The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (30 page)

A loud burst of laughter caught his attention, and he turned toward the source of it, a small crowd surrounding a young man seated regally on top of a grand piano in a corner of the room, one leg crossed over the other. He was a striking individual, one who would have attracted attention in any room: Dark, dreamy eyes, a heavy chin and full sensuous mouth, the whole of it framed by luxuriant waves of dark hair that reached his shoulders. He was even more flamboyantly dressed, if possible, than those who surrounded him, and had a long onyx cigarette holder in his hand, which he wielded rather than held, using it alternately as a wand, a baton, and a scepter.

“That,” said Sherlock Holmes, “is the reason for this gathering: Mr. Oscar Wilde.”

“Oh?” replied Watson disinterestedly. Then: “Oh!”

“You have heard of him, I presume.”

Watson was now peering intently at the dandified figure across the room, staring unabashedly. “Of course I have heard of him! I do read some of the more stylish magazines on occasion, though I can’t say they hold much interest for me. So that’s him, eh?”

The foremost proponent of “beauty for beauty’s sake,” Wilde in a few short years had managed to take fashionable London by storm, causing a revolution in the world of
beaux arts
and
belles lettres
with his novel ideas, eccentric dress, and outrageous utterances and behavior.
“Only Beauty Brings Salvation” was his ethic. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Wilde’s.
⁶⁷

They edged their way closer into the growing crowd surrounding the notorious young man, who was dressed in a velvet coat edged with braid, knee breeches, black silk stockings, and a large, flowing cravat of emerald green. He was gesturing languidly with his cigarette holder as he spoke, obviously holding his audience enthralled.

“A really well-made buttonhole,” he was saying dramatically to those who surrounded him, “is the only link between Art and Nature. For what is Nature? Nature is no great mother who has borne us. She is our creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life.”

The crowd of young men around him seemed to think this was both profound and witty, for they greeted the statement with oohs and aahs, as if a pearl of great wisdom had been cast among them. One young dandy sitting cross-legged on the floor at Wilde’s feet shook his head of golden curls with mock disdain and responded loudly in an exaggerated Oxford accent: “You are quoting yourself again, Oscar dear!”

The crowd laughed gaily.

Wilde considered the young man with a condescending look, but one that did not lack good humor. “Who, I ask you, has a better right, Dicky dear?”

The burst of laughter that greeted this remark was even louder than the one before.

Someone else called out: “What was it James Whistler said of one of your quotations, Oscar? ‘A poor thing, but for once one of his own?’”

More laughter.

“Yes,” someone else cried. “That’s when he accused you of having no more sense of a painting than of the fit of a coat. He said that you had the courage of the opinions of others.”

“Yaas,” replied Wilde with a small smile, “and I retorted that ‘With
our James, vulgarity begins at home and should be allowed to stay there.’ But I was much kinder to him than he was to me. I publicly praised him as being one of the very greatest masters of painting, adding, ‘In this opinion Mr. Whistler himself entirely concurs.’”

The laughter that greeted this remark was unrestrained.

“Good Lord,” remarked Watson under his breath. He turned to make some comment to Holmes, but Holmes was not there. He had simply vanished.

Watson wandered around the crowded room, champagne glass in hand, threading his way through the clusters of animated, intense, bored-looking young men in a vain effort to find him. He made a complete circuit of the room twice without having any luck, and then found himself in an outer hallway containing a staircase to the upper floor. The hallway was lined with some sort of rich flocked wallcovering and hung with several paintings in the new impressionistic style, which he did not find to his taste. Carefully, he picked his way up the flight of stairs, doing his best to avoid stepping on the young men seated upon them, to the upper floor, where more people were milling about. A corridor with closed doors on either side led toward the rear of the house. Taking the chance that Holmes would be found behind one of the doors, Watson tapped on the first that he came to and stuck his head in. It turned out to be a lavishly furnished bedroom, dimly lit and apparently empty. A large, canopied bed, heavy draperies surrounding it, occupied the center of the room. A gas lamp with a shade of leaded Tiffany glass was the only source of illumination.

