Then, about forty minutes into the operation, Falconer saw Miss Lopez look back briefly and nod in the direction of a tall, swarthy man walking towards her near the intersection of Water Street and James Slip. Falconer then looked at McNaught, who subtly nodded at him, too, signaling that it was time to prepare for an arrest.
Falconer kept walking as he saw Miss Lopez stop and begin saying something to the man. He then looked to his right and saw O’Brien and McCloskey step off the curb and begin walking across the street towards the suspect, who appeared unaware of their approach. Then, looking forward again, he saw McNaught get to within fifteen feet of the suspect and then suddenly break into a run. The man turned and looked at McNaught, and then stepped back a few feet and feebly raised his hands. McNaught grabbed him quickly, though, and threw him hard to the ground, and within seconds, O’Brien and McCloskey were there, too, holding the man down.
“Why? Why is this? Why?” the man shouted in broken English as the detectives roughly placed handcuffs on him and brought him up to his feet. McNaught then grabbed him by his shirtfront with both hands and spoke to him just inches away from his face: “George Francis, or Frank Sherlick, or whatever your name is, you are under arrest for suspicion of murder. Let’s go, gentlemen.”
O’Brien and McCloskey took Francis roughly by the arms and led him back towards Roosevelt Street and the station house beyond. Falconer, meanwhile, gently touched Miss Lopez on the elbow and offered to walk with her on the return to the precinct, and she thanked him. As they walked, Falconer looked ahead and saw the tall, thin figure of the man in custody, shuffling quickly between the two detectives at his side, and he wondered if Chief Inspector Byrnes now had his killer in hand.
11
The next day, late in the afternoon of April 26, Falconer stood with Byrnes, McNaught, Captain McLaughlin, Captain O’Connor, and Clubber Williams as the shackled man known as George Francis was brought before them in O’Connor’s office.
“What is your name, sir?” Byrnes asked immediately. “Is ‘George Francis’ your true name?”
Falconer watched as the prisoner, sweating profusely and breathing heavily, looked around the room but did not respond, seemingly confused with his surroundings.
“Do you understand me?” Byrnes continued. “Do you speak English, sir?”
The man halted his wandering glances and eyed Byrnes’ stern face standing above him. “Een-Een…gleesh?” he struggled to intonate. “No….”
Byrnes turned to O’Connor. “I don’t know what language this man speaks,” he said. “Is he French? Italian maybe? Where is this man from? Does anyone know?”
McLaughlin stepped forward and addressed the bewildered chief inspector: “Sir, one of the ladies said that he may be a French Algerian, but that’s not confirmed.”
Byrnes looked back at the large man quivering in his manacles. “French Algerian? Well, get me a French speaking officer then—anybody know one?”
“Aloncle over at the Central Office is fluent, sir,” said McLaughlin immediately. “I’ll have him summoned.”
As McLaughlin left the room, Byrnes spoke to Falconer, McNaught, Williams, and O’Connor apart from the prisoner. “This one does not match what the housekeeper told us about the killer,” he said quietly. “He’s dark-skinned and has dark hair, and he’s taller than I am. But it’s worth keeping him in the jug for now. He rented a room at the hotel Thursday night, correct? Just down the hall from Miss Brown? And the other woman—Mrs. Harrington—she reported that this man dropped by where Miss Brown was staying and left with her, didn’t she?”
“That’s correct, sir,” confirmed O’Connor. “Our victim was in Room 31, this man was in 33, and earlier in the evening he apparently went by Mrs. Harrington’s place where Old Shakespeare usually stayed and drank with her before leaving for a saloon together.”
“Well, that’s very interesting,” Byrnes said, gazing at the prisoner. “It’s quite a coincidence. While we’re waiting for Aloncle, let’s have the housekeeper come back and look at him.”
“Right,” O’Connor said, and he quickly left the room to retrieve Miss Miniter.
