Irene Adler: Chapel Noir Part 51

"Usually no, but in this case-" He paused. "I do not wish to alarm you, but neither the Rothschilds' Prague emissaries nor the palace knew why your husband left the city or where he was bound. I realize that the sort of paper pathway a barrister's work entails may require following many unexpected turns."

"Indeed." Irene spun her demita.s.se spoon in her coffee cup until she had created a creamy whirlpool that I suspected mirrored her mental agitation. "Since G.o.dfrey appears to have removed himself from your suspicion, not to mention our knowledge, who else did you suspect of being our confederate?"

Mr. Holmes brought the cooling brew to his lips and sipped with much the same expression of resigned distaste that I should have, were I ever so foolish as to take cold coffee.

He glanced at me suddenly, with both accusation and, oddly enough, apology.

"I did have reason to remember the interesting British agent that we shall refer to only as 'Cobra.' "

"And-?" I asked, my heart in my throat, as it always was at mention of Quentin Stanhope, even when only I knew his real name. News of him, however scant, would be greatly welcome.

"Cobra appears to have disappeared under a rock. Oh, do not be alarmed, Miss Huxleigh. I only worry about a foreign agent when he is heard of." His unexpectedly encouraging smile, brief as it was, both rea.s.sured and embarra.s.sed me. Just how did Sherlock Holmes know that I would want to hear news of Cobra?

"If G.o.dfrey and Cobra are in the clear," Irene asked, "whom then do you suspect of aiding us? Surely not the King?"

"I believe that at this point the King of Bohemia would do whatever you asked of him, which also seems to be the condition to which you have reduced the Prince of Wales. These facts make me extremely grateful that my bloodlines are free of royal taint, Madam. I do not underestimate you, at least not now. You must have some additional aid for you to have dogged my footsteps in this investigation."

"I am not sure who is d.o.g.g.i.ng whose footsteps," Irene answered, "but I see that you will take no denials we could make for an answer."

"I am afraid that I can spare no one the most rigorous interrogation." His features tightened, if that was possible for a face already drawn drumskin-taut across the bones. "I regret to inform you what I myself have just learned: James Kelly escaped from the Paris police while being transferred to a facility for the mad."

"Escaped?" Elizabeth repeated.

"When?" Irene demanded.

"Yesterday. Afternoon."

"Then he was free-"

"He was at large yesterday afternoon and evening, in good time for him to partic.i.p.ate in the atrocities in the cellar we discovered, yes."

"How could he escape?" I finally found breath to ask.

Mr. Holmes's quick glance in my direction became uneasy. "Le Villard does not have the influence he deserves. Kelly's mad behavior on arrest, despite his canny responses during questioning, lulled the custodians into thinking him too demented to escape. He did not elude the hangman's rope for no reason. Too absurd. His hands were manacled, but not his feet. When there was an omnibus accident on the route he plunged from the carriage and disappeared into the crowd. Given his adeptness with tools, he certainly slipped the irons shortly after and was as free a man as ever before."

He looked back at Irene. "Now that you see the urgency, Madam, you realize that I must know: who is your unseen confederate in this case?

He leaned back in the chair, sure of an answer.

Irene stood. "I will summon our 'confederate' from the other room."

Satisfaction settled on his features. I daresay they were a trifle smug.

I watched Irene turn and enter her bedchamber, wondering what on earth she had in mind . . . unless G.o.dfrey secretly had been bound here and had somehow overcome time and s.p.a.ce to arrive in unG.o.dly time.

When Irene returned Mr. Holmes's eyes focused behind her, intent on identifying the presumed confederate. His conviction was so strong that he never really looked at her, which is always a mistake.

"You are trifling with me," he said in disappointment when no one appeared in her wake. "I had thought you above such coquettish stratagems."

She slapped a book to the tabletop in answer, the volume that had hidden in the folds of her heavy taffeta skirt.

"This is our 'confederate,' Mr. Holmes. You see that he is both discreet and portable, and need not rely on train schedules."

I almost spied a faint flush along the detective's gaunt cheekbones, a phenomenon perhaps unleashed both by Irene's righteous tone and his own grasp of just what book this was.

"Richard von Krafft-Ebing," he muttered. "I have heard of the baron's . . . work, but never came across a copy."

"A pity you do not visit the Beefsteak Club when in London," Irene suggested. "This book was all the talk of the Irving set not long ago."

"Much is the talk of the Irving set that the general run of men would do well to avoid," he said in forbidding tones that I would be proud to produce. "And women," he added, with a piercing look at all three of us. "I am sorry that my a.s.sumptions were more general than literal, but I thank you for . . . sharing this most interesting volume, which you feel may have some bearing upon recent events. I take it I may borrow it."

"Why, Mr. Holmes," Irene said in full ironic plumage, "you may keep it. Certainly it is not proper reading material for us."

He eyed it eagerly, yet picked it up as if it were something he had found in the street and did not wish to examine in polite company.

