Whitechapel (64 page)

He reached the door and was stunned by what he saw; it was not a scene that he could ever have expected to be greeted with. The girl was naked on her knees as she had leant back in shock of the door being opened shouting at the giant stood silently in the door. The man he had thought was Tumblety was stood with his back to the door and his trousers around his ankles and bare chested. He now looked round as Andrews reached the door and both he and the giant understood why she might have made such a scream. This man, who facially he now realised close up was not Tumblety but someone who looked very much like him, was indeed in possession of a weapon but it was an extremely large natural one. So exceptionally, that it had caused the girl to scream out in apparent shock.

“What the Goddam hell are you men doing?” She screamed indignantly, “can’t you see a girl trying to work!” The giant replied sheepishly.

“Sorry, April, I thought you was being attacked, baby.”

“Well Hell I ain’t! I just haven’t seen anything this big before and it gave me a goddamn shock as I dropped his trousers and it flopped out!”

Weston seemed amused by all this and looked at the men in doorway in a very proud fashion. He smiled and spoke to them.

“Sorry, guys it’s curse. But I can live with it. Now fuck off and leave us in peace!” He turned away from them back to the girl who stared at her eye level at him still with some obvious trepidation in her face.

The giant turned away sheepishly forgetting that Andrews was stood just beyond him in the door jam with Bentham in the corridor. He brushed shoulders with Bentham on the landing as he moved past. Andrews stared at the man’s back in disbelief. If this wasn’t Tumblety where the hell had he gone? Weston was aware of a man still stood behind him especially as he hadn’t heard the door close. The girl was about to begin the activity, a little nervously, her profession demanded when Weston spoke turning his head to face the man in the doorway.

“Do you mind? The lady and I have some unfinished business.” Andrews felt a wave of anger wash over him and he stepped menacingly towards Weston. “Steady, fella, I’m a lover not a fighter,” said Weston raising his hands in a defensive gesture responding to the threat, although not moving away from the girl. “But if have to…”

“Who the hell are you, you… freak?” Hissed an incensed Andrews, Bentham had walked in behind him somewhat lost as to what was going on.

“Well, what the hell is it to you, mister?” replied Weston, indignant that his long awaited expensive carnal pleasures were being interrupted still.

“I am Detective Inspector Andrews from Scotland Yard. I was pursuing a man called Tumblety over the Ripper murders in Whitechapel. You are dressed as him, living at his address and spending like him, but you’re obviously not him.”

“Look, do you mind, can’t this wait until later?” said Weston flippantly. This reaction pushed Andrews over the edge. He grabbed Weston’s right arm and forced it up his back and pushed him face down on the bed. He screamed in pain as his elbow was forced high up towards his shoulders in an awkward twisted position. The girl also screamed, Bentham looking on somewhat hypnotised by her swinging breasts as she stood up and stepped quickly backwards. Aware she was being looked at she covered her upper body with one arm and her lower parts with the other. Andrews looked around seeing her stood by the window.

“Miss, get dressed. Bentham, compensate her please from your impress money.” Bentham stared on at her for a moment. “BENTHAM!” His attention returned to Andrews.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Miss, please take your clothes, how much do you need?” April was surprised by this reaction from these, she noticed, not local men. Perhaps her time wasn’t wasted after all.

“Ten bucks please, mister.” Andrews nodded in agreement still with Weston pinned to the bed whining in pain. Bentham paid the girl who then fled the room having picked her clothes up to get dressed in privacy.

“Get off of me! I ain’t done nothing! What the hell do you want!” Andrews noticed Weston’s eyes watering with the pain he was still applying to the prostrate almost naked man.

“Right. I’m going to let you go. When I do, pull up your trousers, put you shirt on and then sit in that chair,” Andrews pointed to a wooden captain’s style chair sat in one corner of the room next to the window. “Then you are going to tell me everything, or so help me God, I’ll find the evidence to take you back and have you hung, you bastard.” Weston fell silent. He had a dozen thoughts spinning around in his head. That son of a bitch Townsend had really framed him. Although pleased of the money and the comfort, he now wished he could find Townsend himself to get a real answer to all this. He was also frustrated that he had paid the girl at the bar and she had now received double the money with absolutely no sexual gratification for him at all. His shoulder and arm being used to pin him to the bed were burning with pain. He decided to acquiesce.

