Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (23 page)

If anything, Whitechapel is even more bleak and dismal by day. There is no clear indication that it is, in fact, day, as the sun’s rays are lost in the thick yellowy cloud of mist hanging over everything. It sinks into your nose and seeps into your pores like a stinking, maculating oil. After a few hours walking these streets, my eyes begin to sting and my lungs burn from breathing it in.

Rats scurry through the streets, trying to outrace one another while dashing between the legs of disinterested pedestrians. I watch dozens of them run into the street and get crushed beneath the wheels of passing cabs.

These cabs constantly crash into one another, being jammed together from one end of Commercial Street to the other. Each of them bears a sign of some sort, advertising products such as “Nestlé’s Milk” or “Pears Soap” products. All of it nonsense that no one in this neighborhood could ever afford to buy.

Some of the cabs are larger, double-decker affairs with crowds of people packed onto the upper level. These are tourists who nervously peer over the edge of the cab at the swarms of people on the sidewalks. Scary-looking immigrants and ruffians return their stares with the looks of a hungry predator watching a fat meal pass.

I looked up and down the length of Commercial Street, noting that I had not seen a police constable on patrol during the entire time I’d been standing there. Each passing man eyed me with contempt, taking measure of my clothing and manner, instantly identifying me as someone who did not belong. To them, I was from another world, a place that actively sought to oppress them, and in return, they were estimating what it would gain them to either beat me or rob me.

Many of them eyed Irene. Their eyes moved slowly down the length of her body, taking their time in measuring her generous proportions. “Why are we even out here, Miss Adler?” I said. “The Ripper will never strike in broad daylight.”

“We are using our unique gifts, Dr. Watson. Just as Holmes would use his. Part of that includes me studying my character.”

“What character?” I said.

Irene sighed, “Do you not understand that we must learn whatever it is that he already knows about these women. He knows why he kills them. He knows why he does what he does to them. We do not.”

“Did you ever think that perhaps he killed those four women for personal reasons that cannot be known to us? What if the killer was simply their pimp and he murdered them over something as simple as a monetary dispute? There could be a relatively simple explanation for all of this and we are just not seeing it because we are too busy chasing a deuced bogeyman!”

Irene shook her head, “None of the victims lived in a close enough proximity. Why would one pimp have four different girls so spread out? That is not how they work. They keep their girls close by, never too far out of their sight, nor their grip.”

“I suppose you know this, as well? In between appearances on stage at La Scalla, perhaps? To be perfectly frank with you, Miss Adler, I find it hard to believe that an opera prima donna has any knowledge whatsoever about these grimy people. It almost seems insulting for you to say so. I am no child of privilege, but even I confess that I have little ability to fathom what it must be like living in conditions like these.”

“I have seen much of this world, Dr. Watson. Leave it at that.”

I took a deep breath. “Perhaps what I should say is that this is completely foreign to any investigation I have ever done. Holmes and I would have been inspecting evidence, or searching for clues. The deductions he made at the end of the case were based on the observations he made during the investigation.”

“Fine,” Irene said. “Go and deduce to your heart’s content. I will meet up with you in two hours in front of the police station.” With that, she turned and crossed the street, quickly darting between carriages.

“What an exasperating woman,” I sighed. Commercial Street was filled with people that all jostled about as they moved from block to block, bar to bar, squalor to squalor. Street hawkers called out from their stands, shouting as loudly and often as possible over the voices of the others, selling bent match sticks and long slimy eels snatched from the Thames.

Men stood bearing large wooden signs painted with slogans for
Salutairis Champagne
and
Royal Dutch Chocolate
, trying to divert the never ending streams of passersby into the stores they stood in front of. Drunkards were everywhere, even at this early hour. Men and women stumbled in the streets, crashing into one another, and vomiting into the gutters. Police snatched thieves by the back of the shirt and beat them to the ground with their truncheons. Several women called out to me from the alleyways, “Feeling good natured, sir?”

