A Study in Crimson, page 8
Rising to his feet, he stepped over to one of his bookshelves and lifted down a large folder tied shut with a red ribbon. Returning to his chair, he deposited it on the table in our midst. ‘This folder,’ he explained, ‘contains all the relevant documents I was able to assemble: newspaper reports, police records, witness statements and all other materials with a bearing on the Whitechapel murders of 1888.’
Lestrade uttered an incredulous bleat. ‘And you solved the case?’
‘Of course,’ Holmes affirmed, with no trace of modesty.
My own thoughts were reeling. ‘And it did not occur to you, Holmes, to make public your discovery?’
‘To what end?’ Holmes seemed genuinely puzzled at the notion of courting publicity with this breakthrough. ‘The murderer is long beyond the reach of human justice and there is no purpose to be served in causing distress to his surviving family.’
‘Really, Holmes,’ I pressed him, ‘I appreciate your point, but surely in a matter like this… of such huge and enduring public interest…?’
Holmes looked pained. ‘You know, Watson, I’m beginning to suspect that what really irks you is that I did not turn over all of this to you,’ he tapped the bulging folder, ‘so that you could weave it into one of those overly romanticised tales your publishers are so fond of.’
‘Really, Holmes,’ I retorted, ‘I will not grant so un-worthy a suggestion even the dignity of a denial.’
‘Mr Holmes,’ Lestrade intervened almost humbly, ‘whatever the rights of the public in this matter, might you see your way to sharing your findings with Dr Watson and myself?’
‘Of course,’ said Holmes with a fleeting smile. Untying the ribbon, he opened the folder and spread out the documents. ‘A full account of my investigation would fill a large book, but for the sake of brevity I will confine myself to the essentials.’
PART TWO
INVESTIGATION
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
EDGAR ALLAN POE,
The City in the Sea
11 THE TRAIL OF THE RIPPER
By way of preamble, Holmes took his pipe from the pocket of his smoking jacket and filled it with tobacco. Lestrade fumed silently over the delay but held himself in check, as did I. We both knew from experience that Holmes would not be hurried.
When he got the pipe going to his satisfaction, Holmes sank back in his chair. Gazing into the middle distance, as though through a window in time, he commenced his disquisition.
‘Let us briefly review the pertinent facts of the case. To begin with, all five victims were evidently prostitutes operating in the Whitechapel area of London. All of them except the last were in their forties. The victims were first strangled, then laid out flat before their throats were cut and various mutilations carried out.
‘At twenty to four in the morning of August the thirty-first, a forty-three-year-old woman named Polly Nichols was found dead in a stable yard in Buck’s Row. Her throat had been cut and her stomach incised in several places. The second victim, Annie Chapman, was aged forty-eight. Her body was discovered in the back yard of a house in Hanbury Street at around ten to six on the morning of September the eighth. Her throat was cut and her abdomen sliced open. Her intestines had been removed and placed above her right shoulder. Later examination revealed that the uterus had been removed also.’
Holmes’s tone was one of clinical detachment, but below the surface of his composure I detected deep-seated stirrings of emotion. During the Great War both of us had seen our share of dead and mutilated corpses, but the brutal murder of helpless women held a special horror all of its own.
He paused to flip through his files in order to refresh his memory on particular points of detail. He then resumed in the same restrained manner.
‘The third and fourth victims both died in the early hours of September the thirtieth; again, both were in their forties. Elizabeth Stride’s body was found at one o’clock in the gateway to Dutfield’s Yard. One hour later the Ripper claimed a second victim, Catherine Eddowes, who was found in Mitre Square. Both had their throats cut and the uterus and a kidney had been removed from Eddowes’ body. It was surmised that the approach of passers-by had startled the killer and caused him to abandon his first victim without taking the time to mutilate her. Driven by his compulsion, he rapidly found another victim on whom to do his bloody work.’
Lestrade was hunched forward attentively, his inner tension visible in his tightly knotted fingers. Even for an officer of his experience, this litany of savage violence was difficult to listen to.
