The Sixth Victim

by Tessa Harris

  It was little wonder that my health began to deteriorate. As my funds dwindled, I was forced to make economies in order to pay my rent. Soon I could no longer afford a fire in my grate, nor nutritious food to eat. Naturally, I looked for work, but without references, my options were severely limited. Then, one evening, I returned from trudging the streets, by now so desperate that I would take any form of employment, when I began to feel feverish. A great fire was burning at the back of my throat, and despite wrapping myself in three woolen blankets, I was unable to stop shivering like a wreck. My head began to throb and my chest tightened. Shortly after the coughing began, I took to my bed. I remember very little of the next four or five days. Only later was I told that dear Mrs. Appleton kindly lit a fire and kept a kettle boiling on the hob so that the room was constantly filled with steam to soothe my rasping lungs. I do, however, remember that on the fifth day my fever broke and I returned to the world, still coughing and wheezing like an engine, but out of serious danger. It was then that Mrs. Appleton asked me if I had any friends she might contact who may wish to pay me a visit. Knowing I was persona non grata at the church mission, Geraldine Cutler was the only acquaintance who sprang to mind. I had not paid her a visit since my arrival in London, but it had always been my intention. Mrs. Appleton sent her a telegram and on the very same day a carriage called at my meager lodgings and the driver delivered a note. I was invited to convalesce in the comfort of the Harley Street home Geraldine shared with her surgeon husband, Terence. She would refuse, she wrote, to take “no” for an answer, and I was in no position to shun her generosity. And that is where I spent the next seven days, being cosseted in a large bed with duck feather pillows and blankets that were not coarse against my skin. I was fed chicken broth by the bowl and feasted on sweet black grapes. My sore throat was soothed with honey and lemon, and my persistent cough assuaged by a foul-tasting linctus. With such care and attention being lavished upon me, my recovery was undoubtedly hastened, but this unbridled hospitality was, I later discovered, offered freely by only one side of the matrimonial partnership. I was still far too ill to remember much about the first few days of my confinement. My fever came and went. I slept for much of the time, and it was only later that I recognized Terence Cutler—although, at first, I was not entirely sure where I had seen him before. Naturally, I mentioned to Geraldine that her husband’s face seemed familiar and then it came to me.

  “Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary,” I said out loud. “That is where I have seen your husband.” I regularly escorted sick and injured women there.

  Geraldine raised a brow. “I think you must be mistaken, dear Emily,” she told me. “My husband works at St. Bartholomew’s.”

  From her reaction, I could see she was not happy about my remark and so I let it lie. That night, however, I heard raised voices downstairs; the following day, I became aware of a frostiness between the pair of them. Shortly afterward, it was apparent to me that my presence was an increasing source of friction between Geraldine and her husband. I began to feel ill at ease and I was certain that my days in the Cutler residence were numbered. I knew I would have to vacate that capacious bed in favor of more modest accommodation. I had been forced to leave Mrs. Appleton’s for good, but Geraldine recommended another lodging house just a few streets away and supplied me with an excellent reference. More important, she also gave me money, although I preferred at the time to think of it as a loan, as a deposit for the new room. Just how I would be able to pay back the money, I was not sure. All I knew at the time was that I would be forever in her debt. If only I knew then, what I know now.

  CONSTANCE

  Don’t ask me how I drag my sorry carcass all the way from Whitechapel to Albemarle Street in the West End, but I do. It’s like someone is egging me on, telling me I need to get there, that I have to get there. I wrap myself up in my old shawl and pull my hat down as far as it’ll go, so my scabby cheek won’t show. As I reach the hotel and see the doorman all togged up in his fancy livery, with his top hat and his gold brocade, I want the ground to swallow me. I’m just about to turn round and bolt for home when I hear this faint voice somewhere in the distance. “Have courage,” it says. “Have faith.” So I stick out my chin, take a deep breath and march right up to the front door.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” asks the doorman. He sidesteps so quick to bar my way that I very nearly bump into him. “Trade round the back.” I don’t like the look on his face. His nostrils are flaring and his lips are curling in a smirk. It’s like I’m a bad smell.

