The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (5 page)

“Hold the light higher, please, someone!” ordered Holmes, his voice sounding unnaturally loud, even strident.

The wound at the woman’s throat grinned grotesquely in the flickering light. The blood had been wiped away so the lesion was
plainly visible. The windpipe and gullet had been totally severed, cut right down to the spinal cord. On the left side of the neck, about an inch below the jaw, there was an incision almost four inches long starting at a point immediately below the ear. On the same side, but an inch below, was a second incision, which ended three inches below the right jaw. The main arteries in the throat had been completely cut through.

“What do you make of these wounds, Watson?”

Watson bent lower over the body. “From the manner in which the carotid arteries are severed, I would say it was done with an extremely sharp instrument, very sharp indeed. And see here: There are no jagged edges, no torn flesh around the throat. A very neat incision. It could have been done with a razor, or a sharp flensing knife of some sort, or even a scalpel, heaven forbid.”

“Mr. Llewellyn, the surgeon,” said Thicke, holding a lantern by Watson’s shoulder, “he thinks it could have been a cork-cutter’s blade or a shoemaker’s knife.”

“I am not all that familiar with either.” Watson shrugged.

Holmes pointed to the right side of the woman’s neck, just under the ear. “The point of entry, you think?”

“Hard to say. Perhaps.” Watson looked closer. “Yes, I think you are right. It would appear to be.”

“Now, look at the bruises here on the face, on the side of the jaw, and on the other side as well. What does that suggest to you?”

Watson took the lamp from Thicke and held it closer. “Yes, I see what you mean. They could be bruises made by fingers, perhaps — by a thumb and forefinger, as if she were held from behind with the assailant’s hand tightly over her mouth, to suppress a scream no doubt.”

“Precisely! To suppress a scream and at the same time to pull her head back and bare her throat. Excellent, Watson! And which bruise would you say was made by the thumb?”

“Well, it is impossible to say for certain, but if I had to choose, I would say the one on the right side of her face, this one here. It seems the bigger of the two.”

“Excellent again!”

“What difference could that possibly make, Mr. Holmes?” asked Inspector Abberline.

“Why, it suggests that our assailant was left-handed, Inspector. It would be quite natural for a left-handed person to grab his victim with his right so as to leave the dominant hand free with which to wield the knife.

“Oh, I see. Yes, of course.”

“That is, unless,” said Holmes, “the assailant did not accost her from behind, but — unlikely though it may be — did so facing her, in which case our man is right-handed after all.”

Abberline sighed heavily.

Holmes pulled the covering down farther, baring the woman’s torso.

“Good God!” exclaimed Watson.

Even though they had been forewarned by Abberline, the extent of the mutilations to the woman’s lower body was horrifying. Holmes and Watson had both seen many corpses over the years — Holmes had been a student of anatomy with what Watson once referred to as “an accurate but unsystematic knowledge” of the subject, and Watson, as an army surgeon, had beheld many terrible wounds — but neither of them had ever seen anything like this. Nor had the two veteran police detectives, if the tightness around their mouths was any indication.
¹⁰

A deep gash, starting in the lower left part of the woman’s abdomen, ran in a jagged manner almost as far as the diaphragm. It was very, very deep, so deep that part of the intestines protruded through the tissue. There were several smaller incisions running across the abdomen, and three or four other cuts running downward on the other side.

“We identified her from the stencilings on one of her petticoats,”

Thicke said. “Lambeth Workhouse markings. The only personal articles found in her possession were a broken comb and a piece of broken looking-glass. She hadn’t a farthing to her name.”

The expression on Holmes’s face was grim, his features strained. “For God’s sake, cover her up,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

He groped in his coat pocket for his magnifying glass and proceeded to examine the woman’s fingernails, first the right hand, then the left. After several minutes he arose from his crouched position and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, “not a thing. One would have hoped to have found a hair or a sample of blood, even a fragment of torn skin or flesh, but there is nothing!”

He stood looking down at the woman’s body for a long moment as if his gaze alone would extract the information he sought.

Finally Abberline spoke: “Is there anything else you wish to see?”

Holmes shook his head. “No. We are finished here, I think. Let us leave this dismal place.”

It was almost dawn before Watson and Holmes returned to Baker Street. Both were tired and somewhat disheveled from their labors, the distinctive mud of Spitalfields now caking their shoes and trouser bottoms.

After leaving the mortuary, despite the lateness of the hour and lack of light, Holmes had insisted upon a visit to the scene of the crime. As anticipated, the visit was unfruitful. Holmes could do little more than ascertain where the body was first discovered, and “take the lay of the land,” as he put it. Buck’s Row, where the body had been found, was much like any of the other mean streets of Spitalfields, a narrow, gloomy passageway lined with rows of ramshackle tenements smelling of rotting garbage. One end of the alley let out into Baker’s Row, the other into Brady Street.

“If it were me,” said Thicke, “I would ‘ave made straightaway for
Brady Street and thence for the underground station at Whitechapel Road. Easy to get lost in the crowd there.”

“You have as good a chance of being right as wrong,” responded Holmes, “inasmuch as there were only two ways our man could have gone.”

“Of course we questioned everyone who lives in the alley,” Abberline said. “No one saw or heard anything, which is what you might expect them to say — to us, in any event. Although Thicke here is well known by the locals, and is probably trusted by them more than most of us. They would talk to him if to anyone.”

“And none of them heard anything?” asked Watson.

“No,” replied Thicke, shaking his head. “The closest would have been Mrs. Green, who lives down there just a few doors away, and she said she didn’t ‘ear a thing, not a blessed thing, even though she was awake. Couldn’t sleep, she said. I know ‘er; I think she’d tell me if she knew something. Mrs. Emma Green is ‘er name, a decent sort really.”

