Anatomy of Evil (14 page)

“What sort of scandal?” the Guv asked.

“Underpaying their employees or making them work too many hours. Something like that. It was in the newspapers this month. Not quite as exciting as murder, is it?”

We looked at the factory. It was well appointed by the standards of the area. The building had been painted in recent memory, in shades of turquoise blue. Though it claimed to be a factory, it looked to have once been a large family dwelling. Windows had been installed in the ground floor, which were covered by iron bars to discourage break-ins. People were moving about within, I could see. The door opened and a man came out with some sort of wrapped items on hangers. No doubt they were the aforementioned mantles. It seemed at once too prosperous and too busy to house a man who was insane and who attacked his sister-in-law with scissors.

“Perhaps this address is wrong,” I said. “He wouldn’t be the first patient with a false address.”

“Perhaps,” Barker answered.

That was the Guv, patient and philosophical, perfectly content to be where he was and to have something to do, even if it were simply standing about outside a shop on the worst side of town.

“Shall we go in?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so. We have no reason to go in yet. I wonder if Jenkins might have that article on mantle factories,” he said.

“Let us go and see if we can find a cab in Commercial Street, sir. You can ask him yourself.”

Cyrus Barker stood on the paving stones with his hands behind his back, one fist wrapped in his empty palm, no expression readable on his face. His attention appeared to have been drawn by a small handwritten sign in the window.

“Lad,” he asked, “by any chance do you know how to sew?”

I looked over his shoulder. The sign read:
SITUATION AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY FOR SEAMSTER AND MANTLE-MAKER.
MALE ONLY, EXPERIENCE PREFERRED.
APPLY WITHIN.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“How did you acquire this skill?”

“Well, sir, my mother was determined that I would not go down in the mines like my brothers. At one time, I suspect she considered apprenticing me to a tailor, it being, as far as she was concerned, a ‘clean’ profession. My father and brothers came home every day with ripped shirts and trousers and my sisters were never fair hands when it came to sewing. The upshot was that the work fell to me. In my family, everyone must contribute, you see.”

“I never get your limits, Thomas. You do not cease to surprise me.”

“Shall I apply, sir?”

“No, but we shall hold it in reserve if other roads fail to bring us up against the Whitechapel Killer.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

We were coming down Fairclough Street that afternoon when we became witnesses and then participants in another aspect of the case. It was unseasonably dry and warm for September, and only a few tumbling leaves were necessary to convince one it was not August. Cyrus Barker and I had shed our coats at the Frying Pan and were now walking the district unencumbered by anything heavier than a bowler hat. I wouldn’t claim I actually enjoyed spending my evening hours endlessly circling the area with my employer, but I had grown accustomed to it. We walked and talked to people who lived there and meanwhile kept an ear out for the hue and cry that the Killer had struck again. Then this night, we heard it.

The Guv heard the cry before I did, of course. He put his head down and listened for a direction or repetition of the call. It came again. I heard it now, though not clearly, several voices calling out at once in a muddle until I heard the word “Killer.” It stopped us where we stood, waiting for the rabble to come to us, or to head it off if they passed us by.

We glanced at each other, wondering if this was it, would we finally confront the man we had been following for two weeks? Then a gaggle of people squeezed out of an alleyway, surrounding one figure the way army ants attack a grasshopper.

The man in the middle, batting at the people trying to subdue him, was a well-dressed fellow in a swallowtail coat and a top hat. He had pince-nez spectacles, which were swinging about him on a chain, and he held a small Gladstone bag in his hand, which he was using to defend himself. He looked in a panic, as he should, considering that the crowd that followed him were baying for his blood. He wore white patent-leather gaiters on his shoes, and with his snowy shirtfront looked as much like the Whitechapel Killer as Mr. Pickwick.

“I’m not!” I heard the man cry as he came closer, dodging the people who were plucking at the ends of his collar and anything else they could lay hands upon. Barker stepped out into the middle of the street to intercept him and I joined him there. The man at the center of the mob’s attention did not notice our presence until he blundered into us and fell back when we did not give way. Barker’s hands were in his pockets, but they emerged, holding his temporary badge in one hand and a pair of police regulation bracelets in the other.

