The Cutthroat

Bell snatched the key from his hand, but Mapes held on to the envelope as he pushed open the opposite door. Bell lunged for him, blocking Abbington-Westlake’s attempt to trip him with his walking stick. Mapes tumbled out, eluding Bell’s grasp, and ran into the gardens of Berkeley Square.

The constable lumbered after him, blowing his whistle. Abbington flung open his door.

Bell pinned his arm. “Let him go.”

“He’ll escape.”

“We have his strongbox,” said Bell. “There’ll be coppers all over us.” He called to the driver, “Get us out of here!”

The horse galloped onto Fitzmaurice Place, rounded the curve into Curzon Street at a speed that caused the top-heavy growler to careen on two wheels. The driver regained control before it fell on its side. Cracking his whip, he wove in and out of lanes. Suddenly they emerged into the flurry of Piccadilly traffic just west of the Ritz, where they blended in with a hundred other growlers, hansoms, and petrol motor taxis. At the edge of Green Park, he pulled under a streetlamp haloed by the fog. It cast soft light on Bell’s and Abbington-Westlake’s faces.

“Why is he stopping?”

“To give his horse a breather,” said Bell.

“Shall we have a look in the box?”

“Be my guest,” said Bell. He handed over the key.

* * *

“Wait!”

“Why?”

“Funny feeling,” said Isaac Bell. He leaned in and studied the box carefully. “I think it’s a trick.”

“What trick? I fail to see a trick. I see a strongbox filled with priceless information.”

“Let’s see your torch.”

Bell switched on the flashlight and played the beam over the lock and the keyhole.

“What do you see, Bell?”

“Give me your walking stick.”

24

Gingerly, Isaac Bell inserted the key partway into the strongbox lock.

Then he poked at the key with Abbington-Westlake’s walking stick.

“What the devil are you doing?”

“Let us pretend that you are turning that key,” said Isaac Bell. He turned the stick around and used the ornate knob to shove the key deeper into the lock. It engaged with a sharp snick. A sudden explosion of noise resounded in the closed cab like a thunderclap. The crocodile disintegrated, spraying Bell and Abbington-Westlake with splintered wood and ivory.

“What?” gasped Abbington-Westlake.

His shattered stick was pinned in the iron jaws of the wrist manacle that had sprung from the box.

“I had a funny feeling it was a thief catcher,” said Bell.

“A what?”

“Thief catcher. I read somewhere that accountants had to look out for them when they audited a dead man’s estate.”

Abbington-Westlake pulled what was left of his stick from the manacle. “This could have been my arm.”

“What’s in the box?” asked Bell.

“You open it,” said Abbington-Westlake. He jumped when the lid squealed on rusty hinges. Bell switched on the flashlight, fixed the beam on the manacle springs, then played it inside.

“Empty!” said Abbington-Westlake.

“No. Here’s something.”

The tall detective and the English spymaster stared. The box contained a single sheet of paper. Abbington-Westlake snatched it up. A steel-pen drawing depicted the ninety-eight-gun wooden battleship Dreadnought that had fought Napoleon’s navy one hundred and six years ago at the Battle of Trafalgar.

“Of all the bloody cheek.”

“He’s got a sense of humor,” said Bell.

“The Hun will stop at nothing.”

Isaac Bell hung his head as if equal parts embarrassed and apologetic. “I am sorry I let you down, but he really pulled the wool over my eyes… If it makes you feel any better, he got my money.”

Abbington-Westlake recovered quickly. “I suppose I would be somewhat more irritated if that had shattered my arm. As it is, I’m in your debt.”

“You can pay me off easily.”

“How?” Abbington-Westlake asked warily.

“Tell me about Jack the Ripper.”

“Bell, will you drop this bloody charade?”

“No, you’re wrong about the masquerade. I was trying to do two things at once. Back in America, I am tracking a monster who is killing girls and I am increasingly sure he is the same man.”

Abbington-Westlake shook his head. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Bell. He is not the same man.”

“Do you know for sure?”

“I’ll confide in you the solution to the Whitechapel Mysteries. It was proved for a fact who the Ripper was. He drowned himself in the Thames.”

“Stop! Next, you’ll name suspects, from an insane medical student, to suicides, to a doctor avenging his son, to a royal Duke, to a peer of the realm hiding in Brazil, to a famous painter, to a maniacal immigrant Pole.”

“All right. All right,” Abbington-Westlake rumbled on. “Look here, Bell. I don’t mind sharing a confidence with a man of your integrity… Give me your word as a gentleman it will go no further.”

“My lips are sealed,” said Isaac Bell.

“I have photographs. I will show them to you in gratitude for saving my wrist.”

“Photographs of what?”

“Mortuary photographs of his victims’ bodies.”

“Where did you get them?”

“That’s neither here nor there.”

“How did you get pictures?”

“I’ll show you— Driver! Whitehall. Number 26.”

* * *