The Cutthroat

Roberts shrugged, apparently uninterested in that line of inquiry, and Bell changed the subject.

“Have you ever heard of symbols being carved into his victims’ bodies?”

“What do you mean by symbols?”

“Not wounds that would kill, but… signals… ritualistic marks that might indicate something, send a message. Or a code.”

Roberts asked, “What did they look like, the ones you heard of?”

Bell had a curious feeling that the former police detective was testing him. He opened his notebook.

Roberts tugged his specs down his nose and studied the marks over them. “No. I recall no shapes like that.”

Bell asked, “Did Jack the Ripper ever drape his victims in a cape? A man’s cape.”

“No, he covered their bodies with their own dress or apron.”

“Did—”

Roberts interrupted. “Mr. Bell, you look like a man who could do with a haircut.”

The observation was as inaccurate as it was incongruous, and Bell said, “Just had one on the boat.”

“Would you consider a shave?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m going to send you to Davy Collins. Tell him I said to tell you a story.”

“Who is Davy Collins?”

“A tonsorial practitioner in Whitechapel.”

16

Davy Collins’s barbershop had a red and white pole by the street door, which was wedged between a dark pub, where men and woman drank in silence, and a tiny grocery with empty shelves. Its twisting stairs were so narrow, it seemed a miracle that his red leather reclining chair had been carried up them. An ornately coiffed barber sporting an elaborate curlicued mustache greeted Bell in an Italian accent so thick, he sounded like a vaudeville comic mocking immigrants.

“I am looking for a barber named Davy Collins,” said Bell.

“Eet eez my Enga-lish-a name.”

“Do you know Mr. Nigel Roberts?”

“Meesta Roba-sa eez retire-a cop-a.”

“He says for you to tell me a story.”

“What-a kind-a story?”

“A Jack the Ripper story.”

The barber picked up a gleaming razor and demanded in harsh Londonese, “Who the bloody deuce are you, mate?”

Bell said, “I’ll tell you who I am if you’ll tell me why you pretend to be Italian?”

“Englishmen treat the barber from sunny Italy kinder than Davy Collins of Whitechapel by way of Ireland.”

“I’m American. I’m kind to everyone.”

Davy Collins laughed. “Fair enough. What story you want to hear?”

“A true one.”

“The only true one I have is about the time I saw the Ripper.”

“You actually saw him?”

“With these eyes.”

“When?”

“It was the ninth of November, 1888.”

Mary Kelly, thought Bell. The murder that the inspector had insisted was Jack the Ripper’s last. “Night or day?” he asked.

“Dead of the night. Past four in the morning.”

“What were you doing out?”

“Looking for a place to lay my head. I was knackered. Hadn’t a penny. I was peddling a magical hair-growth elixir, but no one was buying.” He flourished his razor again. “Suddenly I thought, to hell with the baldies, what did they ever do for me? Somehow find a way into haircutting instead of hair growing. That night, at four in the morning, I fell upon an honest trade, haircutting instead of hair growing. Took me two years of saving pennies to buy my razors.”

“At four in the morning, was there light to see?”

“Whitechapel was blacker than a mine in those days.”

“Then how did you see him?”

“When there is no light, your eyes see more.”

“But not a man’s face.”

“A man’s frame,” said Davy Collins. “The shape he cuts. How he moves.”

“A silhouette?” Bell asked dubiously.

“When he ran from the rents where Mary had her room.”

“But only a silhouette,” said Bell. He was getting nowhere, wasting his time. Roberts, for some reason, had played him for laughs.

“Until he ran through the light.”

“What light? You said there was no light.”

“At the end of the street was a lamppost with a light.”

“Electric?”

“In Whitechapel? Gas. Flickers.”

“Dim.”

“Like a candle in the wind — but bright, compared to the dark.”

“How far away was the lamppost?”

“Fifty feet? Maybe less.”

“What shape did the man cut?” asked Bell.

“Bounding like a hare.”

“What do you mean by a ‘hare’?”

“He ran like a boy. Fearless. Sure on his feet.”

“But he couldn’t have been a boy. How old? would you guess.”

“I don’t have to guess. I saw with these eyes. He was barely into manhood.”

Which today, Bell thought, if true, would make London’s Jack the Ripper his Jack the Ripper — a killer no older than his early forties.

“Did he appear to be a strong man?”

Davy Collins shrugged. “All I know is, he was quick.”

“Did you follow him?”

“Why would I? I didn’t know why he was running. They didn’t find poor Mary until the morning.”

Bell shook his head. “Wait. If they didn’t find Mary Kelly until the morning, then why was the Ripper running? What scared him?”

“The knock at the door.”

“What knock at the door?”

“The fellow who came to collect the rent.”

“At four in the morning?”

“She was behind in her rent,” said Davy Collins. “Dodging the landlord.”

“Did you see the collector?”

“No. But he would knock whenever he saw a light. That’s why the Ripper ran. The knock surprised him.”

“Did her room have a second door?”

“Not bloody likely.”

“Did he go out the window?”