Dust and Shadow

CHAPTER FOUR The Horror of Hanbury Street

Two days after my friend’s encounter with Leather Apron, at half past six in the morning, my sleep was disturbed by a whimpering cry, far off yet terrible in its intensity. The next instant snapped me into wakefulness and I left my room with a hastily lit taper in my hand, anxious to determine the source of such pitiable sounds.

Nearing the bottom of the stairs, I heard, with all the drowsy confusion of the startled sleeper, the sound of Holmes’s voice intermixed with that of the unnerving siren. I threw open the door to our sitting room, and there sat Holmes, likewise hastily clad in shirtsleeves and dressing gown, holding both the hands of a ragged child who appeared to be six or seven years of age.

“I knew you to be blessed with great strength of character,” Holmes was saying to the boy. “You behaved splendidly and I am very proud of you. Ah! Just the thing. Here is Dr. Watson. You remember Dr. Watson, do you not, Hawkins?”

The ill-fed vagabond swiveled his head in alarm at the introduction of another’s presence, and I at once recognized the pale features and dark Irish curls of Sean Hawkins, one of the youngest members of Holmes’s band of street urchins, the Baker Street Irregulars.

“Hawkins,” said Holmes softly, “it is extremely important that you tell me what has happened. You wish me to help, do you not? There, now. I thought so. And I must have all the information at your disposal, yes? I know it is very difficult, but I only ask you to try. Sit next to me upon this chair—no, no, strong back, like your father, the prizefighter. Now, tell me all about it.”

“I found a woman who was killed,” said little Hawkins, his lips trembling all the while.

“I see. That is just the sort of thing I am able to solve, is it not? Where did you find her?”

“In the yard of the building next to my own.”

“Yes, you live in the East-end. Twenty-seven Hanbury Street, is it not?” said Holmes, his grey eyes meeting mine with grave urgency. “So you saw a woman who had been killed. I know you are frightened, Hawkins, but you must pretend that you have come back from enemy territory to give intelligence.”

The lad drew a deep breath. “I quit our room this morning to see if there were any leavings on the shore. When you’ve no cases to hand, I tries my luck as a mudlark. I keep a sharp stick hidden in the back yard on a hook, and I climbed up to get at it. When I looked over the fence to the next yard, I saw her. She was all in pieces,” cried the child. “Everything meant to be inside was outside.” Hawkins then burst into a fresh assault of tears.

“There now, you are perfectly safe here,” said Sherlock Holmes, sending a hand through the boy’s hair. “You were very brave to come all the way to Westminster on the back of a gentleman’s hansom, and very clever not to be caught. I am at your service. Shall I go to Hanbury Street?”

The youth nodded feverishly.

“Then Dr. Watson and I shall leave at once. On my way down, I’ll speak to Mrs. Hudson about your breakfast, and I shall tell your mother you are sleeping upon my sofa. Oh, come now. Mrs. Hudson will be only too glad to see you as soon as I inform her she is playing host to the hero of Hanbury Street. Well done indeed, Hawkins.” Holmes shot me a significant glance and ducked into his bedroom. I was dressed not half a minute after my friend, and away we rushed in the first cab we could find, after informing Mrs. Hudson that our tiny houseguest was to be treated in every way as if he had just returned from near-fatal conflicts abroad.

Our cabman delivered us to Hanbury Street, with all the haste our equine allies could muster, by the streaks of dawn’s skeletal fingers. We strode without hesitation toward a cluster of police constables, distraught residents, and ardent reporters, who veiled their enthusiastic questions under a thin veneer of shock. Their eyes lit up when they glimpsed my friend’s singular profile, but he brushed through them as if they were so many chickens.

A clean-shaven young constable guarded the greying wooden entrance to the building’s yard. “Sorry, gentlemen, but I can’t allow you through. There’s been a murder done.”

“My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my associate Dr. Watson. It is the event you speak of which brings us here.”

The constable’s relief was palpable. “Right you are, Mr. Holmes. Step through this doorway and down to the yard. Inspector Lestrade will see you’re shown the…the remains, sir.”

We hastened along the dark route through the building to the yard beyond. Holmes pushed open the swinging door at the end of the musty passage, and we proceeded down a few uneven steps into an open space paved with large flat stones, grasses pushing up through every fissure. At our feet, her body lying parallel with the short fence young Hawkins had described, was the head of the murdered woman. I saw at a glance that the lad’s mortal terror had been more than justified.

“Dear God, what has he done,” Holmes muttered. “Good morning, Inspector Lestrade.”

