The Ripper's Shadow

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “You’re the only person besides us who knew about that house,” Hugh says, “but go on.”

  “They also found obscene photographs of the victims and a bloodstained knife that fits the coroner’s description of the weapon that the Ripper used.”

  “Wait a minute.” The full extent of Barrett’s machinations dawns on me. “There was no bloodstained knife in that house.”

  “Nor Miss Sarah’s dirty pictures neither!” Mick says.

  “Somebody ought to fix the broken lock on the window above the alley.” Barrett calmly holds our gazes. This is his only admission that he sneaked into Warren’s house and planted Dr. Poole’s knife, which he brought from the slaughterhouse, and my boudoir photographs, which he took from my studio.

  “The officers were convinced that Commissioner Warren is Jack the Ripper. They took the evidence straight to his superior—Henry Matthews, Home Secretary. Mr. Matthews ordered them not to breathe a word of it to anybody.” Barrett asks, “Did I mention that one of the officers is a friend of mine?”

  “I assume that your friend is the officer who received the anonymous tip,” Hugh says.

  “I think Warren and the Home Secretary agreed to a deal—Warren would resign, the Home Secretary would bury the evidence, and there wouldn’t be a scandal.”

  “That’s the gentlemanly, face-saving British bureaucracy for you,” Hugh says.

  “Where is Warren now?” I ask.

  “Gone,” Barrett says. “The army posted him to Singapore. The Home Secretary must have pulled strings to make them take him back.”

  Our relief is so massive that Catherine, Mick, Hugh, and I groan. London is rid of Warren, but heaven help Singapore. Half of the evil shadow that Jack the Ripper cast over the city has shifted to another, unsuspecting part of the world. But we’re nonetheless proud that we provided the ammunition with which Barrett dispatched Commissioner Warren. One Ripper dead and the other banished is more than we could have expected.

  My only regret is that with Warren gone, I’ll never know whether there’s any truth to his claim that my father is a fugitive criminal who could still be alive. But of course if I were to ask Warren, I couldn’t trust anything he said.

  “Is that why Mr. Lipsky was released—because the Home Secretary sent down word that he’s not Jack the Ripper?” I ask.

  “The official story is that a confidential source gave him an ironclad alibi,” Barrett says.

  “Wait,” Hugh says. “If you didn’t get credit for exposing Warren, then how is it that you’re back on the force?”

  Barrett grins. There’s a rapscallion look to him that he didn’t have before. He, too, has crossed the line to the far side of the law, and he doesn’t dislike it.

  “The same day Warren resigned, the Home Secretary told me I’d been dismissed without proper protocol and he was reinstating me. I found out the rest from Inspector Reid when I reported for duty. He’s furious. He said the Home Secretary reamed him out for trying to railroad Abraham Lipsky and criticized him for bad management of the officers under him. Reid’s been relieved of his command while the records on his past cases are reviewed.”

  I can’t pity Reid. “Does he know the real reason Warren resigned?”

  “No. But he knows it’s not a coincidence that he took a fall the same day Mr. Lipsky was cleared and I was reinstated. He said he’s going to get to the bottom of the whole business. He knows I had something to do with what happened to him, and so did the lot of you. He said he’ll make us all pay.”

  “It was too much to expect that we could get rid of all our enemies with one swell foop,” Hugh says.

  “At any rate, the warrant for your arrest has been withdrawn. The Home Secretary must think that getting handcuffed to a gas pipe was Reid’s just deserts. You’re free to move about.”

  Mick whoops with delight and jumps up from the table. “I’m going out to see what’s happening!”

  Catherine flings the shawl off her head and jumps up, too. “I’ll go to the theater and ask for my job back!”

  The young are so resilient. Although still protective toward Catherine and Mick, I let them go. Not everybody I love will abandon me; they’ll come back.

  Catherine pauses at the door, turns to Mick, and says, “Will you come with me?” She sounds newly aware that the world is filled with dangers even though Jack the Ripper is gone.

