Fearless (Scarlet Suffragette, Book 1): A Victorian Historical Romantic Suspense Series (13 page)

My eyes alighted on another letter, a much finer letter than the one the murderer had sent. I crossed to the armchair beside the fire and sat down, picking the note up and staring at the letterhead. A small smile briefly alighted upon my lips, and then I folded the missive up and placed it beneath a book on the table.

I couldn’t countenance such promising thoughts when there were still so much darker ones to be dealt with.

I straightened my shoulders, took one last look at the roaring flames in the hearth, and then stood up and crossed to my workbench. Removing the makeshift cover, I opened up the box and stared at the necrotic organ within. No longer red, the tongue was now black with a bluish hue. No blood marred the pristine innards of the parcel. It lay nestled in the bottom on soft, whisper thin paper. Such fine paper that it made me wonder just where our illiterate murderer could have come by rich stationery as this. The packaging alone would have been a sign of wealth, but the paper the letter was written on indicated the same. Thick card, a delicate flower embossed in the top right hand corner. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but I was sure the inspector eventually would.

I returned my attention to the tongue, noting the precise line of cut along the base of it. The knife used for this would have been sharp. Matching, at a guess, the one that had sliced Mary’s cheeks. There was also no sign of hesitation, the cut clean. Determined strikes by the time he’d reached her face. I wondered just what the slice to her thigh had looked like. Whether Drummond had ascertained yet the type of blades used. Confirmed that there had been two.

He was growing bolder, the murderer. Margaret’s demise one of uncontrolled fervour. Mary’s still harried, but time taken after death to present his message. And just what was his message?

I looked back at the letter and let out a frustrated breath of air. First he emulates Jack The Ripper. Now he uses my cause as reason enough to silence his victims. But here is where confusion reigned. Because although he purported to applaud my direction and example to one and all. He killed two of my fellow Suffragettes. Who also believed in the same direction and example as myself.

It didn’t make any sense. Why silence a Suffragette with one breath and then congratulate another with the next?

A knock sounded out on the door to the surgery, making me jump slightly in my seat and spin around to face the noise. My heart raced unexpectedly; from fear; from anticipation.

I was involved in this now. There was no way the inspector could cut me out summarily.

Straightening my skirts, I crossed to the door of the surgery and turned the lock. The door swung open on well oiled hinges and I stared up into the stark face of Inspector Kelly.

“Miss Cassidy,” he greeted in his customary level tone. No hint of his pleasure or displeasure at being called here. No indication that he was indeed pleased to see me again.

I shouldn’t have looked for it. I’d stopped looking for it a long time ago now. But my emotions were raw from the macabre delivery. From the inexplicable pull I felt as I was drawn further and further into these killings.

And not in a fashion I could support.

“Inspector Kelly,” I replied, standing aside to let him step in. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Your messenger said it was urgent,” he announced, walking into the surgery, his cane striking the wooden floor in firm taps, his eyes taking in every space, clear or cluttered.

He crossed to the fire and turned his back to the heat, his cane resting at an angle, his weight all on his good leg. His deep blue eyes alighted on me as I shut the door behind us and turned the key. A dark eyebrow slowly rose up his brow.

“What, pray tell, is so urgent and, it appears, also so secretive?” he enquired pleasantly. The tone of voice one I had heard him use when he was interrogating an unknown suspect on the street.

As I was known to the man, I could only assume the avenue of conversation was what had the inspector so on guard.

I stared at him a moment, then forced myself to move from my frozen position toward the bench. It was not the time to decipher Kelly’s reticence to be alone in my company. I had enough emotions swilling about my body to keep me distracted for now. I needed not add any more.

“I received a delivery,” I declared, nodding towards the parcel and letter. “A rather disturbing one.”

I stood to the side as he approached the small box. He didn’t reach out to touch a thing, merely leaned forward and peered at the letter briefly, then directed his eyes to the tongue lying in fine paper as if a precious jewel being presented to a queen.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, clearly unsuspecting of such a thing. “This came to your house?” His eyes searched my face, hovering over my lips as I bit them and nodded.

“Just on an hour ago,” I admitted.

“Can you confirm that is a human tongue?” he asked, lifting a pencil off the bench and using it to move the tongue aside inside its box. Nothing of note lay beneath it; I’d already checked.

“It is indeed human, and I’d hazard a guess the cut matches Mary’s.”

He let a slow breath of air out and finally reached for the letter, placing the pencil down on the table beside it. He read in silence. His chest puffing out more and more as agitation suffused his entire frame. His eyes glinting like dark shards of the deepest sapphire.

“He knows you,” he eventually said, the letter almost crumpled in his tight fisted grip.

“He knows
of
me,” I corrected. “I am hardly unknown in these parts.”

Kelly turned his head and looked hard at me, then tapped his cane down firmly on the floor.

“He does not know of you as a doctor,” he said, beginning to pace. I watched on, fascinated that his limp was invisible when he was riled to such a degree. Almost as though he blocked out all erroneous sensations; such as the pain from his injury. “But as a Suffragette,” he concluded.

“I agree,” I murmured, moving toward the fireplace in the hopes that he would follow. The less he paced now, the better for his pain tolerance later in the day.

“Two Suffragettes murdered and a third targeted in a parody of Jack The Ripper,” he said curtly.

“You believe this a comic event?” I asked, indicating the letter he still held in his left hand. His right gripped his cane just as securely.

“I have some knowledge of the Ripper, Miss Cassidy,” Kelly declared ominously. “The penmanship alone is disparate.”

