The Return of Moriarty (11 page)

In the meantime the specter of Jack the Ripper—as the Whitechapel murderer had now come to be known—lowered over the dismal streets of the East End. But as week followed week and no other victim fell under the Ripper's blade, a false sense of security settled on everyone, from Paget's men to the police and vigilantes who patrolled the streets, and the loitering ladybirds who walked them.

On the evening of November 8 Montague John Druitt made a fourth sally from the school at 9 Eliot Place, Blackheath, and took the train to London. Paget's man on duty was an experienced watchdog by the name of Frederick Hawkins.

Moriarty had devised an ingenious system for Paget's watchers. They worked on a rota system, and each man had a runner—usually a young boy being trained for other work, either as a dipper or cracksman's mate: a snakesman, as they were called—who, because of his youth, build and turn of speed, could be sent to warn of any sudden change of movements by Druitt.

On this occasion Druitt took a train from Blackheath to Cannon Street, Hawkins actually traveling in the same compartment, while the runner, a lad of some ten years, was on the same train.

Druitt acted true to form, taking a hansom from Cannon Street to the Inner Temple, entering by the Gatehouse at Middle Temple Lane. Once he was in, Hawkins took up his lonely vigil, sending the lad off to report the movement to Paget, suggesting that his relief should take over from that point at eight the following morning. Paget had been uneasy during the previous three occasions when his men had followed their quarry into London itself, for he was well aware that Druitt could enter the Inner Temple by one gate and slip in and out with ease through another. He knew that he should at these times have quickly provided men to watch the other entrances, but as nothing untoward had occurred at other times he did not press Moriarty about it.

Hawkins was relatively fresh, having relieved the day man only fifteen minutes or so before Druitt left for Cannon Street. He remained awake through the night, taking what shelter he could during the bouts of rain that fell heavily in the early hours.

Dawn broke, cloudy and overcast, but at seven in the morning Hawkins was amazed to see a figure he recognized hurrying through the early light toward the Gatehouse. It was Druitt, dressed in a long rust-colored overcoat and a deerstalker hat. Hawkins was able to see that he wore a red neckerchief and that his face, adorned only by a sandy mustache, was, as he put it later, “as white as death.” Druitt walked quickly, though with a gait that suggested extreme fatigue. He was also carrying a package that appeared to be wrapped in American cloth.

Hawkins, in fear, realized immediately that at some point during the night Druitt must have left the Temple by either the Embankment or Tudor Street and was now returning through the normal entrance. Immediately, Hawkins sent his runner off to pass the information to Paget. At eight o'clock his relief arrived with another runner and Hawkins quickly made his way to the house off the Strand, where he found Paget.

By half-past nine Paget, Spear, Colonel Moran and Moriarty, together with Hawkins, were gathered in the drawing room. The mood was anxious and grim as it was now quite plain that Druitt had managed to evade their surveillance for some unspecified period during the night. Both Paget and Spear had sent men into the Whitechapel area so that any untoward incident could be reported as quickly as possible.

It was the morning of the Lord Mayor's show, but down in Whitechapel there were many who were disinclined to go up to the City to watch the parade. One of these was John M'Carthy, who, besides keeping a chandler's shop in Dorset Street—the most evil street in London—owned several properties in the area, including six depressing cribs in the gloomy Miller's Court. At number thirteen there lived a relatively young whore, Mary Jane Kelly, who sometimes came the Rothschild about her past, calling herself Marie Jeannette Kelly. She was twenty-five years old and her rent was overdue to the tune of thirty-five shillings.

At about ten forty-five on this Friday, November 9, M'Carthy sent his assistant, Thomas Bowyer, to 13 Miller's Court to extract what he could in the way of cash from Miss Kelly. Instead of money, Bowyer got a fright he would remember to the grave. On getting no answer to his repeated knocking, he pulled aside some sacking that covered a broken window pane and peered into the room. Mary Kelly was there, scattered all over the room. She lay dead on the bed, her head almost severed from the body, ears and nose cut off and the face slashed almost beyond recognition. There were bloodstains everywhere. On a table beside the bed were her breasts, heart and kidneys, while pieces of her intestines hung from the picture-frame nails.

