The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  Poor man! Being unable to Approach me by reason of my Exalted Station, he contrived a desprate plan to sasiate his violent thwarted passion. I pity him but cannot somehow bring myself to condem him for it. Yet if my pa were to hear of this he would see him transported or at least hung.

  When I contemplait what nearly occurred I fall into swooning. Be glad, Tilda, that you are unlikely to undergo such arrowing ordeals in Greta Bridge.

  I remain

  Yours and cetrer

  Fanny Squeers

  25 January 1838, Thursday Morning

  Oh Tilda,

  I am so dreadfully low. I must unburden myself; though I cannot expect you to comperhend the nature of my woe. I do not think anybody could unless it might be Helen of Troy or King Arthurs wife whose name I cannot recall at the moment but who also was the cause of great suffering because of her fatal beauty.

  My secret lover was not discouraged by the half brick, it seems. For some few nights after the Ball he has been seen several times around Salmon Lane, and in Catherine Street and on Bow Common. He is clearly haunting my path in hopes of beholding me once more. This is the consequence of passions feury denyed I suppose, that drives a man to madness, but of course I am staying in at night – it were worse madness to tempt him further. So all sorts of persons have been making kimplaint to the constables about a tall masked man who leapt out from the gloom of night to surprize them, only to assault them when he discovered they were not me. There has been a blacksmith, a Respectable merchant and two boys so attacked. The children in the Lane have taking to calling him Spring-Heel’d Jack.

  All this were misery enough for me to endure, knowing my accurst charms to be the cause of so much trouble. Judge then with what horror I learned the news late this morning that my poor Admirer is now also accused of Murder!

  You remember Mr Clement that I told you about, the prosprous gentleman who had a Ship Chandlery warehouse? He was the foremost of those who danced with me at the ball, and very pleasant and agreeable he was too, not so old for a man with so much money. Well he is dead! Stabbed through the heart, and left to waller in his own goar! It happened only last night. He and one of his partners had just left their counting-house in the Comercial Road and walked homeward. The partner (I think it was Mr Tacker) parted from him at Dalglish Street and was going on for he lives hard by St. Anns.

  Mr Tacker had not got far when he heard a shout coming out of Dalglish Street. “Here’s Spring-Heel’d Jack!” he thought it said. And following on this was a scream that he thought might be Mr Clement. He ran back and turned into Dalglish Street, only to see his friend laying dead there, weltering in blood! He looked all round but it was at a point where two lanes crossed and the Murderer might have run off in any direction. He raised the cry and the Police came but it was too late. They have arrested Mr Tacker as he was seen by the bleeding Corpse and there were no witnesses.

  But it is said by everybody that the real Murderer is Spring-Heel’d Jack, because there were two boot-prints in the mud by Mr Clement’s Corpse but none leading up to it nor away, and it is supposed only Jack can leap so. Whatever shall I do? Can I think that I am responsibble for this shocking crime by reason of my beauty?

  Be grateful, Tilda, that you will never bear such a weight on your conscience.

  I remain

  Yours and cetrer

  Fanny Squeers

  18 February 1838, Sunday Afternoon

  My dear Matilda,

  So much has happened since last I put pen to paper, I hardly Know where to begin. What news, you will surely ask, of Spring-Heel’d Jack? What of the Infamous Murder? Read on and see for yourself.

  You will recall I was sunk in woe at the thought that my dashing Admirer was guilty of so fowl a crime. Miss Bellman heard my tears and was so considerate as to ask what the matter was. Silly creature! As though it were not too plain. But I must not be unkind as she has no admirers and so no understanding of my grief. When I told her my fear she said it was certainly very queer that everyone said Spring-Heel’d Jack took such prodeejous leaps, when she had not seen him demonstrate any such power.

  I told her not to be a goose, because I myself had seen him Leap a wall at least ten feet high with but one bound. She replyed, that it wasn’t ten feet but only four or five at most. I grew quite cross with her until we went out and looked at the very wall and I saw that she was correct in her asertion. The late hour, the shadows of night and my mortal terror must have affected my apperhension of the scene.

