The Adventure of the Purloined Heart (Chapter 1)
Title: The Adventure of the Purloined Heart
Author: ladyblahblah
Rating: R
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Warnings: Spoilers for . . . probably just about everything. Be forewarned. Also, warnings for gore, implied violence, and the love that dare not speak its name, but does have a somewhat graphic description probably eventually.
Summary: A murder unveils secrets kept buried for years. Sorry, I completely suck at summaries, maybe I'll come up with something better later on.
Author's Notes: This has been sitting on my hard drive for a little over two years. I decided it might be time to do something with it.
Chapter One
In my years as friend and biographer to Sherlock Holmes, I have witnessed many sights to chill a man’s blood. I have stared into the face of death countless times, and seen the ravages of man’s basest and cruelest passions in all their infinite varieties. For years I held the sight of Mr. Enoch Drubber in my mind as the basest, most horrific example of what one man can do to another. It also assumed a vital importance in my memories, a kind of milestone in my life, for that death marked the beginning of my strange and wonderful partnership with Sherlock Holmes. In the winter of 1894, however, that long-held image was transplanted with what will surely remain until my death the foulest and most personally significant crime in my knowledge.
The East End of London has a well-earned reputation as the city’s seedy underbelly, where demons dwell to cater to any and all of Man’s vices. Some of their lairs are better known than others; however, for the man who is willing to look, satisfaction can always be found no matter how peculiar his desires might be. My own lusts, though perhaps not as unusual as decent citizens would like to believe, still necessitated occasional fortification at such an establishment.
For many years, filled with the shame bred of our society’s rigid morality, I had tried to eradicate or ignore my preference for my own gender. In my most desperate effort I even married, and though I may have favored the company of men it is not a lie to say that I grew to care for my wife more deeply than I had believed possible. She was my only consolation after the death of my friend, and for her I found the strength to resist the devils that nightly whispered temptation in my ear. When she was taken from me, in my distress from such a double blow of grief to lose both friend and spouse, I let myself slide back into the shameless behavior that I had vowed to discontinue after my return from Afghanistan. When Holmes returned, miraculously alive, I swore to stop again; my resolve lasted for less than a month.
It will probably not surprise my long-time readers to learn that I had long harbored an unnatural affection for my friend Sherlock Holmes. He himself has often said that I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I can not imagine that I conceal my feelings any better in the written word. I could not say precisely how those feelings came about; had I been aware of their development at the time, perhaps I could have stopped it.
In all honesty, I felt safe enough engaging rooms with him when we met, for the simple reason that at that time I felt nothing like attraction towards him. Unsurprising, perhaps, for Holmes is not at all handsome in the conventional sense. Thin to the point of gauntness, his pale skin accentuated by the raven blackness of his hair, his gray eyes capable of the most uncomfortable keenness in their gaze; I found him upon that first encounter to be altogether too strange, too intense for my liking.
It was, at the height of irony, that very intensity that eventually led to my downfall. The longer I knew him the more I grew to be fascinated by him, astonished at his genius and enthusiastically grateful for any opportunity to observe him in his work. I can hardly describe my elation when, upon the arrival of a new client several days after the conclusion of the Drubber case, he did not pack me off to my room but requested that I remain to hear the man’s story.
Thus it was that over time he grew, in my eyes, to nearly godlike proportions. One day, nearly a year into our acquaintance, I made what he finally judged to be an insightful deduction, and he beamed at me in a burst of pride such as I had never seen before. My heart faltered at how beautiful that smile made him seem to me; in that moment Sherlock Holmes became the most breathtaking creature in God’s creation, and I knew that I was lost.
Since that time I had striven to convince myself that my attraction to Sherlock Holmes was nothing but the result of my long abstinence from the sexual company that I preferred. For a time I managed a fair amount of success. However, when I turned and saw him standing in place of the old bookseller that momentous April morning, I could lie to myself no longer. I had indulged my illicit passions only the night before, yet my first impulse was still to take him in my arms and bear him to the ground that I might prove, in the most delicious way, that he was no ghost, but flesh and blood.
Luckily, I fainted first.
My fear of detection was constant once I moved back into Baker Street, but I could no more stop my indulgences than I could have refused Holmes’s request that I return. I did not trust myself, now that I had acknowledged my desire for him, to keep from demonstrating that desire should I allow it to grow unchecked. Therefore I cut back on the habit into which I had fallen, but did not give it up entirely. In each of my shameful visits to sate my lusts I bought another week or two of safety for my friend.
I stood one cold December night on such a visit, at the back door of a brothel with an inverted reputation. It was a place I had visited many times before and would have, if not for the occurrence of subsequent events, continued to frequent for Heaven only knows how long. That night, less than five minutes after my arrival, I stared out of the doorway and felt my carefully constructed deceptions come crashing down around my head.
The man next to me-I say man though at the time he seemed, at only twenty-five years of age, nearly a boy to me-was shaking violently, and I strongly suspected that my arm around him was the only thing keeping him upright. I could not blame him; even after my tenure in Afghanistan the sight in front of me was enough to turn my stomach.
A body lay in the small courtyard behind the house, already partially covered by the falling snow. The light from the doorway did not quite penetrate the shadows that surrounded the corpse, but even in the meager light one could clearly make out the gaping hole, like a great yawning maw, in the center of the man’s chest. I looked away, turning my companion’s face into my shoulder and holding his head as he trembled.
“It’s all right, Thomas,” I soothed, letting my medical instincts take over as my mind reeled from the grisly sight. “Don’t look, there’s a lad.”
My heart was racing, though sadly not in the way I had anticipated when I had ventured out this evening. The lean body pressed against mine, the dark hair against my cheek, the angular face buried in my coat were all eerily, achingly familiar. There was no use pretending that I had chosen this man for any other reason than his resemblance to my friend. To see him now, however, this false Holmes in such a trembling state of terror, produced an alarming sense of unreality that threatened to unman me.
He drew in an unsteady breath and, after a moment more, pulled away. “I’ve seen dead bodies before,” he said, his voice quavering. “But that . . . what’s happened to him?”