"If this book had been-" he began.

"Take it," she insisted. "It has done us all the ill that it can do, and may be of some good to you."

As he hesitated, I could not help saying "It is, after all, not the first memento you have of . . . us."

Again that faintest of flushes. He did not look at me, but did not dare ask me, or even himself, how I might know that he had kept the cabinet photograph of Irene that she had left for the King of Bohemia. I doubt even he knew that his doctor friend had committed the "case" to script with intentions of publis.h.i.+ng it, or that I had found opportunity to peruse the secret ma.n.u.script.

"Thank you," was all he said, sounding quite genuine, not sardonic at all. "I bid you good day." He nodded to the room in general, avoiding looking any of us in the eye, or the dressing gown, swooped his hat and cane from the table, and was shortly out the door.

"How could you give it to him?" Elizabeth burst out in a fury as soon as the pa.s.sage had swallowed him, book and all. "You have thrown away our sole advantage."

Irene rounded on her, like the angry G.o.ddess who had confronted the thieving urchin on my behalf years ago.

"What are you saying, Pink? Mr. Holmes is the foremost investigator in Europe. He has been intimate with the inquiry into the murders of Jack the Ripper in London from the beginning, and he is here in Paris at the behest of the same individuals who came to me. First, I admit," she added in less corrosive tones, but her eyes still were as dark as cold coffee with indignation. "What are you thinking of? This is not a race! We seek to stop these horrible deaths, as does he. And I sought the book. It is mine to keep or give."

I must say that I could barely contain myself from marking the end of this remarkable speech with a st.u.r.dy round of applause. I had been so mystified by Irene's adoption of Pink, by her sweeping Pink into the bosom of our partners.h.i.+p. I had never understood it. I had consoled myself with the notion that Pink was actually a Pinkerton agent from America, that Irene had somehow discerned this fact and taken her under her wing as an undeclared colleague. Even then it was hard to stomach the constant presence of this upstart. In some ways she had reminded me of a young Irene: so self-confident, far beyond her years and the situation in which we had found her. This same self-confidence now had led her to challenge her benefactor. I knew that Irene would tolerate a good many things, but self-interest was not one of them.

"I'm sorry." Elizabeth glanced at me for support and found none. "I . . . forgot myself. And Mr. Holmes is most possessive of his investigation."

"He must be," Irene said more easily, mollified by the girl's contrition. "Detection is his profession. We are amateurs at it."

"But doesn't his arrogance, his a.s.sumption that women are not worthwhile a.s.sociates, annoy you?"

"Not so much as these brutal killings offend me. So Kelly is at large again. This is . . . appalling news. Now." Irene nodded to me and Elizabeth's alcove. "Quick, Nell, the maps. We have an appointment this evening at the World Exposition grounds to meet Colonel Cody and a certain Red Tomahawk for a private hunting party."

"You know where the murderer will strike again!" Elizabeth said breathlessly.

"No. I think I know when the murderer will strike again. We must still discover exactly where."

I returned to spread the papers over the tabletop. Irene sighed and stared down at them.

"You have a scheme," I said. "Why not tell us?"

"It is half-formed."

"We may more than half help."

"Indeed you may, Nell, but I hesitate to unveil the directions of my thoughts."

"Why?" I demanded. "I have certainly proved myself able to survive the several shocking directions your investigation has taken so far, including repeated doses of Mr. Sherlock Holmes!"

"Hear, hear, Nell," Elizabeth said approvingly. "The man is quite the lone wolf and irritatingly self-sure."

"Lone wolf," Irene said, fixing on the phrase as only a stage-trained actor would. "And so is Jack the Ripper."

I felt a thrill that was not the least bit nasty. "Then you think it's possible that Sherlock Holmes . . ."

"Anything is possible, Nell. Sherlock Holmes the Ripper? I could say, yes, possibly. I could say that Bram Stoker remains a suspect. Or that Inspector le Villard might be one. As for Sherlock Holmes, if he is guilty of anything in this case, it is of failing to apprehend the Whitechapel Ripper only minutes before another murder, and I believe he well knows it and it haunts him. Also, I find it unlikely that he is ruled by a calendar of crimes as I think our Jack the Ripper is."

"Our Jack the Ripper?" Elizabeth had quickly learned to fasten on Irene's least intonation. "You are convinced that the Paris murders are by another hand?"

"Yes, I think the Paris murders are by other hands."

"More than one Ripper?" I asked, shocked by her use of the plural.

"Then what has happened here has nothing to do with London," Elizabeth said excitedly.

"On the contrary, it has everything to do with London. Nell, what are the dates again of the five Whitechapel murders the officials have attributed to Jack the Ripper?"

"I have made another table," I said, rus.h.i.+ng to my bedchamber to fetch my fattening portfolio.

Elizabeth groaned.

"Facts," I told her sternly when I returned to pull my papers onto the table, "are useless when they are scattered all over. They must be marshaled like troops and stood in line so we can see them in relation to each other."

