The Cutthroat

“Three reasons,” said Bell. “One, he’s a predator. That means he’s extraordinarily alert and aware of his surroundings. Probably the last time he had to run was the night when a con man named Davy Collins caught a glimpse of him in ’eighty-eight. Two, he never frightens his victim before he has complete control of her. He’s made an art of putting her at ease. Three, America is a big continent. When he arrived, he reckoned he’d never get caught if he kept moving around. If the Van Dorn Agency hadn’t been working up the Anna case, no one would have noticed the connection between her and Lillian Lent in Boston and Mary Beth Winthrop in Springfield. Fortunately, we are working the case, so the All Field Offices Alert turned up a slew of his killings. We know he’s still in business. We know what his victims look like. And I’m betting he looks something like this picture.”

“He’s killed girls in twenty cities,” said Harry Warren. “How does he get around?”

“Precisely what we will focus on,” said Bell. “How does he travel? Why does he travel? What line is he in?”

* * *

“A drummer,” said Archie Abbott. “Who travels more than a traveling salesman?”

“He’s an executive,” said Helen. “He travels city to city visiting his company’s factories.”

“He’s a bank robber,” said Harry Warren. “The new breed that cross state lines in autos.”

Bell shook his head. “He’s been murdering since 1891. How’d he cross state lines before autos?”

“Covered wagon.”

Isaac Bell did not smile. The detectives exchanged wary glances. The stateroom fell so silent, they could hear stewards hustling luggage in the corridor and the faint piping of pilot whistles as Lusitania crept toward Quarantine.

“Sorry, Isaac.”

“A circus performer,” said Archie Abbott. “They’re always on the move. Or a vaudevillian.”

Now Bell had his people where he wanted them — the best minds in the agency, working full steam at turning speculation into facts. He looked at Abbott. “If he had been a London music hall actor, could he play vaudeville here?”

“Why not? Music is music, and the jokes work the same: Set-up. Premise. Punch line. Was he on the bill?”

“I have no playbills or programs from back then. The music hall isn’t even a theater anymore.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jack Spelvin.”

“Sounds like he had a sense of humor. Spelvin’s a pseudonym.”

“The Ripper liked his games.” If the crescent cuts were the murderer’s idea of a joke, thought Bell, what was the punch line?

“He could be a hobo,” said Harry Warren. “Stealing rides on freight trains.”

“Except,” said Helen Mills, “where does a hobo get cash in hand to show the girl?”

“But what if he isn’t stealing rides? What if he’s a railroad man?” said Warren. “They’re on the move. Brakemen invented the red-light district with their red lanterns.”

Bell said, “I find it difficult to imagine a railroad man dressing in a cape and homburg to convince Anna Waterbury he was a Broadway producer. Though he could be an express agent.” The well-paid operators who guarded the express cars could afford to dress like dandies, and often did.

“Union organizers travel,” said Harry Warren.

“An engineer,” said Helen Mills. “They travel for work. So do specialist doctors and surgeons. So do actors. As we just said.”

“A private detective.”

Everyone stared at Archie Abbott.

Bell nudged them back on track. “There are three or four hundred thousand commercial travelers in the country. If he is a traveling salesman, then he’s probably a commission man. They make their own schedules. Union organizers, engineers, and specialists who travel might number in the low thousands. Archie, how many actors are there?”

“All told? Maybe thirty thousand.”

“All men?”

“Men, maybe twenty thousand.”

“Not exactly what I’d call narrowing down,” said Harry Warren.

That was followed by a deep silence. Helen Mills broke it. “Speaking of a cape and homburg, how did Jack the Ripper dress in London?”

“That was a long time ago, and it depends on who thinks they saw him. The illustrators mostly agreed on a gentleman’s cape and top hat, but that was the image they expected of a man who could afford to pay a prostitute.”

“In other words, we don’t know what he does, and we don’t know how he gets around.”

“We can assume,” said Bell, “that he must be of some means to afford to dress well and travel. Unless he is wealthy and doesn’t have to work, whatever his job, it almost certainly requires him to travel.”

“Right back where we started,” said Harry Warren.

“Not quite,” said Isaac Bell. “We’re miles ahead of where we started.” He looked at Grady Forrer, who remained silent through the speculation.

“We have a pattern,” said the Research chief. “We can match our pattern to the travels.”

“What pattern?”

“His route,” said Isaac Bell. “Tell them, Grady.”