“I don’t know.” In the absence of someone to comfort, my own nerves were quickly becoming uncontrollable. I fought against the nausea that rose within me. “Do you recognize him?”
Thomas shook his head. “No; he ain’t one of us. A client, I suppose,” he whispered, running his hands over his face. “We’re done for. We’ll have to call the coppers, an’ we’ll all end up in Reading, or worse.” His trembling hadn’t ceased; it had, if anything, grown more severe.
I thought quickly. My first inclination, I admit, was to flee; if the police did indeed arrive and find me there, I would be ruined. I was in violation of the law many times over, and even if I were spared Wilde’s fate my reputation would never recover. Worst of all, I would bring Holmes down with me unless he swiftly and unequivocally cut me out of his life. It was difficult to determine which possibility held the most terror for me.
The police would certainly have to be called; there was no way to avoid it. Yet the very thought of how they would undoubtedly handle this case, the ease with which they would destroy the victim’s memory as thoroughly as they destroyed the murderer’s reputation, set my teeth on edge. The investigation could not be left in their hands alone. Unfortunately, that left only one option, and it was one that started ice-cold fear gnawing at my gut.
I had always known that I risked much every time I entered this house, but never had I felt so certain of my ruin from one side or another. If Holmes were to be brought in on the case there was every chance that he would realize I had been at the scene-it was almost supernatural at times how thoroughly he could deduce a man’s actions from the smallest scrap of evidence. If he did discover my true nature, the deviant tendencies that I had tried so valiantly to hide from him, there was every chance that he would decide to terminate our friendship even without police encouragement.
I chanced another glance outside, and my resolve firmed. There were greater concerns at hand than my own. A murderer was on the loose and needed to be brought to justice. I turned to Thomas and gripped him firmly by the shoulders.
“Listen to me. It will be all right, as long as you do exactly as I say. Listen closely now; this is important.”
When I had instructed him in what to do I left that place as quickly as possible, walking nearly halfway home before I dared to hail a cab. I had the cabby drop me a block away, and as I looked down Baker Street I took a moment to collect myself. It would hardly do to have my long-kept secret revealed simply because I could not keep my composure.
I busied myself with my usual ritual after such a night-brushing away any stray hairs, straightening my clothes, checking my shoes and trousers to ensure that I carried no speck of that distinctive East End mud. Such precautions would almost certainly be in vain if Holmes ever took it upon himself to discover my whereabouts, but I saw no reason to shove the evidence of my activities beneath his nose.
By the time I had finished my imperfect ablutions my racing pulse had calmed, and I felt capable of facing what lay ahead of me. I made my way to our front door and strolled inside as if-I hope-nothing were at all amiss.
“Good evening, Doctor,” Mrs. Hudson greeted me in surprise, stepping out of her rooms to take my hat and coat. “You’re back rather early this evening. Is your patient doing better?”
“No better, but no worse. He is, as always, in perfect health.”
I smiled, trying to fight down the flush that wanted to rise in my cheeks. My invention of a hypochondriac patient had kept both Holmes and Mrs. Hudson from questioning my outings too closely; it was necessary, but I loathed the lie. I excused myself as quickly as possible, waving away Mrs. Hudson’s offer of a late supper, and made my way up the stairs.
I was greeted, as I so often was, by the sound of Holmes’s violin: a lovely, melancholy air that I did not recognize. I stopped, my hand on the doorknob, arrested by that bittersweet sound. It seemed to me to embody all of my hopeless longing for the man who played it: each sleepless night spent dreaming of his touch, each stolen glance, every painful realization that my affections were not returned, each failed attempt to leave the sweet torment of his presence. The sound ripped at my heart, and yet I could not bring myself to turn away. Indeed, how like the man.
As I paused by the sitting room door it crossed my mind that I might very easily continue upstairs, crawl into bed and forget for a few short hours what I had seen. My friend would tell you that I am no coward; I know that for the lie that it is. Still, I could not bring myself to behave like a callow youth. With a deep breath for courage I opened the door.
He stood in his shirtsleeves, his back to the door, his entire long, lean frame swaying in time with the music he called forth from his instrument. With the fire behind him casting a sort of halo he truly seemed to be from another world, a creature not of flesh but living flame. Then he turned and was only my old friend once more, smiling at my unexpected arrival.
“Watson!” He set aside his violin and bow and gestured me into the room. “You’ve escaped early! Your patient, perhaps, has finally shuffled off this mortal coil?”
I laughed despite myself. “Not at all. He’s still fit as a fiddle. But I gave him a handful of sugar pills and told him they were the strongest medicine I could provide.”
“Hah!” Holmes collapsed in his chair, an amused grin stretching from ear to ear. “How perfectly devious of you, Watson! I wouldn’t have thought you’d have it in you.”
“Yes, well,” I said a touch uncomfortably. “I’ll admit I was rather surprised at it, myself.”
“If you prove to be so cunning in all your future endeavors, I shall have to watch you rather more closely. Though I still fail to see why you persist in making these visits at all.”
“I’ve told you before, Holmes,” I said, hoping that he would take my heightened color as a sign of my usual temper, “he was one of my first patients when I opened my practice. When I sold it-”
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “You simply couldn’t bring yourself to abandon him, and so allowed him to convince you to pay him a house call whenever his whim dictates. Really, Watson, you have an abominable habit of letting others trample all over you.” He gave a wry smile. “I ought to know; I have a request that I must make of you.”
“Yes?”
“I received a note this afternoon,” he said, gesturing to the breakfast table where I could see the folded paper lying. “A young woman is concerned about her brother-the note was written by her fiancé, requesting that we pay a call on her tomorrow at our convenience. As it specifically mentions both of us, I wonder if you would be so good as to accompany me?”
“Well of course I will, Holmes,” I said. “You know that I am always eager to be in on one of your cases.”
“I had hoped you would say so,” Holmes said with the barest of smiles. “But here now! What’s this?” The bell had sounded downstairs, and I was grateful that Holmes pulled out his watch at that moment so that my abrupt tension went unnoticed. “A visitor at this hour?”
He leaped up, snatching his coat from the settee and pulling it on excitedly. “A client, Watson, or else I’m much mistaken!”
“You think so?”
