as ever, though he rubbed at his shoulder gingerly. “Where on earth have you put the—by the Lord!” he growled when he saw who stood beside me.
“He has discovered the identity of his source, Holmes. He knows where Bennett lives.”
“Bennett has abandoned his City dwelling,” Holmes shot back, still casting about for I knew not what. “If he hadn’t, I would not now be forced to scour his bank accounts, his former office, his family tree, and his preferred tobacconist. There was a stub in the dog grate—”
“He knows where Bennett stayed
“Ha. Here they are.” Grasping the matchbox, the detective stopped to light a cigarette and regarded the pressman with wintry disdain. “What a very interesting twist of events. Curiosity got the better of you, did it? You wanted to see what sort of line Bennett was investigating? You dogged him to his abode and then watched as he left again, which, equipped as you were, was as good as an invitation to break into his house. You’ve a cut under your right wrist just where an amateur cracksman would nick it on the windowpane, which tells me you used a glass cutter rather than a lock pick. Then you lit a candle stub without a holder and took a look round. The wax has dripped onto your sleeve in two places. Next, I imagine you laid eyes on a relic or two from Bennett’s past adventures, and his odd prescience became a trifle clearer to you. The red weal on the back of your hand from hot wax dripping upon bare flesh without remark proves your discovery was an unusual one, whatever it was. You then fled the premises. Am I close to the truth?”
Our visitor’s eyes were open and staring in awe. “It’s as you say. For God’s sake, help me, Mr. Holmes. It is more than a man can bear.”
I had never seen such an expression of loathing on Sherlock Holmes’s face before, and I hope I never will again. But just as quickly, his brow cleared and he approached our visitor with measured steps.
“Do you know, Mr. Tavistock, I do have a mind to help you. I shall just outline my little proposition. If you tell me where this rat is hiding, I will not tell all of London you are an ally of Jack the Ripper, I will not see that you are arrested for breaking and entering, and I will not throw you out of that window onto the pavement below.”
Leslie Tavistock gaped at Holmes, then whispered, “I do not know where he is.”
“Come, sir,” said Holmes, and his voice was deadly quiet.
“That is to say—I mean—I followed him, yes, but I’ve no notion where I was! The alleys all twisted and turned—”
“Mr. Tavistock,” my friend interrupted, “you will now tell me absolutely everything you can recall about your journey to Bennett’s house. Please bear in mind that you see before you a man who has squandered the last vestiges of his patience.”
The coward hid his still-bleeding face from us by turning to the window while shutting his eyes in desperate concentration.
“It was a dark, dirty place. The houses were short and very old.”
“Brick or wood?”
“They were made of wood.”
“Individual doors, or halls leading to multiple entrances like the rookeries around Flower and Dean?”
“There were many doors and corridors. No freestanding houses save Bennett’s.”
“Any warehouses?”
“No, just those horrible residences.”
“Were there any vendors or open markets?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“What sort of traffic was it?”
“I beg your—”
“Carriages, ambulances, hay-wains, dogcarts?” Holmes snapped.
“No ambulances, but there were carts.”
“Then you were not near the hospital. Could you hear any trains?”
“No, I do not think—”
“Could you hear bells?”
“Yes, Mr. Holmes!” he cried. “Yes, I could hear bells! Very loud, nearly on top of us.”
“Then you were adjacent to Christ Church and far from the railway. Did you pass any landmarks?”
“There was a pub with shabby gold lettering above the door, on a sharply angled corner. It had a picture of a girl—”
“That is the Princess Alice, and it is on Commercial Street and Wentworth Street. Which way were you walking?”
“I do not know—”
“Was it on the right, or the left?” Holmes demanded with his teeth clenched.
“The right.”
“Did you pass the narrower street corner side of the building first, or the wider part further down the block?”
“The—the narrow, I am sure.”
“Then you were walking north. Did you stay on that road?”
“We turned right, as I recall.”
“Had you passed another pub before you turned?”
“I do not think so.”
“Then you did not pass the Queen’s Head, and you were either in Thrawl Street or Flower and Dean Street. Was there an apothecary shop on the corner?”
“No, sir—I think it was a stable yard.”
“Where horses are kept?”
“Yes—the house he entered was the only one of its kind, with an area before and a separate entrance. As I walked, it stood to the left.”
“Then he resides at either number twenty-six or twenty-eight Thrawl Street.” Holmes made a note of it in his pocketbook. “Very well, then. Now, Mr. Tavistock?”
“Yes, Mr. Holmes?”
“I suggest that you forget what you know. If you make an effort to forget this affair, then I will make an effort to forget as well. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear, Mr. Holmes.”
“Now,” said my friend, his voice dangerously low, “get the hell out of my rooms.”
Tavistock gasped something incoherent and fled.
“Holmes,” I breathed, “that was marvelous.”
