Nine Buck's Row (4 page)

“This should do it,” she said nervously. “Yes—he won't be able to resist me.” She glanced at the clock on the mantle. “My God! It's already twelve! He'll be waiting—I spoke to Peters during the intermission. He'll escort you to the cab. Don't wait up for me, Susannah—”

She seized the beaded jet reticule and rushed from the room. She had only been gone a few seconds before I realized she had forgotten the cloak. She would be furious with herself for having left it behind, furious with me for not reminding her of it. I took it out of the cardboard box and hurried after her.

I moved quickly down the hall, passing the dingy red brick walls that led to the stage door. The chorus girls were coming down the stairs again, dressed for the street now, their faces pale without make-up. They looked startled as I rushed past them. I stumbled over a rope, almost losing my balance. One of the girls laughed shrilly.

Peters was sitting just inside, the unlighted cigar still in the corner of his mouth, the wooden chair tilted against the wall.

“My aunt—” I began, breathless.

“She just stepped outside a moment ago. Want me to get that cab for you now?”

“Later,” I cried, throwing open the door.

The fog was thick, damp, completely obliterating the alley. I stood on the steps, holding onto the rusty iron railing, peering into that moving white thickness. I thought I saw something moving at the end of the alley. I heard footsteps.

“Marietta!” I called. “Wait! You forgot your cloak—”

I hurried down the steps, clutching the garment in my arms. I ran into the fog. Tendrils of mist stroked my cheeks like soft, wet fingers, and my footsteps echoed against the narrow walls.

“Marietta! Please wait—”

I stopped. I have no idea what caused it. I suddenly stood very still, my heart pounding. I was trembling without knowing why, and my nerves were tingling. The fog swirled around me, and there was no noise, only a curious faint panting that seemed to underline the silence. It was like someone … like someone breathing heavily. I peered through the fog, and I caught a glimpse of movement, the swish of a black cloak as someone stepped around the corner. No, it was merely a shadow.…

I took a few steps forward, and then my foot touched something. Marietta was stretched out on the ground, her, dress torn, and she was covered with scarlet ribbons, lovely scarlet ribbons that flowed onto the cobblestones in pretty streams. What was she doing there? Why were those ribbons flowing, flowing.…

I must have screamed. I don't remember. Peters came running out of the theater. He didn't see the thing on the ground. He seized my arms and kept asking me what was wrong, but I couldn't speak. I could only shake my head, my blood icy cold. Several of the chorus girls rushed out, talking in loud voices, and then they saw the body.

“My God!” one of them yelled. “Oh, my God! It's The Ripper! The Ripper! Get the police! The Ripper—'E's done it again!”

3

It had been a week filled with horror. Marietta's body had been taken to a dreadful shed behind the workhouse in Old Montague Street for the postmortem, as there was no mortuary in East London, and the surgeons had been indifferent, incredibly sloppy. I had had to go to that sordid shed to identify the body, although I had already done so once, and later on I had to attend the inquest, an amazing parody of courtroom procedure. There was no coroner's court in this part of the city either, and the proceedings were conducted at the Working Lads' Institute on White-chapel Road.

I was not called upon to give evidence. I had been interviewed a dozen times by a dozen different policemen, but none of them had shown any interest in what I had to tell them. Marietta had been murdered by a fiend, the same fiend who had butchered the other women, and all this talk of a gentleman and a diamond bracelet was sheer nonsense. The bracelet had been returned to me along with the rest of Marietta's belongings, and everyone assured me it was paste, a gaudy bauble like those worn by thousands of prostitutes.

After the funeral, I went back home with Millie. I was staying with her until other arrangements could be made, and I couldn't have endured that week without her. She stood by me, loyal, devoted, sharing my grief and my outrage at the unbelievably blundering way the police were handling the affair. It was almost as though they didn't want to find Marietta's murderer. A group of wildly undisciplined children could have conducted the investigation with more order.

