by Lyndsay Faye
“And what is the agenda for today?” I called out, helping myself to the egg and tomato Mrs. Hudson had sent up on the silver breakfast tray.
Holmes emerged donning his frock coat and adjusted his collar in the mirror above the fireplace. “I shall devote myself to Lambeth, my boy, and the pursuit of those who were actually acquainted with the deceased at the time of her death. Miss Mary Ann Monk identified Nichols, and so to her we must appeal. Have you any appointments?”
“I have canceled them.”
“Then finish your eggs while I call for a cab. The undiscovered country of Lambeth Workhouse awaits.”
As we rattled up to the front gates of Lambeth Workhouse, I had the distinct impression our destination was a prison, not a charitable facility to aid the plight of London’s poor. The autocratic structure, with its grey façade and absence of any grounds whatever, silently proclaimed its total devotion to severity and order. We were shown in by the angular Miss Shackelton, who informed us that Miss Monk was indeed availing herself of the shelter afforded by the workhouse, that she was far too given to drink, that she gave herself airs, that she was clever enough when she wished to be, that she would come to a bad end if not careful, and that she was to be found picking oakum in the common room down the hall.
As we walked down the featureless corridor, I caught glimpses of row upon row of cots suspended from poles in the common sleeping areas. We eventually reached a wide room filled with women young and old dressed in cheap workhouse-issue uniforms who were pulling apart old ropes to reuse what hemp fibers could be salvaged. Holmes made inquiries, and an overseer soon delivered to us Mary Ann Monk, with instructions we were to take her into the front parlour for questioning.
“Here, then. What do you toffs want me for?” demanded Miss Monk, upon our arrival in a cramped but well-furnished sitting area. “If it’s to do with Polly, I ain’t seen nothing more than what I said already.”
Far from the downtrodden creature I had expected to encounter in those hateful surroundings, we were confronted by a diminutive young woman whose radiant eye and smooth neck led me to think she could not be above five and twenty. She was very slim, though she appeared even thinner in the ill-fitting clothing issued her, her hair escaping its bounds in thick black spirals and her hands raw from the chafing of the rough rope she’d been picking apart. Her skin was greatly freckled with the effects of our brief London summer, and she had such an air of readiness about her, of good humour in her green eyes mixed with open challenge in her set shoulders, that I could not help but think that her friend’s killer was lucky not to have chosen Miss Monk as his victim.
Holmes smiled sympathetically. “Do sit down, Miss Monk. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and partner, Dr. Watson. We are aware of our imposition, but we would very much appreciate your recounting the details of your relationship with Mrs. Nichols.” The detective offered her his hand to help her into a chair.
Miss Monk laughed outright at this display of courtesy. “Well, if you don’t mind sitting down with a girl of my character, I’ve no objection. You’re no cops…I can tell by your shoes. All right, then, lads. What are you on to, and what the devil have I to do with it? I chummed about with Polly for a year or more, but that don’t mean I can tell you who done her in.”
Miss Monk’s careless manner did not shield from me her obvious regard for her friend, for as she finished, her eyes meandered over the worn Persian carpet beneath our feet.
“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Nichols before her death, Miss Monk?”
“I was out of the workhouse last week for four days and saw her at the Frying Pan. We had a drop or two, she met a gent, and I went on my way.”
“Do you know where she was living at that time?”
“She’d used to live in Thrawl Street, but two of the judies she shared digs with couldn’t cough up ha’pence between ’em for three nights running, so of course they were chucked out. Polly had slept rough before, but she knew if the law caught her in a park, she’d wind up back here straightaway, so she took a berth at the White House on Flower and Dean. They don’t take exception if a woman brings a friend home with her, if necessary.”
“What sort of woman was Mrs. Nichols? Did she have enemies you are aware of?”
