The Real Sherlock Holmes by Angela Buckley

Author:Angela Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRUE CRIME / General
ISBN: 9781473834699
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The Manchester Cab Mystery

(February 1889)

At 6.30pm on Tuesday 26 February, John Fletcher hailed a cab from the steps of Manchester Cathedral. Slightly inebriated following an afternoon of drinking, the middle-aged paper merchant clambered into the hansom in the company of a young man. A short while later, the cab driver dropped the pair at the Three Arrows Public House nearby on Deansgate, and then waited 20 minutes while they went in for a drink. They each ordered two glasses of bitter, paid for by Fletcher.

The young man quickly downed his and just after 7pm, they set off again, this time in the direction of a private address in Stretford Road, towards Old Trafford. En route the road was blocked by a street procession for Mexican Joe’s new Wild West Show, then opening on Oxford Road. The cabman had to walk his horse while the parade passed and as they carried on their journey, a passerby called out to him: ‘A young fellow has just jumped out of your cab and run down Cambridge Street’. When the driver stepped down to investigate he found that the near side door of the cab was open. Inside John Fletcher was slouched in the back in a semi-conscious state, with his head resting on the seat in front. His companion had disappeared.

The cabbie lifted the slumped passenger’s head, rubbing his ears to rouse him. Slurring his words Fletcher muttered, ‘Go away, and leave me alone’, so the cab driver shut the door, climbed into his seat and drove towards the city centre. At 7.45pm the cab arrived back at the cathedral, where the cabman enlisted the help of a police constable, who suggested he drive his drunken passenger to Albert Street Police Station. But as Fletcher was now unconscious, the driver decided to take him straight to the Royal Infirmary, where the house surgeon, Mr John Hampden Barker, certified that John Fletcher was dead.

The following morning, the inhabitants of Manchester woke to the disturbing news that a respectable businessman had been found dead inside a cab in questionable circumstances. Already horrified by the recent gruesome murders in London attributed to Jack the Ripper, the public would follow the news with morbid fascination as the ‘Manchester Cab Mystery’ unfolded. The stakes were high, as confirmed in the Daily Telegraph:

The knowledge that atrocious criminals – such as the perpetrator of the Whitechapel butcheries, for instance – have succeeded in evading discovery for many months and are still at liberty (in all probability rubbing shoulders with well-conducted and law-abiding persons), is heavily fraught with mortification to the people of a civilised country.

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