How well did he know the Ripper then? How close had he come to those crimes when still working London’s east end streets? Like myself, Inspector Kelly was an immigrant to New Zealand. A settler who either wished to find their glory upon its pristine, unmarked shores. Or escape their past by emigrating to the farthest regions of the earth.

You could not get farther away from London than Auckland city.

“So he is a mimic,” I offered.

“A poor one at that,” Kelly replied, looking back down at the letter and frowning. “
Your endeavours to rouse your sisters have brought me such entertainment.
What does that mean?”

“I’m sure I do not know.”

“Think, Anna,” he pressed, once again pacing. “This man admires you. He wishes to impress you. He’s declared his position. Laid down the foundation for his next move.”

“His next move?”

“Another Suffragette,” Kelly declared; the words harsh sounds on the still air. “This will not be his last. See here?” He crossed the space that separated us and pointed to the line in the letter that corresponded with his declaration.

For I see now just how my work shall unravel.

“What does that mean?” I asked; a repetition of his early question.

“You have given him purpose,” Kelly replied solemnly.

I sat down heavily in the armchair beside the fire, seeing nothing of the bright flames, feeling little of their heated touch. I’d given the murderer purpose.

“How?” I whispered.

“Nothing you could have done or said differently,” Kelly rushed to assure me, but guilt washed my frame from head to toe, nonetheless. “Men like this attach themselves to a cause without significant reason. They require justification of their impulses and desires, and when they alight upon such, they grasp it most fervently.”

“You speak with some experience, Inspector.”

“Too much, Miss Cassidy. Too much.” He turned away and paced to the other side of the room again.

Silence stretched between us, but for the crackle of the fire and the odd wooden creak indicating life existed in parts of the house unseen. I wondered if Mina had been made aware of the inspector’s visit. If she was even now sitting with Hardwick in the kitchen sharing a cup of tea and their latest joint hopes for a better outcome from this calling.

It was futile hope. Just as it was futile for me to stop feeling guilt at Margaret and Mary’s deaths.

“What happens now?” I asked, my voice quiet but resolved. I would not shy away from this curse. I would not pretend I didn’t have a part to play. More of my Suffragettes could be in danger.

The murderer knew me. Did I know him as well?

“Now I must needs return to the station and appraise the superintendent of this development.”

“You’ve changed your tune, Inspector Kelly,” I remarked.

“The superintendent has agreed to keep the information from the newspapers for the time being. I have his word, which is more than enough.” Kelly trusted Chalmers even if he did not necessarily like the man.

“And what of Drummond?” I asked. “How goes the post-mortem of Mary Bennett?”

Kelly stopped his pacing and turned amused eyes on me.

“You were correct,” he said simply. “Two knives. The first a larger butcher style knife, used to subdue the victim and deliver the killing blow to her femoral artery. The second a smaller and sharper knife, such as a paring knife, used to skillfully mark her face and sever her tongue. The action of the second knife was carried out in a subdued manner. He has control, but only once the deed has been done, it seems.”

“His skill is improving,” I noted. “The tongue is both a message and an opportunity to mimic the Ripper. But the decision to take it was made prior to death. To have carried two weapons upon himself would indicate a measure of forethought.”

“When he did not for Margaret,” Inspector Kelly concluded.

“One has to ask, what has he planned for the next?”

Kelly just stared at me, his lips pressed in a thin line, his brow furrowed.

“The Suffragettes must be placed on high alert,” he advised, receiving a small nod of my head from me. “No more meetings for the time being.”

I didn’t fancy the poor man who told Ethel Poynton that fact.

“What of disclosing Mary’s demise?” I asked, watching as the inspector ran a hand though his dark hair in frustration.

“We’ll tell them we’ve received a written threat.” He glanced down at the letter still held in his hand. “One we believe has an element of dire truth to it.” His gaze flitted to the box holding Mary’s tongue. “No more meetings and the utmost care taken when out and about.”

“Margaret was killed in broad daylight.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Mary in the early hours, before her husband was to be home from his night shift at the brickyards.”

“Your point?”

“The killer does not stick to a schedule.”

“They often don’t.”

“Then how can the safety of the Suffragettes be guaranteed?” I demanded.

Kelly held my hard stare with a compassionate one of his own. I was sure I would not like his answer whenever he deemed fit to give it.

“We cannot guarantee it, Anna. There simply is not enough constables to offer that level of protection.” He paused, then looked out of my front window, staring at the trees lining Franklin Street, leaves rustling in a light breeze. “But I shall assign one to your house, for yours.”

“I do not believe I shall need one,” I offered.

“Of course you will,” Kelly argued in return.

I smiled. He frowned. Perhaps he was equally certain he would not like my answer too.

“Out with it,” he gritted between his teeth.

“I shall have an inspector guarding me,” I said, standing up and dusting down my skirt carefully.

“I beg your pardon?” Kelly enquired, most politely.

My eyes lifted to his; twin storms on blue seas.

“I gather you’ll be on the hunt for this murderer, Inspector?”

He slowly nodded his head, still frowning, still staring bright blue daggers at me.

“Then it would be wise to take me with.”

He let out a frustrated breath of air, but said, “Wise?”

“He knows me,” I offered simply. “Perhaps I know him too.”

Twelve

Hear Me?

Inspector Kelly

“Absolutely not!” I said like a blustering buffoon. What did she take me for? “I shan’t allow it.”

“I fail to see how
allowing
me, as you so delicately put it, has anything to do with catching this murderer.”