By the way, I nearly came over to say hello this afternoon in the hotel lobby. I thought for a moment you recognized me. I was both irritated and pleased you did not. Irritated, as I thought we had become close enough that you should know me at once, and pleased my costume had deflected your gaze. There are few people more trusted than the British bobby, and I have used my disguise to good effect on more than one occasion after one of my encounters with the working-class women of Whitechapel.
I had to hand the letter over to Margaret to read out loud, as I was suddenly unable to focus my gaze when I realized Mark Twain’s escort to the theater this night had been none other than Saucy Jacky!
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
ALL FOR ONE
Saturday, November 10, cont.
Margaret cleared her throat, and in a quavering voice read the letter.
The presence of additional constables from outlying districts has allayed their suspicions as I pass amongst them, such as the night of my so-called “Double Event.” Oh, what a night that was! A very tricky thing too, and I am still amazed at how neatly I pulled it off.
As an avid devotee of the theater, I saw to Mr. Clemens’s safe arrival to the Old Vic this evening. He and I have much in common, as neither of us likes to disappoint our audience. We differ however, to a great extent regarding our opinion of the inferior peoples of the world. His sympathetic portrayal of a Nubian in Huckleberry Finn fully merits my blade. Suffice to say there was a deviation in his return to the hotel. If you wish to save his life, you will immediately come to Fenchurch Street Railway Station and proceed eastward on foot along the tracks, where I await you with my hostage.
I will wait no longer than midnight. If you do not arrive by then, my unwilling companion will pay. As you British like to say, “You know I’m good for it!” The clock is ticking, Doctor Doyle. Are you ready for your final lesson? You have been a most inept pupil, and I have the patience for only one more session.
Come if you dare,
JTR
My optimism of scant moments before left me immediately after reading this challenge from Graff. It seemed he had outflanked us once more.
“I shall go alone, of course,” I said.
Margaret looked at me. The steel in her eyes told me I was greatly mistaken.
“All for one and one for all!” she whispered hoarsely. “I know I speak for the professor as well.”
“You certainly do!” Bell said, as he came up the stairs to see what was delaying me. “Whatever it’s about, Miss Harkness, you can speak for me.”
Margaret wordlessly handed the letter over to Bell. He whistled low as he grasped the contents.
“Surely, Doyle,” Margaret said, “you know neither of us is going to sit idly by and let you face this creature alone.” Then, placing her right hand gently upon mine, she said calmly, “Don’t protect me. Do me the honor of trusting I can help you. We began this together, and you know we must finish it together. We can walk to the station from here. Professor, release the cabby, while I change into something more suitable for the occasion. Doyle, you can wait in the front room while Molly helps me undergo a rapid transformation.”
I hadn’t known such loyalty between friends since my days on the SS Hope in Arctic waters. It was good to have such “shipmates” at my side, especially in heavy seas such as these.
It took Margaret less than ten minutes to emerge in her workingclass Pennyworth attire. She patted her jacket pocket and assured me she was “taking precautions.” The professor had his cane, though I was unarmed.
Margaret produced a much-chipped cricket bat, one that she had used on rats before Johnny joined her retinue. “Here, Doyle. Know how to use one of these?”
I bristled at this, for I had always considered myself an excellent batsman. Looking over this much-scarred veteran, it seemed I could scarcely do it more harm, and thus, somewhat stone-faced, I accepted my Excalibur.
In one of my tales I would have the heroes give brave speeches as they marched off to battle, but as we began our walk toward the station we turned silent, each in our thoughts, wondering what test awaited us and how we would measure up.
Time is a slippery thing. An hour in a boring lecture can seem like an eternity, while a month-long holiday can pass as quickly as a day. During our march to the station, time walked in leaden boots, dragging us onward, while fear made my heart rush like a racehorse. My hands were ice-cold. I was grateful my friends had not let me face the Ripper alone.
