Edilstein

By Peter Georgiadis

Whitechapel 1888
The anatomy of a bloody murderer...
Thirteen year old Thomas Edilstein has ample grounds to seek revenge on any number of his former neighbours in the East End of London, holding them responsible for the deaths of his parents and the good people poised to adopt him but where will following his murderous instincts take him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: APS Books
• Release date: Aug 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223493402

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Copyright ©2023 Peter Georgiadis

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Peter Georgiadis has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published worldwide by APS Books 2023

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

1

Thomas Edilstein was a naturally hard-working, potentially gifted thirteen year old student, who though despising his fellow students and the entire teaching staff of St. Cuthbert’s Foundation, an institution set up primarily for the poorer but accomplished boys of the parish of Whitechapel, Thomas nevertheless thrived.

He always did his best to fulfil his parent’s expectations of him; since academically he was bright and found learning and retaining what he had learned comparatively easy, in that aspect of life, some would say he was a very lucky boy.

St. Cuthbert’s had existed since the mid-nineteenth to accommodate working class lads who showed signs of possible brilliance but who would normally have had no chance in life to excel.

The school had been founded by a local vicar, who unwittingly and quite unknowingly came into a fortune left by a very wealthy miller from the midlands. This mill owner happened to be a long-lost, much older brother.

The Church of England minister in question, James Quincy, was a man who having spent a life in near poverty, thrived by helping those more unfortunate than himself. Without the idea of the school he really wouldn’t have known what to do with such a huge amount of money. He personally felt he needed for nothing. Indeed as far as he was concerned God provided everything that he desired, though desire wasn’t part of his particular curriculum at all.

Two hundred thousand pounds sterling was set aside to aid the gifted but unfortunate children of the East End of the greatest but smelliest metropolis in Britain. This sum of money was so vast, that the school Quincy founded quickly became a beacon of light for the gifted under-privileged. From then on the wonderfully heart-warming qualities and ideals of St. Cuthbert’s were born, with absolutely no expense spared.

The building was a huge four-storey, red-brick, square monstrosity, with absolutely no redeeming architecture features and it housed large class rooms, with high ceilings that took an age to warm in the winter. All the walls were painted a dull grey, a bonus for the builder who had a surfeit of this particular colour in his stores. He was glad to see the back of it and would have probably have dumped every last pot if this chance hadn’t come along to unload what he considered to be rubbish paint and yet to make more money doing so, a win-win situation which paid for a wonderful Christmas for him and his family. Of course the colour gave the entire school a depressing and sorrowfully gloomy atmosphere for anyone to work within. It wasn’t just the pupils who felt this low atmosphere because the staff failed to thrived on it either.

There was always a large drawing slate hung on the wall at one end of each classroom, which was quite new concept in the mid Victorian age, giving pupils and teachers a chance to exercise ideas and thoughts, and then erase them at will when not wanted. And each child being taught, had his own small slate and chalk to use at will. There was even paper for the lads to use along with pens with real nibs and plenty of ink.

These things were a bonus in those times and staff and governors made sure that their young charges were fully aware of and thoroughly grateful for the good fortune that had befallen them in having such fine facilities.

The headmaster, one Doctor Gabriel Steven Johns was a stern, middle-aged man, with very little humour about him. He was a tall six footer with muscles abounding from his youth. These had been acquired from being a fine runner and cricket player. He had jet black hair that everyone knew was artificially blacked, probably from his own coal, which in hot weather would run down his face and back, but his vanity was such that it seemed better to have that than the aging grey that was really there. His philosophy was if God provided an alternative then he was there to use it.

Gabriel Johns was more than a little vain about his appearance. He was in fact quite short-sighted, but absolutely refused to wear the spectacles that had been prescribed to him, preferring to squint and to hold any reading matter very close to his eyes - in fact so close that he would almost always be dribbling on the aforementioned document. This of course would be hilarious to the young charges when noticed. The headmaster also sported a wonderfully waxed moustache, which too would droop when inflicted with heat from a warming summer sun. He always wore the same three-piece suit which he had acquired when appointed to the noble position he occupied. This had now faded a to a brownish greying outfit, which not only showed signs of wear and tear but also would often retain and show what he had had for breakfast or lunch. To top off his vanity Doctor Johns pride and joy was his gold half-hunter. This he kept in the most pristine condition in his waistcoat, with a very beautiful twenty-four carat gold chain attached to the opposite side of his waistcoat. The headmaster would always be seen fidgeting with his pride and joy, either viewing the time, or winding the sparkling golden object up to its maximum, but carefully making sure it wasn’t at anytime overwound.

