“Be assured Doctor, despite my current attire I have no desire to be a man; the only thing I envy the male gender is the abundance of pockets your fashion allows.” She jutted her chin out as though daring me to criticize her “undress,” but I held my tongue and she continued.
“My experiences here are being stored away for future use in works of a hopefully more enduring nature. Currently I am researching the Salvation Army in preparation for my next novel.” Then she locked eyes with me and challenged me, “And what of you, sir? Are there any of your writings I may have read?”
Her impudent tone soured our initial encounter, I’m afraid. I replied that I had written a crime story, which had led to my being asked to look into the Leather Apron murders. I was unaccustomed to being so roughly cross-examined by a woman, and I felt she was taking undue liberties with a gentleman she had just met. I began to question Mr. Wilkins’s wisdom in choosing her as my navigator, but I resolved to keep the tone civil.
“Leather Apron, eh? That explains it. Mr. Wilkins said only that a gentleman, a writer from outside London, would be working a few weeks in the East End, and that he would pay me two pounds to show you around and introduce you to some of the tarts. I have become acquainted with several streetwalkers while researching my Salvation Army story, and as two pounds is nearly a fortnight’s income for me, I asked no more questions. A lady, or ladies,” she swept her arm to include Molly, “have to eat.”
I started when she mentioned Wilkins’s requirement that I meet with a streetwalker. “What purpose would that serve? I can’t imagine what we’d have to talk about.”
Miss Harkness smiled at my obvious discomfort. “I can’t answer for the man, but you’d be surprised what you’d learn of life in the East End if you listened.”
She adjusted her sleeves. “Well, shall we take a stroll?”
“Now?” I replied. “It will be getting dark soon, and I would not place you at risk unnecessarily.”
She laughed. “You, dear sir, shall be much more at risk than me. Your accent, comfortable waistline, and well-tended clothes all declare you an outsider. It is rather common for our benevolent neighbors in the West End to visit us for the pleasures of the flesh. Few prosperous gentlemen are willing to explain to their wives how they came to be robbed within our alleys, so they often refuse to report a theft.
“I shall serve as your guide and interpreter, so let me do the talking unless I prompt you. Come!” She beckoned, as though we were about to go to the theater. “The East End at night is the world you must enter if you are to understand the lair of this monster.”
I agreed with reluctance. While not wanting to place a lady into such a dangerous environment, I had to admit she most likely had the right of it as to which of us was in greater peril. Still, while serving as a young ship’s surgeon on the SS Hope during an arctic whale-and seal-hunting expedition, I had earned the respect of seasoned sailors by my ability to blacken their eyes in sparring matches. As I was still not quite thirty years old, I had confidence I could give a good accounting of myself should it become necessary. I was determined not to show any reluctance in the presence of this rather rude woman, and so would follow where she led, if only to show my nerve was equal to hers.
I soon learned what a high standard I was setting for myself.
CHAPTER FOUR
WELCOME TO THE EAST END
Sunday, September 23, cont.
We set forth as the lengthening shadows announced sunset. Miss Harkness’s apartment on Vine Street was near Fenchurch Street Railway Station, and we bore in a northeasterly direction toward Whitechapel Road. She explained this was the main artery in the East End. By knowing that roadway, she said, I would always have a reference point within the labyrinth.
As we walked I learned something of her personal history. She told me she had grown up in Worcestershire, the daughter of a conservative clergyman. She came to London as a young woman to become a nurse, eventually becoming a dispenser of medications on the wards. After a couple of years, however, she found the life planned out for her by her father too restricting, so she struck off on her own to pursue a career as a writer, working as a freelance journalist and author. Miss Harkness assured me, with no trace of regret, that her current career was not approved by her conservative, middle-class family.
I would have inquired further as to how a woman with such a proper upbringing could have found herself wandering the East End in male attire, but the more personal my inquiries, the faster her pace, and I soon had little breath for conversation.
Some of the prostitutes gave a quick nod to Miss Harkness as we passed, while giving me a curious stare. Apparently she was acquainted with many.
“Tarts see everything,” replied my companion when I remarked upon this. “They are always searching for a possible customer and assessing danger. I predict our Leather Apron fellow, when caught, will reveal a rather unassuming man of meek demeanor. Otherwise, these ladies would not so quickly agree to join him in a darkened alleyway or unlit staircase for a ‘four-penny knee trembler.’”
I was grateful our need to navigate the crowded streets kept Miss Harkness from seeing the vivid color her last comment surely inspired. I was quite unused to such language from anyone, least of all a lady of respectable class and education, as she obviously was. The contrast between her evident good breeding and casual use of such coarse references left me speechless, but also intrigued. I could see time in her company would not be boring.
“Look about you, Doctor.” Miss Harkness waved her arm before her, indicating the jammed mass of ill-fed humanity. “The East End is starving. Those in the West End are mad not to see it, but someday these unfortunates will turn upon them like abused dogs, and it will take the army to put them down!”