  That was when the idea struck me like a Bolt from Heaven! What if some other person had designed to murder poor Mr Clement, perhaps for his money, and seezed the opertunety of all the uproar over Jack’s pranks to do it but make it appear as if it was Jack? I was convinced this was what had really happened and Knew then that I must go to the police, even at the risk of my good name, to explane things. If my Admirer were to be captured he would surely hang, unjustly, and my heart should break.

  So I took Miss Bellman with me to the Police Station and it was very unsatisfactry, you would think they would grant some creedence to a gentlemans daughter. So far from listening they were quite rude and positively jokular in their disbelief, but I determined not to leave the Station until I had some satisfaction. At last the Inspector called out a man of his, Constable Trumpiter, and bid him go out with us to look at the scene of the murder.

  This Trumpiter is a pleasant youth if rather common and listened very thoughtfully to me as we walked back to Dalglish Street. Miss Bellman would Keep interrupting me to explane things I should have thought were perfectly clear, but he heard her out without kimplaint. When we got to the scene of the murder I was in danger of swooning as there was still Blood in the street. Much of the area had been trampled over since the morning but we could still see the two boot prints in the mud by where the Corpse had layed.

  I told the Constable what I had seen with my own eyes, vizz that Spring-Heel’d Jack was only a man in a mask and could never have jumped over the houses to either side in the lane, never mind what foolish folk claimed, and that it were much more likely to have been Mr Tacker done him in after all and put the boot prints there a-purpose to deceive. For I do not think I mentioned it before but Mr Tacker is a sallow and ill-favoured sort of fellow, just what you would expect a Murderer to look like.

  “Why, Miss Squeers, I am glad you expianed,” said Constable Trumpiter. “You are perseptive to be sure. Only we are not certain of Mr Tacker’s gilt, because of the matter of the murder weppun.” I wanted to Know what he meant by that and he told me that the Dagger that made the fatal wound was nowhere to be found at the scene, nor did Mr Tacker have it on him, and he had had no place to hide it before the police came running into the lane in answer to Mr Tacker’s cries.

  “Why have you arrested him then?” said Miss Bellman, rather forwardly I thought. To which the Constable made reply that they had to arrest somebody or there would be Outcry, and in any case Mr Tacker might turn out to have done it after all. “But what about the murder weppun then?” she said. “Where is it?”

  Poor creature, she has no idea that a true lady is diferdent and unassuming and never speaks up like that. Poor Constable Trumpiter sighed and with a nice show of patience said we should search for it again, if she liked, but the police had already hunted pretty thoroughly. So we looked up and down Dalglish Street. “What horror,” you are perhaps saying, Tilda, “to chance upon a Goary Blade!” And well you might. Thankfully we did not find any such a thing, but I heard Constable Trumpiter and Miss Bellman exclaiming over something and when I run to see, they were looking at some footprints they found in a little lane which serves as a conexion between Dalglish and Magaret Streets.

  It was the prints of someone who had stood in his stocking feet hard by the wall. Constable Trumpiter showed me how they came up from the Comercial Road and it was plain where the man had stopped and pulled his boots off and stood a long time by the wall, for his prints was very plain there. Then the stocking p
rints ran out into Dalglish Street and vanished under all the treading down of the Policemens boots. The two boot prints by the blood was the very same as the ones of the man who was wearing them before he pulled them off to wait in his stockings! And we looked a little more and found the stocking prints running back into the little lane, and out into the Comercial Road again. And I saw there, just at the kerbstone, a tiny drop of Blood!

  So I said it was plain the Murderer had been hiding in the lane, took off his boots so as to run quiet, and waited till Mr Clement came along Dalglish Street, whereupon he run out and stabbed him, dropped his boots down so as to make the prints, yelled “Here’s Spring-Heel’d Jack!” then run back the same way he came. Constable Trumpiter looked at me with admiration in his eyes and said he supposed it happened just so. He has peticklely fine eyes.