He wasn’t so much a bully with his charges as a believer that boys sometimes needed severe beatings to get the ultimate learning ability out of their grey matter; that and the simple expedient that if you beat a scholar regularly he would always know who was master and who was subservient. This belief and concept was practiced by the entire teaching staff, all hand-picked by himself and all extremely well-practised at beating their pupils, though it was said that some enjoyed that experience a little too much.

Through the good offices of the ever benevolent James Quincy they had a new experiment working within the school, free hot meals for all the boys, not great food but good honest nourishing bulk that kept the wolf from the door, and no child within the establishment ever refused to eat what was placed before him.

Another new concept introduced was a fully trained nurse to always be on hand for any untoward events that might have taken place. This included boys who could no longer sit down on the hard wooden seats because they had received a too severe a thrashing. It was of course once thought that some boys took the pummelling just as an excuse to visit Miss Sylvia Charmers and have her rub cold balm gently into their posteriors. Miss Charmers was quite an ugly, rotund, forty-year old spinster, but the pupils all knew that she got quite excited at the sight of boys and their bare bottoms which in turn titillated her young charges giving some of them stern erections which sometimes were permitted to give rise to much-desired ejaculation. It was rumoured, but not seriously thought to be true, that Miss Charmers would relieve certain young boys whom she favoured. Some even bragged about their conquest with her, that being intercourse, but not many took that too seriously, knowing how easy it was for young boys to lie about such things.

On reaching thirteen years of age, Thomas Edilstein had entered the realms of puberty. Along with unwanted hair came an equally sullen spotty disposition with extreme antisocial feelings towards all his fellow creatures. Other than his maternal parent, most found him to be an obnoxious and spoilt brat who deserved the beatings that he regularly received from the various masters within the confines of the school. Being a newly formed teenager, Thomas was supposed to take religion seriously, but his brain had already decreed to him that there was no such thing as an almighty God, just an almighty load of pathetic spouted nonsense concerning a fictitious deity. Jehovah didn’t exist, so he looked upon his parents and their Jewish friends as mere aging fools who saw the world through brightly coloured spectacles with absolutely no sense of the reality of existence within the confines of this small country of theirs.

However, he had already decided a year or two before that he would always wear his skullcap within the edifice of the school, if only to wind up the teachers and pupils. And as the school was predominantly working class young Christians, a Jewish boy flouting his religion was almost a step to far. But even more annoyingly for his classmates, they were always to experience that just as soon as Thomas left the precincts of the school, off came the skullcap and that was then stuffed into a pocket not to see the light of day until the next school day. It had become Thomas’s sole reason for being, just to annoy his elders and betters, and by jingo he was very good at it.

So it is not difficult to see that as a teenager Thomas was almost a recluse antisocial reprobate that didn’t need or want friendship from anyone.

One of the strange things about Thomas and his school was that he was by far the brightest spark within the entire institution. Learning came easy to him and the pleasure in being bright to Thomas was that it totally annoyed everyone else, with the exception of his parents who had absolutely no idea of their son’s potential.

His mother Josephine worked as a simple seamstress down Brick Lane in the East end of London. She earned a very small sum of money, but every penny helped to put as much food on their meagre table as would be possible. Josephine had married Joshua Edilstein in the year eighteen forty three, and given birth to their only son Thomas in eighteen fifty. It had been an extremely difficult birth, one that nearly killed both mother and son, so it was jointly decided that Thomas would be their only child.

This became a huge disappointment to Joshua who had planned for a large family, even though he was a mere bank teller in the Jewish Bank of Moses in Cable Street.

But once Joshua and Josephine had come to that thought and decided that this was going to be the reality, Joshua became a more distant shadow of his former self and showed the classic signs of a very disappointed man, one who would spend more time out of the house than in it. He wasn’t a malcontent looking to spread his seed elsewhere; in fact he never ever looked or desired other women even though his own marriage had become a somewhat bland celibate affair, with a wife who only offered herself up to him as a duty, a chore she would have been pleased to have done without.

No, womanising wasn’t for Joshua but walking the streets night after night, wishing for things he never would be able to get was more in his line of fire. Joshua knew the east end of London like the back of his hand. Sometimes he would spend hours just watching ships entering and departing from the various docks that littered that part of the metropolis.

Watching these vessels coming and going created a fictitious dream where he would be Captain of a certain ship and be guiding it carefully to a final destination. He was always the Captain - no ranking seaman for him. Joshua lived a true life and a dream existence, a quiddity of wonderful dreams and unfortunate realities.