“I am an inspector with Scotland Yard!” my employer bellowed over the voices of the crowd. “I am taking this fellow into custody! Anyone who is willing to speak in evidence against this man may follow us to ‘H’ Division!”

“Here, now,” one man spoke up, a sturdy-looking fellow in his forties with an authoritative manner. “We are making a citizen’s arrest of this person.”

“Duly noted,” Barker said. “Follow us to the constabulary and make a statement.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” the man said. “I’m not the person he claims I am. I’m just a cigarette salesman!”

“He keeps his sharp knives in that case!” a woman in the crowd cried, pointing to the bag which even now he held clutched to his chest. “Make him open it! You’ll see!”

Barker clapped the darbies about his wrists, which elicited a cheer from the crowd.

“I didn’t do it, I tell you,” the man whimpered.

“Do you want to be safe as houses in ‘H’ Division,” I whispered in his ear, “or torn limb from limb out here?”

“If my employers find out I’m arrested, I shall lose my position!” the suspect cried.

Barker took one of his elbows and I the other, and began the long walk to the constabulary on Lemon Street. I’ll grant you that the Whitechapel Killer probably looked like a normal fellow and not an inhuman monster, repellent to the eye, but even so, this crowd could not convince me that the miserable person we were hustling along was the man responsible for two or more deaths. We had no more pressing matter, however, and the man appeared to need our help. The Guv had never denied this fellow was the Killer, and as far as the mob was concerned, he was helping them by arresting their subject. One man in the crowd even carried a makeshift torch, as if we were going to burn a witch.

A man with the look of a sailor pushed his way to the front with long loops of hemp wound loosely about his arm.

“Borrowed this bit of rope from a dry-goods store,” he said, not to us, but to the crowd. “Why don’t we see if this fellow can dance a jig about our heads?”

“This man is now our prisoner,” Barker said.

“So he can sit in a safe cell and get three meals a day until some barrister gets him off? They all work together. I want to see his punishment now!”

The man turned and smacked a fist into the suspect’s kidneys. The poor man staggered and cried out, but we held him tightly between us. Barker spun us around behind him and confronted the man who had struck our prisoner. He lashed out and kicked the fellow in the stomach, knocking him over onto the cobblestones. The man fell with a groan.

“We’ll have none of that,” Barker called out. He did not sound angry or concerned. If anything, he sounded almost bored, as if this sort of situation happened all the time and he was just keeping order. He sounded, in fact, like a Scotland Yard inspector.

Before the crowd could make a decision or argue about what had been done to one of their own, we turned and moved the suspect along again.

Being harried and punched and seeing a man struck down had been enough for our mild-mannered suspect. He stopped protesting his innocence. His cheeks, which were red when we first saw him, had gone pale, and he was bathed in sweat. Finally, the station was in sight, and we mobbed the entrance. As soon as we entered, the salesman collapsed on a bench and did a very good impersonation of a puffer fish lying in the sand.

“Get a cell ready!” Barker called to the desk sergeant. “We need to take some statements.”

Abberline stepped out of an office. As part of the investigation, he had begun to spend part of every day here.

“What’s all this, then?” he asked.

“The good folk of Whitechapel claim this gentleman is the Whitechapel Killer,” Barker said. “Some are prepared to give evidence. One of them was too expedient and I had to give him a kick.”

“I’ll just bet you did. All right, Constable, get this fellow in a cell, and muster all hands for some statements.”

Just then, the sailor came in, still holding his stomach.

“Clancy, is this the man?” the inspector asked. Obviously he knew him.

“It is,” the sailor said.

“Not much of a catch you’ve brought us today. More minnow than shark. Are you sure you’ve captured the right man?”

“He was talking to one of our girls and reaching into his bag, ready to slit her throat!”

“I never!” the man spoke up from his bench. “It’s a damnable lie.”

“You never what? Caught you red-handed, we did.”

“I suppose there is one way to end this argument. Your name, sir?”

“I am Leon Goldstein.”

