Death at Whitechapel (21 page)

“She was angry and shaken,” Kate said, “and terribly embarrassed by George's behavior. I think, though, that she was more disturbed by the scene that followed, with Winston. He insisted on hearing everything and took it all badly, of course—especially the idea that his father's photograph was associated, even though fraudulently, with that of a victim of the Ripper. As far as Winston is concerned, his father was perfect in every way.” She grimaced, thinking how devastating it should be for Winston if it were discovered that Lord Randolph had anything to do with the Ripper killings. She put down her cup. “What did you learn from George?”

Charles sighed. “Not a great deal,” he said, turning from the window. “I didn't tell you last night because I was trying to spare Jennie's feelings, but the barber who owns the shop across the street from Finch's lodgings confirmed that George was there the afternoon of the murder. When I confronted George with this testimony, he hemmed and hawed and finally said that he had been visiting Jennie when she received the telephone call summoning her to Cleveland Street. He overheard her part of the conversation; then, thinking that she was meeting another lover, rushed to Cleveland Street as fast as he could, to be there before her. He says that he watched her enter and leave Finch's lodgings, then ran up the stairs and found the man face-down in his shepherd's pie, dead.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. Charles had spoken without inflection. “Do you believe him?”

Charles sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don't know what to believe, Kate. George lives from impulse to impulse. He's passionately in love with Jennie, and he's certainly jealous enough to have killed a man he suspected of being her lover. It also occurred to me last night that, although he might not have killed Finch, he might have sent Jennie that clipping about the murder, with the typed note. The phrase ‘You are not yet free' might easily have come from him. Perhaps it is not another blackmail note at all, but merely George's misguided attempt to tie Jennie to him.”

“I suppose that's possible,” Kate said, although it didn't seem to her that George would have gone that far. “If he did anything like that,” she added, “it will ruin his chances at any long-term relationship with her. Jennie would positively run from any such connection.”

Charles nodded in agreement. “He was a bit overwrought last night, but he said that he feared that Jennie killed Finch—or that the police might think so. He wanted the two of them to concoct some sort of mutual alibi that would let her off the hook.” He looked rueful. “And him too, of course. But for the moment, there is certainly not enough evidence to convict him if he should be charged with Finch's murder. It's an entirely circumstantial case.”

Changing the subject, Kate said, “It was a bit of luck that Finch's letter finally arrived yesterday.” She put her hand over his. “I assume that you are going to Cleveland Street this morning to have a look for the negative.”

“Yes,” he said. He hesitated. “I thought perhaps—That is, I wondered if you—”

“If I would go with you?” Kate asked. It was the invitation she had been waiting for. “I should be very glad to, Charles.”

He pointed to the window. “It's raining again,” he said in a cautioning tone. “The expedition will be damp.” He paused. “I hope that doesn't sound patronizing.”

Kate smiled. “It does, but you are forgiven.” She paused and slipped into her Irish brogue, playfully exaggerated. “I was thinkin' p‘rhaps I might stop at the confectioner's shop ye visited yesterday an' have a wee bit of a word with Mrs. O'Reilly. She might be'more willin' t' tell Mary's cousin what she was afeerd t' tell a strange gentleman.”

“Would you, Kate?” Charles asked eagerly. “That was exactly what I was thinking!”

“And I thought that perhaps I might make a visit to Saint Saviour's, in Osnaburgh Street,” Kate went on. “Mrs. McCarthy said that the wedding took place in the chapel there.” She made a little face. “I somehow have the feeling that the more we can find out about the marriage and the baby, the more we will know about the Ripper murders.”

“It's not likely that you'll be able to discover much,” Charles said. “If there was no civil service, it's very likely that the marriage wasn't registered—and that it could even have been a sham.”

“Not a real marriage at all, you mean?” Kate asked.

“Indeed,” Charles said. “It wouldn't be the first time a man went through the form of a marriage ceremony in order to achieve the object of his physical desires.”

