readiness about her, of good humour in her green eyes mixed with open challenge in her set shoulders, that I could not help but think that her friend’s killer was lucky not to have chosen Miss Monk as his victim.
Holmes smiled sympathetically. “Do sit down, Miss Monk. My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and partner, Dr. Watson. We are aware of our imposition, but we would very much appreciate your recounting the details of your relationship with Mrs. Nichols.” The detective offered her his hand to help her into a chair.
Miss Monk laughed outright at this display of courtesy. “Well, if you don’t mind sitting down with a girl of my character, I’ve no objection. You’re no cops…I can tell by your shoes. All right, then, lads. What are you on to, and what the devil have I to do with it? I chummed about with Polly for a year or more, but that don’t mean I can tell you who done her in.”
Miss Monk’s careless manner did not shield from me her obvious regard for her friend, for as she finished, her eyes meandered over the worn Persian carpet beneath our feet.
“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Nichols before her death, Miss Monk?”
“I was out of the workhouse last week for four days and saw her at the Frying Pan. We had a drop or two, she met a gent, and I went on my way.”
“Do you know where she was living at that time?”
“She’d used to live in Thrawl Street, but two of the judies she shared digs with couldn’t cough up ha’pence between ’em for three nights running, so of course they were chucked out. Polly had slept rough before, but she knew if the law caught her in a park, she’d wind up back here straightaway, so she took a berth at the White House on Flower and Dean. They don’t take exception if a woman brings a friend home with her, if necessary.”
“What sort of woman was Mrs. Nichols? Did she have enemies you are aware of?”
Miss Monk sighed and tapped her severely abused man’s work boot against the chair leg. “Not a one. Polly weren’t the sort to have enemies. She swept her doss room and she kept herself tidy and she always had a kind word when she was about. She was a real good sort, Mr. Holmes, but you may as well know she was in the drink as often as she was out of it. Couldn’t bear the workhouse for more than a week at a time before the lack of gin and lack of food got to be too much for her. I don’t suppose you know it, but Polly took up as a maid in Wandsworth not long ago. She had her room and board all settled like and thought she’d get on well enough. But they were religious types, Mr. Holmes, and by the time she’d been without a drop for two months, she finally cut clear of the place.”
“You learned this from Mrs. Nichols?”
“It was plain enough to see,” she answered. “She’d a new frock, but no doss money. I soon had it out of her. She vamped the togs the next day.”
“When she had run through the money from pawning the dress, she then returned to the workhouse?”
“The workhouse,” Miss Monk returned amusedly, “as well as other means of employment what every woman has at her disposal.”
“Quite so. And, to your knowledge, there is no reason why anyone would have wished her death?”
At this our companion flushed vividly and replied, “Wish her death? That ain’t the way of it, Mr. Holmes. We all of us takes our risks to keep aboveground in the Chapel. ’Twon’t be long before I’ve had enough of Lambeth and shoved off myself. We’re not allowed so much as a match, gents, nor a scrap of cloth or mirror, nor even our own water for washing, begging your pardon. I’ll take to the streets again soon, same as Polly did. And when I does, I’ll take the same chances. There’s blokes in these parts would kill you soon as kiss your hand.”
Holmes replied gently, “Should you ever in the future encounter such a man and wish to be rid of his company, I hope you will contact me. I only meant to inquire whether Mrs. Nichols was ever molested by a particular person, or if there was anyone of whom she was afraid.”
My friend’s words and the sincerity with which he spoke them soon had the desired effect upon his subject. Releasing a laboured breath and twisting her hands in her lap, Miss Monk replied, “I don’t know nothing about it, Mr. Holmes, but Lord knows I wish I did. Killing Polly wouldn’t serve no one. Only the devil would do such a thing.”
I found myself inexplicably moved by Miss Monk’s words, even jagged and rough as they were. There was something in the line of her jaw which demanded respect even as it defied judgment.
“Here is my card, Miss Monk,” said Holmes as he rose to leave.
“What use is it to the likes of me?”
“Tut, tut, you can read as well as I can, Miss Monk. When you entered the room, your eyes skimmed that deeply inspirational quote so delicately embroidered and mounted upon the wall. Verse three of the Beatitudes, if I am not mistaken. The eyes of an illiterate are never drawn to text.”
“Very well,” she acknowledged, smiling, “and what shall I do with it?”
“If any detail returns to your memory, or if you find yourself worried over anything to do with the matter, please let me know.”
She laughed, following us as we moved out into the hall. “Shall I send my man round with the message? Or come myself in the carriage and four?”
Sherlock Holmes put a finger to his lips and tranquilly handed her a crown. “If you manage to hide this from the matron,” said he, opening the heavy outer door and descending the steps into the open air, “and fail to spend it upon any other diversions, you’ll have the ability to wire me whenever you feel it necessary. Good afternoon, Miss Monk.” So saying, he extended his hand.
“You’re a strange one, you are,” she declared as she shook the detective’s hand. “You’re a private ’tec, ain’t you? I’ve seen your name in the papers. Well, as you’ve naught else to go on, I’ll leastways tell you who we spend our days avoiding. Goes by the name of Leather Apron. I’d not be caught in a dark alley in his company, make no mistake.”
When we had passed beyond the forbidding ironwork dividing the workhouse from the road, I could not help observing, “She seems a very intelligent young woman.”
I had expected Holmes, who regarded females solely as unpredictable and vexing factors in his criminal equations, to dismiss my remark entirely. Instead he replied with an amused look, “You are the connoisseur of femininity, my dear fellow. Still, she has an eye for trivia and a memory to repeat it. In addition, she has an intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood, and associations which could aid us if she decides to make use of them.”
“Is that the reason you enabled her to contact you?”
“Her natural talent for observation could prove very useful. I would rather have ten of her than fifty of Scotland Yard.”
“I should not like Lestrade to hear you say that.” I laughed.
“My dear fellow, I assure you I meant no offense.” Holmes chuckled in return. “The good inspector has many fine qualities to recommend him, as does Miss Monk, it seems clear. However, I would venture to say that it is unlikely that any of them overlap.”
The funeral of Polly Nichols took place at Little Ilford Cemetery, on the afternoon of September sixth. The day was a fittingly inclement one, the skies mourning the dead with a profusion of rain. I learned that Mrs. Nichols’s father, children, and estranged spouse attended, though few other people presented themselves: as many mourners who had known the deceased as members of the public who had come solely to remark upon the lurid manner of her death.
Minor business matters required my presence at my bank that day, though it was only with the greatest reluctance that I left the comforts of our sitting room. I returned to Baker Street thoroughly soaked to find Holmes at our table, a newspaper at his fingertips and a cup of tea in his hand.
“There is an air about you which positively cries out for refreshment, my dear Watson,” he hailed me. “Allow me to pour you a cup. There are developments upon the Leather Apron front. Miss Monk was by no means wrong in her expectation that suspicion would fall upon this rascal.”
“Yes, I spied a description of him in yesterday’s
“I have it here. Hum! Short, thickset, late thirties, black hair and moustache, thick neck. The remainder hardly rests upon a firm bed of fact: silent, sinister, and repulsive. You can see that the press are already indulging in gleeful and inventive adjectives. Half the article is unmitigated conjecture.”
“Do you lend any credence to the matter?”
“Well, even given the natural hysteria of the journalistic world, it bears investigating. I may as well own, Watson, that my other lines of inquiry have proven quite barren. Polly Nichols was turned away from her doss house upon the night in question but seemed confident of earning her pennies, as she had a new black bonnet. She went
