The Ripper's Shadow

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Its gold veneer is already wearing off the tin, and the diamonds are paste. Even if Randolph isn’t a murderer, men who woo actresses with cheap trinkets expect favors in return, and Catherine is too willing to oblige. My mother taught me to avoid men, but hers evidently taught her nothing about chastity. I once warned her not to sleep with her latest boyfriend because she might get with child. She told me bluntly, “No, I won’t. He uses a rubber.” She’s like a wild creature with no notion of sin, pure despite the fact that she isn’t a virgin.

  “Please don’t go out at night,” I say now. “At least, not until the Ripper is caught.”

  “Oh, Sarah.” Catherine spies Mick, and a frown puckers her brow. “Who’s this?”

  As I introduce them, Mick drops his gaze and flushes. It’s painfully obvious that he’s fallen in love with Catherine at first sight, but she wrinkles her nose at his raggedy clothes and stale smell. She sits at the table, scooting her chair as far away from Mick as possible.

  Mortified, he rises, picks up his newspapers, and mumbles, “Got to go.” I feel sorry for him as he slinks out the door.

  “How did you meet him?” Catherine asks. When I tell her, she says, “You made friends with a street urchin who stole your camera?” She shakes her head; her blond ringlets quiver.

  “He didn’t, actually.”

  “And you tell me that I should be careful with strangers!” Puffed up with righteous indignation, Catherine clearly enjoys turning the tables on me. I wonder if she’s also jealous of my attention to Mick. “That boy is mooching off you, and if you turn your back on him, he’ll rob you blind.”

  It could be said that Catherine mooched off me while she lived with me, but I don’t want to quarrel. I’ve been afraid of quarrels since my childhood, when I often heard my parents’ angry whispers from the other side of their closed bedroom door. To cut short this exchange with Catherine, I say, “I have to get ready to go out.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the inquest for Polly Nichols, the woman who was murdered yesterday.” There I can learn what the police know about Polly’s murder.

  “I’ll go with you. I’ve never been to an inquest before. It might be fun.”

  It won’t hurt to remind Catherine of the danger she’s putting herself in, and if I let her come, at least it will keep her away from men.

  #

  The Working Lads’ Institute is a club for boys, a red brick building adjacent to Whitechapel Station. As Catherine and I approach it through the lingering fog, I see a large crowd of boys, local tradesmen, and housewives amid newspaper reporters and photographers armed with notebooks and cameras. Police officers guard the entrance. I pause, steel myself, and move forward. Heads swivel in our direction; people stare. Catherine’s beauty always attracts attention. She nods and smiles like a princess making a royal visit. I, in her shadow, am free to observe without fear of being noticed.

  The man who catches my eye isn’t one of the crowd. Tall and slim, he strides toward me. He wears rumpled black evening clothes, and he looks to be in his late twenties. His top hat covers his fair hair, whisker stubble glints on his cheeks, and his eyes are bleary, but his face is astoundingly handsome and instantly recognizable. He is the beautiful blond man from the hotel yesterday. He must be on his way home. As our gazes meet, he halts in his tracks. His Adam’s apple jerks. The expression on his face is pure horror as he recognizes me and sees the police: he’s thinking I could report him for committing a crime against nature.

  “Lord Hugh!” Catherine waves at him, smiles, and hurries toward him, dragging me along. “Sarah, I want you to meet a friend of mine. Lord Hugh Staunton!”

  I recognize his name from the society columns in the newspapers. He’s the youngest son of the Duke of Ravenswood, an eligible bachelor-about-town, and often rumored to be having affairs with actresses and married noblewomen. My dismay is nothing to his as Catherine accosts him, bats her eyes, and says, “My lord, what brings you here?”

  His features freeze into a supercilious mask. “I’m sorry, Miss. I don’t believe we’ve met.” His voice is a smooth tenor, aristocratic, and coldly polite.

  “But of course we’ve met!” Catherine says, all confusion. “At the Oxford Music Hall. You took us girls out for drinks last week.” I suppose Lord Hugh consorts with women in order to hide his true nature. Catherine pouts prettily. “Don’t you remember?”

