The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (21 page)

“Morning, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said the man in a subdued voice. “It seems our friend has had a busy night of it.”

What with the poor light, it took Holmes a second or two to recognize the speaker. “Why, Major, is that you?”

The man nodded. “I knew that eventually this monster would cross my path and venture over into the City, and I thought we’d be ready for him, but...” His voice trailed off and he shook his head in frustration.

Holmes knew him well. He was Major Henry Smith, the Acting Commissioner of the City Police and one of the few police administrators whom he respected greatly. Unlike his counterpart in the Metropolitan Police, Smith was a thorough professional and went about his business in a rational, organized way. What he lacked in scientific training he made up in imagination and energy and in a willingness to keep an open mind and not adhere to rigid, outmoded doctrine. He was a man of cool judgment and keen wit and was highly respected among his own men.
⁵⁵

“I’m glad you’re here, Holmes. Damn glad. It goes without saying that I would appreciate anything you can do to help us. Your opinions would be most valuable.”

“Very kind, I’m sure,” mumbled Holmes.

Smith gestured toward the body. “She was still warm when our
constable discovered her. He was probably just minutes behind the murderer.”

“Your constable was the first to come upon the body, then?”

“Yes. His description of the deceased was most colorful: ‘Ripped like a pig in the market,’ he said. Come, let us walk. I can’t bear to look at this obscenity.” Smith took him by the elbow and guided him toward the center of the square. “PC Edward Watkins, Number 881, was the man. A thoroughly reliable fellow; I know him personally. It was during the course of his regular rounds that the body was discovered at one forty-five. He had previously been in the square not fifteen minutes earlier — that’s how long it takes him to make his rounds — so we are able to pinpoint the time with some accuracy.”

“Less than an hour after the first murder in Berner Street,” mused Holmes.

“So I understand,” said Smith. “And I am told you were there.”

Holmes nodded ruefully. “For all the good that it did.”

“Well, don’t blame yourself, old man. I am certain you did your best. Just bad luck, is all. There is more than enough of it to go around. We’ve had our share of it here too. What particularly galls me is that we had the victim in custody earlier in the evening, and if my instructions had been followed, this might not have happened.”

“Oh?”

Smith explained: “It is our practice to pick up anyone we find lying about in the streets intoxicated and hold ‘em until they become sober, particularly the women — for their own safety, you understand. She was brought into the Bishopsgate station at around eight-thirty last night and placed in cells. Having sobered up, she was released shortly before one o’clock. She was last seen walking in the general direction of Houndsditch and this place.” He shook his head. “If we had kept her through the night, she’d still be alive. But it was her bad luck to achieve
sobriety too quickly, poor soul.”

Smith chewed on his lip, clearly angry. “Moreover, if my standing orders had been obeyed, we might have had this fellow in custody as we speak! All women released from cells during the hours of darkness are supposed to be followed by one of our people. Those have been my orders since these murders began. But for some damn-fool reason, she wasn’t! If we had followed her, and then called in men to guard the approaches of the square, we would have caught the man red-handed, damn it!”

Holmes confined his reply to a noncommittal grunt. He had little patience with people who agonized over the “ifs” of life and engaged in self-recriminations over what might have been.

Smith gained control of himself and continued in a quieter tone: “She gave her name as Mary Ann Kelly when she was brought into Bishopsgate, and apparently she lived with a man named Kelly in Spitalfields, at number 6 Fashion Street. But we’ve since found out she was also known as Eddowes, Catherine Eddowes. These women of the streets change their names with the tides.” He stamped his foot in frustration. “And I thought we had such a good scheme to catch this fellow, or at least keep him at bay!”

“Your other preparations were all in order?” Holmes asked.

The major sighed. “I certainly did think so. I put more than a third of our force into plain clothes and had them prowling about every public house, doss-house, workhouse, and hidey-hole we know of. I had them stopping and questioning every man and woman seen together on the streets after midnight. Their instructions were to ignore procedures and do every damn thing a constable, under ordinary circumstances, should not do. I knew there was a possibility that this fellow, this Ripper person, might strike on our ground. And damn, I wanted him. That fool Warren has made a proper muck of things, and I don’t mind telling you that I
would dearly love to show him up for the blathering idiot that he is. Do you know that he wouldn’t even allow his people to enter a pub? Not even in the line of duty? The bloody man is a teetotaller, you see!”