Other than Bar Mitzvahs and other Jewish ceremonies, he would leave the education and upkeep of their son Thomas entirely in the capable hands of his hard-toiling wife. And the more Joshua became reclusive, the more Josephine relied on Thomas to fill the love and warmth that she craved from her dreaming wayward husband, much to the chagrin of the boy. Thus Thomas became totally spoilt by his over-zealous, over-bearing mother and it became all to easy for the young Edilstein to manoeuvre his matriarch’s love and devotions to his own ends. This he did with gusto and zeal.

Sadly everyone noticed her overbearing behaviour towards Thomas and, many a tongue wagged within the all too narrow confines of the east end of London’s Jewish community.

It had been suggested that young Thomas was a substitute for an ever absent Joshua, speculation even going so far as to suggest that there were immoral goings on within the boundaries of the Edilstein household, not that these repugnant lies ever got back to any of the three within the confines of the house, just flying rumours that bounced from road to road and out into the community within the area. It was a Chinese whisper that had spread quickly and efficiently, and, human nature being what it was and still is, though people might surely pooh-pooh the validity of what was being said, it had become almost a hobby to hear the scandalous attacks on the Edilsteins and accept the nonsense as an example of no smoke without fire.

Sadly for Joshua, these self same rumours got back to the bank and though nothing could of course be proven, Joshua was brought before the managing director of the branch and summarily dismissed as a degenerate. No explanation was given, not a single reason for the dismissal – he was just literally shown the door. The poor man, now unemployed and completely bewildered, a complete outcast from the Jewish community, immediately took to his other favourite pastime, drink!  Somehow he managed to find his way down to Prospect of Whitby public house by the Thames. After drinking the remainder of his last wage packet away, Joshua quite abstractly walked into the river and completely  and utterly disappeared. He had been watched by a collection of dockers, bemused by his bizarre behaviour, but no attempt was made to rescue him. He just didn’t exist anymore. Nobody knew who he was and what’s more nobody cared or even gave a damn. No body was ever found, but then again nobody looked for one.

Unfortunately neither Thomas or his mother knew anything about Joshua’s demise, or even his dismissal from the bank. He just didn’t come home from his daily toil. Sadly, that wasn’t the end of what was a mounting tragedy in the Edilstein household. It was only the beginning.

As the days went by, Josephine contacted the police thinking that an accident had occurred, or that Joshua had been beaten or worse by robbers, bandits or murderers. The police didn’t take much notice - husbands did disappearing acts on a daily basis, usually with a younger bit of fluff, one prepared to satisfy their demanding sexual needs.

Eventually from extreme worry Josephine went to the bank and was made to wait two hours before a junior executive would condescend to see her.

I am sorry to tell you Mrs. Edilstein, but Joshua was dismissed the day he went missing. Where he has gone Lord only knows.

Joshua was fired!  Why was he sacked?

The young man fidgeted as he pondered how to answer the question. His face reddened and he bit his lower lip and wrinkled up his brow. Should he tell her the truth, something she must be aware of herself being the perpetrator of the sickness that had brought this sorry state into being. He looked hard into her frail face with her bright red eyes, brought on by the crying and worry that those last few days had created for her.

Again the young assistant fidgeted on his seat, adjusting his sleeve bands as if they had become loose. He didn’t know how to answer the question, but he knew enough that he had to say something. He could see that Mrs. Edilstein was in a very bad way from stress and worry so in a forceful firm voice he said, I am quite sure madam that if you don’t know why he was dismissed, then you are lying to yourself.

Josephine sat upright and almost screamed back at the young man sitting around the other side of the ancient old oak desk. What on earth do you mean?  Lying to myself, I don’t have an inkling of an idea as to why Joshua should have been given his notice.

And then with almost pitiful venom she spat out, So young man, please do enlighten me.

Oh come madam, please don’t try pulling the wool over my eyes. The rumours of your evil liaison with your son are commonplace. Everybody has been talking about it and as this is a very respectable bank there was no way we could allow ...

There was a crash as Josephine’s head hit the table with quite some force.

Oh Jehovah!  Mrs. Edilstein, are you all right?

But hearing those awful words had brought on a deep faint and, Josephine had fallen forward banging her head hard on the edge of the desk as she collapsed to the floor.

The junior executive immediately ran to get help. Eventually Josephine Edilstein was laid on her side and cold water was administered to her brow with a wet towel. Gradually she came to only to find a huge lump forming on the forehead. She groaned at the pain felt throughout her entire body. It was then that realisation dawned and she burst into a flood of tears.

Where did that rumour start?  I have never heard anything about such things and anyway it’s just not true. How could anyone think such an awful thought and how could anyone spread such slanderous lies and worst of all how could the bank believe such things without delving into whether there was any truth to the rumours?

Tears were streaming down her bloodied face and, the blood and tears were staining her clothing and even the threadbare carpet that Josephine had been placed on.

