Anatomy of Evil (19 page)

“That does not change the fact that you are intriguing in this case,” the Guv said.

“That’s correct. I am. I am using my years on the force to collect information for the Home secretary. Not to your detriment. Robert insisted upon it. Rather, you have been given the opportunity to fulfill an ambition you would not have been able to do otherwise. We, both of us, hope you solve the case. If you discover the killer’s identity and communicate it to Swanson and Abberline, the public will never learn of it, but the members of the Yard will know. Warren’s board members shall know, as well. I’ll make certain of that.”

“You seem awfully certain of my abilities, sir,” Barker said coldly.

“Just because I do not gamble doesn’t mean I can’t recognize a fast horse when I see one. And while we’re on the subject, I never thought you would make an inferior detective. I merely thought there was too little about your past in your application. Years were missing. For all I knew, you were in jail, the way this little chap was. I couldn’t just accept your word on the matter.”

The “little chap” remark aside, this meeting was not turning out as we hoped. Instead of denying what he had done, he was explaining everything away. The problem was we did not trust him. Were we wrong or was he trying to pull the wool over our eyes? I could not say. Even Barker was flummoxed.

“So you are the Home secretary’s assistant now?”

“What of it?” Munro asked in return. “I have been hired here on a consultant basis. The work is such that I cannot discuss it. I have been lobbying for the commissioner position should it come open, since several members of the board work here in this building, but I have done so openly and aboveboard. You do not have a monopoly on honesty.”

“I should like to know how one can lobby for a position that is already filled,” Barker said.

“There are many politicians and citizens unhappy with how this case is being conducted by the administration. For example, when the first body was found, it was brought to the morgue, stripped of its clothes and washed down, removing any evidence of the killer.”

“I heard about that,” Barker admitted. “But it was a mistake. It’s what is normally done with a body prior to a postmortem. That was not Commissioner Warren’s fault.”

“No, but the next move was. The two men who did so should have been sacked, as an example. This isn’t the time to be generous. You are being very closely watched. The newspapers are starting to bay for blood. Even Her Majesty is angry. You can’t have the citizens of Whitechapel thinking the Met is doing nothing to protect the women there. This is not a good time to be commissioner of police.”

“What about Scotland Yard? I heard a rumor you might change it entirely, including its name and location.”

“I must admit I intend to modernize the Met, and when we move east to our new premises on the Embankment, I see no reason to carry the old street name with us. I am recommending we have our own laboratory and morgue with staff on the premises. The Bertillon system is inexact and we are considering new methods for identifying criminals. And there will be accounting for employees. No dead weight, you understand. No hiring because one is a friend of a friend, and annual evaluations of one’s work and attendance. Oh, and no drunkenness. I insist upon that. You would not believe the number of constables that stop in for a pint on their rounds. That day is past, or will be, if I am hired.”

“What will you do if the killer is captured and Warren keeps his position?” I asked.

“I will wait. Entrench, if necessary. Oh, it was a blow when Warren was hired over me. We were at loggerheads almost immediately. If Prince Albert can wait decades to become king, however, I can wait a year or two. There is certainly enough work here to keep me occupied.”

“What was Robert’s place in all this, precisely?” the Guv asked.

“He believed the hiring of nonmembers of the Metropolitan Police to the highest positions to be wrong, even if it meant that he himself was brought in from the Foreign Office. To his way of thinking, I should have been commissioner and Swanson the assistant. As to intrigue, we both know he is an honorable man, but he has been a spymaster for years. No one understands intrigue as well as he, or the necessity for it. We don’t do it because we like it. It is the only way to get things done. He watched the Fenians and the Irish groups alongside me. I know you, Barker. You would rather not sully your reputation, such as it is. But you work for yourself and don’t need funding. The rest of us must fight for every pence. I lost my pension when I quit to save my honor. Unless I am rehired, I shall lose it permanently.”

“I don’t want you interfering in this case,” Barker said.

“Such interfering as I intended has been already done. The die has been cast. We merely wait to see the outcome. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done, and I don’t need permission from a ‘special inspector.’ You have never been in my position before, so forgive me if I say I don’t need you to act as my conscience in the matter.”

“I was hired to track the Whitechapel Killer and find him. I will not be involved in any conspiracy to deprive Warren of his position.”

“I’m not asking you to do so. Circumstances may force him out without any of us doing anything. I am merely trying to be the one they offer the position to, if it is vacated.”

Barker nodded and rose to his feet. He bowed formally. “Thank you for talking with me,” my employer said. “My apologies for arriving without an invitation.”

“The door is open if you have more questions. I envy you. One of the crackingest cases ever to happen and here I am stuck at a desk. I’d give anything to be back with Special Branch again, truncheoning heads in ‘H’ Division. Is he really as bloodthirsty as they say?”

“Unfortunately, he is. Come, Thomas, we’ve got work to do.”

We walked down the hall to the stairwell again. Barker looked just as confused as I.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Barker admitted.

“Could it be that we are working on the wrong side?”

“Any side where we are working with Munro is the wrong side,” Barker said, his voice echoing down the stairwell.

“But I don’t want Warren to change Scotland Yard, either.”

“Nor do I.”

“So what do we do? I hate playing at politics.”

Barker rested his elbows against the rails. “We continue the way we are going … but cautiously.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Inside Scotland Yard the following morning, I changed into my uniform, and I was soon brewing my first pot of tea. I didn’t expect any reaction from switching teas, and was therefore not disappointed when I received none, though there was a certain smacking of the lips that was gratifying. It was as I was getting ready to make my second an hour later that my plan bore fruit. Two inspectors came back to where I was working and filled their cups themselves, talking all the while.

