Sherlock Holmes Murder Most Foul (24 page)

Sauntering across the wet street, Elizabeth and Whittle sidle up next to the raised window of the shop. Seated behind a sparse display of fruit, a white-haired Matthew Packer slavishly grins at the couple, “Ain’t much left.”

Elizabeth eagerly points to a box of black grapes, “’Em do!”

Packer teases her, “’Ole box?”

Elizabeth burps, “Yer daft bugger. Wot’d I do wiv a ’ole box?”

Taking a silver coin from the pocket of his trousers, Whittle smiles at Packer, “Keep the box, we’ll ’ave a bunch.”

Packer tears the page of a newspaper in half, “Wrapped?”

Elizabeth quickly extends her hand, “I’ll ’ave ’em fresh.”

Placing a stem of grapes on the torn page of the newspaper, Packer hands them to her,
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“Thru’pence.”

Whittle gives Packer the coin, “Ta, mate.”

Plucking a grape from the stem, Elizabeth places the fruit in her mouth, bites it and sighs with delight, “Oooh, juicy.”

Turning away from the shop, Elizabeth and Whittle stroll towards Dutfield’s Yard. Hurrying along the pavement with head bowed, a slovenly Horace Welch approaches the couple from the opposite direction. Upon nearing Elizabeth and Whittle, he sidesteps them, recognizes Elizabeth, but does not acknowledge her. Pausing at the door of the Lord Nelson tavern, he slyly watches Elizabeth and Whittle halt outside the yard, devouring the grapes.

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Shoving his way through raucous revellers, Welch reaches the bar and purchases a pint of ale. Attracted by boisterous singing, he swallows a mouthful of beer and makes his way to the rear of the tavern. Seated at the small circular table, Kidney and Skinner drunkenly sing:

“She died o’ a fever an’ no one could save ’er

An’ that were the end o’ sweet Molly Malone.

But ’er ghost wheels ’er barrow

through streets broad an’ narrow.

Cryin’ cockles an’ mussels alive, alive-oh.

Alive, alive-oh.

Alive, alive-oh.

Cryin’ cockles an’ mussels, alive, alive-oh.”

Rowdily applauding their gusto, revellers raise their glasses and cheer. Belching, Skinner heartily slaps Kidney on the back, “A fine Irish song, mate, but I ain’t breath fer more.”

Kidney laughs hoarsely, “Molly Malone.
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Dublin born an’ bred. There’s a lass who’d put
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lead in yer pencil.”

Skinner chuckles, “That’ll be the day. She ain’t real. Never lived, mate.”

Feeling belittled, Kidney retaliates, “’Ow d’yer know? A bleedin’ ’istory book, are yer?”

Shuffling over to the table, Welch meekly stares at Kidney, “I’ve seen somefink yer ought t’ ’ear ’bout.”

Despising Welch, Kidney mocks him, “Welch by name,
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Welch by nature. Wot yer seen?”

“Yer ol’ woman.”

Immediately incensed and leaping from his stool, Kidney grabs Welch by the collar, causing him to spill some of his beer, “Where?”

Welch stammers, “Two doors from ’ere. Dutfield’s Yard.”

Kidney sneers, “Anyfink else?”

“Wiv a bloke, ain’t she?”

Fuming, Kidney pushes Welch away.

Rising from his stool, Skinner murmurs to Kidney, “She’s takin’ the piss, mate. Want t’ give the bloke a ’idin’, I’ll stand watch.”

Kidney picks up his glass and gulps down the remainder of his ale, “It ain’t ’im who gets a ’idin’, it’s ’er.” He slams the glass down on the table, “Come on.”

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Ambling past Elizabeth and Whittle, Israel Schwartz, a Hungarian Jew who speaks little or no English, collides with both Kidney and Skinner as the pair exit the tavern. Cruelly elbowing Schwartz in the chest, Kidney growls, “Lipski!” Fearful of further violence, Schwartz flees. Turning the corner into Fairclough Street, he runs towards the relative safety of his lodgings in Back Church Lane.

Seeing Elizabeth and Whittle standing outside the yard, Kidney indicates the School Board building across the street to Skinner, “Over there, on the corner.” Skinner begins to have qualms about Kidney, “Just a ’idin’, mate.
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Nothin’ serious, eh?”

Kidney pushes him out into the street, “Keep watch.”

Positioning himself on the corner opposite the tavern and trying to appear inconspicuous, Skinner nervously lights his clay pipe.

Oblivious to impending danger, Elizabeth and Whittle continue to consume the grapes. Seeing her shiver, Whittle queries, “Cold?”

Chewing, Elizabeth jibes, “Someone just stepped
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on me grave.”

Whittle grins suggestively, “Finish the grapes, I’ll warm yer up.”