Two hours after the funeral Sergeant Caine came to fetch me. He was a tall, slender young man with stern features and thick blond hair that kept tumbling over his forehead. His eyes were bright blue, and he spoke in a low-pitched voice that was little more than a mumble, yet he had an air of unmistakable authority. Caine seemed to be my official escort. He had taken me to the mortuary, to the inquest, to the various interviews, and now he was taking me to Scotland Yard. He gripped my elbow as we went downstairs, grim and protective, keeping an eye out for the journalists who had been plaguing me ever since that dreadful night a week ago.

“Those bastards're hanging around outside,” he said.

“The journalists? But why can't I talk to them? I don't understand.”

“Orders're orders,” he said grimly.

“Who ordered you to keep me away from them?”

“Never you mind,” he retorted, holding my elbow firmly and leading me across the shabby foyer.

My name had not appeared in any of the newspaper accounts of the hideous murder, and I had not been allowed to speak to any of the journalists. Once, outside the mortuary, I momentarily eluded Caine and talked to a man named Greene from the
Penny News
, telling him of Marietta's rendezvous with the mysterious gentleman and mentioning the diamond bracelet. He had been extremely interested, jotting down notes on a yellow pad, but the story had not appeared. Caine gave Jacob Greene a severe tongue-lashing when he discovered us outside the mortuary, and thereafter he kept a closer watch over me as we went about police business.

They swarmed around now as we stepped outside. Sergeant Caine glared at them, his eyes like blue fire, his fingers resting lightly on the butt of his truncheon. They fell back, grumbling, a tatterdemalion group with unkempt hair and ink-stained fingers.

“Come on, Caine,” one of the journalists shouted, “give us a break. What's happenin'? Where're you takin' her now? We won't print her name—after what happened to Greene none of us'd dare. Fired he was, his story ripped to shreds. What's happenin' now? Somethin' new developed?”

Caine didn't deign to reply. He gave them a menacing look and helped me into the waiting carriage. I sighed deeply as it clattered over the cobblestones. The streets were wet, and there were puddles of muddy water. The sky was a soggy gray. Everything looked dismal and sordid, all brown and gray and black, no color to be seen.

“Who am I going to talk to this time?” I asked.

“Sir Charles Warren himself,” Caine said, brushing aside the mop of blond waves on his forehead. “He wants to speak to you, Miss Susannah. It isn't everyone gets a chance to see sir Charles himself. You should feel honored.”

“Indeed? Everything I've read about him would indicate that the man's a fool.”

“Hold on, Miss! You shouldn't talk that way about Sir Charles. He's Her Majesty's Police Commissioner, appointed by the Queen herself. A mighty important man, he is.”

Sir Charles had been a general in the Royal Engineers before Queen Victoria elevated him to his present post, and he was primarily a military man. He had appointed several army officers to executive posts in the police force, and he ran Scotland Yard as though commandeering his own private army. Many people felt it was a less effective organization since his appointment. The public lacked confidence in him, and there was a great dissatisfaction with his methods of enforcing the law, even among the ranks of his own men.

The way he had handled the demonstration last year was a prime example of his methods. Over twenty thousand unemployed men had staged a peaceful demonstration in Trafalgar Square on November third, and Sir Charles had quickly put an end to it with his regiments of guards. Swinging their clubs, the guards had swooped down on the demonstrators as though they were a band of mutinous natives, bashing heads, breaking arms, quelling the “riot.” Two hundred of the demonstrators were badly injured, and two men died of wounds inflicted by Sir Charles's men. The newly appointed commissioner claimed he had merely been keeping the peace, but many Londoners felt otherwise. Millie's father, for one, claimed he should be hung from the highest gallows as a traitor to England.

This was the man I was going to see.

Sergeant Caine left me at Scotland Yard, and I was escorted down endless corridors by a pinch-faced clerk with myopic eyes and a poorly fitting green jacket. He set me down in a drafty waiting room and disappeared. I sat on the uncomfortable chair, waiting. The corridors swarmed with activity: bobbies clomping down the halls with grim faces, clerks rushing here and there with sheaves of papers, important-looking officials moving with ponderous steps, exchanging grave comments. No one paid the least attention to me. I watched the pigeons outside fluttering about the window ledges. An hour passed.