“All right, all right. I won’t struggle and I’ll tell you everything. That son of a bitch Townsend has really played me for a fool.” Hearing the name Townsend and with Weston agreeing to co-operate Andrews released the arm lock he had applied. He felt sick to the pit of his stomach with the realisation that Tumblety had again outwitted the powers of law and order. Weston knelt up and then got to his feet on the bed and pulled up his trousers. He stepped off and grabbed his shirt which was amongst a pile of clothes on the floor and pulled it on beginning to then button it. Tucking it in, he sat himself in the captain’s chair and sighed heavily running his hands through his hair.

Andrews took a good look at him; it was easy to see why at a distance he had been mistaken by himself, and by Bentham, for Tumblety; but now in a study close to it was quite obviously not their man. Bentham was still stood in the open doorway; Andrews turned to him and spoke.

“Come in, lad and shut the door. Right, Mister….?”

“Weston, Bill Weston,” he replied disparagingly.

“Mr Weston, tell us all about your friend Francis Tumblety from the very start of your association with him. You do know he is the key suspect in the Whitechapel murders?” Weston buried his head in his hands. He should have guessed that the whole issue for Townsend in London was more than money related; after all he had introduced himself as ‘doctor’. Weston was also very well acquainted with the events in East London; he had been in the English capital for most of the year.

“He told me his name was Townsend and that there were some guys after him as he had got into financial difficulties as he put it. I guessed there’d be trouble ahead but not a murder rap. He just asked me to be him for the majority of the crossing and for a month here in New York. He made it well worth……er.”

“Paid you did he, Mr Weston?” Andrews didn’t have to work hard to maintain the upper hand. Weston had to think on his feet or he would end up broke again.

“Yes. $200. That’s all and some new clothes. I really needed the money.” Andrews remained silent staring at him. “I tell you that’s all!”

“All right, Mr Weston, You will of course have to forfeit that money as it is involved in the escape of a known criminal suspect.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Give me a break!” He was in truth happy to forfeit that money as he still had over a thousand dollars.

“Mr Weston, it’s a small price to pay to maintain your liberty. Now, where did ‘Dr Townsend’ say he was going?”

“He didn’t. I have no idea. I really don’t.” Andrews looked him in the eye for some seconds and then turned to look at Bentham. He pulled down the sides of his mouth in a begrudging manner of cynical acceptance of Weston’s story.

There was a knock on the door; Bentham opened it up to see a breathless Detective Hickey outside leaning on the door frame. He looked at both the English Detectives and then stepped in with a piece of paper in his hand. Abberline had replied to Byrne’s last telegram. Hickey held it out to Andrews as he looked at him in astonishment and then looked at the paper in his hand at the same time taking hold of it. It was folded in half but he recognised it as telex paper and opened it to read. The message was simple but damning. From its content he knew that their work was over.

C/I Byrne.

There is an apparent Masonic involvement in these murders and I have forthwith been instructed to discontinue the case against the suspect in your city. I am grateful for the professional courtesy you have shown.

F Abberline.

Andrews was mortified by the telegrams implications. It struck him that an alleged benevolent organisation was party to murder. He, like all the other key detectives on the Ripper case and the London based Masonic order involved, would never know that they had been duped by a clever and resourceful man who it seemed was destined to evade justice. It would reflect badly on both organisations. He looked up staring blankly at the walls in the room and then walked out, passing Bentham and handing him the telegram as he did so.

“What’s going on, huh?” asked a puzzled Weston. Bentham was reading the telegram still. He then looked up and exhaled a large breath puffing his cheeks out before breathing in and replying to Weston.

“Mr Weston, I think you’re free to go.” Weston looked puzzled. Hickey looked on at him impassively.

“What? What the fuck do you mean?” He now began to speak angrily.

