Anatomy of Evil (29 page)

“It’s part of a kidney. Probably human, by the size.” He lifted the box to his nose and sniffed it. Right then, I decided not to have another kidney pie for at least a year or two. “Not fresh, but not preserved in spirits, either. As I recall, Catherine Eddowes was missing part of a kidney. Mr. Lusk, I suspect you have just won your audience with the commissioner. Sergeant Meadows, send word to DCIs Swanson and Abberline that there has been a new development in the case.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come with me, Lusk.”

“Have there been any changes in Whitechapel that you’ve noticed, Mr. Lusk?” Barker asked as they began to climb the staircase, the box tucked under my employer’s arm. As I approached it, the box gave off a rancid odor, like spoiled meat. Exactly like spoiled meat.

“No changes, save that the Jews are having a time of it lately. By the way, I hope there’s no ill will regarding our little disagreement the other week. I didn’t know you were with the Yard. As you can see, we turn over any information we come across.”

“It’s your mansion, Mr. Lusk. You run it as you see fit.”

Lusk visibly relaxed. “That’s what we like about you, Push. You’re fair-minded.”

“Are the Jews continuing to have messages written about them?”

“They are. Someone’s scribbling warnings all over the district. Everyone’s talking about some sort of Jewish conspiracy.”

We reached the commissioner’s office. We were stopped by Warren’s secretary, but when Lusk wordlessly held out the letter in his hand, he understood that something of importance had occurred. He stepped into his office, and in a moment Warren himself came to the door with Swanson in tow.

“Come in, gentlemen,” he said. “What is your name, sir?”

“I am George Lusk, of the Mile End Vigilance Committee, Commissioner.”

“May I see the note? How did you receive it?”

“It came to my home.”

“Did you open it there?” Warren asked.

“I’m not a fool. It could be just about anything. I opened it in an alleyway outside of the office.”

“When did you get it?”

“About an hour ago.”

Commissioner Warren tapped the box with a fingernail. “Is this what it claims to be?”

“As near as I can tell, yes, sir,” Barker replied.

Warren took the box, raised the lid and peered inside.

“S’truth,” he said. “Do you suppose it is Eddowes’s?”

“Not for certain. We’d have to get a surgeon to put the two pieces together, but Catherine Eddowes has already been interred.”

“If it comes to that, she can be uninterred.”

“After all the pomp and ceremony?” Swanson asked.

“The public need not know. Perhaps Dr. Brown took extensive notes, however, and can confirm or deny this bit of kidney without the need to see the body again. More likely it is a calf or pig’s kidney, or a specimen from a medical establishment.”

“The handwriting does not look the same as the first,” Swanson said, and began to read the postal card out to us.

From Hell

Mr. Lusk

Sor

“Sor?” I asked.

“Do not interrupt,” Barker said. “Continue.”

I send you half of the kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

Signed

Catch me when you can

Mishter Lusk

“Addressed to?” Barker asked.

“Mr. Lusk, Head Vigilance Committee, Alderney-Street.”

“He can spell ‘vigilance’ and ‘committee,’ but not ‘nice’ or ‘mister,’” I noted.

“I am of the opinion that this letter was written by an educated man attempting to sound less literate for our benefit,” Warren said.

“We’ll examine the two cards together, sir,” Abberline said.

The commissioner pointed at the box. “See that the specimen is examined. Take it to Golden Lane.”

“We could find a closer medical man to examine the kidney,” Abberline pointed out.

“No,” Warren said. “I want Dr. Brown, the one who performed the postmortem on Catherine Eddowes.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, looking over at Barker. He nodded.

I moved down the halls of Scotland Yard, with all eyes on the box I held in my hands. I took it outside, and summoned a hansom in Whitehall Street, then took it into Whitechapel.