“As I am expecting no one, and you have not mentioned the possibility of a visitor yourself, I must presume that such an arrival must be someone in dire straits indeed to be calling here at nearly nine o’clock in the evening.” He smoothed down his hair and positioned himself by the mantle, his attempt at nonchalance undone by his subtle straining toward the door. “Let us see what this bitter night has brought us, Watson,” he murmured an instant before the door swung open.
I had instructed Thomas most carefully to keep a straight face and, above all, show no surprise at what he might find when he entered 221b. To his credit he did not so much as blink to see me sitting there, but glanced back and forth between Holmes and myself in a visible display of nerves.
“Excuse me. Mr. Holmes? Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
“I am Sherlock Holmes.” I glanced up to see my friend’s face alive with interest. To my surprise, he stepped forward and extended his hand. Thomas, with only a second’s hesitation, stepped farther into the room and grasped the offered hand in a firm shake. “This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson. And who, may I ask, are you?”
“My name’s Thomas Price,” he said, gripping his battered Homburg hat tightly in his hands. At Holmes’s imperious gesture he stumbled back and perched on the very edge of the settee. “I . . . I need your help, Mr. Holmes.”
“Yes, Mr. Price, I gathered as much.” He returned to the mantel, took up his pipe and began to fill it with his favorite shag. “What I am less clear on,” he said, lighting his pipe without deigning to look at our visitor, “is why a male prostitute from Bethnal Green should come to me seeking aid and advice.”
“Holmes!” I gasped. Unable to say anything more, I simply sat there gaping like a fish. I glanced over to see Thomas looking pale and frightened.
“What . . .” His voice broke and he cleared his throat before continuing. “What, may I ask, makes you so confident in voicing such an obscene charge?”
“My dear man, you carry on your person a veritable wealth of information. Your shirt has been mended no fewer than three times,” said Sherlock Holmes, sitting back in his chair and applying himself to his pipe, “each time having been rent asunder, necessitating the substitution of some of the buttons for others which, as you can see, do not quite match. The knees of your trousers are rather threadbare and dusty, as if you are used to spending a good deal of time on your knees; your hands, however, are uncallused-in fact, they are remarkably soft. There are some rather telling pale stains around the edges of your cuffs. Several marks are clearly visible on your neck, and the skin around your mouth has been reddened by rubbing repeatedly against a beard. Your shoes bear that mud so often found upon the noted pugilists of York Hall, but you have made no effort to remove it, leading me to believe that your presence in that area is a result of your profession rather than mere dalliance. There are, perhaps, one or two other little points which have called my attention, but I see no reason to belabor the subject.”
With that he took a long draw on his pipe and shot me a thoroughly smug and self-satisfied look, as though daring me to dispute his logic with another cry of offended courtesy.
“I hafta confess, you’re spot-on, Mr. Holmes,” Thomas said breathlessly. “True enough, it would be foolish to deny the truth in the presence of such a man as you.” I thought I imagined his eyes darting to me then, before he leaned forward earnestly. “And if you can discover so much about me after so brief an examination, I believe you may truly be the man to help. That is, of course, if you’ll agree to listen to my story.”
“I am always prepared to listen to an interesting account, and I have a premonition that yours should be fascinating, indeed.” His eyes glittered for a moment before he closed his eyes, puffing languidly on his pipe. “Pray, proceed.”
If Thomas thought Holmes’s indolent posture odd, he gave no indication. “I live an’ work, as you have said, in Bethnal Green. I was a bit of a scrapper once; got myself in a rough situation a few too many times, though, and had to retire young. I fell on hard times, I’m afraid; couldn’t bear to leave the neighborhood, spent too much time at the Hall relivin’ old glories.” He stopped abruptly and shook his head, a wry smile covering his face. “Well, I suppose it hardly matters how I came to be what I am, an’ I won’t waste your time with explanations.
“I work in a house with fourteen others, an’ we all earn our room an’ board by giving the landlord a percentage of our . . . wages. I said that I needed your help, Mr. Holmes, but in fact it’s more than just me that’s in this spot; it’s for all of us that I’m speakin’ to you tonight.
“I was with a client tonight, an’ he fancied a bit of a stroll outside before we got down to things.” With Holmes’s eyes safely closed Thomas dared a brief wink in my direction. “Well, it’s no concern to me if a gentleman wants to spend part of his hour walkin’ about instead of . . . ah . . . you take my meaning, I suppose.” He flushed slightly, clearly uncomfortable to have broached the subject in such a place as a gentleman’s sitting room. “In any case, I told him there was a prettyish little garden in the back, for all that it’s the middle of winter and frigid cold. We were just about to head out there when-”
His bravado faded, and the nerves of a few hours past returned to the forefront. “There was a man,” he said, his voice trembling faintly. “A dead man, all stretched out on the stones with the snow fallin’ on him as pretty as you please. An’ he . . . he had a hole . . . a great, huge hole right in the middle of his chest. Ice all ‘round the edges, like cold little teeth in a bloody mouth.”
Holmes’s eyes flew open and he shot forward in his chair, his gaze fixed on Thomas with alarming intensity. “That must have been quite a sight,” he murmured. “This man-did you recognize him?”
Thomas shook his head. “No, sir, I didn’t. But Laurence did. I showed the landlord an’ we cleared out the house as quick as we could, called all the lads together. Laurence nearly lost his supper over the sight, said he’d serviced the gentleman earlier tonight.”
“A client, then,” Holmes said thoughtfully. “And your own? What became of him?”
“Lit out of there soon as he saw the body, face all deadly pale under his beard.”
“Hmm. A reasonable reaction.” Holmes leaned back again, but it was clear from the gleam in his hooded eyes and the absent manner in which he held his pipe that his interest was most avidly engaged. “Mr. Price, why come to me with this? It seems to me that it is clearly a matter for the police.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened. “Mr. Holmes, I ain’t an idiot. I know I’m on the wrong side of the law every day of my life, an’ so are all the other lads in that house. I know how coppers’ minds work, too-we’re a house full of criminals in their minds, an’ they won’t look any farther than the lot of us to find their killer.” He stared down blindly at his hands, twisting the brim of his hat in his distress. “Maybe someone in the house did do it; I don’t know. But I reckon there’s at least as much of a chance that someone else did it altogether.
