Here

by Sean Moynihan

  “This was right where they found the knife,” he whispered to the professor. “Right here near the head of the bed. Your Ripper never left the murder weapon at the scene of his killings, did he, professor?”

  “No, certainly not,” Levine replied, glancing down at the large faded bloodstain just inches away from his hand. “They never found any sort of a knife, or even a rope or other implement that might have been used to strangle some of the women.”

  “So, doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Falconer asked. “Five brutal murders in London, probably even more than that, right? And he was always careful enough to take his knife with him. But this killer leaves it right smack dab in the middle of the floor, right next to the bed, for us to find the next morning. So, this can’t be the Ripper, can it? He wouldn’t be so careless. That fact on its own would be enough for you to just call this the work of a different killer, correct?”

  Levine stroked his beard with one of his hands for a moment, and then spoke very slowly and deliberately. “It would strike me as the first bit of evidence, detective—and significant evidence, too, I might add—that this is not, in fact, the Ripper. As you said, the Whitechapel killer would never leave the knife at the scene, and further, he would not use such a rudimentary, crude knife such as was used here. I have read in the papers that it was a simple skinning knife, and perhaps one which was even a little dull. The Ripper caused some very unusual, complex, and finely-made wounds to his victims, and thus, he was thought to be highly skilled with a cutting instrument, perhaps even a surgeon or a butcher.”

  Falconer looked up at the empty bed. “And yet the wounds on the woman were signature Jack the Ripper, weren’t they?” he asked. “She was cut up across her belly and lower extremities, with those strange ‘X’ and ‘V’ wounds left on her backside and leg. Something the Whitechapel killer would’ve done, right?”

  “Indeed, detective,” Levine replied quietly. “From what I have heard of the medical examiner’s findings, this was—how shall I put it?—classic Jack the Ripper wounds. And yet….”

  Falconer looked at Levine, waiting for the rest of his thought, and Levine glanced back at him and then continued. “And yet, Miss Brown did not suffer a slashed throat—her wounds were all to the mid-section and lower portion of her body. That is a missing connection to The Whitechapel killer, detective—the slashed throat.”

  Falconer stood up and glanced down at the bed. As Levine stood to join him, Falconer then went over to the window overlooking Catherine Slip and looked out. “The theory now is,” he began, “that Kniclo had his fun with her, and then somehow he left without anyone seeing him. Then, Ali the half-idiot Algerian crept over from his room down the hall and came in here and killed her after she objected to his requests. That’s what Byrnes and the D.A. are saying, at least for now. What do you think, professor?”

  Levine walked up to Falconer at the window. “I, of course, don’t know much about the actual evidence,” he said, “but it seems plausible enough to me. If they found blood leading back to his room, as they say they have, and he’s a known brute with women, I could see that being a sound and rational explanation for the murder.”

  “But what about Kniclo?” Falconer asked, turning to Levine. “This mysterious foreigner goes up with her, and then disappears into the night without a trace. Not one person sees him coming down the stairs or exiting the hotel? Walking down the street? What was he—a ghost? Something’s not right with this, professor,” he said walking slowly back into the center of the room. “I was there that morning, and I looked at the floor in the hallway, and on the walls, and I didn’t see any blood. And this Kniclo character vanishes into thin air. Something just isn’t right here.”

  “You obviously think Kniclo did it, don’t you?” Levine said. “And, after all, isn’t that possible, too? Couldn’t he have just slipped out unnoticed? It was very late in the evening, wasn’t it?”

  “I think if he came down the stairs at that hour,” Falconer said, “early in the morning perhaps, someone would have seen him. There are always people up at that hour in these beat-up old hotels down here—staff, prostitutes, johns, sailors, bums—someone would have seen him, I’m convinced.”

  “Then how could he have left without being seen?” Levine asked. “There are apparently only a couple of exits down on the first floor, and absolutely no way to leave otherwise. Talk about a ghost, indeed.”

  Falconer turned to Shine waiting patiently by the door. “Mind if we go check out the scuttle?” he asked him.

  Shine looked surprised. “The scuttle?” he said. “Down the hallway? Why would you want to see that?”

  “Let’s just go look, all right?” Falconer answered, moving out the door past the confused bartender. Levine followed quickly.

  The three men walked back down the hallway towards the top of the staircase and stopped just below the metal scuttle leading to the roof. It was closed, but Shine opened it easily enough with the use of the ladder hanging on the wall nearby. “There you go,” he said as he stepped back down off the ladder. “Leads right up to the roof.”

  Falconer turned to Levine standing behind him. “Let’s go up, professor.”

  “Um…all right,” Levine stated as Falconer moved up through the hole in the roof. As he eased himself onto the roof, Falconer looked back down the hole and saw Levine climbing up the ladder followed by Shine. The two men reached the top of the ladder in quick succession and moved onto the roof and stood up. Falconer looked out across lower Manhattan and beheld a stunning scene: a wide sea of buildings jutting up from the tangled streets below, some of them discarding smoke into the afternoon sky and many rising even higher than where they stood now on the hotel roof; and farther out still, the Hudson River lay like a long, blue blanket, and the green bluffs of New Jersey loomed beyond that.

