Gideon Smith and the Mask of the Ripper (31 page)

The jurors nodded and murmured assent. Stanger glanced down at his papers. “Now, I must inform you that yesterday pleas were taken from the defendant, and she denies both charges. There is also a rather unusual request from the prosecution, which I have been considering overnight.” He turned his gaze toward the lawyers. “Mr. Scullimore.”

Scullimore leaped to his feet. “Your Honor.”

“Mr. Scullimore, I have decided that your proposed evidence from your Dr. Miescher is too intriguing to ignore. I rule it admissible.”

“Excellent, Your Honor,” said Scullimore, smiling. Bent heard Siddell curse under his breath. “With that in mind, before I begin my opening speech, I would beg a further indulgence.”

Stanger frowned. “What do you require now, Mr. Scullimore?”

“Blood, Your Honor.”

The hacks’ pens scribbled furiously, and the public gallery laughed, until silenced by a glare from Stanger. “Explain.”

“Dr. Miescher would like to take a minuscule sample of blood from each of the jurors, Your Honor.”

A gasp rolled around the courtroom. Bent nudged Siddell in the ribs and mouthed
What’s he up to?
Siddell, his eyes manic, shrugged.

“To what purpose, Mr. Scullimore? It is a very gruesome request.”

Scullimore inclined his head. “You have read the basics of Dr. Miescher’s techniques, Your Honor. Think of the jurors’ blood as a control sample, if you will. It will enable him to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt”—and here he looked pointedly at the jury—“that Miss Fanshawe is guilty of the charge of murder.”

Stanger ruminated for a moment and looked at Siddell. “You have no objection, Mr. Siddell?”

Siddell shot to his feet, scattering papers. “It is very unorthodox, Your Honor. But no, no objection.”

“Hmm,” said Stanger. He looked toward the jury. “This is a most unusual request, gentlemen, but I am inclined to indulge Mr. Scullimore. Having read Dr. Miescher’s report, I think I can see the sense in this. Do you all agree?”

There was muttering and many glances passed between the jurors, and eventually the appointed chairman stood and said, “Your Honor, if it aids the course of true justice then we accept.”

At Stanger’s nod, the Swiss doctor hurried over to the jury bench with his black leather valise and took from it a number of glass vials and syringes. As he set about taking small samples of blood from the forearm of each of the twelve men, Bent whispered to Siddell, “You got advance disclosure of this? What’s it all about?”

“I read this Miescher fellow’s report,” murmured Siddell back, “but to be quite honest, Bent, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Shine a light, I’m a lawyer, not a bloody scientist.”

When Miescher had finished Scullimore stood again and said, “I am going to ask the court to excuse my expert witness now; he must carry out certain procedures on the blood.”

Stanger said, “Mr. Scullimore, how long will the doctor require for these processes?”

“I understand it is some hours’ work,” said Scullimore. “I am proposing to call most of my witnesses first; it may be tomorrow when we get to Dr. Miescher’s evidence.”

“Very well,” said Stanger when Miescher had excused himself. “Let us have opening speeches.”

Scullimore turned to the jury and smiled warmly at them. “Gentlemen. You will have heard that Miss Rowena Fanshawe is a heroine, that she has acquitted herself in the service of the British Empire most admirably on many occasions. We have all read her adventures in the penny dreadfuls. Miss Fanshawe’s courage is not on trial here. Unfortunately, her disregard for human life—and the rule of English law—very much is. Gentlemen, by the time this trial is over you will be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rowena Fanshawe viciously murdered Edward Gaunt at his home in Kennington, south London. Heroine or not, Rowena Fanshawe is not above the law.” He smiled again and turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I would like to call my first witness.”

Stanger nodded and Scullimore said, “I call Rowena Fanshawe.”

*   *   *

Rowena stood uncertainly in the dock. Scullimore said, “Your Honor, I crave another boon.” He accepted from one of his assistants a length of thin rope. “I would like the defendant to tie me a knot.”

Stanger raised an eyebrow. “There is something of the theater about this trial,” he said mildly. “I do hope you are not playing to the gallery, Mr. Scullimore.”

“Heaven forefend, Your Honor,” said Scullimore. “If I may…?” At Stanger’s curt nod he gave the rope to the clerk, who passed it to Rowena’s shaking hand. “Miss Fanshawe, are you familiar with the airman’s knot?”