I ran a finger down one column of my smartly marshaled facts.

"August 31, September 8, September 30 for the two murders, Stride and Eddowes, and November 9."

"Nothing in October," Irene mused, "but silence."

"The Ripper was out of the city, or incarcerated during that month?" Elizabeth suggested.

Irene studied my maligned table. "There's a pattern here, not exact, but rough. Nichols is killed the last day of August. Eight days later in September, Chapman dies. Three weeks and a day later on the last day of September, Stride and Eddowes are killed. Then silence for five weeks and five days."

"If there were patterns," I said, "then a woman should have died October 8 and another on October 30. And then another November 8 . . . but Kelly did die on the ninth."

"Only a day out of the pattern," Elizabeth noted. Even she was bent over my despised table, studying the dates. "Disturbing."

Irene went to the desk to retrieve a small packet from the Baron, sent at her request, as the Paris maps had been.

"Isn't it possible," Irene said, "that the double killing on September 30 also accounted for what would have been the October 8 murder? The Ripper obviously went more berserk than usual that night, perhaps because his work with Stride was interrupted. That is also the night the strange sentence about the Juwes appeared."

"But why didn't the fifth murder occur on October 31 then, the last day of that month, as the last days of August and September saw women killed?" Elizabeth asked.

Irene pulled some loose calendar pages out of the packet and fanned them on the table. I first saw the t.i.tles at the top: August, September, October, and November of last year, 1888. Then I quickly glanced to the dates in question on each sheet. I gave an involuntary gasp as my eye fell on the box for the day before the Mary Jane Kelly murder on November 9.

"What is G.o.dfrey's name doing on this calendar?" I demanded.

Irene smiled. "Put on your spectacles, Nell. That is indeed 'G.o.dfrey' you see, but in this instance it is 'St. G.o.dfrey.' We all agree that G.o.dfrey is without equal, but I do think that sainthood is still a bit beyond him. This is an ecclesiastical calendar."

"An ecclesiastical calendar, that is a new one for you," I said as I pulled the pince-nez from its tiny case and propped it on my nose.

"I believe," Irene went on, "that the Ripper meant to kill on November 8 but was prevented. From the testimony of witnesses, Mary Jane Kelly was almost constantly in male company all the evening of the eighth and well into the morning of the ninth. In fact, several witnesses testify to seeing and hearing her around and about her Miller's Court rooms long after she had to have been dead.

"What the Ripper seems to have done in October," she added, "is hara.s.s the police with a boasting postcard and letter. During that same period, they received dozens of purported messages from the killer, and even charged one woman with writing some that very month."

"But no journalists," Elizabeth suggested, with great interest.

"No. The journalists, if they wrote any fraudulent Ripper missives, would have been sophisticated enough to escape detection. At least during the heat of the investigation. Who knows what time will say about that?"

While they quibbled over note-writers, I studied the ecclesiastical calendar.

"These are not the correct saints."

"Are there any incorrect saints, Nell?" Elizabeth asked with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It's a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical calendar," Irene explained, "not Anglican."

I raised my brows. I had not thought about it, but of course the Papists would emphasize an entirely different lot of saints, since they were always canonizing people right and left.

"And the Rothschilds supplied you with these pages?" I asked with some amazement.

"They do business with Catholic ruling families as well as Church of England royalty," Irene explained. "Besides, information is information, and the Rothschilds are situated to provide anything I could ask for. They sponsor the finest spy network in Europe."

"And if a Jew is implicated as Jack the Ripper?"

"I have discussed this with the Baron, and we agree that it is extremely unlikely. In that unlikely event, I imagine that we should find the British authorities and the Prince of Wales and the Rothschilds as eager to hush that up as they would be were someone like, oh, Prince Eddy, found to be guilty."

"You admit that these immensely powerful cabals would hide the truth from the public? And yet you are in their employ?"

"Immensely powerful people have always done that sort of thing. At least the more benign powers believe their role is to protect the public, if not enlighten it. All they want is to get Jack the Ripper off the streets and the killings stopped. They judge the man hopelessly mad anyway, so incarceration would be the answer whether there is a public trial or a private imprisonment."

"You did not like how the Bohemian servant girl was privately imprisoned in Bohemia."

"That is true, but she was not mad, only a rather simpleminded tool of others who were too powerful to punish. In that case I intervened when I could. In the case of the Ripper, not even Sherlock Holmes can obtain justice if the powers that be wish silence rather than a solution."

I shuddered my distaste for the ways of the great and powerful and returned to studying the calendar, listing the facts.

"Mary Ann Nichols was killed on the feast day of St. Aristedes, Annie Chapman on the day celebrating the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Liz Stride and Catharine Eddowes on St. Jerome's holy day. And Mary Jane Kelly missed the feast of St. G.o.dfrey to die on the day the Papists honor the Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome."

"The Anglican Church does not observe any of these saints' days?" Irene asked.