Complete despair echoed through her being. This has to be the worse day of my life and yet how can I prove that this is all just scurrilous nonsense?  My son is just a teenager, a small boy who is pure in thought and deed. I will go and see a lawyer immediately and someone’s head will roll for this batch of incredible lies.

Josephine said what she wanted to say and then passed gently into an unconscious state once more, but this time much deeper. Nothing that the staff of the bank did to supposedly help her did any good. She remained in a deep coma.

The manager of the branch was summoned and, he started to organise the staff in what to say and do, just in case the threat of being sued was to come to anything. Deep furrowed frowns were starting to manifest among the staff of the bank generally, but most of all upon the face of the now sweating manager.

So this woman - Mrs. Edilstein - is it possible that she is telling the truth?  Was the reason we dismissed Joshua Edilstein wrong?  No it was not!  If she is innocent, then it is up to her to find out how this rumour started not us. 

But even as the manager thought these thoughts he worried more and more. He knew it would be his neck on the block if they had got it all wrong. He wagged his index finger high in the air holding the fingers of his other hand tucked into the watch pocket of his waistcoat and though he was fretting within himself, his tone showed his normal arrogance as he pompously added, Always remember the old adage:  There is absolutely no smoke without fire.

With that he snorted loudly and put his cigarette out in the cheap aluminium ash tray lying on a large intimidating oak desk. The cigarette smoked profusely leaving a thin cloud trailing up and under the ceiling, hanging there like some ominous omen of forthcoming retribution.

James Buckland was a rather insipid man in his late fifties, he had been the manager of this branch since becoming forty and he would continue for at least another ten years before retiring - God willing. He was short, rather rotund and wobbled when he walked as he was most definitely top heavy. He was a God-fearing man who always attended the synagogue on Saturdays and followed his Jewish faith in deed and thought, or so he thought. Yet his only real love was for making a profit, which he would do at the expense of everything and everyone else. He ruled the bank with a rod of iron and any mistakes made were accounted for by the person that made them, even to the extent of having to personally pay back any error in the accounts. It didn’t matter to him if the clerk responsible was hardworking and honest, it would still come out of his salary. If a person made two mistakes within a noticeably short space of time, he or she was summarily fired.

Buckland was, as always, wearing a black pinstriped three-piece suit, which showed signs of tobacco stains, plus odd food scraps that hadn’t quite make it to his mouth. There were also signs of dribbling, though no one ever pointed these things out to him. He always wore white winged-collar shirts, with a bow tie, which always seemed to be lopsided and stained. And just like all bank managers he possessed a gold watch and chain which stretched across both pockets of his waistcoat.

He was not a particularly nice person to know and that showed in the simple fact that he had no friends, just a wife and son now living in Canada where he was supposed to join them when he retired but it was extremely unlikely that he ever would rejoin them. He had more or less given up on married life, preferring his own company to that of the feminine kind.

It didn’t matter to him whether he was unpopular or not. He really didn’t like other people much. And now this man was considering whether they should inform a doctor about Josephine Edilstein, or just place her on the pavement outside of the bank but finally he decided to do the right thing and obtain the services of a doctor.

Miss Rouse, please run around and fetch Doctor Triggle. If he is too busy to come immediately, ask him to come at his convenience.

He then turned to another teller, one Mr. Barry Giesner, barking out the next order. Giesner, help get this woman off the floor and place her well away from prying eyes. Understood?

No answer was returned other than a quick nod of the head. And then Buckland turned to all the others gathered around the unfortunate fallen woman.

Right, the rest of you get back to work immediately. There is nothing more to see here. You there! He was pointing at a very junior go getter. Get a bucket and some water and clean up those blood stains on the carpet - quickly boy! And then barking out like a dog he concluded with, Quickly now, all of you jump to it!

And that was that. Josephine had been dismissed as if she was just an annoying piece of debris that just happened to get in the way of daily work in progress. The staff tutted and sighed, and mumbled to one another at the disgrace of this particular woman who now resided in the anteroom and was very quickly forgotten by all until the doctor appeared two hours later.

He was taken into the side room and examined Josephine, which took him all of ten seconds. He turned to the bank teller who had shown him in, and looking somewhat stern, remarked, You had better bring the manager here, immediately boy. My time is precious, I have many other patients to attend to.

The young bank clerk virtually raced through the bank to catch the manager who was sitting back in his office chair, drinking coffee, eating a salt beef sandwich and smoking a Turkish cigarette, all at the same time.

Don’t you ever knock?  What the hell do you mean by bursting in like that?

"I am sorry sir, but the doctor is here examining Mrs.