City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (13 page)

“You two,” Davy shouted, too
distraught to care that he was yelling at men who outranked him, “push this mob
back.  And someone take a cloak and shield that body until the doctor arrives.”

“T’would be my deepest pleasure, Sir,”
one of the men muttered, while the other, with a snort, began to disperse the
crowd.  The bobby became decidedly less flippant when he saw Catherine Eddowes
and he swayed a bit on his feet as he unclasped his cloak.

“Steady, man,” said Trevor, who had
been following a thin trail of blood from the body.  “I need you to follow this
line to its end.”

“I…I, Sir…”

“Here, dear God, are you going to
faint?  Just stand and hold up that cape, just so, like a wall.   Davy, lad,
you take up the trail of blood.  And be careful,” he shouted as the boy faded
into the fog.

“You were right,” a voice said, with
a tight and barely controlled anger.  Without turning, Trevor knew it was
Rayley Abrams and he was relieved to have the man at his side.  “The blood’s plentiful
and fresh,” Abrams said.  “Damn it to hell, this time we could have stopped
him….” Abrams spat, the vehemence of the gesture surprising Trevor, and then,
without further comment, the two men began to use their lights to look behind
barrels and crates.  Their minds were running in the same direction, but there
was no murder weapon to be found. 

“Worth a try,” Abrams said.  “The
bastard’s so sure of himself I wouldn’t put it past him to leave the knife in
plain view.”  They could hear huffing and puffing coming from the direction of
the street, and two figures were approaching with lanterns, the smaller
carrying a satchel.  “Is that you, Inspector?  And is the Doctor with you?”

“Yes, and yes.” Eatwell said shortly. 
The brisk walk from George Yard had obviously not agreed with him. 

Trevor led the two men back to the
garbage pile, as Abrams, with a gesture he found impossible to interpret,
slipped from the alley and back into the street.  “Before you look,” Trevor
said to Phillips and Eatwell, “I warn you to expect a most gruesome sight.  The
absolute worst yet.”

“Really, Welles, you missed your
calling on the stage,” Eatwell muttered as he pushed aside the young copper who
had been holding up the cape.   “Mother of God!” he gasped, as he quickly
turned and stepped away, his face dissolving into an expression Trevor would
have enjoyed under different circumstances.  

Without a word, Phillips signaled to
the men standing behind him.  His chief assistant, Severin, stepped forward to
clasp the doctor under the arms and slowly lower him to his knees.  The other
moved in with two more lanterns, which he placed at the feet of the body and
the additional light illuminated the enormity of the task before them.  The
woman had been disemboweled with at least an arm’s length of her intestines
carefully draped about her shoulders, as if they were a shawl.  The eyes, nose,
lips, and cheeks were all gouged and sliced, giving her face the appearance of
a discarded doll, lying in the street but staring up at the heavens.  As
promised, her ears had been neatly severed.  Phillips did not look up at Trevor
as he closely investigated the woman’s fingernails, but apparently Catherine
Eddowes had not been given time to strike back at her assailant, for her hands
were unmarked.  Nor did it appear she had been drained or moved because the
alley was awash in blood, so much so that when Phillips finally stood, again
with assistance from his companions, his pants were brown and dripping.  “Very
recent,” he said quietly.  “No more than a half hour at most.”

“Detective Welles!  Come quick!”
shouted Davy from farther down the street and, giving Eatwell perhaps a bit
more of a shove than was necessary, Trevor raced toward the young man’s cries. 
He found Davy and Abrams staring at a stone wall chalked with letters.

“Read this.”  Abrams said quietly,
holding his light up to the wall.

THE JUWES ARE NOT THE MEN THAT WILL
BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING

Trevor frowned.  “What does it mean?”

Abrams shook his head.  “It could be
anything.  I presume he’s referring to Jews, although if he’s the educated sort
we thought he was, the misspelling makes no sense.  And the double negative.  It
could mean we shouldn’t blame the Jews.  It could mean that if we do blame the
Jews we would be justified in doing so.  It may not be related to these bodies
at all.  For all we know, those words may have been written a week ago by some
random person with a grudge against the Hebrew faith.”

“Oh no Sirs, begging your pardon,
Sirs,” said Davy.  “This street is on my regular rounds and there was nothing
on this wall when I passed it earlier tonight.  These words were written in the
last hour, I’ll vouch for that.”

