“I am here to get more information from them, Jacob,” she said. “Something is happening in this city and we need to know. And I could use your help.”
Riis looked back at the entrance to the headquarters and then smiled back at her. “Well, you might be surprised to hear that I, too, was here today because I have heard the same thing—rumors among my sources. Do you know what I have heard, Nellie?”
“Please, tell me,” she answered.
“I have heard that they feel they may, indeed, be facing none other than Jack the Ripper himself in the city, and that the department is at wit’s end in trying to stop him. And that they have been suppressing news of the other woman’s death—and of an attempted murder of another prostitute.”
“Well,” Bly said, “I guess then that I am not so alone in the desert. Perhaps you can join me tonight as I try to engage with the current suspect.”
Riis almost lost his breath for a moment. “Suspect?” he asked. “Are you telling me that they have landed on an individual here in the city?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied with a smile. “He is a doctor from Austria currently living large at the Hoffman House, and I am going to attempt to draw him out tonight. I am going to try and meet the man who just may be Jack the Ripper this very evening.”
“You can’t be serious, Nellie,” he said. “If he is indeed a suspected killer, let alone the infamous Whitechapel killer, then you should leave this to Falconer and his men. It’s much too dangerous, although by your smile, I think I can tell what you’re about to say.”
“They haven’t been able to gather enough evidence on him, Jacob,” she said. “They can’t arrest him, and they are frustrated. So, it’s time that I gave it a try, and I’m going to do it. Are you with me?”
“And how do you propose to ensnare this Austrian doctor, may I ask?”
“Come with me,” she said, curling her hand in the crook of his elbow and moving to walk with him down the block. “We have much to talk about.”
70
“We’re at an impasse, professor, and this suspect is onto us—I know it.”
Falconer sat in a leather chair opposite Eli Levine in Levine’s book-lined office at the Columbia School of Law a day after walking out of the Tombs with Penwill. He moved forward and placed his elbows on the professor’s desk, resting his chin on his balled-up fists. “We got so close to catching him, and then we ran into a wall, and we just don’t have enough evidence to arrest him. I tried to ignore that fact, but they’re right—the case is just too speculative against him and he’d walk very quickly.”
“I see,” Levine said, rubbing a pen between his fingers. “And you don’t feel that you can directly engage this man because you all feel that he knows who you are?”
“That’s right,” Falconer replied. “He knows me, at least, I’m sure of that. He’s a very clever son of a bitch, this one.”
The two men fell into silence, and Falconer wrestled inwardly with his failures and his inability to close the noose around the doctor from Austria.
“Do you think he knows who I am?” Levine suddenly asked.
Falconer looked up at him, surprised by the question. “I…I’m not sure about that,” he said. “Why would you ask?”
“The next step is clearly to catch this man in the act, or to cause him to make a misstep,” Levine answered. “He probably knows that he is being watched now, and so he will either attempt to make his getaway, or refrain completely from attempting any further evil deeds, at least for the time being. So…perhaps if one of us engaged with the man, spoke to him and tried to elicit something useful…perhaps trip him up a bit, it could be useful.”
“And you’re proposing that you do that since he probably doesn’t know who you are.”
“Yes, detective,” Levine said. “That’s the general idea, anyway. You can’t use Penwill because he feels that this man has already seen through his own disguise.”
“That’s true,” Falconer said. “Well, I think at this point, anything couldn’t hurt. When would you like to try this little ruse, professor?”
“How about tonight?” Levine said.
Falconer grinned. “I don’t know how it came to this, professor, and I don’t know how it’ll end, but I guess it’ll be a good story for your law students someday.”
“Yes,” Levine said, “yes, it will, detective.”
“Come,” Falconer said, grabbing his bowler on the desk. “I’m actually meeting Penwill at my place in a half an hour, so let’s include him before heading over to the Hoffman House.”
“Absolutely,” Levine replied, and the two men grabbed their jackets and exited the office.
71
Thirty minutes later, Falconer rounded a street corner with Levine and approached his large apartment building on the West Side. As he got closer, he could see a rabble of people gathering near the corner of the building, near the entrance to an alley.
“I wonder what this is about,” the professor said, gazing ahead.
“I’m not sure,” Falconer replied, “but we should check it out.”
They walked up to crowd and saw a patrol officer standing at the entrance to the alley, preventing anyone from entering. Falconer approached him and showed his badge. “Falconer,” he said. “Detective with Oak Street. What’s going on here? I live upstairs.”
“There’s a body back there, detective,” the officer answered. “Looks like a lady was stabbed.”
Falconer looked at Levine, momentarily stunned. Then he turned back to the officer. “I’ve been leading an investigation of murdered women that was ordered by Chief Inspector Byrnes, and this man has been assisting us,” he said, pointing to Levine. “I’d like to take a look, all right?”
“Certainly, detective,” the officer said, and he moved aside to allow them entrance into the alley. They walked quickly down about thirty yards and came upon a group of officers and detectives already examining the crime scene. Falconer looked across the group of men and saw Penwill speaking with an officer. Penwill looked up, too, and approached them. “I’m sorry, old boy,” he said to Falconer, “but when I arrived ten minutes ago, I discovered this: a young woman stabbed multiple times and probably strangled, too. I fear our man has gotten the best of us again.”
