City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (40 page)

Medical bags were big, heavy, and
awkwardly shaped, so John’s shouldn’t be hard to find.  But it wasn’t in the
study, where newspapers and academic journals were scattered about the floor,
along with, Tom noted with some amusement, the latest copy of a pornographic
quarterly, The Pearl, which lay atop the heap.  He supposed Trevor and the men
of the Yard might view such a magazine as evidence of a perverse twist of mind,
prigs that they were, but Tom had left the same issue back in his dormitory in
Cambridge.   Good to know that even Saint John -  the kind of man who would
invite a woman into a pub because he wanted  to feed her -  had all the normal
impulses.

Tom moved back into the bedroom and
did a quick scan.  Still no bag, but his eye fell on a hamper in the corner.  He
pulled up the lid and found that almost every item of clothing inside bore
traces of blood.  Doctors certainly had occasion to be splattered with blood
but this, Tom was forced to admit, seemed excessive.  The clothing in the
bottom of the hamper was crusted with the color of old bricks, but the items
near the top were – for these, splattered was not the word.  One shirt was
soaked.  Without knowing fully why, Tom pulled it out to take with him.  A
professor at university had lectured on a new technique known as blood typing
and Tom wished he had paid more attention.  The lecture had been about how you
could infuse blood from one body into another, an idea radical enough in
itself, but someone in the class had also raised a hand to ask if it might be
possible to test blood and ascertain who it had come from.  Why had he not
listened better?   

 At the other corner of the bedroom,
there was a large armoire, a handsome old piece that hinted of inheritance.  The
sort of family heirlooms, Tom noted dryly, offered to third and fourth sons.  He
opened the creaky doors and was immediately rewarded with the sight of the
medical bag, which John had tossed on top of his shoes in a haphazard manner. 
Tom pulled it open and studied the array of knives tucked into side pockets.  You’d
need a rather big one if you planned to slice deep and the wound on the leg Trevor
had certainly looked deep enough.  The trouble was that if he pulled a knife from
this neat formation, sequenced large to small across a felt panel, John would
immediately notice its absence.  The man might be a sloven of the worst sort in
his rooms – luckily Leanna would be able to employ armies of maids to clean up
after any husband she chose -   but John was also a typical doctor, neat and
systematic with the contents of his medical bag.  Tom pulled out one of the
larger knives and tossed it across the room so that it landed noiselessly on
the bloodied shirt.  Perhaps if he put something else in the felt slot, it
might not be immediately evident to John that a knife was missing.  He looked
around the room until he found a pen on the desk about the same length as the
knife and slipped it into the felt holder.  It hardly looked like a knife and,
in fact, now that he considered it more carefully, the substituted pen was
clear evidence that someone had deliberately removed the knife.  Perhaps if the
slot was left empty, John would simply conclude he had left the knife
somewhere.

No.  No, that was no good either.  Doctors
weren’t in the habit of leaving their medical knives lying about. Tom rocked
back on his haunches, suddenly unsure why he was in this room or what he hoped
to accomplish.  If John was a serious suspect in the Ripper case, he would
undoubtedly be made aware of this fact soon enough, so Tom couldn’t say why he
was going to such lengths to disguise the fact someone had been in this room. 
And there was also something about being here, in the normally private world of
another man’s bedchamber, that was making Tom uncomfortably aware of how little
he knew John.  There was the man he’d watched earlier who laughed and slapped a
whore on the rump.  Then the same man had held the door open for her, all but
bowed as she passed.  Bought her a bowl of stew, sat and watched to ensure she
ate it, like a father might stand guard over a sickly child.  Hard to reconcile
all that with the weedy garden, the sloppily-painted windowsills, the sad
tumble of this room.  Not to mention a hamper full of bloody clothes, large stacks
of medical books, an expensive armoire, a collection of knives, and
pornography.  Any of these things were simple enough to explain on their own,
but brought together they created images Tom could not quite reconcile into a
single picture. 

Could Trevor have been right? 

I don’t know John, Tom thought
again.  I defended him on the basis of his profession, his public manners, the
fact my sister seems to fancy him.  I’ve come here certain I would find
evidence to exonerate him and what I’ve gathered might just as easily be his
downfall.   Tom slowly looked around the bedroom, trying to memorize the
details for future reference, but profoundly sorry that he had ever come.  Who
among us, he thought, could survive this sort of scrutiny?   Who among us would
like to have every bit of paint chipped away, every drawer opened, every paper
read aloud?