I saw desperation and resignation on the faces of the men, women, and children about me—not defiance. I suspected it would take at least three hearty meals before they could find the strength to rebel against anything. We passed children playing in garbage, blood from nearby abattoirs staining their bare feet. The smell of unwashed humanity, mixed with smoke and cheap gin, pervaded. I struggled to imagine what their daily lives must be like, and I confess it was quite beyond me. In retrospect, perhaps that was more due to a lack of will than imagination.
Time has blurred much of what Miss Harkness showed me, but I do recall asking to go to the sites of the two most recent murders. I realized any possible clues had been washed away long ago, but the writer in me wanted to visualize as clearly as possible the moment of the killer’s action, and the sort of place he would choose to attack his victims.
My guide readily agreed. “As you say, not much to see now, but for two pounds I’d walk to Cornwall and back. Follow me.”
We were approaching the Royal London Hospital by this time, so we proceeded on to the site of Mary Nichols’s death in nearby Buck’s Row.
Enough time has passed since the alleys of London ran red with the blood of murdered women, that most of you reading this would not have lived through those terrible times, so permit me a moment to recount the circumstances of her death.
At three-forty on the morning of the thirty-first of August, a carter named Charles Cross discovered a small bundle in the roadway near the old Boarding School, which still stands today. It was lying in a gateway on his left, and thinking it a discarded tarpaulin and perhaps useful, he approached and discovered it was a woman lying upon the ground.
As Cross stood over her, he heard footsteps behind and turned to find a fellow carter, Robert Paul, also on his way to work. Cross called him over. Together they found the woman on her back, her dress pulled up around her waist. Cross later said her face was warm, though her hands were cold. Paul testified he thought he felt weak respirations from her chest. They pulled down her skirt to preserve her decency and, feeling they could do no more for her, each went his way, promising to notify the first policeman they encountered. Later examination of the body made Paul’s belief that Mary Nicho
ls was still alive doubtful, as her throat wound was so severe she was nearly decapitated.
Within moments of their departure, Police Constable John Neil independently discovered her corpse. He later stated he had passed by the area thirty minutes prior, and that both then and at the moment of discovery he’d seen no one else there. With the aid of his lantern, he noticed the wound to the throat and found her arm still warm above the elbow. At that moment he spied Police Constable John Thain passing by the end of the street, and flashed his bull’s eye lantern to summon him.
A series of events then happened in rapid succession: Thain went posthaste to fetch Police Surgeon Llewellyn; as Thain departed, PC Mizen arrived after being told of the body by the two carters. Neil sent Mizen off to gather reinforcements to secure the area and fetch the police ambulance.
Doctor Llewellyn arrived at around four o’clock, only twenty minutes after the initial discovery by the first carter. Llewellyn pronounced the woman dead and noted that, while the hands and wrists were now cold, the body and legs were still quite warm. He surmised that the time of death was not more than thirty minutes prior.
News of the murder rapidly spread through the neighborhood. One spectator of interest was Patrick Mulshaw, a night watchman from the nearby sewer works. He stated that at approximately four-forty, a passerby had remarked to him, “Watchman, old man. I believe somebody is murdered down the street,” and Mulshaw immediately went to Buck’s Row. Later attempts by the police to locate this mysterious informant were unsuccessful.
The gathering crowd made Doctor Llewellyn uncomfortable. With the arrival of the police ambulance—a lofty title for a simple wooden handcart—he ordered the body removed to the morgue, where a proper examination could be made without boisterous comments from onlookers.
Only after the corpse arrived at the morgue, and after examination by Inspector Spratling, was it discovered that the victim had been disemboweled. I credit the covering of the abdomen by the two modest carters and Doctor Llewellyn’s desire to remove the body quickly from a growing crowd for this lapse. During the inquest, however, the coroner was unsympathetic regarding the delay in the discovery of the abdominal wounds, and cited it as evidence of the general incompetence of both Doctor Llewellyn and Inspector Spratling.
Miss Harkness and I arrived at the location of the murder at around eight o’clock, by which time the sun had fully set, and it was not difficult to imagine movement in the shadows. Looking about, I was struck by the nerve of the killer to perform such a vicious attack in an area so heavily populated. The fatal injury must have been inflicted with such savagery and accuracy that it immediately rendered his victim incapable of sound or resistance. I stared long at the battered cobblestones so recently covered in a woman’s blood.
We were about to go to the second spot when our evening took an unexpected turn, and I saw another side of my well-educated and published companion. A large man suddenly appeared out of the shadows I had found so threatening just moments before. I smelled him at the same instant, reeking of gin and of body and clothes that had not seen hot water for at least a fortnight. He held a straight razor in his right, slightly shaking hand, his intent obvious even before he spoke. His pale face was distorted by a leer made even more disturbing by his gray complexion in the darkness.
“Good evenin’, gents! Here to smell a little blood and get some shivers, are we? How about you both hand me yer wallets, and you’ll be havin’ a grand story to tell your mates when you get home. If not, things may go ill for you, and you’ll be tellin’ no tales at all!”
