I could, and Dr Watson drops a handful of coins into my hand and instructs me to take a cab home. He gets no argument from me, obviously.
…Oi. Why are you laughing?
No, I was not duped into anything. It was an important letter, you understand? Just because I didn’t know why it was important…
All right, fine. The letter itself wasn’t important. But that’s not the point. Who’s helped Mr Holmes crack three cases… well, two cases and some light shoplifting? Not Wiggins. Yours truly. Remember that next time Wiggins takes to bragging. Bet he’s never seen a lady get stabbed through the hand.
…though I’m wondering if I might be clear to take a few days off before I’m given any other top secret missions.
PEELER
Nick Kyme
Though perhaps not gifted with the greatest deductive reasoning, and described equally as “ferret-like” and “rat-faced”, Inspector Lestrade is one of the most enduring characters of the Sherlock Holmes canon, who first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet. His first appearance in The Strand was in the story “The Boscome Valley Mystery”.
Prior to meeting Holmes, Lestrade is described as having been an officer of the law for over twenty years with his dogged determination and tenacity to thank for his success and longevity. In many respects, he is a sort of everyman, embodying a keen sense of justice and surprising compassion that, despite his ostensibly low opinion of Lestrade’s intellectual abilities, Sherlock Holmes finds admirable.
Despite appearing in fourteen stories, certain facts concerning Lestrade are still a mystery, such as his first name, about which only the first letter “G” is known. During his time in the Force, Lestrade developed an ongoing rivalry with one of his fellow detectives, Tobias Gregson, and the two could not be more unalike, though they only ever appeared together once. His last appearance in the Conan Doyle stories was in “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons”, after which he is mentioned again but does not feature as a character.
I’ve seen things in my line of work. The things that man is capable of. True evil. Monsters. London teems with them. Sometimes I think this city has been made for them, not us, not the folk who hold the thin blue line against this tide, and those that aid us, men like him. I had thought myself a detective until I met him. Only then did I realise just how inept I must seem to one who possesses such intellect.
I want to save this city, but she is suffering from a grievous malady. I can smell it in every Whitechapel corpse and every swollen cadaver I’ve dredged from the Thames. I remember every trial, but none so vividly as the “Peeler”.
A man was lying face down in an alleyway just off the corner of Lime and Leadenhall Street. I noted the time on my pocket watch, then looked up into a sky the colour of slate.
He was a rough fellow, judging by his attire. I could see it even through the window of the hansom cab. Worn shoes, faded porter’s uniform with shabby broad and piping, but corpulent enough to suggest he was far from destitute.
I met Metcalfe as I left the cab, his face as grim as the morning.
“Good morning, Inspector,” he said with a nod.
“It’s far from good, Sergeant.” I looked past Metcalfe’s shoulder. A light but unceasing rain had been falling since the early hours – I knew, because it had kept me awake – and the two constables, Cooper and Barrows, standing at the north and south facings of the street corner wore police cloaks to keep off the drizzle. Through a rising mist encouraged by a morning sun struggling amidst the grey, I saw two more men, neither of whom were Scotland Yard.
“How long has he been here?”
Metcalfe didn’t turn. He had enough about him to realise who I meant. “Arrived not long after we did, sir.”
A man was down by the body, crouched, but careful not to kneel on the wet road. He wore a dark woollen Ulster, scarf and leather gloves. The other remained standing, the rain trickling off the brim of his hat and onto his pale brown overcoat as he looked on.
“Keep him out, next time,” I said. “Keep them both out.”
Metcalfe nearly looked down to his boots, but to his credit met my gaze. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. He said he was consulting on a case.”
I pushed on past the sergeant, resigned to the credulity of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. “Of course he did. Just keep anyone else out, or I’ll have your hide.”
Sherlock Holmes didn’t bother to look up as he heard me approach, though his companion, the doctor, gave me the courtesy of slightly tipping his hat.
“Tell me, Lestrade, what do you see?” asked Holmes, who had yet to touch the body, I now realised, but observed it intently. He had a narrow, studious face, with a thin, patrician nose and gaunt features. His eyes were always alert. I had never known them to be otherwise.
“I see murder, Mr Holmes, and a man interfering in police business.”
“Now, look here–” Dr Watson began, upset at my boldness, but stopped short at his friend’s raised hand. The good doctor was well groomed as always, though with a little more grey in his coiffed moustaches.
“Watson, if the good inspector wishes to admonish himself for interfering in his own duties by interrupting me, then we should allow him to avail himself of the lesson.”
“Amusing, Holmes,” I said, pulling up my collar as the rain grew heavier. I let him do his work, for as much as the man irritated me in his manner, I had never in all my experience met a keener or more accomplished mind. “What should I see?”
“For a start, you have not complimented Dr Watson on his fine attire. From Savile Row, no less. Isn’t that right, Doctor.”
“Holmes…” said Watson. I heard the warning in his tone but also noticed the doctor’s fine tailoring. “Only the gloves are new,” he confessed.
“Look expensive,” I muttered, ruefully.
“A flutter on the ponies, wasn’t it Watson? A rare triumph?”
Watson’s cheeks reddened. “Holmes!”
To this day, I cannot fathom how the doctor puts up with him.
“Enough games, Holmes,” I told him, “what have you found?”
“In the first instance, this,” he said, removing something from Goose’s person and holding it up to the meagre light.
“A key?” I said.
“Well observed, Inspector, though the question is: what does it open?”
It was small, and made of brass, though had little to distinguish it.
“Is that it, then?”
Holmes’s mood darkened. “Far from it, Inspector. I see a workhouse porter and a curious predilection, I believe.” He stood, looking down grimly at the man. “Lestrade, if your constable would be so kind as to turn over the body…”
I nodded to Metcalfe and he reluctantly crouched, kneeling in the blood that had pooled around the man’s head. Made heavy by death and his sodden clothes, the corpse proved difficult for Metcalfe to turn but when he finally did, he gagged.
I felt a coldness seep into my gut in that moment that even my outrage could not thaw.
Metcalfe gasped. “Good Lord in heaven…”
The man had no face. His skin had been completely removed and only the red, glistening muscle remained.
“What is this, Holmes?” I asked, surprised that I rasped the words.
“Something foul, I fear, Inspector.”
I almost dared not ask: “A devotee? Inspired by Whitechapel?”
“No, Inspector,” said Holmes, “I think not. The victim, the method… this is altogether something else.”