“The beat man swears not.”
The constable agreed with the inspector.
“Wipe it off,” Sir Charles said.
Nobody did anything.
“There’ll be mob rule. We’re still few, and the warm are many.”
The Commissioner took his own handkerchief to the chalk, and rubbed it away. Nobody protested at the destruction of the evidence.
“There,” Sir Charles said, job done. “Sometimes I think I have to do everything myself.”
Beauregard saw a narrow-minded impulsiveness that might have passed for stouthearted valour at Rorke’s Drift or Lucknow, and understood just how Sir Charles could make a decision that ended in a massacre.
The dignitaries drifted away, back to their cabs and clubs and comfort. And the East End coppers stayed behind to clean up.
“Right,” said Lestrade, “I want the cells full by sundown. Haul in every tart, every pimp, every bruiser, every pickpocket. Threaten ’em with whatever you want. Someone knows something, and sooner or later, someone’ll talk.”
That would please the circle in Limehouse not a bit, Beauregard reflected. Furthermore, Lestrade was wrong. Beauregard had a high enough estimation of the Professor and his colleagues to believe that if any criminal in London knew so much as a hint as to the identity of the Ripper, it would have been passed directly to him. In the week and a half since he had been taken to meet with them, he had heard nothing.
He found himself alone with Genevieve as sun set. She took off her cap.
“There,” she said, shaking her hair out, “that’s better.”
XI
Dr Seward’s Diary
October 22, 1888. I am keeping Mary Kelly. She is so like Lucy, so like what Lucy became. I have paid her rent up to the end of the month. I visit her when I can, when my work at the Hall permits, and we indulge in our peculiar exchange of fluids.
The “double event”—hideous expression—has unnerved me, and I think I shall halt my nightwork. It is still necessary, but it is becoming too dangerous. The police are against me, and there are vampires everywhere. Besides, I am learning from Kelly, learning about myself.
She tells me, as we lie on the bed in her lodgings in Miller’s Court. that she has gone off the game, that she is not seeing other men. I know she is lying, but do not make an issue of it. I open her pink flesh up and vent myself inside her, and she gently taps my blood, her teeth sliding into me. I have scars on my body, scars that itch like the wound Renfield gave me in Purfleet. I am determined not to turn, not to grow weak.
Money is not important. Kelly can have whatever I have left from my income. Since I came to Toynbee Hall. I’ve been drawing no salary and heavily subsidising the purchase of medical supplies and other necessaries. There has always been money in my family. No title, but always money.
Stride knew me when the police brought her to the Hall, and she would have identified me if Beauregard had not finished her. Others must have seen me about my nightwork—between Stride and Eddowes. I ran through the streets in a panic, bloodied and with a scalpel in my fist—and there is a not-bad description in the Police Gazette—There are so many fabulations about the Ripper—fuelled by still more silly notes to the press and police—that I can hide unnoticed among them, even if the occasional rumour strikes uncomfortably close.
A patient of mine, an uneducated immigrant named Kosminsky, confessed to me that he was Jack the Ripper, and I duly turned him over to Lestrade for examination. He showed me the file of similar confessions. And somewhere out there is the letter-writer, chortling over his silly red ink and arch jokes. George Lusk, chairman of the Vigilance Committee, was sent half a calf’s kidney with a note headed “From Hell”, claiming that the enclosure was from one of the dead women. “Tother piece I fried and ate, it was very nise.”
I worry about Genevieve. Other vampires have a kind of red fog in their brains, but she is different. I read a piece by Henry Jekyll in The Lancet—speculating on the business of the vampire bloodline, as delicately as possible suggesting that there might be something impure about the royal strain the Prince Consort has imported. So many of Dracula’s get are twisted, self-destructing creatures, torn apart by their changing bodies and uncontrollable desires. Royal blood, of course, is notoriously thin. And Jekyll has “disappeared”. Lestrade denies that he has been carted off to Devil’s Dyke, but many who dare venture an opinion against the Prince Consort seem to get lost in the fog.