Holmes shrugged. “Me for my bed, gentlemen. There is nothing to be learned here.”

Abberline would not leave it at that, however. “Do you not have any thoughts at all, Mr. Holmes? Or suggestions?”

“Only one, I’m afraid. Wait for the next murder.”

Watson and the two policemen stared at him.

“Oh, there will be another one, have no doubt. Have no doubt whatsoever.”

The first gray light of dawn was filtering through the window draperies when Holmes finally climbed into his bed, his once-immaculate evening clothes an untidy pile in the corner by the dressing table. No sooner had he pulled the covers over his shoulder than there was a light tap at the door and Watson stuck his head in.

“Forgive me, Holmes, but there is one thing I fail to understand.”

“Only one? How simply wonderful for you,” Holmes said sleepily.

“Last night in Simpson’s — you recall?”

“As if it were only yesterday.”

“That American chap sitting at the table across from us. You said he was in railroads, I believe.”

“Quite so.”

“However did you know that? You never did tell me.”

Holmes yawned. “Oh, that. Why, I overheard him say so, old fellow.”

Watson stood there. “Good night, Holmes!” he snapped.

“Good night, old fellow.”

S
UNDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
2-S
ATURDAY
, S
EPTEMBER
8, 1888

“Her cuisine is a little limited, but she has as good an idea of breakfast as a Scotchwoman.”

—
The Naval Treaty

W
atson awoke shortly after noon to find tea waiting for him in the front room, brought up with the Sunday newspapers by Mrs. Hudson, who had heard him stirring. Holmes was nowhere to be found.

“Gone these few hours since,” announced Mrs. Hudson as she shook her head disgustedly. “Don’t ask me where, I don’t know. I never know where he goes or when he’ll be back. Hardly pecked at his breakfast, and such a nice one too. My best Sunday table with kippers and eggs just like he likes them, and that marmalade he favors — costs a pretty penny, I can tell you. And him? He gulps some coffee down and is off! Hardly half a cup!” She shook her head some more and actually waggled a finger at him. “Out till all hours of the night, the both of you! You’re as bad as he is, sometimes!”

Watson stood there like a shamefaced schoolboy.

“I expect he’ll miss his dinner too!” she said accusingly, as if it were Watson’s fault.

“I don’t know, I’m sure, Mrs. Hudson,” he mumbled. “No doubt he’ll do his best to return in time.”

She sniffed. “Well, I have my church meeting to attend and I won’t hold up dinner, so if he’s not back in time for it, he’ll just have to go without. Now, drink that tea before it gets cold, and there’s fresh scones there under the warmer, and try not to get crumbs on the floor!”

“Yes, Mrs. Hudson. Thank you very much indeed.”

“And the two of you tracked mud in last night,” she charged as she exited the room, closing the door on the last few words of her parting sentence. “All over the stair runner, it was!”

“Sorry, Mrs. Hudson, I assure you,” he called to the closed door as he attacked the tea and scones.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent with the newspapers, which were full of the Whitechapel murder and fairly screamed with the horror of it all. The leader in
The Star
, lurid as it was, was more restrained than some, and far more accurate than others:

A REVOLTING MURDER

A WOMAN FOUND HORRIBLYM

MUTILATED IN WHITECHAPEL

GHASTLY CRIMES BY A MANIAC

A Policeman Discovers a Woman Lying in the Gutter with Her Throat Cut — After She Has Been Removed to the Hospital She Is Found to Be Disemboweled
¹¹

London’s popular press could be forgiven for indulging in sensationalism in this particular instance, for it was indeed a sensational occurrence. Victorian England had never experienced such a horrible, vicious crime. Such a thing was virtually unknown, unthinkable. Murders were indeed committed, but generally in connection with a robbery or as a result of a personal dispute. But rarely was the victim a woman, even of the lowest order. No Englishman would treat a woman so cruelly. If this kind of depravity existed at all, it existed on the Continent — in Germany or France or Italy. That was to be expected of foreigners, after all. But to have such a thing happen on home soil was simply without precedent. The public, highborn and low, was deeply shocked, and the popular press accurately reflected that view.
¹²

The day was waning, the shadows deepening, and Watson was dozing over the cricket scores when Holmes’s footstep was heard on the stairs at last. Watson awoke with a start as the door crashed open; Holmes cast him the briefest of dark glances upon entering.

“I should be both eternally and internally grateful for a good stiff one, if you would be so kind,” he said. “The day has been entirely fruitless.”

Watson bestirred himself and crossed over to the tantalus and gasogene as Holmes made for his room, removing his suit coat.
¹³

“What have you been about?” Watson called over his shoulder as he fussed with the drinks.

“I have been about totally frustrated is what I have been about,” Holmes shouted irritably. He emerged a minute or so later in his favorite dressing gown, and took the whiskey and soda that Watson handed him, nodding his thanks and sipping appreciatively.
¹⁴

“It would seem that for once our friends at the Yard are not alone in being confounded,” he said. “I tell you, this maniac, whoever he is, may just as well be a ghost as a living creature, for all the spoor he has left behind him. No one saw him, no one heard him, no one
knows a thing! We have a murder without a motive — a singularly brutal murder, I might add — we have four people who came upon the victim within minutes, perhaps even seconds of the crime, we have only two directions in which the murderer could have gone, and we have nothing! Absolutely nothing!”

“You have been back to Spitalfields?”

Holmes plopped himself down in his favorite chair, crossed his legs Indian fashion, and gazed into the empty fireplace. “I have been to Spitalfields, I have been to the district police station, I have been to the local settlement house, to the local workhouse, to several doss-houses, and even to a few ‘houses of joy’ would you believe?”