Sherlock Holmes Murder Most Foul

by Gordon Punter

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  Throwing Elizabeth along the dingy passageway of the house and seeing her slam face-first into a wall, Kidney hollers, “Whore! Yer nothin’ but a filthy whore.”

  Elizabeth slumps to the bare floorboards and, wiping blood from her nose with the back of her hand, spits, “Yah, so wot? Yer could ’elp a bit. Git some bleedin’ work, like.”

  With the front door shut behind him, Kidney furiously stares at the fingernail scratches on the back of his hand. Further enraged, he unfastens a leather belt from his trousers, which are also held up by tatty shoulder braces.

  Brandishing the belt, he advances towards Elizabeth, “I’m goin’ t’ [111]tan yer ’ide good this time.”

  Frantic to find an avenue of escape, Elizabeth, on her hands and knees, scurries through a doorway into the back kitchen.

  Kidney follows behind, repeatedly thrashing her on her backside with the belt, “If I’ve told yer once, I’ve told yer a dozen times. I’ll not ’ave yer steppin’ out wiv other [112]blokes.”

  Elizabeth shrieks in pain and, crawling beneath a large sturdy wooden table, finds partial protection from the stinging blows.

  Unable to wallop her properly, and becoming more incensed, Kidney lashes out at the table with his belt, striking dirty cutlery and scraps of food from its surface, “Been t’ the ’ospital, I ’ave. Know wot they told me? I’ve a [113]dose o’ the pox. Must ’ave got it from a whore, they said. Remind yer o’ someone, does it?”

  Cowering beneath the table, Elizabeth sees a half loaf of stale bread, gouged by the buckle of the belt, drop to the floor in front of her. Quickly seizing the item, she clutches it to her bosom as if it were a child. Similar to the bread, a grilled kipper, partly wrapped in a piece of newspaper, is also dashed to the floor. For a second time, Elizabeth throws out her arm, grasps the fallen fish and, like the bread, holds it to her chest.

  Frustratedly tossing aside his belt, Kidney stoops, grips Elizabeth by her ankles and drags her out from underneath the table. Since she is prone, he turns her over and, like a rag-doll, jerks her to her feet.

  Staring at the food Elizabeth clutches, Kidney scowls, “Wot yer got there?”

  Elizabeth shakily murmurs, “Me breakfast.”

  Leaning forward, Kidney breathes in her face, “Wot yer say?”

  Elizabeth shouts, “Me bleedin’ breakfast.”

  Kidney sneers, “Where’s mine, then?”

  Elizabeth defiantly cocks her head, “Git out there an’ earn it, like I did.”

  Maddened by her remark, he swiftly reaches around the back of her head, grabs a handful of her hair and jerks her head back, “Look at yer, will yer? Not even [114]ol’ Father Thames would ’ave yer.”

  Summoning all her strength, Elizabeth quickly raises her leg and vehemently knees him in the groin.

  Winded, Kidney blanches and, wrenching his hand away from the back of her head, drops both hands to his genitals.

  Elizabeth shrieks and, letting the bread and fish drop to the floor, clamps both her hands behind her head, “Yer stupid bleeder! Yer torn ’alf me ’air out.”

  Wheezing, Kidney slumps to the floor and, upon seeing that she is about to flee, extends an arm and grasps the hemline of her long skirt. Wildly kicking at him and partially dragging him across the floorboards towards the kitchen door, Elizabeth sees a bread knife, struck from the table, lying on the floor near her left foot.

  Seizing the opportunity, she promptly bends, grabs the knife and then begins to furiously slash away at her skirt, mere inches above his clenched hand.

  Glaring at her, he stammers, “Cut me an’ yer’ll be [115]cat’s meat.”

  Stretching her skirt, Elizabeth frantically slices through the fabric, ripping and tearing the cloth until Kidney is left clutching only a piece of it in his hand.

  Freed from his grip and about to toss the knife aside, but fearful that he might retrieve the cutting instrument, she retains it and rushes from the kitchen.

  With blood still seeping from her nose, Elizabeth darts along the passageway, pulls open the front door and abruptly halts, staring at a group of anxious people who, having been drawn to the noisy quarrel in the dwelling, are gathered on the pavement just outside the house.

  Beside herself, Elizabeth shouts, “Don’t just stand there gawkin’! Fetch a copper!”

  Leaping through the doorway, Kidney pounces on Elizabeth and propels her and himself towards the group of people, who instantly part, creating a gap through which the struggling pair pass as they stumble and fall into the street.

