by Robyn DeHart
“Did you bring your tools?” Anna asked him.
“No. I didn’t know we’d be illegally entering a building. Had you told me earlier about our plans, I could have been prepared.” Then he caught sight of one of her hairpins shining in the moonlight. “Hold still,” he told her, and he plucked it from her curls.
With a little maneuvering, he managed to unhook the lock.
“The darkened corridors are eerie this time of night,” she whispered as they crept down the main hall. “I’ve only been here to the men’s side a handful of times, but I feel fairly certain I know where the office is. We should find the students’ records there.”
Drew took her hand again, and she didn’t bother to pull away, though it was completely unnecessary for them to walk linked together.
“I believe they keep the enrollment papers in here,” she whispered, tugging him forward. They entered the main office for the men’s medical college and then quietly closed the door behind them.
“You take the files over there.” Drew pointed to the wall of cabinets stacked with drawers. “I’ll take this room.” He pointed to the private office of the headmaster, who according to the plate on the door was a Doctor Albert Finnaker.
Anna started in with the first file. She pulled out the list they had from the tobacco shops and searched for the first name.
Drew left her in the outer office and slipped inside Finnaker’s inner sanctum. If they were, in fact, looking for a student who’d been expelled or quit then perhaps said records were kept in here. He sat at the man’s desk and opened the drawers. One by one he searched until he came to a heavy ledger-type book. He pulled it out of the drawer and set it on the desk. It opened with an angry creak and inside he found record after record of demerits given to students based on poor behavior. Drew stepped back into the outer office. “I think I found something.”
She jaunted over to him and together they went into the headmaster’s private office. Drew showed her the book. “I’m not sure if it will prove worthwhile, but it seems a decent place to start.”
“Yes. I’ll look through here while you unlock those bottom drawers,” she said.
He knelt and did precisely that, using her hairpin he’d pocketed after breaking into the back door. In one drawer he found a book of erotic stories written by Anonymous. Evidently Finnaker did more than teach about the body. In the other drawer he found two files. In one there was a letter from a father notifying the then-headmaster that his son would not be returning to school the next semester because he’d tossed himself off a bridge.
But in the other he found several newspaper clippings. “Anna, look.” He showed her the file.
“According to the news stories, there were three students who were expelled for unethical behavior.” She frowned, flipped through the clippings. “It doesn’t say anything about what specifically they were doing to get expelled.”
“Not only that, but there was another man, Doctor William Carroway. He retired three years ago and now resides in Warwickshire,” Drew said.
“Perhaps we should pay him a visit, get more details,” Anna suggested.
“That might be a very good idea. I’m going to finish looking in here before we go,” he said. “Any luck with the list?”
“No, but I’m not quite finished. I think I shall skip some drawers and see if I can find any files of expelled students.” She left him in there and went back to the drawers. She moved to the end of the cabinetry and checked the drawers there, looking for different types of files.
Drew soon appeared beside her and quickly doused the lantern. “I heard something. We need to get out of here.”
Anna’s eyes widened in alarm and she sucked in a breath.
Drew pulled her with him to the small area behind the main office door. Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside of the office. There was a pop and a buzz as electricity came on and slowly illuminated the corridor. The door opened, and as the entryway widened, their hiding place behind it got smaller. A man came in, humming, and went straight to the desk.
Drew grabbed Anna’s hand and pulled her with him out the door. They ran as quietly as they could out of the corridor and straight outside. The last remnants of night were fading and dawn was approaching.
“Good heavens, how long were we in there?” she asked.
“A good while.” They reached the carriage and Drew had to waken the driver. Once in the safety of the carriage, Anna burst out laughing.
“That was ridiculously close.”
“Indeed. But I should say we found some tidbits that might prove helpful.”
“Yes,” Anna agreed. “I was able to locate the files of the students mentioned in those newspaper articles. I do hope it all proves useful.” She handed the files to Drew. “We should go see Doctor Carroway. That shouldn’t be more than a three-hour drive.”
“I have questioning scheduled tomorrow morning with Sergeant Richter so that Mia can meet him, see if he shares any characteristics with the Ripper. I’m doubtful; I think he’s our more recent killer.”
“The apprentice,” Anna said.
“Precisely. But tomorrow afternoon we should be able to take the drive.”
***
Drew had told Jeffries that he’d set up the meeting between Sergeant Richter and Mia because they’d both been in the presence of Jack the Ripper. On the off chance Richter was, in fact, the Ripper himself, Mia would be able to hear it in the man’s speech, smell it in his scent, find it the cadence of his walk. Additionally, if he was the Ripper, he should have a visceral reaction to seeing Mia again.
Drew had told Sergeant James Richter that his sister-in-law was coming in because she too had had a run-in with the Ripper and he thought perhaps the two of them could compare notes, as it were. The man had seemed rather nonplussed about the entire ordeal.
They were all to meet in the interview room on the third floor.
