Fic for garonne: Promises (1/3)
Dec. 6th, 2016 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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holmesticeTitle: Promises
Recipient:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
garonne
Author:k_e_p
Verse: New Russian Holmes
Characters/Pairings: Gen (background Watson/Mrs. Hudson)
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 21,794
Warnings: Non-explicit dubcon in the background; adaptation typical gore
Summary: Just weeks after they foil Moriarty’s plot against the queen, another case comes to Holmes and Watson, this time in the form of a dead girl found along the banks of the Thames.
Also on AO3: Promises
When my friend Sherlock Holmes first returned from the dead, our days were consumed by stopping that master criminal Moriarty and putting an end to the plot against the queen. Although I was still angry at him for concealing himself for three years, and causing my poor Martha much heartache, I put it all aside in order to protect Her Royal Majesty’s life.
Once that was done, however, I put Holmes aside and returned to the way things were.
Or I tried. Sherlock Holmes is a very hard man to ignore.
“Watson!”
The yell woke me, though I did not open my eyes. Next to me, Martha started, and then relaxed back down into the blankets. Baskerville, at the foot of our bed, did not even move.
If I did not respond, if I did not move, perhaps he-
“Watson!”
Again, and louder this time. I pursed my lips, squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could.
“John,” Martha said softly. “John, you should go to him.”
I sighed, the breath causing my moustache to flutter against my lip. “Martha, it is early, and we were sleeping. Holmes needs to learn that we are not always at his beck and call.”
A pounding began on our bedroom door. “Watson,” Holmes said, his voice coming in through the crack between the frame and the door, “Watson, get up. I need you upstairs.” His strange giggle, once something I missed, grated on my ears.
I puffed out my sigh. “No, Holmes, it is early.”
“Not too early,” he replied, and then the door was flung open. Martha shrieked and pulled the bedclothes tight to her chest. Baskerville, finally awake, jumped down and began jumping around at Holmes’ feet, barking wildly.
“Mr. Holmes!” she yelled. “This is unacceptable.”
Holmes hovered in the doorway, shoving a hand over his eyes. “Sorry, sorry, Mrs. Hudson. Watson, hurry up! We have need of your expertise!”
“Mr. Holmes! Remove yourself at once!” Martha yelled. She has a formidable yell, my wife. Before his absence of three years, it was one of the few things that could spur Holmes to action. Three years had passed, and many things had changed, but I was pleased to find that this had not. Holmes bowed jerkily twice, backing out of the door and pushing the dog away from him.
“Sorry, Mrs. Hudson. Hurry, Watson!”
Then the door was closed, and it was silent once more, but for Baskerville panting.
I sighed again.
It was not that I was still angry at Holmes. Anger is an exhausting thing to feel at all times, and I have a wife, a practice, and a writing profession to steal my energy; I have no need for anger. But I felt a heaviness, a tenseness, that I could not quite shake in the weeks since Holmes had returned. It was a familiar feeling, though I could not quite place where I had felt it before. A poet, a writer I may be, but there are times when even a writer has no words.
“If you do not get up, John, he will just come back.”
I heaved another sigh, knowing that perhaps three was too many and yet also knowing that each one was necessary. I sat upright and began the process of getting dressed, nudging the dog aside with my foot whenever he got in my way. Martha sat up as well and assisted me.
“It sounds like he has another case,” Martha said, smile in her voice. “Another case means another adventure! More interesting clients, despicable rogues, perhaps another story…?”
I wanted to smile back at her, but my hands stilled in the act of buttoning up my shirt. In the corner of my eye, I could see my hands covered in the blood of a fellow soldier, and another fellow soldier, and then men I did not know, and police officers, and people I killed while with Holmes.
“It is not all so romantic, my dear,” I said quietly, and finished buttoning my shirt.
“Mr. Watson, always so stern,” she said, and turned me around to face her. Her hair was frizzy, having worked itself out from the braid she kept it in while she slept. There were fine lines around her eyes, the product the stress of living with a doctor who made very little money and being a landlady for rooms she would not let. But there were lines around her mouth, too, from smiling and laughing. I reached up and traced one of those lines, hoping that perhaps I had put it there.
“Mrs. Hudson, always the dreamer.”
She smiled, kissed me, and sent me on my way.
******
I trudged up the stairs, feeling the dust of Kandahar beneath my shoes. All traces of that were wiped from my mind, however, as I approached Holmes’ door.
It was closed, and I raised a fist to knock. Before my fist could land, Holmes threw open the door. “Watson!” he cried, and waved me inside.
A man was sitting in one of Holmes’ chairs. He was a long, thin man, wearing a dark, worn suit and boots caked in mud. The entirety of the man, in fact, was caked in mud. There was mud along his jacket sleeves, and on his knees. His hat, a simple cloth hat like Holmes wore, had mud on it as well.
The man smiled at me, a wide, charming grin. “Not much to look at, am I?”
He spoke with a thick accent, of the Cockney variety. I nodded stiffly, but was soon shoved to and fro by Holmes, until I was sitting across from the man. “Good morning,” I said.
“Watson, this is Porky Johnson. Porky, this is Watson,” Holmes said. He went over to his chemistry table and began pouring drinks.
“Eh, none for-” I began to say, but a glass was thrust into my hand, and Johnson accepted his with aplomb, and so I drank with them, for there seemed to be nothing else to do.
“But Sherlock, none of this Porky stuff,” Johnson said, continuing where we left off. “I live by my Christian name now. Shinwell Johnson, Mr. Watson,” he said, shifting to address me directly. “I would shake your hand, but as you can see, it isn’t fit for proper company right yet.”
My head was whirling, as it does so often when with Holmes. I was struck by the absurdity of Johnson’s name (was there really a difference between Porky and Shinwell, when it came to formality?) and by the filth that covered every inch of the man, though he sat with ease in Holmes’ chair as though he belonged there. And clearly he and Holmes knew each other from some past encounter, but what?
“Shinwell,” Holmes said, and gave him a little bow of acknowledgement, “was once the finest cracksman on this side of the Thames.”
“Until I had the honor of being caught by Sherlock,” Shinwell added, and lifted his glass. Holmes hurried to refill it. “And he talked me straight, he did, though not before I did my time at Newgate.”
Holmes pulled over a stool and put it next to me, perching awkwardly on it as he leaned over to refill my glass. Automatically, I drank it. “Now Shinwell is a dredger, and I think you are one of the best there, too, hmmm?”
Shinwell threw back his head and laughed, which started Holmes going as well. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and set my drink back down.
“A dredger?” I asked.
“I spend my time along the Thames, Mr. Watson, and pull up the dead bodies I find. After taking a small commission for my time, I turn in the bodies,” Johnson explained.
“Which is why you are a here today,” Holmes said.
“Which is why I am here today,” Johnson confirmed. “I found a body I want you to look at, Sherlock. I think someone did wrong by her. I think she was murdered.”
I rubbed my mouth, annoyed to have been dragged out of bed for something as commonplace as this. “Surely you find murder victims in the Thames all the time,” I pointed out.
Johnson, who until that point had been beaming broadly and laughing gaily, abruptly sobered. His long face became somber, the bags beneath his eyes giving him a solemnity that could not be matched by the finest preacher. “Mr. Watson, I tell you truthfully, I do find many a murder victim in my times. But Sherlock here will tell you, I have a bit of his talent just as he has a bit of mine, and I can tell you that the people I’ve found have been killed in gambling disputes and by random muggings. This weren’t random, and this weren’t petty. This is a Sherlock Holmes case, or I’ll be hanged.”
******
I said my farewells to Martha and was whisked away in a cab with Johnson and Holmes, who spent the ride regaling me with the tale of how Holmes found and captured Johnson back in the 70s. I couldn’t help but chuckle at parts of it, my traitorous mouth switching up in the corners. I wanted to remain stern and cold at Holmes for interrupting my morning, but it was impossible while around Johnson. He had an infectious laugh, and so I found myself laughing with him.
