Ghost of Whitechapel Read online

  Bridget, suspecting who was using the knocker, answered the summons in quick time.

  ‘Evening, Bridget,’ said Fred.

  ‘’Oppit,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Have a heart,’ said Fred.

  ‘I don’t ’ave any heart for coppers,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Allowin’ for that,’ said Fred, ‘might I come in and discuss rentin’ yer spare room?’

  ‘What spare room?’ asked Bridget.

  ‘The one you’re advertisin’,’ said Fred, ‘the one we discussed previous.’

  ‘I wish you’d get it into your thick ’elmet that it excludes applications from bluebottles,’ said Bridget.

  ‘It’s cold out ’ere and foggy,’ said Fred, ‘so could I come in and talk about yer problems?’

  ‘Don’t get funny,’ said Bridget, ‘just ’oppit.’

  Daisy appeared, in her apron.

  ‘Oh, ’ello, Fred, come in,’ she said. ‘I’m cookin’ supper for me and Billy, but you can still come in.’

  ‘No, ’e can’t,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Bridget, that ain’t nice, keepin’ Fred on a cold doorstep,’ said Daisy. ‘You’d best get ready for goin’ to work, it’ll take time in this fog. Come on in, Fred.’

  Bridget ground her teeth as Fred slipped past her and followed Daisy into the kitchen which, basic though it was was with its plain and cheap furniture, was nevertheless warm from the heat of the range fire. Bridget usually managed to find a bit of money for fuel, and whenever she couldn’t, Billy always managed to scrounge some from the yards of local coal merchants. It was done with the aid of a sack, a quick survey of a yard, a fast furtive sortie into that part of the enemy’s territory which was littered with nuggets, and an even faster dash for home. Neither Bridget nor Daisy discouraged Billy’s acquisitive sorties, an enterprise commonly practised by the quick and active younger residents of Whitechapel. It was miserable enough to be poor, it was even more miserable to be cold as well.

  ‘Now,’ said Fred, sniffing at the aroma of cheap bacon pieces slowly frying, ‘about me offer to rent the room – no, hold on, kindly accept this first, with me sincere compliments.’ He produced a bottle of port and placed it on the table.

  ‘Oh, ain’t that nice of Fred?’ said Daisy. ‘A whole new bottle of port. Just like Christmas.’

  ‘Just like a crafty bribe, you mean,’ said Bridget. ‘We ain’t acceptin’ it.’

  ‘Well, I am,’ said Daisy, ‘it was given with a good ’eart, and me and Billy can enjoy a drop with our supper. Thanks, Fred, you’re a gent.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ said Bridget, ‘it’s a bribe, I tell yer, Daisy.’

  ‘Just a friendly gesture,’ said Fred, ‘and I’ve only come to ask if you’ve decided I can ’ave the room.’

  ‘Well,’ said Daisy.

  ‘No,’ said Bridget.

  ‘But Billy’s agreed,’ said Daisy.

  ‘That boy wants ’is head examined,’ said Bridget. ‘I’m goin’ to get ready for me work now, and when I come down I ’ope Constable Fred Billings won’t be where he is now, in our kitchen.’ She disappeared with an aggressive flounce of her skirts, and a few moments later Billy arrived home. He’d been able to leave work a little early. He said a typically cheerful hello to Fred. Seventeen-year-old Billy was one of the few optimists who dwelt in the East End, and his optimism was invariably visible in his approach to life, people and opportunities.

  ‘’Ave yer come about the room, Fred?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s it, me young cocksparrer,’ said Fred.

  ‘And he’s give us a bottle of port with ’is kind compliments,’ said Daisy, keeping an eye on the frying-pan and its aromatic contents.

  ‘Well, that’s pleasin’, that is, a bottle of port,’ said Billy. ‘When d’yer want to move in, Fred?’

  ‘Anytime,’ said Fred, ‘except Bridget’s still a bit contrary.’

  ‘Oh, yer don’t want to take too much notice of Bridget and ’er funny ways,’ said Billy.

  ‘Her funny ways might include chuckin’ her flat iron at me,’ said Fred.

