“There is a chronometer built into the travel bands that registers time. And a directional finder, similar to a GPS, that registers longitude and latitude. I use these coordinates to pinpoint a location using topographical information from that era,” Hermes explained.
“Fascinating.” Richard was truly impressed. Turning his attention back to Quinn, he asked, “So, how do Dani and Daric determine where they’re going?” He wanted as much information as he could possibly get about Quinn’s breakthrough in quantum physics.
“May I, Professor?” Hermes asked politely.
“Be my guest,” Quinn assented.
“I expanded on the research that was done years ago by Dr. Bin He, at the University of Minnesota. Dr. He created an electroencephalography or EEG-based, non-invasive brain-computer interface known as BCI. This interface allows the user to interact with the computer system using thought only. The EEG records and decodes a particular brainwave called the sensorimotor rhythms or SMRS; the SMRS communicates with the computer. The computer, in turn, reads the SMRS as an executable command or more specifically in this case, as a different spatial location,” Hermes explained, matter-of-factly.
“The bands were designed to be worn by one person, not two,” Quinn interjected. “I can only surmise that the stronger of the two brainwaves will dictate the travel destination. But I’m not one-hundred-percent sure. Herein lies the problem: Dani and Daric don’t know how they travel from one time period to another, so they can’t control their journey through time,” Quinn uttered despairingly.
“Time travel—that’s incredible, Quinn!” Richard exclaimed in utter astonishment.
“I’m hoping to send Bear back in time, with a message in a collar, to let the kids know how the travel bands work. At least they would be able to control when and where they travel next. That is, until I’m able to bring them home. And in order to do that, I need to kinetically link these two small bands with the ones Dani and Daric are wearing. Then, the next time they travel, Bear will join them in that same time period. The message Bear delivers will let them know what’s going on,” Quinn added optimistically.
“And, when I finish my work, I can use my remaining supply of chronizium to initiate time travel from here to bring Dani and Daric back home.” Quinn finished his explanation while reaching under the table, grasping at empty air. He bent down to get a better look.
“It’s gone!” Quinn cried out.
147: Saturday, September 8, 1888
A rather frail-looking elderly man of fifty-six years of age left his residence at 29 Hanbury Street promptly at 6:00 A.M., according to the chimes from the Christ Church bells. John Davis lived on the third floor, front room, with his wife, Mary Ann, and their three sons.
John Davis was a carter and started work early every morning. When he went downstairs, he noticed the front door was open, as it often was. The back door leading to the yard, however, was closed. Odd, he thought. He walked over and opened the back door. What lay on the ground to his left, between the steps leading into the yard and the fence, sent him running in terror.
James Kent and James Green, who worked for Bayley’s packing-case manufacturers, at 23-A Hanbury Street, were on their way to work, when they were almost bowled over by the hysterical old man who looked like he had just seen the devil himself.
“What’s the hurry, old man?” Green asked, while grabbing his shoulders to stop him from toppling over.
“Come here!” Davis implored Kent and Green.
Skeptical, they followed Davis along the passageway. “There.” Davis pointed. Kent and Green looked into the backyard and quickly realized what had sent the old man into a panic.
Henry Holland, a co-worker of Kent and Green, had followed them when he heard the yelling. He peered over their shoulders. What he saw almost made him lose his breakfast.
After a few moments of stunned silence, Holland said, “We need to get help.”
“You don’t need all of us. I’ll go open the shop,” Kent said, as he turned and left the scene.
“I’ll go find a constable,” Holland said, following Kent down the street from Davis’s residence.
On entering the shop, Kent went directly to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a bottle of brandy. He pulled off the stopper and took several deep gulps, to settle his nerves.
“I could use a belt, too,” Green said as he snatched the bottle from Kent.
“Do we have an old tarpaulin around here?” Green asked unsteadily after another swig from the bottle. “I want to cover the body.”
“Yeah, over in the corner,” Kent replied, taking back the bottle and having another gulp. He replaced the bottle in the desk drawer while watching Green leave with the tarpaulin.
Holland headed toward Spitalfields Market in search of a constable. Davis took off, as fast as his old legs could carry him, to the closest police station, on Commercial Street.
Inspector Joseph Chandler was at the corner of Hanbury and Commercial Streets when he noticed several men running along Hanbury. He intercepted one, who told him, “Another woman has been murdered.” Chandler went immediately to investigate and to secure the crime scene.
148
Rich and Daric were at the station early in the morning as they had been almost every morning since the Nichols’ murder. Rich was checking on the progress of the investigation and handing out the day’s assignments when a sudden commotion drew his attention to the front entrance. He saw an old man bursting through the front door of the station. “I need to speak to a senior officer,” John Davis panted, trying to catch his breath.
“I’m Inspector Case. How can I be of assistance?”
“There’s . . . been . . . another . . . murder . . .” Davis said, still trying to slow his heart rate. It wasn’t a long run to the station from his place, but he was out of shape.
Within minutes, several officers were following John Davis to the murder site, where they found Inspector Joseph Chandler, who had been first on scene.
