The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (25 page)

Holmes went over to the fireplace and poked halfheartedly at the ember in the grate, deciding because of the lateness of the hour not to bother adding more coal. He had already turned the gas lamps down in preparation for bed, so the only light in the room came from the
fireplace. What little flame there was cast languid, undulating shadows on the wall and ceiling, a relaxing effect, an effect to fit his mood.

Holmes decided on a last small glass of brandy before retiring, a few sips only. He went to the sideboard to pour it and then returned to the fireplace, glass in hand, easing himself into his favorite chair to gaze at the dying embers.

Unnoticed at his feet in the darkness of the room was the scattering of newspapers all around him, his sole reading matter for that day and for several previous days as well. He had been scanning the agony columns of the daily newspapers for the better part of the week, without result.

The agony columns, those long rows of personals to be found in almost every major London daily, had long been Holmes’s favorite reading matter, in addition to the crime news, of course. This “rag-bag of singular happenings,” as he referred to them, was to him a barometer of sorts, a pulse beat, a microcosm: A daily ledger of all that was wrong, lost, misapplied, or misappropriated in the normal course of human events in the metropolis. In these columns could be found a daily dosage of man’s folly and despair, inch after column inch of dashed hopes, dismantled dreams, and unkept promises, a compendium of bizarre requests, impossible demands, and improbable claims: Truly “a chorus of groans, cries, and bleatings,” as Holmes once characterized them. There was anger and bitterness and pitiable expressions of remorse; pathos in heavy measure to be sure — the outpourings of anguished and desperate souls, demanding, pleading, admonishing, forgiving, or simply reaching out pathetically for the simple touch of another.

But for Holmes the agony columns were more than founts of mindless diversion or the objects of curiosity. For in addition to the mundane, the columns contained mystery. And, most important, they provided intelligence — intelligence that had proven useful to him countless times in the past, furnishing leads and supplying answers and
even, on occasion, guiding him to individuals he sought.

It had been the longest of long shots from the start, of course, this idea of his to write to this creature who called himself Jack the Ripper. He never had any real confidence the man would respond or even see the advertisement that had been placed in the city’s dailies. It had been a whim, an impulsive act, a half-silly notion half born out of desperation (and, of course, out of his weakness for the dramatic gesture).

And even if the Ripper had seen the advertisement, it was possible that Holmes took the wrong approach in his drafting of the wording of it, and succeeded only in driving him further away rather than enticing him to come closer. Perhaps he should not have challenged the man, but instead have appealed to his vanity, or offered him comfort, compassion even. He had counted on the Ripper reacting in anger to his message, had counted on touching a raw nerve, but the cursed man had not reacted at all. The problem was that Holmes had no way of determining what was the correct course to follow, no way of knowing how the man would respond. The machinations of the human brain were so unpredictable, so difficult to fathom — particularly the brain of a man so twisted — that Holmes was groping in the dark.

Someday medical science might find a way to penetrate the secrets of the human brain. Someday it might be possible to diagnose and even treat mental dysfunctions as physical illness was assessed and treated. But for the time being that portion of the anatomy which more than any other separated humankind from the lower forms remained the most mysterious, the least penetrable, the least understood. How curious it was, how ironic, he decided, that the human brain seemed capable of understanding almost everything but itself.

Holmes applied a wax vesta to the tobacco in his pipe and drew in deeply, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air. Then he leaned back in his chair and reviewed the events of the last few days.

While the police of both Scotland Yard and the City force were noisily and with great bluster and bustle going about their investigations of the two most recent murders, Holmes was quietly making his own inquiries. He had spent days prowling Whitechapel and Spitalfields, making contact with various informants whom he had nurtured over the years: Individuals of dubious character and occupation who, for a few shillings or an occasional crisp one-pound note, kept their ears to the ground and passed on to Holmes anything that at any given time could be of interest to him. They proved to be of little use on this occasion: All they were able to provide were false leads, fantastic theories, and unsubstantiated rumors. No one knew anything; everyone was afraid.