“Good morning!” cried the wiry inspector. “Good morning, he says! What in the name of God and the devil brings you here? Murphy! Blast it all, where are you going? Never mind about that telegram. Mr. Holmes here is some kind of clairvoyant.”

“My methods are worldly enough, I assure you. As it happens, we’ve a colleague in the neighbourhood.”

“Of all the confounded—all right, then, Murphy, you can leave us to it. See that Baxter has everything under control.”

When the constable had gone, Lestrade shook his head incredulously. “Mr. Holmes, there’s something about you that isn’t entirely natural, if you’ll pardon my saying it. But for the love of heaven! Thank God you’re here. Dr. Watson, see what you can make of her, if you’ve the stomach for it. The surgeon hasn’t arrived yet, and I am at my wits’ end.”

Steeling myself with the reminder that I had never been a victim of dissecting room nerves, I advanced toward the poor wretch lying supine upon the cracked flagstones and tried to make some sense out of what had been done to her. She appeared the victim rather of the slaughterhouse than of murder.

“Her head has been nearly detached. There are bruises on her face, which is swollen and may indicate she was choked before her throat was slashed. Rigor mortis has just begun; I should say she was killed at approximately half past five this morning. Her abdomen has been opened entirely, and her small and large intestines detached from their membranes. You see he has lifted them out of the abdominal cavity and placed them over here upon her shoulder. Her other wounds…” Here I believe I must have trailed off at the revolting realization which struck me. As I peered more closely down at the body, an icy stab of alarm shot through my spine. I stumbled to my feet to gaze numbly about the yard.

“What’s the matter, Watson?” I heard Holmes’s precise, forceful tenor as if from across a great chasm.

“It isn’t possible…”

“What isn’t possible, Watson? What has he done?”

“Her womb, Holmes.” I am afraid I could not quite keep my voice from catching at the words. “Someone has taken it. It’s gone.”

All was silence save for the rumble of carts upon the road outside and the twitter of a sparrow perched high in the tree in Sean Hawkins’s adjacent yard. Then Holmes, passing a pale, distracted hand over his high forehead, advanced to see for himself. After a moment’s scrutiny, he straightened, as stoic as ever, but his deep-set eyes betraying—perhaps only to me—his revulsion at my discovery. Handing me both his hat and his stick, Holmes began his systematic examination of the scene.

Lestrade emitted a slight choking sound and sank down upon a rotting crate, his slender profile stricken. “Gone?” he repeated. “It can’t be gone, for heaven’s sake. He’s completely gutted her, Dr. Watson. Surely you overlooked it?”

I shook my head. “The entire uterus, as well as a good portion of the bladder, have been taken.”

“Taken! Taken where? It is preposterous. Surely it is here somewhere? Under that bit of scrap lumber, perhaps?”

“I believe not,” called Holmes from across the yard. “I see no trace of it.”

Lestrade’s shoulders collapsed still further at this dire revelation.

It was not long before my friend had finished his intent perusal, but to Lestrade and to me it seemed an age had passed since we had first set foot into that terrible pen, open to the sky but closed off from every vestige of the human decency we had been raised to cherish. Finally, Holmes approached us.

“The body is that of an as yet unidentified unfortunate of approximately fifty years of age. She entered the yard voluntarily in the company of her killer, who approached her from behind and took a moment to grapple with her before slitting her throat. After he had delivered the fatal wound, he looked over the fence between the yards to ascertain that there was no one nearby. Before he began mutilating the remains, he removed the contents of the deceased’s pockets: one piece of muslin and two combs. Then he proceeded to dissect his victim with a very sharp, narrow knife. When he had finished, he somehow managed to escape the way he had come without leaving the slightest drip or mark from his…trophy.”

“It is horrible,” Lestrade murmured. “It is positively inhuman.”

“Lestrade, my dear fellow, don’t look so cowed. We have progressed significantly since the Nichols case.”

“The Nichols case? Then you think it the same man?”

“We would be deeply foolish to suppose it were otherwise,” Holmes replied impatiently.

The inspector groaned in despair. “The Yard has not the slightest lead even in those murders, let alone—” He stopped abruptly. “By George! But we do! That terrible bootmaker with the leather apron! Mr. Holmes, you yourself gave me his address.”

“Lestrade, it would be very ill-advised to—”

“Here’s the surgeon! Good morning to you, Dr. Phillips. I’m afraid I must be off upon official business.”

“Stop a moment and I shall save you a deal of trouble,” Holmes cried heatedly.

“Inspector Chandler is outside, should you need anything. Right, then. I must take immediate action. Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson—good day to you.” The inspector, looking for all the world as if he had stared evil in the face directly, scurried away to pursue his new lead.

