Dust and Shadow Page 3

“That girl’s name was Martha Tabram, and the early report had it wrong: she was stabbed a grand total of thirty-nine times,” he stated dispassionately. “Yesterday morning’s victim, whose name was apparently Mary Ann Nichols, by all accounts was partially eviscerated.”

  “Dare I hope you shall look into the matter?” I asked.

  “It is hardly within my purview to do so when no one has consul—”

  At that moment, Mrs. Hudson entered and surveyed our newly adorned furnishings with silent cynicism. Our landlady was not in the best of spirits, for Holmes in his devil-may-care humour had used the berry spoon to dissolve chemical elements over his burner, and the disagreement this activity had caused had not yet resolved itself to her satisfaction.

  “Gentlemen to see you,” she said from the doorway. “Inspector Lestrade and one other. Will you be requiring aught from my cupboards, Mr. Holmes, or have you everything you need?”

  “Ha!” Holmes exclaimed. “Lestrade occasionally evinces the most impeccable timing. Indeed no, Mrs. Hudson, I’ve sufficient cutlery for my purposes. I shall ring if I want anything in the way of a pickle fork. Do show up the inspector, if you will.”

  With studied dignity, Mrs. Hudson exited. A few moments later Inspector Lestrade and an associate entered the room. Holmes often had occasion to bemoan the intellect of our hatchet-visaged friend, the lean and dapper little inspector, but Lestrade’s diligence commanded our respect even when his utter lack of imagination strained the independent investigator’s nerves. On this occasion, Lestrade looked as rumpled and anxious as I had ever seen him. His companion was dressed in dark tweeds, his beard modestly trimmed beneath a more impressive moustache; he had a pale, retiring aspect, and his eyes darted shyly between Holmes and myself.

  My friend took them in at a glance. “How are you, Lestrade? We should be delighted to offer you both coffee, or something stronger if required. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Doctor…?”

  “Llewellyn. At your service, sir,” our visitor replied with evident disquiet.

  “Dr. Llewellyn, I assure you I am at yours. You will excuse my use of your prefix—you have recently sustained some slight injury to your right hand, and the way in which the dressing is fastened leads me to believe it was secured entirely by the aid of your own left appendage. And yet, the cloth is not of a variety to be found outside a medical facility. I should be shocked to learn our local surgeons have grown so slovenly as to require a gentleman to secure his own bandages.”

  “You are correct on all counts, sir—how very extraordinary.”

  Holmes nodded briefly. “This is my friend and colleague Dr. Watson.”

  “I am glad to meet you. I am glad to meet anyone willing to get to the bottom of this horrid affair.”

  Holmes waved Lestrade and our nervous new acquaintance to their seats, the backs of the furnishings still entirely wreathed with newsprint. My friend then threw himself into his own armchair.

  “You are here about Buck’s Row, I imagine,” he remarked. “You were knocked up yesterday, Dr. Llewellyn?”

  “My surgery is at one fifty-two Whitechapel Road, some few minutes’ distance,” he acknowledged. “I was summoned at slightly before four yesterday morning. I completed a postmortem examination just now.”

  “One moment, if you please. Lestrade, while I am delighted to see you, as ever, why in God’s name have you waited an entire day to consult me?”

  “I’ve only just been reassigned two hours ago!” Lestrade protested. “Inspector Spratling began it, then Helson. I wasted no time in bringing Dr. Llewellyn round.”

  “My abject apologies, Inspector.” Holmes smiled. “Your haste was not lax; it was unprecedented.”

  “No more unprecedented than the corpse. If you had seen what I did at the morgue this morning, what Dr. Llewellyn here saw yesterday…” Lestrade shook his head. “Your methods may be unconventional, but we need an end to this case as quick as is possible. There’s something about it that’s very queer, Mr. Holmes, and correct me if I’ve the wrong end of the stick, but that’s where you tend to come in.”

  Holmes settled back in his chair, half closing his eyes. “Very well, then. The story, as it happened to you, Dr. Llewellyn.”

