Whitechapel (4 page)

One day when he was out and she was on her own in the hotel accommodation they shared in the Monmartre district of Paris, known for its association as the artist’s centre of the city, she opened the art materials bag. Below the pencils, pastels and brushes with paint she found a false bottom. Curiosity now aroused, she removed it and on seeing the contents felt a chill run down her spine. Already disturbed by his behaviour she now found what seemed to her untrained eye to be surgeon’s knives, some forceps and one of his mysterious specimen jars wrapped in brown paper. Ripping the packaging away from around the jar she exposed what was floating inside it in a light brown coloured medical fluid. Not having any anatomical knowledge Mary initially saw the contents merely as folds of flesh, disturbing enough to her before the shock realisation of what these folds of flesh were. Although a simple girl she knew enough to recognise these folds on one side with its orifice as being the same as she possessed to ply her trade. Mary almost paralysed with fear and beginning to panic, considered in her mind his possibly horrific intentions for her. She hurriedly and chaotically gathered and packed her meagre belongings, shoving them with no methodology into her one battered leather case.

She realised during this process that she needed money to return to England and with her pulse now beginning to quicken s a result of her discovery, she rifled through her companions belongings finding £50 in Dr Tumblety’s brief case. Whilst searching for his travel papers, Mary came across a dark blue leather jewellery box just the right size to house a necklace and broach or perhaps a dress watch. Dr Tumblety had never expressed any interest in such finery only ever making use of a fob watch on a silver chain, which puzzled Mary as to what he might keep in the box. It was locked with a small brass padlock really more for show than as a deterrent as it appeared too weak to stop it being opened. Mary grabbed her own bag and pulled out a nail file with a hooked cuticle end jammed this hook into the lock’s key hole and with a brisk turn of the nail file the latch popped opened and fell away onto to the richly carpeted French hotel’s floor.

Her heart started to pound as one hand continued to grasp the base of the box and the other dropping the file now took hold of the lid to pull it open. Initially very stiff, the spring loaded lid began to ease back to reveal its hidden secret inside. Her eyes widened and her lower jaw fell open as she spied for the first time the contents of the box, fearing he maybe likely to return at any minute her amazed admiration was short. Inside sat on a bed of crushed black velvet were the largest single diamond and two huge pieces of emerald stone she had ever seen in her life. These precious gems were surrounded by a ring of what appeared to be smaller diamonds round them in a circle. The large diamond itself was about one and a half inches round and cut in a perfect circular fashion. Knowing that diamonds were very valuable and they could resolve all her troubles, especially the largest, she pulled the centre stone from the box and took a handful of the small diamonds and tossed the now significantly emptier jewellery box back into Tumblety’s bag.

Looking out of the hotel room’s window to see what the weather was doing she saw that it was dry and bright accentuating the beauty of the classical Paris skyline; but sending a shiver through her body, Mary also noticed that Tumblety was returning along the road she overlooked in a carriage. She grabbed her case from the bed that she had now unceremoniously packed and fled the room. Finding the back staircase she made her way down the stairs but too quickly losing her footing and falling as she neared the bottom from becoming entangled in the voluminous skirt of her typically Victorian dress. With grazed knees and palms, bruises all along her right side from the fall, she sobbed to herself as she grabbed her now even more battered case and ran out from the back of the building through an alley way and into one of the busy Parisian streets melting into the crowd.

Days later having fled the bohemian Monmartre district of Paris her imagination took a jaundiced view of the French capital and she swore never to return. She found herself passage on a ship from Calais boarding a mixed passenger and cargo vessel bound for Dover. Within a week Mary was settled in London and taking up an engagement in service in the fashionable and affluent Knightsbridge in West London with a lady called Mrs Buki, ironically a French matriarch

Unfortunately for Mary this promising position ended in disaster with her being accused of theft whilst in service for the family in Knightsbridge. She always felt aggrieved by this accusation as she had not taken anything from them and it seemed that they may have discovered her past link to prostitution and making up the accusation of stealing dismissed her.

