“I wish I did,” sighed Lestrade. “As you say, the body was the only thing out of the ordinary, as it were.”
“And the body?” prompted Holmes.
“Something over thirty years of age,” said Dr. Llewellyn, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. “She had brown hair and was missing several of her front teeth, but that characteristic did not seem to be a recent development. Nearly all of her was still warm, save her extremities. Her throat was savagely slashed two times. She may as well have been decapitated. Apart from her throat, I found her upper body to be completely intact, but the lower—she was ripped apart, Mr. Holmes. Her skirts were raised up to reveal the torso, and savage cuts penetrated her lower abdomen, exposing the internal organs.”
I regarded the doctor with dismay, but for Holmes, shock remained secondary to professional absorption. “Her chest was unharmed, you say? Surely her garments, at least, were soiled with blood?”
“She was wearing a brown frock, and I assure you it was entirely free of stain.”
“If that is the case, she was prostrate before the wound to her neck was administered. Where is she now, Lestrade?”
“At the morgue. Name of Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols, identified by a friend from Lambeth Workhouse who calls herself Mary Ann Monk. Mark of the workhouse was on the petticoats, which led us to seek identification there. Shabby clothing, black bonnet, and she had on her person a comb, pocket handkerchief, and a piece of mirror. More than likely it’s all she had to her name.”
“What do you imagine the time of death to have been, Dr. Llewellyn?”
“I arrived at three fifty a.m. She could not have been dead more than ten minutes.”
“And the gruesome discovery was made by whom?”
“One Charles Cross, a carman on his way to work,” said Lestrade as he consulted his notes. “In my opinion, he’s merely a passerby. Poor chap was terrified. Constable Neil arrived on the scene shortly after and sent for Dr. Llewellyn here, hoping to save her. It was too late by that time, of course.”
We sat silent as the wind picked up. I wondered briefly whether Polly Nichols’s family knew of her hideous fate, and then whether she had any family to tell.
“Lestrade,” Holmes said finally, “has the force had any luck in clearing up the murder of Martha Tabram early this month?”
Lestrade shook his head perplexedly. “The inquest has just been reopened. I was not myself working on the case, but we’re all of the mind it was a tryst gone terribly wrong. Good Lord, Mr. Holmes, you don’t think these events could have been connected in any way?”
“No, certainly not. I’ve merely the professional certainty that two such outrageous crimes committed ten minutes’ walk apart from each other is remarkable enough to note.”
Dr. Llewellyn rose and reached for his hat. “I am very sorry I have not more to tell you gentlemen. I’m afraid I must return to my practice, as my patients will be wondering what has become of me.”
“Be so good as to leave your card, Dr. Llewellyn,” said Holmes, shaking his hand absently.
“Of course. The best of luck to all of you. Do let me know if I can be of any further assistance.”
After Dr. Llewellyn’s departure, Lestrade turned a grave face to Holmes.
“I don’t like your harping on Martha Tabram one bit, Mr. Holmes. Surely the same man couldn’t have fallen out with both these women? More likely Polly Nichols was killed by a jealous lover, or a gang, or one of her clients who’d fallen into a drunken rage.”
“You are probably right. However, I beg that you will humour me far enough to fill me in on the details of both crimes.”
Lestrade shrugged. “If Tabram is of interest to you, of course I’ve no objection. It shouldn’t be difficult for me to gather up the papers. I can have them for you this afternoon.”
“I shall cast an eye over the evidence immediately.”
“You have full access, Mr. Holmes—just mention my name at the morgue or at the crime scene. I shall see you both at the Yard.” The inspector nodded and made his way out.
My friend crossed to the mantelpiece, shook a cigar out of an empty bud vase, and commenced smoking with the deepest absorption. “This Tabram murder is a very curious affair,” he commented.
“You mean the Nichols murder?”
“I mean precisely what I say.”
“You thought little enough of it before, Holmes.”
“I expected every morning to read that they’d solved it. Men do not often stab helpless females thirty-nine times and then disappear into the ether. The motive behind such an outrageous act would necessarily be sensational.”
“And such women necessarily have a great many associates, most of them untraceable,” I pointed out.
“That is obvious,” he retorted. “It is also obvious that the district of Whitechapel offers a great many natural advantages to the predator. Once the sun has fallen, you can hardly see your hand before your face, and the slaughterhouses allow blood-spattered men to pass without remark. What is less obvious is whether we have anything to fear from the proximity, in place and in time, of the two deaths.”
“It is certainly a distressing coincidence.”
Holmes shook his head and reached for his walking stick.
“One viciously maimed corpse is distressing. Two is something else entirely. I fear we have not a moment to lose.”
CHAPTER TWO The Evidence
The body of Polly Nichols clearly demanded our immediate attention, so we at once made our way by cab to the mortuary shed at Old Montague Street Workhouse Infirmary. As we clattered roughly toward the East-end of London, the buildings grew steadily smaller, their facades coated with decades of sooty atmosphere. When we reached Whitechapel Road, however, I was struck as always by the headlong commotion of the place. A preacher stood shouting at a knot of jeering locals, fighting to wrest their attention from a gin palace on the one side and an equally vociferous peddler of men’s work shirts on the other. Light and dust sparkled from the backs of loaded hay-wains, and dead cattle swung from hooks above carts filled with fresh hides. But despite the thriving dynamism of its widest thoroughfares, I never failed to be shaken by the misery evident as we turned off the main road into narrow, shop-lined byways and passed snarling youngsters fighting over a street corner from which to sell matches, and staggering drunks of both sexes propped against doorframes in the early afternoon.
The mortuary shed was by its very nature a dismal place, frequented only by those whose sole recourse was to indenture themselves to the parish disposing of human remains, and characterized by its utter unsuitability as a medical facility. Lestrade had sent warning of our imminent arrival, so immediately upon locating the hodgepodge of wooden slats, we witnessed firsthand the sight that had so upset Dr. Llewellyn.
Across the crude wooden slab of an examining table lay a woman slightly more than five feet tall. Though her face was small-featured with high, merry cheekbones and a sensitive brow, it was etched deeply with the coarseness of care and toil. Her neck was indeed nearly severed and her abdomen opened in bestial, purposeless lacerations.
I began to inquire whether anything stood out to Holmes’s sharper eye, but suddenly he dived toward the corpse with a cry of impatience.
“We have arrived too late after all! It has been washed, Watson,” he exclaimed. “Most obtusely and effectively washed.”
I nodded. “It is a common enough practice, as you know. Some even argue one cannot see the wounds effectively otherwise.”
Holmes practically snorted. “I tell you, Watson, if Scotland Yard were to reimburse my time for retrieving every clue lost due to negligence or hysterical hygiene, I could no doubt retire this afternoon. As it is, I am forced to glean the leavings. Do you observe anything Dr. Llewellyn may have missed, being less intimately acquainted with the criminal element than you yourself?”
