Castle Rouge

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “Someone would…arrange such a dreadful death merely for political reasons?”

  Godfrey sighed. “I need only point you to the New Testament, my dear Nell, to find a death arranged for political reasons.”

  I sat stunned. As well as I knew my New Testament and stoutly would have argued its eternal import for modern men and times, I truly did not expect to find parallels in current events.

  Godfrey was odiously right. Not only had Our Savior died at the convenience of warring Jewish religious factions and the Roman officials ruling Judea, but much earlier His Holy Family had to flee to Egypt with the baby Jesus to avoid an infamous occasion of infanticide: Herod’s attempt to foil the prophecies of a Jewish Messiah by ordering all first-born Jewish boys under two years of age slain, known to history as the Slaughter of the Innocents.

  “It that why people ever since then are so ready to accuse the Jews of killing Christian babies?” I asked with dawning horror. “Because they know that the case was the opposite so long ago?”

  “People do tend to reassign their own demons to other people, persecuting what they hate in themselves in someone else, usually someone completely innocent.”

  “That is such a cynical observation, Godfrey.”

  “I am a barrister and now a prisoner. I have seen a great deal to make me cynical.”

  “And your father,” I said, recalling bits of his unhappy family history. “He persecuted your mother for leaving him, charging her with being unfit to mother her children, when in fact he was the intemperate, irascible, irresponsible one.”

  “Intemperate, irascible, irresponsible.” Godfrey repeated my trinity of adjectives as if every word were a personal blow. “Fair enough, and I suppose he did try to have her named a public sinner while he remained a private one. Hypocrisy did not die out with the Pharisees, Nell.”

  I hardly heard him. Ideas…no, revelations! were knocking at doorways in my mind I had never known were there.

  “And Jack the Ripper,” I said, just as suddenly. “James Kelly, rather. He detested discovering that he was born out of wedlock so much that he hated his mother—though not his father, that is odd—for the fact of his irregular birth. Once he found out, even though his father had left him money and opportunity, he hated all women because he might create another bastard like himself with one. Even when he was married, he called his wife a whore and killed her. And then he set about killing prostitutes.”

  Godfrey was sitting as if turned to stone, staring at me.

  “What? Have I hit upon something?”

  “I cannot believe what has happened to you, Nell, using such words.”

  “What words?” I thought back, then sighed. “There is no other way to express such facts, Godfrey,” I said in my sternest governess tone, “though I blush to resort to such terms as I must use. I also beg your pardon, but once one has really understood what Jack the Ripper did there is no retreat to polite terms. Nor can there be when a babe in arms is a pawn in some disgusting savage ceremony. Irene said that if we three did not move to find and stop Jack the Ripper, he would go on and on and on.”

  “You three? Was Irene including me, even though I was at a distance? Or—” Godfrey’s face darkened. “Was that man Holmes in the picture as well? Is he the one who lured you and Irene into such dark and dangerous matters?”

  Godfrey was so close to the facts that I actually flirted for a moment with telling an untruth, for his own peace of mind. But Sherlock Holmes had never been included in Irene’s more recent version of the three musketeers, and in this case, for once, the true facts were less frightening than the imagined ones.

  “No, Godfrey, I am afraid we were an all-female cast: ‘we three.’ Irene chose to rescue a young American woman from the brothel at which the first two murdered Parisian prostitutes were found.”

  “Rescue…? This American woman was a would-be victim? Some innocent maid or laundress?”

  “Alas, no, that would have been far more suitable than the facts. She was a…lady of the house.”

  “A lady? You mentioned that aristocrats patronized the place, but not female ones.” Godfrey was looking more confused and appalled by the moment.

  “I am trying to remain delicate of expression, Godfrey. She was one of the…damaged goods for sale.”

  “And Irene rescued her? How.”

  “She, er, moved her into our hotel suite.”

  “With you? This harlot?”

  “She actually was fairly presentable for an American girl…and a trollop. She was possessed of some wild idea that she must learn life through the back alleys. I believe that Irene thought I would be a good influence on her.”

