Associates of Sherlock Holmes

PEELER Nick Kyme

I’ve seen things in my line of work. The things that man is capable of. True evil. Monsters. London teems with them. Sometimes I think this city has been made for them, not us, not the folk who hold the thin blue line against this tide, and those that aid us, men like him. I had thought myself a detective until I met him. Only then did I realise just how inept I must seem to one who possesses such intellect.

I want to save this city, but she is suffering from a grievous malady. I can smell it in every Whitechapel corpse and every swollen cadaver I’ve dredged from the Thames. I remember every trial, but none so vividly as the “Peeler”.

A man was lying face down in an alleyway just off the corner of Lime and Leadenhall Street. I noted the time on my pocket watch, then looked up into a sky the colour of slate.

He was a rough fellow, judging by his attire. I could see it even through the window of the hansom cab. Worn shoes, faded porter’s uniform with shabby broad and piping, but corpulent enough to suggest he was far from destitute.

I met Metcalfe as I left the cab, his face as grim as the morning.

“Good morning, Inspector,” he said with a nod.

“It’s far from good, Sergeant.” I looked past Metcalfe’s shoulder. A light but unceasing rain had been falling since the early hours – I knew, because it had kept me awake – and the two constables, Cooper and Barrows, standing at the north and south facings of the street corner wore police cloaks to keep off the drizzle. Through a rising mist encouraged by a morning sun struggling amidst the grey, I saw two more men, neither of whom were Scotland Yard.

“How long has he been here?”

Metcalfe didn’t turn. He had enough about him to realise who I meant. “Arrived not long after we did, sir.”

A man was down by the body, crouched, but careful not to kneel on the wet road. He wore a dark woollen Ulster, scarf and leather gloves. The other remained standing, the rain trickling off the brim of his hat and onto his pale brown overcoat as he looked on.

“Keep him out, next time,” I said. “Keep them both out.”

Metcalfe nearly looked down to his boots, but to his credit met my gaze. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. He said he was consulting on a case.”

I pushed on past the sergeant, resigned to the credulity of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. “Of course he did. Just keep anyone else out, or I’ll have your hide.”

Sherlock Holmes didn’t bother to look up as he heard me approach, though his companion, the doctor, gave me the courtesy of slightly tipping his hat.

“Tell me, Lestrade, what do you see?” asked Holmes, who had yet to touch the body, I now realised, but observed it intently. He had a narrow, studious face, with a thin, patrician nose and gaunt features. His eyes were always alert. I had never known them to be otherwise.

“I see murder, Mr Holmes, and a man interfering in police business.”

“Now, look here–” Dr Watson began, upset at my boldness, but stopped short at his friend’s raised hand. The good doctor was well groomed as always, though with a little more grey in his coiffed moustaches.

“Watson, if the good inspector wishes to admonish himself for interfering in his own duties by interrupting me, then we should allow him to avail himself of the lesson.”

“Amusing, Holmes,” I said, pulling up my collar as the rain grew heavier. I let him do his work, for as much as the man irritated me in his manner, I had never in all my experience met a keener or more accomplished mind. “What should I see?”

“For a start, you have not complimented Dr Watson on his fine attire. From Savile Row, no less. Isn’t that right, Doctor.”

“Holmes…” said Watson. I heard the warning in his tone but also noticed the doctor’s fine tailoring. “Only the gloves are new,” he confessed.

“Look expensive,” I muttered, ruefully.

“A flutter on the ponies, wasn’t it Watson? A rare triumph?”

Watson’s cheeks reddened. “Holmes!”

To this day, I cannot fathom how the doctor puts up with him.

“Enough games, Holmes,” I told him, “what have you found?”

“In the first instance, this,” he said, removing something from Goose’s person and holding it up to the meagre light.

“A key?” I said.

“Well observed, Inspector, though the question is: what does it open?”

It was small, and made of brass, though had little to distinguish it.

“Is that it, then?”

Holmes’s mood darkened. “Far from it, Inspector. I see a workhouse porter and a curious predilection, I believe.” He stood, looking down grimly at the man. “Lestrade, if your constable would be so kind as to turn over the body…”

I nodded to Metcalfe and he reluctantly crouched, kneeling in the blood that had pooled around the man’s head. Made heavy by death and his sodden clothes, the corpse proved difficult for Metcalfe to turn but when he finally did, he gagged.

I felt a coldness seep into my gut in that moment that even my outrage could not thaw.

Metcalfe gasped. “Good Lord in heaven…”

The man had no face. His skin had been completely removed and only the red, glistening muscle remained.

“What is this, Holmes?” I asked, surprised that I rasped the words.

“Something foul, I fear, Inspector.”

I almost dared not ask: “A devotee? Inspired by Whitechapel?”

“No, Inspector,” said Holmes, “I think not. The victim, the method… this is altogether something else.”

“Are there no depths to which man’s depravity will not stoop?” said Watson. “Holmes, what need could one have for flesh taken in such a manner?”

“That, Watson, is something I intend to find out.”

I returned to Scotland Yard in a Black Maria with the body. Holmes and Watson followed, but only after Holmes had lingered to make his observations. Diverted as I was by preliminary paperwork, both were waiting for me as I entered the morgue.

Holmes remained in the corner of the room throughout, swallowed in shadow like some wraith, a plume of pale blue smoke issuing from his short briar pipe. He leaned against the wall casually, though I could see little cause to behave thusly, and I was reminded again of how unlike anyone else Holmes is.

“Inspector,” said Watson, standing by the slab where the faceless man now lay. A veil had been placed over the remains of his face so as to conceal his grim affliction, though the rest of his body was naked and stitched from clavicle to sternum.

“Jeremiah Goose,” I said, reading from the report I had been in the middle of compiling. I had sent several constables out to canvas the streets where the murder took place, and someone had seen and recognised Goose but had not borne witness to the deed that had sent him to the morgue.

“A porter at the Alderbrook Workhouse on Lower Thames Street,” said Holmes, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “I would say I knew him by his face, but that would be mildly indelicate given Mr Goose’s current disposition.”

“Heaven forefend you come across as indelicate, Mr Holmes,” said I, turning to Watson. “What do you make of the pathologist’s report, Doctor?”

“A single blow, just forward of the right temple,” said Watson. He gestured to the point where the skull had been cracked open. “Killed him instantly.”

“What else?” asked Holmes.

