by Giles Ekins
‘After the war,’ Dewar continued, as though he had not heard Collingwood, ‘I resigned my Commission and returned home overland. The Ottoman Empire and Greece. From Constantinople to the Balkans. Romania. Bucharest. From Bucharest the railway goes either northwards through the Transylvanian Alps, and then westwards along one of the tributaries of the Danube, I cannae remember exactly which one the now, then tae Buda-Pecz and ontae Vienna. Else you can take a low road tae the south, it brings you to Buda-Pecz and Vienna just the same, ye ken? Mysel’ ah took the high road, so tae speak.’ Dewar stopped for a moment, his eyes distant, his hands clenched tightly onto the edge of the mortuary slab, his knuckles as white as the cold porcelain and the fish-dead white of the girl’s body. It was if he was afraid of reliving his memories, afraid to continue. The big Scot suddenly drew a deep breath, pulled back his leonine head and continued his story.
‘It was a day or so out of Bucharest I took ill. Dysentery. And then malaria. A recurrence of the attack I had had in the Crimea, but I tell you, Collingwood, it laid me so low I expected to be journeying no further than the nearest cemetery. I couldn’t travel on. I just could’nae. So I left the train and took me to the nearest inn and there the good people restored me to ma health. It was a good wee while, nigh on two weeks or so afore I could raise frae ma bed and take a step or two. Not a soul spoke the English or even the Gaelic, but the local priest, he spoke a wee bit of German and French. And the Latin of course. As do I mysel’ and so we got along fine enough. He told me of the spas up in the mountain. Apparently, the ancient Romans took the waters up in the Alps there, the Transylvanian Alps, and so I decided to travel further up into the mountains to rest a wee while to recover ma strength. The priest, a guid man, although a Papist, he gave me instructions and introductions to help me along my way.
So I took another wee train that crawled along the valley floor and climbed up the steep passes into the high mountains of Transylvania. By the Borgo Pass, I took a carriage that the wee priest had telegraphed for me. The carriage bore me to Sylvania, the spa town. After a few days at the spa, I took myself further up into the mountains, to a wee village the name of which escapes me and which I couldn’ae pronounce anyway. I doubt it’s changed a deal over the past thirty years, since it hadn’ae changed for the past three hundred years when I was there. The people are terrible superstitious, Collingwood, terrible. They fear the evil eye, the wolves and the bears in the forests and they fear the devils of the night. They think the wolf a devil, since nobody knows where the wolf lives, since nobody knows where he goes.
At the inn I stayed, the woman o’ the house, she gave me a crucifix to wear, would’nae stop fashing me ‘til I placed the thing about my neck. I have it still, although I do not wear it, but someday it I’ll give’ it to one o’ the grand-bairns.’
Dewar paused for breath and a drink of water as Collingwood reflected that in all the years he had known Dewar, he had never heard him talk so much. Dewar had probably said as much in the past few minutes than he had in all the previous year’s put together.
‘I was feeling the better, getting back ma strength, walking in the forests although it does’nae do to stray far from the paths, ‘tis terrible wild country, easy to get lost. Then one day a shepherd came into the village, he had been guarding his flock up on the high hills and was attacked by a bear and badly mauled, lucky to be alive. Lucky that the bear did’nae eat him. Lucky that the wolves’ did’nae smell his blood and hunt him down and eat him. There was’nae a doctor in the village, only the old hag who does for the midwifery, so I offered ma help, did what I could, sewed up his wounds. Stopped him fae getting the e infections.
And then they brought in the body of a girl, a village girl as had gone missing some days afore. It was thought she had been taken by the wolves or mayhap a bear. But it was’nae the wolves or bears as did for her. She was kilt the same way as this wee lassie here. Crucified and mutilated wi’ the self-same marks. They had also captured the laddie as they said has done the murder.
He was a Roma, a gypsy, simple minded you ask me, but he had blood on his hands still, a knife in his sack. The villagers’ did’nae like the gypsy folk. The village elders questioned him, none too gently I suppose. He admitted the killings or maybe they put the words into his feeble brain and the headman sentenced him to death. To be burned at the stake as a servant of the devil, as a servant of Dracul.
