Read Online Castle Rouge by Carole Nelson Douglas - Free Book Online
Authors: Carole Nelson Douglas
Ads: Link
magnificent yet grossly visible and daily dance of the planets and stars struck me as beyond belief.
Holmes shrugged and offered one of his rare, charming smiles, which were usually exerted with nervous clients and not myself.
“I am a reprobate, Watson, when it comes to matters which have no bearing on the intimate course of my investigations. However, I am willing to learn. And it appears that this Krafft-Ebing has, in his much-loathed and yet eagerly devoured book, described a legion of Jack the Rippers.”
I began to page through it looking for an assemblage of words that would translate most readily to my stumbling eye. “How did you come across this book?”
“It was a gift.”
I looked up amazed. Holmes received payment, sometimes in the form of costly trinkets from rich and titled persons, never anything as personal as mere “gifts.”
His lips remained firmly shut, an expression that a stick of dynamite could not blast open, but I detected a dampened smile. A smug dampened smile.
“So you believe that this bizarre book will aid you in finding the Ripper, who appears to have finished his work with the ending of last year and has vanished into the foul mists from which he came.”
Holmes’s eyes narrowed, perhaps from the rank smoke the old clay bowl heaved up like Vesuvius.
“This is as foul a trail as I have ever followed, Watson, and already I know of decent women who have been devastated by it. I find that makes my blood boil. I am even finding the brutal despoilation of indecent women making my blood boil. No honest Englishman should tolerate what has been made of Whitechapel, both before and after Jack the Ripper. I mean to have him. That may require me to delve into deeper, darker matters than I ever have before, and you know my appetite for human horror, for the axe murderers and acid poisoners and all manner of human depravity. This Ripper has reached a new level of atrocity. I will understand it. I will understand him. And I will catch him. Are you game to go with me?”
“Of course, Holmes. I brought my old service revolver.”
Holmes smiled, tightly. “Bullets may be our least line of defense against what will come. But it is heartening to know you stand with me on this.”
4.
Pitiless Whitechapel
Here I am noble; I am boyar. The common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not—and to know not is to care not for .
— THE COUNT TO JONATHAN HARKER, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
FROM THE NOTES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M. D.
Before we left on our unwholesome errand, Holmes had changed into one of the lounge suits that were becoming popular on the streets of London, an American habit, I believe, that no Harley Street physician would dare adapt, nor even a lowly Paddington doctor. The jacket lacked the flourishes of city attire: coat skirts or tails. In that respect it resembled the more casual dress worn at sporting events, save it was constructed in decent, sober black wool rather than loose-woven linen or sackcloth.
“I am told, Watson, that supposed gentlemen amble among the greasy lanes of Whitechapel, though all I have thus far seen there are would-be gentlemen tricked out in bits and pieces of their betters’ attire, rather like the unfortunates themselves in their velvet-trimmed bonnets.”
The hansom had left us off where Holmes had directed, at Fairclough and Berner Streets. The jointure of those two names brought a shudder to my sturdy frame, for they often figured in newspaper stories of various evils.
“You suspect a gentleman of the Ripper slayings?” I asked, keeping my tone low against eavesdroppers and my hands in my pockets against thieves.
“I? No. But that is the current fashionable theory among the Fleet Street speculators who pass themselves off as journalists. It is not bad enough that a homicidal monster stalks the alleyways; he must be a man of privilege and position. If I had a farthing, Watson, for all the
Holmes shrugged and offered one of his rare, charming smiles, which were usually exerted with nervous clients and not myself.
“I am a reprobate, Watson, when it comes to matters which have no bearing on the intimate course of my investigations. However, I am willing to learn. And it appears that this Krafft-Ebing has, in his much-loathed and yet eagerly devoured book, described a legion of Jack the Rippers.”
I began to page through it looking for an assemblage of words that would translate most readily to my stumbling eye. “How did you come across this book?”
“It was a gift.”
I looked up amazed. Holmes received payment, sometimes in the form of costly trinkets from rich and titled persons, never anything as personal as mere “gifts.”
His lips remained firmly shut, an expression that a stick of dynamite could not blast open, but I detected a dampened smile. A smug dampened smile.
“So you believe that this bizarre book will aid you in finding the Ripper, who appears to have finished his work with the ending of last year and has vanished into the foul mists from which he came.”
Holmes’s eyes narrowed, perhaps from the rank smoke the old clay bowl heaved up like Vesuvius.
“This is as foul a trail as I have ever followed, Watson, and already I know of decent women who have been devastated by it. I find that makes my blood boil. I am even finding the brutal despoilation of indecent women making my blood boil. No honest Englishman should tolerate what has been made of Whitechapel, both before and after Jack the Ripper. I mean to have him. That may require me to delve into deeper, darker matters than I ever have before, and you know my appetite for human horror, for the axe murderers and acid poisoners and all manner of human depravity. This Ripper has reached a new level of atrocity. I will understand it. I will understand him. And I will catch him. Are you game to go with me?”
“Of course, Holmes. I brought my old service revolver.”
Holmes smiled, tightly. “Bullets may be our least line of defense against what will come. But it is heartening to know you stand with me on this.”
4.
Pitiless Whitechapel
Here I am noble; I am boyar. The common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not—and to know not is to care not for .
— THE COUNT TO JONATHAN HARKER, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
FROM THE NOTES OF JOHN H. WATSON, M. D.
Before we left on our unwholesome errand, Holmes had changed into one of the lounge suits that were becoming popular on the streets of London, an American habit, I believe, that no Harley Street physician would dare adapt, nor even a lowly Paddington doctor. The jacket lacked the flourishes of city attire: coat skirts or tails. In that respect it resembled the more casual dress worn at sporting events, save it was constructed in decent, sober black wool rather than loose-woven linen or sackcloth.
“I am told, Watson, that supposed gentlemen amble among the greasy lanes of Whitechapel, though all I have thus far seen there are would-be gentlemen tricked out in bits and pieces of their betters’ attire, rather like the unfortunates themselves in their velvet-trimmed bonnets.”
The hansom had left us off where Holmes had directed, at Fairclough and Berner Streets. The jointure of those two names brought a shudder to my sturdy frame, for they often figured in newspaper stories of various evils.
“You suspect a gentleman of the Ripper slayings?” I asked, keeping my tone low against eavesdroppers and my hands in my pockets against thieves.
“I? No. But that is the current fashionable theory among the Fleet Street speculators who pass themselves off as journalists. It is not bad enough that a homicidal monster stalks the alleyways; he must be a man of privilege and position. If I had a farthing, Watson, for all the
Similar Books