  ‘Well, you can take a flat iron or two, can’t yer, Fred?’ said Billy. ‘I’ve taken saucepans, saucepan lids and enamel meat dishes occasional. I ain’t sayin’ they didn’t ’urt a bit at the time, but there ain’t no scars. In fact, Fanny, the grocer’s daughter, ’as been ’eard to remark I could go on the stage. That was when I was in the stores at the back of the shop wiv ’er, and she ’ad her mince pies shut.’

  ‘’Ow could she ’ave remarked on yer looks when she ’ad ’er eyes shut?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘It was in between kisses,’ said Billy. ‘Mind,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘she still ’ad her mince pies shut. Still, I daresay she knew what she was talkin’ about.’

  ‘You Billy,’ said Daisy, turning the pieces, ‘you shouldn’t kiss girls in a grocer’s storeroom.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Daisy,’ said Fred. ‘A lot more private than a railway station. About the room, do I wait until Bridget’s come round to agreein’?’

  ‘Well,’ said Daisy. Daisy needed, in a manner of speaking, the strong arm of a supportive voice when she was uncertain of herself.

  ‘I’m wiv yer, Daisy,’ said Billy, ‘I’m agreein’ wiv yer that Fred can rent the available accommerdation.’

  Daisy, hearing Bridget on her way down, said, ‘Yes, all right, Billy, we’ll talk to Bridget tomorrer mornin’.’

  Bridget, entering the kitchen in hat and coat, frowned to see that Fred was still present.

  ‘Someone’s big feet still crowdin’ the floor, are they? Well, I’m goin’ now. Billy, you can see Constable Fred Billings out.’

  ‘I’ll walk yer down to the Aldgate tube, Bridget,’ said Fred.

  ‘Not much you won’t,’ said Bridget, ‘I don’t reckon it’s safe walkin’ anywhere in the fog with a copper.’ Off she went. Leaving the house she collided with the fog. It did nothing to improve her temper. But on she went, into the swirling yellow, and towards the Aldgate tube station. She couldn’t afford not to be at work, she knew there were plenty of girls ready to step into her place.

  In the kitchen, Daisy said, ‘Supper’s ready, Billy, bacon pieces and mash.’

  ‘Good on yer, Daisy,’ said Billy.

  ‘I’ll push off,’ said Fred.

  ‘Listen, Fred,’ said Billy, ‘yer best bet is to move in when Bridget ain’t ’ere. Once yer in, yer in, and Bridget won’t do more than chuck a few plates. The enamel ones. Then she’ll accept yer. Like I already said, you don’t want to take too much notice of all she says, nor a few enamel plates. You only need to duck if she gets ’old of a saucepan. Bring yer stuff tomorrer evening, when she’s at work.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ said Daisy.

  ‘I might just do that,’ said Fred, ready to stand up to enamel plates and to dodge a saucepan. He had a considerable liking for the idea of lodging in Bridget’s house, even if the area wasn’t quite as salubrious as his present environment. ‘Yes, I think I might. So long, Daisy, so long, Billy.’

  ‘Ta-ta, Fred,’ said Daisy.

  ‘See yer tomorrer,’ said Billy.

  ‘Good on yer, Billy,’ said Fred.

  On this Thursday evening, the Dobbs family were at supper in their house adjacent to Victoria Park. Not that the park could be seen, not from any of their windows. It was wrapped around by the fog, its lamps shrouded, and was as creepily uninviting as a black pool in the danker reaches of Dartmoor at night. The house, however, was a cosy retreat, globed gas mantles dispensing warm light, and fires burning in the kitchen, the living-room and the dining-room. If Chief Inspector Dobbs did not receive a princely salary from the Metropolitan Police, at least his earnings were on a reasonable level, and his wife had brought to their marriage the interest from an invested monetary bequest made to her by an uncle who had passed away in Canada. This little income enabled her to pay for the services of a daily help, a young woman who came in at eight each morning
and finished at four in the afternoon, Mondays to Saturdays inclusive. She saw to the fires among other things. Daphne’s husband Charlie saw to the provision of coal, and to all other essentials necessary to a family living in lower-middle-class fashion.

  Daphne served a Lancashire hotpot for supper. It contained best end neck of young mutton and two kidneys, neatly cut into pieces, with sliced carrots, onions and turnips, and chopped onions and leeks. It was topped generously with sliced potatoes, browned and steaming when the whole appeared on the table.

  ‘Might I enquire as to the origin of this?’ asked Charlie, eyeing the presentation in its large earthenware oven dish.

