Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (11 page)

“Miss Adler?” came a soft voice through the door.

Irene took a deep breath and opened it, forcing a smile. Annie Chapman, a mother of one of the child performers in the circus stood, meekly holding a luxurious dress that stood in stark contrast to the rags the woman was wearing. “Oh, hello, Annie,” Irene said. “Are you finished with the stitching already?”

“Yes,” Annie said, smiling nervously as she handed the dress over to Irene. She proudly displayed the torn seam she’d sewn. “I put double stitches in it. Won’t trouble yeh again, Miss Adler. I swears by it.”

“Excellent,” Irene said, taking it from her. “It looks wonderful. I promise to wear it at the nearest opportunity.”

“It would be lovely to see yeh in it, Miss Adler. Thanks for giving me the chance to do a little work for you. We certainly needed the money.”

Irene hung up the dress and turned away from Annie, eyeing her wigs and makeup, hoping it was an obvious enough hint that she needed time to get ready. In truth, Irene had the finest tailors in all of London at her disposal. Men who were practically begging for the chance to create new fashions for the famous prima donna of La Scala. Certainly, they were better suited for the repairs than a common street person like Annie Chapman.

When Irene first chanced upon Annie, the woman was crying in a dark corner backstage, loudly enough that Irene could not walk past without at least inquiring if she was all right. Through thick tears, Annie blurted out the difficulties she and her family were having and asked if Irene knew of any work that was available around the theater. Irene, even as she told herself the simpler, less-involving answer would be to tell the woman no, she instead found herself mentioning that she had a few dresses in need of some light repair work. With a sigh, she asked if Annie perhaps knew how to thread a needle and sew a bit?

I certainly overpaid her for it too, Irene thought. Most of the work was sloppy, with uneven stitching and unfinished seams. That little crying jag had, in all likelihood, been a staged performance designed to catch her eye from the start, Irene reasoned. Ah well. The damn circus people were heading off for France anyway. “I seem to be all fixed up then, Annie. Which is good, I suppose, since you are all leaving us after tonight, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Miss Adler,” Annie said, looking down. “It’s fortunate you should bring that up, as I was wanting to speak to you about it. They leave off tonight, and you’ve been such a big inspiration to us all that I wanted to say thank you and bid you goodbye.”

“Why thank you, Annie,” Irene said. She felt compelled to reach out and touch Annie on the arm and give her bicep a slight squeeze in lieu of a full embrace. Annie was stiff, and smelled faintly of liquor. “You must promise to have a safe trip, then.” Irene stepped back, ready to close the door.

“Oh, I am not going,” Annie said quickly. “I can’t. My little boy is a cripple, an’ me eldest daughter Emily is sick as well.”

“I see,” Irene said slowly, ignoring Annie’s hopeful, pleading stare. “Well, I am sure your other daughter appreciates the opportunity you are giving her. You must be very proud. Now I really must get ready, Annie.”

Annie leaned forward, putting her body in the doorframe. “I just wish I had something to send her along with, you know? The way things are, my John works an’ all, but at this point we can barely keep a roof over our heads. Medicine is so expensive.”

“I am sure it is,” Irene said, closing the door toward Annie.

“Yes, quite!” Annie said, standing her ground.

Irene sighed. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Annie? I am to be on stage any minute. If you need something, it would better for you to just ask for it.”

“Can I borrow a pound from you to give her? Just a few, so I don’t have to send her away empty handed? I will pay you back, I swear on it.”

Irene shook her head, well-aware that she was doing a poor job of masking the contempt on her face. “See me after the performance and I will see what I can do, all right?”

“God bless you, Miss Adler! Bless you so much.”

“All right. Run along now,” Irene said, shutting the door.

~ * * * ~

The performance was spectacular. The entire audience leapt to their feet, thunderously applauding as Irene took her bows, standing knee-deep in the flowers and cards thrown at the stage. People were screaming her name. As Irene passed through the curtains, Oscar Wilde was clapping, “Oh, brava, Irene. Brava.” There was a handsome and tall man standing nearby and Wilde held out his hand to say, “Allow me to introduce Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein.”

