City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (42 page)

“Hope to be soon, Sir,” he said quietly.

“Ah, then.  Bully.  It’s a fine thing
to have a special girl.”

Severin nodded and then asked, almost
as an afterthought, “And for you, Sir?”

“No,” Trevor said shortly.  “No one.” 

Clearly fearful that he had managed
to offend two superiors within five minutes, Severin scuttled out the door,
leaving Trevor to stare down at the ship rosters.  No one special and no one waiting. 
He may as well give the crew lists one more look.

5:42 PM

“How do I look?” Leanna asked,
turning in a slow circle before Emma.

Emma considered for a moment. 
“Respectable.  But not especially prosperous.”

“Perfect,” Leanna said, bending to
pick up the clothes scattered about the room and stuff them back into the bags
designated for the workhouse.  “That was precisely the effect I was going for.”

“And how do I look?” Emma asked,
turning herself.

“Just the same.  Respectable but not
prosperous.”

“Ah, but that’s how I always look.”

Leanna laughed uncertainly.  Since
the shock of Mary’s death and her long stint on medication, Emma’s behavior had
been uncharacteristically erratic, and it was hard to tell when she was joking.

“We certainly had a lot of dresses to
choose from,” she said, attempting to iron her skirt with her hands, as she
often did when nervous.  “Where does Aunt Gerry obtain all these garments
anyway?”

“Her friends bring clothing from
their maids,” Emma said “which in turn is passed along to women not fortunate
enough to be maids.  I suppose there’s rather a protocol to how the clothing
descends through its various owners.  Women who are respectable and prosperous,
followed by women who are respectable but not prosperous and then, finally,
those poor creatures who are neither.”

“Oh yes,” Leanna said, rather
breathlessly.  “Quite right.”

Emma bent to tie a shoe.  She seemed
to take her time, then finally she stood and straightened, looking directly
into Leanna’s face.  “In other words,” she said.  You to me and then on to Mary
and last of all women like Annie Chapman and Cathy Eddowes.  That’s the order
in which it all descends.”

5:59 PM

Trevor was thinking he should truly finish
for the night when Tom Bainbridge showed up at his door, looking exhausted and
a little guilty.  Trevor waved him inside and watched in surprise as the boy
took off his shirt to reveal a bloodstained chest and, grimacing, fished a
surgical scalpel from the inner pocket of his coat.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a fool,” Tom
said.  “These items came from the home of John Harrowman.”

“Harrowman gave them to you?” Trevor
asked, frowning in confusion.  The boy didn’t seem to be hurt, so why was he
covered in blood?

Tom violently shook his head and
collapsed into a chair. “I broke into his home while he was out for luncheon,”
he said.  “Bungled it all, I’m afraid, but I did come away with this shirt, which
was damp when I started out, and this knife …”

“Whyever did you take his shirt?  You
must realize that any blood that was still damp couldn’t possibly belong to
Mary Kelly.”

“But the blood itself….There are
tests to be run, are there not?”

“Perhaps.  But we’d only need a trace
of it and that is….rather a large shirt and rather a lot of blood, is it not?”
As Tom moved into the light, Trevor absorbed the full impact of his costume and
couldn’t resist a chuckle.  “In the future you and I must discuss the meaning
of the word ‘sample’ and the various non-surgical ways in which a man might use
a knife.”

“I don’t know why you’re laughing,”
Tom said, with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances for
the full force of his ridiculousness was hitting him as well. “I’ll admit that
the more time that passes the more I’m unsure what I hoped to gain in bringing
you this shirt, much less this shirt in its horrible entirety. But I must tell
you that there were certain elements in John Harrowman’s room that make me
think you were right about calling him a suspect.”

“What sort of elements?”

As Tom gave a brief recount of his
morning’s adventures, Trevor began to shake his head.

