Ripped (12 page)

Katie bit back laughter.
Quick as a wink I
'
ll fetch Stink Pink
. Collin was a comedian. Whether or not he meant to be, he was funny—and quite endearing, unlike her own, twenty-first-century cousin Collin who was serious and pedantic. Katie drew in a breath. The word “pedantic” was on her vocab quiz this week.

But my vocab quiz is thousands of days and millions of minutes into the future
.

Chapter Thirteen

Mary Ann Nichols, Ripper Victim no. 1

L
o
ndon Hospital to the south
was an indistinguishable blur in the swirling fog as the police surgeon's carriage turned into Buck's Row. Dr. Ralph Llewellyn, a thin man with a drooping moustache, drooping eyes, and an underhung jaw like a basset hound's, had been sitting in the carriage, ready to jump out, make a cursory examination of the girl's body, and return home as quickly as possible. He was thoroughly annoyed at having been roused from his sleep to attend to a corpse in the foggy East End. It could easily have waited until morning.

So when the four-wheeler shuddered to a halt on the curbside near the dead girl, Dr. Llewellyn flung open the carriage door and stepped down gingerly. Leaning heavily on his cane, he clumped quickly across the dark street. His left foot, particularly his big toe, was riddled with gout, and it throbbed painfully. All he wanted to do was get back home and climb into bed with a hot brandy.

Peevishly, he looked around. He didn't like being in this area of Spitalfields with its slaughterhouses and damnable foul stench. True, some sections of London were far worse, full of thieves, vagabonds, and beggars, but even so, Dr. Llewellyn did not take kindly to being near slaughterhouses that reeked of fetid odors. The girl should have had the decency to die somewhere well lit and clean.

Moving closer to the body, he glanced with disgust at the curiosity seekers who had begun to gather, along with the newspaper reporters. Why, oh why, was the world riddled with news reporters?
They
'
ve got to sell papers
, he told himself, but it was thoroughly distasteful all the same.

Dr. Llewellyn knew he should order the police constables to erect screens around the body so that he could proceed with his examination in privacy. But as he didn't intend to stay long, he decided against it. Let the onlookers have their sport. It was only some parlor maid or shop girl, after all. What did her privacy matter? The sooner he was rid of this whole business and back in his warm bed, the better.

He advanced toward the body. From the look of the girl's clothing, the rusty-colored coat with seven large brass buttons, her black stockings and worn brown boots, Dr. Llewellyn deduced that the victim was just another female from the lower orders, not worth bothering about, especially at this hour. She and her ilk were like barn swallows: Shoot ten out of the sky and twenty more took their places. Common, foul little things, thruppence a dozen.

He knelt down. He had a good memory, especially for small details, so he didn't bother with his notepad and pencil. The girl was lying on her back with her legs straight out, as though she had been formally laid out, not as if she'd fallen into a heap. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear, completely severing the carotid arteries, but only a small pool of blood had collected in the street from the throat wound. “Not more than would fill two wineglasses,” Dr. Llewellyn muttered to himself. He always measured blood loss in terms of wineglasses, beer steins, and gin tumblers. Perhaps, given the paucity of blood, the girl had been murdered elsewhere and her body carted here to Buck's Row.

A comb and a small looking glass were in her coat pocket, but nothing that might identify her. He opened her mouth to check her teeth and gums. The girl's upper teeth were crooked, but strong and white with no sign of decay, indicating she was fairly young. Tooth rot told a lot about a victim's age and general health. Her gums were healthy as well, but two teeth from her lower jaw were missing. He placed her age as somewhere between seventeen and twenty-one, and speculated to the constable leaning over his shoulder that she might be one of the many milliner's assistants who trolled the Haymarket trying to pick up a few farthings by flirting with the lads—and then something had gone terribly wrong.

“ 'Twas a blessing she died young, saving her from a life of poverty and destitution . . . or worse,” Dr. Llewellyn muttered more to himself than to the constable.

“Right you are, sir,” Constable Jones nodded in agreement. “Once the likes of her gets a taste of the extra ready, it's only a matter of time before she becomes a full-fledged Whitechapel whore using her earnings to buy gin and Lord knows what else.”

“True enough, Constable. True enough,” Dr. Llewellyn agreed. In no time at all she'd be aged beyond her years. Drunk and brawling, she'd look like an ugly hag before her twenty-fifth birthday. 'Twas a blessing she died young.

Dr. Llewellyn called over his shoulder to the sergeant on duty, who was holding back the crowd of onlookers. “My job is finished. Take the body to the mortuary, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

Dr. Llewellyn returned the comb and looking glass to the girl's coat pocket. He was in such a hurry to get back to his warm bed and even warmer brandy that he left before the body had been taken away, which was against procedure. But it was a foggy night, so no one would blame him. Except, of course, the assistant deputy CID of Scotland Yard, Major Gideon Brown. Major Brown was a stickler for protocol and demanded that corpses,
all corpses
, be treated with respect. Young fool. The very idea was ludicrous.
I
'
ve done all that I can here.
Silly girl probably provoked her lover and had it coming. Most of these girls deserved their fate. It was unfortunate, but there it was. Nothing more to be done.

