The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (44 page)

“On this here sw’lip o’ paper we have a certain addw’ress in Grosvenor Square — Seventy-four Brook Street, to be exact — which has been wisited on three occasions by the wery same gent what is on that first swip. It is an addw’ress what is not only a residence, as ya will find, but (he bobbed his head deferentially in Watson’s direction) is a doctor’s surgery an’ belongs to a certain wery h’important and distinguished member of the medical perfession.”

Holmes reached out for the new scrap of paper Johnson handed to him, studying it for a few moments in puzzlement. “Sir William Gull, the royal physician?”

He looked across at Shinwell, who tapped the side of his ample nose meaningfully.

Shinwell obviously felt that the information it contained was of some importance, and Shinwell’s instincts were usually good.

Holmes put the slip of paper away along with the others and extracted a five-pound note from his wallet, but Johnson stopped him.

“No, no, m’dear, not this time,” he said, holding up his hand. “This one’s on me.” He smiled roguishly. “I considers h’it me public-spirited duty, don’t I? I don’t know what any of this ‘as to do with the killings of those poor ducks, but if anything I can do will ‘elp to catch the fiend what did h’it, why, cor’blimy, dear chap, I’m ‘appy enough to do h’it. Indeed I am.”

So saying, he bundled up his papers and stuffed them into various pockets, rising to his feet with a grunt.

“As to what all this means, if it means anyfing a-tall, well, I’m sure I don’t know, and that’s an actual fact. This is more yer line of country, ain’t h’it? We’ll leave h’it to yer to make heads or tails of h’it, m’dear, ya bein’ the best judge an’ all.”

Collecting his ulster and billycock hat at the door, he turned to look once again at Holmes, who was still seated in his chair, gazing contemplatively into the fireplace. Shinwell’s beady little eyes took on a mischievous glint.

“Which ‘e does h’it one of two ways, this bloke, if yer was to ax me, Maw’ster Sherlock, m’dear,” he said. “Makes ‘is excapes, I means.”

Holmes looked up.

Shinwell Johnson cocked his head to one side, relishing the moment. “Unless he uses one of those ‘ot air ballwoons an’ tykes to the sky, I fink he goes undergw’round, ‘at’s what I fink. He takes to the sewers, in me ‘umble opinion — wike the bloody, filthy sewer rat that ‘e is. An’ that’s God’s ‘strewth.”

Clapping his billycock onto his head at a jaunty angle, he gave one last parting snort, as if for good measure. “G’day to ye, m’dears.
Mazel tov
, as they say. Faith ‘n’ begorra. No h’extra charge.”

With that he was gone, the sound of his good-natured chortle following him down the stairs to the lower landing, there to be joined by a shriek of youthful delight, caused no doubt by the sudden discovery that a shiny new tuppenny had been lurking behind Billy’s left ear.

Holmes remained unmoving in his chair following Shinwell Johnson’s departure, staring moodily into the fire and mentally reviewing the information that had been passed on to him, rolling it over in his mind in a vain effort to find some significance in it, something new, some little shred to go on.

Watson did his best to tiptoe around him. Taking advantage of the quiet moment that had descended upon them, he brought out his letter case to catch up on his correspondence, and for some little while the scratching of his pen was the only sound in the room to compete with the soothing tick-tock, tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.

It was that much more of a shock, therefore, when Holmes, with no warning at all, leapt up from his chair with a cry and made a sudden rush for the door.

Watson’s pen went skidding across the page.

“What an unmitigated ass I’ve been!” exclaimed Holmes, grabbing his coat, stick, and hat and bolting out the door.

He was gone before Watson could recover from his astonishment, leaving in his wake, as evidence of a hurried departure, his dressing gown draped over the stairwell banister where he had flung it and, at the foot of his chair, his meerschaum pipe lying smoldering on the carpet.

E
DITOR’S
N
OTE

T
here is an unaccountable gap in Watson’s narrative at this point: Three pages of his notes are missing. Whether they were accidentally lost or misplaced or were purposely removed, it is impossible to say, but as a result of their loss, there is regrettably no record of Holmes’s activities between the afternoon of November 7 and the morning of November 9.

However, we know from other sources —
The Times
and
The Daily Telegraph
in particular — that no major events, save one, occurred during that brief period that had a bearing on matters relating to the ongoing investigation of the Whitechapel murders.

The one exception occurred on Thursday, the eighth of November. Sir Charles Warren, under unrelenting pressures from the press, Buckingham Palace, and Parliament, finally submitted his resignation to the Home Secretary. It was done so quietly that two days passed before the press (or even his own chief aides) became aware of it.

We know from the historical record that during this period police officials in Whitechapel, expecting another murder at any time (for
none had occurred in over a month) made what preparations they could to prevent it. They increased routine patrols, assigned detectives in disguise to key locations, and flooded the district with plainclothesmen.

Their precautions were to no avail.

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
9, 1888

“‘Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?’

“‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’”

—
Silver Blaze

A
young man, a detective in civilian clothes, separated himself from the others straining to peer into the two windows at the end of the alley. He lurched to one side and vomited.

“For God’s sake, don’t look!” he warned another officer who came running up. “Whatever you do, don’t look!”

Holmes and Watson had just entered the enclosed yard — Miller’s Court, it was called — through a narrow, covered passage from the street. Even though it was only early afternoon, there was little light. It had been raining sporadically throughout the day and the sky was dismally gray. They had to force their way through the crush of people who were gathered behind a makeshift police barricade at the entranceway to the court, craning their necks to see. There was the rank
smell of poverty about the place, and a redolence of fear.

