by Lyndsay Faye
On the twenty-third of September, the Polly Nichols inquest ended in resounding ignorance. Upon the following Wednesday, the selfsame coroner concluded the Annie Chapman inquest with the novel suggestion that a rapacious medical student had killed her and stolen the organ, intending it for sale to an unscrupulous American doctor. This news, reported earnestly in the Times the next day, resulted in Holmes’s raving silently at the ceiling before locating his hair trigger, falling despairingly into his chair, and tattooing a small crown in bullets above the previously rendered intertwined VR to the left of our fireplace.
“My dear fellow, might I suggest that any further adornment of Her Majesty’s initials would be disrespectfully garish?” Carefully orienting myself behind Holmes, I opened the windows in anticipation of Miss Monk’s imminent arrival.
“You question my loyalty to the Crown?”
“I question your employment of firearms.”
Holmes sighed ruefully and replaced the gun in his desk. “Miss Monk is due any moment. Perhaps she brings further evidence against the diabolical American purveyor of female reproductive organs.”
“Really, Holmes!”
The detective smiled briefly by way of apology and then, catching the unmistakable tread of a slightly built woman ascending a staircase in heavy work boots, crossed our sitting room and threw open the door.
“Lor’, what’s this, then? A fire?” Miss Monk demanded, coughing. She had indulged part of her weekly pound in a bit of silvery ribbon to line the bottom of her coat, I observed. I also noted, not without some satisfaction, that her tiny frame had taken on a decidedly less skeletal appearance.
“Holmes occasionally mistakes our sitting room for a firing range,” I replied wryly. “Do sit down, Miss Monk.”
“Had a drop of the lush, have you?” Miss Monk nodded. “I’d a friend once was known to shoot at naught when he’d made himself good and comfortable with a bottle of gin. You’ve something better, haven’t you—whiskey, I suppose?”
I hid my own smile by clearing some newspapers off the settee, but Holmes laughed outright and strode to the sideboard for glasses.
“Your remark seems to me absolutely inspired. Whiskey and soda for all concerned is, I think, very much in order.”
“Bollocks to this cold,” Miss Monk said contentedly when she had been seated by the fire clutching her glass of spirits. “Could freeze the eyes out of your head. At any rate, gents, I’ve earned my billet this week.”
“How so?” queried Holmes, leaning back and closing his eyes.
“I’ve traced the soldier, that’s what.”
Holmes sat up again, the picture of zeal. “Which soldier do you mean?”
“The pal. The cove what lost his mate, like enough to have stabbed that first judy, Martha Tabram.”
“Excellent! Tell me everything. You may well have wired me over a discovery of this magnitude, you know.”
“Happened this morning,” she replied with pride. “Dropped by the Knight’s Standard for a cup of max* to open me eyes as I do every morning, earning my keep all the while as you know. It’s a right thick, smoky place, and near empty at that time, but there’s a soldier I could barely make out, off in the corner. I begin to think I’ll wander over and chat him up a bit, but before I can shift, he’s spied me, seemingly, and gets up to join me at the bar. He’s a well-built chap, strong jaw, dark moustache turned up at the ends, with blue eyes and sandy brown hair.
“‘Hullo there,’ says he.
“‘Hullo yourself,’ says I. ‘Share a glass of gin with a lonesome girl?’
“‘I can’t imagine you’re ever lonesome for long,’ says he, smiling.
“I think to myself, if that’s all he’s after, he can move straight along, for I’ve no need of his business. But he must have seen I weren’t pleased and says quick and eager, ‘It was only meant for a compliment, Miss.’
“‘That’s all right, then. I’ll let you sit here till you’ve thought of a better one.’
“‘A very generous offer,’ says he, and sits.
“The conversation starts out slow, but seeing as we’re drinking max and he’s a proper flat, soon enough he’s chattering his nob off. ‘Got discharged just last week and came straight back to London. The whole lot of us were in town last near two months ago,’ says he. ‘There’s a pal of mine I’m keen to find.’
“‘Your mate owes you something?’ I ask.
