The House at Baker Street (32 page)

‘I’m not supposed to say,’ he said quietly. ‘Not to you. I have to tell him. That’s what I was told. I was too good to waste my talents. He told me that over and
over again, rammed it into my head until I could barely breathe.’

The madness had always been there, latent inside him, but controlled, so very firmly controlled. But I was correct: someone else had been there, and made his control slip away with promises of
the great final battle against the great thinker, Sherlock Holmes. Who could slip inside a madman’s brain like that and play it so well?

‘Well, practise on me,’ I said to him. The more he talked, the more chance there was he would let slip who was behind this. ‘You want to get it right when he gets here,
don’t you? Tell me, so you know what to say when it matters.’

‘I must get it perfect,’ he said, nodding. ‘It’s very important. And you don’t matter . . . I only saw the first one,’ he continued, trying to explain.
‘The very first woman I led to death. One hot summer day by the sea, on those high cliffs at Beachy Head, surrounded by friends, I told her what I was going to tell her husband. Oh, it was
horrible, what I was going to tell him. It would have destroyed them both, and a few others too. Do you know, she didn’t cry? Not even beg. She just stood up, walked to the edge of the cliff,
and jumped to her death. Oh, it was wonderful! I’d done that, do you understand? I’d taken her life, I had utter control. Do you know how intoxicating that is?’ His eyes sparkled.
I’d heard the phrase ‘drunk with power’ but now I was seeing it.

That was when Mary struck. She raised the poker and slammed it down on his arm. He cried out, but he didn’t drop the gun. Instead he fired – the shot was wide, but it was enough. She
cried once, and fell, hard against the bookcase. They were duelling pistols, they only had one shot each, but one could be enough. I leapt forward for the other gun, but he was so fast, much faster
than me! He spun and charged into me, slamming me into the wall, leaving me breathless on the floor. He raised the other gun.

‘No!’ I cried, holding out my hand. I could barely breathe. I could see Mary had hit her head badly. Blood poured down her cheek, and there was blood on her dress too. She seemed to
be unconscious, but breathing. I had to keep us both alive.

‘Tell me!’ I insisted. ‘You owe me. Tell me.’

‘Tell you?’ he said, hesitating.

‘How else can I tell the world, once you’ve killed Mr Holmes?’

For a moment, he wavered. Sanity and madness warred within – but madness won.

‘You murdered girls,’ I accused him.

‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘Only kitchen maids who were going to tell their mistresses. Prostitutes who held back their secrets.’

‘You liked it,’ I told him, trying to sit up. My stomach hurt so much, and I could barely catch my breath.

‘Aren’t you clever?’ he said, surprised. ‘No, not you. Did Mr Holmes tell you all this?’

I wasn’t sure. True, what I had come up with was half deduction, but also half guesswork. It just so happened my guesses were right. Was this how Mr Holmes worked? Deductions and clever
guesses?

Mary’s eyes were fluttering.

‘Yes,’ I murmured. ‘He’s so close now. He is in the lane outside. He will be here soon. Please, tell me it all. I have to know.’

‘That look in their eyes as you slide in the knife, Mrs Hudson,’ he said to me. ‘Their own blood dripping to the floor as they watch. Looking at you, knowing they will die, but
not yet, not until you decide they will – that’s power, too, Mrs Hudson. Although I admit it’s not quite as good as destroying their minds. I have always loved watching someone
slip into that moment of destruction. Which path will they choose? Anger, sorrow?’

He stepped towards me, his pale eyes burning, the gun wavering in his hand. He had to tell someone.

‘Why you?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Why am I telling you this?’

‘People always tell me things,’ I said, pulling myself up, hanging on to the table. I held his gaze calmly.

‘Sometimes they begged, sometimes they pleaded. Sometimes they became autocratic and ordered me to stop. That always made me laugh! And sometimes they offered me things. I have been
offered fabulous jewels, and women’s bodies, men’s bodies, and huge amounts of money.’

‘I can’t imagine that would appeal to you.’ Behind him, Mary’s eyes opened. She slowly wiped the blood away from her face, and glanced down at her dress. She was awake,
but was she aware? Could she help? Because truth to tell, I had run out of moves to play now. I had reached the end of my game, and I had no idea how to win this. The only ending I could see was
with the two of us dead.

