“Sherlock Holmes himself!” the trim inspector snarled, clearly delighted at the opportunity to vent his fury. “I have no reason to question why you are here. I am grateful—indeed, deeply grateful. For if you were not here, how would I go about explaining two murders in one night? Two murders, all within the space of a half mile!

Who could explain such a thing if not Sherlock Holmes, the crack private theorist?”

“Two murders certainly demands an explanation,” my friend replied, but I would be guilty of perjury were I not to report that he started visibly at the news, while I inhaled an unabashed gasp of amazement.

“What the devil has happened to your arm?”

“Return, if you will, Lestrade, to the scintillating topic of double murder,” Holmes shot back bitingly, his deeply rooted nonchalance shattering beneath the force of his alarm.

“Oh, it is of considerable interest, without a doubt,” sneered Lestrade. “Two murders certainly, to the minds of the official force, grow in consideration if they are committed within an hour of each other, not to mention a bloody twenty minutes’ walk!”

“Oh, yes?” was all my friend managed to stake upon a reply.

“You may ‘oh, yes’ all you like, Mr. Holmes, but you must know perfectly well that the murder you are presently investigating is neither the more revolting nor the more pressing of the two.”

Doubting my companion’s capacity for speech, I interjected, “We discovered this crime in progress. What has the killer done since we interrupted him?”

Lestrade looked as if he were about to swallow his own head, such was his confidence in Sherlock Holmes’s omniscience. “Don’t set yourselves against my nerves,” he snapped. “You mean to tell me you’ve heard nothing of the second victim this evening? Nothing of the evisceration, nor the cutting of her face, not to mention the intestines smeared all over her,” he continued, with ominous calm, “nor the other atrocities visited upon her person, which so help me God I will wrest from you the truth of if it is the last thing I do!”

“Lestrade,” my friend protested, “I promise you I know nothing of which you speak, but I will immediately place myself in a cab in the hopes of assisting you. Where did this second event take place?”

“Holmes, I cannot allow—” I began, but at that very instant, as my friend set off toward the vehicle, his iron strength at last failed him and he clutched at the window of the cab for support.

“We are taking you to hospital, and I will not hear another word on the subject,” I swore.

“Hospital! Confound it all, what has happened to him?” begged Lestrade.

“He pursued the killer and was the victim of a murderous attack. I do not like to think what will happen if he exerts himself an instant longer. Driver, you are to proceed to London Hospital!”

“I believe that Baker Street would be preferable, driver,” Holmes called out, as I half lifted him into Lestrade’s hansom. I made as if to join him.

“You are forbidden to accompany me.”

“Why on earth should I be?” I demanded, wounded to the quick.

“You are going to the site of the second killing. You are taking Miss Monk, whose eyes are invaluable. The two of you will record everything you see, and you will tell me of it when we meet again. See that Miss Monk comes to no harm.” During these instructions, he paused intermittently to gather the fortitude to speak, which did nothing to calm my fears.

“I am to safeguard Miss Monk while you may be—”

“Of course not. You are to lead a murder investigation whilst I am recovering. All caution, Watson. Drive on!” he cried, and I stood there as the hansom cantered off into the darkness, leaving only myself, a hysterical inspector, various constables, and the intrepid Miss Monk, who had just emerged from the men’s club composed and resolute.

“Is that Mr. Holmes?” she asked as his cab pulled away.

“Yes,” I said shortly. “He is not well. There has been another murder.”

Her hand flew to her mouth, but she immediately recovered her self-possession. “Then you and I had best leg it over or there’ll be hell to pay.”

As distraught as I was, I had no doubt that Miss Monk was in the right. “Lestrade, where is the other crime scene?”

“Just west of here in Mitre Square,” Lestrade replied, still gazing with an expression of ill-disguised panic at the point where Holmes’s hansom had disappeared. “Inspector Thomas has arrived, so I can take you there myself. I must warn you, however, the Yard has no jurisdiction. The murder was committed within the City of London.”

The central pivot of the eastern metropolis, mirrored by the City of Westminster in the West-end, the City of London was limited to a single square mile of ground, safeguarded not by Scotland Yard but by their own small company of police under the authority of the Corporation of the City of London. However many individuals within that force Holmes had dealings with, I knew not a soul, and I gratefully accepted Lestrade’s offered escort.

“Let us be off,” said I, with the roughness that is born of deep apprehension. “We cannot lose any more time.”

“One moment,” replied Lestrade with a wondering glance toward Miss Monk. “Who the devil is this young person? Do you live in these buildings?”

“My name is Mary Ann Monk, sir,” she stated. “I am in the employ of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

The inspector raised his eyes heavenward and shook his head, but to his credit he did no more. “No doubt you are, miss. No doubt you are. But I warn you, Doctor—this young lady is to be presented as an associate of Mr. Holmes, not of Scotland Yard, if she’s presented at all. My head would be in a basket by morning. Very well, into the carriage all, and back to Mitre Square. I hope you’ve the stomach for it, Doctor: there’s a level of hell made especially for this bastard, or there’s no justice in Creation. Of that, at least, I’m sure.”

We drove westward along Commercial Road and then down Whitechapel High Street to the ancient core of Her Majesty’s wide realm. No one spoke a word, for Holmes’s absence had cast a greater pall even than the news of the second murder. Setting aside my severe anxiety for my friend, the Whitechapel killer had proven himself to be the most fearsome menace ever to strike terror into the hearts of the populace. What powers could we expect to set against him without Holmes? I had never in my life been placed in such a false position, but I set my teeth and determined to do my utmost, whatever was required.

We none of us had long to worry, for it was a mere five minutes’ journey. Stopping the carriage on Duke Street, we descended and passed the Great Synagogue, ducking into a small, covered opening. When we emerged in the wide square, we found a somber group of City Police surrounding the body, obscuring it from our immediate view. She lay in front of a row of empty cottages, with blank gaping windows and the creeping tendrils of weeds hastening their decay.

A tall, actively built man with sharp eyes and a military bearing, dressed in fashionably cut plain clothes, turned at the sound of our footsteps.

“This is a murder investigation,” he proclaimed. “You must step outside the square to avoid disturbing evidence.”

“I am Inspector Lestrade of the Metropolitan force.” Lestrade proffered his hand rather uncertainly. “Major Henry Smith, is it not? To tell the truth, sir, we are investigating another murder committed on Berner Street, with all signs of it having been the work of the same party.”

Major Smith emitted a low whistle. “By George, Inspector, you astonish me. And you are?” he asked, turning to me.

“Dr. John Watson. I was there when the event occurred.”

“Your name is known to me, Dr. Watson. You say you were there—you interrupted the murderer at his work?”

“That is correct.”

“Then the man is in custody?”