She nodded then said in a soft voice, “Of course.”

Scullimore turned to the jury. “For the benefit of the earthbound among us, an airman’s knot is commonly used by those who fly airships and dirigibles to tether their vessels. It is a very strong knot, though it can quickly be released by tugging a certain loop. Unless one knows which loop to pull, it is almost impossible to untie. Miss Fanshawe, would you…?”

Rowena glanced at Bent, who made a face but nodded. She deftly tied the knot and handed it back to the clerk. Mr. Scullimore said, “Mr. Astin, would you pass that to the jury for them to examine?”

As the men passed the length of looped rope between them, Scullimore said, “Miss Fanshawe, why did you kill Edward Gaunt?”

“I didn’t,” she said quietly, then cleared her throat and said more strongly, “I did not kill Edward Gaunt.”

Scullimore stroked his chin, as though contemplating that he might actually have gotten it all wrong. Bent had seen this many, many times before. “Though you were in the vicinity of his house on the night that he died.”

Rowena looked at her hands. “Yes.”

“For what purpose?”

“I was just passing.”

Scullimore nodded. “Just passing. Mr. Astin, could I possibly have the bag marked Exhibit One?”

The clerk passed over a small hessian sack with a card label tied to it. Scullimore weighed it in his hands. “Edward Gaunt was found hanged in his house in Kennington. We know he did not commit suicide; there were signs of a struggle, and Mr. Gaunt had injuries to his face and body. There is also evidence that he caused some damage to his attacker, but not enough to prevent him being strung up from an exposed ceiling beam in the kitchen and left to die a most horrible death.”

Scullimore paused, as though thinking hard, then untied the top of the hessian bag. “This is the very rope that was used to hang Edward Gaunt.”

He pulled it out with a flourish, displaying a thick length of rope ending in a noose tied in what was unmistakably the very same airman’s knot that Rowena had demonstrated to the court just moments before.

Scullimore waited until the excited chatter had died down, then smiled and said, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

Stanger turned to Siddell. “You wish to cross-examine?”

Siddell stood and shook his head. “No, Your Honor, we shall be hearing Miss Fanshawe’s evidence in chief later.”

“Very good,” said Stanger. “Miss Fanshawe, you may be seated. Mr. Scullimore, your next witness?”

Scullimore called a police constable, who took to the witness stand with his black helmet tucked under his arm and gave his name as Constable John Pryce, number 316, attached to the Kennington police station.

“Constable Pryce,” said Scullimore, “thank you for taking time from your busy duties protecting London. Now, you were the officer who attended the offices of Fanshawe Aeronautical Endeavors at Highgate Aerodrome early on Sunday morning to arrest the defendant, is that correct?”

The constable nodded. “It is, sir.”

“Can you tell us what you found, Constable?”

The policeman looked to the judge. “Might I refer to my notes, Your Honor?”

“You may, Constable Pryce,” said Stanger.

The constable flipped through his black-bound notepad. “The offices of Fanshawe Aeronautical Endeavors is a small building on the edge of the commercial section of the aerodrome. I arrived with two other officers instructed to bring in Miss Rowena Fanshawe for questioning in relation to the death of Mr. Edward Gaunt in Kennington. The building is part workshop, part office, and also seems to be the place where the defendant actually lives.”

Scullimore nodded. “Was Miss Fanshawe awake when you arrived?”

“No, sir. It was quite early, though. We knocked on the door and she answered, evidently having just risen from her bed. We informed her that she was under arrest in connection with an investigation into murder, and I formally cautioned her.”

“And what did Miss Fanshawe say to that, Constable?”

Pryce looked uncomfortable, then said, “Uh, she responded ‘I don’t know who the fuck you are but get your fat arse off my property or I’ll kick you in the bollocks.’ Sir.”

When the laughter that rang out from the public gallery died down, Scullimore smiled. “Somewhat colorful language from a young lady, and one who has been decorated by Queen Victoria herself for acts of bravery and heroism.”

The constable shrugged. “We hear worse.”

Scullimore’s eyes narrowed. “From the criminal fraternity it is your duty to mingle with on a daily basis.”

“I suppose.”

