Saturday, November 3, 1888
“You look familiar,” said the man beside me, sliding closer to me on the wooden bench. “I never forget a face.”
Not able to restrain myself from wincing at his odor, I leaned slightly away from him and looked in the opposite direction. No matter where I looked though, the police station was full of drunkards and vagrants, harlots and bullies. I felt several sets of eyes on me.
“I’ve got it. You’re that lady who talks to ghosts,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “I saw you a few weeks back.”
“You must be mistaking me for someone else,” I snapped, my knuckles going white as I clung to my reticule.
While staring at the bit of dirty floor directly in front of my feet, I thought about Mr. Wyndham—the look in his eyes as he told me the tour was off and that he did not think my career was salvageable. He had not even taken the train back to London with me.
Now that I could not make him any money, our courtship was evidently off as well.
Perhaps Mr. Wyndham is not a good man after all.
An inspector in a respectable brown suit looked down at a clipboard before raising an eyebrow at me. “Mrs. Pringle?”
I nodded.
“I’m Inspector Fitzpatrick. Please come with me.”
I stood immediately, glad to be getting away from the piss-sodden pants of my companion on the bench. I followed the inspector down a narrow hallway and into a small, dimly lit office.
“What, no interrogation room, inspector?” I cast my eyes about the shelves and files and books, many of which could have done with a dusting, and took a seat. “I have to say I am a little disappointed.”
“Our interrogation rooms are a little full at the moment.” He sat behind the small desk and folded his hands together on top of it. “In case you hadn’t heard, we’ve got a murderer on the loose.”
“Why waste your time on me then?” I smiled sweetly. “Unless you believe I’m the one killing those poor women. Why even bring me in?”
Inspector Fitzpatrick glared. “You threatened Mrs. Amelia Baxter yesterday at her place of employment and then, hours later, her house was vandalized. Do you really expect anyone to believe you weren’t involved?”
“Vandalized?” I repeated. “In what way?”
He narrowed his eyes, his mouth twisting into a sideways frown. “As if you don’t know.”
“I don’t!” I pinched the inside of my gloved hand to summon tears. “How could you think I could be capable of such a thing?” I sniffed and looked away.
“Someone smashed the front window of her home and sent a care package into her front room,” he said. “A crate of rats.”
I put a hand to my mouth. “Oh, my good god!”
“Yeah. Someone was trying to send her a message.”
Minerva. It must have been.
“I do not even know where she lives,” I exclaimed. “I would never degrade myself to do such a repulsive act!”
“Obviously we don’t think you pitched a box of rodents in yourself, but we think you know who did it.”
“I do not, I swear.”
Inspector Fitzpatrick sat back in his chair, the light shifting on his face to reveal dark shadows under his small, beady eyes. I imagined many in Scotland Yard were putting in a lot of extra hours at that time. After a short pause, he continued his questioning.
“Did you or did you not threaten Mrs. Baxter yesterday?”
“I simply wanted to discuss her latest article about spiritualism and correct a few of the many errors she made concerning my specific talents. I only wanted a retraction.”
He glanced at his clipboard. “‘You will regret this,’” he read. “That doesn’t sound very genial to me.”
“I never said that,” I said with a quiet chuckle. “Is Mrs. Baxter claiming I said that?”
“Several other employees at The Gazette Weekly claim you uttered those words, yes.”
“Absolutely preposterous,” I said, laughing. “They are attempting to frame me. Do I look like someone capable of tossing out threats?”
Hopefully he was the type of man who assumed a respectable woman was more like a wilting calla lily and less like a thorny rose.
“I would not presume anything of you, Mrs. Pringle. After all,” he said with a small grin, “you talk to ghosts. I can’t imagine all of the other things you can do.”
“I have an alibi, Inspector.”
“No need. I know you didn’t personally toss a crate through a window. You would never dirty your own hands,” he said, eyeing my delicate gloves. “A man was spotted leaving the scene after the incident. You don’t happen to know who that man was, do you?”
“No, I do not.” I paused. “Mrs. Baxter was not hurt, was she?”
“No. Would you care if she had been hurt?”
Tipping my nose up, I squared my shoulders. “It would be well-deserved.”
Fitzpatrick raised his eyebrows.
I smiled. “A joke, inspector. Calm yourself.”
“I promise there is nothing funny about intentional property damage, Mrs. Pringle. You would be wise to remember that.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “May I go?”
He glared at me. “You will let me know if you remember anything, won’t you?” He handed me a card.
“Yes, inspector.” I rose. “You have my word.”
I let myself out of the cramped little office and, once outside on the street, dropped his card and watched as the wind carried it away.
Once safe and sound in a hansom on my way back to The Hemlock, I let out the slow sigh and let my shoulders slump. I was brought up to be a respectable lady and had somehow fallen far enough to be mingling with the criminal element.
How had things gone so terribly wrong?