“The blow came from the front, so the killer was facing his victim. The pathologist found no defensive wounds, no bruising or lacerations of any kind, and neither can I, so we can assume our victim knew his attacker or had no cause to believe he was in danger.”

“Indeed,” muttered Holmes, “and you Lestrade? Have you any morsel to offer towards our understanding of what transpired?”

“A single blow, you say, Doctor?”

Watson nodded.

“Then the killer must be a man of not inconsiderable size and, presumably, height. Mr Goose must be…”

“Six foot, five inches and approximately one hundred and ninety-eight pounds,” said Watson, consulting the pathologist’s report. “A large man.”

“So we might assume our killer was at least as large, if not larger,” I said. “But why take this poor wretch’s face?”

“Why, indeed,” said Holmes.

“We’ll learn little more from Mr Goose, I think.”

“I would have to agree,” said Watson.

I nodded, swallowing back the bitter tang of ammonia itching the back of my throat. “Well, I don’t know about you gents, but I need some air.”

I have neither the inspiration of Holmes nor the education of Watson, but I am still an inspector of Scotland Yard, and what I might lack in cognitive faculty I more than make up for in a dogged determination to see justice prevail.

With nothing further to learn from Jeremiah Goose’s body, I fell back on police work. Whilst Holmes and Watson departed the Yard to conduct their own investigations, I took Metcalfe, Cooper and Barrows to follow up on the one lead I knew we had.

But by the time we got to Lower Thames Street, Alderbrook Workhouse was already burning.

The old building had gone up like dry tinder, the smoke visible across the Thames as far as Leathermarket. Six engines circled the blaze, the firemen struggling to contain it. I saw a constable too, no doubt alerted by the shouts of passers-by, but he was on the other side of the fire and I only saw him through the heat haze. Something about his manner seemed odd, the way he just looked on at the flames, but then what else could we all do?

I stood, my officers beside me, and watched as whatever evidence may have been contained within was destroyed by the conflagration. I felt the fire on my face, such was the sheer heat, and pressed a handkerchief against my nose and mouth to keep out the smoke.

“There’ll be nothing but a gutted ruin once this is done,” remarked Metcalfe. I smelled something other than smoke too, and knew that not everyone within had escaped.

“What now, Inspector?”

I didn’t answer straight away. Unless Holmes has found some further thread that he had yet to avail me of, I had no further leads to follow. “Question everyone at this scene,” I told them. “Get help if you need to.” I looked for the constable I had spotted earlier but couldn’t see him through the smoke. “I’m off back to the Yard.” I was angry at my own impotence and the knowledge that I was at the mercy of the killer, my only choice to wait until he killed again.

As it turned out, I did not have to wait long.

Unlike the first murder victim, the dead girl was lying on her back, not far from the Fenchurch Station, but in kind with the first, her skin had been flensed off. By the time I arrived, four constables were warning off the riffraff and Sergeant Metcalfe met me as before.

“Have you sent someone for Holmes?” I asked immediately.

Dragged to a side street cluttered with refuse and punctuated by the back entrances of shops and emporiums, the dead girl looked like she had tried to put up a struggle. She’d been hidden, at least partly, a dirty blanket laid across her legs and abdomen.

More blood this time. Less skin, though. The flesh of the shoulders and upper chest was missing. Her arms too.

Metcalfe could scarcely bring himself to look at her. He nodded. “All right,” I said. “On your way for now.”

Gratefully, Metcalfe went to marshal the constables whilst I got a better look at the girl. She wore a red velvet dress with a low neckline to expose the bust and shoulders. Her boots were also velvet, though in a darker red, closer to crimson, and she had a small hat with a black veil that had stayed pinned in place in spite of her violent death.

Her eyes were still open, frozen in her last moments, and I reached over to close them.

“God give us strength…”

Gradually it dawned on me, I knew her, you see, or rather knew of her. I had seen her face plastered around the East End and farther afield.

“Molly Cavendish.” I turned and saw Holmes standing a few paces back, the doctor a respectful distance behind him.

“Did you ever hear her sing, Mr Holmes?” I asked. “She had quite the voice.”

“And all of the East End shall mourn her loss, I am sure, but this is most curious…” Holmes approached to begin his examination.

“You are a cold man, Holmes,” I said.

“No, Lestrade,” he replied. “I am engaged, which is just as well for you. I fear your admirer’s grief has little to offer Miss Cavendish and, if I am not mistaken, she still has something to offer us.” He turned and gestured to Metcalfe. “Sergeant, as you did at Lime and Leadenhall Street, if you please.”

Reluctant, but impelled by my glare, Metcalfe turned poor Miss Cavendish over. The back of her dress was torn, crudely slashed. I feared something even darker had taken place than what I had first assumed, until I realised the cut garments were merely an outer layer, an impediment to be removed before taking the skin from Molly Cavendish’s back.

Holmes examined what skin remained, getting close enough to smell it. Her inspected her nails, her clothes, had Metcalfe turn her back again so he could look under her eyelids. He took a few strands of her hair, and regarded the soles of her boots. It seemed like a violation, as if Holmes were disturbing this poor girl’s final rest.

“Holmes, is that enough? What more can you possibly learn–”

Holmes turned sharply. “There is always more to learn, Lestrade. You would do well to permit me, Inspector. Watson,” he said to his companion. “See here.”

“Bruising around the neck,” Watson replied. He looked grey faced. “I would say strangulation is the likely cause of death, but the marks,” the doctor shook his head, “not done with the bare hands. The discolouration, on what little skin is left, is uniform, straight.” He mimicked how the murder might have happened, bracing his legs and holding out that cane he carries in two clenched fists. “Like this,” he said. “I believe our killer was armed.”

“Just so, Watson, just so,” said Holmes. “Skin under the nails also,” he added. “Miss Cavendish fought before she died.”

Holmes glanced up suddenly at a noise from further down the side street. Instinctively, I reached for my gun, and saw the doctor grip his cane a little more tightly. It’s for his limp, an old war wound I’m given to understand, but I’d always reckoned there’d be sharp steel inside it.

“Show yourself,” I bellowed to the shadows and the warren of awnings, doorways and refuse amongst which something much larger than a rat could easily hide. “Come out now, in the name of the law.”

Slowly there came a scuttling, as something small detached itself from the darkness, emerging into the grey dawn light. A girl, an urchin as filthy as the alleyway.