  “Well, Mr. Holmes,” Dr. Llewellyn began hesitantly, “as I have said, I hold a medical practice in Whitechapel Road which I obtained after I finished my studies at the University of London. That main thoroughfare is quite respectable, and to a great extent, the same ailments parade across my consulting room from day to day—influenza, rheumatism, agues—the most peaceful of maladies. However, living in London’s East-end as I do, I occasionally find my work to be of a more unsettling nature. A regular patient of mine once burst into my offices with a nasty knife wound, as he’d forgotten himself and wandered into a corner where some roughs thought his pocketbook worth trying for. I suppose that the immediate proximity of the slums would be all too obvious if I ever had cause to treat any of my poorest neighbours, but I fear they haven’t the means. In the case of disease, they consult quack street doctors for penny compendia of gin or of laudanum. And in the case of injury, as their wounds were often got through misadventure, many deem it safer to suffer in anonymity than to risk dealing with police.

  “That terrible murder in George Yard Buildings three weeks ago left a strong impression on my mind. We all were shocked by the ferocity of it. I cannot convey to you my horror at what I was called upon to witness yesterday.”

  Holmes held up a cautionary hand. “Please,” said he, “everything just as you saw it.”

  “Buck’s Row is one of those sordid pitch-black byways of which Whitechapel boasts so many once the main road is abandoned. The body was situated at the entrance to a stable yard beneath a decrepit gateway. I saw nothing out of the ordinary save the body, but the inspector may have more to say on that subject.”

  “I wish I did,” sighed Lestrade. “As you say, the body was the only thing out of the ordinary, as it were.”

  “And the body?” prompted Holmes.

  “Something over thirty years of age,” said Dr. Llewellyn, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “She had brown hair and was missing several of her front teeth, but that characteristic did not seem to be a recent development. Nearly all of her was still warm, save her extremities. Her throat was savagely slashed two times. She may as well have been decapitated. Apart from her throat, I found her upper body to be completely intact, but the lower—she was ripped apart, Mr. Holmes. Her skirts were raised up to reveal the torso, and savage cuts penetrated her lower abdomen, exposing the internal organs.”

  I regarded the doctor with dismay, but for Holmes, shock remained secondary to professional absorption. “Her chest was unharmed, you say? Surely her garments, at least, were soiled with blood?”

  “She was wearing a brown frock, and I assure you it was entirely free of stain.”

  “If that is the case, she was prostrate before the wound to her neck was administered. Where is she now, Lestrade?”

  “At the morgue. Name of Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols, identified by a friend from Lambeth Workhouse who calls herself Mary Ann Monk. Mark of the workhouse was on the petticoats, which led us to seek identification there. Shabby clothing, black bonnet, and she had on her person a comb, pocket handkerchief, and a piece of mirror. More than likely it’s all she had to her name.”

  “What do you imagine the time of death to have been, Dr. Llewellyn?”

  “I arrived at three fifty a.m. She could not have been dead more than ten minutes.”

  “And the gruesome discovery was made by whom?”

  “One Charles Cross, a carman on his way to work,” said Lestrade as he consulted his notes. “In my opinion, he’s merely a passerby. Poor chap was terrified. Constable Neil arrived on the scene shortly after and sent for Dr. Llewellyn here, hoping to save her. It was too late by that time, of course.”

  We sat silent as the wind picked up. I wondered briefly whether Polly Nichols’s family knew of
her hideous fate, and then whether she had any family to tell.

  “Lestrade,” Holmes said finally, “has the force had any luck in clearing up the murder of Martha Tabram early this month?”

  Lestrade shook his head perplexedly. “The inquest has just been reopened. I was not myself working on the case, but we’re all of the mind it was a tryst gone terribly wrong. Good Lord, Mr. Holmes, you don’t think these events could have been connected in any way?”

  “No, certainly not. I’ve merely the professional certainty that two such outrageous crimes committed ten minutes’ walk apart from each other is remarkable enough to note.”

  Dr. Llewellyn rose and reached for his hat. “I am very sorry I have not more to tell you gentlemen. I’m afraid I must return to my practice, as my patients will be wondering what has become of me.”

