Anatomy of Evil (35 page)

The tea was just about ready and the various constables and sergeants were chatting in the hall. It all seemed genial enough until it stopped. A man I had never seen before came up beside the Guv, seized his arm, and pressed him face-first against the wall. He had the gall to try to twist my employer’s arm behind him. The attacker was perhaps five and forty, with thick side whiskers framing a square face. He looked angry. Barker’s chest thumped against the wall. There was a sort of collective moan from the men in the corridor. I knew there would be hell to pay.

Barker twisted and muscled his body until the two of them faced each other, beady eyes to implacable black spectacles. Then suddenly, the Guv unleashed. He seized the man by the waistcoat, and the next I knew, he was spinning him down the corridor. Abruptly, he stopped the fellow’s progress just when it looked as if his face was going to smack into the wall. Then he twisted him the other direction, until at the last moment he let go. The man sailed through the air until coming into contact with the floor. He slid along the floor several feet until he passed into an open doorway where he knocked over a chair.

There was a chorus of shouts and laughs from my professional colleagues and for a moment tea was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Barker’s assailant came charging out of the office covered in the dust he had picked up in the corridor. He took a swing at Barker and connected on the jaw. I saw the Guv’s head shift back with the blow. My employer did not seem inclined to punch back. When the chap tried to throw a second blow, the men of the Yard immediately surrounded him and stopped him from trying again. He was herded into another room and Barker back into his. A half-dozen men offered him their handkerchiefs because his lip was bleeding, but he turned them down. I made a cup for each of the combatants, though I was inclined to accidentally spill one in the lap of the one who started it. It was all over as soon as it had begun.

“What was that all about?” I asked the Guv when things had calmed down. “Who was that fellow?”

“It was Littlechild, in charge of the Royal Squad. He is angry because we replaced him in Ponsonby’s favor. We gave the royal seccretary an excuse to bar the inspector from the palace.”

“You let him hit you. I could have blocked that punch.”

“No doubt. It is important to know how to take a punch. And when.”

“When?” I asked. “I already know that. The answer is never.”

Barker dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his handkerchief.

“He needed to save face. He couldn’t be completely trounced in front of his compatriots. Besides, we are guests here. If we humiliated him in public, sympathy would lean in his favor. One good punch on my chin did me no harm, it restored his dignity, and it turned the favor in our direction.”

“But we don’t even know the man. Why should I care whether or not he feels better?”

“You shouldn’t and I don’t. However, it matters how the other inspectors feel about our conduct. We are being judged every day. We wouldn’t want to undo the good you’ve done supplying tea and biscuits all around, would we?”

“I suppose not.”

“Good.”

“But you could have trounced him.”

“Easily. Did you see how slow that punch was?”

“You could have had a pipeful while you waited.”

Barker chuckled, then winced at the cut on his lip. “Droll. Very droll.”

Just then, Abberline rushed in, looking concerned.

“What happened?” he asked.

“A minor altercation,” the Guv said.

“What was the cause?”

“Sir Henry barred him from the palace, I assume. The inspector was of the opinion that it was my doing.”

“And was it?”

“No. I’m only here temporarily. I have no interest in slicing a piece of the pie for myself.”

“Someone said you flipped him about with some of your Asian mumbo jumbo, as if he was a rag doll.”

“It was less violent than hitting him. If I’d hit him, he’d still be unconscious.”

“You recall what Warren said about staying out of trouble?” Abberline asked.

“That
was
me staying out of trouble. He’s not being carted out in a hand litter, bound for Charing Cross Hospital.”

“I’ll try to keep the commissioner mollified,” the detective chief inspector said.

“Thank you, Frederick,” Barker said, taking the liberty of using his first name.

“How is the case coming on?”

“We are still hunting leads from six in the morning until midnight, isn’t that so, lad?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded.

“Are you making any progress?”

“I had PC Llewelyn type up a full report to the commissioner this morning. I’m sure he will make it available soon.”

“Hmmm,” Abberline said. “I hear you twirled Littlechild around like a baton. Sorry I missed that.”