Falconer walked back to the side of the room and looked over at Frenchy. The man was still sitting hunched over in a chair, looking feeble and confused. Some in the station house had said that he was a simpleton, a part-time sailor who had the mind of a child and the propensities of a caged animal, lashing out suddenly in spurts of violence whenever his lascivious desires were not immediately satisfied. But this man looked weak and pathetic, more of a sad Bowery bum than a vicious killer. Falconer wondered if the detectives truly had the man who had wielded the knife against Old Shakespeare that night.
O’Connor knocked and entered the room with Miss Miniter. He led her over to the side, where she could observe the prisoner sitting before her. McNaught then turned Frenchy around in his chair so that he would be facing the young woman. Falconer saw the man wince slightly as his chair was shuffled around and he was then told to look up at Mary Miniter standing before him. She gazed at him briefly but said nothing, and only turned to O’Connor and nodded slightly. Then McNaught and Crowley stood Frenchy up and took him back out of the room. O’Connor offered Miss Miniter a chair, which she accepted, and then he, too, sat down in front of her.
“Does this man look familiar at all to you, miss?” he asked.
“Yes, I know that man, sir, the man named George Francis,” she replied. “His name is Frenchy, and he lingers at the hotel much of the time. He always seems to be with his cousin, and he stayed up on the fifth floor that night, in fact, and I…I believe his cousin may be the man you are looking for.”
Falconer stood on the side of the room and watched Byrnes immediately sit down in a chair directly in front of the woman next to O’Connor. “Why do you say that, miss?” Byrnes asked her. “What is it about the cousin?” The other men in the room stood still, quietly waiting for her reply.
“Well,” she answered slowly, “in thinking of it, I do believe he may be the one who took the lady up the stairs that night.”
Falconer looked around the room and saw the assembled detectives all gazing at each other as the room fell into complete silence. Byrnes then spoke up again, looking directly at the woman now. “Can you describe this cousin, Miss Miniter? What does he look like?”
“He is much like the man I described the other day,” she said, “and I’m sorry, but I believe now that I’m thinking of it, the man who led the woman up the stairs also had a heavy, light-colored mustache, and was wearing a black bowler that was dented at its crown. I believe this man’s cousin was actually that man who walked upstairs with the poor woman.”
Byrnes adjusted his chair closer to the woman sitting before him. “Do you know the cousin’s name, Miss Miniter?” he asked her. “Or where he lives perhaps?”
“All I know, sir,” she said, “is that he goes by the name of ‘Frenchy,’ too. He is the cousin to the man I just viewed, and they both go by then nickname of ‘Frenchy,’ but I do not know where he lives, I’m afraid.”
Byrnes sat back in his chair and looked around the room at the detectives. Then he looked back at the young woman. “Well, thank you, Miss Miniter,” he said. “This has been very helpful—very helpful indeed. That will be all for now. The detective sergeant here will help you back to your room.”
Crowley then helped her up out of her chair and took her out of the office. Byrnes immediately requested that Mary Ann Lopez be brought before him, and, several minutes later, she was escorted into the room, smiling at the policemen standing before her. Byrnes quickly got down to business and asked her about the man whom Mary Miniter had identified as George Francis’ cousin.
“Yes, she is correct,” Miss Lopez quickly confirmed. “This man you have in custody is cousin to another man also known as Frenchy. They spend their days together down in that neighborhood, and they are both the worst sort, sir—they are dangerous men who bear no good will to anyone. This man’s cousi
n, the other Frenchy—he could have done this to Carrie, I’m certain of it. As I’ve said, I know for a fact that he was drinking with the other Frenchy and Carrie earlier that night. I was with them for a time at Speekmann’s Saloon.”
“Do you know this cousin’s name or where he stays, miss?” Byrnes inquired.
“No, I’m sorry, sir,” she said, looking apologetic. “I just know that he goes by the name Frenchy, as well.”
“Do you think that you could identify him if you saw him again perhaps?” Byrnes then asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Yes, I do, sir.”
“Well, thank you, Miss Lopez,” Byrnes said. “That will be all for now.”
