Ghost of Whitechapel Read online

  ‘Usually, about eleven. I told yer she was cheerful, like most Irish, and I expect she liked the pubs where she could join in a cockney knees-up or an Irish reel. Mind, I don’t go in pubs a lot meself, bein’ an ’ard-workin’ and respectable woman. I just enjoy a little drop of port occasional in me own ’ome.’

  ‘Do you know which pubs she used?’ asked Dobbs.

  ‘No, she never said and I never asked.’

  ‘Did she ever come back here drunk?’ asked Ross.

  ‘’Ere, d’you mind?’ said Mrs Pritchard. ‘It’s bad enough ’earing she’s ’ad ’er throat cut without ’aving to listen to them kind of insinuations. I wasn’t always up when she got back of an evening, but when I was I never ’eard ’er actin’ like she was drunk, and me old man never ’ad to ’elp ’er up the stairs. And she only ’ad one small glass of beer that time ’er bloke spent the evening in me parlour. And she didn’t go out ev’ry evening, more like two or three times a week.’

  The Scotland Yard officers glanced at each other. There was a suggestion in what Mrs Pritchard had said that Maureen Flanagan hadn’t spent too much time in pubs on her evenings out.

  ‘The scarf, laddie,’ said Dobbs to his sergeant, and Ross took the brown woollen scarf out of a carrier-bag. It was neatly folded, hiding the fact that it was partially bloodstained. ‘Mrs Pritchard, d’you know if this belonged to Miss Flanagan?’

  ‘Yes, that’s ’ers,’ said Mrs Pritchard, ‘she wore it a lot to ’er work in the winter.’

  ‘And when she went out in the evenings?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see ’er every time she went out, but I think I saw ’er wearin’ it now and again.’

  ‘Obliged to you, Mrs Pritchard,’ said Dobbs, ‘and now we’d like to take a look at her room.’

  Mrs Pritchard fidgeted and muttered, then said, ‘All right, ’elp yerselves.’ What with one thing and another, and the loss of Flanagan’s rent, she felt in need of a further drop of port. ‘The upstairs back,’ she said. With a touch of morose wit, she added, ‘Yer won’t need to knock.’

  Chief Inspector Dobbs and his sergeant climbed the stairs and let themselves into the back room of the upper floor. Its small amount of furniture was tidily disposed, the bed nicely made. Dobbs opened up the standing wardrobe, while Sergeant Ross searched for a suitcase. Suitcases were often used for storing a lodger’s personal items, such as letters.

  The wardrobe disclosed a limited number of clothes. There were a couple of commonplace frocks that the dead woman probably wore to work, alternating with a couple of cheap blouses and dark blue skirts. There was also, however, a very attractive black velvet dress, remarkably short. Maureen Flanagan had trimmed the hemline herself, I’ll bet on that, he thought. And she would have had to wear the dress under a coat, unless she intended to stop the traffic. A coat was there, a thin summer one, along with a cheap mackintosh. Dobbs noted two empty hangers. In the wide drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe was underwear, among which were two short waist petticoats with frilly lace hems, similar to the one the unfortunate woman had been wearing last night.

  Sergeant Ross had found a suitcase, under the bed. It was on the bed now, and he’d opened it. There were letters, which he quickly found were from her mother in Cork, Ireland. He read one. It was a normal family letter, hoping her daughter was well and describing family happenings at home. Mrs Flanagan did include, however, a message of thanks for the money regularly sent in pound notes.

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Well,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘She sent money home, regularly, and in pound notes.’

  ‘She also owned a tarty velvet dress and tarty petticoats, sunshine. I might have enjoyed the last waltz with her at a police ball if I hadn’t been married. Happily, I might say. Anything there about the bloke Godfrey?’

  ‘Nothing, just letters from her mother in Cork.’

  ‘Wake up, I meant in the letters. She was thirty years old, my lad, so if she’d got hopes they’d have been of the kind she’d have mentioned in the letters she wrote herself, and her mother might have asked her questions about him.’

  ‘Would a part-time pro have hopes, guv?’

  ‘Now now, my son, you can do better than that. Use your imagination. Put yourself in her place.’

  ‘In a Soho doorway, guv?’