  His gaze is riveted on me, as if I’m some horrible, fascinating spectacle—a train wreck, perhaps. “Sorry.” He ducks into Whitechapel Station.

  “I could tell he knew me. Why did he pretend he didn’t?” Catherine sounds perplexed; she must have met few men who would cut her like that.

  “I don’t know.” What happened between Lord Hugh and me is too embarrassing to tell her, and I somehow feel compelled to protect him.

  “And he looked at you so oddly.” Catherine regards me with doubt and suspicion. “Do you know Lord Hugh?”

  “No, of course not.” I hasten toward the Institute before she can question me further. Caught in the crowd, we are separated.

  Suddenly, Police Constable Barrett appears. Grinning and toughly handsome, he confronts me before I can hide. “If it isn’t Miss Bain again.” He sounds pleased, as if he’s caught me in some guilty deed.

  Alarm quickens my heartbeat. My guard goes up. I don my chilliest expression and nod a greeting.

  “Are you here for the inquest?” Barrett says. “It’s not open to the public.”

  So I will have no chance to learn more about Polly’s murder, and I’ve put myself back in Barrett’s sights. “I was just passing by.”

  He isn’t fooled; amusement glints in his gray eyes. “It’s funny you should be here. I thought you said you didn’t have any special interest in the murder.”

  For once in my life, I think of a good rejoinder at the moment I need it instead of later. “It’s funny you should be here when you’re not part of the investigation.”

  Barrett reacts with gratifying chagrin. “How do you know I’m not?”

  I don’t admit that I spied on him yesterday. “You just told me I’m right.”

  “Damn it to hell!” he bursts out.

  Although I flinch from his anger, I realize that it isn’t directed at me, and I’m less afraid of him here, in public, than when we were alone in my studio. Curious, I say, “What happened?”

  He hesitates, frowning. “Suppose I tell you?” He sounds reluctant, as though it will cost him. “Will you tell me why you’ve come to an inquest for a woman you didn’t even know?”

  Here is a bargain with the devil, but if I agree to it, I may learn something important. “Very well,” I say. While Barrett is talking, I can think of what to tell him. And I again feel that current of excitement running through my fright.

  He motions me down the street, out of his colleagues’ earshot, and speaks in a low, furtive voice. “I was on duty the night Martha Tabram was killed. At about two in the morning, I saw a soldier loitering in George Yard. I asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ He said he was waiting for a friend. I went on my way. The next morning, I heard that Martha had been killed in George Yard shortly after I left. The soldier might have done it.”

  Barrett sounds vexed because he’d been there at the wrong time to prevent the murder or to catch the killer afterward. “I told my inspector, and he asked me if I could identify the soldier if I saw him again. I said yes; I recognized his uniform—he was a private with the Grenadier Guards. Inspector Reid took me to the Tower of London and lined up all the Grenadiers. I walked up and down the line, and I tapped the shoulder of the private who looked the most like the man from George Yard.” Barrett wipes his brow. “But it turned out he had an alibi. He’d been with another private, and they’d never set foot in George Yard.

  “Inspector Reid was furious. He dressed me down for wasting his time on a false lead.” Shame flushes Barrett’s olive-tinged skin. “He said that if not for my blunder, we might have caught
the killer already. He put me out of the investigation.”

  If not for his blunder, Polly Nichols might not have died. But I feel sympathy for Barrett because I, too, bear responsibility for Polly’s death and the fact that Catherine, Liz, Kate, Annie, and Mary Jane are still in danger. We have something in common, and I have to respect him for his willingness to lose face in the interest of catching the killer. “It was an honest mistake,” I say.

  “Yes, but Inspector Reid is right.” Barrett hastens to defend the law he serves. “The police can’t afford mistakes. But I’m obliged to do whatever I can to help the investigation even if I’m not wanted in it.” I suppose another man in his position would go off in a sulk and let his colleagues struggle on by themselves. Now Barrett says, “Your turn, Miss Bain.”

  I’m ready. “I knew Martha Tabram. I also knew Polly Nichols.” That is the truth; now I lie. “When I saw her body, I didn’t recognize her. I didn’t know it was her until I read her name in the newspaper this morning.”

