Someday medical science might find a way to penetrate the secrets of the human brain. Someday it might be possible to diagnose and even treat mental dysfunctions as physical illness was assessed and treated. But for the time being that portion of the anatomy which more than any other separated humankind from the lower forms remained the most mysterious, the least penetrable, the least understood. How curious it was, how ironic, he decided, that the human brain seemed capable of understanding almost everything but itself.
Holmes applied a wax vesta to the tobacco in his pipe and drew in deeply, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air. Then he leaned back in his chair and reviewed the events of the last few days.
While the police of both Scotland Yard and the City force were noisily and with great bluster and bustle going about their investigations of the two most recent murders, Holmes was quietly making his own inquiries. He had spent days prowling Whitechapel and Spitalfields, making contact with various informants whom he had nurtured over the years: Individuals of dubious character and occupation who, for a few shillings or an occasional crisp one-pound note, kept their ears to the ground and passed on to Holmes anything that at any given time could be of interest to him. They proved to be of little use on this occasion: All they were able to provide were false leads, fantastic theories, and unsubstantiated rumors. No one knew anything; everyone was afraid.
Holmes also paid visits to several of the workhouses in the East End, those cold, bare establishments that doled out meager sustenance and a few coins a day to those homeless and destitute who were able enough and willing enough to work for it. The expression “cold as charity” was surely coined by someone who had partaken of the bounty of one of these institutions. Indifferently run by individuals whose mean-spirited, hard-eyed Christianity was compensated meagerly enough with borough funds, these places specialized in watery soup and mealy bread and, on days when the cook was in his cups or in a particularly uncreative mood, an epicurean delight called skilly — a mush made of Indian corn and hot water. A few of the more benevolent workhouses even provided thin slivers of a harsh soap, noted for its ability to redden the skin and make the eyes tear when applied. Most recipients of this largess found it more desirable to go dirty.
One place Holmes visited was in the process of parceling out its main (and only) meal of the day: Ungenerous portions ladled from a large blackened kettle, the contents of which could best be described as indescribable — chunks of sopping bread, bits and pieces of fat and salt pork, gristle and bone simmering in a rancid gruel. It was the leavings of a local hospital charity ward, one of the resident workers explained — the leavings from the mouths of the sick and diseased, scraped from their plates and heaped together in buckets to be carted to the workhouse kitchens and reheated. The meal was eaten from metal plates without benefit of utensils, there being none available, while rats boldly scurried about underfoot, an occasional well-placed kick keeping them from getting too familiar. The stench of the place was positively stultifying: A sickly sour smell intermixed with the aroma of unwashed bodies and the ever-present reek of cheap gin. The totality of it caused Holmes to almost gag upon entry and made him thankful for the gulps of rank, stagnant air that greeted him outside the door upon departure. The East End, after all, was outcast London, “an evil plexus of slums that hide human creeping things,” as one observer put it.63 And surely human creeping things deserved no better.
Not for the first time did Holmes reflect upon the plight of these people, and on his own conflicting emotions concerning them: A mixture of pity and repulsion, of compassion and disdain. He felt sorry for these people, yet he despised them. He despised them for what they had allowed themselves to become. Even he recognized it as a reaction that was unreasonable, but after all was he not a product of his age and of the society which nurtured him, a society which equated poverty and ignorance with moral imperfection? If a man is born poor in this land of plenty, it is God’s will; if he dies poor, sir, well then, it is his own damn fault.
It was this philosophy, this heartfelt conviction on the part of respectable Victorian England, that made it possible for the slums of Whitechapel and places like it to exist. It was an attitude that did not tolerate, took no pity on, took no notice of anything that was not clean, decent, proper, or “British.”
For years even the established Church ignored these nether regions, turning a blind eye to those deprived and (in the eyes of the godly) depraved subhuman multitudes who lived literally within the shadow of St. Paul’s towering dome. No matter, the cathedral’s doors remained steadfastly closed to them. God’s grace was not for those who did not dress the part.