Detective Sergeant Crowley walked over and offered his hand to the woman, who took it and stood up gently. The two then walked out of the room. When Crowley returned a few minutes later, Byrnes stood behind O’Connor’s desk and addressed the men. “Gentlemen,” he said, resting his balled-up fists on his hips, “it appears that we may have landed on the man who did this. Find him—find this second Frenchy and bring him in immediately.”
A short while later, Detective George Aloncle from the Central Office arrived and entered Captain O’Connor’s office. Detectives brought the man known as George Francis back into the room and placed him back down in his chair. Falconer watched as the French-speaking detective then sat down in front of the prisoner and proceeded to question him in French. Although the detainee’s proficiency in that language was not, in fact, extensive, Aloncle was able to speak to him for several minutes. Then the detective turned to O’Connor and said, “Well, I’ve managed to get some information from him.”
O’Connor instructed Crowley to remove Frenchy from the room again, and Aloncle stood up and reported what he had heard: “He says he’s from French Algeria, and he’s worked occasionally as an able-bodied seaman for steamship companies. Lately, though, he’s been working at a hotel over in Jamaica, Long Island, and he admitted that he stayed at the East River Hotel last Thursday night, but that he never saw the woman. He said he left at seven in the morning and he would have no reason to strangle and mutilate a woman for no reason. When I directed his attention to the dried blood on his shirt, he struggled to explain it for a minute, and then said it was his own blood that he got on his shirt after a row with a woman over at the hotel in Jamaica. That’s about all he had for me, though. He wouldn’t give anything about this cousin of his.”
“Thank you, Aloncle,” Byrnes said. “We’ll have to have you go out there to Jamaica with this prisoner and see if he can show you where it is that he worked, but I’m not optimistic that he’ll tell you the truth. He is clearly a dissembler and a degenerate, with limited intelligence, and he’s trying to protect this other Frenchy, his cousin. But it’s a little too late for him to help that man—the ladies have seen to that. Please let me know, gentlemen, where this Frenchy the cousin can be found. Thank you.”
The men then dispersed, and Falconer left with Captain O’Connor to attend to another grim part of the investigation: the autopsy of Carrie Brown.
12
A police driver took Falconer and O’Connor in a horse-drawn wagon over to Bellevue Hospital on First Avenue, where Doctor William Jenkins, deputy coroner for the City of New York Department of Health, had convened the autopsy of the body of the woman known as Old Shakespeare. Entering the great big front entrance of the hospital, the two men approached a receptionist, who directed them to the autopsy room. They then made their way down several long hallways and arrived at the location just moments before the examination began.
Entering the room, they found a place to stand and observe over against a wall as a Doctor Stearns, assisting the deputy coroner, took two initial photographs: one of the front of the woman’s body, and the second, of her lower posterior. Also present in the autopsy room were several other medical officials, including a Colonel Vollmer, head of the New York State Board of Medical Examiners for the Army, and one reporter. After the body had been photographed, Doctor Jenkins moved over to the autopsy table and led the solemn group through a painstaking survey of Miss Brown’s injuries, which were numerous, and, as Falconer heard one of the doctors mutter, “Sickening.”
The first cut made by the murderer, Jenkins noted, was caused by a downward thrust right at about the navel. This was then followed by a jagged cut that actually wound around the woman’s body, ending at approximately one inch above the end of the spinal column. On Miss Brown’s left buttock, Jenkins identified one of the more sinister markings left by the killer: two six-inch-long gashes that were approximately one-inch-deep and that traversed across each other to form a large “X.” He noted that these cuts probably could not have been fatal, but also opined that they were made deliberately and with great care, as the “X” had been clearly formed by two eminently straight and finely made cuts that would have made any trained surgeon proud.