  ‘If you’ve got an imagination that stretches that far, my lad, you should be writing for a saucy French magazine. Let me have a turn at repeating myself. If she did mention the bloke Godfrey to her Irish mother, then her mother might have referred to him in her own letters. How many you read?’

  ‘Just this one, guv,’ said Sergeant Ross.

  ‘Well, bring them with you when we leave. Now, what else is here, I wonder?’

  They searched for other things that might help the investigation, but found nothing until they stripped the bed and lifted the mattress. There, beneath it, was a brown envelope, and in the envelope were eight white pound notes.

  ‘Savings out of laundry wages or what?’ said Ross.

  ‘I’ll plump for “or what”,’ said Dobbs. ‘Well, it’s my considered opinion that anyone who can save out of laundry wages ought to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Put that envelope with the letters.’

  He was satisfied for the moment, confident they’d established that Maureen Flanagan was a part-time pro who was able, from her night-time earnings, to send money home to her family in Cork. He could have said at this stage that the bloke Godfrey was a good lead, and if not, that they were going to have to track down one of the woman’s pick-ups. But before the morning was quite over, he wanted to talk to the laundry workers at Guy’s.

  He and Sergeant Ross left, after thanking Mrs Pritchard for her co-operation.

  ‘Very public-spirited, missus,’ said Ross.

  ‘I ain’t ’appy about the sound of that, so keep it under yer bowler ’ats, or someone might break me winders,’ said the upset landlady. ‘Mind, murder’s a bit different to a bit of ’armless smash-and-grab. Poor old Flanagan, don’t it show yer it ain’t clever to go out in the fog?’

  On the way to Guy’s Hospital, Sergeant Ross said it wouldn’t have done to suggest to Mrs Pritchard that her lodger was on the game some evenings.

  ‘I hope I’ll like what you’re going to say next,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘She might have remembered all the Ripper’s victims were on the game,’ said Ross, ‘and done her bottle of port serious injury.’

  ‘Are you trying to give me worries I can do without?’ asked the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Not me, guv. Just thought I’d mention the point.’

  ‘Well, don’t mention it again. Try cheering me up instead with a Scotch joke.’

  ‘Scottish, guv,’ said Ross, ‘and here goes. When he was asked for a donation to a Glasgow orphanage, Rabbie Burns sent two orphans.’

  The Chief Inspector grinned.

  ‘I heard that one when I was ten,’ he said.

  ‘Still good for a laugh, though,’ said Ross.

  ‘Not today,’ said Dobbs. It might have consoled him, however, to know that at this early stage, those people in the East End who did suspect the Ripper was back were convincing themselves he was operating south of the river this time.

  As a uniformed sergeant stationed in the East End, he had known the condemnation and abuse suffered by the Metropolitan and City police forces during the frantic and frustrating months in 1888 when Jack the Ripper had eluded all efforts to catch him.

  In 1889, Charlie Dobbs had been admitted into the Metropolitan Criminal Investigation Department, where he made a name for himself in helping to put several unpleasant characters in the dock at the Old Bailey, and worked his way up to his present rank by dint of a natural talent for detection.

  He was married, with two children, a boy and a girl, and the family occupied a house that overlooked Victoria Park. His wife put up with her married name of Daphne Dobbs, with her husband’s erratic hours, and with his suspicions of anything she placed on
the supper table that he didn’t immediately recognize. What’s that, Daphne? It’s marrow stuffed with the best minced beef, Charlie, with a light cheese sauce covering. It looks like something that ought to be arrested, Daphne. It’s a recipe of Mrs Beeton’s, Charlie. She could get arrested too. Well, if you don’t like it, Charlie, you can arrest me.

  His kids liked him because he played football in the garden with his twelve-year-old son, and lashed out on pretty frocks for his ten-year-old daughter.

  What he didn’t want at this fairly enjoyable stage of his life was a murder case that the press and the public might associate with Jack the Ripper.

  Chapter Two

  ABOUT MIDDAY, BRIDGET CUMMINGS entered a house in Ellen Street on the south side of Whitechapel, and away from the worst of the neighbourhood’s slum-afflicted centre. It was a typical flat-fronted East End dwelling of two storeys, three rooms up, three down, but with an upstairs lav, and also one in the back yard. Just as typically, out of school hours the street was full of ragged kids, although not quite as ragged as the kids of the central slums, nor as starving. But no-one could have said they were alive with health.

