I shook my head. “Nothing that I could see, at any rate. Perhaps an examination of her blood…”
However not even that afforded us an explanation; no abnormalities that would have accounted for sudden changes in personality. Nor did Holmes’ trip to the Hatten residence uncover a thing, largely because Judith’s father would not grant us permission to view the crime scene once he learned who had enlisted our help.
“No matter,” Holmes said as we climbed back into the cab, heading towards Baker Street once more. “After so long, I doubt whether it would have yielded anything of interest.”
While Holmes attempted to make some kind of sense of the incidents thus far — littering his room with everything from articles on insanity to reports alleging bodily possession by demons (“You cannot seriously be considering that?” I said to him when I discovered his notes, but he just waved me away with his hand), playing his violin into the small hours of the morning — more incidents occurred.
In Kentish Town an antiques dealer named Falconbridge used an ornamental sword to disembowel his housekeeper then turned the weapon on himself. At Westminster Hospital a middle-aged builder’s merchant called Robertson took it upon himself to secrete a hypodermic needle about his person and inject his elderly mother with an overdose of morphine … a mercy killing, you might assume, but the woman was actually recovering from her malaise and was expected to be discharged within a matter of days. Colleagues of mine who were present informed me that the son, in a state of confusion and remorse, ran away. His body was later found in the Thames. Finally, passengers on a train bound for Waterloo described hearing piercing screams, only to witness a woman backing out of a carriage covered in blood and holding a fire axe. According to the ticket inspector her hands were trembling, as she looked left and right, then she dropped the axe and fled, eventually flinging herself from the moving vehicle. Inside the carriage were found the dismembered bodies of her husband and their twelve year old daughter.
It was the latter, I fear, that had the most telling effect upon Holmes. As we stepped onto that train, Lestrade now very glad of any assistance, my friend wavered, almost turning back. But he forced himself to look upon those remains. And I swear to you now, that in all my years and service in Afghanistan I had never seen the likes of it before — nor would I care to again.
“I should have been able to prevent this,” Holmes said, under his breath, his gaze fixed upon the contents of that carriage.
“How?” I asked him, my own mouth dry as sandpaper.
“There is a pattern to these events… I simply cannot see it yet.”
When we returned to Baker Street that evening, silence prevailing in the cab along the way, Miss Cartwright was waiting for us. She said nothing as Holmes stepped into the room, but merely strode towards him and slapped his face; before departing without a word.
We discovered not long afterwards that Simon had committed suicide in his cell by swallowing his own tongue. Lestrade said that there was nothing that could have been done, but I knew Holmes disagreed.
I did not see him for some time after that. On the single occasion I did knock and enter his chambers, I found the room empty apart from the usual detritus of the case. However, on the table I spied the means by which he was administering his seven percent solution; a habit from which I never did manage to free him.
Holmes staggered from his bedroom then, unkempt and wearing a dressing gown. He looked drawn and pale, a ghost of his former self.
“Holmes, I really must—” but before I could get out another word, he flew at me, enraged. I thought for a moment he might attack me in a murderous rage, but instead he simply shouted:
“Get out! Get out! Get out!”
I did as instructed, retreating and allowing him to slam the door behind me. I heard a lock being drawn on the other side and considered it was for the best that I should leave him alone, despite my grave concern.
An equally concerned Lestrade contacted me several times over the course of those next few weeks, informing me of yet more murders — drownings, beatings, stranglings — as well as suicides, asking if Holmes would be continuing his investigations. I lied and told him that the great detective was looking into several quite promising leads.
In reality, I feared that he had finally met his match. It is a conviction that I still hold to this day.
When I heard Holmes leave 221b Baker Street, it was the middle of the night. He told neither Mrs. Hudson nor myself where he was going, but after his tirade I was not at all surprised. When Lestrade called at the house, protesting that he was no longer able to prevent the papers from reporting this insanity that seemed to have gripped London, I had to admit that Holmes was not present.
“Then where is he, Doctor? And why aren’t you with him?”
I said again that he was chasing a line of enquiry, but the Inspector’s words struck a nerve with me. It wasn’t the first time Holmes had retreated into himself, nor the first occasion he had vanished without warning — and Heaven knows he had justification this time — but Lestrade was right; I should be with him. I was deeply distressed about his condition, and if there was a connection between all of these bizarre events then I should be working with Holmes to uncover it.
I set out to look for my friend, searching all the places I could think he would go. Sadly I even tried some of the opium dens that he had been known to frequent from time to time. In Limehouse, I discovered that he had been spotted enjoying some of the more questionable vices it had to offer, but had departed some considerable time ago.
It was not until I had exhausted every single possibility that it struck me where I might find him. My years observing Holmes’ methods have left me with some degree of aptitude for deduction myself.
When I arrived at my destination, he was indeed present. Standing, staring out into the middle distance just as the ‘victims’, those left behind after the murders, were wont to do. He looked no better for his absence; worse in fact, than he had in his chambers. I approached cautiously, after my last encounter with him — not knowing what kind of reception I would receive.
“Ah, Watson,” said he in a quiet voice. “My faithful friend and companion… I knew that you would find me here eventually.” Holmes looked down at the grave by which he stood, the one containing the bodies of the family who had died on the Waterloo train. “I am so sorry for my behavior when last we saw each other. I was … not myself.” He gave a slight laugh, perhaps realizing the significance of his words, but there was no humour in it.
Not far away, I knew, were the final resting places of others who had perished during these past troubling weeks.
“What occurred was not your fault.”
He shook his head and turned to me. “I could not see it until now, but we have been facing my greatest enemy.”
“Not … the Professor,” I said, struggling to hide the alarm from my voice.
“I have seen Moriarty, Watson, I will not deny it. My own punishment, perhaps… But no … my efforts at the falls were entirely successful. He remains among the deceased. Although through this experience, I have discovered why the murderers — if one can refer to them as such — are so quick to throw away their lives. I know now what they see … afterwards.”
I frowned, conceding that I had no idea what he was talking about. If Moriarty had not returned from the grave — and the dark humour of my own musings was not lost on me, in light of where we were standing — then who exactly was it that we were up against? I ventured the question aloud.