Ghost of Whitechapel

by Mary Jane Staples

  * * *

  Looking over, talking to and asking questions of the men who worked in the laundry proved a waste of time until one man, a burly specimen of thirty-two, refused to say where he was or what he was doing on the evening of the murder.

  ‘That’s not very helpful,’ said Sergeant Ross. ‘Not to us or to you. In fact, it makes things awkward for you.’

  ‘Look, gents, can we talk private, like?’

  ‘It’s either that or at the Yard,’ said the Chief Inspector, brushing his moustache. Well-trimmed, it could have taken him into the Guards if he’d attended a public school.

  The talk in private took place in a room smelling of polluted steam. The launderer, Alfred Cook of Ash Street, Walworth, explained that Mrs Cook, his one and only better half, had requested him to repose in a single bed at night instead of sharing the double bed with her. The double bed, in fact, had disappeared when he got home from his work one evening, and in its place were two single beds. Not new, mind, second-hand, but good condition. Mrs Cook, bless her heart, requested this arrangement on account of not wanting to be put in the family way any more, seeing it had happened four times in the past. He couldn’t say it wasn’t a reasonable request, but he could say it didn’t accord with his natural inclinations, which had a habit of raising Old Harry in him. It was a gloomy night life he suffered in his single bed. Well, he had what anyone might call all his facilities in good working order, and his natural inclinations on top of that. One evening he met a widow woman in the pub, and got friendly with her. They found out they both had the same kind of suffering, and as there was only one way of curing each other, they set about it. In her bed, in her flat in Heywood Street. He didn’t inform Mrs Cook that he was in fairly regular accord with the widow woman, as she might have chucked him and the single bed out into the street. It so happened he was with the widow woman on the evening of the murder. Mrs Cook thought he was down at the pub, of course. Would the Chief Inspector kindly not inform her otherwise? Mrs Cook was a good wife and mother, but she had some awkward principles.

  ‘Name and address of the widow lady?’ said Sergeant Ross, and George Cook supplied the information. ‘Is she a working woman?’ asked Ross.

  ‘Eh?’ said George Cook.

  ‘A working woman?’ said Ross.

  ‘Excuse me, guv, but what woman ain’t a workin’ one, except the rich?’

  ‘There you are, Sergeant Ross, how’d you like your eggs fried?’ said the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Tenderly, guv,’ said Ross.

  ‘Mrs Amelia Lambert works in the Penny Bazaar by the Elephant and Castle,’ said George Cook. ‘Pardon me, guv, but yer’ll go easy on ’er, won’t yer?’

  ‘Very easy, Mr Cook,’ said Ross, and he and the Chief Inspector left.

  ‘I suppose you’d better check, my lad,’ said Dobbs. ‘Meet me back at the Yard, and then we’ll get off to Whitechapel and interview Daisy Bell.’

  ‘Daisy Cummings, guv.’

  ‘I know that, sunshine, I just happened to be thinking about a bicycle made for two. For me and Mrs Dobbs on Sunday afternoons in the summer. By the way, I suppose Fleet Street did us the honour today of publishing details of Godfrey Who, together with a request for him to come forward?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen the papers?’ asked Ross, as they walked along St Thomas Street.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d stopped reading them?’

  ‘So you did, guv, but I didn’t know if you were serious or not,’ said Ross. ‘Anyway, Godfrey Who’s got a mention in all of them.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he’ll come and acquaint himself with us,’ said Dobbs. They parted then, Sergeant Ross turning left into Borough High Street, and the Chief Inspector turning right for London Bridge while looking for a hansom cab to take him back to Scotland Yard.

  The widow, thirty-five-year-old Mrs Amelia Lambert, interviewed in the little office of the Penny Bazaar, proved to be plump, affable and likeable. Once she was assured of the confidential nature of the interview, she was also forthcoming, letting Sergeant Ross know she quite understood Mrs Cook’s determination not to be put in the family way any more. Of course, it was naturally a bit hard on Mr Cook, poor bloke, but a wife did have a right to keep her better half off her when she’d more than done her duty by presenting him with four children. Being childless herself, for reasons that she didn’t discuss with men, she was a highly suitable consolation to a man like George. He’d told her all his facilities were in a highly charged condition, which made his suffering chronic. He was a bit of a rough diamond to talk to and look at, but a really nice feller all in all, and he was right about his facilities. Crikey, not half he wasn’t, he made her feel the ceiling was falling on her sometimes. Yes, he was exercising his facilities with her between nine o’clock and ten thirty on the night that poor Irishwoman got done in, so he didn’t have any cause, anyway, to go after her. Nor would he. Outside of his natural inclinations, he was as gentle as a lamb. If he hadn’t been, he might have forced himself on his wife.