Not every churchman with whom Holmes came into contact was indifferent to the poor of the East End, of course. There were several who lived and worked selflessly among them in quarters little more opulent, amid conditions little less appalling. The Barnetts of Toynbee Hall came to mind.
Toynbee Hall was a settlement house for university students who worked among the poor, founded by the Reverend Samuel Barnett and his wife, and located in the very heart of Whitechapel. It was directly behind this institution that the murder of Martha Tabram had taken place the previous August.
Mrs. Barnett was a tiny, spirited woman of indeterminate age, brimming over with energy and the milk of human kindness. She was like a little bird that never seemed to alight for more than a few seconds at a time, but flitted about from this place to that, happily engaged in a dozen or more tasks at once, her state of perpetual motion accompanied by an endless stream of chattering and chirping: sentence after run-on sentence of bright, disjointed, unrelated observations, assertions and assessments, one following the other without benefit of pause, breath, period, or comma. Throughout there was a heavy sprinkling of two favorite phrases, a reflection no doubt of her outlook on life: Things were either “very nice” or “not very nice.” There was nothing better, nothing worse, and there was no in-between.
She greeted Holmes at the entrance with a small child in her arms.
“Isn’t it very nice of you to come?” she said in a cheery voice, adding in the same breath without a change of tone or inflection: “It is not very nice to insert your finger into your nose, my deah.”
Holmes, taken aback, arched an eyebrow.
“It is not very nice a’tall!”
“I quite agree, madam, I assure you,” responded Holmes with great dignity. Then a movement of Mrs. Barnett’s skirt caught his eye and understanding came to him at last. “Ah,” he said. “There is the offending party!”
The object of Mrs. Barnett’s reproach was a second little child, partially hidden behind the folds of her voluminous skirt and apron, its presence previously unnoticed because of the dimness of the vestibule.
With no by-your-leave or warning, Mrs. Barnett thrust the child she was carrying into Holmes’s arms and swooped down to attend to the other. Holmes, clearly startled, stood there speechless, holding the infant stiffly and with arms outstretched, as if it were an object of unknown provenance and dubious purpose.
“Now, isn’t that better?” Mrs. Barnett cooed, straightening. “Do come in, won’t you? We don’t stand on ceremony here — mind the step — I am very much afraid you will find us in our usual state of dither — my goodness, here it is almost noon and the third post has not yet arrived, I thought you were it, in point of fact; delivery services have been falling off dreadfully, have you not found that to be the case? But I know my husband will be quite pleased to see you, quite pleased indeed — you are somewhat taller than I expected, aren’t you?”
Holmes, who could think of no suitable response to any of her observations, and would have been hard pressed to fit a word in edgewise in any event, confined himself to agreeable nods and followed dutifully behind as she conducted him into the recesses of the hall and up a flight of stairs, chattering gaily all the while. In that she had not yet gotten around to retrieving the child from his arms, he had no other recourse but to maintain possession of
it, hoping profoundly that it did nothing sudden or untoward.
“Most of our young student workers are out on the streets at this hour, making their visits to our poor unfortunates,” she explained, “so you chose an opportune time to call. These are two of our latest arrivals, the dears,” she noted, indicating the children, “left on our doorstep, so to speak, by young mothers — hardly more than children themselves — who cannot care for them, poor creatures. We are so fortunate that God has chosen us for their keeping. So very fortunate indeed. I only wish there was more we could do. There are so many in need, so very many. But yet we manage nicely. With God’s help we manage very nicely indeed.64
“Here we are, then,” she announced, having arrived at the top of the stairs. She stopped before a closed door, tapped twice, and entered.
A frowning Reverend Canon Samuel Barnett was seated behind a cluttered desk, a pair of rimless spectacles perched on his forehead, his nose buried perilously deep into the pages of a large volume of religious tracts. An even larger Bible lay open across his knees, and sheets of foolscap, most of them crumpled, lay littering the desktop and the floor around his chair.
