City of Darkness

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, a single deft wound. Next the bayonet and a different sort of movement, more of a thrust and finally the scalpel. This he used carefully, almost artfully, making a shallow curved slice into the meatiest part of the leg, the haunch.

Trevor 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 pocketwatch 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, stayed 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 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 use 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 used 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.”

“And the meat cold,” said Severin.

“Indeed. We’ll get the mutton colder and the wax hotter and if the imprint hardens faster that might indeed sharpen the impression. Good thinking, Severin.”

Severin nodded and slipped back into the back room to finish his own tasks. Trevor waited for the curtain to close behind him before turning back to Davy. “Although if the meat needs to be chilled first, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have that sort of detail in the report. Bloody French.”

“Perhaps the coppers in Paris don’t have things as right as they think they do,” Davy said, letting the report drop to the table with a sigh of his own. “Are they really so far ahead, Sir?”

“Yes,” Trevor said, although such disloyalty to his motherland did not come easily. “They’re even claiming they can tell who has touched something, like a door latch or a weapon, based on the ridges people have on their fingertips. They call it a finger print. Apparently everyone on earth has one and they’re all in a slightly different pattern.”

Davy stared so intently down at his hands that Trevor burst out laughing. “I know,” he said, “it sounds a bit fantastical to me too. Oh, and another thing we might try this after – Come in, it isn’t locked.“

The door swung open revealing a bobby and a man in streetclothes who was holding a parcel and seemed in a high state of agitation. “Are you a doctor?” he asked. “Am I even in the right place? They told me to turn right at the stairs but there are so many stairs in this infernal –“

“I’m Detective Welles,” Trevor said, motioning both men in. “Doctor Phillips has stepped out –“

“Then send someone to get him immediately,” the man said. He seemed used to barking out orders. “I am George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee and we were formed to protect and prevent –“

“I know your organization, Mr. Lusk,” Trevor said, indicating a seat but Lusk tossed his head about violently, as if the idea of sitting down was ludicrous. Davy was already moving toward the door to fetch Phillips so there was nothing for Trevor to do but observe Lusk, who looked like precisely what he was – a prosperous businessman prepared to take matters into his own hands before he would let an unchecked crime wave destroy his investments.

“Before you begin your policeman’s lecture, you need to know that I’m not a Johnny-come-lately to this Ripper business,” Lusk said, his tone as vigorous as if he were speaking from the pulpit. “Our committee formed on the tenth of September, long before the nastiness of the double murders. We grasped, Sir, quite at once, that this was not a singular threat that would soon fade away. And I was elected chairman during that first meeting. Since then we’ve taken up watch on our own – “

“I know who you are, Mr. Lusk,” Trevor repeated,” and I know the task your committee has undertaken.” The bobbies on the streets were constantly complaining about this amateur group of sleuths who patrolled Whitechapel nightly. The police largely considered the vigilance committee more of an obstacle than an advantage, more likely to be needing help than capable of providing it, and Trevor was inclined to agree. “What I don’t know is what brings you here to Scotland Yard today.”

“I received a letter from the Ripper himself,” Lusk said, fumbling in his coat pocket.

“Would you like to put down your parcel?” Trevor inquired mildly. Letters from the Ripper were a near-daily event at the Yard. It may be unusual for someone to send such a letter to a private citizen, but, then again, Lusk had done everything possible to attach himself to the case and had undoubtedly made his share of enemies along the way.

“No, I most certainly do not wish to put down my parcel,” Lusk said testily, “and the reason will be quite clear when the doctor arrives. Here,” he added, clumsily pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Here’s the letter. He says he’s sending it from hell, he does.”

Trevor took the paper and read:



From hell

Mr Lusk

Sor

I send you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a while longer

Signed Catch me when you Can

Mishter Lusk



“And what do you think of that?” Lusk demanded.

