Elizabeth was about to reach out a comforting hand when she heard footfalls echoing not too far away and froze.
At the mouth of the side street she watched the faint glow of a lantern as it moved up and down with the natural gate of a man walking. Her heart beat a little faster. Whoever he was, he was getting closer.
Victor held out his arm, waving it urgently back toward the building. The three of them melted back into a brick arched doorway. Elizabeth could just see the silhouette of the man as he reached the intersection—a police constable, his bulls-eye lantern casting a broad beam of light in the night. She pressed herself as far back into the cold bricks as she could and held her breath.
The beam of the PC’s lantern swept past within inches of their hiding place. Thankfully, he didn’t turn up their street and he didn’t linger. He kept walking up Buck’s Row.
The footsteps got farther and farther away. Finally, Victor, who was closest to the corner, inched forward toward the edge of the building. He peered out for a moment and then leaned back against the wall, tilting his head back and shaking it.
“Damn,” he said so softly she almost didn’t hear him.
Having to see for herself, Elizabeth edged forward and peered around the building. She could see the officer in the dim light as he veered to the left and Buck’s Row. Then he stopped, the beam of his light frozen in place for a moment, and then he ran across the street toward something, his footsteps loud against the cobblestones.
In the street ahead, Elizabeth watched as he shined his light down on what looked to be a pile of rags. Her stomach fell with the realization. It was Mary Ann Nichols.
Elizabeth stifled a gasp and looked up at Simon. Even in the darkness she could see his anger and disgust, and more than a little sadness.
She scanned the streets near them, searching for someone lurking in the shadows, some hint of something, anything, but the streets were empty.
Jack the Ripper was gone.
~~~
Victor silently fumed as they walked the streets around Buck’s Row looking for something that might lead them to Jack the Ripper. If it hadn’t been for the Crosses, he would have been there on time. He would have seen him and this folly wouldn’t be necessary.
He sighed and took off his scarf, tossing it into an alley. He would probably have to get rid of his jacket as well. The gang members would be out of commission for some time, but they had friends, and friends talked. The last thing he needed was a group of idiot thieves mucking up his mission.
He glared over at the Crosses. Their inexperience had nearly cost them their lives. But he had to admit, Cross had acquitted himself fairly well, considering, and Elizabeth showed more mettle than he had expected. That, however, didn’t change the fact that they were liabilities. Especially, he chided himself, if he kept letting his emotions get the better of him.
Victor grunted.
“Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked him.
He frowned at her, but a memory of another woman who once looked at him in the same sincere and guileless way pushed itself into his mind. With another grunt, he shoved the image back down into the past where it belonged.
He nodded curtly and looked away.
They fell in with the crowd that gathered at the crime scene. Victor could see the victim and hear the doctor who’d been summoned noting her injuries, but he knew them by heart. He knew each cut, each horrible wound and so his focus was elsewhere. He looked carefully at each man who stood among the onlookers. Was he here? Was he here to watch the drama unfold, to relish in his creation?
Was it the tall man who stood at the back and watched the crowd? The pock-faced one who smelled of butcher’s offal? Or the one who looked like nothing at all? Victor crossed his arms over his chest and turned to scan the less likely hiding places. Where was that fils de salope?
Finally, the doctor ordered the body to be taken to the mortuary shed at the Workhouse Infirmary. Two policemen loaded her onto a stretcher and the doctor followed them down the street as a man began to wash away the blood.
“What is he doing?” Elizabeth whispered, sounding incredulous.
Simon made a sound of disapproval. “So much for CSI.”
They watched as both citizens and police trampled over the crime scene, obliterating any potential evidence. Not that they would have had any idea what to do with most of it, but it was frustrating to see nonetheless.
As dawn broke over the city, Victor decided nothing more could be gleaned from the crime scene and they returned to his boarding house rooms. As soon as they entered, Elizabeth began tending to her husband.
He winced as she ran her hands over his ribs.
“I don’t think anything’s broken,” she said.
He took a deep breath to test out her theory and winced. “They’ll be all right.”
Simon grimaced again as he arched his back to remove his shirt, but his ever dutiful wife was there to help him. It was nauseating. Victor stalked over to the window. The sun was nearly up now.
He heard Elizabeth’s soft footsteps as she walked up behind him. He turned around just as she was about to touch his shoulder.
Yanking her hand back in surprise and a little embarrassment, she looked up at him. There was that look again. Familiar and painful. Whatever it was she had to say, he did not want to hear it.
He stepped around her. “You should go to Paris.”
She frowned and tilted her head to the side as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. “I’m sorry?”
“Until this is over.” Victor walked over to his little dresser and eyed the small bottle of whisky he’d bought yesterday. “You are in the way.”
“We were…” Simon started and searched for a word his ego could handle, “surprised tonight. It won’t happen again.”
“If it does, I will not be there to see it,” Victor said. “Do you understand? I will not risk the mission—”
Simon stood and faced him. “Unless you’ve forgotten, finding Jack the Ripper is our mission.”
