City of Darkness

by Kim Wright

  “Oh, it’s important, alright. I danced beside the Devil himself. Last night, I seen the Ripper with Catherine Eddowes, only thirty minutes before he carved her up.” Frilly paused and reached into her bag once more for another taste of the flask.

  “Here’s a pound, Frilly,” interrupted Trevor, putting the note in her hand. “What else can you tell us?”

  “Why thank you Guv! See Davy, I told you it was good information. I saw old Cathy Eddowes, late last night.”

  “How late?” Trevor interrupted.

  “Church just struck one bell.”

  “And where was she?”

  “Coming down Market Street.”

  Trevor nodded slowly. The time was right and the part of town was right, just a few blocks from the jail where Eddowes had been released at 12:45.

  Frilly smiled with satisfaction at his reaction and continued. “She was in the company of a man about thirty years old. Medium tall, medium build, with a mustache, but formally dressed, a gentleman.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “He wore a dark cape and…and…”

  “And what?”

  “A red neckerchief. Yes, a red neckerchief, loose around his collar.”

  “Was he carrying anything?”

  “Yes, he had something in his left hand, tucked under his cape, but I couldn’t see what. But the man made me go all queer, you know, as if my senses knew he was a bad ‘un. You get the instinct after you’ve been on the streets for awhile. I got cold chills up and down me backside, as I passed them.”

  “Anything else? Did you hear him say anything?”

  “No, he seemed to be whispering to Cathy and she was giggling, pleased as punch.” The woman stopped and raised her eyebrows reflectively. “Guess the old gal never did develop the instinct, did she?”

  “I guess not,” Trevor said. “Use that money to get some food in you, Frilly, and a warm place to sleep tonight.”

  “Thanks again, Guv’ner. Davy, if you come over to Market Street, look me up. It’s been a long time, you know,” she said with a wink as she left the room.

  “Detective Welles,” Davy said, springing to his feet the second the door was closed. “Earlier another person gave a very similar description of a man seen with Elizabeth Stride.”

  “Let me read the statement.”

  Davy handed him the report. “See, Sir? A dark man, medium, well-dressed, a moustache and a full cape or coat. Full enough to hide something – something like a doctor’s bag, Sir? Seen once with Eddowes and once with Stride and that’s unlikely chance, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I think we have a real lead here, Davy. And the red neckerchief relates back to something I earlier found, a red fiber under Anne Chapman’s fingernail. Well, we certainly have no lack of suspects, do we? Midwives and foreigners and dark men in capes.”

  Davy nodded. “I have sheets of notes here. Everyone in London seemed to see Liz or Catherine last night with a man or two or three. Given the professional calling of the ladies they didn’t seem to lack for men about.”

  “You seem to know a few of the ladies yourself, Mabrey.”

  Davy flushed. “The East End was my beat, Sir, has been for months – “

  Trevor laughed and stood up, stretching. “Relax, boy. I don’t think there’s a man on the force who’s prepared to cast that particular stone at your head. Now get your hat and coat. I’d like to have a pint and look over each other’s notes to bring us up to date. Damn it.”

  For in putting on his own coat, Trevor had dropped a pack of tobacco to the floor. As he bent over to collect it he noticed something lying under the door, a gray envelope with ‘DETECTIVE’ neatly printed on the outside. Trevor tore open the seal and pulled out a single sheet of writing paper. Aloud he read:

  DETECITVE WELLES, I SAW YOU THERE

  I CROUCHED AND WATCHED FROM MY LAIR

  I WITNESSED YOU SICKEN AT THE SIGHT

  OF POOR OLD CATHY, IN THE ALLEY LAST NIGHT

  YOUR BOBB IES, HOW THEY SEARCHED FOR ME

  BUT IN THE DARK THEY COULD NOT SEE

  I DID NOT BLINK AS THEY DREW NEAR

  I SAT AND CHEWED ON CATHERINE’S EAR

  I SEND THIS NOTE, TO LET YOU KNOW

  I’LL RETURN TO STRIKE A BLOW

  AT SOME OLD WHORE STILL WALKING ROUND

  HER TIME FOR LIVING, I WILL COUNT DOWN

  I’LL LAY HER OPEN, SEE HER SPOUT

  WHO KNOWS WHAT ORGANS I’LL TAKE OUT

  SO REST DETECTIVE, I’LL SAY GOODNIGHT

  BUT I WILL RETURN FOR MORE DELIGHT

  JACK THE RIPPER

  “You think it’s real, Sir?” Davy asked. “You think he’s been here, in Scotland Yard?”

