Sherlock Holmes Murder Most Foul (11 page)

Meekly, Fell steps to one side.

Politely raising his hat to Llewellyn, Watson accompanies Holmes to the door, “The man’s an imbecile, Holmes.”

Holmes quips, “It is not mandatory for some policeman to have a brain, Watson, just big feet.”

Stepping out of the mortuary into the yard, Holmes sombrely turns to Watson, “The murderer is no ordinary mortal, Watson.”

Looking across the yard and, seeing that Catharine has gone, Watson conceals a yawn with his hand, “I am apt to agree with you, Holmes. No person in their right senses would have committed such a heinous crime.”

Holmes inhales the fresh air, “You misunderstand me, Watson.”

Watson yawns again, “Don’t you ever get tired, Holmes?”

Holmes counters staunchly, “My dear fellow, an abomination is loose in Whitechapel and has slain two women. Can we permit fatigue to deny us the right to pursue and apprehend him?”

Watson wearily shakes his head, “Of course not, Holmes.”

Holmes indicates the wicket door, “There is one more place we must visit before we can retire for the day.”

Obtaining his second wind, Watson inquisitively stares at Holmes, “Two women, Holmes?”

Holmes begins to stroll towards the wicket door, “Yes, Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nichols.”

Watson thoughtfully pauses, “Of course, the woman murdered in George Yard Buildings.”

Holmes halts, turns and smiles, “Your memory serves you well, Watson.”

Watson jests, “You are not the only person in London who reads the newspapers, Holmes.”

Holmes chuckles and then beckons Watson, “Come, Watson. I believe the two crimes are connected.”

Watson musingly strolls towards Holmes, “Martha Tabram was brutally stabbed to death whereas Mary Ann Nichols was horribly mutilated. Medical evidence will therefore suggest that no proof exists to support the case that one man killed both women, Holmes.”

Holmes impatiently taps the ground with the tip of his walking cane, “The murderer, if truly a lone wolf, has still to perfect his modus operandi. And your conclusion is flawed, Watson. At least one fact demonstrates that one man committed both murders. Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nichols were both choked to death before their bodies were subjected to further injuries. Now, in your medical opinion, what does that reveal?”

Instantly understanding the significance of the question, Watson gasps, “Good Lord, Holmes! Asphyxiation arrests the heart, which stops the blood from being pumped throughout the body.”

Holmes nods in agreement, “Meaning that our murderer knew that once he had stopped the heart, he could slash away at the body with impunity, confident that he would not be saturated in blood.”

Anxiously scratching the side of his face, Watson queries, “But why the abdominal mutilations? If it had been a domestic quarrel or a robbery, then surely the cuts to the throat would have been enough?”

Holmes opens the wicket door, “My dear fellow, have we not agreed that strangulation was suffice? The murderer slew and mutilated these poor women in public places to draw the utmost attention to his crimes, which itself may signify something more than an insatiable bloodlust. Are we to believe that a depraved mind is arbitrarily slaying destitute women to satisfy an inner craving, or might the deaths of these women be part of an atrocious scheme devised for an entirely different purpose from the one we imagine? If the latter be the case, Watson, I foresee another murder and alas, quite soon, I fear.”

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Hurled across a ground-floor room from inside the small terraced property, a three-legged stool crashes through the window of the house, narrowly missing two startled elderly
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charwomen standing and chatting on the pavement in the street.

Frantically yanking open the grimy front door of the house and thrusting her head out into the cobbled street, forty-five-year-old Elizabeth Stride squeals, “’Elp! Murder! Police!”

From behind her, a dirty male hand, its skin torn by fingernail scratches, seizes the top of her curly dark brown hair and viciously jerks her back into the house, slamming the door shut.

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Born Elisabeth Gustafsdotter on 27 November, 1843, in the village of Stora Tumlehed, Sweden, Elizabeth Stride was the second eldest daughter in a family of four children, two girls, two boys. Her parents, Gustaf and Beata, had owned a small farmstead where they had raised crops, primarily potatoes, carrots, oats and wheat. An isolated village, Stora Tumlehed had been dominated by the Lutheran Church, which exerted strict control over the villagers, continually subjecting them to its religious dogma.

