The Hellgate

Chapter 17

"A REVOLTING MURDER"

A REVOLTING MURDERI cannot express the shock to my system!

No, not from the banner headline. I"d worked hard for that. It was expected, and deserved.

I cannot express the shock I experienced when Mrs Griggs entered my room, set down the tray supporting my evening meal, and unfurled a copy, her copy, of the 31 August edition of the Star newspaper. The Star! Of course, I had my earlier edition, covering the George Yard killing, well-hidden away. But a radical newspaper willingly brought into the house by my conservative landlady"s own hand; stunning! My work was opening minds. She held the newsprint aloft and, with meaning and the slightest noticeable shake in her rarely shaken voice, said, “Mr __, have you heard?”

StarStarI shook off my shock, without comment, and read the splash headline a second time, aloud, “A revolting murder.” I pinched my lips, doing my best to look concerned, trying not to laugh, as I considered her question. All I"d heard had been a shrill police whistle or two, distantly (behind me), as I walked home from Buck"s Row early that morning. But that, of course, was none of Mrs Griggs" business. Once I"d arrived home, no, I"d slept like a dream. In all honesty, I hadn"t heard a thing – and I said so. Then I asked, “There"s been another murder?”

“Eat your supper,” my good landlady said. “I"ll fill you in.”

So we proceeded. I devoured her lovely Shepherd"s Pie while she disseminated the street rag"s version of this newest unimaginable crime. “Another woman found horribly mutilated in Whitechapel,” she read with feeling. “Ghastly crimes by a maniac.”

Then she regaled me with an unending litany of the comings and goings of all of those involved in any way, shape, or form with the so-far-unidentified w***e"s life, her movements in the hours preceding her untimely (but well earned) demise, and the discovering and disposition of her worthless carcass. Being the upstanding lodger I was, I listened with a feigned interest that would have convinced the esteemed body of the House of Lords I cared.

It took some sorting in my mind but, if I got her facts in order, the morning unfolded thusly:

The body of the newest victim had been discovered in Buck"s Row, at 3:40 that morning by Charles Cross, a carman (for Pickford"s for more than twenty years), walking to work down the north side of what he believed to be a deserted street. Nearing the west end of the narrow portion of the street, before it widened beyond the board school, he saw an object lying across the gated entrance to Brown"s Stable Yard on the opposite side of the street. In the dark, he thought it a tarpaulin at first but, upon drawing nearer, realized his mistake. It was a woman.

Startled by footsteps, Cross turned to see a figure passing the coal depot on approach from Brady Street; the same path Cross had used. He called to the man, Robert Paul, another carman. Together the two approached the body.

The woman lay on her back, her skirts raised to her stomach. Cross felt her cold and limp hand, thought her dead, and said as much. Paul was unsure. He listened for breath and heard nothing. But, when he touched her breast, thought he felt movement. “I think she"s breathing,” Paul said. “But very little if she is.” He wanted to sit her up, but Cross refused.

Mrs Griggs" newspaper account was sketchy regarding the actions of the two carmen. It merely jumped to them heroically running for a copper. Bollocks! I knew, didn"t I? I saw and heard them both. Once Cross refused to move her, and both realized she was merely an unfortunate, Paul excused himself from not fetching an officer, saying, “I am behind time for work.” Cross confessed he too was late for work. He pulled the woman"s disarrayed skirt down to cover her then, together, the pair set off for their jobs, agreeing to report their find if they saw a constable. They hurried down Buck"s Row without looking back – and without seeing me disappear down Court Street.

The remainder of the details I got from Mrs Griggs and later street gossip.

The pair of carmen reached Baker"s Row and headed north. At the junction (with Old Montague and Hanbury Streets), they happened upon a patrolling peeler named Mizen (Badge 55 of H Division) and were relieved to report their find. “She looks to me to be either dead or drunk,” Cross said, “but for my part I think she is dead.” Mizen took off running.

Meanwhile, back in Buck"s Row, no sooner had the carmen – and Yours Truly – vacated street than a different policeman, PC John Neil (97 J), patrolling eastward on his regular rounds, discovered the body all over again. Just as the carmen had, Neil walked up on the object in the dark. But the constable had a lantern. He turned it on his find; a woman laying on her back, lengthways along the footway, outside the gate to an old stables. Her eyes were wide open, staring but seeing nothing whatever. Her throat had been cut completely across; the wound was oozing blood.

