by Will Thomas
My employer sometimes works under the misguided assumption that he possesses a sense of humor. I pushed myself up to a seated position, and began rooting about for my shoes.
Downstairs, breakfast was served promptly at six. The sun was just peeking over Whitechapel steeple. There were eggs and bacon and kippers, as well as toast and fried tomatoes.
“What time is the lane open?” I asked.
“Seven or so, but if we mill about and look interested, they might open their shops for us.”
“You do realize we’ll be paying the most we could pay,” I said, cutting my bacon. “The prices fall steadily throughout the day.”
“Do I look as if I am in need of a bargain?”
“No,” I admitted. “I suppose not.”
We ate and then went to the lane, where Israel says all good clothes go to die and then be sewn together and resurrected like Frankenstein’s monster. It is a street, Middlesex Street, actually, and several others that branch from it, full of used-clothing dealers and vestments of all sorts, from ecclesiastical raiment to military garb. I don’t know why a person who is not a member of Her Majesty’s Guard would need a busby hat, but it can be purchased there all the same.
When Barker makes a purchase, which is rare, he tends to do too much rather than too little. He bought us three suits, half a dozen shirts, and two pairs of boots each. The clothing was plain, functional, and unmemorable, but then we were trying to blend in with the crowd, not stand out. He also bought us both an overcoat and a bowler. I suspected we were wearing kosher clothing.
“Was yesterday an example of what we’ll be doing today?” I asked. “Research, working in ‘A’ Division, then walking Whitechapel?”
“I’m not merely having you work at Scotland Yard to give you something to do. We are working our way slowly through both Scotland Yard and Whitechapel, the way a worm burrows into an apple. If done well, we will not be noticed. Or at least, you won’t, which is the intent. I’ll be the one calling attention to myself from time to time. Keep your eyes and ears open and pay attention. I hope that you can collect information quickly.”
Back in our room, we changed into our not-so-new clothing and then walked to Commercial Street to find a hansom cab. When we arrived, I changed into my uniform and took my purchases into the kitchen to begin my first pot of the day while Barker went down to the Records Room to consult with PC Kirkwood. Every minute or so, a shoulder appeared in the hall, or an ear listened for the tea to be ready. I opened the shortbread tins and filled the tea ball with loose black tea before letting it steep. I was experimenting to make the perfect pot.
When it was ready, I made two cups and put a biscuit on each saucer and brought them to Barker and PC Kirkwood, whom I thought we should cultivate. As I left, the queue began forming quickly for the tea.
“Thank you, PC Llewelyn,” PC Kirkwood said when I put a cup on his desk.
“You are entirely welcome.” I turned and regarded my employer.
It was Tuesday, the eleventh of September. We had acquainted ourselves with the victims, and now it was time to look at the suspects. I had expected close to a dozen, so when the constable placed just three folders in front of us, we both eyed him scathingly. These were the detritus. All the important suspects’ files were still in the hands of our superiors, in spite of Anderson’s warnings.
“Tell me, Constable, do you know who currently has which file?” Barker asked.
“No, sir, I’m sorry,” Kirkwood said. “Whoever checks out a file, his name is confidential.”
“I see. Are you at least able to tell me which files are still outstanding?”
Kirkwood pushed back his helmet and scratched his forehead. Now that I wore one I understood how hot and uncomfortable they could be.
“I don’t see why not, Inspector Barker. They are a matter of public record for all inspectors. Allow me to consult my book.”
Kirkwood pulled a ring of keys from his belt and unlocked his desk. He lifted a small black notebook from inside and began to consult it, making sure we did not catch a glimpse of the writing therein. When he was done, he carefully locked the book back in the desk.
“Three suspect files have been borrowed. They are for James K. Stephen, Montague Druitt, and Francis Tumblety.”
“Have you got that, lad?”
“Yes, sir. Tumblety. Should we speak with the other inspectors?”
Barker shook his head. “There is no need. We have these other files in front of us. Let us examine them first, while we wait for the others to be returned.”
He picked up one, seemingly at random, and handed the other two to me. I followed his example, if for no other reason than to prove that I, too, could have boundless patience. Actually, I had little to none, but the Guv had once suggested that by feigning patience one might eventually acquire it in some measure. I thought I would put that theory to the test.
“Ostrog,” I said aloud. “Odd name.”
I opened the file and began to read. Michael Ostrog was a Russian Jew and a doctor whose career was cut short by mental illness. He was placed in the Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum the previous September for what was considered homicidal mania, but was released as recently as March. He also was a thief and confidence trickster, with a career going back to 1863. Ostrog was about fifty years of age and seemed to combine bouts of great cunning with mental confusion. Once in the middle of a trial, for example, he stood and told the judge he must leave for France immediately.
Dr. Ostrog was known to have both a hatred for women and a habit of filling his pockets with medical scalpels and other equipment. Since his release he had disappeared. The report made the inference that his fellow Jews were hiding him. Ostrog was tall and thin with a short beard. Apparently he went by dozens of aliases in order to make money and retain his freedom. No record of him receiving an actual license to practice medicine or a diploma either in England or Russia had been found. Though released as “cured,” he had failed to report for his monthly inspection since March and was considered a dangerous man at large. A note in the file suggested the police keep an eye on the book stalls in the City and Whitechapel for him. He had a habit of stealing books from stalls and libraries.