“‘Nothing like that. But I have to lay my hands on him all the same.’
“‘But why?’
“‘He’s committed murder, you see.’
“Well, you can bet your last tanner I wasn’t letting him out of my sight now until I’d heard the whole tale. I look as shocked as I can, which is no hard lay seeing as I’m fairly staggered.
“‘Murder! What’d he do it for, then? Lost his head during a caper? Or was it a fight?’
“‘I’m afraid it’s far worse. My friend is a very dangerous fellow.’
“‘What, one of a gang?’
“He shakes his head and peers down his nose thoughtfully and says, ‘He acted alone, so far as I know.’
“I sit and wait for him to go on, and when he sees I’m hanging on his every word, he says, ‘You see, when we were last here, a woman was killed. My friend did it, or so I believe. And I’m very sorry to say that he got away.’
“‘You gave me a turn!’ I gasp, for I can’t help but think he’s talking of Martha Tabram, and suddenly I feel cold all over at the sight of him. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, telling such stories when every judy in the Chapel’s fair sick over rumours of the Knife.’
“‘You don’t believe me, but every word of it’s true,’ says he. ‘I had a friend in my regiment. Never knew a better mate than him. He was a fine chap all round but had a temper like you’ve never seen. He met a girl here when last we were in town. It all began harmlessly enough. We went from pub to pub—but then he took her into an alleyway with him. I waited. I knew something was wrong when they weren’t back in a few minutes, but I waited all the same. I’ve already told you the end of it, anyway. Since that terrible night, I’ve not laid eyes on Johnny Blackstone, but I am going to find him if it’s the last thing I ever do.’
“Then he’s quiet for a spell. Soon enough he comes back to himself and notices me sitting there. ‘I haven’t frightened you, have I? I’ve no wish to burden you, but it’s heavy on my mind. My duty’s clear enough: he has to be found, and found quickly.’”
“One moment,” Holmes interrupted. “This guardsman—he believes his missing comrade to be responsible for the other murders as well?”
“Seemed troubled enough by the question,” replied Miss Monk calmly. “So I tries to draw him out, but I must have looked so rattled that he thinks he’s said enough and shuts it. Keeps telling me he’s sorry to have upset me. Had the devil of a time after that to even get his name. I says to him, looking a mite faint, ‘I must go home…,’ and he takes my arm and leads me out. I stagger on the doorstep and clutch at his jacket, and he helps me up like a proper gentleman, but by then I’d tooled the reader straight from out his gropus.”
“You lifted his wallet?” Holmes repeated incredulously. I must confess that I was grateful for the interjection.
“I beg your pardon,” she blushed. “Been at it so long, it’s a job not to voker Romeny.* That’s right—I pinched it. His name is Stephen Dunlevy,” she finished.
Holmes and I looked at each other in amazement. “Miss Monk,” said my friend, “you have done splendidly.”
She smiled, a little shyly. “It was a ream job right enough, and I’m proud of it.”
“However, I fear that you may have burned a significant bridge by stealing this fellow’s wallet.”
“Oh, never fear for that, Mr. Holmes,” she replied, laughing. “I put it back.”
At that moment we detected the sound of a muffled argument on the ground floor. Before we could guess as to its source, the singular sound of two fee
t accompanied by two crutches approached our sitting room at an alarming speed, and seconds later one of Holmes’s most peculiar acquaintances tore into the room like a winter’s gale.
Mr. Rowland K. Vandervent of the Central News Agency was approximately thirty years of age and exceptionally tall, nearly on par with Holmes himself, but he appeared much less so as he was bent at the waist from a crippling bout with polio when he was a child. He had an unruly mop of shockingly blond, virtually white hair, and I fear that this combined with his frail legs and crutch-assisted gait gave me the perpetual impression that he had just fallen victim to electric shock. He had once watched Holmes spar, I believe, when a spectator at an amateur boxing match, and Mr. Vandervent, who held my friend in the highest regard, occasionally sent wires to inform Holmes of stories which had just been broken to the agency. Nevertheless, I was startled at the sight of the man himself, wheezing after his rapid ascent of the stairs. His right arm, clad as always in a shabby pinstriped frock coat, held aloft a small piece of paper.
