The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors Read Online Free PDF Page A

thorough job was performed later at themortuary. The light was so poor in the street, you see. Only the one gaslight on the corner, and the constables’ bull’s-eye lanterns. Don’t know how he could have done more under the circumstances.”
    “So there was no search of the area for a weapon or footprints or anything at all that could have been tied to the crime?” Holmes asked.
    Abberline shook his head. “No, nothing of the sort. Except, as I said, the first quick look-around that Neil conducted right after discovering the body. Not ideal conditions to find anything.”
    “And when daylight came?”
    Abberline looked embarrassed. “Well, of course a search was made the next morning, but nothing was found. As for footprints or suchlike, bless you, Mr. Holmes, but Buck’s Row is paved with cobbles. And the muck in the street, as Dr. Watson has so astutely observed on my boots and trousers, was by then so churned up by so many footprints, it would have been useless, quite useless, to even try to isolate the one pair that might have been of any interest to us.”
    Holmes looked at him with hooded eyes. “Then the area was not cordoned off?”
    “Well, not until after I reached the scene several hours later. And by then, well...”
    Holmes shook his head sadly. “Please continue, Inspector.”
    “Well, of course we knocked on all the doors facing Buck’s Row and questioned everybody who resides in the vicinity, but most of them were asleep, or so they say, and heard nothing. But you know those people, how suspicious they are of the official police. They’re not likely to share any information with us, even if they did know something.” His voice trailed off. He was noticeably tired and was having difficulty organizing his thoughts.
    Holmes prompted him gently: “The body? It had been taken away?”
    “Ah, yes. As I said, the body was ordered sent to the mortuary byDr. Llewellyn, and it was there that a more thorough examination was in due course undertaken. And that’s when we discovered the real horror of the crime.”
    Abberline paused to wipe his brow with a handkerchief taken from his sleeve. Holmes and Watson waited expectantly, not making a sound. Only the ticking of the clock could be heard, and the hiss of the gas lamp.
    “It was like this,” Abberline said finally. “Dr. Llewellyn returned to his home to get a few more hours of sleep and his breakfast, while the body was stripped and prepared for autopsy. This was done by two inmates of the workhouse to which the mortuary is attached — two regulars, I might add, who have often performed the same service and are well acquainted with the correct procedures: a Robert Mann and a James Hatfield,” he said, referring once again to his notebook. “The lads earn an extra bob or two lending a hand, as it were. You know, doing the dirty work.
    “It wasn’t until they were in the process of undressing the body to prepare it for the doctor that the discovery was made.”
    He paused. His voice sank to a hoarse whisper. “She’d been gutted, Mr. Holmes, gutted like a fish!”

Three

    S ATURDAY , S EPTEMBER 1, 1888
    “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
    — A Case of Identity
    T hey were at the mortuary within the hour. A hastily summoned four-wheeler conveyed them through the night to the slums of the East End, although the cab’s jarvey was most reluctant at first to take them.
    “Ye must be daft, or think I am!” he said from his box, shaking his head obstinately. “I’ll not be goin’ there, not at this hour of the night. ‘Tis bad enough in the daytime!”
    It took a flashing of police credentials and a most impressive display of Sergeant Thicke’s official manner to change the man’s mind. It did not change his humor. He lapsed into a sullen silence for the duration of the trip, a silence frequently punctuated by venomous over-the-shoulder glances, which expressed his feelings