“What do you got, Joe?” Rich asked.
“Over there,” Joe replied grimly, indicating the tarpaulin to his left. “I sent for Dr. Phillips and for reinforcements and an ambulance. I also sent word to Scotland Yard.”
Inspector Joseph Chandler had joined the Metropolitan Police in 1873. Rich had known Joe Chandler for many years, but he had never seen him this rattled at a crime scene before.
Rich walked over, bent down, and reached over to pull back the tarpaulin. “It’s not good, Inspector,” Joe warned.
Rich paused for a moment to take in the morbid scene. A crowd had gather and was rapidly growing. “Let’s get these people back and clear that passageway,” Rich instructed his team. Once the crowds had been pushed back, Rich slowly drew back the tarpaulin and beheld the mutilated body of a woman. He tried to take a calming breath as he viewed the victim. He had never witnessed this kind of brutality in all his years as a police officer and prayed he never would again. It was unthinkable. What kind of sick creature could have done this to another human being? he thought.
“I’ll take it from here, Inspector,” Dr. Phillips said. He had come up behind Rich, startling him and pulling him from his thoughts.
Dr. George Bagster Phillips was H Division’s Police Surgeon and conducted or attended post-mortems on behalf of the station. He was an elderly man of fifty-four years of age, highly skilled, and incredibly modest. His busy life had contributed to his brusque and quick manner. Nevertheless, he was extremely charming and as a result, very popular.
Dr. Phillips knelt as close to the victim as he could, avoiding the pool of blood on the ground above her right shoulder. It was more than apparent that this woman was beyond medical help. After completing a cursory inspection of the wounds, Dr. Phillips ordered that the body be removed and taken to the mortuary.
“Wait,” Rich said. He reached over a
nd closed the victim’s horror-filled eyes. He dug into his pocket and pulled out two coins, placing one over each eye.
“I never understood that custom,” Frank mumbled.
“It’s to pay the ferryman to take your soul across the River Styx to the land of the dead,” Daric explained. “If you cannot pay him, you are doomed to remain a ghost and forced to wander forever between the two worlds.”
“Whatever,” Frank replied.
After the body had been removed, Rich noticed several items neatly arranged where the victim’s feet had been. There was a folded piece of coarse muslin, a comb and a piece of an envelope with the Sussex Regiment coat of arms on it and bearing a London postmark dated August 20, 1888. Nearby, he saw two pills; they must have been the contents of her torn pocket, he reasoned.
“Hey, look at this.” Daric called their attention to a wet leather apron. It was laid out and drying on a water spigot, not far from where the body had been found. A bucket of clean water was sitting below the water spout.
Rich and his colleagues spent the next few hours searching the crime scene. They noted several blood-stained areas, all in the backyard. They determined there were no stains in the passageway, in any part of the house, or in any of the adjoining yards.
149
“Hey, you, stop!” Detective Walter Dew yelled and took off in pursuit. The police had been trying to locate this guy for a week, ever since that stone-throwing incident.
The man Dew was chasing was about twenty-five years old, with a muscular build. He had a rag wrapped around his right hand and a paper clutched in his left. He ran through the streets, desperately trying to increase the distance between himself and the police on his tail.
The man ran down Commercial Street, dodging carriages and cabs, diving between the legs of horses, trying to evade capture.
“Stop!”
People who had been standing outside watched the chase down the street intently. One bystander made the somewhat reasonable deduction that, if the police were pursuing this man. “It must be the murderer,” he yelled. No one will ever know for sure who yelled, but his yell was the catalyst for the events that immediately followed.
The crowd joined the chase. As it grew in numbers, so did the cries of, “Lynch him” and “Murderer.” Soon hundreds were racing down the street. Several other police officers joined in the pursuit, only igniting the crowd further. The result was like throwing gasoline onto a raging fire. The situation exploded into a frenzy and it was no wonder: especially on the day of another murder.
The man being pursued realized what was happening. He could tell by the cries of the mob they were ready to lynch him for a murder. He knew there was no way he could reason with them in their frenzied state. If they got their hands on him, it was game over. There would be no judge, no jury, no trial. As far as the mob was concerned, he was guilty, and they would exact their kind of justice. He had only one hope.
150
Rich, Daric, Frank and Inspector Joseph Chandler returned to the Commercial Street station to review their notes. They also needed to allow Dr. Phillips enough time to perform the post-mortem, before they headed to the morgue for an update.
“Don’t you find it odd that at both murder scenes there were no footprints?” Daric pondered aloud.
“Why is that odd?” Frank asked.
“With all that blood, you’d think the murderer would have gotten some on his boots,” Daric said. “But, there were no footprints or tracks leading away from where the bodies were found. I find that rather odd.”
“So do I,” Rich concurred.
The station door flew open. A man ran inside screaming, “You’ve got to help me!”
Detective Dew was the next one through the door, panting. “Barricade the door, quick,” he yelled.
“What’s going on?” Rich asked, gesturing a few officers toward the front door.
