On Monday night Whitechapel was full of policemen,
all ready to catch Jack the Ripper. Nothing
happened. Only Lestrade enjoyed this.
'You have failed, Mr Holmes,' he said. 'Your idea was
very clever, but you made one mistake. You forgot
to tell the murderer about it!'
Holmes and I took a cab back to Baker Street. We
were both too tired to talk then, but later that day I
said, 'Holmes, what did happen? What went wrong?'
'We did not really fail. Moriarty could not kill anyone
because we were there. But 1 badly wanted to
catch him at his work, and there I failed.'
'He was there, then?'
'He was there. He saw what I had done, and realized
that he could not kill a woman that night.'
'Then you did not fail! We have beaten him.' Holmes
shook his head slowly. 'No, Watson. We have not
beaten him yet. Think how angry he must be! I have
stopped him once, and now he will try harder to kill
me. He will go on with his planned murders, and he
will do everything possible to make sure that he
succeeds.'
'But Holmes, how do we ... ?'
'Remember, he kills, waits a week, kills again and
then waits three weeks. So he will kill again next
weekend. 1 must talk to Lestrade. But tonight,
Watson, we shall amuse ourselves at the theatre.'
He would say no more, but that night, while we were
at the theatre, he disappeared from my side without
a word. 1 did not even see him leave, and for several
days I neither saw him nor heard from him. Then, at
dinner time on the night when we had hoped to