Death at Whitechapel (9 page)

Kate did not ask how it was that Charles remembered those names, ten years after the women who bore them were dead. Instead, she said, half to herself, “But why was the maniac never caught? To do such frightful things, he must have been totally insane.” Without leaving time for him to answer, she remarked, “You don't believe that Lord Randolph could have done it, do you?”

Charles made a noise in his throat. “There are thirty million souls on this little island. I suppose he's as likely a suspect as the next man ... or woman.”

She turned her face toward him, surprised. “You think it might have been done by a woman?”

“So one theory goes. Or a mad Russian, or a medical student, or a Norwegian sailor. There was also a suggestion that he was a gorilla.”

“You're not serious!”

His chuckle was grim. “As serious as I am about the idea that Randolph Churchill might have done it.”

She frowned. “Because he was a lord?”

“Because he lacked the ... skill.” Charles pursed his lips, as if trying to form a distasteful reply delicately. Finally, he said, “Randolph Churchill hadn't the technical training for the job. Kate, those women were not just killed—they were butchered, in the most literal sense of the word. A butcher doesn't hack and slash at random. He cuts skillfully, with precision, to separate one part from another. That's what the Ripper did.” He shuddered. “Whoever he was, he was practiced in dissection. In some of the cases, he did his work with dispatch, from capturing his victims to ... cutting them up.”

Kate lay very still, scarcely breathing, not wanting to picture the scene Charles's words conjured up in her mind. Given her occupation, she thought she knew something of crime, but this—

Charles cleared his throat. “This isn't a fit topic for a woman, Kate. Let's leave it, shall we?”

But Kate wasn't quite finished. “Jennie says she's being silly about the blackmail,” she said, “but I think she's more frightened than she has admitted.”

“Which suggests,” Charles said, “that she knows more than she's told us so far.”

“Can you help her?”

“I am acquainted with one of the chief investigators on the Ripper case. He's retired now, but I imagine that he still knows more about it than anyone else. I could ask him to reassure Jennie as to Randolph's innocence and suggest that she call the blackmailer's bluff. That's probably the most sensible way to handle it—if there's no more to the matter than she has said.” He paused. “I hope she hasn't given the wretch any money. If she has, it will be that much harder to get rid of him.”

“I doubt she has any to give, Charles,” Kate replied ruefully. “From something she said during her last visit, I suspect she is deeply in debt. If that's true, it's another complication she must feel it necessary to conceal.”

“Like George Cornwallis-West?” Charles chuckled. “That young man is certainly a complication—although she doesn't conceal him very cleverly. I wonder how she got out of town without his coming after her. They say he dogs her every step. If I were her, I should be a little afraid that the boy might do something unwise.”

Kate thought of Jennie's comment about the passion of young men. Love—the love she felt for Charles, at least—was a wonderful thing, exciting, inspiring, vitalizing, protecting. But in the wrong proportions, or from the wrong motives, or with the wrong object, love could be dangerous. Love could be as hazardous as hate.

They lay for a while in silence. At last Charles lifted his finger to stroke her cheek. “We have said enough about unpleasantness for one night, my sweet,” he whispered. The cloud slipped away, and the moon filled the room with a silvery light. “It is time for other things.” He turned to kiss her.

With a sigh of pleasure, Kate brought her husband's hand to her breast, glad to be held in his strong embrace, grateful that there were no hazards here.

 

“
D
amn that dog,” growled the whiskery man. He thumped his mug on the table and wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve. “ ‘Ee'll rouse the 'ouse.”

“Well, then,” Sarah Pratt said, concealing her nervous eagerness, “ye'd better be off, ‘adn't ye, Dick?” She glanced up at the clock that hung over the kitchen door. “It's nigh on eleven, anyway. Mr. 'Odge checks the doors at eleven.”

The whiskery man leaned back in the chair, maddeningly at ease. “I'll be off when I gets wot I come fer.” He tipped up his wool cap with his thumb and grinned, displaying a missing tooth. “Seein' as ‘ow ye've bin blessed wi' so much, wife, an' me wi' so lit'le. Share 'n' share alike, as the Good Book sez.”

