And what is yours? Why do you walk the night?
Mark blinked as he found himself halting in the dark midway down the street. Old Montague Street. Wandering aimlessly, his thoughts a million miles away, something had guided his footsteps to this spot directly across from Eva’s lodgings. There again, the secrets of the human mind—
The sudden sound of a carriage in motion claimed his attention. He turned and watched as it came to a stop before the building across the way. And now, coming out of the entrance, he saw Eva.
The door of the waiting vehicle opened and a man emerged. Stepping to one side, he grasped Eva’s arm, assisting her into the carriage.
Turning, he climbed in after her, and Mark glanced quickly at the profile of his mustached face surmounted by a peaked cap very much like his own. Then the door closed. Mark stepped back into the concealment of the shadows as the carriage started off down the street.
Once again he was alone in the night, but not entirely so.
Something else lay hidden in the darkness ahead. Perhaps, if he dared venture into that darkness now, he might find other secrets waiting there.
~ FOURTEEN ~
Germany, A.D. 1490. In the castle of Nuremberg some of the torture devices were later exhibited. Prisoners were crushed to death against stones, their limbs dislocated on the rack, their feet seared by fire. Some were confined in sharp iron cages in which it was impossible to sit or lie down. The infamous “Iron Maiden” closed and crushed a victim against its spikes, then released him to fall into a pit of pointed stakes and revolving knives.
Slowly Mark moved through moonless midnight. The alleyway was steeped in shadow but light flared from the open doorway of the abattoir ahead.
As he approached the entrance the scent of blood was strong and for a moment he paused, dreading the sight of its source. But the light lured him forward again, even when he heard the sounds and saw the shapes through the open doorway.
Where had he heard those sounds before? Mark remembered that night, weeks ago, when he’d first seen Eva, the night when the cattle stampeded from the slaughterhouse.
Now they were in the slaughterhouse, and this time there was no escape.
No escape from the terror, no escape from the shocets. Clad in leather aprons, the slaughtermen were everywhere, hobbling the legs of their fear-crazed victims in preparation for the rite prescribed by ancient Talmudic law — shechita, the draining of blood from the body of the beast.
Long knives raised, they muttered the sacred benediction, then slashed the throat to the bone in two quick strokes, moving back quickly to avoid the crimson cascade spurting forth over the sawdust shambles. The red-stained blades rose and fell again, first ripping open the breast and then the stomach, revealing the inner organs for ritual inspection of the remains. The slaughtermen worked swiftly, expertly, oblivious to the bellowing of the brutes they butchered and the bright bubbling of their blood.
That was the worst of it, Mark reasoned, scanning the faces of those who dealt in death; their eyes were empty, their frozen features betrayed no hint of any emotion.
But as he stared a greater horror assailed him — the horror of familiarity. He knew these men!
The fat fiend with the pince-nez perched incongruously on a snouted nose was Dr. Reid. The slant-eyed monster with the dripping knife was Dr. Hume. And the tall thin throat-slasher was Trebor.
Why were they here? How could they kill so callously, go on killing without heeding the moans of agony, the cries of their victims?
He watched as they dragged another helpless hobbled figure forward, flinging it down beneath the upraised knives. Thrashing, the creature turned its face to the light, and this was the ultimate horror.
The body beneath the blades was that of a beast, but it had a human face.
A woman’s face, contorted in fear, mouth opening wide in a scream—
“Murder!”
Perspiration pouring from his fevered forehead, Mark jerked bolt upright in the sunlight blazing through the window beside his bed.
His eyes opened and for a moment he gave thanks for the safety which surrounded him, the reality of his own room, the knowledge that he’d escaped from a nightmare.
But only for a moment.
“Murder!”
Now the cry sounded again, and this time he found its source — not in the darkness of a dream but in the dazzling sunlight of the street below.
Peering down he saw the canvas-aproned figure of the newsboy hawking papers. And heard his shout.
“Murder — read all about it! New slaying in Whitechapel!”
~ FIFTEEN ~
Mexico, A D. 1500. In order to secure enough victims for sacrifice, the Aztecs fought prearranged combat between cities just to obtain captives for their religious ceremonies. These, plus slaves, were ritually slain on the feast days of various gods, held eighteen times a year. Others died daily as offerings to Huitzilopochtli, who demanded human blood and hearts in tribute for his offices when restoring the sun each day. Children were butchered to please Tlaloc, the god of rain, adults burned alive for the god of the harvest, hearts ripped from the bodies of living victims. Other were flayed alive; the priests of Tlaloc wrapped themselves in the bloody skins and danced to the throbbing drums and shrill flutes which joyously sounded a public holiday.
Mark wasn’t the only one who saw the paper. All London was reading the news.
Inspector Joseph Chandler read it with particular interest, because of his own involvement.
At six in the morning he was walking down Commercial Street on his way to the police station when two workmen accosted him. They’d been hailed by an elderly market porter who’d found a dead body lying in the backyard of his lodgings at 29 Hanbury Street.
By the time Chandler arrived there a crowd had already gathered before the house; he fought his way through and ordered his men to keep the yard clear. Then he saw the corpse. He saw it then, he saw it now, and he knew he would see it again in his troubled dreams.
The middle-aged woman with dark brown hair was sprawled before the steps of a passage leading into the yard beside a fence. The victim lay on her back, legs parted in an obscene parody of invitation. Her stomach gaped, open and disemboweled; the intestines were drawn up on her right shoulder, still connected by a cord dangling from her abdomen. Two flaps of lower abdominal skin rested above her left shoulder in a pool of blood. Her throat had been cut from behind in a jagged wound that encircled the neck. She wore a handkerchief as a scarf, but that had not protected her from what amounted to partial decapitation.
Chandler couldn’t forget the first sight of that bruised and bloody face, the bulging eyes, the swollen tongue protruding from between yellowed teeth. Thank God the newspapers hadn’t printed the details!
At his orders a constable obtained a piece of canvas from a neighbor and covered the body. Help was summoned, Inspector Abberline was notified, and then he waited.
But not in idleness. Chandler searched the yard. It was unpaved, but he saw no footprints, nor any indentations indicating signs of a struggle. The woman must have been suffocated, then lowered to the ground before the knife was used. He’d found patches of blood, some as large as a sixpence and others mere pinpoint drops, and there were smears on the fence about a foot above the ground. Under the circumstances this was understandable; the puzzle lay elsewhere.