The Last Sherlock Holmes Story Read Online Free Page B

Nicholls on the thirty-first. Eight days later a third body was discovered, in a yard behind a house in Hanbury Street. Where are my notes of the inquest? Yes: “The throat had been severed. There were two distinct clean cuts. It appeared as though an attempt had been made to separate the bones of the neck.” I quote from the evidence of Dr Philips, the police surgeon who examined the victim. “There were various other mutilations of the body but I am of the opinion that they occurred subsequent to death. I think I had better not go into further detail of these mutilations which can only be painful to the feelings of the jury and the public.” Humph! Strange scruples, one might think, under the circumstances. The coroner evidently did, for when the inquest resumed he pressed the point. In the words of the Illustrated Police News , “witness then detailed the terrible wounds which had been inflicted upon the woman and described the parts of the body which the perpetrator of the murder had carried away with him.” Which is as far as that upstanding organ, the censor morum of our semi-literate class, is prepared to go. Its reticence was shared by the rest of the daily press, including The Times , which termed Dr Philips’s evidence “totally unfit for publication”. Indeed, one might have been forced to appeal to Lestrade for enlightenment, were it not that you, my dear Watson, still maintain that slender link with the world of medicine: a subscription to the Lancet . That excellent journal was ofcourse under no necessity of sparing its readership, and was thus able to print the unprintable section of Dr Philips’s evidence.’
    Once again he passed me the book, indicating with a bony finger one of the pasted cuttings.
    The abdomen had been entirely laid open; the intestines, severed from their mesenteric attachments, had been lifted out of the body, and placed on the shoulder of the corpse; whilst from the pelvis the uterus and its appendages with the upper portion of the vagina and the posterior two-thirds of the bladder, had been entirely removed. No trace of these parts could be found.
    ‘Such was the fate of the killer’s third victim, Chapman,’ Holmes commented. ‘Do you know this Philips, by the way?’
    ‘But why, Holmes? In God’s name why?’
    ‘My dear fellow! The medical world is a comparatively small one, after all. I thought perhaps –’
    ‘No, no! The murders! This dreadful senseless mutilation! Why should anyone wish to do such a thing? What could it possibly profit them?’
    Holmes looked up at me from the pages of his book.
    ‘You put the matter in a nutshell, Watson. In themselves, after all, the murders are quite insignificant. Such females are killed in one way or another every week in that district, and only the registrar takes any notice. Nothing could be less inspiring to the analytical observer. But when the killer tarries by the lifeless body of his victim, deliberately risking capture in order to inflict the most fiendish mutilations on the insensible flesh, then the affair transcends its sordid content and aspires to the realm of the unique and the inspirational!’
    I could hardly be expected to share Holmes’s sentiments concerning these monstrous atrocities, but I knewmy friend well enough not to be shocked by his callous tone. No amount of weeping or gnashing of teeth was going to bring the maniac responsible to justice. If he could be stopped, Holmes was the man to do it. But could even he bring light into such utter darkness?
    ‘No one knows your powers better than I, Holmes, but I confess I cannot see how you hope to bring them to bear in this case. Here is no closed circle of suspects to be considered one by one, no hidden motive to betray the guilty party. This monster strikes at random, materialising out of the night to do his horrible work, and then vanishing as if by magic! Why, almost any man in London might have done the murders! Your suspects must be counted in