  ‘Good enough, Mrs Lambert, thanks,’ said Sergeant Ross.

  ‘Oh, pleasure, sergeant, I’m sure. If you want to talk to me again, come round to me little flat at number twelve, Heywood Street, one evening. It’s very comfy, with nice cushions and everything.’

  ‘Well, thanks, Mrs Lambert, I’ll remember that if we need any other information from you,’ said Sergeant Ross.

  ‘How’s your facilities?’ asked the affable widow.

  ‘Not on a par with Mr Cook’s, I’d say. Good morning, Mrs Lambert.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘MURPHY!’

  ‘Is it meself you’re wanting, Sergeant?’ asked Constable Murphy of Cork on the north side.

  ‘Well now, would I be hollering for O’Hara if I wanted you?’ said Sergeant Corrigan.

  ‘Sure, and it wouldn’t be like you to do that,’ said Murphy, ‘though me own dear mother was inclined to confusion, so she was, there being seven of us and all with different names.’

  ‘I’m not your mother,’ said Sergeant Corrigan.

  ‘Jasus, Sergeant, will Mrs Corrigan be thanking the Lord for that?’ said Murphy.

  ‘Button your collar,’ said Sergeant Corrigan. ‘Now, we called at Killarney Cottages up by the high road yesterday afternoon to acquaint the Flanagans with the sad information contained in the cable from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Ah, that poor Mrs Flanagan and the shawl she put over her head,’ said Murphy. He crossed himself. ‘A suffering blow to that warm heart of hers, so it was. Murder and all.’

  ‘There’s another cable,’ said Sergeant Corrigan. ‘Read it.’

  Murphy read it. It was long but lucid, and it meant there was another call to make on the Flanagans.

  ‘Hell and the dark devil, Sergeant, is it the murdering swine himself poor Maureen Flanagan fell in with, rest her soul?’

  ‘Hell and the dark devil will have him, Murphy, if he’s the man,’ said Sergeant Corrigan. ‘You’ve seen what you’ve got to do?’

  ‘Bless all the saints, Sergeant, is it meself that’s got to go?’ asked Murphy. ‘And them at their wake? And Mrs Flanagan so poor a church mouse would be richer? She’s going to miss the regular money Maureen sent.’

  ‘It’s you that’s got to go, Murphy. Sure, and aren’t you a friend to Molly Flanagan, Maureen’s younger sister? Where’s the bike?’

  ‘In the shed, Sergeant, with Constable O’Toole repairing a puncture of the inner tube.’

  ‘Well now, will you be so good as to hurry him up, Constable Murphy?’ said Sergeant Corrigan. ‘If there’s a letter, and if it’s informative, bring it back here, not forgetting the other, if Mrs Flanagan still has it.’

  ‘Ah, it’s meself wishing I didn’t have to go, Sergeant,’ said Murphy.

  ‘Yer spalpeen, is it that kind of wishing that’ll help Scotland Yard to lay their hands on the hound of the devil?’ said Sergeant Corrigan.

  ‘I’m away, Sergeant, I’m away,’ said Murphy, putti
ng his helmet on.

  It was lunchtime, and the gentleman was out and about. He did not have his bag with him, or his walking-stick, and his footsteps did not take him to the East End. The East End by day was merely a city slum, sleazy, grimy and dolorous, its wretched people creatures of unloveliness. Only at night, in the fog, did its atmosphere create for him the ghoulish pictures and imaginings that stirred him to his depths.

  In the West End, the misty day offered scenes not in the least offensive to the eye. Around Trafalgar Square the traffic, thick with growlers, hansom cabs, carts and horse-drawn omnibuses, moved as slowly as a sluggish river. Closed private carriages looked disdainful of all other vehicles. Women, their long skirts hitched, trod the damp pavements cautiously. Fashionable ladies, accompanied by fashionable gentlemen, alighted gracefully from carriages to enter the gilded portals of the fashionable restaurants in the Strand and in the avenues off Piccadilly Circus.

