by Tessa Harris
Cutler frowns. “Yes,” he snaps. “Of course, it’s me.”
Marshall pockets his monocle and dips low again. Now he whispers into the surgeon’s right ear. “Did you know that the initials TC were found on the arm of Catherine Eddowes, too?” Cutler is clearly riled. “Did you?” barks the inspector.
“No, I did not. I told you, I know nothing about these ghastly murders.”
The journal falls open once more at a marked page. Marshall scans it. “And what do you do in Whitechapel every Friday evening, Mr. Cutler?”
Cutler rolls his eyes. “How many more times?”
The inspector slams the diary down on the table, almost catching the surgeon’s fingers. “I ask the questions!” he shouts. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “What do you do in Whitechapel every Friday evening?”
Cutler sighs deeply in an effort to calm his growing exasperation. “I treat sick and pregnant women at the infirmary.”
Marshall nods. “Ah, yes, the very model of Christian virtue,” he says with a smirk. “And I’m sure you are rewarded for your good works.”
Cutler swallows hard. “I receive a small stipend,” he acknowledges with a nod.
“But you feel the need to supplement it from time to time?”
The inspector’s eyes bore into the back of his head.
Cutler switches round. “What are you insinuating, Inspector?” I can see the hairs on his neck stand erect. He thinks of Polly Nichols and the girl Molly and the others. He fears his illegal activities may have been uncovered.
Marshall wheels round to face his prisoner. “Or perhaps you ask for favors from some of your patients?”
Relieved that it is merely his own morality that is being called into question, and not his other, more dubious professional activities, the surgeon keeps himself in check. “Of course not.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to account for these.” Suddenly Marshall slaps a pile of photographs on the table. They are from the surgeon’s bureau, from his secret stash of images of fetid flesh and ulcerous parts of the female anatomy that were so vital to his early work, yet so abhorrent to those without medical training.
At the sight of them, Cutler turns ashen. “I am a surgeon. They are purely for research purposes.”
Marshall says nothing, but only stares.
“Good God! A man would have to be sick and twisted to . . .” The surgeon trails off, realizing he has just tightened the noose around his own neck.
There is a pause and a further circuit of the table is completed before another savage question sallies forth. “Do you and your wife still have relations, Mr. Cutler?”
The inspector has gone too far. Cutler leaps up, fists balled. “How dare you?”
The constable rises, too, and presses firmly on the prisoner’s shoulder, forcing him down again.
Marshall eyes him. “Any more of that and you’ll be put in handcuffs, I can assure you,” he warns.
Cutler, panting heavily, pauses for a moment and sniffs through his nostrils. With unseeing eyes, he looks straight ahead of him at the blank wall; then his eyes suddenly cloud with tears.
CHAPTER 28
Monday, October 29, 1888
CONSTANCE
Am I going mad? After the other night, I fear I may be. The face in the mirror, Miss Tindall’s face, keeps flashing into my mind. She’s trying to tell me something. I wish I knew what. I wish I could just find her, but then that terrible thought rears its head again: Could she be dead and not Mrs. Cutler? I shall try and act normal, as if nothing strange has happened, for Flo’s sake, and for Ma’s, and for my own sanity.
“Con! Con!” It’s Flo’s voice I hear, waking me from my half sleep. “Get up, will ya?”
I turn and blink toward the window, a rectangle of light behind ragged drapes. She’s got her back to me and she’s lifting up her long, loose hair so I can do up her stays. “You’d best stir your stumps, young lady,” she tells me, just before she breathes in so that I can tighten the laces.
“I’ll be ready in a jiffy,” I say. I tie the bow, then heave my tired body off the mattress. I shiver. It’s another miserable day, but I forgot to put my clothes in the bed, so they’re all cold and damp. I dress hurriedly. I don’t want to rub Flo up the wrong way any more than I have. She’s ready before me and goes downstairs, leaving me alone in the room. I’m dressed now, but I haven’t done my hair. It tumbles onto my shoulders. I pad to the window to allow more light into the dingy room. The trouble is, I don’t think I dare look in the mirror again, not after what happened last night. I pull back the drapes, first the right, then the left, and that’s when I see it, on the glass. Clear as day, it is. Written in the mist of the window are the letters C,L,E,O. I take a step back and look again to make sure my eyes haven’t deceived me. C,L,E,O. “Cleo,” I say to myself. “Cleo,” again. It’s a name, not a word. I think it’s short for Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen, but it means nothing to me.