I could not count him out as a suspect. He was a homicidal maniac with a scalpel in his pocket. He hated women and he may have lived in the area. However, according to the file, no one had seen him for at least a month. He could be in Rio de Janeiro or the Congo, for all Scotland Yard knew. For that matter, he could be in Hanbury Street hunting for another unfortunate to slay.
The next file had the name Ludwig Schloski written on it. Apparently, the suspect had recently arrived from Poland, and according to his common-law wife, Lucie Badewski, he was a violent man who enjoyed mistreating women. She had called the police after he had attempted to strangle her. He kept a knife under his pillow and routinely disappeared most nights during the killings, not returning until the morning. Searching through his private papers, she found his true name was Seweryn Klosowski of Kolo, Poland. Schloski was a good-looking fellow with a handlebar mustache and a swooping forelock of hair he combed high on his head, but he was a cold-blooded fellow who had an interest in poisons. He had earned a minor medical certificate from the Warsaw Hospital in practical surgery and worked as a nurse in various hospitals in London. If that wasn’t bad enough for Lucie Badewski, his wife arrived from Poland, and he attempted to move her in with them. It was enough and to spare as far as Lucie was concerned. Potential murder was one thing, but bigamy was out of the question. She moved out.
The case against Schloski seemed to hang on the testimony of the one woman who had reason to hate him. There was no damning evidence from neighbors, for example, or arrests by the police. She had not pursued charges against him for the attempted strangulation. The poisons he carried could be explained by his continued studies in medicine, and if a fellow could be made a suspect for staying out late, most of Whitechapel would be kept under watch. That said, I’m sure
he was no saint. Chances are he was aggressive, manipulative, and controlling, not to mention a bigamist. However, none of those things seemed to go with cutting up a woman on the street and removing her organs. This fellow was a charmer, who like as not would prefer to work inside. I had no doubt under the right circumstances he might kill, but not in the manner of the Whitechapel Killer. If Lucie Badewski were smart, she would be on a ship bound for America by now, well shed of him.
I put down the second file and looked at my employer. He read more slowly than I, but that was because he tended to ponder between sentences. Nevertheless, he soon finished the first file and closed it in front of him before pushing it over to me.
“If that’s another Polish Jew,” I said, pointing to the folder, “I’m going to suspect the government is looking for a scapegoat.”
I took the file. It was another Polish Jew, this one named Aaron Kosminski.
“Crikey,” I said. “I suppose they don’t believe an Englishman capable of such aberrant behavior. They’re all pure as Galahad.”
I wiped my eyes, which were growing weary from all the reading, and began again. I picked up the third file. Kosminski was a young man of diminished mental ability. That’s my term; the file said he was a dummy. He was twenty-five years old and lived with his family who owned a factory. They watched over him during the day and apparently locked him in at night. Kosminski spoke a garbled form of Yiddish and according to the investigating officers sometimes sat and stared at nothing for hours on end. Recently he had been placed in an asylum temporarily while his brother’s wife gave birth, because there was no one to watch him closely. Shortly after he returned to the residence, the police were called, because he had threatened his sister-in-law with a pair of scissors. He was not arrested. The eldest brother explained that he occasionally had manic episodes and had been upset at being incarcerated and by the arrival of a new member of the family who cried and required constant attention.
The constable who recorded the incident described him as extremely thin, though the family seemed well-off by East End standards. He was also what the constable called “malodorous.” I pitied the family that had to deal with an adult sibling with little hygiene and subject to maniacal episodes, who had to be locked in at night. I suspected Kosminski was off in his own world most of the time.
“Why do you suppose,” I asked Barker, interrupting his reading, “that they didn’t leave this chap in the asylum? I mean, he did prove to be a danger and they seem wealthy enough by Whitechapel standards to keep him there.”
“You’re thinking like a Western European, not an Eastern one,” the Guv replied. “The only law they’ve seen is the Cossacks who kick in their doors in the middle of the night and seize a family member who is never heard from again. It is very difficult for them to trust authorities. Besides, in their culture, one takes care of one’s own family, especially incapable members like Aaron Kosminski. To put him in an asylum would be considered a betrayal. The fact that Kosminski’s family put him away even temporarily is proof that they have been influenced by Western culture.”
“I don’t think much of any of these suspects,” I said. “The first one, Ostrog, seems a little more promising than the other two.”
“Allow me to make my own decisions,” Barker said.
He was sitting back with the files in front of him, tapping on his lower teeth with a pencil and reading the other two files. He looked miles away.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said, when he was finished.
He stood and left the room. I glanced down at the table. He hadn’t touched his tea or the shortbread. He really was starting to act like an inspector. I shook my head and hurried out the door after him.
Once out the door, he turned east toward the Embankment and began to walk with his chin sunk on his breast and his hands behind him. When he reached Northumberland Street, he turned again and began heading north.