I lowered my gun and gestured to Metcalfe. “Bring her over here, Sergeant. Make yourself useful.”

Metcalfe nodded but as he closed on the girl, she screamed. She would’ve run too had my sergeant not seized her by the wrist.

“Calm down, girl,” he urged, as she wriggled and squealed. Metcalfe was a big man, with a full red beard. To some he might appear fearsome, I suppose, but the girl’s reaction seemed extreme. He half turned, twisting as if trying to grasp an eel, “I don’t know what’s come over her, sir. I only–’

Metcalfe cried out, letting go as the girl sank her teeth into the meat of his hand. He turned to her, face red with anger and with a fist raised until the doctor intervened.

“Don’t, Sergeant,” said Watson, his hand clamped firmly around Metcalfe’s forearm. There must have been something in his eyes, some remnant of the soldier he used to be, because Metcalfe retreated at once, looking sheepish.

Letting my sergeant go, Watson crouched so he was eye to eye with the girl and said something softly that made her cling to him.

“She’s terrified,” he said.

“Not of the law, I think,” said Holmes, “or the threat of your thuggish sergeant.”

“Steady on,” I said, but regarding Metcalfe, I could hardly disagree that the man was brutish in aspect if not demeanour. He nursed his hand. The girl had bitten through the skin and drawn blood.

“What then, Holmes,” I asked, “if not my sergeant?”

“Have you ever seen primeval fear?” said Holmes. “Note the wide eyes, the diluted pupils. Her skin, Doctor?”

“Is cold as bone, Holmes.”

“Gelid,” Holmes replied. “A feverish sweat dappling the brow. Bodily tremors, the fingers most acute.” Indeed, the girl did shake, her hands horribly so. Holmes looked back at Metcalfe, as if seeing what I could not. Then he looked back to the girl shivering in Watson’s arms, nothing more than a pallid little thing.

“What did you see?” he asked softly but without empathy. The urchin girl extended a tiny finger towards Metcalfe.

“It wasn’t me,” exclaimed the sergeant.

I scowled. “It’s not you, you idiot.”

The girl shivered harder, murmuring, “Peeler, peeler, peeler…” in a little rasping voice.

Holmes turned his gaze on Metcalfe and for a moment I thought he was about to declare him the murderer.

“You’re right, Lestrade,” he said. “It’s not your sergeant, but rather his uniform.”

All three of us looked at Metcalfe, at the blue of his policeman’s attire, and I felt the chill of the morning deepen and sink its teeth into my marrow.

“The murderer… he’s one of ours.”

I left the girl in Dr Watson’s care. To take her to the Yard would only worsen her trauma and yield little, I suspected. She had done her part, giving name to a dark legend that would come to haunt my thoughts in the coming years. The irony of the killer’s moniker was not lost on me, nor on any constable, sergeant or inspector of the Yard.

There were 14 inspectors, 92 sergeants and 781 constables registered to the City of London Police Force, and after ensuring the dead woman had reached the morgue at Scotland Yard, I spent most of the next few days reading through their records with the help of Barrows and Cooper, and conducting interviews. Even with a hundred constables, going through every officer in the Metropolitan Police and beyond would take months; time, I felt, we could ill afford, and so I confined my efforts to the district where we had found the victims, all of which were in the City of London.

I barely slept or stopped, save to have the odd cup of tea, even though I felt I needed something stronger. The last pot was stewed, a wince-making bull of a brew, and I had to shout at the constable who made it. I didn’t recognise him, though he had an Irish lilt and more than a little cheek, and I resolved to find his sergeant and have words.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, surprised at how little the stack of reports had thinned since that morning, and looked up from my desk to regard a map of the City of London pinned to the wall. Four marks indicated where each of the bodies had been discovered: Jeremiah Goose and Molly Cavendish and two others, a brothel keeper by the name of Vivian Dawes and a young dockhand called Edwin Buckle. They circled an area from Smithfield Market to Leadenhall Street. Metcalfe was prowling as much of it as he could with an army of constables, but had yet to uncover anything of use. Holmes, somewhat disturbingly, had not been in touch for three days, and all attempts to reach him at his lodgings at 221B Baker Street had failed. To make matters worse, both the Standard and The Times, as well as a number of other newspapers, had caught wind of the killings and that the killer was an officer of the law.

For a moment, I shut for eyes and willed for inspiration to strike and strike quickly. I had just opened them again when a knock at the door disturbed me and I gestured to the waiting constable to enter.

“Sir,” said Barrows, his police helmet nestled in the crook of his arm as he leaned inside, as if afraid to step across the threshold fully. “They are here, sir.” He gave a weak smile that pulled at a scar on the right side of his face, an injury sustained as an infant, a fire or some such.

I nodded, weary, and sent Barrows on his way.

The vultures of Fleet Street had gathered outside Scotland Yard in an agitated flock as I came out to meet them.

“Four dead, all by a policeman’s hand,” began a young-looking oik from the Standard called Arthur Grange, “and Scotland Yard no closer to a suspect let alone an arrest. What steps are being taken to ensure public safety, Inspector?”

“Every step, Mr Grange. My constables are at large across the city and–”

“Any one of whom could be a cold-blooded murderer,” chimed a weaselly fellow I didn’t recognise with a trimmed beard framing his smug grin.

Before I could reply, another voice called out from somewhere in the crowd, “I ’eard he’s been cutting ’em up and selling their parts as mutton!”

The vultures laughed uproariously, which only drove my anger all the hotter. I found the man amongst the crowd, an older, dishevelled-looking fellow, straight off the docks judging by his attire.

“I can assure the public, all measures are being taken to apprehend this murderer, and I would urge the good people of London to remain vigilant at all–”

“Vigilant?” asked the dock tramp, “and what will the mutton shunters be doing whilst we are remaining vigilant?”

“Everything is in hand,” I said, in an attempt to reassert some measure of order. “Be reassured that we shall catch this heinous killer.”

“Who is likely one of your own,” said the weasel, George Garret of The Times, as I later came to learn. “An overzealous Bobby who batty-fanged some poor wretch and went too far.”

“Slanderous remarks such as that, regardless of who you represent,” I said, “will land you in the cells.” I began to retreat, sensing an end to the conference. “I have nothing further at this time.” Garret took a step towards me, intent on further questioning. “I said that’s all,” I warned him, “and if you take another step then I smack that door-knocker off your face and call it arrest for public disorder.”