Anyhow, they tied the poor wretch to an old gatepost and piled up the straw and brushwood about him and then set it alight. I tell you Collingwood, it is no easy sight to see a man burning to death. He screamed louder than any man I ever saw wounded on a battlefield. The villagers threw more wood onto him, cursing him and screaming ‘Du-te-dracului’, which means ‘go to the devil.’ Go to the devil.’ And that was the time I saw these marks, the same marks as on this poor wee lassie afore. I hope tae God I never see them again.’
Doctor Hamilton Dewar was not to get his wish.
Chapter 9
LONDON
APRIL 1887
‘ER NAME MIGHT BE BLACK EYED MARY, Guv, or leastwise that’s her street moniker. One of Razor George’s girls,’ Gimlet exclaimed – his squeaky voice pitched even higher than usual with the excitement of his news.
As well as the official police procedures to try and identify the unknown murder victim, Gimlet had also put the word out on the street about the dead girl – put out the word that the police were trying to identify a murdered girl, possibly a street prostitute, whose body had been fished from the Thames some days ago. As so often before, it was the unofficial route that brought results. Six days after viewing the body of the poor girl in the mortuary of St Bartholomew’s, information had come back to him on the quiet that one of Razor George’s girls had gone missing, a girl that might match the description of the dead girl.
‘I’d love to see Razor George ’ang for this, Guv, but I don’t reckon it’s his style, not his precious style at all. Don’t get me wrong, Guv, ’e’s as nasty piece of work as they come and no mistake; not above the cutting of his girls, them as gets the wrong side of him, that is, but I can’t see ’im for this. Not for this, ’is girls are money, and Razor George is not one for pitching his brass – or ’is brasses – into the Thames. E’ll cut em’ and mark ’em no end, but ’e’ll still leave ’em alive and fit for work. Of sorts!’
‘Even so, Gimlet,’ Collingwood answered, ‘we shall give Mister George a visit. If she is one of his unfortunates, he should be able to identify her. The least we can do for her is to find her given names.’
‘Talkin’ o’ given names Guv, Razor George’s real moniker is Georgio Vaz, but ’we don’t like folk to know, ’e likes to reckon ’e’s Romany, uses all the gypsy words, but ’is dad were a Lascar sailor off’n a merchantman out of Bombay or some such like that, jumped ship – and ’is Ma an Irish brass.’ Gimlet grinned, his wrinkled walnut face scrunched up like a monkeys. ‘Awfulsome sensitive he is about it, Guv. Awful.’
Collingwood and Gimlet found Razor George in the public bar of the ‘Black Bull.’ He was not pleased to be found. Razor George much preferred to keep his dealings with the police to the absolute minimum, the occasional bribe to encourage the bobby on the beat to turn his head the other way was as much as business as he ever wished to conduct with the constabulary. He did not know who precisely Collingwood and Gimlet were, but he had no doubt they were police – and they did not look as though they would to go about their business elsewhere in return for a guinea or two. Policemen whom he could not bribe or blackmail were an unknown quantity to Razor George and he was not sure how to proceed – except very cautiously. The two police officers pushed their way through the mill around the bar, heading straight for him at his table where he sat at the back of the room – heading towards him with that purposeful mien that only a copper in search of a suspect has.
The atmosphere in the ‘Black Bull’ was thick and smoke laden, the stink of sweat and cheap ale hung across the sawdust floors like
a virulent miasma. At the table next to Razor George, a raddled old whore, insensible on gin, suddenly slumped across the adjacent table as if her spine had snapped. Her heavy wrinkled breasts burst out from her tight bodice as she toppled over and her flailing arm knocked her empty glass spinning like a top before it fell to the floor with a splintering crash. Nobody bore the half-naked whore or the broken glass any mind except for a scurrilous pox-marked gnome of a man, filthy beyond description, who slydled up to the whore with a squinted leer on his face. He reached across the table to squeeze her right breast and then pinched her nipple hard, looked up to see the approaching policemen (he also had no doubt as to their identity, Dabby Cox could spot crushers a mile away, uniform or no) and then scurried away again with a cackle like a demented cockerel.