  Mick grins, newly cocksure. “Be glad to.”

  As they hurry off together, I smile. Maybe I’m not the only one who glimpsed the man he’ll become. Catherine will never lack for suitors, but Mick is the one who killed for her—a hard act to beat.

  Hugh stands, and so does Barrett. “Time to go home,” Hugh says. “Sarah, you can stay with me. Fitzmorris will look after us both.”

  I haven’t anywhere else to go, but I hesitate, daunted by the impropriety of his suggestion.

  “Oh, come on, Sarah!” Hugh says. “Compared to everything else you’ve done, living with a man you’re not married to is small beer. Anyway, your virtue is safe with me.”

  Persuaded, I nod. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve an idea for what we can do next,” Hugh says. “We’re such good detectives, why not form a private inquiry firm?”

  I groan. Barrett says, “Some people don’t know to quit while they’re ahead.”

  “It would solve our problem of how to earn a living,” Hugh says. “We could both use a fresh start.”

  Life might be dull without a new venture. My appetite for danger seems to have grown, not shrunken as it logically should have. “I’ll think about it.”

  Hugh extends his hand to Barrett. “Thanks for all your help.” They shake hands. “We owe you.”

  I murmur my own thanks, suddenly shy with Barrett. A new affection for him gentles the anger, need, and humiliation he’s aroused in me. I’m sad because we’re about to part for the last time, just when we’ve found common ground. I can’t picture another set of circumstances that would bring us together again.

  Barrett clears his throat. “Miss Bain, will you come for a walk with me?”

  #

  As Barrett and I walk along Commercial Street, I squint at the sun, which seems so bright after I haven’t seen it in so long. The sky is a rare blue, but an icy wind blows smoke from chimneys into horizontal plumes. Peddlers wave crimson-covered pamphlets at the crowds. “Get yer Book of the Whitechapel Horrors—only a penny!” A man in a gaudy plaid coat leads a flock of fashionably dressed ladies and gentleman. “Right this way to the scene of Jack the Ripper’s latest murder!”

  George Lusk is giving an interview to reporters. “The Mile End Vigilance Committee sighted the Ripper last night!” His face is bruised from his skirmish with Leo. “We shall continue patrolling the streets until he’s caught.”

  I marvel at the wide gulf between the reality that I am aware of and the delusion under which the people around me labor. They think Jack the Ripper is still at large, and they’ll fear him until enough time passes without another murder. The police will search for him until all the leads peter out or his natural life span ends. I suppose it’s better than a scandal that would destroy the public’s trust in the law.

  Barrett and I don’t look at each other or speak. Anyone who sees us might not know we’re together, but we’re bound tightly by our secrets, as if by invisible handcuffs linking our wrists. By tacit, mutual consent, we go to my studio. I’m eager to see what’s happened to it, and it’s where we first met the day I saw Polly Nichols’s dead body, when everything started.

  The gold lettering on the window, which read, “Bain & Sons Photography,” is gone; the door is boarded up. As I stare in dismay, Barrett says, “Allow me.”

  He breaks the door down. I step into the studio. It’s vacant of furniture, the walls bare. I hurry to the darkroom. Everything’s gone except my enlarger. I’m thankful that Mr. Douglas thought it worthless. Then I run upstairs. The flat is emptied of my clothes and other personal belongings. A crumpled photograp
h lies on the bedroom floor, placed there as if to taunt me, soiled by a dirty footprint. I pick up and smooth out the photograph of daffodils blooming in a graveyard and touch my father’s shadowy figure in the woods. I discovered who the Ripper was, but I still don’t know what became of my father. Carrying the photograph, I go downstairs.

  Barrett looks somberly at me from the empty studio. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” I realize, with astonishment, that I’m not. The studio was built by the person I used to be. “I’m glad for a fresh start. Can you help me carry my enlarger?”

