‘If I may say so, sir,’ Ryan replied, ‘I have been in your service for some time, and I do not recall ever questioning one of your decisions or instructions during that period.’
‘Good,’ Warren said, and gestured for Ryan to approach his desk.
For just under five minutes Warren explained precisely what he wanted his manservant to do, and exactly how he wanted it done.
‘Do you understand all that?’ he finished.
Ryan nodded.
‘Yes, of course, sir. None of it seems particularly difficult, and I would expect that I would have the first part of the job finished by early afternoon tomorrow. Obtaining a cart should not prove too difficult, and there would be no problems in arriving at the location at the time you have specified.’
‘Excellent. And you are happy to carry out my other instructions?’
Ryan nodded and smiled.
‘It will be a pleasure, sir.’
When Ryan had left the study, a piece of paper in his hand on which Warren had sketched the object he wanted building, the former commissioner began making his own preparations. The first thing he did was precisely as ‘Michael’ had instructed: he created two copies of a postage label which read:
Consignor Charles Warren
c/o 4 Whitehall Place
London
Consignee Miss S Winberg
To be collected.
Then he sat in thought for a few minutes, trying to decide exactly what else he needed to do. Finally, he wrote a third postage label with an entirely different address on it.
He again sat back in thought for a short while, then stood up, walked over to the study door and turned the key to lock it. He fished in his trouser pocket and pulled out a small but complicated key, and crossed to the corner of the room where one of the bookcases ended. Warren reached up, released a hidden catch and pulled on the end of the bookcase. A section of it swung back on concealed hinges to reveal a large steel safe set into the wall.
Warren used his key to open the safe door wide. In the middle of the steel container was a large object draped in a woollen blanket. He reached inside and with some difficulty, because it was heavy, lifted out the object and carried it over to his desk. He placed it on its base in the centre, and then removed the blanket. Years earlier, he had carefully and painstakingly cleaned off all the black paint which had covered the menorah, and now the ancient relic gleamed golden in the light from the evening sun spearing through the window.
Almost tentatively, Warren stretched out his hand and ran his fingers down the battered old gold shaft and then traced the seven curved branches, each of which led to a lamp holder shaped like an almond flower. Every time he looked at the relic, he was struck anew both by its stark beauty and the enormous sense of age that it seemed almost to radiate. The object in front of him was ancient even before the time of Christ; it had been created an almost immeasurably long time ago. Stolen by invading armies, paraded in triumph through Rome and Constantinople, and then lost for centuries until he himself had peeled away the fabric that had shrouded it in that dark and hidden chamber under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It was an object of awe-inspiring beauty and enormous, almost unbelievable, power and religious significance.
He hated to think that it would no longer be in his possession, but the events in Whitechapel and Spitalfields over the last few weeks had shown him clearly that he needed to let it go. It was probably not the killing and mutilation of Catharine Eddowes, or even the savage butchery inflicted on Mary Jane Kelly which had brought this home to him, but the casual and cold-blooded execution of Elizabeth Stride. He’d travelled to Dutfield’s Yard, the site of that murder, and had seen the pool of blood on the ground, and then the sight of the woman herself, laid out on a rough table in St George’s Mortuary. He’d looked down at the body of a woman whose only asset, whose only possession, had been her life, and that had hit home more forcefully than Warren could possibly have anticipated.
Her death had sent a message to him, and it was a message that he had finally fully understood. No relic, no matter how ancient or how important, was worth the sacrifice that the ‘unfortunates’ of Whitechapel had been having to make on his behalf. Warren still had the most profound dislike and contempt for women of that class, but the sight of Stride’s body, the head almost severed from the neck by the brutal stroke of a knife, had touched him deeply. For the briefest of instants, he had visualized his beloved wife Fanny lying on just such a table, the victim of a murderous attack, and had stood in silence before the body, shock and rage coursing through him.
At that moment, he had known it was time to end it.
Warren stared at the menorah for a few moments longer, then nodded. In his heart, he knew it was the right decision to make. The object had come into his possession purely by accident, and there really was neither reason nor justification for him to keep it any longer. It was time to let it go, to pass it on to a new keeper, to someone who would surely appreciate its value and enduring power.
He picked it up and replaced it in his safe, where it would remain for only a couple of days longer.
Thursday, 15 November 1888
Bermondsey
Just after 2.50 that afternoon, Ryan pulled back on the reins and eased the pony to a stop outside the warehouse where Charles Warren had told him to deliver the box, then climbed down from the cart and knocked on the door.
A heavyset man wearing dark trousers and a pea jacket opened it after a few seconds and stepped out.
‘Got a delivery, guvnor?’ he asked.
Ryan nodded.
‘It’s the box in the back of the cart,’ he confirmed, and walked back to the vehicle behind him. ‘It’s quite heavy, so could you get a couple of your men to lift it down?’
‘No problem.’
The man – Ryan assumed he was the foreman, or perhaps even the owner of the establishment – strode back to the door, opened it and called out to some unseen person inside the building.
A few seconds later two more heavily built men stepped out and walked over to the cart.
