Anatomy of Evil (37 page)

On the floor by the desk were wires and red paper, the raw materials for making paper flowers, a minor industry in the East End. The paper was covered in dust. The Kosminskis must have tried to force some work out of their youngest, but he would not or could not oblige. I did not envy Wolfe Kosminski trying to deal with this recalcitrant brother.

A coat hung on a broken coat rack, by a deerstalker hat. I felt in the pockets on either side, but they were empty. Nothing. Nothing so far. Where might he hide something? The man owned practically nothing.

I patted the bed from one side to the other, looking for the knife or something completely disgusting. An old folding screen stood against the back wall, but a quick glance showed there was nothing on the floor behind it. In the far corner I encountered something hard and square. It was the last thing I expected to find. A book. A rather large book. I pulled it from where it was concealed, in the corner under the mattress by the pillow. I pulled it open, and glanced down. Turned the pages, and glanced again. I was late. Closing it carefully, I stowed it away again and arranged the pillow, then I stopped and backed away, taking in one last visual sweep of the area. Quietly, I eased the door open and slipped out.

“Mr. Kosminski, I feel you have been ill-used. It is not right that one Jewish factory should be subject to persecution while the Gentile businesses beside it receive no such abuse. We shall make an issue of it, sir, I promise you. This cannot go on. Do you know that several kosher shops have had bricks thrown through their windows this very week? But come, sir. I see you must be about your business, and I must be about mine. Be sure to see my article in the
Clarion Herald
this week. Good day, sir!”

No sooner did I get out the door than I fell into a fit of coughing. My stomach was trying to crawl out of my throat. The next I knew, Wolfe Kosminski was slapping me on the back.

“Are you unwell, Mr. Llewelyn? You look nearly green.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kosminski. I fear I have been working too close to a certain room. My wish was that I could grow accustomed to it, but the flesh is weak.”

“It does you credit for trying. This mantle is coming along well. You will soon be making them all by yourself, I think.”

Acting as if I had no other wish than to make mantles for fashionable women for the rest of my life had become second nature by now. When had I become such a liar? I told him anything to make him go away so I could finish coughing up my spleen.

There were still two hours to go before I could return and tell Barker my news. They dragged even worse than the ones that had trickled minute by minute to five o’clock. But then, that is private enquiry work. Long stretches of boredom punctuated by intense minutes of pain and disgust.

Finally, Aaron returned to his nightly incarceration, looking manic and flushed. I signed Wolfe’s ledger logging the time. I said good-bye and walked out the door, down Goulston Street, and into an alleyway that led into Cambrian Street, where I let myself into our rented flat. I ascended the stair.

Barker was in his perch, looking down onto the skylight windows of the factory. The smoke from his pipe circled his head. He turned on his stool and looked at me.

“Well?” he asked.

“No organs, no knife, not so much as a bloody rag.”

“Blast!” he barked.

“But there was a book hidden under his bed. A German anatomy book.”

“An anatomy book?”

“I don’t know if he can read, but his filthy fingermarks were all over the illustrations, and they were so dog-eared as to be almost falling out.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“We now have enough,” Barker announced that evening, standing across from the factory in Goulston Street, “to suggest that Scotland Yard give us a constable or two to watch Aaron Kosminski.”

“I’d have thought that a certainty,” I said.

“Not necessarily. The evidence you found, while damning, is circumstantial. He owns a book on anatomy. So do most doctors. He is of diminished mental capacity, though he may possess a cleverness we haven’t seen so far. He attacked his sister-in-law with scissors.”

“You know, that doesn’t make sense at first glance. His record at the workhouse said he was trained as a hairdresser, but no one would train someone who spent his days staring at the wall, muttering to himself.”

“What are you driving at?” Barker asked.

“I suspect that he’s been declining mentally ever since he left Poland. At eighteen, he might have been neat and orderly, reasonable and able to speak. Since coming here, however, his mental faculties have given way and he has become violently insane.”

“That might be difficult to prove without questioning his family, but if it is true, what would it prove?”

