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Police.
    For a wily, street-smart prostitute to place herself outside the legal reach of the Metropolitan Police was to encourage the constables and investigators to avoid turning the case into a complicated, competitive multijurisdictional investigation. The City of London—better known as “the Square Mile”—is an ornery oddity that can be traced back to A.D. 1 when the Romans founded the city on the banks of the Thames. The City remains a city unto itself with its own municipal services and government, including its own police force, which today serves a resident population of 6,000—a number that swells to more than a quarter of a million during business hours.
    Historically, the City has never been interested in the concerns of the greater London area unless one of its problems somehow impacts the City’s autonomy or quality of life. The City has always been a stubborn, wealthy oasis in the midst of a spreading metropolis, and when people refer to London, they usually mean the Great Metropolis. The existence of the City remains unknown to many a tourist. I don’t know if Pearly Poll really took her client into the deserted City to avoid the Metropolitan Police or for any other reason. She might not have gone near the City, but instead conducted her business quickly, collected her meager fee, and gone off to the nearest public house or returned to Dorset Street to find a bed.
    Two hours and fifteen minutes after Pearly Poll said she saw Martha last, Police Constable 226 Barrett of Metropolitan Police Division H was on routine patrol on Wentworth Street, which intersected with Commercial Street and ran along the north side of George Yard Buildings. At 2:00 A.M., Barrett noticed a soldier out alone. He appeared to belong to one of the regiments of footguards who wore white bands around their caps. Barrett estimated that the soldier, a private, was between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-six, and five foot nine or ten. The young man in his neat uniform had a fair complexion and a small, dark-brown mustache turned up at the ends, and wore no medals on his uniform except a good-conduct badge. The soldier told Constable Barrett that he was “waiting for a chum who had gone with a girl.”
    At the same time this brief exchange was taking place, a Mr. and Mrs. Mahoney of George Yard Buildings passed the landing where Martha’s body was later found and heard nothing of note and saw no sign of anyone. Martha had not been murdered yet. Perhaps she was nearby in the shadows, waiting for the constable to resume his patrol so she could resume business with the soldier. Perhaps the soldier had nothing to do with Martha at all and is simply a source of confusion. Whatever the truth, it is evident that Police Constable Barrett’s attention was piqued by a soldier alone in the street at 2:00 A.M. outside George Yard Buildings, and whether he questioned this soldier or not, the soldier felt compelled to offer an explanation as to why he was there.
    The identities of that soldier and any other soldiers associated with Pearly Poll and Martha the night of August 6th and early morning of the 7th remain unknown. Pearly Poll, Barrett, and other witnesses who had noticed Martha on the street were never able to positively identify any soldiers in the guard room at the Tower of London or in Wellington Barracks. Every man who seemed even remotely familiar had a believable alibi. A search through the belongings of soldiers produced no evidence, including blood. Martha Tabran’s killer would have been bloody.
    Chief Inspector Donald Swanson of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) acknowledged in his special report that there was no reason to think that Martha Tabran had been with anybody but the soldier she had walked off with before midnight, although it was possible, due to the “lapse of time,” that she might have been with another client. She might have been with