“I think it’s quite different from the other letters we’ve received. The misspellings and mistakes are so outrageous that I have to wonder if they’re calculated – “

“Calculated!” Lusk seemed in danger of exploding.

“As if the writer were deliberately attempting to present himself as uneducated,” Trevor said, attempting to counteract the man’s anger with his own calm, as if they were on a sort of emotional see-saw. “The other letters we’ve received have been quite literate. Proper spelling. One even spoke in a rather well-constructed rhyme. It’s hard to believe all these letters were written by the same person unless he’s trying to mislead us into thinking he is a very different sort of man than he is.” Trevor looked up at the fuming Lusk. It would be unnerving to receive such a message, no doubt about it. But to be fair, hadn’t the man brought much of this on himself? He had written to the papers almost daily, demanding the police do more, offering rewards for information, holding meetings in every church and community house in the East End. He has created his own celebrity, Trevor thought. It was exciting at the start but he is beginning to see the dark side of his creation.

“There are some similarities to one of the previous letters,” Trevor conceded, since Lusk seemed determined to elicit some sort of reaction. “And of course the writer has threatened to send a body part before – “

“Threatened? Why the dash do you think I’m here? He didn’t threaten. I have the woman’s kidney!” Lusk thrust the package forward and Trevor leapt to attention. He held his hand out and Lusk gingerly placed the small package in it, wincing at the smell.

“I am not one of your eccentrics, Detective,” Lusk said, clearly pleased to at last have Trevor’s full attention. “This isn’t my first letter from someone claiming to be the Ripper. Most I have ignored. But this one….Perhaps I should start at the beginning. On October 4 a man showed up at the doorstep of my home, my very home, Sir, where I sleep at night with my wife and children, and said he wanted to join the committee. A common enough request, but something about this fellow gave me pause. He asked rather too many questions about the routes we took on our patrols for my taste. We chatted for a minute but he must have sensed my lack of enthusiasm for his assistance. He asked to be directed to a tobacco shop, which I did, and I never saw the man again.”

“And you didn’t report this?”

“We have over a hundred volunteers, Detective, all assembled in much that way. Some men offer to help and then think the better of it when darkness falls and the time for the patrol draws near. Nerves, you know? There was nothing particularly noteworthy about this man except for a feeling I had and I am not a man who indulges in intuition.”

“Strange that he would ask the routes you walked, though. You must have realized what he was really asking is where you wouldn’t be.”

Lusk rubbed his chin. “Detective, this Ripper business has brought me into contact with any number of people, not all of them the sort I would care to invite for tea. I imagine you could say the same. There was nothing terribly noteworthy about this man and the fact he asked about the routes to me indicated he was a coward, not a killer. More interested in parading down safe streets with the armband of the vigilance committee than he was patrolling the parts of the city which might lead to less glory and real danger.”

“What did he look like?”

“Medium height, perhaps 30 years of age, dark hair.”

“Mustache?”

“Yes, and full beard. There have been other events, Detective. People asking about me in various taverns, letters to the paper marked to my attention. I assure you, I am not a hysteric. I do not bother the police with every small incident. But this…. The parcel today was simply laid on my doorstep and my first thought is that it was a prank. An animal kidney. They say sheep have certain anatomical similarities to humans, do they not?”

“So I’ve been told,” Trevor said wearily.

“So I took it to my personal physician, expecting that he would agree this was a prank. No more than I deserve, you doubtless are thinking, for getting myself into this whole business. But no, my doctor claimed it to be human and – not very fresh, should we say? As if it could be more than two weeks old. But he said a Scotland Yard physician would need to confirm that it may have indeed come from that Eddowes woman…”

Trevor looked down at the letter again. “So now he’s not merely a killer, but a cannibal as well. Or so he claims. I’m sorry if I treated you with disrespect, Mr. Lusk and I don’t consider you a hysteric. In fact, I think you may be underestimating the danger you and your family are in. We’ll have bobbies posted around your home night and day. If Doctor Phillips confirms the beliefs of your physician – and I suspect he will – then once again the situation has risen to a new level.”





