November brought bright sunshine glittering down over the snowy city of Norvius as the population turned out into the streets for the official return of Crown Prince Oscar. With the band playing, he rode on a white horse at the head of the gun carriages and marching Kravonian army, behind which marched his own sheepskin-clad, rifle-bearing Kravonian irregulars. He moved through cheering crowds to the palace, where his father would descend the steps to give him a formal welcome and usher in a new and better future for Kravonia and her people.
But as a hansom cab clopped slowly over the Thames and on through the gloom of London streets, the mind of the author of these triumphs was far from that morning’s events in Kravonia. Both she and her friend Mary, who were the cab’s passengers, looked unhappy. Charlotte pressed her friend’s hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming with us. It is very distressing to visit Sherlock as he now is. Your support is a great comfort. John, of course, has been invaluable.’
‘John is certain he will soon be fully recovered,’ Mary assured her. ‘But what a mercy he was there, when Sherlock attacked Inspector Lestrade.’
‘It was lucky, too, that by that stage Sherlock was so distraught his normally superb marksmanship failed,’ said Charlotte.
‘Otherwise,’ Mary remarked dourly, ‘we should have had the corpse of a Scotland Yard detective on our hands.’
‘I should not have confided my doubt about Sherlock’s conclusions in the Baskerville Hall case to Lestrade,’ Charlotte said. ‘I fear those casual remarks made some months ago precipitated the crisis. It was very unfortunate that on a visit to Baker Street he brought the matter up.’
‘You could hardly have anticipated that your brother would bring out a pistol, fire it at the Inspector, then knock him out and lay waste the sitting-room,’ Mary pointed out. ‘So sad – the microscope presented to him by Princess Marie of Bourbon after the successful conclusion of the case of the rose diamonds, hurled at the mirror – both ruined; the desk swept clear of all papers; a decanter hurled at the wall; a chair broken. What destruction. Alas, there is no spectacle sadder than that of a noble mind o’erthrown. Of course,’ she added truthfully, ‘it has to be said that there’s a good deal of sense in your alternative solution to the Baskerville case.’
Charlotte sighed. ‘Sir Charles Baskerville of course died of a heart attack in the yew alley at Baskerville Hall, while waiting for a lady – that is undisputed. So is the fact that there was no other crime to detect. There was no real case for accusing Stapleton of murder. He was very ill advised to keep a large, ill-trained dog which chased people about – even over cliffs – but that was his only crime. Many people own big, ill-trained dogs with the habit of escaping from home. That does not put them in the condemned cell. The rest – the dog’s glowing eyes, uncanny behaviour, and so on – was, I’m afraid, the product of my brother’s imagination. He had spent some time living on the open moor. His system was already depleted. Fortunately Mr Stapleton ran into the bog and only pretended to die. Otherwise, I fear, on the basis of my brother’s deductions, he would be in a bad way now. As I understand it, he is now at home, toasting muffins, being, I believe, no more guilty of murder than I am. Small wonder,’ Charlotte added tactfully, ‘that Sherlock convinced John he was right, for when had that brilliant mind ever erred before? But, to be frank, and to use common parlance, my brother had the horrors. He has, of course, a very delicately organised nervous system.’
‘It was the cocktails of opium and morphine which did the damage,’ said Mary Watson, not for nothing a doctor’s wife.
‘I’m more than sorry that I was in Kravonia when Sherlock broke down and you had to manage things for me. Please, let me buy you a good tea at Fortnum and Mason by way of belated amends. We have had a long journey to Balham. Nothing cheers one up on a gloomy winter afternoon more than a good tea.’
Mary responded by rapping on the window of the hansom cab and redirecting the driver to Piccadilly. They rode through dark and rain to the famous restaurant. Both minds were dwelling on the tall, silent figure of Sherlock Holmes as they had just seen him in his plaid dressing-gown, sitting in an armchair looking out over the rain-drenched lawns of the private sanatorium in Balham.
They took seats at a table and gave their order for tea, toasted crumpets and buns, éclairs and Fuller’s celebrated walnut cake.
‘Poor Sherlock. He said almost nothing while we were there,’ mourned Mary.
‘Well,’ said Charlotte philosophically, ‘we know from past experience that this melancholic phase does not last long. Sherlock will soon be out of The Priory, and the detective will be back to his cases again.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Mary Wilson agreed unenthusiastically. The two women gazed at each other over the teapot, which had just been placed on the table by the waitress. Charlotte’s gaze was sympathetic. Mary had a spark in her eye.
Charlotte coughed. ‘Men have so many vices,’ she claimed. ‘Gambling, insobriety, a taste for the ladies of the chorus.’
‘Quite right, Charlotte,’ Mary bravely said. ‘Any woman ought to be grateful that her husband’s only vice is detection. But, tell me – after the Kravonian triumph – ’
‘Sh!’ warned Charlotte, looking at the prosperous takers of tea at the other tables. ‘The real tale of events in Kravonia is known only to the Prime Minister, Foreign Office and, of course, the Queen.’
‘I see,’ said Mary. ‘I’ll say no more. But how are you occupying your time now the excitement has ended?’
‘In my laboratory, chiefly,’ Charlotte told her. ‘I don’t know if John has mentioned to you that some three years ago a Mr Galton made the extraordinary discovery that every human being has different fingerprints from every other. But so far this discovery has not been used in forensic science. I am attempting, among other things, to find the best way of isolating fingerprints and preserving them in some way. If one could do that, many crimes might be solved by comparison of fingerprints found on, say, a blunt instrument used in a murder, and the fingerprints of a suspect.’
‘It would depend’, Mary said, sipping her tea, ‘if courts would accept that rather odd form of evidence as admissible.’
Charlotte bit into a buttery crumpet and said, ‘Delicious. You’re right, of course.’
‘At least that merciless man they called Jack the Ripper has ceased his horrible activities,’ Mary said.
‘Let’s hope so,’ Charlotte said, cutting into the snowy frosting, studded with half-walnuts, which constituted the surface of the walnut cake. ‘Four women killed and mangled between the early morning of 31st August and the early morning of 30th September. A slice of cake?’ she asked.
Mary took it. ‘More tea, Charlotte?’ she then enquired.
‘If you please.’
‘All their throats cut,’ Mary mused. ‘And awful mutilations taking place after their deaths.’
‘I hope this man has ceased his deadly work,’ Charlotte said. ‘But I do not feel at all sure of it. With these killers, appetite grows and conscience diminishes. Unless he is dead or has gone elsewhere I do not think he has finished. My maid Betsey is an East Ender. Her sister has been staying with her upstairs in Chelsea since this began – nothing would do for their parents but to keep both of them out of Whitechapel. Betsey’s sister talks of leaving, but I’ve said I don’t think the situation is at all safe. The river of blood may still be flowing.’
Mary, eating her cake, remarked, ‘Could you not use your new scientific technique on articles taken from the scenes of the crime?’ Then she burst out laughing. ‘Charlotte!’ she appealed. ‘Do you hear me! Speaking of fingerprints and discussing lurid murders over tea? I’m growing like the rest of you.’
Charlotte said, ‘Oh, no – I urge you not to. Detection is almost as much of a drug as what has brought down poor Sherlock. Do not begin, I implore you, then you will not become addicted to it.’
‘Though I believe I might have some talent in that direction,’ mused Mary.
‘I’m sure you are right. I may have to appeal to you one day,’ Charlotte told her. ‘But would John like to be married to a detective?’
‘All wives are detectives,’ Mary assured her. ‘It is a necessary qualification.’
‘But presumably one that has to be concealed.’
Mary smiled. ‘Still, I hope you will not involve yourself in Whitechapel, even if you think the murders have not come to an end. Those poor women,’ she shuddered. ‘All, admittedly, of the lowest kind, but to be done to death in such a horrible way …’
‘And all within half a mile of each other, up against fences, in alleys in that area of poverty and slums,’ brooded Charlotte. ‘But rest assured, Mary. I have no desire to look into the matter.’