“Mr. Holmes, I’ve a matter to discuss with you which can brook no delay. However, I encountered serious impediments downstairs. You’ve a most uncouth and tenacious landlady. By the Lord Harry! Here she is again. Madam, I have explained that it is a matter of profound indifference to me whether he is engaged or no.”
“It is all right, Mrs. Hudson,” cried Holmes. “Mr. Vandervent has had scant exposure to polite society. Do excuse us, if you will.”
Mrs. Hudson wiped her hands upon the tea towel she was holding, regarded Mr. Vandervent as she would a venomous insect, and returned downstairs to her cooking.
“Mr. Vandervent, you never call upon me but you upset the fragile balance of our household. Dr. Watson you know, of course. May I introduce our new associate, Miss Mary Ann Monk. Now, whatever it is you’ve got there, let us have a look at it.”
We all crowded around the table and examined the curious missive Mr. Vandervent had brought with him. I read the letter aloud, which was penned with vivid red ink and went in this manner:
Dear Boss
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldnt you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper
Don’t mind me giving the trade name
Wasn’t good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now—ha ha
“It is hardly the natural correspondence of our readership, as you can see,” stated Mr. Vandervent, collapsing unceremoniously into a chair. “A bit more about repealing the corn laws and a bit less about clipping off ladies’ ears, and I should not have troubled you.”
Holmes lifted the object by its edges and took it to his desk, where he commenced a meticulous study through his lens.
“Any envelope?”
“Thought you’d say that. Here it is.”
“Postmarked September twenty-seventh, eighteen eighty-eight, receipt same day, mailed from the eastern side of the metropolis. Address straggling and unbalanced—you see, he has no regard for uniformity of line.”
“What’s got me concerned,” continued Mr. Vandervent, “is not the compelling style of the note itself. It’s that the mad bastard—my apologies, Miss Monk, to your delicacies—should ask us to hold it back until he ‘does a bit more work.’ I am in the position, for quite the first time in my life, of not knowing what to do.”
“You amaze me, Mr. Vandervent.”
“Indeed! Yes. It is a very disquieting sensation. But as I understand it, rum notes and dark plots are quite your arena, Mr. Holmes. You’ve traced his whereabouts by now, no doubt.”
“I think I would do well to exchange my actual powers for Mr. Vandervent’s imagined ones,” the detective replied. “In fact, I cannot make out his game at all.”
“His game is clear enough. States it right there—fourth sentence, I believe: ‘down on whores.’”
“No, no, the note itself. You’ve called attention to the key oddity already: why should this man, if he is not the killer, ask that the letter be held back until after he has killed again? The casual prankster would wish the letter to be published immediately, seeking only to frighten the public and see his handiwork in print.”
“Is there anything that could help us to trace the author?” I asked.
Holmes shrugged. “The man is moderately educated. The irregularity of the baseline, as well as the downward-slanting script, indicate he is moody and unpredictable. His ts are determined, his rs intelligent, and the confidence in his capitals is troubling. The envelope reveals nothing aside from origin, and the Moncton’s Superfine watermark is clear but certainly not a clue by which we could trace a man.”
“Moncton’s Superfine watermark. You don’t say. But let us address the real problem, Mr. Holmes,” drawled Mr. Vandervent. “What am I to do with it? I’ve done my civic duty in bringing it here, but I fear the citizenry might be nonplussed at reading it over breakfast.”
“May I keep this document for further study?”
“So you advise me to hold it back for the time being? A very roundabout way you have of putting it too. Very well, Mr. Holmes, I shall leave the thing in your hands, to be retrieved the day after tomorrow, at which time I shall forward it to the Yard. Make good use of it. I have no doubt but that it would prove excellent kindling.” Mr. Vandervent, with a supreme effort, raised himself from his chair and descended the stairs.
