The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors (9 page)

An awkward, embarrassed silence fell between them, and Holmes rose from his chair and moved about the room. Such moments were rare in their relationship, but they did occur, as they are bound to in any relationship, no matter how friendly or close. Clearly Holmes regretted his abrupt manner; was distressed, disconcerted by it. If he could not share the information with Watson, whom he trusted above all others, and whose feelings he would not hurt for the world, he should at least provide him with an explanation.

“Forgive me, dear chap,” he said at last, “but we are in very deep waters here, and it would not do to jump to false conclusions and bandy names recklessly about, even in the privacy of these rooms. I could be on a false track, there could be any one of a number of explanations for that cigarette to be where it was. I must ask you to bear with me for the while until, until...”

His voice trailed off and with a faint gesture of futility he let the sentence hang in midair. He returned to his chair and burrowed deeply into it.

Watson, after a while, got up to shut the window. He felt chilly all of a sudden. Holmes had always shared his confidences with him, even in the most sensitive of cases. If he felt he could not confide in him in this matter, it must be very, very serious indeed: Far more serious and sensitive than anything Watson could think of. He remained at the window, gazing out at the street below.

“Well, never mind,” he said quietly, feigning a nonchalance he did not feel. He looked over his shoulder at Holmes with a puckish little smile. “I mean, after all, it’s not as if you refused me the name of your tailor.”

Watson did not know how long he remained at the bow window, how long he gazed unseeing at the passing scene beneath him, but the shadows in the street had lengthened considerably when a familiar, slight, unprepossessing figure, dodging through the traffic, caught his eye.

“You’ve enlisted the aid of the Irregulars, I see,” he called to Holmes.

Holmes looked up from his ruminations in surprise. “Why, yes. Earlier this afternoon. However did you know?”

“Here comes their urchin-in-chief, in all his unwashed glory.”

Holmes laughed. “Oh. For a moment I foolishly entertained the thought that you had deduced it.”

It was only a matter of seconds before the slamming of the downstairs door and the loud trample of footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of the unsavory and insignificant Wiggins, the leader of the nondescript band of street arabs that Holmes was amused to dignify as the Baker Street division of the detective police force. The boy burst into the room not only unannounced but without even the nicety of a tap on the door: A dirty face with large shrewd eyes, an unruly mop of
hair, and a slender frame enveloped in a cast-off coat several sizes too large. His was not so much an entrance as an explosion, but the cloud of dust which in Watson’s eyes seemed to accompany the event was surely only illusionary.
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“Wiggins!” barked Holmes sharply. “You must knock before you enter!”

Wiggins looked from Holmes to Watson and back to Holmes again, an insolent but not entirely unengaging grin spreading across his face. He sniffed violently and wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve.

“Wh’ell I begs yer pard’n, I’m sure, guv,” he said, his words weighted with exaggerated sarcasm, “but yer did tells me not ta tarry, an’ I din’t, did I?”

Holmes’s mouth twitched. He bore no small amount of respect (and if the truth be known, affection) for this enterprising survivor of the streets, and despite himself, the scowl on his face gave way to an indulgent little smile.

“Why, so I did, Wiggins, so I did; and so you didn’t. But in the future you need not take my instructions so literally as to forget the niceties.”

Wiggins cocked his head to one side and gave Holmes a funny look. “Come again?”

Holmes laughed outright. “All right, Wiggins, come in. But next time you must knock, and no excuses. Now, what have you to report?”

The boy sniffed loudly again. “H’its a foine pickle, Mr. ‘Olmes,” said Wiggins. “The ‘ole of Whitechap’l is in a panic, an’ ‘at’s no lie. Da streets is fairly buzzink w’iv da news of da murder. An’ da stories going about? Yer wouldn’t credit the ‘alf of ‘em, you wouldn’t.”

“I dare say. And what can you tell me that I would credit?”

Wiggins scratched the side of his head vigorously, causing Watson to hope that whatever was residing there did not become dislodged.

“Wh’ell, dere’s talk of a killer, a demon o’ some sort, stalkin’ da
stweets w’iv a ‘atchet. Some sez ‘e’s a Jew w’iv a wild beard down ‘is chest, an’ some sez ‘ees a butcher fwom da slaughter’ouses w’iv a le’dder h’apron, an’ some sez ‘ees a toff fwom da West H’end out to kill all da ‘ores...”

“All the what?” queried Watson.

