Anatomy of Evil (3 page)

“Well?” he demanded. “What have ye to say for yourselves?”

“Sorry, sir,” I squeaked.

He set us both down. I leaned against a wall and coughed, but Israel actually sat down upon the pavement. He is terrified of my employer, and I supposed I could see why. Emerging suddenly from a dark alley in the middle of the night, Barker was terrifying.

“Explain,” said the Guv.

The words tumbled out of my mouth, which was just as well, since Israel was still speechless. I told Barker about the article my friend was writing for the
Jewish Chronicle
and how I had offered to help him since it was dangerous to travel Whitechapel alone. Most of it was true.

“Why the subterfuge?” he asked. “Why feign a lack of interest in a case you intended to investigate within an hour or two?”

“I thought you might not let me go out,” I admitted.

The Guv broke into a smile, albeit a chilly one. He shook his head. “Thomas, you are an adult, not that you’re acting like one. You may come and go as you like. My only concern would be if you investigated a case we are working on together without my presence. This, however, is not my case, as much as it pains me to admit it, and probably never shall be. I followed you because I had no idea where you were going. Now that I am here, allow me to warn you. These are dangerous streets, gentlemen. Be careful where you go and don’t be afraid to use your Webley if you need to, though only as a last resort.”

I had not mentioned the pistol, so either he inferred that I would bring it or he noticed that I carried it under my coat. To ask him which would only give him satisfaction.

“You really think the killer would dare attack us in the street? We are full-grown men, not soiled doves,” Israel said. It would have sounded better if his voice hadn’t cracked.

“No, Mr. Zangwill, I am referring to the street gang members and disgruntled workers who have lost their situations recently to Jewish immigrants. I understand there is a so-called vigilance committee afoot in the area. My associate is as Welsh as Tintagel Castle, but he could be mistaken for a Jew while in your company.”

“You don’t think I can handle myself?” I asked.

“I do, but it would be folly to attempt to find out either way without a better reason than an assigned article in the
Chronicle
. No insult to your esteemed journal intended.”

“But we Jews have nothing to do with these murders,” Israel continued.

“Perhaps, but one cannot rely on vigilantes to use logic or accept your assurances at face value. Would they sympathize with your people’s history of ill-treatment?”

Barker was referring, of course, to the pogroms which had occurred in Russia, Poland, and Germany, which had sent tens of thousands of Jews fleeing to England and the United States.

“How would I know?” Zangwill asked. “You create a straw man and warn us against it. Have you witnessed this committee you speak of? Do you know what kind of men it comprises, or how many? For all I know, it may be a figment of your imagination.”

My employer stared at him blankly. That is, I could not read his expression behind the thick mustache and black spectacles he wore at all hours of the day or night, even in darkest Whitechapel. He might be ready to throttle Israel again for having the gall to question his veracity. Barker seemed to grow taller then, and more menacing, like some sort of ogre or troll from a Norwegian storybook. Just as quickly, he receded back to his normal size, which is formidable enough at any time.

“You did not tell me,” the Guv said to me, “that your friend is educated in the debating arts, but then I would suspect such nimbleness of mind from a socialist. ‘Straw man,’ indeed. Very well, Mr. Zangwill, I admit the existence of such a committee is only hearsay, and I have not spoken to any of its members. Well argued, sir.”

My jaw must have dropped. Israel arguing with Barker and besting him? Barker humbly accepting that he had been beaten? We had fallen down the rabbit hole.

“Were it not past midnight I would treat you both to a pint of stout,” the Guv said.

Israel arched his brows in my direction. “I have a better suggestion, if Thomas will approve.”

I understood what he meant. He was speaking of the Barbados Coffeehouse, where the two of us met frequently. I was not certain how I felt about having my public and private worlds collide, as it were. Offhand, however, I could think of no reason why we should not invite him.

“There is a coffeehouse in Cornhill Street, sir, called the Barbados. Have you heard of it?”

“Is that in St. Michael’s Alley?” he asked. “I believe I’ve seen it, but I’ve never been inside. Is it fine?”