Wilhelm bowed low and kissed her hand. “I am also the King of Bohemia,” he said. “Really? A King? Oscar, is this some sort of jest?”

“I assure you it is not,” Wilde said with a quick smile.

“Well, then I suppose it is just us Libertines,” Irene said, looping her arm through Wilhelm’s.

“Pardon me, Miss Adler?” a voice creaked from behind Irene.

Christ, Irene thought, seething. Is there no one among the lower class possessed of any manners at all? She turned, “As you can plainly see, I am a little busy at present, Annie. Would you mind terribly giving us just a moment, please?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Annie said, lowering her head. “Whenever you prefer.”

“Who in God’s name is that wretched creature?” Wilde said.

“Someone I cannot seem to escape. Would you mind distracting her while I steal His Majesty away for a little privacy? I find myself wanting to get to know him a bit better.” Irene winked at Wilhelm, who was smiling stupidly. Alas, she thought. Better pretty than clever.

“Anything for you, my dove,” Wilde said. He leaned in toward her ear, “Try not to break him. He’s a bit fragile.”

“Oh, no promises,” Irene said, as Wilde moved past her to begin talking to Annie Chapman, leading her away from the stage and out the back door. “So,” she said to Wilhelm, “tell me all about Bohemia.”

In her dream she now turned to look at Annie, who was standing in the shadows beneath the curtain’s rigging, watching her leave. Someone came up behind Annie and pressed a knife to her throat, covering her mouth and beginning to saw the flesh with the edge of his blade. No one seemed to notice when Irene began screaming for help.

NINE

The East End of London is relatively small, composed of an area just about fifteen square miles in size. That year, over one million people were estimated to have lived there. By comparison, New York City’s Manhattan is roughly twenty-three square miles, and in an 1880 census, had nearly the same number of residents.

An 1820 survey found thirty-thousand thieves operating in the East End. Police reports indicated they stole more than two million pounds of goods from local stores and residences. Like most places, immigrants sought out less-expensive, less-noticeable areas to live in their new country. Clusters of Jewish, German, and Russian ghettos were clustered throughout the East End, formed both to protect and insulate the foreigners from the natives. Outsiders were not welcome. Cliques, gangs, fraternities, or whatever other euphemism one preferred, quickly formed and those groups were often at odds with the competing interests of others who did the same. The pie is only so big. Only the most resourceful, resilient, and ruthless get to eat it.

The London Metropolitan Police Service estimated there were sixty-two licensed brothels in Whitechapel. Besides those formal establishments, another twelve hundred whores roamed the streets and alleyways. Every so often, a few were found dead. Death in general, and even murder, were common occurrences in the East End. It was no different from any city, in any part of the world, either before or since, and whatever terrible things happened there were regarded by outsiders with an air of inevitability.

Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, and Annie Chapman changed all that. Their deaths were so gruesome, so sensational, that soon every newspaper in the world had correspondents in Whitechapel searching for headlines. The day after Annie Chapman’s body was discovered, no fewer than fourteen newspapers carried precise, vivid details of her demise. These newspapers were quickly gobbled up by a terrified, gossip-hungry, morbidly obsessed populace. Journalists completely abandoned the standard non-partisan tenets of reporting, opting instead for a dogmatic, inflammatory approach to cover what was termed
“The Whitechapel Horror.”
Each new article was increasingly soaked with editorial vitiation concerning the description of the killer. The character of the female victims was targeted, and even more importantly, the impotence of the police.

The people of the East End became accustomed to seeing the names of many of their friends and neighbours in the paper. Daily, news articles quoted someone new solemnly offering their personal take on the murders and naming the party they believed responsible. Every new “revelation” was shamelessly foisted on the public as if it were fact. During all hours of the day and night, police and journalists swarmed through Whitechapel, leaping over one another like rats in the street, bucking to find just one more person to interview, one more story to fan the flames.

George Lusk knew all of this. Gazing out at the sea of people squeezed into the meeting room of the Whitechapel Board of Building and Design, he decided the time had come for him to convene what he intended to be a solution to the problem. “All right, let’s get started, folks. Order,” he said, tapping his gavel on the desk. The people in the crowd continued to shout. “I am calling the first meeting of the Mile End Committee to Protect Whitechapel to order! Everyone must settle down, please.”