As we approached the shore of the Thames, however, Johnson sobered, his mouth turning down into a frown and his eyes began flicking to the side, his hands twisting the cap in his hands. Holmes continued to prattle on, though whether out of obliviousness to his friend's distress or out of an attempt to relieve it, I did not know. I did not usually credit Sherlock Holmes with attentiveness to his friends.
The carriage pulled to a stop, and we climbed down, Johnson taking the lead.
"Over there is where I stay," Johnson said, jerking his head toward a doss house that stood further down the street. "It's close enough to the banks that I can duck in and out easily, and the landlord doesn't mind the mud or the smell much."
Holmes nodded. I remained silent, looking around us. We had spent time on the banks of the Thames, of course, in previous cases, but we hadn't been to this part of the city before. The streets were filthy, mud and horse feces everywhere. The buildings themselves were run down, sagging walls of dark wood and stone. A chapel sat across the road. "Are we not going to the docks?" I called ahead. The London docks were behind us, and the St Katharine docks to the west.
"No, Doctor," Johnson called back. "Couldn't leave a body at the docks, too many people coming and going. I left her with a friend, of sorts. Someone I could trust."
I wasn't sure I wanted to know about what sort of person Johnson could trust, but Holmes continued forward, not seeming to notice the sucking mud that rose around our ankles the closer we got to the water. "This is an interesting area, Watson!" Holmes said. He jerked his hand wildly, gesturing in the opposite direction of the London and St Katharine docks. "Think of all the crime that has occurred here. The Execution Dock is just down that way. Captain Kidd was killed there!"
I found myself reluctantly interested. "They killed pirates there, then?"
"Oh yes," Holmes said, and stumbled slightly in the mud. I caught his elbow, waiting for him to rebalance himself. "Though they stopped the hangings earlier in the century. The last people to see the rope at the Execution Dock were George Davis and William Watts."
I glanced down the shore, imagining the site, the deliberate short drop so the pirates hung by their neck and slowly suffocated. A chill gripped me, and I pushed the thought aside. "We have better methods of justice now."
Holmes glanced at me, arching an eyebrow. "Do we, Doctor?"
"This way, gentleman!" Johnson cried, putting an end to our conversation as we hurried to catch up.
Johnson was well suited to navigate the mud, somehow picking his way along swiftly and without pause.
Holmes and I, by the time we caught up, had mud up to our hips, and Holmes also had mud down his left side from an abrupt fall. I was not looking forward to returning home to Martha. I could already imagine her comments about my boots.
Johnson led us towards a skiff that was up high on the shore, away from the water. Upon the boat, a young girl sat, a dirty shawl her only protection from the wind. "That is Lily," Johnson said, waving her over.
The girl clambered out of the boat, running over before we could get close to the boat. As she got closer, she slowed down and approached more warily, her eyes darting around. Her hair, a watery brown, was lank around her face, and her eyes were large, the skin sunk around her face making them seem larger. She was very small, and I couldn't imagine her to be much older than eight or nine.
Holmes stooped over and beamed at her. "You're a mudlark," he said, delight in his voice.
"This is Mr. Holmes, Lily," Johnson said, his voice calm and warm. "He's the friend I was telling you about, the friend I went to get about our lady."
"I'm the one who found her," Lily said abruptly, looking somewhere beyond Holmes. Her voice was strong and confident, despite her appearance. "I'm the one who should get the bracelet."
Holmes continued smiling, and looked up at Johnson. "Bracelet?"
He had the grace, at least, to look discomfited. "The lady had a bracelet on her, a very pretty thing, gold with a lovely design. I was holding onto it."
I had doubts about that, but I did not know Johnson, so perhaps it was true.
Holmes looked back at Lily, his smile turning even warmer. He was always kind to children, offering them sympathy and understanding that he often forgot to extend to his peers. "You will get the bracelet from Shinwell, here. He was saving it for you."
Lily crossed her arms, which were more like sticks than bone and flesh. "I found her, not Porky."
"Where was she?" Holmes asked, not taking his eyes off of her.
"Just there," Lily said, pointing down the banks. "By the Old Stairs."
"What did she look like, when you found her?"
"Her legs were in the water, but the rest of her wasn't. That means she's mine, not the dredgers."
Holmes leaned close, his eyes sparkling. "Was there a lot of blood?" he asked conspiratorially, voice low. Lily giggled, clapping her hands over her mouth.
"Yes," she whispered back in the same tone. "Some on her face and her chest. But her arms were clear, and that's why I saw the bracelet."
"Were you frightened? Is that why you got Johnson?"
"I wasn't scared. I've seen dead girls before. But this one was messier than the ones I find, usually. And I thought that was strange, so I went to find Porky, because Porky is always nice to us mudlarks and doesn't yell at us when we get on his boat."
"Even though you little thieves usually snatch up my best finds," Johnson grumbled, but good-naturedly. I took back my unkind thoughts from earlier; perhaps he really did mean to give the bracelet to the girl, if he was nice to the mudlarks who stole from him. As much as one could really steal from a thief.
Holmes patted Lily on the head, laughing. "You are a smart girl, Lily. Here is a shilling for you," he said, pulling the coin from his pocket and handing it to her. Her hand darted out, taking the coin swiftly and secreting it somewhere upon her person, where I did not see. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her.
"And the bracelet?"
Holmes looked up at Johnson, who rolled his eyes but reached into his pocket and pulled out the bracelet, extending it to Lily.
"Miss Lily, may I look at the bracelet first, before you take it?" Holmes asked.
Lily eyed him up and down, lips pursed. "You won't take it?" she asked, her voice suddenly small.
Holmes stood up straight and made an X across his chest with his finger. "I promise. And if I try to take it, my friend Watson here will shoot me, and you will get the bracelet and whatever is in my pockets, too!"
Lily giggled. "You're funny. All right, you can look at it."
Holmes took the bracelet from Johnson and pulled out his magnifying glass. I stepped over, looking at it over his shoulder.
It was a lovely piece of jewelry, a thin gold band with a filigree design around it. There was no clasp, just a complete circle of gold. Holmes turned the bracelet over, inspecting the side that would have brushed against the dead woman's wrist. I could just make out an inscription, but Holmes moved the bracelet again before I could see what was written. He pressed the bracelet against his skin, and then, abruptly, he licked it. I pulled away from him in disgust.
"Holmes, that has been on a dead woman," I said.
"We are all dead eventually, Watson. Someday that watch of yours will be on a dead man."
I rolled my eyes. Holmes put his magnifying glass back in his pocket, and turned back to Lily, who stood with her arms crossed. She had not taken her gaze away from Holmes the entire time he had been inspecting the bracelet. "Miss Lily, I have an enormous favor to ask of you. This bracelet, do you think a lady like the one you found would have normally worn it?"
Lily considered, chewing on her lip. "She wasn't dressed posh. She looked like one of my sisters and her friends, and they don't have anything fancy like that."
"And did she have anything else on her? Coins, earrings, hmm?"
She shook her head. "Just that."
Holmes nodded rapidly. "Then the favor I must ask, Miss Lily, is to borrow this bracelet a little longer. It may help us find the person who hurt the lady you found."
"No! It's mine, I found it, it belongs to me!"
Holmes rocked back on his heels, nodding thoughtfully and tapping his chin. "I understand. And it will be returned to you. I just need it for a while."
"No!"
Holmes sighed explosively and looked to Johnson, as if for aid. Johnson shrugged his shoulders. "The bracelet is Lily's. If she says no, then..."
"Miss Lily," I interrupted, and tried to crouch down on her level as Holmes had. My leg was stiff, though, from the cold and the mud, and all I could manage was a sort of tilted bow that hurt my dignity enormously, but had the benefit of making the girl smile even as she glared at Holmes. "Miss Lily, do you know what collateral is?" Lily shook her head. "It is when you hold on to something of mine in order to ensure that I return what is yours. If Mr. Holmes gives you his watch, would you let us keep the bracelet? And when he brings you back the bracelet, you will give him back his watch."
Lily looked at Holmes, and then back at me. Her hands clenched repeatedly on her shawl. Holmes gave me a look, and then pulled out his watch. "This was a gift, Miss Lily. You would have to be careful with it. As careful as I will be with your bracelet."