Drew waited until Alex and Mia had arrived before meeting the sergeant in the assigned room. Drew entered the room first so that he could be certain to see Richter’s reaction upon seeing Mia. Sergeant Richter entered the room and nodded politely to the other occupants. He certainly didn’t appear to be a man who recognized Mia. He took a seat at the table and looked up, waiting for the questioning to begin.
James Richter was most assuredly not Jack the Ripper.
Twenty minutes later, Drew was out of questions. “I think that will be all, Sergeant. Thank you for your time,” Drew told him. He waited for the man to leave before speaking again to Mia and Alex.
“That was not the same man who attacked me,” Mia said. “But I don’t believe he was being truthful.”
“Nor do I,” Drew said. Then he frowned. “But how you can you tell?”
“The tone of his voice; the cadence of his speech.” She shook her head. “I don’t know for sure and I certainly could be wrong. I have never met that man before. Perhaps he always speaks like that.”
Drew suspected Mia was right, though. Nothing about James Richter had seemed on the up-and-up since he’d first met him. Of course, that could be because Jeffries had told him that Richter had been a troublemaker before, making noise about being overlooked for promotions.
“He fidgeted quite a bit,” Alex added.
“Darling, what a great observation. You are getting quite good at this,” Mia said with a teasing poke of her elbow.
“Yes, yes, well, as my wife keeps trying to tell me, it pays to be observant of those around you,” Alex said. “But I do think I’ll leave the detective work to my brother.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
James Richter had decided that he loathed Drew Foster. He was arrogant and seemed to have risen from nowhere and climbed to the ranks of inspector quite rapidly. That meeting earlier today had been an utter waste of time. Who could take a blind woman seriously as a witness to a crime?
What a fool.
Rain came down in steady streams, washing from the streets the smell of urine and waste. Richter kept himself close to the line of the buildings as he crept through the darkened streets of Whitechapel.
And on top of it all the damned Ripper was continually referring to him as his student in all of their correspondence. He was no one’s student. If anything, he was the teacher. He’d concocted this master plan and it was working. The Ripper was playing right into his hands. And he was too arrogant to recognize it.
He’d only killed those women to get the other man’s attention, and he’d certainly succeeded in that. Now it was just a matter of time before the man returned to make his own kills, and when that happened, James would be there to catch him. He’d get the credit for bringing down Jack the Ripper, and then the bosses at Scotland Yard would have to promote him to detective. They’d have no other choice.
It was why tonight he had to take one more, despite the rain that had nearly saturated his coat. It wasn’t so much that he’d developed a taste for it, but one more whore’s death wouldn’t be such a tragedy. And he needed the Ripper to believe that he was willing to take instructions, if that’s what it would take to lure the man back to London, back to Whitechapel.
In the last letter, the Ripper had suggested he take a token on his next kill.
So James hid in the shadows near the row houses and waited for the right bit of skirt to walk by. He supposed if he needed to send a message that he could, indeed, take instructions, he’d have to try to take a damned organ. That should certainly get the Ripper’s attention. Invite him back. He wouldn’t be able to resist.
A group of men walked by, leaving the match factory and heading to the nearest pub. It was well after midnight and the clouds made the night sky dark and heavy, but the lanterns gave him enough vision to see when she stepped out of the back door of the pub. She was older, drink had reddened her cheeks and nose and pockmarks marred her cheeks. James whistled to get her attention, and she immediately turned her head.
“Who’s there?” she called.
He came up to her, grabbed her by the arm. “I’m looking for some companionship,” he said.
She shook her head, tried to pull away from him. “I’m not that kind of girl. I work at the factory, the matches.” She shook her head again. “Please don’t hurt me.” She jerked on her arm, but he tightened his grip.
For a moment, he considered letting her go. But damned if the idea of her fighting him didn’t make the whole notion of killing her actually exciting. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed any of it since he started. But he’d never allowed the girls to get afraid. But this one, trying so desperately to wrench herself from his grasp, excited him.
He jerked her forward and pulled her into the alleyway around the corner and made certain no one else was there.
“No! Please don’t. Let me go,” she pled. But her cries were muffled by the sound of horses’ hooves and carriage wheels.
He wondered if he’d have time for a quick poke before getting down to business; he had always preferred women with a little fight in them. But he had more important matters to deal with than his own urges.
She looked up at him, her muddy brown eyes filled with tears. He turned her away from him and she whimpered, pulled against him, tried to scream. He slammed her face into the brick wall and before she could offer up any more fight, he quickly ran the blade across her throat. Blood, warm and wet, spurted onto his hand. He released her, and she fell to the ground with a heavy thump. Rain dropped down on her, creating rivulets in the blood around her throat.
Again he glanced at his surroundings to ensure no one was around, then he quickly knelt beside her and sliced open her dress. Another cut into her abdomen and he cut out the first thing he could find. It was wet and slimy. He shuddered, but wrapped it in his handkerchief. Then, ever so carefully, he carved the words into her chest.
Dear Boss.
