by Sam Gafford
“Robert,” Wendell asked, “what happened with that collection I left you with this morning? Is the deal done?”
Robert’s face grew darker. “No, it is not. Just as we were ready to come to terms for the lot, the seller changed his mind. He is no longer interested in selling his collection.”
“He’s not?” Wendell whined. “Oh, dear, do you think he’s gotten a better offer?”
“Perhaps. He just seemed to lose interest all of a sudden. Really, Wendell, is this so very important now? We have to fix this problem!”
“I know, I know, but what are we to do?”
“We find it, Wendell. That is what we shall do. Albert,” Robert turned to me, “are you well?”
“I believe so.”
“Then please excuse me if I appeared to be unconcerned. Your health is of great importance, of course. Why don’t you go home and rest? Just come back tomorrow.”
“Are you sure, sir? I’m quite certain I can get back to work.”
Robert smirked. “That’s the spirit, lad. But I would not be able to forgive myself (nor would Wendell allow me to forget) if you were to get any worse. We’ll clean up here. Arthur, bring this good fellow home, won’t you?”
“I shall. Rest assured that I will make sure he recovers. Come along, Albert.”
Arthur helped me to my feet and I stumbled out of the bookshop. We walked down the street and past the corner before Arthur said a word.
“Albert, there is something very strange going on here. The Brothers are robbed, but not for money, so something else was taken—something of great value and enough to make Wendell very worried. There is a mystery here.”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting here, Arthur? It’s just a simple burglary.”
“Nothing is simple in London, Albert. You should learn that right away. No, something is up here and I will get to the bottom of it!”
I wasn’t very happy with Arthur’s attitude. While I could appreciate his natural curiosity, surely this was The Brothers’ business and we should not intrude unless invited. I wanted to say so but couldn’t think of a way to do it without insulting Arthur, so I kept quiet.
“Wait a tic, Arthur . . . why are you here?” I stopped and looked at him. “Is there something wrong?”
“Oh, yes, about that. I had actually stopped by to see if I could spring you from the ‘Black Hole’ early. I have a favour to ask.”
“Anything! Just name it.”
“I want you to come back to Whitechapel with me.”
I paused. There was something in Arthur’s voice that was concerning me.
“Arthur, does this have anything to do with that Mary Kelly?”
Arthur’s face turned grave.
“It does. I have the great fear that she is in trouble, Albert, and I could never forgive myself if I did not do my all to help her. I owe her a great debt.”
“Then I shall stand with you, Arthur, until I can no longer stand at all.” I held out my hand to him.
A smile came across his face and he grasped his hand in mine.
“I hoped you would say that, and you did not disappoint. Are you well enough for this journey?”
“I am. Ask what you will of me; I am yours to command.”
Arthur laughed. “Nothing so grand, I’m sure. Just stand by me. I’m afraid that we are entering very dark territory indeed.”
We continued walking down the street and, for the first time, I could clearly hear the newsie shouting at the corner. “Monroe resigns! Warren left holding the bag!” Arthur snorted.
“Can you believe that?” he said as we climbed into a hansom. “Sir Charles Warren has finally gotten Monroe to resign. Now he’ll have no one to help him get along with the troops.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Warren! The idiot behind Bloody Sunday! Oh, sorry, Albert, I’d forgotten that you haven’t been around London very long. Sir Charles Warren is the head of the Metropolitan Police. As such, he runs the police department, but he does not run it well. He has neither the support of the men in the streets or of his top lieutenants. He started off well, make no mistake. His appointment was cheered by many, and it was believed that he would be the man to bring a military discipline to the force.”
“What happened?”
“Bloody Sunday. It was nearly a year ago on, November thirteenth. A mass of unemployed and homeless men had taken up residence in Trafalgar Square. Of course the upper class were up in arms about such a dirty army being so close to their homes, and the tradesmen were afraid that their shops would be looted and their women outraged. They all called for Warren to do something, so he did. Warren brought an army of police officers into the squares. There was chaos and panic everywhere. By the time it was over, the Square was clear, the gaols were full, and a man was dead. Since then, the radical press and the upper class couldn’t desert Warren fast enough. A year ago they were touting his merits; now they call for his head.”
“So what does this resignation of this ‘Monroe’ mean?”
“It means that he has lost the support of the men. James Monroe was the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The papers are saying that he resigned over a fight with Warren about the independence of the Criminal Investigation Department, but others are saying it is because Warren blocked the appointment of Monroe’s friend, Melville McNaughton. But I have already heard from some of my sources that Monroe is about to be appointed ‘Head of the Detective Service’ by the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews.”
“What does ‘Head of the Detective Service’ mean?”
“Damned near anything Monroe wants it to mean, I should think. This is the biggest insult to Warren that anyone could give. Matthews is as much as saying that Warren has no real power and is throwing his support to Monroe. Mark my words, Warren’s time is nearly done. He will resign sooner or later.”
I scoffed. “I fear I know nothing of politics. Such things do not interest me.”
“Indeed?” Arthur exclaimed. “My dear Albert, politics should concern you a great deal. London is nothing but a whirlpool of politics. Everything that happens here is connected to everything else. Nothing is coincidence and nothing is without meaning.
