Anno Dracula

25

A WALK IN WHITECHAPEL

‘I think at the last she was lucid,’ he said. ‘She was trying to tell us something.’

‘What do you suggest?’ Geneviève replied. ‘The murderer’s name is... Sydney Trousers?’

Beauregard laughed. Not many of the un-dead bothered with humour.

‘Unlikely,’ he replied. ‘Mr Boot, perhaps.’

‘Or a boot-maker.’

‘I have impeccable cause to believe John Pizer out of consideration.’

The corpse had been carted off to the mortuary, where the medical and press vultures were hungrily awaiting. Kate Reed was at the Café de Paris, telephoning in her story, under strict instructions not to mention his name. Drawing attention to the Diogenes Club would be bad enough, but he was really concerned with Penelope. He could well imagine her comments if his part in the last minutes of Liz Stride were made public. This was a different part of the woods, a different part of the city, a different part of his life. Penelope did not live here; and would prefer not to know of its existence.

He walked the distance between Berner Street and Mitre Square. The vampire from Toynbee Hall tagged along, less bothered than Kate had been yesterday by the pale sun. In daylight, Geneviève Dieudonné was quite appealing. She dressed like a New Woman, tight jacket and simple dress, sensible flat-heeled boots, beret-like cap and waist-length cape. If Great Britain had an elected parliament in a year’s time, she would want the vote; and, he suspected, she would not be voting for Lord Ruthven.

They arrived at the site of the Eddowes murder. Mitre Square was an enclosed area by the Great Synagogue, accessible through two narrow passages. The entrances were roped off, the bloody patch guarded by a warm policeman. A few on-lookers loitered, intent on filling out a suspects file. An Orthodox Jew, ringlets dangling in front of his ears, beard down to his belly, was trying to get some of these undesirables to stop hanging about the doors of the Synagogue.

Beauregard lifted the rope and let Geneviève pass. He showed his card to the policeman, who saluted. Geneviève looked around the dreary square.

‘The Ripper must be a sprinter,’ she said.

Beauregard checked his half-hunter. ‘We bested his time by five minutes, but we knew where we were going. He may not have taken the shortest route, especially if his intent was to avoid the main roads. He was presumably just looking for a girl.’

‘And a private place.’

‘It’s not terribly private here.’

There were faces behind the windows in the court, looking down.

‘In Whitechapel, people are practised at not seeing things.’

Geneviève was prowling the tiny walled-in court, as if trying to get the feel of the place.

‘This is perfect, public but private. Ideal for the practice of alfresco harlotry.’

‘You’re unlike other vampires,’ he observed.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I should hope to be.’

‘Are you what they call an elder?’

She tapped her heart. ‘Sweet sixteeen in here, but I was born in 1416.’

Beauregard was puzzled. ‘Then you’re not...’

‘Not of the Prince Consort’s bloodline? Quite right. My father-in-darkness was Chandagnac, and his mother-in-darkness was Lady Melissa d’Acques, and...’

‘So all this –’ he waved his hand ‘– is nothing to do with you?’

‘Everything is to do with everyone, Mr Beauregard. Vlad Tepes is a sick monster and his get spread his sickness. That poor woman this morning is what you can expect of his bloodline.’

‘You work as a physician?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve picked up many professions over the years. I’ve been a whore, a soldier, a singer, a geographer, a criminal. Whatever has seemed best. Now, doctoring seems best. My father, my true father, was a doctor, and I his apprentice. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake aren’t the first women ever to practise medicine, you know.’

‘Things have changed greatly since the fifteenth century.’

‘So I understand. I read something about it in The Lancet. I wouldn’t consider leeches, except in special cases.’

Beauregard found himself liking this ancient girl. Geneviève was unlike any of the women, warm or un-dead, he knew. Whether by choice or from necessity, women seemed to stand to one side, watching, passing comment, never acting. He thought of Florence Stoker, pretending to understand the clever people she entertained, turning petulant whenever anything was not done for her. And Penelope elevated an attitude of non-involvement to a sanctified cause, insisting that messy details be kept from her poor head. Even Kate Reed, new and new-born, contented herself with jotting down notes on life as an alternative to living it. Geneviève Dieudonné was not a spectator. She reminded him a little of Pamela. Pamela had always wanted, demanded, to be involved.

‘Is this affair political?’

Beauregard thought carefully before answering. He did not know how much he should tell her.

‘I’ve made enquiries about the Diogenes Club,’ she explained. ‘You’re some species of government office, are you not?’

‘I serve the Crown.’

‘Why your interest in this matter?’

Geneviève stood over the splash where Catharine Eddowes had died. The policeman looked the other way. A vampire had been at him to judge from the red marks streaking up from his collar almost to his ear.

‘The Queen herself has expressed concern. If she decrees we try to catch a murderer, then...’