  He strolled around the Circus. A flower girl, shawled, black-skirted, her faded boater tipped, made her play.

  ‘Bokay for yer lady, sir?’

  He stopped. Her bright eyes, the brighter because of her pale face, cajoled him.

  ‘Not today,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you got a kind face, sir, so buy some for yerself, won’t yer?’

  ‘A buttonhole,’ he said.

  ‘There we are, sir.’ She took a bright red carnation, attached by a little strand of wire to a small fern leaf, and slipped it into the buttonhole of his coat. ‘There, makes yer look really swell, sir, and only a tanner.’

  He gave her a shilling, and told her to keep the change. She was delighted, and delight made her look pretty. He might have contemplated the pleasure of coming upon her in the fog of Whitechapel one night. But no, his razor-sharp knife was not for any hard-working flower girl. It was for the kind of women who had stirred the mind and hand of the Ripper.

  He smiled and went on his way, looking for a pub that would provide him with a drink and a sandwich.

  Chief Inspector Dobbs, having received from Sergeant Ross details of his interview with Mrs Amelia Lambert, delayed his visit to Whitechapel until the afternoon. He and Sergeant Ross arrived outside the house in Ellen Street when the mist was floating around the houses, the rooftops, and the ragged kids. Up scampered the kids as the CID officers alighted from a growler.

  ‘Carry yer bags, misters?’

  There were no bags.

  ‘Shine yer boots, misters?’

  They didn’t need shining.

  ‘Want an errand run, misters?’

  No errands were required to be run. Just the cabbie needed paying.

  ‘’Oo d’yer want, misters? We knows ev’rybody round ’ere. ’Oo d’yer want?’

  ‘We know who we want,’ said Sergeant Ross, as the cab moved off.

  ‘Well, that’s a bleedin’ shame for us, mister, we could’ve took yer there for a penny. Tell yer what, mister, ’ave yer got a penny on yer for me starvin’ sister, ’ave yer, mister?’

  It was there, lodged in their eyes behind the cunning born of want, the feverish light of kids who already knew their chances of survival were desperately slim. Most who dwelt in the reeking slums beyond Ellen Street were little old wizened men by the time they were ten, when some would already be coughing themselves to death, and all would be scavenging for scraps. These, the kids of Ellen Street, might be a little better off. Some even had good boots on their feet. But they still knew they had to fight to win themselves a decent existence.

  Sergeant Ross detached his gaze from the feverish light. He parted his overcoat, dug into his trouser pocket, fished out three pennies and three ha’pennies, and scattered them. The kids yelled, swooped, pounced and fought. Chief Inspector Dobbs eyed his sergeant thoughtfully.

  ‘One way of getting them from under our feet, guv,’ said Ross.

  ‘The mortality rate of kids under twelve is fifty per cent,’ said the Chief Inspector, and knocked on the door of the house. The kids had already swarmed back by the time Bridget opened the door.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said Dobbs. ‘Miss Cummings?’

  Bridget’s eyes were coal-black as she regarded them in their bowler hats, their overcoats, their polished boots and their well-fed solidity.

  ‘If I ain’t mistaken, you’re coppers,’ she said.

  ‘Chief Inspector Dobbs of the Yard, and Detective-Sergeant Ross. May we come in?’

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ said Bridget, certain they were here to question her about her role in yesterday’s riot. ‘In any case, I’m innocent.’

  ‘Of what, Miss Cummings?’ asked Dobbs.

  ‘And I’ve got an alibi,’ said Bridget. ‘One of yer own constables’ll tell yer I got dragged in accidental and was hit by a brick.’

  ‘You’re referring to yesterday’s riot?’ said Sergeant Ross.

  ‘Good as murder of the workers in the fog,’ said Bridget, ‘and I’m lucky to be alive.’

  ‘We’re not enquiring about the riot, Miss Cummings, but about another matter, and you’re not under suspicion,’ said Ross. ‘We’d just like to talk to you to see if you can help us. Can we come in?’

  ‘I ain’t partial to invitin’ coppers into my ’ouse,’ said Bridget, ‘but all right, in yer come, only don’t bring those kids in with yer. And wipe yer boots.’

  They entered.