“Da ‘ores, da ‘ores — you know, da lydies o’ joy, da prost-ee-toots!”

“Oh.”

“Wh’ell h’anyw’ys, h’its h’imposs-ee-bul ta figg’r, dere’s so much, ah, so much, watcha-callit goin’ about.”

“Rumors?”

“Yeah, ‘ats h’it — roomers!”

“Well, Wiggins, let us see if we can separate rumors from fact, shall we?”

Wiggins scratched again, this time deep in the folds of his coat. “H’ide wyger h’its a Jew w’iv a ledd’r apron, t’ats me guess!”

Holmes waggled a finger. “We must not guess, Wiggins. What we need is hard information. Now, tell me, did you or any of the other lads find anyone who actually saw anything? Someone who, for example, may have run into this, this ‘Dark Annie’ person in the streets before she was murdered?”

Wiggins’s shrewd eyes narrowed and he nodded his head. “Wh’ell, I t’inks I did. ‘Ard to know, but I t’inks I did.”

Holmes leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, and the tips of his long, slender fingers came together in front of him.

“Tell me,” he said quietly.

The story that Wiggins now laid before them could, for all intents and purposes, have been given in code or some foreign tongue, for his cockney accent, heavily laced with the slang of the streets, required intense concentration to decipher, at least on the part of Watson, who more than once was tempted to stop him to get clarification. But he let
the boy tell his story uninterrupted, knowing full well that Holmes, with his thorough knowledge of a wide range of regional accents and dialects (and his uncanny ability to mimic many of them), understood him if not always perfectly, at least adequately.

This, then, was Wiggins’s story:

As instructed by Holmes, he and his confederates spread themselves out among the public houses, soup kitchens, and other popular gathering places of Whitechapel, fading unobtrusively into the background to learn what they could. Following Holmes’s strict instructions to the letter, they refrained from asking questions outright, which might have called attention to themselves, but merely listened and observed. Then they regrouped to share what information they obtained: As luck would have it, it was Wiggins himself who came up with the most promising lead.

There was a man in one of the local pubs, The Britannia, in Fish Street Hill, who maintained he saw Dark Annie at around 5:30 that morning, shortly before her death. Wiggins was unable to learn the man’s full name, but several of the other patrons of the pub called him “Dick” or “Dicko.” Apparently he was a regular at the pub and was well known in the neighborhood. Wiggins said he seemed very upset over the killing because he knew Annie well and claimed to have been a friend of hers. As a result, he was somewhat the worse for drink, and his story was rambling and disjointed and not always completely coherent.

Dark Annie was not alone when this fellow, Dick, claimed to have seen her. She was with another man, a “mark” whom she had apparently just encountered in the street, for they appeared to be haggling over price as Dick approached. He said he overheard the man ask her, “Will you?” and she replied, “Yes.”

As he came closer to the pair, the man made an effort to hide his face, an act which called attention to himself all the more, resulting in Dick’s
being somewhat more observant than he would have normally been. He was dressed as a gentleman, a “toff,” as Dick described him to his listeners in the pub. He wore a deerstalker, probably brown, and a long dark coat, and he carried a small satchel of some sort, made of shiny leather or a similar material. He was of average height and he had a mustache. The two words Dick heard him speak confirmed he was a gentleman because the words were spoken in a cultured, upper-class accent.

That was the sum total of Dick’s description of the man. Because of the poor light in the street, no more could be seen. And nothing more was heard. Dick continued on his way, and that was the last he saw of Annie Chapman.

Dick did say he passed another woman coming from the opposite direction at the very same time, and that she also would have seen the man Annie was with and could confirm the story, but Dick had never seen her before and didn’t know her name.
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Having completed his account, Wiggins stood quietly waiting for a reaction from Holmes, who said nothing at first but continued gazing up at the ceiling. Finally, he did speak:

“Describe the man again, exactly as you heard our friend Dicko tell it.”

“H’average ‘eyght, dressed like a toff, brown deerstalker ‘at — lyke I sees youse wear some-da-tyme — an’ a long cloak or coat, an’ ‘ee ‘ad a tickler and a —”

“A what?”

“A tickler — you know, a mustache.”

“Yes, of course.”

“An’ he carried sometin’ like a Gladstone bag, but mebbe smaller, like wot I seen da doctor ‘ere carry some-da-tyme.”

“A medical kit bag?”

“Aye, h’at’s ryght. Made out of ledder, mebbe, or ‘Merican cloth.’”
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“And this mustache, this, ah, tickler — he was quite certain about that?”

