The Mysteries of Modern London

by George R. Sims

A lie, then eternity—A promise made to the dying—Insurance money tempts them—"Have not betrayed"—The innocent who die for the guilty—The girl who lives as a boy

AS the world knows nothing of its greatest men, so the world knows nothing of its greatest mysteries. No hint or rumour of them ever reaches the public ear. There are strange things happening every day in this vast, mysterious world that we call London of which no word will ever be spoken. One or two human beings will know the secret, but it will remain hidden away in their hearts to the end.

Sometimes from the lips of a dying man or woman comes a confession that startles and shocks the few interested relatives gathered round the bedside. Sometimes even in these deathbed revelations—the last despairing effort of the burthened conscience to find relief while still a flicker of life remains—there is still a reticence and a reservation. The nearest and dearest are not trusted with the secret, even in that supreme hour. The full confession is made only to the priest, upon whose lips is the seal of silence.

The knowledge that in death there is often this desire to clear the conscience by a confession, has caused many people to believe that mysteries which to the world still remain unfathomed have been revealed by criminals dying on the scaffold. There are people who still remember the confession Neill Cream made with the rope round his neck.

"I am Jack the ————-" he gasped, and then his lips closed in the eternal silence. This confession, like others of a similar kind, has been generally accepted as a desperate attempt to prolong life. The wretched man imagined that by making this statement his execution might be stayed in order that his story might be inquired into, for he knew that all the world was eager to have that mystery of mysteries cleared up. But there were facts known to those on the scaffold which stamped the statement as a lie—a lie uttered on the brink of eternity.

In the dead of night, in the ward of one of our great hospitals, some time ago, the nurse in charge was sitting by the stove at the end of the room when she heard a faint cry from one of the beds.

She went at once, and found that one of the patients, a man of fifty who was not expected to live, had taken a sudden turn for the worse. She saw that the man was dying, and was about to summon the doctor on night-duty when the dying man grasped her hand.

"Don't go, for God's sake!" he gasped. "Listen!—I'm dying—I want to tell you something—something that when I am gone you will keep as a sacred secret."

The nurse, somewhat alarmed by the man's manner, gave the promise. She bent down to hear what he had to say. Then with a white face she went hurriedly to the telephone and called to the doctor.

The man died shortly afterwards. He died and left the nurse in possession of a secret which she would have given a great deal never to have heard. She gave a solemn promise to a dying man not to reveal it, and yet she has confessed that the temptation to do so is great. She asserts that if she opened her lips a mystery which startled London, and which is still unsolved, would be a mystery no more. But the dying man gave her his confession as the professional nurse by his bedside and under an oath of secrecy, and she holds that she is bound by it. There is one person in the world who knows the secret of that mystery—and only one. And she will probably carry it with her to the grave.