And just then, from downstairs, Tom
heard the unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock.

CHAPTER FORTY

11:50 AM

After breakfast, Emma had insisted on
getting back to her daily duties, and although the girl was still a bit shaky
on her feet, Geraldine let her have her way.  Activity and the solace of a
routine were probably the best things for her, at least now that her mind had
cleared.  Gerry could hardly see the wisdom of packing the girl back up to her
room and leaving her there alone to mull over the events of the last few days. 

But now, even though it had been her
idea, Emma was staring down at her own bed and wondering if she were truly up
to the tasks of housekeeping.  She had done such a poor job of making the bed
that the wrinkled sheets were visible through the dainty pink coverlet, like veins
extending throughout a woman’s hand.  She tried to smooth the wrinkles out, but
abandoned the project after a few feeble tries and finally ended up lying down
altogether.  Perhaps she should rest a bit and then go to the market.   Since
she had not been managing the cupboards, the kitchen had fallen into such
disarray that they had actually run out of tea at breakfast.  Emma closed her
eyes.

Downstairs, Gage heard four loud
bangs on the front door, only to open it and see not a soul.  Granted, Gage had
never been fleet of foot but it still struck him as odd that whoever had rapped
was totally out of sight, not visible even when he went out on the stoop and
looked first one way and then the other.  Just as he was going in, he noticed a
piece of paper lying at the doorstep, folded, sealed and with the words
‘Mistress Emma’ printed on the front in a neat hand.

“Who was pounding so on the door,
Gage?” asked Geraldine from the top of the stairs.

“No one, Madame.  Only this note
lying on the door step.  It has Emma’s name .”

“That’s queer.”

Gage climbed the stairs to the
landing and handed her the note.  “It says ’Mistress,’” he pointed out.

“I can see that,” Geraldine said,
turning it over in her palm.  “Do you suppose it is some sort of cruel joke, a
prank set in motion by someone who realized Mary was her sister?”

“Shouldn’t she see it anyways, Miss?”

“I suppose so,” said Geraldine, slowly. 
She walked up the stairs to Emma’s room and saw that the girl was napping.  So
she propped the letter on the bedside table and gathered up a few items of
rumpled clothing from a chair.  How long had it been since anyone had done the
laundry, Gerry wondered, descending the stairs to the kitchen where, with a
great deal of splashing, Leanna was washing dishes.

“We have truly sunk to a new low,
haven’t we?” Leanna said, noting her aunt’s expression.  “But I’m not sure how
much we can expect from Emma.  I think we must face facts and contact that home
for the unmarried mothers.  Have them send a girl over for a day or two. 
Perhaps one not too close to delivery.  The stairs are atrociously dusty.”   

“Something else,” Gerry said, nodding
but not really listening. “A letter just came for Emma.”

“A letter?  Who would write Emma?”

“My thoughts exactly.  Whole family
deceased, at least as far as we know.  But she kept her council about Mary and
perhaps there are others out there too.”  Gerry dropped the armful of clothing
to the table.  “You’re right about getting some help. The cupboard’s bare, the
banisters are laced in dust, and we’ll all be naked by the end of the week
unless someone does the laundry.”  Gerry sighed.    “And poor Emma is asleep
again, stretched out like some princess who needs a kiss to awaken her.   But
where is that prince going to come from?  It occurred to me as I saw her there
on her bed that I’ve been very unfair to the girl.  She’s young, as young as
you are, but what are her prospects cooped up in this house with me and Gage?  You’ve
heard her speak.  What shop lad would be brave enough to pay her court, and
yet, on the other side, what gentleman would notice her in that little white
apron?  She’s in a social nether land, neither servant nor peer.  Lost between
the classes and I’m the one who’s put her there.”

Leanna turned from the sink, wiping
her hands on her apron.  “I thought you didn’t believe in class.”

“I believe in a pretty young girl
having someone to marry.”  Geraldine looked up to the ceiling, as if she could
somehow see Emma sleeping far above them.  “If she stays in this house, she’ll
die a virgin and that isn’t a fate that suits everyone, is it darling?”

