As a soldier and a doctor, I know that a man who is
very badly hurt in battle often feels no pain. If he
lives, he remembers nothing about what has
happened to him. After that terrible night in
Whitechapel, I was like that man. The next day, I
woke up and found myself lying in a park. My watch
and my money had gone, and I was cold and dirty. I
knew that I had spent many hours drinking, but I did
not know where I had been, or what had happened
to me.
I did not want to go to Baker Street, because I was
afraid that Holmes would be there, but I needed a
bath and dry clothes. In the end, I paid a cab-driver
to knock on the door. The house was empty, so I
went in.
There was a telegram from Holmes. 'M has escaped
us,' it said. 'He is trying to leave the country, but I am
following him.' I did not know what to think. Was I
mad, or was my best friend, the man who I had
worked with for so many years, a murderer?
That evening, the murder in Whitechapel of a young
woman called Mary Kelly was reported in the
newspapers. This murder was more bloody, more
horrible than any that had happened before. It was
clear that it was the work of Jack the Ripper.
I was still reading the newspaper reports of the
murder when Lestrade arrived.
'Good evening, doctor,' he said. 'I'd like a word with
Mr Holmes.'
I did not know what to say. Did the police already
know what Holmes had done?
Then Lestrade saw the telegram, picked it up and
read it. 'Running off for a little holiday, is he?' he said.
'Some of us have to work for a living. We've had
enough of Mr Holmes and the kind of help he gives
the police.'
'Come now,' I said. 'Holmes was right. There was a
murder on the night he told us that there would be.'
Lestrade laughed. 'Oh yes. There was a murder all
right. We had hundreds of policemen on the streets,
but we couldn't stop the murder or catch the killer.
The police were everywhere _ except the little corner
of Whitechapel where the girl died.'
He spoke in a low voice as he continued, 'I've never
seen anything like it. It will be days before I can eat
meat again.
You're lucky you didn't see her, doctor. We had to
keep the worst thing of all out of the newspapers, but
I can tell you. The girl was pregnant. He cut her up,
and he cut up the baby, too.'
I felt a cold hand touch me. 'He will kill twice tonight.'
. 'What did you say?'
'Oh, nothing. What are you doing to catch him?'
'What can we do? Nobody heard a scream or saw
anything.' He looked again at the telegram. 'Who is
this "M"?' he asked. 'Oh, he just means the murderer,' I
said.
After Lestrade left, I tried hard to think of some other
way of explaining what I had seen that night. I had
seen Holmes cutting up the body, but I had not seen
him kill the girl. How could my dear friend possibly be
this terrible killer? Perhaps it was all part of some
clever plan that I did not understand.
For some days I thought I had found an answer to
the problem, but then a telegram arrived from
Holmes, who was now in Switzerland. It said, 'M is no
more. Returning Saturday. Holmes.'
Suddenly I realized that I
was afraid of seeing him
again, and my worry
returned, stronger than
ever. Was he the killer or
not? I had to know the
truth - and quickly. To
help me think clearly, I
wrote down what I knew.
Is Sherlock Holmes the
Whitechapel murderer?
The arguments for:
1 He was in Whitechapel on the nights of the
murders, and alone at the right times.
2 When he was out of London or I was with him, there
were no murders.
3 He can change his appearance easily.
4 He studied medicine. He could easily cut up a
body in the dark.
5 He knows the lanes and yards of Whitechapel well.
6 He can escape from the police because he knows
their plans - indeed, he makes their plans.
The arguments against:
1 He spends his life fighting crime.
2 I know my friend. I know he could not do these
things.
When I read what I had written, I began to wonder
how well I knew Holmes. Did he really fight against
crime? He took cases because they interested him,
not because he hated crime. It was all just a game
to him. He fought crime to amuse himself. It was now
late at night. I was terribly tired, but I knew that I had
to decide what to do before Holmes came back.
Suddenly, as I lay back in my chair, half-asleep, the
terrible picture of Holmes cutting up that girl's body
appeared again before my eyes. Then, finally, I
knew. It was not what I had seen him do, but how he
had done it. That look of cool amusement on his
face. The way he sang as he worked. The man who
could do that could do anything.
Next day I packed my bags and moved into a hotel.
