City of Darkness

Chapter ELEVEN

2:22 AM





“There, Sir!” Davy held up his light and pointed to a heap lying on some overturned garbage, then involuntarily averted his face from the overwhelming, slightly metallic smell of freshly spilled blood. Trevor rushed by Davy and held up his light also, gasping as it showed the extent of the carnage which lay at his feet. Davy, who had seen far enough already, dipped his own lamp and stepped back.

Trevor took Davy’s lantern and laid it on the ground beside the body, then placed his own on the other side, allowing the flickering oil light to spill over what was left of the woman’s face. He pushed his palm firmly against his mouth, willing back the wave of nausea which had quickly overtaken him, while poor Davy huddled against one of the cold alley walls, fighting a losing battle with his own stomach.

“Sorry, Sir,” he gasped, wiping away tears with the back of his hand. “Isn’t like me, Sir.”

“It’s alright, son,” Trevor muttered, wondering if he would be joining the boy in another minute. “Pull yourself together when you can and keep those people back in the street.”

Davy nodded, then squared his slight shoulders and headed back toward the mouth of the alley. The size of the crowd moving toward him made him pause and almost turn back, but Detective Welles was already on his knees beside the victim and Davy would rather have been ripped to shreds than to once again appear weak before a superior.

Davy stretched out his arms and gave several firm blasts of his whistle, but nonetheless people pushed forward. Finally, a few feet short of Welles, the crowd stopped and gasps circulated throughout as each onlooker caught sight of the body. There was a second of silence, then a woman screamed, “Why ‘tis Cathy! Catherine Eddowes! And ‘e’s lopped off her ears like ‘e said in the Times!”

“Damn it,” Trevor hissed over his shoulder at Davy. “Get that woman out of here this instant! All of you, go home to where you belong.” The crowd stood still, more from shock than defiance, until, using his cape somewhat in the manner of a matador, Davy began to shoo them out of the alley. The rest of the officers had at long last arrived and were standing uncertainly in the street.

“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 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 mean 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 form 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 proper 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 form 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.