Darting past the fruiterer’s shop and the adjoining house, Kidney lunges at Whittle, grabs him by the shoulder and savagely thumps him in the face. Startled at first and then terrified, Elizabeth drops the remainder of the grapes.

Throwing Whittle back against the brickwork of the house, Kidney produces a horn-handled clasp knife. Flicking open a six inch blade and using its tip, he taps the end of Whittle’s nose, “Lost yer eyebrows, I see?” He jabs Whittle in the crotch, “Want t’ loose yer
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manhood, too?”

Overwhelmed by fear, Whittle urinates in his trousers.

Kidney disdainfully turns to Elizabeth “An’ yer’d ’ave ’im over me?” He throws a punch and strikes her in the face. She collapses to the pavement, squashing fallen grapes on the ground beneath her body. Seizing Whittle by the throat, Kidney snarls, “On yer way, mate. Ain’t nothin’ t’ see ’ere.”

Bolting, Whittle scarpers back up the street. Upon reaching a narrow arch, he turns left and disappears into Batty’s Gardens. Stooping, Kidney grabs Elizabeth by her hair and drags her into the yard.

Driving his two-wheeled cart harnessed to a pony along Commercial Road, a young Russian Jew, Louis Diemschutz, turns the vehicle into Berner Street. Steward of the International Working Men’s Educational Club, Diemschutz is also a hawker of cheap jewellery. Intent on safely depositing his unsold wares with his wife at the club before stabling his pony elsewhere, he manoeuvres the cart down the cobbled street towards Dutfield’s Yard.

Seeing Diemschutz, the pony and the cart clattering towards him, Skinner anxiously taps the bowl of his pipe on the heel of his boot, clearing the receptacle of tobacco ash. Slipping the pipe into the pocket of his jacket, he darts across the street to the entrance of the yard. Confronted by impenetrable gloom, he whispers, “We’re
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tumbled, mate. Someone’s comin’.”

Emerging from the darkness, Kidney closes the bloodied blade of his knife. Skinner blanches, “I said, nothin’ serious, mate.” Kidney seizes him by the lapel of his jacket, “One word t’ the bogies, yer wind up like ’er.” Relinquishing his grip, Kidney pushes Skinner along the pavement towards the tavern, “We’ll go way of Fairclough.”

Nearing the yard, Diemschutz catches sight of what he believes are two drunken men leaving the Lord Nelson tavern and turning right into Fairclough Street.

He turns his cart to enter the yard.

Chapter 9

Night of the Signs

Catharine hammers on the cell door with her fist, “Oi, let me out! I want t’ go ’ome.”

Unlocking the door, Hutt informs her, “After you’ve given your name and address to the sergeant upstairs.”

Stepping out of the cell, Catharine chirps, “Wot we waitin’ fer, then?” She follows Hutt along the corridor, “Wot’s the time?”

He wearily glances at her, “Too late for you to get more drink.”

Catharine sighs, “I don’t need drink, just the time.”

Hutt indicates the clock affixed to the wall, “One o’clock.”

She pauses apprehensively and makes a reference to her male companion John Kelly, “I’ll git a right bleedin’
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’iding when I git ’ome. Likes me in by nine, don’t ’e?”

Motioning her to keep walking, Hutt retorts, “Serve you right. You shouldn’t get drunk.”

Presented to Desk Sergeant James Byfield for the second time and to avoid incurring a criminal record, Catharine gives a false name, “Mary Ann Kelly.”

Scrawling the name in his ledger, Byfield then asks, “Address?”

Although her address is 55 Flower and Dean Street, the same street where Elizabeth temporarily lodges, she again lies, “6 Fashion Street, Spitalfields.”

Placing his pen beside the inkwell and closing the ledger, Byfield looks at Hutt, standing beside her, “Take her back down…”

Catharine pleads, “’Aven’t I given yer me name an’ address?”

Byfield raises a silencing hand, “And if she can walk a straight line along the corridor, let her out the back door.”

Catharine perks up, “I git t’ sleep in me own bed t’night?”

Byfield gloomily advises, “Go straight home, luv. Don’t dawdle. There’s a madman roaming the streets.”

She grins, “Don’t fear fer me. I’ll not fall int’ ’is ’ands.”

Sauntering steadily along the corridor, Catharine passes her cell, puts on her black straw bonnet and straightens her creased apron.

Hutt indicates the back door, “This way, missus.”

Hesitating, she queries, “I can go, then?”

Hutt slides back two large bolts and opens the door. A cold breeze enters the corridor.

Catharine shivers.

Hutt looks at her with concern, “Do what the sergeant said. Go straight home.”

Appreciating his thoughtfulness, Catharine smiles, “Good night,
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ol’ cock.” Stepping out into the darkness, she turns left and hurries off towards Aldgate, where some five hours earlier she had been found lying drunk on the pavement.