  It’s no use. I step back and put on my best speaking voice. “I am here to see a guest,” I tell him. I sound such a toff that I surprise myself—and him.

  “A guest, indeed?” He tries to mimic my fancy talk.

  “Yes.”

  He scowls and bends low so his face is peering under the brim of my hat.

  “The likes of you still need to go round the back. Who do you think you are?”

  “Go on, Constance. Be brave.” It’s that voice again, only louder.

  “Be brave,” I says to myself.

  “What?” barks the doorman.

  “Please allow me to pass,” I say in my best voice. “I have urgent business.” I lunge to the right, but again he blocks my way.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” he says. “Try that again and I’ll call the guards.” That’s when he starts to manhandle me. He grabs hold of my wrist and I let out a cry.

  “No! Please! I need to . . .”

  So he’s bending my arm behind my back and is about to pull me away from the door when someone calls out.

  “Miss Piper!”

  The doorman stops in his tracks. I stop wriggling and we both switch toward the door where an elegant woman is standing, glaring angrily.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she asks the doorman. Her voice is all cold and it cools his hot head in a moment, I can tell you.

  “I . . . Forgive me, miss, I . . .” He’s lost for words, and when she says: “Miss Piper is a friend of mine. Let her pass, if you please,” well, you could rub his nuts with a wire brush, if you pardon my French. He’s that dumbstruck.

  That’s what I call making an entrance, and as I tug at my ruffled sleeves, I beam at him before following Miss Beaufroy back into the hotel foyer.

  * * *

  There’s a porter nearby and he’s just put down the trolley he’s been pushing with a small trunk on it. He looks bemused. The hoity-looking man behind the desk asks Miss Beaufroy if everything is all right. She slaps her gloves in the palm of her hand, takes a breath and says: “Tea for two, if you please. We shall have it here.” She gestures to the comfy chairs clustered around a low round table. “And take my trunk back up to my room. I shall be staying on.” Her voice is calm but firm. The porter flashes a look at Mr. Up Himself behind the desk, who nods. It is settled, so I follow Miss Beaufroy and let her sit first before I sink, giddy and exhausted, into the sofa.

  As I wilt opposite her, she catches sight of my cut jaw and grimaces.

  “But your cheek!” Her eyes are wide. “The doorman . . .”

  “No,” I reply. I finger my bruise. “It happened last night. I fell in the gutter and hit my face on the way down.”

  She looks worried. “You poor thing.” She seems concerned, but she checks herself. We both look at each other, as if each of us has got some explaining to do. She wants to know why I’m here, I’m sure of that. And I want to find out how she knew to come to my rescue outside. An odd silence hangs between us, but it’s not frosty or awkward. It’s as if we’ve known each other for a very long time and it’s comfortable, like an old armchair that knows the shape of your body. Suddenly I get that same warm feeling that I felt last night when I was all alone in the street, except for Miss Tindall, as if someone’s stroking my soul.

  Finally she’s the one to break the silence. “I knew you would come,” she tells me straight. “I’d planned to leave today, but then I felt I shouldn’t. Something
stopped me.” She’s smiling gently as she fixes me with a look that bores straight through me. “Yes. I knew you would come.”

  I return her smile, even though it hurts me to move my mouth. I want to tell her that I knew I had to see her, too, but I don’t want her to think I’ve lost my marbles. I smooth my skirt and notice the hem’s all caked in mud. No wonder the doorman didn’t want me to be seen in the foyer! Yet, here I am, in the company of a lady at a top hotel. I don’t care if the porters are muttering in the corner, or that Mr. Up Himself is so clearly put out. It don’t . . . It shouldn’t feel right and yet somehow it does.