“Some of us were all for not reportin’ it at all, just takin’ the body an’ chuckin’ it in the river. But Simon said it could just as well be one of us next time, and wouldn’t we want this madman well locked away instead of showin’ up to hack us to bits?
“That’s when I remembered a client of mine a few weeks ago who’d mentioned you, Mr. Holmes. He was crazy for Dr. Watson’s stories-he even read me a few, so as we could play-” His eyes shot up, and glancing between the two of us he blushed to the roots of his hair. He cleared his throat. “That don’t matter, I suppose. But I got the idea that you might look into it, Mr. Holmes, as it seemed the sort of thing you fancied and . . .” He lowered his eyes again. “And we ain’t got anywhere else to turn,” he finished softly.
Holmes regarded him for a moment, his keen gaze seeming to peer straight through to the man’s soul. Then he stood and turned to face the fire.
“Mr. Price, I advise you to return to Bethnal Green and summon the police immediately. Each second you delay only worsens the case against you.”
Thomas covered his eyes with his hand, his shoulders slumping in despair. He stood and headed for the door.
“Dr. Watson and I shall be there shortly, if you will be so good as to leave the address,” Holmes said, turning to flash a lightning grin at the dumbstruck Thomas, “and we shall see if we can not shed some light on this little problem.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Holmes!” He fumbled briefly with the paper and pencil that I handed him, but managed to scribble down the address that I knew so well. “Thank you!”
“Yes, yes,” Holmes said impatiently. “Off to the police! Quickly now! And whatever you do, mention nothing of your visit here.”
No sooner had he shut the door behind him than Holmes abandoned all pretense of lassitude, flying into action immediately.
“Well, Watson!” he cried, scattering papers left and right as he searched the chaos of the room. “A pretty little puzzle indeed, I fancy! Where the devil is it? Ah!” He held up his lens with a triumphant flourish. “Tell me, what do you think of Mr. Price’s story?”
“To be honest,” I said, “I’m a bit surprised at your enthusiasm. A morbid case, to be sure, but other than the mystery of the culprit it seems to be rather straightforward.”
“You think so?” he asked, his eyes glittering as he turned to me. He tutted, “For shame, Watson. These years without me seem to have blunted your deductive skills even further, if that is possible.”
“And what vital clue,” I said with some sharpness, “have I overlooked this time?”
“Now, Watson, think! You have just secured the publication of your account of our little adventure regarding the Bruce-Partington submarine. Can you not remember our most vital clue in that case? The blood, Watson!” he cried. “The blood!”
“But . . .” I followed him as he dashed out the door and down the stairs. “He said nothing about blood!”
“Precisely!” He whipped on his overcoat and hat as I struggled into my own. “Our Thomas Price possesses a talent for distinctly florid description-recall his likening of the ice crystals around the wounds to teeth in a bloody mouth. Yet no other mention of blood colors his description? No congealing pools, no vivid splashes? Tell me, Watson, what manner of man can have a hole gouged in his person without managing to spill quite a copious amount of blood?”
Realization struck like a thunderbolt. “Of course! One who was already dead!”
“That’s my Watson! The question, then, is why did our killer mutilate the body in such a way when it could only have increased his chances of being caught in the act? You have the address? Excellent! Let us set off. No, do not bother with a cab, we shall be walking. It is best,” he said as we set off down the street, “if we allow the official police to arrive before us. Our presence at a crime scene that they themselves had only just gotten wind of might be . . . awkward, especially given the venue. With any luck, however, we may get there in time to stop them completely trampling the scene and obliterating the clues we seek.”
We lapsed into silence, he to ponder the clues that we had already been provided and I, for my part, to contemplate the alarming fact that my two worlds were shortly to come crashing headlong into each other. I managed to take a small amount of comfort from the fact that while Holmes had immediately deduced the truth about Thomas, he still seemed to have no suspicions about his Boswell. His demonstration made it clear that my precautions upon my return had been well-thought of; without them, there was no doubt that he would have seen through my façade as easily as he saw through Thomas’s.
I was immensely grateful, as well, for Thomas’s discretion. Apart from that one ill-advised wink his response to me had remained remarkably casual. It had undoubtedly been a great risk, remaining in the room for his arrival, and not only because of my fear of Holmes’s discovery. Thomas now knew who I was, and my reputation-indeed, my freedom-rested in his hands. I only hoped that he would continue to prove himself worthy of the admittedly foolish amount of trust that I was giving him.
Holmes and I had walked for some blocks, arm-in-arm, when he suddenly slowed his pace. I shot him a questioning glance.
“I realize, Watson, that I have been rather . . . presumptuous.” He glanced at me, then away. “You have noted before, I believe, that conventional morality bears little weight with me. I should much rather lend my services to a man from Bethnal Green whose case contains those elements of interest which make an investigation worthy of my time, than undertake a trivial errand be it for our illustrious monarch herself.
“I sometimes forget, however, that not all men share my views of the world. It has not escaped me that you seem . . . uncomfortable with our current destination; my dear friend, I would not have you discomfited in the course of aiding me. Should you wish to return to Baker Street and not involve yourself with this rather sordid business, I assure you I will quite understand.”
There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to follow Holmes’s suggestion; God knows I should have done so. The fewer people within that house who learned of my identity the safer I would be. It was abysmally foolish of me to continue, just as it had been foolish for me to remain in our sitting room when I had known of Thomas’s imminent arrival. But I could not bring myself to abandon this mystery that I had, for once, discovered.
Even still, these many years later, I can not entirely break myself of this vile habit of falsehoods. In truth, it was not the case that I could not bear to abandon, but my friend. Holmes was showing me that insightful consideration of his that was all the more precious for its rarity, and I had absolutely no defense against it.
“No, Holmes,” I said. “I shall accompany you; it takes more than this to turn my stomach.”
The look he shot me was such as had never graced his face before, so full of affectionate pride that I felt my heart lurch in my chest.
“Good old Watson,” he murmured. “Come, then!” he cried, picking up his pace again. “To hell with propriety and let us see what two old hounds such as we are might discover.”
