10

When Argenti put his gun on the high shelf in the bedroom cupboard after hanging up his jacket after work, he couldn’t help noticing the look his wife Sophia gave him. He removed only his derby hat and jacket; as usual he would stay semi-formal and keep on his waistcoat and tie for dinner.

The NYPD didn’t supply guns to its men. It was therefore up to each officer to buy his own. As a result, on scant pay, only a third of the NYPD carried guns. Argenti didn’t usually keep a gun at home, but with the increased activity with Tierney he’d decided to break that rule. The normal arrangement in his section was to share the use of three guns, with the key to the gun drawer held by that day’s duty officer.

Sophia didn’t say anything immediately; she waited until they were sat at the table after dinner and the children had gone to bed before she softly enquired, “Is something wrong at work, Joseph? Something troubling you?”

“No, not at all.” He pulled a tight smile. “Everything’s fine.”

“No street problems or riots expected?”

As with himself, the Draft Riots had defined a part of Sophia’s childhood. Hundreds had been killed or injured, and smaller pitched street battles were still periodic events. Argenti blew out a soft plume of smoke from the cheroot cigar he’d lit after dinner.

“Well if there are, nobody has troubled to tell me about them.”

He could see the concern still etched on Sophia’s face. She was still in her early forties a very beautiful woman, just the first touch of grey in her dark hair; to Argenti, every bit as beautiful and serene as the first day he’d met her. But occasionally worry lines in her face would show her age more: as now, as she tried to come to terms with why he’d brought a gun home, when for the children’s sake they’d agreed he wouldn’t. He realised he’d been too flippant.

“Just some increased troubles between a few street gangs. We’ve been told to be more cautious going into some areas.” He didn’t want to go as far as telling her about the price on his head from Tierney, worry her unnecessarily.

“And that’s all?”

He looked across at her more directly. She knew him so well, could no doubt tell that something deeper was troubling him. He hadn’t planned to say anything, in part because he hadn’t got his own thoughts clear on the matter, but now with the question laid bare between them he told her the bones of the Ripper case and his concerns about Jameson.

Sophia was silent for a moment. “And is it just differences between you that you see as the main obstacle to you working together?”

“No, not just that. It’s his attitude with some of the people we’ll be dealing with as well. If his own world is so removed from theirs, how effective can he be in interviewing them? And something else too...” Though now he was getting to the nub of what he hadn’t quite pinned down himself. It hadn’t simply been Jameson’s abrasiveness with Ellie Cullen the other day, the thought that his social oafishness might hamper the investigation; or Jameson coolly sliding down oysters straight afterwards. It was the sudden change in moods that he found unsettling. The fact that he was unsure what Jameson might do next. “We simply have different working styles, which I fear will clash.”

“But this case might help your advancement?”

“Yes, very much so, if handled correctly.”

Sophia fell silent again, glancing at the oil lamp between them as if for inspiration.

“Then don’t you think it might be worth giving the case some time? Those differences might later not appear such an obstacle, or you’d reach some sort of working compromise.”

“Yes. That’s a possibility, I suppose.” He blew out another cigar plume. She knew him so well. Sophia had deftly drawn out what was already half on his mind. Was that why he’d balked at saying anything to Watson or Latham straightaway – the feather in his cap of such a high profile case outweighing his own personal disquiet? In the end he knew Sophia’s advice was right, give it time.

The previous night he’d brought the Ripper files home with him, but for the next few nights he delved into them with more gusto. Cut off from his family – Oriana’s piano playing, Marco and Pascal playing board games or doing their homework, Sophia gently humming in the kitchen – as alone in his study he delved deeper into the mystery and the various hypotheses of the British Police, Colby and the newspapers: a butcher or surgeon, a visiting merchant seaman, a local, a master of disguises or showman, possibly a Jew or a Mason, lowly, high-class. In short, they didn’t have a clue.

Argenti found himself wavering between the varying theories; and now there were possibly two more murders in New York to work into the equation. What common element might bond all of those?

The thought dwelled on his mind with no answer, until the next night when Sophia asked him to check the date for Oriana’s next conservatory music lesson. He leafed through his diary. He knew he’d written it down.

“Appears to be the third of next month.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I…” And as he flicked forward a month and back again, the thought suddenly hit him. The way that notation of day and month differed between the USA and Britain. “I just checked.”

He looked towards the wall clock. Would it be too late to disturb Jameson?

Finley Jameson’s house at 1334 Greenwich Avenue was an impressive Georgian brownstone left to him by his aunt. In their last couple of meetings, Argenti had learnt more about Jameson’s background. After the Crimea, his uncle had commanded an engineering regiment in India, part of the network of British army engineers who built the railroad there.

On return to Britain he’d joined London and North Western Railways and subsequently became a founding director of the New York Central Railroad, moving with Jameson’s aunt to New York just two years after Finley left medical college. His aunt and uncle had only one son of their own. He’d followed his father into the military and been killed in the Second Afghan War.

