City of Darkness

Chapter THIRTY-TWO

4:30 PM





Cecil read the newspaper story of the Kelly murder a third time, the thumping in his chest growing stronger with each paragraph. The dirty dishes lay untouched on the table and he picked up the crystal bell at his right and rang it with great vigor.

“Save your efforts, darling,” his mother said crisply, as she entered the dining room. “Fanny saw it fit to leave us this afternoon when she overheard your brother telling Cook we’ll have to suspend wages.”

“Who served tea?” Cecil asked with some surprise. It had been awaiting him when he returned from his highly unsatisfactory afternoon of poker.

“I did,” Gywnette admitted, sinking into one of the faded Queen Anne chairs.

“Mother! Things surely can’t be as bad as that.”

“I’m afraid they are. Cook is the only one who is left now and I daresay her presence is more from a misguided sense of loyalty than anything else.” Gwynette’s lips were thin and tight. “She’s of the old school, believes that servants are members of the family but I’m afraid the younger girls…”

“Expect to be paid.”

“Indeed.”

“Who shall do the linens? Attend to our wardrobes? Fetch the water and the firewood, for God’s sake, and manage the carriage?”

“The horse and carriage were sold last week.”

Cecil winced. “Ah yes.”

“The annuities come in again on the twentieth of the month,” Gwynette said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Perhaps at that time we can find some temporary help, at least a girl to do the laundry.”

“The twentieth! That’s over a week away!”

“I know what the date is, Cecil. We didn’t seem to do very well with our money management this month, did we?”

“It’s inhumane to expect us to maintain a household on the miserly amount the will allows.” Cecil lit his pipe and prepared to expound further but Gwynette suddenly turned to the side table.

“Did you see the latest letter from Leanna?”

“No. Nor do I care to.”

“She seems quite concerned about us. This is the second letter this week. Have you made any effort to correspond with her, Cecil? Or with Tom?”

“I’ve been busy…”

“Indeed. Well, you might peruse the letter. She gives a rather droll description of Geraldine and the servants she employs. There’s some sort of genetic freak named Gage from what I understand, and a maid named Emma who seems to have made quite an impression upon your sister…”

“Good Lord, Mother, what does Leanna’s London gossip have to do with our present situation?”

“She talks a good bit about the Ripper…”

“Really? What does she say?”

Gwynette looked at him in a reflective fashion. “So that intrigues you, does it? Your father had a morbid turn of mind as well. If you’re interested, the letter is here on the tea table. I suppose I have dishes to wash.”

Gwynette walked slowly out, Cecil’s plates teetering on a tray, and the room fell silent. Cecil had seen Leanna’s letter himself that morning for he made it a habit to rise early enough to be the first member of the family to intercept the post. It would never do for either his mother or his brother to see how many letters were arriving from Pinkernerry’s, the local lending institution, or how many notices had accumulated from the bank. Writing checks on his mother’s account had been simple enough, for Cecil had a clever hand and could simulate Gwynette’s signature nearly as well as his own. Borrowing against Winter Garden proved a much trickier matter. The deed was in William’s name and Cecil supposed he had Edmund Solmes to thank for pulling a bit of wool there, but if William ever found out…

Cecil sighed. His hard-won funds had not lasted very long at the track or the card table, for he was undeniably having a run of black luck. Why couldn’t the others see that banker’s interest was but a mere shilling compared to what a man could earn in a good day of wagers? He was trying to lift them all out of penury but his mother and William seemed willing to accept their new station with nary a protest.

It was not easy to be the only one in the family with any ambition.

Cecil carefully extracted a paper from the inner pocket of his waistcoat. It was Pinkernerry’s “final notice,” their third “final notice” to be precise, meaning that he had been frightened silly by the first two for no reason at all. But a fourth final notice? It seemed too much to hope for. Cecil placed the letter back in his pocket, along with the hastily-ripped news account of Mary Kelly’s killing. The article was intriguing because this victim had been young and lovely, the artist’s sketch showing a serene smile which might have belonged to a gentlewoman. The Ripper appeared to be changing his style.