  Bridget lived here with her sister Daisy, nineteen, and her brother Billy, seventeen. They’d lost their parents. Their mother had died of consumption four years ago, and their father of suffocation a year later, when the side of a gravel pit collapsed and buried him. The company employing him reimbursed his children for his loss by handing Bridget fifty pounds. That was a godsend to Bridget and a relief to the conscience of the company when she accepted the amount and signed the paper.

  The fifty pounds kept them going, and when Billy left school he secured a job as an errand boy for the grocers in Whitechapel Road, while Bridget found evening work washing-up in the kitchen of a well-patronized West End restaurant. Daisy was in and out of jobs, and presently unemployed, which meant they were only just scraping along, especially as Bridget had to fork out nine bob a week for the rent. She earned three bob a night at the restaurant, and four bob on Saturday nights. Billy earned five bob a week as an errand boy, but he did get penny tips from some customers to whom he delivered.

  Bridget had decided to take a lodger, so there was a card in their parlour window, announcing,

  ROOM TO LET FOUR SHILLINGS A WEEK

  HOT SUPPER SIXPENCE.

  She’d been out shopping. She placed the bag on the deal top of the kitchen table.

  ‘I’m just goin’ to fry some left-over taters with some bacon scraps,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Bridget, ‘’op off to Guy’s Hospital and ask for a job in their laundry.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Daisy. She was pretty but with the paleness common to inhabitants of the East End, her body slender. Her black hair was a smooth cap that built up into a bun at the back of her neck. Her dress was an old brown one, with a button-up bodice, her boots worn but clean. Her sister Bridget was full-bodied, and handsome rather than pretty. There was an old brown straw hat sitting on her mop of black hair, and her brown eyes were so dark they looked like polished coals at times.

  ‘Yes, ’op off quick,’ she said, and took a folded evening paper from her shopping bag. She’d picked it up out of a dustbin. It smelled a bit fishy, but it did contain the news that a Guy’s Hospital laundry worker had been found murdered in Tooley Street. ‘There,’ she said, opening up the paper, ‘see that?’

  ‘Oh, ’elp, that’s ’orrible,’ gasped Daisy.

  ‘It ain’t exactly nice,’ said Bridget, the family stalwart, ‘but save yer sorrowing for later, Daisy. The laundry’s a worker short, and there’ll be a queue for the job a mile long tomorrer morning. You ’op off now, ask to see the laundry superintendent and tell ’er you’re a friend of the misfortunate Maureen Flanagan. Well, say you were while she was alive. She lodged in Tanner Street, not far from Tooley Street. It’s all there, in the report, and it says she was Irish. Tell the superintendent that Maureen would’ve liked you to ’ave ’er job if she ever left it, and don’t forget you did laundry work once in the Whitechapel bagwash.’

  ‘Bridget, I can’t go and say I was a friend.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  ‘But it ain’t true,’ breathed Daisy.

  ‘Well, cross yer fingers when you mention it,’ said Bridget. ‘Don’t let religiousness come between you and a job.’

  ‘But won’t it seem a bit – well, sort of a bit cold-blooded tryin’ to step into that poor woman’s shoes so soon after ’er dyin’ such a shockin’ death?’ said Daisy.

  ‘Someone’s goin’ to,’ said Bridget, ‘so it might as well be you. Tell yer what, ’ere’s thruppence. Buy a bunch of violets from old Ma Perkins in Commercial Road on yer way, and give ’em to the superintendent for ’er to put in the laundry room in memory of Maureen, your unfortunate dead friend. She’ll like yer for that, she’ll be ’eart-warmed. Daisy, you got a chance to get yerself a real steady job, so go after it with your ’ead screwed on right – Daisy, you listening?’

  ‘Course I am,’ breathed Daisy, picturing herself in clouds of warm steam instead of traipsing cold streets looking for any kind of work. ‘But I’ll ’ave to do what you said, I’ll ’ave to keep me fingers crossed about bein’ a friend of the poor woman’s.’

  ‘Time you forgot you once went to Sunday school,’ said Bridget, ‘but all right, keep yer fingers crossed, then. Now put yer ’at and coat on and get goin’. Me, I’ll be busy this afternoon, lining up with the strikin’ workers that’s goin’ to march on the fact’ries, but when I get back later I want to ’ear you’ve got the job.’

