All but the Name

The white walls surrounded me like I was an encased lab subject. It was suffocating, but knowledge of the truth prevented me from descending into mania. They had questioned me for days, and despite my insistence on revealing the entirety of events, I was not to be believed. I was ignored, mocked, and finally detained in that unholy straightjacket. “To loosen your tongue,” they said. Though I do not understand how restricting one’s access to their arms makes them forthcoming. If anything, it incensed me. Though I was not in a situation to allow my darker nature to overcome me.

I needed these men to release me. There was an incredible misunderstanding and the repercussions of delay could have disastrous effects. I felt too much time had passed. They said that the next time they would question me, I would be dealing with an expert detective.

Perfect, I thought.

When they announced that I was to be taken for interrogation, I felt a calm wash over me. I would finally be heard. I would tell this detective the truth—all but my name, to reduce confusion—and they would deduce that not only was I an honest man but that my liberation was of the utmost importance.

The door to my padded cell opened.

A uniformed gaoler looked at me in my pitiless state, revulsion in his eyes. I assumed he would have enjoyed causing me physical harm. “Holmes will see you now, Belvins,” he said.

I felt my heart flutter for a brief moment. I could not imagine a better scenario. Sherlock Holmes! Of all the detectives in England, Holmes would give me a proper assessment. He would see my integrity and allow me freedom, then I could conclude this entire affair and continue my work.

The gaoler grabbed me by a strap on the back of my straightjacket and yanked me. “Madman,” he whispered in my ear, then shoved me. It was the same treatment I’d been receiving for days, so I was unmoved. I held my head high and walked forward while he prodded me in the back. “Smug bastard,” he said. “Just wait until Holmes gets the truth out of you. He will. He has his ways… strange as they are. Then I get to see you dangle from the rope.” I had no visual of the gaoler, but I could feel his smile digging into the back of my neck.

“I assume the good detective will believe the story I have been telling you all. Too much time has been wasted. Many lives are at stake if I’m not released.”

The gaoler kicked the posterior of my left knee which caused it to give. As my arms were restrained, I fell onto my face. The gaoler grabbed a large portion of my hair and drew me to a kneeling position and said, “What about that woman, eh? Head in a box… If I didn’t know better, I say yer the danger.”

A phantasmagoria of death fluttered behind my eyes. I could see his hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing, applying incremental pressure until, with a crack, her eyes became lifeless. He knew that I was still there, that I could see it all. I wish I had known he had returned. I thought I had him in check. I was mistaken, and Joan had paid for that miscalculation.

I am glad to have missed the business with her head, as my consciousness was gone by then. It was a surprise to me, then, that a brown paper box rested on my doorstep the next day. When I lifted it, the blood-soaked bottom collapsed and Joan’s head bounced off of my shoe. I shrieked, as any sane man would. When Joan’s head settled, her face in my direction, I remembered the previous night's events and realized that this was a problem I needed to solve without external assistance. However, experiencing that brief shock cost me too many precious moments, and by the time I decided what was to be done about poor Joan’s remains, a bystander had witnessed my predicament.

While in my mental preoccupation, the gaoler lifted and pushed me, removing me from those horrible visions, planting me in reality. “Move,” he said, “you have some hanging to do, and the Lord knows yer not gonna do it yourself.”

I admit I laughed at this comment, for little did he know…

He prodded me many times before we reached our destination: a shabby, grey interrogation room with two chairs and a matching oaken desk in the center, attached to which were manacles. I had hoped it would be the last time I need lay eyes on the room.

Detective Holmes awaited in the corner of the room, the only parts of him visible were a plaid tweed suit with matching Inverness cape and deerstalker, as well as part of his Calabash pipe, which released a puff of smoke at irregular intervals. His face was hidden behind a sheaf of papers.

“Solitary confinement?” were the first words to come from Holmes’s mouth, another puff of smoke followed. “Remove the straightjacket from the prisoner and place him in the manacles. I wish my subject to be free from this excessive bondage.”

“But detective, this man is a murderer,” the gaoler said.

“Even so.”

Both the gaoler and I paused. He, because he was in disbelief of Holmes’s request, and I, in amazement of the detective’s abilities. Holmes had yet to rest eyes on me and could tell immediately of my situation.

“If you fear the man then I will do it,” Holmes said, then he shifted some papers from the top of the sheaf to the back.

“I ain’t scared.”

The gaoler used more force than necessary to remove my straightjacket and adhere the new restraints. The shackles were loose on my wrist, but too tight to slide my hands through. I was seated, the detective before me. Holmes stood his full height and placed the papers on the table, giving me access to the hidden face. Cold, sharp grey eyes peered out from a gaunt face and into every aspect of my being. Without looking to the gaoler, he said, “You can go.”