The centrepiece of 1334 Greenwich Avenue was an impressive drawing room with gallery library above. Jameson admitted that when he’d first arrived at his aunt’s house he’d had trouble getting to grips with the high street numbering in America. “Along with, yes, you’re right – the difference in the day and month order.” His voice raised to reach Argenti in the gallery library above. “Fifth or sixth in the shipping registers there, I think you’ll find.”

“Sixth,” Lawrence said, surer of his ground. He was alongside Jameson in the drawing room below as between them they searched through the earlier shipping registers. “Three along from Great Expectations, the last in the Dickens row.”

Among the Dickens, Twain and Thackeray volumes, Argenti couldn’t help noticing some darker books too: Edgar Allen Poe and Marquis de Sade; The Necromancer; Pseudomonarchia Daemonum; Goethe’s Faust; Melmoth the Wanderer; Thomas de Quincey’s Murder considered as a one of the Fine Arts. He took out the fifth and sixth shipping registers, just to be certain, and walked back down the stairs to the drawing room.

As he started looking though the sixth volume, Lawrence prompted, “Looking at the sequence in these earlier volumes, I think you’ll find it just after halfway through – the Frisian, 4,782 tons. Built 1878 at Harland and Wolff shipyards.”

Argenti tapped his finger on a page after a moment. “Got it here. And you were right about the transfer date to Blue Crest Lines being in April too. All I could presume for my theory to hold was the transfer being made some time in 1889.”

Lawrence looked at him blankly. The suggestion that he might have got the date wrong simply didn’t compute.

Jameson nodded. “So your theory is that when Blue Crest replied about the dates queried of when the Frisian was in London – the Americanization of the dates caused confusion?”

“Yes. In London there was the theory that the Ripper might be working on a cattle steamer, because the murders all took place at a weekend and usually these steamers arrived for the weekend and set sail again on the Monday.” Argenti leafed through one of the files. “They managed to tie in a ship sailing from Rotterdam for three of the dates, the Frisian – but they needed to link at least two more dates for the premise to hold. But remember, they didn’t consider this possibility until a year later, and in March 1889 the Frisian had transferred from De Voort Lines to American-owned Blue Crest. So the query on those last two dates would have come through to Blue Crest’s offices in New York.”

Argenti passed Jameson the telegram answer that had come from Blue Crest’s offices. It read simply: DATES FOR LONDON: 4/10/1889 & 10/5/1889. He then handed Jameson the initial request: GIVE DATES FOR FRISIAN DOCKING LONDON CLOSEST TO 2ND WK IN APRIL AND 1ST WEEK IN OCTOBER 1889?

Argenti leant over, pointing: “Now in London they no doubt read those dates as 4th October, a full week adrift, and 10th May, more than three weeks adrift. So, no date match. Whereas the Blue Crest clerk in New York who sent the answer probably meant April 10th and October 5th – a match for both.”

Jameson nodded slowly, a wry smile rising. “I can see now why Watkins was keen to have you replace McCluskey. He looked up as Alice approached with a large silver tray with their tea and coffee, along with two bottles.

Argenti was the only one having coffee. As Alice poured, Jameson asked Argenti, “Would you join me in a brandy with your coffee? Or would you like whisky?”

“A brandy would be fine, thank you.”

Argenti noticed that Lawrence didn’t have any spirits and wasn’t offered any; nor had he shared any of their bottle of wine at Delmonico’s. Perhaps alcohol conflicted in some way with his medication.

Jameson swirled his glass thoughtfully for a second. “Did you know that this initial theory with the cattle steamers came from no less than Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband?”

“I… I saw a note about that in one of the files.” Argenti shrugged. “I wasn’t sure whether it was a real claim or not.”

“Oh, it was a real claim, make no mistake, along with the accusation that went with it, that Prince Albert only came up with the theory to divert suspicion from his own family.” Jameson sighed. “Started off purely as an ugly street rumour, but eventually the press got hold of it and started speculating the same, that Queen Victoria’s grandson, the Duke of Clarence, was somehow implicated.”

“Yes. I saw something to that effect too.”

“Along with the Queen’s surgeon, the Masons, half the Jews of Whitechapel and Uncle Tom Cobley and all.”

Argenti smiled, said nothing. Jameson looked back at the telegrams.

“Marvellous invention, but the extortionate cost leads people to be brief. And brevity, as we now see, can lead to errors.” Jameson took a fresh breath. “Fine. We tie in those two cattle-steamer dates – which at least gives us a firm link to the original canonical five murders. But where does that leave us on this attack here at the Riverway Hotel? I understand that the Frisian was shipwrecked off the English coast almost a year ago now.”

“Broke up on the Lizard in February, 1891,” Lawrence interjected. “Salvaged and scrapped four months later.”

Argenti leant forward. “That’s the thing. Blue Crest have another two cattle steamers – the Delphinius and the Union Pride – both of which do regular runs to New York.”

“I see.” Jameson was pensive as he tied the threads together. He took another slug of his brandy, closing his eyes for a second as he savoured it. “So what’s left to determine now is if one of those boats was in New York the weekend Camille Green was murdered, and if it was, when it will be back here.”