Felicity Carrol and the Murderous Menace

by Patricia Marcantonio

  “Don’t tarry too long in this place, Miss,” the cabby said as Felicity got out at George Street. “It’s not the safest place for a lady.”

  “I will be fine. Please wait here as I asked.”

  “You paid me well to wait, and that I will.” He crossed his arms and nodded to seal the agreement.

  She asked directions of a police officer with a young man’s whiskers and eyes darting at every sound. Even he did not want to be there. Through Morton & Morton, she had asked John McCarthy, the building owner, to meet her. A huge man who wheezed as much as he breathed, he stood in front of the door to Thirteen Miller’s Court. McCarthy leered at her approach.

  “In between renters for the moment. No one likes to stay here very long ’cause of what happened.” The man threw a terrific sneeze into a gray handkerchief and opened the lock. “I’ll be in the room next door if you need anything. Stay as long as you like, love.”

  Anemic sunlight through the window only emphasized the room’s dinge. Against one wall, a small bed was bent as an old man’s arm. Splintered wood made up the table, two chairs, and floor in the twelve-foot-square room. The building smelled of cabbage soup. Removing her gloves, Felicity’s fingers traced the furniture and the mantel of the small fireplace.

  This was where Mary Jane Kelly had died.

  Felicity recalled the details of Kelly’s final night from reading Metropolitan Police, postmortem, and inquest reports, as well as many newspaper narratives about what had passed the morning of November 9, 1888.

  Before midnight, Mary Jane Kelly had left a pub by herself and set off to the tiny flat at Thirteen Miller’s Court. The threadbare red shawl she wore probably provided little protection from the nip of the November night. Inside the room, she warmed up a bit of greasy fish and potatoes she had saved from her previous night’s dinner but pushed the plate away after two bites. How far her life had toppled—from working as a domestic servant, to being a clerk in a shop on Commercial Street, to servicing clients in a high-class brothel in the West End, and finally to rambling the thoroughfares of the lower depths of Whitechapel. Closing her eyes, she began to sing “A Violet From Mother’s Grave,” an American tune. Those who knew her said Mary Jane had a lovely voice that didn’t belong in the East End.

  “They all have left me in sorrow here to roam. While life does remain, in memoriam I’ll retain this small violet I plucked from Mother’s grave,” Kelly sang.

  However, not all appreciated her voice. An upstairs neighbor woman pounded on the floor and screamed, “Shut it. Don’t you know it’s one in the bloody morning!”

  Mary Jane kept on singing. “No one’s left to cheer me now within that good old home.”

  Although it was nearing two o’clock, Kelly ventured out into the dark streets one more time. Somewhere she met a stranger, whom she invited back to her flat. A knife replied to her invitation.

  At eleven later that morning, a man knocked on her door to collect the rent she owed. The place was mute as a church on Monday. He tried the door, but it was locked. One of the panes was missing in the window by the door. He shouted for Kelly to wake up and pay up. Still, she didn’t respond. He pulled aside the shabby curtain.

  Blood was everywhere.

  All the way to the Commercial Street Police Station, the man yelled, “Murder! Murder!”

  Building owner John McCarthy heard the shouting and met the police in front of Mary Jane Kelly’s room. Since this was his building, McCarthy insisted on wielding the ax against the locked door. When the door gave way and he entered, his eyes went to the woman’s clothing over the chair and her worn boots by the fireplace. They were the sole normalcy in the room. In the middle of the bed lay Mary Jane Kelly’s body, or what was left of it. Her lovely hair was wavy as seaweed, undulating in a current of red.

  The savage killing of the prostitutes had started on August 31, 1888, in Whitechapel, the center of the End East. Police appeared helpless as the killer kept up his spree, often leaving bodies out on the nighttime streets. Mary Jane Kelly was the last of the five women murdered. By the time he was finished, this so-called Jack the Ripper had spread alarm around the area and the whole of the East End because no one knew where he might strike next.

  After Mary Jane Kelly, the murders stopped as abruptly as they had begun. The killer was never captured. He seemed to have vanished like a nightmare in the morning, but leaving the sleeper fretful and afraid of repeating the dream.

