“Ehrlicher,” Byrnes said to the man, “we have a little quote here in a letter, and we’re wondering if you might be able to identify it because of your affinity for this sort of thing. Would you mind?” He held up the letter for Ehrlicher to take in his hand.
“I can certainly have a look, chief inspector,” Ehrlicher said, moving closer to the desk. He took the letter and adjusted his glasses, then peered down at the typewritten words. Falconer and the other men stood by as he read to himself for a moment. Then he looked up at the chief.
“Why, that’s one of Jacques’ lines at the very end of ‘As You Like It,’ sir. Shakespeare.”
“Jay-who?” Byrnes asked.
“Jacques, sir,” Ehrlicher replied, handing the letter back to Byrnes. “It’s spelled like the French name, ‘Jacques,’ but it’s pronounced, ‘JAY-queeze.’ He’s a prominent character in the play, and this is simply one of his final lines. The Duke has asked him to stay and enjoy a feast and a bit of revelry with all the other characters, but Jacques declines the offer, basically saying that he is not one to enjoy parties and games with other people. He’s a solitary, melancholy sort, you know.”
Byrnes looked over at Falconer with raised eyebrows and then turned back to Ehrlicher. “Yes, Ehrlicher,” he said. “This has been very helpful—very helpful indeed. That will be all, thank you.”
“Certainly, sir,” Ehrlicher said before stepping back and exiting the office.
Byrnes then chuckled. “So, our man likes his Shakespeare,” he said. “Interesting, but does it tell us anything?”
Inspector Clubber Williams spoke up from over near the wall. “Sounds likes it’s just his fancy way of telling Falconer that he’s not going to give him any hints or clues, sir.”
“Unless,” Falconer broke in, “the quote is itself the clue.”
The men all looked at him. “What do you mean?” Byrnes inquired.
“There’s just a possibility that this man is playing a little game with us, sir. He says that he won’t engage in such games, but then he just might be leaving a clue with that quote there. It’s just a thought.”
“If he were doing what you’re saying, then what could he possibly be saying?” Byrnes asked. “Shakespeare? A character in a play? What of it?”
“I’m not sure, sir,” Falconer answered, “but I think we have to look at it, that’s all.”
“Very well, do that,” Byrnes said. “In the meantime, I think we need to reply to this with another message, and hope that he drops the letter at this Substation 23. Can you work on that, Falconer?”
“Yes, sir, will do,” Falconer replied.
“Good then,” Byrnes said, closing out the meeting. “Let’s grab this man if he dumps another letter, shall we?”
The men dispersed, and Falconer left with Halloran, lost in his thoughts surrounding the cryptic quote from Shakespeare at the end of the message. I am for other than for dancing measures…. What of that? Where are you going with it, my friend? Are you really leaving a little clue or is it simply a colorful little way of saying, “Go to hell, cop?” Where are you going with that? Better yet, where are you now? Where are you now out there? Show yourself, you damned son of a bitch….
Breakthrough
60
Penwill sat opposite Levine in the crowded delicatessen at the corner of Ludlow and Houston Streets and finished his sandwich with a flourish. Then, taking a long gulp of his coffee, he wiped his hands with a napkin and looked up at his taciturn luncheon host. “Very good, professor, I must say. It’s really very good. They’re not lying when they say on the sign outside that it’s the best sandwich in town.”
“Yes,” Levine replied, “it has quite a reputation already, and it’s only been here for three years now. I like coming in occasionally when I’m down on this end of town, you know.”
“Well,” Penwill said, “I’ll certainly be telling my colleagues about it upon my return to London. ‘Katz’s Deli,’ is it?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Levine replied. “And the corner here is Houston at Ludlow.”
“Yes, well, delicious lunchtime meal,” Penwill said. “I shan’t forget it soon. What do they call this area of town, may I ask?”