  Barrett regards me with interest. “How did you know those women?”

  “They came to my studio. Martha was thirsty and wanted a cup of tea. Polly asked if I needed a charwoman.” It has occurred to me that someone may have seen Polly and Martha enter my studio for our photographic sessions, and I need an excuse. “I felt sorry for them. I let them in to sit and rest for a while.”

  “Oh.” Barrett sounds disappointed because he’s shown his own embarrassing hand for naught.

  I wish I could tell him what I really know. Maybe he could use it to catch the killer, make up for his mistake, and save Catherine and my other models. But if I did tell, he would sooner throw us in jail.

  Barrett’s eyes narrow; he thinks I know more than I’m telling. “If I can get you into the inquest, would you still like to go?”

  He wants another chance to grill me, but I seize the chance to attend the inquest. “Yes. Thank you.” As we walk to the Working Lads’ Institute, Catherine joins us. “Can you get her in, too?”

  Barrett looks surprised; he probably thought all my associates were drabs like me. When I make introductions, Catherine bends her smiling charm on him. She loves male attention, and the admiration in Barrett’s eyes doesn’t disappoint her. I feel a twinge of jealousy.

  “Wait here,” Barrett says, then speaks with the police at the Institute. They let him escort us inside to a library where royal portraits hang above the bookshelves. Rows of chairs hold an audience composed mainly of policemen and local officials. At the front of the room, a dignified man with spectacles and gray hair sits at a table.

  “Mr. Wynne Baxter, the coroner,” Barrett whispers as we head toward empty chairs in the third row. Barrett takes the chair on my left, Catherine on my right. She and I are among the few women present. Five officials sit at another table, near the coroner’s. “The jury,” Barrett whispers.

  “I call Mr. Reese Llewellyn to testify,” says Mr. Baxter.

  Mr. Llewellyn walks up to a podium. He is the doctor from Buck’s Row. Without his derby, his bald head shines. “On Friday morning at about four o’clock, I was called to Buck’s Row. I found the deceased woman lying on her back. She had severe injuries to her throat.”

  The chairs are too close together. The slight lessening of my fear of Barrett has freed other emotions to prevail. The warmth from his body is like fire painted down my left side. Catherine’s perfume is suffocating.

  “This morning, I did a postmortem examination,” Mr. Llewellyn says. “The body was naked when I arrived at the morgue. There was a circular incision terminating about three inches below the right jaw. It completely severed all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed.”

  The audience murmurs in horror at the description of what I saw with my own eyes. Catherine giggles, her nervous habit when distressed. Barrett gives me a puzzled look: he’s wondering what my relationship with her is. I can smell his scent—a mixture of soap, the wool of his uniform, and fresh sweat. It is at once clean and earthy, animal and all male. I grasp at the memory of my mother’s warnings.

  “On the lower part of the abdomen, on the left side, was a very deep, jagged wound,” Mr. Llewellyn says. “On the right side, there were three similar cuts. All the injuries had been done by the same instrument—a sharp, long-bladed knife, used with great violence.”

  “You mentioned that when you arrived at the morgue to perform the examination, the body was naked.” Mr. Baxter asks the police occupying the first row, “What happened to the clothes?”

  Hearing the word “naked” repeated in public causes heat to rise in my cheeks.

  The police mutter among themselves. One raises his hand and identifies himself as “Detective-Sergeant Enright, J Division.” His voice and shape are familiar; he’s the big officer I saw upbraiding Barrett last night. “The body was stripped by the mortuary attendant.”

  “The clothes were examined for evidence, I presume,” Mr. Baxter says.

  After an uncomfortable pause, DS Enright says, “No, sir.”

  “Then we shall do so now. Go fetch the clothes and the attendant.”

  As Enright walks past us, Barrett whispers to me, “J Division will be in trouble over this. They should have examined the clothes.” He sounds pleased yet embarrassed on their behalf. His breath is warm against my ear.

  Mr. Baxter calls more witnesses. Charles Cross is the carriage driver who found the body. Emma Green and others take their turns. All testify that they observed nothing out of the ordinary.

