Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

Monty soon became so proficient at performing autopsies that William spent his days sitting in the specimen laboratory labeling jars while Monty provided him with trays of organs. Often, they would take the last train home, arriving late in the evening.

One night, as their cab rolled toward the front of their home they heard a door bang shut and saw the shadow of a man leap from the rear steps behind the house, and race into the darkness. Monty gasped in shock as the man turned for a moment into the light of the carriage’s lanterns. “Stop the cab!” William shouted. He jumped to the road, ordering Monty to go check on Ann while he gave chase.

“You want me to come with you, young sir?” the cab driver asked.

“No, that is not necessary. My father is ill. Please pull the car to the back in the turnaround.” Monty watched the man race into the woods. He walked slowly toward the front door and opened it just as a glass bottle shattered over his head. She stood naked in the living room, fists balled.

“Mother?” Monty said. “What happened to you?“

“Why are you here!” she screamed. “Why do you always have to ruin my life?” She collapsed to the ground, shrieking.

“My God, did that man do this to you?” Monty said, grabbing a blanket from the sofa and throwing it around her.

“Bring him back!” she screamed. “He wants to be with me! Why are you here?”

Understanding dawned on him, and Monty’s face twisted in rage. “How could you?”

Ann raced forward, beating Monty with her fists across his chest, “I know about you and that farm boy! Everyone knows! Filth! Sinners!”

Monty seized Ann by the throat, “Be silent, whore.” He heard William’s voice behind the house, approaching the back stars.

“I wish you were all dead!” Ann hissed back. “Your father knows what I do and does not even have the courage to protest.”

Monty slammed his forehead into her face, cracking the bone over her eye. Blood spurted from the wound, and Ann cried out. Monty punched her, opening up her lip. Ann fell backwards, reeling and whimpering. Monty listened for a moment to the voices behind the house, assessing how far away they were and how much time he had. He slapped and pinched her neck and shoulders, hard enough to leave welts and bruises.

He kicked her several times, until Ann whimpered and lifted her legs to her chest to protect herself, sobbing. He knew what needed to be done. Monty headed for the kitchen, eyeing the counters for the sharpest knife he could find.

“Monty? Where are you?” his father called, running to the door. He gasped at Ann’s sprawled body.

“I found her like this,” Monty said, turning from the kitchen. “I think she was violated! Oh God!” Monty said, throwing his face into his hands.

William and Monty did not leave Dorset for many weeks after that. William cared for Ann, unwilling to leave her side. He lamented being so far away and leaving her vulnerable. Ann seemed calm in those days. She did not leave her bed, but also did not shriek or curse at them. When Monty passed her room, he saw William on a bench by her bed, reading softly to her. Monty grimaced at the affection his father displayed on her, but could not bring himself to tell William the truth about his whoring wife.

He took long, undisturbed walks in the fields, searching for signs of the beast he and Clifton had seen. There were none. He checked the place where they’d seen the calf, but that too was gone. Monty continued through the woods, coming to the edge of the farm and saw a group of men working in the field. Clifton was not among them. They looked at him as he came out from between the trees, stepping into the amber stalks of wheat. He could see that they were talking to one another while looking at him.

Monty walked up to the farmhand’s house and knocked on the door. A young woman answered. “May I help you?” she asked.

“Is Clifton here?” Monty said.

She stared at him for a moment. “Are you Montague Druitt?”

Monty’s eyebrows raised, “Yes, I am. How did you—”

The door slammed in Monty’s face. He could hear words spoken quickly within. Someone was coming to the door. Finally, Clifton opened it and smiled. His teeth were very white and very straight when he smiled, Monty thought, smiling back. “Hello Monty.” The men in the field were now all staring at him and laughing. Clifton shut the door behind him, “I am sorry for that.”

“It is all right, I suppose. Did you hear about what happened to my mother?”

“I heard a few things.”

“It was your father. I know it was. I saw him running from the house.”

“That is not true!” There was panic in his voice. Both of them knew any man of their class would be hanged immediately if accused of raping a physician’s wife. “He was with me that whole night. I swear it,” Clifton said.

