City of Darkness

Chapter FORTY-ONE

5: 38 PM





Trevor was finishing up his paperwork and debating taking a break for a pint or perhaps even a decent supper. His cheerfulness that morning on the dock had all been for show, calculated to ease Abrams’s guilt at leaving. Trevor had spent the day going through the crew rosters Davy had obtained from the dockmasters, checking to see if any of the men aboard had a history of medical training. A long shot, but perhaps worth taking.

“The work is never finished,” a voice said gently. “You just have to find those points where you can put it down and walk away for a bit of rest.”

“I know,” Trevor said, looking up at the creased and kindly face of Phillips. “I’m just about ready to step out for dinner. Shall you join me?”

“Wife waiting at home,” Phillips said, surprising Trevor, who hadn’t known the doctor was married. The nature of the Yard meant that men might bond into a quick brotherhood behind these walls, but not necessarily that they were friends on the outside. In fact, quite the opposite. Most of the people in criminology were nearly fanatical about keeping their private lives separate from their professions. Still, it was hard to picture Phillips with a wife.

“Do you need assistance, Sir?” Severin asked, emerging from the backroom, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, wiping his hands on a towel.

Phillips snorted softly. “I believe I can make my way up the stairs and into a carriage without a nursemaid, thank you.” He walked out a bit more briskly than his usual pace, as if to illustrate his capabilities, and as they listened to the fading sounds of the doctor’s cane tapping up the stone staircase, Severin’s shoulders sagged.

“You were quite right to ask,” Trevor told him. “His decline over these last weeks has been noteworthy. It’s just hard for a man like Phillips to admit he needs help.”

Severin nodded and turned back toward the sink.

“And you should be finishing up as well, shouldn’t you?” Trevor added. “The good doctor is quite right. The chores will all wait for the morrow and there’s a point where we all simply must walk away from them.”

The young man gave him a small smile. “Hard for me to leave work undone, Sir.”

“Indeed. Then consider it an order. I shall order you to do what I cannot manage myself.” Trevor leaned back in his chair and watched Severin take a final swipe at the counter with a rag. He reminded Trevor of Davy, whose own methodical work ethic had produced these very ship rosters spread out before him, and Trevor reflected that, difficult as it might be, the older men on the force were going to have to start entrusting the younger men with more significant responsibilities. Trevor shook his head ruefully. Davy and Tom and now Severin. They were the true modern men, were they not? The ones who would carry England into its bold new future.

“Are you going home to a wife as well?” Trevor asked, as Severin pulled on his cape. He meant the question almost as a joke, but Severin flushed.

“Hope to be soon, Sir,” he said quietly.

“Ah, then. Bully. It’s a fine thing to have a special girl.”

Severin nodded and then asked, almost as an afterthought, “And for you, Sir?”

“No,” Trevor said shortly. “No one.” Clearly fearful that he had managed to offend two superiors within five minutes, Severin scuttled out the door, leaving Trevor to stare down at the ship rosters. No one special and no one waiting. He may as well give the crew lists one more look.



5:42 PM



“How do I look?” Leanna asked, turning in a slow circle before Emma.

Emma considered for a moment. “Respectable. But not especially prosperous.”

“Perfect,” Leanna said, bending to pick up the clothes scattered about the room and stuff them back into the bags designated for the workhouse. “That was precisely the effect I was going for.”

“And how do I look?” Emma asked, turning herself.

“Just the same. Respectable but not prosperous.”

“Ah, but that’s how I always look.”

Leanna laughed uncertainly. Since the shock of Mary’s death and her long stint on medication, Emma’s behavior had been uncharacteristically erratic, and it was hard to tell when she was joking.

“We certainly had a lot of dresses to choose from,” she said, attempting to iron her skirt with her hands, as she often did when nervous. “Where does Aunt Gerry obtain all these garments anyway?”

“Her friends bring clothing from their maids,” Emma said “which in turn is passed along to women not fortunate enough to be maids. I suppose there’s rather a protocol to how the clothing descends through its various owners. Women who are respectable and prosperous, followed by women who are respectable but not prosperous and then, finally, those poor creatures who are neither.”

“Oh yes,” Leanna said, rather breathlessly. “Quite right.”