“The presence of knives and bloodied
clothes are explained away by his profession,” Trevor said.  “And as for the
fact his private quarters were in shambles and you found a smutty book….I’m
afraid if we used that as criteria, every bachelor in London would be behind
bars before morning, with me, and perhaps even you, among them.  No, we need
more than that, especially now that it appears Harrowman has somewhat of an
alibi.”

Tom looked at him blearily.  “How the
deuce does a man have ‘somewhat of an alibi.’”

“This was Abram’s last task before he
sat sail for Paris,” Trevor said, opening his notebook.  “Learned that Harrowman
spent most of the night at the bedside of a Mayfair woman in labor.   The
daughter of your aunt’s friend Tess, in fact, named Margory Cuthberson.  You
may have met her.”

Tom shook his head.  “Most of the
night?”

“Twins, a long birth, and when the
lady became fatigued, apparently Harrowman offered her a respite with chloroform. 
And while she rested, so did the rest of the house, including him.”  Trevor
shrugged.  “Therein lies the ‘somewhat.’  This rest period gives us a small
window of opportunity, perhaps two hours, in which Harrowman could have
conceivably left the Cuthberson home.”

“Time frame?”

“Very early morning.  Which, yes, I’m
well aware coincides with the Kelly killing.  It’s conceivable he could have
crossed town in a coach, done the deed, and returned to Mayfair in time to
deliver the twins.  But it’s far-fetched, Tom, and would have required either a
bizarre set of coincidences or absolute genius to ensure he’d find a victim at
precisely the right time, could calculate how long it would take to butcher her
and how long the family he was using as an alibi would continue to slumber. 
Plus the thoroughness of the work on Kelly….Phillips think it would have taken
the better part of a night.”

“For a man Phillips’s age perhaps. 
You’ve seen John.  A man at the height of his powers might have done it all far
faster.”

“Possible,” Trevor said.  “But to my
mind still unlikely.  I say, you’ve gone from his biggest defender to his first
accuser rather fast, haven’t you?”

Tom’s ankle was throbbing and he
eased it onto the chair beside him.  “The bit about the chloroform is rather
convenient.”

“Whyever would you say that?  It’s
standard use in childbed for the women who can afford the cost of such oblivion. 
The Queen herself accepted it for her later births, did she not?   And made the
doctor who administered it to her a knight or a duke or something of the sort?”

Tom nodded.  “A baron, I believe.  Yes
of course, the chloroform can be explained away too, just as everything else. 
But his proclivity for drugging women may be a factor in all this, don’t you
see?   John has prescribed large doses of morphine for Emma in the last few
days.   I know what you’re thinking, that it’s natural to do so for a girl
who’s had such a severe shock, but Emma has been quite disoriented.”  Tom drew
a deep breath, struggled for a way to explain the next part.  “I have the sense
that last night I was trying to help her.  That I carried her, had to assist
her in the most profound way.”

“What do you mean you have the
sense?  Did you carry her or didn’t you?”

“My own memory has been a little-“

“You’re suggesting he drugged you as
well?”

“No, no I did that task for him.  I
was rattled when I left here yesterday and I’m afraid I may have had a bit too
much brandy.  So granted, I’m hardly the best witness to Emma’s behavior over
the last twenty-four hours but I will say that based on Leanna’s descriptions,
John is being quite cavalier with her medication.  Apparently he’s decided that
the cost of oblivion isn’t too high.”

“Perhaps he just doesn’t like to see
a woman suffer,” Trevor said quietly, although he was also busily scribbling
down everything Tom had told him.  “Can’t bear the sight of it myself, to be
honest.  If I had a means for relieving their pain, I might act just the same.”

“Consider the pattern. That’s what
Grandfather always taught me and Leanna, that the beginning of all science is just
this, the recognition of a pattern.  Doctors have access to knives, which
you’ve realized was significant from the start, but they have knowledge of
drugs too, do they not?  It’s possible a physician might use them not just to
relieve suffering, but for his own darker purposes.  Selecting victims. 
Providing alibis.”

