Perhaps it was because he was a photographer: he looked at people and saw them clearly. Perhaps he could look at me and see something no one else – not Mary, nor Mr Holmes – could see.
I wondered what he’d see now?
The warehouse where he had his studio was on the edge of Whitechapel. We knew our way, and pushed open the door.
‘What the hell do you want . . . oh,’ Robert Sheldon said, recognizing us. He stood behind his camera as usual, looking very unnoticeable. The room was softly lit with the grey morning light this time, though he had a different backdrop arranged. This time he had a complete lady’s dressing room set up, painted and gilded to look very expensive. On the red velvet stool a young woman sat still, pouting as she removed her stocking, frozen in position.
‘Ruby,’ Mary called to her, ‘how lovely to see you.’ Mary meant it. She and the model had found lots to talk about last time they met. Mary went over to join her.
‘Good morning, Mr Sheldon,’ I said, stepping forward. Was it my imagination, or did he flinch a little? Somewhere the bells struck twelve. ‘Good afternoon, now,’ I added.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded, glaring at me from behind the camera.
‘Only information,’ I said, holding out the photograph. ‘Just that.’
‘Why should I?’ he snarled at me.
‘Why should you not?’ I replied, very softly. ‘It’s in the public interest.’
He snatched the photograph, glanced at it, then handed it back to me.
‘I don’t know nothing about it,’ he said, sniffing. He was a Whitechapel man, used to death and danger, and yet somehow he saw something in me that scared him. Me! I don’t know what it was, but I was determined to use it.
‘Liar,’ I told him. ‘I can see the urn across the room. I know these boys were photographed here.’
‘Just like that,’ he insisted. ‘Fully clothed, always in front of the damn urn. No funny business!’
‘I didn’t think there would be,’ I replied. ‘Who asked you to take the pictures?’
‘I’m not telling,’ he insisted. ‘Now get out, before I call—’
‘Call who?’ Mary demanded. ‘Your friend? Your superior? The blackmailing evil bastard that ruined lives with your help?’
He spun to face her, his face white, shaking on his feet.
‘You can’t,’ she told him. ‘He died.’
She stood up and walked towards him. He held onto the camera, shaking so much it rattled. She came right up to him, and said:
‘He burnt.’
He turned to look at me.
‘Truly?’ he asked.
‘Truly,’ I promised. This time his knees did buckle, and he sank to the floor, head in hands. Ruby rushed to his side, but he didn’t need help.
‘Thank God,’ he murmured, and it was a prayer. ‘Thank God.’ He looked at me. ‘Finally met his match, did he?’ he said bitterly.
I stayed silent. I didn’t know what to say. To claim a victory seemed wrong, considering what it had cost, but I had set this man free of an intolerable burden, it seemed.
‘Might have known it’d be you,’ he said, as Mary and Ruby helped him back up. ‘Let me look at that picture again.’
I gave it to him, and he studied it.
‘Yeah, I took a few of these,’ he said. ‘Been doing it about five years.’
‘How many?’ Mary asked. He shrugged.
‘Dunno. Lady always took the plates with her. But about every six months, I reckon.’
That made perhaps ten boys. How many had she taken? I guessed Robert Sheldon was not the only photographer.
‘Did you get her name?’ Mary persisted. ‘Can you describe her?’
‘Oldish,’ he said. ‘Pretending to be older than she was, do you understand? Walking slow and bending over when I reckon she could move fast enough if she wanted to. She wore a veil, and put on an accent, but definitely from London, a posh part.’
‘Why you?’ I asked.
‘Because I don’t advertise,’ he said. ‘I don’t keep the pictures to show my skill to other clients. I don’t keep anything, and I don’t tell. I’m a photographer for those people who like things nice and private. Mistresses and illegitimate children and things like that. It is what I’m known for, really.’ His voice trailed off. Of course, all those pictures ended up in the blackmailer’s hands – but not any more. He could change now.
‘Were they scared, the boys?’ Mary asked. He thought for a moment.