Later, police surgeon Dr. Ralph Llewellyn would curse himself for making critical oversights that might cost him his job. Had he lifted up the girl's dress and two flannel petticoats, he would have made a startling discovery. The girl had been disemboweled, a condition her tightly laced stays served partly to conceal. Dr. Llewellyn justified this oversight by telling himself that anyone in his position would have done the same. The death had not impressed him as anything more than a lovers' altercation. True, it wasn't every day that a girl had her throat cut, but this girl was a member of that trivial class not worth exerting extra time, effort, or grievance over.

Still later, however, when Dr. Llewellyn was pressed by reporters and almost sacked by Major Gideon Brown, he would regret his hastiness and amend his impressions: “I have seen many terrible cases,” he would tell the pressmen solemnly, “but none so brutal as the murder of that poor young girl. An innocent dove struck down in the flower of her youth. A senseless tragedy.”

But for now, climbing back into his curtained carriage, Dr. Llewellyn didn't give the body of Mary Ann Nichols a second thought.

Chapter Fourteen

When Will You Pay Me say the Bells of Old Bailey

A
f
ter the curtain fell
to thunderous applause and a standing ovation, the spectators in the private boxes drifted down the hall into the Byzantine Room to await their carriages. The rest of the theater crowd—those not in private boxes—began pouring down the grand staircase into the lower lobby.

In the Byzantine Room Katie came face to face once again with Major Gideon Brown. During the last act of
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
he had entered the duke's box and slipped quietly into the seat next to Lady Beatrix. Collin, who had returned only moments before, caught sight of Major Brown across the dark aisle and began kicking moodily at the balcony footrail.

“Bloke's a blighter
and a commoner
,” Collin had hissed to Katie. “He's got no business seeking out my sister's company. The duke will put a stop to it, by god. And if he doesn't,” Collin said with unsmiling satisfaction, “
I will
.”

Katie didn't know whether to feel sorry for Gideon Brown, a victim of class prejudice, or wary of him. He was an assassin, and in Katie's book that made him a suspect. Though how or why he could be Jack the Ripper wasn't clear to her. The Ripper might, after all, be just some homicidal lunatic having nothing whatsoever to do with the Twyford family. On the other hand, Lady Beatrix was to be his last victim, so the odds were high that there was a connection.

Just before the final curtain fell, wheezing and out of breath, the bulge of his Adam's apple moving rapidly up and down above his clerical collar, Reverend Pinker had slumped down into the empty seat next to Katie. He'd missed most of the play, as had Oscar Wilde, who gave his excuses to Lady Beatrix that it was far easier to gauge the audience's reaction to the play while trolling the back of the theater.

Now, standing in the sparkling Byzantine Room all aglitter with mirrored ceiling tiles and plush sofas, Katie shook Major Brown's extended hand. Shaking hands was different in this century. You kept your gloves on and held your hand aloft, and the gentleman either bent and gave the air above your hand a slight peck, or he shook it and quickly stepped back. Major Brown took Katie's hand but held it a moment too long. “A pleasure, once again, Miss Katherine,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Katie said agreeably, though her pulse was racing and the high lace collar of her dress was itching her badly. She didn't trust Major Brown, and not because he had a powerful, almost pompous air about him, or because he had killed an enemy of the crown on some secret mission. It was something else . . . something about the penetrating way he looked at her with those cat-green eyes.

Major Brown was speaking to Lady Beatrix now, and the hard set of his mouth, Katie noted, had softened considerably until his eyes fastened on something across the room. Katie followed his gaze. The white cuff of Reverend Pinker's sleeve, where it fell just below his black waistcoat, was dappled with something red, like splatters of paint.

Swaying slightly from the cumbersome weight of her gown, Katie moved in for a closer look and stopped dead in her tracks. Reverend Pinker's sleeve was flecked with blood.

From the door at the far end of the room an usher in a blue velveteen uniform cried out, “The Duke of Twyford's carriage, if you please!”

With a swoosh of long skirts and the clack of men's boots on the marble floor, Katie followed the others out of the Byzantine Room, into the hall, and down the grand staircase to the main lobby. Katie caught sight of Toby in a throng of people at the bottom of the stairs. He was chatting with a girl selling peanuts—in small brown bags tied with string—from a box at her waist that was attached to a cord around her neck.

“Peanuts!” cried the girl, slanting her eyes flirtatiously at Toby. “Get 'em whilst they's hot! Nice 'n' hot! Here you go, luv, want some peanuts?” she thrust a bag under Katie's nose as Katie approached. “Hot as a chimney pipe, they is!” The girl elbowed Toby playfully in the ribs, and when he gave the girl a wink back, Katie felt a pang of irritation and a strong impulse to kick him.