“It’s the timing, sir. At one time he may have had no thought of killing anyone. Then one day he did and he may have ruminated on it without doing anything about it. But finally, in August, he gave in to it. There has to be a logical progression of his sinking into madness.”

“Unless there was a catalyst,” Barker said. “A trigger.”

“You mean his sister-in-law?”

“Aye. They came here, three bachelors. Then one of them gets married to a local girl. Soon she is with child. Now it could go either way. He might hate the changes of having first one stranger in his life and then a little one, or he might have developed stirrings, longings for her.”

“It’s possible his illness may have retarded the onset of puberty,” I said. “Perhaps he found himself having all these confused feelings and desires. She won’t give him what he wants, so he attacks her in anger.”

“But when he returns from his time in the workhouse he sees women nearby that could gratify his sudden needs. He’s not a normal twenty-five-year-old, however, so instead of having the traditional rite of passage of boys, he cuts her throat.”

“Why?”

“Who knows the answer to that? Because he’s mad. Perhaps she belittled him. Perhaps they all did. Unfortunates are not known for their discretion. She told him he smelled. She called him a scarecrow. Or perhaps she refused him because he was a Jew, or insane, or because he won’t or can’t talk, or because he stares. There are a hundred reasons at least. These women are bold as brass. They won’t spare the feelings of a man like that. If she got him angry enough, he might cut her throat without hardly realizing he’s done it.”

“That’s good reasoning. You see, we must have a convincing argument for Swanson and Abberline. We have to know who, what, when, why, and how. A story, like you just came up with, whether all the facts are true or not, may help to convince them. It is not necessary that they believe he is the only suspect. In fact, if they do, we may be pushed to the side. We just want to convince them that he is a possible suspect. Let us go down to ‘H’ Division and see what we can do.”

I was tired after my long day, and famished, but I wasn’t going to argue with my employer. Having discussed it thoroughly, he did not seem inclined to talk, so we marched down Commercial Street and made our way to Leman Street. Our luck held there. Swanson had just arrived in order to confer with Abberline. I thought Swanson might be easier to convince of the two. Abberline seemed likely to prefer his own theories.

“Gentlemen, might we have a word?” Barker asked.

The two chief inspectors were seated at a table scarred with tea rings. They looked up at us.

“What can we do for you, Barker?” Abberline asked.

“I promised Mr. Anderson that I would not withhold material from you and I intend to keep my promise. Mr. Llewelyn and I, having established alibis for the various suspects connected to the royal family, have looked elsewhere. We’ve been tracking a suspect for whom there is already a file, and we came upon some new evidence this afternoon.”

Both of them sat up, Swanson looking hopeful, while I saw doubt on Abberline’s bewhiskered face.

“Does this suspect have a name?”

“Kosminski. Aaron Kosminski.”

The chief inspectors looked at each other as if they both tried to pull the name from their memory. They must have had hundreds of suspects by now.

“Fellow attacked his sister, didn’t he?” Swanson asked, after a moment.

“That’s right,” Abberline said, snapping his fingers. “He’d been put in the workhouse while she was giving birth. Not much more than a youth. The smelly one!”

“What put you on to him?” Swanson asked.

“His family’s mantle factory is in Goulston Street, where the commissioner wiped away the message.”

“‘The Juwes are the ones who will not be blamed for nothing,’” Abberline quoted. “You think someone was trying to tell us something?”

“Perhaps. We realized the only alibi he had was that he was locked up at night. No one was actively watching him, you see. If there were some way for him to get out and return, he would have no alibi and would be close to several if not all of the murders. Therefore, I got Mr. Llewelyn a situation in the factory.”

“That’s more important than tea in ‘A’ Division?” Abberline asked.

“Regrettably, yes. Tell them what you found, Thomas.”

“This young Kosminski fellow, Aaron, has a small room on the premises. I thought it worthwhile to see if there was anything he had concealed there, some proof that he was Jack the Ripper. I believe I found it.”

Both Swanson and Abberline moved to the edge of their chairs. The latter was not going to let it go without comment.

“Well, out with it! What did you find?”

“An anatomy book, well thumbed. Printed in German. You’ll recall he speaks almost no English.”