A flash lamp went off to capture the moment my humours got the better of me, and I could already imagine a headline describing police brutality or some such libel.

Garret sneered but stepped back, and I returned inside to the jeering and cajoling of the Fleet Street mob.

“Bloody circus,” I remarked to Barrows, who was waiting for me. A second flash lamp hissed loudly behind me. “Ignore them, Constable,” I told Barrows, who was still looking fearfully at the mob. “They’ll get bored soon enough.”

I was back in my office when there was a light rap on the door and I saw the dock tramp, grinning toothlessly at me through the smeared glass. Wrenching open the door, I was about to arrest the wretch for loitering when he smiled and I saw the glint in his eye.

“See, Inspector,” he said, realising what the look on my face meant, “you aren’t entirely without wit.”

“Holmes,” I replied, ushering him inside. “Why the theatre?”

“I find it useful,” he said, removing the false teeth and shedding his threadbare jacket. “Few pay attention to the disenfranchised, Inspector.”

“I see. Have you got Dr Watson somewhere under all of that paraphernalia too, then?”

“Ah, no,” said Holmes, striking up his pipe and taking a short draw. “Watson is visiting our witness. Alas, she has said nothing since the incident, other than repeating the name of our perpetrator ad infinitum.”

“So, why are you here Holmes? Is it just to irritate me?”

“As mildly diverting as that would be… no, I am here on another matter. Tell me, Lestrade, of the hundreds of officers that you are no doubt already trawling through, how many of them are or were tanners?”

I frowned, in part trying to recall, but also out of confusion. “I’d have to have a look.”

“Allow me to save you the inconvenience, Lestrade. Jacob Wainwright, aged fifty-seven, an ex-constable of your borough, now a registered tanner in Bermondsey. Discharged due to ill health.”

“And he became a tanner?” I asked. “I fail to see what any of this has to do with the case, Holmes.”

Holmes smiled thinly. “Should we not aim to catch him before the act, Inspector?”

“Very droll, Holmes.” I frowned. “How did you come across the information about Wainwright anyway, might I ask?”

“Obfuscation is a useful tool, Lestrade, much in the way that you can sometimes be useful.” I gritted my teeth. “By appearing as what is ubiquitous, one can attain a reasonable degree of anonymity. A police constable at a busy constabulary, for instance. Let us just say, I wished to experience what it was like to walk around as our Peeler does.”

I was fairly sure Holmes had just confessed to illegally impersonating an officer of the law, but had neither the will nor time to take him to account for it.

“Well, Inspector?” said Holmes, with sudden verve. “Should we tarry further and let the Peeler increase his tally, or shall we make for Bermondsey post-haste?”

I wanted to tell him no, and that Her Majesty’s Constabulary could catch this fiend without the aid of Sherlock Holmes but instead I called to Barrows and sent him to fetch Cooper. As he ran off, I narrowed my eyes and asked, “Holmes, what has any of this got to do with a tannery?”

“My dear Inspector,” he replied, his smile as condescending as his manner, “it has everything to do with it. Oh, and apologies for the tea.”

Few professions are as vile as that of the tanner. I could smell the dung and urine before we reached Bermondsey Leathermarket, on the Surrey side of London Bridge. London has its wretched quarters in abundance, but few are as foul as Weston Street. A grim calibre of men dwell here, a rough-handed, rough-hearted lot with all the distemper of those whose labours see them so befouled and oft reviled by fairer folk. What had brought Wainwright to such a place, I could not fathom. I knew little of the man – for I had never met him in person – save for what was in his records, the mention of an injury that had resulted in his discharge from the force. An old photograph described a thin-faced fellow with narrow eyes, his left ear with a piece missing where someone had bitten it off.

“What are we doing here, Holmes?” I asked, sitting across from him in the growler we had taken from Scotland Yard, my constables either side of me.

“Lime, Inspector Lestrade. Specifically, lime combined with small amounts of soda ash and lye. Before you wrinkle your brow, all three are used in the process of tanning and were discovered, in varying quantities and concentrations, on the remaining skin and clothes of all four victims during my initial examinations. A simple if lengthy chemical analysis confirmed it.”

After leaving the growler, we approached the broad archway that led into an even broader square, arranged around which were numerous doorways. A bustling, jostling crowd filled the square. Some towed carts, others carried great rolls of hide upon their shoulders.

“Here then, Inspector,” said Holmes, “and where we shall find our Mr Wainwright.”

My constables turned to me. Barrows had paled a little, and Cooper looked eager but uncertain. “You heard the man,” I told them, “don’t drag your feet. If he’s here, we’ll have him in shackles before the day is out.”

Skins lay in abundance or hung from the rafters of the many warehouses appended to the square. Hides of all hue, shape and provenance were in evidence, as were the narrow-eyed merchants, smoking and glaring at the policemen in their midst. Shadows lurked within the vast stores, lit by flickering torchlight. The smell of leather was rich and heady, and men looked about furtively as my constables and I went about our business. None of them, however, were Jacob Wainwright.

“Are you sure this isn’t a fool’s errand, Holmes?”

“One can never be certain, Lestrade,” he replied, “but I think our quarry is not far.” He gave a shallow nod of the head and, as I followed the gesture, I saw a man slip furtively through the crowd. Though I caught little of his appearance through the mob I knew it was him. Older, certainly, but his chewed left ear gave him away.

“Get after him,” I bellowed at my constables, and gave chase. I lost sight of Holmes almost immediately, who had gone haring off in another direction. I had no inkling, nor care, as to why. Instead, I pushed and elbowed my way through the crowd with a constable on either side.

“Move! Move in the name of the law!” Wainwright had crossed the square and scurried into the skin market. None stayed our passage, and as we gained on Wainwright, who was clad in a heavy coat, I noticed the man had a limp. He ran quickly enough though, his knowledge of the market and its secret ways giving him an advantage over my men and me.

Barrelling around the back of a well-stacked hide cart, I lost sight of Wainwright for a moment and feared he had slipped the leash, until I rounded the cart and saw the tanner lying on his back. Standing over him was Holmes, a stern look in his eyes. Lowering the cane he had used to trip Jacob Wainwright, his gaze then alighted on me.

