Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (8 page)

Druitt met Polly Nichols the next night on Buck’s Row, one of the narrowest, darkest streets in the northeastern section of Whitechapel. He stood under the streetlamp at the corner of Buck’s Row and Baker’s Row, watching people stagger along Whitechapel Road. Polly approached him. Her black bonnet was trimmed with velvet, and she moved like her limbs were stiff under the several overcoats she wore. She was shorter than he was, and when she slurred her words through several missing front teeth and he smelled the booze and flop sweat on her breath. “You feeling good natured tonight, guvnah?”

Druitt swallowed hard, his heart hammered and it was all he could do to keep his arms and legs from shaking. “What does that mean?” he said.

Polly smiled gently, “New to this, are you? You are shaking, dear. Let ol’ Polly warm you up,” she said, pressing close to him. She put her arm through Druitt’s and began leading him toward an old stableyard’s gateway.

She spoke, but Druitt could not hear her. A roar arose in his ears, like a stern wind, drowning out everything but Druitt’s short, sharp breaths. Sweat ran down his armpits, sliding down his sides.

“So? You just need thruppence. If you want me mouth, it is just a tuppence more. If you want to put it anywhere else, it is-”

Druitt was too excited to wait. He grabbed her face before she finished speaking and slashed her across the throat. Polly Nichols crumbled at his feet, thrashing on the pavement like a fish suddenly yanked from the sea, horrified at its new surroundings.

Her twitching body was a revelation, and he gasped as the stream of blood began to slow. Druitt bent, taking her into his arms like a lover. He unbuttoned her coats and dress slowly, taking his time, savoring the moment.

Polly’s belly was pale in the dim light, and Druitt withdrew his long, curved blade, taking a moment to pick the exact spot he wanted to put it inside of her. Oh yes, he wanted to put it inside of her, he thought, beginning to breathe quickly. The hour of fate had finally arrived for both of them.

SIX

Inspector Gerard Lestrade spat on the ground and muttered, “This is bollocks. We are supposed to be Scotland Yard.”

The London Metropolitan Police Department was formed in 1829, when Parliament replaced the disorganized rabble of local town constables with a modern, efficient crime-fighting entity. Headquarters, known as “Scotland Yard” was established in Westminster, and the Police Department quickly evolved from a small force of one thousand, to nearly fifteen thousand constables, sergeants, inspectors, superintendents and commissioners.

Their jurisdiction covered more than a thousand square miles that encompassed Middlesex, portions of the counties of Essex, Hertford, Kent, Surrey and all of London except for one bastardized little square mile known as the City of London. The two sheriff’s responsible for “The City” refused to join with the larger force, preferring to maintain their little fiefdom of autonomy. In 1838 London City formed its own police agency, and just to show that it had no intention of being shown-up by the Met, it now had nearly five hundred police constables swarming through that one square mile. Better equipped and paid than we are, by far, Lestrade thought, grimacing.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Department answered to no one less than a member of the Prime Minister’s cabinet. The rest of the world looked to Scotland Yard as the gold standard for municipal policing.

Damn it, Lestrade thought. Now we look like a bunch of gabby cork-brained half-wits.

On April Third
Lestrade responded to London Hospital to interview a forty-two year old Whitechapel bunter named Emma Smith. She had reported being beaten, raped, and robbed by four youths on Brick Lane. The doctors kept trying to stitch the old girl back up as Lestrade attempted to interview her, but her responses were too faint for him to make out. The next day, Emma Smith was dead.

Lestrade immediately targeted the Old Nichol gang, a group of thugs constantly out harassing the whores of Whitechapel. Mickey Fitch, their leader, had lost an eye fighting with the Bessarabian Tigers in a street brawl. Rumor had it that one of the Tigers smashed a broken bottle into Mickey’s face, and severed the eye’s attachments. Mickey supposedly reached up and felt the dangling orb, wrapped his fingers around it and yanked the damned thing free.

That’s the East End for you, Lestrade thought. They will make any piece of garbage criminal into a legend.

