The Hellgate

Chapter 12

Mrs Griggs" home, my lodging house, stood well south and east of the low-class slums. Though both were in the East End, there was no comparison at all. Our streets were made up of respectable working class individuals, much cleaner and far safer than the murder neighbourhood. Still, gossip and loose talk crossed all financial and moral boundaries and street talk and rumors did find their way to the parish of St George-in-the-East.

I heard the talk as I walked to work. And rejected the majority of it. Aware of human nature as I was, I had little doubt what I heard was more interesting (but probably less reliable), than the talk in the murder neighbourhood. There were plenty of liars there, don"t misunderstand, but there was no telling how tall that tales had grown in the retelling as they made their way east to our streets. I heard much to consider on my walks to work.

At work… I should tell something of my life at London Hospital.

To understand the events taking place around me, to understand me, it is vital to understand something of medicine at the time of the… of my work; in particular to understand the nurses of the time. Yes, I said nurses.

nursesIn my lifetime, nursing had changed dramatically as a profession and as a part of society. Before Florence Nightingale"s valiant efforts in the Crimean War, no part of nursing was thought to demand skill or training, and nothing about nursing commanded respect. As that icon of healing, the maiden of the deathwatch, so correctly put it, nursing was left to “those who were too old, too weak, too drunken, too dirty, too stupid, or too bad to do anything else.” Modern nineteenth century or not, to intimately touch an unrelated stranger, let alone hospital wards full of them, was thought immodest and unseemly for unmarried or well-bred females. Feeding, and especially cleaning, another person were regarded as domestic tasks for lowly servants.

Before 1880, hospital treatment of illness was rare. The wealthy were treated at home by family doctors and nursed by female family members and servants. The working classes treated themselves. The indigent were treated in workhouse casualty wards by other indigent residents. But with the birth and application of anesthetics and antiseptic surgery hospital treatment came into its own, for all classes of people. Training schools opened and women with educations, with developing specialized skills, created a profession – and an art of its own – called nursing.

I relate that history only as preamble to this:

There were four nurses at London Hospital, working many of the shifts that I worked, whom I regarded as the coterie. I was forced to conduct my business beside them, to work among them, but was in no way a part of them. They worked together. I watched them from a distance and, sometimes, from very nearby. They took breaks together. I often took breaks at the same time. Two of the four were of no importance and I shant mention their names. A third, Miss Lister, is important as a comparison to the fourth. I shall introduce and describe Miss Lister for that reason, then she too can be forgotten. It will be Miss Adler alone, the fourth nurse, the mouthpiece of the group, who ultimately matters.

the coterieFor the record, neither Lister nor Adler were their genuine names. I have changed both; not for their protection, but for mine.

Miss Lister was impeccable in her soft blue uniform, with its wide white cuffs and collar, her frilled white mob cap, and stark white bib apron always expertly donned and spotless; her scissors, keys, thermometer holder, and pocket watch dangled beautifully from the ornate, yet delicate, chatelaine on her wide belt. As she went about her work, her hand drifted instinctively to hold the chains and prevent the instruments" clacking. When she took a seat, she lifted and laid them noiselessly on the table beside her. She was compassionate in her care-giving, ladylike and moral in her manner, careful in her diction, and demure in her composure. With those remarks, I finish with the fine Miss Lister.

mobclackingMiss Adler, in comparison, was an always late, always rumpled, always yakking, brass band of a female who treated her patients because that was the work, lived for her breaks, and spread rumor and gossip as if doling out manna. She shook her chatelaine bag as if it were a tambourine. She took no notice whatever of her faulty diction, her haphazard method, or her slovenly manner. She was as immoral as a w***e on the street. Yet she had one saving grace; she did not imbibe alcohol.

I fully expected immorality from women, save for the rare estimable creatures I have chanced upon (Mrs Griggs and Miss Lister, in example). What I could not abide was dousing immorality in booze then selling the results as a mattress for f*********n. No, Miss Adler, as difficult as it was to remain long in her company, was saved by her sobriety.

Soon after the George Yard affair, I discovered Miss Adler had a genuine and, ultimately, important use to me. The addled young nurse steadily courted a constable from the Metropolitan police.

Mind, that was fairly routine. Around London Hospital, one needed only open one"s eyes to discover that many coppers copulated with many nurses in and out of sanctified relationships. It came with the work, apparently. Miss Adler"s bobbie boyfriend was called Archie; that was all I knew of him. Beyond that, it was none of my business and, more to the point, of absolutely no interest until…

That first evening, Thursday, it was, 9 August, when my interest in Miss Adler"s relationship was forever altered. That night, while taking tea and minding my business in the break room, whether by accident or providence, I overheard a block of tittle-tattle that not only amused me greatly but forever changed my perspective on the trysts between caregivers and law enforcement.

Stuffing their faces (with the exception of Miss Lister, obviously) and gossiping as usual, one of the coterie began by repeating as fact a newspaper"s claim that the police suspected a soldier of having committed the George Yard murder. The women tittered and bandied that about. Then Miss Adler quieted the lot by assuring them, “You don"t know the story by half.”

The other nurses were all ears after that. I confess, so was I.