“Making heavy weather of it are we, Inspector?” He looked like he had been out for a gentle stroll, whereas I had sunk to my haunches as I tried to catch a breath.

“Had I the verve, Holmes,” I said, brandishing the cosh, “I would use this thing on you.” Barrows and Cooper joined us a few moments later, red-faced. “And don’t get me started on you two,” I snapped.

“I’m afraid, Inspector,” said Holmes as he approached Wainwright and pressed the end of the cane into the man’s chest to keep him from rising, “we have greater cause for concern.”

When I had recovered and came to stand next to Holmes, I saw Wainwright properly for the first time. He was short, his shoulders narrow and his hands smaller than mine. But that wasn’t the most damning thing about his appearance.

“His left hand…” I muttered, and felt frustration rise anew. It was badly deformed, and this combined with his diminutive stature led to only one conclusion. “This isn’t the Peeler.”

It couldn’t be. A man Wainwright’s size could not have overpowered someone like Jeremiah Goose, especially not with one hand. A hammer lay discarded nearby, and I assumed Wainwright had intended to use it on me or one of my men.

Holmes looked on, impassive, but I could tell he was angry.

“The Peeler is still at large,” I said, leaning down to grab Wainwright. “Jacob Wainwright?”

The man nodded, scowling. “Aye, what’s it to you?”

“Why did you run?”

“You’d run if someone chased you.”

“A man who runs has something to hide, Mr Wainwright,” I told him. “You’re coming back to the station.”

Wainwright’s face went from indignation to fear in short order. “Bleedin’ persecution, this is,” he shouted to anyone in earshot. “You coming here to my place of business, chasing me down and then accusing me of God knows what.”

“And what’s this then?” I asked, showing him the hammer. There was a name etched into the handle, Archie.

“It’s for tanning,” he said.

“Not for breaking skulls then?” I pressed. “And who’s Archie?”

“He’s my cousin. He gave me the hammer when he left London.”

“Left for where?” I asked.

“No idea. He came into some money, though he never gave me a penny, and left the city, left his business too. I use the hammer for trade.”

Everything about this man screamed criminal, but not murderer. “And where is your place of trade, might I ask?”

I let him go so he could point in the direction of one of the tanneries. I saw a wooden sign nailed above the entrance.

“Inspector,” said Holmes, “far be it from me to interrupt this expert interrogation, but we are not alone.”

Wainwright’s plaintive wailing had drawn a crowd. Some amongst them, the rougher sort, clutched tools and clubs as they advanced a cautious step towards us, and I was suddenly aware of how thin the blue line was here.

“Perhaps we should observe discretion on this occasion, Lestrade?” He nodded towards George Garret scribbling notes. No doubt he had followed us from the Yard.

“You’ll find nothing in there but skins,” sneered Wainwright as he got to his feet.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What happened to you, Wainwright? Weren’t you Old Bill, once?”

“I was,” he said, with no small measure of bitterness, and slapped his injured leg and gestured to his left hand, “then I wasn’t. What business is it o’ yours?”

It turned my stomach to see one of our own so disaffected. “Don’t make it my business,” I said, with half an eye on Garret who tipped his hat and sauntered off, “because if you do, all the tanners, dockhands and scribblers of London won’t keep you from the law.”

As Wainwright limped away, I turned to my constables who had yet to stow their truncheons. “And you two, put those bloody things away!”

Mollified, the crowd began to disperse. Holmes was gone. I hoped, wherever he was, he was close to that one elusive scrap of evidence that would end these murders. Until then I would try and lay a trap for the Peeler.

Fog lay thick over London that night. It had done so the last four nights as I waited in the shadows of back alleys and side streets, or peered through shop windows, hoping for some glimpse of my prey. Four nights, and nothing to show for my patience but a deep chill.

“I can barely see the fingers before my face, sir,” said Metcalfe.

“Keep looking,” I said, squinting through the greenish pall. “He’s out here. I can feel it, Metcalfe.” I looked over at him. “And put your bloody hand down!”

I waited and I listened, standing in the shadows of a shop doorway on the east end of Leadenhall Street, in the vicinity of Aldgate.

“How many, Inspector?” came a voice from the shadows that gave me such a fright I almost drew my pistol and fired at the speaker.

“Hell and blood, Holmes!” I hissed at the detective as he emerged from the dark. “I almost put a bullet in you!”

“At this range, I like my odds, Lestrade.”

Metcalfe had the good sense to keep quiet. I scowled, returning to my vigil of the street.

“Absent of your keeper again, Mr Holmes?”

“If you are referring to Watson, he is nearby. With half the constabulary taking to the streets these last four nights, I thought you might appreciate some assistance.”

“Clandestine operation, my hat,” I muttered, recalling the briefing I had given to the sixty-three plainclothes constables on the eve of this endeavour. Few were abroad this night that I had not sent out myself. Fear had wrapped itself around London like a noose, and the hangman attired like an officer of the law.

The shrilling of a whistle tore apart the night. Shouting followed, muffled by the fog but clear enough. Other whistles joined it as my constables gave out the call to arms, and I was filled with a sense of impending retribution as I ran towards the sound.

“We’ve got him,” I said to Metcalfe, but loud enough for Holmes to hear too, “we’ve got him now.”

From street corners and side alleys and back ways, an army of constables spilled out into the night to chase down the fiend. I ran down Leadenhall Street, following the whistle. And then the shrilling changed, a whistle no longer but now a shout, an awful noise that sent my heart into my throat, for I recognised the voice.

“Barrows…”

I got as far as Billiter Street, and hurled my body around the corner only to stop dead as I came upon the devil himself.

Crouched apelike over Constable Barrows, he turned as he heard me and slowly rising to his full height I beheld not a man but a creature the likes of which could only be found in the Gothic imaginings of Mary Shelley. I do not consider myself a learned man, but I was familiar with such works and saw their pages given grim verisimilitude by the monstrous Peeler. His shoulders were thick and broad, with hands like spades, but it was his face that froze me to the core. Though his eyes were hooded by a policeman’s helmet, I saw the skin. Pale, almost to the point of white and somehow… ill-fitting, as if it would slip from his skull at any moment. All the more aberrant was the fact he wore a policeman’s uniform, but one large enough to accommodate his brawn. He loomed as menacing as death and just as inevitable.

As he glared at me, the same feeling returned that had come over me at the workhouse fire, and I considered with some horror that I had met this fiend before.