  “I fear the influence has gone the other way, given the shocking words that fall so easily from your lips.”

  “It is hard to be chary of only words if you have seen the deeds that we have witnessed in the past fortnight, Irene and I. And…Pink.”

  “That is the American trollop’s name?”

  “Nom de guerre, I suppose? She was christened Elizabeth, which bespeaks some hope for her.”

  “I am not as reassured by birth names as you are, Nell.” Godfrey sighed and put his forehead in his hands, seemingly intent on scrubbing off the new wrinkles of worry. “At least Irene has not been consorting with that man Holmes. I find his interest in her rather suspect.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, Godfrey! Irene has said that he is hopelessly adrift in these cases of lust-murder; that a confirmed bachelor like him hasn’t the faintest idea of what is at stake.”

  “And you do?”

  “Well, no. But it doesn’t matter because Irene does.”

  “I am not reassured.”

  “I wish you would be! I am doing my best. You must understand that I have been in the presence of the Prince of Wales and the Baron de Rothschild in recent days. These eminent personages asked, nay, beseeched our help.”

  “I thought that you did not think much of the Prince of Wales.”

  “I don’t, and now that I know of his siége d’amour I think even less of him. Vile appliance for a naughty, naughty, greedy boy!”

  “I think that I do not wish to hear the specifics.”

  “But this ignoble two-tiered couch does link James Kelly, the unhinged upholsterer, with Jack the Ripper, so we must be grateful even for that unwanted knowledge.”

  “I believe I could use less unwanted knowledge right now, Nell. This…case you and Irene and this Pink person have been involved in strikes me as far too sordid for any investigative force but the police. Worse, from what I have gathered, you have been exposed to and identified by some murderously insane elements. If what you say is true, this brutal conspiracy of slaughter extends from London to Paris to Prague.”

  “I haven’t even gotten to the plot against the Jews,” I interjected.

  Godfrey held up a beseeching hand. “Later. For now I must think. If Prague is a link in this hateful string of crimes, then my abduction may not be as arbitrary as it seemed.”

  “You were not taking your abduction seriously, Godfrey?”

  “No. I thought of it as a forestalling action to keep me from finishing the Rothschild business. An extreme measure, to be sure, but customary in this territorial and rather primitive part of the world where bandit kings and warlords rule every mountain pass.”

  “So you expected to be released unharmed when some preordained time period was over?”

  “I suppose. Of course I would have escaped the castle before then, if…if things had been different.”

  “I believe, Godfrey, that my arrival is the ‘thing’ that has put the period to your plans to escape. But don’t you see? My arrival changes all your assumptions?”

  “How so?”

  “If I have been spirited from Paris to Prague, I presume, and thence to this forgotten castle, both our imprisonments have more to do with me than with you. I can see only one reason for my presence here: I am to be a future victim of Jack the Ripper, otherwise know
n as James Kelly, rogue upholsterer.”

  “Your pardon, Nell, but this is a political scheme, and I am the unwitting victim.”

  “Your pardon, Godfrey, but you are apparently an afterthought, kidnaped perhaps to distract Irene from tracing my movements. I am the prime unwitting victim. As soon as that dreadful James Kelly creature escapes his pursuers and finds his way here, I will be meat for his mania.”

  I shuddered at the thought of the death that awaited me, worse than boiling in water at the hands of any unconverted cannibal I could have ministered to so sweetly but ineffectively in Africa.

  “I regret to say that you are both wrong,” said a voice that had no right joining in our argument.

  We looked up to the doorway, at one in our gestures if not our opinions.

  The voice had been female. It had spoken in English, though rather heavily accented English. And it was vaguely familiar.

  We had been alone for so long in the castle, with only the rare and taciturn Gypsy for company, that just hearing English words made our hearts leap up. At least we both leapt to our feet to confront the visitor.

  She entered fully, revealing a traveling cape of hunter’s green velvet touched with soft ridges of red-blond fur that complemented her hair color.