  Turning to look east, he saw the shiny blue glaze of the East River and the dark buildings of Brooklyn popping up out of the ground with the enormous Brooklyn Bridge traversing the expanse between the two shores.

  “Well,” Levine said walking up to Falconer, “quite a view, I’d say.”

  Falconer walked over to an edge of the roof and got down on his stomach, looking down towards Catherine Slip five stories below. Levine soon joined him, carefully moving up on his hands and knees next to the edge of the roof.

  “Um…do you mind telling us what you’re doing, detective?” he said.

  Falconer didn’t answer, though, and instead, got up and moved quickly to the next edge of the roof, getting down once again onto his stomach and looking down the side of the building that fronted Water Street. He soon saw Levine next to him again, peering down the side of the building. Falconer got up and looked over the last two sides of the hotel in the same way, and then finally got up, dusted off his clothing, and looked out again at the East River and the teeming wharves below.

  “May I ask what you were looking for, detective?” Levine sputtered as he approached Falconer and dusted off his own suit.

  “Sorry, professor,” Falconer replied. “I wanted to see if there was a way to get off this roof undetected. If Kniclo didn’t exit downstairs, then what would be the only other way for him to leave?”

  Levine looked around the roof for a moment, and then turned back to Falconer. “I…I don’t see how anyone could get off this roof like that, detective,” he said. “The closest roof is right next door to the east, but even that one is simply too far a distance to jump—the building is much shorter than this hotel. You’d kill yourself, or at the least you’d break both your legs. The killer just wouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Falconer stated. “But come over here.”

  Falconer walked over to the southwest corner of the rooftop, a corner that overlooked Catherine Slip below. “Come lie down here again,” he said. “Take a look at this.”

  Levine walked over and got back down on his stomach close to the edge of the building. “Look at that right there,” Falconer
said, pointing to the seam where the hotel’s structure ended and a different building began. “It’s a drainage pipe, probably strong enough to hold the weight of a medium-sized man, and it goes down all the way to the street, away from where people would be entering and exiting the hotel.”

  Levine peered over the edge and looked in the direction of the black pipe—probably about four inches in diameter—attached to the exterior of the building and extending down, down, all the way to the street, where it appeared to curve slightly and empty out onto the sidewalk.

  “Are you saying that the killer climbed down that pipe and escaped that way?” Levine asked. “Like a monkey?”

  “Yes,” Falconer replied tartly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s not a conclusion, just a possible theory, professor. If a man were strong and nimble enough, he could walk down the wall holding onto that pipe there, and he might be able to do it without anyone noticing. There’s very little light over here at night, and if the killer was dressed in dark clothing, he would be a shadow.”

  “Or even a ghost,” Levine said, grinning slightly. “It’s…quite a theory, detective,” he said as he looked back down at the long pipe running down to the street. “I…I suppose…it could be done.”

  “Like I said, professor—just a theory. Come on.”

  Falconer got up and moved towards the opening of the scuttle. “Thank you, Mister Shine,” he said. “That will be all for now.”

  He climbed back down the stairs to the fifth floor and waited for Levine and Shine to join him. As Shine shut the scuttle tightly, clambered down the ladder, and started to put it away against the wall, Levine turned to Falconer. “But detective,” he said, “if our murderer moved the ladder into place and opened the scuttle for the purpose of climbing down the outside of the building, he wouldn’t have been able to close it. Wouldn’t the ladder and scuttle have necessarily been found in that condition—open with the ladder blocking the passageway here—in the morning? I don’t believe anyone has ever mentioned that the scuttle was open like this when people arrived at the scene of the crime, though.”

  “It wasn’t,” Shine chimed in, walking back to join them. “Eddie Fitzgerald said this scuttle was perfectly closed when he came up that morning.”

  Shine and Levine looked at Falconer as if waiting for some sort of reply, but the detective only reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a cigarillo, and, after lighting it, moved silently towards the staircase. At the top stair, though, he suddenly stopped and turned to them.

  “That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for the past few minutes,” he said. Then he turned around and stepped quickly down the stairway.

  23

  Tuesday, May 19

  Falconer stood in the back of the General Sessions courtroom the day after Ali had been official indicted with murder and watched as police led the Algerian in while manacled to two Italian prisoners. Ali appeared confused, he thought, but when the prisoner’s lawyer, Mr. Friend, leaned over and whispered something to him, Ali looked up at the ceiling, raised his right hand, and professed his innocence to all those present in broken English. The clerk promptly called out the case, using the Anglicized name that had been attributed to the befuddled prisoner: “George Frank, to the bar!”

  Falconer watched as Ali and his attorney walked up to the lectern that stood in the middle of the courtroom, and the clerk addressed the prisoner. “You are charged with murder in the first degree. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

  “Not guilty,” Mr. Friend quickly replied, and Ali was thereupon hustled out of the courtroom and transferred back to his cell in the Tombs.