Holmes took a deep draw on his pipe and continued.
‘Mary Jane Kelly, aged only twenty-five, was killed in the early hours of November the ninth in her lodgings at Miller’s Court, though the body was not discovered until ten forty-five. She had been horribly mutilated. Her internal organs were scattered about the room but the heart was missing. Following this, the most barbaric murder of all, no more was heard of Jack the Ripper. That name the killer had given himself in a letter addressed to the authorities which was headed with the words From Hell.’
Even at a distance of more than fifty years it was still impossible not to be seized by a sense of disgust and outrage at the sheer foulness of these crimes. That the killer had evaded justice throughout the course of his rampage rendered it even more appalling.
‘It certainly seems, Mr Holmes,’ Lestrade commented, ‘that behind the brutality lay a certain degree of medical knowledge, enough to single out particular organs.’
‘But surely no doctor could have graduated from medical school and carried on a practice,’ I objected, ‘if he was so demented as to carry out these crimes. His diseased mentality would have revealed itself before he had become established.’
‘Well reasoned, Watson,’ said Holmes, ‘and it was on that basis that a number of medical students were interviewed by the police. Their names are on record, although none of them was ever charged. One of them, however, was a certain Henry Carvel, whose circumstances I have studied very closely indeed.’
I nodded, encouraging Holmes to continue.
‘Henry Carvel was born into a medical family. His father, August Carvel, was a doctor as was Henry’s elder brother, Adrian Carvel. Henry, who was always closer to his mother than to either of them, went against family tradition and took employment as a Latin master at Chesterly Abbey School.
‘During this time he married a local girl named Rosa Langland. She abandoned him after a few months, claiming that he had mistreated her. Reading between the lines, it appears likely that young Carvel suffered from impotence. He told people Rosa was a loose woman and had moved to London to become a prostitute. In fact, she emigrated to America and changed her name to Violet Paulson.’
I found myself fascinated, as ever, by the depth of Holmes’s researches, and I saw that Lestrade was following the narrative with an attention as rapt as my own.
‘Further misfortune followed,’ Holmes went on, ‘when he was dismissed from his post on the grounds of impropriety. It would be unhealthy to speculate what exactly so scandalised the school governors that they refused ever to discuss it. Carvel suffered a mental breakdown and spent some months in a sanitarium. When he recovered he saw his only recourse as taking up medicine in hope of winning his father’s long withheld favour. And so he enrolled as a medical student at London College.’
‘And did he succeed in his intent?’ I asked.
Holmes shook his head. ‘He was two years into his course when his father died. Henry’s hopes of an inheritance large enough to support him were dashed when it transpired that August Carvel had left the bulk of his wealth and property to his two daughters, reasoning that this would make them an attractive match for potential suitors while his sons would have the means to support themselves by their own labours.’
‘Very queer that is,’ murmured Lestrade, ‘but logical in its way, I suppose.’
‘Adrian, the elder brother, was already a successful doctor and had moved to Edinburgh, leaving his now disused offices in London’s east end to his younger brother, whom he expected to open a practice there once he had graduated. College records, however, show that Henry Carvel’s tutors were dissatisfied with his poor progress and lack of attendance.
‘Carvel’s mother, who had a history of mental instability, now had a complete breakdown and was placed in Wolfenden Sanitarium in Bournemouth. Henry Carvel made a point of visiting her twice every month, even though staff noted that he always left visibly distressed. And here we come to a telling point.’
Holmes paused to relight his pipe. Lestrade and I exchanged an impatient grimace as we were forced to endure the delay.
‘Each of the Ripper killings follows close upon a visit made by Carvel to his mother,’ Holmes resumed at last. ‘The records of Wolfenden Sanitarium are very exact in matters of dates and times. We can suppose that these visits, which so distressed him, stirred up buried resentment against the wife who abandoned him on account of his impotence, and against his sisters who inherited the bulk of what he thought to be his by right.