“Dear God, what now?” Eatwell gasped,
rounding the corner.  He stopped and considered the wall in silence, then let
out a long low curse.

“Wipe that wall,” he said.

“Inspector,” Abrams said, “We have
reason to believe this message –“

“Is an abomination and should be
wiped off immediately,” Eatwell snapped, staring at the wall with the same
expression he had turned toward the mutilated face of Catherine Eddowes.  Then
he motioned to Trevor and said, between clenched teeth, “You’ve wanted your
chance, you made that plain enough.  Alright then, I drop the whole bloody mess
in your lap.  From this point on you’re chief coordinator of the Whitechapel
investigation.”

Trevor stared at him in the
flickering gaslight, incredulous.  “It’s mine?”

“It’s yours, damn you, it’s yours.”

Trevor turned blindly toward Abrams
but the man wasn’t there.  Instead, he was walking the length of the wall,
moving his lantern slowly back and forth.  It should be his case, Trevor
thought.  I want it and I’ll take it, but by all rights, he’s the better man
for the job. 

Abrams turned toward him with a
soiled cloth in his hands.  “A woman’s apron,” he said quietly, so quietly that
Trevor had to strain to hear.  “Most likely belonging to one of the women and
the beast must have wiped his hands on it before leaving. “ 

“This isn’t right, Abrams –“

“Mark it.  Fiber evidence.”

Trevor started to say something else
but was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.  “Davy,” he called down
the street. “I said keep those blasted people back in the courtyard!”

“I am Police Commissioner Sir Charles
Warren,”came a deep voice from the mist.  “I take it you’re in charge here,
Detective?”

“Excuse me, Sir,” Trevor stammered. 
In seven years of police work he had never even seen Sir Warren, who directed
activities from his office and was reputed to be a criminal genius.  “Yes, I am
Detective Trevor Welles.”

“Before the newspaper people start
nagging at me in a few hours, I’d like to know if there is anything to report besides
two more butchered whores.”

“Well Sir, we found this bloodstained
apron and these writings on this wall,” answered Trevor, holding up a light so
the Commissioner could read.

“Wash this blasphemy off this
instant, Detective.”

“But Sir, we’re quite sure it was
written by the killer.   Shouldn’t someone else have a look at it?”

“I don’t care if it was put there by
the Queen herself.  Wash it off this instant, or we’ll have every Jew in London
murdered in a racial backlash.  Things are bad enough as they stand and I have
no wish to add some sort of religious purge to our problems.  Do you, Detective
Welles?”

“The papers don’t have to know of
this, Sir.”

“Are you mad, Detective?  Do you
honestly think they’d leave a stone unturned in trying to report the case of
the century?  They lack all discretion when it comes to selling a paper and I
won’t have it on that wall a second longer.  Am I quite clear?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Then if you have nothing more to
report, I’ll leave you to your investigation.” Sir Warren raised his lantern to
his face, affording Trevor his first clear look at the legend, who in truth
resembled any other white-haired, aging Londoner.

“Very good, Sir,” said Trevor, his
shoulders slumping with discouragement.  Abrams seemed to have disappeared and Davy
was already wiping off the wall. Trevor started at the last faint chalk marks,
frowning.

“You think this means he’s Jewish, Sir? 
Or that he wants us to think he’s Jewish?  Maybe he just hates Jews the way he
hates prostitutes, Sir?”

“Maybe so,” Trevor said wearily.  “I
don’t know what the deuce it means.”

“Abrams is a Jewish name, isn’t it,
Sir?”

“Yes.  Which is precisely why I was
placed in charge instead of a more deserving man.”

He walked slowly back toward the mouth
of the alley where Phillips had finished his preliminary examinations and was
overseeing the wrapping of the body in a standard Scotland Yard shroud.  The
Commissioner had also stopped to talk with Eatwell, who had obviously heard the
tongue-lashing he had given Trevor and who now appraised him with an
irritatingly self-satisfied expression.

“Do we know who she is yet?” the
Commissioner was asking.

“A woman in the crowd identified her
as Cathy Eddowes.  We have a man taking her statement,” Trevor said quickly,
anxious to reestablish that it was he, and not Eatwell, who would be answering
the questions.  “We’ll have the name of the first woman within the hour, Sir.”

“I want a full report as soon as
possible.  See to it, Detective,” said the Commissioner before he faded into
the early morning.