“I suppose so, thank you,” I replied. They then stared at me curiously as I continued walking. A hurdy gurdy player plucked his instrument on the sidewalk as I left. He carefully guarded the upturned hat at his feet, which some passersby threw the odd farthing into. Beside him, a drunkard took to dancing stupidly, clapping and singing, while holding out his hat whenever someone passed by. To be fair, the drunkard seemed to be making more money than the musician.

I stopped at one of the street hawker stands who had barrels of apples stocked all around him. He had a thick stick in his hand, and he smacked it into his palm as a warning to anyone who looked like they might try and snatch one without paying. I looked into one of the barrels and grabbed an apple, then dropped it instantly when I saw it was riddled with worm holes. I turned a few more over and saw that they got worse as you went further into the barrel. “Excuse me, my good man, but these apples are all fouled.”

The hawker snarled at me and told me to “Piss off!”

~ * * * ~

I saw Irene moving through a crowd of people. “Miss Adler!” I shouted, hurrying to catch up to her. “Slow down a moment, if you please. I did not mean to offend you back there. Are you still cross with me?”

Irene fixed her eyes ahead, continuing to walk. “No, Dr. Watson. I am not cross with you, but I am exceedingly disappointed.”

“You are?” I said. “Why?”

“It is nothing you did, exactly. It is who you are. Who all of you are. Everyone in this damned city west of Temple Bar thinks of nothing but peerages and tea parties, but meanwhile, these people cannot feed their children.”

“I would not agree that it is fair to say that of me, Miss Adler.”

“Yet you are more comfortable in that world, than in this. You flinch when they walk too closely to you, Watson. You look like you want to delouse yourself every time you speak with one of them.”

“Well, look at how they stare at me, Miss Adler. They watch both of us as hungrily as sharks, just waiting for the moment to pounce on us. I daresay what they do with us once they pounce upon us may be different. But I suppose they are only human, in that regard.”

The corners of Irene’s mouth rose and she cast her eyes sideways toward me, “Are you being saucy with me, Dr. Watson?”

“Of course not, Miss Adler. I was only trying to-”

Irene put her finger over my lips. “Be silent for a moment. I think you may be onto something, Doctor. We should try and fit into our surroundings more. I am far too clean and well-dressed and you, my dear, are much too handsome.”

“I am? Really?”

Irene nodded and looked up and down the street. “A pawn shop,” she said brightly. “That should do the just the trick for us.”

“Handsome, you say?”

“At the very least, you are a little too well-groomed. I also think we should forego certain formalities, Doctor. From here on out, you will call me Irene, and I shall call you John. Agreed?”

“I suppose so. It seems a little improper, though.”

“I trust you are made of stern enough stuff to endure it.” She led me toward a store with “
PAWN HERE
” emblazoned on the front door. “This will suit us perfectly.”

Within moments I was standing in my underclothes in the changing room of that pawn shop as Irene shouted, “John, try these on!” A handful of filthy, ragged clothes came flying over the door at me and as I bent to collect them, a pair of boots struck me on the back of the head.

I stared at the articles she’d collected in disbelief. “Irene, pardon my saying so, but why would I trade in my clothes for these rags?”

Irene opened the door, and I scrambled to cover myself. “Because these are the clothes a typical person in Whitechapel wears, of course. Are you serious about catching Jack the Ripper, John?”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you want to make that woman proud, and silence your critics who think you lack the faculties to be anything more than Holmes’s manservant?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good,” she said, smiling. “Because I see a man before me who does not seem to be lacking in any department.” Her smile turned sideways, “Except, perhaps, your hair.” She put her fingers against my scalp, running them through my hair and undoing the tightly slicked back style I normally wore. Irene wiped her hand against her coat, smearing it with my macassar hair oil, but nodded with satisfaction as she looked at me.

When I emerged from the changing room, pulling my stained, threadbare coat closed, I was no longer Dr. John Watson.

“You look wonderful, John.” She walked to the counter where an old man sat staring at us in wonder over the rim of his thinly-rimmed glasses. “How much for these, sir?”

