Death at Whitechapel (11 page)

And having triumphantly delivered this parting shot, she tossed her head and sauntered out of the kitchen, leaving Sarah Pratt, for once in her life, with absolutely nothing to say.

 

In the library, Charles was reading the first forty pages of
The War for the Waterway,
which Winston had sent with his mother—a better title Charles thought, was
The River War,
and he made a note to mention it to Winston. The boy had an uncanny knack for description, he thought admiringly. About the Sudan, which Charles knew well, Winston had written:

Charles sat for a moment with his eyes closed, smoking his pipe and thinking. Winston's words recalled to him the angry landscape that he knew very well and hoped to forget. But the past was not dead and gone, as some might wish. His own military experiences in the Sudan lived on in him, Khartoum and Gordon's defeat lived on in British souls, and now Winston's book would give an eternal life to the bitter revenge that had been exacted at Omdurman, so that it could never be forgotten, by victor or by vanquished. Even if at some future day, there might come a generation that could no longer recall why Britain was in Egypt,
The War for the Waterway
—or whatever it would come to be called—would tell them. Of course, it was good to know the past. But to know too much about it was not always a good thing.

Charles's musings were interrupted by the sound of cart wheels on gravel. He opened his eyes and went back to his reading. The cart departed a little later, and some moments after that, Kate and Jennie joined him. He put down Winston's manuscript. His smile faded at the somber looks on their faces, and a moment later, when he had read the typed note and the newspaper clipping, his expression was as somber. So there had been more—much more—to the blackmail matter than Jennie had cared to reveal last night. Unless he was mistaken, she was in a great deal of trouble.

He looked at Jennie. “You are the veiled woman seen leaving Mr. Finch's rooms?”

Her nod was barely perceptible. “I was afraid I might be seen and recognized. I wore a heavy coat and several layers of dark veil.” She glanced over her shoulder, as if to assure herself that none of the servants was in the room. “I went up the stairs and knocked at the door. When there was no answer, I opened it, since I was expected. I did not want to leave and come back again.” She shivered and wrapped both arms around herself. “I saw him there, dead, at his table. The knife was ... still in him. I went immediately back to the cab, and home. I could not sleep that night for thinking of it, and trying to think what to do. I did not want to stay in Great Cumberland Place, for fear the police might come and question me. The next day—yesterday—I came here.”

Charles opened his mouth, but Kate asked the question first. “You left from your house and returned to your house by cab?”

Jennie nodded, biting her lip. “I know now that it was foolish. The police will search out the driver, and he will surely remember me. But I only did what I was told to do—and of course, I had no idea that I would find a ... dead man!”

“What a terrible shock!” Kate exclaimed. She reached for Jennie's hand. “You must have been frightened nearly out of your wits.”

Charles looked down at the address in the newspaper clipping. Cleveland Street, not far from Middlesex Hospital, in the boroughs of Marylebone and Saint Pancras. A rather bohemian area, frequented by artists and artisans, with salon-style coffee rooms and rather good pubs. “Why did you go to see this man?” he asked.

Jennie opened the brown envelope and took out a photograph, laying it in her lap. “I fear that I was less than forthcoming last night. I should have shown this photograph to you straightaway. But I will make amends by telling you as much as I know.” She caught his glance. “As much as I know,” she repeated, “and suspect.”

“Thank you,” Charles said dryly.

Jennie's narrative was simple. She told the story in a low voice, carefully modulated and without hesitation, as if she had rehearsed it. On the ninth of the previous November, she had received the photograph, hand delivered to Great Cumberland Place. A handwritten note signed “A. Byrd” had accompanied the photograph, threatening its release to the newspapers if Jennie did not give one hundred pounds to a boy who would call the next day. The boy had called, Jennie had given him the money, and dispatched her man Walden to follow him. But the youngster was adept at evasions and Walden lost him in the crowds at Victoria Station.

The demand was repeated in increasing amounts and with increasing regularity, a different messenger appearing each time and departing in a different direction, each note signed with the name
A. Byrd.
Jennie grew ever more desperate. She was already besieged by a great many creditors: her manner of living was excruciatingly expensive but she could not seem to control her expenditures, nor could she think of any other way to live. She sold some of her jewelry ; then, to consolidate her debts, she had executed a very large loan which was guaranteed by two insurance policies Winston had been required to furnish.

Increasingly harried and desperate, increasingly short of cash, Jennie determined to tell Winston about the blackmail when he returned from the Sudan, for the publication of the photograph, if it came to that, would cause him enormous anguish. His career would be shattered—indeed, his entire life!—if his father were associated in any way with the Ripper atrocities. All Randolph's old enemies, all the newspapers, would jump onto the story like starving jackals, whipped into a frenzy of feeding.

But Winston had come home so full of plans and dreams and hope that she could not bear to tell him. His political success depended heavily upon his confidence in himself and in the Churchill name and reputation. To others, he might seem filled with a great faith in himself. But his mother knew that Winston's self-confidence was shallow and insecure, and that beneath it lay vast, black depths of uncertainty. His self-assurance would be annihilated by the knowledge that someone had the ability to destroy him.

In despair, Jennie had thought of appealing to the Prince, who would give her a stern look and chide her for not consulting him earlier. The world might think that HRH was a flighty, frivolous man who lived only to satisfy his appetites, but his friends knew otherwise. Bertie often found ways to provide unorthodox, behind-the-scenes help, for he was acquainted with a great many men of all sorts and classes, and he always knew how to get things done.

But something had happened that convinced Jennie she need not involve the Prince. She received another communication from the blackmailer, this one by telephone. In an obviously disguised voice, the man had said he was ready to end the dirty business and that he had something to give her in return for what she had already paid. He instructed her to come to his Cleveland Street lodging immediately, alone. Full of hope and anticipation, Jennie followed the caller's instructions. But when she reached her destination, she had discovered the corpse.