  I then said what I thought, which was, that it might have been a Red Indian who slipped into the hold of some ship and traveled to England and crept out at Lime House, for they are supposed to delight in murder when it is least expected. But Miss Bellman said a Red Indian would be unlikely to know about Spring-Heel’d Jack. Which I suppose is true.

  Then Miss Bellman spoke up again and said she thought the murderer must have pitched the Bloody Blade in Lime House Basin. And it really seemed likely, because the last we could see of the prints before they dissapeared from being trampled by everyone in the Comercial Road, was that they seemed to be running for the Basin.

  Constable Trumpiter was very taken with my prespickiticity, I could see, but he remained silent a while as he walked back and forth, looking time and again on what we had found. At last he said, “It cannot have been a lunatic, for the deed was carefully planned; but who would want to kill Mr Clement?”

  And I replyed that it must have been Mr TacKer after all, that he might inherit all the Wealth of their business (for I knew Mr Clement was a bachelor, you may be sure I asked at the Ball before I danced with him).

  Miss Bellman said then that we ought to go speak with the prisoner, at which I very nearly swooned again at the mere idea but then thought better of it as he might confess the more readily if confronted by me with what I Know. And, you Know, Tilda, that though I am sensitive and shrink from unpleasantness, I can steal myself to face even Roaring Savages in matters of the heart.

  So Constable Trumpiter took us round to see the Wretch in his tank. He had been weeping, most unmanly. My blood boiled to see him there, and I was all for striking him and demanding the Truth, but Miss Bellman put herself foreward again and asked him to account for himself, rather timidly I thought. Mr Tacker asked the Constable whether he had to reply and the Constable said he had better, for we would not be denyed.

  Miss Bellman then asked Mr Tacker why he wept so, and he said “I am an innocent man”, and called on God to witness he had not murdered Mr Clement. She then asked him what had happened and he said that on Wednesday all had perceded as usual, except that at midday the younger partner Mr Johnson had gotten word that his mother was ill and left to rush to her bedside. So he, Mr Tacker I mean, had shut up the office at 6 o’clock and he and Mr Clement walked together along the Comercial Road as was their dayly custom. They parted at Dalglish Street like they always done and Mr Tacker walked on, suspecting nothing was amiss until he heard the shouting.

  I then asked him the question which was burning foremost, which was “Did you see a tall man in a cloaK, wearing a mask?” which he replyed that he had not done, indeed he had seen nobody but the deceesed lying there until the first policeman come running in answer to his cries for help. And Miss Bellman asked had he quarreled with Mr Clement and he said “No, never”.

  But I could ten he was seezed by some great fear, as I am peticklely good at noticing that, so I said a little roughly that he had better not lie, for Truth Will Out. And the Constable said too that all his affairs would be gone into to veryfy what he said, and Mr Johnson questioned as well.

  At which Mr Tacker blubbed again lite a baby and, throwing up his hands to Heaven, said “Oh, then it will all be Known” and told us that he had borrowed against the business funds but meant to pay it back, and would have done so already but for an enexplicable delay on the part of his corispondent.

  Constable Trumpiter looted very grave at that and went and asked his Superior to step in and listen. They made Mr Tacker explane. He said that some six months past he had gotten a letter from a very respectable Widow whose late husband was the Treasurer for a society of Frenchmen who were supposed to be Investers but really had secret plans to Overthrow the French Government. And when her husband had found this out he was horrorfied as well he might be and took the money and hid it in an account in the French Bank, meaning to transfer it to the Bank of England, but then the villains apperhended his plan and had him Asassinated. So his Widow was desprate to transfer the money and a mutual friend had recommended she write to Mr Tacker as an honest man. All he had to do was open a French Bank Account in his name with Six Hundred pounds and make her his signee on it so she could transfer the villains’ horde to his account and thence to an English account, in return for which Kindness to a lady she would give him half the sum, which amounted to Ten Thousand pounds in our money.