The Old Nichol gang wanted the whores of Whitechapel to pay them for protection. If the whores did not pay, the protection they needed was from the gang itself. Lestrade worked the Emma Smith case for seventy two hours straight, sleeping at odd intervals in his office at the local Whitechapel police station, chasing various members of the Old Nichol. He threw one into the City Prison and loudly announced to the other prisoners that the bastard had crippled an old woman. “If you lot want to eat anything besides bread and water for the week, this bastard had better have a hard time of it in here!” As he left the prison, the Old Nichol boy was screaming for his mother, and Lestrade smiled the rest of the day.

Lestrade beat another senseless with his baton in Spitalfields, screaming, “Where the hell is Mickey Fitch? Where is that one-eyed bastard!” The bloke’s head gave way before his loyalty did, and he collapsed in a bleeding heap on the pavement. The dozen spectators who witnessed the assault were horrorstruck, but did not move to help as Lestrade left him lying there as a message to the rest of the gang.

Not one criminal even admitted to the existence of Mickey Fitch, let alone his involvement in the Smith shakedown and murder. Lestrade was no closer to finding the actual four suspects than when he began, but if truth be told, he was enjoying the work.

On August Seventh, Lestrade was sitting in his office, eyeing the hands of his pocket watch move toward the time he told a local bunter named Louise to meet him outside of the Princess Alice. Louise was easy on the eyes, but she had a bad habit of dragging her little girl with her all over Whitechapel, even when she was working. “Leave the little girl elsewhere,” he’d told her. “I do not want to be distracted.” He figured he would give her an extra coin or two if she left the little one behind.

One of the young constables came running into his office to report that they needed him immediately at a stairwell in the George Yard Building on Gunthorpe Street. Martha Tabram, an older whore from the neighborhood had been stabbed thirty nine times. The killer was frenzied, puncturing her in the neck, the gut, and twat.

Lestrade looked at the body and scowled, angry at the old bitch for getting herself murdered when he had places to be, and things to do. Anyway, it was obvious how Tabram had gotten herself killed. The only time a person bothered to stab anybody that many times, with that much ferocity, was someone with a serious personal grudge.

Lestrade figured that Tabram had refused to pay her pimp, or maybe tried stealing something from one of her punters. Whatever the case, it had caught up with her on the rodent-infested steps of the George Yard stairwell.

And then, August Thirty-First at three forty in the morning, a forty-three year old prostitute was found on Buck’s Row by a carman on his way to work at Pickfords. He saw her lying on the street and called to a friend for assistance. They both checked her and thought she had a heartbeat.

A constable was summoned, and he, in turn, summoned a doctor. Finally, the doctor was able to determine that the life of one Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols had been snuffed out. Lestrade thought, maybe it was the fact that her throat had been completely cut open and her belly slashed several times. The Polly Nichols murder, while daunting, could be worked if Lestrade was given the time and manpower. He knew that people were out in that area all times of night. He knew that someone had seen something. He knew that at some point, an angry housewife would walk into his station and say that her husband was hiding a bloody knife and shirt under the floorboard of their home. An arrest would be made, his name would be in the papers, and he would finally get promoted out of the stinking hole known as Whitechapel.

Enter the mutilated corpse of Annie Chapman.

Lestrade’s jaw tightened, picturing the scene of Chapman’s murder. He had seen much horror in his time as a police officer in the service of the Metropolitan Police Department, but what found in the rear of Twenty Nine Hanbury Street would haunt his dreams forever.

Lestrade’s years of policing, dealing with all the varied aspects of humanity, had stolen both his faith in God and his faith in Good. Looking down at Annie Chapman filled him with only fear.

“Bollocks,” Lestrade whispered, seeing John Pizer coming toward him, smiling. The man all the papers and locals called “Leather Apron” was holding up his hands, waving them to show Lestrade how he was no longer handcuffed.

“Bad luck again, eh, Inspector? Told you they was lying.”

“Keep moving,” Lestrade said without looking at him. Louise had told him about Pizer. She’d been warned by the other girls to keep her distance from him because he was a real bruiser. He always carried a long knife tucked in his apron, and liked to punch up girls if they gave him reason. He liked to punch up girls even if they did not. Pizer had no alibi for the night that Martha Tabram was murdered.

“Just tell me, Inspector,” Pizer leaned close to Lestrade, “how many times are we going to do this? How many whores are going to lie to you about me threatening them before you start arresting them, instead of me?”