  Inadvertently released by Elizabeth, the bread knife also clatters to the ground.

  Having concluded his duties at the mortuary and been ordered back on his beat, Police Constable George Allen is pushed to the forefront of the onlookers who now begin to encircle Elizabeth and Kidney sprawled upon the cobbled-stone surface of the street, grappling with each other.

  Confronted by his first street brawl, Allen gulps, [116]“Blimey.”

  Sitting astride her, Kidney callously thumps Elizabeth in the face.

  Wincing in pain, Elizabeth groans.

  Holding a crying baby in one arm, an elderly hag glowers at Allen, “’E’s goin’ t’ kill ’er!”

  Another onlooker, a blackened-faced chimney-sweep, nudges Allen on the arm, “Oi, do [117]summut, won’t yer?”

  Desperately clawing at Kidney’s face and sinking her broken nails into his flesh, Elizabeth scratches his cheek.

  Reacting to the searing pain and clasping his hand to his face, Kidney throws back his head and howls.

  Wearing a wooden stump, a toothless beggar smirks, “Serves yer bleedin’ right, mate.” Excitedly clapping his hands, he goads Elizabeth, “Go on, luv, dig yer nails in ’is other cheek.”

  Hesitantly drawing his wooden truncheon, Allen turns to the gathering crowd behind him, “All right, move back.”

  Noticing the bread knife on the ground nearby, Kidney leans to one side and, stretching, gropes for the blade.

  Pushing her way through the crowd and, upon reaching Allen, Mary Kelly, aged twenty-five, blue eyes and light ginger hair, stares at the back of Kidney with outstretched arm, fingering the handle of the knife, [118]“Mother o’ Mercy, ’e’s goin’ fer a knife.”

  Allen raises a cautionary hand, barring her way, “Look, miss, just stand back.”

  Kidney grasps the knife.

  Indicating this to Allen, Kelly snaps, “Look, yer [119]block’ead, ’e’s got a knife.”

  Allen nervously ignores her warning, “I said, stand back, miss.”

  Infuriated, Kelly smacks his helmet, which tumbles from his head to the ground, “Blow yer bleedin’ whistle, will yer?” She seizes him by the wrist, “An’ give me that!”

  Kidney menacingly reveals the blade to Elizabeth, “Want it like Martha Tabram, d’yer?”

  Shoving Allen aside, Kelly strides towards Kidney.

  Allen timidly retrieves his helmet and, seeing Kelly approaching Kidney, murmurs, “She’s got [120]guts, that’s for sure.”

  Nearing Kidney, Kelly peers back over her shoulder and again bellows to Allen, “Blow yer bleedin’ whistle, will yer?”

  Teasingly stroking Elizabeth’s quivering lips with the tip of the knife, Kidney sneers, “One cut or two?”

  Halting behind Kidney, Mary swiftly raises both her arms above her head.

  Unbuttoning the breast pocket of his tunic, Allen fumbles for his whistle.

  In unison, the majority of the onlookers wince upon hearing the bone-cracking thud.

  With an incredulous expression, Kidney slowly pitches forward, revealing Kelly standing behind him, holding Allen’s truncheon.

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  Mary Jane Kelly had been born in 1863 in the County of Limerick, Ireland. When she was young, her parents had moved to South Wales, where her father had worked at an ironworks in Carmarthenshire.

  In 1879, aged sixteen, she had married a Welsh coalminer by the name of Davis who, no
t long after, had been killed in a mine explosion, leaving her destitute.

  After that, Mary had moved to[121] Cardiff, at which point her cousin introduced her to the oldest profession in the world, whoring.

  Moving to Bristol in England, Mary had plied her trade in a brothel, but not long after, aged nearly eighteen, she had returned to Cardiff, pregnant and penniless. In 1881 she had given birth to a stillborn daughter and, beset with grief, had languished in an infirmary for the next eight months.

  Sometime during 1882, Mary had bade farewell to Cardiff and moved to London, where she obtained work in a [122]Knightsbridge bordello run by a French lady, whom she would often accompany to Paris, under the fancy, fictitious name of Marie Jeanette Kelly.

  It was not uncommon for women, especially someone as young and seemingly unsullied as Mary, to be regularly escorted across the English Channel to service Parisian gentlemen. Almost certainly unskilled in the ways of the gentry and most likely inept at retaining a gracious demeanour, she had, in the end, been thrown out of the bordello and had fled to a common brothel run by Mrs Buki at St. George’s Street off the Ratcliff Highway, East London.