Doctor Phillips had finished his
notes and started putting his instruments back into his black bag.  “I don’t
have to tell you that things are getting worse,” he said to Trevor.  “Perhaps
I’ll know more after I examine her in the laboratory, but…”

“I’ll see you to your coach, Doctor,”
said Eatwell, stepping in and even grabbing the doctor’s arm in his haste to
keep thing moving.  “And I want a copy of that report also, Detective Welles.
You’re head of one case, my boy, and that’s all.  You still answer to me.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“I’m leaving Severin to make sure the
body gets to the Scotland Yard morgue this time,” Phillips called from the
steps of his carriage.  “No more of this shed-washing.”

“You know me better than that,
Doctor.”

It was hard to tell in the fog but
Trevor believed the doctor may have smiled as the disappeared into the dark
confines of the carriage.

5:59 AM

The sun was rising, barely visible
but there nonetheless, and Trevor stood alone in the street.  Davy and Severin
had loaded the two bodies on the cart and Trevor felt that, young as he was,
Davy would competently oversee their delivery to the Yard. 

As the rickety wagon passed by the gathered
onlookers, a girl of no more than fourteen broke through the barrier.  Although
her shape was that of a child, her low bodice revealing more bone than flesh, she
was dressed in the colors and style of a Whitechapel working girl just back
from an evening’s labors.  “Mother!” she shrieked, reaching toward the cart. 
“Oh, it can’t be you!”  A woman tried to restrain her as she fell upon the draped
body and wept, and another woman, similarly dressed, emerged from the crowd and
pulled the girl to her chest.

Trevor clutched the bloody apron
tightly in his hands.  The citizens of Whitechapel were roped back at one end
of the street and yet again at the other, and Trevor stood between the two mobs,
alone, turning in a slow circle.  The girl gave one last anguished wail and
then was gone, sucked back into the crowd as swiftly as she had sprung from
it.  Trevor wondered if he had imagined her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

October 1

9:45 AM

“I’m glad you could come out with me,
Leanna,” John said, holding the reins lightly in his hands as the two horses
trotted toward Hyde Park.  “I know I wasn’t able to give you much notice.”

“It is fine, really,” Leanna said,
smiling slightly as she recalled the mad flurry of activity John’s letter had
brought.  She had read the invitation in one glance, squealed, and then
breakfast was abandoned while Emma and Gerry helped her dress and put up her
hair.  There hadn’t even been time for a roll, much less the morning papers,
but Leanna had spent enough time with physicians to know that a woman must take
their company whenever it is offered, even if an invitation comes at the
unseemly hour of eight in the morning.  She beamed up at John as her stomach
grumbled.

“See there?” John said, gesturing
with one leather-gloved hand. “Just down that street is where I hope to put my
clinic.  We’re very near the East End, which I imagine is one part of London
Geraldine hasn’t taken you touring.” He glanced down at Leanna and laughed at
her odd expression.  “Don’t worry, I shan’t take you that way either.  There’s
a café on Bank Street just across from the commons and I thought we could stop
there for a bit of breakfast.”

Leanna pulled Gerry’s green velvet
cape a bit more tightly around her shoulders.  The air held autumn for the
first time and she was suddenly and unexpectedly hit with a wave of
homesickness, for at Rosemoral the grounds would be awash with the brilliant
colors of fallen leaves and here in London there was no mark of the change of
season except a slight chill in the air and a brief hint of winter pallor.

“You seem far away,” John commented,
pulling his shoulder from hers.

“I was thinking of home.”

“Leeds, isn’t it?  I was there not
long ago myself on one of my jaunts to try to raise funds.  Speaking to a ladies
club, but I’m afraid they had limited sympathies for the medical problems of
the women I treat.  Now, if it were an orphanage…”

So that’s what he was doing on the
train, Leanna thought.  “If they don’t find it in their hearts to support your
efforts,” she said sharply, “they may find the orphanages more full than they
can handle.”

“Quite right,” John said, surprised
at the intensity of her tone.

“So that’s how you’re raising your
money?  Speaking to women’s groups?”

“Mostly.  I have my private practice,
of course, Mayfair ladies who pay handsomely enough that I can afford to treat
my East End patients for nothing.”

“That’s just as my grandfather
worked,” Leanna said.  “The middle class paid him enough to tend some of the
poorer farmers for nothing, or next to nothing.  It seems I remember that they
often had their pride, though, and he was always receiving a jar of
gooseberries or a hen in payment.”  She looked at John archly.  “So tell me, do
your ladies of the East End offer you something in exchange for your services?”

