The Devil to Pay

“I saw the parlor light was on and knew you were not in bed,” Maria Ana said. She wore a dressing gown and slippers.

“No. He’s a pig and I’ve forgotten he even exists.” Maria Ana stepped to the drinks cart, moving like a goddess in a sheath of black silk. “Sherry?”

“Please,” Kate said.

Maria Ana brought the drinks and sat in the chair opposite Kate. A log fire crackled between them. “Kate, are you afraid?”

“Yes, I think so. I’m afraid for Nora, for Trace, Frank . . . all of them.”

Maria Ana smiled. “I thought you never got scared.”

Kate’s smile matched the doña’s for beauty. “I’ve been afraid before.”

“But not recently.”

“Very recently. During my trip to London.”

“I’d like to hear about that.”

“All I’d do is bore you.”

“Kate, nothing you do bores me,” Maria Ana said. “Neither of us can sleep, so the night is young. Tell me about London. A pleasant enough city if it wasn’t for the rain, fog, and Englishmen.” She shivered. “I’ve always considered an Englishman too cold and aloof to take as a lover. Ah well, enough of that. I’m all ears, so now to your story, ma chère.”

A walnut box lay on top of a side table by Kate’s chair. She opened the lid and took out the British Bulldog revolver. “Queen Victoria gave me this.”

“How kind of her, though one of the royal diamond necklaces would have been kinder still,” Maria Ana said.

“She said it was for my protection when I got back to Texas. But what the queen says she doesn’t necessarily mean. At heart, Victoria is a politician, and when politicians talk, their real agenda is often hidden, the wheel within the wheel.”

“Just so,” Maria Ana. “Please continue.”

“The evening of the day I met the queen I was visited in my hotel by a strange little man who introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Marmaduke Hawkes of Scotland Yard.”

“Apart from his name, in what way was he strange?”

“Small, slender, wearing an enormous caped coat with sleeves that came over his knuckles. He had watery blue eyes, shaggy brows, and his face was the color of a fish’s belly.”

“La, la, a fish’s belly no less,” Maria Ana said. “I’m intrigued already.”

“And a huge nose,” Kate said. “When I told him that he might remove his coat, he wore a pale green ditto suit, quite new, and neat little brown boots with elastic sides. He looked more like a man who’d been a bank clerk for thirty years than a Scotland Yard detective.”

“Did the queen send him to arrest you?”

“No, nothing like that. Believe me, the queen’s plan was for something much worse.”

“She wanted a favor from you?”

“You could call it that, I suppose. But it was a mighty big favor. She was asking me to lay my life on the line to catch a terrifying killer.”

“The policemen told you this?”

“He did.”

“And you said no, of course.”

“I said I’d listen to what the detective had to say.” As Kate told the story, she remembered every word the detective had said.

* * *

“Mrs. Kerrigan, or since we may be working together, may I call you Kate?

“I may? Thank you. And you can call me Marmaduke. May I smoke, Kate? I am much addicted to my pipe.

“Thank you again.

“Now perhaps you recall reading in today’s newspaper that there has been a second bloody murder of a prostitute in the city’s Whitechapel district.

“Whitechapel? It’s in the city’s East End, a vile morass of poverty, squalor, violence, and crime, where those lucky enough to find a bed sleep with rats and fleas and those not so lucky lie down in the foggy, filthy streets. Drunkenness and prostitution are everywhere and murder is a nightly occurrence. I know what you’re thinking, Kate. With so much violence why should Her Royal Majesty concern herself with the deaths of two nameless prostitutes? The answer is a succinct one—the Irish. Whitechapel has always been a hotbed of Irish unrest, rebels who would see an Ireland free of British rule. A dashed impertinence, if you ask me.

“Yes, I quite understand your feelings on the matter, Mrs. Kerrigan, and I will not press you on the subject. But therein lies the problem. Both murdered women were redheaded Irish girls, and if their murderers are not apprehended, the rebels will claim that Irish lives are of no consequence in Britain and use that as an excuse to riot and perhaps try to overthrow the government. Her Majesty will not allow such a thing to happen.

“Where do you fit in all this, dear lady? That is an excellent question, a wizard of a question, and I will get to the answer presently.”

* * *

Maria Ana took a sip of sherry and made a sour face. “The detective was . . . how you say? Trying to push you into a corner. Irish girls with red hair indeed. Did he make that up for your benefit?’

“As it turned out, no. The girls were Irish and both were redheads. One was twenty-six and the other had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday.”

“Quelle horreur! To die so young.”

“And both were cut up horribly . . . mutilated almost beyond recognition, Detective Hawkes said.”

“My dear Kate, what did he want you to do about it? I’m at a loss.”

“He soon told me what he wanted me to do about it.”