  Felicity breathed out and closed the door behind her. She thanked McCarthy, though she had paid him well to let her into the tiny flat.

  This time he didn’t ogle her. “You’re not the only person who wanted to see this place in the day.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Reporters. Writers. The curious. Damn ’em all. What’s your reason, Miss?”

  She gave a last look at Thirteen Miller’s Court. “To finish what a friend couldn’t.”

  His eyes constricted with bafflement.

  “What was she like, Mary Jane Kelly?” Felicity said.

  McCarthy shut the door and locked it. “She’s dead now. What’s it matter?”

  “You were there, Mr. McCarthy. You saw what happened to her in that room.”

  “I did.” His eyes were wet with anxiety.

  “And that’s why it does matter.” Felicity left the man and began walking back to the waiting carriage on George Street.

  Her steps sounded hollow under her feet. She felt as if a solar eclipse had shaded the sun and the light might never return to warm the earth. She had been shocked by the cruel details she had read in the reports about Mary Jane Kelly and the other Whitechapel victims, but they were only words. To actually stand in the room where the woman had been slain made the murders real and the killer more dangerous.

  With each new investigation Felicity had undertaken, she had questioned herself. Whether her knowledge of science, history, physics, medicine, and all those other subjects she had studied would help her solve a crime. Whether she would be up to the task, whether she could work up an inner strength to look past the horror for clues that would lead her to the murderer.

  This case was no exception.

  Hurrying on, she had no time for such doubt. Later, she would weep for the lost, when the culprit was behind bars waiting for execution. Now she had to ready herself for a long voyage.

  Within another house near the East End, Inspector Jackson Davies lay in a bed. He had been wrecked like a ship pounding against unforgiving rocks. The energetic young man she had verbally scrapped with, annoyed, and befriended was now a phantom in his own life.

  Inspector Davies had become obsessed with arresting the fiend who had killed Mary Jane Kelly and the other women in Whitechapel. He had spent hours, days, weeks, and months working the scarce clues he and other inspectors could unearth in a truly puzzling case. He had revisited each crime scene over and over. Followed suspects who had turned out to be innocent. He had neglected his family, his health, and his friends, including Felicity, all in the name of justice. But despite his labors, the killer had evaporated into obscurity once he had satisfied his yearning for death.

  Thanks to her astounding talent for retaining all she read, Felicity recalled every word in the newspaper article Davies had given her. Her friend was right. The lead in a remote mining town on another continent was one that had to be examined. Jackson Davies could not make the trip, but giving Felicity the newspaper clipping amounted to handing over a challenge, albeit with reluctance.

  Now it was up to her to find Jack the Ripper, even if it meant a trip to the wilds of Montana.

  CHAPTER 6

  Placer, Montana

  Felicity and Helen stepped out of the stagecoach, and the ground shook. Horses clomped dirt. Buildings tremored.

  “My heavens,” exclaimed Helen, who turned around and tried to get back in the coach.

  “What an introduction,” said Felicity, who gently tugged on the back of Helen’s dress to stop her. “We’ve come all t
his way, Hellie. We can’t go back now.”

  “Oh yes, we can.”

  Felicity straightened her velvet hat while their trunks were removed from the coach. At a café across from the station, a man leaned against the porch. A star glinted on his leather vest. A lawman of the West—how exciting just to see one! She noticed how he examined the face of every man in the vicinity. He was searching for someone, and from his severe gaze, she was glad it was not her.

  Then the man’s focus landed on Felicity and Helen, and he ambled toward them as if he had more than time on his side.

  “This is our lucky day, Helen. I wanted to meet the sheriff, and I believe here he comes.”

  “I wouldn’t call that lucky,” Helen replied, and pulled at her wrinkled dress. “He’s probably come to throw us out of town.”

  “Don’t be so negative, Hellie.” Even if he threw them out, she’d come back, because she had a goal to achieve.

