by James Reese
Peck, dressed as the Hegemon, stood to the east of the altar. Penfold was the Keryx standing southwest, and so steadfast or stunned was he that the light of his red lamp wavered not at all. Harker, dear Harker, stood to the north as the Stolistes. X stood to the south as the Dadouche, and Y, the eye of Horus on his hood, stood to the southwest, beside the Keryx.
I stood center-all in the white robe and hood of the Hierophant.
Now we’d naught to do but wait, and this we did some while in silence, nearly sick with suspense, as if attending some dread bell soon to peal out powerfully. All present were watching me, whilst I in my turn looked up at the ladder and listened.
Sto-ker, Sto-ker. Torchlight lit the high den door.
Down he came, climbing slowly backwards. His bare feet were filthy, scarred and scabbed. He wore a cloak the color of night. His body showed its crookedness as he descended rung by rung—his hands like claws, a bagged heart in his left hand—till suddenly, mid-ladder, he leapt down to the ground, landing in a crouch. Cat-like, he scampered fast to the canvas showing Osiris. His hood was deep, his face hidden; but when I walked towards the altar and summoned him nearer, he came. He came slowly, slowly, as if to let his scent subsume us:…the violets yes, but also his own void, turned dirt and bladed, bloodied flesh. And though I’d told all present what it was he looked like, and how it was he would change as his two selves vied for supremacy within, and how his voices would sound as he spoke, still there could be heard the ill-stifled intake of air from all the cast as Tumblety tossed back his hood and showed himself, saying—wordlessly, or so it seemed to me—Weigh it, and drew up from deep within his bag the freshly harvested heart of Mary Kelly, poor Mary Kelly.
By the lamplight, her heart seemed verily to burn, and its smell—for he held it high and forwards, as if he were a fruiterer proffering an apple—came to me as iron laid onto my tongue. Weigh it, said he voicelessly, whilst with the second voice, and simultaneously, he said for all to hear, “It wants ritual. It wants rite.”
Now Tumblety held, nay shook, the heart at the scales, such that it seemed he might toss it into one of the sets of cupped hands. Oh, but what then? What would I weigh in opposition to Mary Kelly’s heart? Or would Set somehow see to this, somehow place himself, his essence, his metaphoric self upon this, the Scales of Anubis? Might he somehow cause to fall onto it the feather of Maat? Or might Tumblety draw out from his bloodied bag more…more of his worthless, harvested hearts. I knew not. I knew only that I had to act, and so I commanded Tumblety to “Kneel. Kneel!”
This he did, holding to the heart whilst letting fall the bag, the blessedly empty bag. I saw his long, dirtied fingernails digging into the dead red of the heart-flesh. Now he was arm’s length from the table, the altar atop which sat the scales and atop which lay other things, things prerequisite to our performance.
What to do? What to do? I had assumed he would let us lead a rite, but no: Tumblety wanted the weighing now, now. What to do? I did not know. There I stood, staring through the holes of my hood at Tumblety; and it was he alone who knelt before me now: I knew by the slackened skin of his face that Set was in abeyance.
As if on cue, Speranza spoke, reading from the nonsensical rite we’d written. Tumblety seemed to recoil from her voice as Set re-took him. He snarled like a cur now, and his face went suddenly taut, and the still-livid scar upon his cheek split anew, and that treacle, that black blood, seeped into, nay through his moustaches and into his mouth, where he licked it from his lips with his thickened tongue. Two light-bright scorpions came to crawl down the length of his bare calf onto his cracked and horn-hard heel. Two more scampered up his forearm towards the heart he held. It was Set, yes, who spoke now to the Imperatrix, asking, “Who speaketh so? Are you Uatchet, the Lady of Flames, resident in the Eye of Ra?”
His words resounded through the den despite the dampening canvas.
There seemed to be but one right answer; and so:
“She is,” said I, adding, “Heed the Lady of Flames.”
Tumblety’s face slackened. Once again Set receded.
“Weigh it.” And again he proffered the heart. Weigh it!
And somehow I found myself holding the heart of Mary Kelly.