Miss Adler, being a peeler"s girl, had heard all about it from Archie and had inside knowledge that few, certainly not the newspapers, possessed. As Archie told it…

The George Yard victim spent the Bank Holiday, Monday, 6 August, doing whatever street women did, in the company of another of her ilk. Following their day of debauchery (I"m paraphrasing both Archie and Miss Adler, I"m sure), the women wound up drunk, in a public house, swapping gin-inspired witticisms with a couple of red-coated soldiers of the Grenadier Guard. The women left the pub with their pickups at a quarter of midnight.

Soon thereafter, the second w***e vanished from the story. Miss Adler may have said why, how or when; I don"t recall or care. Both soldiers wound up alone with the soon-to-be-murdered woman outside of George Yard. An illicit deal was, no doubt, soon struck. The woman and one of the soldiers went into the Yard, leaving the other standing alone in Wentworth Street.

Yes, I thought, sipping my tea at a nearby break room table. I remembered it in detail; the moment when the pair arrived in George Yard, the woman and the soldier, with no idea in the world I was there in the shadows of the staircase only a few feet away. While I (I"d just learned) was equally ignorant of the presence of a second soldier, their comrade, waiting in the street only a few yards away.

But there was more, much more, to come.

“Well,” Miss Adler went on, “one of the constables patrolling nearby on the night of the murder was a fellow named Tom Barrett; my Archie knows him. About two o"clock that morning, Tom sees this soldier, a private of the Grenadier Guards, loitering in Wentworth Street. So Tom stops and asks what he"s doing there. Archie says, the soldier says, he"s waiting for his chum who"s gone with a girl, and he points into George"s Yard.”

Eavesdropping as I was, I didn"t dare show my surprise (or alarm), but can admit it now. Suddenly a bit breathless, I listened as Miss Adler told it the way her fellow had told her. On that night, outside of my dark little hiding spot, outside of my hearing, a few steps outside of George Yard, a police constable on his rounds had accosted the second soldier loitering (after his mate under my watchful eye). A crowd was forming! I slowed my eating and pricked my ears.

Well, Miss Adler"s Archie said, this PC Barrett was either unconvinced or unimpressed with the loitering soldier"s explanation, and rousted him; ordered him to take himself down the street and away. The soldier did, abandoning his mate.

“Then what happened?” one of Miss Adler"s table mates asked.

“That"s the sorrow,” the gossiping nurse replied. “Archie says, Tom thought no more of it. Drunk and loitering soldiers could be found at that hour on any street in Whitechapel. He went on about his patrol up Wentworth Street. If he"d gone into the Yard, he might well have caught that second soldier…”

“Murdering her?” demanded one of the coterie.

“If it was the second soldier,” cautioned Miss Lister. “If there was a second soldier.”

“Course. If there was a second soldier,” agreed Miss Adler. “Archie says, he thinks there was. And he thinks Tom might have caught him in the act of killing the girl.”

I realized I"d been holding my breath. I took in air, quietly, as I considered all I"d heard. A copper, only yards away, minutes before I killed the girl. It was frightening. It was thrilling. As I was safe at work and picking at my meal, it was damned amusing. I thought I might burst out laughing. But I held it in check as I realized Miss Adler had more to tell; funnier yet. I had more listening to do.

The investigator on the case, Inspector Reid (so Mr Frogg had said), following up the possibility of a murdering soldier, took Barrett to the Tower of London the day of the murder to be shown several prisoners confined in the guardroom. The constable failed to identify his man among them.

Owing to that failure, an identity parade was arranged for the following morning. Returning to the Tower, Barrett was sequestered by the sergeant"s mess while the garrison"s sergeant-major mustered every Grenadier Guard absent or on leave at the time of the murder. Once the soldiers were standing rank, Inspector Reid warned Barrett, “Be careful. Many eyes are watching you and a great deal depends on your picking out the right man.”

identity paradeBarrett walked the line staring down each soldier. Near the centre of the rank the constable stopped and touched the shoulder of a private; the man he believed he"d seen in Wentworth Street. Barrett started back, but Reid met him halfway. “I"ve picked the fellow,” the constable said.

“I want you to be certain,” the inspector insisted. “Go back and have another look.”

Barrett passed down the line and picked again; a different man than he"d first selected.

“How did you come to pick out two men?” Reid asked.

“The man I saw in George Yard had no medals,” Barrett sheepishly replied. “The first man I picked out had.”

The garrison was dismissed and the selected soldiers escorted to the orderly-room. There, Barrett insisted he"d made a mistake in picking the first; the soldier with medals. That fellow was dismissed. The second soldier (Archie called him "Leary") denied being anywhere near George Yard and gave a detailed account of his movements the night of the murder. He"d gone on leave, he said, with a private named Law that Bank Holiday night. I could repeat the details of their drinking and pissing, but why would I? Point was Private Law corroborated Leary"s account through 6:00 am. Reid"s case against the soldiers collapsed and the identity parade was filed at Scotland Yard under C for c**k-up.

Ccock-upIt had been a delight to learn I"d caused such excitement amongst the police and, bless me, the Guard. It had been one of the more interesting breaks I"d ever taken at hospital.

bless meAs it ended and we went back to work, it occurred to me that knowing what the police knew and learning what they were doing, and how their investigations were progressing, might be nice indeed. It might even ease my mind over worries of the unknown, as if were. A pipeline to, dare I hope, inside the Metropolitan Police? Though I kept it to myself, I"ll confess now the nurse"s relationship with her bobbie suddenly became of the greatest interest to me.

From that night on, I made every effort to be kind and helpful to Nurse Adler.