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It is approximately two o’clock in the morning, and even though Commercial Street is devoid of its customary daytime hustle and bustle, the occasional solitary individual, head bowed in a futile attempt to shield his or her face from the bitter wind and drizzle, is to be glimpsed, meandering along the pavement.
Sometimes forced to scurry across the thoroughfare in front of a dray wagon, or behind a two-wheeled cart, which trundle and rattle over the glistening cobblestone surface of the street in either direction, the presence of such an individual gives credence to the erroneous held belief that the residents of Whitechapel rarely sleep at night.
Stepping out of the Ten Bells and assailed by the cold, which has a slightly sobering effect upon her, Mary gasps, “Gawd!” She pulls her shawl tightly around her shoulders, “’E better be on time, that’s all I can say.”
Tottering across Church Street and then past Spitalfields Church, besieged by pitiful paupers huddled together and asleep in front of its two large locked doors, Mary sneeringly cocks a glance at the Britannia tavern on the other side of the road and, in just over a minute, expectantly reaches the Queen’s Head, only to find no one there. With his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets, twenty-eight-year-old labourer George Hutchinson trudges along the pavement and approaches Mary from the opposite direction, “Cold enough t’ [355]freeze the balls off a brass monkey, innit?”
Though she had, on several occasions, blithely associated with Hutchinson over the past three years, Mary has since shunned his company to evade his servile infatuation towards her. His obsessive doting manner, initially welcomed, but then found to be intrusive, had begun to, and still does, rankle her.
Hutchinson removes his hat, known as a ‘wideawake’ due to its low crown and wide brim, “’Eard Joe’s gone, then?” He shakes moisture from the piece, [356]“Stuck yer wiv rent arrears, right?”
Mary snaps haughtily, “None o’ yer bleedin’ business, is it?”
He replaces his hat, “’Bout t’ ask yer t’ sneak me a tanner. But no doubt yer be skint?”
Mary stares at him suspiciously, “It’s nigh on two o’clock in the mornin’.” She indicates back along the street with her thumb, “Yer lodge ’cross the road from the Princess Alice. Wot yer doin’ up this end o’ the street?”
Hutchinson strokes his moustache, “Back from [357]Romford. Lodgin’ ’ouse shut at midnight.” He smiles suggestively, ’Omeless, ain’t I?”
Mary scowls, “So, that’s yer game, is it? Once yer ’eard Joe ’ad left me, yer legged it back ere, finkin’ yer’d share me bed fer the night. Some nerve yer got. Romford’s four ’ours away. Best yer turn ’round. Who knows? Yer might git back there b’fore daybreak.”
Hutchinson implores, “Show mercy, Mary Jane. [358]If the boot were on t’other foot, I’d give yer me last farthin’”
Incensed by his plea, Mary retorts, “Well, it ain’t. Now, push off!”
Hutchinson pleads some more, “A [359]piece o’ brass, then? Get me off the street int’ the Ten Bells.”
Mary sighs angrily, “Want tick, see Alf Grainger. Daresay ’e’d like a bit o’ company.”
Glancing either side at the virtually silent street, Hutchinson pries, “Waitin’ fer someone, are yer?”
Mary fumes, “A bloke! An’ if yer don’t sling yer ’ook, I’ll scream [360]bloody blue murder ’til yer do.”
Clutching at straws, Hutchinson proposes, “Want I keep an eye on ’im when ’e comes? ’E might be this ’ere Ripper bloke.”
Mary sneers, “An’ if ’e were the Ripper, wot bleedin’ ’elp would yer be? Go on, ’op it, I’ll fend fer meself.”
Timidly withdrawing, Hutchinson turns up the collar of his jacket, shoves his hands back into his trouser pockets and glumly ambles along the pavement to the Ten Bells. Upon reaching its entrance, he suddenly halts, turns about and, situated beneath a glowing overhead lantern, begins to watch Mary, coldly stamping her feet, some distance away.
Wearing a felt hat, a long overcoat trimmed with [361]astrakhan fur, and carrying an eight inch oblong box wrapped in a piece of American waterproof cloth, Kosminski emerges from Fashion Street, approaches Mary from behind and gently taps her on the shoulder with his finger, “From gay Paree, yah?”
Startled, Mary gasps, “Morther o’ Mercy! Yer nigh on scared me t’ death.”
Kosminski grins, “T’ death? That won’t do, yah?”
Mary relaxes and smiles, “Not yet, anyway.” She indicates the wrapped box, “Wot yer got there, then?”