Lily stepped closer to Holmes, peering at the watch. It was a good, solid watch, but I knew it had been given to Holmes by his brother, so it had less sentimental value to him than some of the other odds and ends he kept.
"All right," Lily said finally. She extended her hand, palm up.
Holmes took her hand, turned it over, and bowed deeply, pressing a light kiss to her knuckles. "You are a true lady, Miss Lily. I will be careful with this." He stood back up and tossed her the watch. Lily caught it and went scampering away down the shore, giggling.
"A very good idea, Watson," Holmes said, nodding.
"You will give her back the bracelet?" Johnson asked as he led us over to his boat.
"I once worked very hard to return a photograph, a very important photograph, to a girl named Mary Small. She will tell you that I returned it. Eventually."
Johnson stepped into the water, not seeming to notice the cold, and hauled the boat forward until the front of it rested on the shore. He stepped easily into his boat, though Holmes was less graceful upon entering. I watched his back as he went, wondering if I would have to fish him out from the water. But he managed it, and I followed him.
Johnson's boat was not very long, only about twelve feet, though it was fairly wide. I climbed over the edge of the boat, Holmes next to me. Johnson stood outside of it, arms folded. The body lay on the floor of the boat, covered with a blanket. Clutching the edge of the boat, Holmes navigated around so that he was positioned by the corpse’s feet, which stuck out at the bottom of the blanket. I remained near the head. Holmes reached forward and twitched the blanket off the body, and then immediately recoiled, scrambling for a handkerchief to cover his mouth.
"Three years away..." I said dryly, "And you still cannot handle a dead body? Come now, Holmes."
While he wheezed away in his handkerchief, I leaned closer. The girl- for she couldn't have been much more than twenty- was dressed in a simple outfit, a black skirt that was a bit ragged at the bottom, and a white blouse with buttons all down the front. Her blonde hair looked as though it had been pinned up, though half of it had been torn out of the pins sometime between life and death. The girl's legs had been picked upon by the fish, and most of the left side of her cheek was gone. But the work of the fish couldn't hide that someone had taken a knife to her face and neck.
"I need to examine her on land," I said. "I cannot do it with so little room."
Johnson nodded, his eyes sad, and reached over the edge of the boat and lifted the body into his arms with ease. I watched as he gently lowered her down, adjusting her arms so they lay next to her, and then straightened her legs.
"You said you don't see many bodies like this, Johnson?" I asked, following out of the boat and kneeling beside her, beginning the work of determining the cause of death. It looked obvious, but there had been surprises in the past. I probed the wounds about her neck, determining how deep they went and what they severed.
"Not usually, doctor, but there have been... rumors."
"Rumors?" I asked, my fingers slipping on the muscle of her neck.
"The girls are saying Jack the Ripper is back."
I paused in my examination. "So there have been more women, killed in this manner?"
Johnson took his hat off his head, twisting it between his hands. "I can't say, myself. Never seen any but this one. But one of my girls, she said that there was another body found near Watney Street, and a third near Cable Street."
Holmes walked over, the handkerchief still clamped firmly over his mouth. He moved to stand behind me as I opened the girl's mouth to inspect what the fish had left of her tongue, sniffing, and then carefully lifted her eyelids. "When were they found?"
"Can't really say. First I heard about it was seven, eight months ago. And my girl said it had been a few months since the first had been found. I didn't think much of it- girls turn up dead all the time, though it's usually the drink or the cold that kills them. But when Lily got me to come here, well... three girls, all cut, that doesn't seem normal."
I began pressing down on the girl's abdomen. Behind me, I heard Holmes shuffling around. "And you're certain they were all killed with a knife?"
"That's the story."
"Do you know any names?"
Shinwell shook his head ruefully. "You know how it is, Sherlock. The girls talk to each other, and then they talk to other girls, and eventually they mention it to us swells, but the details have gotten lost."
"I will want to speak to your girl."
"If I can find her. Sometimes she don't want to be found."
"Holmes," I said, frowning. "This girl, she..."
"Yes?" Holmes asked eagerly, leaning over until the edges of his handkerchief brushed my cheek.
"The cuts aren't what killed her; it was poison."
Holmes dropped to his knees next to me, keeping his eyes fixed on me instead of looking at the poor girl before us. "Tell me."
"There's too little blood," I pointed out, and he nodded so hard his glasses slid down his nose. "And under the blood there is vomit, all down her chest. She must have vomited repeatedly before she died. Her tongue is swollen, something I'd expect in asphyxia. You see it, sometimes, when a person has been poisoned."
Holmes pushed me aside, and I stood, grateful that I no longer needed to dig around in the poor woman. I stood, shivering, with my hands in front of my chest, needing a rag to wipe them on. The woman had little blood left, but there was viscera and mud enough up to my elbows.
Holmes hummed to himself, looking at the cuts on her neck, and then looked up at me. "Do you have tweezers, Watson, or perhaps something I could use to lift the folds of her neck?"
I shook my head, but Johnson said, "I have some small sticks that might do the trick, Sherlock." He turned and jumped back in his boat.
"What are you thinking, Holmes?" I asked quietly.
"You are right about the blood, but I am also curious about the strength behind these cuts. They do not appear to go very deep?"
"They don't," I confirmed. "They're jagged and ugly, but they don't even sever the major arteries."
Johnson reappeared, offering Holmes some twigs. "They get caught up in my nets," he explained. "I haven’t had time to get them all out of my boat yet."
Holmes used the sticks to poke at the cuts on the woman's neck. "A serrated knife," he said aloud. "Cut left to right, so a right-handed man. There's a gentleness in these cuts that I wouldn't expect in someone angry. This is more... practical. Measured."
"He may have felt remorse?" I asked.
"He may have used this is a countermeasure," Holmes corrected. "People see the cuts, they are afraid, they think there is someone like Jack the Ripper in the world, a madman. Then they do not see the businessman, the merchant, the quiet respectable man in a nice suit who nods politely at people as they pass."
"Both can exist in one man," I said, thinking of Sholto, whom I had admired, and Moriarty, whom I clearly had not.
"They can," Holmes said, standing. "But these are meant to evoke the boogeyman who hunts in Whitechapel. Springheel Jack." He turned back to Johnson, tipping his hat. "You can turn her in now, Johnson. Thank you for showing her to us first. Your instincts are right, to bring me to her. This is not a common murder."
"Thank you, Sherlock," Johnson said, and he scooped up the girl and put her back in his boat.
"What next?" I wondered.
"Next we look at the Old Stairs," Holmes determined, and strode swiftly away, leaving me to scramble to catch up in the mud.
******
The Wapping Old Stairs resulted in nothing, other than Holmes declaring that she had not actually been killed there, as evidenced by the lack of vomit and blood. When I pointed out that tide had come and gone since the girl had died, he merely whined out a laugh and then spent ten minutes pointing out details in the stonework and the steps that, somehow, told him she had died elsewhere.
"Probably near where the other women were found," Holmes said. "Around Watney and Cable. In Whitechapel."
"You do not even know if there were other women. Johnson's friends, they may have been mistaken, or telling tales in order to make Johnson sympathetic to them," I said with a sigh. "You do not know that anyone died around Watney and Cable."
Holmes gave me a piercing glance, chewing on the frames of his glasses. "This is true," he conceded. "Perhaps Lestrade will know about these women. He is still grateful, you know, for the Moriarty business. He will be willing to help."
******
It took five minutes for Lestrade to stop laughing. I sat uncomfortably in my chair, watching as Lestrade laughed so hard that flecks of phlegm gathered at the edge of his mouth. Holmes fidgeted in the chair next to me, tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair.
"I don't understand what is so funny," Holmes said acidly, once the laughter had died down enough to be heard. "A woman has died. Two more may have as well. Can you pull the reports for me or not?"
Lestrade leaned forward, folding his hands on his desk. "Listen, Holmes. Do you know how many whores die every day in Whitechapel? In Shadwell and Stepney and Bethnel Green? More than we can ever count."