Holmes drained his glass thoughtfully. “Miss Monk, would it be at all possible for you to see this Dunlevy fellow a second time?”
“We’ve fixed Saturday evening to meet at the Queen’s Head. Nine o’clock sharp,” Miss Monk replied innocently.
“Brava! Miss Monk, you are of inestimable help. Dr. Watson and I will be on hand in Whitechapel to provide support. Meanwhile, I intend to study this letter until it can house no secrets from me. The author may not be our man, but this ‘Jack the Ripper,’ whoever he is, certainly bears investigating.”
CHAPTER SEVEN A Whitechapel Rendezvous
Holmes was absent for much of the next day, revealing when he returned only that we were to meet Miss Monk in the East-end on the following evening. No more would he say regarding either the case or the mysterious letter, and when, against my better judgment, I pressed the subject, he embarked upon a discussion of architecture as a reflection of national ideals, steadfastly refusing to be led astray from that intriguing though irrelevant subject.
The following afternoon proved an arena for the wind to strew showers against windowpanes and blow gusts of cold, wet air through timidly cracked doorways. My friend arrived for supper in high spirits, and we sat down over a bottle of Bordeaux before embarking upon our journey east.
“I have been returning Mr. Vandervent’s property,” said Holmes as he poured me a glass. “I was not thanked for my trouble. That poor misanthrope has no patience for his own kind, but he’s a decent enough sort, and as you have seen, occasionally invaluable.”
“What do we intend to accomplish this evening?”
“We shall stay a reasonable distance behind Miss Monk and see whether this mysterious soldier has had any luck in tracing his friend Johnny Blackstone. I have not yet had a look at the fellow, after all, and
he has piqued my interest enormously.”
“In what way?”
“Surely it is apparent that Dunlevy is not all that he seems.”
“Is it?” I inquired. “We have never laid eyes on him.”
“Yes, but she has, and if what she says is accurate, he is a slippery fish, this Mr. Dunlevy. Consider: a woman has been brutally murdered. You were present at the scene. You know who has done it, or you think you know. You never say a word about it to anyone and you fail to inform either the police or your superiors what has happened.”
“He claimed they were fast friends.”
“Even more baffling. Rather than request a leave of absence to seek out your fallen brother, or even go so far as to place an ad in the agony columns, you leave the city and only upon your return develop a burning desire to find him. He cannot be both fiercely loyal and glaringly negligent. Now, look here, Watson, we haven’t much time. It is nearly seven. We shall finish this excellent vintage, and then into evening dress.”
“Evening dress? In Whitechapel?”
“We’ll be far less visible that way, and we shall incorporate, beneath our coats, your revolver and my bull’s-eye lantern. I assure you that evening dress is the best possible measure to avoid undue attention. Better for us to appear swells of dubious morals than gentlemen of mysterious purposes. Besides, Watson,” he added, with a glint of humour in his grey eyes, “you, after all, are a man of the world. We must put your skills to use, for there is no greater tragedy on God’s green earth than that of untapped talent.”
Thus, attired as elegantly as if our destination were the opera and not the East-end, we set forth into the glittering streets as the evening deepened into night. The freshly lit gas lamps flung yellowed light across the rain-streaked windowpanes but grew ever more scarce as we drove east. At length, when we had left the vast tracts of brick dwellings behind us, our cab turned onto Whitechapel High Street. Light poured from the doorways of the gin palaces, illuminating the fruit peddlers who laboured at the end of the day to sell their remaining wares. An organ-grinder with his chattering simian companion stood before a music hall upon a crumbling street corner. Everywhere men leaned in doorways puffing at cigars, and everywhere women strolled about, some housewives with hair in loose buns gossiping with their neighbours, some ladies of more mercurial design who kept in constant motion to avoid the attention of the local constabulary. Gentlemen of leisure too, weary of concerts and of dinner parties, lounged from temptation to temptation with cynical aplomb. The place was a veritable hornet’s nest of whirring activity, illicit and otherwise, and the rawness of it reminded me less of London than it did the heaving markets of Calcutta and of Delhi I had encountered during my time in service.