ONCE BITTEN

FIFTEEN: ZORAYA MOYA

i

The day after the next full moon in February, Inspector Bitten left Scotland Yard after a meeting with the assistant-commissioner, when Constable Wilk buttonholed him on the steps outside.

            “Sir, we have a murder.”

            Bitten’s heart sank.  His career remained on a knife’s edge and the last thing he needed would be another gruesome Ripper murder.

            Taking a Hansom cab, the breathless young constable related what he knew of the case.  That morning, Stephen Coughlin, a thirty-year-old married arms manufacturer from Sheffield, had been found dead in Room 104 of the Royal Crescent Hotel behind Soho Square.

            He had been stabbed through the throat with a bayonet manufactured by his own company. The blow had been sufficiently powerful to sever his carotid artery and leave the weapon wedged between two vertebrae in his neck.

            Dr Loup had attended the scene declared that Mr Coughlin had died instantaneously.  He also noted that deep scratched on the victim’s right cheek and left hand; he estimated these wounds had been inflicted between thirty-six and seventy-two hours previously, a good deal earlier than the fatal stabbing.

            The man had been discovered naked, the doctor observed that he had been infected with s******s.  Dr Loup had also noted something odd about the victims hands.  There seemed to be an extraordinary amount of hair on the back of each hand, far more than normal, and his nails although manicured were pointed, almost like the claws of an animal.

            His eyes were open, but sightless, and very bloodshot.  His nose seemed almost too long for his face, and his teeth, particularly the ones at the front, were pointed and canine-looking.

            A crumpled note from Coughlin’s wallet showed him in a dark suit standing next to a pretty lady in a wedding dress and smartly dressed young man.  The bride and the younger man, were so similar in stature and appearance – straight fair hair and innocent, almost child-like faces – that they had to be twins.  On the back of the picture, ‘11 July 1888’ had been written in red pencil.

            The other item of interest in the will had been a bill from Dr James Macey, of 18 Winchester Gardens, Sheffield, dated 18 March, ‘for the setting of a fractured forearm’. Dr Loup examining Coughlin’s corpse said neither of the deceased forearm had ever been set.

            Coughlin’s valise contained only clothing.  In his briefcase, a catalogue of products manufactured by Coughlin & Co., and a letter from Mr Asif Iqbal about meeting in the Middleland Grand Hotel on Wednesday the 12 March to discuss the purchase of 500,00 rounds of bullets.

            Bitten and Wilk arrived at the hotel to find that the body had been removed, but not the deceased’s personal effects.  While Wilk went to speak to the porter who had been on duty that night, Bitten examined the bayonet and catalogue.

            Using a lens, Bitten could make out that the bayonet had been made out of silver.  He recognized the hallmark of 925. 

            Bitten went downstairs and found Wilk in an office behind the reception desk, interviewing a rather nervous porter.  The man knew the late Mr Coughlin rather well as the gentleman had stayed  at the Royal Crescent several times during the past year.

            Three nights had been his customary length of stay, and each time, including the recent one, a young lady had visited him in his room.  Always veiled and wearing a dark, ankle-length coat, she generally arrived around 11 o’clock and departed three to four hours later.  On each occasion, apart from the last, she slipped a half-crown into his hand as she left.

            Wilk asked about the previous night’s visit.  The porter said the lady had arrived later than usual, just before midnight, and stayed only fifteen minutes.

            Had he spoken to her?  No, she had entered quietly while he read the Evening Standard, and he noticed her only as she disappeared up the stairs.  She left in a great hurry, saying not a word, and forgetting her customary tip.

            “Do you have the lady’s address?”

            Wilk asked.

            The man hesitated.

            “Don’t be foolish.”

            Bitten told him.

            “Or I’ll have you arrested for pimping and living off immoral earnings.”

            “The hotel is eager to provide whatever its guests require.”

            The porter said with defiance.

            “The lady runs a laundry service for the hotel.”

            He handed Bitten a business card.

            “She might well be the lady you are looking for.”

Ii

As Bitten and Wilk were leaving the hotel, a constable appeared with a telegram.  Address to Bitten, it was Mrs Coughlin reply to his request that she came to London at her earliest convenience to help the police in a matter concerning her husband.

            “We need someone to identify the body.”

            Bitten explained.