Hence, Elizabeth had spent her childhood and the greater part of her adolescence living in an extremely insular environment, until the age of seventeen.

Having grown restless and utterly bored with rural life, Elizabeth had moved to the vibrant city of Gothenburg in 1861, where she obtained a job as a domestic servant, looking after a divorced man, Lars Olofsson, and his offspring. In August 1864, her mother, aged fifty-four, had died of
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consumption and Elizabeth, who had recently drifted into prostitution, had become pregnant, no doubt by one of her transient clients.

The following year, Elizabeth had been officially registered as a professional prostitute by the Gothenburg police, a compulsory requirement under Swedish law, introduced to thwart the spread of contagious diseases. In April, she had given birth to a stillborn girl and then, four months later, had been admitted to the Kurhuset Hospital suffering with a chancre, a venereal wart which revealed the first stage of syphilis. Treated and purportedly cured, Elizabeth had been discharged from the hospital three weeks later.

In January 1866 and as bequeathed to her in her mother’s will, Elizabeth had inherited a modest sum of money, which she had promptly spent, buying a new wardrobe of clothes and purchasing a steamship ticket to England. Six months later, she had arrived in London. According to one story, probably generated by Elizabeth herself, she had turned up in the metropolis and, being adrift, had taken up with a foreign gentleman who, after wearying of her, had hired her out as a servant to a family living in Hyde Park.

Regardless of whether the story had been true or not, in 1869 she had met and married a forty-eight-year-old carpenter, John Stride, who lived at 21 Munster Street, Regents Park. Shortly after their marriage, the couple had moved to East London, where they ran a coffee shop in Poplar High Street. Though Elizabeth had by now acquired a habitual taste for alcohol and drank heavily, the couple had remained together for another twelve turbulent years.

Towards the latter end of 1881 and with her marriage now in ruins, Elizabeth had parted from John Stride and had entered the Whitechapel Infirmary, suffering from
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bronchitis. From there, she was admitted to a local workhouse, performing menial tasks, but more often than not, resorting to prostitution to etch out a meagre existence. Eventually weary of the puritanical code of behaviour demanded by the workhouse, Elizabeth had sought and found lodgings at 32 Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields, Whitechapel.

Three years later, on 24 October, 1884, John Stride had died of a heart disease, aged sixty-three. The following year, freed of her estranged husband, Elizabeth had taken up with a waterside labourer, Michael Kidney, lodging with him first at 33 Dorset Street, Spitalfields, and then moving east along the Commercial Road to 36 Devonshire Street, St. George’s-in-the-East, where they now live.

Seven years younger than Elizabeth, who is now aged forty-five, Michael Kidney is a volatile
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bruiser, capable of extreme violence when riled, especially if drunk. In April of last year, Elizabeth had astonishingly brought a charge against Kidney for assault, but no doubt fearing a reprisal from him, had failed to attend the Thames Magistrate Court to give evidence, leaving the police with no alternative but to drop the charge.

Known to her own kind as Long Liz, her height being slightly taller than the average woman, Elizabeth has a worn, pale complexion, grey eyes and is missing all the teeth in her lower left jaw.

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Throwing Elizabeth along the dingy passageway of the house and seeing her slam face-first into a wall, Kidney hollers, “Whore! Yer nothin’ but a filthy whore.”

Elizabeth slumps to the bare floorboards and, wiping blood from her nose with the back of her hand, spits, “Yah, so wot? Yer could ’elp a bit. Git some bleedin’ work, like.”

With the front door shut behind him, Kidney furiously stares at the fingernail scratches on the back of his hand. Further enraged, he unfastens a leather belt from his trousers, which are also held up by tatty shoulder braces.

Brandishing the belt, he advances towards Elizabeth, “I’m goin’ t’
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tan yer ’ide good this time.”