Another girl, this one selling oranges, pushed through the crowd and sidled up to Reverend Pinker. “Ev'ning, Reverend. Did yer get m'message?”

“Molly, please. Not here, not now. Talk to me at the Charity Mission tomorrow.” The red blotches in Pinker's cheeks, which usually extended to the tip of his long nose, now suffused his entire face like crimson clouds.

“But I don't
wants
to talk to yer at the mission! What I
wants
to know is did you get me bleedin' message what I gave the gentleman in your box to give to you—”

“Trouble?” Major Brown stepped between the two.

“No trouble a'tall, guv.” The girl smiled sweetly. “Just seeing if the gent 'ere would be wantin' some oranges. Blood red, they is. Sweet and juicy.”

“I think not,” Collin cut in, sweeping the orange seller aside with a none-too-gentle nudge.

Moments later Katie found herself standing with the others outside the white-pillared entrance of the Lyceum Theatre. Reverend Pinker, she observed, was perspiring even though the night air was cool, and a crisp breeze fluttered the awning over the carriage park where the duke's coach was drawing up.

A group of newspaper boys swooped out of the darkness, waving sheets of newsprint and shouting, “
Murder! Murder in Whitechapel! Read all about it
!
”

Katie gasped. The smell of ink, not yet dry, permeated the air as the boys waved papers above their heads.

“
Murdered girl! Sliced from ear to ear! Read all about it
!
”

The cries punctured the night with something evil and tragic and ugly. Katie had been expecting something like this, but even so it sent a chill up her spine. But was it the Ripper?

“
Unidentified girl murdered in Whitechapel
!”

Major Gideon Brown thrust his hand in his pocket, drew out a coin, held it out to a newsboy, and snatched up a single sheet of newsprint. He scanned it quickly and made his apologies. “Beatrix,” he said breathlessly and then changed it to the more formal “Lady Beatrix” when he caught Katie watching him. “Forgive me, but I shan't be able to join you at the dinner party. You must go without me. I'll fetch a cab.”

Out of the mist a tall, hawk-faced police officer came hurrying forward. He exchanged several words with Major Brown, and fumbled in a breast pocket for his notepad. “Dunno her name, sir. We 'aven't got much information yet.”

Major Brown, clutching tight to the handle of his military swagger stick, said curtly, “Come with me, Constable Jarvis.”

Toby stepped forward. “I'll fetch you a cab, Major. What shall I tell the driver?”

“The Bow Street Morgue. There's a good lad.”

“Gideon,” Lady Beatrix protested, tendrils of blond curls fluttering across the silk rosebuds fastened into her upswept hairdo. “There's no need for a hansom. We'll take you to Bow Street. But surely, darling, this can wait until . . .” Her voice was lost on the wind.

“No, you go on without me. I'll join you later.” He leaned over and settled Beatrix's fur cloak more securely around her shoulders. “Pinker?” He turned to Reverend Pinker and in a commanding voice asked, “You'll see Lady Beatrix safely home after the party if I'm detained?” Then he stopped, noting Pinker's bright red face and the fact that he was sweating profusely. “You all right, man?”

“Fine. Yes. Fine,” stammered Pinker, running a knobby finger round the inside of his clerical collar. “I'll see everyone home. Indeed, yes. Of course, of course. My pleasure.”

“Major,” Toby said, drawing himself up. “May I go with you?” He hastily tucked in his shirt and adjusted his frock coat, which was several sizes too small for his muscular shoulders. When Major Brown nodded, Collin told Katie in a contemptuous voice that Major Gideon Brown was mentoring Toby. “It was Beatrix's idea,” Collin admitted grudgingly. “Toby wants to become an officer in the CID at Scotland Yard.”

Katie's heart pounded hard against her ribs. “
Toby
!
” she cried, improvising. “My fan! I dropped it over there—” She pointed toward the theater door, and when he darted back to look for it, she followed close on his heels. “I-I need a favor,” she stammered, steadying herself against a white column. “I need to . . .” But how was she to ask him? “I need to know if the dead girl's name is . . . Mary Ann Nichols.”

Toby's dark eyes regarded her coolly, then flashed with revulsion when she explained that she needed him to be her “eyes and ears” at the morgue. He drove a clenched fist into his palm, spun her around, and marched her back to the others waiting by the curb. The look on his face suggested that he thought she was insane.

A minute later, Katie stood dejectedly watching as Toby, Major Brown, and Police Constable Jarvis climbed into a hansom cab and sailed away into the darkness. Listening to the receding clatter of horses' hooves and the raucous hooting of carriage horns, Katie began to seethe with anger. How dare Toby dismiss her as if she were some addle-brained nitwit of a girl from the nineteenth century!