The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (22 page)

“Why, jest after I found the bit o’ cloth, sor. I searched the entire passageway ‘nd the staircase h’it leads to, jest over there. I was looking for bloodstains, or whatever,” he explained.

“How do you know it wasn’t there before?” asked Holmes.

“Because h’it t’weren’t, sor.”

“How do you know that?” chimed in Smith.

“Because I looked, sor. I examined this passage ‘nd the staircase, ‘nd checked the doors to all the flats up above not more than thirty minutes before, sor. H’its all in me book, sor.”

Holmes laughed and shook his head in wonderment. He turned serious again quickly. “The time was two fifty-five, you say?”

“Yes, sor. H’exactly. I checked me pocket wotch.”

Holmes mused aloud. “And we have placed the time of the woman’s murder at between one-thirty and one forty-five.”

“That’s quite right,” Smith agreed.

Holmes pondered for a minute. “So our friend Jack took at least forty-five minutes to well over an hour to reach this spot from Mitre Square. Even longer, perhaps.”

“That would appear to be the case.”

Holmes deliberated.

“What’s your point?” Smith asked, a little puzzled.

“Only that it took us a mere ten minutes.”

“So?”

“So, Jack did not come directly here, but went someplace else first. The question is where, and why?”

“Ah,” said Smith, comprehending at last. He thought about it briefly then turned abruptly. “Halse!” he bellowed. “Where’s Halse?”

“Right here, sir,” said a detective in civilian clothes right behind him.

“Oh. Halse, go find Mr. McWilliam.
⁵⁷
He’s still in Mitre Square, I believe. Tell him I want the whole area searched and searched again.
Tell him what we’ve found here, and tell him we believe the Ripper made at least one other stop first. Tell him to look for bloodstained rags. Tell him to look for... oh, I don’t know, anything at all.”

“Cigarette ends!” said Holmes. “Look for cigarette ends with a thin gold band!”

Smith and the others looked at him questioningly. Then Smith turned to his subordinate. “Do it, Halse! Cigarette ends with a thin gold band! Go, man, go!”

He was gone.

Smith turned to another one of his detectives. “Hunt, I want a photographic plate made of this.” He pointed to the scrawled message on the wall. “Go find someone to do it, quickly as you can.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man. “But, sir...”

“Well, what is it?”

“I just wanted to point out, sir, that we are out of our jurisdiction. This street is outside of the City’s borders and falls under Scotland Yard.”

“Oh, damn!” Smith’s features registered first annoyance and then indecision. It was a delicate problem, but it took him only a moment to make up his mind. He pounded fist into hand. “To hell with it! Do as I say! Find a photographer without delay! We’ll worry about the consequences later.”

Then he turned away to give instructions to others in attendance, and if he harbored any second thoughts regarding the wisdom of his decision, he did not show it. Clearly, paying homage to the niceties of interdepartmental protocol were not uppermost in his mind at the moment.

Holmes, standing quietly to the side, said nothing, but his estimation of Major Henry Smith, already high, rose a notch or two higher.

But more pressing matters awaited his attention. He got down on his hands and knees and, with the aid of a lantern, began a methodical examination of the ground in the passageway. Finding nothing of
consequence, though he painstakingly searched the ground inch by inch for a good twenty minutes, he turned his attentions once again to the chalked message scrawled on the wall.

He was deeply engrossed in this activity with pocket lens and lantern, when a cry from the street caught his attention and he hurried out through the passageway to investigate. On the curb he found Major Smith in earnest conversation with a constable who had apparently just come running up, for his chest was still heaving. Holmes heard the words “Dorset Street” mentioned as he approached.

Smith caught sight of him. “Holmes! C’mon! Dorset Street!” Without another word of explanation he dashed off, and Holmes had no other choice but to follow, along with a mixed crowd of uniformed police constables and plainclothes detectives.

They ran the length of Goulston Street past Wentworth and past White’s Row, the clatter of their heels loud against the cobbles, the lanterns carried by the uniformed force bobbing crazily up and down and appearing like so many fireflies gone berserk. They ran into Crispin Street, where they turned the corner into Dorset, one of the most notorious streets in all of Whitechapel. There, another cluster of fireflies awaited them, and it took but a moment to discover why. Set back from the street a bare six yards and illuminated by the light of a street lamp was a public sink, one of many that dotted the area. The bloodstained water that was in it had not had sufficient time to gurgle completely down the drain, and the half-smoked cigarette on the ground nearby, picked out in the beam of a constable’s lantern, was still smoldering.

The entire area was searched, of course, and searched again, but nothing more was found. Policemen knocked on every door and questioned every inhabitant, but no one heard anything, no one saw anything. Their elusive prey had once again vanished completely. From
all indications, they had been only minutes, perhaps seconds behind him, but it might as well have been hours or days. The trail was cold, and there was nothing more to be gained by continuing efforts to pick it up again.

Holmes, accompanied by a grim-faced Smith, departed the scene in a thoughtful mood. Hardly a word was exchanged between them. They made their way to the City mortuary in Golden Lane near St. Luke’s. There, in a starkly bare white-tiled room, they found two surgeons by the names of Brown and Sequeira, who were in the process of washing up, having just completed their post mortem of the woman’s body. The odor of a strong disinfectant predominated but failed to overpower the other smells of the place.

Brown, who appeared to them to be a rather cold and passionless man, strictly professional, did most of the talking.

“The cause of death was hemorrhage from the left common carotid artery,” he said matter-of-factly over his shoulder, soaping his hands for the third time. “Death was immediate. The mutilations were inflicted after death.” He wiped his hands on a towel, donned a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, and referred to his notes.