‘Not scared, but silent,’ he said eventually. ‘Like they daren’t even breathe until she gave them permission. It’s not like she hit them, she loved them, I reckon, but like they belonged to her. Like dolls.’
‘She never left a name?’
‘Never. Though she dropped a letter. She picked it up quick, but I saw the address. It was a hospital ward, in St Barts.’
Mary and I looked at each other. It fitted the facts. We made our thanks and left.
‘You,’ he called out to me. ‘Whatever you call yourself, I owe you. Whatever you want from me, any favour, you just ask, all right?’
I nodded and left.
Back to the hospital then: back to where it began.
THE DEATH BED
Mary was all for going to the hospital right away, but I wanted to wait until six, when the night shift came on duty. The night shift had, after all, been when it all began. I got home to find that Billy had gone out to Regent’s Park to find Inspector Gregson, who was searching the area for clues and witnesses. I baked bread all afternoon, and refused to think about why Robert Sheldon was afraid of me – and how I had used it.
We decided to take Grace with us to see Nora. It would give us an excuse to come in the evening, rather than standard visiting hours. As we left, I had that feeling again, that I was being watched. Miranda Logan must still be on the case.
Once we got to the hospital, Grace led the way to the ward. She held a package of sandwiches and a huge slice of lemon cake for Nora, which was our excuse for visiting her. It was odd to be back here. I didn’t like it, and I wanted to get away as fast as I could. It was the smell that hit me first, that mixture of sharpness and decay. Bleach and death. It almost turned my stomach, and for a moment I felt as weak as I had when I left. How anyone could stand to work here, or voluntarily be a patient over and over again, I could not understand.
And yet Nora was happy enough. She grasped the point of our deception quickly and asked if I’d like to say hello to my old ward companions. She checked with Sister Bey to see if it was all right. Sister looked up at us with dark, angry eyes.
‘I suppose anything is acceptable for the wife and patient of Dr Watson,’ she said bitterly, and returned to her logbook.
‘How charming of you,’ Mary said, without the least hint of sarcasm. ‘I know you must be very busy. My husband is very proud of the work done in this ward.’
Sister Bey refused to rise to the flattery. I suppose some people must be immune to charm, but Mary would not be stopped. She stood in front of Sister Bey’s desk, and chattered inconsequentially of her duties – which effectively screened me from the Sister.
Eleanor Langham was there, in her usual bed at the end. She scowled when she saw me. There was no hope of conversation there, although she looked calmer than when I last saw her. I merely nodded, and turned to Florence Bryson.
‘I am sorry to see you still here,’ I said to her. ‘I hoped to see you recovered.’
‘Oh, I like it here,’ she said. ‘They take such good care of me.’
‘That’s very kind of them,’ I said.
‘He pays them well for it,’ she said, laughing.
‘Who?’ I asked, but she didn’t answer. She looked to the bed next to hers that had been Emma’s. Now it was occupied by an extremely large woman, wheezing more than breathing. She nodded and smiled, but I doubted she’d be capable of sustained conversation.
‘You must miss Emma very much,’ I said to Flo, walking closer to he
r bed. ‘The two of you had such long talks.’
‘She told me wonderful things,’ Flo said, her gaze far away, beyond me. ‘Parties and flowers and jewels and lovers. She had such a colourful life. Not like mine. Her life was all red and gold. Mine was all black and grey.’
I stepped a little closer. Was she medicated? It was difficult to tell. Had her eyes always been this unfocused? Had she always been this dreamy? I couldn’t remember. I had been in no state to notice when I was here.
‘We talked about my son,’ Flo said. ‘My boy. He was so precious to me. He was the only joy in my life. I was the joy of his life too. He would have done anything for me, he proved that. No one else has ever loved me like he did. He’s been dead so long, but sometimes, it’s like he’s in the room, standing beside me. I can see him.’
I shuddered a little, remembering the boy who had come into this room, and killed, on someone’s orders. I didn’t think it could be hers. She seemed so vague, and she truly missed Emma, I felt.
