Death at Whitechapel (8 page)

But these—the bitter want of money and his mother's romantic follies—were not the only beasts that gnawed at Winston's vitals. No, there was something far worse, something so utterly ghastly, so abhorrent and appalling, that he could not bear to think of it. But he had to think about it, because he feared that the other man might bring it to light. He had to do
something
to keep it from being found out and ruining all his hopes for himself and for the redemption of his father's name and reputation.

But what could he do? What
could
he do? The hideous truth would sooner or later out. Worse, the other man would see that it found its ugly way into the press, always hungry for some sensation, always ready to cast the first stone, and the next, and the next. And once that happened, not even death would write
finis
to it.

 

M
anfred Raeburn stacked the manuscripts on his desk and tied them together with a stout cord. They were the initial submissions for the first issue of Lady Randolph's “Maggie,” as she insisted on calling it—an altogether ridiculous nickname, Manfred thought with irritation, as if the journal were one of her intimate friends. He preferred to think of it as
The Anglo-Saxon Review
, a name that had dignity and merit and should certainly command attention in the literary world.

The content of the magazine would command attention, too, if Manfred had anything to do with it. And he
would,
in spite of the fact that Lady Randolph had made it clear that she meant to have the last word with respect to the editorial decisions. He smiled to himself as he finished bundling the manuscripts. Of course, she did not go through the daily post that arrived here in the office of the
Review,
as he did. She could not know that he had already received, read, and discarded as unfit several submissions that she had invited. That silly thing from Pearl Craigie, for instance, which was so light and shallow that it would never do. He would simply tell her that the expected manuscripts had never arrived, and she would be none the wiser.

At the thought of Lady Randolph, Manfred's lip curled slightly. Of course, he had nothing against her personally, except that she was Winston's mother. And even that in itself was not a high crime, for everyone knew that it was Winston's father who had shaped his son's worst attributes: an overweening arrogance, a total lack of principle, a misconceived impression of his own importance, the lack of any compensatory quality except for compulsive industry and an astonishing ability to make things happen. At Aldershot, one of the instructors had said that Winston was nothing but a spoiled rich boy endowed by some absurd chance with the brain of a genius and the ambition of a Napoleon, and Manfred, bitterly, agreed.

Aldershot. Manfred sank down in his office chair and turned to stare out at the dirty yellow fog that rose from the tiled roofs and curled around the chimney pots on the opposite side of Fleet Street. Aldershot—where he and his brother Arthur, both of them victims of a vicious and immoral intrigue, had been stripped of their right to a military life. Aldershot—where the dearest thing in the world had been taken from him, the entire tragedy set in motion at the whim and fancy of a spoiled boy who ...

Sudden tears blinded him, but Manfred blinked them away and hardened himself. The loss was immeasurable and inconsolable, but it lay in the past, and if he dwelled on it too long, he would drown in bitter rage. He did not intend that to happen. At some cost to himself, he had already taken steps to ensure that the ghastly wrong would be redressed. If that plan did not serve, he felt confident that he could think of something else.

He stood and began to pace the room, his hands behind his back, his head bent. His confidence in himself was no mere shallow conceit, or feigned, like Winston's, to cover a deep uneasiness about his merit. After all, he had managed to recover from the very worst thing that could befall an ambitious young man bent on bettering himself, had he not? The glory of a military career was forever denied him, but he had already made a name for himself in the publishing business and his present position as managing editor of Lady Randolph's
Review
—the reward for working diligently and playing his hand just right—suggested that even better and more prominent situations lay ahead.

Outside in the street, a lorry horn blared, a horse whinnied, and a man shouted. Recalled to himself, Manfred stopped in his pacing and glanced with satisfaction at the well-appointed office, with its bookshelf and filing cabinet and typewriter and leather chairs and fine walnut desk. Whatever the ambiguities and unhappinesses of his private life, he reminded himself, he was in a good place. And once the old scores were settled and the old wrongs redressed, he would be in a better.

 

K
ate took off her green velvet dressing gown and laid it across the chair. The hands on the ormolu mantel clock pointed to eleven, but she was feeling keyed up and not quite ready for sleep. The evening had given her much to think about. That odd business about blackmail that Jennie had brought up at tea seemed curiously unresolved, but at dinner, she had been as gay and witty as if she had not a care in the world, and afterward, in the library, she had entertained them with several Beethoven piano sonatas, expertly played.

Then Charles had gone off to write letters and Kate and Jennie had lingered before the fire, talking about the new magazine, and Winston's political ambitions, and the latest London gossip: Daisy Warwick, no longer the Prince's favorite, had fallen in love with the wealthy and dashing Captain Joseph Laycock. Captain Joe was hardly a handsome man but incredibly
magnetic
and of course wealthy, and five years younger than the countess.

“One really can't blame her”—Jennie sighed—“but I predict trouble ahead.” Her face darkened. “Young men are so charmingly attentive and passionate—but frighteningly possessive.”

Frighteningly possessive? The remark sounded as if it came out of some deep apprehension. Kate wondered if Jennie were speaking obliquely about her own relationship with the young George Cornwallis-West, but did not like to ask.

After a moment, Jennie turned the conversation back to Winston's political hopes. “You know,” she said, “that when the government came to claim Randolph's robes of the Exchequer, I refused to hand them over.” The firm set of her chin belied the casual tone of her voice. “I am keeping them for Winston to wear when
he
becomes a member of the Cabinet. It shan't be long now.”

