by Giles Ekins
Coming back early to the filthy room that George’s girls shared, she had found the place deserted, all the other girls were out working and Razor George, Sealskin and Boiler were drinking at the Black Bull. On a sudden impulse, desperate to get away, Liz had quickly searched the boxes where the girls kept their trinkets and bits of spare clothing. She took a green bonnet of Black-Eyed-Mary’s that she had always coveted, a tortoiseshell comb and hair clip belonging to Pall Mall Sal and one or two other bits and pieces, a scarf, and one solitary glove. Greatly fearful of Razor George’s wrath she had fled further east, to Whitechapel, beyond, she thought, of his reach.
Why she decided to move in with Michael Kidney she could never say. Somewhere to stay, a man in her bed, whatever, for better or worse, usually worse, there she had stayed more than a year, suffering beating after beating for her pains. Occasionally she prostituted herself, but mostly she made her living by cleaning or sewing. Kidney, a labourer, was out of work more often than not and it was when he was not working that he got the most violent, forcing her out on the streets to earn him some money for drink. But the beating three nights ago had been the last straw and she had left him, snoring in a drunken stupour, the blood from her bleeding nose still caked onto his fists.
Liz took lodgings nearby and found some cleaning work on Flower and Dean Street. But the pennies she earned from that were not enough and she had decided to earn some extra money out on the street. She knew herself to be attractive, better looking by far than most of the other ‘brass nails’ who worked the Whitechapel streets and public houses and had always been able to find good custom.
Dressed in her best black clothing, Long Liz set out for the evening, saying nothing to Millie Hands or Sarrie Welch, girls with whom she shared the lodgings. She bought a red rose and a sprig of white maidenhair fern from an urchin flower girl on Whitechapel High Street, pinned this to her jacket and crossed over onto Commercial Road, looking for some trade.
RAZOR GEORGE SAT AT HIS USUAL TABLE in the back corner of the Black Bull, constantly watching the ebb and flow of drinkers and whores and petty crooks and the assorted other villains. Boiler and Sealskin sat at an adjacent table, arms folded across their heavy chests, alert for any danger or threat to their master.
He took another sip from his drink and reached into his jacket for his gold embossed leather cigar case, sliding out a long cheroot and rolling it between his fingers and thumb. He sniffed the cigar along its length before biting off the end and spitting it to the floor. Sealskin leaned over with a lighted vesta and held it close to the other end as George drew in the smoke to get the tobacco alight, puffing out thick clouds of blue smoke as he did so. Satisfied that the cigar was properly alight, he took another pull, laid the cigar down onto an earthenware ashtray, and took another drink. Draining his glass, he then snapped his fingers at Boiler who leapt to his feet and hurried over to bar to get a refill, roughly pushing aside anyone who got in his way.
The tavern doors opened and a skinny urchin boy peered inside, looking for somebody. He caught sight of Razor George, swallowed hard to fight down his fear – even eight-year-old street urchins know of Jenny-No-Nose and Razor George’s reputation for extreme violence.
Nervously he sidled over, twisting his cap in his hands in trepidation. As he got closer he could see the ivory handle of Jenny-No-Nose sticking out from Razor George’s waistcoat pocket, and he could barely take his eyes off it, transfixed, terrified that it would be flashed out from that pocket and the blade laid to his cheek simply for the crime of looking at Razor George. Boiler brought back the replenished glass and set it before George before glowering at the boy as though he wanted to tear his head from his shoulders.
The frightened boy shuffled another step and swallowed hard again. ‘Mister Razor?’ he whispered.
‘Who wants to know, boy?’
‘Me sister, Mister George, er Mister Razor … she sez she got some h’information for you. Sez it’s worth a bob or so …’
‘Tell me.’
‘About the bob?’
‘Tell me boy, else Boiler ’ere is going to ’ave serious words wif you and you might just end up in an ’orspital bed with your tripes rearranged.’
