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I was unsure whether to post this under the officer or the scene, so apologies if this is not appropriate for "Scene of the Crimes":
I have been wondering about the strange incident referred to in an item in the People's Journal on 27th September 1919 wherein a "Scotland Yard Man" alludes to one of Stephen White's reports:
“For five nights we had been watching a certain alley just behind the Whitechapel Road. It could only be entered from where we had two men posted in hiding, and persons entering the alley were under observation by the two men. It was a bitter cold night when I arrived at the scene to take the report of the two men in hiding. I was turning away when I saw a man coming out of the alley. He was walking quickly but noiselessly, apparently wearing rubber shoes, which were rather rare in those days. I stood aside to let the man pass, and as he came under the wall lamp I got a good look at him.
“He was about five feet ten inches in height, and was dressed rather shabbily, though it was obvious that the material of his clothes was good. Evidently a man who had seen better days. I thought, but men who had seen better days are common enough down East, and that of itself was not sufficient to justify me in stopping him. His face was long and thin, nostrils rather delicate, and his hair was jet black. His complexion was inclined to be sallow, and altogether the man was foreign. The most striking thing about him, however, was the extraordinary brilliance of his eyes. They looked like two luminous glow worms coming through the darkness. The man was slightly bent at the shoulders, though he was obviously quite young - about 33, at the most - and gave one the idea of having been a student or professional man. His hands were snow white, and fingers long and tapering.
Man With Musical Voice.
“As the man passed me at the lamp I had an uneasy feeling that there was something more than usually sinister about him, and I was strongly moved to find some pretext for detaining him; but the more I thought it over, the more was I forced to the conclusion that it was not in keeping with British police methods that I should do so. My only excuse for interfering with the passage of this man would have been his association with the man we were looking for, and I had no real grounds for connecting him with the murder. It is true I had a sort of intuition that the man was not quite right. Still, if one acted on intuition in the police force, there would be more frequent outcries about interference with the liberty of subject, and at that time the police were criticised enough to make it undesirable to take risks.
“The man stumbled a few feet away from me, and I made that an excuse for engaging him in conversation. He turned sharply at the sound of my voice, and scowled at me in a surly fashion, but he said ‘Good-night’ and agreed with me that it was cold.
“His voice was a surprise to me. It was soft and musical, with just a tinge of melancholy in it, and it was a voice of a man of culture - a voice altogether out of keeping with the squalid surroundings of the East End.
“As he turned away, one of the police officers came out of the house he had been in, and walked a few paces into the darkness of the alley. ‘Hello! what is this?’ he cried, and then he called in startled tones to me to come along.
“In the East End we are used to shocking sights, but the sight I saw made the blood in my veins turn to ice. At the end of the cul-de-sac, huddled against the wall, there was the body of a woman, and a pool of blood was streaming along the gutter from her body. It was clearly another of those terrible murders I remembered the man I had seen, and I started after him as fast as I could run, but he was lost to sight in the dark labyrinth of East End mean streets.”
None of the C5 scenes really fits, although I'm aware that many think Mitre Square is the best fit. If the non-C5 murders are included, it is tempting to think of Castle Alley.
Is there any mileage in the possibility of Dutfields Yard? We know that White was directly involved in the investigation of the Stride murder (Packer). White speaks of chasing a man through "the dark labyrinth of East End mean streets". Schwartz spoke of being chased by a man who emerged from a pub doorway. It's not "just behind the Whitechapel Road", but nor is anywhere else. It is, however, the sort of location which the Metropolitan Police might have had under observation. It would be embarrassing, to say the least, if one of the murders was committed while cops on observations were momentarily distracted.
There are obviously problems with this but, if the White report is not a complete fiction (a distinct possibility), the incident must have happened at the scene of some murder somewhere. Might this be one explanation for the failure to present Schwartz as a witness at the Stride inquest? Just a thought. (White is the right age to be BS Man & might have glamorised the person he saw in later reminiscences ).