  ‘It’s just Lancashire hotpot,’ said Daphne, serving Jane. ‘And might I myself enquire as to the reason why we’ve been having the pleasure of seeing you arrive home in time to eat with us three evenings in unexpected succession, as one might say?’

  ‘It’s the fog, it’s limited the nature of my present enquiries,’ said Charlie. ‘Did you say Lancashire hotpot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It looks like sliced potatoes done to a turn on top of something suspicious,’ said Charlie.

  ‘No, it don’t, Dad,’ said William, ‘it looks like one of Mum’s Lancashire hotpots.’

  ‘Yes, it’s just that the sliced potatoes are a bit browner than usual,’ said Jane.

  ‘What’s in it?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘The usual,’ said Daphne. ‘Mutton, kidneys, carrots, onions and so on.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ said Charlie, ‘I’ll have a fairly decent helping.’

  ‘Sure?’ said Daphne, serving William. ‘Only there’s some cold meat and pickle, if you like.’

  ‘On a night like this?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Hotpot’s best, Dad,’ said Jane.

  ‘My feelings exactly, now I know what’s in it,’ said Charlie. Daphne smiled and Jane and William winked at each other. Charlie received the kind of helping that was generally accepted in most households as the entitlement of the head of the family. And when Daphne had served herself, he said, ‘Who’s turn to say grace?’ That was something Daphne liked, having been brought up in a church-going family.

  ‘Jane’s turn,’ said William.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Jane. ‘For what we’re about to receive let’s be truly thankful.’

  They began the hot and nourishing meal then.

  ‘Anyone going out after supper?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Not me,’ said William, ‘not even next door.’ Next door lived Mr and Mrs Baxter, and their children Eddie, Edith and Johnny, close friends to Jane and William.

  ‘We could get lost just findin’ our way to their front door,’ said Jane.

  ‘I shouldn’t think anyone ’ud want to go out in a fog like this,’ said William. ‘Me and Jane could hardly find our way home from next door last night.’

  ‘Wild elephants couldn’t drag me,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Which tells me’, said Charlie, ‘that our best bet would be to put the card table up and sit around the fire playing – well, what could we play?’

  ‘“Beat Your Neighbour”,’ said Jane.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Charlie. ‘For ha’pennies or buttons?’

  ‘Ha’pennies,’ said William.

  ‘Only if I win,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’ll stake the pair of you,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I think dads are sort of useful sometimes,’ said Jane.

  ‘Mums are useful all the time,’ said William.

  ‘I go along with that deduction,’ said Charlie.

  Daphne mentally gave him a medal for being the kind of father who, despite the pressures and the time-consuming nature of his work, would always put his worries aside for his children. They liked him to give them some of his spare time. She knew his present case was on his mind, especially as there were snide references in some newspapers to another elusive Jack the Ripper being at large. Also, Charlie had very little so far in the way of leads, except for a certain man called Godfrey, who still hadn’t shown up. But as a husband and father, Charlie was willing to sit down to a family evening at the fireside. No wonder Jane and William liked their dad, even though policemen’s children were sometimes given a rough ride by other boys and girls.

  * * *

  In bed later, Charlie said he thought the Fleet Street reporters might be in a bit of a confused state.

  ‘Why?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘I told them we had several suspects in mind, including a woman,’ said Charlie.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I mentioned I might have to eliminate a woman suspect.’

  ‘Lord above, is that true?’

  ‘They think it is,’ said Charlie.

  ‘But is it?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘There’s not a woman suspect?’

  ‘I haven’t found one.’

  ‘Why did you tell the reporters there was, then?’

  ‘To help them take their minds off a second Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘Charlie, you’re dreadful.’

  ‘Well, you’re not, Daphne, that’s one thing I’m certain of,’ said Charlie.

  ‘So am I,’ murmured Daphne.

  The gentleman came this time out of Hanbury Street, where Anne Chapman, the second of Jack the Ripper’s victims, had been murdered and butchered. He entered Barkers Row, moving steadily through the fog and taking no notice of sounds that were those associated with people whose only solace was to get drunk on cheap gin. He was alert to the possibility of being waylaid, beaten senseless and robbed, and his grip on his walking-stick was very firm. He continued on and entered New Road. She was not there tonight, the young woman who had offered herself to him for three shillings last night. The bleak, shrouded doorway was empty, but at an upper window of the house faint light struggled in its battle with the fog. She was up there, probably, with a client.

