City of Darkness

by Kim Wright

  “It seems you would need to study the methodology first hand,” Emma said. “Reading something like that from a paper –“

  “I know,” Trevor sighed. “Not to mention it had probably been badly translated from the original French.”

  “Perhaps I could – “

  “My grandfather did something similar,” Leanna said abruptly, cutting Emma off and twisting completely toward Trevor in her seat. “He was interested in identifying animals by the bite marks they made and he used….it wasn’t clay but I don’t think it was wax either. Something that he heated and poured, I do remember that much.”

  “Really?” Trevor said, surprised. “What was he hoping to learn?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. Maybe Tom could tell you. But I know that he gathered the method from a local taxidermist.”

  “A taxidermist?” Trevor sat back, mulling this over.

  “Well it fits, does it not? They’re always reconstructing animals, even in cases where parts are missing. If they can concoct an entire jaw from a fossilized bite mark, couldn’t you reconstruct a knife blade from the imprint of a wound?”

  “Possibly. That’s certainly the idea. But the problem seems to be finding material subtle enough to fill the wound but strong enough to be extricated without breaking or crumbling. I need to figure what this material is, precisely what temperature is most conductive to a clean imprint, and I need to do it quickly.”

  “There haven’t been any killings for a while,” Emma pointed out.

  “No, there haven’t.”

  “So, perhaps your Jack has stopped.”

  “I rather doubt it. We’re still getting the letters.”

  “But if he stops,” Emma went on, “that is a victory, in a way. It means you’ve frightened him off and forced him to move on to a new location.”

  “It’s a victory in the sense there are no more dead bodies,” Trevor conceded, gazing out into the nimbus of a streetlight. He had often told Davy he did not care who captured the Ripper or how he was caught, but did he really mean it? “However, having the Ripper simply move along would not be a victory for justice.”

  “But justice is sometimes an impossible goal, is it not?” Emma persisted. “An absence of injustice may the best you can hope for.”

  “Quite right,” Trevor admitted, for she was.

  “I don’t understand that line of thinking at all,” Leanna said. “Trevor wants a resolution, not a mere ending. He wants to hold the Ripper in the palm of his hand, to know he’s the one who has stopped him.”

  “I’m sure that’s what he wants,” Emma said. “But what Trevor wants and what ends up occurring may not be the same thing.”

  “Oh Emma, for once just stop and hear yourself,” Leanna said, twisting her gloves in agitation. “I don’t know why you always must be so, so….”

  “Realistic?” Emma said. Her voice was so level that it translated into the deepest level of sarcasm. The carriage was going through a darkened part of the street and for a moment Trevor could see neither woman’s face.

  “Pragmatic,” Leanna finally said. “Trevor would never be satisfied with knowing that he’d merely moved the Ripper on, that this killer was out there in the night wreaking his havoc in another district or another country. That wouldn’t be enough, Trevor, would it? Tell her.”

  Trevor looked from Emma’s shadowy form to that of Leanna, and then back again. He could hear both women breathing, waiting, and he sat between them in the silence. He no longer knew what was enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  October 28, 1888

  10:40 AM

  “Blast it,” a voice roared from the doorsill and Trevor looked up from his reports in surprise. Eatwell, his face flushed, was waving a letter in his general direction.

  “Just came,” he sputtered. “You’d better go home and dress.”

  “What is it?” Trevor asked, as Davy also rose to his feet.

  “An epistle from Her Majesty, Queen Victoria,” Eatwell said, flinching with each word. “She wishes an audience with the chief detective of the Ripper case at Buckingham Palace, one this afternoon.”

  “Blimey,” Davy exploded, as Trevor gazed down at the letter.

  “Yes, blimey sums it up,” said Eatwell. “I’ve served the Yard for thirty-five years and I’ve no more than glimpsed Her Majesty through the window of her coach. But our grand Detective Welles is summoned for a private audience.”

  “Yes Sir,” Trevor said, stomach churning, for he had no more than glimpsed the Queen from a carriage window himself.

  “What a job this is,” Davy said, nearly in rapture. “From Mad Maudy to the Queen.”

  11:50 AM

  Leanna rechecked the window for the tenth time and nervously pressed her gown with her hands. This, she was sure, would be a meeting of great significance. She had seen John Harrowman on four different social occasions and each time he had been attentive company. But each time they had also been surrounded by a swarm of people and the morning he had taken her out in his carriage, a day which seemed eons ago now, remained the only time he had touched her.

  Leanna didn’t know what to make of him. In some ways his attitudes were like that of a suitor, but in other ways he remained maddeningly formal and correct, once even deliberately avoiding a chance to bid her goodbye on the private side porch in favor of a more public exit via the front entrance. His words were right, but they seemed to be spoken in the wrong tone of voice, as if John were an unskilled actor in a parish play, sure of his lines but unable to convey the emotions behind them. All her novels were no help, for they generally had heroes who spoke gruffly to the heroine but whose eyes betrayed an inner fire, not a man like John who told her she was lovely but who always seemed to be looking past her, into the next room.