  A couple of flunkies suddenly appear from nowhere. One carries a silver tray, with a silver pot on it and china cups. They pour out the tea and ask us if we take milk and sugar, then bow and leave us alone again. No one’s ever bowed to me before. I’m not sure I like it, but I suppose it’s different if you’re born to it.

  Now we’re alone again, there’s another silence. I study her face. It’s beautiful, but there is sadness in her eyes and worry lines crease her brow. Her words flash through my mind again. She knew I’d come, she said. How did she know? I didn’t know myself until I woke up this morning that I had to find her again.

  I take a deep breath and begin. “You said, miss, that you knew. . . .”

  She is nodding and looking at me oddly. “It may sound strange, but I believe you have been sent to me.” She sips her tea as if she’s just asked me the time. She returns her cup to its saucer and fixes me with earnest eyes. “Is there someone you loved, and who loved you, who has passed away recently?” she asks.

  I’m that taken aback by the question that for a second or two I can’t answer. It’s like my tongue won’t work till my brain tells it what to do. Then I remember.

  “My pa,” I say. “He died three years ago.”

  She gives a little shake of her head. “Died is such a final word,” she says. “Don’t you think? It’s like a sharp flint.”

  I suppose she’s right. I’d never really thought of it that way before. In the East End, people die every day. Young, old and all stops in between. It’s something that happens, like eating or sleeping.

  She tilts her head. “Passed over is how I like to think of it, of dying,” she tells me softly. “Death can’t be the end. Everyone leaves their trace here on earth. Everyone leaves something of themselves, don’t you think?” She’s suddenly all wistful, but I know exactly what she means. I keep my pa’s old clay pipe in a drawer upstairs and run my fingers over the stem and bowl every day, just to feel closer to him.

  “Yes, I suppose they do,” I reply.

  “I firmly believe so,” she says, but there’s a catch in her voice. “That’s what makes these brutal murders so awful.” She switches back to me so sudden that she scares me. I feel my blood suddenly run cold.

  “And you’ve still had no word from your sister?” I say in a whisper, careful that we’re not overheard by the flunkies standing nearby.

  She, too, is mindful and leans in toward me. “Geraldine? None, but I have found out more.”

  “More?”

  Her eyes dart around the foyer before they settle on me again. “My sister’s husband . . .” She pauses, trying to think how to frame her words. “He is a gynecologist and a surgeon.”

  The first big word she uses means nothing to me, but I know what a surgeon is right enough, and I know that Jack can find his way around a woman’s innards like a true professional. My eyes open wide. “And?”

  “Naturally, I have asked him where my sister might be and he told me they’d quarreled and she left him.” Even toffs have their tiffs, I think, but I let her carry on uninterrupted. “But he says he does not know where she has gone. At first, he assumed she would return to my mother and me in Sussex, but when I told him she had not, he became agitated. When I said that we needed to inform the police . . . Oh, God, help me!” She suddenly closes her eyes and bows her head.

  I look around, hoping no one has seen her. She pulls out her handkerchief and dabs her nose. “I’m sorry,” she says. “It was such a shock.”

  “What was?” I ask clumsily, like a bull in a china shop.

  She gulps back an angry sob. “I discovered that my brother-in-law treats women in Whitechapel with certain disorders.”

  “Ah,” I say as her words sink in. I need to be sure of exactly what she suspects him of doing, so I sit tight and let her carry on.

  “If Geraldine found out that her husband regularly goes to Whitechapel and consorts with these women and threatened to expose him, then he might have . . .” She can’t say it out loud, but I know what she means and her accusation shocks me to the core.

  I gasp and the sip of tea I’d just taken suddenly sprays out of my mouth. A flunky’s head turns and he frowns disapprovingly. I dab the front of my dress with a napkin. “You’re saying your brother-in-law . . . ?”

  She nods and her face contorts into a painful grimace, as if she really doesn’t want to believe what she has just confided in me. “I know there are witnesses who say that Jack the Ripper is a gentleman. I pray it is too much of a coincidence, but I need to be sure. That’s why I need your help.” She reaches out and places her hand on my knee, and the fear and confusion I felt a moment ago suddenly dissipates.