That evening I asked Mary to have dinner with me. I
told her that I could not sleep while she lived alone in
London and the Whitechapel murderer was free to
kill again. I asked her to marry me sooner than we
had planned. She laughed and said she was not
afraid of the murderer. He never killed women like
her. But she would marry me as soon as possible, she
said, because I looked so worried and unhappy.
Then I wrote a letter to Holmes.
'I am sorry that I cannot welcome you home,' I wrote,
'but I have a reason for that, the best reason in the
world. Mary and I are married. She was badly
frightened by those awful murders in Whitechapel
and will feel safer now that I am by her side.
'It is wonderful to hear from you that Professor
Moriarty is dead. Of course I look forward to hearing
the full story of his death from you.
'Mary and I are spending a little time travelling.
Please write to me at my London club.'
Several days later, Mary and I were married, and we
left London. In a quiet little town by the sea, with
Mary by my side, I felt strong enough to face the
awful truth about Holmes, and to think about what I
had to do. I could not go to the police with my story.
They would think that I was mad. I decided that I
would have to watch Holmes carefully. Only I could
stop him killing again.
When I returned to London, I found a letter from
Holmes waiting for me at my club. He told me that
he was going to Russia, to work on a strange and
exciting murder case.
'I am bored with London, now that Jack the Ripper is
dead,' he wrote. 'Perhaps the foreign criminal has
more to offer me. I shall not return to London for
some time. Please inform me of your new address.'
After reading this, I was happier than I had been for
many weeks. Mary and I finished our holiday and
moved to a house in London, not far from Baker
Street. I was busy with my work as a doctor, and we
lived quietly and happily together.
During this time I was sent two wonderful letters by
Holmes.
He had brought his work on the Russian mystery to a
successful end, and had gone from Russia to Ceylon,
where the sudden death of a rich tea-planter
offered him the interest and excitement he needed.
The Holmes who wrote these letters to me sounded
like the old Holmes that I knew.
'He is dangerous when he is bored and uses
cocaine,' I thought. 'When he is enjoying his work,
London is safe.'
One day in March, as I walked along Baker Street, I
saw a light in Holmes's window, and knew that he
had returned. I went in, and he welcomed me like
the dear old friend he had been. All evening we sat
by the fire, and he told me everything that had
happened in Russia and Ceylon. But what I really
wanted to hear about was Moriarty's death, and
about that he said not one word.
At last I could wait no longer.
'My dear Holmes,' I said. 'It is almost midnight, and
you still have not told me how Moriarty died!'
At once his face went white, and his eyes became
fixed in a stare. He sat silent and unmoving, as the
seconds passed.
Then he said, 'I'm sorry, Watson. I was thinking about
something to do with my last case. What did you
say?' 'Moriarty,' I repeated. 'You have not told me
how he died.' 'He has gone,' he said. 'That is all that
anyone needs to know about him.'
I asked him to tell me more, and found out that his
final meeting with Moriarty had been in Switzerland,
on a narrow path above a famous waterfall. Holmes
had won the argument, he told me coldly. And that
was all that he would tell me.
Holmes and I were friends again, and soon I began
helping him with new cases. It was just like old times. I
am afraid that I often left my wife alone, and I did
not give enough time to my patients, but I was
happy to see Holmes interested and busy.
One day he gave me his cocaine-bottle. 'Take it,
doctor,' he said. 'I do not need it any more.'
I was very pleased indeed at this news, and only one
thing that happened at this time worried me. A
woman was killed in Whitechapel, and people
began to talk again about Jack the Ripper. I
carefully checked where Holmes had been on the
night of the murder, and found that he had spent the
evening with two famous foreign detectives. I even
spoke to them both secretly, and so I was sure that
Holmes had not been in Whitechapel that night.
In 1890 I decided that I must begin to spend less time
with Holmes. I wanted to be a success as a doctor,
and I knew that I was not working hard enough for
that. Mary and I moved to a new house, further from
Baker Street.
There was another change, too. ACD's story, A Study
in Scarlet, which had failed in this country, was a big
success in America, and he began to write about
more of Holmes's cases. To my surprise, Holmes
quickly agreed to let him do this. He had been angry
when he first read A Study in Scarlet, but now he
seemed amused by what ACD was doing.
1891 began, and life for me was calm and happy. I
was working hard, and I had little time to spend with
Holmes. Jack the Ripper was a thing of the past, as
forgotten as yesterday's newspapers, as dead as the
women he had murdered. But Jack was not dead.
He was only resting, and his rest would soon be over.