“I see you’ve exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Tavistock,” he commented wryly.

“I am sorry, Holmes. You ought to be resting. How do you feel?”

“A bit like the misaligned pistons of an unbalanced steam engine.”

“I shall prepare some morphia if you like.”

“Dear me. Best have it out at once, Watson.” He smiled. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

I related, with a deal of disgust, the conversation which had passed between me and Mr. Tavistock. When I concluded, Holmes’s piercing gaze settled into an unfocused reverie as he reached for a cigarette. It was near ten minutes before he spoke again.

“It is the most confounded nuisance to be unable to light one’s pipe effectively.”

I could not help but smile at this non sequitur. “It is always trying to lose the use of an appendage, however temporary. I ought to know.”

“I have my pick of annoyances today, to be sure. Tavistock mentioned nothing that would give away a clue as to his source?”

“Nothing.”

“And he does not appear to you to be approaching a state of penitence.”

“That would be understating the matter.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the distant ringing of the bell. “That will be Lestrade.” Holmes sighed. “He purports to inform us of the new victims’ identities and habits. His call, however, was preceded by a reply-paid telegram asking after my degree of fragility, a kindly meant sentiment that you will agree does not bode well.”

Lestrade’s dogged, inquisitive features had sagged into an expression of resigned determination to see a bad business through no matter the cost. His persistence was an admirable distinction but, I now realized, a trying one as well, for he seemed not to have slept more than six hours since I had left him in Whitechapel.

“Mr. Holmes,” he said, a smile briefly quickening his features, “I’ve brought respects from your friends at the Yard.”

“Convey them my thanks, if you would. Have a seat, and regale the infirmatory with tales of the latest victims.”

“Well,” Lestrade declared, drawing out his official notebook, “we do at least know who they are. Though that does us no positive good at all. First victim of the evening was one Elizabeth Stride, a widow who may or may not have had children.”

I nodded. “The unhappy woman dressed all in black. By chance, we caught a glimpse of her in the neighbourhood just before she was killed.”

“Did you?” Lestrade responded eagerly. “Who was she with?”

I had already shrugged my shoulders in apology for my imperfect memory when Holmes replied, “A brewer who resides in Norwood with his domineering mother and has absolutely no bearing upon the matter at hand.”

“Ah. In any case, her habitual mourning was supposedly for her husband and children, all of whom she claims died in the Princess Alice steamship collision, but we have records stating her husband, John Thomas Stride, died from heart disease in the Poplar Union Workhouse; she must have meant to elicit more charity by it. She was born in Sweden, according to her local Swedish Church clergy, who tell us she was a wreck of a woman and lucky to have lived so long. We’ve also interviewed her live-in man, Michael Kidney. He apparently used to padlock her indoors.”

“Charming. Well, it explains the duplicate key.”

“As for the other poor creature,” continued Lestrade with a shudder, “her name was Catherine Eddowes, and she had three children by a man named Thomas Conway of the Eighteenth Royal Irish. No suggestion they were ever married. Just wandered from place to place hawking gallows ballads. She lost touch with him and the children after she took to drink, and had recently returned from hop picking with her man when she was killed. Name of John Kelly—took us a mite longer to find him than we would have liked, but they were sleeping separate on the night of the murder. Hadn’t the money for a double bed.”

“Lestrade, does any evidence lead you to believe that Eddowes and Stride, or Nichols and Chapman, or any combination of the victims accrued thus far were known to each other?”

The inspector shook his head. “Seemed an idea worth having to me as well, Mr. Holmes—they all may have been members of some heathen cult, killed for betraying the society, that sort of trash. Better still, that they’d all an old flame in common. Nothing of the sort has turned up. They may have spoken to each other, but they were none of them friends.”

“Then I am very much afraid I may be right,” Holmes murmured.

“Right about what, Mr. Holmes?”

“I must iron out my theory a bit more, Lestrade, and then you can be sure to learn of it. Have you any leads in your own investigation?”

“Well, Mr. Holmes, the truth is, there are some at the Yard who think we do have a lead,” Lestrade admitted.

“You’re of the opinion they are mistaken, then?” my friend suggested knowingly.

“Well, I am. Mind you, it’s not many of the inspectors, but they’re a damn sight louder than they ought to be.”

“You have my full attention.”

“Bearing in mind, Mr. Holmes, in my opinion, this line of questioning is the worst sort of wild goose chase.”

“So this fruitless lead is emphatically not one that you espouse?” the detective prodded with uncharacteristic good humour. “Perhaps your firsthand experience of the case sets you against it. Or perhaps even your own special knowledge of the suspect.”

“Well, I don’t intend to waste my time on it, that I’ll swear to. So have Gregson, Jones, Wickliff, Lanner, Hawes…”

“I should be delighted to look into the matter in your stead,” my friend offered.

“I don’t intend to squander your energies, Mr. Holmes.”

“Nonsense,” he scoffed. “I suspect I could confine my inquiries to this very room.”

Lestrade looked as if our carpet had been pulled out from under him, but he soon rallied and clenched his fists in frustration. “Confound it all, I’m that ashamed to tell you, but you’ve brought it on yourself, haven’t you?” cried the exhausted inspector. “All this ‘you will find the gun in the third stable on the left,’ and ‘the letter was posted by a man in a wideawake hat.’ Knowing things you shouldn’t, appearing magically at crime scenes! Bennett was in my office this morning and said it’s a miracle this hasn’t happened before.”

“Ha! You do suspect me, then! This really is most gratifying.”

“Mr. Holmes, I assure you—”

“No, please, I shall just sketch the outline of this little theory for the sake of argument,” announced Holmes with an air of exaggerated deliberation. “So, to retrace my own steps, the night of Bank Holiday, I stabbed Martha Tabram thirty-nine times in a mad frenzy. Dr. Watson may assert that I passed a quiet evening restringing the bow for my fiddle, but—”

“I never said—”

“When you knocked me up the morning after the Nichols killing, did I betray myself with any suspicious behaviour?”

“Mr. Holmes—”

“I am just working out how I managed to kill Elizabeth Stride moments before I discovered her body,” he continued ruthlessly. “But if the Doctor lied about my activities the night of Bank Holiday, why should he not do so again? I really must apologize to you, my dear Watson, for ever having asked you to maintain this vile charade. After killing Stride, I dashed off to the City to slay Eddowes, then returned to the scene of my earlier crime covered in her blood. What could be simpler?”

“Now, see here,” cried the red-faced inspector. “I’ve not come here in person to present you with all the evidence we’ve gathered because I think you’ve anything to do with the matter! Your character was never even questioned before that wretched article turned everything on end yesterday. We’ve been hung out to dry in the press, and there’s one or two who had a dark laugh that you’d been put to it as well. Soon enough, some of our number started asking awkward questions about the article’s contents, and there you are.”