            “Always remember that when you’re on a case, Constable.”

            Mrs Coughlin’s telegram read as follows:

APOLOGIES UNABLE TO TRAVEL STOP BADLY

 INJURED IN CAB ACCIDENT STOP BROTHER TOM

WILL TAKE MY PLACE STOP EXPECT HIM HERE

SOON STOP WILL ARRIVE AT ST PANCRAS TONIGHT

STOP EDITH COUGHLIN

Bitten declared that a brother-in-law would serve as well as a wife, and invited Wilk to accompany him in the arrest of the ‘laundry woman’. Wilk looked somewhat startled at his and said that, if the Inspector would excuse him, he had some business of his own to attend to. 

After sending two telegrams, one to Dr Macey and another to the central police station in Sheffield, Wilk went to the public conveniences at St. Pancras station.  He started with the male facilities and engaged the attendant in a long conversation about the vagaries of the occupation.  The constable said he bet the fellow encountered all kinds of bizarre goings on.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Came the gleeful reply.

“Only yesterday this girly-looking man comes in with a large valise, goes into a cubicle, and comes out dressed as a woman!”

Having learned that the transformation took place at about 11.pm., that the man was fair-haired, short in stature, and departed wearing a veil and a long dark coat.  Wilk thanked the attending for providing him with ‘such a fascinating insight into human nature’ and moved over to the Ladies.

Here the task became more difficult.  The woman who had been on duty since 10 p.m. on Thursday night had now gone home, and her replacement appeared suspicious of any man loitering near her conveniences and attempting to draw her into a conversation, whether he was a policeman or not.

After resisting Wilk’s enquiries for five minutes, she said they’d been enough trouble recently, ‘what with some homosexual in women’s clothes sneaking in this morning while poor Marge’s back was turned’ and if Wilk did not ‘shove off sharpish’ she’d report him to his superiors at Scotland Yard.

Wilk apologized for distressing her, thanked her for her help, and promptly left.  On his return to the SID offices, he discovered he’d already had replies to his telegram.

The one from the Sheffield Constabulary read simply:

NOTHING REPORTED OR ON RECORD

Dr Macey had been even less forthcoming:

CANNOT REVEAL DETAILS OF CASES TO STRANGERS STOP.

 ESPECIALLY THOSE OF A LADY STOP APOLGIES

Wilk found Bitten waiting for him in his office, beaming like a Cheshire Cat.

“Told you it would be as plain as a pikestaff didn’t I, Wilk.  Stick close to me and you’ll be an Inspector in no time.  Nearly always a wicked woman behind every crime.  In our case Zoraya Mora.”

He explained that when arrested, Miss Mora confessed to having visited Stephen Coughlin several times when he visited London, but swore she had not gone to Room 104 last night because a baby-faced gentleman with a northern accent had called on her, paid her handsomely, and said his friend Mr Coughlin did not require her services for that evening.

“Could anyone corroborate her story, sir?”

Wilk asked.

“No.”

Bitten said firmly.

“Did she have an alibi, sir?”

“No, of course not.”

Bitten replied.

“She argued furiously with Coughlin.”

The Inspector explained.

“Probably over money, and stabbed him with one of his own bayonets when he refused to pay for services rendered.  Makes so much sense, Wilk.  She wasn’t going to tip the porter on a night she hadn’t been paid, was she?  Her tale about money from a mysterious gentlemen, is typical of the sort of unlikely story these prostitutes come up with.”

“That may often be true, sir.”

Wilk observed.

“But in this instance, I believe the young lady had been telling the truth, sir.  I believe that you have arrested the wrong person, sir.”

iii

“Explain yourself, Wilk?”

            Bitten demanded.

            “Well, sir.  I’ve been doing some digging of my own.”

            “Go on.”

            “Stephen Coughlin, had a reputation for being a brutal but wealthy manufacturer of ammunition and small arms, married Sarah Young in July 1878.  She had accepted his marriage proposal, against the earnest wishes of her dear twin brother William, as he had promised to help her father with his financial difficulties.  He reneged on his promise as soon as they were wed.”

            Bitten folded his arms in defiance, and listened to his Constable intently.

