The Cutthroat

“Handsome, isn’t he?”

Bell shook his head in disbelief. “A choirboy.”

“As I said, angelic.”

Bell stared, shaking his head. “Do you think he really did look like this?”

“Had the young woman ever made the acquaintance of a Bible, she’d have sworn on a stack of them. She truly believed he looked like this, even though he scared the daylights out of her.”

“How did he frighten her if he looked so innocent?”

“He cornered her in Hanbury Street.”

“That’s where he killed Annie Chapman,” said Bell.

“Same exact place. Number 29 Hanbury Street. An alley leads into a backyard. Chapman was next. First time he tried it was this girl. Grabbed her throat in both his hands.”

“How did she get loose?”

“I don’t know if you have any conception of the life these women live. It’s no better now than back then. You can see it in any slum street that hasn’t been cleared. And many that have… The girl had wandered all night in the rain, seeking clients to raise the price of a bed to sleep in but spending it on drink instead. Out in the rain to earn the money again. By the time the Ripper cornered her, she was soaked to the skin. Dripping wet, head to toe. His hands slipped. She ran.”

Barlowe tossed his pencil on the easel tray and stalked back to his whale.

Set in the back of the house away from street noise, the atelier grew quiet but for the occasional, distant huff of locomotives crossing the Battersea Railway Bridge and the scratching of Barlowe’s steel pen.

“What was her name?” Bell asked.

“Emily.”

Bell pondered what he had heard. “I think I understand why you never drew his face.”

“And why is that, Mr. Bell? I would like to know. Because I have asked myself a thousand times, could I have stopped the Ripper from killing God knows how many more girls if I had?”

“No one would believe that this handsome boy would hurt anyone. In fact, they would even find it impossible to believe he would patronize a prostitute.”

“Not when he could have any girl in London with his smile. My editors would have laughed me out of their office.”

Bell saw that Barlowe was deeply distressed and thought he knew why. The tall detective moved closer and arrowed the full force of his probing gaze into the artist’s eyes. “Or, were you afraid you might finger the wrong man?”

Barlowe stared, silent for a full minute, before he whispered, “What if…” He paused to compose himself. “What if in her terror and panic, she imagined another face? A different face. A boy she might have admired from a distance? Or a handsome young gentleman — it seems a gentleman’s face, wouldn’t you agree? — a youth in clean clothes and utterly unattainable? Couldn’t even the poorest creature experience a romantic crush?… But… What if he were recognized — this innocent, whose face I sketched for the newspapers and posters? If the mob didn’t kick him to death, they would hang him from a lamppost.”

“Didn’t you think to ask her again later, after she calmed down?”

“Of course! I waited a week. I went to her regular spots. Couldn’t find her. Spoke with a woman who had known her. She told me that Emily was afraid the Ripper would come back for her. She was so frightened that she kept running. She left Whitechapel. Left London — half mad with fear, she must have been. I was told later that the poor thing ran all the way to Angel Meadow.”

“Where is that?”

“Manchester. And if you think Whitechapel is rotten, you should see Angel Meadow. Thousands of workers’ tenements built on top of a paupers’ graveyard. Twenty-five years back, it was even worse. Engels, who you may recall wrote the Communist Manifesto, and had seen a thing or two, called it Hell on Earth.”

“Were you there for the newspapers?” Bell asked.

“I wrangled a commission. But I went looking for Emily.”

“Did you find her?”

“Easily. She was famous, having come from exotic London. Slum dwellers’ lives were so tightly circumscribed in those days. The Manchester folk called her London Emily.”

“Did you ask her?”

“She saw me coming and she let out a shriek and ran for her life.”

* * *

“I need something to take to Manchester,” said Isaac Bell.

Joel Wallace unlocked the two-inch oak door to the closet that housed the field office arsenal.

“What part of Manchester?”

“Angel Meadow.”

“The poor folk are too beaten down to trouble you much. But for the gangs — they call them scuttlers — I recommend a U.S. Marines’ landing party.”

“I was thinking more in terms of an alley gun.” Bell was opting for close-quarters stopping power that wouldn’t mow down innocents.

“Number 4 lead bird shot,” said Wallace, “will change minds up to five yards.” He handed Bell a double-barreled derringer. Bell practiced loading the two-inch .410 cartridges into the stubby pistol until he could reload without taking his eyes off his target.

* * *