City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (24 page)

“It’s actually your position, isn’t
it?” Solmes said to William.  “You’re the eldest, the one deprived of his
natural expectations.”

William shrugged his beefy
shoulders.  “Unlike my brother, I’ve come to terms with the situation.  In
fact, I’ve recently made a decision.   I plan to study the science of estate
management.”

“Estate…management?” Cecil said, his
tone as incredulous as if William had announced plans to become a priest.

“It is honest work and it will allow
me to remain at Rosemoral,” William said.  His tone was calm and steady but he
couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Cecil’s eyes.  “Leanna will need help to
keep the property productive and it isn’t as if I don’t know the land.  Truly,
Cecil, there’s no shame in taking up a profession. You could consider it as
well. ”

“Please!  Can you really imagine me
toiling as a tradesman or soldier or even - no offense intended, Neddy - a
solicitor?  Taking lessons, rising at dawn, holding a schedule…”

“The will allows for it,” William
said stubbornly.  “If you went to Tom and professed some sort of interest in a
career, he would be bound to release funds for tuition and then you could - ”

“Neither one of you understands the true
enormity of my needs,” Cecil said, bending forward to drop his pale face into
well-manicured hands.  “It isn’t merely that I’ve lost what I had…”

The silence in the room grew
uncomfortable and William and Edmund Solmes exchanged a pointed glance.  The
man must dye his hair with shoe polish, William thought, for no one could have
such a weathered face and still maintain that shock of ebony hair.  And his hands…they
tremble with the palsy when one gets quite close to him. Cecil is a fool,
fawning over this dandy, promising him their sister.  Calling him Neddy, indeed,
as if they were schoolboys!  Precisely how old was the fellow, anyway?

“I think we do understand you,
Cecil,” Solmes finally said.  “You’ve wagered not only against funds in pocket
but against future earnings.  That’s the trouble, isn’t it?”

“Strange time to hear a lecture from
you, Neddy.”

“And I take it Miss Wentworth is out
of the picture?  There’s no means of escape in her?”

Cecil flushed.  “You’re aware she
will no longer receive me.”

“So,” Solmes said.  “All roads lead
back to Rosemoral and the estate that is housed there.”

“Really, Cecil,” William said. “This
is one time I can’t say I feel that sorry for you.  The will allows you income,
you had Hannah all but hooked, and as Mr. Solmes said, if you had played it
smart, gone to Leanna every now and again for a bit of cash…”

“In dribs and drabs,” Cecil said
morosely.  “I can’t live like that.  I have my pride!”

William turned away in disgust, his
vision falling on the moth-eaten tapestries suspended from the ceiling.  This
office, he reflected, was much like its owner, with a thin veneer of gloss
applied over a crumbling core.  The sort of place which impresses the eye at
first glance and then upon reflection begins to disappoint in innumerable small
ways.  Not like Rosemoral, William thought.  The surface may not be as glamorous,
but there is substance and quality underneath.  Although he would never confess
this to Cecil, William rather liked the idea of estate management.  He could
see himself living out his years at Rosemoral with a plump little wife, his
herb garden, a litter of children and an annuity promptly paid each month…

“Is this really enough for you?” Cecil
asked, as if William’s thoughts were an open book.  “Begging Tom for money so
you can go to school to learn how to be a farmer?  A farmer, for God’s sake!  A
farmer in Leanna’s employ!  I can’t believe you’d even consider it.”

“I am considering it,” William said. 
“And the more I consider it, the more I think being the estate manager wouldn’t
be so different from being the master of Rosemoral.  It would enable me to go
through with the plans I’ve made.  The back acreage is being wasted.  We could
bring in sheep…”

“Sheep,” Cecil said bitterly.  “How
appropriate.”

William felt as if he were seeing his
brother for the first time.  When they’d been boys, people had often mistaken
Cecil for the elder of the two.  William had the brawn but Cecil had been the
one gifted with the quick mind, the glib turn of phrase, the ability to
converse with adults when he was still in short pants.   Why did I envy him,
William wondered.  Why have I spent my entire life trying to win his approval?

“Yes, sheep,” he said again, more
firmly.  “I think Leanna and Tom will both see my reasoning.  And I want to
bring in an ostentation of peacocks.”

Cecil and Solmes merely stared at
him.

“That’s what you call a group of
peacocks,” William said, nodding as if the decision was already made.  “An
ostentation.”

Cecil fumbled for his pipe.  “Have
you gone mad?”

“I always have rather liked peacocks,”
William said, to no one in particular.  “They give the lawns such a regal air.”

Edmund Solmes considered this remark
for perhaps two seconds, then turned his attention, and his full body, back
towards Cecil.  “There is, of course, the chance your sister might marry
someone sympathetic to your needs.  If she marries, control of the funds will
pass to her husband and if he were the right sort of man he might seek to rectify
the mistakes of the will.”

“And give all the money back to his
brothers-in-law?” Cecil asked irritably.  “I bloody rather doubt it, unless she
marries a dunce, and even so there is baby Tom to consider.”

“As her family, as her older male
relatives, you may have some influence over her choice.”

“Gad, Neddy, that’s quite out of our
hands now.  Leanna’s independent.  She can take up with the apple seller on the
corner for all I know or care.  Besides, I wouldn’t put it past Leanna to
remain a virgin until death just to spite us, and we all know that virgins live
forever.”

Solmes smiled.  “Actually, if your
sister should happen to predecease you - ”

“What?” Cecil asked, his head jerking
up.

“A small provision in the will, over around
page seventy or so.  If your sister dies childless the estate reverts back to
her three brothers to be shared in equally.  But, heavens, Cecil, wipe that
hungry look from your face.  The girl is barely out of her teens after all, and
the last time I saw her she was a bouncy little armful of flesh, looking quite
healthy and capable.”