“To ignore politics is to ignore how it affects you. Do you think that, if you live your life quietly, what they do in Parliament and in every political coffee-house does not affect you? You are sadly mistaken. Every decision affects every man, woman, and child in England, whether they like it or not. So the fate of our good Sir Charles Warren could be of great importance.”
Perhaps I was just a poor fisherman’s son from Cornwall, but I still did not understand how the resignation of one police official could ever affect me. As I stepped out of the hansom into the light of day in Whitechapel, I had no idea how wrong I could be.
Chapter 7
You are now
In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow
At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore
Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more
Yet in its depth what treasures!
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
Whitechapel did not look any better in the daylight. If anything, it looked worse. Now I could see the pitiful shape of the buildings and the people. There were more of them on the street now, as many workers were coming and going back and forth. One of the most heartbreaking features was the fact that many who lived in the East End worked hard, long days to make just enough money to pay their rent and buy a little food if they were lucky. Common comforts were unknown here, and I saw many children who looked ill and covered in grime, mud, or worse. As we walked, I could see a common water fountain in which many were either washing their clothes or filling their water jugs. The smell from there was astonishingly foul. If I could say that the citizens of the East End shared one trait, it would be that of hopelessness. Nowhere did I see a face that smiled or eyes that sparkled with life. They were the walking dead, kept alive purely by bodies t
hat refused to lie down and die.
Arthur walked through the streets as if he had known them all his life. His path was straight and unwavering, and with a tinge of horror I saw that he was heading directly towards The Ten Bells. I grabbed his arm.
“Arthur,” I asked, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
He looked at me with the strangest expression.
“No, I’m not sure at all.” And he went inside.
Foolishly, I followed him and found that the bar was much quieter in the daytime. There were still quite a few people about. Some were lounging in the booths and chairs while others just seemed to be wandering back and forth with nowhere in particular to go.
Arthur walked right up to the bar where Noddy stood as if the bartender had never left.
“I need some information, Noddy.”
Noddy looked at Arthur, sizing him up.
“Everyone needs something. Why should I help you?”
Arthur laid a coin on the counter and Noddy looked at it. “That’s a lot for just information.”
“I’d like to run a tab.”
Noddy took the coin and stashed it in his pocket.
“You picked a bad day to ask questions, Machen. What do you want?”
“I was talking to a girl here last night; you probably saw me with her. Her name’s Mary Kelly. Where do I find her?”
Noddy smirked. “Why do you want to know? She stiff ya? Not let ya finish?”
“She’s an old friend of mine and I think she may be in some danger.”
This time, Noddy laughed. “Kelly? In danger? That’s a laugh and a half! She’s more dangerous than most of the girls in here.”
“Where . . . do . . . I . . . find . . . her?”
Noddy wiped down a few glasses. “She’s got a place in Miller’s Court. Word is that she lets some of the other girls crash there sometimes. You should hear the stories about those times.” Noddy leered in a way I did not like.
There was a commotion in one of the corners of the bars. I looked over and saw that several women were weeping and making a horrendous sound. I thought for a moment that they were in pain, but I could see other women comforting them who were also crying.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Noddy motioned to them. “I told you that today is a bad day for asking questions, didn’t I? Polly Nichols got killed this morning. Left to die in the street, she was. Surprised a well-read man like yourself hadn’t already heard about this, Machen. Here.” Noddy slid a one-sheet newspaper over to us, and I could see the headline: “Horrible Murder in Whitechapel.” There was a small drawing of the victim. Arthur’s face went white.
“Arthur? What’s the matter?”
“You need a drink?” Noddy asked.
Arthur shook his head. He grabbed the paper and walked over to the crying women.
“Did you know her?” he asked them.
“Why do you care?” one of them answered between her tears. She was a worn-looking woman whose every sob vibrated through her body. “Not like she’s a real person, is it?”
“Yeah,” one of the others said. “Just go away and leave us alone.”
“No, please, I have to know. Did you know her?”
A third woman spoke up. Her voice was harsh and rough. “We all knew her. Her name was Mary Ann Nichols and she was a good woman. She just liked her drink a little too much. No reason to end up the way she did.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was butchered is what happened!” the first woman shouted.
“She was out trying to earn money for her doss. Someone killed her, sliced her up.”
“Was it the Nichols mob?” Arthur asked.
They stopped and looked at him warily.
“What do you know about them?” The last woman said.
“I know they’ve been threatening you ladies, beating money out of you.”
“How do we know you ain’t one of them?” the first woman asked.
“Because I’m not going to hurt you. Please tell me, was it them?”
“No,” the last woman said, “they don’t kill you. The Nichols boys’ll beat ya, kick your teeth in, but they don’t knife you. If they was to kill one of us, they’d do it with a stick or their bare hands. That’s the way they like it.”
Arthur didn’t respond for a moment. “It happened in Buck’s Row, right? That’s where she was killed?”
The second woman finally looked up and stared at Arthur. “Why do you care? What’s she to you?”
