Inspector Byrnes nodded as if he’d suspected the same. “Witnesses say she rented a room between the hours of ten thirty and eleven last night.”
Uncle observed the victim again and seemed to stare through her into that calm place necessary to locate clues. People in London thought him heartless. They didn’t understand he needed to harden his heart in order to save them the pain of never knowing what happened to their loved ones.
“We’ll know more once we perform a postmortem,” he said, motioning for his medical satchel, “but an initial glance—based on the current state of rigor mortis—indicates she might’ve perished between the hours of five and six. Though that may well change once we’ve gathered more scientific fact.”
Inspector Byrnes paused in the doorway, his expression unreadable. “You inspected the Ripper murders.” It was a statement of fact, not a question. Uncle hesitated for only a moment before nodding. “If this is the work of that sick bastard…” The inspector shook his head. “We can’t let this news get out. I won’t have any panic or riots in this city. I said it before; I’ll say it again—this ain’t London. We’re not going to muck this up like Scotland Yard. We will have a suspect—or Jack the damn Ripper himself—in the jug in thirty-six hours or less. This is New York City. We don’t mess around with depraved killers here.”
“Of course, Inspector Byrnes.”
Uncle shifted his gaze to mine. He’d never asked me directly about the events of last November, but he knew as well as I did that Jack the Ripper could not be responsible for this murder. We were privy to something neither Inspector Byrnes nor anyone else knew.
Jack the Ripper, scourge of both London and the world, was dead.
FOUR
OLD SHAKESPEARE
EAST RIVER HOTEL
LOWER EAST SIDE, NEW YORK CITY
21 JANUARY 1889
“Describe the scene, Audrey Rose.” Uncle shoved a journal into Thomas’s hands. “Record everything and include a sketch. Inspectors have photographed the body, but I want every detail, every speck, on paper.” He jabbed the paper, punctuating each point a bit more emphatically than the last. “We will not have another mass hysteria on our hands. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Professor.” Thomas moved to do as he was bid.
I rolled my shoulders back, slipping into that familiar cool calm as I stared at the body and divorced myself from imagining her alive and well. What was left of this woman was a puzzle to solve. Later, once her murderer had been caught, I might remember her humanity.
“Victim is a woman roughly fifty-five to sixty years of age.” I glanced around the crime scene, no longer sickened by the blood that coated nearly everything like a layer of macabre rain. A small wooden pail lay upturned on the ground near my feet. Judging from the strong scent of hops and barley, it had been filled with beer. Another swift appraisal of the room suggested she may have been well into her cups—alcohol thinned the blood and made it hard to clot. Which explained why there was an excess of it splattered everywhere.
“She was possibly too inebriated to fight off her attacker.” I pointed to the upturned pail. Uncle—despite the ghastly scene surrounding us—seemed pleased by this observation and motioned for me to continue. I bent over the body, ignoring the pitter-patter of my pulse. She’d sustained so much trauma that a foul odor was already present. Even with coldness seeping in from cracks near the window, the putrid scent hit the back of my throat.
I swallowed rising bile quickly. There was no preparing for that tangy-sweet smell and no forgetting it. The stench of human rot haunted me almost as much as the victims we inspected.
“Bruising around the neck indicates strangulation.” I reached for the clothing covering her face and paused, turning to Thomas. “Are you through with this part of your sketch?”
“Almost.” He went back to his journal, holding it up and angling it, comparing the scene before us to his drawing. After adjusting the drape of the clothing, he looked up. “All right.”
Without hesitation, I removed what turned out to be a dress from her face and pulled her eyelids back, searching for conclusive proof strangulation was the cause of death.
“Petechial hemorrhaging is present. Our victim was strangled before other…” I paused while Uncle rolled her carefully onto her side. My gaze halted on two Xs carved into her buttocks, momentarily distracting me from my observation. I took a quick breath. “Before other nefarious acts were performed on her person.”
“Excellent.” Uncle leaned over, inspecting the corpse for the same clues, then carefully placed her back as she’d been found. “What do you make of the dress draped over her face?”
I stared down at her body, naked except for where the murderer had laid her bloodstained clothing over her head. Whenever we conducted a postmortem on a corpse in the laboratory, Uncle used bits of cloth to cover victims. They were ice-cold and lying on our sterile slab, but they deserved respect. Her indecent state was another way the murderer tried—quite literally—to strip her of her humanity.
“Perhaps he felt ashamed,” I said, looking upon the body as if I were the killer. Sometimes it was too easy to do. “There could’ve been something about her that reminded him of someone else. Someone he possibly cared for.” I lifted a shoulder. “She might even be the person he or she was fond of.”