It was half-past one before the police and doctors broke in the door, but Moriarty and his men had received the news, complete with gruesome details, before midday.

“So now we know,” Moriarty said, in a voice as cold as the grave. “There must be no more of this.”

“You want me to arrange it?” asked Paget.

“It has to have some hint of subtlety. Yes, when it has all been done, I would like you, Paget, to arrange it, but first I think Moran had better give him the stone jacket.”

The men talked of the plan for the next three hours, interrupted only by the shouting of newsboys in the street below, calling, “Murder in Whitechapel. Another 'orrible murder. Terrible mutilations. Read about the Ripper's latest victim.”

The watch on Druitt was doubled, but he did not make any more journeys from Blackheath to London before the term ended at Mr. Valentine's school. He did, however, have a visitor on November 30, the day before the end of term. He arrived at 9 Eliot Place just before five o'clock in the late afternoon and did not give his name, just asked if he could see Mr. Druitt on a private matter of some importance. It was, of course, Colonel Moran, and when the two men faced each other in the staff parlor on the ground floor, he had little to say.

“Mr. Druitt,” he began, “I will say this once and once only. I know who you are and you do not know me. I know what you have been about in the East End and I have proof.”

Druitt, who looked pale and drawn, stared about him wildly.

“Nobody else need know,” Moran continued. He had made certain that his back was to the door and had one hand in his pocket, gripped around the butt of a Shattuck .32 rimfire revolver. “Today is Friday. On Monday evening at six o'clock you will meet me at the Howard Arms, which you know is not far from your chambers in the Temple. You will be alone and tell nobody. When we meet, I will hand over my evidence for the sum of sixty pounds. It is not much to ask and well within your means. I shall see you on Monday, Mr. Druitt.”

With that, Moran gave a curt bow, opened the door behind him stepped back into the hall and was out of the door and away before Druitt could make any answer.

There was much rain over the weekend. On the Saturday Druitt left 9 Eliot Place and moved into 9 King's Bench Walk, his lodgings in the Temple. As before, he was shadowed by Paget's men, and this time all the Temple entrances were watched.

It is fact that Druitt was seen alive on the blustery morning of Monday, December 3, but nobody observed him making his way toward the Howard Arms off the Embankment a little before six o'clock in the evening.

Moran sat at a table in the small, pleasant, paneled taproom. There were not many people abroad on that evening because of the inclemency of the weather, but two other men sat in deep conversation at another table. The men were Paget and Spear. Moran was waiting for his guest and had in fact already ordered two glasses of brandy, one of which he sipped quietly as the time moved slowly by.

Druitt arrived a few minutes after six and went straight over to Moran.

“I have the money. A check and gold.” Druitt said quietly, his hand moving toward his pocket.

Moran made a fast motion with his hand.

“Not in here. Sit down, my dear Jack, and have a little brandy. It will warm you.”

Reluctantly, Druitt seated himself, looking very nervous. He drank quickly, just as Moriarty had told them he would. Nobody had seen Moran pour the white powder into the brandy as he carried the drinks to the table.

Druitt spoke only three times.

“Where is the evidence?” he asked—to which Moran replied, “In good time. I have it here,” patting his pocket.

When he had almost finished the brandy, Druitt remarked, “There was good reason for it.”

“I am sure,” nodded the colonel.

“Those poor wretches living in filth. Someone had to draw attention to it. Perhaps they will do something good about it now.”

He swigged back the remaining brandy.

Spear and Paget rose and left the bar. A few minutes later Druitt shook his head and asked if it was particularly hot in the room. He looked as though he was about to faint.

“You need some air,” Moran said, getting up and helping Druitt to his feet. “Come, we'll get the business done outside.”

Druitt's knees were buckling under him as they reached the door. Once outside he swooned and was caught under the arms by Spear.