Siddell leaped to his feet. “Objection! My learned friend is trying to insinuate into the jury’s minds that the defendant’s quite understandable reaction to being woken by the police somehow makes her guilty by spurious association with a criminal underclass.”

“Sustained.” Stanger nodded. “Please continue with more care, Mr. Scullimore.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” Scullimore leaned forward on the bench. “Constable Pryce, when you told Miss Fanshawe why you were so rudely disturbing her on a Sunday morning, what was her response?”

“Sir, she said, ‘Who’s dead?’”

“And your reply?”

“I told her that it was a Mr. Edward Gaunt of Kennington.”

“And what did she say to that?”

Constable Pryce glanced at the judge, then at the jury, then made what was in Bent’s opinion a highly choreographed show of checking his notes, clearing his throat, and saying loudly, “She said,
good
.”

22

R
EIGN
OF
T
ERROR

“That was thirteen years ago,” said Smith. Phoolendu poured hot water into a fresh pot of chai. “Why are you only returning to England now?”

Fereng stared into the flames of the fire, as though he were back beneath the hot Indian sun rather than the dank brick cavern in London’s sewer system. Eventually he said, “What do you remember of the great famine that hit India between 1876 and 1878?”

Smith shrugged. “I do not remember much of anything.”

Fereng grunted. “Of course. The truth is, Smith, even had you all your faculties about you, you would still be ignorant of it, unless you were particularly interested in global affairs. In the summer of 1876, there was a terrible drought that particularly affected the southwestern states—Madras, Bombay, and Mysore in particular. The crops failed. It was a crisis beyond all reckoning. I was brought ashore at Madras right in the middle of it. The fishermen, God bless them, shared with me their meager provisions; the only reason they had been so far out at sea when they were hit by the cyclone was desperation to find fuller fish stocks in deeper, unfished waters.”

Fereng ruminated for a moment, then looked at Smith. “Hundreds of thousands of people died. From starvation, dysentery, malnutrition. And the British Government in India made it worse.”

“Worse?”

Fereng nodded. “The fishermen did not know what to make of me at all, so they took me to a British garrison. They did not even know I was English, I had become so weather-burned and lean, so withdrawn. In truth, I barely knew who I was myself, after seven years on that island. I tried to articulate to the authorities what had happened to me, but the words would not come. All they saw was a brown man with long hair and a monkey on his shoulder, raving at them as though a lunatic. They immediately had me taken to a famine relief camp.”

“Relief camp? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

Fereng laughed. “It was little more than an open-air prison. A vast, sprawling shantytown riddled with disease and overrun by rats, the dead lying festering in the heat until soldiers could be bothered to periodically drive a cart through and pile them up for burning elsewhere. The British Government had appointed a famine relief commissioner called Sir Richard Temple. He decreed that each man working in the relief camps should have a daily ‘wage’ of one pound of rice a day.” Fereng looked at him. “That was half of what they gave to the criminals in the prisons.”

“Working, though?” asked Smith. “Working on what?”

“A vast canal,” said Fereng. “Even though the population was half-starved and hundreds of thousands had already died, it was decreed that a four hundred and twenty–mile canal named for the Duke of Buckingham was still the top priority of the British Raj.”

Fereng spat into the fire. “And that wasn’t the worst of it. I was put to work digging the course of the canal with crowds of Indians, and we would see carriages heading toward the docks, carriages loaded with grain and rice. We salivated at the thought of that food, wondered how many of our lives could be saved by it. You know where it was bound?”

Smith shook his head, though he thought he might know the answer.

“England. India starved, and the little food they could grow was sent here. So it is hardly surprising that you would not have heard of the great famine, Smith, because it didn’t touch English lives one little bit.”

“But your memory returned, eventually?”

Fereng nodded. “Not long into my incarceration in the relief camp.”

“So why did you not present yourself to the authorities? They would have surely freed you and sent you home.”

Fereng’s eyes shone. “Because I had no home anymore. I had been abandoned by my masters, left to die on an uncharted island. I could not call myself an Englishman, when England had dealt with those around me so brutally. I forged new friendships, new brotherhoods. Kalanath and Deeptendu were both on my work detail. They were Thuggees, renowned for waylaying travelers on the lonely roads, sending their souls to appease Kali. Rather than be imprisoned or executed when they were arrested, they were sent into the camps. And at last, I knew why Ganesha had appeared to me.