“You may see for yourself, sir. They stay open late on nights when the Yiddish Theater is performing, if you are interested. We could just as easily try another time.”

“None like the present,” Barker said. “Lead the way, gentlemen.”

It was a walk of close to a good mile, through many streets and neighborhoods, from where we stood to the relative harbor of the City and Cornhill Street, but I felt safer with my employer, and he set a brisk pace. There is nothing he enjoys so much as a good walk, which he calls “the most social of exercises.” No one ever got to know a street from the perch of a hansom.

The Barbados had been around for two hundred years, tucked among the warehouses where coffee is unloaded from ships in the Caribbean. It was a way, as I recall, for the West India Company to take money away from their rival, the East India Company, who was making a fortune importing tea from China and exporting opium. Coffee has never found a toehold here the way tea has, but it developed a following that has never gone away among the law clerks, civil servants, and intellectuals. Many government decisions have been made in coffeehouses, and inquests and other minor bits of business are still performed there. I have been in many of them, but none are a patch on the old Barbados, in my humble opinion.

It’s not much to look at from the outside, its windows dark, its walls a faded terra-cotta. Once inside, however, you immediately step back two centuries. The floors, ceilings, and tall booths are carved out of black maple. The ceiling is low, and it bristles with mismatched tankards hanging down like fringe. Each table has a hollow in the center where pure Virginia Cavendish is kept for the visitor’s pleasure. When we were seated, Barker naturally reached for the traveling pipe he kept in his pocket. We both stopped him.

“How is this?” he asked. “Tobacco, but no smoking?”

Just in time, the proprietor arrived. His name was Frobisher, and his family had run the place for nine generations. Frobisher was entirely bald, not so much as an eyelash, and he and I had had our skirmishes at one time or another.

“We would like to recommend this gentleman for membership,” I said.

“On what grounds?” Frobisher asked, eyeing Barker with something approaching concern. There is a Magwitch-like element to his appearance that I suppose I’ve grown accustomed to over the years.

“On the grounds that if you do not consider his membership, he might reduce this building to rubble within the hour,” Zangwill said.

“He’s joking,” I assured Frobisher. “Mr. Barker is well known among the law courts and is well spoken of in government circles. I can offer references. In fact, I have one here.”

So saying, I pulled out my watch, which was actually given to Barker by the Prince of Wales, after we stopped an assault on his life by the Irish Republican Brotherhood. There aren’t many references better than the Prince of Wales in London. Offhand, I could only think of one.

A form was brought forward, Barker dipped a quill in the inkwell, and he gave his signature which never varied: a capital
C
followed by a squiggle, like a man’s scrawl left when dying, followed by a capital
B
without flourish, and a similar scrawl. In his defense, I have heard that his Chinese is practically legible, but only to the Chinese.

“What’s going on?” Barker asked.

I handed a pound note to Frobisher and I explained to my employer that he had just joined the club, where for one pound a year they kept a churchwarden on the premises for his exclusive use. He would get a plum pudding at Christmastime, and should he ever pass away, his pipe would be ceremonially broken and hung overhead in his memory. There was something Pickwickian about it; it simply could not be passed over.

Soon his pipe was brought out and Barker charged and lit it. Then a cup followed and he dutifully took the first sip. Zangwill leaned forward. It was true; there was no better coffee in all the British Isles than in this place. However, if he was awaiting a reaction from Barker, he would be disappointed. My employer has no taste buds to speak of. One could put a hornet in his mouth and he would not give the satisfaction of a reaction. He’ll eat anything placed in front of him and never knew the good from the bad. In restaurants I’ve known him to order the oddest things, like a stranger who doesn’t speak English. I suspect the stronger something tastes, the better he likes it.

“Mmmph,” he said, which was the closest Zangwill would get to a compliment. It was like a verbal writ, acknowledging flavor. I’ll give Israel this: he recovers well and he knows what questions to ask, a fine quality for any reporter.

“What do you make of these murders, Mr. Barker?”

Fine thing,
I thought.
Get someone else to do your thinking for you, Israel.