“Um,” said Leanna, biting her lip as
she untied the apron.  “I didn’t know you believed in marriage, either.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Leanna.  We’re
talking about Emma’s life, not mine.”  Gerry’s face softened with a sudden
thought.  “This letter.  Perhaps she does have a secret friend.  A beau.”

“I take it you didn’t peek.”

“It was sealed with wax,” Gerry said,
glancing again at the ceiling.

“The only person I know who still
uses sealing wax is my brother Cecil,” Leanna said, idly sorting through the
pile of Emma’s clothes on the table.  “And he considers himself quite a swell
with the ladies.”

“Well there you have it,” Gerry
said.  “She’s received a note from a man, perhaps a lover from her past or someone
who knows her only slightly but is stepping forward now to offer his
condolences.  Emma’s a healthy, normal, lovely woman and I’ve been foolish not
to realize that young men would notice her. Sometimes we don’t see the things
right under our nose.”

“Hmmm…”  Leanna said, staring down at
a delicate lace collar in her hands while her thoughts rushed back to the image
of Emma and Tom tangled in the sheets.  She had always imagined that an act
such as that would change a woman in an immediate and visible way, and yet Emma
had been simply herself at breakfast.  A bit quieter than usual, but seemingly
without stain or guilt.   It was obvious that Emma had been born into a home of
quality but that at some point, through circumstances the girl would not
confess, her life had cracked and fallen apart.  And now Gerry was quite right
- Emma existed in a sort of undefined and as yet unsettled moral territory, on
a social stratum which was neither servant nor equal.  At what point had she
decided that the rules of society no longer applied to her?  When had she
realized that the form of her previous life was so fractured that it was not
worth preserving, that she was better off walking away from the ruins of her
girlhood and starting anew? 

I don’t know Emma, Leanna thought,
and then the gaze of her memory fell on the image of her brother’s bare back. 
Perhaps I don’t really know Tom either, or anyone at all.   

“It’s possible, is it not?” Gerry
persisted.  “That Emma has a beau?”

 “I suppose,” Leanna said, running a
fingertip along the bodice of Emma’s dress.  The cloth was coarser to the touch
than material used for her clothes.  Is that how the shopkeepers could so
unerringly discern a lady of means from a paid companion, a sort of genteel
servant, by the texture of the cloth in her dress?  Leanna held the dress up
and to her and said “I’ve never noticed this before, which I suppose makes me
sound very foolish, but look….a servant’s dress is designed with the buttons in
front because she must do it up herself.  A lady’s buttons are in the back
because someone else fastens them for her.  It’s one way you can tell, isn’t it?
 Part of the costume.”

“I’ve never been a student of fashion,
Leanna,” Gerry said, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs with an inelegant
thud.  “And I don’t know why you’re talking about buttons when I feel as if the
whole world has gone loose in its axis.  That letter for Emma….it could bring
good news, or just another fresh horror and I don’t know if I should have taken
it to her or not.”

“You did what you had to do,” Leanna said. 
“And the only thing any of us knows for certain is that this household can’t go
on much longer without tea.”

11:50  AM

At the sound of the front door
pushing open, Tom sprang into action.  Coming in from errands, he figured,
could be noisy business.  The clanging of the keys, the scraping of the door,
the disposal of the coats and wraps.  Tom calculated he had perhaps forty
seconds before John was through the foyer and silence would descend on the
house once again.   No time to worry about whether or not he should remove the
pen from the medical bag.  Just time enough to close it and place it back,
hoping John would not notice the armoire door left gaping open in the general
dissemble of the room.  Dragging his feet slowly across the rug instead of
stepping – a trick he’d learned from his days playing hide and seek with Leanna
among the creaky floorboards of Rosemoral – Tom made it to the window where he
bent and tied the sleeves of the bloodied shirt into a little sack with the
knife buried inside.  Thank God for the briskness of the day.  John would have
to remove his gloves, hat, scarf, and coat which gave Tom exactly enough time
to step through the still-open window and out onto the roof.  He pushed the
window closed as quietly as he could, dropped the bundled shirt off the roof, then
scrambled down the drainpipe after it.  He dropped the last few feet, rolling
an ankle as he landed, twisting it so badly that he had to bite his tongue to
keep from crying out.