“Orders are to stay and observe,” the man said.

Holmes gave the man an irritated glance then turned his attention toward me.

“Strange this,” he said, his long thin finger pressed the pile of papers. “Mr. Belvins?”

“What do you find so peculiar?” I asked. We were well past any pleasantries.

“Your countenance reveals a man predisposed to good-natured behavior, and despite your imprisonment, you have yet to alter your testimony, much of which defies evidence that counters your story. Recent advancements in forensic science would have you placed as the murderer of Joan Taylor, fingerprints being the verification, not to mention a man seen placing a cardboard box on your doorstep that was clothed in an outfit that you frequently don. Therefore, I do not doubt your innocence, Mr. Belvins, though I doubt your name.”

Holmes was correct. He took my silence for confirmation.

After a puff of his pipe, he continued. “I did a bit more research, as it was a curious matter that a mister, and not a doctor, would conduct experiments on men sentenced to hang. The documentation in your office indicates that the experiments you led were meant to separate one’s better nature from one's worse. So you got the worst of the worst, and if anything went wrong, the men whose lives you took were men already sentenced for the gallows. You used your influence to suborn the warden and had the means for multiple bribes, means only a man of stature would possess. So I had to ask myself how could a man so well connected have no history. Ten years of history on record to be precise. Looking at you now, a man of fifty-five, and not a youthful adolescent, something doesn’t align.”

“What are you on about?” the gaoler said, his face contorted in confusion.

“And the thing that doesn’t align is your name, Mr. Belvins,” Holmes said, never taking his eyes off me.

“You seem to have it all figured out,” I replied.

“Tell me, then, Dr. Jekyll, how are you alive when your death certificate says that you successfully committed suicide? I would not recommend lying, as I have the power to have you retained or to grant you freedom.”

“No you don’t, Mr. Holmes!” the gaoler said. “Warden says Belvins stays here. Plans to keep him here ’til his feet dangle.”

“Even so,” Holmes said, his countenance that of a mildly annoyed man.

“I never died,” I said.

“Evidently,” Holmes replied.

“It was never my intention to die from that experiment. I wondered if I could trick Edward Hyde, to make him think that I committed suicide. I cleared my mind of him for a brief time and created a mixture inducing a death-like state, to which I thank our friend William Shakespeare for inspiration. I had been working with Joan in a concealed partnership. I informed her of my idea and she wished to help with my experiments and has been for the last ten years. Until recently, that is. It was she who administered the shot that returned me to consciousness ten years ago, but only after my body reverted from Hyde’s.”

“And how is it that we find Miss Taylor’s head in a box on your doorstep?”

“I thought that I could kill Mr. Hyde, but it turns out the best I could do with my current data is place him into a decade-long slumber. His awakening took me unaware and Joan was in attendance at that very moment.”

“Edward committed the murder—”

“Tell me you don’t believe this nonsense, Mr. Holmes. All evidence points to Belvins,” the gaoler said.

The fact that the gaoler still referred to me by pseudonym told Holmes and me all that we needed to know of his intelligence.

Holmes glanced at the gaoler, then back to me. “What did he do next?”

“I lost consciousness at the moment of Joan’s death. When I woke my subjects were gone. I was near a breakthrough. I need remove my subjects from the streets and conduct a final test that may eliminate their darker nature.”

“Hyde must have framed you so that you would yield to him in this prison. Data from your personal experiment states that Mr. Hyde was initially smaller than you, but grew as he gained power. What state was he in when he resurfaced?”

“Smaller, frailer than ten years ago. Still, a threat if unchecked.”

“Can you control him?”

“Yes. For a time. I plan to put him to sleep if I am released, eliminate him if my breakthrough succeeds. He took me by surprise before but now that I know he no longer slumbers, I am mindful.”

Holmes stood, removed his deerstalker and cape, and placed them on the table before me. “Gaoler, follow me. We need to inform the warden of this man’s guilt.”

Excited, the gaoler moved toward me.

“Leave him for now,” Holmes said. The gaoler looked uncertain. With his hand on the doorknob and his back toward us, Holmes said, “Come, he has nowhere to hide. Once I finish with this affair, I will be back for my effects. Should I forget them, deliver them to my address on Baker Street.”

Once the two men exited, I focused and prepared myself. I allowed, for the briefest moment, to allow Hyde a presence. Having smaller hands, I was able to withdraw them from the shackles. Though Hyde fought me for dominance, I did not allow him but a second. I donned Holmes’s effects and left. As I passed the warden’s office, I covered my eyes with the deerstalker, but not before I received a nod from Holmes.

I exited the building and made my way to Baker Street. The rest was simple.