‘The Ripper might be an anarchist of some stripe,’ she mused. ‘Or a die-hard vampire hater.’

‘The latter is certain.’

‘Why is everyone so sure the Ripper is warm?’ Geneviève asked.

‘The victims were all vampires.’

‘So are a lot of people. The victims were also all women, all prostitutes, all near-destitutes. There could be any number of connecting factors. The Ripper always goes for the throat; that’s a nosferatu trick.’

The policeman was getting fidgety. Geneviève disturbed him. Beauregard suspected she had that effect on not a few.

He countered her theory. ‘As far as we can tell from the autopsies, the dead women were not bitten, not bled. Besides, as vampires, their blood would not interest another vampire.’

‘That’s not entirely true, Mr Beauregard. We become what we are by drinking the blood of another vampire. It is uncommon but we do tap each other. Sometimes it is a way of establishing dominance within a group, a petty tyrant demanding a tithe from his followers. Sometimes vampire blood can be a curative for those with debased bloodlines. And sometimes, of course, mutual bleeding can be simply a sexual act, like any other...’

Beauregard blushed at her forthrightness. The policeman was scarlet-faced, rubbing his angry wounds.

‘The bloodline of Vlad Tepes is polluted,’ she continued. ‘One would have to be addle-pated with disease to drink from such a well. But London is full of very sick vampires. The Ripper could as easily be of their number as be some warm grudge-holder.’

‘He could also be after the women’s blood because he himself wants to become un-dead. You’ve the fountain of youth flowing in your veins. If our Ripper is warm but sick, he might be desperate enough to seek such measures.’

‘There are easier ways of becoming a vampire. Of course, a lot of people distrust easy ways. Your suggestion has some merit. But why so many victims? One mother-in-darkness would suffice. And why murder? Any one of the women would have turned him for a shilling.’

They left the square and began drifting back towards Commercial Street. The thoroughfare was at the centre of the case. Annie Chapman and Lulu Schön had been killed in streets off the road. The police station from which the investigation was being conducted was there, and the Café de Paris, and Toynbee Hall. Last night, at some point, the Ripper must have crossed Commercial Street, and perhaps even have strolled, bloody knife under his coat, along its extension south of Whitechapel High Street, the Commercial Road, following his own route to Limehouse and the docks. There was a persistent rumour that the murderer was a seaman.

‘Maybe he’s a simple madman,’ he said. ‘Possessed of no more purpose than an orang-utan with a straight razor.’

‘Dr Seward claims madmen are not so simple. Their actions might appear random and senseless, but there is always some pattern. Come at it from a dozen different ways and you eventually begin to understand, to see the world as the madman does.’

‘And then we can catch him?’

‘Dr Seward would say “cure him”.’

They passed a poster listing the names of the latest criminals to be publicly impaled. Tyburn was a forest of dying thieves, exquisites and seditionists.

Beauregard considered. ‘I’m afraid there’ll only be one cure for this madman.’

At the corner of Wentworth Street, they saw a gathering of policemen and officials in Goulston Street. Lestrade and Abberline were among them, clustered around a thin man with a sad moustache and a silk hat. It was Sir Charles Warren, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, dragged down to a despised quarter of his parish. The group were standing by the doorway of a block of recently-built Model Dwellings.

Beauregard sauntered over, the vampire girl with him. Something important, he assumed, was under discussion. Lestrade moved aside to let them into the group. Beauregard was surprised to find Lord Godalming with the civilian dignitaries. The new-born wore a large hat to shade his face, and was puffing on a cigar.

‘Who is this man?’ Sir Charles asked grumpily, indicating Beauregard and ignoring Geneviève as beneath his notice. ‘You, fellow, go away. This is official business. Chop-chop, scurry off!’

Having made his reputation in the Kaffir War, Sir Charles was used to treating everyone without official rank as if they were a native.

Godalming explained, ‘Mr Beauregard represents the Diogenes Club.’

The Commissioner, watery-eyed in the early morning sun, swallowed his irritation. Beauregard understood why the police resented his presence, but was not above taking a little pleasure in Sir Charles’s discomfort.

‘Very well,’ Sir Charles said. ‘I am sure your discretion is to be trusted.’

Lestrade made a disgusted face behind the Commissioner. Sir Charles was losing the support of his own men.

‘Halse,’ Lestrade said, ‘show us what you found.’

A square of packing-case rested against the fascia by the doorway. Halse, a Detective Constable, lifted the make-shift guard. A bloated rat, body as big as a rugby ball, shot out and darted between the Commissioner’s polished shoes, squeaking like rusty nails on a slate. The constable disclosed a chalk scrawl, grey-white against black bricks.