Chapter 2
Author: ladyblahblah
Rating: R
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Warnings: Spoilers for . . . probably just about everything. Be forewarned. Also, warnings for gore, implied violence, and the love that dare not speak its name, but does have a somewhat graphic description probably eventually.
Summary: A murder unveils secrets kept buried for years. Sorry, I completely suck at summaries, maybe I'll come up with something better later on.
Author's Notes: This has been sitting on my hard drive for a little over two years. I decided it might be time to do something with it.
Chapter One
In my years as friend and biographer to Sherlock Holmes, I have witnessed many sights to chill a man’s blood. I have stared into the face of death countless times, and seen the ravages of man’s basest and cruelest passions in all their infinite varieties. For years I held the sight of Mr. Enoch Drubber in my mind as the basest, most horrific example of what one man can do to another. It also assumed a vital importance in my memories, a kind of milestone in my life, for that death marked the beginning of my strange and wonderful partnership with Sherlock Holmes. In the winter of 1894, however, that long-held image was transplanted with what will surely remain until my death the foulest and most personally significant crime in my knowledge.
The East End of London has a well-earned reputation as the city’s seedy underbelly, where demons dwell to cater to any and all of Man’s vices. Some of their lairs are better known than others; however, for the man who is willing to look, satisfaction can always be found no matter how peculiar his desires might be. My own lusts, though perhaps not as unusual as decent citizens would like to believe, still necessitated occasional fortification at such an establishment.
For many years, filled with the shame bred of our society’s rigid morality, I had tried to eradicate or ignore my preference for my own gender. In my most desperate effort I even married, and though I may have favored the company of men it is not a lie to say that I grew to care for my wife more deeply than I had believed possible. She was my only consolation after the death of my friend, and for her I found the strength to resist the devils that nightly whispered temptation in my ear. When she was taken from me, in my distress from such a double blow of grief to lose both friend and spouse, I let myself slide back into the shameless behavior that I had vowed to discontinue after my return from Afghanistan. When Holmes returned, miraculously alive, I swore to stop again; my resolve lasted for less than a month.
It will probably not surprise my long-time readers to learn that I had long harbored an unnatural affection for my friend Sherlock Holmes. He himself has often said that I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I can not imagine that I conceal my feelings any better in the written word. I could not say precisely how those feelings came about; had I been aware of their development at the time, perhaps I could have stopped it.
In all honesty, I felt safe enough engaging rooms with him when we met, for the simple reason that at that time I felt nothing like attraction towards him. Unsurprising, perhaps, for Holmes is not at all handsome in the conventional sense. Thin to the point of gauntness, his pale skin accentuated by the raven blackness of his hair, his gray eyes capable of the most uncomfortable keenness in their gaze; I found him upon that first encounter to be altogether too strange, too intense for my liking.
It was, at the height of irony, that very intensity that eventually led to my downfall. The longer I knew him the more I grew to be fascinated by him, astonished at his genius and enthusiastically grateful for any opportunity to observe him in his work. I can hardly describe my elation when, upon the arrival of a new client several days after the conclusion of the Drubber case, he did not pack me off to my room but requested that I remain to hear the man’s story.
Thus it was that over time he grew, in my eyes, to nearly godlike proportions. One day, nearly a year into our acquaintance, I made what he finally judged to be an insightful deduction, and he beamed at me in a burst of pride such as I had never seen before. My heart faltered at how beautiful that smile made him seem to me; in that moment Sherlock Holmes became the most breathtaking creature in God’s creation, and I knew that I was lost.
Since that time I had striven to convince myself that my attraction to Sherlock Holmes was nothing but the result of my long abstinence from the sexual company that I preferred. For a time I managed a fair amount of success. However, when I turned and saw him standing in place of the old bookseller that momentous April morning, I could lie to myself no longer. I had indulged my illicit passions only the night before, yet my first impulse was still to take him in my arms and bear him to the ground that I might prove, in the most delicious way, that he was no ghost, but flesh and blood.
Luckily, I fainted first.
My fear of detection was constant once I moved back into Baker Street, but I could no more stop my indulgences than I could have refused Holmes’s request that I return. I did not trust myself, now that I had acknowledged my desire for him, to keep from demonstrating that desire should I allow it to grow unchecked. Therefore I cut back on the habit into which I had fallen, but did not give it up entirely. In each of my shameful visits to sate my lusts I bought another week or two of safety for my friend.
I stood one cold December night on such a visit, at the back door of a brothel with an inverted reputation. It was a place I had visited many times before and would have, if not for the occurrence of subsequent events, continued to frequent for Heaven only knows how long. That night, less than five minutes after my arrival, I stared out of the doorway and felt my carefully constructed deceptions come crashing down around my head.
The man next to me-I say man though at the time he seemed, at only twenty-five years of age, nearly a boy to me-was shaking violently, and I strongly suspected that my arm around him was the only thing keeping him upright. I could not blame him; even after my tenure in Afghanistan the sight in front of me was enough to turn my stomach.
A body lay in the small courtyard behind the house, already partially covered by the falling snow. The light from the doorway did not quite penetrate the shadows that surrounded the corpse, but even in the meager light one could clearly make out the gaping hole, like a great yawning maw, in the center of the man’s chest. I looked away, turning my companion’s face into my shoulder and holding his head as he trembled.
“It’s all right, Thomas,” I soothed, letting my medical instincts take over as my mind reeled from the grisly sight. “Don’t look, there’s a lad.”
My heart was racing, though sadly not in the way I had anticipated when I had ventured out this evening. The lean body pressed against mine, the dark hair against my cheek, the angular face buried in my coat were all eerily, achingly familiar. There was no use pretending that I had chosen this man for any other reason than his resemblance to my friend. To see him now, however, this false Holmes in such a trembling state of terror, produced an alarming sense of unreality that threatened to unman me.
He drew in an unsteady breath and, after a moment more, pulled away. “I’ve seen dead bodies before,” he said, his voice quavering. “But that . . . what’s happened to him?”
“I don’t know.” In the absence of someone to comfort, my own nerves were quickly becoming uncontrollable. I fought against the nausea that rose within me. “Do you recognize him?”