“Well,” Levine explained, “it’s part of the Lower East Side, of course, but to be frank, across the whole of the city it’s known simply as ‘Jewtown.’”
“Hm,” Penwill snorted as he pondered Levine’s answer. “‘Jewtown.’ Well, that’s fairly explicit, now isn’t it?”
Levine smiled. “Any timetable for your return, inspector?” he asked.
“No, none yet, I’m afraid,” Penwill replied. “I’ve been keeping the lads apprised of the situation over here, and, well…let’s just say that I’m not finished. There is that new angle we’ve got now with the postal office business.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Levine said. “Any luck yet?”
“No, nothing, I’m afraid,” Penwill said, reaching into his jacket pocket for his wallet. “It’s been a week since they’ve posted men behind the window there and they have been trying, I’m sure. It takes a lot of patience to examine every letter that’s dropped, as you might expect.”
“Yes, I can imagine,” Levine said.
“You know what, I’m going to hang about there this afternoon,” Penwill said, looking around the crowded dining room for a waiter. “You’re welcome to join, if you wish. Falconer will be working a shift with me.”
“Yes,” Levine said, “that would be very interesting for me, if you didn’t mind. Thank you for offering.”
“Don’t mention it,” Penwill said, “but just know that you’re probably in for several hours of boredom, I’m afraid. Not much to do but just stand and watch the people come in and drop their letters.
“Right, I understand.”
Penwill caught the attention of a waiter, who walked over to the table. “Just the bill, please,” he said to him, and the waiter left for the counter on the other side of the room. Penwill then looked across the table at his companion. “I’m determined to catch him, you know—the Ripper.”
Levine appeared surprised by the sudden comment. “Yes, yes, I hope you do, inspector,” he said.
“He’s avoided us for a very long time, professor, and he thinks he can do it again—give us the slip in your fine city. But I’m going to get him this time, I can tell you that.”
“So, you feel that it is the Ripper we are dealing with here?” Levine asked.
“Oh, yes,” Penwill replied. “Fairly certain of that. He fell off the map for a time, let things go quiet a bit, you see, but then he probably started missing all the fuss he’d created, all the hullabaloo, and wanted to cause a stir again. So, he came here, professor, and I followed him.”
“Your superiors at Scotland Yard ordered you to come over here, I presume, inspector?”
“No, professor,” Penwill replied. “I volunteered, actually.”
“May I ask why?” Levine inquired.
Penwill paused and placed his coffee cup on the table, then leaned in and rested his elbows in front of him, clasping his hands together. “I was there, professor,” he finally said, feeling the old anger rising within him. “For the whole thing—the murders, and the chase, and the uproar. I saw it all. I stood over the women as the ambulances came to drag them up off the streets, or what was left of them. It started out with some typical murders. Nothing too difficult to see, you know—a strangulation or a cut throat. I’ve seen worse in my day. I’ve seen worse while in the army. But then, he started getting more creative, see? He’d cut the tip of a nose off, or slash a cheek, or remove a kidney. Or completely gut the woman like a fish. And then we knew we were dealing with someone else, a real bastard who was holding the candle to the devil.”
He paused as the waiter approached and placed the bill on the table. He quickly moved to snatch it up, but Levine protested. “Please, let me, inspector.”
“No, not at all, professor—it’s my treat, please.”
“Well, thanks,” Levine said, placing his own wallet back in his jacket pocket. “It must have been frustrating for you and your colleagues, I’m sure,” Levine said.
“You’re right about that, professor,” Penwill replied. “But you can be sure that he will never be completely free. Because wherever he may go, whatever little sojourn he may take before starting his handiwork again, I will be there, too, professor. I will follow this man to the ends of the earth if need be, and when he’s finally down on the ground and staring up at the barrel of a gun after having been captured, it will be me standing over him, professor. I want to see his face when he realizes that it’s over. I look forward to that day. I look forward to that day very much.”
“I can see that,” Levine said, looking first at Penwill and then outside the window.