  “Be so good as to leave your card, Dr. Llewellyn,” said Holmes, shaking his hand absently.

  “Of course. The best of luck to all of you. Do let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”

  After Dr. Llewellyn’s departure, Lestrade turned a grave face to Holmes.

  “I don’t like your harping on Martha Tabram one bit, Mr. Holmes. Surely the same man couldn’t have fallen out with both these women? More likely Polly Nichols was killed by a jealous lover, or a gang, or one of her clients who’d fallen into a drunken rage.”

  “You are probably right. However, I beg that you will humour me far enough to fill me in on the details of both crimes.”

  Lestrade shrugged. “If Tabram is of interest to you, of course I’ve no objection. It shouldn’t be difficult for me to gather up the papers. I can have them for you this afternoon.”

  “I shall cast an eye over the evidence immediately.”

  “You have full access, Mr. Holmes—just mention my name at the morgue or at the crime scene. I shall see you both at the Yard.” The inspector nodded and made his way out.

  My friend crossed to the mantelpiece, shook a cigar out of an empty bud vase, and commenced smoking with the deepest absorption. “This Tabram murder is a very curious affair,” he commented.

  “You mean the Nichols murder?”

  “I mean precisely what I say.”

  “You thought little enough of it before, Holmes.”

  “I expected every morning to read that they’d solved it. Men do not often stab helpless females thirty-nine times and then disappear into the ether. The motive behind such an outrageous act would necessarily be sensational.”

  “And such women necessarily have a great many associates, most of them untraceable,” I pointed out.

  “That is obvious,” he retorted. “It is also obvious that the district of Whitechapel offers a great many natural advantages to the predator. Once the sun has fallen, you can hardly see your hand before your face, and the slaughterhouses allow blood-spattered men to pass without remark. What is less obvious is whether we have anything to fear from the proximity, in place and in time, of the two deaths.”

  “It is certainly a distressing coincidence.”

  Holmes shook his head and reached for his walking stick.

  “One viciously maimed corpse is distressing. Two is something else entirely. I fear we have not a moment to lose.”

  CHAPTER TWO The Evidence

  The body of Polly Nichols clearly demanded our immediate attention, so we at once made our way by cab to the mortuary shed at Old Montague Street Workhouse Infirmary. As we clattered roughly toward the East-end of London, the buildings grew steadily smaller, their façades coated with decades of sooty atmosphere. When we reached Whitechapel Road, however, I was struck as always by the headlong commotion of the place. A preacher stood shouting at a knot of jeering locals, fighting to wrest their attention from a gin palace on the one side and an equally vociferous peddler of men’s work shirts on the other. Light and dust sparkled from the backs of loaded hay-wains, and dead cattle swung from hooks above carts filled with fresh hides. But despite the thriving dynamism of its widest thoroughfares, I never failed to be shaken by the misery evident as we turned off the main road into narrow, shop-lined byways and passed snarling youngsters fighting over a street corner from which to sell matches, and staggering drunks of both sexes propped against doorframes in the early afternoon.

  The mortuary shed was by its very nature a dismal place, frequented only by those whose sole recourse was to indenture themselves to the parish disposing of human remains, and characterized by its utter unsuitability as a medical facility. Lestrade had sent warning of our imminent arrival, so immediately upon locating the hodgepodge of wooden slats, we witnessed firsthand the sight that had so upset Dr. Llewellyn.

  Across the crude wooden slab of an examining table lay a woman slightly more than five feet tall. Though her face was small-featured with high, merry cheekbones and a sensitive brow, it was etched deeply with the coarseness of care and toil. Her neck was indeed nearly severed and her abdomen opened in bestial, purposeless lacerations.

  I began to inquire whether anything stood out to Holmes’s sharper eye, but suddenly he dived toward the corpse with a cry of impatience.

  “We have arrived too late after all! It has been washed, Watson,” he exclaimed. “Most obtusely and effectively washed.”

  I nodded. “It is a common enough practice, as you know. Some even argue one cannot see the wounds effectively otherwise.”