“I have had the rare pleasure of meeting him,” said Holmes dryly, “but I did not know he included total abstinence among his virtues.”

Smith made a rude noise. “Never did trust a man who doesn’t take a drink now and again,” he muttered.

He stopped under a gaslight to light a cigar. “You know, I really thought I was ready for him. I really did,” he said between puffs. He shook his head ruefully. “I was spending the night at the Cloak Lane station and when they aroused me at two o’clock with the news, I said to myself, ‘Laddie, you’ve got him now!’ The area was surrounded. within ten minutes, and I was here within twenty! You should have seen us, Holmes! It must have been a sight: I bundled into a hansom with one of my inspectors, fifteen stone if he’s an ounce, and three detectives hanging on behind. Got here at breakneck speed, I can tell you, and it’s a wonder the damn thing didn’t lose a wheel or break a spring in the process. Hate those damn things, anyway: Inventions of the devil, those hansom cabs. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and unsafe at any time. I’m always smashing my hat getting in and out, and catching my fingers in the doors. And they roll like a ship-of-the-line in a gale.”

Holmes had to smile. “Oh, they have their uses,” he said. “I prefer them to walking, in any event. But do tell me what happened next, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes, of course, forgive me. Watkins — you know, the constable that discovered the body — Watkins told me he didn’t even bother to examine the woman, so sure was he that she was dead. And he knew right off it was the Ripper who did it. I mean, it was obvious to him that it wasn’t one of your usual cases of homicide. He ran across to that warehouse over there on the other side of the square, Kearley &
Tonge’s, and shouted for the watchman inside. The watchman is a retired policeman, so he knew what to do straightaway. He ran up to Aldgate, blowing his whistle for all he was worth, and encountered two more of my men there, one of whom went to fetch the doctor, the other to give the alarm. Stout fellows, both of them. And then I arrived here shortly thereafter. Found her lying as she is, exactly as you see her. My people know not to touch anything until someone in authority arrives on the scene.”

Smith stopped in front of a blanket laid out on the cobbles with a pitiful collection of odds and ends spread out on top of it, two lanterns placed at opposite corners of the blanket serving to illuminate them. “These were her possessions, everything she owned, probably.”

Holmes knelt down and studied what was there: Two handkerchiefs, one of a checkered material, the other white with a red border; a matchbox containing cotton, a blunt table knife with a bone handle, a man’s cufflink, a few pieces of soap, two short clay pipes, a red cigarette case, a small tin containing tea and sugar, a small comb, a single red mitten, and a broken pair of spectacles.

“Not much to show for a life, is it?” commented Smith quietly.

Holmes pursed his lips. No reply was necessary, nor would any have been adequate.

Smith cleared his throat and looked away. “We made a search of the area, of course, but didn’t come up with anything worth mentioning: No footprints — the pavement is hard here, as you can see. No one was about in the immediate vicinity, so we haven’t been able to find anyone who might have seen the fellow. No one we questioned heard anything — the watchman in the warehouse didn’t. These houses on this side of the square are unoccupied, and of the two over there on the other side, only one is lived in, and that by a policeman, by chance. And he was asleep and didn’t hear a thing. I now have men searching the
nearby streets and alleys to see what they can come up with. We may find something that will indicate what route he took out of the square. Who knows? We may even yet find someone who saw him.” His voice trailed off. He did not sound very hopeful.

Holmes looked at him with admiration. “It certainly sounds as if you have covered everything.” He pondered for a moment, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “By the by, did any of your men take notice of any cigarette ends lying about anywhere in the square, by chance?”

Smith looked at him. “Why, they’ve not been told to look. Is that important, do you think?”

Holmes shrugged. “Oh, just a little pet theory of mine. Indulge me, if you will. If a man or two can be spared, I would be most obliged if they would search the cobbles in and about the square with their bull’s-eyes and let us see what they come up with.”