“The throat was cut across to the extent of about six or seven inches. The sternocleido mastoid muscle was divided. The cricoid cartilage below the vocal cords was severed through the middle. The large vessels on the left side of the neck were severed to the bone. The internal jugular vein was open to the extent of an inch and a half. All the injuries were caused by some very sharp instrument, like a knife, and pointed.”

He paused for a moment and riffled through the pages of his notes. “The walls of the abdomen were laid open from the breast downward. The cut commenced opposite the ensiform cartilage in the center of the body. The incision went upward, not penetrating the skin that was
over the sternum; it then divided the ensiform cartilage. Clearly, the knife was held so that the point was toward the left side and the handle toward the right. There was damage to the liver, several cuts — I won’t bore you with further technical details unless you insist.”

He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “In sum, there is evidence of several incisions going in various directions. There was a stab to the groin. There was another wounding the peritoneum. The abdominal wall was badly lacerated in several places. And so forth and so on. In layman’s terms, she was totally mangled. The man who did it had a high old time of it, I would say.” He nodded. “A high old time.” He looked from Holmes to Smith and back again without a trace of expression on his face, only a tightening of the lines around his mouth and a slight tic at the corner of his left eye betraying any hint of emotion.

Smith cleared his throat. “I think we have the idea, Doctor, thank you. Tell me, have you reached any conclusions regarding the size and shape of the knife?”

“Only that it was sharp and pointed and at least six inches long.”

“Would you say that the person wielding the knife exhibited any medical skills?”

“Not particularly. Only with respect to the positioning of the organs and the way of removing them: obviously, he knows a little something regarding human anatomy. The way in which the kidney was cut out showed that it was done by an individual who knew what he was about, but there is no indication of any special surgical skills. Very much to the contrary.”

Holmes looked up sharply. He had heard only the first part of the reply. “Organs were removed?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. Did I not mention that?” His outward manner was irritatingly casual. “The left kidney, the uterus, portions of both the large and small intestines. But the removal of the intestines must have
been obvious to you, mustn’t it? They were drawn out to a large extent, pulled out forcibly, and placed over the right shoulder. A section was quite detached and then placed between the left arm and the body.”

“Placed?” asked Smith. “You mean put there by design?”

“It would seem so, yes.”

“The other organs: The kidney and the uterus?” asked Holmes. “What of them?”

“Oh, they’re gone.”

“Gone? You mean, missing?”

“Quite.”

There was silence in the room for a long moment.

Smith slowly shook his head in disbelief. Finally he asked: “Is there anything else you can tell us that might be useful, Doctor?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” he replied dryly. “Of course, you noted that the lobe of her right ear was cut obliquely through — why, I cannot imagine. That’s the lot of it.”

Smith turned to the other surgeon, who had remained silent throughout the interview, his eyes cast downward. “Is there anything you would like to add, Dr. Sequeira?”

The man raised his head and looked at him. He was very pale, obviously shaken. There was a momentary flash of anger in his eyes. “One thing only,” he said, clenching his jaw. “When you finally apprehend this creature, I would very much like to be there for the hanging.”

Without a further word he rushed from the room.

Dr. Brown stood there for a moment, staring at the floor. Then he returned to the sink and washed his hands again.

It was almost six o’clock when Holmes and Smith left the mortuary and returned by carriage to Mitre Square. A weak sun had risen, casting a thin, joyless half-light over the square. It was a gray and depressing
scene. Policemen stood about singly and in small groups, some conversing quietly but most maintaining a weary silence, their faces lined with fatigue. Detective Halse was waiting for them as they drove up. He greeted them nervously, obviously agitated about something.

“What now?” inquired Smith.

The policeman hesitated in his reply, as if having difficulty in finding the words. He looked aged, his eyes in the growing light were watery and rimmed with red. Holmes noticed that his hands were shaking. “The message on the wall, sir — in Goulston Street?”

“Yes, yes. What about it?”

Halse took a deep breath. “It’s been erased, sir.”

Smith looked at him in disbelief. For a moment he could not speak.

“Erased?”

Halse avoided his gaze. He raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “Sir, I did what I could, and Superintendent Arnold of the Metropolitan force was there and he argued against it also, but Sir Charles insisted, and there was nothing any of us could do.”

“Sir Charles?” interjected Holmes sharply.

“Yes, sir. Sir Charles Warren. He ordered that it be rubbed out.”

“Before the photographs were taken?” demanded Smith.

“Yes, sir. He said he was afraid the reference to Jews might inflame the populace — those were his words, sir — ‘inflame the populace,’ and lead to further anti-Jewish riots. We did our best to convince him to wait, or to just erase the one offending word, but he wouldn’t hear of it, sir. He just wouldn’t.”

Smith stared at him for a moment and then his shoulders slumped. “Oh, my dear sweet Jesus,” he said.

Sherlock Holmes merely gazed up at the sky. “How very extraordinary,” he said dispassionately.

* * *

It was well past the breakfast hour when Holmes finally made his way back to Baker Street. The search of the area surrounding the murder scene had been fruitless. The examination of the body at the mortuary revealed nothing of any great consequence. The case was really no further along than it had been two murders ago. Holmes was bone tired and dispirited, and if it were not for the fact that Mrs. Hudson hovered over him, fussing and scolding like a nanny, he never would have partaken of even what little he did of the meal she had so thoughtfully provided, late in the morning as it was. It was almost noon when he finally fell into bed, his body aching, his emotions drained, and he slept the day away, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, a deep, dreamless sleep that only a few hours earlier he had forsworn — a sleep which in the words of the poet was a divine oblivion of his sufferings.