George picked his cigar and a deep savouring pull before looking up at the terrified boy, blowing smoke in his face as he did so, the boy was so scared, even the brush of smoke into his face made him flinch as if he had been slapped. The brat wore a sleeveless leather jerkin over a thin grey flannel shirt, brown tweed trousers obviously cut down from a larger size and held up with the length of fraying rope and boots that gaped opened at the toecaps like a gutted fish. He was small, pale and thin, malnourished as all street brats are; his face grubby and smeared with snot trails where he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. But despite all this, George liked the look of him, the boy was blonde haired and opened faced, street wise but vulnerable. George decided he would take the boy, use him and in a week or so, and then, when he was too broken and bruised to be of any further use, he would sell him on to Barlow Jiggs. Jiggs in turn would then pass him on to Herr Gűnther in Hamburg, where the remainder of his life would be short and agonising – Herr Gunther’s customers especially appreciated the rack and whips and red-hot irons so thoughtfully provided for them and the endless supply of street children on which to use them.
The boy snivelled again, wiped his snot-encrusted nose on the back of his hand, brushed a thin tear from his eye and took a deep breath before speaking again, his voice a thin reed, barely audible above the raucous clamour behind him.
‘Me sister, Alice, she works down on Commercial Street. Commercial Street in Wh … Whitechapel, you know?
‘I knows where Commercial Street is you moggin’ little prick,’ Razor growled menacingly, sliding Jenny-No-Nose out from his pocket and laying it on the table in front of the boy, revelling in the flash of terror that crossed his face. ‘Get to it; I ain’t got all fuckin’ night to listen to pissin’ little brats like you. It upsets the balance of me waters, an’ you don’t want that. I can reassures you, cos when me waters are upset, nasty fings is likely to ’appen.’
The boy’s wits had almost left him and as Razor George fixed him with his hardest most menacing state, terror loosened his bladder and a thin stream of urine trickled down his leg, darkening the front of his oversized trousers. The boy did not even notice.
‘Well?’ George snarled, his fingers playing delicately along the ivory handle of Jenny -No-Nose. This was what Razor George lived for, the feeling of power and the terror and fright his very name invoked.
‘Alice … she sez, you’s looking for a particular brass, Alice, she knows where she’s about, the tart you want’
‘What’s your sister doing, she prossing ’erself?’
‘Yeah, down the Chapel, she sees the brass and sent me to tell you.’ The boy began to sob, tear tracks scarring through the grime on his face. ‘Said there was a shilling in it if’n I was to tell Mister Razor bout it.’
‘You got a name, boy.’ he asked, sipping at his drink, the cigar in his other hand sending up a thin column of smoke that caught in the boy’s eyes.
‘Yessiir, Mister Razor sir. Me given name be Jeb, but they calls me Wriggler, ’cos I can wriggle in through small winders and goes an’ open the doors, like.’
‘So, you’s a moggin’ snakesman, eh?’
Some of the boy’s natural cockiness briefly reasserted itself. ‘Best bleedin’ snakesman in all of Lunnon, I am.’
‘Oo d’ya snake for, yer dad, is ’e a cracksman?’1
‘No, don’t know me dad, niver did, nor me Ma. Just me and me sister Alice. She takes care of’ me, but sometime I ’as to go wiv Billy Pym, ’e’s ’er man, if’n he needs a small ’un to get through the winders or coal scuttle.’ Jeb poked a finger into his left nostril, extracted a glistening green snot-goblin, and then wiped his hands down the back of his trousers.
Razor George had never heard of a burglar called Billy Pym, so he could not
be a big time crook. Razor George knew every villain and thief in the City of London and far beyond, Billy Pym, whoever he was, would offer no threat when he finished with the boy and sold him on to Barlow Jiggs. And maybe he would take Alice as well; he was always ready to take another in another member to the ‘bosom of his fambly’. And he might just cut Billy Pym for the hell of it as well. He could feel a cutting mood coming on.
‘What about the brass I’se lookin’ for?’
‘Yes, Mister Razor, Alice says she seen Long Liz down Commercial Street, prossin’.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight, bout an hour ago. Soon as she sees ’er, Alice sends me to find yer, look in the Black Bull. She sez, tell Mister Razor and there’d be a shilling for us. Thre’pence in it for me.’