Emma bent to tie a shoe. She seemed to take her time, then finally she stood and straightened, looking directly into Leanna’s face. “In other words,” she said. You to me and then on to Mary and last of all women like Annie Chapman and Cathy Eddowes. That’s the order in which it all descends.”





5:59 PM



Trevor was thinking he should truly finish for the night when Tom Bainbridge showed up at his door, looking exhausted and a little guilty. Trevor waved him inside and watched in surprise as the boy took off his shirt to reveal a bloodstained chest and, grimacing, fished a surgical scalpel from the inner pocket of his coat.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a fool,” Tom said. “These items came from the home of John Harrowman.”

“Harrowman gave them to you?” Trevor asked, frowning in confusion. The boy didn’t seem to be hurt, so why was he covered in blood?

Tom violently shook his head and collapsed into a chair. “I broke into his home while he was out for luncheon,” he said. “Bungled it all, I’m afraid, but I did come away with this shirt, which was damp when I started out, and this knife …”

“Whyever did you take his shirt? You must realize that any blood that was still damp couldn’t possibly belong to Mary Kelly.”

“But the blood itself….There are tests to be run, are there not?”

“Perhaps. But we’d only need a trace of it and that is….rather a large shirt and rather a lot of blood, is it not?” As Tom moved into the light, Trevor absorbed the full impact of his costume and couldn’t resist a chuckle. “In the future you and I must discuss the meaning of the word ‘sample’ and the various non-surgical ways in which a man might use a knife.”

“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” Tom said, with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances for the full force of his ridiculousness was hitting him as well. “I’ll admit that the more time that passes the more I’m unsure what I hoped to gain in bringing you this shirt, much less this shirt in its horrible entirety. But I must tell you that there were certain elements in John Harrowman’s room that make me think you were right about calling him a suspect.”

“What sort of elements?”

As Tom gave a brief recount of his morning’s adventures, Trevor began to shake his head.

“The presence of knives and bloodied clothes are explained away by his profession,” Trevor said. “And as for the fact his private quarters were in shambles and you found a smutty book….I’m afraid if we used that as criteria, every bachelor in London would be behind bars before morning, with me, and perhaps even you, among them. No, we need more than that, especially now that it appears Harrowman has somewhat of an alibi.”

Tom looked at him blearily. “How the deuce does a man have ‘somewhat of an alibi.’”

“This was Abram’s last task before he sat sail for Paris,” Trevor said, opening his notebook. “Learned that Harrowman spent most of the night at the bedside of a Mayfair woman in labor. The daughter of your aunt’s friend Tess, in fact, named Margory Cuthberson. You may have met her.”

Tom shook his head. “Most of the night?”

“Twins, a long birth, and when the lady became fatigued, apparently Harrowman offered her a respite with chloroform. And while she rested, so did the rest of the house, including him.” Trevor shrugged. “Therein lies the ‘somewhat.’ This rest period gives us a small window of opportunity, perhaps two hours, in which Harrowman could have conceivably left the Cuthberson home.”

“Time frame?”

“Very early morning. Which, yes, I’m well aware coincides with the Kelly killing. It’s conceivable he could have crossed town in a coach, done the deed, and returned to Mayfair in time to deliver the twins. But it’s far-fetched, Tom, and would have required either a bizarre set of coincidences or absolute genius to ensure he’d find a victim at precisely the right time, could calculate how long it would take to butcher her and how long the family he was using as an alibi would continue to slumber. Plus the thoroughness of the work on Kelly….Phillips think it would have taken the better part of a night.”

“For a man Phillips’s age perhaps. You’ve seen John. A man at the height of his powers might have done it all far faster.”

“Possible,” Trevor said. “But to my mind still unlikely. I say, you’ve gone from his biggest defender to his first accuser rather fast, haven’t you?”

Tom’s ankle was throbbing and he eased it onto the chair beside him. “The bit about the chloroform is rather convenient.”

“Whyever would you say that? It’s standard use in childbed for the women who can afford the cost of such oblivion. The Queen herself accepted it for her later births, did she not? And made the doctor who administered it to her a knight or a duke or something of the sort?”

