Death at Whitechapel (16 page)

“So I ‘ave.” Osbum gave an emphatic nod. “So I 'ave, indeed. I ‘eard that some fine lady come to see 'im before ‘ee died. I shouldn't be much surprised if she wuz tired o' the black an' decided to 'andle the matter 'erself.”

“Hmmm,” Charles said. He took out the photograph of Mary Kelly and handed it to the barber. “I am curious as to whether this might be an example of Mr. Finch's work. Do you recognize the woman?”

Osburn gave the photo his careful attention. After a long moment, he said, “I believe I recognize ‘er, sir, but I couldn't give ye 'er name. Seems to me she lived 'ere-abouts, some while ago.”

“It would have been more than ten years ago,” Charles said. Still studying the photograph, the barber rubbed his hand over his bald head again. “Seems to me she was a nursemaid,” he said thoughtfully. “I seem to recall 'er pushin' a pram. But ten years is a long time.” He handed the photo back.

“It is indeed,” Charles said, pressing two silver coins into the barber's hand. “A good trim,” he said, “and more. I thank you.”

“Ye're more than welcome, sir,” Osbom said. He looked down at the coins, then squinted at Charles. “Ye're not from the p'lice, are ye?”

“No,” Charles said, “I'm not. This is a private inquiry.”

“A private inquiry?” A light broke across the barber's face. “T' be sure! Like Sherlock Holmes, eh?”

“Something like,” Charles said, and took his leave.

 

 

T
he drizzle had changed to rain by the time Kate and Jennie walked through the gate of the Bloomsbury Spiritualist Society and out into Boswell Street. Without speaking, they put up their umbrellas and splashed through the puddles in the direction of the British Museum, where they found a small tea shop with a green awning. They took a table in a darkened corner, away from the window and the noise of traffic from the street, and ordered cress sandwiches, vegetable soup, and cups of strong, steaming tea poured from a china pot.

Kate wiggled her toes inside her damp boots and sipped her tea gratefully, glad for its warmth and for the quiet shelter of the tea shop. Mr. Lees had been far more willing to talk with them than she had anticipated, and their conversation had yielded an unexpected treasure trove of information. At the same time, it had been distinctly unsettling, not only because Mr. Lees's story was so extraordinary but because the conclusion of his tale had had such a devastating impact on Jennie, who sat across from her now, pale and silent, her eyes cast down.

Kate was accustomed to crafting fictions with a startling psychic twist. In fact, some of Beryl Bardwell's most popular early stories had involved a medium named Mrs. Leona Travis, who frequently helped the New York Police Department solve some very grisly crimes by calling on the spirits of the departed to tell what they knew. But the story that Robert Lees had related—in a reprise of the Sunday
Times-Herald
article that Kate had read and clipped—was much more amazing and far more
real
than any of Beryl Bardwell's fictions. It had, Kate thought, the ring of truth.

Over cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits brought in by a young parlor maid, Lees said that he had been working at his desk one morning in September, '88, when he had a strong premonition that the Ripper was about to kill again.

“I saw the whole scene,” he said. “The woman, half drunk, the man, drawing a knife from his inside pocket to slash her throat.” He went immediately to Scotland Yard but found that the C.I.D., already overwhelmed with crank reports, had no patience for this latest lunatic. The following night, however, just such a murder took place. Lees was so deeply affected by his failure to prevent the death that he became ill and was advised by his doctor to go abroad for a few weeks with his wife, to distract himself from the horror of the killings. It didn't work.

“I believed,” he said gravely, “that some sort of mysterious link—a magnetic wave, if you will—had been formed between me and the man who was butchering those poor women. I became obsessed. I read about the murders, thought about them, even dreamed about them.” His voice became intense. “I knew—yes, I
knew
—that if I could identify the man whose intentions I sensed, the killings would stop.”

A few weeks later, Lees was riding in an omnibus with his wife when he became aware that the killer was nearby. At the top of Notting Hill, a man boarded and Lees bent over to tell his wife, “That is Jack the Ripper.” She tried to laugh him out of it, but Lees was firm in his conviction. When the bus turned off Edgeware Road at the Marble Arch and the man got out, Lees followed him up Oxford Street in the direction of Apsley House. As they went, the man became increasingly agitated and nervous, and at last hailed a cab and made off down Piccadilly.

Some time later, dining with friends, Lees suddenly knew that the Ripper had struck again. He went immediately to Scotland Yard, arriving even before the telegram about Mary Kelly's murder arrived. Convinced that Lees' powers were genuine, one of the inspectors encouraged him to submit himself to the killer's strange magnetic connection. Trailed by the inspector and his men, Lees walked through the West End, stopping finally in front of a mansion that was the home of one of the most celebrated physicians in London. Inside, the inspector spoke to the doctor's wife, who confessed that she feared that her husband was losing his mind. His behavior had become frighteningly erratic and she had realized with horror that he was absent from home whenever a murder occurred in Whitechapel. She had been too fearful to inquire about his whereabouts.

Under questioning by doctors, the physician himself acknowledged that his mind had been unbalanced for the past year and that there were intervals when he could not recall where he had been or what he had done. On one occasion, he confessed that he had awakened as if from a dream and discovered blood on his clothing, the source of which he could not identify. Some weeks later, the physician was certified as insane and committed, under the name of Thomas Mason, to a private asylum in Islington. To conceal the truth, the family announced that he had died. His coffin was filled with stones, and his funeral was celebrated with appropriate solemnity and attended by many of Society's greats. His real death came later, in the asylum.