"Maybe we should count them, Inspector," I said, staring at my hands. I had washed them in the Thames before coming to Lestrade's office, but they still felt filthy. "Shouldn't we worry about how many women are dying?"
"I cannot worry about whores, Doctor Watson. They are criminals, violating God's law. I will worry about the good men and women they target, instead."
"But what about when they are the targets, Lestrade? When they are the ones dying?" Holmes erupted, standing up quickly and sending papers on Lestrade's desk fluttering to the ground. "When do you start to care, then? When we have another Jack the Ripper loose in the city? When Scotland Yard is again ridiculed in the papers? Do you care then? Hmm?"
Lestrade stood up, a scowl on his face. I hurried to my feet, sensing we were about to expelled from his office, as we often were. "Bring me evidence that these women exist, and perhaps someone will care, Holmes. Until then, stop wasting our time with dead reprobates. There are better things to occupy your time."
He waved a hand dismissively, ending our conversation. I bowed and thanked him, putting my hat back up on my head, but Holmes did not move. "Give me access to the coroner," he insisted. "Let me see if these women were killed."
Lestrade huffed. "Unfettered access?"
"Assign someone to me. Tracey, maybe. He can watch me."
"Anything to get you out of my office," Lestrade grumbled, and grabbed a sheet of paper. He dipped his pen in the ink and quickly scribbled out a note. "Tracey!" he bellowed. The door behind me opened, and Tracey appeared.
"Yes, sir?"
"Escort Holmes to the coroners in the Whitechapel parish. He's looking for a whore," he sneered. He offered the note to Holmes, who snatched it out of his hands as though it were precious treasure. I was reminded, for a moment, of Lily and the shilling.
Tracey gave Holmes a look that communicated quite well what he thought of Holmes' search, but he nodded and said, "Yes, sir," before stepping back out into the hall.
"I tell you, Lestrade, you will regret not looking into this," warned Holmes.
Lestrade simply waved his hand at us again, and so we left, our permission slip in hand.
******
After four morgues, I was tired and told Holmes I wanted to leave. He insisted we broaden our search to the nearby neighborhoods.
After nine morgues, I told him I would leave him to his quest and go back to the hot meal that surely awaited us. He waved me away and informed me he would be going to Bethel Green next.
After twelve morgues, I made good with that threat, and left him to dig through the records and sift through the unclaimed bodies that still sat waiting for burial. I returned home to Martha, who was disgusted by my appearance and sent me straight to the bathtub. I scrubbed myself clean, focusing on my hands and feet which had been in far too much muck for my liking, and then dressed myself in a simple suit for dinner.
Martha had made steak and kidney pie, and we tucked in together in silence, the only sound being our forks tapping the plates.
“Where did you leave Mr. Holmes?" Martha eventually asked.
"In the morgue," I said succinctly. I had no wish to sully my dinner conversation with all that I had seen that day. I was tired, and wanted no more to do with dead girls and their sad stories.
Martha arched an eyebrow at me, her fork poised prettily over her plate. "Then you have a case?"
"Holmes has a case," I corrected.
"You cannot leave Mr. Holmes to work on his own. He'll get killed, and then we will have no more adventure in our life."
"He has been dead once; he can be dead again."
Martha set her fork down, the clatter setting my teeth on edge. I tightened my hand around my own fork, willing her to leave the subject alone.
"You don't mean that. You grieved every day for Mr. Holmes."
"And the grieving was a lie. He was alive, and did not see fit to let us know."
"He was running for his life."
"If he had allowed it, we could have helped him."
"We were starting our own life together and he knew that. He was trying to give you a way out, John."
"I would have liked a choice in the matter," I snapped, and immediately felt shame for the shock on Martha's face. "I am sorry, Martha. On this, I am perhaps not rational."
"Your moon sign is Scorpio, so I am not surprised," she said, returning to her meal. "With a Libra sun and a Scorpio moon, I expect such outbursts from time to time. You feel like you have been treated unfairly."
"He should have told me what he was doing."
"Well, he is back now. Talk to him, tell him you do not like how he handled everything."
"He knows," I said. We had never been men who talked with words; we boxed together, and our hands were elegant enough in those moments. "But he does not apologize."
Martha rolled her eyes. "If you are waiting for an apology, you will wait forever. Your bones will be dust first. He probably doesn't even know you are upset with him still. Now eat your pie, and then go back to Mr. Holmes. He needs you, and we need him."
I grumbled to myself, but did not argue. Besides, her steak and kidney pie was delicious.
******
I did not have to go and find Holmes, for he arrived home just as I was putting on my coat. I relaxed as he walked through the door, relieved that I did not have to go back to Whitechapel at this time of night. I picked his coat up off the floor, dismayed at the instant transfer of filth onto my clean hands, and threw it into the pile of my clothes to be cleaned. When I returned from that errand, Holmes was shoveling cold steak and kidney pie into his mouth. I was pleased to see Martha had not warmed it for him.
"You were successful, then," I said, standing in the doorway of the sitting room.
Holmes half-turned and saluted me with his fork. "No, I wasn't. Not completely.”
I waited for him to continue, but he said nothing more and instead focused all his energies on eating. I picked at my fingers, but then I sighed and said, “Not completely? Then you were at least partially successful?”
Holmes leaned back, balancing the plate on his knee. “Of the Watney girl and the Cable Street girl, I found nothing. I did, however, come across a girl who was found near St. George Street, just north of the London Docks. Her body was discovered three months ago. Her corpse had putrefied to the point where it was difficult to deduce much from it. Some largely superficial cuts around the face.”
He returned to his assault on the plate of food. I considered what he said, then moved to sit in the armchair next to his. I was angry at him, but my curiosity about what he discovered was stronger. It often was, when it came to Holmes. “You speak of her as though she is important.”
Holmes gave me a blinding smile. “There is hope for you yet, Watson. She was a young woman, clearly a prostitute from her boots and skirt that were still at the mortuary. She also had this.”
He dipped his hand into his trouser pocket and removed a gold bracelet, handing it to me. I looked at it carefully. It was a simple gold bracelet with a filigree design and no clasp. I turned it, and saw an inscription on the inside. Without Holmes moving it around, I was able to read the inscription this time.
A beautiful bracelet for a beautiful woman.
“This is the same bracelet that Johnson’s girl was wearing,” I said needlessly.
“Yes,” Holmes said, nodding vigorously. “Except this one is older, and more worn. You noticed the inscription?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, turning the bracelet over in my hands to look at it again. “It’s very simple.”
“It’s very self-centered,” he replied. “Why does the woman need to be told it’s a beautiful bracelet? Surely she can tell that for herself? And the comparison between a woman and an inanimate object? You know, Watson, while I was away, I met an alienist in Berlin, and I learned quite a bit about criminal psychology from him. This simple statement can tell us much about our murderer.”
“He is controlling,” I offered. “He needs the women to whom he gives these to know that they are his.”
“Excellent, Watson! Incidentally, it also does not have a clasp and is a somewhat small band; it would be difficult for a woman to get the bracelet off, once it was on, not without some pain.”
I set the bracelet on the arm of my chair and studied my hands. “And you found nothing about the Watney and Cable girls?”
“Nothing. The records in all the morgues are a mess. No coroner’s jury was ever conducted on a girl found on Watney Street or on Cable Street. It could be that the bodies never made it to the morgue; they could have been sold to a doctor or a hospital, or thrown in the sewers, or they could have never existed at all. There is no way to tell.”
I tapped my hand on my knee. I glanced back at the bracelet. “Do you think he gave these to every woman he killed?”
“We only know of two murders. We don’t know if there are any other bodies, or other bracelets.”
I thought of Martha, cleaning in the kitchen. Within the hour, she would retire to our bedroom. We would sit up and talk for a little while, and then we would go to sleep. It was very restful.
It was very boring, for both of us.
“I think I may know a way to find out,” I said, standing. “Let me tell Martha we are going out.”
Recipient:
garonneAuthor:
k_e_p Verse: New Russian Holmes
Characters/Pairings: Gen (background Watson/Mrs. Hudson)
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 21,794
Warnings: Non-explicit dubcon in the background; adaptation typical gore
Summary: Just weeks after they foil Moriarty’s plot against the queen, another case comes to Holmes and Watson, this time in the form of a dead girl found along the banks of the Thames.
