Despite the late hour, thousands of spectators jammed the narrow streets to watch this latest London fire. The electric thrill of danger was a tangible presence in the wet night. Maybrick hung well back, as did Lachley, losing sight of the drunken Polly Nichols in the crowd. The atmosphere in Shadwell was a carnival madness. Alcohol flowed in prodigious quantities. Maybrick, seething like the jagged lightning overhead, downed pint after pint of dark ale, himself, feeding his rage, nursing the hunger in his soul. John Lachley, too, had vanished through the crowd, leaving Maybrick to wait. He wanted to shout obscenities, he was so weary of walking and endlessly waiting. He gripped the handle of his knife so tightly he was sure there would be bruises across his palm by morning.
Nearly an hour later, with the fire still blazing furiously, Maybrick finally caught another glimpse of Polly Nichols' black, velvet-trimmed bonnet. She was just emerging through the door of a jam-packed public house which had thrown open its doors in all defiance of the closing-hour laws. She staggered mightily under the influence of God-only-knew how much more alcohol. She passed Maybrick without even seeing him, stumbled straight past a doorway from which John Lachley subsequently emerged, and headed down Osborn Street toward Whitechapel Road.
It was time for her to keep her rendezvous with murder.
The game was in Maybrick's blood, now, the stop and start of shadowing his prey down wet streets with the growl of thunder snarling overhead like a savage beast loose in the night. They waited, strolling quietly along, until they were well away from the crowd at the fire. Polly reached the now-deserted Whitechapel Road and turned east, moving unsteadily toward the spot they'd agreed to meet. John Lachley started out into the open, making his move to retrieve the letters. Then halted abruptly. So did Maybrick, cursing their foul luck. A rough man dressed like a dockhand, also coming from the direction of the Shadwell Dry Dock fire, had appeared at the end of the block and accosted her first.
Maybrick and his mentor melted back into the shadows of dark overhanging doorways, on opposite sides of the narrow street. The dockhand and the drunken whore bent their heads together and spoke quietly. A low laugh broke from the man and Maybrick heard Polly say, "Yes." A moment later, the two of them sought deeper shadows, so close to James Maybrick's hiding place, he could literally smell them from where he stood.
Maybrick's pulse flared like the lightning overhead as he stood there in the darkness, listening to the rustle of skirts and clothing hastily switched about, the sharp sounds of the dockhand shifting his hobnailed boots on the pavement as he pressed the cheap trollop back into a convenient corner, the heavy breaths and meaty sounds of flesh coming together, slow and rhythmic and hard. Maybrick's nostrils flared. He gripped the wooden handle of his knife, listened eagerly to the gasp of breath as the whore ground her hips against her customer's. He could all but see the clutch of the dock worker's hands against a straining breast, a naked thigh, skirts and petticoats lifted high to either side to accommodate him. He imagined his wife's face where the strumpet's was, saw his wife's glorious, strawberry blond hair falling down across her naked breasts as the unwashed dockhand shoved into her, took her right here on the street like the slut she was, heard his wife's voice gasping in the close darkness...
Low, breathy obscenities drifted on the night air, his voice, then hers, encouraging him. Hurry, she must be thinking, hurry up and finish, I'm drunk and need a bed for the night and they'll be along with the money for the letters soon, so get on with it and spend your spunk, you great ugly lout of a dockhand...
Maybrick clutched his knife, hand thrust deep in his pocket, and breathed hard as she whispered to the man using her. " ‘At's right, lovey, ‘at's good, Friar me right good, you do, ‘at's grand..."
Friar Tuck... the rhyming slang of the streets...
A low, masculine grunt finally drifted past Maybrick's hiding place.
He waited for their breaths to slow from the frantic rush.
Waited for the sounds of clothing going back down, the jingle of coins in a pocket, the whisper of, " ‘Ere's three-pence, pet, and a shiny penny besides." The sound of a wet kiss came, followed by the muffled smack of a hand against a cloth-covered backside. "An' a right nice trembler it was, too."
Maybrick waited, pulse pounding like the thunder overhead, as the dockhand's hobnailed boots clattered away down the pavement in the direction of the docks and the still-burning fire. As his footfalls died away, Polly's low, slurred voice drifted to Maybrick. "Eh, then, got my doss money, just like I told Emily I would. I've ‘ad a lovely new bonnet tonight and a warm new ulster and thirty-eleven pints and still got my doss money. And there's still the money for the letters to collect, too!" A low laugh reached Maybrick's hiding place.
He waited in a fever of impatience while she staggered out into the open again, heading down Whitechapel Road with the money she'd just earned in her pocket. Across the street, Lachley, silent on the rubberized overshoes they'd both bought, the same shoes worn by several million ordinary domestic servants to silence their footfalls, stole after her down Whitechapel Road. They crept up behind...
"Hello, love," Lachley whispered.
She gave a tiny, indrawn shriek and whirled, with semi-disastrous results.
Lachley steadied the small woman easily. "There, now, I didn't mean to terrify you. Steady."
She peered up at him, face pinched from the shock. "Oh, it's you," she breathed out, "you give me such a fright!" She smiled happily, then, and touched her bonnet. "See? I got me that bonnet, just like you said. Innit a fine one?"
"Very fine. Very becoming. Velvet-trim, isn't it? A lovely bonnet. I trust you have the letters we discussed earlier?"
A crafty smile stole across the woman's face. "I've got one of ‘em, so I ‘ave."
Only Maybrick saw the flicker of murderous wrath cross Lachley's face. Then he was smiling down at her again. "One of them? But, my dear, there were four! Mr. Eddy really is most anxious to obtain the full set."
"Course ‘e is, an' I don't blame ‘im none, I don't, but y'see, I only ‘ad the one letter. An' I've looked for my friend, looked an' looked everywhere, what ‘as the other three—"
"Friend?" Lachley's voice came to Maybrick as a flat, blank sound of astonishment. "Friend?"
The stupid whore didn't even notice the cold rage in her murderer's voice.
"I ‘adn't so much as a single ‘apenny to me name and it were ever so cold an' raining ever so ‘ard. An' I ‘adn't drunk no gin in an whole day, y'see, so I give three of the letters to Annie an' she give me a shilling, so I could pay for a doss ‘ouse an' not be caught by some constable sleepin' rough and get sent back to Lambeth Work'ouse. She's only ‘olding ‘em for me, like, ‘til I get the shilling back to repay ‘er the loan..."
Lachley touched her gently, tipping up her chin. "Who is this friend, Polly? What is her name?"
"Annie. I said that, Annie Chapman, what lives in the doss ‘ouses over to Flower and Dean Street, same as me. She's ‘oldin' the other three letters for me, but I'll ‘ave ‘em back by tomorrow morning, swear I will."
"Of course you will." Lachley was smiling again.
Maybrick's hand was sweaty where he gripped his knife.
Polly blinked anxiously up into Lachley's face. "Say, you finish up your business with Mr. Eddy for the night?" She leaned against Lachley, still reeking of the dockworker's sweat. "Maybe we could go someplace b'fore I go back to me doss ‘ouse an' find Annie?"