“Are there any witnesses?” Falconer asked, trying hard to suppress his anger.
“No one who actually saw the deed, I’m afraid,” Penwill answered. “Just a young couple that came upon the body about a half hour ago, it seems,” he said, pointing to a young man and woman who were being questioned by detectives against the wall of the alley. “Our female witness apparently screamed such that passersby came running to help. It looks like our victim has been dead only within the past few hours or so.”
Falconer walked closer to the body and looked down. The woman was very young—perhaps twenty or so—and had long, blond hair that was matted now with blood. The clothes upon her torso appeared smeared with blood and her face clearly had been slashed several times with a fine, sharp instrument. Falconer glanced keenly at her hands to see if she held anything—a note or object perhaps—but saw nothing. He then looked at the face again, and despite the injuries, he could see clearly her eyes that were wide open. They were a fresh, bright blue in color and they looked upward at the night sky, and if she were admiring the stars.
This was indeed the work of their suspect, he felt. No drunken degenerate from the Tenderloin had done this. The killer had done it again right outside his building. It was a message: I can do it wherever and whenever I choose, and I challenge you to stop me.
He turned and walked back to Penwill and Levine. “No notes left on this one, I’m afraid,” Penwill said. “I must confess, when I saw her, I half expected to see one in her hand.”
“I would think that he saw no need for one this time,” Levine said.
“Really?” Penwill said. “Why not, professor?”
“Because,” Falconer interrupted, “he’s already sent a mes
sage by the very fact that she was left here, right outside my building. The professor is right: the killer’s message is to me, and it’s this: ‘I can kill someone and leave her literally on your doorstep.’ It’s the ultimate challenge, and ultimate insult.”
“But how, I wonder?” Penwill said. “How did he do it? We’ve got men on him night and day, and we haven’t heard anything from them. How did he get free and do this?”
“I don’t know,” Falconer said, “and I don’t care at this point.”
He turned and started walking back towards the street. “Falconer?” Penwill asked. “Where are you going?”
Falconer stopped and turned momentarily. “To the Hoffman House,” he said grimly. “It’s time I stopped this man.”
“You can’t do that, man,” Penwill said. “You know we just don’t have enough proof yet. And he clearly knows who you are, so any attempt by you to challenge him will result in nothing.”
Falconer turned and walked away again. “I’m sorry, inspector,” he said, “I’m going to end this now.”
He walked steadily down towards the entrance to the alley and the waiting crowd, and gently fingered his revolver at his side. From behind, he heard footsteps gaining on him, which he knew would be Penwill and Levine’s. As he exited the alley and turned left through the crowd, he thought of the women, now dead and buried, and of the Algerian—Ameer Ben Ali, lingering in the confines of Sing Sing—and he thought of the man known as Seidler probably sitting quietly in the Hoffman House now, sipping brandy and smoking a cigar. The sounds of the city enveloped him as he walked, and he could hear his heartbeat rising, rising and becoming more pronounced. He made it to the next corner and turned left, heading east.
72
Falconer, Penwill, and Levine approached the fabled Hoffman House on Broadway. On the way across town via train and cable car, they had had heated discussions about what to do with the Austrian doctor who may or may not be sitting inside, but Falconer had made it clear that he was going to confront the man. As he strode up to the front door, he shrugged off the doorman’s welcoming greeting and walked straight inside, heading quickly over to the entranceway to the saloon.
The place was full of well-dressed men enjoying a night away from their families or their work responsibilities. Tuxedo-clad barons clutching high-end cigars and drinking the finest alcohol chatted amiably with well-connected politicians with schemes up their sleeves, while other moneyed players in the city—“sports”—laughed and boasted of their horseracing winnings that day out at Sheepshead Bay, or at Jerome Park, or Brighton Beach.
Falconer moved in closer past all these glad-handing power brokers and scanned the extent of the shiny, decorative barroom. He could not immediately see the object of his search and thought for a moment that the man must be out, perhaps still stalking some other unknowing prey now, and he was about to turn around and exit the place when Penwill approached him from behind and whispered in his ear: “There, by the large painting.”
Falconer looked over and, in between the slowly-moving bodies of all the men standing clumped together in groups of four or five, he spied the back of the head of a man sitting alone at a small table near the great painting of the nymphs and satyr that had caused such a ruckus in the city. Falconer looked briefly at Penwill and Levine and said nothing, but only nodded at them, confirming that he had caught sight of the target. He then turned them around, facing away from the man sitting near the painting, and spoke quietly to them. “I promise to not cause a scene—I’m only going to try and engage him, feel him out a bit, if you know what I mean.”
“Are you sure this is wise, Falconer?” Penwill asked. “He likely knows who you are.”
“Good,” Falconer said. “Let’s see him sweat a little bit, shall we?”