Also on AO3: Promises
When my friend Sherlock Holmes first returned from the dead, our days were consumed by stopping that master criminal Moriarty and putting an end to the plot against the queen. Although I was still angry at him for concealing himself for three years, and causing my poor Martha much heartache, I put it all aside in order to protect Her Royal Majesty’s life.
Once that was done, however, I put Holmes aside and returned to the way things were.
Or I tried. Sherlock Holmes is a very hard man to ignore.
“Watson!”
The yell woke me, though I did not open my eyes. Next to me, Martha started, and then relaxed back down into the blankets. Baskerville, at the foot of our bed, did not even move.
If I did not respond, if I did not move, perhaps he-
“Watson!”
Again, and louder this time. I pursed my lips, squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could.
“John,” Martha said softly. “John, you should go to him.”
I sighed, the breath causing my moustache to flutter against my lip. “Martha, it is early, and we were sleeping. Holmes needs to learn that we are not always at his beck and call.”
A pounding began on our bedroom door. “Watson,” Holmes said, his voice coming in through the crack between the frame and the door, “Watson, get up. I need you upstairs.” His strange giggle, once something I missed, grated on my ears.
I puffed out my sigh. “No, Holmes, it is early.”
“Not too early,” he replied, and then the door was flung open. Martha shrieked and pulled the bedclothes tight to her chest. Baskerville, finally awake, jumped down and began jumping around at Holmes’ feet, barking wildly.
“Mr. Holmes!” she yelled. “This is unacceptable.”
Holmes hovered in the doorway, shoving a hand over his eyes. “Sorry, sorry, Mrs. Hudson. Watson, hurry up! We have need of your expertise!”
“Mr. Holmes! Remove yourself at once!” Martha yelled. She has a formidable yell, my wife. Before his absence of three years, it was one of the few things that could spur Holmes to action. Three years had passed, and many things had changed, but I was pleased to find that this had not. Holmes bowed jerkily twice, backing out of the door and pushing the dog away from him.
“Sorry, Mrs. Hudson. Hurry, Watson!”
Then the door was closed, and it was silent once more, but for Baskerville panting.
I sighed again.
It was not that I was still angry at Holmes. Anger is an exhausting thing to feel at all times, and I have a wife, a practice, and a writing profession to steal my energy; I have no need for anger. But I felt a heaviness, a tenseness, that I could not quite shake in the weeks since Holmes had returned. It was a familiar feeling, though I could not quite place where I had felt it before. A poet, a writer I may be, but there are times when even a writer has no words.
“If you do not get up, John, he will just come back.”
I heaved another sigh, knowing that perhaps three was too many and yet also knowing that each one was necessary. I sat upright and began the process of getting dressed, nudging the dog aside with my foot whenever he got in my way. Martha sat up as well and assisted me.
“It sounds like he has another case,” Martha said, smile in her voice. “Another case means another adventure! More interesting clients, despicable rogues, perhaps another story…?”
I wanted to smile back at her, but my hands stilled in the act of buttoning up my shirt. In the corner of my eye, I could see my hands covered in the blood of a fellow soldier, and another fellow soldier, and then men I did not know, and police officers, and people I killed while with Holmes.
“It is not all so romantic, my dear,” I said quietly, and finished buttoning my shirt.
“Mr. Watson, always so stern,” she said, and turned me around to face her. Her hair was frizzy, having worked itself out from the braid she kept it in while she slept. There were fine lines around her eyes, the product the stress of living with a doctor who made very little money and being a landlady for rooms she would not let. But there were lines around her mouth, too, from smiling and laughing. I reached up and traced one of those lines, hoping that perhaps I had put it there.
“Mrs. Hudson, always the dreamer.”
She smiled, kissed me, and sent me on my way.
******
I trudged up the stairs, feeling the dust of Kandahar beneath my shoes. All traces of that were wiped from my mind, however, as I approached Holmes’ door.
It was closed, and I raised a fist to knock. Before my fist could land, Holmes threw open the door. “Watson!” he cried, and waved me inside.
A man was sitting in one of Holmes’ chairs. He was a long, thin man, wearing a dark, worn suit and boots caked in mud. The entirety of the man, in fact, was caked in mud. There was mud along his jacket sleeves, and on his knees. His hat, a simple cloth hat like Holmes wore, had mud on it as well.
The man smiled at me, a wide, charming grin. “Not much to look at, am I?”
He spoke with a thick accent, of the Cockney variety. I nodded stiffly, but was soon shoved to and fro by Holmes, until I was sitting across from the man. “Good morning,” I said.
“Watson, this is Porky Johnson. Porky, this is Watson,” Holmes said. He went over to his chemistry table and began pouring drinks.
“Eh, none for-” I began to say, but a glass was thrust into my hand, and Johnson accepted his with aplomb, and so I drank with them, for there seemed to be nothing else to do.
“But Sherlock, none of this Porky stuff,” Johnson said, continuing where we left off. “I live by my Christian name now. Shinwell Johnson, Mr. Watson,” he said, shifting to address me directly. “I would shake your hand, but as you can see, it isn’t fit for proper company right yet.”
My head was whirling, as it does so often when with Holmes. I was struck by the absurdity of Johnson’s name (was there really a difference between Porky and Shinwell, when it came to formality?) and by the filth that covered every inch of the man, though he sat with ease in Holmes’ chair as though he belonged there. And clearly he and Holmes knew each other from some past encounter, but what?
“Shinwell,” Holmes said, and gave him a little bow of acknowledgement, “was once the finest cracksman on this side of the Thames.”
“Until I had the honor of being caught by Sherlock,” Shinwell added, and lifted his glass. Holmes hurried to refill it. “And he talked me straight, he did, though not before I did my time at Newgate.”
Holmes pulled over a stool and put it next to me, perching awkwardly on it as he leaned over to refill my glass. Automatically, I drank it. “Now Shinwell is a dredger, and I think you are one of the best there, too, hmmm?”
Shinwell threw back his head and laughed, which started Holmes going as well. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and set my drink back down.
“A dredger?” I asked.
“I spend my time along the Thames, Mr. Watson, and pull up the dead bodies I find. After taking a small commission for my time, I turn in the bodies,” Johnson explained.
“Which is why you are a here today,” Holmes said.
“Which is why I am here today,” Johnson confirmed. “I found a body I want you to look at, Sherlock. I think someone did wrong by her. I think she was murdered.”
I rubbed my mouth, annoyed to have been dragged out of bed for something as commonplace as this. “Surely you find murder victims in the Thames all the time,” I pointed out.
Johnson, who until that point had been beaming broadly and laughing gaily, abruptly sobered. His long face became somber, the bags beneath his eyes giving him a solemnity that could not be matched by the finest preacher. “Mr. Watson, I tell you truthfully, I do find many a murder victim in my times. But Sherlock here will tell you, I have a bit of his talent just as he has a bit of mine, and I can tell you that the people I’ve found have been killed in gambling disputes and by random muggings. This weren’t random, and this weren’t petty. This is a Sherlock Holmes case, or I’ll be hanged.”
******
I said my farewells to Martha and was whisked away in a cab with Johnson and Holmes, who spent the ride regaling me with the tale of how Holmes found and captured Johnson back in the 70s. I couldn’t help but chuckle at parts of it, my traitorous mouth switching up in the corners. I wanted to remain stern and cold at Holmes for interrupting my morning, but it was impossible while around Johnson. He had an infectious laugh, and so I found myself laughing with him.
As we approached the shore of the Thames, however, Johnson sobered, his mouth turning down into a frown and his eyes began flicking to the side, his hands twisting the cap in his hands. Holmes continued to prattle on, though whether out of obliviousness to his friend's distress or out of an attempt to relieve it, I did not know. I did not usually credit Sherlock Holmes with attentiveness to his friends.
The carriage pulled to a stop, and we climbed down, Johnson taking the lead.