Miss Monk sighed and tapped her severely abused man’s work boot against the chair leg. “Not a one. Polly weren’t the sort to have enemies. She swept her doss room and she kept herself tidy and she always had a kind word when she was about. She was a real good sort, Mr. Holmes, but you may as well know she was in the drink as often as she was out of it. Couldn’t bear the workhouse for more than a week at a time before the lack of gin and lack of food got to be too much for her. I don’t suppose you know it, but Polly took up as a maid in Wandsworth not long ago. She had her room and board all settled like and thought she’d get on well enough. But they were religious types, Mr. Holmes, and by the time she’d been without a drop for two months, she finally cut clear of the place.”
“You learned this from Mrs. Nichols?”
“It was plain enough to see,” she answered. “She’d a new frock, but no doss money. I soon had it out of her. She vamped the togs the next day.”
“When she had run through the money from pawning the dress, she then returned to the workhouse?”
“The workhouse,” Miss Monk returned amusedly, “as well as other means of employment what every woman has at her disposal.”
“Quite so. And, to your knowledge, there is no reason why anyone would have wished her death?”
At this our companion flushed vividly and replied, “Wish her death? That ain’t the way of it, Mr. Holmes. We all of us takes our risks to keep aboveground in the Chapel. ’Twon’t be long before I’ve had enough of Lambeth and shoved off myself. We’re not allowed so much as a match, gents, nor a scrap of cloth or mirror, nor even our own water for washing, begging your pardon. I’ll take to the streets again soon, same as Polly did. And when I does, I’ll take the same chances. There’s blokes in these parts would kill you soon as kiss your hand.”
Holmes replied gently, “Should you ever in the future encounter such a man and wish to be rid of his company, I hope you will contact me. I only meant to inquire whether Mrs. Nichols was ever molested by a particular person, or if there was anyone of whom she was afraid.”
My friend’s words and the sincerity with which he spoke them soon had the desired effect upon his subject. Releasing a laboured breath and twisting her hands in her lap, Miss Monk replied, “I don’t know nothing about it, Mr. Holmes, but Lord knows I wish I did. Killing Polly wouldn’t serve no one. Only the devil would do such a thing.”
I found myself inexplicably moved by Miss Monk’s words, even jagged and rough as they were. There was something in the line of her jaw which demanded respect even as it defied judgment.
“Here is my card, Miss Monk,” said Holmes as he rose to leave.
“What use is it to the likes of me?”
“Tut, tut, you can read as well as I can, Miss Monk. When you entered the room, your eyes skimmed that deeply inspirational quote so delicately embroidered and mounted upon the wall. Verse three of the Beatitudes, if I am not mistaken. The eyes of an illiterate are never drawn to text.”
“Very well,” she acknowledged, smiling, “and what shall I do with it?”
“If any detail returns to your memory, or if you find yourself worried over anything to do with the matter, please let me know.”
She laughed, following us as we moved out into the hall. “Shall I send my man round with the message? Or come myself in the carriage and four?”
Sherlock Holmes put a finger to his lips and tranquilly handed her a crown. “If you manage to hide this from the matron,” said he, opening the heavy outer door and descending the steps into the open air, “and fail to spend it upon any other diversions, you’ll have the ability to wire me whenever you feel it necessary. Good afternoon, Miss Monk.” So saying, he extended his hand.
“You’re a strange one, you are,” she declared as she shook the detective’s hand. “You’re a private ’tec, ain’t you? I’ve seen your name in the papers. Well, as you’ve naught else to go on, I’ll leastways tell you who we spend our days avoiding. Goes by the name of Leather Apron. I’d not be caught in a dark alley in his company, make no mistake.”
When we had passed beyond the forbidding ironwork dividing the workhouse from the road, I could not help observing, “She seems a very intelligent young woman.”
I had expected Holmes, who regarded females solely as unpredictable and vexing factors in his criminal equations, to dismiss my remark entirely. Instead he replied with an amused look, “You are the connoisseur of femininity, my dear fellow. Still, she has an eye for trivia and a memory to repeat it. In addition, she has an intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood, and associations which could aid us if she decides to make use of them.”
“Is that the reason you enabled her to contact you?”
“Her natural talent for observation could prove very useful. I would rather have ten of her than fifty of Scotland Yard.”
“I should not like Lestrade to hear you say that.” I laughed.