“Aye, h’at’s ryght.”

“What kind of mustache was it, did he say?”

“‘E said it wore a milit’ry mustache, but da lyght was bad an’ da bloke tried to ‘ide his face, an’ Dicko, ‘e din’t get a clear look. But it wore a milit’ry mustache, that much ‘e could tell.”

“Upturned or drooping?”

“Huh?”

“Was it turned up at the ends, or did it droop down?”

Wiggins rolled his eyes. “Luv a duck, guv, I don’ know.”

Holmes pulled at his chin and thought a minute. “He didn’t see the man’s eyes?”

“No, ‘e said ‘e din’t. ‘Is ‘at were pulled down.”

“And he saw nothing else?”

“Well, one t’ing. ‘Ee sez ‘e caught a flash of da bloke’s collar when ‘e turned lyke. It were funny, ‘e sez, ‘cause it were diff’rent.”

“Different? In what sense?”

“Well, ‘e sez it were a wery ‘igh collar, stretched out lyke.”

“Very high?”

“H’ats ryght. Lyke the kynd youse and the doctor ‘as on,” he said, pointing to the high starched collar that Holmes was wearing. “But unusua’wy ‘eigher, lyke ‘e ‘ad a wery long neck.”

Holmes mused over this point for several seconds before speaking again.

“There was nothing else?”

“Oh, one t’ing more. ‘E was smokin’, da bloke was. A lydy’s fag.”

“A cigarette?”

“Aye, ‘hat’s ryght.”

“And you say this encounter took place at the end of Dorset Street where it joins with Commercial Street?”

“Aye, ‘hat’s ryght.”

“Just one street away from Hanbury, where the murder occurred,” mused Holmes half to himself.

With this Wiggins reached into the folds of his coat and extracted something from an inner pocket, a small scrap of rolled newspaper twisted at the ends. Placing the makeshift little parcel onto the side table at Holmes’s elbow, he pulled it carefully apart with grimy fingers. Inside were several flattened cigarette butts, obviously picked up off the street.

“I went over dere to where ‘e said,” explained Higgins. “Me ‘n me myte, Burt. An’ we rummages ‘round a bit an’ found ‘em in da stweet. I t’ought ya myght lyke to ‘ave ‘em.”

Holmes clapped his hands delightedly and rose from his chair, laughing. “Wiggins, you are a treasure, an absolute treasure! If I had not already invented you, I would have to do so at once. You do me proud!”

Wiggins smiled with pleasure, blushing to his roots.

Holmes reached for his large magnifying glass and bent low over the cigarette ends, poking at them with a pencil. He arose within seconds, one of the butts held delicately between thumb and forefinger, a fierce gleam in his eye.

“Wiggins, m’ boy, you have accomplished in but a few hours what all of Scotland Yard has failed to do all day. You are deserving of nothing less than a knighthood!”

“Aw, go’awn,” said Wiggins, a crooked grin on his homely face. He pulled at his ear and shuffled from one foot to the other. Then something occurred to him and he frowned, and he looked at Holmes with grave suspicion.

“‘Ere! Do ‘at mean I don’ get me shillin’, then?”

Holmes and Watson were in a hansom bound for Scotland Yard within five minutes of Wiggins’s departure, somewhat more than a shilling gracing the young street arab’s voluminous pocket. The treasured
cigarette butt, encased in a glassine envelope, was tucked safely into one of Holmes’s.

Holmes, who derived no small amount of personal satisfaction from the boy’s display of intelligence and initiative, was unsparing in his praise of the boy, whom he was beginning to look upon as a protégé, of sorts. “I tell you, Watson, he could go far with the right sort of education.”

Watson raised an eyebrow. “I should think a bath would do for starters.”

Holmes ignored the sarcasm. “There’s no doubt in my mind about it. Give a young chap like that some decent schooling and he could make his way in the world.”

Watson sniffed. “You’re talking rubbish, Holmes: Ineffable twaddle. The poor are poor because they’re deserving of nothing better. They could rise above their station if they wished. Indeed, some have done so successfully. But those who choose to live like animals do so only because they are animals. No amount of education is going to change that.”

Holmes cast him a sidelong glance and smiled thinly. “You have far too generous a heart to truly believe that, your Tory soul notwithstanding.”

“And you, I fear, are beginning to sound like one of those socialist fellows who are always stirring up so much trouble.”
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