"Over there is where I stay," Johnson said, jerking his head toward a doss house that stood further down the street. "It's close enough to the banks that I can duck in and out easily, and the landlord doesn't mind the mud or the smell much."
Holmes nodded. I remained silent, looking around us. We had spent time on the banks of the Thames, of course, in previous cases, but we hadn't been to this part of the city before. The streets were filthy, mud and horse feces everywhere. The buildings themselves were run down, sagging walls of dark wood and stone. A chapel sat across the road. "Are we not going to the docks?" I called ahead. The London docks were behind us, and the St Katharine docks to the west.
"No, Doctor," Johnson called back. "Couldn't leave a body at the docks, too many people coming and going. I left her with a friend, of sorts. Someone I could trust."
I wasn't sure I wanted to know about what sort of person Johnson could trust, but Holmes continued forward, not seeming to notice the sucking mud that rose around our ankles the closer we got to the water. "This is an interesting area, Watson!" Holmes said. He jerked his hand wildly, gesturing in the opposite direction of the London and St Katharine docks. "Think of all the crime that has occurred here. The Execution Dock is just down that way. Captain Kidd was killed there!"
I found myself reluctantly interested. "They killed pirates there, then?"
"Oh yes," Holmes said, and stumbled slightly in the mud. I caught his elbow, waiting for him to rebalance himself. "Though they stopped the hangings earlier in the century. The last people to see the rope at the Execution Dock were George Davis and William Watts."
I glanced down the shore, imagining the site, the deliberate short drop so the pirates hung by their neck and slowly suffocated. A chill gripped me, and I pushed the thought aside. "We have better methods of justice now."
Holmes glanced at me, arching an eyebrow. "Do we, Doctor?"
"This way, gentleman!" Johnson cried, putting an end to our conversation as we hurried to catch up.
Johnson was well suited to navigate the mud, somehow picking his way along swiftly and without pause.
Holmes and I, by the time we caught up, had mud up to our hips, and Holmes also had mud down his left side from an abrupt fall. I was not looking forward to returning home to Martha. I could already imagine her comments about my boots.
Johnson led us towards a skiff that was up high on the shore, away from the water. Upon the boat, a young girl sat, a dirty shawl her only protection from the wind. "That is Lily," Johnson said, waving her over.
The girl clambered out of the boat, running over before we could get close to the boat. As she got closer, she slowed down and approached more warily, her eyes darting around. Her hair, a watery brown, was lank around her face, and her eyes were large, the skin sunk around her face making them seem larger. She was very small, and I couldn't imagine her to be much older than eight or nine.
Holmes stooped over and beamed at her. "You're a mudlark," he said, delight in his voice.
"This is Mr. Holmes, Lily," Johnson said, his voice calm and warm. "He's the friend I was telling you about, the friend I went to get about our lady."
"I'm the one who found her," Lily said abruptly, looking somewhere beyond Holmes. Her voice was strong and confident, despite her appearance. "I'm the one who should get the bracelet."
Holmes continued smiling, and looked up at Johnson. "Bracelet?"
He had the grace, at least, to look discomfited. "The lady had a bracelet on her, a very pretty thing, gold with a lovely design. I was holding onto it."
I had doubts about that, but I did not know Johnson, so perhaps it was true.
Holmes looked back at Lily, his smile turning even warmer. He was always kind to children, offering them sympathy and understanding that he often forgot to extend to his peers. "You will get the bracelet from Shinwell, here. He was saving it for you."
Lily crossed her arms, which were more like sticks than bone and flesh. "I found her, not Porky."
"Where was she?" Holmes asked, not taking his eyes off of her.
"Just there," Lily said, pointing down the banks. "By the Old Stairs."
"What did she look like, when you found her?"
"Her legs were in the water, but the rest of her wasn't. That means she's mine, not the dredgers."
Holmes leaned close, his eyes sparkling. "Was there a lot of blood?" he asked conspiratorially, voice low. Lily giggled, clapping her hands over her mouth.
"Yes," she whispered back in the same tone. "Some on her face and her chest. But her arms were clear, and that's why I saw the bracelet."
"Were you frightened? Is that why you got Johnson?"
"I wasn't scared. I've seen dead girls before. But this one was messier than the ones I find, usually. And I thought that was strange, so I went to find Porky, because Porky is always nice to us mudlarks and doesn't yell at us when we get on his boat."
"Even though you little thieves usually snatch up my best finds," Johnson grumbled, but good-naturedly. I took back my unkind thoughts from earlier; perhaps he really did mean to give the bracelet to the girl, if he was nice to the mudlarks who stole from him. As much as one could really steal from a thief.
Holmes patted Lily on the head, laughing. "You are a smart girl, Lily. Here is a shilling for you," he said, pulling the coin from his pocket and handing it to her. Her hand darted out, taking the coin swiftly and secreting it somewhere upon her person, where I did not see. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her.
"And the bracelet?"
Holmes looked up at Johnson, who rolled his eyes but reached into his pocket and pulled out the bracelet, extending it to Lily.
"Miss Lily, may I look at the bracelet first, before you take it?" Holmes asked.
Lily eyed him up and down, lips pursed. "You won't take it?" she asked, her voice suddenly small.
Holmes stood up straight and made an X across his chest with his finger. "I promise. And if I try to take it, my friend Watson here will shoot me, and you will get the bracelet and whatever is in my pockets, too!"
Lily giggled. "You're funny. All right, you can look at it."
Holmes took the bracelet from Johnson and pulled out his magnifying glass. I stepped over, looking at it over his shoulder.
It was a lovely piece of jewelry, a thin gold band with a filigree design around it. There was no clasp, just a complete circle of gold. Holmes turned the bracelet over, inspecting the side that would have brushed against the dead woman's wrist. I could just make out an inscription, but Holmes moved the bracelet again before I could see what was written. He pressed the bracelet against his skin, and then, abruptly, he licked it. I pulled away from him in disgust.
"Holmes, that has been on a dead woman," I said.
"We are all dead eventually, Watson. Someday that watch of yours will be on a dead man."
I rolled my eyes. Holmes put his magnifying glass back in his pocket, and turned back to Lily, who stood with her arms crossed. She had not taken her gaze away from Holmes the entire time he had been inspecting the bracelet. "Miss Lily, I have an enormous favor to ask of you. This bracelet, do you think a lady like the one you found would have normally worn it?"
Lily considered, chewing on her lip. "She wasn't dressed posh. She looked like one of my sisters and her friends, and they don't have anything fancy like that."
"And did she have anything else on her? Coins, earrings, hmm?"
She shook her head. "Just that."
Holmes nodded rapidly. "Then the favor I must ask, Miss Lily, is to borrow this bracelet a little longer. It may help us find the person who hurt the lady you found."
"No! It's mine, I found it, it belongs to me!"
Holmes rocked back on his heels, nodding thoughtfully and tapping his chin. "I understand. And it will be returned to you. I just need it for a while."
"No!"
Holmes sighed explosively and looked to Johnson, as if for aid. Johnson shrugged his shoulders. "The bracelet is Lily's. If she says no, then..."
"Miss Lily," I interrupted, and tried to crouch down on her level as Holmes had. My leg was stiff, though, from the cold and the mud, and all I could manage was a sort of tilted bow that hurt my dignity enormously, but had the benefit of making the girl smile even as she glared at Holmes. "Miss Lily, do you know what collateral is?" Lily shook her head. "It is when you hold on to something of mine in order to ensure that I return what is yours. If Mr. Holmes gives you his watch, would you let us keep the bracelet? And when he brings you back the bracelet, you will give him back his watch."
Lily looked at Holmes, and then back at me. Her hands clenched repeatedly on her shawl. Holmes gave me a look, and then pulled out his watch. "This was a gift, Miss Lily. You would have to be careful with it. As careful as I will be with your bracelet."
Lily stepped closer to Holmes, peering at the watch. It was a good, solid watch, but I knew it had been given to Holmes by his brother, so it had less sentimental value to him than some of the other odds and ends he kept.
"All right," Lily said finally. She extended her hand, palm up.