“I would say that this killer is enacting some sort of ritual. The cutting of the throat, possibly after near strangulation, followed by the second cut of the abdomen. The exact moves both times. This was not a frenzied attack, but carefully planned out and possibly rehearsed.”

“Was it some sort of pagan ritual done by followers of Satan?”

“As I recall, the ritual you mention requires some sort of altar. I meant it was a personal ritual to the killer. For whatever reason known only to him, he is going through the steps in a process.”

“Could the murders have been some sort of punishment for their wicked lifestyles? The stabbing of the abdomen was so close to the child-bearing organs. Could the murders have been intended to kill a child within them?”

“They were past childbearing years, for the most part,” Barker said, puffing on his pipe placidly as Frobisher recharged his cup.

“Oh, yes, I suppose they were. Could it be possible that the killer meant to kill Annie Chapman the first time, but in the dark mistook Mary Nichols for her? Then he’d have to kill her all over again.”

“That is possible. In fact, all of your theories are possible, and a thousand theories besides. It is better, however, to gather more facts before trying to test a theory. Chances are, one of them might be correct, but it will get buried under another more sensational and grotesque one. I suspect at the end of the day, the killer will be revealed to not be the monster we all think and even hope he will be, because he will be revealed not to be a monster at all, but a man, a man like you and me. This is reality, you see, and not high opera.”

“Of course,” Israel said. “That makes perfect sense.”

That was Israel’s way of interviewing people, to slap them with a blunt or fantastical question, followed by a soothing pat on the back, as if to say, “We’re mates, you and me.” Questioning was akin to riding an unbroken horse; the trick was to not be thrown off. To do so, one has to be able to discern what the animal is thinking.

The problem with Barker, however, is that he knows what the other man is thinking. He doesn’t fidget, he never seems hurried, and he’s rarely out of control. Only by watching Barker day in and day out for years can you deduce—no, can you
guess
—what he may be thinking or may be about to do next, and even then you are often wrong. For example, he often approaches our offices by different routes, crossing Westminster or Waterloo, alighting on a different corner each day, sometimes as far away as Downing Street. But then, I have seen him in the bathhouse in his garden, covered with scars, studded with bullet pocks, burn marks, charred flesh, and tattoos from a dozen secret societies. He came by his methods the hard way. As good as Israel was, well, he may think he was riding the steed, but I suspected that crafty old steed was in fact riding him.

“One idea put forth is that the Whitechapel Killer hates women,” Zangwill pontificated. “Such men are the worst examples of their sex. The killer not only cuts their throats, which of course silences them—the original Silent Woman, eh? But then he cuts them open down there, you know. There is an unconfirmed rumor he removes the organs. Surely this is the work of a virulent woman hater.”

Barker gently knocked his pipe into the depression in the table. The clay churchwarden looked extremely fragile in his blunt hands. Then he drained his cup, which must have been cold by then, but when the Guv starts something, he always finishes it. He set the cup back in the saucer with a click.

“He could just as easily be a medical student who desperately wants to find a body to vivisect. In that case, he goes for such women because they are easily accessible most of the time, and for no other reason.”

“But then he’d have to be sane.”

My employer smiled again. “My good sir, make no mistake. The last I heard, only insane people run about slicing women from the very bottom of society’s underbelly. I don’t believe you can sustain a logical and cogent reason why a normal person would kill two women in this manner.”

“But there still may be one,” I said.

“Yes. Unfortunately, the only way to test a new rope is still to swing from it. That’s where the Metropolitan Police come in.”

“They do?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

Barker lifted his hand, palm up, in my direction. “There are a thousand theories and we are only two agents. I could enlist and organize every private detective in London and still not match the number of constables and inspectors of the Met. They are men seasoned by working with murderers, confidence tricksters, thieves, and harlots. They can generally tell when someone is lying.”

“You’ve got an excellent perspective, Mr. Barker. What if we gave you a column in the
Chronicle:
‘Thoughts of a Private Enquiry Agent,’” Israel said. “We could do all we can to gather clues for you and open doors. All the information we find will come by you first. I’m sure we could pay you pretty well.”