Only when I saw the blade, the briefest flash of light catching its edge, and knew it had been used to lay Barrows low, did I find my voice.

“Halt!” I declared, wrenching out my pistol. “In the name of the law!” I fired and my shot struck him in the shoulder, but he barely flinched and was quick to take flight. I plunged into the fog, pausing only to look upon the ruin of poor Constable Barrows, who lay dead, mired in his own blood.

I got as far as Fenchurch Avenue when I realised the Peeler was gone. As Metcalfe and the others reached me, I heard the whistles, desperate and reminiscent of screams.

Holmes and Watson were kneeling by the body of Constable Barrows as I trudged back down Billiter Street, my feet leaden.

“He was just a lad,” I whispered.

“Slit across the throat, I’m afraid, Inspector,” said Watson as he gently pulled aside the boy’s collar to expose the savage gash.

“But that’s not all, I think,” said Holmes. He held up Barrows’ left hand. “Skin under the nails…” he added, before pressing the fingers to his nose and inhaling deeply.

“Christ, Holmes…” I said, dismayed at such desecration.

“Pungent, Inspector. The likes of which we have encountered before, and quite recently.” He stood up and began to cast about, sifting through the detritus of the street.

“Holmes, what the devil are you up to?” asked Watson.

I shared the doctor’s incredulity and was about to protest when Holmes proclaimed, “Ha!”

He held something in his right hand, which looked like a scrap of cloth. It was only as he brought it closer that the grimmer truth of what it really was became obvious.

“Merciful God…” hissed Watson.

It was a face, or at least the peeled skin of a face. I recalled the pale complexion and ill-fitting nature of the Peeler’s flesh and realised he had been wearing this skin like a mask.

“A simulacrum to hide his identity and torn loose when he took flight,” said Holmes.

Watson shook his head. “And yet, the lad still has his face. If this is what he came for…”

“And more besides, Watson,” said Holmes. “Our man has some skill with a blade, a paring knife or some such. The cuts on all of his victims were rough but swift, hardly the act of a surgeon but more in kind with a butcher or tanner. How long, Inspector, did you hear the screaming?”

“A few minutes, no more.”

“More than long enough for our Peeler to do his work. But, instead, he was given pause.”

“What does it mean, Holmes?” I asked. “Tell me it means something, and that this poor lad’s demise has not been for naught.”

“See here…” Holmes crouched again to turn Barrows’ head to the side and expose the scarred side of his face. “Flawed. And here,” Holmes went on, pulling open Barrows’ shirt where it had been torn. “Scarring also.” He looked again at the horrific mask, the skin, I now realised, had come from the dead porter. “The late Jeremiah Goose, his death mask entire.” His gaze then flicked to Watson. “I can think of only one reason for such scrutiny and discernment. Watson, if you please, would you surrender your gloves.”

The doctor got to his feet and looked at his hands.

“What for, Holmes? It’s freezing out here in this fog.”

“Your gloves…” Holmes repeated, “if you please.”

By now, several of my men had gathered at the scene. Metcalfe was doing his utmost to marshal them, but curiosity had gotten the better of some. A few carried lanterns and tried to shine a light on poor Barrows so the detective could do his work.

Watson did as he was asked, carefully removing the garments and handing them to Holmes who promptly threw them into the gutter.

“Holmes! What the devil are you–” Watson began, but Holmes had already snatched a lantern from one of my constables and smashed it against the doctor’s gloves. I have never seen Watson so apoplectic. “Good God, man! They were almost five pounds from Savile Row!”

Oil and flame eagerly spread across the leather. The fire quickly took hold, blackening and curling the leather and giving off a most noxious stench. I knew the smell, a noisome odour. It reminded me of the workhouse fire at Lower Thames Street and the men and women I knew had been trapped inside, cooked alive. Watson knew it too, I suspect. A man who had spent any time on a battlefield will be all too familiar with the reek of burning human skin.

“Good God,” said Watson, paling as he pressed a hand against his mouth, “is that…?”

“Long pig,” Holmes replied, nodding. “Indeed, they have been fashioned from human skin. We should speak with your tailor, Watson, though I suspect I already know the name of his supplier from Bermondsey.”

Watson appeared only to be half listening. “The sheer devilry of it,” he breathed, transfixed by his burning gloves.

“Rest assured, justice will find him, Doctor,” I replied, “Then, it’ll be the noose for this fiend.”

Holmes’s prediction about the Savile Row tailor was accurate, and not long after dawn, I brought an army of constables down on Bermondsey and the tannery of Jacob Wainwright. Holmes and Watson had joined us, observing a grim silence. I crossed the threshold to declare, “Jacob Wainwright, you are under arrest!”

No answer came, and the darkness inside the tanner’s warehouse made it hard to see much of anything beyond the shapes of hanging hides. The stench was palpable enough, though. I had drawn my pistol and used it now to urge my men inside.

“Find him, and take him. Alive, if you please gentlemen. I have questions I will have answered.” Over thirty constables rushed into the tannery, brandishing their truncheons. “I’ll have this dog, Metcalfe,” I swore to my sergeant. Before Metcalfe could reply, a shout from within got the sergeant running and me with him. One way or the other, I would get Wainwright to talk, and there would finally be justice for the dead.

The hanging body put paid to that belief. Stabbed through the chest and hung up on a hook like the rest of the meat, I did not need Metcalfe to lift the dead man’s chin to know this was Wainwright.

“He’s dead, sir,” said Metcalfe.

“This is him, isn’t it,” I said, not needing to be a detective the calibre of Sherlock Holmes to realise this was the Peeler’s doing. Wainwright’s feet dangled over a foot off the ground, and with the strength it would require to impale a grown man like that…

Holmes agreed. “It can be no other, Lestrade.”

As he crouched down, ferreting for something beneath the hanging body, I heard Watson enquire, “What is it, Holmes?”

“Burnt offerings, Watson,” said Holmes, holding up a scrap of blackened material to the meagre light before showing it to me.

“He had some kind of fire? I don’t see the significance.”

“Did you find anything resembling a lockbox or perhaps a safe?” asked Holmes.

I frowned. “Nothing of the sort.”

Holmes did not elaborate, but instead gestured to the scrap of material. “If you’ll permit me, Inspector Lestrade?”