Holmes elbowed his way to one of the windows and peered over someone’s shoulder through filthy glass panes into what was a small, cluttered hovel of a room. When he turned away, his face was deathly pale.

The telegram summoning Holmes to Miller’s Court had arrived as he and Watson were sitting down to an early luncheon, the second telegram of the morning to bear momentous tidings. Their shepherd’s pie left on the table untouched, the newspaper on the floor where it fell, the pair of them were out on the street within minutes, commandeering a passing growler for the dash across town.

But it was some little while before they were able to make their way to the East End. The streets were packed with jostling throngs and the progress of their four-wheeler was frustrated by unusually heavy traffic. It was Lord Mayor’s Day, and soon the Rt. Hon. James Whitehead, wigged and robed and burdened by the heavy weight of his chain of office, would proceed in baroque splendor to his investiture at the Law Courts in the Strand. The crowds lining the route of the procession were already thick, spilling over into the side streets adjoining the route as well. That it was also the Prince of Wales’s birthday, his forty-seventh (they could hear the distant boom of the cannon as the royal salute was fired from the battery at the Tower), added to the holiday mood. Street peddlers were everywhere, sprinkled here and there with stilt walkers, musicians, and grotesque clowns with painted faces. The cries of the costermongers and food vendors hawking meat pies and trotters, plum duff and baked potatoes, pickled eels, hot wine, and roasted chestnuts, competed for attention with the chatter of performing monkeys, the banter of pitchmen and pearlies, and the blabber and antics of street performers of every stripe, the noise predominated by the dissonance of one-man bands and hurdy-gurdies.

Over all and pervasive was the ammonia stench of manure and horse urine, for even on a normal day with ordinary traffic the streets of the city were receptacles for hundreds of tons of droppings; more so on a day like this, when the traffic was decidedly heavier. The little street arabs plying the major intersections with brooms were having a good day of it sweeping paths clear for “the quality,” it being well worth a penny to the gents to avoid fouling their shoes and to keep “m’lady’s” skirts clean.

Several detours were required for the carriage to reach its destination: The area surrounding Guildhall, where the Lord Mayor’s banquet was to take place following the investiture, had to be given a wide berth, and it seemed to take ages before the driver of their coach was able to make any progress at all.

But at long last they crossed Bishopsgate into Spitalfields and wended their way up White’s Row into Crispin Street to the corner of Dorset, a short, narrow road bordering the vast Spitalfields meat market — so narrow there was barely enough room for two drays to pass, and so notorious that even policemen, residents boasted, feared to walk its brief length unaccompanied.
⁹⁴

The entrance to Miller’s Court was easily missed: A narrow, arched portal set into a brick wall between two nondescript doorways, one of them belonging to number 26 Dorset Street, behind which the court itself was located. It was reached from the street by a dark, forbidding passageway — a tunnel, really — twenty feet long and barely three feet wide. On the far side, the passage opened into a garbage-strewn yard looked down upon on all sides by the rear windows of low-rising tenements.

Miller’s Court was not a place one would normally choose to enter, let alone live in, assuming one had the choice. It had all the charm of an open sewer, and it was a dangerous place besides. Curiously, those
who did live there were predominantly women. Most of them were prostitutes, slatternly looking, gin-soaked, and sour-smelling, aged before their time and hard pressed to earn even the small amount required for the rent they paid. They dwelled in a warren of rickety, vermin-infested single-room flats, rented out no-questions-asked for a mere four shillings a week, and overpriced at that. The landlord was named John M’Carthy, and the rooms were known collectively as M’Carthy’s Rents.

Holmes, standing in the middle of the court and surveying the dismal scene, turned as he heard his name called. It was Abberline, accompanied by a senior uniformed official introduced as Superintendent Arnold, who clearly was in charge, for within a matter of seconds he sent everyone scurrying: Policemen were hurriedly assigned posts and given their instructions, and the court and the street beyond were soon cleared of those who did not belong.

The two windows that were the focus of so much attention looked into number 13 Miller’s Court, a small single room with no amenities, unless you counted the windows themselves, which were situated side by side with one being smaller than the other.

The entrance to number 13 was just around the corner, the first door on the right directly off the passageway. The door led directly into the room, there being no such extravagance as a vestibule or foyer to impede one’s way. But the door seemed locked, or something was jamming it, and they had to remove the larger of the two windows to get in. An officer climbed over the sill, found the door bolt fastened, and opened it from the inside.

The horrible, indescribable stench that met them when they entered caused them all to gag. Abberline covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief before he was able to cross the threshold. Holmes and Watson, just behind him, did the same.

Holmes halted just inside the door to allow his eyes a moment or two to adjust to the gloom. Despite the two windows, the room was dark, for very little light ever penetrated the enclosed courtyard. But the room being only twelve feet square, it did not seem at first glance there would be much to see. The furnishings were sparse: an old iron bedstead, two rickety tables, and a single chair. There was a fireplace opposite the door, in which it was obvious an enormous fire had recently burnt; there was a large quantity of ashes on the hearth, and they were still smoking.

Then, as their eyes became accustomed to the dim light, they began to make out details.

On the bed was sprawled the body of what had been a young woman. She was practically naked and lay on her back. She had been horribly mutilated. Her face, which was turned toward them, was slashed and disfigured. Her long dark hair, badly disarranged, was matted with blood. Her throat had been deeply cut from one side to the other, and her head was almost severed from her body. There was blood everywhere — on the bed, on the floor, on the walls.