The two women parted in the darkness and drizzle, Mary to Dr Watson in Battersea, Charlotte to her laboratory in Chelsea.
On her return, Charlotte found to her surprise a constable sitting comfortably in the kitchen with the cook, her maid Betsey, and Betsey’s sister Lou. The policeman seemed quite reluctant to deliver the message he had brought, but had to hand over a small package which he said was from Inspector Lestrade. There was a note from the Inspector concerning the contents of the package, saying also that he hoped to call on her later.
In her laboratory, which was fully fitted out with benches, cupboards, drawers, zinc sinks and bunsen burners, Charlotte carefully tipped from the small cardboard box some items sent to her by Jules Lestrade. They were a small piece of muslin which had been used as a handkerchief, a small brown comb and a paper case, presumably the case for the comb. There were two cheap rings, one brass, the other silver, three pennies and two farthings. There was part of an envelope and a piece of paper, containing two small, pink pills. Charlotte gazed at these items, ten in all, laid out on her wooden workbench. An expression of sadness crossed her face. Then she pulled her microscope forward and got to work.
She was peering through the microscope when a short, thickset man with a black moustache appeared in the doorway of the laboratory. He wore a black overcoat and a black bowler hat which he removed; with the hat tucked under his arm, he stole across the laboratory floor. His expression was keenly interested. Charlotte, even though her abundant hair was tied up in a pink gingham cloth and she wore a baggy overall of the same material, still made a charming spectacle.
Feeling the arms of Jules Lestrade stealing round her waist and his moustache pressed against her neck, Charlotte gave a scream. ‘Jules!’ she exclaimed.
‘Just one kiss,’ appealed the bold police Inspector, who had for a long time cherished the warmest feelings for Charlotte.
‘Certainly not,’ Charlotte said. ‘Jules, you’ll turn my head completely.’
‘Very hard to turn the head of a member of the Holmes family,’ Lestrade said, peering over her shoulder. ‘Any results?’
The items Lestrade had sent to Charlotte for examination had been found, neatly arranged, round the body of Annie Chapman, who had been murdered by the Whitechapel murderer, known as Jack the Ripper. Her body had been discovered early in the morning of 8th September in the back yard of a small house in Hanbury Street. The rings and coins had been tidily arranged at the body’s feet. The yard was connected to the street by a passageway and neither the back door nor the front door was ever locked. Prostitutes therefore often took their clients through the front door and out into the yard for privacy.
‘The victim was very badly mutilated, they say,’ Charlotte said.
‘Atrociously,’ said Lestrade tersely. ‘I wouldn’t tell even you what that villain did to the poor woman. Do you think you can help catch him?’
‘You say in your note you hope I can find the murderer’s fingerprints on these items,’ Charlotte said. ‘But I suppose every policeman in London has already handled them. And this is an unproven technique. I’m improvising as I proceed.’
‘I’ve certainly touched them,’ said Lestrade. ‘I hope this doesn’t mean I have to swing for four murders.’
‘It isn’t magic, Lestrade,’ reproved Charlotte. ‘It’s simply a matter of finding the fingerprints on the items, if one can, and comparing them with the prints of the possible murderer. I presume that even if the evidence is not acceptable in court, at least if the fingerprints of suspects could be matched with the fingerprints on these pathetic items the police would know whom they should be pursuing. I’ve tried, Jules, but, honestly, too many people have handled these items, which are very small. Why are you so suddenly interested? There’s been no murder in Whitechapel for six weeks.’
‘Commissioner’s taking an interest in scientific detection,’ Lestrade said, without enthusiasm. ‘And it seems Her Majesty, who’s always occupied herself with the murders, has sent another little note asking what’s going on. That’s put a rocket under the Yard. By the by,’ he added, remembering something, ‘I ought to tell you there was a commotion in your hall when I came in. Front door standing open, rough, burly chap standing there arguing with a young woman, luggage being hauled downstairs with the idea of putting it on a donkey cart standing outside, adding no dignity to your residence. Your servant’s in tears, pleading with the other young woman not to remove herself. I trust that’s all in order.’
‘Far from it,’ Charlotte replied, pulling off the cloth in which her hair was wrapped, so that her black curly tresses rippled down over her shoulders.
‘Mon Dieu,’ Lestrade whispered to himself.
‘The young woman,’ Charlotte continued, rapidly taking off her overall and hanging it on a peg, ‘is my servant’s sister, sent here by her family in Whitechapel, to avoid the Ripper. Apparently, they’ve decided it’s now safe for her to return – though I confess I’m not so sure. Nor, I suppose are you, Jules, since you’ve sent me these things.’ She led the way up the garden path with a rapid step, saying as she went, ‘Have the police made any progress in finding out who the murderer might be?’
‘Not that they’ve told me about,’ he replied gloomily as they entered the kitchen. There Betsey was sitting at the table in tears, being comforted by Charlotte’s cook, Mrs Digby. Betsey turned a wet face to Charlotte and said, ‘Oh, Miss Charlotte. Lou’s gone, silly girl. Gone off with her luggage in Dad’s cart. I kept on telling them the place isn’t safe while that horrible madman’s still at large, but they wouldn’t listen. They’re saying he’s been found out and done in and the body thrown in the Thames, but how can you believe that? Can’t you go and find him out, Miss Charlotte? I shan’t rest easy till I know he’s been caught and hung. Try to get her to help you, Inspector,’ she appealed. Then she began to cry again.
‘Pull yourself together, Betsey,’ commanded Charlotte. ‘And bring Inspector Lestrade a mug of beer from the barrel. We’ll be in the drawing-room by the fire.’
‘The family may have a point,’ said Lestrade, once they were in the drawing-room and he was rudely warming his behind at the fire, blocking the warmth from Charlotte. ‘Four women were killed in the space of a month, and now there hasn’t been a death for six weeks. Perhaps the Whitechapel rumours are right – someone found the villain out, exacted rough justice and threw his body in the river. It won’t be the first time that’s happened round the docks. The man knew his Whitechapel – every alley, yard, nook and cranny. That makes him local, which means he may have been known locally. People in neighbourhoods of that kind don’t always call in the police to settle their difficulties, Miss Holmes, as I suppose you know.’
‘I do,’ replied Charlotte. She sighed. ‘But rumour, gossip and speculation have surrounded this crime from the first. There’s been a shocking lack of concrete evidence or even, if I dare say so, coherent thought. One thing is certain. Whatever the Commissioners, or even Her Majesty, may say, now a month and a half has passed without another murder, they will be taking policemen off the streets of Whitechapel and returning them to their own areas. Scotland Yard will be only too pleased to believe the story over. Their fear was always, was it not, that they would find the murderer to be a Jew, which would send the East End into a frenzy of riot against the Jews? They will be happy to let it all die down, if they can, won’t they, Inspector? It would be nice to think it all over.’
‘Right, as ever, Miss Holmes,’ said Lestrade, taking a tankard of beer from the tray held by Betsey, who then departed reluctantly, listening. The door did not close completely behind her when she left the room.
Lestrade looked appreciatively at the froth on the beer, drank and sighed with satisfaction. ‘Have you any results from your fingerprinting?’
‘I’m having to devise techniques for lifting the prints,’ Charlotte explained. ‘The science is very new. Before the arrival of that poor woman’s pathetic property I was at an experimental stage, taking fingerprints from people I know by asking them to handle various objects, dusting them with different compounds to see which produced the best impression, photographing the impressions – a very long, laborious process of research. Now you have handed me tiny items, heavily handled by every policeman in London, and you expect me to stand up and shout Eureka! I have it! Your murderer is John Smith, a man with a red beard of such-and-such an address! I am a detective, Jules, not a conjuror.’