I grew more and more impatient. I had been here for an hour and a half now, and no one had so much as offered me a cup of tea. Thinking about the way I had been treated this week, how my story had been either ignored or laughed at, I fumed all the more, determined to leave if I wasn't summoned within the next five minutes. I had suffered a great shock, the loss of a relative, yet I had been shuffled about like a piece of useless baggage. It wasn't right. If no one would listen to me anyway, why should I sit here at the disposal of a man I already disliked? I wasn't a criminal to be kept on tenterhooks.…

The clerk with the myopic eyes coughed discreetly, standing in front of me. I had been so engrossed in my rebellious thoughts that I hadn't seen him approaching.

“This way, Miss Hunt,” he said. “Sir Charles will see you now.” He spoke the name with terrified reverence.

He led me down a short hall, showed me into the office and closed the door behind me. The office was very large and beautifully appointed, with deep maroon carpet and walls panelled in mahogany. A fire burned cheerfully in a gray marble fireplace, swords crossed over it, and there were various military items on display: a scarlet uniform in a glass case, on the walls a collection of firearms. A pale, faded-looking man in a brown suit sat in one corner, holding a briefcase on his knees. Sir Charles Warren sat behind a vast oak desk, fiddling with a stack of papers.

He ignored me for the present, straightening the papers, placing a silver paperweight on top of them, reaching for a black onyx inkstand. I cleared my throat, but he didn't bother to look up. He was a very busy man, and it was important that I realize this. I understood his tactics perfectly, and it didn't improve my humor in the least. I studied the rather garish oil painting of Her Majesty that hung behind his desk, the ornate gold frame dark with tarnish.

“Ah, Miss Hunt,” he said, finally looking up. “How nice to see you at last. I've heard a lot about you. Dreadful ordeal you've been through. Dreadful business. Sorry if you've been inconvenienced—”

His voice was a rumbling bark.

Sir Charles stood up, examining me closely. He was a coldly attractive man with the stern look of authority. There was a monocle screwed into his right eye, and he had fierce black mustaches, neatly waxed. Not very tall, he had a stiff military bearing, his back rigid, his gestures decisive. He wore a crisp, tailored uniform and black leather knee boots that gleamed with dull silver highlights. An impressive figure, I thought, and an intimidating one. I couldn't help but be a bit nervous as his piercing eyes studied me.

“I understand you've been talking to journalists,” he barked.

“I spoke to one man. I—I told him about my aunt's appointment, and he seemed extremely interested. He—he was fired. The story never appeared in the papers. I don't understand—”

“You're not expected to understand police procedures, young woman. We gave specific orders that your name not be mentioned in any of the rags. I personally issued the orders. Do you realize what danger you could be in if this fiend thought you might know something?”

“I—I hadn't thought about that.”

“Evidently not!” he snapped, glaring at me. “We know what we're doing, Miss Hunt. We don't need any assistance from you.”

“I wasn't trying to interfere, Sir. I just—no one seems to believe my story. I think it might be very important.”

Sir Charles gave a disgusted sigh.

“No one will listen,” I said timidly.

“If it will make you feel better, suppose you tell me.”

“Very well, but—”

“Speak up, girl! My time is precious!”

As I repeated my story, he strolled briskly about the office, slapping the side of his boot with a short leather riding crop. He would frequently pause and glare at me with those formidable eyes, as though he doubted the truth of my story. I told him about Marietta's secret appointment, but he merely pooh-poohed that. Sir Charles had his own theories about the identity of the killer, and he was openly impatient with anything that didn't match his own preconceived ideas. He seemed to consider me an overly-imaginative schoolgirl and quite clearly had little interest in what I was saying.

“And you think this man is The Ripper?” he asked.

“I think it's highly possible.”

“A gentleman, you say. Someone very important? Nonsense! Your aunt had an assignation with a stage door Romeo who didn't want her to know his real name. Happens all the time.”

“But he gave her the diamond bracelet—” I protested.

“Diamonds! Your aunt was a fool to believe that. Paste, my girl. Do you think for a minute that if those stones were real diamonds they'd have been returned to you? The men at the mortuary would've pocketed them in a minute and be out of the country by this time.”