  Well I would have done the same if I was a gentleman but the Inspector and Constable Trumpiter were pleased to be humerous about the whole thing and thought it a great joke. I was sorry for Mr Tacker then and felt quite sure he had not done it after all. He got down on his knees and swore that the money would be replaced as soon as the French Widow wrote back to him, and that he was guilty of no other irregulerity and certainly not murder. For if Mr Clement had not untimely died it had never come to light. They told him that was for the Coroner to hear out.

  Constable Trumpiter asked him where Mr Johnson (that was the young partner) lived, as he must be questioned. He gave us an address in Foxes Lane. Then Constable Trumpiter saw us out and I said we must go round to Foxes Lane at once to speak to Mr Johnson, and Constable Trumpeter said we ladies could not possibly go there by ourselves as it is not in the best neborhood, and so offered to escort us. At which Miss Bellman simpered rather I am afraid. But I graciously thanked him and said we should be glad of the company.

  Miss Bellman chattered on as we walked, saying that if so great a booby as Mr Tacker had planned the murder, it had been extrornry. I thought that rather unfeeling of her. But Constable Trumpiter said he did not seem like much of a suspect now, still we would be surprized at the things he had seen in the Police. Whereon Miss Bellman, with rather too much artfulness, asked him to tell us please, whereupon he related several remarkable occurrences of Crime as we walked along. It is pity he is so common for he is rather clever, and very much the gentleman in his manners.

  We got to Foxes Lane and it was indeed no place I should care to go alone, very mean and low, and it fell out that Mr Johnson lived in a lodging-house there. Or I should say, had lived: for when we knocked the owner of the premises came and looked over the railings and said he was Cleared Out, having left Wendesday last. Which, you will remember, Tilda, was the day of the Murder!

  Constable Trumpiter looked very grave at that and said he must be let in to search. To which the owner responded with alackrity and I must say people do respect the police, they might almost be gentlemen.

  We found a bare mean room quite empty but for some few Items of Furnituer that went with the premises, the bed and washstand and a monstrous old Scotch chest. Miss Bellman went poking about whilst Constable Trumpiter spoKe to the owner and found out that Mr Johnson had not run off owing anything, indeed he had paid up and arranged for his trunk to be sent away two days before. And Miss Bellman looked at Constable Trumpiter as much as to say that that was odd since he had got the news about his Mother being ill only afterward on Wendesday. Constable Trumpiter asked where the trunk had been sent and the owner did not recall except it was to the village of H—.

  Just then Miss Bellman exclaimed, having been looking in the kimpartments in the Scotch Chest.
There was an envelop stuck in the back of one, that had slid down so only a corner was poking out, as perhaps it had been missed in a hasty removal. Constable Trumpiter came and tried to get it out but couldn’t pinch it hard enough and in the end I had to do it myself as my arm was siffishently slender enough to get back there and my fingers are quite strong when it comes to pinching.

  It was a letter addressed to a Mr Edmund Tollivere of Swan Cottage in H—. I opened it and read it at once and it was only from a servant telling him his grandfather was taking clear broth now and felt much better, and asking whether he wanted his books sent on. I thought it must be from some former lodger but Miss Bellman pointed out that the village was the same as where the trunk was sent. Also it was dated just last month.

  I saw plain that Mr Johnson must have been the murderer, or why would he be living under a false name and running off in such haste? I said as much to Constable Trumpiter, who agreed that it was highly suspicious.

  By this time it was quite late and so Constable Trumpiter escorted us back to Salmon Lane and we parted, with him promising to bring all this matter to the attention of the Inspector. I was sure my poor Admirer was out of danger of unjust persecution.

  Alas! I had not reckoned with Jack’s foolish persistence. That very night he surprized a carpenter walking home late and blew fire in his face, as well as kicked him pretty hard and trampled on him somewhat. Constable Trumpiter came round to see me next day looking greatly aggreeved, to say that a Degelation of Citizens had been to the police Station and demanded that Spring-Heel’d Jack must be brought to Justice. In consequence of which the Inspector would not listen to what we had found out about the mysterious Mr Johnson, but ordered all his men to extra duty after dark, and I gather made some insulting remarks to Constable Trumpiter as well. His fine eyes flashed with impatience as he spoke of it.