Uncle twisted his mustache. He looked like he wanted to pace around the room, but it was too small with the three of us inside. “For what end? Why would a person—who so brutally carved open a body—be concerned with covering her eyes? What might that say about him?”
I glanced at Thomas, but he was lost to his own investigation again, sketching everything as Uncle had requested and more. He knelt down, capturing each stab wound, each angle the blade had entered from perfectly. It reminded me of the time he was practically nose-deep in one of the Ripper victims. A chill tickled my spine. I did not enjoy the similarities of the cases.
I drew my own focus back to the scene before us, contemplating this murderer. Perhaps he also wished to shame her. “I imagine he—or she—didn’t want to look upon the face of his victim,” I said. “It’s possible he didn’t want to think of her as a person.”
“Very good,” Uncle said. “What else?”
Ignoring the blood smeared on the body, I focused on the stab wounds. Whoever had committed this act had been enraged. There were so many punctures, it appeared as if they’d struck her again and again and again. Each encounter with the blade more brutal than the last. They were furious, but whether or not that fury was directed at the victim or simply projected onto this woman was a mystery. The murderer could have slit her throat in one clean swipe. He didn’t choose that merciful route. He craved pain—it delighted him.
“Most of the knife wounds were made postmortem. Along with Xs that have been carved into her… buttocks.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. Miss Mary Jane Kelly, the last Ripper victim, flitted through my mind once again. “Our victim was also disemboweled, though we’ll know which organs—if any—were removed upon our internal examination. Given the sunken appearance of her lower abdomen, however, I believe something has been taken.”
“All right. Let’s get this next part over with, then.” Uncle took his spectacles off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What makes this murder different from the murders in London?”
I snapped my attention to Uncle’s. “You’re not honestly considering this is one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, are you?”
As if being dragged away from a particularly engrossing book, Uncle shifted his attention away from the corpse and met my stare. I wasn’t sure why neither one of us ever broached the subject, but somehow, despite the grotesque and horrendous things we subjected ourselves to on a near-daily basis, Jack the Ripper was a topic we dared not touch.
“What is a lesson I try and impress upon you with each case, Audrey Rose?”
“To look at facts,” I answered automatically. I focused on releasing the tension in my muscles, finding that my mind cleared with the task. “To remove emotions and read clues left behind before coming up with a hypothesis based on assumption.”
Uncle nodded. “Part of that includes ruling out options. We’re in the unique position of having examined the Ripper victims. We have intimate knowledge of how those bodies were left, what injuries they’d sustained. That gives us something to compare and contrast, doesn’t it?”
“Ah. I see.” Thomas sat back on his heels, tapping his pen against his journal. “If this were a scientific experiment, then we’d have the control and variables.”
“Measuring the differences will assist with eliminating Jack the Ripper as the murderer,” I said, understanding Uncle’s methodology better.
“Good. Both of you. Now, then”—Uncle pointed to the neck again—“what would the Ripper have done? What did he do with each of his victims?”
For a brief moment my heart lurched into that dark space I’d fought so hard to overcome. I despised thinking of the Ripper case, but I could no longer hide my grief or ignore the evil that had been done last autumn. It had been five months now since his first murder; it was time once and for all to face the truth and move on.
Thomas half turned in my direction, running his attention over me in a swift, analytical way. I knew he’d not interrupt or offer his opinion unless I gave the signal to do so. While it was tempting to have him confront that monster for me, it was my duty. He might be heir to a dynasty saturated in blood, but so was I.
I clutched my unoccupied hand at my side, holding tightly to my cane with the other. “Jack the Ripper strangled his victims before slitting their throats. Every one of them. Even Miss Elizabeth Stride.”
“Indeed. He’d been interrupted during that murder, but he still slit her throat before attacking Miss Catherine Eddowes later that same evening. This murderer”—Uncle motioned to the victim lying before us—“had more than enough time to commit his darkest fantasies. He was presumably here with her for hours, more than enough time to carve her up. Miss Mary Jane Kelly’s corpse was nearly unrecognizable as human. There were similar circumstances with that crime when compared to this one. It was committed inside. Miss Kelly was a prostitute. She’d been drinking. Yet this murderer did not follow that same familiar technique of slitting her throat and viciously cutting her up. Yes, this victim may have an organ missing, but it’s not in the same careful manner as our previous cases in London. Now, tell me, what else doesn’t fit with Jack the Ripper?”