Capturing the Devil (Stalking Jack the Ripper #4)(15)

I turned the information over in my mind. The urge to scream was still present, but the need decreased as I shifted into mystery solving. “Did Uncle attend the murder site?”

“No.” Thomas shook his head. “A Dr. Killeen was called to inspect her body at the scene, and another coroner is quoted in a second article. I’m not sure why Dr. Wadsworth wasn’t consulted.”

“Probably because Scotland Yard had no need of his expertise yet.” I stared at the headline. My uncle was a brilliant professor of forensic medicine and often assisted on a case when invited, but he was not an official member of Scotland Yard. “As you’re well aware, prior to Jack the Ripper, a repeat murderer was practically unheard of. I imagine they used whichever coroner was available and didn’t give it a second thought.”

Neither one of us mentioned a more glaring reason why they hadn’t called in an expert: our society was unkind to women. Especially those who were forced to survive any way they could. Sure, the papers would claim they’d exhausted all possible inquiries, but it was another filthy lie told to enhance their tale. To sell their papers. To make them sleep better at night.

I inhaled deeply, channeling my returning rage into something usable. Anger wouldn’t resolve problems, but action would. I inspected the first article with a cool head.

THE HORRIBLE AND MYSTERIOUS MURDER AT GEORGE’S

YARD, WHITECHAPEL ROAD.

“‘The August Bank Holiday murder took place in George Yard Buildings.’” I read the first few lines of the article aloud. “Her body was discovered in the morning of the seventh of August.” My blood chilled. “That’s nearly three weeks prior to Miss Mary Nichols.”

The first—supposed—victim of Jack the Ripper.

“What’s interesting,” Thomas said, grabbing another journal from the pile,

“is Miss Emma Elizabeth Smith was also murdered during a bank holiday.”

I closed my eyes, recalling all too clearly that she’d died on the fourth of April. My mother’s birthday. Another fact from her case rose to the surface of my mind. “She lived on George Street. This murder took place in George Yard.

It might mean something to the killer.”

Thomas seemed intrigued by this new thread. He got off the bed and sat at a small writing desk, jotting notes down. While he lost himself with that task, I turned my attention back to the newspaper clippings regarding Miss Martha Tabram’s death. My brother didn’t claim her murder in his journal—at least he hadn’t done so in this volume—but his interest was no coincidence.

The East London Advertiser proclaimed:

The circumstances of this awful tragedy are not only surrounded with the deepest mystery, but there is also a feeling of insecurity to think that in a great city like London, the streets of which are continually patrolled by police, a woman could be foully and horribly killed almost next to the citizens peacefully sleeping in their beds, without a trace or clue being left of the villain who did the deed. There appears to be not the slightest trace of the murderer, and no clue has at present been found.

I rubbed my temples. I hadn’t heard of this murder, though if I recalled correctly, the first part of August had been unusual in my home. My brother was preoccupied with his law studies, and my father was in one of his especially gruff moods. I’d attributed Nathaniel’s absences to Father’s growing agitation and had thought my father was upset by the approach of my seventeenth birthday. Every morning, he’d taken the newspapers and had them burned before I could read them.

Now I knew why. It wasn’t madness, but fear. I turned the next page of the journal and silently read a quote clipped from an article.

“The man must have been a perfect savage to inflict such a number of

wounds on a defenseless woman in such a way.” This from a George Collier, deputy coroner for the district.

Hastily scratched below, in Nathaniel’s frantic hand, was a passage from our favorite gothic novel, Frankenstein.

… if our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might

be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a

chance word or scene that that word may convey to us. We rest; a dream

has power to poison sleep. We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the

day. We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep, Embrace fond woe, or

cast our cares away; It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow, The path of

its departure still is free. Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;

Nought may endure but mutability!

I’d read the book so many times during chilly October evenings that it took only a few moments to place the scene. Dr. Victor Frankenstein had traveled to a land of snow and ice to confront his monster. Before his meeting with the creature he so despised, he’d hinted that nature could heal a man’s soul. Did my brother fancy himself as Dr. Victor Frankenstein?

I’d always thought he’d considered himself the monster based on previous passages he’d underlined months ago. How well could I claim to know him, though? How well did any of us truly know one another? Secrets were more precious than any diamond or currency. And my brother had been rich with them.

I found a nib of ink and began scribbling my own furious notes on a blank page, adding dates and theories that seemed as unhinged and untamed as Frankenstein’s monster. Perhaps I was becoming my own mad, feral creature.