  The following year, in 1883, Mary had started to adopt the shameful practice, which she has apparently discontinued today, of lodging with single men to obtain a respite from the numerous clients she had to procure in order to survive. But if during such an association, her cohabiter had been unlucky to lose his tenuous job, or had outlived his usefulness, she would rapidly discard him, returning once more to her chosen profession, prostitution.

  The first had been a labourer, Morgan Stone, living close to the [123]Stepney Commercial Gas Works. Ultimately tiring of him, Mary had yet again graced another brothel run by Mrs Carthy at Breezer Hill, Pennington Street, just off Shadwell High Street. From there and moving closer to Spitalfields, Whitechapel, she had lodged with a plasterer, Joseph Fleming, at Bethnal Green Road. Forsaking him after he lost his job, Mary had slipped into Spitalfields, lodging at Cooley’s doss-house in Thrawl Street and ardently plying her trade in the many taverns located in and around the neighbourhood.

  On Good Friday, 8 April, 1887, now aged twenty-four, she had met an Irish Cockney, Joseph Barnett, in the Britannia tavern and, the next day, had agreed to cohabitate with him, moving into a doss-house in George Street, just around the corner from Cooley’s.

  Five years older than Mary and permanently employed as a fish porter at [124]Billingsgate Market, Barnett had been born and raised in the East End of London, inheriting a speech defect from his mother that still causes him to repeat the last two or three words spoken by another person during a conversation.

  Shortly after, Mary and Barnett had left George Street and moved into another common lodging house in Little Paternoster Row, Dorset Street, a mere seventy yards from Miller’s Court, where they now live.

  Often drunk and behind with the rent, they had been thrown out of the doss-house in Little Paternoster Row, thereafter moving to yet another lodging house in Brick Lane. Towards the end of February this year, they had left Brick Lane, finally moving into 13 Miller’s Court which, in fact, is the back of 26 Dorset Street that had been partitioned-off earlier to create a single, self-contained room.

  Unlike the other pitiful prostitutes who endlessly traipse the fetid streets of Spitalfields, Mary Jane Kelly is attractive, impetuous, frivolous and reckless. When drunk, she can be quarrelsome, abusive and destructive but, when sober, utterly beguiling.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  Signalling yet another outburst of rain, droplets of water splatter the weathered overhead sign which reads Harrison, Barber & Co. Ltd. Horse Slaughters.

  Standing next to Holmes in the slaughter-yard and staring down at three blood-encrusted wicker baskets upon the ground, each containing a grisly, slippery mass of hearts, livers and lungs, Watson hurriedly produces a handkerchief from his pocket and clamps the piece of linen over his nose and mouth.

  He shakes his head and mumbles, “Revolting, Holmes. Utterly revolting.”

  Oblivious to the animal offal and the putrid smell pervading the slaughter-yard, Holmes casually indicates his ear with his finger to Watson, “I beg your pardon, Watson?”

  Watson mumbles again, “Disgusting, Holmes, disgusting.”

  Holmes frowns, “My dear fellow, if you insist on speaking, please remove the handkerchief so that I may hear your words with a certain degree of clarity.”

  Watson lowers the handkerchief, sniffs the foul air and groans.

  Holmes sighs impatiently, “Oh, come, come, Watson. This is hardly the time nor the place to be squeamish. As an assistant army surgeon, you must have observed much worse.”

  Watson returns his handkerchief to his pocket, “Well, that rather depends on your definition of what is ‘much worse’. At the time, I did assist with the amputation of limbs, but refrained from surgery that involved internal organs. The mere sight of them disturbed me then, and still does, Holmes.”

  Holmes is rueful, “My dear fellow, I am sorry. Please excuse my insensitivity. Would you prefer to wait outside?”

  Watson solemnly shakes his head.

  Holmes is adamant, “My little experiment may prove to be a somewhat unsettling experience, Watson. Perhaps you should wait outside.”

  Gratified by his thoughtfulness, Watson wearily smiles, “You must do what you have to do to catch this blighter, Holmes. And be damned if I am going to desert you now.”

  Silently thanking Watson for his support, Holmes graciously tips his head and then looks around the dismal slaughter-yard, “Hardly a salubrious venue to celebrate your birthday, Watson?”