  Falconer stood for a moment as the crowd slowly exited the courtroom, and then he, too, walked out into the hallway, headed down to the front entrance of the building, and stepped out onto the street.

  24

  Wednesday, June 24

  Falconer appeared at the doorway to Levine’s office, having earlier received a terse telegram from the professor asking him to meet about an interesting news story in one of the local dailies.

  “Ah, detective,” Levine said as he got up from behind his desk and walked over to the opened door to his office where Miss Brittle was standing with Falconer. “Please, come in, and thank you, Miss Brittle.”

  As Miss Brittle turned and left, Falconer took off his hat and entered the modest office of an academician at the beginning of his career. The walls were full of books and one window allowed in a decent amount of sunshine. Levine’s desk was topped with all sorts of papers and books, and a couple of wooden chairs sat in front of the desk. “Nice office, professor,” Falconer said, sitting down in one of the chairs. “You’ve done well for yourself here.”

  “Well, thank you, detective,” Levine said, sitting down himself behind the desk. “I find it comfortable. I understand Ali’s trial finally begins today.”

  “Yes,” Falconer replied. “Jury selection, I believe.”

  “And why aren’t you attending?” Levine asked.

  “I’ve got my own cases that are pressing, professor,” Falconer answered. “And besides, there’s not much that will be a surprise in that trial—we all know where that’s headed.”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Levine stated, looking down at his desk.

  “So, you said you found something interesting in the papers?” Falconer said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

  “Yes, I did,” Levine replied, shuffling papers around on his desk as if he were searching for something. “Let me just see here...ah, yes, here we are—the Evening World from yesterday. Take a look at this story down at the bottom here.”

  Levine handed the folded-up paper to Falconer, who took it and moved closer in his chair, laying the paper down on top of the desk. He scanned down the page and read a little paragraph with the heading, “Patient in Asylum Fatally Attacked by Cook.”

  A patient at the Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum for Women was found dead this morning, apparently the victim of an enraged attack by one of the asylum’s cooks. Police already have the fiend in custody and are piecing together the events of the morning. Evidence indicates that the cook isolated the woman in a closet and then strangled her and slashed her viciously about her body. No motive yet has been found, but detectives are confident that the killer is now behind bars, and charges will be imminent.

  Falconer looked up at Levine after finishing the paragraph. “So, a killing of a lady out on Blackwell’s?” he said, leaning back in his chair. “And why are you intrigued by this? It looks like they have the killer rounded up already.”

  “Well, did you see the way they described the killing?” Levine asked. “Quite like the way in which Miss Brown was murdered, don’t you think? And I realize that they’ve arrested the cook, but don’t you think it’s worth investigating? Maybe this cook is, in fact, your killer from the East River Hotel.”

  Falconer looked down at the newspaper and then picked it up, scanning the story again. Then he looked back at Levine. “That’s a very good point, professor. Looks like the 27th Precinct is handling this. When can you join me?”

  “Excuse me?” Levine asked.

  “I’d like you to join me down at the 27th Precinct station house, professor,” Falconer said. “And then we can head out to the island. I could use your perspective. Are you available tomorrow?”

  “I…well, I just have a nine o’clock lecture that goes for about an hour,” Levine answered, “and then one later in the afternoon at three. But I suppose I could join you between those two classes.”

  “Great,” Falconer said. “Meet me down at the 27th Precinct at ten-thirty. It’s on Eighty-Eighth just east of First Ave. You can’t miss it.”

  “I…certainly, yes, I will,” said Levine as Falconer got up and put his bowler on his head. “Thank you, detective.”

  “Thank you, professor,” Falconer said. “I can see my way out. And nice to see you.”

  He then walked out of the office and headed down t
he stairs of the law building, swiftly brushing by a crowd of people without saying a word.

  25

  The next day, Falconer met Levine promptly at ten-thirty in the morning outside the 27th Precinct station house on 88th Street. Entering the building, they walked up to the doorman inside and asked for the roundsman who was responsible for the investigation of the recent death of the woman at the lunatic asylum. The doorman directed them to a Detective Dysert, who was apparently still in the station house.

  The two walked down a hallway and approached Dysert sitting behind a desk in a large back room full of police personnel busily attending to their duties. Dysert was carefully scanning a document laid out before him on the desk and appeared to not notice them for a moment. Then he finally looked up and looked back and forth between the two. “Can…I…help you two gentlemen?” he finally asked.

  Falconer spoke up. “I’m Falconer with the Fourth Ward down on Oak Street, and this is a consultant of ours, Professor of Criminology at Columbia College, Eli Levine. We understand that you are assigned to the death out at the lunatic asylum?”

  “Um, yes…I am,” Dysert said. “Why might you be interested in the case?”

  “Well, we were investigating the East River Hotel murder from April,” said Falconer, “and we wanted to see if there were any similarities with the woman out on Blackwell’s.”

  “But the murder of the woman from the hotel down in your ward has been solved, detective,” Dysert said. “Ali is going to trial and there’s no way for him to have committed my crime—he’s been locked up in the Tombs. And besides, we already have a suspect locked up in the back, if you weren’t aware.”