by Robin Paige
“When you saw the dead man,” Charles said, “did you recognize him?”
Jennie shook her head. “I didn’t even know his real name until I read it in that newspaper clipping.” She paused, looking distressed. “I didn’t see his face, you know. He had been eating, and when he was killed, he fell face down into a dish of something on his luncheon table.”
Kate said, very quietly, “You must have been very anxious to know who he was. Did you search the room? Did you perhaps ... look in his pockets?”
“In his pockets?” Jennie gave her a horrified glance. “Oh, dear God, no! I was ... afraid to touch him.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, in a rush of candor, “I know it was wrong of me, but you can surely appreciate the relief I felt when I saw he was dead.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “I was fool enough to hope his secret had died with him.”
Charles devoutly hoped that she would not be fool enough to make that last remark to the police, should she be questioned. Lady or no, she had a very powerful motive for murder, and if she was guilty, not even the Prince could protect her. He looked down at the clipping and typed note. You are not free. “Do you have any idea who might have sent this to you?”
“I cannot even hazard a guess.” Jennie’s face had gone very pale and her large, dark eyes were brilliant with tears. “But there is one other thing you should know. When I returned to the cab, I saw someone standing in the entry to the barber shop on the other side of the street. I can’t swear to it, but I thought it might be George.”
“George!” Kate exclaimed.
“Yes,” Jennie said. She was crying now. “It has been ... hard to shake myself free of him.”
Charles could not say why, but he was not surprised. George was so obviously smitten with his lady that he might have followed her all over London. What else might the boy have done? Could he have killed a man he believed to be a rival? Charles sighed. Damn it. The affair was complicated enough without having to deal with a passionate young lover unable to keep his jealousy in check.
Jennie had lost the struggle to keep her composure. She rose from her chair, giving Charles a long, imploring look. “I came here to ask you to clear Randolph’s name, Charles. Now I must beg you to save me!”
And with a half-hysterical sob, she ran from the room.
14
Another Murder in Whitechapel
Shocking Brutality
The Body Terribly Mutilated
Search for the Murderer
Scenes in the Neighbourhood
The Daily Chronicle,
10 September, 1888
For a long moment, neither Kate nor Charles spoke. Then Kate said, very quietly, “No wonder Jennie is so afraid. She is beseiged from all directions.” She could not have said, though, which element of Jennie’s story held the most potential danger—the blackmail, the discovery of the murdered man, or the troublesome ambiguity of her remark about George. Obviously, Lady Randolph was a complex woman—vulnerable in many ways, dangerous in other ways, and thoroughly unpredictable.
Charles didn’t answer. He had reached down to retrieve the photograph, which had fallen to the floor as Jennie fled from the room. He took a magnifying glass from the table beside his chair and began to study the photo intently.
Kate rose to have a look. Over Charles’s shoulder, she could see that the photograph was of a man and a woman engaged in intimate conversation on a city street. Behind them was visible a row of three-story buildings, with shops on the lower level. Kate had seen photographs of Lord Randolph and recognized him at once—the heavy walrus mustache that made his large head look even larger, the striking eyes, exophthalmic, giving him a look of arrogance and scorn. He was not a man whose appearance drew warmth, although from accounts she had read after his death, Kate knew that his friends had found him jaunty, witty, charming. Apparently his companion found him so, for in the photograph she was smiling flirtatiously up at him.
But the woman in the photograph was of a different class altogether from the second son of the Duke of Marlborough. She wore a dark dress with a black velvet bodice trimmed in tattered lace and a knitted crossover around her shoulders. She was quite young, but her face was lined and weary and her dark hair was a tousled, dirty-looking mane. But still, she wore a flower at her throat with a flamboyant, almost defiant gaiety, and her smile was coy. At the bottom of the photograph, under the figure of the woman, the initials M.K. & R.S.C. were inked, and a date: November, 1888.
“M.K.?” Kate asked.
“She might be Mary Kelly,” Charles replied. He put down the magnifying glass and sat back. “An Irishwoman, and the last Ripper victim.”
Kate stood still. Mary Kelly, in conversation with Lord Randolph! Such a photograph, with all that it implied, was a hideous threat to the Churchill family—not just to Jennie and her sons, but to the dowager duchess and the present duke. What would they be willing to pay for it? The duke might not have a great deal of wealth, but he had married Consuelo Vanderbilt, whose fortune was nearly the size of the Crown’s. Again, Kate wondered if Jennie had revealed everything she knew.
At last she broke the silence. “You say that the woman might be Mary Kelly. There are the initials, and the face looks clear enough. Why do you doubt?”
“Because I did not see Mary Kelly-Marie Jeannette, she often called herself-when she was alive, nor do I know of any photographs of her. When I saw her, her face was mutilated beyond recognition. She seemed scarcely ... human.”
Kate put her hand on Charles’s shoulder to steady herself. “When you saw her?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Charles said wearily. “Sit down, love. It is a longish story.”