  Enthused by the remark, Watson chuckles, “I live in hope, Holmes. Perhaps next year it will be an opium den in Limehouse.”

  Holmes smiles, appreciating the witticism.

  Entering the slaughter-yard from the street and leading three scrawny horses by their heads, slaughterman Henry Tomkins halts beside Holmes and Watson, shooing two of the animals further into the yard.

  Quickly seizing the coarse manes of the two mangy horses, another slaughterman, James Mumford, stops the animals and hastily begins to examine their bodies. Shaking his head in disbelief, he turns to Tomkins and barks, “Oi, ’Enry, where’s the meat on these two, then?”

  Tomkins grins, “’Bove their bleedin’ legs, where else?” He slowly turns to Holmes, waving him away with his hand, “Best yer an’ the other gentleman move back a bit, guv’nor.”

  Heeding his advice, Holmes and Watson step backwards.

  Gripping the mane of the third horse, Tomkins peers over his shoulder, again looking at Holmes, “Ready, guv’nor?”

  Producing his pocket watch and opening its engraved metal cover, Holmes pensively looks at the time, glances at Tomkins and then nods.

  Removing a thin-bladed knife from the pouch of his full-length leather apron, Tomkins draws its blade across the throat of the horse, which instantly trembles and then collapses to the ground, blood gushing from its gullet. Stooping, he then slices through the underbelly of the twitching animal and quickly steps back, thereby avoiding contact with the abdominal contents spilling out onto the straw-strewn cobbled surface of the yard.

  Appalled by the sight, Watson, however, retains his composure and fleetingly looks at Holmes, “Not exactly what I had in mind for breakfast, Holmes.”

  Holmes stares at the face of his pocket watch, “We are dealing with a ruthless killer who has no time for sentiment. Therefore, on occasions, our methods must imitate his, Watson.”

  Wiping his knife on his apron and slipping it back into its pouch, Tomkins yells to Mumford, “’Ere, Jim, ’ave Charlie come an’ clean up this mess, will yer?” Once more, he turns to Holmes, “’Ow were that, guv’nor?”

  Holmes looks up from his watch, “Efficiently executed.” He snaps its cover shut, “Twelve to fourteen seconds, Watson. Dr Llewellyn entirely miscalculated the time taken to achieve the mutilations.”

  Watson indicates Tomkins, “But this fel
low had the benefit of daylight. The murderer must have performed the deed in virtual darkness, Holmes.”

  Holmes returns his watch to his waistcoat pocket, “Did the good doctor not say that the killer had some anatomical knowledge? If so, and allowing for the darkness, twenty to twenty-five seconds at the most. Not four to five minutes as suggested by Dr Llewellyn. Our murderer appears to have a swift hand, Watson. Perhaps too swift for credence.”

  Holmes hands Tomkins a [125]half-crown.

  Taking the coin, Tomkins touches the peak of his cloth cap with his finger, “Much obliged, guv’nor.”

  Holmes stares at him, “You were questioned by the police after the murder?”

  Tomkins nods, “Yer bet, guv’nor. They were ’round ’ere, crawlin’ all over the place. Worse than bleedin’ flies.”

  “Did you see the body?”

  “After John Thain ’ad told me she’d been done in.”

  “John Thain?”

  Tomkins nods again, “Came fer ’is cape. Likes t’ leave it wiv us when ’e’s on ’is beat. Don’t like wearin’ it, ’e says.”

  Holmes pauses for thought.

  Watson intercedes, “John Thain is a police constable, then?”

  Before Tomkins can answer Watson, Holmes interjects, “So, whilst Constable Thain is on duty, he routinely deposits his cape here?”

  Tomkins nods once more, “’Im an’ that other copper, John Neil. Pop in ’ere quite often. Like t’ ’ave a mug o’ ’ot tea wiv us. Artful pair, they are. [126]Ears firmly t’ the ground. Like t’ know wot’s goin’ on. Makes their job easy, they say. Decent blokes, guv’nor.”

  Holmes smiles,[127] “Whiter than white, so to speak?”

  Tomkins grins, “’Onest coppers, guv’nor.”

  Holmes returns to the question of the body, “And the body?”

  Tomkins scratches his chin, “We darted ’round the corner an’ took a peek at ’er, like.”

  Holmes stares at him intently, “We?”

  Tomkins indicates the rear of the slaughter-yard, “Me an’ me workmates, Jim Mumford and Charlie Britton.”