  Barrett whispers, “Could there be somebody who knows something but isn’t talking?”

  DS Enright returns with another man and a bundle of clothes. Mr. Baxter unfolds the bundle, revealing Polly’s brown coat, brown dress, petticoats, chemise, and corset, all stiff with dark bloodstains. He calls the mortuary attendant to come forward. “State your name, place of residence, and occupation.”

  “Robert Mann. I live at the Whitechapel Workhouse. I’m the keeper of the mortuary.”

  Workhouses give room and board to the poor in exchange for labor. Robert Mann, who appears to be in his fifties, wears frayed, patched cotton garments, his hair cut short to discourage lice.

  “How did you remove the clothes from the victim?” Mr. Baxter asks.

  “I cut them down the front, sir.”

  Mr. Baxter holds up the clothes, displaying the slashed fabric, and frowns. “What did you do with the clothes after you removed them?”

  “I threw them in the workhouse yard.”

  “And they’ve been lying there, exposed to the elements, ever since?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Baxter stares over the top of his spectacles at the police. “I must state for the record that police procedure has been very slipshod, and evidence may have been lost.”

  The police sit with their backs straight and stiff. Barrett mutters, “Serves them right.”

  “Let’s proceed,” Mr. Baxter says. “I call Inspector John Spratling of J Division.”

  Inspector Spratling takes the witness seat. His large nose dwarfs his small chin.

  “Would you please describe the investigation of the murder and the results thus far?” Mr. Baxter says.

  “My officers and I searched the area around Buck’s Row, but we found no bloody footprints nor other trace of the killer. No murder weapon, either.”

  “Have you searched the dustbins and sewers?”

  “Er, not yet.”

  “I suggest you do so.” Mr. Baxter’s tone is icy.

  “And they think I’m not fit to investigate murders,” Barrett says. To avoid looking at his face, I glance at his hands. They are well shaped, with long fingers, strong knuckles, and clean nails.

  “I call William Nichols,” Mr. Baxter says.

  We turn to watch Polly’s husband, a man with an earnest, homely face, walk up the aisle. His coat strains across his broad shoulders; his trousers flap around his thin legs.

  “When did
you last see your wife alive?” Mr. Baxter asks.

  “When a married woman is murdered, the husband is a logical suspect,” Barrett tells me.

  “We were separated.” Nichols twists his hands, which are stained black. Polly told me he was a printer’s machinist. She also said he was kind and he couldn’t stand her drinking and fighting. “Last time I saw her was about three years ago.”

  “Where were you during the night of the thirtieth of August?”

  “At home with our children.”

  “I heard that his alibi was verified,” Barrett whispers.

  The last witness is Mrs. Emily Holland, once Polly’s landlady. She testifies that as far as she knew, Polly had no enemies.

  Barrett sits back in his chair and folds his arms. “They’ve no evidence, and no suspects either.”

  Mr. Baxter dismisses Mrs. Holland. “Gentlemen of the jury, you may now deliberate on your verdict.”

  The jurymen huddle together in low, serious conversation. Catherine asks, “What was the purpose of all that?”

  Barrett speaks to her across me. “The purpose of an inquest is to determine the cause of the death, whether it was foul play, and who might be responsible.” His tone is patronizing; he, like many other men, equates beauty with stupidity.

  “But isn’t the cause of death obvious? I mean, she was all cut up. If that’s not foul, then what is? And it doesn’t seem as if they”—Catherine points to the jury—“could figure out who the killer is based on what’s been said. It sounds like the police have made a mess of things.”

  Barrett looks disconcerted, crestfallen. I hide a smile. Catherine often states bluntly the facts that other people overlook, obfuscate, or would rather not face.

  “In some cases, new information comes out during the inquest, or the evidence takes on new meaning when it’s added up. Although in this case, it didn’t. Maybe there’s someone else who should have been called to testify and wasn’t.” Namely, you, says the gaze Barrett turns on me. His face is so close to mine that I can see the golden flecks in his eyes. The corner of his mouth lifts in an accusing smile. My own lips burn.