Death at Whitechapel (14 page)

“Oh, yes, m'lady,” Sarah said hastily. “I'm just a bit behind, is all.” She placed herself in front of the table, hiding from her ladyship's view the tray of breakfast dishes that still sat where Mary Plumm had left it.

“Does the new maid suit you?” her ladyship said. “She seemed very eager to get on, but if you have any complaints about her work, don't hesitate to speak to Mr. Hodge or myself.”

“Oh, no complaints, m'lady,” Sarah exclaimed—rather too heartily, it seemed, for her ladyship gave her a questioning look.

But all she said was, “Very well, then.” And with a final “thank you” she was gone.

Sarah stood for a long time over the soup pot, fishing with a fork for the spoon that had gone to the bottom. She felt as if she had been reprieved from a death sentence, but her troubles weren't over, not by a long shot. In fact, they had just begun. Little Miss Telltale could take it into her head to spill her vicious secret at any moment, and even if she did not, the price of her silence was exorbitant—and bound to go higher. There were the breakfast dishes waiting to be washed and luncheon not started, nor a thought given to the dinner preparations. If Mr. Hodge came in to inquire after the progress of the day's work, as he usually did around eleven, he would see the disorder and know that something was afoot. What could she tell him if he asked after Mary Plumm's whereabouts? And of course, there was still that dreadful task to be done, the fetching of Pratt's boots. It had been difficult before—how could she manage it now, under Mary Plumm's scrutiny?

Having found the spoon, Sarah picked up the tray of dishes and took it to the scullery. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, into the midst of the snarl of personal troubles had come this silly business about borrowing her clothes! It sounded very much as if their ladyships intended to wear them. But they had quite beautiful clothes—silks and satins and fine wools, trimmed with lace and jet beads and lavish braids! Why did they want her ordinary hat and jacket and cape and boots? Had they been invited to a masquerade?

Sarah shook her head, sighing. The ways of Quality always seemed mysterious to the people who did their work. But this borrowing of clothing was utterly absurd—almost as preposterous as a cook being bullied by her kitchen maid.

 

 

C
harles had considered driving the Panhard to Bournemouth by way of London, but decided against it. The motorcar offered more freedom and flexibility than public transportation, but its average speed of fifteen miles an hour was only a third of that of the train and while the automobile's engine was reliable enough, one had to consider the time spent repairing the inevitable flat tires. In the current circumstance, the Panhard had one additional drawback: it tended to attract public attention—the last thing an investigator making discreet inquiries desired. So he took the early-morning train from Colchester up to London, a pleasant trip through the November countryside, with charming views of thatched cottages and black-and-white cows grazing stubbled fields.

The journey permitted Charles to arrange his thoughts. He considered his endeavors in London to be secondary to his meeting with Fred Abberline. After an exchange of telegrams, it had been agreed that they would meet in Bournemouth where the former Metropolitan Police inspector had retired half a dozen years before. Still, there was the possibility that the London detour might yield some worthwhile information. He planned to take a cab to Finch's lodgings in Cleveland Street, where he would, if possible, undertake a search for the negative. He would also take the opportunity to identify any inconsistencies in Jennie's report and to determine whether an observer (George Cornwallis-West, for instance) might have been able to conceal himself across the street and observe her entry and exit. At some point, too—perhaps on his return from Bournemouth—it would be a good idea to have a talk with George.

And there was one additional matter, a very important one, that Charles hoped to clarify while he was in London. Yesterday afternoon, in his darkroom, he had photographed the print Jennie had given him, editing out the portion that included Randolph's image and enlarging the other so that the woman's face was clearer and the background more discernible. When he did so, two clues had become more prominent: a portion of a storefront and a shop sign—the word “Tobacco”—and the street number 22.

