“There’s no need to wake the dead,” she said in a flat, London voice. “What is it that you want?”
“Is Nell here?”
“Nell who? Nell Gwyn? I don’t know no Nell.”
“She is of middling height, with brown hair. And she has a brooch upon her dress, in the shape of a scorpion.” It was the brooch he had bought her on their wedding day just a few months before. “She wears it on her left side.” He put his hand up to his own breast. “Just so.”
“Many women come and go here. But not a Nell I can think of.”
“Please. She is my wife.” She had been looking past his shoulder at a crowd who had gathered beside the German band, now playing outside a chophouse, but he thought he detected the smallest expression of sympathy; still, she said nothing. “Listen. If you see her, or learn anything about her, will you send a message to me?” He took out the pocket book in which he had made notes about Babbage’s Analytical Engine, wrote down his name and address, and then tore out the page. “Of course I will pay you for any such service.”
She took the piece of paper, and folded it into the pleated pocket of her riding outfit. “I will do what I can for you. But I can promise nothing.”
He left her then, and made his way homewards towards Tottenham Court Road in the melancholy knowledge that his entire future life was likely to be bound by these decaying streets and by his forced acquaintance with the low women who walked them. What good was literature, or literary ambition, in the face of obstacles such as these? Of what use was the Analytical Engine, with its tables and notations? Or perhaps it did possess a use—it served to remind him of what he was, a number, one of the 18 per cent of city dwellers who were sick at any given time and one of the 36 per cent who earned less than five guineas a week. He was not a man of letters, not when this dreary march homewards (to save the price of an omnibus ticket) marked the limits of his world.
But in fact Gissing had accomplished more than he knew. His subsequent essay on Charles Babbage in the Pall Mall Review aroused much speculation, most fruitfully in the mind of H. G. Wells who read it while still a schoolboy. But it was also seen by Karl Marx who, in the last year of his life, wrote three short paragraphs on the benefit of the Analytical Engine for the progress of international communism. His words, preserved among his posthumous papers, were taken up some forty years later when the communist government of the Soviet Union established a Science Ministry and decided to subsidize the development of an experimental arithmetic machine. The journey of a half-starved novelist to Limehouse might in that sense be said to have affected the course of human history; it may also be interesting to note that when H. G. Wells and Stalin met in Moscow in 1934 they discussed Karl Marx’s notes upon the invention of Charles Babbage.
But Gissing’s visit to the East End had more immediate consequences. The third attack of the Limehouse Golem, after the murders of Jane Quig and Solomon Weil, was upon the woman who had greeted Gissing at the door of the house in Whitecross Street. It was she who was left, savagely mutilated, upon the white pyramid outside the church of St. Anne’s, Limehouse. The police report upon the killing noted that she was gazing at the church itself when she was found: this was a period when, perhaps under the unacknowledged influence of old superstitions, the position of the eyes of the murdered victim was considered important. Even in later years, they were photographed in case there was any truth in the belief that they would reflect the face of the murderer. But on this occasion the police report was wrong. Alice Stanton had not been gazing at the church but at a building beyond it: she had been gazing at the workshop where the Analytical Engine waited to begin its life.
Part of the riding habit was still upon her body, and the other items of that ensemble were scattered beside the dismembered limbs. It was not known why she had chosen to wear that outfit, unless it was to arouse her more depraved clients, and at the time it was not clear where she had obtained it. In fact it had belonged to Dan Leno; it was the costume he wore for his role as the female jockey, when he rode sidesaddle upon an imaginary horse called “Ted, the Nag That Wouldn’t Go.” The dead woman had purchased it from the secondhand clothes dealer, whose shop upon the Ratcliffe Highway had already been visited by John Cree.
TWENTY-TWO
SEPTEMBER 20, 1880: So they found her by the church, a true bride of Christ strewn across the stones in an attitude of humble worship. She had been born again. I had baptized her in her own blood, and had become her redeemer. Perhaps the identity which the public prints have given me is appropriate; after all the “Limehouse Golem” has a somewhat spiritual connotation. I have been named after a mythological creature, and it is reassuring to know that great crimes can immediately be translated to a higher sphere. I am not committing murders. I am invoking a legend, and anything will be forgiven me as long as I remain faithful to my role.
I strolled down to the site of my last visitation yesterday afternoon, and was delighted to see some young men picking up tufts of grass and pieces of stone where the blood had been shed. I suppose they may have been in the service of the police detectives, but I prefer to believe that they were engaged in the fine art of divination. The dried blood of the slain was once used to ward off misfortune, and I left the scene in the happy knowledge that these patient laborers were earning a few pence as a result of my own exertions. I consider them my followers who, in their toil, achieve more than those policemen who demean me with their calculations and investigations. What do they know of the real nature of murder when they surround it with coroners and bloodhounds? What happened to the hounds of hell?
