The Trial of Elizabeth Cree Read Online Free Page A

smell of the Irish, as thick and heavy as old cheese, is not to be endured. There were two of them lying dead drunk outside a free-and-easy, and Icrossed the street to get them out of my nostrils. I entered a crumbling confectionery shop on that side, and purchased a pennyworth of licorice to make my tongue black. Who knows where I would have to place it that night?
    Then another fine thought occurred to me. I had an hour or two before the night came on and I knew well enough that, a little way down towards the river, stood the house which had witnessed the immortal Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1812. On a spot as sacred to the memory as Tyburn or Golgotha, an entire family had been mysteriously and silently dispatched into eternity by an artist whose exploits will be preserved forever in the pages of Thomas De Quincey. John Williams had come upon the household of the Marrs and wiped them from the world as you would wipe a dish. So what more pleasant excursion than a stroll down the Highway itself?
    In truth it was a mean dwelling for such a glorious crime—no more than a narrow shopfront with some rooms above it. The man Marr, whose blood had been shed for the sake of greatness, had been a hosier by trade. Now, in his place, was a secondhand clothes seller. Thus, as the Bible tells us, are the sacred temples defiled. I walked in at once, and asked him how he did. “Pretty poor, sir,” he said. “Pretty poor.” I looked upon the place, just behind the counter, where Williams had split open the skull of one child.
    “This is a good spot for trade, is it not?”
    “It is said to be, sir. But all times are hard times along the Highway.” He watched me, as I stooped over and touched the ground with my forefinger. “A gentleman like yourself has no call for custom here, sir. Am I right?”
    “My wife has a maid, who needs no finery. Do you have something like an old-fashioned dress?”
    “Oh, there are many dresses and gowns, sir. Feel the quality in these ones.” He brushed his hand against a row of fusty objects,and I hovered close so that I might smell them. What dirty flesh had been pressed against this cloth? In this same room—perhaps upon these very boards—the artist had craved for more blood and hunted out the mistress of the house.
    “Do you have a wife and daughter?”
    He looked at me for a moment, and then laughed. “Oh, I know what you mean, sir. No. They never wear the articles. We are not of the poorest sort.”
    John Williams had climbed those stairs, and clubbed her down even as she bent over the grate. “And do you wonder, then, that these are not for me or my maid? Good day to you. I have a little business waiting for me elsewhere.” I walked out into Ratcliffe Highway, but I could not resist looking up at the rooms above the shop. What wonders had been performed in that narrow confined space? And what if they might come again? That would be a consummation never before seen in this city.
    But I had other fish to fry—some little sprat to catch and cook. It was growing dark now, and the gas was being lit by the time I came into Limehouse. It was the hour to show my hand but, as yet, I was a mere tyro, a beginner, an understudy who could not appear on the great stage without rehearsal. I had first to perfect my work in a secret hour, stolen from the tumult of the city: if only I could find some secluded grove and, like some pastoral being, shed London blood within a green shade. But that was not to be. I was still in my own particular private theater, this garish spot beneath the gas lamps, and here I must perform. But, at first, let it be behind the curtain …
    There was a pert little thing lingering outside the alley by the Laburnum Playhouse; she could have been no more than eighteen or nineteen, but in the ways of the street she was already old. She knew the bible of the world, for she had learned it by heart. And what a heart it might prove to be, if it were removed with love and care. I