  “Sure.” But Barrett doesn’t move.

  My heart begins to drum a cadence of foreboding.

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” he says.

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  “And I’m sorry about—well, you know.”

  Blushing, I only nod to say that the incident after the Mile End Vigilance Committee meeting is forgiven. I’m so indebted to him that if he wanted to ravish me, I should let him. The thought brings on a rush of desire and more heat to my cheeks.

  “Inspector Reid told me to pretend to romance you, and I’m a cad for taking liberties with you,” Barrett says. “I want you to know that I wasn’t just pretending, and I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t felt . . . if I hadn’t wanted . . . if I didn’t hope that you and I . . .” Now it’s his turn to blush, because he’s confessed that he was, indeed, sweet on me.

  Hiding a smile, I start toward the darkroom to let Barrett regain his composure while he follows me, but he stands still.

  “One more thing,” he says. “Commissioner Warren’s papers were cleared out of his office. I sneaked a look at them, and I found your father’s police file.”

  This is the last thing I expected. Coldness seeps through me. My throat is suddenly dry, my heart thudding. I’m afraid to hear what comes next.

  “I stole these from it.” Barrett reaches into his pocket and brings out a wad of lined papers. Yellow with age, they crinkle as he unfolds them. He offers them to me.

  I’m afraid to see what they say, but here is my wish granted—my chance to find out what, if anything, Warren knows about my father. I discover in myself a reckless courage born of facing death and surviving. I take the papers . . . but my courage isn’t strong enough to overcome my reluctance to open a tin of worms from Jack the Ripper.

  I thank Barrett and put the papers in my handbag. Barrett says, “I haven’t read them, but I saw that Commissioner Warren added his own notes. By the way, his writing is similar to that of the Jack the Ripper letters. Warren wrote them. He tried to disguise his writing, but it’s obvious if you know what you’re looking for.”

  I don’t dare think about what the notes in the police file could mean.

  “Warren’s investigation of your father has been cancelled. But you could carry on with it if you wanted.”

  I picture Hugh and me perusing the file together, beginning our first inquiry. “I don’t know . . .”

  Barrett nods, understanding my reluctance. He goes outside and hails a cab. We carry out my enlarger, put it in the cab, and ride in silence, occupied by our own thoughts, mine a tangle of confusion. Look for the truth, my father said. I know that someday soon, despite my fear of what I might find, I must look for the truth about him, for better or worse.

  When we stop at the Jews Temporary Shelter, Barrett says, “You and Hugh can take the cab to his place. I’ll walk back to the station.”

  The door of the shelter opens, and Hugh comes out, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Lipsky carrying my photography equipment.

  “Miss Bain . . .” Barrett hesitates. “May I call on you sometime?”

  I feel an impulse to ask, “What for?” Maybe he’s still sweet on me. Maybe he only wants to make sure I’m not doing anything illegal. I stifle the impulse. I’ve experienced enough revelations for today. Looking for the truth behind Barrett’s request can wait.

  “Yes.” After facing death, I’m no longer afraid that if I let Barrett too near me, he’ll break my heart; I could get over it. I give him Hugh’s address. My manner is prim, his polite, our farewell handshake brief yet warm. As I slip my fingers from his clasp, I fancy I feel the invisible handcuffs joining our wrists.

  Barrett jumps out of the cab and helps Mr. Lipsky load my equipment. Hugh climbs in beside me. Mrs. Lipsky says, “Come to our house for Sabbath dinner on Friday. Bring Catherine and Mick.” She smiles at Barrett. “You come, too.”

  “I would be honored,” Barrett says.

  The cab bears Hugh and me along Aldgate High Street. Butcher’s Row is now jammed with wagons, barrows, and carriages, and noisy with commerce. The carcasses hanging under the canopies outside the butcher shops are bright pink in the sunlight.

  Hugh smiles at me and says, “We’re off.”