“Are there no depths to which man’s depravity will not stoop?” said Watson. “Holmes, what need could one have for flesh taken in such a manner?”
“That, Watson, is something I intend to find out.”
I returned to Scotland Yard in a Black Maria with the body. Holmes and Watson followed, but only after Holmes had lingered to make his observations. Diverted as I was by preliminary paperwork, both were waiting for me as I entered the morgue.
Holmes remained in the corner of the room throughout, swallowed in shadow like some wraith, a plume of pale blue smoke issuing from his short briar pipe. He leaned against the wall casually, though I could see little cause to behave thusly, and I was reminded again of how unlike anyone else Holmes is.
“Inspector,” said Watson, standing by the slab where the faceless man now lay. A veil had been placed over the remains of his face so as to conceal his grim affliction, though the rest of his body was naked and stitched from clavicle to sternum.
“Jeremiah Goose,” I said, reading from the report I had been in the middle of compiling. I had sent several constables out to canvas the streets where the murder took place, and someone had seen and recognised Goose but had not borne witness to the deed that had sent him to the morgue.
“A porter at the Alderbrook Workhouse on Lower Thames Street,” said Holmes, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “I would say I knew him by his face, but that would be mildly indelicate given Mr Goose’s current disposition.”
“Heaven forefend you come across as indelicate, Mr Holmes,” said I, turning to Watson. “What do you make of the pathologist’s report, Doctor?”
“A single blow, just forward of the right temple,” said Watson. He gestured to the point where the skull had been cracked open. “Killed him instantly.”
“What else?” asked Holmes.
“The blow came from the front, so the killer was facing his victim. The pathologist found no defensive wounds, no bruising or lacerations of any kind, and neither can I, so we can assume our victim knew his attacker or had no cause to believe he was in danger.”
“Indeed,” muttered Holmes, “and you Lestrade? Have you any morsel to offer towards our understanding of what transpired?”
“A single blow, you say, Doctor?”
Watson nodded.
“Then the killer must be a man of not inconsiderable size and, presumably, height. Mr Goose must be…”
“Six foot, five inches and approximately one hundred and ninety-eight pounds,” said Watson, consulting the pathologist’s report. “A large man.”
“So we might assume our killer was at least as large, if not larger,” I said. “But why take this poor wretch’s face?”
“Why, indeed,” said Holmes.
“We’ll learn little more from Mr Goose, I think.”
“I would have to agree,” said Watson.
I nodded, swallowing back the bitter tang of ammonia itching the back of my throat. “Well, I don’t know about you gents, but I need some air.”
I have neither the inspiration of Holmes nor the education of Watson, but I am still an inspector of Scotland Yard, and what I might lack in cognitive faculty I more than make up for in a dogged determination to see justice prevail.
With nothing further to learn from Jeremiah Goose’s body, I fell back on police work. Whilst Holmes and Watson departed the Yard to conduct their own investigations, I took Metcalfe, Cooper and Barrows to follow up on the one lead I knew we had.
But by the time we got to Lower Thames Street, Alderbrook Workhouse was already burning.
The old building had gone up like dry tinder, the smoke visible across the Thames as far as Leathermarket. Six engines circled the blaze, the firemen struggling to contain it. I saw a constable too, no doubt alerted by the shouts of passers-by, but he was on the other side of the fire and I only saw him through the heat haze. Something about his manner seemed odd, the way he just looked on at the flames, but then what else could we all do?
I stood, my officers beside me, and watched as whatever evidence may have been contained within was destroyed by the conflagration. I felt the fire on my face, such was the sheer heat, and pressed a handkerchief against my nose and mouth to keep out the smoke.
“There’ll be nothing but a gutted ruin once this is done,” remarked Metcalfe. I smelled something other than smoke too, and knew that not everyone within had escaped.
“What now, Inspector?”
I didn’t answer straight away. Unless Holmes has found some further thread that he had yet to avail me of, I had no further leads to follow. “Question everyone at this scene,” I told them. “Get help if you need to.” I looked for the constable I had spotted earlier but couldn’t see him through the smoke. “I’m off back to the Yard.” I was angry at my own impotence and the knowledge that I was at the mercy of the killer, my only choice to wait until he killed again.
As it turned out, I did not have to wait long.
Unlike the first murder victim, the dead girl was lying on her back, not far from the Fenchurch Station, but in kind with the first, her skin had been flensed off. By the time I arrived, four constables were warning off the riffraff and Sergeant Metcalfe met me as before.
“Have you sent someone for Holmes?” I asked immediately.
Dragged to a side street cluttered with refuse and punctuated by the back entrances of shops and emporiums, the dead girl looked like she had tried to put up a struggle. She’d been hidden, at least partly, a dirty blanket laid across her legs and abdomen.
More blood this time. Less skin, though. The flesh of the shoulders and upper chest was missing. Her arms too.
Metcalfe could scarcely bring himself to look at her. He nodded. “All right,” I said. “On your way for now.”
Gratefully, Metcalfe went to marshal the constables whilst I got a better look at the girl. She wore a red velvet dress with a low neckline to expose the bust and shoulders. Her boots were also velvet, though in a darker red, closer to crimson, and she had a small hat with a black veil that had stayed pinned in place in spite of her violent death.
Her eyes were still open, frozen in her last moments, and I reached over to close them.
“God give us strength…”
Gradually it dawned on me, I knew her, you see, or rather knew of her. I had seen her face plastered around the East End and farther afield.
“Molly Cavendish.” I turned and saw Holmes standing a few paces back, the doctor a respectful distance behind him.
“Did you ever hear her sing, Mr Holmes?” I asked. “She had quite the voice.”
“And all of the East End shall mourn her loss, I am sure, but this is most curious…” Holmes approached to begin his examination.
“You are a cold man, Holmes,” I said.
“No, Lestrade,” he replied. “I am engaged, which is just as well for you. I fear your admirer’s grief has little to offer Miss Cavendish and, if I am not mistaken, she still has something to offer us.” He turned and gestured to Metcalfe. “Sergeant, as you did at Lime and Leadenhall Street, if you please.”
Reluctant, but impelled by my glare, Metcalfe turned poor Miss Cavendish over. The back of her dress was torn, crudely slashed. I feared something even darker had taken place than what I had first assumed, until I realised the cut garments were merely an outer layer, an impediment to be removed before taking the skin from Molly Cavendish’s back.
Holmes examined what skin remained, getting close enough to smell it. Her inspected her nails, her clothes, had Metcalfe turn her back again so he could look under her eyelids. He took a few strands of her hair, and regarded the soles of her boots. It seemed like a violation, as if Holmes were disturbing this poor girl’s final rest.