“If you’ll call him in for a demonstration, I’ll show you how I did it.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Abberline said dryly. “How did things go at the palace yesterday?”

“There were several issues over which Sir Henry was concerned. I convinced him we were taking matters in hand.”

“And are we?”

“We are. Aren’t we, lad?”

“Of course,” I responded.

“There, you see.”

“Very well.”

Abberline left the room.

I turned to my employer. “About that, sir. We are, aren’t we?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

We were walking about the docklands that evening when Barker put a foot on top of a low piling and looked out upon the black waters of one of the basins.

“Thomas,” he said, “I am pulling you from your duties at Scotland Yard. Those menial tasks are a waste of your time.”

I agreed with him, but wasn’t going to admit it.

“What will you have me do instead, sir?”

“I want you to take the position at the Goulston Street mantle factory. Do you recall the notice in the window? We passed it a half hour ago and it is still there.”

“Does that mean you think Aaron Kosminski is the Whitechapel Killer?”

“I cannot say for certain, but he is like a persistent itch; an irritant. If we can dismiss him, we can get on with our work.”

“I can’t guarantee that my skills are good enough to get the position, but it is possible the owner has grown a little desperate.”

“Aye, well, he is not the only one.”

“This is a devil of a case,” I said.

“I suspect whatever mental malady the Whitechapel Killer suffers from is growing steadily worse.”

“I have heard of tumors in the brain, sir, which cause a change in behavior.”

“At some point, he shall lose his grip on reality and draw attention to himself. We must be placed at the best advantage when that occurs.”

Somehow, I had expected that being hired would be more difficult. I had prepared answers to possible questions, explanations for my current circumstances, and was prepared to argue, if necessary, because I wanted to succeed for Barker’s sake. All that working into the night had been for naught. He barely glanced at my letters of recommendation. Instead, he had given me a little test that spoke volumes.

“Sew me a buttonhole,” Wolfe Kosminski said. Apparently, he was the older brother of Aaron.

A letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury would have meant nothing if I hadn’t been able to do it. I couldn’t wait to tell Barker I had succeeded on the strength of my sewing skills.

“Not bad. This is where we do our piecing,” he said, pointing to some tables where men were rolling out fabric and pinning paper patterns to them. I noticed there were no women working there. I would have thought the seamstresses would outnumber the seamsters, but such was not the case.

“No women work here?” I asked.

“I don’t hire women,” Wolfe Kosminski said. “I don’t much like mixing the sexes on the factory floor. It only leads to unwanted drama and distraction, which causes injury. I have seen it happen before.”

He came to a narrow stairway in a corner and called out to the room above.

“There is only one woman here, my wife, Sarah,” he explained. “She cares for our child upstairs. Little Herschel is the first Kosminski born in England. I hope my brothers will marry someday and raise more boys so that our name can prosper here.”

Kosminski’s wife came down the stair then, holding the baby over her shoulder. She seemed rather shy and concerned with her own duties.

“This is Thomas,” he said, referring to me. “I have just hired him. I am showing him around.”

“You have a handsome baby, Mrs. Kosminski,” I told her.

“Danke,”
she said, carrying her baby back upstairs.

“I speak French, and a very little German,” I said. “What language do your shop workers speak?”

“Mostly Yiddish and German. But we all need to learn English, so I hope you can help them to speak and understand it.”

“Of course. What shall my hours be?”

“Seven to seven. We lock up promptly at eight.”

I suddenly saw the flaw in Barker’s plan. I would work twelve hours. There would be no more time to make tea or study files at Scotland Yard, and I would probably be too exhausted to march all over Whitechapel with Barker.

“We close at five on Friday, of course, and are closed on Saturday.”

“And Sunday?” I asked.

“Seven to seven, like any other day.”

“Of course.”

“There is one more part of the position I must explain to you before you begin. Let me take you to the back of the shop and I’ll explain as we go.”