Lestrade sighed. ‘I take your point, Miss Holmes. I hoped for a miracle.’
Betsey had put her head round the door. ‘It’s always a weekend or a holiday when he does for his victims,’ she stated.
‘I’m a Scotland Yard detective and I spot you for a girl who listens at doors,’ Lestrade remarked phlegmatically.
‘One might hypothesise he’s not mad at all,’ Charlotte remarked dreamily. Her eyes were on the wall opposite.
Encouraged, Betsey edged into the room. ‘Not mad?’ she exclaimed. ‘When he picks on perfect strangers, poor women down on their luck, doing it with men up against walls and fences for sixpence a time? Then disembowelling them? Not mad? What else could he be?’
‘A man who kills only at weekends must have a life which encourages him to kill then, or discourages him from killing on a weekday, whichever way you prefer to look at it. Perhaps he is employed elsewhere and therefore only free to come to Whitechapel at weekends.’
‘Or he lives in Whitechapel and whoever it is he lives with goes away at weekends so he can go out and do his horrible work without getting caught,’ Betsey contributed. ‘Still, who goes away for the weekend from Whitechapel? They don’t get a lot of invitations to big country houses down there.’
‘Hop off and get me another glass of this excellent beer, Betsey,’ Lestrade instructed. When she had gone he sat down and said to Charlotte, ‘I don’t think that young servant of yours should be sitting with us in the drawing-room, privy to confidential police information.’
‘Is there any?’ Charlotte asked sceptically. ‘As I see it, Betsey’s Whitechapel born and bred and has the keenest motives for wanting the man caught – her family’s safety. She may know something which could help us.’
‘Us?’ enquired Lestrade.
‘Jules,’ Charlotte said firmly, ‘you may have brought me various items in the hope that a science in its infancy would provide a magic solution as to the identity of this killer. But you know now that more ordinary detective procedures are still the only way of solving the problem. I take it you will not object if I involve myself?’
‘I should object extremely strongly if there were any question of your going to Whitechapel in person. It is a very dangerous and a disreputable neighbourhood,’ Lestrade told her.
‘I will bear what you say in mind,’ Charlotte replied.
‘You will do a great deal better than that,’ Lestrade said hotly. ‘Your brother would never forgive me if I allowed you to endanger yourself – ’
‘I am not a child – ’
‘By what right do you forbid me –?’
Betsey, who had brought the Inspector his second glass of beer and had lingered again in the room, stood up. ‘Thank you’, she said with a sardonic air, ‘for allowing me to be present during your important deliberations.’
Lestrade burst out laughing. ‘What an impertinent girl you are. Very well – let’s not quarrel, Miss Holmes. Let’s assume you have the sense to take care of yourself and that if you need a companion in Whitechapel you will call on me. Now – where are we to start detecting?’
‘I’m interested in investigating the question on the assumption that the murderer is not mad. That is one thing,’ said Charlotte. ‘And it might be more satisfactory to examine the matter in a different way: not to think of him, but to study his victims. Where’, she asked Betsey, ‘do you think we might find someone who knew any of the murdered women?’
Betsey thought. Then she replied, ‘Most of them must have spent a lot of time where all the cheap lodging houses are in Flower and Dean Street and Hanbury Street. Then there’s the pubs.’
‘Which one would you suggest?’ asked Lestrade.
‘You can’t take six paces in Whitechapel without hitting on a pub,’ said Betsey. ‘And all these women seem to have been too fond of drink.’
‘We might start at the Ten Bells near Spitalfields Market,’ suggested Lestrade.
‘Good as any,’ Betsey agreed.
‘Then to the Ten Bells we will go,’ Charlotte said, standing up. ‘For, first of all, we must find someone acquainted with one or more of the victims.’
Lestrade protested, ‘I am expected at the Yard,’ only to be told by Charlotte that she would collect him there at seven o’clock.
It was nearing eight when Charlotte and Lestrade entered a big public house by Spitalfields Market, in the shadow of the great, gloomy church, Christchurch, Spitalfields, and only a stone’s throw from the wealth and dignity of the City of London, one of the world’s great financial centres. Inside the pub gas-lamps hissed on the walls and a motley crew had assembled – some were old men and women nursing their pints in corners, others workmen spending too much of the day’s wages on beer. There were young men in bright neckerchiefs, plotting mischief in corners, while, nearest the fire, sat a group of made-up women in bright hats, trimmed with feathers and flowers. They wore low-cut dresses of every hue, many with feather boas over their shoulders. Some better-dressed men were watching them carefully from the bar.
Charlotte had known disguise would not deceive this crowd, who lived on their wits to survive, so wore a plain grey costume and a grey felt hat. Lestrade, from his bowler hat to his well-polished boots, was every inch the policeman. ‘Subterfuge is pointless,’ he had said. ‘These people have been trained from infancy to spot a policeman half a mile away.’
It was not long after they had taken seats at a wooden table near the door that the piano, which had been playing noisy tunes, sank to a lower tone and a large woman in a tight black silk dress, with many gold chains round her neck, came up to them and, feet strongly planted, hands on hips, demanded, ‘Is there anything I can get you, sir and madam?’
‘I’ll take a pint of brown ale, if you please,’ said Lestrade. ‘The lady, I think, would like a lemonade and we would both like some information.’
‘Ah,’ said the woman, ‘I thought it might come to that.’
‘Well, if you will fetch us our drinks, and something for yourself, perhaps you would like to sit down with us?’ said Lestrade.
‘You came straight to the point,’ commented Charlotte, while the drinks were fetched.
‘It’s sometimes better,’ said Lestrade.
When the woman returned Lestrade introduced himself and Charlotte. ‘Holmes?’ smiled the woman. ‘A name to conjure with. I am Mrs Wills, sister of the licensee of this house. So, what do you want?’
‘I should like to find a woman who knew Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride or Catherine Eddowes,’ Charlotte said levelly.
‘Oh my God,’ said Mrs Wills, clutching her throat. ‘I can’t hear those names, somehow, without it doing something bad to me.’
‘Very understandable, madam,’ Lestrade assured her. They were now under covert surveillance by everyone in the bar but the old ladies and gentlemen, and even some of them were shooting sharp looks at their table. Mrs Wills recovered her equanimity and gave Lestrade and Charlotte a careful look. ‘So you’re planning to catch the Ripper, are you? Hot on his trail? A doomed man, is he? Only inches from the scaffold?’
‘The police have failed,’ Charlotte said. ‘But now they’re taking many of their men off the streets. And the murderer is still at large, as far as we know. Will you help?’
‘Co-operating with the police doesn’t go down well round here,’ Mrs Wills said. ‘It can lose you trade.’
‘Not in this case, surely,’ Charlotte persuaded, ‘with every woman in the East End at risk?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Mrs Wills said darkly. She thought, then apparently made up her mind. ‘All right – the beast needs catching, if someone hasn’t already caught him and done for him. What do you want to know?’
‘To begin with, if there’s any woman here who knew some of the women, or just one.’
Mrs Wills leaned back over her shoulder and called, ‘Flo! Flo! Over here a minute.’
From a group of three brightly dressed women near the fire one sauntered over, scanning the faces of Charlotte and Lestrade. She was not more than nineteen years old, with blonde hair and a healthy, heavily rouged face. She wore a red satin dress, low-cut, with black lace trimmings. As she spoke a rotten front tooth revealed itself.
‘Well, what do you want?’ she demanded of the whole group.
‘Will you sit down and allow me to buy you a drink, miss?’ Lestrade said politely. ‘We’re here about the murders.’
‘I’ll have a port and lemon,’ Flo said shortly. As Lestrade stood up to get the drink she sat down. ‘You part of this?’ she enquired of Charlotte.