Barnett carried on talking to Mary as she was lost in another world recalling those events in her mind. For a few minutes as she pondered her life to date, and what to do with the diamonds she had taken from Tumblety and now had hidden in a case below the floor boards of Millers Court. She had pawned one of them for money to buy some best clothes, but what about the rest? Would he be coming to look for her? Could she cut her obsessive links to the street life she was now so accustomed to? But most of all, if she could make a new start where could she go to exchange the largest diamond for it’s financial value to start afresh without creating any unwarranted interest? Joe Barnett was just a passing phase, in truth she desperately needed someone in her life to love and spend the rest of her life with.

“Joe, I need to sleep. Will you away to work, darling, and we’ll discuss it later.”

“Yeah, well just and stay sober so that it is a discussion and not the usual drunken argument,” Barnett not wanting to wait for her reply left the squalid room slamming the door behind him.

***

At around midday Robert and Del found themselves walking along Whitechapel High Street outside the famous London Hospital. A busy street market stretched from the junction of Bakers Row through to Cambridge Heath Road, the odour of which filled their nostrils as fresh meat, vegetables and flowers blended oddly together and permeated the air. Robert considered that it seemed the standard smell of the East End having lived with it all his life. He wondered if the rest of the world smelt any differently. His peaceful thoughts were suddenly disturbed.

“Oi! Stop thief!” A scruffy working man charged past the two of them bumping shoulders with Del and almost stumbling, but regaining his balance before heading towards Cambridge Heath Road. Both Del and Robert began to give chase tucking their beat helmets under their arms and found themselves with a fruit stall holder in hot pursuit of them.

“He’s bleedin’ nicked two pocketfuls of apples from my stall,” he shouted behind them. Both the constables ignored him focusing on their quarry that Robert recognised as a man he had arrested the previous month for being drunk and disorderly. Michael Kidney was the sometime partner of Elizabeth Stride the station cleaner and had been known to assault her in the past so Robert was always keen to ‘square him up’ given an opportunity. Kidney was running flat out along the busy thoroughfare knocking into people and sending some of them crashing to the floor, leaving the following police to jump over them or stumble around them. As all of them left chaos and panic in their wake they seemed to be followed along the road by the sound of a choir of aggrieved East Enders. Kidney seeing an opportunity to lose his pursuers ahead ran in amongst some squalid tenement blocks to try to give them the slip. As he disappeared around the corner Robert and Del knowing the area well split up and took different routes, Robert continuing immediately after Kidney whilst Del went straight on to get to the other side of the building

The estate that the tenement was a part of was a warren of gloomy passageways formed by the tall, dark and foreboding brown brick Victorian buildings. Dark and sinister with each of the blocks possessing a deep layer of dirt from the polluted air of the area. Decaying window frames from a lack of maintenance looked out into the passageways like the watery eyes of many of the aging occupants. The nature of this construction allowed the formation of a dark labyrinth of alleys that afforded easy or concealment of the many suspicious goings on normally far away from the prying eyes of the law. It made the conduct of prostitution simplistic too with dingy but private places for the street women to take their clients having plied their trade.

The two policemen had now broken into a walk to allow them to try to spot movement and re-engage their suspect, so no longer were they running with helmets in their hands, but stealthily scouring the entranceways and landings to find Kidney with one hand on their faithful wooden truncheons for self defence and the other ready with their whistles to call for assistance. Each of them trying to keep the noise from their heavy soled boots to a minimum; both all too well aware of the wandering undernourished street dogs that may alert their quarry to the presence of his pursuers. They passed dirty poorly fed children from time to time who were huddled in groups on the stairs whose mothers looked on as they hung their ragged laundry out of the windows.

As Robert passed a stairwell Kidney lunged out at him with a broom he had found to use as a weapon lying around discarded. Swinging the heavy head of the broom he managed to catch Robert in the stomach knocking the wind from him. Kidney then pushed him to the ground and jumped on top of him and started to try to strangle him. Robert, pushing against Kidney’s arms, could sense the stench of stale alcohol on his adversary’s breath so strong and overpowering it made him wretch. He knocked the arms of his assailant away from his throat and threw a couple of punches into his chest knocking him back.

