Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson

by Lyndsay Faye

“You and I, Watson, Annie Chapman, even the revered Horace himself—dust and the shadow cast by it, merely that and nothing more.”

“He is neither a monster nor a beast, but something far more dangerous. I fear that men, when possessed of both utter depravity and absolute conviction, are far more deadly than either.

I am under no delusions regarding my chances of success should I ever shrug off the constraints of civilization, my dear fellow. I fear I would prove entirely unstoppable.”

It is a brave man who awakens Mycroft Holmes at four o’clock in the morning.

“I believe it is the sole business of government to invent elaborate impediments to swift action,”

it is the maximal error, the unpardonable sin, if you will, to twist facts to suit theories rather than twisting theories to suit facts.