  “Probably not,” Trevor said, although the note in his hands was trembling slightly. “Most of these things are hoaxes.”

  “Hope so, Sir. I mean, how many people could even know you’re head of the case now? It’s only been a few hours. Hasn’t been in the papers, has it, Sir? But yet Jack called you out by name.”

  “Yes,” Trevor said shortly. “Yes, he certainly did.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  11:29 PM

  A human kidney is a beautiful thing. It has an almost pearlized pink sheen, especially when it has been as carefully cleaned and trimmed as the one he now holds in his hand. It has a womanly shape, a graceful undulation, and he regrets that he must sacrifice such perfection to this jar of alcohol before him. But he has waited as long as he dares. This kidney is – he pauses to do the math – forty-six hours departed from its owner and although he knows the alcohol will dull its glow and begin to nibble at the sharp outline of the severed veins, he also knows that if he wishes to keep this memento at all, he must take steps to preserve it.

  He opens the jar, drops the kidney inside, and watches it descend through the clear liquid to the glass bottom. He puts the jar on his table before his candle, cocks his head, and stares with absorption.

  Blood is the great equalizer.

  There are a few others who also acknowledge this truth, who share with him in this brotherhood of blood. The world sets the royal above the common, the male above female, white above black, Christian above Jew, the first born above his younger brother - and yet in the end the blood is all the same. Forget ashes. Forget dust. We begin in blood and end in blood, a fact the vast majority of society strives steadily to ignore.

  Despite what the papers say, he knows he is not a beast. He believes in God. Actually, he believes in two gods. The god of order, of law, the god of the mind and of science. The one he worships as he eats his breakfast, as he listens to violins, as he walks the morning streets looking at the girls in their soft blue dresses. The girls he knows he is supposed to want, the ones he sometimes does.

  But he is no hypocrite. No, still not quite a hypocrite despite the steady and methodical manner in which life has attempted to make him so. He acknowledges this god of daylight and also the deeper, angrier god, the leveling god of sex and death, the one that watches over this kidney, the one who roams the streets at night and who cries out into the darkness like a wounded wolf.

  There is nothing unnatural in this, is there? We are all enslaved to the same cycles and there is no reason to feel shame. He walks in light, he walks in darkness, and yet sometimes he wonders: Which one is real, and which is the dream?

  CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN

  October 3

  4:40 PM

  Despite his best intentions of getting some rest, Trevor found himself once again standing at the door of Geraldine Bainbridge’s house. In the days when he was a new detective and one who approached every case with an inordinate degree of seriousness, Trevor had adopted the habit of turning to Geraldine whenever he was fitful or depressed. The Mayfair home may have been unorthodox but it was a haven, perhaps the only true haven he knew in London.

  Or so he told himself. But he also knew that it was probably the presence of Leanna which now drove his feet up these familiar steps. This was insanity
. With his schedule, he should be seizing these brief hours to sleep, not to mention that only the previous morning he had vowed to avoid her entirely. But he had come back to this door nonetheless, to soak in the warmth of the fire, the tea, Emma’s quiet sympathy, Geraldine’s comforting habit of taking on his troubles as her own. And yes, perhaps, to see the girl.