Kate couldn't help thinking that Jennie's confidence was premature, for Winston had not even gotten into Parliament yet. But Jennie and her son possessed a powerful resolution that might itself shape the course of future events. “He'll campaign in the next election?” she asked.

“Of course,” Jennie said. “He's been assured by the Party that a seat shall be open to him.” She leaned forward, her eyes intense. “That's why this terrible blackmail must be—” She stopped, and forced a smile. “There I go again,” she said lightly. “Silly me. Making a fuss over nothing.”

“Is it really nothing?” Kate asked. She put her hand over Jennie's. “You can tell me, you know. I am your friend.”

“I know.” Jennie had looked down at their hands. “Thank you.”

The door to Charles's dressing room opened, interrupting Kate's thoughts. He came out, clad in his white cotton nightshirt. “Ready for bed?” he asked.

“Very nearly,” Kate said. She raised her hands and lifted her long, heavy hair so that it flowed loosely down her back, then went to stand by the window, still thinking about Jennie, still puzzling over the blackmail. She said, “I don't understand what went on at teatime, Charles.”

Charles leaned over the gas lamp, the oval of golden light turning the hollows of his bearded cheeks into shadow. He turned down the mantle until the light was gone and the room fell into a pale darkness, lit only by the slender moon that hung in the branches of the copper beech outside the window. Climbing into bed, he answered Kate with a question.

“How much did you hear about the Ripper, over there in America?” He settled his pillow into a rest for his back and leaned against it.

Kate stood beside the half-drawn drape, gazing through the window onto the wide sweep of moonlit lawn. “I read about him,” she said evasively. Then, because she had fallen into the habit of telling her husband almost everything, she turned and said frankly, “I read a great deal about him, I must confess. Even as recently as three years ago, I happened across an article—a reprinting of a piece in a Chicago newspaper—about an English medium who claimed to have led the police to the killer.” Actually, she had clipped the article and filed it away, thinking that it might prove to be useful material for one of Beryl Bardwell's narratives. “In that version, the Ripper was a mad doctor. He later died in a lunatic asylum.”

Charles folded his arms across his chest with a chuckle. “You are bloodthirsty, my dear. I should have thought that a proper lady would be repulsed by so much spilled blood.”

Kate tilted her head and gave him an impertinent smile. “I am hardly a proper lady, m'lord. While your Ripper was reducing the population of Whitechapel, I was earning my own living in New York City—and Beryl Bardwell was just starting to write her first stories.”

Kate had begun her literary career some years before. Writing under her own name, Kathryn Ardleigh, she had intended to compose tidy domestic narratives of the sort written by Louisa May Alcott
—Little Women
and
Little Men.
But the publisher to whom she offered her work, replied that while her stories were very fine, there was no market for morality.

“Sensation is what the public wants,” he had told her, thumping on the desk. “Excitement, suspense, stimulation—and the more, the better. Heap it on!” So Kate adopted the name of Beryl Bardwell and became a writer of sensational shockers, dramatic stories that she often drew from newspaper reports of real crime. The publisher had been right. The public was hungry for sensation, and the more lurid details she included, the sharper the readers' appetites became. Her shockers had sold like hot pies on an icy street corner in winter.

“I doubt,” Charles said with a crooked smile, “that you learned much of the Ripper. The newspapers were not accurate, of course. They printed what they chose to print—which was a good deal of sordid nonsense. Like that article about the clairvoyant.” He beckoned. “Come to bed, Kate.”

The article had stayed in Kate's mind, for it had had the ring of truth. But Charles was right. The newspapers rarely printed the truth—although that did not alter her interest in the crimes. “I suppose,” she said, “that I was repulsed by the idea that a man could despise women so much that he would kill and mutilate them. How many? A dozen, was it?”

Charles shook his head ruefully. “More nonsense. Where the Ripper is concerned, there is far more fiction than fact in circulation—perhaps because the truth is so grisly that it can scarcely be imagined.” He pulled the covers back. “Please come, Kate. You'll get a chill, standing by the window in that gown. Which is so thin,” he added meaningfully, “that I can see right through it.”

Kate left the window and climbed into bed beside her husband. “Well, then,” she said, pulling the sheet up to her chin, “if not a dozen, how many
did
he kill?”

“Five,” Charles said. He put his arm around Kate's shoulder and pulled her close against him. “A number of other women, all of them unfortunates, were murdered in Whitechapel during that time. But—”

“Unfortunates?”

Charles's lips tightened. “That's what such women call themselves. They are ... prostitutes, Kate. But that word is not for—”

“They are prostitutes,” Kate said firmly. “Go on.”

Charles sighed. “Very well. Some of these other prostitutes even had their throats cut. But the
modus operandi
was not the same.” He paused and added quietly, “That is, there was not the degree of mutilation that occurred with the Ripper.”

Kate shuddered. “Five.” Somehow—she couldn't exactly say why—that sounded more
particular.
Perhaps it was that two dozen murdered women lost all individuality. Five were more ... real.

Charles's voice seemed very far away. “Yes, five. Mary Nichols died at the end of August 1888 in Buck's Row. Annie Chapman was killed in September, near her lodgings in Dorset Street. Two women—Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride—were murdered at the end of that month, on the same day. Finally, in November, Mary Kelly, also in Dorset Street.”