The Ripper's Shadow

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Thank you for having me.” Her husky voice has an educated but not aristocratic accent. Her hand is warmly damp with nervous perspiration.

  Mick, Catherine, and Mrs. Lipsky hover. We’re like hungry lions sizing up an antelope. Hugh names them and introduces them as “my sister’s friends.” Ida smiles timidly at Mick and Mrs. Lipsky. Mick looks chagrined, and I mouth ten pence at him. He frowns and shakes his head; it’s too soon for a final verdict on Ida Millbanks.

  Ida looks awed, then worried, by Catherine’s beauty. She glances at Hugh, and her thoughts are transparent: Catherine is heavy competition for Hugh’s favor.

  “I’ve known Catherine since she was a baby,” Hugh says quickly. “I used to push her in her pram.”

  “Downhill, at breakneck speed. I was scared half to death,” Catherine says, slapping Hugh’s arm with fond, sisterly playfulness. “Miss Millbanks, let me take your cloak.”

  Relieved, Ida hands it over. She’s wearing a severe gray wool frock whose high, tight collar emphasizes her lack of a chin. “Miss Bain, your brother tells me you operate your own photography business. That is quite a marvelous accomplishment.”

  “Thank you.” It will be an accomplishment if I manage not to flub this scheme that my friends and I concocted. “Would you like me to show you around the studio?”

  “Yes, that would be lovely.”

  As I show Ida my camera, Mrs. Lipsky retreats to the kitchen. Hugh, Catherine, and Mick trail Ida and me. Now we’re like big-footed geese with one egg—we’re afraid we’ll break it before it hatches.

  “How did you learn photography?” Ida asks.

  “My father was a photographer. He got me started.” The usual lump rises in my throat. It has a bitter flavor due to Commissioner Warren’s claims about my father and my own new suspicions that they could be true.

  “Our father thought a woman should have a profession,” Hugh interjects. “Sarah took up photography because she has the eye for it. Me, I haven’t. That’s why I’m a lawyer instead.” That is his false identity that he created for Ida’s benefit.

  “My late father thought so, too,” Ida says. “That’s why he sent me to nursing school.” She adds, in a rueful tone, “My late mother said I should prepare to support myself because it was unlikely that any man would marry me.”

  My mother said the same thing to me, along with other harsh pronouncements, and I thought that because so many years have passed, I’d ceased to mind, but now the memory stings. When she told me that I was too plain and dull to attract a husband, it hurt me as much as when she destroyed my father’s photographs, sold his equipment, and called my dream of being a photographer silly.

  “Mother was correct,” Ida says. “I’m still single and shall probably remain so.”

  “Not necessarily,” Hugh says. “Marriage is a matter of meeting the right person. I thought I would never meet the right person.” He fixes a meaningful gaze on Ida.

  She utters a flustered laugh. Hugh looks uncomfortable; he doesn’t want to lead her on, but he wanted to salve the hurt that her mother and her spinsterhood have caused her. I feel bad about his pretending he cares for Ida, but if we’re to save Mr. Lipsky, we’ve no choice, and the least I can do is help Hugh carry the conversation.

  I call Ida’s attention to the photographs hung on the wall. “This is my work.”

  “How nice.” Ida smiles at the portraits of my customers, then says wistfully, “I’ve never had my photograph taken. Mother said the camera makes a sow’s ear into a horse’s hindquarters.”

  Hugh, Mick, and Catherine gape at this blatant cruelty. I feel a sudden, inexplicable hatred for Ida’s mother. “Why don’t I photograph you now?” I say, although I know Ida would be a difficult subject.

  Ida clasps her hands under her weak chin; her eyes shine. “Would you really?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  Breathless with excitement, Ida says, “What do you want me to do?”

  Goose bumps prickle my skin. Polly Nichols asked the same question before I photographed her the first time. I move a chair in front of the backdrop of the Grand Canal. “Sit here while I set up my camera.”

  “Your hair is so pretty, Miss Millbanks,” Catherine says, and she’s right—it’s a shiny toffee color but tightly plaited and wound; the style makes Ida look like an effeminate Roman emperor. “Why not let it down?”

  Ida’s hands fly to her head. “But Mother always said—”

  “Your mother’s not here,” Hugh says with an encouraging smile.