Holmes also paid visits to several of the workhouses in the East End, those cold, bare establishments that doled out meager sustenance and a few coins a day to those homeless and destitute who were able enough and willing enough to work for it. The expression “cold as charity” was surely coined by someone who had partaken of the bounty of one of these institutions. Indifferently run by individuals whose mean-spirited, hard-eyed Christianity was compensated meagerly enough with borough funds, these places specialized in watery soup and mealy bread and, on days when the cook was in his cups or in a particularly uncreative mood, an epicurean delight called skilly — a mush made of Indian corn and hot water. A few of the more benevolent workhouses even provided thin slivers of a harsh soap, noted for its ability to redden the skin and make the eyes tear when applied. Most recipients of this largess found it more desirable to go dirty.

One place Holmes visited was in the process of parceling out its main (and only) meal of the day: Ungenerous portions ladled from a large blackened kettle, the contents of which could best be described as indescribable — chunks of sopping bread, bits and pieces of fat and salt pork, gristle and bone simmering in a rancid gruel. It was the
leavings of a local hospital charity ward, one of the resident workers explained — the leavings from the mouths of the sick and diseased, scraped from their plates and heaped together in buckets to be carted to the workhouse kitchens and reheated. The meal was eaten from metal plates without benefit of utensils, there being none available, while rats boldly scurried about underfoot, an occasional well-placed kick keeping them from getting too familiar. The stench of the place was positively stultifying: A sickly sour smell intermixed with the aroma of unwashed bodies and the ever-present reek of cheap gin. The totality of it caused Holmes to almost gag upon entry and made him thankful for the gulps of rank, stagnant air that greeted him outside the door upon departure. The East End, after all, was outcast London, “an evil plexus of slums that hide human creeping things,” as one observer put it.
⁶³
And surely human creeping things deserved no better.

Not for the first time did Holmes reflect upon the plight of these people, and on his own conflicting emotions concerning them: A mixture of pity and repulsion, of compassion and disdain. He felt sorry for these people, yet he despised them. He despised them for what they had allowed themselves to become. Even he recognized it as a reaction that was unreasonable, but after all was he not a product of his age and of the society which nurtured him, a society which equated poverty and ignorance with moral imperfection? If a man is born poor in this land of plenty, it is God’s will; if he dies poor, sir, well then, it is his own damn fault.

It was this philosophy, this heartfelt conviction on the part of respectable Victorian England, that made it possible for the slums of Whitechapel and places like it to exist. It was an attitude that did not tolerate, took no pity on, took no notice of anything that was not clean, decent, proper, or “British.”

For years even the established Church ignored these nether regions, turning a blind eye to those deprived and (in the eyes of the godly)
depraved subhuman multitudes who lived literally within the shadow of St. Paul’s towering dome. No matter, the cathedral’s doors remained steadfastly closed to them. God’s grace was not for those who did not dress the part.

Not every churchman with whom Holmes came into contact was indifferent to the poor of the East End, of course. There were several who lived and worked selflessly among them in quarters little more opulent, amid conditions little less appalling. The Barnetts of Toynbee Hall came to mind.

Toynbee Hall was a settlement house for university students who worked among the poor, founded by the Reverend Samuel Barnett and his wife, and located in the very heart of Whitechapel. It was directly behind this institution that the murder of Martha Tabram had taken place the previous August.

Mrs. Barnett was a tiny, spirited woman of indeterminate age, brimming over with energy and the milk of human kindness. She was like a little bird that never seemed to alight for more than a few seconds at a time, but flitted about from this place to that, happily engaged in a dozen or more tasks at once, her state of perpetual motion accompanied by an endless stream of chattering and chirping: sentence after run-on sentence of bright, disjointed, unrelated observations, assertions and assessments, one following the other without benefit of pause, breath, period, or comma. Throughout there was a heavy sprinkling of two favorite phrases, a reflection no doubt of her outlook on life: Things were either “very nice” or “not very nice.” There was nothing better, nothing worse, and there was no in-between.