Thomas shook his head. “No; he ain’t one of us. A client, I suppose,” he whispered, running his hands over his face. “We’re done for. We’ll have to call the coppers, an’ we’ll all end up in Reading, or worse.” His trembling hadn’t ceased; it had, if anything, grown more severe.
I thought quickly. My first inclination, I admit, was to flee; if the police did indeed arrive and find me there, I would be ruined. I was in violation of the law many times over, and even if I were spared Wilde’s fate my reputation would never recover. Worst of all, I would bring Holmes down with me unless he swiftly and unequivocally cut me out of his life. It was difficult to determine which possibility held the most terror for me.
The police would certainly have to be called; there was no way to avoid it. Yet the very thought of how they would undoubtedly handle this case, the ease with which they would destroy the victim’s memory as thoroughly as they destroyed the murderer’s reputation, set my teeth on edge. The investigation could not be left in their hands alone. Unfortunately, that left only one option, and it was one that started ice-cold fear gnawing at my gut.
I had always known that I risked much every time I entered this house, but never had I felt so certain of my ruin from one side or another. If Holmes were to be brought in on the case there was every chance that he would realize I had been at the scene-it was almost supernatural at times how thoroughly he could deduce a man’s actions from the smallest scrap of evidence. If he did discover my true nature, the deviant tendencies that I had tried so valiantly to hide from him, there was every chance that he would decide to terminate our friendship even without police encouragement.
I chanced another glance outside, and my resolve firmed. There were greater concerns at hand than my own. A murderer was on the loose and needed to be brought to justice. I turned to Thomas and gripped him firmly by the shoulders.
“Listen to me. It will be all right, as long as you do exactly as I say. Listen closely now; this is important.”
When I had instructed him in what to do I left that place as quickly as possible, walking nearly halfway home before I dared to hail a cab. I had the cabby drop me a block away, and as I looked down Baker Street I took a moment to collect myself. It would hardly do to have my long-kept secret revealed simply because I could not keep my composure.
I busied myself with my usual ritual after such a night-brushing away any stray hairs, straightening my clothes, checking my shoes and trousers to ensure that I carried no speck of that distinctive East End mud. Such precautions would almost certainly be in vain if Holmes ever took it upon himself to discover my whereabouts, but I saw no reason to shove the evidence of my activities beneath his nose.
By the time I had finished my imperfect ablutions my racing pulse had calmed, and I felt capable of facing what lay ahead of me. I made my way to our front door and strolled inside as if-I hope-nothing were at all amiss.
“Good evening, Doctor,” Mrs. Hudson greeted me in surprise, stepping out of her rooms to take my hat and coat. “You’re back rather early this evening. Is your patient doing better?”
“No better, but no worse. He is, as always, in perfect health.”
I smiled, trying to fight down the flush that wanted to rise in my cheeks. My invention of a hypochondriac patient had kept both Holmes and Mrs. Hudson from questioning my outings too closely; it was necessary, but I loathed the lie. I excused myself as quickly as possible, waving away Mrs. Hudson’s offer of a late supper, and made my way up the stairs.
I was greeted, as I so often was, by the sound of Holmes’s violin: a lovely, melancholy air that I did not recognize. I stopped, my hand on the doorknob, arrested by that bittersweet sound. It seemed to me to embody all of my hopeless longing for the man who played it: each sleepless night spent dreaming of his touch, each stolen glance, every painful realization that my affections were not returned, each failed attempt to leave the sweet torment of his presence. The sound ripped at my heart, and yet I could not bring myself to turn away. Indeed, how like the man.
As I paused by the sitting room door it crossed my mind that I might very easily continue upstairs, crawl into bed and forget for a few short hours what I had seen. My friend would tell you that I am no coward; I know that for the lie that it is. Still, I could not bring myself to behave like a callow youth. With a deep breath for courage I opened the door.
He stood in his shirtsleeves, his back to the door, his entire long, lean frame swaying in time with the music he called forth from his instrument. With the fire behind him casting a sort of halo he truly seemed to be from another world, a creature not of flesh but living flame. Then he turned and was only my old friend once more, smiling at my unexpected arrival.
“Watson!” He set aside his violin and bow and gestured me into the room. “You’ve escaped early! Your patient, perhaps, has finally shuffled off this mortal coil?”
I laughed despite myself. “Not at all. He’s still fit as a fiddle. But I gave him a handful of sugar pills and told him they were the strongest medicine I could provide.”
“Hah!” Holmes collapsed in his chair, an amused grin stretching from ear to ear. “How perfectly devious of you, Watson! I wouldn’t have thought you’d have it in you.”
“Yes, well,” I said a touch uncomfortably. “I’ll admit I was rather surprised at it, myself.”
“If you prove to be so cunning in all your future endeavors, I shall have to watch you rather more closely. Though I still fail to see why you persist in making these visits at all.”
“I’ve told you before, Holmes,” I said, hoping that he would take my heightened color as a sign of my usual temper, “he was one of my first patients when I opened my practice. When I sold it-”
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “You simply couldn’t bring yourself to abandon him, and so allowed him to convince you to pay him a house call whenever his whim dictates. Really, Watson, you have an abominable habit of letting others trample all over you.” He gave a wry smile. “I ought to know; I have a request that I must make of you.”
“Yes?”
“I received a note this afternoon,” he said, gesturing to the breakfast table where I could see the folded paper lying. “A young woman is concerned about her brother-the note was written by her fiancé, requesting that we pay a call on her tomorrow at our convenience. As it specifically mentions both of us, I wonder if you would be so good as to accompany me?”
“Well of course I will, Holmes,” I said. “You know that I am always eager to be in on one of your cases.”
“I had hoped you would say so,” Holmes said with the barest of smiles. “But here now! What’s this?” The bell had sounded downstairs, and I was grateful that Holmes pulled out his watch at that moment so that my abrupt tension went unnoticed. “A visitor at this hour?”
He leaped up, snatching his coat from the settee and pulling it on excitedly. “A client, Watson, or else I’m much mistaken!”
“You think so?”