My thoughts were a jumble. It seemed to me that the two letters were not the work of the same man. The first was in red ink, the second in black. The first called himself “Jack the Ripper;” the second ended with a taunt, but was unsigned. Both inconsistently butchered the Queen’s English. Barker claimed that any letters were fake and that the killer may be illiterate, but I was not as sure. The author of the second letter had an actual kidney, which would be very difficult to lay hands upon. Perhaps the real killer had been spurred to write after the first one, but if so, why not come up with a name for himself? It was all a puzzle.

Once in Whitechapel, I handed the box into Dr. Brown’s eager fingers.

“Scotland Yard believes it could be the other half of Catherine Eddowes’s kidney?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“We shall see.”

He put sixpence into my hand, sixpence to partially defray the cost of the cab. Sixpence for my troubles. The rest would eventually be coming out of Anderson’s pocket.

What if the box really did contain the other half of Catherine Eddowes’s kidney? Then it truly was sent by the Ripper, and he wrote the threatening letters which had London in a panic.
What if Barker is wrong?
I asked myself. I relied on Cyrus Barker’s opinions. It was unthinkable that he could be groping blindly in the dark like the rest of us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

One evening when our shift at Scotland Yard Headquarters was finished, we went along Whitehall to the familiar narrow lane of Craig’s Court and stepped into our offices. Jeremy Jenkins was gone for the day, having quitted our chambers promptly at five-thirty for the Rising Sun, but when I had turned on the electric lights, there was something waiting on Barker’s desk: two large leather-bound commonplace books, side by side. Barker came around the edge of the mahogany desk and opened one.

The first contained articles from the
Times
and other reliable newspapers. Carefully pasted within were commentaries by statesmen and matter-of-fact accounts of what had occurred. The second contained illustrations from the
Police Gazette
and similar publications, speculations from often anonymous columnists of a lurid and imaginative nature, and comments from everyday citizens and the like. Barker settled into his chair and pulled the first book toward him. I took the second one to my desk, sitting in my comfortable old seat, and began to peruse Jenkins’s handiwork.

One would think that having seen what we had seen and done what we had done over the past weeks, we would be weary of the case. We were, make no mistake. However, we were also driven to bring it to an end, and any step might bring him across our paths. Later, inspectors and constables would mention Jack the Ripper as a matter of course, but those of us who participated in the case were loath to speak his name. It seemed tempting fate merely to mention those three words.

I couldn’t say what the Guv was reading but mine bordered on sheer hysteria. The Empire and every institution within it was crumbling because one man chose to kill four unfortunates in an insignificant part of the capital.

Everyone had a theory. It was the poor, the sailors, the Chinese, the Jews. It was lascars or secret societies, the Russians or the French, the Germans or the Irish. Anyone, of course, but a wholesome, clean-limbed Englishman. It was the foreign-looking fellow that lived down the street. We lived in a nation that offered itself as a haven for communists, socialists, and anarchists, but the citizenry looked likely to change its mind.

Barker spoke up, as if divining my thoughts. “If these newspaper accounts are to be believed, all London is terrified.”

“Not just London,” I said. “Here are responses from Scotland, France, and even America. Everyone seems to be holding their breath, waiting for us to catch the fellow.”

“Then we cannot afford to make a mistake.”

“Every woman feels unsafe, and every man seems angry and frustrated that he has not personally caught him.”

“With the wonders of the modern steam engine, the killer might be hundreds of miles away in only a few hours, and could return the next day. He hasn’t, I suspect, but he could. The possibility frightens everyone.”

“The deeds and the letters seem almost demonic.”

“Man requires no inspiration for hellishness, Thomas. He can be plenty evil on his own.”

“What stops him, do you suppose? I mean, why does he not kill every night? Heaven forbid, of course, but you understand my question.”

“I do,” Barker admitted, “but I have no answer for you yet. I wish I did.”

“A pity. I had a dozen other questions behind that one.”

“Such as?”

“Is he married? Where does he live? Does he have an ordinary life in the day and hunt at night?”

“Is that all?”

“Far from it. Could there be something wrong with him, physically, which makes him do it? Has he had scraps with the law or is he otherwise a law-abiding citizen?”

“So many questions,” Barker said.