My path took me down the glorious Ratcliffe Highway—soon, I hope, to be made more glorious still and as renowned as Golgotha or that field of Aztec sacrifice which Mr. Parry depicted so vividly in the July issue of The Penny Magazine. I made my way, like any priest, to the site of the offering where the Marr family had already been put into a sound sleep. The clothes-seller was there as before, bustling among his shirts and dresses, and I greeted him cheerfully as I entered his shop. “I remember you well, sir,” he said. “You wished to purchase something for a maidservant, but could find nothing to your liking.”
“Well now, you see, I am here again. Our servants rule us these days.”
“I agree with you there, sir. I have one of my own.”
At that I pricked up my ears. “And a wife? I recall that you told me of a wife.”
“One of the finest.”
“And you mentioned children?”
“Three, sir. All well and healthy, thank God.”
“Infant deaths are so common in this quarter, you must count it a great blessing. I have studied many fatalities in Limehouse.”
“You are a doctor, sir?”
“No, I am what is called a local antiquary. I know this area very well.” He became a little furtive, I thought, and so I decided to broach the subject at once. “Perhaps it is known to you that this house has its own particular history?”
He looked towards the ceiling for a moment, where no doubt the happy family were lodged, and put a finger to his lips. “Not to be mentioned, sir, if you please. I purchased the house cheap because of its unfortunate circumstances, but my dear wife is still uneasy in her mind. What with these latest killings—”
“Shocking.”
“That’s exactly what I said myself, sir. Shocking. What is it that they call him? The Limehouse Golden?”
“Golem.”
“It must be some Jew or foreigner, sir, with such a name as that.”
“No. I don’t believe so. I believe this to be an Englishman’s work.”
“I can hardly believe it, sir. In the old days perhaps so, but in modern times—”
“All times are modern to those who live in them, Mr.—what may I call you?”
“Gerrard, sir. Mr. Gerrard.”
“Well, Mr. Gerrard, enough of our idle talk. May I purchase something for my maid?”
“Of course. There are some fine articles just
recently brought in.”
So I played my game with him, and examined various items of female foolery. Eventually I came away with a shawl of dyed cotton, but I knew that I would return sooner than Mr. Gerrard expected.
SEPTEMBER 21, 1880: A clear cold day with no trace of fog or mist. I surprised my wife with the gift of the shawl, but she is such a loving devoted object that I cannot resist spoiling her. So when she begged me once more to see Dan Leno at the Oxford, I surrendered. “I have a little work to do next week,” I said. “But when that is completed, we shall go.” It was then the strangest fancy took me: what if I allowed her to witness one of my own great acts? Would she make a good audience?
TWENTY-THREE
MR. LISTER: I am grateful to you for your account of your early life, Mrs. Cree. Everyone now perfectly understands that an association with the stage does not necessarily lead to a disordered life. But may I return to another subject? You have explained that your husband suffered from troubled fancies. Do you have anything further to add to that subject?
ELIZABETH CREE: Only that he seemed to be more than usually—I cannot find the word—more than usually disturbed during that month.
MR. LISTER: You are referring to September of last year, are you not?
ELIZABETH CREE: Yes, sir. He came to me and pleaded for forgiveness. “Forgiveness for what?” I asked him. “I do not know,” he replied. “I have done nothing wrong, yet I am all wrong.”
MR. LISTER: And have you already stated that he was a Roman Catholic of morbid temperament?
ELIZABETH CREE: Yes, sir, I have.
MR. LISTER: And so it is your considered belief, after many years of marriage, that he committed suicide while laboring under certain delusions?
ELIZABETH CREE: It is.
MR. LISTER: Thank you. I have nothing more to ask you at this time.
The transcript in the Illustrated Police News Law Courts and Weekly Record continued with the cross-examination of Mrs. Cree by the barrister acting for the prosecution, Mr. Greatorex.
MR. GREATOREX: Did you see him administer the poison to himself?
ELIZABETH CREE: No, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: Did anyone see him do so?
ELIZABETH CREE: Not as far as I am aware.
MR. GREATOREX: Now your maid, Aveline, has told this court that you generally mixed a night cordial for your husband immediately before retiring.
ELIZABETH CREE: It was just something to soothe him, sir. To ease his troubled dreams.
MR. GREATOREX: Quite so. But surely if, on your testimony, he drank a bottle of port each night he had no need for a cordial?
ELIZABETH CREE: He found it useful to him. He told me so on numerous occasions.
MR. GREATOREX: Were there any particular medicinal compounds in this soothing cordial?
ELIZABETH CREE: There was a soporific, sir, which I always purchased at the druggist’s. I believe it is called Dr. Murgatroyd’s Mixture. It is considered quite harmless.
MR. GREATOREX: You must leave that for others to judge, Mrs. Cree. And I take it that this mixture was the one about which your maid has testified?
ELIZABETH CREE: Sir?
MR. GREATOREX: She informed the police detectives that she saw you mixing a white powder with the cordial.
ELIZABETH CREE: Yes. Dr. Murgatroyd’s is of a white nature.
MR. GREATOREX: But far from soothing him in his last days, this cordial or something like it provoked violent stomach pains and profuse sweating. Is that not so?