Robert was suddenly aware of a shadow being cast across the two of them and was relieved to see it was Del, who he could see was swinging his truncheon high above his head ready to launch it down onto the first part of Kidney he could hit. This turned out to be the back of his head and he collapsed in a heap to one side of Robert as the result of the blow from the heavy dark wooden weapon. Robert looked up at Del Lake with a smile of relief and appreciation.

“Thanks, mate,” he said looking up at his partner,

“What are friends for?” replied Del with a broad grin on his face.

Del pulled out his whistle as Robert jumped to his feet and placed some handcuffs on Kidney who was now groaning lying on the floor.

“Can I get my apples back now, constable,” called the portly and red faced market trader who was now about twenty yards from them.

“Certainly,” replied Robert who now pulled the half a dozen green apples from Kidney’s two jacket pockets. As he did so the stall holder now extremely out of breath arrived with them, bending double trying to regain his breath puffing heavily and very red in the face. Robert handed him the apples.

“Thank you, constables,” said the market trader cheerily. He then handed them an apple each nodded in a courteous fashion and turned away strolling off back through the estate to return to his pitch.

Del cleaned his apple up on his trouser leg and with a loud crunch bit into it and began to chew on its sweet flesh. He winked at Robert and spoke.

“All in a days work eh, son?” Robert looked at his partner smiling and shaking his head at his casualness and followed suit with his own shiny green piece of fruit.

As a result of the blast on the whistle another three constables arrived out of breath and red faced one of which included Taffy Williams who Robert thought looked as if he was about to pass out from physical exertion. He coughed up copious amounts of phlegm on his arrival spitting it out with venom not enjoying so much physical exertion. Swearing and cursing to himself he leant up against a wall and began rolling himself a cigarette.

Soon a ‘black Mariah’ arrived for the carriage of Kidney to ‘The Street’ where he could sleep off his drunkenness before facing a charge of drunk and disorderly again and assault on police.

***

Wednesday 29th August, 2.40.p.m and Dr Francis Tumblety left the Ritz Hotel for the short walk along Piccadilly and into Green Park to take the afternoon air and sun. The fifty-five year old ‘physician’ strolled along in his American cavalry uniform displaying colourful medal ribbons on his chest, the uniform itself was tailored around his mature frame and 5’10” stature and was topped off with a deerstalker type hat which cast a shadow over his face down below his large handlebar moustache. He also always walked with a dark wooden cane by his side, frequently swinging it in a garish manner, this particular accoutrement hiding as much of a dark secret as his outward respectable appearance. He had made a rich living as a self proclaimed ‘Herb Doctor’ or ‘Electric Physician’ in the United States and with the resulting profits from his patents for miracle tonics such as ‘Tumblety’s Patented Pimple Remover’ he was able to travel extensively and live on a very lavish basis. However, elements of his past had required him to travel frequently on occasions to avoid the authorities.

Francis Tumblety was born in Ireland in 1833 one of eleven children of a poor family that moved to Rochester, in New York State when he was quite young. This Irish American background and his overt Fenian sympathies often brought him to the attention of the police whenever he travelled to London. London had been undergoing a wave of violence mostly in the form of bomb attacks since 1867 when twelve people were killed in Clerkenwell after the Fenian rebels attempted to rescue some of their members. They further conducted a bombing campaign against the Metropolitan Police between 1883 and 1885 including an attack on Scotland Yard. As an uneducated and misguided adolescent he spent his time pedalling pornography to the canal boatmen who worked the waters which ran through Rochester linking it to Buffalo. This fuelled an unhealthy early interest in carnal matters which were exaggerated when he began work in his late teens at the disreputable Lispenard Clinic, a practice which specialised in crude hysterectomies, venereal diseases and other gynaecological matters, again creating unhealthy obsessions early in the young Tumblety’s mind.