The wooden crate was lying on its side in the centre of the cart, and the two men climbed up into the vehicle and manoeuvred it towards the tailgate. Grunting with the strain of its weight, they carefully lifted it down and took it back into the warehouse through the same door they had emerged from minutes earlier.
‘It’s to be collected by a lady,’ Ryan said as he stepped over to the front of the cart. ‘She’ll be paying your fee.’
‘I saw the label,’ the man said, ‘and that won’t be a problem. If she doesn’t pay, we’ve still got the goods,’ he chuckled.
‘I’m quite sure she’ll be along soon,’ Ryan said.
Then he climbed up and sat down in the driving seat, picked up the reins and flicked them lightly over the horse’s back. The animal stepped forward, and Ryan eased back on the right-hand rein to turn the horse around to the right, to head back the way he’d come.
* * *
At 3.15 precisely, another very similar cart drew up outside the warehouse, but this one had a person wearing female attire, complete with a veil, sitting in the driving seat, the harness in one hand and a whip in the other. For a few moments after the vehicle came to a stop, the driver looked around, checking the surroundings.
Alexei Pedachenko wasn’t expecting any problems, but he certainly wasn’t going to step down out of the cart until he was certain that there was nobody lurking in the vicinity. Charles Warren still controlled the Metropolitan Police, and it was always possible that he had some plan afoot to follow Pedachenko when he left the Bermondsey warehouse.
But as far as he could see, the street was completely deserted.
Satisfied, he climbed down and, taking small steps which he hoped would make him look like the woman he was trying to impersonate, he walked over to the warehouse door. The Russian had been born with very fine and delicate features, and had on several occasions been able to pass for a female during his ca
reer with the Okhrana. And if anybody challenged him, or recognized him as a man, he had two compelling arguments which he could use. In one pocket of his voluminous skirt he had a fully loaded revolver, and in another what had recently become the tool of his trade, his six-inch bladed knife nestling snugly in its leather sheath.
He rapped on the door with the handle of his whip and waited for an answer.
In less than a minute, the same heavyset man who had taken delivery of the crate only about half an hour earlier opened it and peered out.
‘Yes, miss?’ he said. ‘How can I help you?’
Pedachenko smiled in what he hoped was a winning fashion.
‘My name is Winberg, Miss Stephanie Winberg,’ he said, his voice both softer and much more high-pitched than his normal speaking voice, ‘and I believe you may have a package ready for me to collect.’
The foreman returned the smile and nodded.
‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘You didn’t waste any time, did you? It only arrived about half an hour ago.’
He turned away from the Russian and issued instructions to two of the workers.
‘Sam, Edward. That crate we just received, bring it out, will you? Customer’s here to collect it already. Now,’ he said, turning back to Pedachenko, ‘there’s a fee to pay for storage and handling. So that’ll be two shillings and eight pence, please.’
‘For half an hour’s storage?’ Pedachenko queried. ‘That seems very expensive.’
The foreman shrugged.
‘Take it or leave it, miss, but that’s the rate.’
‘Oh, very well,’ the Russian replied, and delved into another pocket of his skirt and pulled out a handful of coins. He counted out precisely two shillings and eight pence and handed the money over to the foreman.
‘I don’t think I will be using your facilities again, not at that rate,’ Pedachenko said.
Then he stepped back and watched as two labourers carried out a large wooden crate marked with two address labels. It was bigger than he had expected, and clearly heavy, and he guessed that Warren had probably secured the menorah in a steel box inside the crate for safety.
‘In the back of the cart, please,’ he instructed.
A few seconds later, he climbed back up into the driving seat and cracked the whip over the back of the horse, which immediately moved off at a trot.
Pedachenko had studied maps of the area, and he had decided to get clear of Bermondsey before he stopped to examine his prize. He didn’t think that Warren would have dared not supply the menorah, but he was certainly going to check it as soon as he possibly could.
The road was cobbled in places, beaten earth studded with rocks and stones in others, but reasonably straight, and within a matter of minutes the Russian could see that he was leaving most of the buildings behind him. He was also encountering some other traffic, some riders on horses, but mainly carts pulled by one or two animals. There were a couple of carts following behind him, but they were both well back.
He reached a large open area and eased back on the harness, directing the horse over to the left hand side and moving a few yards off the road. He waited, sitting in the driving seat, until one of the carts which had been behind him passed and continued heading east along the road. He looked back to see where the second vehicle was, but it was nowhere in sight, so he assumed that it had turned off onto one of the side roads or stopped beside a building somewhere.
The road was clear in both directions, which gave Pedachenko the opportunity he needed to lift the lid on the crate. He stepped around the seat and into the load section of the cart, picked up a heavy screwdriver which he had earlier placed there, and jammed the point into the gap between the lid and the body of the wooden box. He glanced around once more, ensuring that he was still unobserved, and then levered the lid upwards.
It was secured with nails all around it, and the Russian had to move around the box, freeing the lid in stages. One of the nails squealed in protest as it was dragged out of the wood. Then he dropped the screwdriver, grabbed one side of the lid with both hands and lifted it up. Underneath the lid was another flat section of very thin wood, and Pedachenko grasped this eagerly and pulled it away, desperate to get at the prize which lay underneath it.