“Do you not trust PC Kirkwood?” I asked.
“It is best to discuss theories outside of the Yard as much as possible. You were correct about the three suspects. There was a reason why the files were there. Ostrog has probably left the country; Schloski is probably romancing a barmaid; and Kosminski was safely locked inside for the night under the scrutiny of his brothers. That being said, we must investigate each one, and not get in the habit of relying on others whom we neither know nor trust.”
“‘Trust, but be careful in whom,’” I quoted, which was his family motto and used to appear in his advertisements in the Times.
“Precisely.”
“We have three different types of suspects,” I went on. “We’ve got a mental imbecile, a doctor who has gone homicidally mad, and an intelligent medical man with brutish tendencies.”
“That is a good analysis,” Barker said.
“Thank you, sir. But why is it good, exactly?”
“Because the killer himself must be one of the three types. Either he is an imbecile who doesn’t understand what he is doing, or a man who is slowly losing a battle to insanity, or he is completely sane, but calloused toward women.”
“I thought you said none of these men was the killer,” I said.
“I’m not talking about individuals, lad. I’m talking about types.”
“Is it possible for a sane man to commit murder?” I asked.
“I would think it likely that most murders are done by sane people. They have merely convinced themselves that a person or persons must die. Then they plan how to go about it. It is morally evil, but they are legally sane.”
“So, which is he?” I asked.
“There you go again, lad, trying to put a label on him. Let it develop in the course of the investigation. One should not force these things.”
“I would remind you that some of the best police officers in London are trying to solve this case as quickly as possible in order to prove we special constables are not needed. Men like Swanson and Abberline.”
“They are welcome to it,” the Guv said.
“I know even if we track down this fellow ourselves, Scotland Yard will get the credit,” I said. “You do intend to try, don’t you, sir?”
“Of course,” he answered, “because the people in charge and the men investigating the case will know. They are the ones I’m trying to prove myself against. I wonder if you realize how many organizations will be trying to horn in on this case in order to solve it and get the credit.”
“What do you mean?”
“You tell me. With whom are we in direct competition?”
“Scotland Yard,” I answered.
“Who consists of—”
“The Criminal Investigation Department.”
“And?”
“The Met. That is, the regular police. I’m sure they’d like to solve it and be able to lord it over the CID.”
“Who else?”
“Special Branch. They’re devious and not above breaking the law to get what they want.”
“Very good. Continue.”
“Uh…”
“Don’t stand there blowing bubbles like a goldfish, Thomas. Who else?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t think of anyone.”
Barker snorted. “Oh, come now, lad, show some imagination. What about the Plainclothes Division? Surely they’ll be out hunting the killer. Don’t you suppose the Thames Police hope a murder happens close to the river? There is the Home Office, responsible for domestic affairs, and the Foreign Office, who might decide to step in if they suspect the killer came recently from Poland or Russia. Consider ‘H’ Division itself, the Whitechapel Police. They’ll consider the murders to be within their jurisdiction, and might not be likely to share their theories with the Met. Even the Yeomen Guard of the Tower Hamlets considers that area of London their responsibility, and might withhold facts in order to investigate for themselves.”
“When you put it that way, sir, it sounds like a jurisdictional nightmare.”
“That’s exactly what it is. I
understand even the coroners and medical practitioners are fighting over the chance to examine the bodies. Their reports will be read widely and could be the making of a career.”
“You make it sound like a foxhunt,” I said.
“A foxhunt! Aye, Thomas, that’s what it is, everyone after one little creature. And the hounds are the newspapers baying on every street corner, ‘Another Horrible Murder!’”
“With so many hounds and hunters, it should be an easy matter to bring this murderer to book.”
“Perhaps,” Barker said, “even probably, given ideal circumstances. But if each of us insists on grasping his few facts and not sharing them with the others, I suspect several more women will be killed before this case is over.”
CHAPTER NINE
“What next, sir?” I asked Cyrus Barker. That is, Special Inspector Barker of the Yard. I don’t believe either of us would get used to that any time soon.
“I believe it is time to speak with the real heads of the investigation, Swanson and Abberline. I would prefer to take them on one at a time.”
If anyone knew exactly how matters stood with the Whitechapel Killer, it would be they. We had met each of them in the course of previous enquiries, and I must admit they were highly competent as far as I could tell. Swanson was nearly as good a tracker of men as my employer and I wondered why he did not go into private work where he could make more money. Abberline was innovative, always trying to bring in science to aid in his cases. Both were well respected within Scotland Yard; I’d even go so far as to say some constables would march through a fire barefoot at their request. If we could get their backing, even their approval, it would certainly make our being there much easier.
We tracked Detective Inspector Donald Swanson to a classroom similar to an operating theater, containing fixed semicircles of benches around an open hub. The hub contained two standing chalkboards, one with a hand-drawn map of Whitechapel on it and the other listing facts about both of the victims. Swanson was alone in the room, adding comments to the second board, when Barker knocked on the door frame. He turned in our direction.