Whereupon Lady Wilde knew it was high time she intone from the book secured by X. Caine’s tremulous voice could be heard as well. So, too, Thornley’s. All others present set to humming in those dissonant, horridly dissonant, tones by which we’d hoped to distract the fiend; and it seemed to work; for, as I turned bloody-handed from the still-tipping scales onto which I’d set the heart, and from beside which I’d taken up the kukri, Tumblety knelt still as a supplicant and moved not at all as I stepped behind him, bent to say, Blood will have blood, and, reaching round him, slid fast the knife into his neck at the left of his jaw and ripped it, ripped it to the right with all my might.
The spurt of it, the spray of it, spattered onto the white robes of those on the dais. Caine fell back. Speranza rose and went to X, who’d fallen as both her nerves and knees failed her. Thornley sat resolute. So, too, did Penfold and Harker hold their nerves as I withdrew the kukri and, coming up from beneath Tumblety now, drove it deep into his own heart, and…alas, it was butcher-work, and To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.92
Indeed, these weeks later, still my hand shakes as I write the tale. These weeks later, still I feel his resisting flesh, still hear the suck and spurt of that red rending, that cut by which I killed him. And though I had often toyed with stage knives and their retractable blades, and had told myself again and again, had resolved to consider the kukri nothing but, still this was wholly different. The force of the blow did not double-back into my hand as it does upon the stage, but rather it went forward into Tumblety’s heart, such that I felt the split of flesh and the heart’s shock, the heart’s seizing, the heart’s slowly ceasing to beat, and from my hand through my own heart and to my brain was conveyed death, death, such that I knew what I had done: I had succeeded.
My robe was red and wet. So, too, were my hands, such that they slipped their grip on the hilt of the kukri. I held it no longer. Blood rushed blackly down its blade, buried deeply in Tumblety. His hands were fists upon the knife’s hilt now. He shuddered. He stilled. And there I stood as the fiend tipped forward, toward the altar. Fallen now, his back bowed; for, landing on the kukri, he’d driven it deeper in. He was dead, dead indeed. But what of his demon? What of Set, thusly un-housed?
The ensuing silence was as deep as it was short-lived.
The first of the canvases to rip, to shred, was that of the False Door, which split now along its repaired seams; oh, but Set would not take his leave as easily as that, no, and soon all the other canvases followed suit. It was as though unseen persons stood before them drawing knives this way and that, helter-skelter. The sound seemed that of the ghosted lion roaring once again in its den. Soon the canvases were naught but colored ribbon. And as I turned Tumblety over onto his back, Turn, hell-hound, turn!93 so as to see his face—and it was his face that I saw now, though scorpions came light-like from his wide-open mouth to dissolve in the near-dark—…alas, it was then that our lamps guttered and the oddly weighty shadows they cast upon the floor seemed a thousand, nay a million, serpents. And upon a wind swirling violets round the stony room, Set descended, unredeemed, whilst at my feet lay Francis Tumblety, rightly slain.
It was over. We—bloody, bold, and resolute94—had done the deed; and now there remained but this: How to let the world know Jack the Ripper was no more?
And too: the body: What would we do with the body?
This last, of course, was a problem we had hoped to have; and so Thornley had carried down into the den two large syringes plumbed with I-know-not-what. I know only that the solution was meant to speed the dissolution of Tumblety’s remains; which, wrapped in sackcloth, will seem naught but anonymous bones if ever they are found buried deep, deep in the lion’s den, in the ruins of David’s Tower, far beneath the Half Moon Ba
ttery of Edinburgh Castle. And if any place can contain such remains, can still a soul as foul as Tumblety’s was, surely it is that place, in that city. Rather, pray let it be.
Up from the den we all climbed. Peck came last and brought the ladder up behind him. With the help of Harker, he gathered our scenery, as it were, and replaced the den’s door whilst I washed using a skin of water which Peck, in his prescience, had brought. Our robes and hoods we handed to Peck as well, to be rendered down to ash that very night, along with the shredded canvas. Caine, last amongst us, came from the site backwards, brushing away the footprints of our procession with a bundle of rushes.