“Can the fellow even read?” Swanson asked.

“It had diagrams, sir. Anatomical drawings of female reproductive organs. Well looked at, if you know what I mean. There were dirty fingermarks all over it.”

Both of the inspectors tried to speak at once. Swanson broke into a gap-toothed grin and even Abberline had a wry smile.

“We know there is not enough evidence to convict him based upon the presence of a book,” the Guv said. “However, I have secured rooms on the first floor across the street, which have a fine view of the factory. But we are just two men. If we had a constable or two to watch the factory overnight, they might be able to see if he goes in and out.”

“If he takes one step out into the street, we’ve got him,” Donald Swanson said.

“Where does he go?” Abberline asked.

“Anywhere and everywhere. Mostly north of Commercial Street. Within six or seven streets of his home in any direction, if one could call it a home.”

“Tell us about the family again. There is a brother in charge of the factory, isn’t there?”

“Wolfe,” I said. “And another brother, Isaac.”

“Have you questioned them?”

“Not yet. I was preserving my incognito.”

“We can question them again at the right time.”

“Does he still reek?” Abberline asked.

“Like nothing I’ve ever smelled before,” I said. “It’s horrible.”

“When does he leave the premises?”

“They let him free around five every day. He sleeps most of the day away. I suspect he is completely nocturnal.”

“A real lunatic, eh?” Abberline said. “He does everything but bay at the moon.”

“One’s heart must go out to the brothers who must tend to such a fellow.”

“Sorry,” Abberline said. “I’m already sharing a piece for every girl he cut up. I’ve run clean out of sympathy for him.”

“You’ll get your two men and not constables,” Swanson said. “I want two plainclothes detectives, seasoned veterans. You won’t mind sharing your room with a couple of officers, will you?”

“No, sir,” Barker replied.

“Good work.”

Abberline would not leave it at that. “No royal involvement in the case, then?”

“Both suspects at the palace have iron-clad alibis.”

“You’re sure? Buck House has a reputation for leaking like a sieve.”

“New safeguards have been put in place to make certain no one could enter or leave.”

“A shame. The duke is out of our hands, but I’d like to see Stephen prosecuted under the Labouchere Amendment.”

“One could not do so without involving the royal family,” Barker said.

“Barmy, isn’t it? Her Majesty is pushing us for quick action, while her grandson is visiting fancy houses in the Ripper’s territory. Someone needs to inform the old girl.”

“Would you like the honor?” my employer rumbled.

Abberline put up his hands. “Not I. Sounds like a duty for the royal liaison.”

“It is being managed discreetly. Sir Henry Ponsonby will inform His Highness, the Prince of Wales. At some point the prime minister will be involved.”

“Something must be done,” Abberline continued. “Not about the prince, I mean this Ripper fellow. He’s making us all look like idiots. Look, I don’t care what your politics or your religion are. I don’t care how you feel about the commissioner or Munro or even Anderson. It’s all moot if the Yard is discredited to the point that we become a laughingstock. If the chaps above us are locked in a political struggle, I say we all work together to stop the Ripper for the good of the Yard. Donald here has a subject he’s watching closely as well, a fellow named Druitt. I was hunting an American named Tumblety for a while, who was in London collecting female organs in specimen jars, but he was on his way to America when the double event occurred.”

“I agree we should work together,” Barker said. “What of you, Donald?”

Swanson sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“I know what has been said around here, or at least implied,” he said, his Scots accent coming out under pressure. “I have not been impeding the investigation in order to force Commissioner Warren to resign. That is a dangerous game which could end with no survivors. For a month, I have believed that the killer is a highly intelligent person that has been sending us on a goose chase, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he is a lunatic working randomly. We have Druitt in the East End, subject to lapses in memory, and now we have this Kosminski laddie, little more than a teen, who owns a book of anatomy which cannot be admissible in court.”

“That’s the problem!” Abberline cried. “If this were France, we could arrest them both, search their rooms, and find all the evidence we need to convict them. The laws of this country require that we be open and aboveboard, and find the proof before we arrest them. It’s not enough that we know for a fact that one is the Ripper.”