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Entering Dutfield’s Yard, the pony shies to the left, away from the right hand wall and the side door. Tightening his grip on the reins, Diemschutz peers down from his cart and discerns a dark form. Prodding the form with the handle of his whip and getting no response, he gets down from his vehicle and strikes a match. Dimly revealed by its feeble light, Diemschutz determines the outline of a woman, lying prone upon the ground.

Struck by a gust of wind, the flame of the match blows out.

Leaving his pony and cart unattended, Diemschutz dashes into the club, bounds up the stairs to the first-floor, finds his young wife and blurts, “There be a woman in the yard. Can’t say if she’s drunk or dead.”

Procuring a candle and accompanied by tailor machinist Isaac Kozebrodski, Diemschutz hurriedly returns to the yard, seeing blood on the ground before he reaches the body. Having followed her husband only as far as the side door, Mrs Diemschutz nonetheless inquisitively pops her head out into the yard and sees what she would later describe to the police.

“Just by the door, I see a pool o’ blood, an’ when me ’usband struck a light I noticed a dark ’eap lyin’ by the wall. I at once recognized it as the body o’ a woman, while, t’ add t’ me horror, I see a stream o’ blood tricklin’ down the yard an’ terminatin’ in the pool I ’ad first noticed. She were lyin’ on ’er back wiv ’er ’ead agin the wall, an’ the face looked ghastly. I screamed out in fright, an’ members o’ the club ’earing me cries rushed downstairs in a body out int’ the yard.”

Diemschutz and Kozebrodski make no attempt to examine the body. Instead they bolt from the yard, turn right into Berner Street, then left into Fairclough Street, shouting, “Murder! Police!” Seeing the blood and the body for himself, another member of the club, Morris Eagle, also darts from the yard. Turning left into Berner Street, he runs towards Commercial Road in search of a policeman.

Standing outside the Beehive Tavern, situated on the corner of Fairclough Street and Christian Street, a horse-keeper, Edward Spooner, watches dumbfounded, as Diemschutz and Kozebrodski tear past him and then abruptly halt just before the next street, Grove Street.

Unable to spot a policeman, the two men quickly turn about and rush back towards Spooner. Stopping both men, he is told of their discovery and hurriedly returns with them to Dutfield’s Yard. Upon reaching the yard, Spooner finds a small crowd clustered around the body. Someone lights a candle. Spooner stoops, lifts up the chin of the dead woman and feels that it is scarcely warm. Looking closely at the body for the first time, Diemschutz sees the terrible wound in the throat.

“I could see that ’er throat were fearfully cut. There were a great gash in it over two inches wide. In one ’and she ’ad a packet o’ cachous. She were graspin’ ’em tightly.”

Rushing out of Berner Street into Commercial Road, Morris Eagle bumps into two police constables, Henry Lamb and Albert Collins, walking towards him, patrolling the section of Commercial Road between Christian Street and Batty Street.

Quickly informed of the murder by Eagle, the two constables race to the yard, at which point Constable Lamb first dispatches Constable Collins to fetch Dr Blackwell from his surgery at 100 Commercial Road and then Morris Eagle to Leman Street Police Station to obtain further police assistance.

Like Spooner before him, Lamb then kneels beside the body, places his hand against the face of the woman and finds that it is slightly warm. He holds her wrist to see if he can feel a pulse but detects none.

A few minutes later, at 1. 10 a.m., Constable Collins pounds on the door of Dr Blackwell’s surgery in Commercial Road, appealing for his assistance. Whilst the doctor struggles to get into his clothes, his assistant, Edward Johnston, hurriedly accompanies Collins back to the yard.

Johnston feels the body and finds it warm except the hands, which are quite cold. He then unfastens the dress at the neck to get a clearer view of the throat wound. The deep gash has ceased bleeding and the pool of blood upon the ground has now begun to clot. At 1.16 a.m., Dr Blackwell finally arrives in the yard and, by the beam of a policeman’s bulls-eye lantern, begins his examination of the body.

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Her dress was unfastened at the neck. The neck and chest were quite warm, as were also the legs, and the face was slightly warm. The hands were cold. The right hand was open and on the chest, and was smeared with blood. The left hand, lying on the ground was partially closed, and contained a small packet of cachous wrapped in tissue.”

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Having retired for the night shortly after Lestrade had taken leave of him, Holmes is suddenly roused from his slumber by the urgent rat-a-tat-tat sound of the brass knocker on the street door.

Hurriedly pulling on his dressing gown and emerging from his apartment, he looks down the carpeted flight of stairs, seeing a sleepy Mrs Hudson warily opening the door.