  ‘I’ll do me best,’ said Daisy, ‘but, Bridget, don’t you get too mixed up with a load of trouble.’

  ‘’Oppit,’ said Bridget.

  Daisy was out of the house a minute later, and hurrying, a shawl over the shoulders of her shabby coat, the skirt of her long dress rushing around her ankles, a worn boater on her head.

  Chief Inspector Dobbs managed, without difficulty, to look like a fatherly figure amid the white-aproned workers in the calender room of Guy’s Hospital laundry. He could do that, he could take on a fatherly air, his blue eyes becoming mild, his expression paternal, his gravelly voice mellow. As for Sergeant Ross, he stood by with his bowler hat placed over his heart, his ears in tune with the guv’nor’s questions and comments. The calender room forelady was present, and so was the superintendent, a matronly-looking woman in uniform.

  ‘I’m highly appreciative, ladies, of all you’ve told me,’ said Dobbs, ‘which was, speaking gen’rally, a commendable character reference for the – um – late Miss Flanagan. Unfortunately, yes, very unfortunately, someone with the sort of mind none of us like thinking about, didn’t take as kindly to her as her friends and workmates.’

  ‘Bleedin’ villain, that’s what ’e was,’ said one of the workmates.

  ‘Language, Smithers,’ said the forelady, frowning.

  ‘I’ll give ’im language if I ever get me ’ands on ’im,’ said the laundress. Work was at a stop for the moment, the whole contingent in a state of shock. ‘I’ll cut ’is odd-jobbers off to start with.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said the Superintendent.

  ‘I suppose none of you ladies ever saw Miss Flanagan out with her favourite gent, did you?’ enquired Dobbs.

  ‘What favourite gent?’

  ‘’Ad she got one, then?’

  ‘Her landlady mentioned one,’ said Dobbs.

  A young laundress said, ‘Oh, she did say to me once she’d met a quite nice bloke, but I never saw her with him. I did ask if he was serious about her. Well, Maureen wasn’t young any more, and at her age she had to have someone serious about her if she was ever goin’ to get married. She didn’t say who the man was or his name, she just laughed and said she’d got hopes.’

  ‘Haven’t we all,’ said Sergeant Ross, and the Chief Inspector looked at him in a way that suggested he was slightly out of order. ‘No offence, ladies,’ said Ross.

  ‘Oh, none taken
, I’m sure,’ said a cuddly-looking laundress.

  ‘I’d like to ask, if I might, if any of you ever happened to meet Miss Flanagan in a pub,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘Us?’ said a middle-aged woman. ‘We don’t ’ave money to go to pubs. What some of us do ’ave is a broom ’andle to keep our ’usbands out of them. And I don’t know I ever ’eard poor Maureen mention any pubs.’

  ‘Mind, if she did ’ave a bloke,’ said another woman, ‘’e might ’ave treated ’er now and again.’

  ‘She told me once she was savin’ up to go back to Ireland one day,’ said the young laundress.

  ‘Yes, she mentioned that to me not long ago,’ said the Superintendent.

  ‘Tragic, ladies, tragic,’ said Dobbs, shaking his head, ‘but many thanks for assisting us with our enquiries.’

  ‘You ’opeful of catchin’ the beast that done it?’ asked the middle-aged woman.

  ‘Ah, that’s the word, hopeful,’ said the Chief Inspector, and allowed a touch of reassuring cheerfulness to break through. ‘I’m always hopeful in my work, and whenever I’m able to add assistance from the public to hope, a bit of welcome optimism creeps in. Good day, ladies, good day, Superintendent, sorry to have interrupted your work. I know how you all feel, and I share that feeling. Sergeant Ross?’

  ‘I’m here, guv.’

  ‘Thought you’d gone home.’

  They left together.

  ‘Superintendent?’ The calender room forelady put her head into the office. ‘Someone wants to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A friend of Miss Flanagan’s.’

  ‘Oh? Show her in.’

  Daisy entered and the forelady left.

  ‘Good afternoon, mum,’ said Daisy, bracing herself, and the superintendent regarded her kindly. The girl had a wrapped bunch of violets clasped in her left hand. Her shabby handbag was under her arm, her right hand just out of sight behind her hip. Daisy was crossing her fingers.

  ‘You knew Maureen Flanagan?’ said the Superintendent.