“Come, Watson,” said Holmes. “It’s quite hopeless. We must see if we can make any progress with the neighbours. Good morning, Dr. Phillips. We have left all as it was, I am afraid.”

We exited to the sound of a muffled oath uttered by the surgeon and hurried back down the passage. “Holmes,” I hissed, “please tell me you can see some light in all this. Who would be capable of such an act? A vicious gang? A new incarnation of Burke and Hare?* I begin to think that the act of murder has grown secondary to the defilement of the corpse.”

Holmes stopped to light a cigarette as we emerged from the other side. “Let us see whether the residents of twenty-nine and twenty-seven have anything relevant to convey.”

It proved a punishing task to interview all the frightened inhabitants of Hanbury Street without dwelling upon the particulars of the crime, which were so enormously sensational, and so scintillating to the pressmen, that the details had already spread like a plague. Holmes and I were forced to field almost as many questions as we posed. My friend’s granite gaze brightened subtly only twice: first, when he learned there was a cat’s-meat seller upon the ground floor of number twenty-nine; and second, when a young man named Cadoche related that he had heard a cry of “No!” and a thud against the dividing fence at approximately five thirty, which corresponded to my estimated time of death. Our last business was to relate, briefly but gratefully, news of Hawkins’s actions and whereabouts to his anxious, quivering mother.

Finally, in early afternoon, we set foot once more on the pavement, my friend making off in a direction both unambiguous and inexplicable. Holmes displayed all the energy of his uniquely unflagging will, but I felt shattered and weak, and scarcely able to stomach much more uncertainty than I had endured already.

“Holmes, if I may, where are we going?”

“I have seen enough penniless women hacked apart in a month’s time. We require assistance.”

“From whom?”

“A renovator of music halls by the name of George Lusk.”

“Is he an acquaintance of yours?”

“He is a businessman who resides in Mile End. I was once of some use to him. He is about to return the favour.”

Mile End, so named for its position precisely one mile east of the ancient City’s boundary, had grown up considerably in the latter half of the nineteenth century. New roads, buildings, and courts gave birth to one another continually in London, but Sherlock Holmes was master of every street and byway. There was one occasion in particular, the incident involving Fenchurch the weaver and his now-infamous needle, when Holmes’s knowledge of a secret alleyway undoubtedly saved both our lives. I was not surprised, therefore, when Holmes led me down a series of labyrinthine corridors eastward out of Whitechapel only to emerge on a tree-lined thoroughfare in front of a respectable white-columned house.

My companion strode up the stone steps and knocked at the polished door, cocking an eye back at me and beckoning me to join him. “You must help me keep the conversation on topic,” he whispered. “Mr. Lusk is an articulate gentleman, whose opinions are wont to flow as freely as the Thames.” With that, a young servant girl admitted us, ushering us into a well-appointed, palm-dotted sitting room, occupied only by a regal orange cat. We sat down to await our host.

He was not long in coming. Mr. George Lusk threw wide the doors and exclaimed, “Why, if it isn’t Mr. Sherlock Holmes. By Jove, but it’s good to see you! I don’t mind telling you, sir, had you not been on hand to discover what those lumbermen were really about, I should be a poor man today. And you must be Dr. Watson. It gratifies me tremendously that someone has undertaken to record Mr. Holmes’s exploits for the world at large. A pleasure to meet you.”

Mr. Lusk was a man of open, expressive features, and perceptive brown eyes, though the bags beneath them taken in conjunction with his coat’s somber cut and sable colour led me to believe he had recently lost someone dear to him. He wore a plentiful moustache, which descended nearly to the jawline, and held himself with the confidence of an established entrepreneur. His hair was slicked back upon his head, revealing a sensitive brow, and I was impressed immediately by his alert manner and his general air of ready assurance.

“It was a very simple problem,” said Holmes, shaking the hand of our host. “I was delighted to be of assistance.”

“Simple! It was nothing of the kind. In any event, it did me a world of good, Mr. Holmes. But do sit down, gentlemen, and tell me to what business I owe this pleasure.”

“Mr. Lusk,” my friend ventured kindly, once we had seated ourselves, “I fear our condolences are in order. You must feel the loss of your wife keenly after so short a time.”

Our host exhibited no surprise that Holmes had deduced the sad event, though he indicated with the sudden contraction of his brow that he wished not to speak of it. “Susannah was a wonderful woman, Mr. Holmes, and a finer mother I’ve never yet seen. But we shall overcome, the children and I. Now, Mr. Holmes, do tell me what brings you here.”