“When you saw the dead man,” Charles said, “did you recognize him?”

Jennie shook her head. “I didn't even know his real name until I read it in that newspaper clipping.” She paused, looking distressed. “I didn't see his face, you know. He had been eating, and when he was killed, he fell face down into a dish of something on his luncheon table.”

Kate said, very quietly, “You must have been very anxious to know who he was. Did you search the room? Did you perhaps ... look in his pockets?”

“In his pockets?” Jennie gave her a horrified glance. “Oh, dear God, no! I was ... afraid to touch him.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and said, in a rush of candor, “I know it was wrong of me, but you can surely appreciate the relief I felt when I saw he was dead.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “I was fool enough to hope his secret had died with him.”

Charles devoutly hoped that she would not be fool enough to make that last remark to the police, should she be questioned. Lady or no, she had a very powerful motive for murder, and if she was guilty, not even the Prince could protect her. He looked down at the clipping and typed note.
You are not free.
“Do you have any idea who might have sent this to you?”

“I cannot even hazard a guess.” Jennie's face had gone very pale and her large, dark eyes were brilliant with tears. “But there is one other thing you should know. When I returned to the cab, I saw someone standing in the entry to the barber shop on the other side of the street. I can't swear to it, but I thought it might be George.”

“George!” Kate exclaimed.

“Yes,” Jennie said. She was crying now. “It has been ... hard to shake myself free of him.”

Charles could not say why, but he was not surprised. George was so obviously smitten with his lady that he might have followed her all over London. What else might the boy have done? Could he have killed a man he believed to be a rival? Charles sighed. Damn it. The affair was complicated enough without having to deal with a passionate young lover unable to keep his jealousy in check.

Jennie had lost the struggle to keep her composure. She rose from her chair, giving Charles a long, imploring look. “I came here to ask you to clear Randolph's name, Charles. Now I must beg you to save
me!”

And with a half-hysterical sob, she ran from the room.

 

 

F
or a long moment, neither Kate nor Charles spoke. Then Kate said, very quietly, “No wonder Jennie is so afraid. She is beseiged from all directions.” She could not have said, though, which element of Jennie's story held the most potential danger—the blackmail, the discovery of the murdered man, or the troublesome ambiguity of her remark about George. Obviously, Lady Randolph was a complex woman—vulnerable in many ways, dangerous in other ways, and thoroughly unpredictable.

Charles didn't answer. He had reached down to retrieve the photograph, which had fallen to the floor as Jennie fled from the room. He took a magnifying glass from the table beside his chair and began to study the photo intently.

Kate rose to have a look. Over Charles's shoulder, she could see that the photograph was of a man and a woman engaged in intimate conversation on a city street. Behind them was visible a row of three-story buildings, with shops on the lower level. Kate had seen photographs of Lord Randolph and recognized him at once—the heavy walrus mustache that made his large head look even larger, the striking eyes, exophthalmic, giving him a look of arrogance and scorn. He was not a man whose appearance drew warmth, although from accounts she had read after his death, Kate knew that his friends had found him jaunty, witty, charming. Apparently his companion found him so, for in the photograph she was smiling flirtatiously up at him.

But the woman in the photograph was of a different class altogether from the second son of the Duke of Marlborough. She wore a dark dress with a black velvet bodice trimmed in tattered lace and a knitted crossover around her shoulders. She was quite young, but her face was lined and weary and her dark hair was a tousled, dirty-looking mane. But still, she wore a flower at her throat with a flamboyant, almost defiant gaiety, and her smile was coy. At the bottom of the photograph, under the figure of the woman, the initials M.K. & R.S.C. were inked, and a date: November, 1888.

“M.K.?” Kate asked.

“She might be Mary Kelly,” Charles replied. He put down the magnifying glass and sat back. “An Irishwoman, and the last Ripper victim.”

Kate stood still. Mary Kelly, in conversation with Lord Randolph! Such a photograph, with all that it implied, was a hideous threat to the Churchill family—not just to Jennie and her sons, but to the dowager duchess and the present duke. What would
they
be willing to pay for it? The duke might not have a great deal of wealth, but he had married Consuelo Vanderbilt, whose fortune was nearly the size of the Crown's. Again, Kate wondered if Jennie had revealed everything she knew.

At last she broke the silence. “You say that the woman might be Mary Kelly. There are the initials, and the face looks clear enough. Why do you doubt?”

“Because I did not see Mary Kelly-Marie Jeannette, she often called herself-when she was alive, nor do I know of any photographs of her. When I saw her, her face was mutilated beyond recognition. She seemed scarcely ... human.”

Kate put her hand on Charles's shoulder to steady herself. “When
you
saw her?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Charles said wearily. “Sit down, love. It is a longish story.”

Kate went to the sofa and sat where she could see his face. It was somber, the eyes dark, the mouth strained, as if Charles were remembering something that gave him great pain.

“I was called on the morning of her death,” he said quietly, “to photograph the poor woman's remains. As it happened, I had been dabbling for some time in the use of the camera in criminal investigation, so I had more than a passing interest in the murders. After the second killing, I wrote to Sir Charles Warren, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, expressing my views on the case in general and the practical application of crime-scene photography in particular.” He smiled grimly. “I'm sure I was presumptuous, but I offered him my services, should the need arise. Nearly half of London must have sent him advice, but my letter apparently caught someone's attention. At the end of September, one morning before dawn, I was called to Mitre Square to photograph the scene of another killing, that of Catherine Eddowes. And on the morning of November ninth, I was summoned a second time, by a police constable who urgently required the services of my camera. The Ripper had murdered yet another woman.”