“Well, I certainly will, if you think it’s consequential.”

“In the meantime I think I shall just wander around a bit and see if I can find anything. I shall want to examine the body more thoroughly when it’s taken to the mortuary, if you have no objection.”

“No, none at all, of course.” Smith paused and looked around the square at the busy comings and goings of his subordinates, who were still sifting through the refuse of the square, searching for clues. He shook his head. “It’s funny, you know — his choice of this place for one of his murders,” he said.

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, according to local lore, another woman was murdered on this very same spot in the early sixteenth century — murdered by a monk from the priory that used to be located here, if you believe the legend.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know that,” he said quietly.

Major Smith looked thoughtful for a moment. “I wonder if our friend did.”
⁵⁶

The sound of running footsteps behind them made them turn. A constable and a large detective-inspector in civilian clothes came rushing up, both breathing heavily. “We found somethin’ in Goulston Street, Major,” said the inspector, wheezing audibly. “A scrap a’ cloth wi’ blood on it, still wet. Looks like it could have been torn from ‘er clothes!”

Without a word, Smith and Holmes rushed off into the darkness, following the inspector’s lead. It was only about a third of a mile to Goulston Street, and they made the distance in under ten minutes. A cluster of lanterns shone with pinpricks of light up ahead as they turned into the street, drawing them to the location. Two constables and a sergeant were waiting for them as they came running up, the sergeant saluting and directing them to a narrow passageway just off the street. Inside, a man in civilian clothes was kneeling on the ground, a constable standing behind him with a lantern.

The large detective accompanying them slumped gratefully against the wall of the passageway, gasping for breath. He gestured weakly. “This ‘ere is Police Constable Long of H-Division, sir. ‘E’s the one who found it. Alfy, lad, tell the actin’ commissioner ‘ow you came upon it, smartly now.”

The man knuckled his forehead. “It was like this, sor: I was making me normal rounds, sor, just like I always do, but what with the morder ‘nd all, I was payin’ particalar attention to the side streets ‘nd dark places — the h’alleyways ‘nd passages ‘nd that — ‘nd I come across this bit of rag, sor, right here where it still rests, as you can see for your ownself, sor. ‘Nd I shines me bull’s-eye on h’it, ‘nd I sees the blood, ‘nd then I runs to the Leman Street station ‘nd makes me report, sor, ‘nd then I comes back ‘ere. ‘Nd that’s the whole of h’it, sor. The time was two fifty-five h’exactly. I’ve got h’it all ‘ere in me book, correct ‘nd proper.”

Holmes had been listening with only half an ear as he examined the rag of cloth lying crumpled on the ground. It was indeed still damp,
soaked with something that surely looked like blood. He carefully separated the material with a pencil and spread it out flat. It appeared that it had been used to wipe off an object such as the blade of a knife. He glanced over his shoulder and addressed the large inspector. “You say this fabric was cut from the woman’s clothes?”

“Right you are, sir. From the apron she was wearing.”

“She wore no apron!”

“Well, sir, not exactly. It was wrapped around her neck when we found her, apparently to staunch the flow of blood from her throat. We removed it to examine the wound, and there was a scrap cut out of it, which puzzled us. There’s no doubt that this is it.”

Holmes rose to his feet with an effort and looked at Major Smith but didn’t say anything. Smith looked away. “I am afraid someone forgot to mention that to you, Holmes.”

“Is there anything else that anyone may have forgotten to mention to me?” he asked caustically, his voice reflecting only a hint of his displeasure.

Constable Long cleared his throat. “Well, there is somethin’ else, sor, but I dinna forget. I jest was never given the h’opportunity.”

All eyes turned to the constable.

Without a word he shone the beam of his lantern onto the wall of the passageway — at a spot just above where the scrap of cloth was lying. The light danced eerily on the lathing for a moment, then steadied. Something was scrawled on the wall in chalk, plain to the eye now that it was illuminated:

The Juwes are The men That will not be Blamed for nothing

Smith was the first to react. He turned on the constable excitedly. “When did you first notice this?”