  “Well . . .” Ida unpins her hair.

  Catherine combs it and pins it up in a loose roll from which stray ringlets trail, then she fetches her makeup case. Ida looks panicky as Catherine applies powder and lip rouge to her face and darkens her brows and lashes with burnt, pulverized cloves. Catherine finds a blue-and-green paisley shawl in my props cupboard and drapes it over Ida’s shoulders.

  “There!” She hands Ida a mirror. “What do you think?”

  I think Catherine has worked a miracle. If only her mother could see Ida now!

  “Oh, my,” Ida murmurs.

  “Criminy,” Mick says.

  “If I were an artist, I would paint you.” Hugh’s compliment is sincere.

  I pose Ida with her hand at her chin to hide its weakness. In the camera’s viewfinder, she looks solemnly innocent—so different from Martha, Polly, Annie, Liz, and Kate. I snap the shutter. The flash heightens the shine of her hair and the glow in her eyes. She blinks, as dazed by infatuation with Hugh as by the light. Now I’m ashamed of myself because I not only want to soothe the pain inflicted by her mother, I also want to soften Ida up, and it’s working.

  “Excuse me while I develop this,” I say, then carry the negative plate to the darkroom. When I’m done, I leave the plate to dry and join my guests at the table.

  The wine makes us merry, and soon we’re all on first-name terms with Ida. Bubbly with new self-confidence, Ida praises the turnovers and asks Mrs. Lipsky for the recipe. She learns that Catherine is an actress and encourages her to tell stories about the theater. She describes animals at Regent’s Park Zoo for Mick. Hugh’s witty comments keep the conversation flowing. As Ida talks with me about exhibits at London’s museums, I wish that we could be friends, that this gay party weren’t a charade.

  “Tell me, Ida,” Hugh says, “how long have you worked for Dr. Poole?”

  The atmosphere changes as if the cold fog has invaded the room. Mrs. Lipsky pauses while passing the cake plate to Mick; his reaching hand stops in midair. Catherine and I freeze with our cups held to our lips. Hugh’s expectant smile has a hungry quality.

  Ida doesn’t notice. She dabs a napkin against her mouth. “Almost four years.”

  Catherine and I set down our cups, Mick snatches a piece of cake, and Mrs. Lipsky replaces the plate on the table. My heart beats fast as we hang on Ida’s words.

  “After I finished school, I nursed at St. Thomas’s Hospital for twelve years, but I fell and hurt my back,” Ida says. That explains her slow, stiff gait. “I had to resign because I couldn’t stand on my feet for long periods of time or do heavy work. When I looked for other employment, I saw an advertisement from Dr. Poole. He hired me to be his assistant.”

  “Very fortunate,” Hugh says. “What sort of medical services does Dr. Poole provide?”

  “Oh, dear.” Ida is suddenly shy and flustered again. “One doesn’t like to talk about it. His work is of a delicate nature.”

  “Well then,” I say, “what services do you perform for him?”

  “Oh, I keep records and run errands, I purchase books—”

  “What kind of books?” I ask, remembering the album of my photographs.

  “Medical treatises.” It’s obvious that Ida doesn’t read the books and has no idea what she fetched from Mr. Russell’s shop. “Mostly, I assist Dr. Poole with his patients.”

  “Assist how?” Catherine asks.

  Fanning her red face with her napkin, I
da laughs nervously. “One can’t discuss it in polite company.”

  Mick opens his mouth to say, “We’re not polite.” I kick him under the table. He frowns.

  Eager to offer us something she can tell without embarrassment, Ida says, “Dr. Poole is a brilliant physician. He was appointed as a researcher at Bedlam.”

  We murmur, as people do at the mention of London’s notorious insane asylum.

  “He performs experiments there,” Ida says. “He writes monographs and publishes them in medical journals. He also performs experiments in his laboratory at home.”

  The word laboratory resonates like a low-pitched minor chord struck on a piano, which everyone except Ida can hear.

  “You mentioned the laboratory the other day,” Hugh says. “What work does he do there?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.” Ida’s gaiety is gone; she’s aware that her reticence has put a damper on the conversation. “I’ve never been inside.” Fidgeting with the fringe on the shawl, she explains, “I don’t assist Dr. Poole with his experiments. He works alone.”

  “Haven’t you ever peeked?” Catherine asks.

