“Well, we’d stowed ourselves in a corner when he says, with an odd look, ‘I’m glad you’re all right, for you must have seen by now what has happened.’

“‘The whole Chapel’s well-nigh set on fire over it,’ I says back.

“He looks at me right close and then asks if I’ve been putting myself in any sort of careless danger. Of course I says no, though I can’t think why he should ask, and we’re back to the question of finding Blackstone before the worst happens again. He allows as he’s sure he’s on the trail. ‘But,’ he says, ‘I’ll not hear of you running around in dark alleys and corridors.’

“Now I’m wondering what cause he could have to warn me special when every ladybird this side of the City is shivering at the thought of a knife ’cross her neck, so I asks him whether I’ve any choice but to take a plunge into the dark every now and then.

“He grabs my hand and then he says, ‘Rely on your income from this West-end benefactor. I have high hopes of success, but I beg that you will keep low until I can manage to set things right.’

“Well, that couldn’t help but strike me as queer, and when he’d left the pub with a promise to meet again, I duck out of sight into a tobacconist’s and wait until he’s a fair ways off afore I follow him. He goes into the same crib he’d done before, comes out in fresh togs—not the uniform he sometimes wears, but dressed like a toff—and then sets off again. I follows at a safe distance until he turns into a passage what leads to a few rookeries. I waits a good piece before dogging him down the corridor, and when I does I’ve a story to tell him about knowing he’s after another woman if my luck runs out and he spies me. When I reach the end of it, I watch as he goes into a set of digs there on the ground floor.

“I figure the chances a window or a door is open enough for me to hear are long odds considering the London particulars* we’ve had of late, but I creeps up to the house to be certain. And when I does, I hear something, so I duck around the side. Would you believe it—the window’s clear cracked and all broken at one edge, as half of them are thereabouts, not covered by anything more’n a scrap of paper, and if I sets my ear to the broken part careful enough, I can hear every blooming word.

“‘You are certain he stayed here for the duration of his leave?’ Dunlevy asks.

“‘Oh, yes,’ says a woman’s voice. ‘It was but a few days shy of the Bank Holiday and both my daughters away with their aunt in Yorkshire. Naturally I hadn’t the heart to leave the attic room empty when I knew there’d be visitors to the city, and soldiers on leave.’

“‘Indeed not. But the day after the holiday, he disappeared without warning?’

“‘It was the strangest thing,’ says she. ‘My Joseph is naught but ten, and that Blackstone swore he would show him the right way around a pistol the next morning. Then we come to find he was clean gone. Though he did leave his money all laid out on the table there. It’s a shame he left no trace of himself, for as you know he’s a charming fellow and was very well spoken to the children.’

“‘Quite so, ma’am. If I should discover his whereabouts soon, I shall be glad to give him your regards.’

“And on they go, but I’ve heard a fair piece and’ve always had rum enough luck without tempting it, so I legs it back here. I thought best to leave all to Mr. Holmes.”

“Undoubtedly, Miss Monk!” I affirmed. “Back to Baker Street and Holmes will sort this out. Stephen Dunlevy was right about one thing—we must exercise all necessary caution.”

Holmes was awake when we arrived but still ashen of countenance, leaning heavily against the sitting room mantelpiece in his shirtsleeves and mouse-coloured dressing gown. He had swept all objects from the ledge and replaced them with a hastily sketched map of Whitechapel covered in scrawled markings and obscure street references. Its legibility was not aided by the fact that my friend was right-handed, and unable to make use of that particular limb. Disheveled as he was, staring fixedly at a jumble of erratically scribbled byways, he could as easily have been an escapee from an asylum as the final court of appeal in criminal detection.

“Miss Monk, where does Stephen Dunlevy keep his pocket handkerchief?”

“In the lining of his coat, if I recall.”

“Hum. I thought as much.”

She was staring at my friend despondently. “Lor’, Mr. Holmes, I knew you was bad off that night from the doctor’s dinner jacket, but to see you like this—”

“You have been considering going into business, I see.”

“How do you know that?” she gasped.

“The same process which informs me you got very drunk recently and have a young female acquaintance, possibly a neighbour, whose happiness is of some import to you.”

“Of all the rotten cheek,” cried Miss Monk, her chin up and her eyes blazing. “You’ll talk that way to the carpet if you like, for I’ll be damned if I stay to hear it.”

As she made her way to the door, Holmes, employing perhaps the last of his resources, leapt after her, catching her gently and easily by the wrist. “My sincerest apologies, Miss Monk. Dr. Watson will tell you that my powers have not the charm of tact to recommend them. Pray sit down.”

Miss Monk peered suspiciously at Holmes, but her temper waned as quickly as it had sparked. “Well, then. I’ll not say you were wrong, just a mite…forward. I’m that glad to see you alive, at any rate. There, I oughtn’t to have flared out so, but I thought the whole thing a slum.”

“My dear Miss Monk, I would never dream of using trickery to gain special knowledge,” sighed Holmes as he made his laborious way toward the settee, lying down and passing his operative hand through his hair. “Though you are not the first to think so, and if I am lucky you shall not be the last.”

“How d’ye do it, then?”

He leaned his head back, shutting his eyes. “That you are thinking of going into business is obvious from the four separate varieties of rag doll peeping at various angles from your pockets. Impoverished mothers make them, leaving it to their young offspring to hawk the wares. If you can provide materials with your new capital, you may well manage to ease the lives of all your acquaintances, at least those with rudimentary sewing skills.”

“What of the girl?”

“You’ve already examined and formed an opinion of each design. They are now well within your income, have no actual value, and yet you carry them about with you. They are a gift. What sort of person would be likely to enjoy such a gesture?”

“They are for Emily. She’s not yet four, poor little mite. And?” Miss Monk prompted, not willing to employ any further syllables.

Holmes winced gallantly and replied, “Your shoes.”

“My shoes?”

“The right shoe.”

She looked down quickly and glanced up again at Holmes.

“You recently replaced your worn boots with new ones, and thus when I last saw you, they were relatively unmarked. There is now a significant marring of the leather, in more than one place, on the right boot: you have been kicking something heavy, and quite violently.” The clinical tone in an instant gave way to easy charm. “I congratulate you that, while it is the nature of drink to compel one to lash out physically, it is the nature of a thinking person to confine her rage to one foot.”

“I’ll own up to it. Saturday night gave me a turn, and I was finding a bit of ease at the bottom of a glass.”

“My dear Miss Monk, I cannot tell you how—”

“Oh, bollocks to you both! I’ve had my fit, don’t you see, and all that’s left is a scuffed boot, and what’s a scuffed boot to the likes of us?” she cried, and sat quite naturally on our sitting room floor, Indian-style, next to Holmes’s head. “So what are we to do?”

“Wait a moment.” He laughed. “I have not all my data about me. You continue to meet with Private Dunlevy, do you not?”