Tom nodded. “A baron, I believe. Yes of course, the chloroform can be explained away too, just as everything else. But his proclivity for drugging women may be a factor in all this, don’t you see? John has prescribed large doses of morphine for Emma in the last few days. I know what you’re thinking, that it’s natural to do so for a girl who’s had such a severe shock, but Emma has been quite disoriented.” Tom drew a deep breath, struggled for a way to explain the next part. “I have the sense that last night I was trying to help her. That I carried her, had to assist her in the most profound way.”

“What do you mean you have the sense? Did you carry her or didn’t you?”

“My own memory has been a little-“

“You’re suggesting he drugged you as well?”

“No, no I did that task for him. I was rattled when I left here yesterday and I’m afraid I may have had a bit too much brandy. So granted, I’m hardly the best witness to Emma’s behavior over the last twenty-four hours but I will say that based on Leanna’s descriptions, John is being quite cavalier with her medication. Apparently he’s decided that the cost of oblivion isn’t too high.”

“Perhaps he just doesn’t like to see a woman suffer,” Trevor said quietly, although he was also busily scribbling down everything Tom had told him. “Can’t bear the sight of it myself, to be honest. If I had a means for relieving their pain, I might act just the same.”

“Consider the pattern. That’s what Grandfather always taught me and Leanna, that the beginning of all science is just this, the recognition of a pattern. Doctors have access to knives, which you’ve realized was significant from the start, but they have knowledge of drugs too, do they not? It’s possible a physician might use them not just to relieve suffering, but for his own darker purposes. Selecting victims. Providing alibis.”

Trevor frowned. “How is Emma today?”

“Much clearer. Really almost her normal self.”

“And you?”

“Better too.”

“But where have you been all afternoon? You said you went to Harrowman’s home at luncheon but it’s dark outside. So for the last four or five hours have you-“

To Tom’s relief, Trevor’s inquiries were cut short by the arrival of Davy, bearing a letter.

“This came special, Sir.”

“Another confession? Another kidney? Put it with the others.”

Davy shook his head. “You’ll want to see this one. It’s from Miss Bainbridge.”

“Why the devil would Gerry send a message here?”

“Not that Miss Bainbridge, Sir. This is from the other one. The girl. Leanna.”





6:21 PM





Cecil walked into the Pony Pub and took a moment to survey his surroundings. It appeared things were coming together well. Georgy had been dispatched to meet the girls in Hanover Street and Micha was already here in the pub, earlier than could be expected considering the man was a Neanderthal, probably no more capable of reading a clock than he was of quoting Plato. Micha had taken residence at the bar and, with a sigh, Cecil joined him. He would have preferred to conduct this particular piece of business in privacy but privacy, he was beginning to understand, was as rare a commodity in Whitechapel as a diamond and opal brooch. Besides, the hour was early and pub yet uncrowded. It was unlikely anyone would take note of their conversation.

Cecil slid onto the barstool beside Micha and gave him a companionable nod. “Beer for both of us,” he said to the barmaid, a pretty little thing who giggled at every word that was said to her. Cecil waited until his beer had descended a few inches in the glass and then turned to Micha.





“You were offered a certain amount for a certain task,” he said. “But you can add ten more pounds very easily.” Micha did not answer, which Cecil took as an invitation to continue. “Two girls will appear, just as planned,” he said, keeping his voice low and his focus straight ahead. “Your prey is the blonde one, rather tall. Blonde, you know. Means she has yellow hair. She’ll be dressed as a lady. My life would be easier if this girl didn’t exist. Do you catch my meaning?”

“What I do with other?”

Cecil shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. Have your way with the chit if you fancy her, and consider it a bonus. Not the blonde.” Cecil could not have explained why this mattered to him, in light of all that was about to happen, but he turned to the huge man for the first time, staring into his face to impress the point. “She won’t be sullied and she needn’t suffer. Needn’t see it coming.” Cecil took a deep drag from his glass, shuddered as the sting of the five-pence pint washed across his tongue. “She should go fast, like the cow. Can you manage?”

Micha nodded, but the phrase “ten more pounds” was all he’d heard. Whatever came next was just details, and details were the sort of things rich men could afford, of no interest to a working class bloke like Micha. Who could tell yellow hair from any other kind, in the dark? Thirty pounds, that’s what mattered. More than a month’s worth of wages at the slaughterhouse, paid up prompt for a moment of sport. Wasn’t this the damndest country, Micha thought, one where a man could be paid so well for doing what came naturally, and as he looked up his happy glance fell on one of his kinsman.