I have been wondering about the strange incident referred to in an item in the People's Journal on 27th September 1919 wherein a "Scotland Yard Man" alludes to one of Stephen White's reports:
“For five nights we had been watching a certain alley just behind the Whitechapel Road. It could only be entered from where we had two men posted in hiding, and persons entering the alley were under observation by the two men. It was a bitter cold night when I arrived at the scene to take the report of the two men in hiding. I was turning away when I saw a man coming out of the alley. He was walking quickly but noiselessly, apparently wearing rubber shoes, which were rather rare in those days. I stood aside to let the man pass, and as he came under the wall lamp I got a good look at him.
“He was about five feet ten inches in height, and was dressed rather shabbily, though it was obvious that the material of his clothes was good. Evidently a man who had seen better days. I thought, but men who had seen better days are common enough down East, and that of itself was not sufficient to justify me in stopping him. His face was long and thin, nostrils rather delicate, and his hair was jet black. His complexion was inclined to be sallow, and altogether the man was foreign. The most striking thing about him, however, was the extraordinary brilliance of his eyes. They looked like two luminous glow worms coming through the darkness. The man was slightly bent at the shoulders, though he was obviously quite young - about 33, at the most - and gave one the idea of having been a student or professional man. His hands were snow white, and fingers long and tapering.
Man With Musical Voice.
“As the man passed me at the lamp I had an uneasy feeling that there was something more than usually sinister about him, and I was strongly moved to find some pretext for detaining him; but the more I thought it over, the more was I forced to the conclusion that it was not in keeping with British police methods that I should do so. My only excuse for interfering with the passage of this man would have been his association with the man we were looking for, and I had no real grounds for connecting him with the murder. It is true I had a sort of intuition that the man was not quite right. Still, if one acted on intuition in the police force, there would be more frequent outcries about interference with the liberty of subject, and at that time the police were criticised enough to make it undesirable to take risks.
“The man stumbled a few feet away from me, and I made that an excuse for engaging him in conversation. He turned sharply at the sound of my voice, and scowled at me in a surly fashion, but he said ‘Good-night’ and agreed with me that it was cold.
“His voice was a surprise to me. It was soft and musical, with just a tinge of melancholy in it, and it was a voice of a man of culture - a voice altogether out of keeping with the squalid surroundings of the East End.
“As he turned away, one of the police officers came out of the house he had been in, and walked a few paces into the darkness of the alley. ‘Hello! what is this?’ he cried, and then he called in startled tones to me to come along.
“In the East End we are used to shocking sights, but the sight I saw made the blood in my veins turn to ice. At the end of the cul-de-sac, huddled against the wall, there was the body of a woman, and a pool of blood was streaming along the gutter from her body. It was clearly another of those terrible murders I remembered the man I had seen, and I started after him as fast as I could run, but he was lost to sight in the dark labyrinth of East End mean streets.”
None of the C5 scenes really fits, although I'm aware that many think Mitre Square is the best fit. If the non-C5 murders are included, it is tempting to think of Castle Alley.
Is there any mileage in the possibility of Dutfields Yard? We know that White was directly involved in the investigation of the Stride murder (Packer). White speaks of chasing a man through "the dark labyrinth of East End mean streets". Schwartz spoke of being chased by a man who emerged from a pub doorway. It's not "just behind the Whitechapel Road", but nor is anywhere else. It is, however, the sort of location which the Metropolitan Police might have had under observation. It would be embarrassing, to say the least, if one of the murders was committed while cops on observations were momentarily distracted.
There are obviously problems with this but, if the White report is not a complete fiction (a distinct possibility), the incident must have happened at the scene of some murder somewhere. Might this be one explanation for the failure to present Schwartz as a witness at the Stride inquest? Just a thought. (White is the right age to be BS Man & might have glamorised the person he saw in later reminiscences ).
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