Breathlessly entering the house, Chandler removes his hat and addresses Mrs Hudson, “Mr Holmes, ma’am. It’s quite urgent.”

Briskly reacting to his presence, Holmes enquires, “Where is it this time?”

Quickly turning away from Mrs Hudson, Chandler grimly stares up at Holmes, “Dutfield’s Yard, Mr Holmes. Berner Street.”

Fearfully comprehending the reason for the late night call, Mrs. Hudson stifles a gasp with her hand.

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Held at bay by a line of police constables, a restless group of people, grumbling to one another in hushed voices, mill around the closed gates of the yard. Standing inside the yard, with their backs to the gates, Inspector Fell, Detective Sergeant Leach and Chandler silently watch Holmes, Lestrade and Dr Blackwell kneel beside the body.

Holmes stares at the slashed throat, “And this is the only wound inflicted upon her by the murderer?”

Dr Blackwell sighs wearily, “Surely that was enough, Mr Holmes? The poor woman bled to death.”

Lestrade glances at Holmes, “Then she wasn’t throttled like the others?”

Holmes nods, “That would appear to be the case, Lestrade.” He indicates the brownish, yellowish bruising of the face, “And these bruises, Doctor? When did she acquire them?”

Dr Blackwell picks up his
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Gladstone bag and stands, “Recently, but not tonight. Now, if will you excuse me?”

Politely tipping his hat to both men and then to Fell, Leach and Chandler at the gates, Dr Blackwell leaves the yard.

Carefully peeling back part of the tissue held in the left hand of the woman, Lestrade reveals two small pastilles, “Medication of some sort?”

Holmes clarifies, “Cachous, Lestrade. Dissolved in the mouth to disguise the odour of drink or tobacco.” Pointing to the rear of the yard, he adds, “There is no way out of this yard but back through the gates.” He gazes up at the first floor windows of the club, “And above us, Lestrade?”

Grasping the significance of what Holmes is implying, Lestrade exclaims, “A working men’s club. People coming and going.”

Holmes stands, “Not exactly a secluded spot, is it, Lestrade?”

Feeling a touch of cramp in his left leg, Lestrade stands and stomps his foot heavily, “You don’t think Jack the Ripper murdered her, then?”

Holmes ponders the question, “No strangulation, no mutilations. The murderer was reckless to the
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nth degree. He gave no thought to the members of the club who frequented the yard and took no precaution to ensure he had an alternative means of escape.” He shakes his head adamantly, “This was an impetuous murder, committed in the heat of the moment.” He indicates the woman’s bruised face again, “Find the man who did that to her and, in all likelihood, he will turn out to be your murderer, Lestrade.”

Lestrade looks at Fell and Leach, “Either of you seen this woman before?”

Fell blurts, “Me, mix with whores? Not bloody likely.”

Lestrade counters, “You should be so lucky, Inspector.”

Leach steps forward, “Name’s Elizabeth Stride. A bloke by the name of Kidney gave her the bruises.”

Lestrade thoughtfully strokes his chin, “Think he slit her throat?”

Leach answers, “Wouldn’t surprise me, Inspector. He’s a
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nasty piece of work.”

Lestrade gently pats him on the arm approvingly, “Good man. Bring him in. And if he’s guilty, we’ll watch him hang.”

Leach nods and, pulling ajar one of the gates, slips out of the yard into the street.

Quickly flicking open his notebook and scribbling something down with a pencil, Lestrade tears a page from the pad and gives it to Chandler, “The name of a journalist and the newspaper where he works. Get a sample of his handwriting. And be bloody discreet. I don’t want him to know we’re
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sniffing about.”

Amused by the word ‘sniffing’, Holmes smiles.

Similar to Leach, Chandler hurries from the yard. 

Turning to Fell, Lestrade indicates the body, “Get her down to the mortuary. And try not to lose her.”

Silently, Fell fumes.

Accompanying Holmes out of the yard into the street, Lestrade sighs, “Been a bit of a
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fool’s errand, hasn’t it?”

Peering over the heads of the jostling crowd outside the yard, Holmes sees a hansom cab hurtling down the street towards them, “Perhaps not, Lestrade.”

The cab halts sharply.

Leaping from the vehicle, Daniel Halse pushes his way through the crowd, “Mr Holmes?”

Holmes raises a curious eyebrow, “Yes.” He introduces Lestrade, “Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.”

Halse catches his breath, “Detective Constable Halse, City of London Police.”

Lestrade frowns, “You’ve violated the boundary. Berner Street is within the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police.”

Rankled by his defiant attitude, Halse snaps at Lestrade, “Then perhaps you should have told that to your killer. He’s just stepped over the boundary to our side.”

Lestrade blanches.

Holmes urgently enquires, “Where?”

Solemnly, Halse divulges, “Mitre Square.”