  That hair was curled and dressed into a Parisian edifice as artificial as the Eiffel Tower and almost as high. She might have stepped out of the Worth Salon on the Rue de la Paix, save her ensemble had a savage simplicity that even Worth would decline to duplicate.

  She set a matching sable muff the size of a Pomeranian lapdog down on the end of our trestle table.

  Godfrey bowed, gentleman that he always was. “If you are truly our hostess, I must commend you on the consistent quality of the stew.”

  Tatyana, the Russian spy once known as Sable, smiled, an expression that emphasized her foxy pointed chin and her long, swanlike neck. I had lived in the country and knew that foxes could smile.

  “I will convey your compliments to the chef,” she said. “I would be grateful to the Gypsies, if I were you two.” She eyed me with denigrating smugness. “I see your mode of dress is much more amusing these days. You remind me of a shabby chorister from some nonsense by your Gilbert and Sullivan. Still, you should be grateful. The Gypsies spirited you away from great danger at the hands of a man all England fears and soon all Europe will, too. And perhaps, later, the entire world.”

  “At your behest?”

  She shrugged. “I have used the Gypsies before. They make an excellent spy network: they are everywhere, though often invisible, and they will do anything for money, particularly if they think one is paying too much. It is not hard to pay too much for Gypsies. They are surprisingly loath to rise in a world they despise.”

  “I suppose I should thank you,” I said tartly, with what I hoped was irony, although I become hopelessly awkward whenever I try irony.

  “Indeed you should, for you have given me leverage.”

  “Over Irene?” I asked, my breath catching in my chest.

  The name brought a subtle change to her otherwise inscrutable expression. It was as if I had said “poison” to a queen cobra.

  “Over your partner in custody.”

  I glanced at once to Godfrey. What could she mean? The expression on his normally genial face told me that he had understood her meaning all too well.

  “You should be glad of my arrival,” she added, nearing the table again to stroke the sable muff as if it were a pet. “The food will be better. There will be…amusements to pass the time. You must, however, allow for my retinue to, er, occupy the building.

  “It has been neglected for centuries,” she explained, “thanks to foolish local superstitions, so it makes a perfect retreat from the rushed and ugly day-to-day world of the rest of Europe. You may now encounter servitors other than Gypsies, but I advise you not to speak to them. They are more primitive in their own way and less gregarious than the Romany; besides, they know very little English.”

  With that she retrieved her muff. Her sable hem swept over the stone floor to the door with the soft sound of a departing wave. In a moment we saw no more of her. Her recent presence seemed as unreal as a dream, except that a strong spicy scent floated in her wake as if she were a China clipper loaded with exotic teas.

  Godfrey sat down and applied the wine goblet to his lips for a good half a minute.

  “Tatyana,” he said at last, voicing our mutual recognition of a mortal enemy as if declaring the subject of a hellish toast. It did not resemble a toast to anyone’s good health, least of all ours.

  “Quentin knew her as a spy over a decade ago in Maiwand. Afghanistan,” I added at Godfrey’s blank look.

  “Quentin—?”

  “Quentin Stanhope,” I repeated patiently as to a sick child. “You remember! The uncle to my dear former charge Allegra Turnpenny. He had turned to espionage in the service of the Crown in India over a decade ago and got caught in a game of cat and mouse and betrayal with a turncoat British agent called Tiger and a Russian agent named Sable. Quentin was called Cobra,” I added with pardonable pride, for a striking cobra may easily topple creatures as clever as a sable or as ferocious as a tiger.

  “Of course I remember your acquaintance and our exotic house guest, but I doubt even Quentin Stanhope can do us much good here.” Godfrey’s monotone was part despair and part determination and part grumble.

  “Irene will—”

  “Irene will not, I hope, come anywhere near here, for this Tatyana woman is her worst enemy. You will remember she attempted to poison Irene once in Prague, and long after the game was over. She is a treacherous, vengeful creature. No good can come of either one of us being in her hands. With both of us captured…barristers are supposed to be unimaginative by profession, but I confess my speculations are both lurid and extremely pessimistic.”