Kate went to the sofa and sat where she could see his face. It was somber, the eyes dark, the mouth strained, as if Charles were remembering something that gave him great pain.
“I was called on the morning of her death,” he said quietly, “to photograph the poor woman’s remains. As it happened, I had been dabbling for some time in the use of the camera in criminal investigation, so I had more than a passing interest in the murders. After the second killing, I wrote to Sir Charles Warren, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, expressing my views on the case in general and the practical application of crime-scene photography in particular.” He smiled grimly. “I’m sure I was presumptuous, but I offered him my services, should the need arise. Nearly half of London must have sent him advice, but my letter apparently caught someone’s attention. At the end of September, one morning before dawn, I was called to Mitre Square to photograph the scene of another killing, that of Catherine Eddowes. And on the morning of November ninth, I was summoned a second time, by a police constable who urgently required the services of my camera. The Ripper had murdered yet another woman.”
Charles had been speaking in a calm, dispassionate voice, but Kate knew him well enough to know that his self-composure masked a deep agitation. He cleared his throat, not quite looking at her. “When we arrived in Dorset Sheet—”
“In the East End?”
“Yes. It’s a hellhole. A narrow street lined with squalid lodging houses, surely the most wretched part of the whole wretched East End. Duval Street, they call it now, because of the notoriety. Millers Court, where the woman was killed, was a yard lined with houses, just off Dorset. When we arrived, we saw a crowd of police packed into the courtyard, with spectators flocking in the street outside, amid a great deal of noise and utter confusion. An officer told me that a man had gone to Number 13 that morning to collect the rent. The door was locked, but he had looked through a broken window to see a woman lying on a bloody bed. The police were summoned. Eventually, after a good bit of confusion-Warren had resigned as police commissioner the day before, and nobody was minding the shop—they went through the window, and then broke down the door. The detective inspector in charge, Frederick Abberline, asked me to come in and make a photographic record of the scene.” He grimaced. “It was as bad as anything I�
��d ever seen on the battlefield, Kate. Worse, in some ways. Throat cut right across, the head nearly severed from the body. Face slashed beyond recognition, abdomen ripped open, breast and arm sliced off, entrails—” He bit off the word. “It is not something you should know about, my dear.”
“It must have been a ghastly sight,” Kate whispered, her eyes on Charles’s face. She was thinking how hard it was to imagine the brutal reality of murder; how often in her books she trivialized death, even violent death; how little she really knew of the terrors that flocked like black bats from the darkest cellars of the human heart. The sight that Charles described was one that privileged women should never have seen, should indeed be forbidden to look upon or think about. But it had been a woman who had been butchered in that bloody room. And even though the Ripper had disappeared a decade ago, women like Mary Kelly—an Irishwoman, like herself—still died by violence in the East End, while ladies of Society did not have to see their corpses, or know why they were killed, or try to find any meaning in it. Suddenly it seemed grossly unjust that these women had died and that other women were forbidden to ask why.
Charles’s chin had sunk to his chest and his reply seemed muffled, as if he were speaking to himself. “Yes, ghastly. Unspeakably so. Artillery fire can do horrific things to a human body. But in war, the purpose is to kill the enemy, and mutilation is an unintended side effect. In Mary Kelly’s case, it seemed to me almost the reverse—that death was a necessary side effect, but the real intent was mutilation. Not random mutilation either, but planned, premeditated, purposeful. Almost as if—” He stopped, frowning. “Odd thing, that. And I had not thought about it until last night.” He fell silent.
Kate, captured by the flow of his thought, could not let him stop. “Almost as if what?”
He straightened, seemingly surprised that she was still there. “You don’t want to know, Kate. This isn’t a fit subject for you to ponder.”
“But I do want to know!” Kate exclaimed passionately. “Those women, those victims—they’ve been all but forgotten. Who remembers Mary Kelly? The only name people remember is Jack the Ripper.”
He looked up, studying her face. As if satisfied by something he saw there, he nodded. “Well, then. It’s been generally assumed that these crimes were carried out by a lunatic who killed for the mad pleasure of killing. But suppose that the killer was as sane as you and I, and that he acted with purpose. Suppose, for instance, that he—or they—wanted to set an example, or make some sort of statement.”
Kate stared at him. “They?”
“Exactly,” Charles said. “Madmen are incapable of working together toward a single purpose. If we discard the insanity theory, it is just as likely that the Ripper killings were carried out by a group of men. More likely, perhaps, given the rapidity and dispatch with which the killer worked.”
Kate shuddered. A madman—a man with no reason—did not need a motive, and hence was less culpable, or so it seemed to her. What motive on earth could compel a sane and reasonable man—much less a group of men—to butcher five women?
Charles’s jaw worked for a moment. Finally, he said, “At the moment, we seem to have two tasks before us. The first, and perhaps the easier, is to learn who sent the typed note to Jennie. When we do this, we may also have found the man who killed Tom Finch, and Jennie will be cleared.” He fell silent again.