Wife! Sarah felt the despair rise up in her, accompanied by a dreadful resignation so unlike her usual spirited confidence that she seemed a stranger to herself. Try as she might, she could think of no escape. Wife she had been and wife she was still, no matter how long she had lived free of the man. Twenty-two years ago, the Crown had sent Dick Pratt to Dartmoor for stealing three quid from the master mason for whom he worked, releasing Sarah from the worst mistake of her young life. With her husband gone and as good as dead, she could reasonably call herself a widow and live the life of a widow, working and earning and even saving, hiding Pratt's shameful imprisonment—her guilty secret—from all. As a young woman, and pretty, she had even allowed herself to be courted, first by one and then by another. Once she had even given in to the urgings of nature, when the first footman, so fine in his knee breeches and white stockings, had pressed his demands upon her. But once burned, twice shy. Early on, Sarah persuaded herself that an imprisoned husband was almost as good as a dead husband, and a dead husband far better than a living one. She needed no man to drink up her wages, waste her hard work, and beat her into the bargain. And so, presenting herself to the world as Mrs. Sarah Pratt, widow of the sadly deceased Dick Pratt, she had got on very well with her life....

Until a fortnight ago, when a forceful knock had rattled the kitchen door just as she was banking the fire for the night. She opened the door with a sharp reproof on her tongue, expecting the stableboy. But the words died in her throat as she recognized with horror the grizzled man before her, clad in worn boots and a shabby overcoat, the fog swirling around him as if he were an apparition. Dick Pratt, returned from Dartmoor, risen from the grave.

“Well, me pretty,” he'd said with a gravelly laugh and a flash of the old insolence, “ain't ye a-goin' t' let yer fond ‘usband come in an' warm 'is cold bones? We got some talkin' t' do, we ‘ave, aft'r all these years.”

Wordlessly, Sarah had stepped aside and allowed him to enter. With the shutting of the door behind him, her freedom was ended, her widowhood over, and she was once more hostage to her husband. Lounging before the fire with a mug of ale she had fetched from the cellar, he told her that he had served out his sentence and was now a free man and anxious to pick up his life at the point where it had been so unfortunately interrupted, in the midst of the blessed and holy state of matrimony, ordained by God as the best way for man and woman to live. But Pratt had been a reasonable man in his youth and a reasonable man Pratt was still, and while it was his legal right—nay, his husbandly duty—to insist that Mrs. Pratt return to the connubial bed, he was willing to forgo those matrimonial delights in return for one or two small personal favors.

“Not much, me wife,” he'd said, with a wag of his filthy hand. “Just a bit o' food from the larder an' an occasional bot'le o' the master's bubbly. Nothin' that'll be missed in a place rich as this.”

Sarah was so overcome with despair that she had unthinkingly capitulated. Pratt sat by the fire for a longer time than she had liked, warming himself and admiring this and that around her well-appointed kitchen before he departed with half a cold roast chicken, a loaf of new-baked bread, a plum pudding, a cheese, and paper packets of tea and sugar. Sarah latched the door behind him and immediately fell into a violent fit of weeping.

If Sarah had hoped that she'd seen Pratt's back, or that he would get himself murdered in some tavern brawl, she was bitterly disappointed. The man returned twice, demanding more food, more drink, and a pair of the master's trousers to replace his own ragged and dirty ones. The provisions were a simple matter, for her ladyship allowed Sarah to keep her own inventory, and the key to the wine cellar hung on a hook in Mr. Hodge's butler's pantry. The trousers had proved a much greater challenge, for Sarah seldom had occasion to visit the upstairs bedrooms, and the theft had required a fair bit of conniving when the garments came to the laundry room to be cleaned. More to the point, she knew that if she were apprehended in such a felony, she could lose her place
and
her character, as well as being haled into police-court. Her distress had become an agony of fear, and from moment to moment she imagined that the master himself would come striding into the kitchen to demand his trousers. When she handed the garment to Pratt at his last visit, she swore she would steal no more clothing for him.

