City of Darkness

Chapter TWENTY-NINE

November 9, 1888

5:32 AM





Trevor had taken a sleeping powder and it took several rounds of pounding on the door of his flat before he was up and, although a bit dream-drunk, purposefully heading toward the door. He noted the time on the mantle clock. Something must be dreadfully amiss.

He did not recognize the young bobby standing on his stoop by name but he recognized well enough the expression on the boy’s face. “Come, Sir,” was nearly all the lad could manage to get out. “A carriage, Sir.” Dressing by the light of his single candle, Trevor scrambled into his suit and yesterday’s shirt and emerged from his door within five minutes, unshaven and disheveled. As he swept past the young officer and into the carriage, there was little need for conversation. The driver headed for Whitechapel.

Mercifully, due to the hour, there was no gathering crowd in front of the small, rattletrap house where they stopped. Only a few officers, most in plainclothes. Trevor spotted Davy and Abrams and he relaxed a bit, knowing that no matter what the morning would bring, there was at least competent help close at hand.

“The body’s inside and the door is barred, Sir,” Davy said, advancing toward Trevor as he alighted from the carriage. “We’re lucky to have even found this one, but a bobby saw blood on the door frame while making rounds about an hour ago. See, Sir.” Davy lifted his lantern and gestured toward the door. The bobby’s eyes had been sharp indeed to catch this small smear of blood in the darkness, and Trevor nodded, then put on his gloves and began to look around for something to break down the door.

“There’s a pick-axe in the wagon, Welles,” Abrams said in a low voice, bringing his face close to Trevor’s. “But I’ve looked through the window and it’s my advice that you have a shot of brandy before we proceed.” Trevor glanced at him with some surprise, for Abrams had earned his first citation on a child-murder case and was not a man to go to nerves easily. “Don’t be a fool, Welles,” Abrams said, noticing his hesitation. “Have a drink first. The girl will wait.”

Shrugging, Trevor accepted the offered brandy and threw it down in one gulp, as Davy and Abrams also drank, a shot Trevor suspected was their second of the morning, or possibly the third. Then they all stood back while the same bobby who had fetched him broke in the flimsy door with two big throws of the axe. Trevor, lantern aloft, led the way into the house.

His eyes scanned the room for a body and it took him a long slow look before he realized there was no body. A woman was literally scattered about the room in pieces. Trevor raised his lantern higher and, nearly screaming out as his eye caught his own fleeting image in a broad glass, brought the light back to the mirror. “Look there, a rope,” he said with some confusion, for the Ripper had never strangled a victim or left behind a weapon of any sort before. He stepped closer to the mirror, and saw that he was not gazing at a rope at all, but rather at a long length of human intestines, neatly washed and draped along the top of the mirror.

“Oh, God, oh God, Sweet Mary,” Davy moaned from a far corner for it had been his misfortune to find the girl’s face, stretched across a bedside table like a discarded mask. The skin had been neatly peeled from the skull, which was nowhere in sight, with cleanly sliced eyeholes and the mouth opening curved upward in a mocking mile. How long would it take to skin a woman, Trevor wondered? Beside the face lay the woman’s heart, cleaned and dried and resting just above her forehead.

The three men worked the rest of the room swiftly, without speaking. They located one leg, but never the other, and several bodily organs they could not readily identify. What tortures this woman had gone through they tried not to consider, knowing that if they stopped for even a second to view the scene in human terms, their nerve and objectivity would shatter and they would be unable to go on. Abrams found her amputated breasts lying on a table as if they were plates, with knives and forks laid out around them.

Dr. Phillips had arrived and stood patiently in the doorway until they had finished, the sky behind his shoulders brightening somewhat as he waited. He clasped Trevor’s hands silently as the men left the room so he and Severin could gather the pieces. Trevor was relieved to see the examination was proceeding in an orderly fashion; evidently his paper on proper procedure had done some good, for the area was well roped off and guarded.

“Care for some tea and rolls, Sir?” one of the bobbies questioned cheerfully, as Trevor, Abrams and Davy made their way into the street. “If you’d fancy a bit of breakfast while the doctors work, I could dash to the bakery on…”

Abrams let out a shout of punchy laughter and Trevor said “Gad, boy, we may never eat again after witnessing such a sight. But I’m sure you meant well, so don’t worry about it.”

The three of them walked mutely up and down the alleyway, not talking and indeed trying not to think while they waited. Trevor, who had gone blessedly numb with shock, noted it was nearly twenty minutes before Phillips emerged, with Severin and a bobby behind him carrying one of the regulation pauper’s coffins which the city provided.

“Frightful butchery,” Phillips muttered. “But a well-done job, Welles, mind you of that. To dissect and skin an adult human body must have taken him half the night, and working by firelight as he did…”

“Firelight!” Trevor exclaimed. “Of course, you’re right. Perhaps he tore his clothes carrying wood or something, for if worked on her all night he must surely had to have kept a fire going for hours on end. May we reenter the room, doctor?”

“I’m finished,” Phillps said. For the record, the skull is missing, one leg and both kidneys. How he managed to walk the streets with such a collection of souvenirs, I shall leave to you to decide.”

Trevor found the little room even more depressing by daylight than it had been in the darkness. The furnishings consisted of one small cot, a rocking chair, a chest, and a table. The only surprising piece was a bookcase and when he wandered over, he was even more startled by the titles he found there. Authors whom he must confess he had not read since his days in school, his own taste running more to travelogues and adventures. But here was a prostitute evidently quite capable of reading Milton.

“Interesting,” Abrams said from where he was sorting through items on the table. “And potentially very helpful. She seemed to keep records, and in a very neat hand, I might add. No names, but addresses and notes. Her clients, I’d presume? Regulars or men she might have viewed as having the means to lift her out of this hovel? But the killer was so through in his desecration of the room. He must have seen these papers. Why would he leave them behind?”