3:30 PM



William was not entirely displeased. Having to sell the horse and carriage was distressing, but he consoled himself with the thought he’d gotten a fair price and besides, Winter Garden was no more than a twenty-minute walk from the heart of Leeds. They could manage. Pounds tucked into his pocket, he headed toward home.

But what was indeed distressing is how poorly the family had managed their money during their first month under the auspices of the will. When William had first heard the sum of their allowances, he had assumed they would be able to continue living as they had, with a staff of three, the carriage, and the genteel, if not extravagant, comforts of Winter Garden. The will had clearly been calculated to allow that. But what William hadn’t realized was the extent of Cecil’s debts or, even worse, the compulsion of his gambling habits. They had been running short of funds a mere two weeks after the monies had been paid and there was no doubt Cecil had been pilfering from the leather box where Gwynette kept the cash. William had already determined that the proceeds from the sale of the horses and carriage would be hidden away somewhere else.

William was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice a carriage slowing behind him and was startled when a woman called his name from the window. He turned to see Hannah Wentworth waving.

Well, this was certainly awkward. He had not seen her since that monstrous day when they had stumbled upon Cecil making busy with a serving girl behind the rosebushes. But Hannah was gesturing toward him in a friendly manner, as if that afternoon, and indeed Cecil, were the farthest things from her mind.

“Come ride,” she called. “We’re going the same direction, are we not?”

Only if you’re going downhill, William thought, but he smiled and said “No need, Miss Hannah, but thank you.” He patted his chest. “I could use the exercise.” With any luck she would not ask about the carriage.

“Where’s your carriage?” Hannah asked.

“Sold,” William said shortly. Painful to admit, but he supposed there was no real need to keep up a pretense. Everyone in the country would soon know, if they didn’t already, the severity of the family’s reversed fortunes.

“Then come inside,” Hannah said, so firmly that William had little choice but to obey. He climbed in and sat opposite her while she tapped her cane for the coachman to continue.

“Is that what brings you to town?” she asked, settling back into the black velvet cushions.

“That, and mailing a letter,” William said. “I’ve sent off an application to agricultural college. Does that amuse you?”

“Why should it?”

“Then perhaps this will. I am hoping to take the training course so that I might secure a position as the estate manager of Rosemoral. To do that, I will have to convince my younger sister to employ me. My grandfather named Leanna, not me, as his heir.”

Hannah exhaled slowly through her pale lips, and looked out the carriage window. “Then the gossip is correct.”

Poor mother, William thought. When she hears I’ve spilled the beans, she will never show her face in Leeds again. But he also knew that attempting to bamboozle Hannah Wentworth, of all people, was pointless and besides there was something soothing about being here with her in the carriage. “The gossip is correct,” he found himself saying, “but probably incomplete. As you might imagine, Cecil is struggling to accept the reality of our new circumstances and my mother has gone almost entirely into hiding. But I don’t feel the same. I would be delighted to find I had been accepted at an agricultural college. All I ever wanted, Miss Wentworth, although you may find this hard to believe, was to make Rosemoral the finest estate in the county.”

“I believe you,” she said calmly, still gazing out the window. “Leonard was a genius but that I’ve always considered his land underused.”

“Quite so,” said William.

“Sheep?”

“Indeed.”

“Alfalfa?”

“It’s all that makes sense.” He looked at her profile. “But it’s not just about income and production, at least not for me. The gardens of Rosemoral are lovely as they stand, but with a few simple changes, they could be grand. I plan to bring in peacocks. A whole group of them. Everyone says they’re loud, but I consider them glorious.”

She turned from the window and looked him squarely in the eye. “I believe they call a group of peacocks an ostentation,” she said.

William smiled. “Yes, Miss Wentworth. I believe they do.”