I know what I do is right. I was right to save Lucy by cutting off her head, and I have been right to save the others. Nicholls, Schön, Stride, Eddowes. I am right.
But I shall stop.
I am an alienist, and Kelly has made me turn my look back upon myself. Is my behaviour so different from poor Renfield’s, amassing his tiny deaths like a miser hoards pennies? Dracula made a freak of him, as he has made a monster of me.
And I am a monster. Jack the Ripper. I shall be classed with Sweeney Todd, Sawney Beane, Jonathan Wild, Billy Bonney and endlessly served up in the Police Gazette and Famous Crimes: Past and Present—Already, there are penny dreadfuls about Saucy Jack, Red Jack, Spring-Heel’d Jack, Bloody Jack. Soon, there will be music hall turns, sensational melodramas, a wax figure in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.
I meant to destroy a monster, not to become one.
I have made Kelly tell me about Lucy. The story, I am no longer ashamed to realise, excites me. I cannot care for Kelly as herself, so I must care for her for Lucy’s sake.
The Lucy I remember is smug and prim and properly flirtatious, delicately encouraging my attentions but then clumsily turning me away when Arthur dangled his title under her nose. Somewhere between that befuddling but enchanting girl and the screaming leech whose head I sawed free of its shoulders was the new-born who turned Kelly. Dracula’s get. With each retelling of the nocturnal encounter on the Heath, Kelly adds new details. She either remembers more, or invents them for my sake.
I am not sure I care which.
Sometimes, Lucy’s advances to Kelly are tender, seductive, mysterious, with heated caresses before the Dark Kiss. At other times, they are a brutal rape, with needle-teeth shredding flesh and muscle, pain mixed in with the pleasure.
We illustrate with our bodies Kelly’s stories.
I can no longer remember the faces of the dead women. There is only Kelly’s face. And that becomes more like Lucy with each passing night.
I have bought Kelly clothes similar to those Lucy wore. The nightgown she wears before we couple is very like the shroud in which Lucy was buried. Kelly styles her hair like Lucy’s now. Her speech is improving, the Irish accent fading.
Soon, I hesitate to hope, Kelly will be Lucy.
XII
“It’s been nearly a month, Charles,” the vampire girl ventured, “perhaps it’s over?”
Beauregard shook his head.
“No, Genevieve,” he said, “Good things come to an end, bad things have to be stopped.”
“You’re right, of course.”
It was well after dark, and they were in the Ten Bells. Beauregard was becoming as familiar with Whitechapel as he had with the other strange territories to which the Diogenes Club had despatched him. He spent his days asleep in Chelsea, and his nights in the East End, with Genevieve, hunting the Ripper. And not catching him.
Everyone was starting to relax. The vigilante groups who had roamed the streets two weeks ago, making mischief and abusing innocents, were still wearing their sashes and carrying coshes, but they spent more time in pubs than the fog. After a month of double- and triple-shifts, policemen were gradually being redistributed back to their regular duties. It was not as if the Ripper did anything to reduce crime elsewhere in the city.
A conspiracy against the Prince Consort had been exposed last week, and, outside Buckingham Palace, Van Helsing’s head had company. Shaw, the socialist, was there, and an adventurous young man named Rassendyll. Among the conspirators had been a new-born or two, which added
a new colour to the political spectrum. The police were required to exact reprisals upon the conspirators and their families. Devil’s Dyke was overcrowded with agitators and insurrectionists. W. T. Stead, an editor who had spoken against the Prince Consort, had been dragged out of his offices by wolfish Carpathians, and torn apart for amusement.
Now, neither Genevieve nor Beauregard drank. They just watched the others. Beside the drunken vigilantes, the pub was full of women, either genuine prostitutes or police agents in disguise. That was one of the several daft schemes that had gone from being laughed at in Scotland Yard to being implemented.
In the Diogenes Club, there was talk of outright rebellion in India and the Far East. A reporter for the Civil and Military Gazette had tried to assassinate Varney during an official visit to Lahore, and he—at least—was still at liberty and plotting. Many in her dominions were ceasing to recognise the Queen as their rightful ruler, if only because they sensed that since her resurrection she had not truly worn the crown. Each week, more ambassadors were withdrawn from the Court of St James. The Turks, whose memories were longer than Beauregard had expected, were clamouring for reparations from the Prince Consort, with regard to crimes of war committed against them in the fifteenth century.