  Leanna and Tom had been playing chess when he arrived, and they rose rapidly as introductions were made all around. Trevor had often heard Geraldine speak proudly of her nephew but he had never actually met the boy and it was a bit startling to see him standing there so vibrant and blond, the male version of Leanna. Tom grasped Trevor’s outreached hand in both of his and urged him to tell every detail of the Ripper case. The morning papers, as well as the afternoon and perhaps, judging from the size of the heap, those of the day before, lay on the divan and Tom impatiently pushed them aside, settled in beside Trevor, and demanded a recounting of the story. Trevor was careful not to divulge sensitive information, but he still enjoyed getting a fresh perspective on the case and within minutes Leanna, Emma, Gage and Gerry also pulled up chairs, allowing Trevor the pleasant sensation of being on stage.

  “My fondest hope,” he confided to Tom, “is to someday have a forensics laboratory like the one in Paris. Our present methods are quite hit-or-miss and it’s appalling to think an institution like Scotland Yard has allowed itself to fall so far behind on the times.”

  “I can’t imagine there could be resistance to such a laboratory,” Tom said. “Is it purely a matter of money?”

  “Would that it were. More money always helps, of course, and there is a bright side to this Ripper business. Since the Yard is enjoying so much publicity, Parliament has held a special session and granted us more funds. But that money is going to beefing up the staff with more bobbies, not a laboratory.” Trevor mustered a small, tight smile. “But even funding is an easy task compared to the problem of changing attitudes. Scotland Yard likes to deduce. To talk to people, interview witnesses, and draw motives. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but interviews can prove misleading and contrary.”

  “While facts don’t lie,” Tom prompted.

  “Generally they don’t. The Yard has simply failed to recognize the importance of actual physical evidence, of establishing proof and not just motive or opportunity. Deduction is all well and good in those sort of drawing room mysteries the ladies like to read,” – here Trevor turned toward Gerry with an elaborate head bow which made her snort in mock indignation - “the kind where there are only ten suspects and four of those conveniently die before the fifth chapter. But in a city which holds hundreds of potential Rippers…”

  “Indeed,” said Tom “Are the French truly that far ahead of us forensically? I know they’ve made some recent medical strides we just can’t match though my professors are loath to admit it.”

  “Ah, it drives me nearly mad,” said Trevor. “They’ve developed something called the Bertillion System, although I’m probably pronouncing it wrong. Impossible language, you know. But the idea is that there are certain physical measurements – around the cranium specifically, but also the fingers and toes – that are particular to each person and these measurements don’t change throughout life.”

  “I don’t understand,” Leanna said. “How do bone measurements help you find a killer?”

  “I’m not sure,” Trevor admitted. “I think the methodology should be more useful in indentifying if the person in question is the right one, or, conversely, in eliminating someone as a suspect. This Bertillion chap has apparently measured every inmate in a certain Parisian prison, created a file of their particulars, and was later able to identify 241 multiple offenders. Multiple offenders - you know, a person who commits the same type of crime over and over, like our friend the Ripper. 241. An amazing number of cases to for a single man to retire, but I don’t know how Bertillion did it.”

  “Would the Parisian police share this information?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, almost certainly, if I could go there and study…” Trevor laughed ruefully. “A pipe dream.”

  Leanna sat frowning into the fire as the talk swirled around her. She was pleased to see Trevor and Tom becoming such fast friends, but it was annoying to be summarily dismissed, especially when she considered that a mere two days earlier Trevor had seemed to seek her opinion. But then she remembered that even on that night, she’d felt pushed aside once he and John had began talking. Perhaps Trevor was one of those men who spoke to women as equals only when there were no other males present.

  “What are you thinking, Leanna?” Trevor broke in, smiling as he smoothed down his sideburns with a fingertip.

  “I was wondering if the women fought back,” she lied smoothly. “The killer may be walking around with bruises or scratches.”

  “Yes indeed, Liz Stride scratched him. Very astute of you to think of it. She was the only one to get in much of a blow at all, I’m afraid, since it would appear he strangles first and strangles from behind.”

  “They must be terrified.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “The women of Whitechapel,” Leanna repeated. “They must be terrified.”

  “I rode through the East End on my way here last night,” Tom said dryly. “Business hadn’t seemed to fall off much.”