“Samuel dear, this is Mr. Sherlock Holmes come to visit. Isn’t that very nice of him indeed? Do come in, won’t you, Mr. Holmes. Canon Barnett always welcomes diversions when he has a sermon to prepare. He has such terrible difficulties with them, poor dear. And I can’t for the life of me realize why. Ordinarily he is so very, very clever with words.”
The Reverend Barnett laid the Bible aside and rose from his desk to pump Holmes’s hand with obvious pleasure, an act that necessitated some furious manipulation of the infant on Holmes’s part. “How good of you, sir!” beamed the reverend, pumping away. “How very good of you to come, and welcome you are! Your reputation is not unknown to us here, Mr. Holmes. It has preceded you, sir, even into these dark corners. I am an avid devotee of yours, I must confess. The accounts of your exploits are among my favorite bedtime reading, along with the Gospels, of course — see what good company you are in! But my word, sir, whatever do you intend doing with that babe? It appears to be decidedly out of kilter.”
Mrs. Barnett, suddenly awakening to the fact that Holmes was still in possession, though just barely, of the now furiously wiggling infant, leapt to his assistance with a little cry of alarm. “However can you forgive me! I had quite forgotten!”
Holmes awkwardly but gratefully divested himself of the child and managed to smile politely. “I am afraid you will find it is, ah, somewhat damp, ma’am.”
“Oh, dear. I shall attend to it at once,” she said, enfolding the child in her arms once again. “You will excuse me, I am sure. Whatever must you think of us?”
Reverend Barnett was all smiles. “Yes, yes, of course, m’dear. And a nice cup of tea for our guest, if someone below can see to it. Thank you so very much, Henrietta dear,” he called after the departing figure.
“Mr. Holmes, sir, take a chair, take a chair, please! No ceremony here, none at all. Do make yourself comfortable — and never mind the clutter, I pray you. It is our natural state here, I fear. Clutter, clutter everywhere, clutter and confusion.” He laughed. “I no longer apologize for it, you see. I merely fall back upon my Nathaniel Ward!”
Holmes looked at him blankly. “Do you indeed?”
Reverend Barnett took a deep breath and struck a pose, left hand over heart and right index finger stabbing the air: “‘If the whole conclave of Hell,’” he quoted with mock seriousness, “‘can so compolitize exadverse and diametrical contraditions as to compolitize such a multimonstrous maufrey of heteroclites and quicquidlibets quietly, I trust I may say with all humble reverence they can do more than the Senate of Heaven.’ Hah!” he exclaimed. “I believe I have gotten it right, but I am never quite sure. Are you familiar with Ward, sir? Not C of E, of course, but a good man nonetheless. Please correct me if I quoted him wrong!”
Holmes raised his hands helplessly and laughed. “A lack in my education, I am certain, but I fear the gentleman’s existence has escaped my notice.”
“Yes? Well, never mind, never mind. I am sure you did not come here to discuss the eccentric writings of seventeenth-century clerics with me, though I confess to you quite shamelessly that I am considered somewhat of an authority.” He sat down in his chair and leaned back, the expression on his kindly face becoming quizzical. It was obvious he was overcome with curiosity. “But what does bring you, Mr. Holmes? What kind wind favors us with your presence? No, no, don’t tell me! Allow me to make use of my deductive powers!” He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper that under other circumstances would have been comical. “It must be the dreadful murders, mustn’t it?”
“Indeed it must, sir.”
“Ah, yes, I thought so. How very sad, how very sad.” He shook his head. “The official police have been here on several occasions, of course. We gave them all the cooperation we could, though little enough it was. So many questions, so many questions. And so few answers. There’s the pity of it, you see. There just don’t seem to be any answers, only questions. But how I ramble on! Forgive me, Mr. Holmes, please do. Of course I shall answer any questions you care to put to me, and answer them to the very best of my ability, of course I shall. The good Lord knows I would like to be of help, and in any way I can.”