Long Liz! Razor George smiled, the smile of a tiger when he sees a goat wandering right into his path.
‘Right, come wiv’ me, boy, an’ don’t try no nonsense else I’ll slice yer moggin’ ears off.’
LONG LIZ HAD FOUND SOME TRADE on Commercial Street, a nervous young ‘white choker’, a vicar, and so young he hardly looked old enough to shave, she thought.
She led him down Berner Street, to Dutfield’s Yard, a quiet ill-lit yard next to the International Working Men’s Club, a club comprising mainly of Eastern European Jewish Socialists. Even though windows from the club overlooked the yard, if you took your trade over to the far corner on the same side of the yard as the club, nobody could see the business going on, not unless they actually opened the window and peered out. This was where she normally conducted business when working Commercial Street; it was quiet and secluded, but not too far away from her working patch. The young vicar was fumblingly quick and then scurried away as if all the demons of hell were after his soul.
Trade was quiet after that, but just before midnight a stout little man sidled up to her. He was not much taller than Liz herself, who despite her name, Long Liz; she was barely more than five foot tall. He looks like a clerk, she thought, and named her price and led him in turn down the yard. He was polite and reserved, but very eager once she had raised her skirts for him. He took his time and Liz’s back began to ache from leaning against the wall, her legs spread at an awkward angle to accommodate his small stature.
At last he finished, he adjusted his clothing and took her arm, escorting her as if he were escorting a grand duchess to a royal ball. He kissed her, which almost never happened, holding her hand in both of his.
Liz sighed; she quite liked this little man with his polite manners and courtliness, not many who used the Whitechapel brasses were as pleasant to deal with as this one.
‘I wish they was all as gentlemanly as you,’ she said.
‘Hah, you would say anything but your prayers,’ he answered enigmatically and after doffing his hat, walked away.
RAZOR GEORGE WAS IN A FOUL MOOD, a murderous cutting rage.
He, Sealskin, Boiler and the brat had taken a Hansom from the Black Bull from Drury Lane to Commercial Road, but once they got there, there was no sign of the brat’s sister. Nor of Long Liz.
‘Where is she, you snot nosed maggot? Eh? If you’s is playing me false, boy, I’ll gut your gizzards for you as soon as spit.’ Jenny-No-Nose flashed in his hand, swiping across in front of the terrified boys face, missing the end of his nose by no more than a half inch.
‘I … I … she must be workin,’ he stammered, wildly looking around for an escape. Jeb the Wriggler had the deepest premonition that bad as things were, they were only going to get worse, very much worse and he cursed his sister for putting him into this dire predicament.
Razor George suddenly backhanded him across the face with his other hand, knocking him into the street almost under the wheels of a passing growler. Sealskin grabbed him by the collar of his jerkin and dumped him onto the paving beside George who was ready to cut the brat if he as much as made a whimper. George then sent Sealskin and Boiler off to look for Long Liz, if she was working the district, she must soon make her presence known, whores don’t hide in the shadows; whores got to be out on the street where the punters can see ’em.
Frustration grew in him as every minute passed, the red rage boiling up inside him like a volcano.
BOILER WAS NOT IN A MUCH BETTER TEMPER, he and Sealskin were walking down Berner Street, convinced that they were on a fruitless chase, not caring in the slightest whether Razor George found Long Liz or not – what did another brass here or there matter anyway? If one walked away, there was always another dozen ready and (sometimes) willing to take over. Sealskin stepped across the street to ask a man standing by an open door whether he had seen any whores working nearby.
The man, intimidated by Sealskin towering menace mumbled a denial and scurried back indoors, shutting his door firmly behind him. Cursing, Sealskin kicked at the door in frustration and then struck a match on the wall to relight his pipe.
Just then, Boiler saw her, standing in the gateway to a yard. She had just finished with a customer by the looks of it, and turned away, not seeing him approach down the road.
He was on her before she realised. Boiler took her arm, intending to drag her back into the yard and hold her there for Razor George, but she struggled and fought, surprising Boiler with her desperate strength and as she tried to get clear, he threw her to the ground. At this she screamed, screamed three or four times and even though the screams were not loud, Boiler was unnerved and briefly stepped away from her.
