Pringle spat his tea back into his cup. “Hot,” he said.
Shaw glared at him.
“Our chimney sweep?”
“Or anyone who might have access to this place in your absence.”
“Well, I’m sure he seemed perfectly respectable.”
“Do you have a name for him?”
“I believe his name may have been Robert,” he said.
“Excuse me, Charles,” Penelope said, “but our chimney sweep’s name is Sam. I’m sure of it.”
“Don’t interrupt. You have things you could be doing, don’t you?”
“Of course, Charles. I apologize.”
She rose from the table and walked slowly to a door that led to the kitchen. She looked back at the table before passing from the room. Hammersmith was surprised to realize that he wanted her to look his way, but she didn’t. She didn’t look at her husband, either. After she was gone, the scent of lavender lingered, and the three men were silent for a long moment.
“So,” Shaw said, “you’re of the opinion that our sweep stole something from this house?”
“Perhaps. Later in the day, would you be so good as to make up a list of anything that might be missing? If we track this man down, we may find some object, something belonging to you about his person, and that would be all we’d need to ascertain his guilt in the matter.”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Of course, sir. That’s why I said it might wait until later in the day.”
Shaw stood and Pringle followed his lead, standing up, too. Hammersmith remained seated.
“I have entertained this matter as far as I am willing to,” Shaw said. “I’ll ask you to leave this house and not return.”
“You don’t want us to find the man who burgled you?”
“I don’t care. What I want is to go to bed and enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, free from thoughts of sweeps and burglars and nosy police.”
“Nosy, are we?” Pringle said. “And aren’t we trying to help you?”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re trying to do, but the hour is inappropriate and your questions seem unusual.”
Hammersmith was unperturbed. For Shaw to be so openly rude meant that he was hiding something from them. Knowing that there was something hidden was the first step toward finding it.
“Could you give us some indication, at least, of where we might find this sweep?”
“No, I could not. Leave now.”
Hammersmith concealed a smile and stood. “Of course,” he said. “We apologize for disturbing you.”
“Well, I don’t apologize,” Pringle said. “I think you’ve been bloody rude.”
“Please excuse my friend,” Hammersmith said. “We’re quite tired ourselves.”
“Just get out.”
“Would it be permissible for us to return later?”
“Not at all. I very much hope never to see you again.”
“A crime has been committed here, sir,” Pringle said, “and we are duty-bound to follow-”
“You are duty-bound to do what your betters ask of you. Now go. If there’s been a crime committed-and I’ve seen no evidence of that, only your word-then I will investigate it myself.”
“Very well,” Hammersmith said. “Have a good night, sir.”
“I shall have a very good night indeed just as soon as you’re both out of my sight.”
Shaw ushered the two police out the door. Hammersmith paused on the step and turned back toward the doctor.
“Please tell your lovely wife good night for us,” he said. “And apologize to her on our account for the beastly hour.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind.”
And with that, Shaw slammed the front door.
“Well, I never,” Pringle said.
Hammersmith rubbed his hands together and bounded down the brownstone’s steps. Pringle hurried to keep up with the longer strides of his friend.
“So that’s the end of it, right?” he said.
“Not at all,” Hammersmith said. “We know the name of our sweep.”
“He said it was Richard, didn’t he? No, Robert.”
“Yes, he said Robert. But the name of the man we’re looking for is Sam.”
“Oh, yes. That’s what the wife said, isn’t it?”
“Penelope. Yes.”
“She’s a lovely thing.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“You hadn’t? How could you not?”
“Perhaps that accounts for the good doctor keeping her out of sight.”
“I would, if I were married to her.”
“She may have more to tell us, if we could talk to her alone.”
“Well, I’m willing to make the attempt.”
“It might be better if I have a go at her myself, Colin.”
Pringle smiled and clapped Hammersmith on the back. “Oh, I quite understand.”
Hammersmith shook his head.
“We should hurry,” he said. “The sun will be up soon, and we have a long walk ahead of us.”
17
Esme whimpered in her sleep.
Liza rolled over and traced her fingers lightly down the length of Esme’s scar. The puckered red line began under Esme’s hair and ran diagonally across her forehead, jumped over her left eye and exploded in a starburst on her cheek before commencing down over her chin, her throat, and disappearing under the top of her loose-fitting nightgown. The endpoint of the scar was a crater where Esme’s left breast had once been.
Liza leaned in and brushed her lips against the coarse fabric of the nightgown, gently kissed the absent breast.
Esme stirred and smiled. She wrapped her arms around Liza and groaned.
“You was havin’ the dream again,” Liza said.
“Did I wake you?”
“I was awake already.”
“You ain’t slept, have you?”
“I’m fine, love.”
“You should sleep.”
“I will.”
Esme mumbled something that Liza couldn’t hear and slipped back into her dreams. Liza watched her for a long while after. Watching her beautiful girl Esme was all that Liza ever wanted to do. The one time she hadn’t watched, hadn’t been there, Esme had met Saucy Jack.
And now they both dreamed of Jack when they slept.
Liza wasn’t there when it happened. Liza never saw the Ripper. In her dream, as in reality, she was too far away to help poor Esme, Esme who went down a dark alley with the Ripper. Him with his midnight cloak and his yellow teeth.
And his wild black beard.
Esme had been working-both women had been working that night-and she had chosen the alley herself.
In hindsight, of course, taking a strange man into an alley was a foolish, even fatal, mistake. But the Ripper hadn’t arrived in the popular press as yet, and going down alleys with men was what Esme, Liza, and countless other women in Whitechapel had to do in order to put food on the table.
And so Esme got lost in the dark with the man and his knife.
Liza was with a different man, down a different alley. But Esme had told her everything, and Liza’s dreams replayed for her what had happened as if she had been in that alley on that night. And night after night ever since.
She imagined the scent of the Ripper as he pressed against her, briny and rank. The feel of his beard against her face, wires in her eyes, blotting out the gaslight from the street so far away. The sting of the knife on her face, on her throat. On her breast. The sound of her blouse ripping open and the warmth of her blood trickling down her ribs.
She screamed and he pulled her face into his chest so that she breathed in the hair of his beard. She beat against him and she pushed against him and he didn’t seem to notice. Her strength left her more quickly than she would have dreamed. She let her arms fall to her sides and she shut her eyes and she waited for the end.
Jack held her like a father might hold a bawling infant, and he spoke a single word. Through his beard, his mouth smelled of metal and fish and old rope.
“Slowly,” he said.
And then there were other voices, the voices of women, far away at the alley’s mouth. She felt herself fall to the stones as Jack disappeared. There came the sound of boot heels on cobblestones, and then she felt soft hands on her skin and she heard a soft voice in her ear.