“My dear fellow, I assure you I meant no offense.” Holmes chuckled in return. “The good inspector has many fine qualities to recommend him, as does Miss Monk, it seems clear. However, I would venture to say that it is unlikely that any of them overlap.”
The funeral of Polly Nichols took place at Little Ilford Cemetery, on the afternoon of September sixth. The day was a fittingly inclement one, the skies mourning the dead with a profusion of rain. I learned that Mrs. Nichols’s father, children, and estranged spouse attended, though few other people presented themselves: as many mourners who had known the deceased as members of the public who had come solely to remark upon the lurid manner of her death.
Minor business matters required my presence at my bank that day, though it was only with the greatest reluctance that I left the comforts of our sitting room. I returned to Baker Street thoroughly soaked to find Holmes at our table, a newspaper at his fingertips and a cup of tea in his hand.
“There is an air about you which positively cries out for refreshment, my dear Watson,” he hailed me. “Allow me to pour you a cup. There are developments upon the Leather Apron front. Miss Monk was by no means wrong in her expectation that suspicion would fall upon this rascal.”
“Yes, I spied a description of him in yesterday’s Star.”
“I have it here. Hum! Short, thickset, late thirties, black hair and moustache, thick neck. The remainder hardly rests upon a firm bed of fact: silent, sinister, and repulsive. You can see that the press are already indulging in gleeful and inventive adjectives. Half the article is unmitigated conjecture.”
“Do you lend any credence to the matter?”
“Well, even given the natural hysteria of the journalistic world, it bears investigating. I may as well own, Watson, that my other lines of inquiry have proven quite barren. Polly Nichols was turned away from her doss house upon the night in question but seemed confident of earning her pennies, as she had a new black bonnet. She went from pub to pub and was last seen, very drunk, at two thirty in the morning. An hour later, she was discovered.”
“And Martha Tabram’s case?”
Holmes threw up his hands in resignation. “Pearly Poll, the lady’s intimate companion, has gone underground. The soldiers have likewise disappeared. It will be a job to find them, but I have initiated inquiries.”
“What are your plans?”
“I shall just cast my eye over him of the menacing leather apron, as Miss Monk appears to consider him dangerous. I’ve worked out his identity, though the force are still mulling over it—he is a bootmaker by the name of John Pizer. I fear he is not the most sophisticated of criminals, Watson. He has mastered the rather crude technique of accosting helpless women and demanding their pennies if they wish to avoid bodily harm. The scoundrel was convicted last year to six months’ hard labour for stabbing the hand of a fellow boot finisher who dared to operate in the same neighbourhood.”
“You think him capable, then, of Mrs. Nichols’s murder?”
“I require more reliable data. I intend to pay him a call this afternoon.”
“Are you likely to need assistance?”
“No, no, my dear fellow, finish your tea and I shall regale you with the story upon my return—it is hardly an errand worthy of both our energies.”
My friend returned that evening spattered with sleet but nevertheless laughed silently as he stretched his long legs before the fire. I passed him the cigar box with an inquisitive glance.
“You have enjoyed your afternoon?”
“It was in many ways remarkably refreshing. A lower species of the thug genus I’ve never before encountered. I called upon Mr. Pizer and expressed my condolences that he was shortly to be named the first definite suspect in the Nichols case. I believe I may have startled him, but he has apparently been holed up in his house since the crime occurred, so he must have had some inkling that the local tide was against him. We had a very absorbing conversation about his boot-making income and the ways in which he supplements it. I think one or two remarks of mine may have offended him, for he took a swing at me, and I was forced to consign him to his wooden floor. He protested an alibi, and I expressed doubts as to its veracity. I then quit his establishment and wired Lestrade immediately his full name and address.”
“Then you think him guilty?”
“No, my dear Watson, I’m afraid I believe him innocent. Consider: John Pizer is a coward whose notion of commerce is to rob destitute women. Is he likely to commit an audacious murder? Further, if John Pizer makes a living threatening those with considerably smaller musculature than his own, would he endanger that living by endowing them with a mortal terror of dark alleys and sinister strangers? Pizer had only his own income to lose.”
“Then why did you wire Lestrade?”