“And, you, professor?” Penwill asked. “What’s your interest in all of this bloody business? How did you come to be a student of the Whitechapel killings?”
Levine looked back at Penwill again, appearing surprised at the question. “Oh, I’m not sure, really,” he said. “I was certainly not raised amidst all the killing and the gore. I think my mother and father tried to shield me from much of what happens deep down in the city here, but then….”
“Yes?” Penwill asked.
“But then one day while walking to school—I must have been only twelve or thirteen—I saw a crowd gathering on the street at an intersection. There had been an accident—a carriage had overturned at great speed right into a market full of vendors and such. I walked closer and I saw that it had just occurred seconds before, and there was complete devastation on the side of the street—an injured team of horses, people lying everywhere, much blood. And then I saw him—a man hanging down from the carriage. His eyes were fully open and yet blood dripped down from his body, for I realized fairly quickly that the man was dead, and although I would not admit it to anyone afterwards, I was utterly fascinated by the scene of death, by the man’s eyes looking straight into mine, by this sudden spasm of violence that had broken up the peace and the orderliness of everything. I think everything changed for me in that minute, inspector. I could no longer be the quiet boy who practiced the violin in the evening, studied the Torah with no sense of what was really happening outside in the streets, who went to school and returned and never really knew of the terrible things that occurred to humankind. I wanted to see more of it, more of the destruction, and the blood, and yes—the evil, I believe. That may seem odd to you, but it is what I felt, I must admit.”
“No, professor, not at all,” Penwill said, smiling gently. “I think I know the feeling, too, and I don’t blame you for it. For all the damnable things that I’ve seen in my day, I cannot ignore the fact that, frankly, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, or do any other job. It’s in the blood, as they say.”
“Yes, I suppose, so inspector,” Levine said.
“Well, then, shall we?” Penwill asked, moving to get up out of his chair.
“Indeed,” Levine answered. “Let us take a little stroll in the neighborhood, if you have the time?”
“I believe that I do, professor,” Penwill said, grinning. “After you.”
61
Falconer sat quietly sipping his coffee and gazing out the window from his position just inside the front entrance of the small coffee shop nestled right at the crook of Mulberry Bend. Here, in the heart of Little Italy and its filthy tenements jammed full of thousands of old and new immigrants, the street bended slightly like an elbow from its north-south axis and followed a northeasterly path up towards the neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and beyond. Falconer chose this spot for his shift because it stood directly opposite the small postal substation where the unknown suspect had been dropping letters for him over the past several weeks, and he could sit observing with an unobstructed view anyone who happened to enter the place as he feigned reading a paper over his coffee.
He took another sip and looked over across the street. The post office at fifty-five and a half Mulberry was actually situated inside a small bank, which was denoted by a large painted sign fastened over the entrance: “55 ½ BANCA P. CAPANIGRI 55 ½.” On the large window beneath that large sign he could see painted in smaller white letters the words “Substation No. 23 New York Post Office.” Then, on either side of the doorway, on wooden signs erected upon the brick pillars that supported the place, he saw additional signs in English and Italian—“Officio Postale Stazione 23”—informing passersby that a post office was located inside.
Just outside the entrance of the bank and post office, a vegetable peddler stood beneath a large umbrella next to his daily offerings arranged in some boxes sitting on wooden barrels. Falconer watched as the man spoke with several people from his perch on a stool next to the vegetables: a large man in a dark suit who appeared to be buying nothing and only laughing with the peddler; several women covered in large, woolen shawls who were smiling as they peered at the vegetables in the boxes; and a young girl who lingered nearby, scratching her back distractedly as she looked at the adults and listened to their sidewalk repartee.