Of course, the unnamed street might be anywhere in London, or even in some other city. But after he had studied the enlargement for some minutes, Charles had the strong feeling that he knew where the picture had been taken, and that the scene was on the very same street as Finch's lodgings—Cleveland Street. Several years before, on an errand for the Princess of Wales, he had visited the painter Walter Sickert at his studio in Cleveland Street. Princess Alexandra had wanted Sickert to paint a small portrait of the Duke of Clarence, her eldest son and one-time heir to the throne, who had died of pneumonia in '92. Charles occasionally served as unofficial photographer for the royal family and was often invited to Sandringham, where he had taken the photograph the Princess wished to have copied. For his part, Sickert had been a close friend of Eddy, the young duke. Charles and Sickert had met several times before and since, through their association with the Royal Society of British Artists and several mutual acquaintances, including H. G. Wells and the Edens.

Jennie's blackmailer—Tom Finch—had also lived in Cleveland Street, toward the south end. Was it possible that Finch himself had taken the original photo of Mary Kelly, standing in front of a tobacconist's shop at Number 22? The forged photograph had been created with a skill that suggested an experienced photographer. Also Finch, perhaps? If so, the man might have a darkroom in his lodgings, and a file of negatives. It was a long shot, but Charles had no other good place to begin.

At Liverpool Street Station, Charles hailed a hansom cab and climbed aboard. The driver, whose seat was mounted above and behind his fare, cracked his whip and they moved off—but not very far. There was more angry whip-cracking and a voluble stream of unholy oaths as an overloaded omnibus pulled into the crossing in front of the hansom and stopped. It was only the first of a dozen delays. The route from Liverpool Street to Cleveland Street was less than three miles as the crow flies, but it was getting on for ten o'clock and the London streets were a congested labyrinth. The earlier clear weather had given way to a gray overcast, and Charles pulled up his collar against the chill wind that flung a spray of pavement grit into his face and lifted loose newspaper bills like kites into the air. He hoped very much that it was not going to rain, for he had forgotten his umbrella and should have to buy another.

Cleveland Street was a narrow road angling toward the northwest between Oxford to the south and Euston to the north, in an area known as Fitzrovia, and as Charles's hansom finally turned off Oxford and passed Middlesex Hospital, he began to feel excited. This was a bohemian area, a favorite place for young artists at the beginning of their careers. The street was or had been the residence of associates of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood—Millais, the Rosettis, and Holman Hunt—and the shops reflected the artistic interests of the residents. There were bookbinders, engravers, framers, woodcarvers, and purveyors of painting and crafting supplies. There were coffee rooms as well, and several pubs—the George and Dragon, the City of Hereford, and the Crown—where a hard-working artist could find respite from the day's labors and companionable conversation over a late-night glass of ale.

Charles took the photograph out of his pocket and directed the driver to slow his horse to a walk so that he could keep an eye on the numbers. There was Number 2, the house where Finch had been killed, and across from it a barbershop with a deep doorway where an observer might indeed have watched while Jennie made her fruitless trip to a dead man's lodgings. But Charles did not stop, not yet—he could come back later. The horse plodded on, pulling the cab past a linen-draper at Number 10, a greengrocer with a rack of vegetables and fruits displayed in front of Number 14, Matthew Endersby's Rare Books two doors down, and—

And there it was! Number 22, a tobacconist and confectioner's shop, bearing the very sign that could be seen in the photograph Charles held in his hand. “This will do,” he said to the driver. “I'll get out here.”

Inside, the shop was clean and bright, with a black-and-white tiled floor, crisp curtains at the front window, and a potted ivy plant on the windowsill. One glass display counter was filled with decorated sweets, another with fine pipes and cigarette and cigar holders. Shelves on one side of the shop held jars of various candies and boxes of biscuits, while those on the other wall were filled with tins and cases of tobacco products, neatly arranged to show them off to best advantage.

A bell had tinkled when he entered, and in a moment, a stout, middle-aged woman in a black dress and white apron emerged from the rear of the shop, adjusting her ruffled cap and putting a smile on her face.

“G‘mornin', sir,” she said, in a voice that was colored with an Irish brogue. “Ye're lookin' fer somethin' t' smoke? Or do ye prefer a sweet t'day?”