“Because I can hardly recall the last time I disliked a man quite so vigourously. If we are lucky, he will be arrested for some few days, which will at the very least prevent him from roaming the streets. I am not sorry to have seen him, though,” Holmes continued thoughtfully. “He clarified a valuable opinion of which I was hardly aware before.”
“What opinion?”
“Pizer and his ilk demand attention wherever they go. I would venture to suggest that any man who performs such acts as we have observed upon Polly Nichols’s corpse, and then walks off into densely populated streets without exciting remark, is of a far more colourless mien. Merely an indication, but entirely against the tack Scotland Yard and our beloved press have set themselves upon. And now, with thanks to Miss Monk for an engrossing afternoon, let us devote our entire attention to the cut of beef upon the sideboard. Cold weather, when mixed with thuggery, does try a man’s resources so.”
CHAPTER FOUR The Horror of Hanbury Street
Two days after my friend’s encounter with Leather Apron, at half past six in the morning, my sleep was disturbed by a whimpering cry, far off yet terrible in its intensity. The next instant snapped me into wakefulness and I left my room with a hastily lit taper in my hand, anxious to determine the source of such pitiable sounds.
Nearing the bottom of the stairs, I heard, with all the drowsy confusion of the startled sleeper, the sound of Holmes’s voice intermixed with that of the unnerving siren. I threw open the door to our sitting room, and there sat Holmes, likewise hastily clad in shirtsleeves and dressing gown, holding both the hands of a ragged child who appeared to be six or seven years of age.
“I knew you to be blessed with great strength of character,” Holmes was saying to the boy. “You behaved splendidly and I am very proud of you. Ah! Just the thing. Here is Dr. Watson. You remember Dr. Watson, do you not, Hawkins?”
The ill-fed vagabond swiveled his head in alarm at the introduction of another’s presence, and I at once recognized the pale features and dark
Irish curls of Sean Hawkins, one of the youngest members of Holmes’s band of street urchins, the Baker Street Irregulars.
“Hawkins,” said Holmes softly, “it is extremely important that you tell me what has happened. You wish me to help, do you not? There, now. I thought so. And I must have all the information at your disposal, yes? I know it is very difficult, but I only ask you to try. Sit next to me upon this chair—no, no, strong back, like your father, the prizefighter. Now, tell me all about it.”
“I found a woman who was killed,” said little Hawkins, his lips trembling all the while.
“I see. That is just the sort of thing I am able to solve, is it not? Where did you find her?”
“In the yard of the building next to my own.”
“Yes, you live in the East-end. Twenty-seven Hanbury Street, is it not?” said Holmes, his grey eyes meeting mine with grave urgency. “So you saw a woman who had been killed. I know you are frightened, Hawkins, but you must pretend that you have come back from enemy territory to give intelligence.”
The lad drew a deep breath. “I quit our room this morning to see if there were any leavings on the shore. When you’ve no cases to hand, I tries my luck as a mudlark. I keep a sharp stick hidden in the back yard on a hook, and I climbed up to get at it. When I looked over the fence to the next yard, I saw her. She was all in pieces,” cried the child. “Everything meant to be inside was outside.” Hawkins then burst into a fresh assault of tears.
“There now, you are perfectly safe here,” said Sherlock Holmes, sending a hand through the boy’s hair. “You were very brave to come all the way to Westminster on the back of a gentleman’s hansom, and very clever not to be caught. I am at your service. Shall I go to Hanbury Street?”
The youth nodded feverishly.
“Then Dr. Watson and I shall leave at once. On my way down, I’ll speak to Mrs. Hudson about your breakfast, and I shall tell your mother you are sleeping upon my sofa. Oh, come now. Mrs. Hudson will be only too glad to see you as soon as I inform her she is playing host to the hero of Hanbury Street. Well done indeed, Hawkins.” Holmes shot me a significant glance and ducked into his bedroom. I was dressed not half a minute after my friend, and away we rushed in the first cab we could find, after informing Mrs. Hudson that our tiny houseguest was to be treated in every way as if he had just returned from near-fatal conflicts abroad.