City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (19 page)

There is nothing unnatural in this, is
there?  We are all enslaved to the same cycles and there is no reason to feel
shame.  He walks in light, he walks in darkness, and yet sometimes he wonders: 
Which one is real, and which is the dream?

CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN

October 3

4:40 PM

Despite his best intentions of
getting some rest, Trevor found himself once again standing at the door of
Geraldine Bainbridge’s house.  In the days when he was a new detective and one
who approached every case with an inordinate degree of seriousness, Trevor had adopted
the habit of turning to Geraldine whenever he was fitful or depressed.  The Mayfair
home may have been unorthodox but it was a haven, perhaps the only true haven
he knew in London. 

Or so he told himself.  But he also knew
that it was the presence of Leanna which now drove his feet up these familiar
steps. 

This was insanity. With his schedule,
he should be seizing these brief hours to sleep, not to mention that only the
previous morning he had vowed to avoid her entirely. But he had come back to
this door nonetheless, to soak in the warmth of the fire, the tea, Emma’s quiet
sympathy, Geraldine’s comforting habit of taking on his troubles as her own. 
And yes, perhaps, to see the girl. 

Leanna and Tom had been playing chess
when he arrived, and they rose rapidly as introductions were made all around. 
Trevor had often heard Geraldine speak proudly of her nephew but he had never
actually met the boy and it was a bit startling to see him standing there so
vibrant and blond, the male version of Leanna.  Tom grasped Trevor’s outreached
hand in both of his and urged him to tell every detail of the Ripper case.  The
morning papers, as well as the afternoon and perhaps, judging from the size of
the heap, those of the day before, lay on the divan and Tom impatiently pushed
them aside, settled in beside Trevor, and demanded a recounting of the story. 
Trevor was careful not to divulge sensitive information, but he still enjoyed
getting a fresh perspective on the case and within minutes Leanna, Emma, Gage
and Gerry also pulled up chairs, allowing Trevor the pleasant sensation of
being on stage.

“My fondest hope,” he confided to
Tom, “is to someday have a forensics laboratory like the one in Paris.  Our
present methods are quite hit-or-miss and it’s appalling to think an
institution like Scotland Yard has allowed itself to fall so far behind.”

“I can’t imagine there could be
resistance to such a laboratory,” Tom said.  “Is it purely a matter of money?”

“Would that it were so simple.  More
money always helps, of course, and there is a bright side to this Ripper
business.  Since the Yard is enjoying so much publicity, Parliament has held a
special session and granted us more funds. But that money is going to beefing
up the staff with more bobbies, not a laboratory.”  Trevor mustered a small,
tight smile. “But funding is an easy task compared to the problem of changing
attitudes.  Scotland Yard likes to deduce.  To talk to people, interview
witnesses, and draw motives.  Nothing wrong with that in itself, but interviews
can prove misleading and contrary.”

“While facts don’t lie,” Tom
prompted.

“Generally they don’t.  The Yard has
simply failed to recognize the importance of actual physical evidence, of
establishing proof and not just motive or opportunity.  Deduction is all well
and good in those sort of drawing room mysteries the ladies like to read,” –
here Trevor turned toward Gerry with an elaborate head bow which made her snort
in mock indignation -  “the kind where there are only ten suspects and four of
those conveniently die before the fifth chapter.  But in a city which holds
hundreds of potential Rippers…”

“Indeed,” said Tom “Are the French truly
that far ahead of us forensically?  I know they’ve made some recent medical strides
we just can’t match though my professors are loath to admit it.”

“Ah, it drives me nearly mad,” said
Trevor.  “They’ve developed something called the Bertillion System, although
I’m probably pronouncing it wrong.  Impossible language, you know.  But the
idea is that there are certain physical measurements – around the cranium
specifically, but also the fingers and toes – that are particular to each
person and these measurements don’t change throughout life.”

“I don’t understand,” Leanna said. 
“How do bone measurements help you find a killer?”

