Whitechapel

by Sam Gafford

  The Brothers were standing in the doorway, talking excitedly to someone who quickly ran further down the street. Their faces nearly white, The Brothers came back into the store.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked. I’d never seen them so frightened.

  They looked at me, and it was a moment before either of them spoke. “There’s . . .” Robert began, “there’s been another murder.”

  “Another murder? Where?”

  “In the East End,” Wendell replied, and I finally knew why they were so horrified. The fiend that had murdered Polly Nichols had struck again.

  Chapter 32

  At length they all to merry London came,

  To merry London, my most kindly nurse,

  That to me gave this life’s first native source;

  Though from another place I take my name,

  An house of ancient fame.

  —Edmund Spenser

  “Where?” I asked, a little more frantic than I intended.

  The Brothers looked at me a little oddly before Wendell replied, “Someplace called Hanbury Street.”

  “The rumour is that a woman was murdered and . . . unspeakable things were done to her.” I could tell that Robert was visibly shaken and very uncomfortable about the whole subject.

  I had to leave. I had to get out of that store right away, but I couldn’t let The Brothers know why. I pretended to feel faint and grabbed hold of a nearby table, nearly spilling a pile of books.

  Wendell was immediately at my side. “Albert! Are you all right?”

  I nodded. “Yes, it’s just all the excitement. I’m sorry, but I think I should go home and rest. Would you mind?”

  Even Robert looked concerned, which made me feel all the guiltier.

  “Of course, Albert, of course. By all means, go home and rest. You shouldn’t even have come in today.”

  “Yes,” Robert agreed, “you are still recovering. Get back to your bed, Albert, we shall hold the fort here.”

  I thanked them profusely and bounded out the door. But of course, I did not head home; instead, I went straight to Arthur’s.

  After I pounded frantically on the door for several minutes, Rose, their maid, appeared.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Besame, but I’m afraid that Mr. Machen isn’t here at the moment.”

  I had never expected that Arthur wouldn’t be at home and was, quite frankly, amazed that he wasn’t.

  “Might I see Amy, er, Mrs. Machen then?”

  Rose’s face clouded. “I’m afraid that can’t be allowed, sir. Madam is resting at the moment.”

  Something about the way she said that didn’t sit well with me.

  “Resting? Is she ill?”

  Rose hesitated. “I really shouldn’t say, sir. It’s not my place.”

  “Of course not. You are absolutely right. Do you have any idea when Mr. Machen will return?”

  “No, sir. But I hope it’s soon. He’s been gone for some time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Rose chewed on her lower lip, debating whether she should trust me. “He . . .” she hesitated, “the master hasn’t been home since he left after breakfast . . . yesterday morning.”

  “Yesterday? You mean he’s been gone all night?”

  Rose nodded anxiously.

  “Is he in the habit of doing this?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve said too much. When he comes back, I’ll let him know you called.”

  With that she shut the door in my face, leaving me standing dumbly on the stoop while the street traffic rushed by behind me.

  I quickly grabbed a hansom and asked for Hanbury Street. My driver smiled at me as I climbed into the carriage and said, “Off to see the body, ’ey? I hear this is a ripe one!”

  I tried to get more details, but he was strangely silent. It took several minutes for me to realise that he expected to be paid for his gossip, so I kept my coins in my pocket.

  Even though I didn’t know the exact number on Hanbury Street, it would not have been hard to find. There was already a crowd lining the street several lines deep. It centred around number 29, and there were a few patrolmen keeping the crowd at bay—no mean task. Most were silent, but several were shouting curses and epithets at the police.

  “Why don’t you do something?” someone yelled. Another answered, “They don’t care about us!”

  “You’d stop him if that was a fancy woman from West End back there!”

  I could see that people were leaning out of the windows of the building next door. They would look for a minute or two, only to leave and be replaced by others.

  “What’s going on in those rooms?” I asked a man standing near me.

  He grunted. “That’s a prime view, that is. Looks right into the courtyard where the body was. They’re charging people to take a peek. Anything for a pound, eh?”

  “Is the body still there?”

  “Aw, hell, no! They took that away about a ’alf-hour after they found her. All that’s left now is a bunch o’ peelers sniffing the ground!”

  Several others laughed heartily at that image. “Anyone know what happened?” I asked.

  “Another prossie got killed. That’s all they’ll think. Who’s gonna give a shite about that?” a woman nearby said.

  The crowd was becoming very surly. I noticed a man standing off from the rest. He was speaking to an older woman and making notes. At first I thought he was yet another reporter; but a steady stream of policemen kept coming up to him, taking directions and leaving, so I concluded that he must be an inspector.

  I tried to scan the crowd but couldn’t see Abberline anywhere. It was possible that he might be in the back where the murder took place, but there didn’t seem to be any way I could tell that for myself.

  Cautiously, I walked up to the man. He was respectably dressed. Not expensively but cleanly. His long coat had been recently brushed and his bowler hat had a shine that was only slightly dulled. His face, however, looked pained, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the murder or if he just looked that way normally.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the inspector. He held up his hand.