“And the second?” Kate prompted, although she thought she knew what his response would be.
Charles roused himself. “The second will be considerably more difficult. In order to clear the Churchill name, it may be necessary to identify the Ripper.”
“Is that possible, at this late date?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know,” Charles said honestly. He picked up the photograph once again and held it so that Kate could see it. “There is something odd about this photograph, Kate. Look at the shadows behind the woman.” He handed her the magnifying glass. “And then here, at the highlights on Randolph’s face.”
Kate studied the photo with the magnifying glass. “Yes, I see. There are some very subtle differences in the lighting. It seems to be coming from different directions.”
“Exactly. The shadows and highlights are inconsistent with the general lighting of the scene as a whole. I cannot know for certain without examining the negative, but I suspect that the print is a forgery. It looks to me as if it has been created from a montage of two or more carefully positioned negatives.” He eyed the photo appreciatively. “A very clever effort, actually. It would fool almost anyone. Especially a wife who already has her doubts.”
“Doubts?” Kate pulled in her breath. “But Jennie can’t possibly suspect her husband of—”
“She might,” Charles said grimly. “In the years before he died, Randolph was increasingly unbalanced.”
“Mentally?”
“Yes. The truth is that he was suffering from syphilis.”
“Oh, no!” Kate exclaimed. “Oh, poor Jennie!”
“Yes,” Charles replied, “poor Jennie indeed. The best that could be said about Randolph’s public behavior, even when he was in the Exchequer, was that he was often inexplicably eccentric. Jennie might well have seen private behavior that was much worse. She might have looked at the photograph and recalled times when Randolph seemed capable of such brutal murders.”
“Then you must show her that it is a forgery, Charles,” Kate said earnestly. “She will know that he was innocent, and her mind will be at rest.”
“But that is not necessarily the case, Kate.” Charles’s voice was bleak. “In and of itself, this forged photograph is only a forged photograph. It does not provide proof of innocence. And what if the blackmailer either believed or knew that Randolph was guilty? What if he intended the photo to be investigated, assuming that a serious inquiry would eventually prove Randolph’s guilt, in some way he could not?”
“I see,” Kate said thoughtfully. “Of course, Randolph is dead and can no longer be held to account. But if the Ripper killings were committed by a group of men—” She stopped. “In that case, Charles, an investigation might endanger them. They might be exposed.”
“Precisely,” Charles said. “In fact, it is possible that they discovered the blackmailer and decided to silence him.”
Kate shook her head wonderingly. “If all this is true, how will we ever get to the bottom of it?”
Charles put his hand over hers. “I understand your concern, Kate, and you know that I have supported your participation in other investigations. But this is not a matter in which you—or any woman—should be involved. I am going to London to visit Finch’s lodgings, with the hope of locating the negative from which this photograph was printed. Then I’m on to Bournemouth to have a talk with Inspector Abberline, who is retired from Scotland Yard.” He smiled gently. “And you, my very dear, are going to stay here at Bishop’s Keep and entertain our guest.”
Kate was tempted to an angry response. The five murdered women had certainly been “involved,” as Charles so delicately put it! And by what right did he believe that he could restrain her activities? Did he feel that because he was her husband, he could tell her what to do? Really—these British gentlemen, thinking that they could control their wives!
But she said none of this. She bowed her head and gave him a sidelong look. “Yes, my lord,” she said meekly. “Is there anything you wish done in your absence, my lord?”
Charles did not look up. “Please tell Jennie what we have talked about and what I plan to do. That might give her some respite.” He spoke absently, for he had once more picked up the magnifying glass and returned to his examination of the photograph.
15
Two More East End Atrocities
Horrible Murder of a Woman in Commercial
Road East
A Woman Murdered and Mutilated in Aldgate
Great Excitement
Latest Details
The Daily Chronicle,
1 October, 1888
Hearing
the rustle of skirts, Jennie looked up from the desk in the morning room where she was writing a letter of instructions to Manfred Raeburn regarding Maggie’s subscription list. Kate had come into the room, wearing a thoughtful frown.
Jennie stood. “I’m sorry I ran out so impetuously,” she said ruefully. “It really was awfully rude of me, when both of you are trying to help. I’m sure you must think I am overdramatizing myself—and heaven only knows what Charles thinks. He probably sees me as a spoiled child.”
“Please don’t fret,” Kate said. “You certainly are not to blame for feeling upset by all that has happened in the last few days, and before. It is quite dreadful.’
Kate crossed to the tall window that looked out over the park. Her rich, handsome mane of titian hair was pulled back severely, giving her face, with its high cheekbones and firm jaw, an almost sculptured look. She stood erect, her shoulders held rigidly, her face pale. There was tension in every line of her figure, and Jennie thought at once that she and Charles must have quarreled. The thought was accompanied by a swift sadness, and a kind of guilt. They must have quarreled about her.
“You seem upset as well, Kate,” she said contritely. “You have been of so much help to me—how may I help you?”