Holmes took her hand, turned it over, and bowed deeply, pressing a light kiss to her knuckles. "You are a true lady, Miss Lily. I will be careful with this." He stood back up and tossed her the watch. Lily caught it and went scampering away down the shore, giggling.
"A very good idea, Watson," Holmes said, nodding.
"You will give her back the bracelet?" Johnson asked as he led us over to his boat.
"I once worked very hard to return a photograph, a very important photograph, to a girl named Mary Small. She will tell you that I returned it. Eventually."
Johnson stepped into the water, not seeming to notice the cold, and hauled the boat forward until the front of it rested on the shore. He stepped easily into his boat, though Holmes was less graceful upon entering. I watched his back as he went, wondering if I would have to fish him out from the water. But he managed it, and I followed him.
Johnson's boat was not very long, only about twelve feet, though it was fairly wide. I climbed over the edge of the boat, Holmes next to me. Johnson stood outside of it, arms folded. The body lay on the floor of the boat, covered with a blanket. Clutching the edge of the boat, Holmes navigated around so that he was positioned by the corpse’s feet, which stuck out at the bottom of the blanket. I remained near the head. Holmes reached forward and twitched the blanket off the body, and then immediately recoiled, scrambling for a handkerchief to cover his mouth.
"Three years away..." I said dryly, "And you still cannot handle a dead body? Come now, Holmes."
While he wheezed away in his handkerchief, I leaned closer. The girl- for she couldn't have been much more than twenty- was dressed in a simple outfit, a black skirt that was a bit ragged at the bottom, and a white blouse with buttons all down the front. Her blonde hair looked as though it had been pinned up, though half of it had been torn out of the pins sometime between life and death. The girl's legs had been picked upon by the fish, and most of the left side of her cheek was gone. But the work of the fish couldn't hide that someone had taken a knife to her face and neck.
"I need to examine her on land," I said. "I cannot do it with so little room."
Johnson nodded, his eyes sad, and reached over the edge of the boat and lifted the body into his arms with ease. I watched as he gently lowered her down, adjusting her arms so they lay next to her, and then straightened her legs.
"You said you don't see many bodies like this, Johnson?" I asked, following out of the boat and kneeling beside her, beginning the work of determining the cause of death. It looked obvious, but there had been surprises in the past. I probed the wounds about her neck, determining how deep they went and what they severed.
"Not usually, doctor, but there have been... rumors."
"Rumors?" I asked, my fingers slipping on the muscle of her neck.
"The girls are saying Jack the Ripper is back."
I paused in my examination. "So there have been more women, killed in this manner?"
Johnson took his hat off his head, twisting it between his hands. "I can't say, myself. Never seen any but this one. But one of my girls, she said that there was another body found near Watney Street, and a third near Cable Street."
Holmes walked over, the handkerchief still clamped firmly over his mouth. He moved to stand behind me as I opened the girl's mouth to inspect what the fish had left of her tongue, sniffing, and then carefully lifted her eyelids. "When were they found?"
"Can't really say. First I heard about it was seven, eight months ago. And my girl said it had been a few months since the first had been found. I didn't think much of it- girls turn up dead all the time, though it's usually the drink or the cold that kills them. But when Lily got me to come here, well... three girls, all cut, that doesn't seem normal."
I began pressing down on the girl's abdomen. Behind me, I heard Holmes shuffling around. "And you're certain they were all killed with a knife?"
"That's the story."
"Do you know any names?"
Shinwell shook his head ruefully. "You know how it is, Sherlock. The girls talk to each other, and then they talk to other girls, and eventually they mention it to us swells, but the details have gotten lost."
"I will want to speak to your girl."
"If I can find her. Sometimes she don't want to be found."
"Holmes," I said, frowning. "This girl, she..."
"Yes?" Holmes asked eagerly, leaning over until the edges of his handkerchief brushed my cheek.
"The cuts aren't what killed her; it was poison."
Holmes dropped to his knees next to me, keeping his eyes fixed on me instead of looking at the poor girl before us. "Tell me."
"There's too little blood," I pointed out, and he nodded so hard his glasses slid down his nose. "And under the blood there is vomit, all down her chest. She must have vomited repeatedly before she died. Her tongue is swollen, something I'd expect in asphyxia. You see it, sometimes, when a person has been poisoned."
Holmes pushed me aside, and I stood, grateful that I no longer needed to dig around in the poor woman. I stood, shivering, with my hands in front of my chest, needing a rag to wipe them on. The woman had little blood left, but there was viscera and mud enough up to my elbows.
Holmes hummed to himself, looking at the cuts on her neck, and then looked up at me. "Do you have tweezers, Watson, or perhaps something I could use to lift the folds of her neck?"
I shook my head, but Johnson said, "I have some small sticks that might do the trick, Sherlock." He turned and jumped back in his boat.
"What are you thinking, Holmes?" I asked quietly.
"You are right about the blood, but I am also curious about the strength behind these cuts. They do not appear to go very deep?"
"They don't," I confirmed. "They're jagged and ugly, but they don't even sever the major arteries."
Johnson reappeared, offering Holmes some twigs. "They get caught up in my nets," he explained. "I haven’t had time to get them all out of my boat yet."
Holmes used the sticks to poke at the cuts on the woman's neck. "A serrated knife," he said aloud. "Cut left to right, so a right-handed man. There's a gentleness in these cuts that I wouldn't expect in someone angry. This is more... practical. Measured."
"He may have felt remorse?" I asked.
"He may have used this is a countermeasure," Holmes corrected. "People see the cuts, they are afraid, they think there is someone like Jack the Ripper in the world, a madman. Then they do not see the businessman, the merchant, the quiet respectable man in a nice suit who nods politely at people as they pass."
"Both can exist in one man," I said, thinking of Sholto, whom I had admired, and Moriarty, whom I clearly had not.
"They can," Holmes said, standing. "But these are meant to evoke the boogeyman who hunts in Whitechapel. Springheel Jack." He turned back to Johnson, tipping his hat. "You can turn her in now, Johnson. Thank you for showing her to us first. Your instincts are right, to bring me to her. This is not a common murder."
"Thank you, Sherlock," Johnson said, and he scooped up the girl and put her back in his boat.
"What next?" I wondered.
"Next we look at the Old Stairs," Holmes determined, and strode swiftly away, leaving me to scramble to catch up in the mud.
******
The Wapping Old Stairs resulted in nothing, other than Holmes declaring that she had not actually been killed there, as evidenced by the lack of vomit and blood. When I pointed out that tide had come and gone since the girl had died, he merely whined out a laugh and then spent ten minutes pointing out details in the stonework and the steps that, somehow, told him she had died elsewhere.
"Probably near where the other women were found," Holmes said. "Around Watney and Cable. In Whitechapel."
"You do not even know if there were other women. Johnson's friends, they may have been mistaken, or telling tales in order to make Johnson sympathetic to them," I said with a sigh. "You do not know that anyone died around Watney and Cable."
Holmes gave me a piercing glance, chewing on the frames of his glasses. "This is true," he conceded. "Perhaps Lestrade will know about these women. He is still grateful, you know, for the Moriarty business. He will be willing to help."
******
It took five minutes for Lestrade to stop laughing. I sat uncomfortably in my chair, watching as Lestrade laughed so hard that flecks of phlegm gathered at the edge of his mouth. Holmes fidgeted in the chair next to me, tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair.
"I don't understand what is so funny," Holmes said acidly, once the laughter had died down enough to be heard. "A woman has died. Two more may have as well. Can you pull the reports for me or not?"
Lestrade leaned forward, folding his hands on his desk. "Listen, Holmes. Do you know how many whores die every day in Whitechapel? In Shadwell and Stepney and Bethnel Green? More than we can ever count."
"Maybe we should count them, Inspector," I said, staring at my hands. I had washed them in the Thames before coming to Lestrade's office, but they still felt filthy. "Shouldn't we worry about how many women are dying?"
"I cannot worry about whores, Doctor Watson. They are criminals, violating God's law. I will worry about the good men and women they target, instead."