“Tell me,” he said, “I am here all the night, am I not?”

He was speaking to the well-dressed man Cecil had seen the first night, the man who had, in fact, told Cecil how to find Micha. “Here all the night,” the man said, raising a pint from the end of the bar. “Both of us, eh, Lucy?”

“Drinking all night, the both of you,” the girl said.

So this is how they establish an alibi, Cecil thought. Each claims that the other was in the Pony Pub, and all the while any number of villainies are being perpetrated in the streets beyond. Despite his vow to remain unobtrusive, to keep his scarf pulled high and his hat pulled low, Cecil found himself staring at this other man, the one with the mustache.

He’s like me, Cecil thought, the notion coming on him abruptly, with the bitterness of cheap beer. We’re men who once knew greater means, men who thought their lives were destined for different ends, but we’ve fallen on hard times, haven’t we? The man’s coat, while worn and dirty, had a certain quality. An elegance in the cut and Cecil had always prided himself that he could recognize elegance, even when it was tattered and concealed, just like this, in the tawdry streets of Whitechapel. He raised his beer in tribute and, after a moment’s pause, the man raised his back.





6:25 PM



John emerged from an alleyway just off Toddle Street, carrying his black bag at his side, and, walking swiftly, began to make his way toward the waterfront. This area was better lit than most of Whitechapel and as John passed under a street lamp, someone called his name. She had been searching the streets for him for twenty minutes, had sent a note to his house, and she was shaking with relief at the sight of his tall form silhouetted in the fog. He turned at the sound of her voice and she tumbled into his arms in relief. They conferred, very briefly, and then linked arms and started walking away from the water.



6:25 PM



“Well, o’course I wouldna bring a baby here.” The little man’s tone was offended, as if to suggest while it might be morally permissible to sell a child, only a beast would put one in a pram and push it to a tea house. “The baby should be with me wife, natural enough, that’s where we be headed.”

“Then why did you ask us to meet you here?” Leanna asked through gritted teeth. Everything about the situation smelled wrong but Emma only seemed bewildered. She sat across from Leanna, gripping her cup so tightly that it seemed the porcelain might crack at any minute.

“Ladies like you might not likely meet old Georgy ‘less the place was posh, am I right?” The man had probably scrubbed up as well as he could, Leanna thought, but he still stood out in a neighborhood tea room, surrounded by gossiping women and the occasional husband treating his wife to a piece of pear tart. Georgy kneaded his hands nervously and looked from Leanna to Emma. “Money here, baby when ye follow,” he said.

“There’s isn’t a baby at all, is there?” Leanna said coldly.

But Georgy, thanks to Cecil’s planning, was prepared for just such an inquiry. They had found a blonde child toddling about in an alley and offered her sister – this child herself no more than seven – a shilling to let them cut a lock of the baby’s hair. Even children did not ask questions in the East End. The older girl had promptly lifted the baby up, slapping its rump when it squirmed, and Georgy had made a quick tug with his pocketknife across a single curl. The result was this lock of hair, so soft, wispy and light that it clearly came from the head of a child, which he solemnly unwrapped from a handkerchief and presented to the girls.

The effect on Emma was just what Cecil had predicted. A soft exhalation, the rise of tears, an almost involuntary reaching for the hair. But Leanna’s eyes remained narrow and suspicious. “We only agreed to meet you in a public place,” she said. “That holds, so you had better find a way to summon your wife. And there will be no money exchanged until the child is in our arms.”

And wasn’t she the duchess, Georgy thought. Micha would have a good time bringing her rump down to the street. The other girl was clearly more trusting, and as Emma raised the lock of hair to her face and brushed it against her cheek, Georgy knew he had her thoroughly hooked. Let Miss High and Mighty try to set the rules, let her squawk like a peahen, no matter. The other one, the sweet one who was Mary’s sister….it was clear she would follow wherever he led.





6:45 PM



“Don’t worry, Sir,” Davy said, as the Scotland Yard carriage made its way down Hanover Street. “The area’s crawling with bobbies and Miss Bainbridge has her guard up, else she wouldn’t have sent the note.”

“True enough,” Trevor said tersely. He had been tapping his cane against the door the entire trip, a sound that had driven Tom almost to the point of screaming. “But they’re walking into a trap.”