“Must say this is the first time anybody ever traded in clothes like yours to buy clothes like these, m’lady,” he said. “Can’t imagine what would possess a person to do that.”

“Vengeance,” Irene said flatly. The man looked at me, and I lifted my shoulders in wonder.

“Where to now, Miss Adler?” I asked as we left the store. I was wondering how long it would take for my new clothes to stop reeking of whatever booze-infested illness their previous occupant had suffered.

“Let’s go find ourselves a room.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

Irene took me firmly by the hand, pulling me along. “We need to be here, in this part of the city, John. It will help us immensely. We cannot move among them without raising suspicions unless we actually are one of them. To do that, we have to live here.”

“There is not a single place in all of London that will let us room together without being married. I do not think even you are willing to go quite that far to catch the Ripper.”

Irene chuckled as she led me toward a raggedy building with a sign that read
CROSSINGHAMS
. The man at the front looked up at us, “Here to doss?”

“Yes, love,” Irene said, affecting the local accent perfectly. “`Ow much?”

“It’s four shillings, six pence, per week. Each. You need money up front or it’s back to the street with yeh. I don’t take no charity cases.”

Irene fished several coins from her pocket and slapped them on the table. “Here’s enough for the first week. We’ll see if we need the room any longer after that.”

I pulled Irene toward me, “A week? Sharing one room? What about my Mary? If she learned of this, I shudder to think what would happen.”

“Hush, John,” Irene whispered, watching the man count the coins. Satisfied, he pulled out a ledger, opened it, and asked what name we wanted the room under. “Sybil Vane,” Irene said.

“Aw right, Miss Vane. Here’s your key. See me if you need anything. You lot can `ave the one up on the left. Oy,” he said, grabbing Irene’s arm as she passed. He put his mouth to her ear and whispered something that made her cheeks flush.

Irene smiled thinly and nodded to the man. “I will,” she said. “I really must get settled first.” She came to my side and hurried down the hall toward our room.

“What was that all about?” I whispered.

“He asked me when I’d be working later. He said he liked to try all the ‘fresh fish’ before the other boys got to it.”

I turned away from her to head directly back toward the man and punch his eyeballs from his head when Irene grabbed me and dragged me up the bare wooden steps. We came to a long narrow hallway with unlined walls save for peeling wallpaper. A thin, threadbare carpet covered the floor and the room was dimly lit by several, small gas-lamps.

Irene fit the key into our door, and revealed a room that was squalid and dank and barely bigger than the bed lying in the middle of it. The bed itself consisted of a thin mattress with lice-infested sheets. “Christ,” I said.

“I know,” Irene sighed, “it is absolutely perfect.”

TWENTY

“Oy?” Constable Lamb said. “Who am I?” He puffed out his belly and sat back in the desk sergeant’s chair, kicking both feet up on the desk and throwing his head back, snoring.

Constable Wensley looked up from his police manual, shook his head, and went back to reading.

“Why you always got your nose buried in some departmental book?” Lamb said. “Trying to make commissioner of police someday?”

“No,” Wensley said, “just Inspector.”

“You can have that,” Lamb said. “I’ll stay in uniform till I die. I’ll take this fat bastard’s job when he croaks and—”

“Who you calling fat?” Sgt. Byfield snarled from the doorway.

“Morning, sir!” Lamb said, throwing his feet to the floor and standing at attention.

“You see the bloody sign on this desk, boy? Says ‘
Sergeant of Police
’ on it, don’t it?”

“Yes, Sergeant Byfield.”

“It does not say ‘
Place For Snot-Nosed Constables to Put Their Feet Upon,’
now does it?”

“No, Sergeant Byfield.”

“Too right. Now, just to prove to me that you can read, go sort the reports from last month. Take your girlfriend with you,” he said, pointing at Wensley.

“Me, sir? What did I do, Sergeant?” Wensley complained, putting his book down.

“You’re a bookworm, Wensley. Hard to trust a man that enjoys reading in this line of work. Do me a favor and go prove you’re no better than the rest of us, eh? Sort the blasted reports.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Wensley said, glaring at Lamb.