“Shall I send my man round with the message? Or come myself in the carriage and four?”
Sherlock Holmes put a finger to his lips and tranquilly handed her a crown. “If you manage to hide this from the matron,” said he, opening the heavy outer door and descending the steps into the open air, “and fail to spend it upon any other diversions, you’ll have the ability to wire me whenever you feel it necessary. Good afternoon, Miss Monk.” So saying, he extended his hand.
“You’re a strange one, you are,” she declared as she shook the detective’s hand. “You’re a private ’tec, ain’t you? I’ve seen your name in the papers. Well, as you’ve naught else to go on, I’ll leastways tell you who we spend our days avoiding. Goes by the name of Leather Apron. I’d not be caught in a dark alley in his company, make no mistake.”
When we had passed beyond the forbidding ironwork dividing the workhouse from the road, I could not help observing, “She seems a very intelligent young woman.”
I had expected Holmes, who regarded females solely as unpredictable and vexing factors in his criminal equations, to dismiss my remark entirely. Instead he replied with an amused look, “You are the connoisseur of femininity, my dear fellow. Still, she has an eye for trivia and a memory to repeat it. In addition, she has an intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood, and associations which could aid us if she decides to make use of them.”
“Is that the reason you enabled her to contact you?”
“Her natural talent for observation could prove very useful. I would rather have ten of her than fifty of Scotland Yard.”
“I should not like Lestrade to hear you say that.” I laughed.
“My dear fellow, I assure you I meant no offense.” Holmes chuckled in return. “The good inspector has many fine qualities to recommend him, as does Miss Monk, it seems clear. However, I would venture to say that it is unlikely that any of them overlap.”
The funeral of Polly Nichols took place at Little Ilford Cemetery, on the afternoon of September sixth. The day was a fittingly inclement one, the skies mourning the dead with a profusion of rain. I learned that Mrs. Nichols’s father, children, and estranged spouse attended, though few other people presented themselves: as many mourners who had known the deceased as members of the public who had come solely to remark upon the lurid manner of her death.
Minor business matters required my presence at my bank that day,though it was only with the greatest reluctance that I left the comforts of our sitting room. I returned to Baker Street thoroughly soaked to find Holmes at our table, a newspaper at his fingertips and a cup of tea in his hand.
“There is an air about you which positively cries out for refreshment, my dear Watson,” he hailed me. “Allow me to pour you a cup. There are developments upon the Leather Apron front. Miss Monk was by no means wrong in her expectation that suspicion would fall upon this rascal.”
“Yes, I spied a description of him in yesterday’s Star. ”
“I have it here. Hum! Short, thickset, late thirties, black hair and moustache, thick neck. The remainder hardly rests upon a firm bed of fact: silent, sinister, and repulsive. You can see that the press are already indulging in gleeful and inventive adjectives. Half the article is unmitigated conjecture.”
“Do you lend any credence to the matter?”
“Well, even given the natural hysteria of the journalistic world, it bears investigating. I may as well own, Watson, that my other lines of inquiry have proven quite barren. Polly Nichols was turned away from her doss house upon the night in question but seemed confident of earning her pennies, as she had a new black bonnet. She went from pub to pub and was last seen, very drunk, at two thirty in the morning. An hour later, she was discovered.”
“And Martha Tabram’s case?”
Holmes threw up his hands in resignation. “Pearly Poll,
Sherlock Holmes put a finger to his lips and tranquilly handed her a crown. “If you manage to hide this from the matron,” said he, opening the heavy outer door and descending the steps into the open air, “and fail to spend it upon any other diversions, you’ll have the ability to wire me whenever you feel it necessary. Good afternoon, Miss Monk.” So saying, he extended his hand.
“You’re a strange one, you are,” she declared as she shook the detective’s hand. “You’re a private ’tec, ain’t you? I’ve seen your name in the papers. Well, as you’ve naught else to go on, I’ll leastways tell you who we spend our days avoiding. Goes by the name of Leather Apron. I’d not be caught in a dark alley in his company, make no mistake.”
When we had passed beyond the forbidding ironwork dividing the workhouse from the road, I could not help observing, “She seems a very intelligent young woman.”
I had expected Holmes, who regarded females solely as unpredictable and vexing factors in his criminal equations, to dismiss my remark entirely. Instead he replied with an amused look, “You are the connoisseur of femininity, my dear fellow. Still, she has an eye for trivia and a memory to repeat it. In addition, she has an intimate knowledge of the neighbourhood, and associations which could aid us if she decides to make use of them.”
“Is that the reason you enabled her to contact you?”
“Her natural talent for observation could prove very useful. I would rather have ten of her than fifty of Scotland Yard.”
“I should not like Lestrade to hear you say that.” I laughed.
“My dear fellow, I assure you I meant no offense.” Holmes chuckled in return. “The good inspector has many fine qualities to recommend him, as does Miss Monk, it seems clear. However, I would venture to say that it is unlikely that any of them overlap.”
The funeral of Polly Nichols took place at Little Ilford Cemetery, on the afternoon of September sixth. The day was a fittingly inclement one, the skies mourning the dead with a profusion of rain. I learned that Mrs. Nichols’s father, children, and estranged spouse attended, though few other people presented themselves: as many mourners who had known the deceased as members of the public who had come solely to remark upon the lurid manner of her death.
Minor business matters required my presence at my bank that day,though it was only with the greatest reluctance that I left the comforts of our sitting room. I returned to Baker Street thoroughly soaked to find Holmes at our table, a newspaper at his fingertips and a cup of tea in his hand.
“There is an air about you which positively cries out for refreshment, my dear Watson,” he hailed me. “Allow me to pour you a cup. There are developments upon the Leather Apron front. Miss Monk was by no means wrong in her expectation that suspicion would fall upon this rascal.”
“Yes, I spied a description of him in yesterday’s Star. ”
“I have it here. Hum! Short, thickset, late thirties, black hair and moustache, thick neck. The remainder hardly rests upon a firm bed of fact: silent, sinister, and repulsive. You can see that the press are already indulging in gleeful and inventive adjectives. Half the article is unmitigated conjecture.”
“Do you lend any credence to the matter?”
“Well, even given the natural hysteria of the journalistic world, it bears investigating. I may as well own, Watson, that my other lines of inquiry have proven quite barren. Polly Nichols was turned away from her doss house upon the night in question but seemed confident of earning her pennies, as she had a new black bonnet. She went from pub to pub and was last seen, very drunk, at two thirty in the morning. An hour later, she was discovered.”
“And Martha Tabram’s case?”
Holmes threw up his hands in resignation. “Pearly Poll,
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