Hello everybody. Summer Skye here with a new story. I thought that I would give this kind of a story a shot, because it is a change of pace for me. So keep an eye out for updates in addition to looking for updates for A Diamond In The Rough.
Cherrio and Merry Christmas!
-WATSON-
It is difficult to describe Lady Evangeline Weatherly of Devonshire. She could be very cold and callous at times, but other times she could be a warm and caring woman. She has captivated many in her lifetime, including my friend and colleague Mr. Sherlock Holmes. But I am getting ahead of myself, as both Holmes and Lady Evangeline have often accused me of doing. Since the story of Lady Evangeline spans further back then my memory can recall I shall begin with when Holmes and I come into her life.
It was in the fall of 1889, when Sherlock Holmes and I were first introduced, in a rather unorthodox fashion, to Lady Evangeline Weatherly. I do not recall what had occurred during our meeting, but Lady Evangeline has given me a full account of what had taken place. The facts as told by the lady are as follows.
As I stated before it was the fall. Winter's hold was becoming present in the air and at night. This meant that many of our more destitute citizens would begin to be stricken with death and disease that was all too common during the winter months.
Holmes and I had spent the better part of the day at Scotland Yard. We had been spending all of our time there these days. The citizens of Whitechapel lived in fear of a monster calling himself Jack the Ripper. Inspector Lestrade had been put in charge of the case. The Ripper had official killed five women and had been blamed in the deaths of others in the last few weeks. The people of Whitechapel could only wait until the next murder. Even Sherlock Holmes was becoming drained over the case. After our interview with Lestrade, he asked me my medical opinion on an unrelated murder case that had been brought to his desk.
Apparently a young man had been both stabbed and shot, but no blood had been found at the scene and no blood was in the body. All that was found was dark ooze that had poured from the wounds.
In the autopsy room, the body lay on the dissection slab. The man was no more than twenty-four. He had light brown hair. His skin was pale and cool to the touch. That was nothing out of the ordinary with a dead body. The stab and gunshot wounds were grouped around the heart. It was as if someone wanted to make sure he was dead. The man had no identification on his person, so he was given the name John Doe. As I examined the body, the coroner's assistant entered with another body on a gurney.
"Please tell me that's not another Ripper victim, Saunders." Lestrade said.
"Nah sir. A Jane Doe. She was found in a boat builder's workshop down by the waterside. She's a real beauty too. A redhead."
Saunders pulled back the sheet to reveal the head of the Jane Doe. She was indeed a beautiful young woman. She couldn't have been more than twenty. She had a head full of long red wavy hair, as Saunders said. Like the John Doe, she was had pale skin, which was also cool to the touch.
"What's the cause of death?" Holmes asked.
"Well that's the strange thing, sir. There's not a mark on her, except for these scars on her wrist." He took the dead woman's arm and showed us the under part of her wrist. There were two scars upon the white flesh. They were circular as if she had been bitten by some kind of large animal. But the space between the scars was about an inch and a half, which would be inconsistent with an animal bite.
"She must have died from some internal damage," Saunders said, putting the arm back under the sheet. "We'll know more after we've done an autopsy."
"How was the woman dressed?"
"Like a common enough streetwalker, Mr. Holmes. Why do you ask, sir?"
Holmes reached under the sheet and pulled out the arm again. "Look at her fingernails. They are manicured and neat. Not to mention they are almost claw-like. I do not think that a streetwalker could afford, let alone maintain such neat and clean nails."
"Can we get back to the John Doe?" Lestrade asked impatiently.
"Yes, of course, Inspector," Holmes said covering the dead woman with the sheet once more.
Saunders left the room, saying that he had work to do before the autopsy. Holmes, Lestrade, and I were left alone in the room. The air was cold, for the sun was beginning to set and the night cold was rolling in. The three of us had begun a lengthy discussion over the mysterious reasons for the wounds on John Doe's person, so that both Holmes and I had lost track of the hour. When we did realize the time, we bade our farewells to Lestrade and were about to walk out, when a voice caught our attention.
"Good evening, gentlemen," it said. The voice was a female voice. Very well bred and educated.
We all turned and to our amazement and horror, the body of Jane Doe was sitting up on the gurney. She stared at us with soft, warm brown eyes. We all tried to avert our gaze, for the sheet had fallen, exposing her breasts and upper waist, but found we could not. Her eyes were very hypnotic. She swung her legs around so they dangled off the edge of the gurney.
"I hope that I have not startled you," she said.