Monty looked at Clifton and shook his head, sighing. “As you say. It truly makes no difference to me one way or another.”

Clifton took a deep breath. “There is something I need to tell you.”

“Let us talk about it while we walk. Want to go looking for that wolf? Maybe down by the creek?” he said softly. He reached out to touch Clifton’s hand briefly, so that no one could see.

Clifton looked back at the house for a moment. “I can’t go into the woods with you any more, Monty.”

“What? Why?”

Clifton looked down at the ground. “I do not do those things anymore.”

The front door opened and the young woman came out onto the porch, staring at them both. Monty glared at her, “Who is she?”

“My cousin. Her father owns a small stand at the new rail station in Gillingham,” Clifton said. “I am travelling with her in a few days. I’ll be going to live with them and work at the stand.”

“For how long?”

Clifton shrugged. “My father says that if I marry her, I can take over the stand and become a businessman, Monty.”

“Marry? You cannot be serious.”

“Yes,” Clifton said. He looked down at a patch of grass he’d been kicking with the point of his shoe, seeing that he’d uncovered the dirt completely. “We have to grow up sometime, Monty. Can’t go ripping around the woods together forever, you know.”

Monty nodded, looking away. “When you are ready to stop joking, let me know.”

“Truly, I wasn’t joking, Monty.”

He looked back at Clifton, feeling his cheeks glowing hot. “If you want to play house with some strumpet, feel free, but do not pretend that it will make you happy.”

Clifton’s face clouded with anger. “That is enough, Mr. Druitt. Good day, sir.”

“It is best that you call me sir, you lowly little farm scum. That is all you are and all you will ever be. You, your whore, and whatever little creatures you two manage to grunt into existence. Scum, the lot of you.”

Clifton stopped in his tracks, looking over his shoulder. “I am sorry if I’ve hurt you, Monty. Some things are beyond our control, though.”

“If I showed you what was beyond your control it would be that whore’s guts spread across your conjugal bed.”

Clifton turned, half-smiling in surprise at the sudden malicious turn in Monty’s normally gentle voice. As their eyes met, Clifton’s smile turned to a scowl, seeing the naked fury in Monty’s face, and he found himself wondering if it had not been a rather serious threat. “Go away from here and never return, Mr. Druitt. If you come anywhere near me or my loved ones ever again I shall hurt you.”

Monty turned and began walking quickly into the woods. By the time he reached the trees he was running, crashing through branches, unable to see.

~ * * * ~

Dr. William Druitt stopped practicing medicine and devoted his later years to the care of his wife. Ann’s condition deteriorated to the point where William kept her confined to her bedroom. She had broken, smashed, and cracked every possible thing within it until nothing remained but a bare room with four walls. William threw a mattress on the floor for her to flop around on in between fits of shrieking. Ann lost the ability to attend to even the most basic bodily functions and William risked his own safety even attempting to bathe her. She had become wild.

One night William’s eyes were mere slits as he sat on the couch, clutching his chest. “What is wrong, father?” Monty said.

“I just need to rest a moment,” William said. “Your mother has been even more active than usual today.”

Monty considered this for a moment and then picked up a blanket and draped it over the old man. “Stay here and relax. I will attend to her.”

William thanked him and patted his hand. “Be gentle with her, son. She is a fragile creature and she loves you dearly, even if she is incapable of showing it.”

“I will,” Monty said.

Ann Druitt was lying on the floor, covered by a thin sheet. Her eyes did not look away from the window when Monty went into her room with a tray of tea and biscuits. “Good evening, mother,” Monty said. “I will leave these by your bed in case you would like them. Father will be in later after he has rested.”

“Do you ever see her, Monty?”

“See who?”

“Your sister,” Ann said. “I do. She comes down from her bed sometimes and whispers things to me. Things about you.”

He thought of that night so long ago when the black eyed corpse had stared at him while he slept in her bed. “No,” he said. “Never.”

Ann turned toward him sharply, “Georgiana could not endure knowing what she was. She was too weak. It is up to you now, Monty.”

He set the tray down on the floor and said, “I have no idea what you are talking about, but I will not stand here and listen to the ravings of a lunatic. Goodnight, mother.”