  “One moment, please, sir. Now, Mrs. Long, you’re quite sure that’s everything you remember?”

  “Yes, sir. It was about five-thirty as I passed along this street. I’m sure of it. That’s when I saw her talking with the gent right outside here.”

  The inspector sighed. “All right, Mrs. Long. If you’d be so good as to go with the constable here. He’ll take you along to the mortuary and see if you can identify the victim as the woman you saw.”

  A patrolman came up and escorted the woman away. She looked very bewildered and uncertain. I wondered what it was that she might have seen.

  “Now then, what do you want?” The inspector said to me.

  A little flustered, I stammered out “I . . . I was wondering if Inspector Abberline is here?”

  He looked at me with a little more interest. “No, he’s not. I’m Inspector Chandler and I’m in charge here. What do you want with Inspector Abberline anyway?”

  “I’m a friend of his. I heard about the murder and thought he might be here.”

  Chandler looked at me with disdain. “Thought he might give you a peek at the murder site, you mean? Sorry, friend. There have been enough spectators here today as it is. Why don’t you run on home then? You can read all about it in the evening papers, I’m sure. There’s—” He stopped and looked over my shoulder. Something had caught his interest. I turned, but all I could see was a short fellow standing near the edge of the crowd. Even though he was wearing a thick coat, I could sense that he was coiled like a spring, ready to explode open.

  “Bugger me!” exclaimed Chandler. “It’s fucking Squibby! Dew!” Chandler motioned to another patrolman and pointed at the short man. Dew turned and, seeing ‘Squibby,’ made an excited motion to two other detectives near him.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “A known miscreant,” Chandler re
sponded. “He’s wanted for pelting a policeman with rocks. Now we’ll get our hands on him!”

  Just as Dew and the other detectives started to move towards Squibby, he noticed them coming and instantly turned and ran. Chandler and his colleagues drew their truncheons and took off after him. As I watched, Squibby dove under the legs of a horse, crossed the road, and took off like a shot up Commercial Street.

  The sight of detectives drawing their clubs and suddenly chasing a man from the scene of a grisly murder did not go unnoticed. The crowd quickly turned, and suddenly there were cries of “That’s him! That’s the killer! After him! Lynch the bastard!”

  As I watched, the mob flowed away from the scene of the crime like a receding tide and joined the chase. There must have been nearly a hundred people chasing that poor man, the consequence of which was that the murder scene was now virtually deserted. I walked over to the passage and looked down.

  The building of number 29 was to the right of the passage, which traversed its complete length to another door. There was a staircase along the side of the building. No one was around in the passageway. I looked tentatively up. Even the spectators had cleared out of the windows.

  Steeling myself, I walked down the passage to the far door and opened it. There were two policemen examining the courtyard. A small shed was in the far left corner. A door opened out of the back of the house, and there were a few steps leading down into the courtyard. A dark stain was on the ground between the shed and the steps.

  One of the policemen came up to me. “Oi, no one’s allowed back here! Clear off!”

  I straightened my back and before I knew what I was saying, I spoke the words, “Inspector Abberline’s sent me for an update, P.C. Mind your manners.”

  The man changed his attitude immediately.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know. We haven’t found anything new, sir. Inspector Chandler and his lot are interviewing all the house’s inhabitants and anyone else who says they may have seen anything.”

  “Do we know who the victim is yet?”

  “No, sir. There’ll be an identity parade at the mortuary as soon as the doctor finishes his examination. It was a fright though, sir. Worst thing I ever seen.”

  “Did you see the body?”

  “Yes, sir. I was one of them who put her into the cart. We had to pick her up.”

  “Describe it to me. What did she look like?”

  The P.C. looked at me curiously but did as I instructed him. “She was found like this.” He walked away and turned his back to me. “Lying on her back. Her head was near the steps, her legs were open in the direction of the shed, sir. Her throat had been cut, nearly severed. But it was the mutilations that were the worst.”

  I steeled myself as the P.C. turned around to face me.

  “Her stomach was cut open, sir. Like a Christmas goose, she was. Even that wasn’t all of it. He did things to her.” I could see the P.C. was swallowing hard, trying to keep his breakfast down.

  He made a motion with his hands, roughly around his waist, as if he were trying to pick up or grasp something. “He . . . he took her . . . her guts, sir, right out of her and threw them on the ground over her right shoulder. They . . . they were still attached, sir.”

  I could feel the blood draining from my face.

  “And there were other parts of her, sir. He took them out of her stomach and placed them over her left shoulder. It was like he was just throwing them away.”

  Or he was looking for something!

  “We . . . we had to pick her up in pieces and put her in the cart, sir. Worst thing I ever saw.”

  “Tell him about the junk we found too,” the other P.C. chimed in. He was still looking around the yard. With a start, I realised there were blood stains on the left side of the fence.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty weird, sir. Down here, near her feet, we found a piece of course muslin, a small tooth-comb, and a pocket comb in a paper case. Not thrown about, as if he dug them out of her pocket, but carefully placed on the ground. Almost as carefully as her ‘parts,’ sir. And there was a bit of an envelope with some pills in it.”