“I saw her here last night. I bumped into her as she came in. When I did, I got a flash of her, dead.”
The women stared at Arthur.
“I think you’d better leave here, mister. We don’t wanna talk to you no more,” the second woman said.
I pulled Arthur back.
“Arthur, are you serious?” I asked as we retreated back to the bar.
“I swear to you, Albert, this is the woman I saw last night. I knew that she was going to die. We’ve got to go to Buck’s Row, and then we must visit Dr. Llewellyn and I call in a favor.”
“Who’s Dr. Llewellyn?”
“According to this paper, he’s the one who examined Polly Nichols. I am very interested in hearing what he has to say.”
“But Arthur, surely this is a job for the police?”
He stared at me.
“The police didn’t see Death on her face.”
Suddenly we were out the door and off again.
A mad dash later and we were in Buck’s Row. It was a narrow, cobbled, and mean street, having on one side shabby, dirty little houses of two storeys. A three-foot pavement separates them from the road, which was no more than twenty feet from wall to wall. On the opposite sides were high walls of warehouses which at night would shadow the dirty street in a far deeper gloom than its own character would suggest in broad daylight. It was an ugly place.
There were a few people standing about, looking at a particular spot which was still being washed and cleaned. They were busily talking to each other.
“Is this where it happened?” Arthur asked them.
They stopped talking and looked at him.
An older woman who was dressed as a charwoman answered him. “Oh, my, yes. It was right here that they found her. Terrible, terrible thing. What some people will do to each other.”
“A couple of workmen found her this morning. Just lying there in the street, she was,” a man replied.
“I found her,” one of the other men said. The others gasped. They had no idea he had been the one. He looked as if he had suffered the shock of a lifetime, from which he would never recover. “I was going to work when I saw her laying there. I thought maybe she was just asleep or drunk. But I ain’t never seen no one choose to lay like that. There was another fellow walking by, and I called to him to have a look at her. Her clothes were up over her waist, all bunched up. I touched her hand and it was cold and limp. That’s when I knew she was dead. The other fellow, though, touched her face and thought it felt warm. He thought that he felt a bit of a heartbeat, but it was very faint if it was there at all.”
“Did you move her?” I asked.
“Hell, no! I didn’t even want to touch her. That other fellow was all for moving her out of the street, but I told him I didn’t want no part of it. We went and got a policeman. That’s what they’re for, innit? Good folk shouldn’t have to find dead people in the street.”
“Quite right,” Arthur said, “deucedly rude of her to die there.”
The man looked at him. I wasn’t sure if he knew he had just been insulted.
“All day at work,” the man said, “it was all anyone talked about. ‘Another murder.’ So I came back to see for myself. I didn’t realise, you see, when we found her.”
“Realise what?” I asked.
The man looked at me with the gravest of expressions. “That she’d been butchered.”
Arthur found this very interesting. “What do you mean, �
�butchered’?”
The charwoman spoke up again. “Cut up, he means. Whoever done it cut her up like a pig.”
“Didn’t anyone hear anything?” I asked.
“I live not two blocks yards away,” the charwoman replied, “over in Honey’s Mews, off of Brady Street right over there.” She pointed to a small street nearby. “And I heard something all right.”
“What did you hear?” Arthur asked.
“Aw, don’t pay any attention to her,” one of the other men said. “She’s been talking to newspaper men all day trying to get her name in the papers, I bet!”
“Never you mind!” she snapped. “I heard what I heard and that’s the truth.”
“I’m sure it is, Mrs., um . . .” Arthur prodded.
“Mrs. Colwell it is, and I heard it sure as I’m standing before you now. It was early this morning and I was brought out of my good, sound sleep by some woman running down the street shrieking, ‘Murder! Police!’ It sounded like she was being attacked as she ran. But here’s the strange thing: I only heard her footsteps. None other. Whatever was attacking her was quieter than a churchmouse.”
“A lot you would know about churchmice,” one of the other women said. “Just an hour ago I heard you tell that man from the Daily Telegraph that it was your kids that heard someone running and that it was at midnight, not this morning.”
The woman looked indignant. “I heard what I heard and that’s all I’m saying.”
“What time did you find the body?” Arthur asked the other man.
“About three-forty-five. I work for the hauler, Pickford and Co., over in Broad Street. I got there about four a.m. after we found the officer.” He snorted. “P.C. Mizen he was. Seen him around. Bit of a blunt nob if you ask me. Didn’t seem like he cared all that much. Told us he’d check it out and for us to just go about our business.”
“That’s when all the noise started.” Mrs. Colwell said. “Way I heard tell, this Mizen gets here on his own sweet time and by then another copper was here. P.C. Neil it was. Nice bloke, he is. He sends Mizen for the ambulance and Mizen wasn’t too happy being told what to do. He did it, though. Just like that other copper went for the doctor too. Then Neil goes about knocking on all the doors and asking if anyone heard anything! Well, I was already up on account of the screaming and all, so I came out to take a look and there she was: laying in the street with not an ounce of life left in her. But here’s the scary part: her head was turned and her eyes were staring straight at Brady Street! The very street I’d heard her run down not an hour before!”