We began to pass along the tables and I nodded to the workers sewing there who were naturally curious about a new employee. They seemed an unhappy lot, some past their working prime, others nearly children. A sweatshop. That’s what this place was, exploiting its workers to make a profit.

“My brother Aaron is the night watchman,” he said. “He is troubled mentally, subject to bouts of extreme excitement. He does not talk much, and only to us. He does not like strangers or changes of any kind. He finds change threatening.”

As we neared the back, I encountered an odor: pungent, primal, and very potent. I couldn’t help but raise a hand to my nose.

“I know,” Wolfe Kosminski said. “It is terrible. Aaron refuses to bathe. He is guided by voices in his head, which tell him what to do. Aaron!”

He opened a door. The smell inside made the bile rise in my throat. I saw a young man sitting on a cot, who sat up when we arrived. Our eyes locked for only a second before he looked down and away.

“Aaron, this is Thomas. He starts today.”

The younger Kosminski was near my own age, with light brown, greasy hair, the dawn of a mustache on his lip, and wispy side whiskers. His eyes were large and watery. The most remarkable feature was how his skin was stretched tautly upon his face. The man was nearly skeletal. Though possibly a few inches taller than I, I doubted he weighed seven stone. He seemed preternaturally aged; there were commas carved into each cheek by starvation. He pulled up his feet, which were bare and gray with grime, in order to bury his face in his knees.

“Now, now, little brother, that is no way to act toward the new man. Do you remember your English? Say hello to Mr. Llewelyn.”

After a moment a sound came out. I could not call it a word. It was like a sigh, a muffled sound that had no obvious origin, and which one could not understand. I had heard such sounds in the asylums I had visited in this case. It was something in between a buzz and a moan.

“No, now,
Bruder,
be nice. Thomas is new here and willing to overlook your nasty habits, but I won’t have you being uncivil to him.”

Perhaps Wolfe was trying to produce an apology from his relative, but he was not succeeding. Aaron Kosminski turned away and lay down on his bed, which consisted of several burlap sacks and blankets thrown on top of one another. He wore a none-too-clean shirt and braces and an open tweed waistcoat over a pair of baggy trousers.

“We’ll leave you then. I’ll see you after dinner.”

Wolfe led me out of the room and closed the door behind me. I let out a breath and drew in another one, but I was still too close to the source of it.

“To tell you the truth, we almost don’t notice the smell anymore—the family members, I mean. We grew up with it. Aaron has always been as you see him.”

“He is touched in the head?” I asked.

“Aaron is just Aaron. There is no other way to describe him.”

“Forgive me, but are there not places where he could be treated? I mean, with the factory needing to be run, and a new baby. You must be overbusy.”

“You cannot imagine. But no, we must look after him ourselves. He is family. I could not imagine him locked up in a cell and mistreated. He is so fragile, you see.”

“I hope I did not speak out of turn.”

“No, no, of course not. I brought you to see him because I cannot hide it for long. If you wish to turn down the position, I understand. You see now why no women will work here. Sometimes Aaron must be restrained. But he means no harm, you understand.”

“I suppose I can take it if I am not seated too close to the back. But why is your brother so thin?”

“He hears the voices and does what they tell him to. They tell him not to eat food prepared by others, only what is left in the street.”

“But this is Whitechapel,” I argued. “Almost no food is left in the street.”

“Precisely. We control him by giving him his walk in the evenings after dinner. He must eat two bites before he can go out: two full bites. Oh, he distresses himself atrociously, but he’ll eat a little, or he won’t get to go out.”

“Go out? You let him out?”

“Oh, yes. He’s harmless. We let him out around five. He sleeps during the day, you see, and is awake all night. It is his natural schedule. He returns around seven-thirty. Then we lock him in for the night. That way, he acts as night watchman, but also we know where he is all night.”

“What does he do while he is out?” I asked.

“He grazes. That is my little joke, you see. He walks and picks up as much food as he finds on the ground. He’s a great walker. He’ll go as far as Mile End in one direction, and Cheapside in the other.”

“Does he interact with anyone?”