Ghost of Whitechapel by Mary Jane Staples

Author:Mary Jane Staples
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446488249
Publisher: Transworld

Chapter Eleven

ROUSED OUT OF his bed by a uniformed police sergeant who had arrived in a cab, Chief Inspector Dobbs accompanied him to the scene of the crime in New Road. He kept his feelings to himself during the drive. A second murder similar to the first was bad enough. To have happened in Whitechapel and to a known prostitute made it far worse, since nothing would now hold Fleet Street back from suggesting Jack the Ripper had returned, even though neither victim had been mutilated.

The Whitechapel police had the house closed off to people. The Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police, responsible for summoning Dobbs, was on the spot and waiting for him, along with a police surgeon. The Chief Superintendent was frankly alarmed. Dobbs was frankly disgusted. The hounds were going to be at his back now with a vengeance.

Inspecting the body and the pool of drying blood, he said, ‘How long dead?’

‘Not long,’ said the surgeon. ‘Say a little over an hour, say about eleven-thirty. Just the one wound, a clean slicing of the throat.’

‘Poor bloody woman,’ said Dobbs. He frowned and mused. ‘It doesn’t look as if this one was carried from somewhere else.’

‘You’re thinking of the woman found in Tooley Street, the Flanagan woman?’ said the Chief Superintendent.

‘This one was done for right here,’ said Dobbs.

‘That’s obvious,’ said the surgeon.

‘Who lives in this house?’

‘It’s a brothel,’ said the Chief Superintendent, ‘and the man and woman who own the place and live here, on the ground floor, were the ones who found the body. There are three women upstairs, and one had a customer with her at the time. He’s still there, but swears he heard nothing. In fact, everyone in the house swears the same.’

‘I think I’ll still have a word with the owners,’ said Dobbs, and did so. They were a coarse couple, both as hard as nails, which was one way of surviving in the sleazy jungle of the East End, where dog ate dog. But they were a shaken couple at the moment, insisting they heard nothing that would have made them suspect murder was taking place in the passage. The only sounds had been those from upstairs, where two women had been drinking gin, and a third had been entertaining a client.

‘And gawd ’elp us if that ain’t the truth,’ said the man.

‘Where might the murdered woman have picked up a client herself?’ asked the Chief Inspector.

‘From the doorway. That was ’er pitch, the doorway. She wasn’t keen on walkin’ no street.’

‘Unfortunately, that precaution didn’t help her in the end,’ said Dobbs.

‘He’s come back, the bleeder,’ said the woman.

‘Who’s come back?’ asked Dobbs.

‘The Ripper,’ said the woman, white-faced.

‘If you say that again, I’ll lose my temper,’ said Dobbs.

‘Bloody ’ell,’ said the man, ‘if you’re out of sorts, ’ow d’yer think we feel?’

‘That Poppy, done for in our own ’ouse,’ said the woman.

It was some time before Chief Inspector Dobbs allowed himself to return home. Daphne got up, and at four o’clock in the morning she made him a hot toddy, and a cup of tea for herself.

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