‘It was a shame she died,’ I said, in a low voice. Flo sniffed. Yes, those were tears in her eyes.
‘I was so upset that it was her time,’ she said to me. ‘But it had to happen.’
‘Her time?’
‘Everyone has a time to die. Doesn’t it say that in the Bible?’ she said to me. ‘She used to have so many visitors, important young men with briefcases, asking all kinds of questions. She just told them it would all be in the book, and sent them away. But then they asked me. I pretended I was stupid, but I’m not. She told me everything.’
‘What did she tell you?’ I asked.
‘Oh, secrets and stories,’ Flo said. ‘About men we knew. Old men, long dead. But they were so alive, so many years ago.’
‘They’re not all dead,’ I said.
‘No, that’s what I said.’
‘To who?’
‘Miranda Logan,’ Flo said, as if surprised I had asked. ‘She came to visit me. She wanted to know what Emma talked about too.’
‘Did you tell her?’ I asked.
Flo pulled a face. ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said. She seemed almost childlike in her dislike of Miranda. ‘She has an evil face with hard eyes. I didn’t like her. She talked to her instead.’ She gestured towards the end of the room.
‘Eleanor?’ I asked.
‘No, Betty,’ Flo said. ‘Remember Betty, in the bed by the door over there? She had come back in – her leg wasn’t healing properly. They talked for ages. I asked what about later, but Betty kept her mouth shut.’
‘She looked smug,’ Eleanor called out. ‘Like she knew something. Sitting there, knitting, like a good little wife,’ she said scornfully.
‘Where is she now?’ I asked Eleanor.
‘She died last night,’ she told me triumphantly. ‘I suppose you think that’s suspicious? You and your suspicious filthy little mind. I suppose you get that from Mr Holmes, always seeing the worst in people.’ It had been Eleanor who had the suspicious mind, Eleanor who saw the worst, but as so often with people who don’t want to see the worst in themselves, she gifted her worst faults to me. I stepped towards Betty’s bed.
‘People die in hospital all the time,’ I said to myself. ‘And she was ill.’ How annoying that she should die now, though.
‘Oh, she didn’t die in that bed,’ Eleanor announced. ‘She kept complaining that the opening and closing of the bathroom door kept her awake all night. She was moved. She died in that bed over there, by Flo. Pay what little respects you have to that bed.’ She pointed, and I turned to look.
She was pointing at the end bed, the one where Emma had died. The one where the woman had died on the first night I was there. The implication hit me and my knees buckled.
Mary rushed over to me, as I whispered, ‘Oh God, you were right. It’s not about Emma. It never was.’
SEEING IT ALL FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE
I felt sick. I know I went pale. As I stumbled, I fell against the Sister’s desk. She looked up, startled, and I saw she had been writing in her own private logbook. I saw the book open before me, I saw what she had been writing, I saw it all in the glare of her lamp in that brief moment. Then she slammed the book closed as Mary held me up, and guided to me towards the bed.
‘Not there!’ I whispered urgently. She took me outside, to the corridor, and sat me on a chair there.
‘I’ll be all right,’ I insisted.
‘You’re not as well as you think you are,’ Nora said, following us. ‘You’re faint; put your head between your knees.’
‘I have no intention of doing something so undignified,’ I protested.
‘She just needs some air,’ Mary said, crouching in front of me. ‘Just some peace and quiet.’
Nora looked at me, nodded, and went back into the ward. Mary looked up at me.
‘I heard,’ she said softly. ‘I heard what Eleanor said about where Betty died. This changes everything, doesn’t it?’
I nodded. Mary, bless her, understood. She shifted to a more comfortable position, though still on the floor, and continued to talk in a low tone.
‘We’ve been assuming that Emma was the target all along, a planned murder, for appropriate reasons.’
‘It seemed logical,’ I agreed.
‘But now, it seems far more likely that Emma’s death was just one of many. That the targets were just whoever was in that bed, regardless of who they actually were.’
‘Totally illogical,’ I said, ‘which makes this impossible to solve.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mary asked.