  The sheriff walked straight, though perhaps a little too much so, as if he followed only a trail he trusted. With his longish dark-brown hair, he could have been a good-looking young Allan Quatermain pursuing adventure in Africa rather than a lawman upholding order in an unruly Montana town. As if he had heard her thoughts, the man licked his fingers to tame a few errant strands of hair behind his ears.

  Pay attention, Felicity chided herself. You’re acting like a silly schoolgirl, not that you ever were one.

  “Welcome to Placer,” the sheriff told Felicity. His voice sounded like an American sunset, rich and rough.

  “This place is certainly a long way from New York.”

  “Or anywhere.” Helen adjusted her hat. Her thumb pointed back at the stagecoach. “My insides have never been so shaken around as in that contraption.” She turned to Felicity. “And Miss, you said nothing about earthquakes in Montana.”

  Before Felicity could answer, the man held up his hand. He noted his short shadow, took a watch out of a vest pocket, and smiled. “Wait one more minute, ma’am.”

  Helen mouthed ma’am to Felicity, and they both tried not to laugh.

  A whistle blew in the distance, and the whole town rattled once again. In the street, horses reared and whinnied. Dogs barked. Windows shook.

  “Another earthquake!” Helen started to climb back into the stagecoach, and Felicity again pulled at the back of her dress.

  “No earthquake, Helen. A dynamite explosion. If I’m not mistaken, the sound originated from the west.”

  “You’re right, ma’am. It’s the noontime blasting at the mines.” The sheriff scratched his head.

  From his face, Felicity could tell he was wondering how a woman knew about dynamite.

  “I suppose the blasting takes place during the day so as not to wake everyone,” she said.

  “That’s the general idea. You two sound British.”

  “Your powers of observation are keen. Are you the welcoming committee?” The corners of Felicity’s mouth quirked up with mischievousness. The sheriff replied with a smile he probably used to impress women.

  “Sheriff Tom Pike, at your service.” He tipped up his hat.

  “This is fortuitous. Exactly the person I wanted to meet,” Felicity said.

  “How lucky can a fella get?”

  Brilliant. Another sarcastic man. Her mouth straightened with determination. “I’ve come to Placer to learn about the murder of Lily Rawlins.”

  Pike lost his amiable exterior and instead became a wooden pillar.

  She pointed at the star on his chest. “You are the sheriff, aren’t you?”

  “Last I looked, ma’am.”

  “Enough ma’am. My name is Felicity Carrol, and this is Miss Helen Wilkins.”

  Pike shook their hands. “A pleasure. But what’s all this about Lily Rawlins? You a Pinkerton detective or something?”

  Helen laughed.

  “Heavens, no. But what a delightful compliment.” Felicity’s eyes widened.

  “When you came out of the stagecoach, I told myself spring had arrived. Lovely and refreshing like the flowers on the mountainside,” Pike said.

  “How poetic of you, Sheriff.”

  “Then you opened your mouth.” Pike’s brow creased with irritation.

  Even in America, I have this effect on men, Felicity thought. But she couldn’t worry about annoying this interesting fellow.

  “Hundreds of people from all over the United States and other countries land in Placer to work in the mines and smelters or to seek their own golden vein in the ground. It’s my duty to find out who’s arrived in my town.”

  “Not only poetic but efficient,” Felicity said.

  “You two are among the most extraordinary I’ve ever seen.”

  “How kind of you. Wait, was that a compliment?” Felicity said.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Now, about Lily Rawlins.”

  “This is some sort of record, ma’am. You got into town a few minutes ago and have already put me in a God-awful mood.”

  “I suspect you woke up that way, Sheriff,” Felicity replied.

  “Why you asking about Big Lil? Her death isn’t exactly the nicest subject for a lady to discuss.” His tone turned harsh, as if he hoped to scare her away.

  Felicity brushed dust from her skirt. “My dear sheriff, if you’re not a lady, then how can you determine what is proper?”

  He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “Listen here, Miss Carrol …”

  “Excuse my forwardness. This is the middle of the street and not the most conducive time or place for a conversation. Can we meet tomorrow for tea?” From her purse, she took out a handkerchief and dotted her forehead. “I have purchased a home at Fifty-Six Bullion Boulevard. Funny name.”