The two big young men, with Moran acting as a crow, carried the Ripper across the road and laid him on the ground. Paget had already prepared a pile of stones with which they weighted Druitt's pockets, before tossing him, like a bundle of rags, into the rising waters of the Thames. Even in the bad light they observed a flurry of bubbles near to the place where he had sunk, weighed down by the heavy stones.

Montague John Druitt's body was discovered on New Year's Eve.

There were no more Ripper murders, and Moriarty smiled to himself as he recalled how he had rid the area of that terror, the memory of it strengthening his resolve to rid it also of Michael the Peg.

He slept soundly now, dreaming only of childhood as a small boy in Ireland, of the vivid green of the country, the animals and birds of his youth and then the sudden uprooting: the crowded boat tossing its way to Liverpool; his tall, thin elder brother sneering at his vomiting; his other brother offering comfort; his mother, white and red-eyed, and his father notable for his absence.

The dream whirled around through the night, throwing pictures as clear as day into his head: the new house, smaller than the farm; strange sounds and even stranger faces; the schoolroom and the master announcing that his brother, James, would go a long way in the world and his sense of hatred toward this genius who seemed to have taken his father's place in the family. There was also a boy called McCray, who taught him how to thieve small things, kerchiefs, sweetmeats and the like. He remembered the days when they were hungry and went out to “prick in the wicker for a dolphin,” as they used to call thieving bread—dangerous work in those days.

In the first seconds of waking, Moriarty imagined that he was still back in 1888 at the house off the Strand. But that was only the tail end of his thoughts in the early hours and his mind quickly adjusted to the present and to the many complicated duties he now had to face—dealing with the incarcerated Colonel Moran, getting the Jacobs boys out of the 'Steel, driving Michael the Peg and his mob from Whitechapel, and a dozen more urgent assignments that skulked in the foggy patches around the narrow alleys of his mind. Today there was much to do. Tonight he would meet Alton, the turnkey from the 'Steel, then later he had the assignation with Mary McNiel, which would mix business with pleasure in a most attractive manner. From now on, life would be full for Moriarty.

Mrs. Wright had prepared the Professor's breakfast, grilled bacon, kidneys and sausages—all bought from Warwick Field & Company, Wapping High Street, and served by Lee Chow, who bustled about with the eternal smile splitting his moon face. The other members of the “Praetorian Guard” had been out since first light, getting on with the considerable work that had to be done before the Professor could reasonably claim that he was back in a position of full strength. It was important to Moriarty that his control of the capital should be reestablished. His representatives from the other major European cities would be in London by the twelfth of the month, and they had to see and believe in his strength.

Before finally going to bed, Moriarty had switched one of Ember's jobs, putting it onto Paget's shoulders. Ember had a great deal of work to accomplish: With Parker and his band of lurkers, Ember had to discover the full extent of Michael the Peg and Lord Peter's activities; also, and most important, the names of the Peg's top lieutenants. Moriarty also instructed him to look into the matter of the proposed burglary at Harrow. This last chore he had now directed to Paget, to be carried out once the most faithful punishers had been brought to the warehouse; a wise move because bringing in the punishers was a relatively simple job that would take little time, while the trip to Harrow could possibly take up the rest of the day, keeping Paget out of the way so that Spear, once he had reported on the condition and whereabouts of Colonel Sebastian Moran, could make his discreet inquiries regarding Fanny Jones, Paget's young woman.

Moriarty wished to clear the board, bringing all the matters in hand up to date; so when Lee Chow returned to his chambers for the breakfast crockery, the Professor motioned for him to be seated in the chair that stood opposite the large desk.

“Lee Chow, you remember last night Mr. and Mrs. Dobey came and talked about their daughter—Ann Mary?”

“Ann Maly Dobey burn bad with acid?”

“Yes. You remember?”

“I got good ear. I hear much, no speakee until asked.”

“Her parents say the man Tappit threw the vitriol, the acid, in her face. I want you to go out and find the truth.”

Lee Chow's face was once more slashed with the broad grin.

“I find tluth. I find it good. Get all facts chop-chop.”

Moriarty looked sternly at him.

“I want no errors, Lee Chow. No mistakes. If Tappit is not the man, then you find out who is, and why it was done. Understand?”