Peck led us out by torchlight, each of us stooping, silent, shivering still from all we’d seen and done. Too, there was the cold of the earth to contend with; for we were a good while taking our leave of the castle precincts via a long, low-roofed tunnel that wound down and down before finally giving out onto a street far below the Half Moon Battery. There a lone lamplighter went about his snuffing work. For it was dawn now. It was light.
We trained to London on Monday at noon, not a one of us having slept. Neither did any Child sleep on the train, as doubtless we were all afraid of what dreams might come. Newspapers were had at the station, and so it was my companions read all about the murder of Mary Kelly. I, for my part, refused the news; and there I sat instead, staring out the window, mourning the murdered woman whose heart I’d held not eight hours past.
CLIPPING FROM THE TIMES, 13 NOVEMBER 188895
Middlesex, TO WIT.
The Informations of Witnesses severally taken and acknowledged on behalf of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, touching the death of Marie Jeannette Kelly, at the House known by the sign of the Town Hall in the Parish of Shoreditch in the County of Middlesex, on the 12 day of November, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and eighty eight before me, RODERICK MACDONALD, Esquire, one of Her Majesty’s Coroners for the said County, on an Inquisition then and there taken on View of the body of the said Marie J Kelly then and there lying dead.
Joseph Barnett, having been sworn upon the day and year and at the place above mentioned, deposed as follows:-
I reside at 24 and 25 New Street, Bishopsgate, which is a common lodging house. I am a labourer & have been a fish porter. I now live at my sister’s, 21 Portpool Lane, Grays Inn Road. I have lived with the deceased one year and eight months, her name was Marie Jeannette Kelly. Kelly was her maiden name and the name she always went by. I have seen the body. I identify her by the ear and the eyes. I am positive it is the same woman. I have lived with her at No. 13 room, Miller’s Court, eight months or longer. I separated from her on the 30th of October. Deceased has often told me as to her parents, she said she was born in Limerick—that she was 25 years of age—& from there went to Wales when very young. She told me she came to London about 4 years ago. Her father’s name was John Kelly, he was a Gauger at some iron works in Carnarvonshire. She told me she had one sister, who was a traveller with materials from market place to market place. She also said she had 6 brothers at home and one in the army, Henry Kelly. I never spoke to any of them. She told me she had been married when very young in Wales. She was married to a Collier, she told me the name was Davis or Davies, I think Davies. She told me she was lawfully married to him until he died in an explosion. She said she lived with him 2 or 3 years up to his death. She told me she was married at the age of 16 years. She came to London about 4 years ago, after her husband’s death. She said she first went to Cardiff and was in an infirmary there 8 or 9 months and followed a bad life with a cousin whilst in Cardiff. When she left Cardiff she said she came to London. In London she was first in a gay house in the West End of the Town. A gentleman there asked her to go to France. She described to me she went to France. As she told me she did not like the part she did not stay there long, she lived there about a fortnight. She did not like it and returned. She came back and was living near the Gas Works. Morganstone was the man she lived with there. She did not tell me how long she lived there. Then she lived with a Flemming, she was very fond of him. He was a mason’s plasterer. He lived in Bethnal Green Rd. She told me all this, and Flemming used to visit her. I picked up with her in Commercial Street, Spitalfields. The first night we had a drink together and I arranged to see her the next day, and then on the Saturday we agreed to remain together and I took lodgings in Miller’s Court where I was known. I lived with her from then till I left her the other day. She had on several occasions asked me to read about the murders to her and she seemed afraid of some one, but she did not express fear of any particular individual except when she rowed with me but we always came to terms quickly.
I left her because she had a person who was a prostitute whom she took in and I objected to her doing so, that was the only reason. I left her on the 30th October between 5 & 6 pm. I last saw her alive on Thursday morning the 8th about half past eight am, as she was then standing on the corner of Miller’s Court in Dorset Street. I said to her, what brings you up so early, and she said, I have the horrors of drink upon me Joe. I could see she had been drinking for some days past, though she was as long as she was with me of sober habits. I said why don’t you go to Mrs. Ringers, meaning the public house, corner Dorset Street, called the Britannia, and have a 1/2 pint of beer. She said I have been there and had it but I have brought it all up again, at the same time pointing to some vomit on the roadway. I then passed on. I told her when I left her I had no work and had nothing to give her of which I was very sorry.