* * *

“So far, Scotland Yard’s investigation into the murders has led to one dead end after another, but we do know that two killers were involved, this based on the testimony of one Annie Spooner, age fifty-three, a known streetwalker. Spooner remembered that on the night Mary Collins was murdered—the younger victim—she saw her get into a carriage with two men and drive away. Spooner never saw Collins again after that night.

“The answer to your question is we don’t know if the two men were the murderers or not, but right now it’s the only lead we have. And please call me Marmaduke. Oh, and one thing more . . . Kate. Spooner’s eyesight is not of the best, but she says she’s sure that a cloak was thrown over the carriage door. To hide a nobleman’s crest, perhaps?

“Yes, I know this grows tedious for you, dear lady, and that you’re anxious to dress for dinner, so let me come straight to the point. Do you wish to save the lives of other Irish girls, especially those with red hair?

“Ah, that’s the answer I expected, Kate. Why, of course you do. And how can you help? Well, let us go back a little. The queen gave you a parting gift, did she not? Yes, she informed me that it was the British Bulldog revolver. Did she tell you why?

“Oh dear, is that what she said? Of necessity, I fear Her Majesty told you a little fib. The revolver was never intended as a souvenir to take home to the wild Western lands. No, it was to protect you in Whitechapel.”

* * *

“Pah, the man talked in riddles and was impertinent,” Maria Ana said. “I hope at that point you showed him the door.”

“No, I was fascinated and I wanted to hear what he said next.”

“None of it good, I suspect.”

“Well, he beat about the bush for a while and then finally confessed that he wanted me to be a decoy.”

“Decoy! What is this word . . . decoy?”

“In my case it meant a person used to lure another person or persons into a trap.”

Maria Ana was horrified. “I need more sherry!” She brought the decanter to Kate and filled her glass and then her own. “Please don’t tell me that what I’m thinking is correct.”

Kate smiled. “What are you thinking?”

“That the detective wanted to use you as a . . . decoy . . . to catch the murderer of those young Irish girls.”

“He did, but he was obeying orders. The plan was not his.”

“Then whose plan was it, for God’s sake?”

“It was Queen Victoria’s plan and hers alone.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did I at first, then Detective Hawkes explained it to me.”

* * *

“Kate, the queen thinks very highly of you. She’s aware that you own the biggest cattle ranch in Texas, and she admires your courage and derring-do. She asks a favor of you, yes, a favor to Her Majesty, but also to the nation and the empire.

“No, please. No need to be modest. You are a very remarkable woman and a beautiful one, if this old policeman may be so bold. Kate, you are ideally suited to carry out the monumental task the queen asks of you.

“Yes, you’re right, I should get directly to the point, and the point is this. As I stated earlier, you can save lives, Kate, perhaps many lives.

“Yes, you just hit the nail on the head, dear lady. As our decoy, you will walk the foggy streets of Whitechapel in the guise of a common prostitute, your head uncovered, the better to display your wonderful red hair. When the murderer accosts you, and we know he will, you will blow this whistle—as you can see it’s regulation police issue—and a score of specially trained police constables hidden within earshot will run to your aid and capture the vile fiend.

“Kate, I can see your hesitancy and I don’t blame you. There’s no way around it, you will be placing yourself in great danger. Now, it’s unlikely, but perhaps we could get someone else to take your place, but she won’t have your courage and determination, and her chances of survival would be slim. If the woman was murdered like the others, people would talk, and the press would soon ferret out the story. Her Majesty would be accused of sacrificing the life of a prostitute in a futile attempt to solve a crime that Scotland Yard could not. The repercussions could be fatal for the crown.

“Yes, of course you can carry your revolver and you have the blessing of the Yard to use it to save your life. Since you are an American, I won’t say that England needs you, Kate, but I will say that every prostitute in Whitechapel does . . . especially the young Irish girls.”

* * *

“And that was when you showed him the door,” Maria Ana said. “England needs you . . . the rogue.”

Kate sipped her sherry and smiled behind the glass. “He had me at saving the lives of young Irish girls.”

“Then let the police save them. That’s what they’re for, is it not?”

“Maria Ana, I was once an Irish girl living in a slum myself. I felt an affinity for those women. I could not turn my backs on those poor creatures and allow more of them to be slaughtered for some perverted maniac’s pleasure.”

“Ma chère! You didn’t say yes? Please don’t tell me you said yes.”

“I did say yes. I told Detective Hawkes I would do it, but not for England, not for the queen, but for the poor Irish lass who could be the next to die.”

* * *

The fire crackled and the wind sighed around the eaves of the house. Tom-Tom, the house cat, stretched out on the hearth, and red flames reflected in his eyes.

“Now I’m so afraid for you, Kate, ma chère,” Maria Ana said. “It’s getting late, but I have to know what happened.”