Frantic to find an avenue of escape, Elizabeth, on her hands and knees, scurries through a doorway into the back kitchen.

Kidney follows behind, repeatedly thrashing her on her backside with the belt, “If I’ve told yer once, I’ve told yer a dozen times. I’ll not ’ave yer steppin’ out wiv other
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blokes.”

Elizabeth shrieks in pain and, crawling beneath a large sturdy wooden table, finds partial protection from the stinging blows.

Unable to wallop her properly, and becoming more incensed, Kidney lashes out at the table with his belt, striking dirty cutlery and scraps of food from its surface, “Been t’ the ’ospital, I ’ave. Know wot they told me? I’ve a
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dose o’ the pox. Must ’ave got it from a whore, they said. Remind yer o’ someone, does it?”

Cowering beneath the table, Elizabeth sees a half loaf of stale bread, gouged by the buckle of the belt, drop to the floor in front of her. Quickly seizing the item, she clutches it to her bosom as if it were a child. Similar to the bread, a grilled kipper, partly wrapped in a piece of newspaper, is also dashed to the floor. For a second time, Elizabeth throws out her arm, grasps the fallen fish and, like the bread, holds it to her chest.

Frustratedly tossing aside his belt, Kidney stoops, grips Elizabeth by her ankles and drags her out from underneath the table. Since she is prone, he turns her over and, like a rag-doll, jerks her to her feet.

Staring at the food Elizabeth clutches, Kidney scowls, “Wot yer got there?”

Elizabeth shakily murmurs, “Me breakfast.”

Leaning forward, Kidney breathes in her face, “Wot yer say?”

Elizabeth shouts, “Me bleedin’ breakfast.”

Kidney sneers, “Where’s mine, then?”

Elizabeth defiantly cocks her head, “Git out there an’ earn it, like I did.”

Maddened by her remark, he swiftly reaches around the back of her head, grabs a handful of her hair and jerks her head back, “Look at yer, will yer? Not even
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ol’ Father Thames would ’ave yer.”

Summoning all her strength, Elizabeth quickly raises her leg and vehemently knees him in the groin.

Winded, Kidney blanches and, wrenching his hand away from the back of her head, drops both hands to his genitals.

Elizabeth shrieks and, letting the bread and fish drop to the floor, clamps both her hands behind her head, “Yer stupid bleeder! Yer torn ’alf me ’air out.”

Wheezing, Kidney slumps to the floor and, upon seeing that she is about to flee, extends an arm and grasps the hemline of her long skirt. Wildly kicking at him and partially dragging him across the floorboards towards the kitchen door, Elizabeth sees a bread knife, struck from the table, lying on the floor near her left foot.

Seizing the opportunity, she promptly bends, grabs the knife and then begins to furiously slash away at her skirt, mere inches above his clenched hand.

Glaring at her, he stammers, “Cut me an’ yer’ll be
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cat’s meat.”

Stretching her skirt, Elizabeth frantically slices through the fabric, ripping and tearing the cloth until Kidney is left clutching only a piece of it in his hand.

Freed from his grip and about to toss the knife aside, but fearful that he might retrieve the cutting instrument, she retains it and rushes from the kitchen.

With blood still seeping from her nose, Elizabeth darts along the passageway, pulls open the front door and abruptly halts, staring at a group of anxious people who, having been drawn to the noisy quarrel in the dwelling, are gathered on the pavement just outside the house.

Beside herself, Elizabeth shouts, “Don’t just stand there gawkin’! Fetch a copper!”

Leaping through the doorway, Kidney pounces on Elizabeth and propels her and himself towards the group of people, who instantly part, creating a gap through which the struggling pair pass as they stumble and fall into the street.

Inadvertently released by Elizabeth, the bread knife also clatters to the ground.

Having concluded his duties at the mortuary and been ordered back on his beat, Police Constable George Allen is pushed to the forefront of the onlookers who now begin to encircle Elizabeth and Kidney sprawled upon the cobbled-stone surface of the street, grappling with each other.