“There’s no way Mary had a baby?” Tom asked.

Trevor shook his head. “In the past four days I’ve interviewed everyone who ever knew the girl and there wasn’t so much as a peep about a child. It’s a play for money, that much is clear. I only hope that money is all they’re after.”

Tom was struggling to control his breathing. “What else would they be after?”

“Emma is Mary Kelly’s sister. That fact alone might make her a trophy, at least in the eyes of some.”

Davy leapt out before the carriage had rolled to a complete stop in front of the Three Sisters. Tom and Trevor sat in strained silence for several minutes until he reappeared.

“They were here, Sir, the owner remembered. Came and went. Sat at a table with a little man with dirty clothes, the lady said. And then Miss Bainbridge….” Here Davy stopped and climbed back into the carriage, shaking off water. It wasn’t raining, but the fog had closed in fast. “Miss Bainbridge was the one to pay the fare, Sir, and she left this with her money.”

He handed Trevor what looked to be the standard sort of bill a server leaves on a café table. The party had ordered three cups of tea, and when Trevor turned it over he saw that Leanna had scribbled a few words on the back. How she had managed to do so undetected, he could not imagine, and her scrawl was nearly illegible. But it was enough to tell Trevor that they, like the women, had been misdirected. He rapped on the side of the carriage again with his cane and yelled “Merchant Street, immediately” to the driver. Then he sat back and looked into Davy and Tom’s worried faces.

“It’s bad,” he said. “I think he’s trying to lure them to Whitechapel.”

“They wouldn’t go to Whitechapel,” Tom said. It was such a preposterous notion that it almost made him feel better. “A baby is the perfect bait, no doubt about it, but neither of them are fools.”

“They’re being led there in stages,” Trevor said, running a palm across his face, for he had begun to sweat. “Keep an eye, Davy. Tall blonde woman, shorter one with red hair, tiny dirty man.” Mabrey nodded and leaned out the window of the carriage, while Trevor turned back to Tom. “The first stop is perfectly respectable, a tea room full of ladies. Then he pulls them in a little deeper. Leanna’s note says they are now going to ‘a public place,’ which scarcely points an arrow, but which I suspect means a pub. There are ghettos that skirt up right to the edge of Whitechapel, like the Jewish area Abrams used to work. Simple shops and homes, but the streets are clean and well-lighted enough that Leanna and Emma might follow him without question. From there they are dangerously close to the East End. A five minute walk - ”

“Doesn’t this carriage go any faster?” Tom said, yanking at the sleeves of his shirt. He’d shucked the bloody one he’d stolen from John back at the Yard in favor of a substitute provided by Davy. In the haste of their departure he had not asked who the garment belonged to or why it might have been so readily available in the mortuary. The sleeves were short for Tom, but at least the shirt was clean, and Tom tried not to think hard about its origins.

“We’re making good time,” Trevor said. “They’re almost certainly on foot, which is why Davy is hanging out the window, making sure we don’t pass them. But I suspect this little man is leading them through a lot of twists and turns, trying to disorient them so they lose their sense of where they are and how long they’ve traveled. We’ll beat them to Whitechapel, that much is sure. When we get there, we’ll tell every copper we see who we’re looking for and the three of us will split up. Or at least Davy and I will take different routes and you can stand watch. I forgot about your ankle.”

“The ankle’s fine,” Tom said. “I won’t slow you up.”

Trevor looked into Tom’s ashen face and gave what he hoped was a reassuring nod. “And eventually we will find them, especially if he takes them to a pub, as he most certainly plans to do. The man we’re looking for knew Mary Kelly, which means he most likely is from the same neighborhood.”

“And that’s the good luck in this,” Davy said over his shoulder. “We’ve spent the last four days retracing Mary Kelly’s steps so we know exactly where she’d go to find clients, the routes she used to get there. It isn’t as if we’re looking in every pub in the East End, Sir. We know where to start.” His eyes turned back to the street. “There’s a limited number of people who could have sent that note, isn’t that true? The first one, the letter to Miss Emma about the baby, I mean.”

“Quite right,” Trevor said. “Emma was private, Mary evidently less so. Even the people living in the same house with Emma were unaware she had a sister but Mary must have confided in someone.”