Watson started to withdraw when the sound of muffled laughter from the bed brought him up short. In the dim light of the room he had not noticed the two figures lying entwined on the coverlet.

“Well, just don’t stand there, lovey,” said a mincing voice. “Either leave the way you came or join us, why don’t you?”

Watson could not have been more shocked. Turning beet-red, he made a hasty retreat, slamming the door shut and bolting for the stairs. All he wanted now was to leave this place as quickly as possible, furious that he had ever allowed himself to be brought here. And why did Holmes want to come to begin with?

Hastily, he tripped his way down the stairs, badly shaken, muttering under his breath, and rudely pushing his way through the throngs without a word of apology. Once again on the lower level, he began his search anew, making a circuit of all the rooms. Still no Holmes.

Now, beside himself with anger, Watson had all but made up his mind to depart alone, leaving Holmes to his own devices, when he finally spotted him across the room, engaged in deep conversation with a tall, thin, narrow-shouldered young man in a full red beard, dressed incongruously, considering the setting, in a simple country suit of Irish tweed.

“Ah, there you are, old fellow,” Holmes greeted him cheerily. “I was wondering where you had gone off to. Come meet Mr. Shaw.”

“Holmes! Where the devil have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you! Why did you leave me like that? Good Lord, man, how could you bring me to a place like this?”

The bearded man laughed, but not unkindly. “It does take some getting used to, doesn’t it?” he said. “But as these soirees go, this is a relatively tame one. I don’t partake of many myself, but they do allow one to get caught up on the latest goings-on. For a journalist such as myself, that is essential.” He stuck out his hand. “G. B. Shaw is the name.”

“Mr. Shaw,” explained Holmes, “writes music and drama reviews for the
Pall Mall Gazette
and the
Saturday Review
. You have heard me sing his praises on more than one occasion, though to be perfectly honest, I am not always in total agreement with his opinions. He and I were just getting caught up in a subject you know is dear to my heart, cockney dialects.”

Watson, angry as he was, could never permit himself to be discourteous or uncivil. Besides, it was obvious this fellow was not one of “them.” He had an engaging way about him, a gay twinkle in his eye, as if amused by the world and all who were in it, and he looked as out of place at the moment as Watson felt. Watson gathered control of his indignation and shook the young man’s proffered hand politely.

“Holmes is an ardent admirer of your reviews,” he said, “and I hear him speak your name often, Mr. Shaw. As to unusual dialects, you have come to the right place. These people seem to speak a language all their own, an outrageous parody of the Queen’s English that seems to originate somewhere in the dark regions of the nasal passages, avoiding the vocal cords altogether. And how they do roll their r’s and draw out their a’s!”

Shaw laughed in delight. “Indeed, indeed. It is a travesty of the language, is it not? Our more exclusive public boarding schools are to blame, I am sure of it. They catch them young and inflict upon them a certain unnatural mode of speech, which their benighted headmasters have decided is the hallmark of a well-bred English gentleman. As a result, the aristocracy simply mangle the language, and of course the middle classes, ever ready to ape their betters, are quick to follow suit. The English, it would seem, delight in doing their language grievous injury. They have no respect for it, you see, and will not teach their children to speak it properly.” He laughed again. “It has gotten so that it is quite impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making everyone else in the world despise him.”

The subject was apparently a favorite of Mr. Shaw’s, for he went on in the same vein for some time. His observations, though biting, were quite humorous, and Watson found himself, along with Holmes, enjoying the conversation immensely.

After a while Shaw turned to Holmes. “But tell me, if you don’t
mind me asking, why are you here? This does not seem to be the kind of place one would normally find Mr. Sherlock Holmes, unless upon a case. I should think you would be hot upon the track of this Jack the Ripper fellow, who has all of London in a positive frenzy.”

Watson stiffened. Holmes, on the other hand, displayed no change in his outward demeanor, but merely shrugged and smiled politely.

“A task for the official police, surely,” he said.

Shaw looked at him keenly. “They don’t appear to be doing a very good job of it. I should think they could use your expertise.”