By the jury no questions.
MEMORANDUM TO THE DOSSIER (CONTINUED)
Once back in London, we disbanded. Caine rejoined his Mary and Ralph at Greeba Castle. Speranza returned to Park Street. Thornley and Mr. Penfold spent the night at the rooms we had retained at the Carfax Arms, whence they went to Dublin together, remaining there till the next part of our plan could be put into practice. I forbore against Henry and went home rather than head directly to the Lyceum, and though I made the case that Mr. Harker had earned his rest as well, Henry insisted that our scenarist, shaken still, join the rest of the party in cabs hired at King’s Cross and directed to head to the theatre. Poor Joseph Harker. I quite owe the man.
Florence and Noel have been as a balm, and with Tumblety seen to, No. 17 St. Leonard’s Terrace was rather more liveable than previously it had seemed. Though I was woken from my first dreamless, unaided sleep that Sunday afternoon by none other than Inspector Abberline, wondering who the two men were who’d bailed Tumblety only to disappear. So, too, had his Tumblety disappeared, of course; and though he, having been bailed, was not required by law to return to the Police Courts before 16 November, still the Inspector wanted very much to know where he was at present.
“Would that I could help you, Inspector,” was all I said, with a shrug; and my words were truth: Would that I could have helped him, but what was I to say? Why, sir, I have lately murdered the true Tumblety whilst you have sought the false;…yes, yes, you are most welcome;…and you may reclaim the former’s corpse, if you are so inclined, from the riven rock some seven storeys below Edinburgh Castle. And then bid the Inspector good day and adieu? Hardly. I had to desist, had to dissemble some days more, till such time as we would hand him, once again, our faux Tumblety.
The Inspector must have bided his time with lessening patience as the 16th approached; for the 17th was yet young when he came to me again, this time angering Florence with his fast refusal of tea. “Who is that man?” she asked. “He is most cold.” To which opinion I assented, adding only that he was from Scotland Yard and didn’t she agree that he would do better to task himself with this Whitechapel business rather than bother citing the Lyceum Co. for its J&H lines, which, said he, were complicating the nightly traffic upon Wellington Street and its surrounds, &c.? For indeed he’d done so: He’d brought me a citation! “Indeed,” said Florence apropos of Abberline, and there the business ended.
On that morning of the 17th—pre-citation, mind—I told Abberline, yet
again, that I’d not heard from Tumblety and neither had Mr. Caine; and I promised, again, to alert him if and when either of us did have word of the man. This, of course, I could not do for some days more; for Thornley—owing to some dolorous dealings with Emily and her doctors—had wired that he would be unable to accompany Mr. Penfold to France before the 23rd instant. And so it was on the 24th that I wired Inspector Abberline:
Word of the man. Come at once to the Lyceum. Stoker.
I knew my mistake only when, in short order, Abberline showed at the Lyceum with seven men of the Yard and I had both he and Henry to contend with. “What business is this?” asked the Guv’nor. “More about those blasted hounds?”
“Indeed so, Henry,” said I, suggesting he let his Stoker see to it. So he did. And I was able to turn my attention to Abberline, whom I ushered alone into E.T.’s dressing room, vacated by her refusal to play in our Jekyll.
“Sir,” said I.
“Sir,” said he; and therewith went all pleasantries.
“Mr. Caine has had word from an acquaintance of his that the American is headed home.”
“Not so fast, he isn’t,” said Abberline. “What more do you know, Mr. Stoker? And who is this acquaintance of Mr. Caine’s?”
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that, Inspector, as—”
“Tumblety,” said he, fairly livid. “Where is Tumbelty now?”
“He sailed to-day from Le Havre, aboard a boat of the Transatlantic Line. La Bretagne, by name.”