“You are aware of the recent string of murders in the neighbouring streets of Whitechapel?”

“Why, of course, Mr. Holmes. And may I profess myself heartily ashamed of the values this nation continues to countenance. The poor must be seen to, or they will fall upon each other in the streets, as they have always done. If the greatest empire on earth cannot be trusted to meet the needs of its lowest classes, Mr. Holmes, I do not know what the world will come to in the end. Why, if one considers the wealth—”

“I have no doubt but that, given free rein, you would do much to solve the problems of humanity at large, Mr. Lusk,” Holmes interjected smoothly. “However, I appear before you in regards to specifics. Another tragedy occurred this morning, near Spitalfields Market.”

Mr. Lusk appeared genuinely distressed. “You cannot mean there has been another murder?”

“Early this morning, in fact, at twenty-nine Hanbury Street. The circumstances surrounding the killings are worsening.”

“You shock me, Mr. Holmes. I am afraid almost to pose the question, but how can that be possible?”

Holmes briefly recounted the particulars of our morning’s investigation. Mr. Lusk’s eyes grew ever more large, but when my friend had concluded the deplorable tale, he quickly absorbed the facts laid before him.

“So,” he stated firmly, “what are we to do about it? I am not a man to stand idly by with such a ruthless fiend at large. It is against the very fabric of the social contract. You shall direct me, Mr. Holmes. What is to be done?”

Holmes’s pale countenance gained a touch of colour at this remark, and he shot me a look of triumph. “I knew you could be counted upon, Mr. Lusk. I require men of action, and you have not disappointed me. Mr. Lusk, you must without any hesitation whatsoever form a committee.”

“A committee?” queried the startled businessman.

“I require you to pluralize yourself, Mr. Lusk. Find others like you, who are horrified by these crimes and wish to put an end to them. In addition to our intrepid constables, I need a band of plainclothesmen to patrol the streets and report their findings directly to me.”

“I see, I see,” our host replied eagerly. “We shall man Whitechapel with organized citizens whose only thought is to extend the arm of British law to the slums. By Jove, but Susannah would have supported this! That ruffian Sir Charles Warren* has trodden upon the poor with the approbation of the middle class for long enough. This committee will balance the scales of justice. It will serve the women whose only crime has been to suffer—”

“Those are precisely our thoughts, Mr. Lusk,” I interrupted him. Holmes nudged my arm in silent gratitude.

George Lusk, who was nodding vigourously, an action which caused him rather to resemble an active sea lion, began to pace the carpet with the decisive step of the self-made man. “I shall call upon Federov, that is clear,” he said, ticking candidates off on his left hand. “Harris and Minsk will be great assets, as will Jacobson, Abrams, and Stone.”

Holmes laughed, that staccato exclamation which only emerged when he was both amused and gratified. “Mr. Lusk, the Doctor and I shall leave you to devise a list as you best see fit. I propose you assemble your candidates, present the plan, and in due course find yourself their natural and apposite leader.”

“I shall call upon them at once! It may take me a matter of days to fully sort out our committee, Mr. Holmes, but once formed, you may be absolutely certain of our devotion to your cause.”

We took our leave, and Mr. Lusk bade us farewell, clasping our hands and assuring Holmes in fine terms of his enthusiasm. We found ourselves out of doors once more on the quiet, sun-dappled street, with nothing to distract us from the unholy spectacle we had witnessed early that morning. I could tell from his measured tread that Holmes’s mood was withdrawn as we descended the steps, and the set of his shoulders said more than words how very much our experience had affected him.

“Your plan seems to imply you fear more killings.”

“Let us hope that my fears are outstripping the facts.”

“They never have, in my experience,” I pointed out.

“Then I should be most gratified if this were the first time.”

“Engaging Mr. Lusk was an inspired notion. You could hardly justify use of the Irregulars in such a case.”

“Indeed. They would discover much, perhaps, but to what ill effects? Even as lucky and profitable as it was, having been informed so quickly by little Hawkins comes at a high cost. All too high. I would have preferred we’d learned of it by telegram and he had never laid eyes on such a miserable sight.”

“I could not agree more.”

“I only hope,” said he, as we suddenly turned down a wide avenue, “that we ourselves are up to the challenge. It is a fundamental principle of my methods that there is nothing new under the sun, yet I confess I cannot fathom what in the world could possibly give rise to such hysterical monstrosities.”

I ventured no reply to this half-posed question, for no more could I. We made our way back to Baker Street with the deaths of three women revolving silently through our minds.