City of Darkness (City of Mystery) (23 page)

Once the fluid was in, Severin began
unrolling the cloths that bound the body.  An arm tumbled free.  It was strange
- an abrupt, spontaneous gesture, as if the woman had moved of her own accord, and
Trevor abruptly stood, wavering uncertainly on his own feet.  It seemed vulgar
to remain to see them bare her and dress her and the complete silence of the
room was beginning to unnerve him.  The clank of the hypodermic needle against
the steel tray sounded as loud as a scream.  Phillips approached the table,
glancing over at him again. 

“What exactly did you need?”

“Hair samples.  A scrape of skin and
fingernail cuttings.”

Phillips did not ask him what he
planned to do with these things, which was lucky since Trevor could not have
answered.  He had read that the French police used samples from the victims as
well as the suspects, so he wished to have them at the ready. 

“From both women?” Phillips asked.

Trevor nodded, although he knew that
his request meant prying the nails from the coffin in the corner and revealing
what he could only assume was the horrifying visage of Catherine Eddowes.  Her
hollow-eyed face had visited his dreams for two nights as it was, but
considering what Phillips and his assistants went through on a daily basis, he
supposed he could muster up the courage to pull a strand of hair and clip the
woman’s fingernails. 

“I’ll get them,” Severin said
quietly.  Was it just Trevor’s imagination, or had the younger man looked at
him with sympathy?  I haven’t fooled them at all, Trevor thought.  This is a
fine business, for the chief coordinator of the Ripper case to sway on his feet
at the sign of a woman’s bare arm, for the man in charge to show such weakness
in the presence of subordinates.    

“Excellent,” he said briskly.   “Hair,
skin cells, fingernails, and if you’ll fold them in paper and mark them with
each victim’s name, I’ll be in my lab.”

It was a rather grand statement, since
his lab consisted of a bare wooden table, and Trevor turned back into the main
mortuary filled with doubt.  As he heard the unmistakable groan of nails being
pulled from a pine coffin he sat down in a chair and stared straight ahead at
the empty chalkboard.  Ah, but wouldn’t this be the ultimate joke?  If a man moved
heaven and earth to get a forensics lab, only to find he didn’t have the
stomach for the job?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

October 9

8: 17 AM

The sun was rising brightly over
Mayfair, unusual for an October morning in London.  Gage had opened the
draperies early to allow the rays to heat the house before Geraldine and the
girls awakened for the day. He had returned from his errands with a box of
fresh baked tarts and an armful of newspapers.  At nine, Gerry descended the stairs
still in her nightgown and robe, as she enjoyed doing on certain lazy days such
as this.  A clear day seemed to cheer up almost everyone, she noted, for even
Gage wore a smile as he greeted her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Morning, Madame.  Tea, tarts, and
newspapers in the parlor as you wished.”

“Thank you, Gage.  I see your walk
agreed with you.”

“Yes, Madame,” answered Gage, again
with the corners of his mouth curling up.  “Seems we have the start of a lovely
day.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and,
musing that if they lived in Tahiti, Gage would be absolutely mirthful, Gerry
poured herself a cup of tea and nestled herself into her favorite chair.  She
picked up a copy of the London Times and glanced over the headlines before
serving herself the plumpest apricot tart.

“Good morning, Aunt Gerry,” Leanna
said, entering the parlor also dressed in a robe.  “Have you seen Emma this
morning?”

No sooner had she asked the question,
when Emma entered from the kitchen, fully clothed, but as cheery as all the
others.  She took a plate and the closest newspaper and sat down herself.  The
women were in the habit of scouring the morning news for a mention of the
Ripper or a quote from Trevor.  For the last few days, however, the story
seemed to have died down a bit and after a few minutes, Leanna tossed aside the
Star with a sigh.  “Most of the accounts are just being repeated.”

“Listen to this,” Geraldine said,
waving her own paper.  “’The police still do not know who he or she is and seem
to be as baffled as the public.’  Imagine that.  ‘He or she’.  Do you think
there really is a chance the Ripper is female?”