Kosminski leans closer to her and whispers, [362]“Bonbons!”
“Cream-filled?”
“Yah, from gay Paree.”
Mary laughs, “Bonbons down ’ere! Them’s a bleedin’ first.”
Kosminski smirks, “Yer eat bonbons, I dip wick. Both ’appy, yah?”
Mary reminds him, “An’ ’alf-crown.”
Kosminski nods fervently, “Yah, yah. Yer git [363]coinage.” He points to Dorset Street across the road, “Room down there, yah?”
Mary nods, “Yeh, an’ it’s a darn sight warmer there than ’ere.”
Kosminski places his arm around her shoulders, “We go, yah?”
Observed by Hutchinson, Mary and Kosminski walk diagonally across Commercial Street and enter Dorset Street. Abandoning his position outside the Ten Bells, Hutchinson quickly crosses the road, scurries past Brushfield Street and also enters Dorset Street, only to see the couple disappearing through the arched entrance of Miller’s Court.
Bereft of a place to go and delusional in the belief that, sooner or later, Mary will once more acknowledge his devotion and want to renew their association, which will allow him to share her bed, Hutchinson saunters along the street and, partially concealed from sight by the shadows of Crossingham’s lodging house, takes up a watchful position directly opposite the court.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Kosminski places the wrapped box upon the table beside the lit candle, “Yah, in ’ere better, warmer.” He turns to Mary, who locks the door, “An’ private. Yah, good.”
Leaving the key protruding from the keyhole, Mary removes her shawl and tosses it over the back of the chair, “Bed, or summut else?”
Kosminski takes off his hat and puts it down on the table, “Bed!” He begins to remove his overcoat, “No clothes, yah?”
Mary kicks off her boots, “Keep me chemise on, though. Bit draughty ’round the ol’ shoulders, otherwise.”
Placing his overcoat over the back of the other chair, Kosminski nods approvingly.
Hurriedly removing her blouse, skirt and lower undergarments, Mary slips beneath the soiled blanket drawn across the bed, “’Ow yer like it, then? Yer on me, or me on yer? Or want I stroke yer first?”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Kosminski quickly eases off his boots, “Me on top, blanket between us.”
Amused by his request, Mary chuckles, “Jewish ’abit, eh? Can’t stoke me fer real.” She fingers a small frayed hole in the blanket, “Poke yer ol’ John Thomas through this, then.”
Removing his jacket, Kosminski shakes his head, “No want pox.”
Mary smirks, [364]“Ain’t one t’ mince words, are yer?”
Throwing his jacket across the bedside table, Kosminski stands, unfastens his trousers and reveals his erect organ, “Spread legs.”
Beneath the blanket, Mary obligingly parts her legs.
Straddling her, he lowers himself and, lying upon her, begins to enact intercourse.
Motionless, Mary indifferently looks up at the light, produced by the flame of the candle, fluttering across the ceiling.
Kosminski groans excitedly, “Good, yah?”
Mary feigns pleasure, “Oooh, yeh. T’ be sure, yer different.”
Thrusting back and forth, Kosminski experiences an intoxicating surge of carnal exhilaration. Breathing heavily and compelled by an irresistible, obscene desire, he reaches for her throat.
Lowering her gaze from the ceiling, Mary st
ares at him calmly, “Yer ’im, ain’t yer?”
Kosminski slides his hands around her throat.
Mary rejoices, “Them’s not bonbons. Brought a knife t’ cut me wiv, ’aven’t yer?”
Throwing back his head in ecstasy, Kosminski tightens his grip.
Mary sighs, “Freedom, at last.” However, deprived of oxygen, she convulses. Longing for death, but instinctively driven to survive, Mary desperately claws at his hands. Overwhelmed with panic, she cries weakly, “Murder!” Kosminski climaxes, spending his seed upon the blanket. A sudden gust of wind, blowing through one of the broken window panes, extinguishes the flame of the candle, plunging the room into darkness.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Having quarrelled fiercely with her drunken husband at 24 Great Pearl Street, close to Vine Yard, where Wiggins had located the elusive growler, Sarah Lewis angrily storms out of their lodgings into the teeming rain, determined to spend the rest of the night with her parents, Mr and Mrs Keyler, who lodge at 2 Miller’s Court.
Hurriedly walking past the Ten Bells and then Spitalfields Church, its clock striking half past two, Lewis scurries across Commercial Street, turns the corner by the Britannia tavern and enters Dorset Street. Reaching Miller’s Court, she catches sight of someone loitering outside Crossingham’s lodging house. In two days’ time, at a hastily convened coroner’s inquest into the death of Mary Jane Kelly, Sarah Lewis will describe that person.
