Mrs. Leeds

  • English pseudonym used by a tall, well-dressed woman with a fine bonnet, heavy veil, and an accent from “up north” (per Mrs. Grim)
  • Rented the room at 5 Durward Street four days before Maria-Pook’s death. Cover story: her “young sister with an opium habit” needed a quiet place to dry out. Came with veiled companions
  • Vanished from Durward Street when the constable arrived
  • Spotted by Georgie at the corner of Durward and Brady Streets, New Year’s morning. She saw him too. She knows his face
  • Dropped foreign papers (later identified as ferry tickets from Constantinople to Prince’s Islands, December 1892, nine trips)
  • Wrote a letter from Pera, Constantinople to the elderly veil collector at 3 Blithering Lane, Rotherhithe, offering £100 for The Whispering Veil (the book was valued at £25)
  • The collector was murdered and the book stolen approximately December 30, 1892
  • Possibly the same person as Menkaph. The party has not confirmed this. Demir’s telegrams name Menkaph as the cult figure who brought the Blood Red Veil to England; Mrs. Grim’s account names Leeds as the woman who rented the Durward Street room. Both names appear in Constantinople connections
  • Plans to return to Constantinople via the Orient Express
  • Relationship to Selima Makryat unknown
  • Burnham’s account that Menkaph has “changed her aspect” from a proper veiled woman to a flamboyant fortune-teller fits a single person who shifts disguises, strengthening (but not confirming) the Leeds = Menkaph theory (Session 4)