Beauregard tried to look at Genevieve without her noticing, without her penetrating his thoughts. In the light, she looked absurdly young. He had to be guarded with her. It was hard to keep his thoughts in rein, and impossible fully to trust any vampire.
“You’re right,” she said. “He’s still out there. He hasn’t given up.”
“Perhaps the Ripper’s taken a holiday?”
“Or been distracted.”
“Some say he’s a sea captain. He could be on a voyage.”
Genevieve thought hard, then shook her head. “No. He’s still here. I can sense it.”
“You sound like Lees, the psychical fellow.”
“It’s part of what I am,” she explained. “The Prince Consort shapeshifts, but I can sense things. It’s to do with our bloodlines. There’s a fog around everything, but I can feel the Ripper out there somewhere. He’s not finished yet.”
“This place is annoying me,” he said. “Let’s get out, and see if we can do some good.”
They had been patrolling like policemen. When not following one of the innumerable false leads that cropped up daily in this case, they just wandered, hoping to come up against a man with a big bag of knives and darkness in his heart. It was absurd, when you thought about it.
“I’d like to call in on the Hall. Jack Seward has a new ladylove, and has been neglecting his duties.”
They stood up, and he helped her arrange her cloak on her shoulders.
“Careless fellow,” he observed.
“Not at all. He’s just driven, obsessive. I’m glad he’s found a distraction. He’s been heading for a nervous collapse for years. He had a bad time of it when Vlad Tepes first came, I believe, although it’s not something he cares to talk about much.”
They pushed through the ornately-glassed doors and into the streets. Beauregard shivered in the cold, but Genevieve just breezed through the icy fog as if it were light spring sunshine. He had constantly to remind himself this sharp girl was not human.
Down the street stood a cab, the horse funnelling steam from its nostrils. Beauregard recognised the cabbie.
“What is it?” Genevieve asked, noticing his sudden tension.
“Recent acquaintances,” he said.
The door drifted open, creating a swirl in the fog. Beauregard knew they were surrounded. The tramp huddled in the alleyway across the road, the idler hugging himself against the cold, the one he couldn’t see in the shadows under the tobacconist’s shop. He thumbed the catch of his cane, but did not think he could take them all and look after Genevieve.
Someone leaned out of the cab, and beckoned them. Beauregard, with casual care, walked over.
XIII
“Genevieve Dieudonné,” Beauregard introduced her, “Colonel Sebastian Moran, formerly of the First Bangalore Pioneers, author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas, and one of the greatest scoundrels unhanged . . .”
The new-born in the coach was an angry-looking brute, uncomfortable in evening dress, moustache bristling fiercely. When alive, he must have had the ruddy tan of an “Injah hand”, but now he looked like a viper, poison sacs bulging under his chin.
Moran grunted something that might count as an acknowledgement, and ordered them to get into the coach.
Beauregard hesitated, then stepped back to allow her to go first. He was being clever, she realised. If the Colonel meant harm, he would keep an eye on the man he considered a threat. The new-born would not believe her four and a half centuries stronger than he. If it came to it, she could take him apart.
Genevieve sat opposite Moran, and Beauregard took the seat next to her. Moran tapped the roof, and the cab trundled off.
With the motion, the black-hooded bundle next to the Colonel nodded forwards, and had to be straightened up and leaned back.
“A friend?” Beauregard asked.
Moran snorted. Inside the bundle was a man, either dead or insensible.
“What would you say if I told you this was Jack the Ripper?”
“I suppose I’d have to take you seriously. I understand you only hunt the most dangerous game.”
Moran grinned like a devil, tiger-fangs under his whiskers.
“Huntin’ hunters,” he said. “It’s the only sport worth talkin’ about.”
“They say Quatermain and Roxton are better than you with a rifle, and that Russian general who uses the Tartar warbow is the best of all.”
