The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (46 page)

And the time was two A.M.?

Yes, around then. He had heard the bells of Christ Church strike the hour.

How long had he stood there at the entrance to Miller’s Court?

Oh, maybe about three-quarters of an hour.

What then?

Well, he got tired of waiting for the man to reappear, so he just wandered off.

Could he describe the man?

Well, he was wearing mole-colored gaiters.

What else?

He was well dressed, too well dressed for that quarter of London, and that was queer.

Describe his clothes.

Well, there were the gaiters, and a long, dark coat trimmed with some kind of fur at the collar and cuffs.

An astrakhan?

If that’s what you call it.

And what else?

Well, he had a white collar with a black necktie. He had a heavy gold watch chain and a horseshoe pin in his necktie, and the watch chain had a seal with a red stone, and, oh, yes, he was wearing dark gaiters, did I mention that?

You said they were mole-colored,

Yes,
dark
mole-colored.

Did you see his face?

Yes. He had a mustache which curled up at the ends. He had bushy eyebrows. And he was very pale.

What else?

He had dark eyes. He looked like a foreigner. He had a dark complexion.

He was very pale and he had a dark complexion? You could make out all of this by the light of a gas lamp?

It was a bright night.

You said it was raining lightly.

The corner was brightly lit.

How tall was he?

He looked to be around thirty-five years old.

How
tall?

Oh. Tall? About five feet six inches tall.

Five feet six inches?

Yes, and thirty-five years old. A foreigner, if you want my opinion.

And he was wearing a pin in his tie?

A horseshoe pin.

And he had a watch chain?

A heavy watch chain with a seal, and the seal had a red stone. And he was wearing a long, dark coat. And, oh, yes, he was carrying some kind of a satchel under his arm, a bag made of shiny cloth, maybe oilcloth.

And he was wearing a silk hat?

I didn’t say that.

What kind of hat was he wearing, then?

I don’t know. It was a billycock, maybe. That’s right, a billycock. And he was wearing a light waistcoat under a dark-colored jacket.

All of which was under a long, dark astrakhan coat?

Yes, that’s right, a long, dark coat with a fur collar.

Abberline and Thicke, well versed in the art of questioning felons, took turns in questioning Hutchinson, and relentlessly tried every trick they knew to catch him up in the details. But it was no good. He stuck rigidly to his story, as preposterous as parts of it sounded, despite repeated efforts to break it down.

Holmes listened to the entire performance without comment.

“Worthless!” he said after the man had been taken out. “All quite worthless.”

“Waaal,” said Thicke, “there’s parts o’ h’it, at least, what ‘ave a ring o’ truth.”

“And larger parts,” scoffed Holmes, “that positively resonate with the dull thud of absurdity.”

Poor Hutchinson was taken to the Leman Street station for continued questioning, and Abberline ordered the bar opened so they could avail themselves of some refreshment — a small restorative, as Thicke put it. He managed to down three of them in quick order.

The police surgeon, Dr. Bagster-Phillips,
⁹⁸
joined them in the interim, and they spent the better part of the next thirty minutes
reviewing his findings, which, not surprisingly, were sparse and as yet incomplete. Still, Holmes was impressed with the careful, systematic approach that the medical man took in gathering together the threads of his investigation. He was most thorough in his report, even though it was still a preliminary one.

“Cause of death was the severance of the right carotid artery,” he said matter-of-factly, “inflicted while the victim was lying at the right side of her bedstead. In my opinion, the blade was wielded by a left-handed individual.”

He swallowed down his whisky in a single gulp and grimaced. “Good Lord, is this dreadful stuff!”

Dabbing at his lips with his handkerchief, he continued. “Perhaps I shall be able to tell you more after I examine her at the Shoreditch mortuary,” he said. “I have ordered the body taken there rather than to Montague Street, the facilities being far superior. But I believe I can state with a degree of certainty that death occurred between three-thirty and four A.M.”

“That would be at around the time a neighbor said she heard a cry.”

“Well, it would seem to fit, I think.”
⁹⁹

“You have participated in the postmortems of a few of the earlier victims, I believe,” said Holmes. “Is it your opinion this murder was carried out by the same hand?”

“Oh, yes. There can be no doubt. None whatsoever. The wounds to the throat by themselves tell the tale. And there is a definite similarity in the abdominal incisions, as well — in their location and the manner in which they were carried out.”

“Ah, then, well, that settles it,” said Abberline.

Holmes nodded, apparently satisfied. “Is there anything else you wish to call to our attention?” he then asked.

“No, I think not. You have seen the body and the mess that has been
made of it. What more could I possibly tell you? Oh. She was with child, if it matters.”

He finished his whisky and with a nod was gone.

Abberline studied his notebook thoughtfully for some minutes. “I have only this one remaining question on my list,” he said to Holmes finally. “As if the murders were not enough, the damnable fellow now leaves us with this new mystery to unravel.”

“Oh?” said Holmes. “And what mystery would that be, Inspector?”

“Why, the means of his exit from the premises. Surely you could not fail to notice that the inner bolt to the door was thrown. I saw you examining both the bolt and the lock on the door, so I know you noticed. It is a pretty little puzzle, is it not, how the killer managed to exit the premises given the fact that one of the windows was nailed shut and the other was too small for a man of average size to fit through?”

Holmes raised an eyebrow. “I fail to see the puzzle in the matter. He walked through the door and then reached through the window — the one with the broken pane of glass — and merely threw the bolt. Surely you noticed that the bolt was in easy reach of the window.”

Clearly Abberline had not.