Kate frowned. “But Mrs. McCarthy said that the child was born shortly after the wedding. So the man, whoever he was, would seem to have been motivated by a desire to protect the woman and her child. And if the marriage was fraudulent, why would the man's family go to the trouble of abducting the woman and locking her up—even, as Mrs. McCarthy claims, driving her mad. In that event, the woman was no wife and the child was a bastard, and no threat.”

“I take your point,” Charles said. “We shall go together to the studio, and then you shall drop in on Mrs. O'Reilly at the confectioner's shop—”

“And then at Saint Saviour's,” Kate said determinedly. “I want to know the name of the man who is responsible for all this trouble.”

“Very well, then,” Charles said, and stood. “We shall be off as soon as you have breakfasted.”

 

Kate followed Charles up the narrow wooden stairway to the third-floor studio that had, according to the landlord, been let for the past two years to a certain Alastair Byrd, a photographer of some local repute. The landlord added rather bitterly, however, that Mr. Byrd had neglected to pay his previous month's rent. He had said he was planning to vacate the premises, but he had never appeared to clear out his belongings. What was to be done with all of his furnishings? Who was to pay the outstanding rent? It was only after Charles had supplied the ten shillings deficit that he was willing to admit them to the stairway.

“Ten shillings a month for this?” Charles muttered as they climbed.

The stairway was so steep that it was more like a ladder, Kate thought. “Perhaps the rent went up when the landlord saw how eager you were to gain admittance,” she said, holding her skirts away from the walls to avoid catching cobwebs or snagging on splinters.

“Most likely.” Charles unlocked a door with the key the landlord had given him and they stepped into the gloom of a small studio. One dusty window in the opposite gabled wall afforded a modicum of pale light. Overhead, the sharply pitched roof angled downward to rough-finished brick walls at either end of the room, the exposed rafters supporting laths which in turn supported the roof tiles. At some time long past, several of the laths had been cut, the tiles removed, and a frame of nine mullioned window panes set into their place, with the object of turning the dusky space below into an artist's studio. Kate shivered. It was chilly enough now; in the dead of winter, the place must be frigid. How could any artist endure the cold? Wouldn't his—or her—fingers be so stiff they would refuse to work?

She turned to study the room. Located directly below the skylight was a high worktable with a slanted wooden top, before which a stool was placed. On the walls hung photographic enlargements—studio portraits of serious-looking women and men, dressed in their finest; casual shots of East End street scenes featuring shopkeepers, laborers, and weary-looking women; and several photographs of a strikingly pretty young woman in a ragged dress, her dark hair tousled, striking a series of dramatic poses. Beneath these was a single caption: “Ellie, in the Courtyard.”

“Charles,” Kate said, “this looks very much like the girl I spoke with yesterday, in Millers Court!”

Charles glanced at it, then at the other East End photographs. “I don't suppose I'm surprised,” he said. “Finch apparently knew the East End.”

Kate continued her survey of the room. Sturdy wooden shelves along one wall held several cameras, camera bags, and an array of lenses, all arranged in an orderly fashion. A large wooden studio camera, over which had been flung a black hood, was affixed to a heavy mahogany stand and placed before a paper backdrop painted to resemble a parlor wall with an elaborately carved fireplace and mirror. On the right were a chair, a curved-back red velvet sofa, and a small table displaying a variety of parlor props, and on the left a limelight apparatus and cylinders of gas. The only other pieces of furniture in the room were a dirty sofa piled with several ragged blankets and a battered wooden file cabinet which looked as if it had seen service in the Crimean War. One corner of the room had been walled off into a sort of closet, with entry through an insubstantial panel door, its edges trimmed with flaps of black felt—the darkroom, Kate thought.

She said the obvious. “I don't see any negatives lying around.” But then, what they were looking for was probably hidden somewhere—or had already been taken. There was no reason to suppose that the man who killed Finch hadn't already made off with it.

Charles applied a match to the gaslight on the wall and pulled a pair of cotton gloves out of his pocket. “I'll check the darkroom first,” he said, opening the felt-edged door.