  “They don’t have a choice,” Leanna said. “It’s how they earn their living, feed their children.”

  “Hard to think of prostitutes having children,” Tom mused.

  “You should talk to John,” Leanna said irritably. “They have them, more than anyone. Which is why they need his clinic….”

  With this, she picked up her needlepoint and began to jab at the circle of daisies with shaky little punches of her needle. Tom filled the silence with an amusing story about one of his anatomy classes and Trevor sat looking at Leanna with heavy-lidded eyes. How could she have guessed of Catherine Eddowes’ daughter? Or of Frilly’s terror? Obviously she did not know any women in their line of work, but her remarks were close enough to the truth. Leanna had the gift of empathy, of sensing what life must be like for others without ever having directly experienced such trouble herself. In a society which forced women to be either ignorant or jaded, with no levels in between, Leanna’s imagination made her a rare specimen.

  Rare and beyond his reach. She had already begun to mouth John’s opinions as her own.

  5:40 PM

  Mary Kelly looked into the cracked mirror and smiled back at herself, pleased. The new lip rouge was quite becoming and she had pulled her russet curls up in a new manner this evening, a style which would have been too severe for most women but which was fetching on one who possessed, as did Mary, a perfectly proportioned profile.

  She commanded a top price and could afford to be a bit choosy in her selection. She liked them young and relatively clean - the fishmongers and slaughterhouse workers weren’t for her, thank you - and if business was slow on a particular night and she was forced to temporarily lower her standards, then the price went up. As high as two pounds. Her pretty face and her ability to drive a hard bargain had earned her this room of her own off Hanover Street. It wasn’t much of a home, and Mary knew it, but it was her own nonetheless, and returning to it each evening gave her a sense of privacy and dignity. She didn’t have to share a bed-let with a gaggle of other working girls or, worse, resort to knee-tremblers in the alleyway. She could have a fire and a wash basin and even a spot of tea between trade. The bookcase with its titles of Milton and Smollett and Chaucer would have struck her customers as quite odd should any of them have paused to look, but the gentlemen were not in the habit of staying long and Mary did not encourage even the slightest gesture of familiarity once the job was done.

  The other girls were abuzz about the killings but such thoughts did not overly distress Mary Kelly. The Ripper seemed to favor a very different sort of woman – older, unsteady, desperate, weakened by alcohol and too many years in the life. The sort of woman who would still be on the streets at
one or two in the morning, who would be willing to risk following a stranger into an alley. Her father had read her the works of Charles Darwin, and – although she doubted her father would have agreed with this particular interpretation – Mary considered The Ripper an agent of natural selection. He did little more than hasten the inevitable for the poor wretches he took, and he’d never shown a proclivity for a woman like her. Someone who was young and strong and sober, who had her wits about her, someone with a steady enough clientele that she was usually back in her own bed alone before midnight.

  On this particular night Mary pulled her favorite red stole over her bare shoulders and headed out in the direction of the Fox and Hound. Although the streets were dark she strode confidently through them, her empty purse slapping her thigh with each wide step. The purse would not remain empty for long.

  Nor, God willing, would her stomach. There was generally a gent or two at the tavern who would buy her a pint and a bit of supper in exchange for the pleasure of her company, and perhaps as a prelude to other pleasures. Mary had the reputation, rare among her rivals, of being charming company even when upright.

  As she turned east on Merchant Street, Mary stopped. A man, very still and well-dressed, stood in the fog wearing a tall hat and red muffler. Mary smiled slightly. Perhaps the walk to the tavern would not be necessary tonight.

  “Evening, Sir,” she said, proud that her voice carried not the slightest trace of a cockney accent.

  The man turned halfway, his face so concealed by the hat brim and muffler that only his dark eyes were visible. Such concealment was not unusual for the East End where a certain class of man might be hesitant to be recognized, and Mary had even known a couple who’d adopted a full disguise. A little more subterfuge than the situation called for, at least in her opinion, but perhaps the costuming had been part of their naughty game. No matter. It was scarcely her job to wonder at the motives of men.