John laughed.  She really was a most
extraordinary girl, he thought, clever and nearly the match of her aunt in
sheer audaciousness.  “No, I’m afraid these women have but one thing to barter and
at the time I see them they’re usually in no condition to offer even that.  I
must settle for their gratitude.”

“Which is indeed excessive.  Trevor
says that they have dubbed you ‘Saint John.’”

He flushed.  “I assure you, I did not
request such a title.”

Leanna was afraid she may have gone a
bit too far and offended him and she cast about for a way to bring the
conversation back to neutral ground.  “Are you disappointed at the pace the
fundraising is going?” 

“Hmmm.  How to answer, how to answer…There
are some pounds so earmarked in my account, but not nearly enough for what I
have planned.  I visualize a small clinic, perhaps six or eight beds with a midwife
and nurse constantly present and a doctor standing by on call.  That’s what’s costly,
the trained medical staff.”

“Your family doesn’t support your
mission?”

“Regrettably, they’re more of the
mind of our friend Fleanders, and believe that ladies need obstetrical
assistance and poor women do not.  I’m the first physician in my family and the
ignorance runs deep.  And I’m also a third son, Leanna, you may as well know
that, if Geraldine has not already told you.”

“Meaning what?” Leanna asked,
although she knew well enough what it meant.  Tom was a third son.

“Meaning I don’t inherit.  As the
youngest it falls to me to seek a profession or to -”

“To marry well?”

He looked at her out of the corner of
his eye.  “I don’t intend to choose my wife based on the size of her dowry, if
that’s what you’re implying.”

Leanna clasped her hands over her
ears.  “I’m sorry, it’s just that we’ve stumbled onto a rather sore subject for
me.  Oldest sons seem to have been dealt all the cards of any value, youngest
sons struggle by with the remains, and women…”

“And women?”

“Are left with the Joker.”

John laughed easily, and the horses
slowed as they approached the more crowded streets flanking the park.  “I
sometimes wonder if I can challenge the lethargy of the medical establishment
and here you seem posed to take on the entire social structure of England. I
didn’t mean to imply that I’m a pauper, Leanna.  I have a home of my own and my
practice.  To follow your analogy to its end, it is now my duty to play the
cards dealt me, not to wail that I wasn’t sitting at the right place at the
table when the shuffling began.  I’ll have my clinic in time, you shall see.”

“You should have it now.  It isn’t
fair.”

“Nothing is fair.”

Leanna turned away from John, afraid
her feelings were too plainly written on her face.  At that moment she wanted
more than anything to confide to him the sudden stroke of fate which had
changed how she viewed everything.  Strange, she reflected, that when she had little
power over her future she never worried about the injustices of life but that now
she was steering her own craft she found herself angry at every turn, wondering
how others could bear the constraints she herself had endured without complaint
for years.  Trevor struggling against his obviously inferior superiors, John
forced to wait for the fruition of his dreams, and Emma…Leanna was certain
there was some story behind how Emma had ended up with Gerry, but she felt too
uncomfortable to ask.

“I’m sorry, my dear, if I’ve upset
you,” John said, misinterpreting her ducked head and silence.  “I must say I
admire the way you maintain total composure during a talk of blood and murder
but grow shaken at the thought of social injustice.  Quite a refreshing change
from the ladies I know who pass by the factory children without a glance and
then swoon at the spider on the wall.  The right sort of things make you ill.”

“An unusual compliment.”

“But sincerely meant.  Tell me, why did
we strike too close to a sensitive subject?  Is it an older brother who will
arrange your marriage?”

“No, no, he has nothing to say in
it.”

“So your grandfather did leave you
something?”

Leanna turned her head.

“I’m the one who is sorry now,” John
said quickly.  “I realize how that sounded, but I was just concerned for you. 
So many women have no say in the matter.“

“I’ll be the one to choose my
husband.”

“And I am glad to hear it.”

Leanna fiddled with the clasp of the
green cape, more confused than ever.  Was his interest in her freedom only
altruistic, or did he have another reason for wondering who would be the one to
grant her hand?  His question about her dowry seemed odd in the wake of their
discussion of his own financial problems.  If only Tom were here to help her
sort through it all…

“There’s the café,” John said,
pulling up and handing the reins to a small Indian boy in a crisply tailored
blue suit, before lightly leaping to the sidewalk.  “Wonderful food.  I’m sure you
won’t be disappointed.”  Then he put his hands on her waist and lifted her down
from the carriage step.  She stumbled a bit - her country sure -footedness was
failing her in London - and bumped into him, letting his arms slip momentarily
around her.  His touch was appropriate.  Firm enough to steady her, not so firm
as to be taken as impropriety, and as she looked up into his pale aristocratic
face, Leanna admitted that it was only sport for her to wonder what his motives
were. For in truth she didn’t care why he had called, only that he had.  She
was already half in love with him.