  “I would never.” Ida’s blackened eyebrows rise with shock at the idea of spying on her employer. “Besides, Dr. Poole keeps the door locked.”

  The laboratory seems a repository of everything we need to prove that Dr. Poole is Ripper Number Two and exonerate Mr. Lipsky. “Do you know where the key is?” Mick asks.

  “Well . . . I once saw him put it in a tin box on the mantle in his office,” Ida confesses.

  “Aren’t you curious?” Catherine asks.

  Ida shakes her head. I can tell she’s a person who unquestioningly obeys authority. She also takes people at face value, which is why she’s accepted Dr. Poole as a brilliant physician even though she’s in the dark about his experiments, and why she accepted us as friends.

  “Well, I’m curious,” Hugh says. “Maybe your Dr. Poole is like Dr. Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel, trying to reanimate corpses. Perhaps we should sneak in sometime when he’s out and have a look?”

  “I couldn’t betray his trust.” Ida’s eyes shine with tears. She’s eager to please Hugh, but not at the expense of her integrity.

  “He wouldn’t have to know,” Mick says.

  “I would know!” Ida bursts out.

  Hugh, Catherine, and Mick are pushing her too hard. I must rescue her before she begins to dislike us. “The negative plate should be dry by now,” I say. “Ida, would you like to watch me print your photograph?”

  “Yes!” Breathless with relief, Ida follows me into the darkroom.

  I shut the door. There’s an uncomfortable silence while I try to think of something to say that will restore Ida to good spirits and salvage our hope of getting to Dr. Poole through her. I can’t think of a way to do both. “My brother and my friends can be such awful teases. I owe you an apology, Ida. We had no right to ask such a thing of you. Please forgive us.”

  “No, it’s I who should apologize,” Ida says with touching earnestness, “for disappointing all of you after you’ve been so kind to me.”

  “Kind” hardly describes us. I consider making a clean breast by telling Ida that we think Dr. Poole is a murderer and asking her to help us prove it, but I quickly dismiss that idea. Who would she believe—her employer, or people who befriended her under false pretenses?

  Feeling guiltier than ever, I say, “Let us put it behind us. There will be no more talk of Dr. Poole.” I feel my friends listening outside the door, and I sense their alarm.

  Ida nods gratefully. I turn on the red safe light, place the negative plate in the enlarger, and expose the blank paper. As I swish the paper in the developing solution and an image gradually appears, Ida says, “It’s like magic.”

  I hold my breath as I take the red shade off the lamp, and we behold the photograph floating in the tray. The blurred focus romanticizes Ida’s face. The flash created the effect of sunlight, the paisley shawl adds an exotic touch, and Ida’s hand under her chin is shapely and feminine. Enchanted by Hugh, she has a radiance heightened by Catherine’s makeup. I let out my breath. Her portrait is among the best I’ve ever taken.

  Ida bursts into sobs.

  My best isn’t good enough. Leaning on the worktop, I bow my head. I’ve not only used Ida; I’ve hurt an innocent woman I would like for a friend. I’ve failed as a photographer; I’ve lost a battle against Ida’s late mother—and a battle that I’ve become dimly aware that I’m waging, for some unknown reason, against my own. Hugh, Mick, Catherine, and Mrs. Lipsky rush into the darkroom. They stare in dismay at Ida weeping and turn reproachful gazes on me. I’ve also lost us all hope of getting inside Dr. Poole’s laboratory. Ida will never want to see us again.

  “It’s not me!” Ida cries. “It’s more beautiful than I could ever be.” Her voice twitters with emotion. “Sarah, you are an artist!”

  We smile with relief, and my loss becomes a sweet victory. Hugh clasps Ida’s hand and says, “It’s the beautiful woman inside you. Sarah merely brought her out.” He looks into her wet eyes, raises her hand to his lips, and kisses it.

  Mick grimaces, embarrassed by the romantic gesture. Catherine regards Hugh with the respect of one actor for another’s expertise. Mrs. Lipsky and I avert guilty gazes from Ida.

  “Oh, oh, oh, my.” Ida cradles her hand as if wanting to preserve Hugh’s kiss. I think of Barrett and feel a sad, bitter pang in my heart.