“I said keep moving.”

“I demand an answer!” Pizer shouted, bringing the police station to silence. “The newspapers write about me being a suspect for murder every day to the point I can’t leave my own house! Now, I am being held against my will for days at a time on the word of anyone who wants to become famous for pinching Leather Apron!”

Lestrade grabbed Pizer by the front collar of his shirt and yanked him forward so abruptly that Pizer nearly crashed into him. “Listen to me, porker. If I want to, I’ll arrest you every day of your sad, putrid little existence until either the killings stop, or you mysteriously end up dead. For the last time, get out of my police station before I lose my patience.”

“You do not frighten me,” Pizer said.

“That right?” Lestrade doubled Pizer over with a vicious right hand to the gut. “Not frightened, eh?” As Pizer bent forward and groaned, Lestrade slammed a knee up into his teeth, rocking him up into the air and backwards to collapse onto the station floor. Blood spilled from Pizer’s nose and mouth as his eyes rolled back in his head.

Sergeant Byfield looked up from his desk at Pizer’s sprawled form. He snapped his fingers at two constables. “You two get that bastard out of my police station.”

The constables hustled over to Pizer, grabbing him by the ankles and dragged him toward the front door. “Not that way,” Lestrade said, catching his breath. “There’s a hundred newspapermen out there. Take him out the back.”

The constables spun Pizer around and dragged him back across the floor and down the hall. Pizer’s head made a satisfying bump with each poorly navigated turn.

~ * * * ~

“Inspector Lestrade, please sit down,” Detective Chief Inspector Herman Brett said.

Lestrade sat, trying to keep his feet and hands steady. He had not yet received any reprimand for the incident with Pizer, but was well aware that any number of officers might have filed a complaint. In the Service, there were many ways to receive promotion. For those who shied away from doing any actual police work, the most assured way to obtain rank was to snitch on another copper.

“Inspector Lestrade, why are your people arresting John Pizer three days after we told the press that we have not a shred of evidence against him?” Chief Inspector Brett did not look up at Lestrade as he spoke, only at the blank piece of paper on his desk. Brett tapped the end of his pen on the paper, waiting for Lestrade to begin.

“First off, I would like to go on record that I do not understand Inspector Helson’s logic in releasing that information to the press. Every day I see some new aspect of our investigation appearing in the damn newspaper. We might as well announce to whomever is doing these killings to go ahead and slaughter prostitutes at will,” Lestrade said.

Chief Inspector Brett wrote as Lestrade spoke, continuing after Lestrade had finished. Brett paused writing, “Go ahead and slaughter prostitutes?”

“At will, sir.”

“Any other persons you’d like to cast blame on to excuse your inability to capture the killer?”

Lestrade nodded, “Well, now that you mention it, I consider Coroner Wynn Baxter responsible for the Annie Chapman killing.”

Brett dropped his pen and peered over his glasses, “Excuse me, Inspector?”

Lestrade leaned forward, “I can spell his name if you would like, sir. Might as well jot this down too. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say.”

Chief Inspector sighed and picked up his pen. “I assure you I can spell it, Lestrade. Best not to take that tone with me at this moment. Carry on.”

“Sorry, sir. I meant to say that I should like to file a protest with you over the conduct of Coroner Baxter concerning the Polly Nichols inquest. It is the duties of the coroner’s court during inquest to determine only the identity of the decedent and the cause of death. Instead, he used the hearing as a way to puff himself up and get into the newspapers. They knew who the girl was and how she died the very first day of the inquest, but it continued for nearly two more weeks. Now, the public has as much information as I do about the murder, if not more, depending how many newspapers they can afford to buy,” Lestrade said.

“How does that implicate the Coroner in Annie Chapman’s death?”

“For one thing, Baxter made a big production discussing the method in which Nichols was killed, including what kind of knife the killer used. How it enabled him to dispatch her silently with a cut across the throat straight away. Every maniac in the city could have read that and began to formulate their own interesting ways to get themselves into the paper as well. Worst of all, he started blabbing about all of the other murders I am trying to solve, saying how he was drawing connections between each of them. Now the public is stirred up into a frenzy thinking there is some wild roving pack of murderers all over the streets, and Scotland Yard is buggered to anything at all about any of them.”