"But what about when they are the targets, Lestrade? When they are the ones dying?" Holmes erupted, standing up quickly and sending papers on Lestrade's desk fluttering to the ground. "When do you start to care, then? When we have another Jack the Ripper loose in the city? When Scotland Yard is again ridiculed in the papers? Do you care then? Hmm?"
Lestrade stood up, a scowl on his face. I hurried to my feet, sensing we were about to expelled from his office, as we often were. "Bring me evidence that these women exist, and perhaps someone will care, Holmes. Until then, stop wasting our time with dead reprobates. There are better things to occupy your time."
He waved a hand dismissively, ending our conversation. I bowed and thanked him, putting my hat back up on my head, but Holmes did not move. "Give me access to the coroner," he insisted. "Let me see if these women were killed."
Lestrade huffed. "Unfettered access?"
"Assign someone to me. Tracey, maybe. He can watch me."
"Anything to get you out of my office," Lestrade grumbled, and grabbed a sheet of paper. He dipped his pen in the ink and quickly scribbled out a note. "Tracey!" he bellowed. The door behind me opened, and Tracey appeared.
"Yes, sir?"
"Escort Holmes to the coroners in the Whitechapel parish. He's looking for a whore," he sneered. He offered the note to Holmes, who snatched it out of his hands as though it were precious treasure. I was reminded, for a moment, of Lily and the shilling.
Tracey gave Holmes a look that communicated quite well what he thought of Holmes' search, but he nodded and said, "Yes, sir," before stepping back out into the hall.
"I tell you, Lestrade, you will regret not looking into this," warned Holmes.
Lestrade simply waved his hand at us again, and so we left, our permission slip in hand.
******
After four morgues, I was tired and told Holmes I wanted to leave. He insisted we broaden our search to the nearby neighborhoods.
After nine morgues, I told him I would leave him to his quest and go back to the hot meal that surely awaited us. He waved me away and informed me he would be going to Bethel Green next.
After twelve morgues, I made good with that threat, and left him to dig through the records and sift through the unclaimed bodies that still sat waiting for burial. I returned home to Martha, who was disgusted by my appearance and sent me straight to the bathtub. I scrubbed myself clean, focusing on my hands and feet which had been in far too much muck for my liking, and then dressed myself in a simple suit for dinner.
Martha had made steak and kidney pie, and we tucked in together in silence, the only sound being our forks tapping the plates.
“Where did you leave Mr. Holmes?" Martha eventually asked.
"In the morgue," I said succinctly. I had no wish to sully my dinner conversation with all that I had seen that day. I was tired, and wanted no more to do with dead girls and their sad stories.
Martha arched an eyebrow at me, her fork poised prettily over her plate. "Then you have a case?"
"Holmes has a case," I corrected.
"You cannot leave Mr. Holmes to work on his own. He'll get killed, and then we will have no more adventure in our life."
"He has been dead once; he can be dead again."
Martha set her fork down, the clatter setting my teeth on edge. I tightened my hand around my own fork, willing her to leave the subject alone.
"You don't mean that. You grieved every day for Mr. Holmes."
"And the grieving was a lie. He was alive, and did not see fit to let us know."
"He was running for his life."
"If he had allowed it, we could have helped him."
"We were starting our own life together and he knew that. He was trying to give you a way out, John."
"I would have liked a choice in the matter," I snapped, and immediately felt shame for the shock on Martha's face. "I am sorry, Martha. On this, I am perhaps not rational."
"Your moon sign is Scorpio, so I am not surprised," she said, returning to her meal. "With a Libra sun and a Scorpio moon, I expect such outbursts from time to time. You feel like you have been treated unfairly."
"He should have told me what he was doing."
"Well, he is back now. Talk to him, tell him you do not like how he handled everything."
"He knows," I said. We had never been men who talked with words; we boxed together, and our hands were elegant enough in those moments. "But he does not apologize."
Martha rolled her eyes. "If you are waiting for an apology, you will wait forever. Your bones will be dust first. He probably doesn't even know you are upset with him still. Now eat your pie, and then go back to Mr. Holmes. He needs you, and we need him."
I grumbled to myself, but did not argue. Besides, her steak and kidney pie was delicious.
******
I did not have to go and find Holmes, for he arrived home just as I was putting on my coat. I relaxed as he walked through the door, relieved that I did not have to go back to Whitechapel at this time of night. I picked his coat up off the floor, dismayed at the instant transfer of filth onto my clean hands, and threw it into the pile of my clothes to be cleaned. When I returned from that errand, Holmes was shoveling cold steak and kidney pie into his mouth. I was pleased to see Martha had not warmed it for him.
"You were successful, then," I said, standing in the doorway of the sitting room.
Holmes half-turned and saluted me with his fork. "No, I wasn't. Not completely.”
I waited for him to continue, but he said nothing more and instead focused all his energies on eating. I picked at my fingers, but then I sighed and said, “Not completely? Then you were at least partially successful?”
Holmes leaned back, balancing the plate on his knee. “Of the Watney girl and the Cable Street girl, I found nothing. I did, however, come across a girl who was found near St. George Street, just north of the London Docks. Her body was discovered three months ago. Her corpse had putrefied to the point where it was difficult to deduce much from it. Some largely superficial cuts around the face.”
He returned to his assault on the plate of food. I considered what he said, then moved to sit in the armchair next to his. I was angry at him, but my curiosity about what he discovered was stronger. It often was, when it came to Holmes. “You speak of her as though she is important.”
Holmes gave me a blinding smile. “There is hope for you yet, Watson. She was a young woman, clearly a prostitute from her boots and skirt that were still at the mortuary. She also had this.”
He dipped his hand into his trouser pocket and removed a gold bracelet, handing it to me. I looked at it carefully. It was a simple gold bracelet with a filigree design and no clasp. I turned it, and saw an inscription on the inside. Without Holmes moving it around, I was able to read the inscription this time.
A beautiful bracelet for a beautiful woman.
“This is the same bracelet that Johnson’s girl was wearing,” I said needlessly.
“Yes,” Holmes said, nodding vigorously. “Except this one is older, and more worn. You noticed the inscription?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, turning the bracelet over in my hands to look at it again. “It’s very simple.”
“It’s very self-centered,” he replied. “Why does the woman need to be told it’s a beautiful bracelet? Surely she can tell that for herself? And the comparison between a woman and an inanimate object? You know, Watson, while I was away, I met an alienist in Berlin, and I learned quite a bit about criminal psychology from him. This simple statement can tell us much about our murderer.”
“He is controlling,” I offered. “He needs the women to whom he gives these to know that they are his.”
“Excellent, Watson! Incidentally, it also does not have a clasp and is a somewhat small band; it would be difficult for a woman to get the bracelet off, once it was on, not without some pain.”
I set the bracelet on the arm of my chair and studied my hands. “And you found nothing about the Watney and Cable girls?”
“Nothing. The records in all the morgues are a mess. No coroner’s jury was ever conducted on a girl found on Watney Street or on Cable Street. It could be that the bodies never made it to the morgue; they could have been sold to a doctor or a hospital, or thrown in the sewers, or they could have never existed at all. There is no way to tell.”
I tapped my hand on my knee. I glanced back at the bracelet. “Do you think he gave these to every woman he killed?”
“We only know of two murders. We don’t know if there are any other bodies, or other bracelets.”
I thought of Martha, cleaning in the kitchen. Within the hour, she would retire to our bedroom. We would sit up and talk for a little while, and then we would go to sleep. It was very restful.
It was very boring, for both of us.
“I think I may know a way to find out,” I said, standing. “Let me tell Martha we are going out.”
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Date: 2016-12-07 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-11 08:53 pm (UTC)I loved this because it's got so many of the elements I love in fic, and which you were kind enough to include ;) Strong plot, gripping case, OCs that spring off the page, Holmes and Watson fumbling their way through their friendship, kick-ass Mrs Hudson, plenty of convincing historical detail, a touch of crime-scene forensics... But most of all I loved it because it's simply so well written in every way. Thank you so much!
Also, I can't believe how well you've captured this verse. I've never even attempted to write it, thinking it would be pretty difficult to pin down all the subtle differences between it and the original canon, but you've done so perfectly. I'm completely bowled away.