  Ida’s face takes on an expression fraught with uncertainty and rashness. “Dr. Poole will be away at a medical conference on the eighth of November. Will you be my guests for dinner at his house then?”

  She wants to repay my favor. For a moment, we can’t believe our luck has turned; we’re speechless. Then I find my voice. “We would be delighted to accept.”

  Soon afterward, Hugh escorts Ida home. She leaves with the photograph and the shawl—a gift to ease my guilty conscience and a bribe to get us inside Dr. Poole’s laboratory. Elated yet exhausted from our efforts, Catherine, Mick, Mrs. Lipsky, and I sink into chairs.

  “Good work, Miss Sarah,” Mick says, munching leftover gingerbread.

  I nod, unable to summon the energy to reply.

  “The eighth of November is three weeks away,” Catherine laments. “Poor Mr. Lipsky will have to stay in jail at least that much longer.”

  I picture him alone in a dark cell. Despair could kill even a man as strong as he.

  “There must be something else we can do in the meantime,” Catherine says.

  Mrs. Lipsky has stayed in the background tonight, as she has during all our ventures, but now she leans forward, her dark eyes aglow. “I have idea.”

  34

  At one o’clock in the morning on Monday, 29 October, Mrs. Lipsky and I stand outside Bethlem Royal Hospital. The insane asylum commonly known as Bedlam rises before us like a cliff capped by the massive dome. The building’s opposite ends vanish into the fog, seeming to extend into infinity in both directions. Most of the windows, shielded by bars, are dark.

  I’ve been inside Bedlam with the crowds who pay to see the inmates as though they’re animals in a zoo. I’ve photographed the clean, bright wards and the mostly docile patients. But I was afraid that the line between sanity and insanity is thin and that the keepers would decide I belonged on the other side and make me stay. Now, as we loiter at the back gate in the dead of night, I wonder if I am indeed a madwoman, for who else would sneak into an insane asylum?

  Mrs. Lipsky and I are wearing coarse brown frocks with white muslin aprons and caps—maids’ uniforms stolen from the laundry at Bedlam. Coming here was her idea, and she shows no misgivings. A woman who has buried three children, whose husband is in danger of hanging for a crime he didn’t commit, has little to lose.

  The gate opens. Dim light from within silhouettes a tall, thin, lanky man carrying a broom and dustpan. Mrs. Lipsky introduces him as Gregor. He works at Bedlam, and he stole the uniforms for us. He is part of a network of
Jews spread throughout London who are connected by blood or common acquaintances, who help one another. Gregor leans in for a close look at me. Some forty years old, he smells of sweat, onions, and tobacco. His face tapers from wide, high cheekbones to his thin, pointed beard. His brows are straight slashes above deep-set eyes. His scrutiny is intense, somber.

  “I hope this won’t get you in trouble,” I say nervously.

  He flashes a smile; his stained teeth are crooked. “The bosses don’t know all the things that go on here.” His English is accented but fluent. “This is just one more.” He beckons.

  Inside the gate, the fog obscures the hospital grounds. The door from which the light shines leads to stairs. Climbing them, we meet no one. Electrified lamps shine with an unnatural brightness. Disinfectants inadequately mask a pervasive smell of urine. I hear clangs like cages rattling, and voices gibbering. My heart is pounding with fear and exertion by the time we reach the top floor and emerge in a dim, quiet corridor with walls painted a drab green and closed doors bearing nameplates. Gregor stops at an unmarked door.

  “This is Dr. Poole’s laboratory.” He selects a key from the ring that hangs from his belt, unlocks the door, and reaches in.

  Electric light flares. Mrs. Lipsky and I cautiously enter a small room with cupboards mounted on gray walls above slate worktops. Our footsteps are loud on the tile floor. The air is pungent with disinfectant. A strange machine sits on a wooden cart with two shelves. On the top shelf, wires protrude from a dozen large glass discs arranged side by side and attached to brass rods, a crank, levers, and gears. Black cables join this contraption to a smaller one on the bottom shelf, which consists of black cylinders, mechanical parts, and a meter with an arrow pointing at white numbers. The whole apparatus, mounted on casters, is some six feet high and four feet square. I’ve never seen anything like it, but I distrust machinery. In the factory where my mother and I worked, one of the girls got caught in a machine. I heard her scream, saw blood fly, and glimpsed her amputated hand on the floor.