She greeted Holmes at the entrance with a small child in her arms.

“Isn’t it very nice of you to come?” she said in a cheery voice, adding in the same breath without a change of tone or inflection: “It is
not
very nice to insert your finger into your nose, my deah.”

Holmes, taken aback, arched an eyebrow.

“It is not very nice a’tall!”

“I quite agree, madam, I assure you,” responded Holmes with great dignity. Then a movement of Mrs. Barnett’s skirt caught his eye and understanding came to him at last. “Ah,” he said. “
There
is the offending party!”

The object of Mrs. Barnett’s reproach was a second little child, partially hidden behind the folds of her voluminous skirt and apron, its presence previously unnoticed because of the dimness of the vestibule.

With no by-your-leave or warning, Mrs. Barnett thrust the child she was carrying into Holmes’s arms and swooped down to attend to the other. Holmes, clearly startled, stood there speechless, holding the infant stiffly and with arms outstretched, as if it were an object of unknown provenance and dubious purpose.

“Now, isn’t that better?” Mrs. Barnett cooed, straightening. “Do come in, won’t you? We don’t stand on ceremony here — mind the step — I am very much afraid you will find us in our usual state of dither — my goodness, here it is almost noon and the third post has not yet arrived, I thought you were it, in point of fact; delivery services have been falling off dreadfully, have you not found that to be the case? But I know my husband will be quite pleased to see you, quite pleased indeed — you are somewhat taller than I expected, aren’t you?”

Holmes, who could think of no suitable response to any of her observations, and would have been hard pressed to fit a word in edgewise in any event, confined himself to agreeable nods and followed dutifully behind as she conducted him into the recesses of the hall and up a flight of stairs, chattering gaily all the while. In that she had not yet gotten around to retrieving the child from his arms, he had no other recourse but to maintain possession of it, hoping profoundly that it did nothing sudden or untoward.

“Most of our young student workers are out on the streets at this hour, making their visits to our poor unfortunates,” she explained, “so you chose an opportune time to call. These are two of our latest arrivals, the dears,” she noted, indicating the children, “left on our doorstep, so to speak, by young mothers — hardly more than children themselves — who cannot care for them, poor creatures. We are so fortunate that God has chosen us for their keeping. So very fortunate indeed. I only wish there was more we could do. There are so many in need, so very many. But yet we manage nicely. With God’s help we manage very nicely indeed.
⁶⁴

“Here we are, then,” she announced, having arrived at the top of the stairs. She stopped before a closed door, tapped twice, and entered.

A frowning Reverend Canon Samuel Barnett was seated behind a cluttered desk, a pair of rimless spectacles perched on his forehead, his nose buried perilously deep into the pages of a large volume of religious tracts. An even larger Bible lay open across his knees, and sheets of foolscap, most of them crumpled, lay littering the desktop and the floor around his chair.

“Samuel dear, this is Mr. Sherlock Holmes come to visit. Isn’t that very nice of him indeed? Do come in, won’t you, Mr. Holmes. Canon Barnett always welcomes diversions when he has a sermon to prepare. He has such terrible difficulties with them, poor dear. And I can’t for the life of me realize why. Ordinarily he is so very, very clever with words.”

The Reverend Barnett laid the Bible aside and rose from his desk to pump Holmes’s hand with obvious pleasure, an act that necessitated some furious manipulation of the infant on Holmes’s part. “How good of you, sir!” beamed the reverend, pumping away. “How very good of you to come, and welcome you are! Your reputation is not unknown to us here, Mr. Holmes. It has preceded you, sir, even into these dark corners. I am an avid devotee of yours, I must confess. The accounts
of your exploits are among my favorite bedtime reading, along with the Gospels, of course — see what good company you are in! But my word, sir, whatever do you intend doing with that babe? It appears to be decidedly out of kilter.”

Mrs. Barnett, suddenly awakening to the fact that Holmes was still in possession, though just barely, of the now furiously wiggling infant, leapt to his assistance with a little cry of alarm. “However can you forgive me! I had quite forgotten!”