Free The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes by Loren Estleman

upraised right hand. It stopped.
    ‘There’s a half-sovereign in it for you if you can keep that hansom within sight,’ he told the driver, and climbed in. I got in beside him. We began rolling just as the first police whistles sounded behind us.
    ‘He’s a clever one, this Mr. Hyde.’ Holmes sat with his hands upon his bony knees, clenching and unclenching them in his excitement. His eye held a steely glint in the light of a passing gas lamp.
    ‘I don’t see how you can say that,’ I remarked. ‘The man came near to being torn to pieces by that mob.’
    ‘The riot was a blind, Watson, staged to mask his flight. He knew that he was being watched.’
    ‘But our disguises —’
    ‘He saw through them. I am the one to blame; had I not underestimated him, I would have had the foresight to cover our ears.’
    ‘Our ears!’
    ‘Yes, Watson, our ears. Of all the human physical characteristics, the configuration of the ear is unique. No two pairs are exactly alike. As long as they remain unconcealed, there is no disguise which cannot be penetrated by a trained observer. I had thought that I was the only man in this part of the world who had the ability to memorise such things, but I can see that I was wrong. That is it; that has to be it. No other explanation will suffice.’
    ‘It seems fanciful.’
    ‘Yes, that is the common fool’s reaction to something which he does not understand.’
    This vitriolic response struck me like a blow in the face. I fell silent.
    After we had clattered onwards another fifty yards or so, Holmes laid a warm hand upon my arm. ‘My dear fellow, once again I beg your forgiveness,’ he said gently. ‘You are right about my needing a holiday. When this is over, the Queen herself will not be able to keep me in London.’
    ‘No apologies are necessary, Holmes.’
    ‘Good old Watson!’ He patted my arm.
    If Hyde suspected that we were still on his scent, he gave no indication. The cab in which he was riding neither increased nor diminished speed, but kept its measured pace; it was as if he were making it easy for us to trail him, as if he had abandoned entirely his plans of losing us and had chosen instead to parade the details of his life before our eyes.
    And what a sordid life it was! We followed the creature through opium dens and brothels, along malodorous piers and up narrow alleys, down fiendish labyrinths of which Dante himself had never dreamt. There was no vice which Hyde did not know, no spectacle so mean that he did not delight in it. The blackest corners of London were not dark enough to conceal his forbidden pursuits, though they were amply devoid of light to turn away the most determined of adventurers. Wherever he went, however, and no matter how low the individuals with whom he consorted in order to acquire his revolting pleasures, their reaction to him was universal; his money was welcome but he most emphatically was not. Like Holmes and myself, they recognised in him that common denominator of evil which rendered him an outsider in whatever circle he tried to enter.
    Once, whilst hastening along the pavement towards one of his dark dens, our quarry was accosted by a one-legged beggar attired in the remnants of a regimental uniform, who balanced his weight upon one of his crutches as he held out a tin cup in which a number of coins rattled. Without pausing or even slowing his stumping pace, Hyde slashed at the wretch with his stout cane, fetching him a glancing blow upon his right shoulder. The cripple staggered and would have fallen had not the brick wall of the nearby building intervened; as it was, he stumbled against it and was forced to snatch at the single crutch that had been supporting him to prevent it from sliding away. His assailant continued on his way without so much as a backward glance. I had all I could do to keep from rushing forward and collaring the scoundrel, and might have done so but for Holmes, who, following along with me at a discreet distance,