We found the station deserted when we arrived. The last passenger train for the day had departed before ten o’clock. Fenchurch station was the end of the line before the docks, however, and trains from central London would run throughout the night into the freight yards.
I took a deep breath as we stepped off the station platform, and went forward into the dark to confront Jack the Ripper on his own terms.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
A KNIFE IN THE FOG
Saturday, November 10, to Sunday, November 11
Although the passenger station was vacant, there were still several wagon cars on side tracks that cast large shadows within which Herr Graff could easily hide.
“We should walk abreast,” said Bell. “Margaret, as you have our only firearm, you should walk in the middle, along the track. Doyle and I can walk a few feet on either side; that way, no more than one of us can be overwhelmed by a surprise attack, while Margaret in the center can bring her weapon to bear.”
“I suspect you have other motives as well,” Margaret said dryly, “but the tactic is sound all the same. Let’s go. I have some words I’d like to share with Herr Graff.”
I took the right side, Bell the left. The familiar feel of the cricket bat in my hand was reassuring, and I vowed in silence that if I could land one solid blow I would finally turn the tide in our favor.
We walked eastward in this manner, slowly, for when the clouds passed over it was hard to see, while the rough stone of the rail grading made for uneven footing. The damp cold made my breath fog as I breathed in the taste of the moist earth, which oddly reminded me of the lingering after-notes of a good German Riesling. The only sound was our footsteps on the slick stones and our increasingly labored breathing as we struggled to move forward. The mist began to rise slowly from the cold ground, heralding the approach of a thick London fog.
After five minutes we had walked approximately four hundred yards, and the tracks had decreased to two from the eight that departed the station.
Suddenly, Margaret cried out, “Look! Straight ahead!”
The clouds parted a little . . . I could observe a man dressed in white crawling on his hands and knees, headed away from us, trying vainly to stand up, only to resume crawling.
Margaret flew down the tracks, while the professor, hindered by the loose stones, lagged behind. I cast a quick look over my shoulder, expecting Graff to come at us out of the shadows, but not seeing him I joined the chase with a will.
We were about forty yards behind as Margaret reached the man. Abruptly he stood up and, with a constable’s cudgel he had shielded beneath him, struck her a severe blow full in the face.
Margaret gave a weak cry, dropping her derringer and crumpling at his feet; her bowler hat fell off, exposing her braided hair.
Bell and I briefly halted, stunned by this turn of events.
The man calmly removed the white coat and threw it away before grasping Margaret by the hair with his right hand and roughly pulling her to her knees.
“My compliments, lady, and gentlemen,” said Herr Graff. “Right on time.”
Bell and I began to rush forward, but halted when Graff took a long slender knife from beneath his coat with his left hand and placed it against Margaret’s throat. “Stop where you are!” he commanded.
Bell and I froze and exchanged glances, unsure how to proceed.
“Step onto the track, gentlemen,” Graff instructed. “Now walk slowly forward, side by side, until I tell you to halt. Professor Bell, dro
p your cane. And is that a cricket bat I see in your hands, Doctor Doyle? Really? I don’t know whether to be insulted or amused. In any event, lay it down; but thank you for that touch of the absurd.”
We did as instructed, dropping our meager weapons and standing together on the track, for we had no choice. My fists clenched in fury at how he had outwitted us. Again. I have never felt a deeper sense of humiliation, and bile burned the back of my throat.
Margaret’s head began to rock slightly from side to side. I took it as a hopeful sign that she was recovering from the blow, though her eyes were still closed.
“Far enough,” Graff said, when we had closed the gap to about ten yards, lightly stroking Margaret’s face with his knife.
His transformation was striking. Gone was the pale functionary of Wilkins. Before us, there now stood a man glowing with a powerful and seductive self-assurance. I could easily understand why someone would follow him into a dark alley, unquestioning. I shivered at the silky character of his voice.
His actions were in sharp contrast to the bobby’s tunic he was wearing, half-unbuttoned and gaping open. His pale face seemed to glow when the moonlight broke through the clouds, which, accompanied with the gathering fog and the dark color of the tunic, gave his face a ghost-like quality, only adding to his menacing appearance.