Kate leaned forward. “What was the doctor's name?” she asked.

Mr. Lees studied her with a sober attention. “I trust you will forgive me for being blunt, Miss Kelly—or whoever you are. I am fully aware that you have uses for this information other than the one you have told me. Even so, I offer it freely, because I feel that you have lied to me out of a genuine desire to find the truth.” He turned from Kate to Jennie. “The physician whom I identified was Sir William Gull.”

Kate could see that Jennie recognized the name. At Mr. Lees' pronouncement, her face went white. Her large dark eyes were fixed unwaveringly upon his face and she sat stiffly erect, gripping the arms of her chair with both hands as if to keep from fainting. She did not utter a sound.

Lees cleared his throat. “However, Sir William was not the only man involved in the crimes.” He paused, still looking at Jennie, as if he were waiting for a question from her. When she said nothing, he went on. “There were others. The police—one inspector, anyway—knew who they were.” He held up his hand as if to forestall a question. “I cannot tell you their names, nor even share my suspicions. I can say only that Sir William did not act alone, nor on his own behalf. He was, as he thought, acting upon the commission of a greater authority.” He stood. “I see that this is terribly upsetting, so I shall leave you to gather your thoughts before you go on your way. Please help yourselves to more coffee.”

Then he had turned, his strong face lined with the deepest compassion, to Jennie. “I do wish you well, my lady,” he said softly. “Your path is a steep and difficult one.” He looked down at the muddy black boot showing under her dark skirt and added, inexplicably, “Pray do mind your step.” And then he was gone.

The waitress placed their soup and sandwiches on the table before them and brought another pot of tea, and the two women began to eat without speaking. Jennie, however, ate only a little of her lunch, and that without enthusiasm. At last, she leaned back in her chair and said, in a voice that was tinged with a bitter sadness, “I suppose you want to hear about it.”

“I want to hear what you are ready to tell me,” Kate said quietly.

Jennie raised her chin. “Very well, then. You have probably already guessed that I knew Sir William. He was the Prince of Wales's regular physician—as well as Physician-in-Ordinary to the Queen—and he treated me when I was ill with typhoid. He treated Randolph for his disease as well, with mercury.” Her jaw was set and her dark eyes were unfathomable. “Randolph and I attended his funeral. He was buried in a churchyard at Thorpe-le-Soken, and so many went that a special train had to be laid on.” She pulled a deep breath. “Sir William was a very good friend of Randolph's. They were both Freemasons, you see. I once heard him say that anything Randolph asked of him, he would do. And now I'm to understand that Sir William was the Ripper, and that he did not work alone?” She shook her head. “Can you blame me for feeling ... distraught?”

“Of course not,” Kate said sympathetically. “If it is not too disturbing, can you tell me something of Sir William? What sort of a man was he?”

“What sort?” Jennie leaned her chin in her hand, frowning. “A man of two natures, I should say. On the one hand, he could be very kind and tender—he was to me, at least, in my illness. On the other, he could be almost inhumanly cold.” She looked across the room. “After he died, a friend of his wrote that Sir William once performed a postmortem examination and took away the dead man's heart in his pocket—even though he had promised the grieving sister that he would remove none of the organs.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “He was a talented surgeon, you know.” Her voice dropped. “And an ardent vivisectionist.”

Kate did not have to point out that those facts made Lees' remarkable story only more plausible, for Jennie seemed fully aware of the significance of what she had said. She waited, and when it appeared that her companion had nothing more to add, said, “If you have finished your lunch, I think we should be going. It is still raining, so if you should like to take a cab to the East End, we might go so far as Bishopsgate before we disembark.”

Jennie stood and arranged the green plaid cape across her shoulders. “Yes, let's take a cab.” She eyed Kate warily. “Are we to stumble across any more surprising discoveries in the East End, do you think?”

“Heaven only knows what we shall stumble across,” Kate said, taking up her wet umbrella. “But I do hope that we will eventually encounter the truth.”

 

C
harles took a cab from Cleveland Street across the river to Waterloo Station. The afternoon was cold and damp, which one should have thought might discourage trippers, but there was a large group of them at the station, ladies dressed in tweeds, woolen capes, and stout boots, with portmanteaus at their feet, walking sticks under their arms, and birding glasses around their necks. They were clattering like a hundred magpies about their intended seaside birding expedition near Poole and along the Dorset coast.

Charles queued up at a vendor's stall, purchased a greasy parcel of fish and chips and a bottle of beer, and escaped to an empty first-class carriage. He'd not taken time for lunch, so he ate hungrily, then settled himself. With a change of trains at Portsmouth, the London and Southwestern Railway would take three hours or thereabouts to deliver him to Bournemouth, so he had plenty of time to consider his interview with Frederick Abberline—former Inspector Abberline, C.I.D.—in light of the information he had gleaned in Cleveland Street in the previous two hours.

In his telegram to Abberline requesting a meeting, Charles had been deliberately vague. Post office claims to the contrary, telegrams were not quite as private as might be hoped or even expected, and he did not intend to share the real purpose of his journey with the Bournemouth telegraph operator. He had said only that he should like to discuss a current aspect of the “affair in Millers Court,” knowing that Abberline would recognize the site of the final Ripper murder.

Abberline replied in the same vague way. To Charles's surprise, he seemed less than eager to meet, intimating that his past work was no longer important or relevant. He was aware of Charles's recent investigations, however, and would be interested in discussing matters of “mutual professional interest.” He thought it might be expedient to meet on the Bournemouth public pier, a suggestion that struck Charles as singularly remarkable.