  A kid yelled, ‘Gi’s anuvver penny, mister!’

  The door closed on him and the others. Bridget led the way into the parlour. The fire was going in the kitchen, but not in the plainly furnished parlour. Bridget objected on principle to making flatties feel comfortable.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘You’re Miss Daisy Cummings?’ said Sergeant Ross.

  ‘Beg yer pardon?’ said Bridget.

  ‘You visited Guy’s Hospital laundry yesterday and secured a job?’ said the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Not me,’ said Bridget, ‘that was me sister. She’s Daisy. What’s goin’ on? What d’yer want to talk to ’er about?’

  ‘About a friend of hers, the late Maureen Flanagan,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘Eh?’ said Bridget, on her guard.

  ‘We’d like to ask her some questions,’ said Ross, ‘but not to her disadvantage. We think she might be able to help us in respect of a certain man who knew Miss Flanagan.’

  ‘That poor murdered woman?’ said Bridget, thinking oh blimey, here’s a chicken come home to roost. Daisy hadn’t known Maureen Flanagan any more than she knew the King of Siam. ‘I’m not sure Daisy’s ’ere just yet.’

  Daisy, however, came in at that point. She’d heard voices. She saw the callers, two impressive men with their hats off, the older one rugged and fatherly-looking, with a kind of benign expression, the younger quite handsome and sort of sympathetic-looking.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Miss Daisy Cummings?’ said the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Daisy, they’re from Scotland Yard and they want to talk to you about that murdered woman, Maureen Flanagan, about you bein’ a friend of hers,’ said Bridget. Daisy gulped. Bridget gave her time to think by going on. ‘Daisy, I didn’t know you knew Maureen Flanagan. You sure you didn’t mix ’er up with Mary Finnegan that used to live in Whitechapel Road?’

  ‘Oh, lor’, I’ve gone all dizzy, where’s a chair?’ breathed Daisy. She selected one and sat down.

  ‘You couldn’t have mistaken Maureen Flanagan for anyone else under the circumstances, could you?’ said Sergeant Ross.

  ‘Oh, me ’ead,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Take your time,’ said Dobbs, observing the expressive features of the elder sister. Now there’s an interesting young woman, he thought. Eyes as brilliant as black diamonds, and as challenging as a cavalryman’s going at full gallop. Strong buxom body, even if she is hard-up, and she has to be hard-up living here. A cubic foot of black hair shaped into a beehive was fit for a Gypsy empress straight out of Hungary. A lion tamer would have problems gettin
g the better of this woman. ‘Miss Cummings,’ he said to Daisy, ‘I understand you shared outings with the late and unfortunate Maureen Flanagan.’

  ‘Oh, it’s only unfortunate gettin’ murdered, is it?’ said Bridget. ‘I thought unfortunate meant you’d just lost yer purse or fractured yer collarbone.’

  ‘I suppose you could say there are degrees of misfortune,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘I suppose Maureen Flanagan could say that as well,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Can you answer some questions, miss?’ asked Sergeant Ross of Daisy.

  ‘Oh, me ’ead,’ said Daisy, getting ready to cross her fingers.

  ‘You’re still distressed about your friend’s death, is that it?’ suggested the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Well, I do feel sort of ill,’ said Daisy, hands in her lap, fingers now crossed.

  ‘That’s understandable, very,’ said Dobbs, ‘but I hope you won’t mind, Miss Cummings, if I suggest you’ve got something to tell us that’s making you feel uncomfortable, not ill.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she was ill,’ said Bridget, ‘seeing most people round ’ere would be paralytic with illness if they ’ad their parlours cluttered up with policemen. Of course, that ain’t personal. I mean, I can’t say, can I, that you and Sergeant Cross don’t honour yer mothers and fathers.’

  ‘Um – it’s Sergeant Ross,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘Oh, beg ’is pardon, I’m sure,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Miss Cummings’ Sergeant Ross addressed Daisy again. ‘Were you a close friend of Maureen Flanagan’s, close enough to know if there was one particular man in her life?’

  ‘If I say no, will I get arrested?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘Only over my dead body,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Arrested for what, Miss Cummings?’ asked Dobbs.

  ‘For saying I was a friend when I wasn’t,’ said Daisy.

  ‘What?’ said Ross. ‘What?’ he said again, this time in disbelief.