THE VAMPYRES

ARE NOT THE MEN THAT WILL BE

BLAMED FOR NOTHING

‘So, obviously the vampires are to be blamed for something,’ deduced the Commissioner, astutely.

Halse held up a ragged piece of once-white cloth, spotted with blood. ‘This was in the doorway, sir. It’s part of an apron.’

‘The Eddowes woman is wearing the rest of it,’ Abberline said.

‘You are certain?’ Sir Charles asked.

‘It’s not been checked. But I’ve just come from Golden Lane Mortuary, and I saw the other piece. Same stains, same type of tear. They’ll fit like puzzle pieces.’

Sir Charles rumbled wordlessly.

‘Could the Ripper be one of us?’ asked Godalming, echoing Geneviève’s earlier musings.

‘One of you,’ Beauregard muttered.

‘The Ripper is obviously trying to throw us off,’ put in Abberline. ‘That’s an educated man trying to make us think he’s an illiterate. Only one misspelling, and a double negative not even the thickest costermonger would actually use.’

‘Like the Jack the Ripper letter?’ asked Geneviève.

Abberline thought. ‘Personally, I reckon that was a smart circulation drummer at the Whitechapel Star playing silly buggers to drive up sales. This is a different hand, and this is the Ripper. It’s too close to be a coincidence.’

‘The graffito was not here yesterday?’ Beauregard asked.

‘The beat man swears not.’

Constable Halse agreed with the inspector.

‘Wipe it off,’ Sir Charles said.

Nobody did anything.

‘There’ll be mob rule, a mass uprising, disorder in the streets. We’re still few and the warm are many.’

The Commissioner took his own handkerchief to the chalk, and rubbed it away. Nobody protested at the destruction of evidence, but Beauregard saw a look pass between the detectives.

‘There, job done,’ Sir Charles said. ‘Sometimes I think I have to do everything myself.’

Beauregard saw a narrow-minded impulsiveness that might have passed for stouthearted valour at Rorke’s Drift or Lucknow, and understood just how Sir Charles could make a decision that ended in Bloody Sunday.

The dignitaries drifted away, back to their cabs and clubs and comfort.

‘Shall I see you and Penny at the Stokers’?’ Godalming asked.

‘When this matter is at a conclusion.’

‘Give my kindest regards to Penny.’

‘I’ll be sure to.’

Godalming followed Sir Charles. And the East End coppers stayed behind to clean up.

‘It should have been photographed,’ Halse said. ‘It was a clue. Dammit, a clue.’

‘Easy, lad,’ said Abberline.

‘Right,’ said Lestrade. ‘I want the cells full by sundown. Haul in every tart, every ponce, every bruiser, every dipper. Threaten ’em with whatever you want. Someone knows something, and sooner or later, someone’ll talk.’

That would please the Limehouse Ring not a bit. Furthermore, Lestrade was wrong. Beauregard had a high enough estimation of the criminal community to believe that if any felon in London had so much as a hint of the identity of the Ripper, it would have passed directly to him. He had received several telegrams, indicating which avenues of enquiry would prove fruitless. The shadow empire had ruled out several investigative threads the police still pursued. It was perhaps disquieting to consider that the group in Limehouse had a higher percentage of first-rate minds than that which had just gathered in Goulston Street.

With Geneviève, he walked back towards Commercial Street. It was late afternoon already, and he had not slept in over a day and a half. Paper-boys were hawking special editions. With a signed letter from the killer and two fresh murders, the hysteria for news was at a peak.

‘What do you think of Warren?’ Geneviève asked.

Beauregard considered it best not to confide his opinion, but she understood it exactly in an instant. She was one of those vampires, and he would have to be careful what he thought in her company.

‘Me, too,’ she said. ‘Precisely the wrong man for the position. Ruthven should know that. Still, better him than a Carpathian maniac.’

Puzzled, he put a suggestion to her. ‘To hear you, one would think you prejudiced against vampires.’

‘Mr Beauregard, I find myself surrounded by the Prince Consort’s get. It’s too late to complain, but Vlad Tepes hardly represents the best of my kind. No one dislikes a Jewish or Italian degenerate more than a Jew or an Italian.’

Beauregard found himself alone with Geneviève as sun set. She took off her cap.

‘There,’ she said, shaking out her honey-coloured hair, ‘that’s better.’

Geneviève seemed to stretch like a cat in the sun. He could sense her increasing strength. Her eyes sparkled a little, and her smile became almost sly.

‘By the way, who is Penny?’

Beauregard wondered what Penelope was doing exactly now. He had not seen her since their argument of a few days ago.

‘Miss Penelope Churchward, my fiancée.’

He could not read Geneviève’s expression but fancied her eyes narrowed a shade. He tried to think of nothing.

‘Fiancée? It won’t last.’

He was shocked by her effrontery.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Beauregard. But believe me, I know this. Nothing lasts.’