“As I am expecting no one, and you have not mentioned the possibility of a visitor yourself, I must presume that such an arrival must be someone in dire straits indeed to be calling here at nearly nine o’clock in the evening.” He smoothed down his hair and positioned himself by the mantle, his attempt at nonchalance undone by his subtle straining toward the door. “Let us see what this bitter night has brought us, Watson,” he murmured an instant before the door swung open.
I had instructed Thomas most carefully to keep a straight face and, above all, show no surprise at what he might find when he entered 221b. To his credit he did not so much as blink to see me sitting there, but glanced back and forth between Holmes and myself in a visible display of nerves.
“Excuse me. Mr. Holmes? Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
“I am Sherlock Holmes.” I glanced up to see my friend’s face alive with interest. To my surprise, he stepped forward and extended his hand. Thomas, with only a second’s hesitation, stepped farther into the room and grasped the offered hand in a firm shake. “This is my friend and colleague, Dr. Watson. And who, may I ask, are you?”
“My name’s Thomas Price,” he said, gripping his battered Homburg hat tightly in his hands. At Holmes’s imperious gesture he stumbled back and perched on the very edge of the settee. “I . . . I need your help, Mr. Holmes.”
“Yes, Mr. Price, I gathered as much.” He returned to the mantel, took up his pipe and began to fill it with his favorite shag. “What I am less clear on,” he said, lighting his pipe without deigning to look at our visitor, “is why a male prostitute from Bethnal Green should come to me seeking aid and advice.”
“Holmes!” I gasped. Unable to say anything more, I simply sat there gaping like a fish. I glanced over to see Thomas looking pale and frightened.
“What . . .” His voice broke and he cleared his throat before continuing. “What, may I ask, makes you so confident in voicing such an obscene charge?”
“My dear man, you carry on your person a veritable wealth of information. Your shirt has been mended no fewer than three times,” said Sherlock Holmes, sitting back in his chair and applying himself to his pipe, “each time having been rent asunder, necessitating the substitution of some of the buttons for others which, as you can see, do not quite match. The knees of your trousers are rather threadbare and dusty, as if you are used to spending a good deal of time on your knees; your hands, however, are uncallused-in fact, they are remarkably soft. There are some rather telling pale stains around the edges of your cuffs. Several marks are clearly visible on your neck, and the skin around your mouth has been reddened by rubbing repeatedly against a beard. Your shoes bear that mud so often found upon the noted pugilists of York Hall, but you have made no effort to remove it, leading me to believe that your presence in that area is a result of your profession rather than mere dalliance. There are, perhaps, one or two other little points which have called my attention, but I see no reason to belabor the subject.”
With that he took a long draw on his pipe and shot me a thoroughly smug and self-satisfied look, as though daring me to dispute his logic with another cry of offended courtesy.
“I hafta confess, you’re spot-on, Mr. Holmes,” Thomas said breathlessly. “True enough, it would be foolish to deny the truth in the presence of such a man as you.” I thought I imagined his eyes darting to me then, before he leaned forward earnestly. “And if you can discover so much about me after so brief an examination, I believe you may truly be the man to help. That is, of course, if you’ll agree to listen to my story.”
“I am always prepared to listen to an interesting account, and I have a premonition that yours should be fascinating, indeed.” His eyes glittered for a moment before he closed his eyes, puffing languidly on his pipe. “Pray, proceed.”
If Thomas thought Holmes’s indolent posture odd, he gave no indication. “I live an’ work, as you have said, in Bethnal Green. I was a bit of a scrapper once; got myself in a rough situation a few too many times, though, and had to retire young. I fell on hard times, I’m afraid; couldn’t bear to leave the neighborhood, spent too much time at the Hall relivin’ old glories.” He stopped abruptly and shook his head, a wry smile covering his face. “Well, I suppose it hardly matters how I came to be what I am, an’ I won’t waste your time with explanations.
“I work in a house with fourteen others, an’ we all earn our room an’ board by giving the landlord a percentage of our . . . wages. I said that I needed your help, Mr. Holmes, but in fact it’s more than just me that’s in this spot; it’s for all of us that I’m speakin’ to you tonight.
“I was with a client tonight, an’ he fancied a bit of a stroll outside before we got down to things.” With Holmes’s eyes safely closed Thomas dared a brief wink in my direction. “Well, it’s no concern to me if a gentleman wants to spend part of his hour walkin’ about instead of . . . ah . . . you take my meaning, I suppose.” He flushed slightly, clearly uncomfortable to have broached the subject in such a place as a gentleman’s sitting room. “In any case, I told him there was a prettyish little garden in the back, for all that it’s the middle of winter and frigid cold. We were just about to head out there when-”
His bravado faded, and the nerves of a few hours past returned to the forefront. “There was a man,” he said, his voice trembling faintly. “A dead man, all stretched out on the stones with the snow fallin’ on him as pretty as you please. An’ he . . . he had a hole . . . a great, huge hole right in the middle of his chest. Ice all ‘round the edges, like cold little teeth in a bloody mouth.”
Holmes’s eyes flew open and he shot forward in his chair, his gaze fixed on Thomas with alarming intensity. “That must have been quite a sight,” he murmured. “This man-did you recognize him?”
Thomas shook his head. “No, sir, I didn’t. But Laurence did. I showed the landlord an’ we cleared out the house as quick as we could, called all the lads together. Laurence nearly lost his supper over the sight, said he’d serviced the gentleman earlier tonight.”
“A client, then,” Holmes said thoughtfully. “And your own? What became of him?”
“Lit out of there soon as he saw the body, face all deadly pale under his beard.”
“Hmm. A reasonable reaction.” Holmes leaned back again, but it was clear from the gleam in his hooded eyes and the absent manner in which he held his pipe that his interest was most avidly engaged. “Mr. Price, why come to me with this? It seems to me that it is clearly a matter for the police.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened. “Mr. Holmes, I ain’t an idiot. I know I’m on the wrong side of the law every day of my life, an’ so are all the other lads in that house. I know how coppers’ minds work, too-we’re a house full of criminals in their minds, an’ they won’t look any farther than the lot of us to find their killer.” He stared down blindly at his hands, twisting the brim of his hat in his distress. “Maybe someone in the house did do it; I don’t know. But I reckon there’s at least as much of a chance that someone else did it altogether.