  “Nonsense! I have faced Jack the Ripper and survived. One overdressed Russian woman is not enough to daunt me. She must have a purpose and it is probably political. She is a spy, after all.”

  “That was a long time ago, Nell. Just because Quentin Stanhope continues to work for the foreign office it doesn’t mean Tatyana has remained loyal to her Russian roots. She struck me as someone devoted to her own cause above all others.”

  “And that is?”

  “I don’t know,” Godfrey admitted, a troublesome “V” of worry lines settling between his dark brows like the furled wings of a raven in residence. “All I know is that it bodes no good for either of us. Or for Irene, wherever she is. Which I devoutly hope is nowhere near us and will continue to be so.

  “It is now even more imperative that we contrive to escape, for if we remain we are nothing but bait for those who most love us and whom we most love.”

  With that he began worrying again, overlooking the fierce, unflagging blush that racked me with panic and delight when I realized that Godfrey’s use of the plural “us” could imply someone else besides Irene whom I most loved, and…who most loved me?

  Ah, no. That was a delusion Tatyana would most enjoy my cherishing. So I resolved never to think of such an impossibility again.

  28.

  “X” Marks the Spots

  And the crew were very much pleased when they found it to be

  A map they could all understand.

  —LEWIS CARROLL, THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK, 1876

  FROM A JOURNAL

  That afternoon Bram Stoker was replaced by Quentin Stanhope as we huddled over a map of London in our hotel room in Prague.

  The influence of Mycroft Holmes was not in the power to move mountains, or to transmit a map upon a beam of light. It was in mobilizing the sources closer to hand.

  Within hours of Quentin cabling the foreign office and mentioning the magic word “Sherlock,” we had a modern, pristine map of London’s Whitechapel district in our hands, courtesy of the Prague royal library.

  We also had a cable Quentin had received back, listing the cross-roads where the women of W
hitechapel had died, and including the location of the “Juwes” doggerel.

  “This is incomplete.” Irene stared down at the map and the cablegram that lay atop it. “Sherlock Holmes made quite a point to Nell that murdered women and Whitechapel are synonymous. They have been so long before Jack the Ripper appeared on the scene. The crimes that are attributed to the Ripper by the British police are arbitrary at best, and severely underestimated at worst.”

  “This is what we have to work with, Irene,” Quentin said. “However unconvinced Nell might be, she would not quibble to use the tools at hand were it another’s life in the balance.”

  “No. Nor shall we. All right. Mary Ann Nichols, known as ‘Polly,’ is designated as the first Ripper victim, though she may not be. She was slain here at Bucks Row, just off Whitechapel Road on the high, eastern end of the district.”

  Irene made a large “X” to mark the spot.

  “The next victim was Annie Chapman at Hanbury Street. Look! Almost on the same east-west axis as Mary Ann Nichol’s death scene, but dead center of the district.”

  I winced at the unintended aptness of her American usage, “dead center.” Irene drew another “X” on the map.

  “Third. Elizabeth ‘Long Liz’ Stride, at Fairclough and Berner Street.”

  Irene marked the third “X” and drew back from the map to study it. “These three points make an upside-down pyramid, almost an equilateral triangle. What is the fourth location, Quentin?”

  He read from the cable. “Catharine Eddowes, on Mitre Street, near Aldgate.”

  Irene drew a double “X” there. “And near here the chalked lines about the Juwes were discovered. Look, the Eddowes site is almost across from Stride, as east-west goes, but a long, long walk. Eddowes was the Ripper’s second victim that night, before he presumably turned to scrawling ambiguous statements about Jews.” She frowned at her series of “X”s. “Four points now, and if you connected them, you would have a rectangle, a skewed rectangle, although I believe there is exactly such a construction. I don’t believe that geometry is Jack the Ripper’s field, however.”