‘I think we can safely surmise that he was seized by the deluded fantasy he had created of Rosa operating as a prostitute in the Whitechapel area and took vicarious revenge upon her by brutally slaughtering women who, because of their profession, were all too easy to lure into the shadows.’
‘You say Carvel was interviewed by the police?’ I interjected.
‘Medical students, doctors, slaughtermen and many others passed through Scotland Yard,’ said Holmes. ‘Carvel, however, appeared to be a perfectly innocent young man from a respectable family with no history of violence. The police at the time had not the resources to delve so deeply into his personal history as I have done.’
‘If these murders followed his visits to his mother,’ Lestrade inquired with a scowl, ‘then why were there no murders in October?’
‘Ah, that is the most decisive point of all,’ Holmes stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe for added emphasis. ‘Records show that Carvel was hospitalised for the whole of that month with what is described as a severe brain fever. This followed upon the night of the double murder, which we can easily imagine left him in a state of extreme mental and physical exhaustion.
‘It was noted that in his delirium he expressed a violent hatred for a number of named women, presumably the long gone Rosa and the two innocent sisters. He was released at the beginning of November and made the first of his regularly bi-monthly visits to his mother in Bournemouth. His sickness had now reached a climax and the murder of Mary Kelly was the most savage of all.’
‘But, Holmes, what put an end to his killing spree,’ I wondered, ‘if the police did not catch up with him?’
Holmes steepled his fingers and related the final part of the tale in sombre tones. ‘After this last murder, Carvel was reported as missing by the college authorities. Some weeks later a body was dragged from the Thames. It was badly decayed but identified as Henry Carvel by certain personal possessions. The pockets of his overcoat were filled with stones and it was clear that he had drowned himself, presumably as the only way to restrain himself from any further acts of depravity.’
‘Then somewhere beneath the madness,’ I speculated, ‘there must have gleamed a small scintilla of conscience.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Holmes noncommittally.
‘It still puzzles me, Mr Holmes,’ said Lestrade, ‘that he was able to elude capture for so long.’
Holmes allowed himself a grim smile. ‘Ah, he had been using his brother’s disused office in Whitechapel as a base from which to operate. The building appeared to be derelict and was never investigated. A year later, when it was sold off, knives and some items of bloodied clothing were found stored in a closet, but after all this time no one connected these with the Ripper killings. It was assumed that they were typical items to be found in a surgery where some simple operations might have been carried out on impoverished patients.’
I could only marvel at Holmes’s orderly marshalling of the facts in a case so long shrouded in mystery. ‘The evidence certainly appears decisive,’ I complimented him.
‘Additionally there are the statements of witnesses,’ Holmes added, ‘who claim to have seen the killer either before or after the fact. These testimonies are at times contradictory, but when we take them as a whole, a vaguely defined but solid figure emerges from the fog. He is of gentlemanly appearance, though his fine clothes show signs of wear and tear, indicating that he has fallen upon hard times and is declining into shabbiness.
‘Assessments of his age fit a man in his late twenties who appears prematurely aged by drink, drugs or illness. The statement of police detective Stanley Walsh, published many years later in a magazine, confirms these details. His description of a man he saw in the region of Mitre Square shortly before the discovery of Catherine Eddowes’ body makes a striking fit with this surviving photograph of young Carvel.’
Holmes plucked a photograph from the folder and passed it over to us. It showed a smooth-faced young man with mild, friendly eyes and a small, thin moustache. He was dressed in a blazer and cricket cap, and presented a stark contrast to the grotesque effigy we had seen at the Chamber of Wax.
Lestrade clapped himself on the knees. ‘Well, if that don’t beat all! Here’s the finest brains in criminology scratching their heads over this for years and you’ve gone and solved it. And just for fun at that.’
‘I do not regard the exercise of my deductive faculties as fun, Lestrade,’ said Holmes, ‘though I admit to enjoying the stimulation of tackling such a puzzle. Without a signed confession the case is as complete as it can be.’