Charles reached into his coat pocket and took out a nearly empty muslin bag of pipe tobacco. “A friend purchased this tobacco for me,” he said, “and I have enjoyed it greatly. Can you find me its like?”

The woman pulled the bag open, stuck her nose into it, and inhaled. “That'ud be Turkish,” she said, and reached up to take a tin from a shelf. “This is wot ye're after, sir,” she said with a proprietary air, pushing it across the counter. “The very thing.”

Charles opened the tin and sniffed. “The very thing, indeed !” he exclaimed, although it wasn't. “You have a most experienced nose, ma'am.”

The woman's pleased smile showed tobacco-stained teeth. “I should—I bin helping Mrs. Horton at this very counter for these last fifteen years. O‘Reilly died 'bout that time, leavin' me t' earn me daily bread by the sweat o' me brow an' the labor o' me own 'ands. Two shillings, sir.”

Charles reached for his purse. The tobacco was dear, but that was not what he was paying for. “Fifteen years!” he said in an admiring tone, handing over the coins. “Well, then, Mrs. O'Reilly. You have seen many comings and goings in this neighborhood while you've been employed here, I'll warrant.”

“T‘be sure,” Mrs. O'Reilly said importantly. She wrote a receipt for his purchase and gave it to him. “Most ever‘one 'oo lives in Cleveland Street drops in now an' again.”

“Including poor Mr. Finch, I suppose,” Charles sighed. “The man who was murdered last week, I mean.”

Mrs. O‘Reilly pulled a long face. “Yes, poor man. The p'lice ‘aven't a clue, I've 'eard. But that's the way of it. The p‘lice don't allus do wot they're s'posed to.”

“Since you know everyone,” Charles said thoughtfully, “I wonder if you might happen to remember someone who may have lived in Cleveland Street ten years or so ago.” He took the photograph out of his pocket and placed it on the counter. “I believe that her name is Mary Kelly, but you may have known her as Marie Jeannette.”

As if drawn by a magnet, the woman's eyes went to the photograph. Charles knew by the sudden tension in her shoulders that she recognized the face, but she shook her head violently and pushed the photograph back toward him.

“Niver seen ‘er,” she declared emphatically. “Niver in me 'ole life.”

“Are you certain, Mrs. O'Reilly?” Charles pressed. He opened his purse again. “It is important that I—”

“Put yer money away,” the woman cried, with a flutter of her fat hands. Her eyes were opened wide and her face had gone pale. “I don't know nothin', I tell ye! Ye'll git nothin' o' me, by Gawd!”

Whatever information Mrs. O'Reilly might possess, he could see that she was so genuinely terrified by his questions that she was unlikely to tell him anything. Still, this part of his inquiry had not been entirely unsuccessful. He could surmise from the woman's response that Mary Kelly had been known in this neighborhood, and he had learned where part of the blackmail photograph had been taken. What these things might mean, though, he had no idea.

Perhaps he would have better luck at Number 2.

 

 

K
ate and Jennie ate a leisurely breakfast and then dressed for their trip. Pocket, trying not to show his bemusement at their ladyships' unusual appearance, drove them in the pony cart to Colchester, where they boarded the nine o'clock train. They disembarked at the Liverpool Street Station, the terminus of the Great Eastern and North London lines, and joined the noisy river of passengers that poured up the steps and spilled out onto the street. There the stream divided, one top-hatted and frock-coated tributary surging toward Broad Street and the Stock Exchange and banks and insurance companies, another capped and billycocked, flowing rather more sluggishly in the direction of Spitalfields and the East End. There were young mothers burdened with babies and brown paper parcels, working women hurrying off to an office, smartly dressed ladies trailed by uniformed porters pushing heavily laden baggage carts, and the ubiquitous traffic policemen whose job it was to direct the disorderly procession of cabs and omnibuses eager to claim passengers. Now that it had started to drizzle, everyone was in a great hurry to get in out of the wet.