hansom, “but I would not have missed it. It is a far queerer matter than it appeared on the surface. As Lestrade has been at pains to remind us, these murders are in no way linked. But consider that in the case of Nichols, we have a killer who is exceedingly eager to cut women apart after they are dead, and in the case of Tabram, a killer so dedicated to the idea that he puts away his murder weapon to begin coolly stabbing his victim.”
“What can we do?”
“I must consider the options at hand. After all, we do not yet know these women. Speaking with their friends and loved ones may prove very profitable indeed.”
“We will at least learn more than we did this morning.”
Holmes nodded. “It was most peculiar. We unearthed no immediate alleys which demand investigation. I suppose I shall have to invent my own.”
CHAPTER THREE Miss Mary Ann Monk
The next morning I completed my ablutions quickly, as I could just make out voices emanating from downstairs. When I entered the sitting room, I found Holmes leaning against the sideboard with his hands in his pockets as he conversed with a man whose general appearance spoke of neither good hygiene nor good spirits.
“Ah, Watson,” cried my friend. “I was about to fetch you, as we have an important caller. May I present to you Mr. William Nichols of Old Kent Road, a repairman of printer’s machinery, if his fingertips had not already declared as much to you.”
Our guest was a weathered fellow of middle height with sly blue eyes and bushy grey side-whiskers. A tremor in his strong, ink-stained hands informed me he was quite disturbed by recent events.
“Do be seated, Mr. Nichols, and accept our condolences regarding your wife’s death. I have no doubt but that, despite the earliness of the hour, Dr. Watson would be happy to prescribe you something fortifying. You have had a most trying ordeal.”
I poured Mr. Nichols a brandy and led him to the settee. He drank slowly from it, then turned back to Holmes.
“I’ve not tasted a drop in years,” he confessed, “for I knew the ill of it. Polly Walker was a sweet girl in her youth, and no one knows it better than I do. But as for her drinking, and her other vices…Polly Nichols turned into a bad sort, gentlemen, make no mistake about that.”
Holmes shot me a look and I located my notebook. “Mr. Nichols, if it would not be too terribly painful for you, I should like you to tell me all you can about your late wife.”
He shrugged. “There’s nothing I can say as will do any good. I hadn’t seen the woman in over three years.”
“Indeed? You were utterly estranged?”
Mr. Nichols pursed his lips, considering his words. “I’m no angel, Mr. Holmes, and I’ve my own mistakes to pay for…There was another woman, and Polly took on about it to the point of packing up her things and running off. I’ll say as much only because you’re said to know things you oughtn’t. But it was good riddance, so far as I was concerned. Polly more often than not had a drop in, and when she did, the children and I suffered for it. We had five, Mr. Holmes, and I think sometimes it was a strain on her. She wasn’t the mothering kind. When she left for good, I supported her for a year, but I cut off her allowance when I learned what she’d become.”
“I see. But what of the children?”
“Oh, I’ve care of the little ones, Mr. Holmes. I’d not let her lay one filthy hand on them once she’d set her course in that direction.”
“So you dissolved all contact with her, being yourself a man of unimpeachable moral character?”
I worried lest Holmes’s dig might offend Nichols, but our visitor merely answered gruffly, “She contacted me, all right, Mr. Holmes. She tried to cozen the authorities into forcing her maintenance money out of me. But they saw I didn’t deserve the keeping of her, common baggage that she was. She went from man to man and workhouse to workhouse. None of them kept her long. I’m sorry to say it, Mr. Holmes, but her death was less of a shock than it should have been.”
Holmes raised a single eyebrow coldly as he lifted the tongs and lit his pipe with an ember from the fire. “I should at least have thought the manner of her death would give pause to her kith and kin.”
At this, Nichols paled slightly. “Yes, of course. I’ve seen her. I would not wish that end on anyone.”
“I am very gratified to hear it.”
“It’s a hard push for me, though. I daresay it will cost me for the funeral, her dad not being well off and she without a penny to her name.”
“Yes, yes, I am sure it is a very trying time for you. You know of no enemies, nor of any further information which might aid us in our inquiries?”
“Polly’s only enemy so far as I could see was gin, Mr. Holmes,” replied Nichols with a knowing look.
“However, as I am sure you will agree, gin unfortunately was not responsible for her death,” returned Holmes with some asperity. “And now, Mr. Nichols, I must devote my entire energies toward my thoughts and my pipe, so you will forgive me if I bid you good morning.”
After I had shut the door upon Mr. Nichols, my friend exclaimed, “A nice spouse, Watson. He has at least absolved himself as a suspect. Crimes of jealousy require a measure of regard for the victim.”
“He seemed more shaken by the cost than by the death of his wife.”
Holmes shook his head philosophically. “It is not difficult for me to envision Polly Nichols’s flight from his establishment. If she was everything he says she was, they must have made a charming pair.” He set his lit pipe on the mantel and made for his bedroom.
“And what is the agenda for today?” I called out, helping myself to the egg and tomato Mrs. Hudson had sent up on the silver breakfast tray.
Holmes emerged donning his frock coat and adjusted his collar in the mirror above the fireplace. “I shall devote myself to Lambeth, my boy, and the pursuit of those who were actually acquainted with the deceased at the time of her death. Miss Mary Ann Monk identified Nichols, and so to her we must appeal. Have you any appointments?”
“I have canceled them.”
“Then finish your eggs while I call for a cab. The undiscovered country of Lambeth Workhouse awaits.”
As we rattled up to the front gates of Lambeth Workhouse, I had the distinct impression our destination was a prison, not a charitable facility to aid the plight of London’s poor. The autocratic structure, with its grey facade and absence of any grounds whatever, silently proclaimed its total devotion to severity and order. We were shown in by the angular Miss Shackelton, who informed us that Miss Monk was indeed availing herself of the shelter afforded by the workhouse, that she was far too given to drink, that she gave herself airs, that she was clever enough when she wished to be, that she would come to a bad end if not careful, and that she was to be found picking oakum in the common room down the hall.
As we walked down the featureless corridor, I caught glimpses of row upon row of cots suspended from poles in the common sleeping areas. We eventually reached a wide room filled with women young and old dressed in cheap workhouse-issue uniforms who were pulling apart old ropes to reuse what hemp fibers could be salvaged. Holmes made inquiries, and an overseer soon delivered to us Mary Ann Monk, with instructions we were to take her into the front parlour for questioning.
“Here, then. What do you toffs want me for?” demanded Miss Monk, upon our arrival in a cramped but well- furnished sitting area. “If it’s to do with Polly, I ain’t seen nothing more than what I said already.”
Far from the downtrodden creature I had expected to encounter in those hateful surroundings, we were confronted by a diminutive young woman whose radiant eye and smooth neck led me to think she could not be above five and twenty. She was very slim, though she appeared even thinner in the ill-fitting clothing issued her, her hair escaping its bounds in thick black spirals and her hands raw from the chafing of the rough rope she’d been picking apart. Her skin was greatly freckled with the effects of our brief London summer, and she had such an air of