Holmes measured his words with care. The man was a member of the press after all, and they were always on the scent of something.

“Under the circumstances,” said Holmes, “I doubt if much more could be done than is being done. Your average individual has no concept of how difficult it is to find someone who does not wish to be found, especially in a great metropolis such as our own.”

“And you have not been consulted at all?”

Holmes lit a cigarette. “I have been out of the city, actually. Only just returned a few days ago. Somewhat out of touch with things, really.”

Shaw studied him shrewdly for a moment. He had been a journalist long enough to know when someone was being evasive, appearing to answer a question without answering it at all. He took a different tack.

“Tell me, Mr. Holmes, since everyone else in London seems to have a theory of who this fellow is, what is yours?”

Holmes shot him a sidelong glance and laughed. “As Watson here will tell you, Mr. Shaw, I have an absolute aversion to theorizing. It is so much more efficacious to apply oneself to the facts of the matter than to indulge in speculation. Having no facts, I have no opinion.”

It was Shaw’s turn to laugh. “Then you are the only person in London who doesn’t. It is impossible to go anywhere without hearing a baker’s dozen in quick order. The prevailing one of the day is that the
fellow is a Jewish ritual slaughterer, a
sochet
, I believe they are called in their language.”

Watson look horrified. “Whatever is a ritual slaughterer?” he asked.

Holmes turned to him and explained: “The Jewish religion requires that cattle be slaughtered in a certain prescribed way by an individual especially selected and trained for that purpose. It has something to do with their dietary laws, I understand: The animal must be dispatched quickly and humanely, and from what I gather, that calls for some experience.” Turning back to Shaw, Holmes said: “That’s as good a guess as any, I suppose. Such a person would have the means — a sharp knife and an aptitude for using it — and a knowledge of anatomy of a kind. And it is true there is a large ghetto of Jewish immigrants in the area where the murders have occurred, along with several of their slaughterhouses. Yes, I like that theory. The Ripper could very well be a Jew.”

Shaw perked his ears up.

“Of course,” continued Holmes blithely, “he could also be an Irish slaughterer of horses or a Polish slaughterer of pigs. An abundance of both can be found in the district as well. And the anatomy of pigs and horses has as much in common with the anatomy of a human as does that of beef cattle or sheep, which is to say nothing whatsoever.” He shrugged. “So much for theorizing.”

Shaw chuckled, a little abashed. “I see your point, Mr. Holmes, and it is a point well taken. The man could be anyone at all. Or not even a man, but a woman dressed as a man — that is another theory I have heard.”

There was an amused gleam in Holmes’s eyes. “Oh, I like that one! It would certainly explain how the killer has been able to get past the police undetected. But then, presumably, so could a man dressed as a woman — or two men dressed as a horse, or a little man dressed as a titmouse. The possibilities are limitless, you see — as limitless as the human imagination. I’ll tell you how it is, Mr. Shaw: I shall put my trust
in facts, thank you, and leave wild speculation to those who are more imaginative than myself.”

Shaw smilingly raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I can see that I am out of my depth. I best confine myself to music and the theater, where at least I don’t have to justify my opinions.”

He looked around the room. “You know, there is one good thing to come out of all of this. Less than a year ago the West End crowd, these good people included, were literally clamoring for the blood of the people — hounding Sir Charles Warren to thrash and muzzle the scum who dared complain that they were starving, behaving, in short, as the propertied class always does behave when the workers throw it into a frenzy of terror by venturing to show their teeth. I speak, of course, of the Trafalgar Square riots. Whilst we conventional Social Democrats — yes, Doctor, I am indeed one of those dangerous radical fellows, I am sorry if it shocks you — whilst we were wasting our time on education, agitation, and organization, this independent genius known as Jack the Ripper has come along and taken the matter well in hand. He has done more in a fortnight to call attention to the plight of the poor than we have been able to accomplish in years!”

He took out his watch. “My goodness, I had not realized the hour. But tell me, before I go, Mr. Holmes, were you being quite serious when you told me you could differentiate from among the district dialects of London? Surely you were jesting’”