“Flo!” I call as I rush downstairs. “Flo!”
“What’s up?” she asks, putting the kettle on the hob.
“Who’s Cleo?”
She frowns and stands upright. “What you talking about?”
“Why did you write ‘CLEO’ on our window?”
“You’re having a laugh.”
There’s a ringing in my ears. “You didn’t write it?”
“What you on about?” Flo’s getting crabby.
I shake my head and swallow hard. “Come see,” I say.
So she tramps up the stairs and I follow. By the time I draw level with the window she’s standing there, looking at it.
“Where?”
“There,” I tell her, pointing, only there’s nothing to look at, except a fogged-up pane. There’s not even a circle where the letters could have been wiped away. “But I swear . . .”
Flo shakes her head slowly. “Dear, oh dear,” she says, then she tuts. “You best be careful, Connie dear, otherwise they’ll be dragging you off to the madhouse.”
I can’t protest, even though I want to, because I know what she’s saying is true. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I must’ve been dreaming.” She darts me a distrustful look before she goes downstairs again. I feel wretched.
Flo suggests Threadneedle Street today. It’s where the City bankers are. “Like Robin Hood, we’ll be,” she says with a giggle. “Stealing from the rich to give to the poor!” She’s really up for it today, so I play along.
As we walk down Commercial Street, I see a paperboy a few feet away on the corner. When I hear what he’s saying, I have to stop.
“Ripper latest! Read all about it!” he calls.
Flo and I swap glances and I bring out a halfpenny from my pocket. “I found it on the pavement!” I protest, having to justify spending money on a newspaper. She nods and the boy hands me a copy of the Star. Across the front page are the headlines: ANOTHER RIPPER ARREST. DOCTOR QUESTIONED OVER FIVE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS AND WHITEHALL MYSTERY.
“Oh, my God!” I gasp. I can’t contain myself.
Flo frowns at me. “The Whitehall Mystery? That’s . . . ,” she says.
She doesn’t really understand why I’m so shocked. She’s no idea what I’ve been up to and that I know all about this doctor they’ve arrested. I wonder if Miss Beaufroy has told the police that I dreamed about the sick lady, and that’s why Mr. Cutler is now behind bars. And to think they’re charging him with the Ripper murders, too. They must have evidence. Suddenly my guts heave; I double over and spew all over the pavement.
Flo looks around her. It’s clear she’s more worried that people will think I’ve been on the bottle. She wipes the vomit from my chin with her handkerchief—one she pilfered last week—and, putting her arm around me, she hurries me along, down the road.
“What’s that all about?” she asks me as we stop in a doorway a few yards away. She’s looking at me with suspicion in her eyes. “You ain’t . . . ?”
“No, I ain’t. No chance,” I reassure her. “It
’s just my nerves.”
She seems satisfied by my explanation. “Still, if this latest bloke is Jack, our worries is over, eh?”
“Yes,” I lie.
We set ourselves up outside the Old Lady—that’s what they call the Bank of England—and stay there till dusk. I’m offering lucky heather at a penny a bunch, only it’s not lucky for some rich bastards. As I’m all sweetness and light, Flo nips by and helps herself to what’s in their pockets. Most often, it’s a shilling or two; in Threadneedle Street, she’s more used to crowns. Today she lifts three in total. It’s a good haul. As much as I hate myself for having any part in these shenanigans, at least we know the rent’s taken care of till the spring and we won’t have to hide when Sir William Sampson sends his bulldogs calling to collect it.