“I’m not at all sure,” Trevor
admitted.  “I think the methodology should be more useful in indentifying if
the person in question is the right one, or, conversely, in eliminating someone
as a suspect.  This Bertillion chap has apparently measured every inmate in a
certain Parisian prison, created a file of their particulars, and was later
able to identify 241 multiple offenders.  Multiple offenders - you know, a
person who commits the same type of crime over and over, like our friend the
Ripper.  241.  An amazing number of cases to for a single man to retire, but I
don’t know how Bertillion did it.”

“Would the Parisian police share this
information?” Tom asked.

“Oh, almost certainly, if I could go
there and study…” Trevor laughed ruefully.  “A pipe dream.”

Leanna sat frowning into the fire as
the talk swirled around her.  She was pleased to see Trevor and Tom becoming
such fast friends, but it was annoying to be summarily dismissed, especially
when she considered that a mere two days earlier Trevor had seemed to seek her
opinion.  But then she remembered that even on that night, she’d felt slightly pushed
aside once he and John had began talking.  Perhaps Trevor was one of those men
who spoke to women as equals only when there were no other males present.

“What are you thinking, Leanna?”
Trevor broke in, smiling as he smoothed down his sideburns with a fingertip.

“I was wondering if the women fought
back,” she lied smoothly.  “The killer may be walking around with bruises or
scratches.”

“Yes indeed, Liz Stride scratched
him.  Very astute of you to think of it.  She was the only one to get in much
of a blow at all, I’m afraid, since it would appear he strangles first and
strangles from behind.”

“They must be terrified.”

“Hmmm?”

“The women of Whitechapel,” Leanna
repeated.  “They must be terrified.”

“I rode through the East End on my
way here,” Tom said dryly.  “Business hasn’t seemed to have fallen off much.”

“They don’t have a choice,” Leanna
said.  “It is how they earn their living, feed their children.”

“Hard to think of prostitutes having
children,” Tom mused.

“You should talk to John,” Leanna
said irritably.  “They have them, more than anyone.  Which is why they need his
clinic….”

With this, she picked up some nearby
needlepoint – Emma’s, no doubt - and began to jab at the circle of daisies with
shaky little punches of her needle.  Tom filled the silence with an amusing
story about one of his anatomy classes and Trevor sat looking at Leanna with
heavy-lidded eyes.  How could she have guessed of Catherine Eddowes’ daughter? 
Or of Frilly’s terror?  Obviously she did not know any women in their line of
work, but her remarks were close enough to the truth.  Leanna had the gift of
empathy, of sensing what life must be like for the less fortunate, even without
ever having directly suffered such trouble herself.  In a society which forced
women to be either abysmally ignorant or utterly jaded, with no levels of
experience in between, Leanna’s imagination made her a rare specimen. 

Rare and beyond his reach.  She had
already begun to mouth John Harrowman’s opinions as her own.

 5:40 PM

Mary Kelly looked into the cracked mirror
and smiled back at herself with pleasure.  The new lip rouge was quite becoming
and she had pulled her fair curls up in a new manner this evening, a style
which would have been too severe for most women but which was fetching on one
who possessed, as did Mary, a perfectly proportioned profile. 

She commanded a top price and could
afford to be a bit choosy in her selection.  She liked them young and
relatively clean - the fishmongers and slaughterhouse workers weren’t for her,
thank you - and if business was slow on a particular night and she was forced
to temporarily lower her standards, then the price went up.  As high as two
pounds.  Her pretty face and her ability to drive a hard bargain had earned her
this room of her own off Hanover Street.  It wasn’t much of a home, and Mary
knew it, but it was her own nonetheless, and returning to it each evening gave
her a sense of privacy and dignity.  She didn’t have to share a bed-let with a
gaggle of other working girls or, worse, resort to knee-tremblers in the
alleyway.  She could have a fire and a wash basin and even a spot of tea
between trade.  The bookcase with its titles of Milton and Smollett and Chaucer
would have struck her customers as quite odd should any of them have paused to
look, but the gentlemen were not in the habit of staying long and Mary did not
encourage even the slightest gesture of familiarity once the job was done.