I was amused to hear that on the ground near her cold left hand, Neil noted a new (if slightly soiled) black bonnet. Instead of understanding the royal tragedy upon which he"d stumbled, the peeler was using his brains to juggle the oddest thought; that the woman had killed herself.

royal tragedyFrom the corner of his eye, the constable saw distant movement. He turned to see another member of his blue club passing by Buck"s Row, patrolling Brady Street from the Whitechapel Road. Neil flashed his lantern and shouted. The other officer, PC John Thain (96 J), barely reached him when Neil shouted, “Here"s a woman has cut her throat. Run at once for Dr. Llewellyn.”

Thain took off without question for the police surgeon"s home in Whitechapel Road.

Neil watched him disappear into the dark, then turned to see a breathless PC Mizen (the carmen"s copper) arriving from the opposite direction, on the run from Baker"s Row. “Sorry,” Neil said, rising to his feet, “but you"ve more running to do. Get on to Bethnal Green Police Station (the home of J Division). Tell them we need an ambulance and more assistance here.”

Mizen peeled his eyes off the woman, nodded to Neil, took a deep breath, then took off like a shot for the end of Buck"s Row. The clomp of his running shoes echoed in the dark. Then, a moment later, he reappeared in the amber nimbus of the corner light, turned north and disappeared.

Neil, with time to pass until help arrived, scouted with his lantern. The nine foot gate to the stable yard was closed. As was the board school to the west. To the east stood a line of two-story houses that, though shabby, were in this neighbourhood (as opposed to the Spitalfields slums more than a half-mile away), inhabited mostly by respectable working people. The Essex Wharf stood on the north side of Buck"s Row, opposite the body. All seemed quiet. Neil examined the street around the body. He saw no trace of wheel marks, shoe marks, or horse s**t; no sign, save the victim, of another human. If a clue to the identity or whereabouts of the killer was there, it was not showing itself.

Neil"s sergeant, Kirby, arrived and ordered an immediate canvas of the near residences. The sergeant took the cottages on the south side of the street. He gave Neil the wharf on the north. Both began to knock up the neighbours in search of witnesses.

The manager of the wharf poked his head from an upper window in answer, then came down in his nightshirt. “Did anyone hear a disturbance in the street in the last hour?” Neil inquired. Neither the manager nor his wife had heard a thing.

Opposite, Sergeant Kirby"s knock at New Cottage, the first door east of the gateway, awoke the ground floor residents (a Mrs Emma Green and her daughter). I"d killed the w***e with the pair asleep in their bed a few feet away. Neither had been disturbed in the least; neither knew a thing.

One delusional harridan, Harriet Lily of No 7 Buck"s Row, denied knowledge of the murder, but insisted she had heard the murderer and his victim. She"d been awakened at 3:00 by the sound of a good"s train passing through the block. (The tracks bifurcated Buck"s Row.) As the noise abated, she heard gasps in the street, followed by a whispering. The old biddy may have heard what she described but, as that was a full half-hour before I"d done my work, it had nothing to do with me or the w***e. There were no trains, cries, or screams while I was in Buck"s Row. The only gasp had been mine, I admit, when I"d fingered the w***e"s innards. Otherwise, no sounds. Only me and my knives quickly and quietly doing our job.

According to Mrs Griggs" papers, PC Thain returned from Whitechapel Road at 4:00 with the police surgeon. Dr Rees Llewellyn examined my work; I mean, the body. He observed the throat injuries and officially pronounced her worthless life extinct. The woman"s hands were cold, but her still warm trunk suggested she"d been dead for no more than half an hour. Not a bad guess.

Unaware that, upon first discovering her, Carman Cross had moved the woman"s skirts back down to her knees, neither the doctor nor any of the coppers flitting about thought further than the w***e"s slit throat. They did not look for other injuries at that time.

In Llewellyn"s opinion, in fact, they were running out of time. The neighbourhood of Buck"s Row was coming awake. Sightseers were already beginning to gather. (One paper mentioned "three horse slaughterers from Barber"s slaughterhouse in nearby Winthrop Street" who, owing to their blood-stained aprons were detained for questioning.) Llewellyn ordered the body be removed to the mortuary to prevent the crime becoming a public horror show.