  Today, however, was going to be special. Leanna’s fevered plans and a few strokes of luck had seen to that. Knowing John generally started his rounds in early afternoon, she had invited him for lunch beforehand, carefully choosing a day when she knew Aunt Gerry would be distributing blankets at the veteran’s home. Emma had been the tough one. Things had been terse and uncomfortable between them since the night they’d gone to the theater. Leanna could kick herself for turning Trevor’s rare chance to recreate into an awkward evening, but she had the sense that there was some greater debate going on between Emma and herself, a dialogue that had little to do with Jekyll, Hyde, or even the Ripper. Emma seemed determined to teach her something, but Leanna was tired of learning lessons. If her future was going to be any different from the narrow world society had prescribed for her, it was time to take matters into her own lands.

  This morning, Emma had ultimately decided to go with Geraldine on her mission, and Leanna had rushed to the kitchen, where she flattered Gage so shamelessly about the stuffed chops he had made the week before that he had vowed to serve them to her again that very night. The chops required any number of rare ingredients so Gage would be walking from market to market all afternoon. She and John would have the parlor to themselves.

  Once she finally had seen Geraldine, Emma, and Gage off on their respective errands, Leanna had sprung into action. She had managed to get some of the chicken Gage had served the night before into a warming pan with potatoes and carrots and had galloped up the stairs to change into her silk afternoon dress. She was not particularly adept at putting up her own hair, no more than she was at cooking, and she could only hope John would be so enchanted with her presence that he would overlook any imperfections. Leanna whirled around before the mirror, trying to make sure she had managed to get the back buttons in the right buttonholes. This is the first time I’ve ever been in a house alone, she thought. Always someone with me – a relative or governess or schoolmate. This is the first time I could sing or scream or run about naked with no one to tell.

  Could she get used to it? Could this be a full life? Leanna went to the window again, and peered down into the empty street. An hour alone – such a dizzying experience, as
wild an excursion in its own way as Aunt Gerry’s trek to India – and then, even more amazingly, she would be entertaining John Harrowman all by herself.

  Leanna’s mouth twisted at the thought of an unmarried woman and man left together in a house, even for an hour in the middle of the day. Such an idea would have her mother and the other country ladies in a paroxysm of horror and Leanna suspected such a visit would not be considered proper in London either. But she didn’t care. Today, surely, John would declare himself in some manner or another and if he didn’t, she would have to admit that he likely wasn’t going to. An unnerving thought, that she may emerge from the parlor in a matter of hours with her hopes utterly dashed, but Leanna had lived with uncertainty ever since the night of the dinner party, and she was prepared to endure even the sharpest disappointment rather than to go on much longer in this dreadful state of Not Knowing. Leanna strained toward the window. John had told her he would be by at noon and it was still five minutes until the clock struck that hour, but perhaps he would be early. She closed her eyes and prayed to whichever small ineffectual god protects the hearts of women that he would be.

  12:40 PM

  In the cleanest carriage Scotland Yard had to offer, and in his best suit, Trevor jostled his way through the gates of Buckingham Palace. Despite the grandeur of the facade, the palace was a somewhat forbidding looking structure, for, at the insistence of the Queen, all of the curtains and tapestries were pulled down in mourning for the death of her husband Albert over twenty-five years earlier. The morbidity exhibited by Victoria, who had dressed in black each day of the last two decades, seemed excessive even to Trevor, who had adored the Prince Consort as a boy, and who could still remember the day when, in the school chapel, he had heard Albert was dead.

  But if she had ended her social life with the death of her husband, the Queen was still more than interested in affairs of state, as his own summons proved. Trevor was whisked in and taken through several enormous halls in which his footsteps echoed and his quiet cough resounded as a roar. To his relief he was finally seated in a much smaller study, a rather cozy little nook in fact, with a blazing fire and footstools scattered about, as if this were the room in which the royal family actually lounged. The man who had shown him there disappeared with no offer of tea or of even taking his wrap, and Trevor unclasped his cape and stood uncertainly in the middle of the room.

  He did not have to wait long.

  The doorknob turned and in walked a short, round woman with large blue eyes and a surprisingly youthful expression. Trevor, who had expected the Queen would be announced - with a flaring of trumpets, perhaps - was so startled by this sudden appearance that he dropped his cape to the floor. He bowed, then bowed again, and when he dared to look up the Queen was right before him, extending one chubby hand for a kiss. “Detective Welles, we believe,” she said. It was custom that no one spoke to the Queen until she had addressed them first. Eatwell had warned him of this much at least, and Trevor was grateful to her for taking the initiative.

  “Your Majesty,” he croaked, bowing again, quite stupidly. When he met her eyes, the Queen was smiling in a bemused, private way.