And then he recoiled, an expression of disbelief clouding his features.
Thursday, 15 November 1888
Outskirts of Bermondsey
‘I almost didn’t recognize you, Michael,’ Charles Warren said, looking up at the hard, cold eyes of the man who had brought so much fear, misery and suffering to the East End of London for the last four months.
Pedachenko stared down in shock at the figure of the man lying in front of him. Warren was holding a heavy-calibre revolver, the muzzle of the pistol pointing directly at him. The inside of the box was padded with cushions, so that even if it was tilted on one side the action would not harm the occupant, and for the first time the Russian noticed the line of small air holes which had been drilled around the perimeter to allow Warren to breathe.
For what seemed like a very long time, the two men stared at each other, neither of them moving.
Then, before Warren could react, the Russian leapt sideways, over the edge of the cart, grabbing for his own pistol as he did so. He landed lightly on his feet and raced away.
In the back of the cart, Charles Warren was struggling to sit up. He’d been confined in the box for well over an hour, hardly able to move, his joints were stiff and aching, and his movements clumsy. He clambered to his knees and turned round, his pistol held in his outstretched arm as he looked for his target.
He’d seen the man – clad incongruously in a skirt – jump over the side of the cart, but he didn’t know which way he’d gone after that.
Warren knew, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that despite the disguise ‘Michael’ was wearing, it was the same man who had called at his house and who was the author of the nightmare murder spree that had engulfed London. His cold dark eyes were unmistakable. And whatever happened now, Warren was determined to kill him.
He saw the faintest of movements over to his left, beyond where the horse was standing. Warren turned clumsily, his limbs still refusing to obey him properly.
A shot rang out, and the bullet slammed into the back of the driving seat of the cart, sending wood splinters flying in all directions.
Warren ducked down again, relying on the heavy wood construction of the vehicle to shield him. He had guessed that his opponent would be armed, but he simply hadn’t expected him to move so fast.
The cart lurched suddenly. The horse had obviously been spooked by the other man firing his pistol so close to its head. Warren tumbled backwards, his revolver falling from his hand. The weapon slid along the wooden floor of the cart and then disappeared over the end.
At the same moment, he heard a sharp cry of pain from nearby, and guessed that the horse had bashed into his opponent, or maybe trodden on his foot.
The cart was gathering speed as the horse panicked. Warren jumped forward, sat down in the driving seat, grabbed hold of the harness and pulled back on it as hard as he could. The vehicle lurched and bucked as it rolled over the uneven ground, but within about thirty yards Warren had hauled it to a stop.
Then he glanced back over his shoulder, and realized his instinctive action had possibly cost him his life.
The man in the skirt clearly hadn’t been injured by his contact with the animal, and had run after the cart. He was now perhaps only ten yards behind it, a pistol in each hand, both pointing straight at Warren. He had obviously picked up the fallen revolver as a backup to his own weapon.
Warren realized it was too late for him to coax the cart into motion again. He was certain that at the first sign of such an action, the man would shoot him.
He only had two possible cards left to play.
‘If you kill me,’ he called out, ‘you’ll never get the menorah.’
The other man didn’t respond, just continued walking steadily
towards the back of the cart. When he got to it, he placed one pistol on the ground, then reached down, fiddled with the skirt for a moment and stepped out of the garment, tossing it to one side. The bonnet on his head followed, and then the blouse he was wearing. Underneath, he was clad in normal male attire.
He picked up the second pistol, walked around to the front of the cart and stood there for a few seconds, both weapons aimed at Warren.
‘That’s better,’ Pedachenko said. ‘A useful disguise, but one I never feel entirely comfortable wearing.’
‘Who are you?’ Warren demanded. ‘I know your name isn’t “Michael”, and you sound Russian to me.’
‘That’s a good guess. I am Russian, but my real name doesn’t concern you. You reneged on our agreement. Where is the menorah? If I don’t get it, you know what will happen.’
‘I changed my mind,’ Warren said.
‘Then you’d better change it back,’ Pedachenko snapped. ‘If you don’t, I can guarantee that you’ll never leave this place alive.’
‘As I said before, if you kill me that will simply ensure that you’ll never get it.’
Pedachenko shrugged.
‘Maybe not, but you’ll be dead and at this moment that seems to me to be about the best outcome I can expect. But it won’t be quick. I’ve got two pistols now, and eleven bullets. I can do a lot of damage to you with eleven bullets. And once you’re dead, I might be able to persuade your wife to hand over the relic to me.’
‘She has no idea I even have the menorah,’ Warren said hastily. ‘She would have no idea where I’ve hidden it.’
‘Then I’m sure I can persuade you to tell me the hiding place before you die, just to relieve the pain of your wounds. And if I know where the relic is hidden, that means I will be able to spare your wife, Fanny Margaretta. That would be a last small service you could perform for her. After all, I would hate to have to use my knife on her while she was still breathing. At least I gave the whores that small mercy. They were all dead before I started the cutting.’
The Ripper Secret Page 39