  Holmes practically snorted. “I tell you, Watson, if Scotland Yard were to reimburse my time for retrieving every clue lost due to negligence or hysterical hygiene, I could no doubt retire this afternoon. As it is, I am forced to glean the leavings. Do you observe anything Dr. Llewellyn may have missed, being less intimately acquainted with the criminal element than you yourself?”

  “Really, Holmes.”

  His eyes glinted wickedly over my shoulder. “Come now, my dear fellow. Expertise is none the less admirable for being of an unsavoury variety.”

  I looked her over. The poor wretch had come to a sorry end; a blessing indeed if her killer saw fit to cut her throat first, leaving the remainder of his rage for a lifeless shell.

  “Her neck has been slashed nearly to the vertebrae, lacerating the two major arteries, and there are seven senseless cuts through her abdominal tissue. She does not appear to have been victim of any other indecencies, for I see no sign of recent connection, and the cuts are smooth-edged and deliberate. What do you make of it, Holmes?”

  The detective hovered over her pensively. “Notice the discolouration near the jaw; he robbed her of consciousness, then slit her throat upon the ground, for she exhibits no bruising on the arms consistent with fending off her attacker, and it would explain the lack of blood upon the upper torso that Dr. Llewellyn mentioned. From the cleanliness of the other cuts, which you noted so astutely, we may also deduce that she was dead, drugged, or in some other way incapable of struggle when they were performed, else they would be jagged or torn. I believe all these injuries were made with the same weapon, that is to say, a six-or eight-inch knife kept well sharpened, possibly with a double blade. He killed her, cut her apart in near total darkness—at a serious threat to his own safety, if we consider the surplus time required—and then made his escape.”

  “But why? What could possibly have occurred between Polly Nichols and her killer to enrage him so?”

  “Why, indeed. Come, Watson—off to Buck’s Row. If we are miraculously lucky, we may find something the police have not already either trampled on or swept into the rubbish bin.”

  When we arrived at the scene of the murder, the bustling cacophony of Whitechapel Road faded, replaced by the headlong rushing of the Northern Railway Line. Mean two-story houses, hastily constructed and poorly maintained, crept along one side of Buck’s Row, while the blank faces of austere warehouses stood like sentinels on the other. Holmes leapt down from the hansom and approached a knot of reporters and policemen while I paid the driver and elicited a promise to await our return.

  “Certainly, Mr. Holmes,” a yo
ung constable replied as I approached, tipping his rounded hat. “We were about to scrub down the whole area, but we can give you ten minutes if you like. We’ve found nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Holmes, every sinew of his slight frame alive with that nervous energy only apparent within the boundaries of a crime scene, set to work. The detective was as avid in his pursuit of a case as he was lethargic at the lack of one, and no patch of the surrounding roads or stable yard escaped his steely scrutiny. After nearly twenty minutes, he struck his stick impatiently against the stable yard fence and returned to where I stood.

  “Any progress?”

  Holmes set his thin lips and shook his head. “From the blood upon the ground, I believe she was not moved from another site, which is a point worth knowing. The quarrel ended here. Apart from that, I can only tell you that the apothecary over there was recently the victim of a robbery, that two gentlemen of leisure came to blows over a bet near that patch of mud, and that the police constable immediately to your left is a bachelor who owns a terrier. And thus, friend Watson, we finish no better off than we began.” He waved to the constables to proceed about their business.

  “I suppose the points you’ve mentioned can have nothing to do with the crime itself, but how did you deduce them?”

  “What?” His grey eyes were busily scanning the upper stories of the surrounding buildings. “Oh, yes…Old door with new lock near broken window, a costly variety of the jack of spades torn in half near obvious signs of a struggle between square-toed male boots, and Constable Anderson’s truly appalling trouser legs. No, they are not related to our investigation. And yet, we may still find ourselves employment. The angle of that window is ideally positioned for our purposes.”

  I looked up in curiosity. Behind us stood the Brown and Eagle Wool Warehouse and Schneider’s Cap Factory, both constructed with that wholehearted devotion to industry that sullies the word architecture. The window Holmes indicated, belonging to a tenement, was almost immediately above us. My friend lost no time but strode forward and rapped upon the door.