Death at Whitechapel (15 page)

As they moved along with the crowd, Kate thought with some satisfaction that she and Jennie were not in any way remarkable. They were both dressed in plain dark skirts, white cotton waists, and thick boots, and held black umbrellas over their heads. Jennie was wearing Mrs. Pratt's green jacket and green plaid cape, and her dark hair was topped by Mrs. Pratt's cabbage-rose hat, now swathed with additional veiling. Kate was decked out in her cook's black coat and her maid's red-trimmed bonnet and matching red-and-white checked scarf, looped against her shoulder and fastened with a gaudy brass brooch. They looked, Kate hoped, like two respectable housekeepers on holiday—except that Lady Randolph was rather more regal in her bearing than any housekeeper Kate had ever seen.

There had been some discussion when it came time to board the train, but Jennie was finally persuaded to forgo the first-class carriage and climb into the third, which should have seated ten but was being made to serve half again that many. A similar discussion took place when they reached Broad Street and Jennie raised a commanding arm to hail a hansom. At Kate's whispered objection, they boarded instead a crowded mustard-yellow omnibus with a red Lipton's Tea advertisement on the side panel. For six-pence, they were on their way to Bloomsbury, along with ten other passengers whose furled umbrellas dripped on their neighbors' skirts and boots. They disembarked at Theobalds Road and Southampton Row, put up their umbrellas again, and made in the direction of Boswell Street.

“What are we going to say when we locate Mr. Lees?” Jennie asked as they hurried along, taking care to avoid the puddles.

Kate stepped aside so that a nursemaid might pass with her green wicker pram. “If you don't mind,” she said, “I should prefer to talk to him.” She gave Jennie a sideways look. “Unless you can pretend to be Irish.”

“Irish?” Jennie said with a trill. She tossed her head gaily. “I need not pretend t' be Irish, ye silly. Randolph's father was Viceroy, and Randolph was his secretary, and we lived in Dublin for three years. In all that time, I can remember naught but blue waters an' green hills, an' days full o' Irish sunshine and song.” She tipped her umbrella and lifted her face to the falling rain. “Wi' only a wee frolic of a raindrop dancin' out of a cloud every now an' then.”

Kate laughed out loud. “Well done!” she exclaimed. “Then you shall be my sister Charlotte Kelly and I shall be Kathryn Kelly, and we have come from Dublin to ask after our kinswoman.”

“But if this man is indeed clairvoyant,” Jennie asked, lapsing into her ordinary speech, “won't he be sure to see through our deception?”

Kate had been thinking about that very question. “If he does,” she said, “then we shall confess. But perhaps he will see past our deception to our sincere search for the truth. Either way, we have nothing to lose.”

“I agree,” Jennie said. She pointed. “We have come to the place.”

They stood in front of a red brick house set back a few yards from the street behind an iron fence. The scrolled gate bore a brass plaque announcing that this was the home of the Bloomsbury Spiritualist Society. As they came through the gate, the front door of the house opened. The prosperous-looking gray-bearded man who came out was dressed in a dark morning coat, gray trousers, and felt hat, with an ivory-headed walking stick under one arm and an umbrella in his hand. He was just putting it up when he saw them.

“May I assist you, ladies?” he asked.

“We're lookin' for Mr. Robert Lees, if ye please, sir,” Kate said, slipping easily into the thick brogue she remembered so well from her childhood with Uncle and Aunt O'Malley.

“Robert J. Lees, at your service,” the man said, and took off his hat with a courteous gesture. “And you—”

“My name is Kathryn Kelly,” Kate said gravely. “An' this is my sister Charlotte. We've come t' ask some questions, sir, about a cousin o' ours, in hopes ye might tell us what really happened to her, and why. Her name was Mary Kelly.”

The man stood very still for a moment, his glance resting first on Kate, then on Jennie. He stepped back and pushed the door open. “I think you had better come inside out of the wet,” he said. “Our conversation may take some time.”