“Some of us were all for not reportin’ it at all, just takin’ the body an’ chuckin’ it in the river. But Simon said it could just as well be one of us next time, and wouldn’t we want this madman well locked away instead of showin’ up to hack us to bits?
“That’s when I remembered a client of mine a few weeks ago who’d mentioned you, Mr. Holmes. He was crazy for Dr. Watson’s stories-he even read me a few, so as we could play-” His eyes shot up, and glancing between the two of us he blushed to the roots of his hair. He cleared his throat. “That don’t matter, I suppose. But I got the idea that you might look into it, Mr. Holmes, as it seemed the sort of thing you fancied and . . .” He lowered his eyes again. “And we ain’t got anywhere else to turn,” he finished softly.
Holmes regarded him for a moment, his keen gaze seeming to peer straight through to the man’s soul. Then he stood and turned to face the fire.
“Mr. Price, I advise you to return to Bethnal Green and summon the police immediately. Each second you delay only worsens the case against you.”
Thomas covered his eyes with his hand, his shoulders slumping in despair. He stood and headed for the door.
“Dr. Watson and I shall be there shortly, if you will be so good as to leave the address,” Holmes said, turning to flash a lightning grin at the dumbstruck Thomas, “and we shall see if we can not shed some light on this little problem.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Holmes!” He fumbled briefly with the paper and pencil that I handed him, but managed to scribble down the address that I knew so well. “Thank you!”
“Yes, yes,” Holmes said impatiently. “Off to the police! Quickly now! And whatever you do, mention nothing of your visit here.”
No sooner had he shut the door behind him than Holmes abandoned all pretense of lassitude, flying into action immediately.
“Well, Watson!” he cried, scattering papers left and right as he searched the chaos of the room. “A pretty little puzzle indeed, I fancy! Where the devil is it? Ah!” He held up his lens with a triumphant flourish. “Tell me, what do you think of Mr. Price’s story?”
“To be honest,” I said, “I’m a bit surprised at your enthusiasm. A morbid case, to be sure, but other than the mystery of the culprit it seems to be rather straightforward.”
“You think so?” he asked, his eyes glittering as he turned to me. He tutted, “For shame, Watson. These years without me seem to have blunted your deductive skills even further, if that is possible.”
“And what vital clue,” I said with some sharpness, “have I overlooked this time?”
“Now, Watson, think! You have just secured the publication of your account of our little adventure regarding the Bruce-Partington submarine. Can you not remember our most vital clue in that case? The blood, Watson!” he cried. “The blood!”
“But . . .” I followed him as he dashed out the door and down the stairs. “He said nothing about blood!”
“Precisely!” He whipped on his overcoat and hat as I struggled into my own. “Our Thomas Price possesses a talent for distinctly florid description-recall his likening of the ice crystals around the wounds to teeth in a bloody mouth. Yet no other mention of blood colors his description? No congealing pools, no vivid splashes? Tell me, Watson, what manner of man can have a hole gouged in his person without managing to spill quite a copious amount of blood?”
Realization struck like a thunderbolt. “Of course! One who was already dead!”
“That’s my Watson! The question, then, is why did our killer mutilate the body in such a way when it could only have increased his chances of being caught in the act? You have the address? Excellent! Let us set off. No, do not bother with a cab, we shall be walking. It is best,” he said as we set off down the street, “if we allow the official police to arrive before us. Our presence at a crime scene that they themselves had only just gotten wind of might be . . . awkward, especially given the venue. With any luck, however, we may get there in time to stop them completely trampling the scene and obliterating the clues we seek.”
We lapsed into silence, he to ponder the clues that we had already been provided and I, for my part, to contemplate the alarming fact that my two worlds were shortly to come crashing headlong into each other. I managed to take a small amount of comfort from the fact that while Holmes had immediately deduced the truth about Thomas, he still seemed to have no suspicions about his Boswell. His demonstration made it clear that my precautions upon my return had been well-thought of; without them, there was no doubt that he would have seen through my façade as easily as he saw through Thomas’s.
I was immensely grateful, as well, for Thomas’s discretion. Apart from that one ill-advised wink his response to me had remained remarkably casual. It had undoubtedly been a great risk, remaining in the room for his arrival, and not only because of my fear of Holmes’s discovery. Thomas now knew who I was, and my reputation-indeed, my freedom-rested in his hands. I only hoped that he would continue to prove himself worthy of the admittedly foolish amount of trust that I was giving him.
Holmes and I had walked for some blocks, arm-in-arm, when he suddenly slowed his pace. I shot him a questioning glance.
“I realize, Watson, that I have been rather . . . presumptuous.” He glanced at me, then away. “You have noted before, I believe, that conventional morality bears little weight with me. I should much rather lend my services to a man from Bethnal Green whose case contains those elements of interest which make an investigation worthy of my time, than undertake a trivial errand be it for our illustrious monarch herself.
“I sometimes forget, however, that not all men share my views of the world. It has not escaped me that you seem . . . uncomfortable with our current destination; my dear friend, I would not have you discomfited in the course of aiding me. Should you wish to return to Baker Street and not involve yourself with this rather sordid business, I assure you I will quite understand.”
There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to follow Holmes’s suggestion; God knows I should have done so. The fewer people within that house who learned of my identity the safer I would be. It was abysmally foolish of me to continue, just as it had been foolish for me to remain in our sitting room when I had known of Thomas’s imminent arrival. But I could not bring myself to abandon this mystery that I had, for once, discovered.
Even still, these many years later, I can not entirely break myself of this vile habit of falsehoods. In truth, it was not the case that I could not bear to abandon, but my friend. Holmes was showing me that insightful consideration of his that was all the more precious for its rarity, and I had absolutely no defense against it.
“No, Holmes,” I said. “I shall accompany you; it takes more than this to turn my stomach.”
The look he shot me was such as had never graced his face before, so full of affectionate pride that I felt my heart lurch in my chest.
“Good old Watson,” he murmured. “Come, then!” he cried, picking up his pace again. “To hell with propriety and let us see what two old hounds such as we are might discover.”
Chapter 2