“Oh, I doubt it,” Leanna said.  “More
likely just some reporter trying to get a new column out of the same tired old
information.  Raising the possibility of Jill the Ripper is just another way to
sell issues, nothing more.”

“Whatever they’re doing, it’s working,
for people never tire of violence and gore,” Geraldine said piously, managing
to ignore the fact that she purchased more papers than anyone.  Leanna shot
Emma a conspiratorial smile which went unnoticed, for Emma was intent on a letter
to an editor of the Times concerning anti-vivisection, and a familiar sounding
phrase had caught her eye.

“Gerry!  Gerry!  They’ve printed it. 
The Herman Strong letter.  It’s here.  And it’s on the editorial page, too,”
Emma cried, jumping to her feet and showing the section to Geraldine.

“Herman Strong?” asked Leanna. 
“Who’s he?”

“Let me see!  Let me see!” exclaimed
Aunt Gerry, snatching the paper from Emma’s hand and spreading it across her
plate.  Emma and Leanna gathered around her and read along with her,
Geraldine’s face slowly filling with glee.

“Marvelous,” she sighed.  “They
printed every line.”

“Herman Strong?” Leanna asked again.
“Who is he?”

“I’m Herman Strong,” Gerry said.  “I
send all my letters to editors under a male pseudonym, so they’ll print the
blasted things.  For years, I sent them with my own signature only to be
rejected.  Then one day while I was at a newspaper office arguing with an
editor, a strange thing happened.  They were in the process of removing me from
the premises when a very polite clerk whispered that I should sign a man’s name
to my letters and they would have a better chance of making the edition.  So I
did and at last I’m in print,” she explained with an ever-widening grin. 
“Her-man Strong.  Do you get it, darling?  I’m the ‘her’ who is as ‘strong’ as
any ‘man’.”

“Um, very clever, but I can’t believe
you’d…”

“Oh, I’m not happy to have to play
these silly games, but it’s a case of the message being more important than the
messenger.  If an editor believes a man wrote a letter against vivisection, he
deems it a worthy topic for public debate, and in the end that’s all that
matters.    People rename emotions, darling, when men have them.  What they
once called ‘hysterics’ becomes ‘compassion.’”  Gerry squinted down at the
paper.  “Scientific experimentation on live animals!  It’s absolutely
repellant!  I understand that even the Queen is against it.”

Leanna slumped back in her chair.  So
many things were bothering her lately.  When Tom had visited, his ease in
Gerry’s home had made it quite clear that he had traveled to London numerous
times during his first year of school.  The aunt who had been only a shadowy
presence to Leanna, had been a friend to him.   The city she had only glimpsed
on rare occasions, had been his holiday playground.  And, although she had
considered her younger brother her closest confidant, it was clear he had kept
many things from her.  Mostly the fact that he enjoyed – merely because he was
male – a richer, fuller, more exciting life.

Why had her family not taken her to
London more often?  During her years growing up in the country, she had rarely
questioned the small scope of her daily activities but now she was renaming
things herself and what she had once called simplicity was beginning to seem
more like monotony.  Her grandfather she could understand, for Leonard hated
the bustle of the city and probably would never have ventured there himself if
it hadn’t been for the museums and galleries.  But why hadn’t her mother
realized how much a jaunt to London would thrill a young girl?

Leanna’s mind drifted back to her
first week in London, an afternoon when she and Emma had been out looking at
dresses.  When the shopkeeper had noticed Leanna’s interest in the wine-colored
silk, he had slipped over to her side.  But when she had asked him the price,
he had only laughed and said not to worry.  The bill would not be enough to
drive her husband or her father to despair. 

“I don’t have a husband – or a
father,” she had said.  “But I do have money and I’m asking how much of it
you’d expect in exchange for this dress.”

A hush had fallen over the
already-hushed shop and the man had literally backed away from her, as if she
had suddenly sprouted horns.  Emma had merely looked up from the gloves she was
admiring and said “The price, Sir?” and the man had said promptly, “Seven
pounds.”

