Free Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes by Bernard J. Schaffer

old woman. “If you lot want to eat anything besides bread and water for the week, this bastard had better have a hard time of it in here!” As he left the prison, the Old Nichol boy was screaming for his mother, and Lestrade smiled the rest of the day.
    Lestrade beat another senseless with his baton in Spitalfields, screaming, “Where the hell is Mickey Fitch? Where is that one-eyed bastard!” The bloke’s head gave way before his loyalty did, and he collapsed in a bleeding heap on the pavement. The dozen spectators who witnessed the assault were horrorstruck, but did not move to help as Lestrade left him lying there as a message to the rest of the gang.
    Not one criminal even admitted to the existence of Mickey Fitch, let alone his involvement in the Smith shakedown and murder. Lestrade was no closer to finding the actual four suspects than when he began, but if truth be told, he was enjoying the work.
    On August Seventh, Lestrade was sitting in his office, eyeing the hands of his pocket watch move toward the time he told a local bunter named Louise to meet him outside of the Princess Alice. Louise was easy on the eyes, but she had a bad habit of dragging her little girl with her all over Whitechapel, even when she was working. “Leave the little girl elsewhere,” he’d told her. “I do not want to be distracted.” He figured he would give her an extra coin or two if she left the little one behind.
    One of the young constables came running into his office to report that they needed him immediately at a stairwell in the George Yard Building on Gunthorpe Street. Martha Tabram, an older whore from the neighborhood had been stabbed thirty nine times. The killer was frenzied, puncturing her in the neck, the gut, and twat.
    Lestrade looked at the body and scowled, angry at the old bitch for getting herself murdered when he had places to be, and things to do. Anyway, it was obvious how Tabram had gotten herself killed. The only time a person bothered to stab anybody that many times, with that much ferocity, was someone with a serious personal grudge.
    Lestrade figured that Tabram had refused to pay her pimp, or maybe tried stealing something from one of her punters. Whatever the case, it had caught up with her on the rodent-infested steps of the George Yard stairwell.
    And then, August Thirty-First at three forty in the morning, a forty-three year old prostitute was found on Buck’s Row by a carman on his way to work at Pickfords. He saw her lying on the street and called to a friend for assistance. They both checked her and thought she had a heartbeat.
    A constable was summoned, and he, in turn, summoned a doctor. Finally, the doctor was able to determine that the life of one Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols had been snuffed out. Lestrade thought, maybe it was the fact that her throat had been completely cut open and her belly slashed several times. The Polly Nichols murder, while daunting, could be worked if Lestrade was given the time and manpower. He knew that people were out in that area all times of night. He knew that someone had seen something. He knew that at some point, an angry housewife would walk into his station and say that her husband was hiding a bloody knife and shirt under the floorboard of their home. An arrest would be made, his name would be in the papers, and he would finally get promoted out of the stinking hole known as Whitechapel.
    Enter the mutilated corpse of Annie Chapman.
    Lestrade’s jaw tightened, picturing the scene of Chapman’s murder. He had seen much horror in his time as a police officer in the service of the Metropolitan Police Department, but what found in the rear of Twenty Nine Hanbury Street would haunt his dreams forever.
    Lestrade’s years of policing, dealing with all the varied aspects of humanity, had stolen both his faith in God and his faith in Good. Looking down at Annie Chapman filled him with only fear.
    “Bollocks,” Lestrade whispered, seeing John Pizer coming