Wentworth lifted his pipe and puffed. “Please, sir.”
Gladbrook removed a battered case from his breast pocket and extracted a cigar. He scratched a match to flame and inhaled. “Now, I’ll get right to the matter at hand. And I do hope you will forgive my forthrightness.”
“Certainly.”
“I am a personal advisor to Lord Ashton, who is—”
Wentworth nodded. “An advisor to Her Majesty the Queen.” This was well known.
“Her Majesty has had a word with Lord Ashton and he with me. Hence my appearance here today. Our appearance, I should say.”
“Pray continue, Mr. Gladbrook.”
“I will say, Detective Inspector, that you are held in high regard in the Palace.”
This was so? He had not thought it to be the case.
“The Bloody Sunday riot, of course. And you’ve been instrumental in concluding a number of investigations. The Bedford murders, the Leeds Station robbery, the Yates abductions. To name but a few.” He exhaled and the cigar smoke joined the pipe’s. “But it’s my duty to tell you that Her Majesty is displeased one matter has gone unresolved for as long as it has.”
This, however, was not news. Or at least Wentworth could easily have conjectured the nature of her concern. Indeed, he had been one of the CID officers who worked on a possible lead to the killer that Queen Victoria herself had suggested: that Jack was from the Continent, a worker familiar with butchery, arriving on one of the cattle boats that docked every week in the East End. That strand of investigation, however, was not successful.
“No one is more troubled than I, sir. And I would be pleased if you could tell Lord Ashton and perhaps Her Majesty herself that the officers on the case are working round the clock to see this fellow brought to justice.”
“Please, Detective Inspector, rest assured that there is no enmity toward you in particular in the Palace or Halls of Parliament or on Whitehall. But it is believed that we must find a resolution to this matter forthwith. Hence my visit here—in the company of Dr. Adams. Whose presence you must surely be wondering about.”
“In truth, yes.”
“Are you familiar with the character Sherlock Holmes?”
“I am not.”
“He’s the creation of a British writer who has written a novel for a general audience about the solving of a crime. This Holmes, a resident of London, is a consulting detective. The novel is A Study in Scarlet and it was published last year in Beeton’s Christmas Annual.” Wentworth was familiar with the publication. Popular stories, many serials. The sort of magazine that Dickens might have published one of his tales in. When his son and daughter, now grown, were young, Wentworth would read to them from such publications and they and his wife delighted to hear him attempt the various voices of the characters, asserting that he was as good as Charles Kean himself.
“The book is quite enjoyable and I understand the author, a fellow named Doyle, is planning more fiction featuring this Holmes. I bring him up because his specialty is using deductive reasoning from obscure facts to come to a conclusion. I know officers such as yourself do that quite frequently.”
“It is part of the detection process, yes, sir.”
“And that is exactly what my colleague, Dr. Adams, is well known for—in medical circles. But perhaps I’ll let him explain.”
“Yes, assuredly. Inspector, I am a lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians and maintain a private practice as well. One of my specialties, as Mr. Gladbrook stated, is to use deduction to ascertain the cause of a rare or hitherto unseen malady and determine what might be the best way to treat it: surgery, medicine, relocation to a different climate, and so forth. Your villains are human beings; mine are foreign bodies, pathogens—what we are now calling ‘germs’—and other, sometimes obscure, phenomena that threaten lives. Mr. Gladbrook pays me far too great a compliment to compare me to this Holmes. Whom you really must read, sir.”
“I will do.” Wentworth added, “When time permits.”
The doctor continued, “I understand from Mr. Gladbrook that a police surgeon provided some insights into the killings.”
“Yes, Thomas Bond. His opinion was that the murderer had no special skills as a surgeon and no particular knowledge of anatomy. The dissection after the murders—three of them—was haphazard at best. Mr. Bond suggests certain insights into the killer’s nature—a solitary man and one motivated by erotic mania, that is, satisfaction from the killings. I will say that I myself was not swayed by his way of thinking. I believe the killer’s motive is, as yet, unknowable.”
“I am not, Inspector, a doctor of the mind. I am a doctor of the body. Physiology—the function of the body. And morphology—its structure. I have considerable experience with the effects of trauma upon the human corpus. Treating, as I did, soldiers in the Second Afghan War. Even if this fellow has no particular medical skills, there may be something about what he has visited upon the victims that might tell us something about him. I am here in all humility. I have no experience with crime or investigations. But I stand ready to help.”
Wentworth reflected: More to the point, the Palace stands ready to force me to allow you to help.
Still, he was not dismayed by the men’s appearance. “Well, Doctor, I can’t see that anything untoward would come of your assistance. Indeed, after these difficult weeks, I would welcome a new perspective. Are you free now?”
“I am.”
“Then I suggest that you come around to the room where the evidence and our notes and photographs are assembled. You will see things that do not feature in the press accounts. We are circumspect in regard to what is released.”
Adams glanced toward Gladbrook and nodded. The Palace’s advisor said to Wentworth, “Excellent. I will report to Lord Ashton the outcome of this meeting. Good-day now.”