  He smiled and went on, out of the grey citadel of abject poverty, desperate women and attendant vice, heading south for the river. In Commercial Street, he slowed in his walk as he heard the sound of a man’s voice, husky and muffled. Then a woman groaned. Approaching a shop doorway, he glimpsed shapeless convulsions. Two degenerates, male and female, were lustfully disporting themselves, the female for money, no doubt. As he went by, he lifted his stick and struck the male’s back violently, causing a gasping exclamation of pain. He smiled again and kept going, not pausing in his steady stride. Oaths and the sounds of rage issued from the doorway, but he surmised, correctly, that the suffering party was in no condition to come after him.

  He continued on through the fog.

  Scotland Yard received an anonymous letter the following morning. It was opened and handed to Chief Inspector Dobbs, who had slept soundly apart from a waking interval of ten minutes, when he felt he’d partaken too excessively of Lancashire hotpot and apple pie.

  He read the letter.

  Deer Sir what about HIM, what about what HE gets up to in pubs with them as is always reddy to go round the back with HIM, what a shame and discrase HIM and them kind of women, what about askin HER where HE was that nite, Mrs Pritchard I mean that’s his wife and knows HE had his eye on Maureen Flanagan that got done in. I’m a friend to the police.

  ‘Sergeant Ross!’ bawled the Chief Inspector, and in came his helpful assistant. ‘Take a look at that, my lad.’

  Sergeant Ross read the unsigned letter.

  ‘Interesting, would you say, guv?’ he asked.

  ‘Interesting? Of course it’s interesting.’

  ‘Yes, you could say that,’ said Ross.

  ‘I am saying it. What’s up with you? Had a bad night?’

  ‘No, a late one, guv. I was with Miss Harriet Cartright, a friend of mine, a nurse.’

  ‘Walking her around Hyde Park in the fog?’ said the Chief Inspector.

  ‘No, I was with her in her parents’ house in Battersea,’ said Ross. ‘I live in Battersea myself. It got very sociable. We
ll, out of uniform, Nurse Cartright’s a very sociable woman.’

  ‘Out of uniform, I suppose she would be,’ said Dobbs. ‘As I can’t always mind my own business, how much out was she?’

  ‘She was nicely dressed in an ivory lace-fronted blouse, blue skirt with a decorative hem, and a tortoiseshell comb, guv.’

  ‘I take it you’re reminding me of your powers of observation, Sergeant. Very good. But I won’t ask what you were doing that kept you there late.’

  ‘Playing whist with her and her parents,’ said Ross.

  ‘Playing whist? With her parents? I give up,’ said Dobbs, ‘I thought four was a large crowd. Now, this letter, what does it call for?’

  ‘The wastepaper-basket or a knock on Mrs Pritchard’s door,’ said Ross.

  ‘That answer’s a sign you’re coming to,’ said Dobbs. ‘We’ll leave here at ten. Is it still foggy?’

  ‘Not according to what’s showing through your window, guv. It’s misty, that’s all.’

  ‘Keep me informed,’ said the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Seen the morning papers yet?’ asked Ross.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, the female suspect isn’t mentioned—’

  ‘What female suspect?’

  ‘Come off it, guv. Anyway, she isn’t mentioned, but I think they’re having their own back on you. After giving you a mention yourself, nearly all the reports suggest that as far as progress in the case is concerned, Scotland Yard doesn’t know its arse from its elbow.’

  ‘Are you sure it was the Yard that was mentioned?’

  ‘Not exactly, guv.’

  ‘Well, exactly what, then?’ demanded the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Would it be better, guv, if I kept my lips sealed?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t, Sergeant Ross. It was me that got the mention, was it?’

  ‘Which I consider unkindly personal,’ said Ross.

  ‘What was it Her Majesty once said when she was a bit younger?’ asked Dobbs.

  ‘No idea, guv, she didn’t say it to me.’

  ‘I know what it was. She wasn’t amused, she said. Well, nor am I, sunshine. And I won’t be at home if Fleet Street calls again this afternoon. Inspector Davis can stand in. Right, that’s all for the moment. Get your hat and coat on at ten sharp for our visit to Mrs Pritchard.