Tonight, neatly trousered and well-fed, Pratt gave her an evil grin. “Well, if ye want t' be rid o' me, wife, fetch me a basket. I'll ‘ave some joint t' take wi' me, as well as some fowl an' fresh bread, an' cheese too, o' course. A bit o' cake wudn't be amiss, neither, nor a bot'le o'wine.” He frowned. “The last was sour, it wuz. Mind ye do better this time.”

“Is that
all?”
Sarah asked sarcastically.

“That's all, me ol' dear,” Pratt said in a cheerful voice. “Look sharp now.”

Sarah did look sharp, for she was anxious to be rid of him. But when she had fetched the food and drink wrapped in a paper parcel, he sat in the chair, looking mournfully at his boots.

“Now that ye ask so kindly, me wife, there is somethin' else I cud do with.” He held up one foot, to show the boot sole flapping loose. “As ye kin see, I'm most in need o' boots. I'm thinkin' that yer master ‘as a old pair 'ee don't wear no more an' wud be glad t' give t' somebody ‘oo needs 'em.”

Sarah's eyes widened in utter dismay. “No!” she exclaimed. “Not boots, Pratt! I cud niver—”

Pratt sighed heavily. “No boots fer yer ‘usband, fer pity's sake?” Then, quick as a flash, he grasped her arm in a clawlike grip and pulled her against him. “Yer not gettin' off wi' a few vittles an' a pair o' castoff trousers,” he growled savagely. “Till death do us part, remember, me luvey? If ye ain't willin' t' provide fer yer ol' man in 'is time o' trouble, I'm sure yer mistress wud be more'n glad t' lend a ‘elpin' 'and. Specially when she ‘ears that we be yoked together these many years an' longin' to resume our married station.” He gave a malevolent chortle. “Why, 'er ladyship might even be glad t' find me a bit o' light work in th' stable—nothin' too ‘eavy, o' course, seein' as 'ow I 'urt me back.”

Sarah swallowed. Resume their married station! She couldn't imagine anything more repulsive. But she didn't doubt that Pratt was bold enough to go to her ladyship, whose heart was easily touched. Indeed, she knew Lady Charles well enough to know that she would be glad to oblige by finding Pratt a place and finding living quarters the two of them could share, as she had done for her personal maid Amelia Quibbley and Amelia's husband, Lawrence, who worked in various capacities for Lord Charles. Sarah's heart sank. Unless she could think of some way to permanently remove Pratt from her life, she was trapped. Endlessly and eternally trapped.

“About th' boots,” she said at last.

Pratt cocked his head to one side, eyeing her. “Ye don't want us t' ‘ave a rose-covered bower an' me a place in th' stable?” He chuckled. “I'm good wi' the 'orses, ye know, Mrs. Pratt.”

“I'll get the boots,” she grated, “but it may be a few days. When will ye be back?”

“Soon.” Pratt picked up the paper-wrapped parcel and dropped a gallant kiss on her cheek. “Thank 'ee, ol' girl. I'll be glad o' th' boots. Me foot's on th' ground, it is—an' th' ground's near frosted.”

Sarah closed the door behind him and went to turn down the gas mantle, feeling an angry despair engulf her. But she would have been even more sick at heart had she noticed that the door leading into the passage was slightly ajar, and that Mary Plumm crouched on the other side, one ear pressed eagerly to the crack.

 

T
here had been a time in Jennie Churchill's life when she would not have thought of traveling without two lady's maids to see to her clothing and personal needs and a footman and page to manage the bags and boxes. When economizing became necessary, she had reluctantly done away with the male servants. When the situation became desperate, she had let one of the maids go and reduced the amount of baggage. But she could never in the world manage without Gentry, who had just this moment carried in her morning cup of coffee and was opening the drapes in the blue bedroom at Bishop's Keep.