The Limehouse Golem

A series of murders has shaken the community of Limehouse in Victorian London to the point where people believe that only a legendary creature from dark times – the mythical so-called Golem – must be responsible. When music-hall star Elizabeth Cree is accused of poisoning her husband John on the same night as the last Golem murders, assigned Inspector John Kildare discovers evidence linking John Cree to the Golem murders, and finds himself determined to crack both cases before Elizabeth is hanged for her accused crime.

Having found a diary of the Golem’s crimes, written by the Golem himself in a book on the art of murder, kept in the reading room of the library, Kildare determines that the Golem must be one of the four men in the library on the date of the last entry; Dan Leno, Karl Marx, George Gissing and John Cree. Kildare is able to acquire handwriting samples of the other three men while listening to Elizabeth’s story about how she went from the daughter of an unmarried mother sewing sailcloths at the docks to becoming a music-hall star.

He finally finds a handwritten copy of a play written by Cree before his death on the day that Elizabeth is to be hanged, but when he gets an hour’s postponement to her sentence, in the final talk with Elizabeth, Kildare realizes that she is the true Golem rather than her husband, seeking to make a lasting name for herself. Broken at this revelation, Kildare delays announcing the revelation that Cree was the Golem to the press until after Elizabeth is hanged, granting her the ‘fame’ of eliminating the Golem rather than the greater fame of being a killer.

(Classification 15)