EMILY
It is proving more difficult than I thought. While Constance is receptive, she is not as malleable as I hoped she would be. That is why I am having to employ these rudimentary signs, as I would when teaching a child. By showing them, rather than simply telling them, they learn much quicker. As I said, I thought I was pushing at an open door. I was wrong. There is something in the way, something that is blocking her path to total understanding. On reflection, I think I know what it may be that is impeding the route to her enlightenment. She is not aware of the whole truth, a truth that I shall first tell you.
Even though my new lodgings off Russell Square were a good two miles away from Whitechapel, I found myself drawn to my old haunts. During my stay at the Cutlers’ residence, a letter had been delivered to Mrs. Appleton’s informing me of the date of the disciplinary hearing. It was to be held the following week at Toynbee Hall in the presence of none other than the Barnetts themselves. I could not pay for representation—a lawyer was out of the question—so, despite still feeling weak and dogged by a persistent hacking cough, I decided that my only chance of being acquitted of the crimes with which I was charged was to gather evidence in my own defense myself. Painfully aware that I was setting myself an almost impossible task, I decided I would begin just where my suspicions had first taken root, at St. Jude’s.
* * *
Naturally, I chose a Sunday for my return. I knew that if I was fortunate, Dr. Melksham might be attending the class. This time, I would not let him escape. I would trail his movements after the pupils had been dismissed. If, as I suspected, he did not leave the church alone, but in the company of yet another drugged victim, then I would follow him and see for myself where he took his prey and, more crucially, to what end. The thought of what I might witness filled me with dread, but I knew that if I was to stand any chance of being exonerated, then this was the only course of action to take, albeit a potentially perilous one.
I arrived at St. Jude’s on foot shortly after four o’clock on that fateful Sunday. It was a warm, sultry afternoon and the street outside the church thronged with strollers out for a pleasant promenade. A large crowd had gathered round a candy-striped tent erected at one end of the street where a Punch-and-Judy show was in full swing. The sound of children’s laughter rang out around the spectacle. The irony of it struck me as I looked toward St. Jude’s, just in time to see the first of my former pupils file out of the great front portico. I noticed, too, a rather grand carriage parked at the foot of the church steps. On both doors were emblazoned a coat of arms in red and gold. It was the same vehicle I had seen outside once before. I was convinced it had conveyed Dr. Melksham, and, alongside my general malaise, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
There was a bench near the church and it was here that I positioned myself, hoping to be as unobtrusive as any other Sunday promenader on that hot, hazy afternoon. I counted nineteen children leaving the building. There was no way of telling how many had attended class and I knew I could not leave until I had made sure that Dr. Melksham returned to his carriage alone. Part of me prayed that he would. I longed to be proved wrong in my suspicions. Sadly, it was not to be.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Time was marked by St. Jude’s bell. Half past four. Quarter to five. The sun, although not as glaring as before, had moved round and was now shining directly on me. My bronchial condition made the heat even more unbearable, and more than once, I was sent into a violent coughing spasm. Luckily, I had brought my trusty old umbrella with me and I now erected it to shade me from the direct heat. Thankfully, it also protected me from the gaze of anyone I might know. Mrs. Pouter, the butcher’s wife, passed within ten yards of me and I was able to lower my impromptu parasol and escape her notice. So preoccupied did I become with avoiding being detected by my erstwhile neighbors and acquaintances that I might almost have missed any movement at the church portico, had it not been for the fact that one of the carriage horses, possibly bitten by a fly, let out a loud neigh. My head jerked up to see Dr. Melksham leaving the church via the front door. To my horror, he was shepherding a young girl inside his carriage. My stomach knotted. All I could see was the swish of her skirts and the toss of her golden hair as she was lifted into the gloom of the curtained conveyance. “Libby Lonergan,” I muttered under my breath. I could not stand idly by and let this monster whisk her away from her home and her family to be used and abused as he or his employer saw fit. I had to act.
The coachman shut the door and climbed up to his bench. I looked down the road. A hackney cab was approaching. The meager shillings that remained in my purse had to be spent on the fare if I was ever to get to the bottom of this mystery and clear my name. My stomach lurched in a sudden panic. It was now or never. My arm jerked out into the road to hail the cab. I had to follow.