He then moved off towards the grand painting that loomed over the middle of the barroom, bordered with an ornate, golden frame and overhung with a blood-red velvet canopy. As he got closer, he decided to stand next to Seidler and stare up at the painting, as if he were admiring the great artwork. He stood like this for several seconds, and avoided looking down at his quarry sitting to his left, until he finally heard the man speak up: “It is quite something, isn’t it?”
Falconer slowly looked down and saw Seidler looking up at him. This was the man, he thought—the man who just might have been the one who killed the ladies in Whitechapel, who delighted in carving up young female victims, and who was now taunting him and the police department here, leaving his macabre work by the roadside in this town now. This was the man, he thought—this man who sat smiling at him and sipping a glass of brandy.
“The painting?” Falconer said.
“Yes, indeed,” Seidler replied. “It is a stunning picture, is it not?”
“I’ll say,” Falcone said. “Do you know who painted it?”
“Bouguereau,” Seidler answered. “It is called ‘Nymphs and Satyr,’ and has been highly controversial since it came to this hotel, I hear.”
“Yes, I have heard that, too,” Falconer said. “I guess people feel uncomfortable with these sorts of things being shown in public.”
“And what do you think the artist was trying to say with it, Mister...”
“Falconer. How do you do?”
“Very well, Mister Falconer. I am Johannes Seidler—surgeon and businessman.”
The two men shook hands briefly.
“Any thought on the artist’s intent?” Seidler asked.
“No idea,” Falconer said, looking up at the painting. “I’m not even sure who’s doing what to whom in it.”
“Well,” Seidler said, “I believe that the nymphs have been surprised by the lustful satyr by the pond, and although some of them have run away in fear, the others shown here are much braver and are attempting to drag him into the pond to put out the carnal fires of his heart.”
“Well, if that’s the case,” Falconer said, “it looks like they’re getting the best of him.”
“Would you care to join me, Mister Falconer?” Seidler asked.
“Certainly,” Falconer replied. “Thank you.”
Falconer pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down, looking around the room at all the men drinking and smoking together.
“You don’t look like you come here often, Mister Falconer,” Seidler said.
“No, can’t say that I do,” Falconer said, looking back at him. “I’m sort of on the job right now.”
“Oh? And what is it you do?” Seidler asked, taking a sip of his drink.
“I’m a detective with the police department down on Oak Street,” Falconer said.
“A detective?” Seidler said, appearing surprised and more than a little interested at Falconer’s disclosure. “How fascinating…and you are on a case right now, you say?”
“I am,” Falconer said tersely.
“Well, you will have to fill me in, if you can,” Seidler said. “But first, you need a drink.” He turned and hailed a waiter over near the bar, and the young man immediately responded over to them. “Yes, sir?” the waiter asked.
“Please,” Seidler said, “fetch the gentleman here a…what is it you’d like, detective?”
“Do you happen to carry Schlitz?” Falconer asked the waiter.
“Certainly, sir,” the waiter replied.
“I’ll have one, thanks,” Falconer said.
As the waiter walked off, Seidler turned to Falconer again. “Now then,” he said, “can you reveal anything about your case, detective?”
“I’m sorry, doctor, but I cannot release details,” Falconer said, “but suffice to say that it involves several murders, I’m afraid—murders that may be connected.”
“Connected? How so?”
“Again,” Falconer said, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t release details. You understand.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Seidler said, smiling. “But it does sound absolutely frightening, I must say—a bunch of murders occurring near here.”
“You don’t have many murders where you come from?” Falconer asked. “Where is it that you said you are from, doctor?”
“I didn’t say,” Seidler responded, again with a quick grin. “Austria. I am here on business for a month or two.”
“I see,” Falconer said. “And what sort of business, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“No, no, not at all, detective,” Seidler said. “I am marketing a medical device that, well, essentially utilizes an electric current to revitalize the heart, in a way. It’s a little more involved than that, of course, but for our purposes right now, that’s what it does. It’s a very new technology, of course.”
“Yes, sounds like it,” Falconer said. “I’ll take your word for it.”
The waiter walked up them again and placed a large mug of beer in front of Falconer. “Thank you,” Falconer said, reaching into his coat for his wallet.
“No, please,” Seidler said, placing his hand on Falconer’s arm. “This can go on my bill.”
“Well, thank you, doctor,” Falconer said, and the waiter returned to the bar.
“As I was about to say, I believe, detective, that we are getting quite close to a point where we can actually see into the very heart,” Seidler said. “Can you believe that, detective? See into one’s heart?”
“Hm,” Falconer snorted. “Sounds a little bughouse to me, doctor—sorry.”
“You don’t believe that one day we will be able to do that, detective? With all the advancements in science going on around us?”
“I just don’t see us advancing to a point where we can actually see through someone’s chest, doctor,” Falconer replied, taking a sip from his frothy mug. “How do you take a photograph through skin and bone?”
“Ah, that is coming, detective,” Seidler said, grinning broadly. “Believe it or not that technology is coming.”
“That’s impressive, doctor,” Falconer said, “but I don’t much care to look into someone’s heart.”
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