The old detective in the armchair coughed repeatedly. I put a reassuring hand on his wrist and patted it once. He smiled and looked up at his companion who stood behind his chair. Dr Watson offered him a glass of water and said, ‘Holmes, you must get some rest now.’
‘Watson, you worry too much as always,’ chided the legendary detective. He turned his face back at me and said, ‘I would go with you if I could. I am afraid in my present condition; I would be no use to you.’
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘You have done enough already. For years. For everyone. Far too much, if I may say so. Dr. Watson is right; you need the rest.’
I got up, shook their hands and walked out of that old cottage in East Dean, Sussex Downs.
In the pouring rain, at an hour when even London slept, I stood shoulder to shoulder with ‘the woman’. I call her the woman because I know of no other like her. She always looked like a demigod’s dream, could drive a race car and there was probably no better shot in England.
She looked at the double-barrelled flintlock shotgun I was holding and said, ‘How do you even use that? It is the most impractical thing, I have seen.’
I looked at her, a vison in the frilly orange shirt, the red hair, that face and the Winchester 12 she was holding. ‘It gets the job done. Quickly.’ I went on to add, ‘You can gift it to the old chap in case tonight does not go as planned.’
‘Shut up, shut up, you morose boy. This will go as it always does.’
The horse carriage rolled up at a brisk pace to that opulent two floor apartment building. He stepped out. There was no mistaking that profile, the sideburns, the over-frock coat. He went up to his apartment. The doorman at the gate bowed low. As soon as the carriage left, we walked up to the gate. The doorman opened the gate and walked away. He had been told earlier.
We went up to the apartment and knocked on the door. He opened the door himself, bewildered, His butler had the night off. He looked at Lady Wickham. He looked at me. He noticed the guns. From some room, a melancholic song played on a gramophone.
‘Are you the police?’ he asked calmly.
‘No, we are not Lord A______ ‘, I replied.
‘So, you are not here to arrest me?’ he said with a strange chuckle.
‘No.’
‘May I ask how you found me?’
‘Mary had a button in her hand, her fingers had clenched it ever so tightly, even as you did what you did’, said Bobbie in a guttural tone.
He looked at Bobbie. A starving wolf looking a young fawn.
‘And that you say is proof? A button?’. He decided to pour himself a drink. I noticed the ice pick in his hand.
‘It is not proof in a court of law, perhaps,’ I said. ‘The button, sewed on by only one tailor in all of London, an exquisite piece of art on an extraordinarily expensive suit. Used on only two other suit pieces.’
Lord A_______ smirked.
‘All of the people who bought these suits, they all did things to this Mary?’
‘There were no others. All these suits were bought by you. For your hunts. You could not resist the customized buttons.’
‘I lost a button. You do know that I could lose a button. It is not proof.’
‘Every other girl. Ada, Emma, Elizabeth, each of those nights, you were in the vicinity.’
‘Who are you two?’ He snarled. ‘A mongrel and his w_____? Do you know who I am? Do you know that I could place a summons and no one would ever hear from you again? Who in the bloody hell are you?’
It was my turn to smirk. He lunged and the ice pick entered my shoulder.
‘I am the knock that should have come much earlier,’ I said and fired the double-barrelled flintlock.
Another song was playing on the gramophone.
We stood outside the apartment. The rain continued to wash London. Bobbie Wickham had an arm around me. She was sobbing.
A dark car pulled up. Lestrade got out with three other men. These men were not Scotland Yard. They walked up to us.
‘Jack the Ripper won’t trouble London anymore,’ I said.
He nodded.
THE END.
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