 

 

C
harles learned even less at Number 2 than at Number 22. The landlady, a truculent woman with eyes like black currants, a face like a pudding, and a mole on her chin that sprouted three coarse black hairs, would not allow him into Finch's lodging.

“The rooms won't be ready to rent till Mr. Finch's brother comes to claim his belongings,” she said in a proprietary tone. “He was all packed up when he was killed, for going to Paris, so it won't take his brother long to collect his things. But it'll be another few days before the carpet is cleaned and the rooms is ready. Come back next week. Monday will do.” She started to close the door.

“But I don't want to rent Mr. Finch's rooms,” Charles said. “I just want to have a look around. I'd like to see if he—”

The landlady's black eyes snapped. “Oh, you don't want to rent, do you? And why not, I'd like to know.” Her voice rose defensively. “They're fine rooms, large and convenient, and only a little blood spilled on the carpet, which will be entirely gone as soon as it's been cleaned. You won't find any better lodging in Cleveland Street.”

“But I don't intend to lodge in Cleveland Street,” Charles said, already sensing the futility of his effort. “Actually, my interest in this matter is of a professional nature. I should like to see Mr. Finch's darkroom.” The existence of the darkroom was a matter of speculation, but Charles felt he had nothing to lose.

“Dark rooms? Dark rooms, you say?” The landlady became scornful. “Look here, sir! The windows in those rooms is the envy of every lodging-house proprietor in Cleveland Street. A painter lived there before Finch, and he never once complained about the rooms being dark! In fact, he was quite complimentary about the light. North, it is. That's the best, they always says.”

“I fear that I have not made myself clear,” Charles said humbly. “I understand that Mr. Finch was a skilled photographer. He needed a small room without light—a closet, perhaps—in which to develop his photographs and prepare and store his chemicals. I should like to see it. What's more, I am prepared to make his brother a handsome offer for his equipment, as well as for his collection of negatives.”

The landlady snorted. “Well! If you've come round looking for foul-smelling chemicals that are liable to go off like a bomb, you're going to be disappointed, that's all I've got to say. This is a clean,
safe
house, I'll have you know.” She wrinkled her nose distastefully. “If I ever got a whiff of any chemical goings-on, Mr. Finch would have been out on the pavement in one minute flat, bag and baggage! What do you think this is? A haven for anarchists?”

Charles wanted to protest that most photographic chemicals were quite odorless and generally noncombustible, but he restrained himself, feeling that the landlady would not welcome instruction in the matter. “Perhaps,” he said, “Mr. Finch performed his professional work elsewhere.”

“If he did,” she retorted snappishly, “it wouldn't be any business of mine, now, would it?”

Charles sighed and reached into his pocket. “Here is my card. Perhaps you will be good enough to give it to Mr. Finch's brother when he calls to retrieve the belongings, and to convey my offer, as well.”

The landlady studied the card as if she were scrutinizing it for evidence of chemical contamination, then pocketed it with a suspicious harrumph.

Murmuring his thanks, Charles took his leave. As he was going down the steps, he heard the door slam behind him.

But while Number 2 had yielded very little in the way of information, Number 3, across the way, produced rather more. It was a barbershop, with the deep doorway Charles had remarked earlier, where an observer might have stationed himself. The barber was a voluble little fellow named Osborn, with a shiny bald head, a remarkable pair of waxed black mustaches, and a finely honed sense of curiosity. He had, as it turned out, observed the observer, a fact that emerged after Charles sat down in the barber chair and requested a trim for his beard.

“O‘course I saw the man, now, didn't I?” Osbom said, bending close for a few critical snips of his scissors. “ 'Ee stood for the longest time right in that doorway there, like 'ee wuz goin' to come in and get shaved.”

“Can you tell me what he looked like?”

Osborn snipped again, twice here, once there. “Blond, ‘andsome, a gentleman. Admir'ble mustaches.” He pursed his lips, considering. “Might've been a milit‘ry man, from 'is bearin'.”

Blond, handsome, mustached, military—George Cornwallis-West, to the life, Charles thought. So Jennie had been right. George had hidden himself in the doorway and watched her come and go. But how long had he been there? Long enough to run upstairs and kill the man who was waiting for Jennie?