“Why do you think you are so in love with that farm boy? It is your natural instinct to be like the women of my family.”

Monty pounced on top of her and covered her mouth with his hand as she bit and squirmed under him. “If you utter one more word I will snuff out your life, you wretched, evil creature. I would be doing everyone in this house a favor by putting an end to your misery.”

“Monty?” his father called from downstairs. “Is everything all right up there?”

Monty pushed up from the mattress and told her to be silent. She laughed shrilly. “You do not even have the courage to kill a defenseless woman. Filth! Sinner!”

He kicked the tray at her with a clang, sending it crashing against the wall. Tea sprayed Ann and the plate of biscuits went flying, making her screech. William shouted, “Montague! Hang on, son. I’m coming up.”

Monty snatched the tray from the ground and said, “No need, father. Mother has decided she is not hungry this evening.” He shut the door behind him and went back down the stairs, assuring the old man that everything was fine.

~ * * * ~

Montague Druitt left Dorset as soon as he was old enough to enroll at New College in Oxford, dismayed at his father’s decision to abandon his practice. He begged William to institutionalize Ann so that the two of them could open the medical office they’d always spoken of. William refused, and Druitt moved away. He applied himself ferociously to his studies but found that the medical classes were too far beneath his level of experience and understanding to keep his interest. Druitt chose to focus on a new area of study that seemed to hold as much depth and complexity: Law. In truth, Druitt threw himself into school and work to try to ignore the strange desires welling within. He felt an uncontrollable rage bubbling beneath the surface of his being, threatening to overwhelm the carefully constructed personality he’d crafted during his school years.

Druitt observed the women he passed on the street, thinking of what lovely mysteries lay beneath the curtain of flesh, how he could plunge his hands into any one of them and tear out their insides. At night, he dreamed about the bodies from his father’s office. He dreamed about cutting them open, but instead of being cold, stiff corpses, they were warm and wet. Screaming.

~ * * * ~

Dr. William Druitt died of a heart attack in 1885. His youngest son returned for the funeral, staying just long enough to see the casket lowered into the ground. At the funeral he issued a cheque for the entirety of his inheritance to a local doctor, with the understanding that Ann would be regularly visited and cared for. Druitt provided the Inner Temple’s address to the doctor and told him, “Do not contact me until either she is dead or the money runs out.”

In early 1888, Druitt settled in Blackheath, a small section of the southeast area of London. Will had been living there for ten years, and both were delighted to live so close to one another. Druitt took up a position at the George Valentine’s Boarding School for Boys in Blackheath, residing at the school as Assistant Headmaster. His expertise in cricket, an interest he’d fostered since his brother first taught it to him, gained him the interest of the Morden Cricket Club, and earned him the position of Treasurer and Secretary for the Blackheath Cricket, Gottball, and Lawn Tennis Company.

In July of that year, Druitt received a letter from Dorset. He opened it expectantly, hoping to finally have word of Ann’s departure from the world. It was not. The doctor had died, and his widow wrote that there was not enough money in the world for her to continue caring for Ann as her dead husband had.

Druitt contacted the Brooke Asylum in Clapton and arranged for staff members to travel all the way to Dorset and transport Ann over one hundred miles to their facility. “If you do not mind me saying so,” Dr. Steward said, “I think it is delightful that you would go to all this expense to bring your mother close to where you are. We will do whatever is in our power to make her trip a pleasant one. But, and I hope you do not mind me saying so, you are aware that there are other facilities closer to where she would be more comfortable?” Dr. Steward asked, puzzled.

“Of course I am,” Druitt said.

“But you still want her to come to here?”

“I insist.”

That night, as Druitt lay in bed, he pictured Ann struggling against the confines of her straightjacket in the darkness of the storage car of the train that carried her from Dorset. She screamed and thrashed, beating her head against the wooden boards of the car, howling so loud that the other people in the car were awakened. Small children were terrified. The conductors shouted at the men bringing her to the Asylum that she must be silenced or else thrown off the train. That would be perfect, Druitt thought. He imagined them opening the door to her car, wooden clubs raised.