‘You should know,’ he said to me. ‘Now it’s about to end for you too. There’s no real loyalty in the world, Mrs Hudson. No love. No one would die for anyone else.
Romantic novelist’s claptrap.’

He’d never loved, never touched, never had a moment’s affection. He had been damaged and never saved.

‘Blood’s different,’ he told me. ‘It never lies. It’s real, when it’s warm and sticky on my hand. The secrets were important, the secrets were life, but the
blood – I didn’t want it at first. He insisted.’

‘Who?’

‘Him,’ he said, as if it were obvious. Did this figure even exist? Had the solicitor imagined a force driving him onwards to commit even worse acts? I was no longer sure who he meant
by ‘he’. Mr Holmes, his guide, or someone else entirely?

‘Once the blood was there, my heart beat like a lover’s, and I wanted more. Secrets and blood, the two sweetest, truest things in all the world.’ He was lost now. No one was
coming. Mary was pulling herself up on the bookcase, hand over hand, but how could she help? He was so fast, so strong.

‘I see.’

‘Life is full of secrets,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve always known the biggest one. There is no love.’ This was it. He had gone as far as he could go. The end was here.
He looked up at the garden and knew it was empty.

I had moved, just slightly, whilst he talked, to keep his back to Mary, and now I realized I had made a mistake. He was between me and the garden. There was no escape route now.

‘Is he here? Is he listening? Please tell me he’s here,’ he said, looking at me. He seemed so tired, and I swear there was a tear in his eye. ‘It needs to be over
now.’

‘Soon,’ I promised. ‘It’ll all be over soon, for both of us.’

‘Soon,’ he mocked. ‘See, I was right! They didn’t even come for you. Not even his own wife. He was right. Time to end this.’ He raised the gun so I could see
directly down the barrel. Mary couldn’t see, blinded by her own blood. Play dead, Mary. Maybe you can escape if he believes he’s already killed you.

‘Do you know why I blackmailed women? Why I killed them?’

‘No,’ I said, lying. I had realized that ages ago. Just for the same petty reason all the Law and the Church and the men in charge were against us. The same stupid lie.

Please, Mary, don’t try again, he’ll kill us both. I wished this so hard, as Mary began to move, but I didn’t dare speak, or even look at her.

‘You’re so weak!’ he announced. ‘So feeble. You can’t even think straight. You never knew, none of you ever knew. As for fighting – you couldn’t! You
all just whimpered and cried and begged. You, all you women, you made it all so easy!’ he exulted.

It all came back to me. The patronizing smiles. The men who told me ‘not to worry my pretty little head’. The doors that were closed to me, the rules that barred me, the small,
pointless role I was forced to play in my own life. I thought of all the women who were afraid and alone, all the women he had destroyed, all the women he had been allowed to destroy, and I thought
to myself: I can fight. I can fight the same way he does. He destroys with words – well, I can do that too.

‘All those women weren’t enough of a challenge,’ I said to him.

‘No, not quite. I needed a game worth the playing.’

‘But Mr Holmes didn’t play!’

‘Oh, he will. I have been assured he will. I thought tonight was the final move, but it was only the beginning of the end. The check before checkmate. Remove the queen, leave only the
king.’

‘Holmes?’ I said, disbelievingly. ‘He’s not the one here now, is he?’

‘What do you mean? You said he was coming!’ he cried. His grip was tightening on that gun. It may not have been a weapon he used often, but he seemed to like the feel of it in his
hand more and more.

‘I lied,’ I told him, with as much contempt as I could muster. ‘Mr Holmes didn’t follow the clues. He knows nothing about you. I followed the clues. I came tonight, and I
came alone. Sherlock Holmes is not coming.’

‘You’re just the housekeeper. You’re nothing. You are background detail!’

‘Yes, I was in the background, and standing there, I have watched. I have listened. I have learnt. Mr Holmes, your great adversary, found the puzzle too boring, so he passed it on to me,
his housekeeper.’ I stood up straight, my anger blazing, daring him to kill me. I poured all the scorn I was capable of into my voice. ‘Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Get
Sherlock Holmes’ attention? Like a boy sitting at the back of the class, raising his hand and begging “oh please, sir!” whilst the teacher ignores him? You just weren’t
clever enough, I’m afraid. Even I’m bored by you now.’

‘Stop it!’ he screamed.