The Colonel brushed away the comparisons.
“They’re all still warm.”
Moran had a stiff arm out, holding back the clumsy bundle.
“We’re on our own in this huntin’ trip,” he said. “The rest of them aren’t in it.”
Beauregard considered.
“It’s been nearly a month since the last matter,” the Colonel said, “Jack’s finished. But that’s not enough for us, is it? If business is to get back to the usual, Jack has to be seen to be finished.”
They were near the river. The Thames was a sharp, foul undertaste in the air. All the filth of the city wound up in the river, and was disseminated into the seven seas. Garbage from Rotherhithe and Stepney drifted to Shanghai and Madagascar.
Moran got a grip on the black winding sheet, and wrenched it away from a pale, bloodied face. Genevieve recognised the man.
“Druitt,” she said.
“Montague John Druitt, I believe,” the Colonel said. “A colleague of yours, with very peculiar nocturnal habits.”
This was not right.
Druitt’s left eye opened in a rind of blood. He had been badly beaten, but was still alive.
“The police considered him early in the investigation,” Beauregard said—a surprise to Genevieve—“but he was ruled out.”
“He had easy access,” Moran said, “Toynbee Hall is almost dead centre of the pattern made by the murder sites. He fits the popular picture, a crackpot toff with bizarre delusions. Nobody—begging your pardon, ma’am—really believes an educated man works among tarts and beggars out of Christian kindness. And nobody is goin’ to object to Druitt hangin’ for the slaughter of a handful of whores. He’s not exactly royalty, is he? He don’t even have an alibi for any of the killings.”
“You evidently have close friends at the Yard?”
Moran flashed his feral grin again.
“So, do I extend my congratulations to you and your ladyfriend,” the Colonel asked, “have you caught Jack the Ripper?”
Beauregard took a long pause and thought. Genevieve was confused, realising how much had been kept from her. Druitt was trying to say something, but his broken mouth couldn’t frame words. The coach was thick with the smell of slick blood, and her own mouth was dry. She had not fed in too long.
“No,” Beauregard said, “
Druitt will not fit. He plays cricket.”
“So does another blackguard I could name. That don’t prevent him from bein’ a filthy murderer.”
“In this case, it does. On the mornings after the second and third and fourth murders, Druitt was on the field. After the double event, he made a half-century and took two wickets. I hardly think he could have managed that if he’d been up all night chasing and killing women.”
Moran was not impressed.
“You’re beginnin’ to sound like that rotten detective. All clues and evidence and deductions. Druitt here is committin’ suicide tonight, fillin’ his pockets with stones and takin’ a swim in the Thames. I dare say the body’ll have been bashed about a bit before he’s found. But before he does the deed, he’ll leave behind a confession. And his handwritin’ is goin’ to look deuced like that on those bloody crank letters.”
Moran made Druitt’s head nod.
“It won’t wash, Colonel. What if the real Ripper starts killing again?”
“Whores die, Beauregard. It happens often. We found one Ripper, we can always find another.”
“Let me guess. Pedachenko, the Russian agent? The police considered him for a moment or two. Sir William Gull, the Queen’s physician? The theosophist, Dr Donstan? The solicitor, Soames Forsyte? The cretin, Aron Kosminsky? Poor old Leather Apron Pizer? Dr Jekyll? Prince Eddy? Walter Sickert? Dr Cream? It’s a simple matter to put a scalpel into someone’s hand and make him up for the part. But that won’t stop the killing . . .”
“I didn’t take you for such a fastidious sort, Beauregard. You don’t mind servin’ vampires, or – ” a sharp nod at Genevieve “– consortin’ with them. You may be warm, but you’re chillin’ by the hour. Your conscience lets you serve the Prince Consort . . .”
“I serve the Queen, Moran.”
The Colonel started to laugh, but—after a flash of razor lightning in the dark of the cab—found Beauregard’s sword-cane at his throat.
“I know a silversmith, too,” Beauregard said. “Just like Jack.”
Druitt tumbled off his seat, and Genevieve caught him. He was broken inside.
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