‘Half Scotland Yard’s tried to catch the man. Perhaps it’s time they tried a woman,’ Charlotte responded.
Flo burst out laughing. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said. Charlotte felt her amusement was forced.
‘You knew one of the dead women, didn’t you, Flo?’ asked Mrs Wills.
Flo was out of her seat in a flash, yelling, ‘You leave me alone! I don’t know who these people are! Let me be!’
Charlotte put her hand on Flo’s arm and said quietly, ‘You’re afraid, aren’t you? But do you think keeping silent makes you any safer? It didn’t help the others.’
Flo, with a drained face, sat down. ‘Take a drop of port, Flo,’ Lestrade said sympathetically. ‘It’ll calm you down.’
Mrs Wills’s small, clever eyes were on Charlotte. ‘What are you getting at?’ she asked.
Charlotte asked Flo, ‘Perhaps you were once a lodger at the same address as one of the victims? Or perhaps you knew one of the women?’
Flo was trembling now. She said, ‘Oh God. Oh God help me.’
‘Was it in Hanbury Street? Flower and Dean Street? Tell me,’ urged Charlotte.
Flo was wild with fear. She looked at Charlotte and cried, ‘How do I know you aren’t something to do with all this?’
Charlotte leaned forward and looked her in the eye. ‘Do I look as if I am? And this gentleman, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, is a Scotland Yard detective. We’re here to try and catch this man. You were at a certain address, and I must know that address. Something happened there, didn’t it? What was it?’
Flo stood up and screamed, ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! Leave me alone! Let me go!’
A young man in a smart brown suit and a curly-brimmed brown bowler was now at her side. He took Flo by the elbow and said to Lestrade in a threatening tone, ‘I don’t know who you and your friend are, though I can guess, but don’t think you can get away with threatening this young woman. Push off, and quickly, that’s my advice.’ Then he wheeled Flo round and took her back to the bar.
‘That’s it, I’m afraid,’ said Lestrade, standing up. ‘We’ll get no more help here tonight.’
Charlotte handed Mrs Wills her card and said, in an undertone, ‘If Flo has anything to tell me, ask her to find me here. Or if you hear anything …’
Mrs Wills took the card, her eyes on Charlotte’s face. ‘What have you hit on?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘What in God’s name are you bringing to light here?’
‘Get me that address,’ said Charlotte, ‘before it’s too late.’
The information she needed arrived anonymously at Charlotte’s house at seven next morning, delivered by a dirty boy. The message, written on a scrap of paper, read: ‘Cooney’s Lodging House, 55 Flower and Dean Street’. But, though neither the informant, whom Charlotte assumed to be Mrs Wills, nor Charlotte herself knew it then, the message had come too late. The Whitechapel murderer had already killed another woman in the early hours of that same morning. A young prostitute named Mary Kelly had been murdered and more hideously mutilated than any of the previous victims. She was caught in her own room in the fatal warren of half a mile of slum streets where the killer had found his other victims. Charlotte, setting out at eight to make an early visit to Sherlock at The Priory, Balham and planning, after that, to spend the rest of the day in detection, did not know at the time that this had occurred for the body was not to be found until later on in the morning.
She had breakfast with Sherlock in his commodious room, seated at a table looking out into the garden, where a robin sat peering about brightly on the branch of an apple tree.
‘So,’ Charlotte observed to her brother as she cut into a slice of ham, ‘you’ve been out?’
‘Very clever, Charlotte, but how do you know?’
‘As I approached your room I observed the maid taking away your suit and overcoat over her arm – for sponging and pressing, I assumed. Yesterday was rainy and muddy. I’m glad you’re so much better.’
‘I believe I am completely recovered,’ Sherlock said. ‘I deeply regret the pain and anxiety I have caused.’
‘In future you must listen to the advice of John Watson,’ she told him gravely.
‘Not on topics concerned with detection, surely,’ he said with a smile.
‘Perhaps not – but where your health is the question,’ she warned.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But, meanwhile, dear Charlotte, you have observed that yesterday I made a little outing.’
‘To Baker Street,’ she said, pointing to a pile of books, topped with a meerschaum pipe and a tobacco jar, which lay on the window seat.
‘True,’ he said. ‘Convalescence continues, but convalescence can be dull. Some diversion is needed. And, further to that, you owe it to me, Charlotte, not just to pay me a visit as if visiting a tedious, sick relative, but to entertain me with the story of the case you are at present engaged on.’ He raised his hand in warning. ‘Don’t pretend you’re not investigating something, Charlotte. I can tell you are by your manner. And your early arrival means you have some other business for the rest of the day. And as a detective and an older brother I observe you are not very happy about telling me what you’re doing.’
Charlotte laughed. ‘Right on all counts,’ she said and then told him about her attempt to find fingerprints on the items belonging to one of the victims of the Whitechapel murderer and of her visit to the Ten Bells with Inspector Lestrade. She also informed him about the message which had arrived that morning.
Sherlock listened in neutral silence but at the end of her account he said, ‘Charlotte! You are doing very well, but this is extremely dangerous. This murderer is a madman.’
‘I am assuming he is not,’ she said.
‘Quite so,’ he replied. ‘But that is only an assumption. And even if he has a motive for his killings it is plain he’ll stop at nothing. In addition, the neighbourhood in which you propose to pursue your investigations is very dangerous, ill lit, full of ruffians. Charlotte, you know I am an enlightened man but this is no business for a woman. I urge you to abandon your attempts to catch this man they call Jack the Ripper.’
‘Sherlock —’ protested Charlotte, but he continued, simply, ‘Charlotte, it is only that I fear for you. I must insist you go no further with this.’
‘Insist!’ Charlotte exclaimed. ‘What right have you to use that word to me? Perhaps you are not as well as I thought you were.’
‘I am perfectly well,’ he answered. ‘I merely ask you not to enter one of the worst areas of London in search of a madman.’
‘Lestrade will come with me if there is any risk,’ explained Charlotte, trying to mollify him. He did not soften. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he announced firmly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I shall communicate with Lestrade and ask him, as a favour to me, not to take you into the slums of Whitechapel.’
Charlotte stood up, saying coldly, ‘I’m sorry, Sherlock. I was under the impression I was a free Englishwoman at the end of the nineteenth century, not an Indian lady in purdah. You put me in a very difficult position. I must either appeal to Lestrade to ignore your wishes, which will strain his loyalties, or go to the East End alone. Will you please tell me you will not interfere between myself and Lestrade?’
‘No,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘You are my sister. I am bound to protect you. If that means I have to ask Lestrade not to accompany you to Whitechapel, then so be it. It is my duty. As to going there alone, that would be worse than foolish.’
‘I think you’ve made everything plain, Sherlock,’ said Charlotte angrily. ‘I’d better go now.’
‘What are you planning to do?’ he asked.
‘Nothing that need concern you,’ she responded and coldly left the room.
‘Well, Charlotte,’ said Lady Henrietta de Servingholme, ‘I can see it’s unfair to ask Lestrade to ignore your brother’s direct wishes. I’ll come to the lodging house in Hand and Flower Street with you, if you wish.’ She was a tall woman of about thirty, plainly dressed in a blue serge costume with a very white blouse. She measured tea from a caddy above a long kitchen range into a large brown teapot, took a kettle from the hob and poured in a stream of boiling water.
She and Charlotte were by the kitchen range in a long room. Opposite was a long table where four poorly dressed young women were operating sewing machines, making dresses and children’s clothing, while at the head of the table sat an older woman, her head bowed over a huge pile of mending.
‘Will you cut up some bread, Charlotte?’ asked Henrietta, placing two loaves on a table at the side of the range. ‘It’s time for the women’s dinners. Is all this a secret, or shall we ask them what they think? The East End is close-mouthed, as you’ll know. But someone might be able to tell you something.’