I couldn’t care less. “Be my guest, Mr Holmes,” I said, and turned to Metcalfe and my waiting constables. “Tear this place apart. If there’s anything that will help us stop this man, I want it found!”

The tannery yielded nothing but the skewered remains of Jacob Wainwright, certainly no lockbox or safe, and, as his body lay in the grim accommodations of the Scotland Yard morgue, I began to believe we might never catch the Peeler. Surely now, with Wainwright dead, he would go to ground, and we might never learn his true identity or the reason, if one existed, for his crimes. I could only assume Wainwright had been his accomplice, for surely there could be no other explanation, and the Peeler had turned on him and ended any chance we might have to question him.

After several hours of searching, I left Wainwright’s empty-handed. Holmes and Watson had long since returned to Baker Street and I had little choice but to go to my office, my cohort of officers disbanded, and review what little evidence remained. It was a surprise, then, that when I did return I found the detective and the doctor waiting for me.

“Both of you impersonating officers now, are you?”

Watson answered as Holmes smiled thinly. “Your desk sergeant was kind enough to accommodate us, Inspector.”

“I see,” I replied, making a mental note to reprimand the desk sergeant later. “So, are you here to gloat?” I asked, going to my desk drawer and the bottle of Lea Valley malt whisky I kept there for occasions such as this. Having poured my own, I offered both a cup but they declined.

“I prefer different vices, Inspector,” said Holmes.

“And it’s a little south of the yardarm for me,” added Watson.

“Please yourselves,” I said, taking a chair. “I hope you’re here with good news. I could use it.”

“Indeed, Lestrade,” said Holmes, “and I believe we have it.”

I sat up in my chair, my cup forgotten for the moment. “I’m listening.”

“It was the mask, Inspector, when I first began to form suspicions. The dead flesh of Jeremiah Goose staring through hollows instead of eyes, it kindled a theory I have been harbouring ever since we met Jacob Wainwright.” He struck up his pipe. “There can be no doubt that Wainwright is not our murderer, but I believe he knew him, and has done for several years.” Holmes then produced a sheath of papers from his jacket pocket that looked suspiciously like a police document and set it down before me.

“I took the liberty,” he said, “of having a look in the Scotland Yard archives and found something that piqued my interest.”

I looked down at the document, a sergeant’s record, the man declared dead several years ago.

“Has it ever occurred to you, Inspector,” said Holmes, “that our Peeler, who wears the flesh of dead men, might in fact be a dead man himself? At least,” he added, “according to his official police record.”

I read some of the details aloud. “Morris Duggen, killed in the line of duty, 6th June 1891.”

“His partner that fateful day was a Constable Jacob Wainwright,” said Holmes. “Both were involved in the foiling of a robbery at the Whitechapel branch of the London and Westminster Bank, which resulted in the deaths of several men, one of whom was Morris Duggen. This, Inspector,” said Holmes, “I garnered from my own extensive archives and from the scrap of material I recovered from Wainwright’s tannery.” He brandished it again. “A piece of artist’s canvas. It is difficult to discern, but a faint signature is just visible at the burnt edge. The Duchess, a lesser known but valuable piece, kept at the London and Westminster Bank on account of the previous owner’s unpaid debts. Its seizure was mildly scandalous at the time. All of which led me to recall a report of the robbery in The Times that named both the dead officer and one Barnabas Fenk, a former army man with moderate expertise in explosives. I say moderate because the explosives he used to breach the London and Westminster’s vault detonated prematurely and the aforementioned deaths occurred.”

I leaned back in my chair, availing myself of a warming sip of the malt. “Fascinating as all of this is, Holmes, what has this got to do with our skinner?”

“Barnabas Fenk spent some time in Alderbrook Workhouse where, no doubt, his path would have crossed with a certain porter.”

“Jeremiah Goose,” I said, setting my cup down again.

“Just so. I believe Mr Goose knew of, or was involved somehow in, the robbery of the London and Westminster. Several thousand pounds remain unaccounted for, as well as The Duchess, believed lost in the fire that broke out following Fenk’s botched incendiary device, the self-same blaze that crippled Wainwright and supposedly killed Morris Duggen.”

“Except Duggen survived,” I said, “and you think both he and Wainwright were somehow involved in this robbery? Duggen survives, escaping with the stolen monies, and Wainwright is honourably discharged. Fenk is dead, so there is no one left to contradict Wainwright’s story. Except Jeremiah Goose. But what about Duggen’s body? There’d need to be one if he was assumed dead.”

“Archibald Drew,” said Holmes. “Wainwright’s cousin, believed to have left London for brighter prospects elsewhere.”

“Archie,” I realised, nodding, “from Wainwright’s hammer. He took him on the robbery too.”

“Indeed. Wainwright was too frugal to discard a perfectly good stupa.”

“Drew’s body, all burned like that. Wainwright could have said it was anyone and make up any story to explain his absence.”

“And did so, Inspector.”

“Jeremiah Goose, he found out somehow,” I said. “And Duggen killed him for it, even took his face.”

“This is not a rational man we are dealing with, Inspector,” said Watson.

“But Lestrade is right,” added Holmes, “though I suspect Goose did more than merely threaten to expose Wainwright and Duggen for their crimes. I believe he stole some of their ill-gotten gains, and Duggen went looking for them.”

“The Alderbrook fire.”

Holmes nodded. “Enraged when he couldn’t find what he was looking for, I think he set the blaze to deny anyone else getting their hands on the money. Furthermore, unsettled by his recent encounter with the law, I believe Jacob Wainwright took steps to rid himself of any damning evidence in his possession, hence the fire at the tannery. The canvas and a sum of money that, at the least, would raise questions.”

“And Duggen killed him for it.”

Holmes nodded. “Judging by the condition in which we found the body, I believe he tortured Wainwright, who knew Goose, and found out about the lockbox.”

“The key,” I realised.

“Precisely, Inspector. Stitched into the lining of his jacket, which is why Duggen missed it.”

“He’s gone back there. To Alderbrook,” I realised, catching up to Holmes’s train of thought at last. “It’s empty on account of the fire, but he’d still need to wait until after dark. He’s still after the money.”

“Trusting to Goose’s lockbox to have protected it from the blaze,” said Holmes.

“He’s still there, he must be,” I said, grabbing my coat. “I’d wager my reputation on it.”

“A modest bet, Inspector,” said Holmes, “but a hansom cab awaits to take us.”