As Collingwood and Gimlet approached, Sealskin and Boiler got to their ponderous feet to try to block their way, but Collingwood was at least as big as either man and had no intention of backing away.
‘If you gentlemen wish to become long term guests of Her Majesty, stay where you are, if not, I suggest you move aside.’
‘Boiler, Sealskin,’ Razor George said, jerking his head to the side, telling his minders to move away. ‘Now, then, ’ow can I be of assistance to the Metropolitan police,’ he said, after Collingwood and Gimlet had identified themselves. ‘As a law abiding citizen I am always at the ready to do my duty,’ he added.
Collingwood sat down opposite Razor George and leaned across the table. He was not in the mood for small talk or pleasantries.
‘Mister Vaz, what can you tell us of the whereabouts of Black Eyed Mary?’
‘Who, sirs, I don’t know of a Black Eyed Mary, you must be mistook, sirs, as sure as I am that Billy Miller, the landlord ’ere, waters ’is gin, I’m sure you must be mistook.’ He tried to grin ingratiatingly, whilst inwardly furious that the police used his given name, a name that would guarantee a severe beating to any other who used it. He was Razor George, King of Covent Garden – not the half-breed bastard son of a jump-shipped Lascar sailor beaten to death in an alley for peaching on Pincher Bendigo, a hard man housebreaker sent down for two years on information spilled by Georgio’s father. His father a nose, Razor could never live that down if it were to become common knowledge. He was Razor George, lord of all he surveyed, not the bastard son of a poxed whore from the meaner streets of Dublin who had died from drink and consumption and the pox and god knows what.
Collingwood carried on as if he had not heard George’s denial. ‘Mister Vaz, I have it on good authority, the very best authority that one of your girls has gone missing. A girl known as Black Eyed Mary, now, what can you tell us about her?’
‘One of my girls, one of my girls? Whatever can you be a thinking of, I tell you, sirs, I have no girls. What girls is you a thinkin’ of?’
‘One of those unfortunates you brutalise into selling their bodies on the street, Georgio.’
‘A most h’immoral suggestion if I might make so bold, sirs. I do so fear you ’as me mistook for somebody else.’
‘Do not take me for a fool Mister Vaz; it could become ill for you were you to obstruct my enquiries.’
Razor George swallowed and reached for his drink, but Collingwood laid his hand across the rim to prevent him from picking it up. He noticed the heavy gold rings on George’s stubby fingers and remembered what Dewar had said about the beatings to the girl were administered by someone who wore rings on all fingers and he felt a slow fission of anger beginning to burn inside him.
(Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes.)
He leaned right over the table so that his face was almost into Razor George’s. ‘I don’t like what you do, Georgio Vaz. I do not like what you do to those poor wretches unfortunate to fall into your foul clutches. However, I am investigating a murder and so your activities, vile as they are, are not presently of my concern. However …’ Collingwood let the word linger long with menace. ‘I can make them so and should you continue to obstruct me, you can be very sure that I shall take a very personal interest in all your activities, every step you take will be dogged by Constabulary. You will not be able to take a breath without you know that I am at your heels.’ Collingwood’s voice hardened again, a thinly veiled crust of menace evident as he spoke. ‘I will hound you, Georgio Vaz; hound you to Hell and back, if necessary. I shall personally ensure that your life becomes a misery and that ultimately you end up on the gallows or locked away for a very long time. I hope that I have made myself abundantly plain. And so Mister Vaz, I ask you once more, your girls, is Black Eyed Mary one of them?’
‘Well, this is the way of it, I do, it’s true, sometimes offer those unfortunates, lost upon the tide of ’umanity, a bed and roof over their ’eads, purely as an act of Christian duty, you understand, doing my unworthy best as a Christian and a gentleman.’
‘Yeah,’ interjected Gimlet, ‘If I was to squeeze you Lascar Vaz, sorry Georgio Vaz,’ his tone deliberately insulting, ‘If I was to squeeze you all that milk of human kindness would come pouring out, like honey from a beeswax comb.’ Razor George seethed with impotent anger – and fear – his hand twitching, longing to reach for No Nose Jennie and strike Gimlet down, cut his grinning insolent face to ribbons.