            “Sarah and William’s dislike of Coughlin, fuelled by his cruel treatment of her, came to a head when, on a visit to her doctor to see if she might be pregnant, she discovered she was not carrying a child but rather the disease s******s.  When she confronted her husband with this, he assaulted her, beating her about the body, dislodging two of her teeth and breaking her arm.”

            “Bloody hell.”

            Bitten exclaimed.

            “William, temporarily living in the same house as his sister, became incandescent with rage.  He took a Coughlin, solid silver bayonet, an unsold sample the manufacturer kept in the house, followed his brother-in-law to London, and observed his movements in and out of the Royal Crescent Hotel.  Noting that the prostitute Zoraya Mora was not so different in stature from himself, he devised the plan of replacing the woman for her Thursday night tryst with Coughlin, and ridding his beloved sister of her vicious husband.”

            “Good work, Wilk.”

            Bitten said.

            “If this case had been left solely in my hands, then Miss Mora might well have been hanged.  Fortunately for her, you were not so easily deceived.”

            “Thank you, sir.”

            “One question though, Wilk.  Whose arm had been set?”

            “Well, my line of thinking was, sir, which resident of Sheffield would Coughlin be most likely to pay for?”

            “Surely the answer is his wife, Wilk.”

            “Yes, sir.  Dr Macey’s reply to a telegram I sent him confirmed he had set the arm of a lady.”

            “And the lady definitely was Sarah Coughlin?”

            “Marital discord is certainly a possibility, especially when considering the probable reaction of a newly-wed bride to her husband’s s******s.  This unpleasant scenario might account for the scratches on Coughlin’s body, inflicted some time before his death, sir.”

            “I should imagine the physical confrontation between Mr and Mrs Coughlin would result injury to the weaker party.”

            Bitten said.

            “And it would explain why she would be unable to travel to London, sir.”

            “Yes.”

            Bitten agreed.

            “And if she had been hurt but felt unwilling to draw attention to her injuries, we might jump to the conclusion that this would furnish a motive for her wanting to be rid of her abusive husband, she would need an excuse for not travelling.”

            “Hence the story, which a telegram from the Sheffield Constabulary, revealed to be false, about the cab accident.”

            “I’m impressed, Wilk.”

            Bitten said.

            “What made you want to look at the case in such a different and original way?”

            “Well, sir.  Two facts from the crime fuelled my suspicions.”

            Wilk replied.

            “Why would Coughlin have brought an obsolete bayonet with him when he was on a mission to sell ammunition?”

            “Perhaps the killer had introduced the murder weapon into the room, Constable?”

            “Exactly, sir.  That would immediately limit the number of suspects to those who could easily have got hold of discontinued bayonets and place Mrs Coughlin and her brother at the top of the list.”

            “Of course, Constable.”

            Bitten realized.

            “Then there would be the power of the murder blow: surely the thrust of such force could only have been performed by man?”

            “My line of thought entirely, sir.”

            Wilk said.

            “I wondered why Sarah Coughlin’s telegram had said William would not be free to travel to London straight away.”

“One possibility would be that he had not yet returned from the capital.”

“Yes, sir, and that would explain the youthful-looking figure who had changed from male to female clothing, and back again, in the public conveniences at St Pancras station.”

“William Young.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wilk agreed.

“And from the description I had been given of a ‘girly-looking man’, he sounded remarkably like the youth we had seen in the wedding photograph.”

“And if it were him, Constable, wouldn’t that explain why the ‘woman’ visiting Coughlin on the night he had been murdered would be unwilling to speak?”

“Finally, sir, poor Zoraya Mora’s explanation of why she did not go to the hotel on Thursday night so implausible?  If the ‘baby-faced gentleman with a northern accent’ was who I suspected it to be, it made perfect sense for William young to have paid Zoraya not to visit her client that night.”

“The problem you have here, Constable, is that not one single answer to any one of your questions would lead you unequivocally to the guilty party.”

Wilk nodded.

“I agree, sir.  But taken together, when I answered them all rationally and logically, I could reach only one conclusion. William Young, not Zoraya Mora, had murdered Stephen Coughlin.”

“I agree with you whole-heartedly, Constable.”

Bitten said.

“Did Young realize Stephen Coughlin was a werewolf, and it just so happened to be sheer luck he used a silver bayonet to kill him.  And if no is the answer, how many of these bloody werewolves have we got roaming the capital?”