“A child?”
“Yes, I think so. Or possibly a dwarf. But that’s not likely. I should think a dwarf would have been noticed here in the park.”
“Well, how do we know that one of them is the killer?”
“The child, or dwarf, left a single print. Here, you see? The unknown second man left marks on the lid and the handle, but only on one side of the trunk, which indicates to me that he probably helped to carry it. The overwhelming majority of prints are from the same person who held the shears both before and after the murder. Those prints are under and on top of the layers of blood on the weapon, and some of his marks on the trunk display trace amounts of blood in them. This constable was put in the trunk and it was latched shut before the killer cleaned himself up.”
“Which of my boys was it?” Kett said.
“You may be able to put that matter to rest for us, Mr Kett.”
Kett nodded and took a deep breath. He went to the trunk and stood over it for a long time before coming back to the trees and lighting a pipe. Both Day and Sir Edward were silent. They waited for Kett to get the pipe lit and take a deep drag. Smoke curled from his mouth when he finally spoke.
“I was gonna yell at ’im when he shewed hisself today. I was mad as a wet hen ’cause he missed his shift, and the whole of the time he was settin’ here under the trees in little pieces.”
Day opened his mouth, but Sir Edward laid a hand on his arm to quiet him. He moved his head almost imperceptibly from side to side. Let the sergeant talk.
“He was always a bit of a dandy, he was. Always worryin’ that his jacket dint fit right across the shoulders or the cuffs of his trousers was showin’ wear. Used to drive me batty. But he did the work. I couldn’t never fault him for that. He weren’t in the league of his mate Hammersmith, but he were a fine young man, that one.”
Kett turned his back to the other men and stood smoking. Day noticed that Sir Edward looked away toward the canal while Kingsley busied himself with the trunk, doing things Day thought he’d already seen him do, circling the same spots again with the grease pencil. Finally, Kett wiped his eyes on his sleeve and turned back, but he kept his face down.
“Someone needs to find Hammersmith and tell ’im what’s happened here. He’ll wanna know Mr Pringle’s gone and got hisself killed.”
57
Claire Day waited for her husband to arrive for dinner, anxious to tell him about her strange visitor, Inspector Bentley. She sat by the fire and nodded off and when she woke it was late and the house was quiet. Walter had not come home. She paced back and forth, glancing at the door, biting her fingernails. Finally she put on her gloves and hat and left, locking the front door behind her. She hopped onto an omnibus three blocks from the house and a kind gentleman yielded his seat to her.
Whoever the man was who had visited her, she was deeply suspicious of him. He had thought himself cunning, but his eyes were furtive and there was something in his bearing that suggested a weak man. He reminded her of that long-ago acquaintance Percy Erwood, who had received daily beatings from his father. Percy had told her in confidence, because he thought they were to be married, that he feared his father and secretly wished he could … well, what Percy said was between the two of them and she would never tell anyone, not even dear Walter.
It was clear that this Bentley character had set himself against Walter. She had no intention of getting underfoot or embarrassing him, but her husband needed to be armed with all the information he could get if he was going to succeed at his new career.
She settled back on the bus, listened to the horses clop along the street, and did her best to ignore her rising gorge.
She would reach the Yard soon enough, and regardless of what happened after, it would at least be a relief to see her husband.
58
He sat back and looked at his handiwork. The note was poorly written, of course. He had carefully considered his misspellings to be sure they were still decipherable, but would lead the detectives to believe that the writer was illiterate. He chuckled at his last sentence: “… the wurst will hapinn.”, Ridiculous.
Still, the message was clear: If Day continued to investigate the murders, he would be endangering everything dear to him.
Cinderhouse leaned forward again and stopped with his pen poised above the paper. Should he sign the thing? Not with his real name, of course, but it rankled to send it off without claiming any credit. It would be a simple matter to sign some pseudonym, something that would sail over the heads of the police, but would serve as a private amusement for the tailor. The Ripper had claimed credit for his deeds in just such a fashion and look how famous, and how feared, he had become.
Saucy Jack.
No. He set the pen aside and stood up. Cinderhouse wasn’t after infamy. As nice as it would be to feel that glow of ownership for his clever plans, he really did want to be left alone. His cat-and-mouse game with Inspector Day was satisfying in its way, but there was a boy to be raised properly and a shop to look after. The tailor had his hands full. Drawing extra attention wasn’t necessary.
He fetched the handkerchief he’d brought from Day’s house and put it in an envelope along with the note. He took the entire package out to the waiting coachman to have it posted. Then he went to check on his son.
59
Hammersmith stepped off the omnibus and waited for the horses to huff past him before he crossed the road and leaned against the wall outside his flat. The sun was setting and the light had turned purple. He thought that he might vomit there in the street, but the feeling passed and he was able to pull himself upright again.
He gazed through the large picture window at cakes and chocolate truffles, caramel apples and fudge and dainty flowers made of sugar, all arrayed under a gaslight on a tiered counter for passersby to see. He smiled to think that he smelled like chocolate and wondered why nobody had pointed it out to him before.
He found his key and entered through the unmarked green door next to the beckoning chocolates. Up the narrow staircase, past the landlady’s flat, and finally to his own front door. All was dark and still in the flat. Hammersmith lit a lamp by the door and went to the mantel. The tea box was nearly empty, only enough left for one or two cups. Which meant that Pringle had neglected to do the shopping. Hammersmith had no money for tea-he had given all the money he had on him to Blackleg-and anyway, he didn’t want to leave the flat again. Better, he decided, to save the remaining tea for later.
Pringle’s bedroom door stood open. Hammersmith assumed that his friend was finishing his shift or entertaining a lady friend somewhere, but the flat felt hollow and it seemed to Hammersmith that his footsteps echoed louder than usual.
Hammersmith’s own room was spartan. There was a narrow bed, a single straight-backed wooden chair, and a nubbly round rug that had been there when he moved in. Nothing on the walls, and two changes of uniform hanging in the closet alongside a single pair of civilian trousers and three white shirts. A lamp rested on the windowsill above the head of the bed, but Hammersmith didn’t need it. He knew the room in the dark.
He kicked off his boots and stripped off Charles Shaw’s white shirt, draped it over the back of the chair. He would find a way to return it tomorrow without revisiting the Shaws’ home. He remembered that Penelope Shaw still had Dr Kingsley’s shirt. He had no idea how to get that back from her, but he knew he’d need to find a way. He couldn’t afford to buy the doctor a new shirt. At least not this month. He wasn’t sure he’d even be able to eat for the rest of the month unless Pringle came through with groceries for them both.