“I see a man wiv a wideawake ’at. There were no one talkin’ t’ ’im. ’E were a stout-lookin’ man, an’ not very tall. The ’at were black. I did not take any notice o’ ’is clothes. The man were lookin’ up the court. ’E seemed t’ be waitin’ or lookin’ fer someone. Further on there were a man an’ woman. She bein’ drunk. There were nobody in the court.”
Amiably greeted by her mother at 2 Miller’s Court, Sarah Lewis shakes the rain from her coat, slumps exhaustedly into a tatty armchair and, hardly giving a second thought to the man she has just seen, falls asleep.
Oblivious to the fact that his presence outside Miller’s Court has been noted, Hutchinson opts for retreat anyway. Soaked to the bone, tired and downcast, he abandons his vigil, stomps away from the court and heads towards the Ten Bells, hoping that Alf Grainger will permit him to while away the time in the tavern until daybreak.
On the opposite side of the street, Mary Ann Cox, shielding her face with her hand from the lashing rain, hurries along the pavement and enters the court. Scampering past number 13, she sees no light emanating from the room and hears no sound to alarm her.
Apart from Kosminski, no one else at the moment is aware that Mary’s soul, released from its earthbound body, has blissfully entered the realm of the hereafter, where eternal peace reigns absolute. Her corpse, lying on the bed and rapidly growing cold, is not, however, to be afforded the same degree of reverence by her murderer.
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If Hutchinson had remained outside Miller’s Court for a further fifteen or twenty minutes, he would have observed something that would have undoubtedly aroused his curiosity.
Driving a two-wheeled cart harnessed to a mangy pony, Bullen, wearing a short cape to protect himself against the rain, turns the corner by the Britannia tavern and manoeuvres the vehicle down the street towards Millers Court. Seated beside him, a woman, her head bent and covered by a shawl, shivers from the cold.
Bringing the cart to a halt, Bullen hurriedly hops down from the vehicle, as does the woman, and fastens the reins of the pony to a hitching post outside the entrance of the court. Rushing to the rear of the vehicle, the woman drops the tailboard, pulls aside a length of sackcloth and reveals Holmes, lying on his back, bound and gagged, in a stupefied state of semi-consciousness.
Warily glancing back and forth along the street, Bullen sidles up next to the woman and murmurs, “Quiet as a graveyard.”
Seizing Holmes by his ankles, Eliza Cooper scowls, “Make ’aste, will yer? Bogies don’t come down ’ere, but folks do.”
Sliding Holmes off the back of the cart and supporting him between them, the couple drag him through the entrance into the court. Reacting to an urgent knock at the door, Kosminski quickly turns the key in the lock, where Mary had left it previously. Tugging the door open, he steps to one side as a tense Bullen and Cooper brush past him, hauling Holmes into the darkened room.
Closing the door, but not locking it, Kosminski lights the candle on the table and motions to a chair in the corner of the room, “Yah, there, good.” Acting upon his instruction, Bullen and Cooper dump Holmes down on the chair. Placing his hand under Holmes’ chin, Kosminski raises his drooped head and passes the flame of the candle, from side to side, in front of his expressionless eyes, “Yah, ’e’ll come ’round, five t’ six ’ours.”
Slipping her shawl off her head down to her shoulders, Cooper smirks, “Then ’e’ll git a bleedin’ surprise, won’t ’e?”
Bullen catches sight of Mary lying on the bed, her head tilted to the left and towards him, “Her eyes, they’re open.”
Cooper quips, “Waitin’ t’ see wot ’appens next, ain’t she?"
Returning the candle to the table, Kosminski impatiently waves Bullen away with his hand, “Go, return cart.” He indicates Holmes, his head lolling, “T’morrow, bogies find ’im ’ere. Report wot yer see, an’ write it well.”
Eager to depart, Bullen nevertheless hesitates, “And?”
Cooper interjects, “Then yer git wot’s owed t’ yer, don’t yer?”
Bullen stares at Kosminski and motions to Cooper with his thumb, [365]“She your tongue?”
Kosminski begins to unwrap the oblong box on the table, [366]“Gelt, yah?”
Bullen nods, “Five hundred gold sovereigns, to be exact.”
Again, Kosminski waves him away with his hand, “Yah, yah. I pay. Go now, ’urry.”
