There was enough light to warn me that the street narrowed at the other end, coming down to a passageway. It was into this that I plunged, my heart in my mouth at what I might find.
Suddenly I heard a choked cry. I had collided with something soft. A fear-stricken voice babbled, “Mercy! Oh, pray, ’ave mercy!”
It was Polly, who had been pressed against the wall in the darkness. In fear that her cries might frighten the Ripper away, I clapped my hand over her mouth and whispered into her ear.
“It’s all right, Polly. You are in no danger. I am the gentleman you sat with. I followed you―”
I was struck from behind by a sudden, enormous weight, and knocked back, staggering, along the passage. But my brain still functioned. I had been outwitted by the cunning devil I had followed from The Angel and Crown. He had crept into some shadow and allowed me to pass him. Now, enraged at the prospect of being deprived of his prey, he was attacking like a jungle beast.
I answered in kind, fighting desperately, trying to pull the revolver from my pocket. It should have been in my hand; but, during my stint in her Majesty’s Indian service, I had served as a surgeon, not a soldier; I had no training in hand-to-hand fighting.
I was therefore no match for the monster with whom I had come to grips. I went down under his onslaught, gratefully aware that the girl had fled. I felt his powerful hands upon my throat, and I flailed out desperately with my free arm as I struggled still to clear the weapon from my pocket.
To my stupefaction, a familiar voice growled, “Now let us see what manner of beast I have flushed!” Even before a bull’s eye lantern flashed, I became aware of my blunder. The evil-appearing creature seated behind me in the pub had been Holmes―in disguise!
“Watson!” He was as astonished as I.
“Holmes! Good heavens, man! Had I managed to get my revolver out, I might have shot you!”
“And a good thing, too,” grumbled he. “Watson, you can write me down an ass.” He lifted his lithe body from me and grasped my hand to help me to my feet. Even then, knowing he was my old friend, I could only marvel at the cleverness of his disguise, so different did he appear.
We had no time for further recriminations. As Holmes was pulling me erect, a scream rent the night. His hand released me instantly, and down I tumbled again. An oath erupted from his throat, one of the very few outbursts of profanity I have ever heard from him.
“I’ve been outdone!” he cried; and he went streaking away into the night.
As I scrambled to my feet, the female cries of terror and pain increased in volume. Suddenly they were cut off; and the sounds of a second pair of running feet were added to those of Holmes.
I must confess that I showed to little advantage in the affair. I had once been the middleweight boxing champion of my regiment, but those days were in the long-ago, and I leaned against the brick wall, fighting nausea and dizziness. At that moment, I should not have been able to respond had our gracious Queen herself been screaming for aid.
The vertigo passed; the world righted itself; I moved shakily back, as I had come, groping my way along through the silence that had ominously fallen. I had re-traced my steps some two hundred paces, when a quiet voice stopped me.
“Here, Watson.”
I turned to my left and discovered a break in the wall.
Again, Holmes’s voice: “I dropped my lantern. Will you be so kind as to search for it, Watson?”
His quiet tone was doubly chilling, in that it concealed an agonised inner struggle. I knew Holmes; he was shaken to the core.
Good fortune attended my search for the lantern. I took a single step, and bumped it with my foot. I relighted it, and staggered back from one of the most horrible scenes that has ever met my eyes.
Holmes was on his knees, back bowed, head lowered, a picture of despair.
“I have failed, Watson. I should be brought to the dock for criminal stupidity.”
I scarcely heard him, stunned as I was by the bloody sight that confronted me. Jack the Ripper had vented his obscene madness upon poor Polly. Her clothing had been torn from her body, baring fully half of it to view. A great, ragged slash had opened her abdomen, and its torn and mutilated contents were exposed like those of a butchered animal. A second savage thrust had severed her left breast almost from her body. The terrible scene swam before my eyes.
“But he had so little time! How―?”
But Holmes came alive; he sprang to his feet. “Come, Watson! Follow me!”
So abruptly did he launch himself from the are away towards the street that I was left behind. I called upon the reserve of strength each man possesses in moments of emergency, and ran, pell-mell, after him. He was well in the forefront all the way, but I did not lose him; and, when I again came close, I found him thundering upon the door of Joseph Beck’s pawn-shop.
“Beck!” Holmes shouted. “Come out! I demand that you come out this instant!” His fists smote again and again upon the panel. “Open this door, or I shall smash it in!”
A rectangle of light appeared overhead. A window opened: a head was thrust out. Joseph Beck cried, “Are you mad? Who are you?”
The light from the lamp in his hand revealed a red-tasselled night-cap and a high-necked night-dress.
Holmes stood back and bellowed up at him. “Sir, I am Sherlock Holmes, and if you do not come down immediately I shall climb this wall and drag you out by your hair!”
Beck was, understandably, shaken. Holmes was still in his disguise; and to be roused out of sleep, and find such a hideous figure banging at his door in the dead of night, was certainly not an experience for which the life of a tradesman had prepared the pawnbroker.
I sought to help. “Herr Beck! You remember me, do you not?”
He gaped down at me. “You are one of the two gentlemen―?”
“And, despite his appearance, this is the other, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I promise you.”
The pawn-broker hesitated; but then he said, “Very well; I shall come down.”
Holmes paced with impatient strides until the light appeared in the shop, and the street-door opened.
“Step out here, Beck!” commanded Holmes, in a deadly voice; and, fearfully, the German obeyed. My friend’s powerful hand darted out, and the man shrank back, but he was too slow. Holmes tore open the front of his night-dress, revealing a bare chest pimpled with the chill.
“What are you doing, sir?” quavered the tradesman. “I do not understand.”
“Be silent!” said Holmes, harshly; and in the light of Beck’s lamp he examined the pawnbroker’s chest minutely. “Where did you go, Joseph Beck, after you left The Angel and Crown?” asked Holmes, releasing his grasp.
“Where did I go? I came home to bed!” Reassured by Holmes’s milder tone, Beck was now hostile.
“Yes,” replied Holmes, thoughtfully, “it appears that you did. Go back to bed, sir. I am sorry if I have frightened you.”
With this, Holmes turned unceremoniously away, and I followed. I looked back as we reached the corner, to see Herr Beck still standing before his shop. Holding the lamp high above his head, he appeared for all the world like a night-shirted caricature of that noble statue, Liberty Enlightening the World, presented to the United States by the people of France, the great, hollow, bronze figure that now stands in the harbour at New York City.
We returned to the scene of the butchery, to find that the body of poor Polly had been discovered. An army of the morbidly curious choked the entrance to the street, whilst the lanterns of officialdom illuminated the darkness beyond.
Holmes gazed grimly at the scene, hands thrust deep into his pockets. “There is no point in identifying ourselves, Watson,” said he, in a mutter. “It would only make for profitless conversation with Lestrade.”