  “We must sit,” she said, nodding toward a circle of chairs. “We hope you will pardon the informality, but this is where we meet the Prime Minister and other government servants such as yourself. A private place can be had even in a cavernous home, can it not?” Her voice was clear, bell-like, beautiful to the ear. Trevor followed her to the chairs, where she sat down, propped her small feet on the nearest footstool, and, with an impatient sweep of her hand, indicated he should do the same.

  “We are sure that you are busy so we won’t take much of your time,” the Queen said. Trevor grinned idiotically, but Victoria was looking straight ahead as if posing for a portrait. “We are outraged by the killings and even more so by the gleeful way the matter has been handled by the press. The mania appears to have faded a bit of late and we’re sure you are the one to thank for that. But we are also certain that you are aware of the potential for riots, for hysteria, if this matter is not definitively closed.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. Certain facts have been kept private.”

  “As they should be.” The Queen now leaned back in her chair and appraised Trevor with a measured gaze. “What we find alarming when we read the reports and we do, of course, read the reports, is that there appears to be so little physical evidence. It would seem the murderer’s clothes must be saturated with blood and must be kept somewhere. And the East End is so close to the dock. Have the cattleboats and passenger boats been examined? Has any investigation been made as to the number of single men occupying rooms to themselves? Is there sufficient surveillance at night?”

  Trevor exhaled sharply. The last thing he had expected to hear was an actual query about the details of the case. And she was right on the money with her questions too, as astute as a trained detective and, heaven knows, more practical than most of them.

  “I too am alarmed by the fact no bloody clothes have been found. It seems incomprehensible that a man covered with blood, as this fiend must be by the time he finished his work, could simply stroll the streets without attracting someone’s attention, so we can only assume he has either found a way to dispose of those clothes when his work is finished or that he is of an profession where blood on his clothing might be expected.”

  “Such as a butcher?”

  “Such as, Ma’am, yes.” Trevor gulped for air. “It has been a lengthy chore to examine the men living by themselves in the East End, but we have attempted to do this and our efforts have yielded us a long list of potential suspects. Thanks to your own speech in Parliament, Your Majesty, the Yard has adequate funds to place twice as many bobbies on the East End nightshift as we would ordinarily have.”

  “And the docks? Could there be a way he is escaping by water?”

  “Always a possibility given the location of Whitechapel, but no, I do not really think that is the case. We have put intensive surveillance all about the harbor and it’s come down to nothing. I am beginning to think our Ripper is not a resident of the East End.” The Queen merely looked at Trevor with an expectant expression. “My feeling, Your Majesty,” he continued, “is that we are dealing with a gentleman, someone who lives in the residential districts of the West Side.”

  Trevor sat back. There. He had said it and he would undoubtedly be tossed from the palace at once.

  “Why do you say this?” Her voice revealed nothing.

  “The skill of the work for one thing and the fact that gentlemen sometimes do…”

  “Have reason to visit Whitechapel?”

  Trevor nodded, a little uncertainly. Victoria was known for her intolerance of improprieties and here he had waltzed through the gates of Windsor and as much as told her that he thought the Ripper was a gentryman with a taste for whores. He would probably not only be thrown from the palace, he would probably be removed from the case. “I apologize, Your Majesty, for the bold and tactless manner…”

  “Nonsense, this is an unpleasant matter and cannot be discussed with pleasant words. We appreciate your frankness, Detective, and we must confess it is not only our own curiosity which has led to this discussion. The true reason we called you here today was to see how we might help in your efforts.”

  Trevor looked at Victoria, astounded. “Forensically, Your Majesty…”

  “We are not familiar with that term.”

  “Ah, my apologies, there is no reason why Your Majesty should be. I am convinced this case will only be solved through evidential police work, which is forensics. Through fibers left on the body, the manner in which the incisions were made, bloodstains and other physical evidence…”

  “We understand. Because of the enormous number of potential suspects you need some scientific way to eliminate a portion of them. To interview and monitor every man in London is an impossibility.”

  By God, she really did understand. Trevor nodded quickly. “There are techniques widel
y used by the Paris police, techniques we are not familiar with…”

  The Queen’s lips twitched. “You are suggesting the French are more informed than the English?”

  “Only in this very small area, Your Majesty.”

  The lips twitched again, this time, Trevor was relieved to see, into the beginning of a smile. “Perhaps a man from Scotland Yard could go to France and study these techniques, then return and teach them to our coroners and detectives.”

  “I for one would be delighted…”

  She lifted her chin. “No, Detective, we cannot spare you from your present duties. Is there another you might suggest?”

  Trevor only hesitated for a moment. “Rayley Abrams. He’s a very quick study.”

  The Queen nodded. “I shall remember the name, mention it to Sir Warren and Abrams will be in Paris within the month. Is there anything else?”

  “Scotland Yard will need a true forensic laboratory before long, Your Majesty, a place set aside specifically to examine physical evidence and to impress upon the men the importance of following exact procedure. One of the reasons we are so hampered in our efforts is that the bodies of the first two victims were washed and moved before they could be examined.”