“And if you examine the lock on the door, I think you will find that it has been some time since a key has been inserted into it — several weeks, at least. There is an absence of fresh scratch marks, as one would expect to see on the surface of any lock whose key is invariably inserted in the dark by someone who is often the worse for drink. And there is even a slight tint of new rust in evidence around the keyhole. I expect you will learn upon investigating the matter that our Mistress Kelly misplaced her key and had gotten into the habit of using that conveniently located broken pane to work the inner bolt. Obviously the killer saw her do it and followed her example.”
¹⁰⁰

Abberline quietly shut his notebook, noticeably embarrassed. “Yes.
Of course,” he mumbled. Then he shook his head, whether in wonder or in self-disgust, it was impossible to know.

“You do have a way of cutting mysteries down to size, Mr. Holmes. How very simple indeed you make it seem.”

Holmes assumed an expression of perfect innocence. “Every mystery is simple once it is explained.”

“Yes,” Abberline said with a heavy sigh. He stood up. “Well, that’s it, then. I should think we are finished here, unless you have something else, Mr. Holmes?”

“Well, in actual fact,” replied Holmes, who had remained seated, “there is the small matter of the cigarette end with the gold tip.”

Abberline was clearly taken aback. He gave Holmes the strangest look.

“Mr. Holmes, there was
no
cigarette end! My men searched everywhere, and none was found.”

Holmes looked very pleased with himself. “Precisely the point I wished to make, Inspector. Thank you so much indeed for making it for me.”

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
9, 1888

“The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete, and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis.”

—
Silver Blaze

“W
hat I do not understand,” said Watson as he and Holmes stepped out into the rain-slicked street, “is that on the one hand you seem to agree that this latest outrage was performed by the same individual who committed the earlier ones, yet on the other hand you continue to question whether it was indeed the same.”

It had been raining off and on for the better part of the day and had just begun to rain lightly again. A mist was beginning to form, combining with the coal smoke that lay heavy over the city. Watson grappled with his umbrella as he fell into step alongside Holmes, who, taking no notice of the rain, set off down the street at a brisk pace. “I was merely commenting on the fact,” he said crisply, “that if it were the same killer, it is rather odd that none of his cigarettes had been found
at the scene of the murder or anywhere in the vicinity.”

“Well, I don’t know...” Watson mused. He gave a little laugh. “I don’t suppose it’s likely he gave up smoking?”

Holmes made a derisive sound. “The trouble with a habit is that it is a habit. And the use of tobacco, as I have good reason to know, is a habit of the most formidable kind. I don’t believe he has stopped smoking any more than he has given up his other pernicious practice which, as we all have reason to know, he has not.”

“Perhaps he disposed of them in the fireplace, then,” offered Watson.

Holmes nodded. “That would indeed account for the lack of their presence in the room where the murder took place, and is my own presumption. Still...” His voice trailed off, his meaning clear.

Leaving the Ten Bells public house behind them, they headed along a gray and cheerless Commercial Street in the general direction of the Spitalfields Market, which lay just a short distance ahead through the haze. In the early morning hours, when the market was at its busiest, the area was the scene of clangorous activity, but at this time of day it was typically almost empty of traffic, a bleak and dispirited place filled only with the litter and leavings of its commerce.

Watson glanced around him and shivered. “Do you have a destination in mind?” he asked, hunching deeper into his coat. “This is hardly a desirable neighborhood for a constitutional, even if the weather were conducive to it.”

The grimy tenements, which closed in upon them from both sides of the street, wore a mean and menacing look, and Watson felt distinctly ill at ease despite the presence now of uniformed constables at every corner.

But if Holmes were in any way affected by the dismal surroundings or the weather, he did not show it. From his outward demeanor, one would have thought he was out walking in Regent’s Park on a fine
spring day. “I thought we just might get the lay of the land whilst we are here,” he replied carelessly. But a keen glimmer in his eye belied his nonchalance. He was on to something; Watson could sense an undercurrent of excitement crackling just beneath the surface of that calm, imperturbable exterior.

Watson peered at the buildings as they walked. Without him realizing it, they had retraced their steps and were once again in Dorset Street, just down from the entrance to Miller’s Court where the murder took place. The onset of the rain had effectively cleared the dark, narrow street ahead of them of most of the morbidly curious that had flocked to the scene once word of this latest murder had spread through the district. The last of the idlers had been chased away, the sidewalk hawkers had disappeared with the crowds, and the members of the press had rushed back to their offices to meet their deadlines. Now, except for one or two stragglers, the entire area was in almost the sole possession of a forlorn squad of constables from H-Division who, under their glistening oilskin capes, paced aimlessly up and down, singly and in pairs, stamping their feet against the chill.

Holmes stopped and looked up and down the street. Then, casually, he walked over to an open iron grating set into the pavement near the curb and, bending over, peered down into it. The odor emanating from it was foul, but he took no notice of that; the smell of bad drains was a normal part of London life, and one became accustomed to it. Shaking his head, he straightened and without a word continued toward the corner, about one hundred yards farther on. There he came to another grating in the street. Once again he stopped to peer down. And once again he shook his head and resumed his walk, this time crossing over to the other side of the street, where a cast iron cover of another kind was set into the pavement. This was not an open grating like the others, but a solid oval plate about three feet in diameter.

“Ah,” he said delightedly, “this just might be it.”

Bending almost double, he pointed with his still-furled umbrella to some raised lettering cast into the center of the plate and surrounded by an ornate design. Watson had no difficulty making out the words, EAST LONDON RAILWAY was what it said.