Victor arched an eyebrow. “You are doing a fine job of it.”
Simon took a step forward, but Elizabeth moved between them. “Same team, guys.”
Victor snorted. “We are not a team.”
She turned to him, her blue eyes sparking fiercely before she subdued them. “We’re on the same side. And we’re going to need each other before this over. Katherine Vale, who by the way, is ten kinds of crazy, did something to change time. To. Change. Time.”
She looked over at her husband and then back to Victor. “Even if we weren’t chasing one of the most notorious serial killers in history, shouldn’t that be enough for you two to stop this bickering and at least try to work together?”
Simon said nothing and just continued to eye him warily.
Victor ignored him and scowled at Elizabeth. She was, however, not the least bit cowed. It was disconcerting.
He did not work with others. His job was something he was uniquely qualified to do. It required someone with nothing left to lose, except perhaps, his soul. For him, it may have been too late even for that.
Regardless, he thought with growing bitterness, his part of the mission would not come to pass if they failed in theirs. And judging from tonight, they would not be put off.
“You were in over your head tonight. A rich man among ruffians,” he said, getting the desired blustery reaction from Cross.
He smiled and continued. “While I am better suited to these sorts of people,” he said, hating to admit it, “you will be welcome in places I will not.”
Simon glared at him, trying to fathom just what he meant. Victor saw the exact moment the light bulb switched on.
Simon nodded, forgoing more sparring for the moment. “Quite a few of the suspects were…upper class?”
Victor smirked and nodded. He was from a small village. He had no interest in the finer things in life and they no interest in him.
“Without witnessing the crime,” Simon continued, his
wheels finally spinning in the right direction, “we’ll have to rely on old fashioned detective work, I suppose.”
“We should divide the suspects,” Victor suggested.
“You take the East End and we’ll take the West?” Elizabeth asked.
Victor grunted in agreement. It might not be the best solution, but it would keep them occupied and, perhaps, they would even stumble upon something helpful.
“I suppose that’s logical,” Simon conceded. “Agreed”
“Voilà,” Victor said to Elizabeth, spreading his arms. “Détente.”
Chapter Nine
SIMON EASED HIMSELF UP out of the cool bath, his ribs aching with the effort. He probed his side. Sore, but not life threatening. Somehow, that did little to ease his mind.
“Pathetic,” he muttered and snatched a towel off the rack.
He toweled himself off roughly, clenching his jaw and ignoring the discomfort as he did. Tossing the towel aside, he grabbed a pair of drawers, pulled them on, and loosely tied the drawstring as he headed for the bedroom.
Elizabeth sat on the bed, a tray of food in front of her. “I liberated some things from the kitchen.”
Simon forced a smile and moved to join her.
She held up a scone. “Cranberry or original recipe?”
Despite his best efforts to conceal his discomfort as he climbed onto the bed, Elizabeth noticed. “Maybe you should see a doctor?”
She reached out to touch the bruises that discolored his side. He stopped her and shook his head.
“Simon?”
It wasn’t the ribs that were bothering him, although they were sore. He sighed. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said finally.
Elizabeth frowned. “For what?”
“For not realizing those thugs were waiting for marks like us. For being marks like us.”
“Simon,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand. “There were four of them—”
He pulled away and paced across the room “I should have been better prepared. If it hadn’t been for…”
He could barely finish the thought.
“If you’re going to be mad at anybody,” she said, “be mad at me.”
He turned to face her. “You?”
She shrugged and moved to the edge of the bed. “At least you did something. I just stood there.”
“With a knife held to you,” he reminded her.
“And he was pretty strong,” she said.
“Very.”
She smiled at him. “And yet you should be able to defeat four men single-handedly?”
He hated it when she did that, maneuvered him so deftly. He offered her a defeated smile. “I should have done better.”
She slipped off the bed. “Is that you or Victor talking?”
Simon grunted. A little of both, if he were being honest. Victor was grating and superior, but damned if the man wasn’t right. They were unprepared. Simon knew he’d been unfair with Victor this morning, that he’d misdirected his own frustrations onto the man. Of course, his being a complete pompous ass helped.
Simon sighed again. “He’s right about one thing. Many of the suspects are wealthy. And we do stand a better chance of learning about them than he does.”
“Right. So,” she said, moving back to the bed and the food. The woman’s appetite was legend. She grabbed a scone. “Who have we got?”
Simon rifled through the files in his mind. “There are a few doctors. Blackwood, Gull and Tumblety, although he’s hardly upper class. Druitt—”
Elizabeth stopped mid-chew and swallowed. “Wait. Druitt?”
Simon furrowed his brow as he tried to remember the details. “Montague John Druitt. Why?”
Elizabeth sat up straighter. “John. It’s got to be him.”
“Who does?”
“George’s friend.”
Simon frowned. Ah, yes, George, the man who makes advances to married women. “Your lunch date?”
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, you’re going to feel silly when you meet him.”
“I doubt that.”