The three men rose and hands were shaken once more. At the door, Gladbrook turned. “Inspector, one question has occurred to me. It has been more than a month since the most recent killings. Do you think there is a chance that Jack has decided to cease the carnage? Or even more felicitously, has himself been murdered?”
Wentworth glanced at his desk, on which sat one of the photographs of a corpse dismembered by Jack the Ripper. “With a man like this, sir, I have little doubt it is merely a matter of time until the madness comes over him again.”
—
Together the two men strode through the warren of offices and hallways until they descended into what had been a cellar. The dingy room they entered was damp and chill and one of the largest in the building.
Wentworth recalled Police Commissioner Warren’s first visit here. A young constable had said to the imposing man, “ ’Ere’s the room where we’re conducting the Ripper investigation, sir. You might say it is in the bowels of the building.” And offered a laugh.
The constable was now assigned to Tongue, a small—very small—town in the Scottish Highlands.
Wentworth jotted some instructions to one of the junior inspectors, as the doctor hung his greatcoat on a hook and, assisted by his cane, made his way to a large table, filled with documents and a few objects taken from the rooms of the victims or, if they’d been discovered outside, the street or alleyways surrounding the bodies.
The inspector joined him.
“The last killing was when?” Adams asked.
“Thirtieth September.”
“Yes, the double murders.”
“That is correct.”
Adams walked slowly up and down the room, examining the pictures, the diagrams, the objects of evidence. He read the missives that supposedly had been sent by the killer.
“The correspondence he sent is real?”
“We believe so. Some contain information that only the real murderer would have knowledge of. And the handwriting seems to match, so that all three were inscribed by the same man.”
The killer or someone purporting to be the killer had sent two letters and a taunting postcard. The first, with the
salutation “Dear Boss,” was signed with the name Jack the Ripper. The valediction on the other was “Saucy Jacky.”
“Yet the grammar and spelling,” the doctor pointed out, “are not consistent. And one contains serious errors.”
“We believe that is done intentionally to throw us off.”
“So he’s perhaps not a slavering madman, as the press suggests.”
“I think not. He’s clever.”
“Now, tell me everything you can about the murders.”
For a quarter of an hour the inspector discoursed on the now exhaustingly familiar details of the killings. Then he pointed out articles of clothing of the victims, weapons located in the vicinity of the poor women that might have been used in the killing, statements by witnesses.
“We have learned to be skeptical, though. The damned press is paying such sums that people who were in Glasgow or Leeds on the nights of the killings are claiming to have seen the actual slaughter.”
Adams returned to the photographs and diagrams of the scenes where the four women were killed.
“Tell me, Doctor, do you ascertain anything from what we have here that might aid us?”
“I think he is a slight man. And not particularly strong. This ligature here? I know from post-mortem work that this is not difficult to cut through.”
He was pointing to a partially dismembered arm.
“But as you can see, he had to readjust his grip on the cutting tool several times. There were two or three false starts. And the angle suggests he was not towering over the body when he cut.”
Wentworth could indeed see that this was the case. He was impressed by the doctor’s deduction.
“And the victims were all dead before he began his butchery.”
“Yes, our surgeon concluded the same.”
The surgeon had fallen silent as he regarded the pictures once more. Without looking up he said, “I see here that organs have been removed. I recall from the press that he took certain organs with him.”
“That is right.”
“And he claimed to have eaten part of one.”
“So he said, when he mailed back a portion of a kidney. Purportedly from Catherine Eddowes.”
Adams tapped a photograph. “Do you happen to have the garments of the victims?”
The inspector walked to a wooden box and removed two dresses, a blouse, a shawl, a bodice, a skirt, and several petticoats, all of varying hues but with one thing in common: they were stained dark brown with dried blood. Adams took them and examined each carefully. Wentworth was curious but said nothing. He was intrigued to watch the doctor’s narrowed eyes study the garments with the intensity of a wolf choosing from the flock. The doctor then, curiously, lifted piece after piece to his nose and smelled. He gave a brief smile. “I think, Wentworth, that I do indeed have an insight.”
“What, Doctor?”
“I noted from the photo stains on one victim’s clothing that were not dark enough to be blood. I wondered what they were and now I’ve come to a conclusion.”
“What are they?”
Adams continued, “In my profession, of course, we are not always successful. I am familiar with medicines to treat patients. I am also familiar with those chemicals we use to preserve organs and samples from the bodies we are not able to save. If I’m not mistaken, this stain…You see it?”
“Indeed.”
“Is from a type of preserving fluid that is rarely found anymore. A crude form of ethanol. The smell is quite distinctive.”
“Which he would use to preserve the flesh he takes with him.”
“Yes…And that fact, by the way, suggests that he is not a cannibal; that, I believe, was intended to shock. He would not dine on anything that was steeped in Fitzgerald’s Preserving Fluid. That would be as lethal as one of his knives. Indeed, that’s why it is little used. It’s exceedingly inexpensive but the fumes have made many an undertaker or surgeon’s assistant pass out. Now, you believe your killer inhabits essentially the East End.”
“We think it likely.”
“There are a half-dozen chemists or funeral parlor provisioners who still sell the liquid. I think it worth our while to pay them visits and enquire about recent purchasers.”