  “Not to men digging for gold. And tea is fine, Miss Carrol.”

  A wagon with two men stopped in front of the station. Felicity had telegraphed for one to haul her, Helen, and their trunks into town. “Say two o’clock, Sheriff?”

  His nod was sharp. “I can see you’re smart as well as beautiful. Me, I only had a few years of school, but I’m good at two things. The law and reading people. I can interpret a person’s character as easily as reading horse tracks in the dirt.” He leaned over her, which was easy, because he was a good head taller. “Already I can tell you’re hiding something under your bustle. I’d also wager my best gun there are more riddles to you than the number of mining tunnels under Placer.”

  “But I’m not wearing a bustle.” Felicity smiled. “Now, I must see to our transportation.”

  She and Helen left to supervise the loading of the trunks. When the men finished, one sat in the back of the wagon while the driver helped them up to the seat. As the wagon pulled out, Felicity watched Sheriff Tom Pike walk into a general store.

  “Cowboys,” she muttered. So far, she found that their attitudes toward women echoed those of the conservative Englishmen she had left back home. Yet the men of the American West were different, and not only because of the guns on their hips. She saw in them a muted wildness from having to survive the evident harshness of the land. The sheriff had that air, along with inquisitive eyes. Too inquisitive.

  She faced front in the wagon, which traveled farther into Placer. Working with a New York attorney, her family solicitor Martin Jameson had succeeded in finding a house for her and Helen. Via telegrams received at stops on her journey across America, Jameson had informed her the property was located in a part of town where the respected and well-bred people resided. Through his American counterpart, he had also hired the services of a trustworthy older man who had worked for the former homeowner. Felicity didn’t doubt Jameson’s efforts. He probably couldn’t stand the notion of a young Englishwoman alone with a servant in a Godforsaken place like Montana.

  On their trip via steamship, railroad, and stagecoach, Felicity had read about mining to understand the source of Placer’s wealth and reason for its existence. The bustling town served as a hub for the extraction of gold, silver, and copp
er from the Rocky Mountains located to the west and south. After refinement at smelters, the precious metals were transported by horse and wagon to a rail station twenty miles away for shipment to cities.

  During the train leg of their trip, Felicity had also acquired a valuable detail not noted in any book. It had come from a smartly dressed farm-implement salesman who eyed her as if he could see straight to her bloomers. “Placer has the largest red-light district west of Independence, Missouri.”

  “How disgusting.” Felicity had feigned ladylike offense. “I suppose that’s well known in the West.”

  “To the right people.” Even his wink was lecherous.

  Especially a killer who sought out prostitutes, Felicity thought.

  “Let me tell you more,” he said.

  Before he could, Helen tapped the man’s shoulder and pointed him in the other direction. “On your way.”

  Placer, Montana, was larger than Felicity had expected. People in fashionable clothes strolled on clean wooden sidewalks along the wide and busy Main Avenue. Men on horses, in wagons, and on carriages rode over the grated dirt streets. Electric poles dotted both sides of Main, and men were erecting more poles on side streets. Newer brick and wood structures housed shops, hotels, banks, restaurants, express offices, and even a drugstore advertising medicines and soda water. Another group of men worked on a clock tower atop the sizable white stone building of the new courthouse, or so their driver told them.

  They drove off of Main Avenue, and the mood changed.

  A horse lay dead and bloated in the middle of a side street. In an alley, a man in a leather apron thrust an ax down on the thick neck of a cow. Under the animal curled ribbons of blood. From another cow hung on a hook, a man jerked out purplish entrails. A flow of pack mules, horses, and oxen towing wagons stirred a layer of dust over the streets, which were covered with brown lumps of manure.

  “Whew, what a stink,” Helen declared.

  The stench of the animals did nothing to conceal another, fouler odor. Burning wood, sulfur, and greasy coal all mixed with sewage and tallow. Felicity commented as much to the wagon driver.