Elizabeth smiled and then frowned in thought as she considered their options. “We can’t just show up on Druitt’s doorstep.”
Simon nodded and walked back over to the bed. He took half of the scone she offered and wondered what she was cooking up in that twisty brain of hers. “We need an invitation.”
“And we need to know somebody in order—” she started and then smiled broadly. “And we do. George.”
Simon frowned, although he knew she was right. “And how do you propose we find him? Lunch around until he accosts you again?
He hadn’t liked the man’s forwardness with Elizabeth at all. No gentleman would have done such a thing.
Elizabeth’s grin grew even wider. “In the park. George said he was going to meet his friend John in Hyde Park at the bridge on Sunday. We’ll find our Montague John Druitt,” she said as she popped a small bit of scone into her mouth triumphantly. “Sunday in the park with George.”
~~~
The crowd was already three deep at the Working Lad’s Institute and the inquest into Mary Ann Nichols’ death hadn’t even started yet. Victor shouldered his way along the edge of the gallery to find a spot near the front where he had a good view of the crowd.
As they typically did, his broad shoulders and generally unpleasant attitude served him well, and he found a space in a corner of the room. He took off his cap and shoved it into his pocket. Leaning against the wall, he scanned the crowd.
The group of men on the far side of the room were clearly reporters. Even if their pads and pencils hadn’t given them away, they had the hungry look of men about to feast on another’s misery. A quick survey told him nearly half the crowd fit that bill.
It wasn’t surprising. Nothing sold papers like murder.
The rest of the crowd was a mixture of East End locals and a smattering of upper class men and women, no doubt slumming for sport.
Mr. Baxter, the coroner for South-East Middlesex, opened the proceedings with an interview of Nichols’ father and their estranged relationship. Even though Victor had read the files, it was a far different experience to be in the chamber as the testimony was given. Edward Walker was not a name on a page, but a man, flesh and blood, who had lost a daughter.
Polly, as her friends called her, was a mother of five children. She’d been in and out of the workhouse, drank too often and too much, but had no enemies to speak of.
Next to testify was PC John Neil. Victor listened for any inconsistencies in his testimony, but found none. Things had happened as the PC said they had. That left Dr. Llewellyn, who had been called to the scene and later examined the body.
As the doctor testified, Victor turned his attention again to the crowd. He didn’t need to hear the testimony anyway. He had read the autopsy file, seen the drawings. In his mind’s eye, he could recreate each wound in perfect detail.
The sort of man who had committed that horror would be here to relish in it. To relive each cut as it was described with vivid precision. Gasps went through the crowd as Llewellyn testified about the two slashes across her neck.
“This incision completely severs all the tissues down to the vertebrae. The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision is about eight inches long. These cuts must have been caused with a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence.”
One man, short and thick-necked, wearing a boot maker’s leather apron caught Victor’s eye. There was something off about him.
The man turned to look at the people on either side of him before turning his full attention back to the doctor as he described the multiple cuts and jagged wounds that had been carved into Nichols’ abdomen.
News of those wounds caused a murmur of surprise to filter through the crowd. But the man Victor watched remained stoic, focused. And then, as though he felt Victor’s eyes upon him, he fidgeted and glanced nervously about again.
Victor loo
ked away and by the time he looked back, the little man was gone.
Chapter Ten
ELIZABETH TOOK SIMON’S OFFERED hand and climbed into the hackney coach. He smiled at her, his color and his mood noticeably better.
After the night of the murder, they’d slept through what was left of Friday. That night, he’d put on a British upper lip so stiff it was positively starched. She knew he needed a little time to heal and there was nothing that made him happier than taking care of her. Sometimes the best cure for what ailed a person was found in helping someone else.
And so she’d faked a small stomach ache. Nothing too worrisome, just enough for them to stay in for a day and rest. Next time, though, she was going to fake a headache. By nightfall she was hungry enough to eat her pillow.
She should have felt guilty over her little deception, about not searching for the Ripper for a day, but she couldn’t manage it. They were going to be in London for over a month. The next murder was still a full week away. Pacing themselves would be important. And, after their inauspicious beginning, maybe even more so than she’d thought.
Luckily, the day of physical and emotional rest had done the trick. By Sunday morning, Simon was back to his old self and growing irritated with their lack of progress. They set off early to Hyde Park in hopes of finding George and John Druitt, and their first honest to goodness lead.
After a short carriage ride, they pulled up at Hyde Park corner and Simon paid the driver. Other carriages trundled past and into the park.
“Why are we getting out here?” she asked.
Simon looked after a fancy barouche coach that passed by. Even the horse was well-dressed. “Private carriages only. I’m afraid we’ll have to walk from here.”
He held out his hand and helped her down. She didn’t mind walking at all. The park was a welcome and enormous expanse of greenery. Finally, they could leave the dark grays and the soot behind. She wound her arm through Simon’s and let him guide her. They’d barely walked a hundred feet in and she could already feel the difference in the air. No wonder the park was called one of the lungs of London.
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