“Yes, Cecil, hush,” said William, infuriated
that Solmes would refer to his sister in such a familiar way.  “You are truly
grasping at straws.  Leanna is but a girl.  She doubtless has fifty full years
ahead of her.”

“Oh, of course, rosy and healthy and
just a girl…” Cecil said slowly.  “But she lives in London now, doesn’t she?
And London is such a dangerous place.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

October 14, 1888

9:05 AM

He has found her.  She is younger
than the others.  Prettier, stronger.  A better specimen by any method one
might wish to employ, a more suitable target for his talents.  A bright bird of
Africa somehow trapped here among the common wrens. 

She looks straight ahead when she
walks.  In her arms she holds something shocking, the most surprising thing a
woman in Whitechapel might possess. 

She carries books.

And  - although he has not gotten
close enough to see their titles, nor their authors, nor even, in this
ecumenical part of the city, the language they employ – the very fact that she
can read is enough to set her above the others. 

She is like me, he thinks.  She does
not belong here. 

He has followed her twice, plans to
follow her again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

2:29 PM

“Sounds like a foreign language, Sir,”
Davy said, staring at the paper in his hands.

“That’s because it is,” Trevor said. 
“Or was. Someone in security translated it from the French, but I don’t think
they did a particularly admirable job.”  He stepped back from the worktable and
wiped his hands. 

There had been no murders for the past
two weeks.  The parade of witnesses and confessors had dwindled and even the
newspapers seemed to have moved on to other subjects. 

Some people around the Yard were
beginning to say that perhaps they’d flushed him, that Jack had moved on to a
less vigilant location – the countryside, the mainland, or even America.  Let
him go to America, they said.  It fits.  Plenty of room to absorb the madness there,
mile after mile of open land to stretch his violence out to the point where it
would dissolve, somehow no longer matter.  But Trevor could not quite bring
himself to believe it was over.    He was not the sort of detective who put
great stock in instinct, nor was he a betting man – but if he were either of these
things, he would have laid odds that the Ripper was still very close.

No matter.  No more bodies were
wrapped in the morgue, that was the key thing, and the last time Eatwell had
passed him in the halls, the old ogre had actually smiled, as if the lack of
dead whores was somehow proof of the personal capabilities of Detective Trevor
Welles.  The general lull had allowed Trevor the time to set up a bit of a
genuine laboratory in the corner of the chief mortuary, and today he was
concerned with the latest report from the Parisian police. 

Latest brag was more like it. 

The French were claiming they had
discovered a way to create a perfect replica of a knife blade from pouring wax
into a wound.  Trevor had read the report twice over breakfast, then headed
straight to the butcher shop to ask the man behind the counter which animal’s
meat bore the greatest similarity to the texture and density of human flesh. 
The man had regarded him with open alarm until Trevor produced his credentials
from the Yard and then, within minutes, Trevor had been back on the streets
bearing a sizable leg of mutton.  The butcher had refused to let him pay.

 “Catch old Jack and we’re quits,
Sir,” he’d said, and Trevor had nodded briskly, with a confidence he no longer
felt. 

He was even less sure of himself now
as he stared down at the mutton. “All right Severin,” he said.  “Bring the
knives.”

The young man promptly stepped
forward with his tray.  It held a surgical scalpel, the tip of a bayonet rifle,
and a large carving knife obtained from a slaughterhouse.  Severin paused
before the leg of mutton with his usual measured pace, and then picked up the
carving knife.  With a nod from Trevor, he slashed at the mutton, left to
right, producing a single deft wound.   Next the bayonet and a different sort
of movement – this time, more of a thrust -  and finally the scalpel.  The scalpel
was the one he used the most carefully, almost artfully, making a shallow
curved slice into the meatiest part of the haunch.

Trevor now nodded to Davy, who began
reading again, more slowly, although the instructions were simple enough,
really.  Severin put a palm on each side of the first wound and held it open as
Trevor spooned in the wax.  Davy noted the time on his pocket watch as they
moved on to the bayonet and scalpel imprints. 

After precisely ninety seconds,
Trevor pulled the wax from the carving knife wound.  Despite his care, a piece
of the wax broke off, staying embedded in the mutton, and they fared little
better with the other two imprints.  They were left with three very different
wax shapes, that much was true, at least in a general sense.  But the imprints
were uneven and crumbled around the edges, hardly anything you could present to
a court as evidence.  Trevor sat down with a sigh, not bothering to conceal the
frustration in his face.

“Which one would you have guessed
would leave the cleanest imprint?” he asked Severin.

“The scalpel,” Severin answered.  “It
is sharpest and the cut it produces is the most shallow.”

“Indeed,” Trevor said.  “And that
imprint is marginally better than the others. But even it…” he looked down at
the wax figures before him, and sighed again. “Can you think of any reason why
it might not have worked?”

“Perhaps the thick of the wax,” the
young man said.  His voice was evenly pitched and nearly devoid of an accent,
but when he said certain things  - “thick” rather than “thickness,” for example
– he betrayed his immigrant roots.  People are streaming into London from all
over Europe, Trevor thought.  Smart, and hard-working, most of them, and some
as schooled as any Brit, even if they didn’t learn those lessons in the mother
tongue.   And yet we reduce them to maids and rubbish men and assistants,
rarely asking them to employ their true minds.  He himself had initially
dismissed Severin as useless.  Now Trevor wondered what this shy young man
thought of him and how he really viewed the good doctor.

“We bought the same kind of wax the
report called for,” Davy said.  “I went three places to find the brand.”

Severin shook his head.  “Perhaps
hotter,” he said.  “Thinner.”

“Quite right,” Trevor said.  “We’ll
try again this afternoon with the wax hotter and thinner.”