"Madam," Holmes said, nervously, "Would you have the decency to please cover yourself?"
She looked down at her chest. Instead of covering herself, she slid off the gurney with the grace of a cat, letting the sheet fall to the floor. Her hair was now draped over her bare form, which provide some coverage. She began to walk toward us with feline sensuality like tiger stalking its prey. She stopped in front of Holmes.
"Sir," she said, very cordially, "might I trouble you for your overcoat? As my own clothes have been removed from my person and I feel rather like Eve standing here naked as a babe. Your overcoat would provide the coverage that you requested."
Holmes was looking her straight in the eyes. As if he were obeying a command, rather than protecting the woman's virtue, he removed his coat and handed it to her. She thanked him and wrapped it around her bare form. She took her eyes away from Holmes' to look at the body of John Doe.
"Poor boy," she said, stroking the hair of the dead man. "A hundred years is too short a time to live. But I suppose this is what he gets for mixing with the wrong sorts."
She walked over to the body and slid her arms under it. Lestrade told her that the body was too heavy for her to lift. But as if he were a small child, the woman lifted the body up and threw him over one shoulder.
"Might I have my effects, please, as well as his?" she asked, indicating with her head the body on her shoulder.
Her clothes, which had been cut off of her, and anything else she had been carrying with her when she was found, had been put into a basket. The basket in question was on a table in the corner. Another basket was next to it, containing the effects of John Doe. Lestrade brought her both baskets without a word.
She reached into her basket and drew out a reliquary, which hung on a long chain. Inside the reliquary, as I later learned from Lady Evangeline, was a small amount of soil. Without uttering a word, she drew the chain over her head and let it rest around her neck. A tight-lipped smile of satisfaction crossed her features.
"It occurs to me," she said, looking at us, "that we have not been introduced."
"No indeed," Holmes said. "I am Mr. Sherlock Holmes and these are my friends and colleagues, Dr. John Watson, and Inspector Giles Lestrade of Scotland Yard."
"A pleasure gentlemen. I am Lady Evangeline Weatherly of Devonshire."
"My lady, I find it difficult to think that a lady would be around the docks of London."
"My reasons for being there, Mr. Holmes, are and shall remain my own for the present. Besides, even if I told you, you wouldn't remember."
"I have an excellent memory, my lady."
"We shall see." She piled the baskets on top of one another and picked them up effortlessly with her free arm. "Gentlemen, as much as I've enjoyed talking with you, I must leave you. The night is still young and I have much work to do before the sun rises again."
"Work?" Lestrade asked. "What kind of work?"
"Disposing of this body for instance. The bodies of vampires must be dealt with in a certain fashion."
"How do you know that he is a vampire?" Lestrade asked.
She gave us an opened mouthed smile, which revealed two long and pointed canines. "Because I am one of them. Why wouldn't I be able to recognize my own kind?"
"Do you know his name?" Holmes inquired. "So that we may alert his family of his death."
"Of course I know his name and so do you Mr. Holmes. As to his family, he has none. They've all been dead for the last fifty years or so."
"Madam, you say that I know his name. I don't recall making the acquaintance of the man on your shoulder."
"It is true, you've never made his acquaintance, but you do know his name. Or at least the name that seems to echo and reecho throughout London. Gentlemen allow me to introduce you to Jack the Ripper." She looked at us with a hypnotic stare. "Now gentlemen when I leave these premises, you shall not remember anything that has taken place. You won't remember me or what I am. You won't remember my friend here. Nothing. So I again bid the three of you a very good evening."
And with that she disappeared into a mist and I knew no more. I had no memories of why I was in the autopsy room in the first place. Neither Holmes nor Lestrade could remember why we were there, so Holmes suggested that we return to Baker Street. As he turned to leave, I noticed something of his was missing. His overcoat.
"Holmes, didn't you have your overcoat on when you came in?" I asked.
Holmes looked down on his person. "Why yes, I believe I did. Lestrade you don't suppose it's in your office."
We looked, but it was nowhere to be found. Lestrade promised if it turned up, he would have it sent to Baker Street at once. So Holmes and I returned to our lodgings at 221B Baker Street. We enjoyed a small meal and a pipe before we both retired for the night.
As I slept, the face of a young woman with long wavy red hair and soft brown eyes haunted my dreams. I learned later that a similar premonition had visited Holmes in his sleep as well. The Ripper murders ceased, but the perpetrator of the crimes was never caught despite the effort of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes' coat never turned up. But we thought nothing more of the matter until peculiar circumstances were brought to our notice nearly eight years later.