Kate smiled. “I led a double life, a tourist by day, a prostitute by night.”

“But you didn’t, I mean, you didn’t really . . . do it?”

“No. Every time I was accosted by a drunken sailor or a sporting gent, there always seemed to be a policeman nearby to question him, search him, and then send him on his way.”

“The detective’s doing, I suppose?”

“Yes, Hawkes kept an eye on me, at least at first. During the day, I was shown the sights of London by a series of handsome young detectives who never let me out of their sight. It was fun, I will admit. I teased those young men mercilessly.”

“And at night? What happened at night?”

“I dirtied my clothes a little, pulled down the neckline of my dress, and assumed my secret identity.”

“Kate, do you know that you’re clenching your hands so tightly your knuckles are white and you’ve sipped half a dozen times from an empty glass?” Maria Ana poured Kate more sherry. “Drink it. It won’t do you any harm and it will relax you.” She sat again and said, “Well? What happened?”

Kate said, “So far it had been a lark, a little adventure, but on the fourth night all that changed and everything became deadly serious. It was foggy, a fog so dense that the pubs on Hanbury Street lit all the lamps inside to guide revelers to their door. As I’d been instructed, I took up my usual place under a gas lamp at the end of the street. It was cold and damp that night and the cobblestones had a wet sheen. I was close enough to the Eight Bells pub to faintly hear the voices inside, but far enough away that if I cried out for help no one would hear me.”

“Oh, mon enfant, how horrible for you.” Maria Ana leaned forward in her chair, her face eager. “And what happened?”

“After I was there for about thirty minutes I spoke briefly with a prostitute who said her name was Annie Chapman,” Kate said. “She looked to be in her early forties, but was probably much younger. ‘There will be no business for you tonight, dearie,’ she said. ‘This cold and fog will keep the gentlemen away.’ Annie said she’d hoped to earn a shilling to pay for a bottle of gin and a place to flop. ‘But there’s not much chance of that, is there, dearie?’ My purse was in my pocket, and I gave her two shillings. The poor creature was so grateful she blessed me and kissed my hand.”

Maria Ana said, “Yes, the lower classes have novel ways of showing their gratitude. Now please get to the interesting stuff.”

“More interesting than I care to remember,” Kate said.

“Good. I’m all on edge.”

“I’d just heard a steeple clock chime midnight . . . bad things always seem to happen at midnight, don’t they?”

“I hadn’t noticed, mon ami.”

“Well, they do.”

“Please go on.”

“I heard the horse first, the steady clang, clang, clang of shod hooves on the cobblestones and then a shiny hansom cab emerged from the fog and the coachmen reined it to a halt. For a long time the carriage just stood there, as though I was being studied.”

“Hmm . . . you had much to offer,” Maria Ana said. “That was the attraction.”

“It would seem that way, because after a while the coachman climbed down from his perch. He wore a heavy greatcoat and a top hat, and his face was covered by a muffler. Only his eyes showed. He opened the carriage door and another gentleman stepped out onto the street. He also wore a top hat, but he was exquisitely dressed in evening wear, and his cloak was lined with scarlet silk. He smiled and stepped closer to me, and I saw his face for the first time.”

“Was he handsome?”

“No, quite the opposite. His face was long and very pale as though he spent all his time indoors and his eyes were slightly protruding and watery with heavy lids. He had a small cruel mouth with a petulant bottom lip, and at the time I recall that I thought he bore more than a passing resemblance to Queen Victoria herself. He smelled of cologne, cigars, and whiskey, and I thought him a most unhealthy-looking man, though I soon discovered that he was not a man, but a demon in human guise.”

“Oh, dear Kate, were you sore afraid?” Maria Ana said. “I know I would have been.”

“No, I was not afraid, not at first, but when the coachman joined him and said, ‘Stand against the wall and let the gentleman have his fun, Irish Eyes, and he’ll give you a shilling.’ It was then I saw the blade of a butcher’s knife gleam in the gaslight in the hand of the man with the cruel mouth. He grinned at me like a wild animal and then he and the coachman stepped toward me.”

“Mère de Dieu! Don’t tell me anymore,” Maria Ana said. “Not another word or I won’t sleep tonight.”

“Then I won’t,” Kate said. “I don’t want to keep you awake.”

“No, no, don’t stop now. Tell me more,” Maria Ana said. “If I get too afraid I’ll put my hands over my ears.”

“Very well then,” Kate said. “It all happened very quickly. I found the police whistle in my pocket and blew . . .”

“Yes? And then?”

“Nothing. The whistle didn’t whistle.”

“I am distraught!” Maria Ana said, throwing up her hands. “I am devastated. A man in the fog with a butcher’s knife, ready to plunge the blade into your heart! Ma pauvre Kate!”