“You’re are free to go, sir.” Bentham then walked out to.

“You lousy, limey bastards!” He jumped out of his chair and began to stride towards the door, enraged by the change of tack and confused by it. Before he could get to the door he was stopped by Hickey with a firm hand placed in the centre of his chest.

“I think you’ve done quite well, Mr Weston. Let’s leave at that, eh?” Bill Weston was momentarily lost for words and then having found some composure was about to launch a verbal tirade. He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped himself; they had left and he still had all of his money. The American cop was right, he was better off cutting his losses.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
 

Friday 7
th
December 7.30a.m: Abberline and Godley were in ‘The Bull’ an ‘early house’ in the Smithfield meat market area drowning their sorrows. The case against Tumblety had finally been discarded by them through no choice of their own and there was no trace anywhere of the second main suspect Severin Klosowski also known as George Chapman. The public house was full with meat porters and butchers who had just finished their hours of early morning toil in the market. The butchers were easy to distinguish from the porters in their white aprons and work coats heavily stained with blood from the dozens of carcasses they had dealt with through the night; either cattle or poultry, the effect on their work clothing was the same. They took little notice of the two now shabbily dressed detectives stood at one end of the bar by an external wall being served without question by the landlord. He knew who they were by reputation and familiarity although the market lay deep within the City of London Police’s jurisdiction.

“Another Ale, Mr Abberline?” politely asked the publican of the noted detective. Abberline was using the both the bar and the wall for support. He and Godley had only been in there for a little over an hour but they had sunk nearly seven pints each on virtually empty stomachs. Abberline was reaching the end of his seventh hence the enquiry. They were both drinking a thick, dark ale almost black in its colour, called ‘Hells Teeth’. It was strong and bitter and perfect for the intentions of the great East End detective; to become as drunk as possible in the quickest possible time. Godley had barely started the seventh and was in little better condition than Abberline but he was aware that one of them had to ensure a safe journey home and avoid any actions leading to major embarrassment personally or for the beleaguered Metropolitan Police. Godley watched Abberline sink the last of his pint draining the glass as if it were the last request of a condemned man. He saw how glazed his friend’s eyes were becoming and as he spoke he could tell his speech was beginning to slur.

“Tell me, George, how do you reckon this will go down in annals of the history of the Metropolitan Police? Do you think that they’ll use us as scape goats to justify an incompetent investigation? Eh?” Godley looked his friend in the eye and thought long and hard about an answer. He looked into his nearly full pint glass still considering his words and then drank about a quarter of it before beginning to speak.

“Well.” Godley paused and looked around the crowd of market drinkers who were paying them little or no attention. “I think that history will judge us well and find out those who obstructed the investigation. This was a slaughter of the innocent drawn from the masses and the papers love to champion the under dogs in favour of knocking the establishment. You will be hailed as the people’s hero who did his best but failed while trying through no fault of your own. All the blokes on the case from you down will be judged that way. Problem is, Fred, that you’ll have to be careful not speak out. Keep any memoirs to a minimum, keep interviews vague and for the time you have left in this job keep your head down. If you can get another rank then at least the pension will be better.”

“Funny you should say that, old friend. I already got that inducement from Arnold, or was it Anderson? I’m getting too drunk to remember.”

“I did notice that you’re beginning to go, mate. Sure you should have any more?” Abberline picked up the eighth pint just served by the publican and laying on the counter.

“I’ll be the judge of that. But you’re right this had better be the last. Then we’re off.” He began to sink some of the thick, dark and richly alcoholic ale. He managed about a third of the glass before he banged it back down on the bar spilling some of it as it lapped over the sides of the glass with the force of the impact. “I need a slash.” Abberline began to move away from the wall just supporting himself against the bar with Godley paying close attention. He looked up across the saloon to the opposite side where the toilets were across a sea of white clad, blood soaked humanity. Squinting, he located them and let go of the bar and began to stagger towards the toilet door. He managed three unsteady steps before collapsing in a heap on the floor, Godley making a desperate but failing lunge to catch his fall.