As the cab jostled along crowded streets from Belgravia to Spitalfields, I watched as the quality of the people, businesses and houses gradually descended. Top hats were replaced by bowlers and parasols were replaced by faded and stained skirts. Young children selling flowers on street corners were replaced by thin orphans holding their desperate palms out for charity. Ladies shopping for lace and gloves became tired mothers trying to manage their unruly broods before finally turning to women of loose morals, their faces bright with gaudy makeup, using their eyes to sell their bodies to any man who passed by. I dared not think about how desperate I would have to be before turning to that life.
Are these women not scared of the Ripper?
I closed my eyes and shook my head. I had few cards left to play but I still had my name and the ability to draw a crowd. I needed to use that while it was still an option.
Pounding the ceiling of the cab, I yelled, “Driver, onto Whitechapel if you please.”
Spitalfields was a diverse area of London, some streets burdened by poverty and crime while other streets were comfortable homes and flourishing businesses.
Nearby Whitechapel, however, was a different story altogether. I had heard stories of the grim lives of the people there and read articles in the newspaper detailing the despicable state of it, but I suppose I had never imagined it being as abysmal as it really was.
I paid the driver. “Can you wait for me? I promise I will not be long, and I will pay you for your time.”
I was not actually sure if I had enough money in my reticule to pay for that promise, but he reluctantly agreed to wait as I stuffed my small purse into a hidden pocket in my skirts.
A barefoot urchin rushed to my side. “Spare change, kind lady?”
He was quickly joined by four other children, their hands tiny and speckled with filth. My eyes darted left and right and gently moved in between the children, trying to ignore their disappointed whines.
The neighborhood was swarmed with reporters, each one trying to get some ghastly detail about the butcher haunting the alleyways of Whitechapel. A constable strolled by a few streets down, inspecting the rough types that littered the lanes and doorways. A few men broke away from the busy street and rushed the officer, peppering him with questions.
“Any more clues you want to tell us about?”
“Any signs of the Ripper’s return?”
“When is Scotland Yard going to catch ’im?”
“How are the good folks of this city supposed to feel safe when there’s a monster on the loose?”
“It’s been a month. Is it possible the Ripper’s reign of terror is over?”
The constable shooed them away like flies and continued his patrol of the area, ignoring every single inquiry.
Before the band of reporters could disperse, I spotted a nearby wooden crate on the side of the street and climbed atop it, a few of the locals watching me curiously. One of the reporters looked my way and narrowed his eyes as I made myself as tall as I could, using a nearby lamp post for balance.
“I am Lady Selene, the Mystic of the Taj Mahal,” I cried at the top of my lungs, “and I have had a vision!”
Several more heads turned to me, children stopped begging for change and a man selling bruised and browned apples halted his rickety cart to survey the spectacle.
Slowly raising my hands up, my palms to the sky, I made my declaration. “The Ripper came to me in a dream. He told me he is not finished with his dark deeds just yet.” I closed my eyes for emphasis. “Long Liz and Kate Eddowes will not be his last victims.”
Several women gasped and shrieked in the gathering crowd below me. From the end of the street the constable was advancing towards me, trying to squeeze through the unwashed deluge between us. The reporters who had been haranguing him moments before were all watching me with keen interest, their pencils flying over the open pages of their notebooks.
“When will he strike again?” one man yelled.
“Soon,” I lamented. “Jack the Ripper will return to Whitechapel soon and the streets will run red with the blood of an Englishwoman once again. He will never be satisfied—”
A large hand gripped my slender wrist, yanking me down from my makeshift podium. I stumbled into the constable as I tumbled off the crate and he roughly shoved me into the upset crowd.
“Begone, woman!” he ordered. “Everyone, please go about your business. Rest assured, there is no sign of the Ripper returning—”
“But ’ow do you know?” an angry woman hollered back at him. “Scotland Yard ain’t done nothin’ about it.”
A man stood tall at her side, pointing his thick finger right in the constable’s face. “You coppers ain’t got a clue, no more than any of us.”
“Yeah!”
The constable held up his hands. “Everyone needs to remain calm—”
“How are we supposed to be calm when there’s a killer on his way to rip us apart?”
I wriggled my way out of the crowd before things got out of hand. At once, one of the reporters approached me.
“Lady Selene, can you tell me more about this vision you had?” he asked. “Did the Ripper tell you anything else? Who the next victim might be?”
I surveyed his features. “Do I know you?”
A whisper of a wince flickered across his eyes. “No, miss, I don’t believe so—”
“You work at The Gazette Weekly,” I said, letting out a laugh. “Good day to you, sir.”
I took a few steps towards my waiting hansom before a second reporter rushed to my side. “Lady Selene, would you care to talk about your vision? Our readers would love to hear what you have to say.”
I smiled sweetly at him, glancing at The Gazette Weekly reporter over my shoulder. I fluttered my thick eyelashes at the second reporter and lifted one of my shoulders up slightly, feigning shyness. “Of course. I only want to help if I can.”
Just as planned.