Placated, Bullen steps to the door, then pauses. Taking a final look at Mary, he sighs ruefully, “Whilst greed exists, Marie Jeanette, the meek, such as yourself, shall never inherit the earth.”
Departing solemnly, he quietly closes the door behind him.
Cooper quickly turns the key in the lock and leaves it in place, [367]“’E ’as a slate missin’, if not the ’ole roof.” Stooping, she picks up Mary’s boots from the floor. Upending one boot, she shakes it, tosses the boot aside and then upends the other. Two shilling coins drop from the boot straight into the palm of her hand, [368]“Ol’ ’abit’s die ’ard, eh?”
Indicating the two brass rings Cooper wears on the index and middle fingers of her right hand, Kosminski sneers, “First yer nick from Chapman an’ now from Kelly. Yah, some ’abit’s do die ’ard.”
Ignoring his remark and clasping the coins in her hand, she pulls her shawl tightly around her shoulders, “Bleedin’ cold in ’ere, innit?”
Kosminski raises the lid of the polished mahogany box, revealing a scarlet velvet interior, inset with two Liston surgical knives. A third inset, which should contain yet another Liston knife, is without its instrument. Removing a small bottle, containing clear liquid, from the box and uncorking it, Kosminski sprinkles surgical alcohol over the three shirts, petticoat and bonnet left behind by Maria Harvey for Mary to sell. Stuffing two of the shirts into the sooty grate of the fireplace, he ignites the clothes with the flame of the candle, which suddenly blows out, extinguished by a downward draught of air from the chimney flue.
Standing, Kosminski places the candle upon the mantelpiece beneath a cheap print of ‘The Fisherman's Wife’, hanging on the wall. Reproduced from the oil-painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, the print depicts a solitary woman standing on a desolate beach with surf waves behind her. Wearing a cotton bonnet, a heavy woollen cape and a long skirt, the peculiarity of the woman is her face. She has no facial features. Her eyes, nose and mouth are missing. She is, in fact, utterly faceless.
Hogging the fire, Cooper raises the back of her skirt and begins to warm her buttocks, “Oooh, bliss. ’Eavenly bliss.”
/> Silently removing a knife from the box, Kosminski steps to the bed, pulls aside the blanket and, without further ado, slices open Mary’s throat.
Seeing blood ooze from the wound, Cooper shudders excitedly, “Yer ’ave time. Do ’er good an’ proper.” With the back of her skirt still raised, she steps to one side, allowing the light from the fire to illuminate Mary’s partially naked body.
Holmes lifts his head, his vision blurred. Staring at the sight before him, he attempts to concentrate, but with a modicum of success. Bizarre, ethereal images greet his eyes, distorting reality. He sees a woman lying on a bed, sound asleep. Stooped over her, a man wields a baton, similar to the conductor of an orchestra. Another woman, the front of her skirt raised before a fire, has her head grotesquely turned around in the opposite direction. She laughs hysterically. Flourishing the baton, the man tosses a rubbery object over his shoulder. Wet, yet warm, the object strikes Holmes in the chest and then drops to his lap.
Though severed from its vascular arteries, the heart, covered in blood, bizarrely continues to pulsate.
Mercifully, Holmes slips into unconsciousness.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Dawn has broken and, on this damp Friday, 9 of November morning, a ceremony, dating back to the 12th century, will unfold in the metropolis shortly after midday.
At approximately half past twelve, fifty-four-year-old alderman James Whitehead, newly appointed Lord Mayor of the City of London, will leave his office at Guildhall, close to the City of London Police headquarters in Old Jewry, and journey to the Royal Courts of Justice in Chancery Lane. Once there, and wearing his symbol of office, the ‘Collar of Esses’, a heavy chain consisting of twenty-eight golden emblems, each in the shape of the letter S, he will swear an oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria. Although Her Majesty has had no constitutional say in his appointment, she knows, however, it will only be for one year.
For the tens of thousands of people who will flock to witness the ceremony, particularly those from Whitechapel and neighbouring environs, it matters not to them who has been appointed the new Lord Mayor of London. What matters is pomp and circumstance, a colourful pageantry to brighten up their drab lives. At the direct request of James Whitehead, the ceremony this year will not be a frivolous carnival affair, which has been the case in the past, but a State Procession befitting a dignitary of notable eminence. He will travel in a gilded State Coach, preceded by footmen and flanked either side by yeomanry dressed as medieval pikemen.
Sherlock Holmes Murder Most Foul Page 30