Falconer had been sitting in his spot inside the Café Benedetti for some time on this afternoon, and nothing untoward had happened yet. Patrol officers Lenzi and DiLorenzo were both inside the substation, working undercover as clerks because they were both fluent in Italian and could interact with the majority of customers who spoke no English. Falconer had instructed them that if something were to happen—if they were to intercept a letter addressed to him at the Oak Street station—they were to immediately follow the suspect out of the establishment and point him out to Falconer, who would then immediately place the suspect under arrest with the help of Patrolman Schiavone, another Italian-speaking undercover officer from the local precinct who was lingering just down the block near some parked ragpicker carts.
Falconer’s observations were interrupted momentarily when Madame Benedetti approached him from behind the counter and offered him a refill, which he gladly accepted. She was a dignified woman with a strong, commanding presence, he observed, and she was certainly not to be crossed: he had seen her deal with misbehaving reprobates in the neighborhood with a severity that surprised many, including himself. But there was also, in his view, a kindness about her, a great compassion for the distressed and poverty-stricken people who came into her café seeking a small dose of relief from the stresses of their lives on the streets and in the tenements. This other side to her, the warmth and the understanding that she showed for the people, was now well known to all in the local community. “Madre Benedetti,” they called her, because so many of the young people in this decrepit part of the city came to her and sought advice and comfort from her, as if she were truly their mother.
“You okay, Falconer?” she asked him in her Italian-accented English as she poured the coffee into his cup.
“Just fine, ma’am,” he replied with a smile. He had arranged with her earlier to observe the postal substation from this quiet vantage point within her establishment, but he couldn’t help apologizing for his presence. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you with my sitting here,” he said.
“You don’t worry, detective,” she said. “You always welcome in here, okay?”
She then moved off to deal with other customers sitting across the room, and he turned his attention back to the post office across the street. It would be a dreary several hours, he thought. There would be the constant wave of humanity walking back and forth in front of him on the street, with some of the people actually entering the bank or post office for a time, but probably no suspects would be had. They had been observing the place surreptitiously for over a week now, and no letters to him had been dropped. No letters, and no persons of interest. Just the eternal movement of the people and the horse-drawn carts traveling down the busy street, doing their business and going about their daily routines, completely unaware that he and his fellow police officers were always watching the little postal substat
ion at the Bend.
He looked over to the left and suddenly saw Penwill appear, casually walking on that side of the street and looking into windows while smoking a cigarette. Falconer was surprised to then see Professor Levine walking beside the Englishman. Strange, he thought. He must’ve invited him to observe for a bit.
He looked down and glanced at his watch. It was the appointed hour when he and Penwill would both lie in wait near the post office. Falconer looked at Penwill as he got nearer to the substation, and then he saw the inspector subtly gaze in his own direction and give the slightest of nods, notifying Falconer that the operation was proceeding as planned. Penwill then turned and appeared to whisper something to Levine, who then wandered away in the other direction. Good…keep a safe distance.
Falconer watched as Penwill walked past the vegetable cart and the substation and then disappeared down the block to his right, escaping from his view amidst the crowds of people who shuffled down the block.
Falconer knew that Penwill would now establish himself in some unobtrusive spot down the street, and would respond immediately if Lenzi or DiLorenzo ever gave the signal that a suspect had arrived. Falconer again turned his attention back towards the bank and little post office. The large man was moving off now, leaving the women and the young girl with the peddler. They stood for a few minutes and then drifted off, too, and then others arrived, first talking with the peddler and then moving off down the street, or moving inside to do their banking business or drop off a letter.
It went on like this over the next couple of hours. Falconer watched each and every person who entered the substation: first, a middle-aged man with a great mustache who piqued Falconer’s interest because he matched somewhat the description given for the killer, but the officers did not follow him out and he left quietly and disappeared down the street, pulling his hat on as he departed. Then a teenage boy went inside, probably to do his mother’s bidding, and he, too, left a few moments later, unmolested by the officers—nothing there. Next, a large woman dressed in black and carrying a large basket went inside, and came out shortly thereafter and bought some vegetables from the cart.
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