Soon they were seated at the table, eating thick, meaty soup, bread and cheese. Henrietta explained Charlotte’s aim to catch the Ripper. ‘My mother said I wasn’t to come here today on account of him,’ said a thin, pale girl of eighteen. ‘I wouldn’t, except for the money.’
‘I wouldn’t go poking about the courts and alleys here on your own,’ advised the older woman. ‘I know you know the place, Lady Henrietta, but it’s not the same as being born and brought up here. There’s plenty of places I wouldn’t go alone myself.’
After her conversation with Sherlock Charlotte had felt it would be unfair to call upon Lestrade to take her to Whitechapel, so had gone to the Oxford University Women’s Mission in Whitechapel, where prosperous and well-meaning women organised a workshop, soup kitchen, boot distribution centre and other things for the poor of the district. She had fortunately found a friend from her college days in charge. Now she and Henrietta looked at each other doubtfully. ‘Perhaps if I could persuade Mrs Wills, the sister of the licensee at the Ten Bells …’ Charlotte suggested.
‘Now you’re talking,’ said the older woman. ‘Someone like that – landlady of a local pub – is worth ten policemen any day. She’ll know who’s who and what’s what. Send her a message.’
This was done. Not too much later Henrietta, Charlotte and Mrs Wills, robust in a black coat and a yellow bonnet, were leaving a main street crowded with trams and carts for the narrow area called Hand and Flower Street. It appeared to be enclosed on three sides by small houses in a state of dilapidation. The cobbles beneath their feet were slick and greasy. Though it was drizzling there were children sitting on the pavement, their bare feet in the gutter. An odour of frying, bad drains and general poverty was very bad but another smell, the undetectable odour of fear, also seemed to be present, for, even as Mrs Wills had arrived at the Mission, a boy had come to the door for his sister whom he’d been told to bring home immediately.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ he’d asked the women. ‘There’s been another one – another poor tart dead. In Dorset Street, in a room, cut up like an animal at the butcher’s. You lot had better get back home before it starts getting dark.’ There had been screams and exclamations and a putting on of coats and shawls. The room had cleared quickly. Mrs Wills, surveying the confusion, had said with determination, ‘That’s it. We must do anything to help catch this villain.’
They had walked through streets where evidently the information about Mary Kelly’s death was still spreading. Knots of people stood about talking. Faces looked stunned, or horrified.
Now Mrs Wills walked along a row of houses, peering at each door. Most had no numbers. Finally she came to a decision, stopped outside one and rapped on it with the handle of her umbrella. The door opened. A woman in a black dress with a piece of sacking round her waist, serving as an apron, stood there.
Mrs Wills, flanked by Henrietta and Charlotte, asked, ‘Are you the owner of this place?’
‘Who wants to know?’ asked the woman suspiciously.
‘I’m Mrs Wills of the Ten Bells,’ said Mrs Wills. ‘And these are two ladies with some questions to ask. Am I right? Is this Cooney’s Lodging House?’ The woman nodded.
‘It’s about some events that took place this summer,’ Charlotte added.
The woman looked at her. ‘No point in asking me,’ she said. ‘I only started here at the beginning of September.’
‘You’re a servant here?’ asked Charlotte.
‘Well, I ain’t the Queen of England,’ was the reply. ‘What’s more I won’t be working here much longer if I don’t go for young Wilkinson’s beer soon.’
‘He’s the landlord here?’ asked Mrs Wills.
‘Not many landlords round here,’ responded the woman. ‘Just deputies. Anyway, this is nothing to do with me. I’m off for the beer,’ and she walked past them into the street.
‘We might as well go in,’ remarked Mrs Wills.
‘What’s a deputy?’ asked Charlotte.
Henrietta answered. ‘The man or woman in charge of the building, collecting the rents, doing repairs, seeing all is orderly. He’s responsible to the landlord’s agent. Many landlords never come here. We might be surprised if we knew who profits by these slums.’
‘Indeed,’ said Charlotte, and went through the open front door into the passageway. A woman came out of a room to one side, carrying an enamel bowl of soapy water.
‘Where’s Wilkinson?’ asked Mrs Wills.
‘Upstairs, mending a window,’ she said and went down the passageway with the bowl and through the open front door. As they started upstairs they heard the woman throw the water into the street. On a half-landing, through an open door, a woman was to be seen on a truckle bed, tossing in uneasy sleep. From the basement the smell of an unsavoury meal wafted up. In the front room on the first floor matters seemed a little better. The room was bare; the windows were both out and an energetic-looking young man, in a collarless shirt and old trousers, was refitting a sash cord. Seeing his visitors, and evidently recognising they had not come to find accommodation, he came down the ladder and asked, ‘Well, ladies, what can I do for you?’
‘We’ve come concerning some women – Tabram, Chapman, Nichols, Stride, Eddowes and now, Kelly,’ Charlotte said bluntly.
He grappled with the names for a second, then his blue eyes opened wide. ‘God help us,’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s the names of the women the Ripper done to death. What do you think all that’s got to do with me? You don’t look like the police to me, unless they’re recruiting women now, so what’s your business? Anyway, don’t look at me. I’ve been interviewed twice and I’ve proved I wasn’t here at the time. Except last night, of course, when the last poor cow got murdered. And as to that, I was down in Bromley playing football and twenty-two men, can swear to it.’
‘On the other occasions, I take it, you were at sea,’ Charlotte said.
‘How do you know that?’ he said suspiciously.
‘You have a ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes,’ she told him. ‘You don’t look like a man who’s been living in Whitechapel for a year. Also, I think I see the tip of an anchor tattoed on your arm, just where your shirt-sleeves are rolled up.’
He glanced at his arm, and laughed. ‘Top marks, lady. But who are you and why are you here?’
‘We’re looking for a Mr Wilkinson, who is in charge of this house,’ she said. ‘There’s some question these premises may be involved in the murder.’
‘Wilkinson’s my uncle,’ he responded. ‘Now, you’d better tell me who suspects this. I should like to be introduced to them.’
‘I suspect it,’ Charlotte replied. ‘My name is Charlotte Holmes. This lady is Henrietta de Servingholme, of the Oxford Women’s Mission, and this, Mrs Wills, the popular landlady of the Ten Bells.’ She put out her hand, which he shook.
‘I’ve heard of all of you,’ he said, ‘especially you, Miss Holmes. You were much talked of in Archangel, over the business of Ivan Lensky, the anarchist.’
‘You are a socialist?’ she enquired.
‘I’m not ashamed of it,’ he said.
‘Nor am I,’ she replied. ‘My friend Henrietta here, though, is a true blue – but I suspect she does more for the poor and downtrodden than either of us.’
Mrs Wills interrupted. ‘I’m not a socialist and I can’t abide them, if the truth’s told. And I didn’t take time off from a busy pub to stand in these insalubrious surroundings discussing politics.’
‘I suggest we leave and go and take a cup of tea at the Russian tearooms, round the corner,’ said Wilkinson.
This was agreed and soon they were seated in a nearby street where old men sat at tables over glasses of Russian tea. Albert Wilkinson said, ‘I took over the place – known as Cooney’s Lodging House, though there’s no Cooney – for my uncle who had to go away in September. I couldn’t get a ship at the time so it suited me well enough, but, frankly, ladies, I wish I hadn’t done it. This is a sad place full of sad people and it’s depressing my spirits something shocking. I wish I’d taken a berth on any rotten ship with a bad master, rather than stayed here.’
‘Why did your uncle go away?’ asked Charlotte. ‘And where? I must ask these questions. I suspect, though I do not know, that there is a connection between your house, or somewhere very like it, and these dreadful murders. I will tell you the truth – I believe all the dead women stayed at Cooney’s, or nearby, on one, crucial night in early August. What happened then, I don’t know.’
Henrietta and Mrs Wills were astonished to hear Charlotte put forward this theory. Albert Wilkinson looked doubtful.