By the time we reached Lower Thames Street, the day had almost ended and night was creeping in. What scant light remained made a hollow of the old workhouse, burnt and blackened. Roof beams had become exposed to the elements, jutting outwards like rib bones. Rats and vagrants made their lair here now, and somewhere amongst them was Morris Duggen.

“Shouldn’t we wait for your men, Inspector?” asked Watson as we paused at the threshold. I had sent Cooper off to find Metcalfe and have him rouse as many constables as he could.

I shook my head. “I won’t risk him getting away again,” I said. “We’ll have to be enough to apprehend him.”

Holmes nodded, having drawn a pistol. Both Watson and I were also armed. “Then let’s be at it, gentlemen,” said Holmes, and we entered the ruins of Alderbrook. It was dark within, and we dared not risk any light for fear of alerting our quarry, so we made do with what little illumination penetrated from the outside.

The entrance hall was deserted, and I saw Watson move off to the right to look through a gutted doorway. He shook his head, indicating that the room beyond was empty. Holmes took the left as I pressed ahead to the stairs. It was then that we heard it: a faint scuffing against the wooden boards. It was coming from above.

“I don’t think he’ll be expecting us,” said Watson.

“Then let’s keep it that way, Doctor,” I replied and advanced up the stairs.

I led us on. As we ascended a stairway with a broken railing, I saw what looked like an office at the end of a long gallery and realised that this was where the scuffing sounds were coming from. Doors, some shut, some black and broken, led all the way down on one side. On the other, the railing continued, some of its balusters burnt down to little more than nubs.

Here in its upper reaches, Alderbrook was open to the sky, and I felt the wind catch my overcoat and the rain against my face as I approached the office at the far end of the gallery. The door to the room was open, broken on its hinges, and I could see a shadow moving around within. As we got closer, I thought I saw it pause, only to continue whatever it was doing a moment later.

“Are you gentlemen ready?” I asked as we neared the open doorway. Both nodded and I stepped through, preparing to render unto Duggen the full justice of the law, but something struck my weapon, wrenching it from my hand before I could shoot.

A hand clamped around my wrist and I was yanked off my feet, into the office and against the facing wall. Pain tore through my shoulder as it bore the brunt of my fall, and I collapsed in a heap.

I saw Duggen. He glanced at me once, a snarl on his shapeless lips, and I beheld a face so monstrous I now knew why he chose to hide behind a dead man’s skin. He had a melted lockbox under one arm, a chisel in his hand, and he barrelled out of the room like a Smithfield bull.

I saw Watson raise his pistol but, upon seeing the horror of Duggen’s face, delayed his shot. The bullet struck Duggen in the same shoulder where I had clipped him before – even in the dismal half light, I saw the spurt of blood – but as before he barely slowed, barging Watson off his feet and sending him crashing through the blackened balustrade.

Holmes cried out, “Watson!” and there was a second shot.

I thought the doctor had been pitched over the edge to his certain death until I saw Holmes scrambling to grasp Watson’s wrist as he clung on perilously.

Duggen left them, limping now, and I realised Holmes must have clipped him before going to the doctor’s rescue.

I got to my feet, still groggy from being thrown across the room. Duggen had left a gaping hole in the floor from where he’d smashed through to claim the lockbox. I staggered to the doorway, remembering to retrieve my pistol.

“Holmes?” I asked, seeing him slowly wrenching Watson to safety. Duggen meanwhile was fleeing across the gallery.

“All is in hand here, Inspector,” Holmes assured me breathlessly. “To your duty.”

I went after Duggen and got halfway down the gallery when I held my pistol outstretched and declared, “Halt! In the name of the law, halt or I will shoot!” I wanted to kill this man for all the ills he had inflicted upon London, and most especially for the death of Constable Barrows, but I would have justice not revenge.

Duggen stopped. With his limp slowing him, we were but a few feet or so apart. I heard the floorboards, so ravaged by fire, creak ominously beneath us and knew I had to get him down quickly.

Then he turned.

A malformed face greeted me. Its flesh was raw and twisted, and reminded me of melted wax. He didn’t speak, and it occurred to me he might not possess the faculty to do so, given the severity of his scars. But instead of holding up his hands, he brandished the chisel and took a step towards me.

“Halt! I warn you, Duggen!”

Duggen kept going, limping towards me at a steady pace. I fired, or would have, but the pistol clicked deadeningly in my grasp and despite my frantic efforts I could not get it to shoot. Duggen grinned as he advanced on me, his red raw lips peeling back over his teeth. I drew my cosh, preparing to defend myself…

I felt the slightest tremor run through the wooden boards underfoot. Duggen felt it too and reached out to grasp the balustrade, dropping the chisel as his grotesque face contorted. I kicked the railing, hard enough to split it from its foundations. Duggen stumbled as the railing collapsed in his grasp. He teetered, one arm flailing, the other cradling the lockbox until at last pitching over the edge.

“Holmes?” I yelled.

“Here, Lestrade.”

“And the doctor?”

“Present, Inspector,” said Watson.

I carefully went over to the broken balustrade and looked over the edge. Morris Duggan lay broken on the floor below, his neck twisted at an awkward angle. The lockbox had split apart as it hit the ground and the stolen notes from the London and Westminster still fluttered in the wind before finally settling on the corpse.

“He’s dead,” I told them, and only then felt my hands begin to tremble. I sagged against a doorway as the shouts of Sergeant Metcalfe and my constables appeared below, and murmured gratefully, “the Peeler is dead.”

I saw little of Holmes and Watson after that night. After several days of gruelling police work, all of the flesh garments wrought by Duggen and sold by Wainwright were recovered and destroyed. Though it could not be proven, it was widely believed by those involved in this investigation that Morris Duggen had used the skin of several other men and women in his wretched flesh trade, but post mortem. Only the larcenous deeds of Jeremiah Goose had brought the killer out in him, though I suspect it would only have been a matter of time regardless. It turned out, Goose did know Wainwright, the latter owing gambling debts to the former and hence Goose’s desire for recompense that in the end led to his death.

The stolen money was returned to the London and Westminster, a modest sum, but it had been enough for Duggen to kill his partner. In the end, through perfidy and misadventure, both men were spared the noose, a fact that rankles me but also lets me sleep more soundly knowing they are dead.

London grinds on in their absence, though it has no shortage of monsters still and horrors to spare, I am sure.