George Mann: Associates of Sherlock Holmes

For a moment, I shut for eyes and willed for inspiration to strike and strike quickly. I had just opened them again when a knock at the door disturbed me and I gestured to the waiting constable to enter.

“Sir,” said Barrows, his police helmet nestled in the crook of his arm as he leaned inside, as if afraid to step across the threshold fully. “They are here, sir.” He gave a weak smile that pulled at a scar on the right side of his face, an injury sustained as an infant, a fire or some such.

I nodded, weary, and sent Barrows on his way.

The vultures of Fleet Street had gathered outside Scotland Yard in an agitated flock as I came out to meet them.

“Four dead, all by a policeman’s hand,” began a young-looking oik from the Standard called Arthur Grange, “and Scotland Yard no closer to a suspect let alone an arrest. What steps are being taken to ensure public safety, Inspector?”

“Every step, Mr Grange. My constables are at large across the city and–”

“Any one of whom could be a cold-blooded murderer,” chimed a weaselly fellow I didn’t recognise with a trimmed beard framing his smug grin.

Before I could reply, another voice called out from somewhere in the crowd, “I ’eard he’s been cutting ’em up and selling their parts as mutton!”

The vultures laughed uproariously, which only drove my anger all the hotter. I found the man amongst the crowd, an older, dishevelled-looking fellow, straight off the docks judging by his attire.

“I can assure the public, all measures are being taken to apprehend this murderer, and I would urge the good people of London to remain vigilant at all–”

“Vigilant?” asked the dock tramp, “and what will the mutton shunters be doing whilst we are remaining vigilant ?”

“Everything is in hand,” I said, in an attempt to reassert some measure of order. “Be reassured that we shall catch this heinous killer.”

“Who is likely one of your own,” said the weasel, George Garret of The Times , as I later came to learn. “An overzealous Bobby who batty-fanged some poor wretch and went too far.”

“Slanderous remarks such as that, regardless of who you represent,” I said, “will land you in the cells.” I began to retreat, sensing an end to the conference. “I have nothing further at this time.” Garret took a step towards me, intent on further questioning. “I said that’s all,” I warned him, “and if you take another step then I smack that door-knocker off your face and call it arrest for public disorder.”

A flash lamp went off to capture the moment my humours got the better of me, and I could already imagine a headline describing police brutality or some such libel.

Garret sneered but stepped back, and I returned inside to the jeering and cajoling of the Fleet Street mob.

“Bloody circus,” I remarked to Barrows, who was waiting for me. A second flash lamp hissed loudly behind me. “Ignore them, Constable,” I told Barrows, who was still looking fearfully at the mob. “They’ll get bored soon enough.”

I was back in my office when there was a light rap on the door and I saw the dock tramp, grinning toothlessly at me through the smeared glass. Wrenching open the door, I was about to arrest the wretch for loitering when he smiled and I saw the glint in his eye.

“See, Inspector,” he said, realising what the look on my face meant, “you aren’t entirely without wit.”

“Holmes,” I replied, ushering him inside. “Why the theatre?”

“I find it useful,” he said, removing the false teeth and shedding his threadbare jacket. “Few pay attention to the disenfranchised, Inspector.”

“I see. Have you got Dr Watson somewhere under all of that paraphernalia too, then?”

“Ah, no,” said Holmes, striking up his pipe and taking a short draw. “Watson is visiting our witness. Alas, she has said nothing since the incident, other than repeating the name of our perpetrator ad infinitum.”

“So, why are you here Holmes? Is it just to irritate me?”

“As mildly diverting as that would be… no, I am here on another matter. Tell me, Lestrade, of the hundreds of officers that you are no doubt already trawling through, how many of them are or were tanners?”

I frowned, in part trying to recall, but also out of confusion. “I’d have to have a look.”

“Allow me to save you the inconvenience, Lestrade. Jacob Wainwright, aged fifty-seven, an ex-constable of your borough, now a registered tanner in Bermondsey. Discharged due to ill health.”

“And he became a tanner?” I asked. “I fail to see what any of this has to do with the case, Holmes.”

Holmes smiled thinly. “Should we not aim to catch him before the act, Inspector?”

“Very droll, Holmes.” I frowned. “How did you come across the information about Wainwright anyway, might I ask?”

“Obfuscation is a useful tool, Lestrade, much in the way that you can sometimes be useful.” I gritted my teeth. “By appearing as what is ubiquitous, one can attain a reasonable degree of anonymity. A police constable at a busy constabulary, for instance. Let us just say, I wished to experience what it was like to walk around as our Peeler does.”

I was fairly sure Holmes had just confessed to illegally impersonating an officer of the law, but had neither the will nor time to take him to account for it.

“Well, Inspector?” said Holmes, with sudden verve. “Should we tarry further and let the Peeler increase his tally, or shall we make for Bermondsey post-haste?”

I wanted to tell him no, and that Her Majesty’s Constabulary could catch this fiend without the aid of Sherlock Holmes but instead I called to Barrows and sent him to fetch Cooper. As he ran off, I narrowed my eyes and asked, “Holmes, what has any of this got to do with a tannery?”

“My dear Inspector,” he replied, his smile as condescending as his manner, “it has everything to do with it. Oh, and apologies for the tea.”

Few professions are as vile as that of the tanner. I could smell the dung and urine before we reached Bermondsey Leathermarket, on the Surrey side of London Bridge. London has its wretched quarters in abundance, but few are as foul as Weston Street. A grim calibre of men dwell here, a rough-handed, rough-hearted lot with all the distemper of those whose labours see them so befouled and oft reviled by fairer folk. What had brought Wainwright to such a place, I could not fathom. I knew little of the man – for I had never met him in person – save for what was in his records, the mention of an injury that had resulted in his discharge from the force. An old photograph described a thin-faced fellow with narrow eyes, his left ear with a piece missing where someone had bitten it off.

“What are we doing here, Holmes?” I asked, sitting across from him in the growler we had taken from Scotland Yard, my constables either side of me.

“Lime, Inspector Lestrade. Specifically, lime combined with small amounts of soda ash and lye. Before you wrinkle your brow, all three are used in the process of tanning and were discovered, in varying quantities and concentrations, on the remaining skin and clothes of all four victims during my initial examinations. A simple if lengthy chemical analysis confirmed it.”

After leaving the growler, we approached the broad archway that led into an even broader square, arranged around which were numerous doorways. A bustling, jostling crowd filled the square. Some towed carts, others carried great rolls of hide upon their shoulders.

“Here then, Inspector,” said Holmes, “and where we shall find our Mr Wainwright.”

My constables turned to me. Barrows had paled a little, and Cooper looked eager but uncertain. “You heard the man,” I told them, “don’t drag your feet. If he’s here, we’ll have him in shackles before the day is out.”