Collingwood leaned over even closer, his hard eyes boring into George’s. Behind him, he could hear Sealskin and Boiler shuffling their feet in consternation, but he bore them no mind. Razor George swallowed again, unused to intimidation, at least intimidation practised upon him.
‘What, what the girls do in their own time, I don’t know, ‘Onest, I tries to h’encourage them in Bible study, to gain coggisance of the ‘Oly Scriptures, but if some as them as goes astray, it’s not of my doing or knowledge. Maybe’s one or two of ’em gets a little job as a seamstress,, earn a bit of pin money, excuse my little pun, but if they’s does anyfink else, such as what you suggest, selling theirselves, then on the life of my dear sainted mother, God rest ’er soul, I don’ know nothin’ ’bout that.’
‘Your Christian spirit puts us all to shame. But to cut to the chase, Georgio, Black Eyed Mary, is she a member of your … Bible study group, one of those whom you have helped to enlighten?’ Collingwood asked his voice heavy with scorn.
‘Yeah, yeah, I fink so. Now you comes to mention the name, Black Eyed Mary, sartain now I is she might be one of my lambs, bathed in the blood of the Saviour.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yes, definitely so. I’m sure I resollects the name.’
‘Her real name?’
‘No, no that I don’t know. These poor girls wot comes to me for shelter and h’understanding, oftentimes they’re running away, maybe’s their fambly’s ’ave done ’em a misservice and they don’t want me to know their proper God given names. Honest Mister Collingwood, if I knew, I’d tell you. Straight up I would. Honest!’
‘But you could identify her. Identify her as Black Eyed Mary at least?’
‘No sir, not me sir, I’ll barely ’ave seen her, Mister Collingwood, as God will be my judge.’
‘As He most surely will, let us hope His judgement is not long delayed.’
‘Very droll, sir, very droll,’ chuckled Razor George, rubbing his hands together in simulated glee, but Collingwood evidently did not share his amusement and George quickly subsided again. Realising that he had to appease the large glowering police officer who stared grim visaged across the table, George quickly made placatory gestures. ‘I don’t as know the girl me’sel, you see, but p’raps one of my other … guests might be able to help, as a matter of assistance. Always ready to aid and assist the law, they are, God fearing as I teach ’em to be. P’raps one of ’em, eh? Yeah, one of ’em, surely that’ll be the case.’
‘Let us hope so. Indeed let us hope so, Mister George, because if not, I may have need to talk to you further.’
IN THE EVENT, IT WAS PALL MALL SAL who identified Black Eyed Mary, sobbing dramatically into her lace edged handkerchie
f (although secretly pleased to be the object of such attention) as she viewed the cold -fleshed corpse upon the slab at St Bartholomew’s. Sal provided a few details as did Razor George’s other girls; interviewed (much to his chagrin) by Collingwood and Gimlet. Mary Margaret Hopwell was her real name, aged about fifteen years, and a runaway from her hovel home in Rotherhythe. The local police knew nothing of her, and her family, such as it was, were more concerned about the anticipated cost of the funeral than any real sense of grief or loss. Collingwood could not decide whether the poor girl’s life was the more desolate at home with her brute of a father or working the streets of Covent Garden for Razor George. Neither choice offered much scope for happiness or a decent life. Regardless of all that, the identification of the corpse brought her killer no closer to justice.
The file on Black Eyed Mary remained open, of course, and although Collingwood kept the case under constant review, he had other cases needing his attention. One, Tomas Misiewicz, a Polish cobbler better known as Apron Mizziewitch, strangled his wife in a drunken rage. Collingwood tracked him down and apprehended him in the derelict railway shed near Kings Cross where he had fled to after the murder. He was brought to trial and hanged at Newgate. In another case, Constance Liddlebrook, seventy-four years old grandmother, and her daughters were arrested for counterfeiting and sentenced to twenty years hard labour. The case of Michael Foster, who killed his stepson to save on food costs, convicted and hanged at Newgate, and the tracking down of a German sailor who strangled a prostitute who tried to pick his pocket were other cases to take up Collingwood’s time. However, he never forgot the case of Black Eyed Mary and regularly reviewed the file, trying to find some insight, some detail overlooked that could bring her brutal killer to justice. But all to no avail.