Trevor frowned.  “How is Emma today?”

“Much clearer.  Really almost her
normal self.”

“And you?”

 “Better too.”

“But where have you been all
afternoon?  You said you went to Harrowman’s home at luncheon but it’s dark
outside. So for the last four or five hours have you-“

To Tom’s relief, Trevor’s inquiries
were cut short by the arrival of Davy, bearing a letter.

“This came special, Sir.”

“Another confession?  Another
kidney?  Put it with the others.”

Davy shook his head.  “You’ll want to
see this one.  It’s from Miss Bainbridge.”

“Why the devil would Gerry send a
message here?”

“Not that Miss Bainbridge, Sir.  This
is from the other one. The girl.  Leanna.”

6:21 PM

      Cecil walked into the Pony Pub
and took a moment to survey his surroundings.  It appeared things were coming
together well.  Georgy had been dispatched to meet the girls in Hanover Street
and Micha was already here in the pub, earlier than could be expected
considering the man was a Neanderthal, probably no more capable of reading a
clock than he was of quoting Plato.  Micha had taken residence at the bar and,
with a sigh, Cecil joined him.   He would have preferred to conduct this
particular piece of business in privacy but privacy, he was beginning to
understand, was as rare a commodity in Whitechapel as a diamond and opal brooch. 
Besides, the hour was early and pub yet uncrowded.  It was unlikely anyone would
take note of their conversation.

Cecil slid onto the barstool beside
Micha and gave him a companionable nod.  “Beer for both of us,” he said to the
barmaid, a pretty little thing who giggled at every word that was said to her. 
Cecil waited until his beer had descended a few inches in the glass and then turned
to Micha.

“You were offered a certain amount
for a certain task,” he said.  “But you can add ten more pounds very easily.” 
Micha did not answer, which Cecil took as an invitation to continue.  “Two
girls will appear, just as planned,” he said, keeping his voice low and his
focus straight ahead.  “Your prey is the blonde one, rather tall.  Blonde, you
know.  Means she has yellow hair.  She’ll be dressed as a lady.  My life would
be easier if this girl didn’t exist.  Do you catch my meaning?”

“What I do with other?”

Cecil shrugged.  “Makes no difference
to me.  Have your way with the chit if you fancy her, and consider it a bonus. 
Not the blonde.”  Cecil could not have explained why this mattered to him, in
light of all that was about to happen, but he turned to the huge man for the
first time, staring into his face to impress the point.  “She won’t be sullied
and she needn’t suffer. Needn’t see it coming.”  Cecil took a deep drag from
his glass, shuddered as the sting of the five-pence pint washed across his
tongue.  “She should go fast, like the cow.  Can you manage?”       

Micha nodded, but the phrase “ten
more pounds” was all he’d heard.  Whatever came next was just details, and
details were the sort of things rich men could afford, of no interest to a
working class bloke like Micha.  Who could tell yellow hair from any other kind,
in the dark?   Thirty pounds, that’s what mattered.  More than a month’s worth
of wages at the slaughterhouse, paid up prompt for a moment of sport.  Wasn’t
this the damndest country, Micha thought, one where a man could be paid so well
for doing what came naturally, and as he looked up his happy glance fell on one
of his kinsman. 

“Tell me,” he said, “I am here all
the night, am I not?”

He was speaking to the well-dressed
man Cecil had seen the first night, the man who had, in fact, told Cecil how to
find Micha.  “Here all the night,” the man said, raising a pint from the end of
the bar.  “Both of us, eh, Lucy?”

“Drinking all night, the both of
you,” the girl said.

So this is how they establish an
alibi, Cecil thought.  Each claims that the other was in the Pony Pub, and all
the while any number of villainies are being perpetrated in the streets beyond.
  Despite his vow to remain unobtrusive, to keep his scarf pulled high and his
hat pulled low, Cecil found himself staring at this other man, the one with the
mustache.