Free Dust and Shadow by Lyndsay Faye Page B

inspired notion. You could hardly justify use of the Irregulars in such a case.”
    “Indeed. They would discover much, perhaps, but to what ill effects? Even as lucky and profitable as it was, having been informed so quickly by little Hawkins comes at a high cost. All too high. I would have preferred we’d learned of it by telegram and he had never laid eyes on such a miserable sight.”
    “I could not agree more.”
    “I only hope,” said he, as we suddenly turned down a wide avenue, “that we ourselves are up to the challenge. It is a fundamental principle of my methods that there is nothing new under the sun, yet I confess I cannot fathom what in the world could possibly give rise to such hysterical monstrosities.”
    I ventured no reply to this half-posed question, for no more could I. We made our way back to Baker Street with the deaths of three women revolving silently through our minds.

CHAPTER FIVE
We Procure an Ally
    We arrived home in time to witness young Hawkins’s final victory over the most abundant cold luncheon I had ever seen the good-hearted Mrs. Hudson produce. After entrusting him to a hesitant but financially approachable cabbie, we sat down to a comparable feast ourselves, which Holmes picked at for perhaps three minutes before allowing his fork to dangle momentarily between his slender fingers and then tossing it in disdain upon the china.
    “It is like trying to build a pyramid out of sand,” he stated contemptuously. “The dashed bits won’t hold together. I cannot believe that London has suddenly generated three separate and equally brutal killers, all roaming about Whitechapel having their way. No more is it possible that a gang of roughs could perform their perverse acts secretly within such a densely populated terrain, not to mention fit within the confines of the Hanbury Street yard. The odds against such notions are simply astronomical.” He rose abruptly. “I am going out, Watson. If these crimes are linked, then the women are linked. We do not even know the identity of our latest victim. It is ludicrous to theorize in such an abyss.”
    “When shall you return?” I called as he disappeared into his bedroom.
    “The answer to that conundrum, friend Watson, I could not even begin to guess,” came his reply.
    “If you should need me—”
    “Never fear. I’ll scale a tree and raise the flag. England expects that every man will do his duty.” With a nod and a wave, the unofficial investigator departed; I did not see him again that day.
    The events in question left me in such a state of unease that I spent much of the night staring at my ceiling. When morning at long last lifted her golden head above the brickwork of the neighbouring houses, I was seized with an irresistible urge to get out of doors. Thankfully, I had given my word to a young medical friend that I would look in on an invalid patient of his, as he had left London for the weekend and would not return until Monday. I am quite certain that old Mrs. Thistlecroft was taken aback by my strenuous advice on no account to allow castor oil through her bedroom window, nor to forsake her daily dose of cold draughts. Mercifully, I did her no harm, as she brooked no traffic with the foolish or distracted, and I very narrowly avoided being thrown out on my ear with the ringing declaration that my friend Anstruther should soon hear of her treatment at my hands.
    Making my way back up Oxford Street, I stopped for a copy of the Times, to see what progress Holmes had made. I swiftly found the column, as the papers were concerned with little else:
    Annie Chapman, alias “Sivvey”—a name she had received in consequence of living with a sieve maker—was the widow of a man who had been a soldier, and from whom, until about 12 months ago, when he died, she had been receiving 10s. a week. She was one of the same class as Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, residing also in the common lodging houses of Spitalfields and Whitechapel, and is