After a moment of reflection, Cecil added Leanna’s most recent letter to his pocket as well. He checked his pocket watch and noted that, with the carriage gone and the family reduced to foot travel, he didn’t want to be late for his meeting with Solmes at the track. The ponies waited for no man.





4:35 PM



Hearing the front bell ring, Leanna went to the door and opened it. “John,” she gasped, almost stumbling forward as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “It’s awful.” Her eyes were red and swollen with weeping.

“There, darling,” said John, reaching toward her. “I had no idea you would still be so upset, but I had to return, had to. Couldn’t bear the way I left you. I want to explain myself.”

“You have to go to Emma.”

“Emma? What’s wrong with Emma?”

“You don’t know? You haven’t seen the papers?”

“Leanna, whatever do you mean?”

“The Ripper -”

“Yes, I read that. Another victim, a girl I knew myself, a former patient. But what does that have to do with Emma?”

“Mary Kelly was her sister.”

John rocked back on his heels. “Dear God, it can’t be.”

Leanna wiped her eyes and sat down on a footstool. “None of us, not even Aunt Gerry, knew she had a sister. Evidently she couldn’t bring herself to admit…” Leanna straightened her shoulders. “But she must have loved her, John. This girl was all the family Emma had in this world and she’s distraught.”

“Take me to her,” John said quietly, his shock evaporating and his doctor’s manner returning. “I was on my way to do rounds, so I have my bag.”

Leanna led John up the flights of stairs to the third floor, where, in the hall, Geraldine and Gage were pleading with little success for Emma to open the door. Gerry too had been weeping, and Gage was making ineffectual jabs at the bolt with a butter knife.

“Oh, John, can you do something?” wailed Geraldine who suddenly looked every one of her seventy years. “The poor girl is in pieces.”

Nudging Gage aside, John rapped lightly on the door. “Emma, this is John Harrowman. I just want to talk to you, dear. Please.” The response was thundering silence. Leanna bit her lip.

John glanced at Gerry. “Is there another key?”

“Oh, I’ve taken leave of my senses,” Gerry muttered. “Extra keys, of course. Gage, go to my room. On my dresser there is a jewelry box. In the bottom drawer there are some spare keys. Bring all of them.”

Gage hurried as fast as his feeble body could carry him and soon returned with about half a dozen keys in his hand. John tried them in sequence and with the fourth the lock sprang free. Geraldine started to rush in, but John stopped her at the door.

“Leave me alone with her. I know about these matters,” he said in a tone that made the others freeze in their tracks. He shut the door behind him and removed his hat and cape, draping them both over a chair and walking to the bed, where Emma lay sobbing. He sat down beside her and gently put his arms around her and let her cry, holding her in silence until she seemed to calm. He helped her lie back upon the bed, and stood gazing down at her face, so bloated with tears that he would not have recognized her had he passed her on the street. She looked back at him trustingly.

“Emma, I’m going to give you something to help you rest. I know you’ve been through a lot, but you must be strong. Losing someone dear is a terrible thing, I know for I’ve lost loved ones. But I knew your sister, Emma. She was intelligent and strong as well as beautiful. You can be proud of her.”

Emma considered this in silence but at least the dreadful wracking sobs had left her. John pulled the sheets and blankets up, then went to the door and asked Gage to collect his black satchel from the entry. Leanna and Gerry looked at him beseechingly, but he shook his head.

“No visitors yet.”

John returned to the bed and held Emma’s hand until Gage came in with the bag. He filled a syringe with morphine and injected it into Emma’s arm.

“I want you to sleep now, Emma,” said John, brushing her forehead with his hand, knowing that within minutes she would have no choice in the matter. “You’re among friends here.” He waited at her side for a few more minutes until her chest began to rise and fall with the deep, profound breaths of a drugged sleep.

