The Hellgate

Chapter 14

As I said, outside of work, I stayed in my rooms. The only exceptions were trips to the backyard (to the well hand pump) for water for Mrs Griggs. Hauling water for my landlady, I had to pass through the late Mr Griggs" shoe shop; abandoned at his death, but relatively untouched by time, on the ground floor of my lodging house.

I should say protected rather than abandoned. Mrs Griggs would allow nothing of her late husband"s to be disturbed. More, she frequently added to it. The lady was a compulsive pack rat. As the woman trusted me, over the years I had become – for want of a better title – the curator of the old shoe shoppe. I swept and dusted. I watched over her cherished relics and stored and tended the new junk the woman brought in. I carried requested items upstairs and, following a tearful reminiscence, dried the items off and returned them to the pile. In time, as dear as the old shop was to her, Mrs Griggs no longer visited. With me toting her memories up and down for her, she no longer needed to. Owing to my calculated enabling, the shop had become nothing more than the vaults Mrs Griggs passed in trips between the street and her living space. In the same time, it became my own personal playground.

vaultsThe late Mr Griggs was a shoemaker, obviously. He"d practiced his profession, as I understood it, all of his life; long before the industry had become an industry and gone from little shops on East End side streets to large automated factories. Mr Griggs had been a shoemaker in his own shoe shop.

In the glass-fronted (but shuttered), show room of the former store, upon the three interior walls still hung a fine selection of men"s work boots and men"s and women"s shoes, in as many styles and colours as the mind could conceive, all unclaimed or unsold at the time of his passing. Row upon row, to the west, north, and east, surrounding his antique low-to-the-floor shoemaker"s table and bench, where he did the fine finishing work that impressed the customers who once wandered in off the street to the south. Sorry, it would be imprudent to say which street.

In the back room were the other pieces of equipment, less artistically impressive, but vital to the work (and the saving of work); the stitching machines, the stretching machine, the polishers and grinders. And more shoes and boots, an uncounted collection, stacked, hanging, and in boxes. Shelves of boxes of materials; leather, wood, cork, nails, glue, threads of all sizes and colours. A closet bursting with close and the gathering"s of Mrs Griggs. Another work bench, more old than antique, for serious late night work as opposed to show, several mobile floor length mirrors, a normal height work table, and a well-worn writing desk with chair.

Against the back side wall, stood a massive cabinet housing a world of assorted accoutrement, including a fine selection of shoemaker"s tools, and a collection of sturdy knives; several of which, outside of Mrs Griggs" knowledge, I"d ground down, keenly sharpened, oiled and made ready to be put to use – in the event I could think of a good use. Perhaps I could.

I got to the break room late on 15 August, a busy Wednesday night. I quietly and unobtrusively got my tea (the cakes looked awful) and took a seat at table alone. I went unnoticed, as usual, by Miss Adler and her coterie of nurses at their tea and gossip nearby.

I was tired and did not feel like eavesdropping. Particularly as they appeared to, again, be going on about the identity parade fiasco involving the Grenadier Guards. I did hear a word or two. Enough to discover they were not talking about the confused PC who"d picked two soldiers to match the one he"d seen and spoken with the morning of the George Yard murder.

They were talking of a new identity parade, conducted for a witness of whom I was unaware. It goes without saying I slowed my tea sipping, secured two (suddenly appetizing) cakes, and returned to my chair with a determination to chew slowly and listen intently. Thus situated, I bent my ear.

The witness appeared out of the blue at Commercial Street Police Station, nearly a week gone now, claiming to be the woman in company of the George Yard w***e on Bank Holiday night. Mary Ann Connelly was her name but, as none of those sluts used their names, the street denizens knew her as "Pearly Poll". Poll knew the victim as Emma; they"d been friends for several months.

friendsAccording to her, on that fateful night, she and Emma had pub crawled (with two soldiers; a corporal and a private) through Whitechapel from ten until nearly midnight. The foursome broke up at 11:45, when Poll veered off to Angel Alley with her corporal. Emma and her private went up George Yard. I had to bite my tongue, of course. I should not have been eavesdropping, let alone reacting to what I heard, but Poll"s story (as leaked by Archie, and retold by chatty Miss Adler) was rubbish. She"d either been too drunk to remember the details, was making it up, or simply wasn"t half-a-liar. Whichever, it was rubbish. Who, other than Yours Truly, knew the drunk w***e had come up George Yard with her soldier at just after two in the morning? I"d heard the church bells. The soldier ran out on her and it was damned near 2:30 when I killed his stranded date.

But that was merely what had happened.

What Miss Adler said, that Poll the w***e said, happened was, “About forty minutes later, once she"d finished her business in Angel Alley, Poll and her corporal bid each other adieu at the corner of George Yard. Poll set off toward Whitechapel while her soldier walked Aldgate way.”

Again, crap. Where she went, nobody knew. But the soldier stayed at Wentworth and George Yard, as that"s where peeler Barrett accosted him and chased him off – while I was busy. Point was, Scotland Yard had finally interviewed a woman for whom they"d been searching for a week; a possible key to a murdering soldier.

It was then Miss Adler"s chatter truly sparked my interest (and struck a note of humor). On Monday past, at 11:00 in the morning, Inspector Reid – with Pearly Poll in tow – returned to the Tower of London where the previous identity parade c**k-up had occurred.

Behind the Tower, unseen by the plentiful tourists, every non-commissioned officer and private on leave at the time of the outrage was paraded out for Poll to ogle. “Can you see either of the men you saw with the woman now dead?” Inspector Reid asked.