Poor Constance thinks I have, in all probability, returned to Oxford, forsaking my calling to educate the poor and thus abandoning her. But it was for her and all the other young girls like her that I took that cab that day. It proved to be my most terrible mistake.
CONSTANCE
The day has dragged and all the while I’ve been thinking about Mr. Cutler, and whether Mrs. Cutler is still alive. I worry that Miss Beaufroy’s told Old Bill about my dream. Even if she did, Cutler can’t have been arrested on such a flimsy say-so, could he? There’s more to it. There’s got to be. Then it occurs to me; what if I’m called to be a witness in court? To stand up in that box and tell everyone about my dream; I’d rather be in a coffin. My blood runs cold at the thinking of it.
We can’t get home soon enough, even though that business with the writing on the window has rattled my nerve. Flo’s feeling flush; so on the way home, we stop off to buy a slab of cheddar from the cheesemonger. It’s Ma’s favorite and we reckon she deserves a treat. It certainly puts a smile on her face when, as soon as we arrive back, we get out the pickle from last Christmas and start slicing the bread—even though it’s a bit stale.
“Let’s toast it,” suggests Flo, pointing to the fire in the grate. We all agree it’s a good idea and stoke the coals to make a good blaze. I then reach for the toasting fork and kneel down on the hearth rug. Flo hands me the thick-cut bread that she’s sliced. It reminds us of when we were little and used to do this with Pa. The glow from the flames is warming and comforting and puts us all in a good mood. I pierce the bread with the prongs of the long-handled fork and hold out the first slice to the fire. I keep it near the flame for a minute or two, then turn it to toast the other side. It’s golden. Just perfect.
“There you go,” I say to Ma, handing her the first crispy slice.
Next it’s Flo’s turn. I do the same thing and the result is the same, too. I hold my slice to the fire as Flo cuts herself a thick wedge of cheese and slaps it on the bread; then I turn it. Another minute and I look to see if it’s browned. It should have, but what I see shocks me so much, I let out a gasp.
“What’s wrong, Connie love?” asks Ma.
I glance up at her, then back at my slice of toast, and shudder as I gaze upon a strange black oblong that is burned into the bread. All around the column the bread is golden, but there’s this stripe of burn in the center.
Flo moc
ks me. “You took your eye off it!” she says. “Daydreaming again.” I place the slice on my plate and cut round the burn mark. At least they don’t expect me to eat it. I just stare at it, instead: a long, thin line that tapers toward the top. I think it means something, but I don’t know what. And all of a sudden, I fear what the night will bring . . . again.
EMILY
Constance does sleep, albeit fitfully, so we shall leave her to return to my own story. For now, it is time to take you on a terrifying journey. My driver, a veteran with a kind, if toothless, smile, was under instruction not to lose the carriage. It was not hard to follow such a grand vehicle in these squalid streets. If anyone of any substance visited the area, most of us would hear about it, but it was being driven quite fast. That is not to say we were traveling at great speed, but with sufficient alacrity as to make me bounce around in the back of the cab. The exertion also triggered in me a bout of coughing. We had set off along Commercial Street, but had soon turned down Hanbury Street and onto Brick Lane. Past the brewery we trotted, under the railway arches, then we turned right into Mile End and I began to lose my bearings. We were venturing into unfamiliar territory and I wondered if my paltry coins would cover the fare.
Past tallow chandlers and potato merchants, we went, but soon the clapboarded shops became factories and storehouses. I was in two minds whether or not to tell the driver to halt when he started to slow down. I craned my neck out of the cab window to see what was happening. From the stench on the air, I guessed we might be near the docks. We were in an alley, bordered by workshops and warehouses. Despite the fact that it was nowhere near dusk, very little light penetrated the narrow passage. It lay in permanent shadow. It was the sort of place that was so familiar to me, and yet I had never been here before: the sort of cesspit where men either take their ease for free, or have a whore relieve them for tuppence. As it was the Sabbath, there was little noise, too. The shutters and pulleys were silent. I saw the cabman jump down from his perch. He put his face up to the window.