“Inspector, there’s a mob out there. They think this guy is our murderer. There have to be hundreds of them. They want his blood,” Dew said, as the officers slammed the door shut and threw the bolt to lock it.
“Hey, I’d know that ugly face anywhere. That’s the guy who tried to mug me,” Daric exclaimed.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Mr. George Cullen, better known on the streets as Squibby,” Rich explained.
“We know he’s in there and we want him,” a voice yelled from outside.
“That sounds like Lusk,” Daric said.
“Yeah, and he’d be the one to stir up this crowd,” Rich added.
There was a loud sound of shattering glass followed by a dull thud. Someone had thrown a brick through one of the station windows.
“We want him, now!” was punctuated by another shattered window.
“Duck,” Frank yelled, diving under his desk, just as another projectile sailed by his head.
“Lock Squibby in a cell,” Rich said to Barrett. “That should keep the mob away from him.”
“You, you and you, come with me,” Rich ordered. I don’t have time for this nonsense, he thought, heading for the front door.
Barrett grabbed Squibby’s arm and led him to a cell. Before locking the door, Barrett pulled the paper out of his clenched fist. It was a section of The East London Advertiser. It read:
The murderer must creep out from somewhere; he must patrol the streets in search of his victims. Doubtless he is out night by night. Three successful murders will have the effect of whetting his appetite still further, and unless a watch of the strictest be kept, the murder of Thursday will certainly be followed by a fourth.
And it was, but the paper was today’s early morning edition. How could they have known?
It took the better part of an hour to settle and disperse the mob outside the station, without further incident. Rich had assured them that Squibby wasn’t the murderer, but had been arrested on a prior assault charge.
151
On Saturday afternoon, Dr. Phillips was scheduled to conduct the post-mortem examination at the Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary Mortuary. It was nothing more than an unsanitary shed and completely inadequate for his purposes, but he would make do with what he had.
Upon entering the mortuary, Dr. Phillips discovered that the body had already been stripped, partially bathed and laid out on the table awaiting his arrival. The only clothing left on the body was a handkerchief. He remembered that, back at the crime scene, it had been tied around the victim’s neck. They had tossed the rest of her clothes into a corner.
“I left specific instructions that this body wasn’t to be touched until I got here,” Dr. Phillips snapped at one of the nurses.
“Doctor, we were told to prepare the body for you. No one said not to touch it,” the nurse explained.
“What’s the name of the man in charge here?”
“Robert Mann, Doctor,” the nurse said.
Dr. Phillips grunted. That’s the same buffoon who mishandled the other victim, he thought. Well, what’s done is done. Dr. Phillips would talk to the constable who was supposed to be in charge of the body, to find out how such a simple order could be so misunderstood.
“Dr. Phillips, this is Mel Palmer. She believes she knows who the victim might be,” Constable Barrett said, having brought Annie over from the station.
“One moment,” Dr. Phillips said, as he reached for a blanket. “Okay.”
Mel stepped forward and peered down at the body laid out on the table. Dr. Phillips had covered the horrific wounds; only the head was uncovered. He felt no one needed to see the handiwork of the merciless butcher, especially one of the weaker sex.
“Oh, Annie,” Mel said desolately. “That’s Annie Chapman,” Mel moaned.
“Thank you, Miss Palmer, for coming down,” Barrett said and accompanied her out of the morgue.
* * *
Several hours later, Rich,
Frank and Daric arrived at the morgue.
“So, what can you tell us, Doctor?” Rich asked.
“She was eviscerated,” Dr. Phillips replied acidly. “And some of her organs are missing.”
Dr. Phillips paused a moment and then stepped away from the table to face his visitors. “I’m sorry, Inspector; I didn’t mean to bite.” Dr. Phillips sighed. “It’s just such a horrendous act of brutality, the likes of which I’d never want to set eyes on again.”
“I understand, Doctor, and I agree with you,” Rich admitted. “What can you tell us about Annie Chapman?”
“At the time of her death, she was undernourished and suffered from chronic diseases of the lungs and brain membranes. It wouldn’t have been long before those diseases would have killed her,” Dr. Phillips said sadly.
“There was bruising over her right temple and there were two distinct bruises, the size of a man’s thumb, on the forepart of the upper chest. All of these are older wounds that occurred days ago. There are abrasions on her ring finger, indicating the murderer forcibly removed her ring or rings,” Dr. Phillips said.
“We found no rings at the crime scene,” Frank offered.
Doctor Phillips continued with his findings, going into great detail as he outlined the number and types of wounds inflicted on the body of Annie Chapman. He also provided, with itemized accuracy, how he believed the murderer extracted the organs and how much time it would have taken him to do so.
“Doctor, are we looking at the same type of murder weapon as was used in the Nichols’ murder? Could we be looking for one suspect?” Rich asked.
“The instrument used to cut the throat, and the abdomen was the same. It must have been a very sharp knife, with a narrow blade at least six to eight inches in length. The method in which the knife was used seems to show great anatomical knowledge,” Dr. Phillips concluded.
152: Sunday, September 9, 1888
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