I started to step forward to place myself between this scoundrel and Miss Harkness, when she moved past me in a blur. She pressed a small handgun up against his neck so quickly that to him it must have appeared by magic.
“Allow me to introduce you, sir, to my good American friend, Mr. Derringer. He only knows two words, but at this distance one should prove enough. I suggest you leave now before he speaks his mind. Oh, and you can drop that razor, which you apparently rarely use, as a token of your goodwill.”
Our erstwhile assailant dropped his blade to the pavement with a stricken look on his face, mumbling some vague apology. Miss Harkness stepped back and watched him until he disappeared once more into the shadows. After he was gone, she bent over to retrieve his weapon, folded it with care, and placed it in her pocket before turning to me.
“Well, Doctor Doyle,” she said, “You have now had a proper East End welcome. I suggest we adjourn for the evening, as I believe you’ve had a full day.”
I asked to see the weapon she had used to thwart our robbery. I had little personal experience with firearms, and I was fascinated by this diminutive version.
Miss Harkness explained it was a .41-caliber, double-barreled pistol, commonly known as a “muff gun,” as it could be easily concealed within a lady’s fur hand warmer. When questioned on her possessing such a small, yet lethal, weapon, she merely shrugged and said it was prudent when wandering the East End at night to “take precautions.”
(Writers are the most shameless of thieves. I was so entranced by the expression “take precautions” associated with carrying a firearm, that in later years I made it the code phrase Holmes would use in telegrams to Watson, directing him to bring his service revolver.)
Our traditional roles of man as protector and woman as the protected were reversed for the remainder of the evening (though thinking back, they had been all along), as Miss Harkness led me to the nearest place a cab was available. Perhaps I should have been ashamed at being rescued by a woman, but at that moment my only emotion was gratitude. I comforted myself with one thought as we made our way back to Whitechapel Road: Miss Harkness was definitely not boring. Once I was safely aboard, she bowed slightly, maintaining her masculine facade, and slipped back into the dark, noisome warren of the East End as though she had never been.
CHAPTER FIVE
REINFORCEMENTS
Sunday, September 23, to Monday, September 24
As I traveled out of the East End, I pondered its endless labyrinth of darkened streets and courtyards. I shook my head as I contemplated the task of locating a killer who could flourish in such a vile and complex environment.
When I arrived at the club, I procured a chair beside the fire and a brandy as soon as possible. I then buried myself in the welcome embrace of my bed, and promptly fell into a deep slumber.
I awoke later than normal the next day and decided to have a quiet morning before meeting Professor Bell at three o’clock. Perhaps I was a bit shaken after the previous night’s adventures, but I told myself I had gone as far as I could without his perceptive assistance. One can easily manufacture a host of reasons for whatever course of action one chooses, so permit me the more honorable explanation this time.
Perhaps now is the proper point in my narrative to explain why I had gone to such lengths to secure the aid of my old professor. Professor Joseph Bell, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and Surgeon in Attendance whenever Her Majesty visited Scotland, had been a lecturer in surgery at my medical school when first we met in 1877.
He was a marvel at physical examination and diagnosis! I shall never forget his famous quote: “the basis of all successful medical diagnosis [lies in] the precise and intelligent recognition and appreciation of minor differences.” He was famous among the medical community for his ability to correctly diagnose a patient by merely observing them as they entered the examination room, while also identifying their trade or profession as well as their recent travel history. I knew that if I were to be of any use as a consulting detective, I would need his astute powers of observation to see what others had overlooked.
Although it had been over five years since I had last seen him, I had no doubt that I would recognize him immediately. Thus, when I saw a slender gentleman of average height with a high forehead, silver hair, and an aquiline nose (I have elsewhere described him as having an “eagle” face), I was certain it was him. Professor Bell was an avid tenni
s player, and he moved with the grace and surety of an athlete. He was an imposing man, not because of his size, which was modest, but due to his quiet and thoughtful demeanor. One immediately sensed that his words were carefully considered and well-intended.
He noted my quick approach and extended his hand as the gentleman he was, for now I was no longer his student, but a colleague.
“So, Doyle,” he began, “what manner of mischief have ye been up to?” using a slightly teasing tone of voice I had not heard before.
“Professor,” I replied, “it’s best we adjourn to our lodgings before we discuss the matter, for this topic is not for idle ears.”
“Well, you’ve got my interest,” he answered. “I’ll stay the night at least. I’ll promise no more till I know what this is about.”
Once we arrived at the Marlborough, I had his scant baggage moved to his chamber, and we sat by the fire, each with a whiskey and soda in hand. I told him of my strange contract with Gladstone, what I had accomplished so far, and my shameful rescue by the “undressed” Miss Harkness the evening before. Upon hearing the last, the corner of my companion’s mouth twitched a bit, hinting at a smile at my expense.
“The woman seems most formidable indeed, Doyle, to pluck you out of that situation unscratched, and with a straight razor as a trophy! Or did she keep it as her rightful spoils of war?”
“She claimed it as her due, and she is right welcome to it,” I answered, earning a nod from my colleague.
A Knife in the Fog Page 3