Finch had made use of every inch of the narrow cubicle. On the walls were shelves filled with large brown glass bottles and racks of shallow enameled trays. He had used a wider shelf, waist-high, as a working surface, and it was filled with a variety of developing equipment that Kate recognized from Charles's own darkroom: a plate washer, a burnisher, a print trimmer. A darkroom lamp hung from the ceiling and a great portion of the floor space was occupied by what looked like two large bellows cameras joined in the center and mounted on a long wooden base with rails.

“His enlarger,” Charles said, when Kate asked what it was. “A nice piece of equipment, that. I shouldn't mind having it myself.” As Kate watched, he searched the shelves, lifting the trays and other flat objects to be sure that nothing was concealed beneath. But the search was fruitless, and they returned to the larger room.

“I suppose that leaves only the file cabinet,” Kate said. She went to stand beside Charles as he pulled open the top drawer, revealing a long row of glass negatives and prints separated by cardboard dividers, the tabs of which bore cryptic notes.

“Ah,” Charles said. “This looks promising. But before we start a serious search, let's see what else we have.” He pulled out the second drawer, and the third, which were organized like the first. The bottom drawer was stuffed with papers—letters, invoices, newspaper clippings—and a pair of worn felt boots and a woolen cap. Kate couldn't help but wonder whether Finch had worn them to keep warm while he worked.

“The negative is probably in here somewhere,” Charles said, “if it's here at all.” He reopened the top drawer. “I suppose I shall have to look at every one of these plates.” He took out the first and held it toward the skylight, scanning the image. “This could take all day,” he muttered, replacing the first plate and lifting out the second.

“I shouldn't have thought he would leave it with the other negatives,” Kate said, wandering to a shelf. “If someone else came here looking for it, the cabinet is the most likely place to be searched.”

“It's also possible that he had it with him at his lodgings,” Charles said, “meaning to bring it here before Jennie's arrival. In that case, the killer may indeed have it now.”

“I suppose,” Kate said. Curiously, she picked up a small pocket camera, obviously designed for concealment. Beside it was a long-focus lens. She paused to look at it, wondering how often Finch had stooped to using his photographic talents for blackmail. She turned to say something about this to Charles, but as she did so, she noticed that the slant-top table under the skylight appeared to have some sort of drawer beneath it, although she could not see how it was to be opened.

Curious, she went to the table and ran her fingers under the front edge, tentatively pulling upward. The tabletop, which she now saw was hinged along the back, lifted up and became a kind of lid. Underneath was a drawer containing pens and pencils, scraps of paper of different sizes, and a large brown envelope. She opened it carefully. Peering inside, she saw several glass negative plates and a familiar photograph.

“Charles,” she said sharply, “come here, please.”

“What is it?” Charles asked, holding up yet another negative. “Damn it,” he muttered. “At this rate, it will be noon before we're finished.”

“I don't think so,” Kate said. She motioned him to the table. “Isn't this what you're looking for?”

Out of the envelope, Charles took the print and three plate glass negatives and placed them on the slant-top table. Heavy black paper masked all but a small irregular portion of the first. The piece of paper which had been cut from the black masking was fixed to the second negative. The third negative was unmasked.

One after the other, Charles held the two masked images up to the light. Then, more carefully, he examined the third, turning the plate so that the light reflected across the surface. “A very clever fraud,” he said thoughtfully. “See here? This is where the emulsion has been scraped away.” He pointed. “And this is where penciling has been added.”

“And the photo?” Kate asked, looking at it. It was very similar to the one Jennie had given Charles, but she could clearly see that the image of the man—Lord Randolph—was superimposed upon the background and the image of the woman. She could even see the overexposed edges.

“The photo is a contact print,” Charles said. “It has been made by exposing the photographic paper to light, first with this negative—the woman and the background—placed on it, then the negative of the man. The contact print was then developed and photographed again, and that negative retouched so that the two images are blended together. From this final negative, the forger can make as many copies as he wishes.”