“Where is Mr. Clemens?” I demanded. “What have you done to him?”
“I did nothing to him, Doctor,” Graff replied blandly. “I fear this stalwart constable,” he began, and then performed a slight bow to indicate himself, “deserted his post and left Mr. Clemens to find his own way back. By the way, I am grateful you stopped by Clemens’s hotel while I was there. It made my little gambit regarding Mr. Twain much more convincing.”
“I’m curious,” said Bell. “Were any of those letters to the Central News Agency or any of the others to the papers really from you?”
“What an odd question at this moment. Is it because of the ears, Professor? Mrs. Eddowes’s missing ears?”
“Exactly,” replied Bell grimly.
“I was so taken with the letter you shared with me,” answered Graff, pleased at his own cleverness. “I knew if I could add that little touch to my next acquaintance, it would lead you and the police down a very long rabbit hole. You must admit it was a lovely embellishment.”
Graff would stop stroking Margaret’s face with his knife while he was talking, the conversation distracting him from his captive, so I decided to engage him as much as possible.
“Why do you do this?” I asked, unsure if there could be any answer.
Bell nodded slightly, encouraging me to keep Graff occupied, and I noticed Margaret’s eyes were fluttering open, though she still looked quite dazed.
“I did promise you a lesson, didn’t I? Very well. The only person who ever mattered to me was my little brother, Ernst. We were both born with hemophilia, a gift from our grandmother, a lady you hold in much higher esteem than do I. Ernst fell from a balcony when he was seven, due to the carelessness of our nanny.”
“A fall from a balcony could cause the death of any child, hemophilia or no!” I interjected.
“Once again you speak with authority over things you know nothing about!” seethed Graff. “It was a severe fall, yes, but he would have lived had he not borne our family curse. This defect bestowed by women onto their male children.
“Blood. Fascinating liquid, isn’t it, Doctor? It flows and sustains life. Yet, if it flows too freely, it takes life away. I find it ironic when others refer to my ‘royal bloodline,’ not realizing that to me it is not an endowment of nobility, but a damnation.”
Margaret’s eyes were now fully open, and her hands came slowly up to her waist, preparing herself for any opportunity. Graff, lost in his story, was oblivious.
“I grappled with the image of an all-powerful and supposedly loving God allowing my brother to die due to a curse bestowed within my mother’s womb, and the incompetence of a slack-jawed servant.”
Graff paused and looked down at Margaret. He began stroking her face with the knife once more, lovingly. I had a sudden frightful insight; Graff loved his victims. Incapable of normal feelings, the emotions he experienced when he tore a person’s life from them was the closest to passion he could achieve. For a brief flicker of time, I got a glimpse of his naked, hungry soul, and beheld the great loneliness that was his burden.
Graff continued, lost in his reverie. “Then I discovered Darwin, and the commentaries of Herbert Spencer, who coined that phrase ‘survival of the fittest.’ Suddenly my brother’s death made sense. He was flawed, so he was removed. I am also flawed but, by using my intellect, I have adapted to a world more dangerous to me than to others. I have become adept at handling swords, knives, and all manner of edged instruments. I would be their master, not their cowering slave.”
“And the women’s wombs?” I asked. “Removed because that is where the curse is bestowed?”
Graff’s face, pale in the moonlight, leered at me. “Well done, Doctor. I’ll make a detective of you yet.”
“The real Wilkins said there was some incident involving your nanny,” I prompted, continuing to play for time. “What became of her?”
Graff smiled, his teeth glowing in the dim moonlight. “Oh, in time I reunited with the bitch who let my brother fall,” he said, as though fondly recalling a moonlight cruise. “And I showed her the price of her failure. Afterward, I was sent here to your shores, my second homeland and the source of my affliction. I read your pitiful detective tale, which preached the old lie of ‘order.’ I could not tolerate your prattle and had to show you how very impotent your vision is; but how to do so?”