The other girls were abuzz about the
killings but such thoughts did not overly distress Mary Kelly.  The Ripper
seemed to favor a very different sort of woman – older, unsteady, desperate,
weakened by alcohol and too many years in the life.  The sort of woman who
would still be on the streets at one or two in the morning, who would be willing
to risk following a stranger into an alley.  Her father had read her the works
of Charles Darwin, and – although she doubted he would have agreed with this
particular interpretation – Mary considered The Ripper an agent of natural
selection.  He did little more than hasten the inevitable for the poor wretches
he took, and he’d never shown a proclivity for a woman like her.  Someone who was
young and strong and sober, who had her wits about her, someone with a steady
enough clientele that she was usually back in her own bed alone before
midnight.

On this particular night Mary pulled
her favorite red stole over her bare shoulders and headed out in the direction
of the Fox and Hound.  Although the streets were dark, she strode confidently
through them, her empty purse slapping her thigh with each wide step.  The
purse would not remain empty for long.

Nor, God willing, would her stomach. 
There was generally a gent or two at the tavern who would buy her a pint and a
bit of supper in exchange for her companionship, and perhaps as a prelude to
other pleasures.  Mary had the reputation, rare among her rivals, of being
charming company even when upright.

As she turned east on Merchant Street,
Mary stopped.  A man, very still and well-dressed, stood in the fog wearing a
tall hat and red muffler.  Mary smiled slightly.

“Evening, Sir,” she said, proud that
her voice carried not the slightest trace of a cockney accent.

The man turned halfway, his face so
concealed by the hat brim and muffler that only his dark eyes were visible. 
Such affectation was not unusual for the East End, where a certain class of man
might be hesitant to be recognized, and Mary had even known a couple who’d
adopted a full disguise.  A little more subterfuge than the situation called
for, at least in her opinion, but perhaps the costuming had been part of their
naughty game.  No matter. It was scarcely her job to wonder at the motives of
men.     

“Evening,” the man said.

“Frightful weather, is it not?” she
asked, a particularly inane remark for London, where the weather was always
frightful, but one had to begin somewhere.  The man made no reply and only
stared at her with narrowed eyes.

“Are you out for dinner?” Mary
continued, a bit uneasily now, for it had crossed her mind he might be a copper
trying to draw a working girl into his lair.  She would have to choose her
words carefully.  “I’m on my way for a bite myself, you see, and I…”

“I dine alone.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she said,
stammering, for she had evidently misjudged the situation badly.  She backed
up, nearly stumbling as her foot left the curb and offering the gentleman a
tremulous smile in parting.  He did not look at her and as she started off into
the mist she found herself, to her own surprise, running.  For a moment she
felt disoriented as if she had not walked these streets a thousand times in the
last five years.

“Fair Mary, where ye goin’?” lisped a
familiar voice from the curb and she stopped, gasping against the constraints
of her corset and looking into the face of Georgy McDale, a regular customer at
the local bars and - for the time being, at least - somewhat of a friend.

“The strangest man,” she gasped, unable
to go on.

“Aye, girl are ye mad?  Roamin’ the
streets with the Ripper around?  It’s no time to be findin’ new customers, I
can tell ye that.  ‘Tis a time to be seein’ old friends who ye know,” he smiled
at her, holding out one arm and displaying brown, uneven teeth.

Mary raised her chin.  “I’m hungry. 
I want some stew.”

“Aye, well enough.”

“And don’t think my price has gone
down, just because these are hard times.”

Georgy laughed, “I wouldn’ be takin’
advantage of ye, Mary.  There’s a tavern here across the way.” Mary nodded,
taking the extended arm and wondering if Georgy was right.  The gentleman on
the corner had done nothing, not really, but he had frightened her
nonetheless.  Perhaps fear were a palpable thing in the air, floating above
London and mingled with the fog, and they would all breathe it in eventually,
even the young and the clever and the strong.  Perhaps it was truly better to
stick with old friends, even if they did have bad teeth and worse breath.  Even
if it did mean coming down a bit on her price.