I was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Given that Carvel apparently destroyed himself out of guilt,’ I suggested, ‘do you suppose such a document might exist?’
‘If it does,’ said Holmes, ‘it has never been made public.’
The beating rain casting a grey blur upon the windows muffled the rumble of the traffic beyond. I could almost fancy that this room had transported us back in time, as Mr Wells’s time machine had carried its inventor forward. In my mind’s eye I seemed to gaze upon the fog-bound Victorian streets with their gas lamps and hansom cabs, not ravaged by war, but poisoned by poverty, social unrest, and the atrocities of a faceless, knife-wielding devil.
My reverie was broken by the ringing of the doorbell and the sound of Mrs Hudson admitting a visitor.
‘Who can that be?’ I wondered as rapid footsteps ascended the stairs.
‘There is only one person it can be, Watson,’ Holmes stated with absolute confidence. ‘We are about to make the acquaintance of Miss Abigail Preston.’
12 A MEETING WITH AN AMERICAN LADY
Lestrade started up. ‘Abigail Preston? Are you sure?’
‘I heard a voice addressing Mrs Hudson in an American accent,’ Holmes explained, ‘and those footsteps on the stairs are undoubtedly a woman’s.’
We all stood up as the door flew open and a lady swept into the room, followed by a flustered Mrs Hudson.
‘Aha!’ our visitor exclaimed. ‘I thought so. The gang’s all here.’
In all our years of entertaining clients in this room, she was one of the most striking women ever to cross the threshold of 221B Baker Street. Her honey-blonde hair was cut in a short bob and topped by a navy blue beret set with a silver pin in the shape of a sword. Her large grey eyes were wide set and seemed to take in the whole scene at a glance, while her nose was of that type commonly referred to as pert. Her wide, full-lipped mouth bespoke a forceful nature.
She was dressed in a grey jacket and pencil skirt which admirably outlined a figure that would have been the envy even of a younger woman. Her efficient low-heeled shoes still brought her close to my own height. All in all, she impressed me as a woman who had seen enough of the world to be hardened to its ways whilst being daunted by nothing.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Holmes,’ Mrs Hudson apologised. ‘I asked the lady to wait and be announced, but…’
She fluttered her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Hudson,’ Holmes assured our landlady. ‘I’ve been expecting Miss Abigail Preston.’
‘Gail is fine,’ said our visitor. ‘Only my aunt Minnie calls me Abigail.’
Mrs Hudson departed, muttering to herself in a disgruntled Scottish burr.
Lestrade glowered blackly at the newcomer. ‘How were you so sure she’d show up here?’ he demanded of Holmes.
‘I could tell at once that she had steamed open the letter before delivering it to Scotland Yard,’ my friend explained, ‘then stuck it down again.’
Miss Preston eyed him with impish interest. ‘It was that obvious?’
‘There were tell-tale dimples around the seal,’ Holmes informed her, ‘and the gum you used to stick it back down has an odour quite different from that used by the manufacturer of these manila envelopes. As a journalist, you recognised that there was more to this enigmatic message than the ravings of a crank and Scotland Yard’s insistence on detaining you without discussing it only heightened your suspicions.’
‘You got that right,’ the American lady confirmed jauntily. ‘I figured that while they were stalling me with tea and biscuits, the inspector was hot-footing it over to Baker Street to hob-nob with his old pal Sherlock Holmes, and there was no way I was going to be cut out of the action.’ She added, ‘I’d have been here a lot quicker, but most of the cabs were taken because of the rain.’
Lestrade drew himself up in a ponderous attempt at dignity. ‘Miss Preston, I can assure you that I had an appointment already arranged with Mr Holmes – for a late lunch, in fact.’
‘Don’t try to soft-soap me, inspector,’ Miss Preston scoffed. ‘I can see the letter on the table there. So he calls himself Crimson Jack, eh? I’ll bet you’ve seen that name before and it spooked you.’