“Mr. Goldstein, have you any objection to us opening the contents of your bag?”

“None at all.”

Barker took the bag from his hand, brought it to a nearby table and opened it. He peered into the interior and a droll smile played on his lips. Then he upended the bag and poured its contents onto the table. Empty cigarette boxes poured out, in various sizes. But no knife.

“Look in the lining,” Abberline said. “Perhaps one is secreted inside.”

“Why has it suddenly become necessary for the Whitechapel Killer to carry a bag?” Barker asked. “One blade is enough. He needn’t carry hatchets and saws as well for his grisly operations. I would think he’d prefer to have his hand free to seize his victims by the throat.”

The sailor slapped at the pile of boxes in disgust, scattering them across the room.

“Careful!” Goldstein cried. “That is expensive merchandise!”

“Why were you speaking to the whores in Fairclough Street?” Clancy asked.

“What do you mean? They smoke, too, and have money that they make themselves. Why shouldn’t they need my products?”

“And you weren’t soliciting them for their trade?’

“I was working!” he insisted. “And I’m a married man.”

“That doesn’t stop most of the men here.”

“I have invested a good amount of money in that satchel and its contents. Were I to avail myself of those ladies’ services, which I would not, I would need to set down my bag. One cannot leave merchandise lying about where they could get stolen. It would ruin me.”

“That’s enough!” Abberline cried. “Show’s over. He’s in our custody now. We’ll handle it from here.”

Three constables went to remove the Whitechapel residents from the building.

“What am I going to do?” Goldstein repeated.

“Far better to come back when the workday is over and your samples are locked away,” Abberline said.

“Yes. No! I don’t come back,” Goldstein said.

“Is your route only in Whitechapel?” Barker asked.

“I canvass all of North London. A compatriot does the south side. I walk a different district each day. That way I only return every fortnight to give people time to be in need of more cigarettes, you see. I actually roll them myself. I get the materials at wholesale prices and make a decent profit.”

“Interesting,” the inspector said. “You come into Whitechapel every now and again, like the Killer.”

Goldstein looked at him blankly. “What killer?”

“The Whitechapel Killer. He’s killed two women so far, at least. Haven’t you heard of him?”

“I don’t pay any attention to the newspapers. I am a busy man. I have cigarettes to sell. Will this take long?”

“Not long at all,” Barker said. “You’re free to go, as far as I’m concerned. You can step right out the front door this very minute a free man.”

“But the crowd threatened me and punched me! They said they would hang me! Why aren’t you arresting them?”

“Well, Mr. Goldstein, so far you haven’t sworn out a complaint against anyone. The powers of the Metropolitan Police do not extend to mind reading.”

“What am I going to do? I have a route to finish.”

“You are not under arrest, Mr. Goldstein,” Barker said. “You were being set upon by an angry mob. I brought you here for your own personal safety.”

“Then I am free to go?”

“Unless DCI Abberline disagrees.”

The inspector shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve spent too much time on this matter already. I’ve got a murderer to find. But while you are here, I want a list of the dates you have been in Whitechapel. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait an hour for the mob to disperse,” Abberline ordered, sitting Goldstein down in a chair. “And when you leave, get out of Whitechapel, you hear me?”

Goldstein blinked and put on his pince-nez, which I noticed had been cracked during the affray.

“But I have orders to make,” he said.

Abberline’s face turned the color of a tomato. “Are you as thick as you look? Don’t you realize how narrowly you just missed hanging from a lamppost? Change your bloody schedule! Try Limehouse or Camden or Stepney. Anywhere but here.”

“They don’t buy cigarettes much in Limehouse,” Goldstein said.

Frederick Abberline ran a hand across his face. His patience was gone. “That’s it for me, Barker. He’s your responsibility now. If he opens his mouth one more time, I’m going to hang him myself.”

“I don’t—” the salesman began, but I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow.

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t shut your mouth,” I whispered in his ear.

The man’s shoulders sagged. I believe it finally sank into his skull that he wasn’t going to meet his quota of cigarettes sold in Whitechapel that day. The inspector retreated back into his office. Barker sat down at the table beside him.