“This is impossible,” Joseph Aarons said, taking the gavel from Lusk and banging it even harder. “Order! Order!” he shouted. Aarons and Lusk served together on the Board Committee and had been part of the decision to open their hall to the public in the event that any would want to voice their opinion to the crowd. They expected a dozen or so attendees, not the crowd so massive that they filled the hall and forced others to stand outside of the doors.

“Be silent so we can get started!” Lusk shouted.

A man stepped forward through the crowd. The men surrounding him pushed the other people back, clearing a path. A deep scar ran down the side of his face, both above and below a menacing black eye patch. “Shut up, all of you,” he growled. The crowd fell silent.

“Oh God,” Joseph Aarons said. He leaned close to Lusk and pointed toward the man with the eye patch and said, “What the hell is he doing here?”

“Who is it?” Lusk asked.

“Mickey Fitch. He brought the whole damned Old Nichol Gang.”

“What do they want?” Lusk muttered. Regardless, the crowd was now quieted down. Lusk began, “Ahem. We would like to thank you all for coming tonight. We know that many of you have deep concerns about the recent events in our neighborhoods. We want to give you an open forum to discuss them.”

“You mean how the damn cops don’t give a flying frig about stopping the killer?” someone in the front yelled.

“You ain’t kidding!” a man up front shouted.

Someone else yelled, “The damn police is too busy looking after the changing of bus houses in the West-end and watching over Trafalgar Square to care what becomes of poor devils like us!”

The crowd began to get loud again, and Lusk rapped his gavel futilely until Mickey Fitch held up his hand and they fell silent. When Fitch spoke, his voice was a low gravelly snarl. “There are some of us here tonight, Mr. Chairman, who feel that the people of Whitechapel can do a better job of looking after our own, on our own.” The men behind Fitch grunted and nodded.

“I just bet,” Aarons said out of the side of his mouth to Lusk. “His business interests have to be suffering with all the damn blue bottles around.”

Lusk smiled calmly at the crowd and said, “I assure you that is the precise reason we have assembled here tonight, sir.” He stood to his feet, waving his hand above the crowd, “Let us all put aside our differences to unite under one common banner of rescuing our fair city from the evil clutches of this monster. To turn our voices toward Buckingham Palace once more to announce that we, the people of the East End, will not be forgotten!”

The crowd cheered and Lusk smiled brightly, soaking in their admiration. He saw that Mickey Fitch was not cheering, but stood with his hands folded, waiting. Lusk calmed the crowd down and said, “Let us hear from Mr. Fitch. What do you propose, sir?”

Fitch licked his lips and said, “Talk is cheap, Mr. Lusk. What me and my boys had in mind was something a little more action-oriented. You see, the police trying to catch this killer are lacking one crucial thing that our lot can provide. A certain familiarity with the ways and means of Whitechapel, if you will.”

“This is not what I had in mind, Mr. Fitch,” Aarons said, turning in his seat. He lowered his voice and said, “George, what the hell are you doing? We were supposed to put on a nice little show and get Lord Salisbury’s attention. This man is a gang leader. He will cut out throats the second we are no longer of any use to him.”

Lusk was imagining the Queen putting a medal around his neck as he nodded silently while Fitch spoke.

~ * * * ~

Montague Druitt’s carriage rolled to a stop in front of his old home in Dorset. He paid the carman and waited until he was alone before going up the stairs to the front door. As he went through the door, he shivered at its exact similarity to the last time he’d been in the house. Little had changed except that now thick layers of dust and cobwebs covering everything. Animals had taken up residence in the home, and he listened to them scurrying along the walls and floors as he closed the door.

Druitt checked the windows and doors on the first floor, ensuring that they were intact and none broken. He unlatched the back door and went down the steps, gazing out into the deserted fields now overgrown with weeds and grass. The spiked fence was gone, torn out by his father years ago, despite Ann’s protests that her garden would be overrun by animals without it. In one of the few acts of defiance of his mother that Druitt had ever seen, William ignored her and ripped the metal posts from the earth, cursing each spike as he wept.