“I scarcely see how that narrows the field,” Tom said. It seemed the carriage was moving so slowly he was tempted to jump out and run on foot. “Could be any working girl she’d befriended. Or any regular client.”

“It narrows the field because it means that for once we can toss out the notion of a hoax, a completely random person from the streets,” Trevor said. “Remember what Leanna said in the letter she sent to Scotland Yard. The person who contacted them claimed the baby was named Sarah, after Emma and Mary’s mother. So it was someone close enough to Mary to know that she had a sister, where that sister lived, and even their mother’s name.”

“Someone who knew Emma would be able to get a hundred pounds,” Davy added. “That’s a lot of money for a maid, so why would they ask it?”

“Perhaps they knew of Geraldine’s generosity, her penchant for sad causes,” Trevor mused. “Or perhaps whoever wrote the letter didn’t understand that Emma was a maid. They could have seen a Mayfair address as evidence she had married well, had immediate access to funds.”

A sudden dreadful thought flitted across Tom’s mind. “Are we even certain Emma is the target?” he asked. “Leanna is the one with money.”

Trevor pursed his lips thoughtfully. “She comes from an established family….”

“It’s not just that,” Tom blurted out. “Our grandfather left her Rosemoral, the whole bloody estate, and that makes her…..what did you call it? If someone knew she was an heiress, that would make her as much a trophy as Emma, would it not?”

What it made her was the ideal candidate for a kidnapping, but Trevor did not share this particular thought with Tom. “How many people are aware of the terms of your grandfather’s will?”

“No one but family. And a handful of barristers back in Leeds.”

“And the letter was sent to Miss Emma, not Miss Bainbridge,” Davy reminded them. “Whoever wrote it couldn’t have known Miss Bainbridge would come with her.”

“Right again, Davy,” Trevor said. “Emma was Mary’s sister so we should start there, with the most obvious and direct connection. The lure of the baby was designed to tempt Emma. There’s no reason to think Leanna’s wealth is even a factor.”

“She’s so trusting,” Tom said. “Too trusting for her own good.”

“She was suspicious enough to send us notes,” Trevor said. “Leanna’s clever. Smart enough to know they shouldn’t follow the man to the second location.”

Tom shook his head. “I was speaking of Emma.”





7:10 PM



Mary Kelly had solicited the majority of her clients from three pubs: The Cornwall, the Pony, and the Prince of Wales. Trevor’s plan was to circulate through the area between the three, informing any copper he saw along the way of the situation and providing a description of the people they sought. All they knew about the man was the tea shop owner’s vague claim he was small and dirty, and Whitechapel was home to any number of men who fit that description. As for the women, Trevor hoped that the mere fact they would be well-dressed and neatly groomed would be enough to draw the eye in this part of town. He sent Davy on a wider loop of the area, since he still believed that the man was most likely leading Emma and Leanna into the East End via one of the immigrant neighborhoods to the west.

Despite Tom’s promise that his ankle was fine, it was immediately clear that he’d be unable to keep up the pace. Trevor led him to the nearest of the three likely pubs, the Prince of Wales, and deposited him at a table near the door with instructions to keep an eye on anyone who entered. His demotion from amateur detective to watchdog rankled Tom, but he knew that Trevor was right. He was a liability on the streets. He had begun to suspect the ankle was broken, although he didn’t share this with Trevor for fear he’d be sent home altogether. He propped it on the chair across from him and stared anxiously out into the street where Trevor had stopped to talk to a bobby. Word of mouth spread quickly among the men on their beats, Trevor had assured him, and there were more coppers on duty in the East End now than in any time in memory. By the time the women arrived via their long and most likely circuitous route from Hanover Street, half of Whitechapel would be expecting them.

Although his lost afternoon in some nameless bar had put him a little off his alcohol, Tom ordered a beer. He figured that drinking, or at least pretending to drink, was the best way to fit in with the swarm of regulars in the Prince of Wales. But the beer had scarcely arrived when Tom saw John Harrowman pass in the street. He was arm in arm with a woman and they were walking so fast as to be almost running.

Tom limped to the door of the pub and stared after the pair. Looked up and down the street but, damn it all, there wasn’t a copper in sight. After a second or two of internal debate, Tom stepped into the street.