I got up and began to walk up and down. I felt I needed to move.
‘What I’m about to tell you, you mustn’t tell John,’ I insisted. ‘He wouldn’t want John knowing.’
‘Who wouldn’t want him knowing?’
‘Mr Holmes,’ I said, ‘and his search for the Ripper.’
It had been two days after the double event, the deaths of Catherine Eddows and Elizabeth Stride on the same night. Mr Holmes had gone out as soon as he heard the news. He had combed Whitechapel. He had even seen the mysterious inscription above Catherine Eddows’ body before it was washed off. He had seen all the clues. He had hunted down everyone. He and every other amateur and professional detective in London had saturated Whitechapel, and yet they had found nothing.
He had come home tired, cold and hungry. It was the one and only time I saw him unshaven. I had insisted that instead of going up to his room, where I knew he would brood, he come to the kitchen and eat. He had hesitated in the doorway, as if unsure, but I had hurried him in and sat him down, and placed beef sandwiches before him, and a large treacle tart. Heart-warming food. He ate, and then began to talk. Not to me, really, but just out loud. I might have been the sideboard for all the notice he took of me.
‘There is no logic to it,’ he said. ‘No reason for these particular women, seemingly no motive behind it, except for pleasure in the act.’
‘Surely a man like that is obvious to all,’ I said. I might be a sideboard, but that was no reason to be silent. I felt I had the right to take on John’s role, just this once.
He shook his head.
‘A man – or a woman – can find it very easy to hide their perverted pleasures by day as they hunt at night. Stevenson was right about that. Everyone assumes a man like this must be a gibbering idiot, or a butcher, or a surgeon. I think him to be a very ordinary man, unassuming, meek even. How else could he get close to these women when they are terrified of every man?’
‘There are no clues?’
‘Oh, there are plenty of clues!’ he cried. ‘Mysterious chalk marks, the peculiarity in the way the bodies are cut, the eyewitnesses seeing men in top hats, or carrying black bags, here, there and everywhere. But none of the clues leads anywhere!’
‘So the only way to catch him would be . . .’
‘To catch him in the act. Which is inevitable. His actions take a long time, and the streets are packed. He must be seen by someone. And yet he slips by us, aga
in and again.’
He looked at me and saw me then.
‘I fear I may fail,’ he said. He would never have said that to John.
‘You have failed before,’ I reminded him.
‘But it has never mattered so much before. To fail in the case of fraud or robbery is one thing – to fail to find such a horror as this . . . this is unforgivable.’
‘You may succeed.’
He looked up at me with haunted eyes.
‘I cannot. I rely on logic. One action must follow another, and all actions have a reason and thus I am led to the correct solution. But there is no logic here. There is no sane reason. How can I catch a killer who has no logic?’
I finished telling my story to Mary.
‘John doesn’t know he hunted for the Ripper,’ Mary said.
‘I know. Please don’t tell him,’ I asked. ‘I don’t think Mr Holmes wants him to know. I don’t know why. He only asked me never to tell John.’
‘I won’t. Thank you for telling me.’
‘It’s the same, do you see?’ I asked. ‘There is no logic here. When we thought Emma died because of secrets she knew, that made sense. We had a path to follow. Even the woman looking after the Pale Boys made sense – she was using them as assassins. But now – dying because of the bed you sleep in? And using the boys for what? There is no sense.’
I sat down again, peering into the ward.
‘Not necessarily,’ Mary said. ‘You’re assuming their logic is the same as yours. They have reasons, just not the same reasons we would have. That particular bed has certain qualities. It’s in shadow. It’s near a door.’
‘I wonder if whoever planned it liked it because they could see that bed clearly?’
‘They liked to watch it done, you mean?’ Mary asked, looking up at me. ‘Why?’
‘Proof of something: loyalty, love.’
‘You’d think someone would notice all the deaths in that bed,’ Mary said, standing up.
‘Someone did,’ I pointed out. ‘Nora.’
As if in answer to her name, Nora came out.
The Women of Baker Street Page 22