‘So this is your final battle, is it?’ I demanded. ‘Go on, shoot me, forget her, kill me, but I swear I’ll make you suffer before I die, you miserable little worm of a
man. Not with the great Mr Holmes, not even with Dr Watson, but with an ordinary little housekeeper. A woman. What an ending for your game.’

The hammer of the gun clicked as he drew it back, but I would not flinch. I would not close my eyes. I stared into his eyes. He didn’t understand. He was shaken. He was . . . afraid!
I’d had my moment of triumph, even as I was certain I was about to die.

In the background Mary had stood up, picked up the chair she had been bound to, and with a great cry, swung it round at his head. This time it connected, knocking him sideways, knocking the gun
out of his hand, and he staggered against the desk. The gun fired as it hit the floor, but the bullet struck the window and it shattered. Mary fell backwards, against the bookcase again, this time
grabbing onto a shelf – but something clicked and the bookcase began to move. She had, unawares, revealed a secret door.

‘Well, look what I found!’ Mary breathed, as she straightened up again.

I stepped towards her, reaching out for her, and saw what she saw. Behind the bookcase was a secret room, at least five feet by five feet. The walls were covered with shelves, and the shelves
were full to bursting with files and boxes and pictures.

His secrets. His precious secrets.

Seeing it revealed like that pushed him too far. He half crawled, half lurched into the room, gathering the papers to him. I ignored him, rushing to Mary’s side.

‘Are you all right?’ I demanded. ‘He shot at you!’

‘No, it’s fine; it just missed me, I just hit my head on the bookcase. But look, Martha!’

I walked up to the open door of the hidden room, and looked around at its overflowing records.

I live in a house of secrets. Dozens of secrets, told day after day. All those people who climbed the seventeen steps up to Mr Holmes, and said to him, ‘Help me, rescue me, save me –
but no one must know’. And Mr Holmes and John took those secrets and liberated them and destroyed them, and let the light shine into the darkest corners, and saved their clients. All secrets
were uncovered in 221b Baker Street, eventually.

But here, in this house, were secrets too. Secrets recorded, stolen, hidden, kept to fester and rot and burn in the dark. Another house of secrets, but this house was where despair and death and
darkness spread.

He stood there, staring into this room full of lives already destroyed, and he smiled. His eyes shone like a lover’s, he glowed with desire for those secrets.

‘He’ll be so impressed,’ the solicitor murmured. ‘He’ll be so proud. Look at the power I have!’

I was no longer certain of whom he spoke. Holmes, or his own mysterious mentor? Instead, I moved away, back to the desk, and motioned Mary towards the French window. Time to end this ridiculous
farce. No more talking.

‘No, no more,’ I said to him. ‘This ends, here and now.’ I picked up the oil lamp from the desk. It was heavy, and the oil splashed about in it. The lamp was almost full.
He turned and saw me, and knew what I intended to do. He jumped up, snarling, meaning to rush me and strike me down once more, but instead I threw the lamp towards the room of secrets. It
shattered, the oil spreading over his shirt, then pooling into the room full of dry, dusty old papers. Amongst the oil, the wick lay, the flame sputtering.

I had only meant to burn the papers, I swear. I thought he’d get out. He was supposed to run!

The draught from the window blew in and caught the flame. For a moment I thought it would go out, then it flickered, grew stronger and brighter, and then leapt up, hungry for the fuel all around
it.

‘Oh God,’ I breathed. He was covered in oil, he should have moved away, but instead he cried, and reached out for his precious papers. His secrets, all those letters and papers, his
only reason to live, his pride and joy, about to burn. He could not help himself. Without them he did not exist. He walked into the flames.

‘Martha!’ Mary called. I dashed to the window, but I could hear him cry out. The flames spread up and over and around that room, burning the papers and files and pictures, and in the
centre he stood, seemingly untouched, gathering scraps of paper to his chest, scraps of scorched paper.

‘Run!’ I cried to him, but he would not. He was nothing without his secrets. He was just an empty man, losing the only game he could ever play. He reached for a scrap as it floated
past him – and the oil on his shirt finally caught flame.

I remembered the Whitechapel Lady, and Adam Ballant. I remembered blood. I remembered loss, and pain. I remembered what he had done, and I remembered that he had enjoyed it. Calmly, I stepped
out of the window, into the garden, into the night.