“I don't suppose you happened to notice the time,” he remarked.

“No, I didn't.” Osbom plied his comb regretfully, then returned to snipping. “ ‘Twas before the coppers was called to the lodging across the way, though—I can tell you that much. When I went out to see wot the trouble wuz, 'ee was gone.”

“Oh?” Charles asked, feigning ignorance. “There was some trouble that afternoon, then?”

“Trouble!” Osborn exclaimed. He turned Charles's chin for a better view, snipped several times, then turned it the other way.

“I'd say ‘twas trouble! Tom Finch, 'oo lived in Number 2, ‘ee got 'imself stabbed to death, poor man. There wuz folks buzzin' ‘bout, coppers in droves, the mortuary wagon parked by the door till goin' on teatime—and the landlady 'avin' a fine fit of ‘ysterics, o'course.” His eyes glinted. “Most excitement we've had since that unsav'ry business at Number 19.”

“Number 19?” Charles asked, and then, with a start, remembered. “Oh, yes, of course. Number 19.”

The year after the Ripper killings, in the autumn of 1889, a scandal had erupted regarding a male brothel that had enjoyed a thriving business at Number 19 Cleveland Street. In fact, the affair had reached to high places, to the Royals, even, for it was widely rumored about London that Eddy, the Duke of Clarence, frequented the place in pursuit of its forbidden pleasures. After two initial arrests, however, the thing had been quickly hushed up. The brothel's owner had taken himself off to France, and the two men charged in the case received suspiciously light sentences—in return for their silence, some said. The North London Press had charged that men of title, Lord Euston and Lord Arthur Somerset, a close friend of Prince Eddy—had been allowed to escape justice in order to protect more highly placed persons, but the editor, a man named Ernest Parke, paid dearly for his freedom of speech: he was convicted of libel and dispatched to prison. Gossip about Eddy's part in the affair had raged until his death, some two and a half years later. And the whole thing had begun at Number 19 Cleveland Street, Charles mused—just a few doors down from Walter Sickert's studio and across the street from the tobacconist's and confectioner's shop he had visited this morning.

“Funny thing, come t' think of it,” the barber said, stepping back to admire his handiwork. “The man ‘oo was killed, 'ee wuz involved in that business.” He paused solicitously. “Wot d‘ye think, sir? Short 'nough for ye?”

“I think you have done a first-rate job,” Charles said, allowing the striped cotton cape to be removed. He stood. “So Tom Finch was part of the affair at Number 19, was he?”

“ ‘Deed 'ee wuz,” Osborn replied, shaking the cape with a snap. “In fact, ‘im an' Charles 'Ammond—‘ee was the owner o' the place—went off t' France together, so's they wouldn't get arrested. Not that many did,” he added significantly, “if ye take my point. There wuz 'igher-ups involved, so they say. Far as the coppers wuz concerned, it wuz 'ands off.”

“Indeed,” Charles said. He reached into his pocket. “I understand that Mr. Finch was something of a photographer. It that true?”

“Oh, yessir,” Osburn said, his eyes following Charles's hand. “Used t' take photos up an' down the street. Not buildings or ‘orses, though, just people. Said 'ee specialized in faces.” In a meaningful tone, he went on: “I've ‘eard as 'ow ‘ee might 'ave took a few photos at Number 19. Not just faces, neither, if ye take my meanin'.”

“Oh?” Charles said. He took out a silver coin.

“An' used 'is photos to put a bit o' the black on one or two,” Osburn went on. He rubbed his bald head. “Some say that Lord Euston paid Tom Finch quite a few pounds for a good picture o' hisself.”

“Ah,” Charles said. Lord Euston, eh? So Mr. Finch's blackmail of Jennie Churchill was not a novice's lucky first effort. Who knows how many extortion attempts the man had made? “Well, then,” he said reflectively, “I suppose you have wondered whether Mr. Finch's employment might have contributed to his death.”