‘You or Jack killed Godalming. Then, knowing what he was, you stood back in the shadows and let him account for her. It was tidier that way. You didn’t even dirty your hands.’
Dravot deferred. Beauregard was sure the Sergeant had a revolver about him, loaded with silver bullets.
‘We came along at a convenient time,’ she continued. ‘To finish off the story.’ Genevieve held out Seward’s scalpel. ‘Do you want to use this? That would be neater.’
‘Genevieve,’ Beauregard said, ‘I don’t understand...’
‘No, you wouldn’t. Poor Charles. Between bloodsuckers like Godalming and this creature,’ meaning Dravot, ‘you’re a lost lamb. Just as Jack Seward was.’
Beauregard stared long at Genevieve before he turned to Dravot. If it came to it, he would protect her with his life. There were limits to his devotion to the plans of the Diogenes Club.
The Sergeant was gone. Beyond the archway, the fog was dispersing. It was nearly dawn. Genevieve came to him and he embraced her. The world stopped tilting and turning. Together, they were the fixed point.
‘What happened here,’ she asked, ‘what truly happened?’
He did not yet know.
Together, bone-tired, they emerged from Miller’s Court. On the other side of Dorset Street, a pair of constables strolled, chatting together on their beat. Genevieve whistled, to get their attention. Her trilling was not a human sound. It pierced his eardrums like a needle. The coppers, truncheons out, trotted towards them.
‘You’ll be the hero,’ she whispered to him.
‘Why?’
‘You’ve no choice.’
The policemen were with them. They both looked terribly young. One was Collins, whom he remembered from his visit with Sergeant Thick. He recognised Beauregard and all but saluted.
‘There’s a dead woman in that court,’ he told them. ‘And a pair of murderers, also dead. Jack the Ripper is finished.’
Collins looked shocked. Then he grinned. ‘Is it over?’
‘It’s over,’ Beauregard said, uncertain but convincing.
The two constables dashed into Miller’s Court. After a moment, they rushed out again and began blowing their whistles. Soon the area would be thick with policemen, journalists, sensation-seekers. Beauregard and Genevieve would have to explain at length, more times than either could really bear.
In his mind, Beauregard saw Jack Seward on his knees in the ground-floor back room with the bloody thing that had been Mary Jane Kelly. Genevieve shuddered along with him. The memory was something they would share forever.
‘He was mad,’ she said ‘and not responsible.’
‘Then who,’ he asked, ‘was responsible?’
‘The thing who drove him mad.’
Beauregard looked up. The last moonlight shone down through thinning fog. He fancied he saw a bat, large and black, flit across the face of the moon.
57
THE HOME LIFE OF OUR OWN DEAR QUEEN
Netley applied the whip to the team. The imposing carriage had prowled through Whitechapel’s cramped streets as irritably as a panther in Hampton Court Maze, unable to move with its accustomed elegance and speed. In the wider thoroughfares of the city, it rolled at a rapid pace. The suspension was perfect, lulling her along without even the creak of wood and iron. Hostile eyes were drawn to the gilt coat of arms that stood out like a red-and-gold scar on the polished black door. Despite the luxurious interior, Genevieve found comfort impossible. With black leather upholstery and discreet brass lamps, the Royal Coach was too much like a hearse.
They proceeded down Fleet Street, past the boarded-up and burned-out offices of the nation’s great periodicals. There was no fog tonight, just a razored wind. There were still newspapers, but Ruthven had installed tame vampire editors. Even fervent loyalists were bored by bland endorsements of the latest laws or endless encomia to the Royal Family. Very rarely an item would be printed which, combined with certain private knowledge, might actually qualify as a piece of news, such as the recent note in
As they passed the law courts, a scatter of broad-sheets blew across the dark pavements of the Strand. Passersby, even those marked by their dress as of the upper orders, hastily picked up these papers and stuffed them into their coats. A constable did his best to collect as many as possible, but they rained down from some garret heaven like autumn leaves. Hand-printed in basements, these were impossible to stamp out: no matter how many premises were raided, how many scribblers arrested, the hydra-headed spirit of dissent persisted. Kate Reed, Charles’s admirer, had become a leading luminary of the underground press. In hiding, she had won a reputation as an Angel of the Insurrection.
In Pall Mall, Netley, whom Genevieve judged a fidgety sort, stopped at the Diogenes Club. After a moment, the door was held open and Charles joined her in the coach. After kissing her, lips cold on her cheek, he sat opposite, discouraging further intimacy. He wore immaculate evening dress, the scarlet lining of his cloak like spilled blood on his seat, a perfect white rose in his lapel. She glanced at the door as it was shut and saw the closed face of the moustached vampire from Miller’s Court.
‘Good night, Dravot,’ Charles said to the servant of the Diogenes Club.
‘Good night, sir.’
Dravot stood at the kerb, at attention but suppressing a salute. The coach had to take a circuitous route to the Palace. The Mall had been blocked by Crusaders for most of last week; the remains of barricades still stood, and great stretches of St James Street had been torn up, cobbles converted to missiles.
Charles was subdued. She had seen him several times since the night of the 9th of November, and even been admitted into the hallowed Star Chamber of the Diogenes Club to give evidence at a private hearing of the ruling cabal. Charles had been called upon to account for the deaths of Dr Seward, Lord Godalming and, incidentally, Mary Jane Kelly. The tribunal had as much to do with deciding which truths should be concealed as which should be presented to the public at large. The Chairman, a warm diplomat who had weathered the changes, took in everything, but gave no verdict, each grain of information shaping the policies of a club that was often more than a club. Genevieve supposed it a hiding place for pillars of the
As soon as they were underway, Charles leaned forwards and took her hands. He fixed her with his eyes, intently serious. They had been together two nights ago, in private. His collar hid the marks.
‘Gene, I implore you,’ he said, ‘let me stop the coach outside the Palace and turn you loose.’ His fingers pressed her palms.
‘Darling, don’t be absurd. I’m not afraid of Vlad Tepes.’
He let her go and sat back, obviously distressed. Eventually, he would confide in her. She had learned that, in many things, Charles’s desires conflicted with his duty. Just now, she was Charles’s desire. His duties lay in directions she could not immediately discern.
‘It’s not that. It’s...’
... the disarray in which Beauregard found Mycroft had an air of the Final Act. At this meeting, he alone was the cabal.
The Chairman toyed with the scalpel. ‘The famous Silver Knife,’ he mused, testing the blade with his thumb. ‘So keen.’
He laid down the instrument and let loose a sigh that set his cheeks wobbling. He had lost some of his prodigious weight and his skin was slackening, but his eyes were still sharp.