And then he turned and left her body open and bleeding in the alleyway. The blood mixed with the rainwater left pools of pink on her skin. He knew he’d hear from the Ripper again soon. The man wouldn’t be able to ignore this kill.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Drew had picked up Anna a few hours earlier and they were on their way to Warwickshire to see Doctor Carroway. The rain had started last night and already the roads were caked with mud. Thankfully they hadn’t needed to bring any luggage trunks with them to weigh down the carriage so they were able to keep moving.
“It shouldn’t be much longer now,” Drew said. He peered out the tiny window that had mostly fogged from the humidity in the air.
“It’s awful out there,” Anna said.
The carriage turned down another road, and the unexpected movement jostled Anna out of her seat. Drew helped to right her back on her bench again and she gave him an awkward smile. “Thank you.”
And then the carriage stopped. “I suppose we are here,” Drew said. He tried to look out the window, but he couldn’t see anything with all the steam. He opened the door and rain drizzled into the rig entrance. Before them lay a stone path leading up to a small cottage.
Drew jumped down and his boots made a splat in the mud. He picked Anna up and set her down on one of the stones. Together they hurried up the path to the doctor’s cottage. Drew knocked on the door and introduced them. The housekeeper ushered them in. She had them both remove their shoes and then set them in a small but tidy sitting room. Thankfully the fireplace blazed on the opposite wall. They both walked toward it and tried to absorb the heat, to dry off and to warm up.
Anna rubbed at her arms to ward off the chill from the cold rain. Then she sat in one of the chairs near the fireplace and considered their surroundings.
The curtains had been pulled back to allow a perfect view of the downpour. Fat, heavy drops plopped onto the windows with little thumps. It was the perfect cozy room for snuggling up with a book in such weather.
An older man hobbled into the room with the assistance of a cane. A pipe hung from one side of his mouth. “Mrs. Frank said you were with the Metropolitan Police in London,” he said. He came all the way into the room and then lowered himself in the chair adjacent Anna’s.
“Scotland Yard, the detective division,” Drew clarified. “I was hoping you might be able to assist with a current investigation.”
“Can’t imagine I can do that, dear boy. I haven’t been to London in nearly two years,” Doctor Carroway said.
“The information you can help with is from when you were the headmaster at the London School of Medicine.”
Doctor Carroway pulled the pipe from his mouth and pointed it at Drew. “Sit down, young man. I can’t stand for very long with this leg and you might as well get more comfortable yourself, as your wife has done.” Doctor Carroway eyed her. He then went about putting tobacco in his pipe.
At the mention of her being his wife, Anna turned to Drew, presumably waiting for him to correct the old man. But he saw no reason to do so. Drew obliged the doctor and took a seat in the remaining chair. “I need to get some information from you on the three men expelled from the school, seven years ago, I believe.”
As soon as the good doctor lit the pipe, Drew knew the tobacco blend was the same as the one he’d once used. The same one Mia claimed Jack the Ripper also used. Interesting connection.
“I know the story to which you refer.” He puffed on his pipe and considered Drew and Anna. “I shall tell you what you want to know,” Carroway said, again pointing his pipe at Drew. “First, though, I want to know why an inspector is so interested in something that happened seven years ago. How precisely does that involve a current investigation?”
Drew took a deep breath. “I trust you can be trusted with sensitive information?”
“Of course,” Doctor Carroway said with a nod. “I am a physician. We take an oath and it is in our inherent nature to keep our
patients’ information discreet.”
“We’re exploring the theory that Jack the Ripper has medical training.”
Doctor Carroway’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed. I’d be curious to know how you came to that conclusion.”
Anna took a moment to explain to him their experiment, how she’d identified the two different knives and how she’d discovered that all of the Ripper’s victims shared the same precise incisions. “I brought my notes to my professor and he agreed with my assessment. We don’t know if the killer has official medical training, but it certainly appears that way,” she said.
“And you are a medical student as well? Who is your professor?” Carroway asked.
“Doctor Harrison,” she said.
“Mitchell,” Carroway said with a nod. “Excellent physician. Now then, let me see what I can tell you. There were three boys who were expelled that year because we discovered they had rented an apartment and were performing medical procedures on the local prostitutes.” He stopped talking for a moment while a coughing fit wracked through him. The housekeeper slipped into the room, handed him a cup of something to drink and he nodded his appreciation. He took a sip, then several long breaths to calm his wheezing, before he continued. “They’d recruit the women and then tell them they had some wretched disease that would require a surgical procedure. They sliced those women up—nothing fatal, though two women did later die from sepsis.” He took a few more puffs on his pipe.
“Do you know where these men are now?” Drew asked.
Doctor Carroway nodded. “Harry Bennett came from a very affluent family. They were horrified by his behavior. As soon as he came home from school, they shipped him off to India. I believe he is still there. Though I couldn’t be certain.” He ticked off Harry on one finger and then pointed to his next finger. “Brendan Jackson fell ill and died a few years back. I believe he contracted some sort of pox from a woman he operated on.” A tap on a third finger. “Roderick Price, as far as I know, still lives in London. He won’t be of any assistance; his brain is rotted from all the opium. But should you want to locate him, I suspect you could try one of the main opium dens that populate London.”