ELIZABETH CREE: As I said before, sir, I believed that he was suffering from gastric fever.
MR. GREATOREX: You have a great inheritance, have you not?
ELIZABETH CREE: A modest competence, sir, no more.
MR. GREATOREX: Yes, I have heard you call it that before. But £9,000 per year is more than modest.
ELIZABETH CREE: I mean to say that I retain only a modest competence on my own behalf. I am a member of the Society for the Preservation of the Infant Poor, and most of my inheritance is devoted to the impoverished and the distressed.
MR. GREATOREX: But you yourself are now neither impoverished nor distressed?
ELIZABETH CREE: I am neither of those, except for the distress I feel at the death of my husband.
MR. GREATOREX: So let us return to that fatal evening, when he collapsed on the floor of your villa in New Cross.
ELIZABETH CREE: It is not a happy memory, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: I am sure that it is not, but if I may encroach upon your patience for a little longer? Yesterday, I think, you mentioned that you held a long conversation with your husband at dinner just before he retired to his room?
ELIZABETH CREE: We always talked, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: Do you remember the subject of your discussions?
ELIZABETH CREE: I believe we conversed about the topics of the day.
MR. GREATOREX: I have nothing more for you at this time. Can Aveline Mortimer now be called?
The transcript in the Illustrated Police News Law Courts and Weekly Record described how Aveline Mortimer was now brought to the witness box, where she began her testimony with the usual oath upon the Bible and certain routine questions about her name, age, marital status and address. There was even an illustrative woodcut of her standing in the box, wearing a demure hat and carrying her gloves in her right hand.
MR. GREATOREX: Were you present, Miss Mortimer, on the night that Mr. Cree was found in his room?
AVELINE MORTIMER: Oh yes, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: You had served at table that evening?
AVELINE MORTIMER: It was stuffed veal, sir, because it was Monday.
MR. GREATOREX: And did you happen to hear any of the general conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Cree on that occasion?
AVELINE MORTIMER: He called her a devil, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: Oh did he? Do you happen to recall the circumstances of that particular remark?
AVELINE MORTIMER: It was at the beginning of dinner, sir, just after I had been called in with the tureen. I think they were discussing something which had appeared in the newspapers because, when I entered the room, Mr. Cree had thrown a copy of the Evening Post upon the floor. He seemed very agitated, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: And then he called Mrs. Cree a devil? Is that correct?
AVELINE MORTIMER: He said, “You devil! You are the one!” Then he saw me enter the room, and he said nothing more while I remained with them.
MR. GREATOREX: “You devil. You are the one.” What do you think he might have meant by this?
AVELINE MORTIMER: I cannot say, sir.
MR. GREATOREX: Could he perhaps have meant, “You are the one who is poisoning me?”
MR. LISTER: This is highly improper, my lord. He cannot ask this woman to make inferences of that kind.
MR. GREATOREX: I apologize, my lord. I withdraw that question. Let me then ask you this, Miss Mortimer. Do you have any notion at all why Mr. Cree should refer to his wife as a “devil”?
AVELINE MORTIMER: Oh yes, sir. She is a very hardened woman.
TWENTY-FOUR
George Gissing returned to his lodgings in Hanway Street, by the Tottenham Court Road, without any hope of finding his wife returned; he had seen Nell upon the streets of Limehouse and knew well enough that, despite their recent marriage, she would now be in the vicinity of some wretched public house. He was not sure how long they could remain in their present place if she came back drunk again; their landlady Mrs. Irving, who lived on the ground floor, had already suggested that they find “dwellings elsewhere.” She had rushed out of her rooms one evening to find Nell lying upon the stairs in a stupor, trailing a cloud of gin, and demanded “what this ’ere was”—to which Gissing had replied that his wife had been knocked down by a hansom and was given drink to recover herself. He had, over the years, proved an adept liar. He also realized that Mrs. Irving was afraid that they would, in the phrase of the period, “shoot the moon” and cheat her by absconding after dark; he suspected that she listen
ed carefully every night for any sign of sudden removal.
It was not as if she entertained her tenants on a lavish scale, however; some bare wooden furniture, a bed and a sink were the sum of their comforts. It might be thought that a young man of Gissing’s abnormal sensitivity would find such conditions intolerable, but he was accustomed to very little else. Some people accept the circumstances of life with a resignation and sense of defeat which are rarely, if ever, lifted; Gissing himself had created a man of that sort in his first novel, and had described how he had eventually sunk to the level of his surroundings. But others are so buoyed by energy and optimism that they pay very little attention to such things and are, as it were, blind to the manner of their present life in the constant struggle towards the future. George Gissing, curiously enough, represented both of these attitudes; there were occasions when he was so weighed down by depression and lethargy that only the prospect of imminent starvation forced him back to work, but there were also times when he was so exhilarated by the idea of literary fame that he quite forgot his poverty and luxuriated in the promise of eventual respectability and renown.
The Trial of Elizabeth Cree Page 11