“And so few answers. Do you think him a Jew?”

“No religion is proof against madmen. Not even Christianity.”

“Some would say—”

“Let us not concern ourselves with what some would say,” Barker said with a sniff.

*   *   *

I could name the number of times on two hands that I ran out the door or down the street at Barker’s heels without the slightest idea where we were going or what we would find when we got there. In his mind, I suppose, I need merely be assured that he knew what he was about, and that I was just the assistant. Besides, I would probably have opinions, which would merely get in the way, or suggestions, such as taking a cab. After dinner at the Frying Pan, we were leaving the restaurant when a street Arab seized Barker’s sleeve and whispered in his ear. He turned without preamble and began to run.

“Where are we headed?” I yelled after I had managed to get within earshot of my employer.

“The Drake!” he bellowed over his shoulder, and widened the gap between us again.

This was what he had been talking about when he suggested I memorize these streets. It was to know what was ahead of us, to anticipate which way an adversary might go, and the quickest way to hold him off or how to get to an address from where we were. It was the ability to think clearly and decisively on one’s feet. The Drake Club was in Halifax Street, six streets away.

Something had happened there. What could it be? Was the Duke of Clarence there with his tutor? Had Stephen revealed who he was and attacked someone with a knife? One thing was certain. If I didn’t hurry to catch up with my employer, I might be too late.

When I reached the old mansion that held the Drake Club, Barker was thumping on the door, which apparently was locked. Looking inside, I saw only a little light from within, far different from the brilliantly lit atmosphere of our former visit. I caught up with him just as the door opened and followed him inside.

Save for the butler who greeted us, the ground floor was deserted. It was a shambles. Furniture was overturned, vases smashed on the floor, pillows ripped open and sofas slashed. The carpet was covered in brown glass, stuffing, strewn flowers, and pampas grass. The butler was grim.

“Is the Countess in?” Barker asked.

“I’m not sure he is receiving visitors, sir.”

“He sent for me,” my employer replied, handing him the note.

“Very well. Come with me.”

We followed him up the stair. The bannister had been broken. I assumed someone had gone over it to put it in such a ramshackle condition. When I was first brought here my eyes were assaulted by the strange admixture of fabric and objects brought together haphazardly. Now I was concerned that such an interesting arrangement had been destroyed. What had happened here this evening?

The butler led us into Inslip’s room. He was sitting on a sofa in a pajama suit of pale silk which was marred with spatters of blood. He held a handkerchief to his nose and there was a purple bruise under one eye that looked recent. He turned his head and gazed at us out of the uninjured eye.

“Who did this?” Barker asked.

“Inspector Littlechild,” he said.

My employer stopped to survey the room with his fists pressed into his hips. It was as badly demolished as the lobby had been. An orange tabby limped among the broken crockery and jumped onto the sofa beside its master.

“Were arrests made?”

“Oh, yes. I was able to get some of our clientele out the back door and away, while that monster and his pack of wolves tore my parlor into pieces.”

“Who was arrested, then?”

“All my beautiful young fillies.”

“Your stable? All of them?”

It took me a minute to realize he was discussing the young, attractive men I had seen in the hall on our last visit.

“As far as I could tell. One or two of them might have been out of the building.”

“Was it a regular raid?”

“Darling, don’t browbeat me. I couldn’t stand it at the moment. It was Littlechild and a squad of constables. That’s all I know. I assume it was sanctioned by Scotland Yard.”

“How did you manage to get released so quickly?”

“I have a very good solicitor. He’s working on getting my girls freed. I hope for everyone’s sake he succeeds, because if this goes to trial they will roll over like puppies wanting their tummies rubbed. They may look pretty and stupid, but they can recognize names.”

“Names?”

“Oh, big names, Push, dear. Powerful men have powerful appetites. Government officials, admirals, clergy.”

“That would not be good. I assume your father is hard at work this evening.”

“He’s probably bawling out Commissioner Warren as we speak. Littlechild will be fortunate if he is a dogcatcher by morning.”