Hands on hips, Poll looked the men over, then shook her head.

Hardly satisfied, Reid asked again, “Can you identify anyone?”

With all the class inherent of her class, Poll replied, “He ain"t here.”

The guards were dismissed. “Then, Archie says,” Miss Adler said, “Poll told Reid and the Guards" officers the soldiers she and the murdered woman picked up Bank Holiday night had similar uniforms but had white bands round their caps. The Commander of the Grenadier Guards replied those were not his men at all. That it sounded like the uniform of the Coldstream Guards.”

“They had the wrong soldiers all along?”

“Archie says Tom Barrett says, No. But Pearly Poll…”

“She said…”

“Yes. They were from a different regiment. So this morning, Archie says, at Wellington Barracks, in Birdcage Walk, they held another parade of the corporals and privates there who were absent at time of the murder.”

“And?”

“And, Archie says, Poll identified two men, one as the corporal she took to Angel Alley and the other as a private that her friend took to George Yard.”

“And?”

“And, Archie says, the corporal she picked was really a private called George. He had three badges for good conduct and an alibi for the night of the murder. The second man, the private that went with her friend, really was a private. Archie says his name was Skipper.” The nurses groaned in unison. “Yes!” Miss Adler agreed. “And Skipper had an alibi too.”

good conduct“How could she have been so wrong?”

“Inspector Reid doesn"t think she was. He thinks she deliberately identified the wrong soldiers. Out of pique, Archie says, because of earlier troubles she"d had with the police.”

I owed a debt to Miss Adler and her gossiping Archie. For myself, I enjoyed that break immensely. Two garrisons of guards, three identity parades, three c**k-ups. And the men of the Met were still in search of a murdering soldier.

Three days later, Saturday, 18 August, Mrs Griggs rapped three times with excitement and entered my room waving the Illustrated Police News as if it were a flag and she leading a charge into battle. It was unlike her to show such heightened emotion; and fantastic that particular lurid newspaper should even be in the house. Times were changing! But I could see the editors had done their best to stimulate that excitement in their unsuspecting readers. Even the upright Mrs Griggs had fallen prey.

Illustrated Police NewsOh! To have my work so recognized!

Oh!The front page of the rag featured six graphic drawings of what the artists imagined both victim and murderer looked like. It had to be imagination, the plod inspectors did not allow reporters into their crime scenes. As much fun as the drawings were, they were inaccurate. Who knew that besides me? I"d seen the victim in her own blood (and the murderer in the mirror). ha ha. While I took in the images, my landlady read aloud to me the new gory update.

“The wound over the heart was alone sufficient to kill and death must have occurred as soon as that was inflicted. Unless the perpetrator was a madman, or suffering to an unusual extent from drink delirium, no tangible explanation can be given of the reason for inflicting the other thirty-eight injuries, some of which almost seem as if they were due to thrusts and cuts from a penknife.”

“My heavens, Mr __,” the blushing Mrs Griggs exclaimed. “He stabbed the poor woman thirty-nine times. My heavens!”

I nodded in silent understanding. But I confess, deep in my dark place, I smiled. Thirty-nine delicious stabs. The soldier"s w***e had earned each and every one.

Five days later, I visited Mr Frogg"s newsstand again. I hadn"t intended it; eager to get off the streets, I was merely headed home from work. But I admit to an ego and Tad"s new cries of “Foul murder in Whitechapel!” drew me in. And confused me.

Was another killer about? It turned out, such was not the case, the boy was still championing my work from George Yard.

The story he and his dear old dad were selling was an update on that day"s reopening of the Coroner"s Inquest into my stabbing of the soldier"s w***e, now officially identified as Martha Tabram. Among the witnesses were Henry Turner, the carpenter with whom the slag had lived for twelve years. And her real husband, Henry Tabram, from whom she"d been separated but never divorced. Others, including the infamous Pearly Poll, testified but who gave a damn? It had all been said before.

One piece of fresh meat was tossed to the public – but it was old news to me. Deputy Coroner Collier, still sitting for the vacationing Baxter, let it out that two different weapons had been used on the victim. Why, yes, they had… indeed. And skillfully I might add.

The Daily Telegraph printed the Deputy Coroner"s summation in its entirety, including his breathless opinion the murder was "one of the most brutal crimes that had occurred for years… almost beyond belief". Then, done and dusted, Collier charged his jury. They, in turn, returned his requested verdict: "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown".

Daily TelegraphNearly three weeks had elapsed since I"d cleaned that w***e up. The verdict, rather than closing the book, merely made me wistful. I finished my walk home on edge. I wanted to go back to work again. Not at hospital; my real work, my life"s calling.

I arrived back at my lodgings to find Mrs Griggs out of the house (no doubt attending to her duties as the leader of the Dress Reformists). Rather than go upstairs to my rooms (and this was the exception I mentioned earlier), I took that quiet opportunity to visit the back room of Mr Griggs" shop. I took down a carefully stored box from a shelf of many shoe boxes. I carried it to the old desk, set it down gently, and slowly opened the lid – as if lifting the mercy seat to unseal the Ark of the Covenant. Wordlessly, reverently, I stared at the Holy of Holies within. Despite being unworthy, I reached in and, one at a time, lifted them out into the gaslight – my knives. The shining eight inch amputation blade (that had done the soldier"s w***e). The penknife (that had decorated her up). And a sturdy shoemaker"s knife I"d selected and specially fashioned for the vital work ahead.

I sat. I held the three cold blades to my chest. I closed my eyes and dreamed of future. It was delicious – and just for me.

Yes. I longed to return to work.