‘Come, come, Charlotte,’ Henrietta reproached. ‘Aren’t you trying to make bricks without straw? Isn’t the most likely explanation for these killings that there isn’t one? That the murderer is mad?’
‘That’s what I’d have guessed,’ Mrs Wills said in support. ‘Here’s a neighbourhood full of foreigners, all dirt poor, they can’t hardly speak the language and half of them, if they can make themselves understood, will tell you horror stories of what happened to them back home in Russia. That’s why they’re here. Because they’re Jews and the Tsar sends soldiers to get rid of them. Small wonder if one of them’s gone off his head. Goes off it on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. That’s when all the murders are. I’ll be frank, Miss Holmes, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
‘Possibly,’ said Charlotte. ‘But, as to your uncle, Mr Wilkinson …’
‘He had to go down to his estranged wife at Gravesend,’ Wilkinson explained. ‘She’s not too well at the moment and in spite of past disagreements, he felt he owed her some loyalty. And as to his being the murderer,’ he went on, ‘you can put that out of your head. He’s got a shocking leg caused by falling out of the rigging when he was a young seaman aboard a clipper ship. This fellow – Jack the Ripper – is a nimble man, otherwise they’d have caught him. Half the women were still warm when they found their dead bodies. My uncle would still have been hobbling round the corner when the police arrived.’
‘I take your point,’ Charlotte said. ‘Even so, I should like to talk to him. Will you give the address at Gravesend?’
‘Certainly, ma’am,’ said Albert Wilkinson, but his expression betrayed the fact that he thought Charlotte was about to embark on a wild-goose chase.
Henrietta evidently thought the same. ‘Really, Charlotte,’ she exclaimed, ‘what information can you hope to find there? Wouldn’t you be better off at home in your laboratory, studying these fingerprints, or whatever you call them?’
Only Mrs Wills at that stage showed any faith. ‘I’ll come with you to Gravesend,’ she said. ‘You may be on the wrong tack but I’d feel better doing anything to try and catch this man, even if it doesn’t work. After last night, and that other poor woman’s death, catching the Ripper’s all that counts. And she was in her own room, not like the others. None of us are safe now. And trade’ll be slack tonight. Half the customers won’t dare come out for a drink.’
‘Then let’s go now,’ Charlotte said and, parting from Henrietta and Albert Wilkinson, Charlotte and Mrs Wills took a cab to the station.
It was dark when they reached Gravesend. Another cab took them rapidly to a small house near the docks. They walked up a neat garden path to the front door and knocked on a well-polished brass knocker. No one answered.
‘Funny if they’re out,’ Mrs Wills said unhappily, for it had started to rain. Charlotte, peering through the letter-box, said, ‘Someone’s in. I can see a dim light at the end of the passageway. They’re in, but they’re afraid.’ Mrs Wills sniffed sceptically.
Charlotte knocked again, harder. She called out, ‘Mrs Wilkinson! I’ve come to see your husband.’ Then she knocked on the door again, and again called out. ‘It won’t be a woman they’re afraid of,’ she told Mrs Wills.
The door opened and a woman, past her youth, looking very tired, peered from the crack in it.
‘Mrs Wilkinson,’ said Charlotte rapidly, inserting her foot in the door, ‘is your husband here? I’d like to speak to him. He has nothing to fear from me. Did you know another woman has been killed in Whitechapel?’
‘Wait,’ was all she said, and closed the door. Charlotte barely got her foot out in time.
‘They’ve got something to hide, that’s for sure,’ remarked Mrs Wills. Minutes passed. Then the door opened. ‘You can come in. I’ve persuaded him,’ said Mrs Wilkinson. She was plainly dressed, with a tight bun at the back of her head. They followed her down an unlit passageway to the kitchen. ‘In here,’ she said. ‘The parlour fire’s not lit.’
The room was warm, clean and tidy. Mrs Wilkinson swept some men’s shirts from a wooden rail in front of the fire and began to fold them. There was no other sign of her husband. Charlotte introduced herself and Mrs Wills. Mrs Wills said to the woman, busily folding shirts with her back turned, ‘Well, my dear, we’ve come about these horrible murders. Where is Mr Wilkinson?’
‘Upstairs in bed, ill,’ she said.
‘Your husband’s nephew, young Albert, said it was you that was ill,’ Mrs Wills remarked forthrightly. A clock ticked loudly on the mantelpiece above the kitchen range. After a silence Mrs Wilkinson turned round. ‘I don’t know what he said. Why are you here? What do you want?’
‘You were expecting the police,’ Mrs Wills said implacably. ‘Miss Holmes and myself must come as something of a relief to you, seeing as we aren’t wearing blue uniforms with shiny buttons on them. Unless you were expecting somebody worse than that.’
‘I don’t know what all this is about,’ Mrs Wilkinson said hopelessly.
‘You’d better make us a cup of tea, dear, and sit down and talk to us,’ Mrs Wills said comfortably. ‘Or let me make it.’ She busied herself with kettle and tea. Mrs Wilkinson sat down and looked at Charlotte fearfully.
‘Your husband is in very deep, and you know it,’ Charlotte told her. ‘What is your name?’
‘Maria.’
‘Then, Maria, call me Charlotte. This has gone too far, my dear, and you know that really. Your husband is hiding upstairs, hoping to avoid the consequences of what he has done. You can’t protect him any more. You must call him down to talk to me. You know, I think, there has been another murder in Whitechapel. And you can see that if I, a detective operating in a private capacity, have found you, it will not be long before the police, or an even more terrifying person, the murderer himself, does the same.’
The kitchen door inched open and a voice said weakly, ‘All right. I’m here.’ A figure hobbled in.
Stanley Wilkinson was a man in his sixties, red-eyed and unshaven. He wore a plaid dressing-gown and slippers. His face, grey-stubbled, was tired and anxious.
‘Sit down and spill the beans, Mr Wilkinson,’ said Mrs Wills firmly. ‘Here’s a nice cup of tea for you.’
‘Tell them, Stan,’ said his wife wearily. ‘Otherwise I shall have to get the police.’
Sitting at the kitchen table in Gravesend, Stanley Wilkinson told Charlotte and Mrs Wills his terrible story, and its terrible aftermath. At the end of the tale Charlotte knew, or thought she did, where to find the notorious Whitechapel murderer.
‘As you will know, ladies,’ Wilkinson began, ‘Hand and Flower Street is not the most select street in London. It must be one of the poorest, and where there’s poverty, crime and vice flourish. So I must confess that keeping a lodging house in the place I’m speaking of encourages a man to help and support all manner of wicked things. And this I have done. I did it guiltily, from need, for what other choice did I have, crippled as I am? The landlord lives in the West End and takes his rent with a clear conscience from the landlord’s agent, who visits once a month in daylight. But I, managing the building, and living there, have, I am ashamed to say, harboured wanted men, on occasion, or hidden stolen property – and needless to say I’ve given shelter to many an unfortunate, a woman of easy virtue. It’s not hard for a house such as the one I manage to become a thieves’ kitchen, or worse. It’s harder to prevent it.’
His wife said, ‘Don’t beat about the bush for our sakes, Stanley. We understand that bad women came to the house with men. Tell your story.’
Stanley Wilkinson nodded, said, ‘All right. From time to time, yes, I’d allow in a woman with the man who was paying her and, yes, she would tip me a sum over and above the usual rent for the room. Most of the time I rented the rooms out honestly, four or five to a room, women in some, men in others, kitchen downstairs used in common, and I took my fourpences and fivepences and was grateful. I had no wish to run a brothel, or to get arrested for doing it. But it happened that back in July I had a brush with a horse and cart and was flung over in the street. This gave me more trouble with my bad leg and I found myself short of money because of the doctor’s bills. It was at that point that a man came to me wishing to rent out my top back room on a regular basis – no one else to be admitted when he wasn’t there – and he would use this room, he said, for purposes I was not to enquire into and pay me well for it. The sum he offered me was enormous compared with what I could have got renting it at the ordinary rate. It was two-and-a-half guineas a week.’