‘Sealskin2,’ he shouted, jerking his thumb back up the road towards Razor George. Sealskin set off in a hurry.
‘Get up, bitch,’ Boiler shouted at Liz, giving her a kick as she tried to scramble away. ‘Mister George wants a word or two.’
Seizing her arm, he half dragged her, half carried back her into Dutfield’s Yard, his hand clamped tight over her mouth to stop her screaming again.
JACK THE RIPPER, even though he was not yet publicly so called, left his lodgings at No 22 Batty Street and headed for Commercial Road and Whitechapel High Street. As he walked along he kept on patting the inside pocket of his long coat, reassuring himself that his rolled up leather housewife with its precious contents was still in place. Batty Street runs south from Commercial Road and the next street westwards is Berner Street. And Dutfield’s Yard is on Berner Street.
SEALSKIN WAS OUT OF BREATH by the time he reached Razor George.
‘Boiler,’ he gasped, ‘E’s got ’er. Down the street ’ere.’
‘About moggin’ time,’ Razor answered with a snarl, ‘Where is the thievin’ bitch.’ turning to follow Sealskin, taking his eye off Jeb.
Seizing his chance, the little snakesman kicked Razor George as hard as he could on the knee and fled, jinking across the street, dodging between a brougham and a speeding hansom and then up into an alley like a scalded cat. Jeb the Wriggler knew all the lanes and alleys around here like the back of his hand and was certain that once he got into the warren of streets across the Commercial Road would never be found.Razor George hopped about on one foot, ‘Come back ’ere you little fucker, I’ll carve you ten ways to Christmas. Sealskin, don’t just fuckin’ stand there, get after ’im.’s gorn, ’e’ll be like a rat in them alleys. Never bloody ind ’im.’
‘Aye, mebbes, but ’is moggin’ time’ll come, and then I’ll flay ’im alive, no little shitrag like him kicks Razor George an’ ’hopes to keep a whole skin.’
The rage was a fiery red mist; he had Jenny-No-Nose in his hand, her blade glinting keenly as they passed under the flickering gas street lamps as they hurried down Berner Street, the clatter of Sealskin’s boots steel shod boots echoing around the close-set walls.
They ducked trough the gateway that led into Dutfields Yard, where Boiler had the struggling Long Liz Stride pinned against the wall, his handkerchief stuffed deep into her mouth to stifle her desperate screams. Her eyes flared wide in fear as she saw Razor George striding rapidly towards her, a maniacal glint in his eyes as he swished Jenny-No-Nose back and forth in front of h
im. His anger was beyond all control, all reason, his anger at the brat for kicking him and running away, his anger at Sealskin for letting him escape, his anger at Long Liz who had dared to expose him to ridicule by leaving him – him, Razor George the King of Covent Garden – his anger at the world and his anger at the entire human race. Rage swept through him in molten streams, he meant to cut Long Liz to an inch of her life, if she didn’t work for him he’d make mogging sure she’d be no use to work at all.
Using all her desperate strength, she stamped Boiler hard, raking the heel of her high side sprung boots down his shin, a proud nail slicing open the skin of his leg as keenly as Jenny-No-Nose. With a howl of pain Boiler pushed her away, Liz broke away and darted to the left of Razor George, away from the flashing scything razor, but George was too quick, he caught her by her trailing scarf, pulled her back towards him, hooked her legs from under and threw her face down to the ground, the strength of his rage enormous. He reached over, seized her by the hair, jerked up her head and with one slash Jenny-No-Nose laid open Long Liz’s throat from ear to ear, severing her windpipe.
‘Fuckin ’ell, boss, you’ve done croaked ’er,’ Boiler gasped, feeling the hangman’s noose about his neck already. He would stomp and maim and kick with impunity, break your bones without a second thought, but murder? – nah, murder sent you to the gallows.
‘I’ll teach the bitch to think she can moggin’ well walk out on me.’ Razor George ranted; seemingly unaware that he had killed her. Sealskin and Boiler glanced at each other – they wanted no part of this.