Graff laughed deeply; the same laugh, I wondered, that had reassured Mary Kelly?
“Then it came to me: do unto others as I had done unto one, then appeal to your vanity and greed and draw you here so I could watch you scurry about, all the while keeping me abreast of the manhunt. I found Professor Bell’s reports quite informative; it was reassuring to know how far afield my pursuers were. Well done, sir!”
Bell bared his teeth at this taunt. “Ye know we won’t let ye get away with this!” he declared.
Graff shook his head. “Ah, we’ll discuss that in a moment, Professor. You’re getting ahead of me.”
He cupped Margaret’s chin with his knife hand, and tilted her head back to gaze into her eyes. “I would be most ungrateful if I did not also thank you, Margaret, my dear, for fulfilling your role so well. I knew a man of Doyle’s station could never sympathize with women of the lower classes. I confess when I discovered you are John Law, I was taken aback. Then I saw the possibilities. Fate had been kind to me, at last.”
He smiled at her. “I needed you, or someone like you, to make Doyle care what became of my victims. Well done, my dear. Well done indeed!”
Margaret maintained a stone visage, while Graff paused in his soliloquy to gently caress her face with his knife once more before resuming.
He raised his eyes to meet mine. “A woman’s purity is her most sacred possession, isn’t it, Doctor? Oh, how they guard it! How they delight in making men pay for it. I paid the whores for theirs.” He chuckled, “Well, there was nothing pure about them when I was done, as you well know. Thus, it was a weakness of my blood that has drawn me to bathe in that of others. Women’s blood, preferably, for I have yet to kill a man. We shall see if that remains so after tonight. Time to draw our little drama to a close, so please pay attention.
“I am about to give you two choices, Doctor Doyle, so do listen carefully. Miss Harkness,” he said softly, while returning the blade to her throat, “you should pay particular attention.
“Here are your two choices. Option one: I slit Miss Harkness’s lovely throat in front of you both. You attack me in a vain attempt to save her or at least to avenge her. Too late, of course, but very noble.”
My heart was hammering like a steam engine.
“But I said there was a second option now, didn’t I
? If your thoughts stray, you may miss the crucial difference. I slit Miss Harkness’s throat as before, but this time . . . you do nothing. You walk away, and you live. If Professor Bell feels his honor is at stake, I can easily wound him sufficiently to satisfy the demands of chivalry. My exile to Merry Old England was to be for one year, and that year has nearly expired. I return home, no more ‘unfortunates’ in the East End die by my hand, and you live the rest of your life knowing your incompetence cost Miss Harkness hers.”
I had no more words to bandy about. I could tell Bell was poised to spring forward at the slightest chance, but the knife at Margaret’s throat still held us back.
“I must admit I rather prefer option two,” Graff purred. “The memory of her dead body gazing up at you will ensure you never pen another frivolous story about this ‘Sheerluck’ Holmes for the rest of your miserable life. I so like the thought of you left twisting in despair that I am willing to give you a significant incentive.”
Graff reached into his inner uniform pocket with his knife hand and withdrew a thick envelope that he threw at my feet as one tosses scraps to a dog, and as he did so I noticed Margaret reach into her coat pocket.
“Here you are, Doctor Doyle. The remainder of the money due you, plus a substantial bonus. Payment for services rendered, and a life. Pick it up, and we have a deal.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
DANSE MACABRE
Sunday, November 11, cont.
I tensed to rush forward, knowing it would be too late, when Bell placed his hand upon my left shoulder to restrain me.
Graff laughed, and his hand swung back toward Margaret’s throat. As it did, Margaret’s left hand lashed out and grabbed him by the forearm.
The moon broke free of the clouds at this moment, and I beheld a macabre tableau, frozen in my memory for all time. Graff was looking puzzled and standing over Margaret, his right hand grasping her hair, his left hand momentarily arrested by hers.
A Knife in the Fog Page 24