‘A good deal,’ commented Charlotte. ‘What did the man look like?’
‘I don’t know. I never saw his face,’ said Stanley Wilkinson.
‘Why not?’
‘He came at night, after dark, and always wore a mask. It was a good, well-made mask, of fine rubber. I have never seen anything like it before. It was very pale, making his face chalk white. I think his eyes were brown. On his head he wore a black slouch hat, well pulled down. His collar was always pulled up. He wore a black cape, though it was summer, and always arrived by cab. Few would have seen, from a distance, anything peculiar about his face. For me, meeting him sometimes on the stairs, so white, with those blazing eyes – it was horrible. Worse, of course, because I came to realise what he was doing there, in my back room. He had a front door key and came only at weekends …’ Here, Stanley hesitated.
‘Get to the woman,’ Mrs Wills said, with the voice of experience.
‘Very well,’ he said despondently. ‘I must. My tenant, as I’ll call him – he never gave me a name – would arrive – ’
‘Before we get to that,’ interrupted Charlotte, ‘what was he like in stature and bearing?’
‘Taller than average, lean, I would think, though his cape concealed much. His bearing was that of a prosperous man, a man who had never wanted for food or fire, who knew he had a voice in the affairs of men, if I can put it like that. He had a powerful, intimidating presence. Perhaps without that I would have asked him to leave when I became uneasy – but,’ Wilkinson said, breaking off, ‘it’s too late for that now.’
‘It is,’ Mrs Wills said grimly.
‘He would come then, at weekends, and let himself in with his key, often quite late, at ten or eleven o’clock. On occasion I would see him going upstairs to the room he rented with his companion. Once or twice one of the other lodgers saw him. Cath Eddowes saw him and nicknamed him “The Ghost of Cooney’s”. It became something of a joke among the women. They do joke, you see, when there’s anything to joke about. They’d say, “Where’s my comb?” and another would respond, “I expect the ghost took it to comb his ghostly hair” – that sort of thing. They’d all laugh.’ Stanley Wilkinson dropped his head and gasped.
‘Do not sob, Mr Wilkinson,’ Charlotte said firmly. ‘Some of the women are dead, no doubt, but nothing can help them now. We must work to ensure no more die, and that this murderer is caught. Now – your lodger plainly had a companion, a woman. What did she look like?’
‘I never saw her properly either, not until – the end. She was of medium height, young, wore black. She was always heavily veiled. She never spoke. Something in her walk and the way she held her head made me think she came of a higher class than you’d expect to find at Cooney’s. She was more of a lady.’
‘Why on earth would a pair like that patronise your premises?’ asked Mrs Wills.
‘Partly so no one they knew would recognise them, I suppose,’ said Wilkinson. ‘But that wasn’t the only reason. It was the noises you see – what they did.’ He hesitated, looking at Charlotte and Mrs Wills. ‘Even Maria can hardly believe …’
‘I think Mrs Wills and I both know what you mean,’ Charlotte said smoothly. ‘He was in the habit, was he, of using violent practices in the course of their relations? That, presumably, was what led to the disaster?’
‘Oh my God,’ sighed Mrs Wills. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘He had a black bag with him he always brought,’ Wilkinson said. ‘Of course I thought it was their luggage, their own things – not so. Well, it wasn’t long before it became plain to anybody on that top floor what was going on. He was beating her with a whip. She was groaning.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know what gets into people. I couldn’t let out the top room opposite his when he was there. I had to rent out my own and sleep up there myself. And half the time with the noise I couldn’t stay there. I’d end up spending the night in my own kitchen, along with whatever transients I’d rented out a corner to. Then came the bad night. I’d been in the kitchen, trying to sleep. It was a terrible night in early August, hot and full of thunder. Then at one o’clock, the screams began. For a full five minutes we all tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. Then we knew we had to go upstairs. Polly Nichols was in the kitchen with us, drunk and sitting in a chair.’
‘Who ran? Who saw?’ Charlotte demanded urgently.
‘Polly and an old man sleeping in the kitchen. And Martha Tabram, Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly – they were sharing the front room on the next floor. There was an Irishman, we called him Red Paddy. And another unfortunate, name of Flo Robinson. I hardly knew what I was doing – I’d had a drop to help me sleep. I was tired and fuddled. The house was dark. I set off upstairs with Paddy. Polly followed on, screaming and moaning herself. The awful sounds went on. On the next landing there were the women, those I’ve named, and a lot of gabbling – “Better go up there,” “My God, what’s he done to her?” and so forth. We hesitated, not sure what to do and a bit afraid to go upstairs. And then the screaming stopped. Paddy said to me, “Come on, then.” As we were about to take the last flight of stairs the man himself pushed through us on the landing and ran down at great speed. Then we ran upstairs. By that stage Mary Kelly had lit the gas on the top landing so we could see. I think I heard the front door bang but I hardly noticed. Because we were standing in the doorway of the back room, looking in. There was a gas mantle by the fireplace so we could see the figure of the poor young woman lying on the bed. It was a single bed with iron rails at either end. She was chained, legs spread-eagled, arms above her head. She was naked of course and bruised. Her face was a mess – and he’d completed the job by cutting her throat. There was blood everywhere. It had shot up all around. She was drenched with it. I won’t forget those staring eyes in that white face – it was grey, really, except for the blood running from her nose. He’d broken it. He’d got out of control, it was obvious, gone over the limit, so to speak, she’d started to scream and he’d killed her to shut her up. We gradually drifted in to take in the details. Her body was covered with whip marks and little slashes he must have made with his knife before he’d lost control and had to end her life. She was under thirty, that’s for sure.’ Wilkinson fell silent, unable to say more.
His wife whispered, ‘Poor young woman. Poor thing.’
‘Dirty, murdering bastard,’ was Mrs Wills’s comment. ‘Who was she? Did you find out?’
‘The police did,’ Wilkinson said. ‘I couldn’t let it out I’d been renting the room out regularly to a man like that – I’d have done two years’ hard labour and at my age, with my leg, it’d have killed me. And none of the women wanted a murder investigation, giving evidence in court and all that. They were too low down for all that. The law, the police, justice done and seen to be done – all that’s for people who still have some ambition and some hope for better times and a better world. You know,’ he appealed to Mrs Wills.
‘I do,’ she responded. ‘So you all agreed to tell a false story. And no doubt you greased the women’s palms for them.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I paid them. My only fear then was that they’d come back for more money. If only that had been the worst I had to fear. Then, less than a week later, they found Martha Tabram – she’d been there that night – dead of thirty or forty stab wounds on a landing in Whitechapel. That was nasty, but tarts get murdered, that’s what I told myself. Then came Polly Nichols, dead and disembowelled with a long knife up against a fence, two weeks later and half a mile away from where Martha died. And so it went on, woman after woman murdered. Elizabeth Stride wasn’t even there that night. That made it all the more terrifying. Was the murderer killing women who hadn’t even seen him? What was going on? Did he think someone had told Stride what happened? Or is he just growing viler and more vile, and more frightened? I don’t know. I wish I’d gone to the police there and then, when we found the dead woman.’
‘You did, though?’ questioned Charlotte.
‘Yes. But not with the truth. We all cleared up the room, leaving only the woman’s clothes, unchained her, of course, put a knife in her hand and fetched the police. I said, oh dear, oh dear, I’d rented the room to a poor passer-by, little knowing she was going to make an end of herself. They found her to be a discharged governess, first seduced by an employer, forced by destitution to go on the streets. She had two convictions for soliciting – none, of course, after she met our friend of the whip and the knife. A familiar enough story – down and down, then suicide. The police asked few questions. The man keeping her, I suppose, is a man with a position to maintain, no doubt, and a wife to be kept in ignorance.’