9:52 AM

In a café a short stroll south of the
one where Leanna and John were just beginning to dine, Trevor Welles sat with a
newspaper and a cup of morning tea, enjoying neither.  He had gotten home
around six and tried to sleep for a few hours, but his mind had been racing and
he had finally acknowledged defeat, risen, splashed water on his face, and stepped
out for some breakfast, hoping that the walk would clear his head.  As he often
did when preoccupied, Trevor had walked much farther than he had intended, and
he had finally paused, bought a paper on the corner, and ordered tea in a
café.  Its courtyard offered a pleasant view of the park but, Trevor was too
preoccupied to see the beauty of the morning.  He opened his notebook and stared
down at the single sentence.

THE JUWES ARE NOT THE MEN THAT WILL
BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING

What the devil was the point of such
nonsense?  Had the person who wrote the words actually meant “The Jews are not
the men to be blamed for anything,” hence that the Jews are innocent?  Or did
he rather mean that the anti-Semitism of London was justified, for the killer
was Jewish?  But if he were Jewish, why had he announced that fact in foot-high
letters?  And why would anyone, Jewish or not, misspell the word “Jews”?  Sir
Warren had - perhaps correctly - feared a wave of anti-Semitism if the words
were circulated and Trevor had complied with his order that the message be kept
a secret.  The morning papers, while full of speculations, didn’t have this.  Trevor
sighed.   Well, he’d wanted the case and he’d gotten it, so there was no need
to cry now. 

His pocket watch informed him that
he’d better start back if he would be on time for his appointment with Phillips
and Eatwell.  Trevor drained his cup and slumped in the thin iron café chair. 
Only a few moments before, his eyes had happened to fall on a young couple in a
carriage, progressing slowly down the street, apparently rapt in conversation. 
He had remained very still until the carriage rolled past his table, uncertain
why the sight of Leanna Bainbridge riding with John Harrowman should disturb
him.  He’d certainly found Leanna attractive the night before  - although in
truth, the dinner party seemed like a year ago to his rattled senses, and
seeing her again had been just one more surrealistic scene in the tableau of
the last twelve hours.   Trevor had often teased Geraldine that if he’d been
born earlier he would have surely set his cap for her, and he had always
privately thought “Yes, if you were not only younger but a bit more sane…”

And then came the reality of Geraldine’s
grand-niece, undeniably younger and not only sane but very bright, and he had somehow
missed his chance.  For there she was, a mere circle of the watch face later,
gazing up at John Harrowman, who had been gazing back with a far-from-saintly
expression. 

There was nothing to be done about
it.  Trevor knew he was at least four years away from a promotion to the rank
of chief detective - unless he managed to solve this Whitechapel mess, but no,
he wouldn’t think of that.  Four years from a promotion meant four years until
he would have the money and position to take on a wife, and until that time it
was sheer folly to entertain any thoughts of the Bainbridge girl.  If one had
to count the years until one could court a woman, one was better off not
counting at all, but rather making do with dinner party conversation and an
occasional stroll to the East End.  He fumbled for coins to pay his bill,
thinking of the reasons why he knew the streets of Whitechapel so well, why he
had known them well enough before the events of the last two months.  It was nothing
to be proud of… but nothing to be ashamed of either, although he had to admit
he was ashamed, at least when in the presence of a woman he admired.

So Leanna was out with the good
doctor and he had no right to be disturbed.  No right and no time, for he was
now chief investigator of the most important criminal case of the decade.  Perhaps
the century.  He could not allow himself to be distracted by Leanna or anything
else.  I won’t think of her, he said to himself, and then, again, aloud this
time, “I swear I just won’t think of her.”  This determined, he sat off in a
roundabout path back toward the Yard, for he knew it would be easier to not to
think of her if he could manage to not see her again.

10:48 AM

“You were right, John, that was
wonderful,” said Leanna, pushing back her plate with a contented sigh.  “I’m
sure you think I’ve never eaten before.”