  “Did you see the envelope?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir. I gave it to Inspector Chandler. He seemed to think it might be important. It had the seal of the Sussex Regiment on it and a bit of an address.”

  “Are there any witnesses?”

  They both looked at me. “Do you mean new witnesses, sir?”

  “Yes, of course. Anyone new?”

  “No, not yet, sir. Richardson still says that he sat on that step there at about four-forty-five and swears he would have seen the body if it were here.”

  The step he indicated was close to the position of the body the P.C. had described. Even in the dark, I think he would have seen something.

  “Then the next-door neighbour, Cardoche, says he heard something hit his fence about five-thirty or so. Thinks he heard a woman cry out ‘No!’ just before, so I’m guessing they figure she was killed around then. But nothing new since then.”

  “Ah, very well. I’ll go make my report to Abberline. Carry on, gentlemen.”

  They looked at me rather oddly, so I quickly made my escape down the alley to the street. A new crowd was beginning to grow, and I hurried down and away.

  Another murder had been committed, and this one was worse than the first. Arthur was nowhere to be found and we were no closer to finding the killer than we ever were. During all my time in London, ever during my time of despair, I had never felt so lost.

  I decided to go to the mortuary, not really sure why or what I might find.

  Chapter 33

  Nothing is certain in London but expense.

  —William Shenstone

  September 8, 1888, afternoon

  By an odd coincidence, I later learned that the first games ever played in the English Football League took place on the day of the second murder. Which merely shows that life continues for some even when it ends for others. Still, an unfortunate date for an anniversary.

  Football was certainly not on the minds of most of the residents of the East End on that Saturday. Most of them seemed to be congregated about the Whitechapel mortuary. I noticed that there were a large number of policemen there as well.

  Inspector Abberline was standing near the door, watching the people going in and out. Sergeant Godley, as always, was nearby, taking notes.

  “Inspector,” I said as I walked up to them. “Sergeant.”

  Abberline looked at me with some surprise. “Albert? What are you doing here?”

  “I heard about the other murder. Wanted to see what was going on.”

  Abberline snorted. “Everyone’s probably heard by now. Lord knows I have enough people yammering at me about it. Whitehall’s in a flurry over it all.”

  “Why are all these people here?”

  Godley smirked. “Most are here for a free look. Even though they’re not going to see very much.”

  “This is an identity parade, Albert. We need to verify who the victim is . . . or was.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Not so much, no. Got one woman who saw our victim on the street early this morning but doesn’t know who she was.”

  “I—I’ve heard the killer did horrible things to her.”

  Abberline stopped looking at the crowd and focused on me.

  “Just how did you hear that, Albert? We’re not in the habit of giving out that kind of information in a murder case.”

  “I . . .” I needed to think fast; I didn’t think Abberline would appreciate my using him as a tool to get private information. “I stopped by the scene. Talked to some of the fellows who found her. They said she was in an awful state.”

  I wasn’t sure that Abberline believed me or not, but he went back to looking at the crowd.

  Godley laughed. “Were you there then when Dew went on his wild chase?”

  I laughed. “Oh, yes, it was quite a sight! The entire crowd took after him!”

  “I d
aresay Dew and Chandler don’t think it so funny,” Abberline said. “That mob nearly took Squibby apart. They thought he was the killer. Chandler and his men cornered Squibby in a building, and when they put him in a cart to bring him to the station, the mob attacked it. Nearly overturned it twice, from what Dew says. Then, after they got him to the station, the crowd still wouldn’t leave. Hell of a lot of trouble over a blighter who beaned a P.C. with a rock, if you ask me.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, Inspector, why are you here? Seems that you’re not really needed for an identity parade.”

  “It’s my theory, Albert, that a criminal often returns to the scene of the crime. My thought is that this killer might come back for another look at his victim.”

  “And you think you might be able to pick him out of the crowd?”

  “You never know, Albert. Bastard kills a woman at break of day, has to be covered in blood, but no one sees him. It’s almost as if he drank it all or something.”

  Stoker’s vampire count immediately came to mind.

  “Which reminds me, Albert, your landlady’s son was brought in for questioning.”

  “And?”

  “Didn’t pan out. His mother gave him an alibi for the Nichols murder. Mothers always do . . . in the end. But it turns out that we’re looking for another ‘Leather Apron.’ Bloke name of John Pizer. Don’t suppose you know him?”

  “No, can’t say I do.”

  “Odd, seems that you know a lot of people, Albert.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, here I have two murders, and suddenly I keep seeing you around. I’m a policeman, Albert, and policemen don’t believe in coincidences. And it’s not just you; Arthur Machen was here a little while ago too.”

  “Arthur? He was here?”

  “Yes, about an hour ago. At least, it looked like him. I called to him, but he just walked off.”

  “Inspector, surely you don’t think Arthur and I had anything to do with this?”