John found Geraldine and Leanna downstairs in the parlor, sitting as still as two stone statues. “She’ll rest,” he said. “And when she wakes she’ll seem a bit confused. Just give her some hot soup and tea and keep her relaxed. I’ll stop in again to check on her.”

“And I’m going to send a message to Cambridge,” he went on, when there was no response to his directions. “Under the circumstances, perhaps Tom could stay a fortnight or so until things are better.”

“I want Tom,” Leanna wailed, like a child.

“Of course you do, darling, and you shall have him,” John said.

“You’ve been an invaluable help already and we’re not so rattled as we seem.” Geraldine attempted to sit up straighter, to reassure him with a smile. “If I’d known Emma had a sister, I would have…”

“Spare yourself, Geraldine, for there was nothing any of us could have done for Mary Kelly,” John said. “Now that I stop and think of it, she was very much like Emma. Always seemed out of place, if you know what I mean.” He looked from Geraldine to Leanna. “I have my patients,” he said helplessly.

“Of course,” Gerry said. “Tess told me you were up all of last night with her daughter. Twins, I take it. She’s over the moon.”

John nodded. “A long labor and Margory is quite depleted. I was headed there when I got your note. But she’s young and will recover and yes, Tess is now the proud grandmother of two fine boys.”

“Birth and death,” Geraldine said quietly, patting Leanna’s hand. “They keep flinging themselves at us, do they not?”





4: 46 PM



“We’ve got a new suspect, Sirs,” Davy said, shaking the rain off his coat and hanging it on a post in the corner.

“Just what we need,” Trevor said blearily. He and Abrams had spent most of the day in the mortuary with Doctor Phillips, attempting to reassemble the pieces of Mary Kelly’s body and determine precisely what had been done to her, how, and in what order.

“But I think this one is rather likely,” Davy said. “I got the notion that the five week gap between killings might indicate our man was a sailor, who’d been at sea for the month of October, so I spent the morning at the docks getting duty rosters…”

“Clever,” Abrams said, with a little surprise.

“But that wasn’t what led me, Sir, it was later. I went back by the Kelly house and first of all I see Mad Maudy just standing in the street. Watching a man who was paying her absolutely no mind, who was standing on his tiptoes looking right through the window. The coppers weren’t stopping him because he was dressed as a gentleman, not acting guilty, you know, but as if he had every right to be there. And I thought yes, that’s just how he does it, by seeming so prosperous and respectable that no one questions his movements. And he had a bag with him too, the right size for a medical bag, so I followed him.” Davy stopped to take a deep breath and Abrams slid a cup of water toward him, which he eagerly drank. Funny how one could be soaked to the skin and still thirsty, he thought.

“Go on, man,” Trevor said, and if they had not all been so preoccupied they might have noted this was the first time Trevor had addressed Davy as “man” and not “boy.”

Followed him across town to Brixton,” Davy continued, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Asked a passing cabbie whose house it was and he said a doctor, John Harrowman.”

“Harrowman?” Abrams said. “I’ve heard the name. Fancies himself a white knight of the slums, always raising monies for a clinic. Goes everywhere on his missions, even the Jewish part of town.”

“I haven’t just heard of him, I know him,” Trevor said with a sigh. “Nice try, Mabrey, but he isn’t our man.”

“Hear me out, Sir,” Davy said, for once not backing down from Trevor’s tendency to make broad declarations. “He left the house in Brixton, called another cab, and took it to Kingsly Street.”

But Trevor was still shaking his head. “Harrowman is a friend of the lady of the house, Geraldine Bainbridge,” he said. “In fact, that’s where I met him.” He proceeded with the whole story, his exhaustion making him careless and inclined toward more detail than he might otherwise be, while Abrams and Davy sat without questions. He described the dinner party, the chess game, the canceled outing to the play, and although he did not specifically mention the part Leanna had played in all these events, her crucial role in the drama escaped neither of his listeners.

When Trevor finished, Abrams and Davy exchanged a long glance, in which it was mutually agreed that the news might be better accepted if it came from Abrams.