“It seemed that he wasn’t ready to use the knife, not quite yet. The coachman reached over and tore down the front of my dress, a cheap cotton thing that gave way easily . . . and then the bodice. My breasts were exposed and the man with the knife”—Kate touched the top of her chest—“drew the point from here, down between . . .”

“Your bubbies?”

“Yes, between my bubbies, and then all the way to my stomach. He moved the knife slowly and didn’t press hard, but he left a thin, red line of blood down my front. Then he got very close to me, bent his head, and began to lick the blood, making a strange smacking sound. At the same time, he pushed what was left of my dress and my underwear down over my hips, and I felt the point of the knife prick my abdomen. The coachman laughed and said, ‘Gut her, my lord. Make the whore squeal.’”

Maria Ana jumped to her feet and placed her hands on Kate’s shoulders. “Oh, thank God you’re not a ghost. You’re alive. But how did you—”

“I was wearing a short Zouave jacket that for some reason is very popular among women in London and this revolver”—Kate took the British Bulldog from its box—“was in the right-hand pocket.”

“And what did you do?”

“I shoved the muzzle into My Lord the Knife Man’s belly and pulled the trigger.”

Maria Ana gasped in shock. “And then what? Oh, I won’t sleep a wink tonight.”

“He dropped at my feet, groaning. The coachman turned and ran, and I was good and mad, so I fired at him. I think I winged him, but I don’t know for sure. I hauled up my dress and went after the piece of trash but lost him in the fog. And then about a dozen policemen arrived, including Detective Hawkes. I was hustled away from there in a police wagon and taken under escort to my hotel.”

“What happened to the man you shot?” Maria Ana said.

“He died right there in the street,” Kate said. “Or so I was told.”

“And he was the man who’d murdered the Irish girls?”

“Detective Chief Inspector Marmaduke Hawkes said so, among other things.”

* * *

“No, Kate, you are not a prisoner. For your services to the Crown, you are an honored guest of Her Majesty’s government.

“Ah, yes, your luggage is already on board the steam frigate HMS Scylla, currently docked at Portsmouth harbor, a fine warship eminently suited for the Atlantic crossing. You will leave tonight under cover of darkness, will be berthed in the captain’s cabin, vacated by him of course, and Her Majesty has seen fit to supply you with a lady’s maid, an obedient, intelligent girl named Nora Andrews, who will accompany you all the way to the wild Texas lands.

“No, dear lady, the queen did not deceive you nor did she, as you say, use you. You were the right person at the right place and time, and she saw you as a savior.

“No, no, not as an assassin but as a brave woman who could rid this nation of a great evil.

“Very well then, since you ask. The man you killed in self-defense, let it be said, was William, Duke of Chelmsford, a nephew of the queen and a dangerous, degenerate sadist. This mentally unbalanced creature was already suspected of raping and murdering a sixteen-year-old kitchen maid, but Scotland Yard was ordered to cover up the crime.

“In answer to your question, Kate, that order came from the very highest level. But after the murder and mutilation of the two prostitutes, the queen realized that Chelmsford had to be disposed of like a dangerous animal. Anarchy is everywhere in this country, aided and abetted by the gutter press, and a scandal of that proportion involving the queen’s family could well topple the crown.

“You were chosen because, Kate, you would return to America and there would be no trail to follow. The story being supplied to the newspapers is that His Grace the Duke of Chelmsford was assassinated by anarchists and died bravely trying to thwart their evil plans. He is to be given a state funeral with full honors befitting a British hero.

“Yes, I know it’s a falsehood, but look on the positive side . . . you are the real hero, and thanks to you, no more women will be murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel.

“Well, all we know yet is that the Duke’s accomplice was not his regular coachman, but a hired thug who goes by the name of Jack. Rest assured, Kate, we’ll arrest the bounder soon. Now before I go, this is from the queen in the hope that in a few years you can return to England and visit her again, wearing it.”

* * *

“What was it?” Maria Ana said. “Diamonds?”

“No. It was a medal, the Order of the British Empire. I have it somewhere, and one day I’ll show it to you.”

“Kate, you were very brave. Much braver than I could have been. I think I would have fainted.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Maria Ana. You’re made of sterner stuff. Despite what the detective told me, I was used by Queen Vic to assassinate a man who could have become a national embarrassment. I will never forgive her for her treachery.” Kate smiled and stretched her slender arms. “Now it’s time for bed, I think.”

“Queens are bound by a different set of rules than the rest of us, Kate. That is the way of the world. But, mon Dieu, I won’t sleep at all tonight, seeing that dreadful black carriage in the fog.”

* * *

Maria Ana lay in bed and her mind conjured up an image of Don Pedro. She mentally stuck pins into his belly and then smiled and fell sound asleep. She’d forgotten all about the carriage.