  “How?” I ask calmly.

  “I believe you are in touch with the other side.”

  “The other side?” For a second, I’m shocked. Confused too. It must show in my face.

  “You seem to know things that most people can’t possibly know.”

  I feel my guts churn. She’s right: the dreams, the bright lights, the strange feelings. I look at her with wide eyes.

  “I want you to hold a séance,” she says.

  If she’d asked me last week, I’d have laughed in her face. I suddenly think of Madame Morelli at the Frying Pan and perhaps I should feel insulted. But not today, not now, not after last night. I nod slowly, as if she has just asked me to accompany her on a shopping trip or to go for a walk in the park.

  “You want me to find out if your sister has”—I pause, recalling her exact phrase—“passed over.”

  Her eyes are suddenly bright and she’s nodding her head as she speaks to me. “I knew the moment we met that we had a connection. I know you are special.”

  “Yes, I am special,” I want to say. “I’ve been given a gift.” I can see things, feel things, know things that other people can’t; and last night, in the brilliance of that bright light that nearly blinded me and exploded in my brain, I finally understood. I should use it, this gift. I should use it, as Miss Tindall believes everyone should use their talents, for the benefit of others. I will find her, too. Sooner or later. But for the moment, there is someone who needs me more.

  “I will help you,” I reply to Miss Beaufroy, adding most assuredly: “But it won’t be easy.” The truth, I’m learning, is never obvious.

  CHAPTER 23

  Monday, October 22, 1888

  EMILY

  Once again I’m in the Sessions House at Broad Sanctuary for the resumption of the inquest into the Whitehall torso. The hall is overflowing with the common horde and the press. And among so many morbidly curious voyeurs, I spot Pauline and Constance. Seeing them seated, side by side, fills me with a certain pride. I have brought them together, and I find much consolation in that. And what a young lady Constance looks. She has been decked out in a close-cut jacket and a skirt with a frilled hem. She even wears kid gloves and sports a fashionable hat. I beam as I watch her converse with Pauline just before Mr. Troutbeck enters the room to begin this, the second session of the inquest.

  Pauline, present at the first session two weeks ago, takes out the same notebook in which she has recorded all the salient points. She does the same again, listening intently to the evidence given by Mr. Brown, foreman of Messrs. Grover, the builders of the new offices, and several men connected with the works. She notes the fact that in their opinion the remains were not in the vault on the
Friday or Saturday before the discovery.

  Toward the end of the day, it is Dr. Bond who takes the witness stand once more. Mr. Troutbeck questions him closely. The former declares that the leg and foot must have been lying among the debris for several weeks. A careful examination, he assures the coroner, revealed the leg had been severed from the thigh at the knee joint by clean incisions. Perhaps most important, he says he has no doubt that the limb belonged to the trunk discovered a fortnight before.

  Constance has sat attentively throughout, with her back straight, her expression alert. I am sure that razor-sharp intellect of hers is mentally processing all that is being said. And now it is time for Mr. Troutbeck to sum up the evidence. He tells the jury that after the verdict has been found, the police will be left to make inquiries, and, if possible, elucidate the mystery. “For it most certainly is one,” he quips. There is a ripple of laughter among the crowd, but they are quickly brought to order once more. Mr. Troutbeck continues by conjecturing that most probably the other parts of the body will turn up someday. And he adds: “For, so far as I can see, the aim has been to destroy the possibility of identity rather than to destroy the body.”

  At his words, Constance and Pauline swap wary looks. Nothing that either of them has heard today has helped allay their fears.

  “Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached your verdict?” asks the clerk after the men return from their deliberations ten minutes later.

  “We have, sir.”

  “And what did you find?”

  The rather obvious, but unsatisfactory, reply is unequivocal. “Found dead, sir.”