“Welles,” Abrams said in a slow deliberate voice. “I’m afraid you’ve made rather a classic mistake. We are all of us aware of our tendency to suspect people we don’t like. Someone makes us angry, shows disrespect, or perhaps something in their appearance or speech reminds us of a former foe. And thus in a manner that we do not directly acknowledge to ourselves, this disliked person can rise higher in our minds as a suspect. We know this impulse is wrong, of course, and as men of the law we fight against it.”

“Of course we do,” Trevor said. “What’s your point?”

“Only that the opposite impulse can be just as deadly. You have found yourself in competition with John Harrowman for the attentions of a young lady. Apart from this, you bear the man no ill will. You might even admire him, feel a kinship. Because he’s like you in a way, is he not? Struggling to be taken seriously in his work, struggling to bring change to an antiquated system.” Abrams took off his spectacles, blew on the lenses. “We’ve all known men like Harrowman, men who have all the traits women find irresistible - from his cultured voice to his height to his passion for justice. Hell, when you got to the part about his perfectly groomed mustache, even I began to hate him a little.”

“In school we called them lady-slayers,” Davy piped up.

“Quite,” said Abrams. He put his glasses back on and looked sympathetically at Trevor. “So you sit faced opposite a paragon who will mostly likely win the battle for the Bainbridge girl’s heart. You know it. He knows it. Here is where it gets tricky. He will have the girl you want, so you dislike him. But you know you should not suspect him merely because you dislike him, so you do the exact opposite. You exonerate him because you dislike him. You have bent over backwards so far in your attempts to be fair to a rival that you have managed fall quite forward, to blind yourself to the obvious. That this John Harrowman is a composite of everything we’ve been looking for. Tall, mustached, well-dressed, medical knowledge, access to the East End, someone the women there know and trust.”

“I assure, you he isn’t – “

“You said you played chess with him. Is he by any chance left-handed?”

Trevor shut his eyes. “He seems to use both hands with equal ease. But I think –“

“Think what?” Abrams snapped, now at the end of his patience. “That because you met a man at a dinner party in a fashionable part of town, this means he isn’t capable of murder? By God, Welles, if any man on the force ventured such a theory, you’d call for his head on a platter and rightfully so. You’ve got to the face the fact that this man is not only a suspect, but is in a house full of ladies this very moment, ladies you claim as friends.”

“I can’t imagine –“

“That he would attack respectable women in broad daylight?” Abrams sat back in his chair and exhaled. “Nor can I. He’s probably a true split of character, capable of waltzing one type of woman across the floor of a ballroom and slicing open another an hour later. So Dr. Jekyll is undoubtedly the one taking tea in Mayfair this afternoon. But we can’t know where Mr. Hyde might venture later, can we?”

“Yes, Sirs, we do,” Davy said. “I took the liberty. Know it isn’t my place, Sirs, but I grabbed a couple of coppers off the corner of Kingsley. Told one of them to keep a watch on the Bainbridge house and the other to follow Harrowman when he left. Didn’t want to presume, but –“

“Good man,” Abrams said quietly. “You’ve earned your pay today, Davy, haven’t you?”

“Should we bring him in, Sir? Ask for his alibi?”

“Let me handle that,” Abrams said. “I suspect we’ll gain more by having him followed.”

Trevor opened his eyes. He felt sick, disoriented, as in boyhood when he had tumbled off a sled or fallen from a tree. Abrams was right. Of course he was. There were so many logical reasons to have interrogated John Harrowman and he had somehow failed to see them. And now the very man he’d been too stupid to suspect was at this moment with Leanna, Emma, and Gerry. It had been hard to hear Abrams berating him for his blindness but that was nothing compared to the shame he felt now, looking into Davy Mabrey’s face.

“Davy,” Trevor said quietly. “Thank you. I have made many mistakes in this investigation but the one thing I will never regret is choosing you. Find the assignation sergeant and tell him I want round-the-clock surveillance of the Bainbridge house and a tail on John Harrowman. As of now, we will treat him like any other suspect.”