The doctor then directed the audience’s attention to the front of Miss Brown’s left thigh, which contained a fifteen-inch-long scratch extending up onto the abdomen. On the right side of her trunk, however, he pointed out by far the most severe of her wounds. Beginning in her right groin area where the pelvic bones met, a long gash—described by Jenkins as having been caused by an upward thrust while the woman lay on her back— extended deeply up into her abdomen, creating an opening in her abdominal cavity through which parts of her intestines protruded. Falconer heard several of the men in the room groan audibly at the sight of the terrible wound. Some, in fact, turned away when the doctor next revealed that portions of the small intestines and the woman’s left ovary had been ripped out.
The doctors standing by Jenkins’ side then gently turned the body over so that Jenkins could begin an examination of the posterior. In addition to the noticeable “X” mark, he observed, the killer had left another pair of intersecting superficial scratches on the left thigh that appeared actually to be a “V.” Then, higher up on the woman’s right ear, he noted that there was a small cut that had bled down onto her neck, indicating that the woman had at least briefly struggled with her attacker. Examining the neck more closely, he identified three small abrasions around the front. These markings, he stated, supported the view that death might possibly have been brought on by asphyxiation through strangulation. Thus, he concluded, it was very likely, pending further examination of the inner organs, that the killer had strangled Carrie Brown inside her rented room, and then, as she lay dead, or perhaps merely unconscious on the bed, he had deliberately hacked at her body.
The autopsy concluded, and Falconer and O’Connor exited the examination room and made their way out of the large hospital to the street. “Well,” O’Connor said out on the sidewalk as he lit a cigarette, “that was sobering.”
“Yes,” Falconer said. “You don’t see that every day, do you?”
“No,” O’Connor agreed. “The work of a lunatic, I suppose.”
“Maybe,” Falconer said, “but I’m not sure.”
“What? You think a man of sound mind could do that to a woman?” O’Connor asked.
“I don’t know, captain,” Falconer said, pulling out a cigarillo himself and lighting it. “I’m not sure what to say at this point.”
“Well, let’s head back to the station, shall we?” O’Connor suggested.
“If you don’t mind, captain,” Falconer said, “I’d like to take care of a few things on my list and then I’ll see you back there shortly.”
“Oh?” O’Connor said. “Very well. Suit yourself, Falconer, and thanks for joining me here. Had to be done.”
“Certainly. Thank you, captain.”
O’Connor then walked over to the waiting police wagon, hopped up onto it, and the driver snapped the reins, forcing the horse to trot off down the avenue. Falconer stood on the sidewalk and watched as the wagon receded into the distance. He was feeling angry and slightly numb. Perhaps it was his lack of sleep in the past couple of days, as the detectives on the case had been working day and nig
ht to round up suspects. Or, perhaps it was merely the shocking images of the poor prostitute’s body lying on the examination table that he had just seen and that seemed seared onto his brain as he began to wander down First Avenue.
He had seen a good many dead bodies in his lifetime—some as a boy in Japan, where he lived for a time when his father was serving in the U.S. legation there, and then, of course, many in his work as a police officer. People killed by clubs, by hooves, by drowning, by trains, bullets, swords, beer bottles, knives, ropes, poison—he had seen it all, he thought. But as he stopped and stood on the next bustling street corner just south of the hospital, thinking over what he had just witnessed in the autopsy room, he realized that he had not seen everything, after all. He had read a little about what had transpired over in London in the summer and fall of ’88, and he had even seen the photographs of the victims in that investigation: the nighttime streetwalkers who had been dragged into dark corners of the Whitechapel district and knifed horribly, some of them to the point of shocking disfigurement.
But he had not seen these women up close and in person; he had only seen the grainy images of their faces as they lay in death. The injuries were at once horrifying and distant, gruesome and yet unreal—the photos and descriptions simply did not have the same impact that the bloody scene over at Bellevue had had on him just fifteen minutes earlier.
He stood on the street corner and pondered these things as shoppers, grimy street urchins, and dusty wagon teams moved past him apparently unconcerned with the tall, dark figure who stood solitarily near to them. He looked around, scanning the high buildings on either side of him and narrowing his focus down to the occasional dark alley that disappeared behind the same buildings.
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