But there was nothing he could add to the scant knowledge Holmes already had, nor could Mrs. Barnett when she returned five minutes later with the tea. She was saddened by the murders, of course — deeply saddened — but hardly shocked. Nothing that occurred in the East End could shock her anymore. Holmes sensed that behind that flighty exterior was a sensible, down-to-earth woman, highly intelligent and unusually resourceful, and fully capable of not only understanding the realities of life in the East End, but of dealing with them. His assessment of her was quickly verified.
“When we first came here fifteen years ago to take over St. Jude’s,” she said, “the bishop told Samuel that it was the worst parish in the district. But even he didn’t know how really bad it was! It is a human sewer, you see. There are nine hundred thousand souls in the East End, eighty thousand of them in Whitechapel. Of these, eleven thousand are unemployed and homeless, living the lives of savages, degrading whatever they touch, incapable of helping themselves or even allowing themselves to be helped. The worst part of it, of course, is the children. They are so ill used — abused in the most unimaginable ways.”
Reverend Barnett nodded in agreement. “Yes, but there is improvement, there is improvement. We must not forget that. The passage of the Criminal Law Amendment three years ago has helped immeasurably. The age of consent for females is now sixteen, you know, and that at least has put quite a dent into what was a flourishing trade in child prostitutes. Why, up until then it was possible to purchase a twelve-year-old lass for twenty pounds. Purchase one outright. And whilst I harbor no illusions that that sort of thing does not still go on — yes, with young boys as well as girls — at least we now have laws to oppose it, where before we had nothing.”
Mrs. Barnett caught sight of a strained expression on Holmes’s face. She smiled grimly. “Does the subject shock you, Mr. Holmes? Or does it shock you that I, a woman, should engage in a discussion of it?” She held up her hand. “You need not answer. I fear I’ve made you feel uncomfortable. Well, I do not apologize for it. While I know it is not something to be discussed in polite society, and decidedly not by a woman, that, you see, is part of the problem. It is not discussed, therefore it is not dealt with. Sometimes I think we English are so very proper that we would rather have our house burn down than disturb public tranquility by shouting ‘Fire.’ You will forgive a woman’s temerity I hope, but shocking though it may be, the matter must be brought out into the open. The rate of syphilis among our children is alarmingly high: One fifth of the children we administer to suffer from inherited venereal disease. And sexual abuse is rampant. Living conditions are so terribly crowded, you see, with as many as six or e
ight to a single room. Sometimes there is but a single bed, and sometimes the room is shared by two separate families. The incidence of child rape and of incest among father and daughter and brother and sister is deplorable: They simply know no better and see nothing wrong with it.”
Holmes was truly dumbfounded by Mrs. Barnett’s words. Decent women did not discuss such things, certainly not the wife of a clergyman, and certainly not in mixed company. Such words as rape and incest and even sex were just not used. And though he above all individuals recognized the hypocrisy of Victorian morality, such recognition did not lessen his sense of shock or embarrassment at hearing the words spoken.
Reverend Barnett suffered from no such inhibitions. The subject, and his wife’s open discussion of it, was obviously something he was used to. He nodded in agreement with what she had said. “It is the drink that is to blame for much of the degradation, you know.”
“Oh, absolutely!” said Mrs. Barnett. “A measure of gin costs a mere three halfpennies. It only encourages our people to drink themselves into insensibility. It breeds violence and cruelty, and causes a breakdown in family life. I have always maintained that if we were to make the cost of gin more dear, it would go a lot further than any act of Parliament in solving the problems we are faced with here.”
The canon patted her hand. “You are quite right, of course, m’dear, but there is progress, that you cannot deny. Our task is not a hopeless one, far from it. Our young students work wonders! What a fine group of young men! They are out among the poor every day, giving counsel and aid and helping to spread the gospel. Every day I see progress made, every day!”
It was with difficulty that Holmes managed to steer the discussion back to the murders.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors Page 19