“The door was barred, Sir. How did he leave at all?” Davy asked. Abrams pointed toward a high window, ajar and leading to the alley.

“He’d have to be rather spry to climb through that,” Davy said. “’Specially carrying what he had to carry.”

“Mad Maudy has her alibi at last,” Trevor said.

A bureau stood in one corner of the room, and when Trevor opened it he found no clothes, but several pairs of shoes, lined up in an orderly fashion and surprisingly clean. The dead girl had dainty feet. Dainty feet, neat handwriting, and a knowledge of Milton.

“Trevor,” Davy said, dropping the formality of titles in his excitement. “It’s just as you suggested. Evidently the Ripper ran through the girl’s firewood soon enough and he began burning her clothes to give himself enough light to perform his work. See, here, looks like the remains of women’s clothes.”

“That explains the empty bureau,” Abrams said, bending to assist Davy as they began to retrieve pieces of cloth from the grate with a poker. “But look at the size of that skirt there. It’s nearly intact and it’s enormous. Was the murdered girl stocky?”

“Hard to tell from the pieces what size she was,” Davy said. “I could ask some of the people outside. Surely some of them knew her and a right good crowd is gathering now.”

“Do that,” Trevor said. “But judging from her shoes I’d say she was a tiny thing and this skirt could fit me.” To illustrate his point he stood, holding the brown cloth skirt to his waist. Abrams grimaced in wry amusement at the sight of Trevor solemnly modeling the frock, but Davy immediately caught his meaning.

“You’re saying that a man may have dressed as a woman to gain entry, then after the killings he could have burned his disguise and left in men’s clothes. Quite a notion, Sir.”

“But not without holes,” Abrams objected. “First of all, there are women that stout, your friend Mad Maudy for one.”

“She wouldn’t have burned her own clothes,” Davy protested. “And there’s no way she could have climbed through that high window, no way at all.”

“Point taken,” Abrams agreed. “We’ve wondered all along why blood-stained clothes were never found and this may be the answer. If the killer were clever enough to dress in two layers and then shuck and burn the top layer after the murder was performed…”

“It is possible,” Trevor admitted, carefully folding the skirt to take back with him to Scotland Yard. “A man who dresses as a woman, a woman who dresses as a man…no wonder the working girls are terrified and don’t know whom to trust. Look there, Abrams,” he added, pointing toward the bookcase. “She was rather the scholar, was she not?”

“Ah,” said Abrams, peering down at the titles. “It would seem that if the killer was so desperate for light he or she or it would have burned the papers on the table and then these books, but evidently our Ripper has a respect of literature.” Abrams flipped open one of the books and read from the flysheet. “’To my daughters Mary and Emma Kelly, from your loving father, John.’ Quite touching, isn’t it? She must have had family who cared for her once. By God, whatever is wrong, Welles, you look like death.”

“I know a girl named Emma Kelly,” Trevor mused.

“Who’s Emma Kelly?” Davy asked, wrinkling his brow. “Was she one of the girls we interviewed? There were so many.”

“No, no, this girl is not a prostitute. She lives in Mayfair where she is the companion of Geraldine Bainbridge. I’ve shown you the place.”

“I hardly think the two could be connected,” Rayley said, trying to be reassuring for Trevor was now paler than he had been all morning. “Kelly is a common surname and for one sister to end up in Mayfair and the other in Whitechapel…”

“Yes,” said Trevor, trying to steady himself. “And my Emma always said she had no family.”

“So there,” Abrams said, moving back to the table. “But, there was something about….oh, dear.”

“What?” said Davy, for Trevor appeared to be lost in thought.

“These papers. Records, I presumed. But see this one, it reads 34 Kingsly Place. That’s a Mayfair address, isn’t it, Welles?”

“Dear God, that’s where Gerry lives! The girl was Emma’s sister!”

Trevor sank to the narrow bed, unmindful of the bloodstains and suddenly too weak to stand. “Easy man,” said Abrams, dropping the paper and moving to his side. “There’s more brandy out in the wagon, Madley. Pour him a big one.”

“I’m a failure,” said Trevor. “I have utterly failed in my mission. Don’t you see? Don’t you?”

“Come now, Welles, there were at least four killings before you were even put on the case. Probably more, we both know that, “Abrams said. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for every crime in the East End.”

“But I can’t even protect the families of people I know!” Trevor sprung to his feet, wrested his notebook from his jacket pocket, and waved it in from of Abram’s face. “Do you wish to see a joke, Detective? Then feast your eyes on this. It is my portable forensic laboratory, holding all manner the nonsense which I’ve collected for nothing. For nothing! No wonder the Ripper laughs at me! Unraveling red fibers! Plucking hairs from corpses and pouring wax into a leg of mutton! Delivering papers on procedure to bobbies who are half-asleep! What was the purpose? I’m interviewing whores while he becomes more audacious every day! Here’s for all the good my fibers have done me.” To Davy’s horror, Trevor opened the notebook and began to shake all the bits of paper and painfully-assembled evidence onto Mary Kelly’s dirt floor. Davy lunged for Trevor, but Abrams got there first, wrapping his thin arms around Trevor’s torso, holding him still until the convulsions and shouting ceased. Davy knelt and hastily scooped up the contents of Trevor’s notebook, cramming them back inside, and staring up at his superior with terrified eyes.

“There, get his evidence then get the damn brandy,” Abrams barked, for it was taking all his strength to contain Trevor. “We’ll take him back to the Yard and he’ll be right as rain in an hour or so. The strain has just been too much.” Davy nodded, heading toward the door. “And, lad,” Abrams called after him. “No one is ever to know of this.”