“‘Yours truly,’ he says. If that don’t take brass, I don’t know what does. Bad enough we ain’t caught him yet, without him thumbin’ his nose at us.”

“It’s a fake,” the second one said. “Someone having a lark at our expense. Some crackpot, or a Home Office johnny trying to make us chase our tails. ‘Jack the Ripper,’ my backside.”

It was just a name to me then, eliciting no automatic response as it does now. Still, it gave me a turn. I had no trouble remembering the name after the two men returned to their office. It must have been a letter, or it could not have been possibly faked, and it must have been taunting somehow in order to have been at “our expense.” Someone must have taken credit for the killings, ending with the facetious “Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.” Had the killer the gall to write the Yard and chide us for not finding him yet?

My employer had not been given an office, in spite of his position. There were no offices to be had. Instead, he was given a scarred desk in the corner of a crowded room. I was insulted for him, and would have made a scene if he hadn’t warned me to keep my head low.

When I entered, the room hummed with activity. A woman cried in a chair because her home had been broken into; a witness was being questioned, but his English was broken and difficult to understand; two inspectors were arguing how a theft at the docks might have begun, and a priest was assuring a constable of someone’s sterling reputation. So much noise. Barker works in near silence in our chambers, and even a small cough on my part will warrant his disapproval. I bent and spoke lowly into his ear. He nodded and pulled the repeater watch from his pocket.

“It is nearly nine
A.M.
Let us see how quickly we shall be informed of this new development in the case. I congratulate you. The kitchen appears to be a capital location to pick up insights.”

“Thank you, sir, but what do you think of the name?”

“You are the classics scholar, Thomas, not I. Extrapolate it for me, if you’d be so kind.”

“Well. Jack is the diminutive of John. It’s rather a jaunty name. There’s Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant Killer, Little Jack Horner, Spring-Heeled Jack. It’s a common name for adventurers, people who accomplish things. There’s bravery to it, audacity. They don’t write tales about Cyrils or Nevilles.”

“But none of the people you mentioned actually lived, if I’m not mistaken,” Barker said. “The first three are from fairy tales, are they not? The final is a legend: a fire-breathing man who can jump over walls. I hunted for him on his last known sighting in London, but found no evidence of his existence. That was before your time.”

“I wish I’d been in on that one,” I admitted.

“Don’t. It was hysterical women and trampled grass, nothing else.”

“Do you think he’s trying to suggest the old case?”

“Perhaps. I apologize. I interrupted you. Pray continue.”

“‘The Ripper,’” I continued. “Not ‘the Cutter,’ not ‘the Slasher.’ Ripping is mutilation. But there was no sign of ripping on the bodies. The weapon used was extraordinarily sharp, not a dull weapon that would rend flesh. Not even the victims’ clothes were ripped. Annie Chapman was wearing a kerchief and it had been sliced as neatly in twain as her throat.”

“It is meant to inspire fear, then,” my employer said. “As bad as being cut might be, and to be honest, all men fear the blade, having one’s flesh ripped is even worse. Whoever came up with this name is to be congratulated on imagining a memorable and awe-inspiring moniker.”

It took over two hours before anyone thought to inform the special officers of the news. They wouldn’t go so far as to not tell us, but they might as well have. A constable came and led us to the office of Detective Chief Inspector Donald Swanson.

Swanson was seated at a desk in an office with windows of frosted glass for privacy. There was just room inside for a desk with a chair and another for a visitor. He was a DCI and yet the space he worked in was no longer than mine in Craig’s Court. The walls were lined with photographs of criminals, presumably ones he had captured. I guessed they gave him incentive to go after more.

“Barker,” he said, offering a hand to be shaken, which my employer accepted. “Thank you for coming.”

“What can we do for you, Chief Inspector?” the Guv asked.

Swanson carefully reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a canceled postal card. “This arrived this morning. It has been passed around a good deal already, but I promised the commissioner that you would have your glance. Here it is.”

Barker took the card eagerly. It was addressed simply to “The Boss, Central News Office, London, City.” The writing was in red ink and the card had been smeared in a way that made it difficult to read. The lettering was large and clumsy.

“Read it to me, would you, lad?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they won’t fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper
red
stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope
ha.ha.
The next job I do I shall clip the lady’s ears off and send to the Police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.

Yours truly,

Jack the Ripper

Don’t mind me giving the trade name.

Wasn’t good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now.
ha
ha

Immediately, I pulled my notebook from my pocket and began to copy it with every misspelling and punctuation error. Obviously, it could be a hoax, but it could just as possibly be the genuine article. In either case, we had a small opportunity to see it, so I went to work quickly. As soon as I finished, Swanson picked up the card and put it back in the drawer.

“This goes to the commissioner now,” he said. “He’s taking it to the prime minister.”

“Would you care to discuss this later?” Barker asked.

Swanson gave a canny smile. “You would be in your rights to kick up a fuss if I withheld this from you,” the detective chief inspector said, “but I’m under no obligation to share any of my theories with you.”

The Guv stood and inclined his head. “That is so. Thank you, sir, for calling us in so promptly.”

Swanson narrowed his eyes to see if my employer was being ironic, but he wasn’t. We left the office.

“Two hours,” I muttered.

“The CID could have waited to the final moment of our shift to show us the card and still have considered it a prompt delivery. Two or three days, even a week, would not have been unheard of.”

“I thought the purpose in having such a pool of detectives is to have them cooperate, not compete.”