“Good. The hour’s late but we must begin our search immediately.”
“Now?” Adams asked. The day had vanished and it was now close to 6 P.M. “They’ll be closed.”
“Then we shall wake those who sleep above or behind their shops. And send other officers to rouse the ones who live elsewhere.”
The inspector whom Wentworth had sent on assignment earlier now appeared in the doorway and nodded to his superior. Wentworth joined him and read the piece of foolscap the man proffered. He nodded and slipped it into his pocket, then turned again to Adams.
The doctor gave a faint laugh. “Inspector, may I enquire? You said ‘we’ must begin our search. Myself, too?”
“Indeed. You are in a position to ask questions about the preservative, and perhaps other matters, that I am not.”
“This is rather far afield from the surgical suite,” the doctor said, though Wentworth noted his eyes gleamed. “But I’m game to play detective. If for no other reason than to live up to Mr. Gladbrook’s characterization of me as this famous Sherlock Holmes.” Then Adams frowned. “One question occurs to me, Inspector.”
“And what might that be, sir?”
“You have no idea what this fellow Jack looks like, his age, his station in life, his race?”
“Some unreliable witness accounts not worth tuppence.”
Adams smiled. “Did you not worry that I or Mr. Gladbrook might not be the killer, or perhaps the both of us, come here to win your confidence, lead you to some alley and dispatch you like a sacrificial lamb?”
“Of course I did,” Wentworth said.
The doctor at first seemed to think he was making a joke and smiled. The expression soon leveled, as Wentworth extracted from his pocket the sheet of paper that had just been delivered to him.
“My associate has just spent the past several hours looking into that very question. And he has verified that you and Mr. Gladbrook were accounted for on the early morning hours of 31 August, 8 September, and 30 September. I had him interview those intimate with Lord Ashton too and he, as well, could not be our Jack. As to his employer”—Wentworth’s voice fell to a whisper—“I’m satisfied with taking it as a matter of faith that Her Majesty is a most unlikely suspect. Don’t you agree?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “So, shall we get on the trail of our killer, Doctor? I myself feel a certain urgency in this matter.”
—
Seven P.M. of a dank and grim evening. The sun was long gone, and mist and fog had coalesced over the East End of London.
But Jacques LaFleur felt a warmth deep within him.
Ah, there she is. Yes, yes, yes.
Jacques had had his eye on this one for some time.
Something about the way she sauntered, about the way she sang Irish songs as she walked unsteadily, drunk, down the street. About the way she would glower and launch her spittle-flecked temper at those who caused offense, real or imagined, on the pavement.
Jacques now saw her walking on the opposite side of the street. Not slim, not fat. More comely than the others, although that didn’t matter to him in any way. What mattered was what was inside her. He laughed to himself.
The woman, wearing a brown brocade dress and decked with a shawl, and—as always—no hat, strolled along Chicksand Street. She paused, engaged a man in conversation. Their words ended and she continued on her way.
Jacques had a pet name for her: she was his Little Heart. This, because she seemed like someone a boy—like Jacques in his youth—would form a youthful but deep affection for.
He walked in the same direction as she did, remaining, though, across the road. For a time he was lost in thought. Jacques had experienced an arduous journey to arrive here—both in London and at the level of satisfaction he had
now achieved. Growing up a milliner’s son in Oldham, outside Manchester, he had not distinguished himself in that workaday city. This had perplexed him. True, he was not a pretty youth, nor a handsome young man, nor a talented student, nor driven at commerce; he was, though, sharp and charming and he could never fathom why he was not held in higher regard. This concerned him and angered him, and resentfully he left the region of his birth and traveled to London.
Initially the fair-haired Jacques fared no better than in the north, securing fitful employment in menial labor. This stoked his anger, and he regarded those in better circumstances with eyes he’d been told burned like a tiger’s. Carting sacks of coffee and tea for an importer and staves for a cooper and skeins for a weaver, sweeping sawdust at a butcher’s shop, shoveling coal for Hogg’s Foundry…the list, and the jobs, interminable, and his life as bland as blancmange. Even the occasional girl, for pay or charm, did little to stimulate.
Until one day an urge led—no, forced—him to step across a line.
From good to bad, from legal to not.
A drunken gentleman—by his clothes, of means—had stumbled and fallen on a deserted street in the East End. He’d come to the district for the principal vice men of means traveled here from the western part of the city. He’d finished his business at a bawdy house up the road, and was now seeking a hansom to take him back to the bosom of his wife and children. Jacques suspected he could honestly say to his woman that he had not dallied—because surely he was so drunk he wouldn’t remember having done so.
Jacques had relieved him of his wallet and gold watch and a small revolver (which told him that if he were to continue along these lines, he would have to remember to be very, very careful).
From that day forth, Jacques had a new calling.
That included being a mutcher—when he stole from drunks—and a mug-hunter (or the new parlance, a “mugger”) when he stole from someone else.
Burglary was always good, too.
This life suited him indeed. The old Jacques was gone, the new one reborn. Yes, there was a bit of a diversion to Newgate Prison, but that was behind him now and he was sitting pretty. More content than he’d ever been.
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper Page 100