‘And dark desires, which are growing worse,’ added Mrs Wills.
‘And now I fear for myself,’ he said.
‘Because you saw his face as he ran downstairs?’ asked Charlotte.
‘I did,’ he replied. ‘But it was dark and we were blundering about in panic. It was only an impression.’
‘What did you do with the items you took from the room?’
‘Put everything in his black bag, which was sufficiently weighted by the chains to sink into the river when I threw it off a dock.’
‘Tell me what went into the bag,’ she said.
‘The whip, chains, a pair of handcuffs, some scraps of paper, that’s all. Oh, and the mask.’
‘No clothing belonging to the man?’
‘None,’ he said. ‘Presumably he stayed dressed during these episodes. When the moment came to escape he only had to throw on his hat and wrap himself in his cape.’
‘And the pieces of paper?’
‘Just a page from a notebook, a ticket from Baker Street for the underground train, half an envelope with, I think, some tobacco in it – very little tobacco, just a few bits,’ said Wilkinson, grappling for memories. ‘It’s all at the bottom of the Thames now.’
‘I thought you said he arrived in a cab, always,’ Charlotte said.
‘That was when I saw him. Perhaps sometimes he did not take a cab, or the lady did not, but came to Whitechapel on the underground train.’
‘A curious thought,’ Charlotte mused. Then she looked hard at Wilkinson. ‘We cannot find this man on the basis of what you have said. We will have to entrap him. You must help. Otherwise neither you nor your wife nor half the women in Whitechapel will be safe. You must come back to Whitechapel, then spread the word in the neighbourhood that you have a bad conscience about a crime which occurred in the summer and that you are about to go to the police with the whole story. And we will lie in wait for the monster, who is certain to come for you to stop your tongue. When he arrives he will find Scotland Yard waiting for him.’
It was very cold and dark in the top back room at Cooney’s Lodging House in Hand and Flower Street, Whitechapel. Charlotte sat on the mattress-less truckle bed on which the seduced governess had met her bloody end while Inspector Lestrade, also in his coat, was on the floor by the door in a stupor of cold. Three nights had passed in this way, waiting for the murderer to come for Stanley Wilkinson, who was ensconced downstairs by the kitchen fire. That he was sharing the room with ragged men and women and probably a flea-bitten dog or two, that the kitchen was filthy and infested, did not prevent Charlotte and Lestrade from envying him. There was light there, and he was warm.
‘You may wish now Sherlock had continued to forbid you to step into Whitechapel with me,’ Lestrade said from the floor.
‘Nonsense,’ Charlotte replied. ‘It was I who found Wilkinson and I am entitled to be in at the kill.’ They were muttering so as not to be heard.
‘I doubt if he thinks you’re sitting up all night waiting for the murderer,’ Lestrade said.
‘How many times must I tell you, Jules, the fact that Sherlock is my brother gives him no right to dictate what I do or do not do.’
‘I wish you’d let me join you on the bed,’ Jules said.
‘We know what that led to last night,’ Charlotte responded shortly. There was a silence. Both were becoming tired and irritable.
Jules said, ‘Is there no hope for me?’
Charlotte replied, ‘Not while we are waiting for Jack the Ripper to arrive.’
‘If he ever does.’
Charlotte said nothing.
A thick, yellow fog was coming down, a real London pea-souper. It fingered in through the cracks in the window and filled the room with acrid-smelling yellow air. It had been some time since the normal sounds of the neighbourhood had ceased. Now there was complete silence broken only occasionally by a shout from the main road. In the distance they could hear foghorns hooting on the river.
Lestrade stood up and stretched. ‘The fog could make it hard for the men watching the house,’ he said to Charlotte.
‘It might induce the madman to come out,’ Charlotte pointed out. ‘He must be desperate to get rid of Wilkinson, but he may have seen signs the house is watched. He may take advantage of the fog – ’ She broke off as a bang came from downstairs clearly up to them. It had been agreed that would be the signal the Wilkinsons would give when the murderer entered the house.
Lestrade, whispering, ‘He’s here,’ went quickly to the window, uncovered the lantern lying on the floor beneath it and signalled to the constable who should have been waiting in the yard beyond the house. There was no returning signal, or if there was, the fog was too thick for Lestrade to see it. Meanwhile Charlotte had pressed herself against the wall near the door hinges. As the footsteps of the man they thought to be the Whitechapel murderer arrived at the landing on the floor below, Lestrade put down the lantern and signalled to Charlotte that he could get no replying flash. He then took up a position in the middle of the room.
There was the sound of a tread on the stairs leading to the room they were in. The door opened. Charlotte, behind it, now saw the figure of the murderer leap forward and Lestrade rush from the window to clinch with him. The two men swayed to and fro in darkness as Charlotte stood frozen, though knowing it would be only seconds before the policemen concealed downstairs came to help. But the two figures, gasping and grappling, went on with their fight and there was no welcome interruption – no feet on the stairs, no cries, only the silent deadly battle. Then came a sickening crack, as Lestrade fell over, his head hitting the floor. The figure turned to Charlotte, trembling against the wall. She knew how she would have to defend herself against this man who had killed so many women, for it was plain that he had disabled the helpers downstairs in some way. As he came towards her she pulled out her pistol from behind her back and fired – but he still came on.
Suddenly there was a crash as the window broke. A lean figure pulled himself in over the sill. This figure launched itself over Lestrade’s prone body at the murderer. Charlotte watched as the two wrestled together, then, even as cries broke out downstairs and feet began to pound upstairs, one of the figures, with a choking cry, fell to the ground.
The light was lit on the landing. It illuminated a room in which Lestrade lay unconscious, another man lay on his face with a knife protruding from his back, Charlotte stood, gasping, a pistol in her hand – and in the middle of the room, breathing only a little hard, stood – Sherlock Holmes!
‘Sherlock! Thank you,’ Charlotte said. She was still trembling.
‘Not at all, dear Charlotte,’ said the detective. ‘I could not rest, observing the fog growing thicker and realising the Ripper might take advantage of it. Moreover, I was not entirely sure of Lestrade’s competence in this matter, which I will now not comment on …’ He paused, turning to look at Lestrade, unconscious on the floor next to the dead body of Jack the Ripper. Lestrade stirred and blinked. ‘I see you are back with us now, my friend,’ Holmes said kindly. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘made anxious by all this I decided to pay you all a visit here, through the window. When I saw what was taking place in the room I was forced to break it and burst in. Well, Charlotte, foolish and reckless as you’ve been, I must congratulate you on formulating the theory that the murders were not mere insane killings but the clever covering-up of a crime by a murderer of no small cunning. A very pretty piece of reasoning.’
‘Thank you, Sherlock. I am more grateful to you for saving my life than for your compliments about my intellect,’ responded Charlotte.
Stanley Wilkinson, in the doorway with the police constable, now came in. ‘We had better look at the body. But as no stranger has come to the house tonight, I fear I already know who it is,’ he said in a desolate voice.
When they turned the body over – Lestrade, back on his feet, having carefully removed the knife in the man’s back – they found they were gazing down at the face of Stanley Wilkinson’s nephew, young Albert, the former seaman.
‘How can it be?’ Wilkinson asked. ‘How can it be? Not Albert, the best young man that ever lived?’
‘More than that,’ Charlotte said. ‘He told us he was at sea when most of the murders took place.’
‘No doubt that could easily be disproved,’ said Sherlock Holmes. ‘It is enough, for now, to say that there are dark mysteries in the minds of all of us, often buried too deep for many of us ever to find them out.’
Charlotte, unnerved by her terrible experience, gazed at her brother’s face, tears running down her cheeks.