At the time Leanna had been unable to
understand where she had gone wrong.  She and Emma were the same age.  Leanna’s
mourning clothes did not indicate she was a woman of means and Emma’s cultured
voice did not indicate that she was a servant.  So how had the man so swiftly
placed them in their respective categories, decided that Emma was someone
capable of discussing money while Leanna was not?  She had tried to talk to
Emma about it on the way home but Emma had been no help.  Leanna had shaken the
bundle which held her new dress – Emma had been able to talk the shopkeeper
down to six pounds – and asked “Why wouldn’t he tell me the price?”

“He could see you were a lady,” Emma
had said shortly.  “Ladies may shop, in the sense that they select, but they
don’t haggle on the price and they don’t pay.”

“But how could he possibly know that
– “

“That I wasn’t a lady?”  Emma had
jerked her chin so violently that Leanna had fallen silent.  “Shopkeepers always
know these things, Leanna.  They can smell money from all the way across town.”

So I have money, but I can’t just go
out and spend it, Leanna thought.  Someone else has to spend it on my behalf. 
I can’t feel coins in my palm, I can’t vote, or think for myself, or kiss a man,
or row the Thames.  And the worst part of all is that I never knew all the
things I couldn’t do until a few weeks ago.  I’ve been deliberately held back
from my own life.  Preserved, like one of Grandfather’s specimens.   But for
what?  To what great end did they all plan to use me?

“Emma, this is cause for celebration,”
Geraldine said, pulling Leanna’s thoughts back to the present.  “Will you
assist me in selecting my clothes for the day?  I wish to take a walk, perhaps
call on Tess and then Fleanders.  Won’t he paw the ground when he hears of
this?”

“Today calls for the peacock silk,”
Emma said, following Gerry out of the room.  Leanna sat alone in the parlor. 
How unfair it was, when a woman as intelligent and educated as Aunt Gerry
cannot be taken seriously enough that her opinion can be printed in a simple
newspaper, she thought, reaching for a second roll.  She remembered John’s
words about his clinic -  that nothing was fair - and the tart tasted a bit
sour in her mouth.

Grandfather lied to me, she thought
grimly.  Trying to teach me and Tom that the world has a natural order, that
everything’s for a reason and it can all be understood, even mastered, if we
put our minds to it.  A big wretched lie.  Our lives are all a matter of
circumstances of birth, mere accidents of chance.  Leanna set the tart aside on
the nearest table and walked to the window, gazing out at the manicured gardens
on each side of the street, the neat brickwork, the symmetry of the houses. 
This was a lie too.  The whole street was a lie, an implication that the people
who lived there deserved to live there, that they were kept safe within these
gardens and gates for a reason, that they were somehow by birth entitled to
this pretty, secure, and pleasant life.  But, Leanna thought, what have I done
to deserve any of this?  A different spin of the wheel and I could be one of
those women walking the streets of the East End.

Men were so pragmatic. Trevor and
John and Tom… all of them saying that it didn’t matter how things are done as long
as they’re done.  But, still, it was shocking to learn that even Aunt Gerry was
willing to obscure her identity in order to serve a higher purpose. 

“Evidently I’m the one who’s wrong,”
Leanna said aloud.  But she didn’t really think so.

1:20 PM

“So, Neddy, you can see why we’re a
bit desperate,” Cecil Bainbridge said, settling back awkwardly in the spindle
chair.  “The best legal minds that promises can buy have all insisted
Grandfather’s will is unbreakable.  We’re left to find another way ‘round.”

Edmund Solmes pursed his lips.  “You
could play on your sister’s sympathies.  I’m sure if you both went to her,
asked for a hundred pounds apiece or so…”

“A hundred pounds!” Cecil exploded. 
“Scarcely a drop in the bucket to what I need, and when that’s gone I shall
have to go back and beg and wheedle for a hundred more and then a bit more. 
It’s endless, Neddy, just as it was when Grandfather was alive, only more
degrading this time because ‘tis my baby sister who is clutching the
pursestrings.  Try to understand my position…”