up too much of your time,” I told him. “I’m sure you’ve a wife to see to, and I’ve a murderer to catch.” Best to be blunt, in these situations.
Mr. Lusk surprised me—he smiled faintly, a bit of nostalgia in the curve beneath his mustache. “Not a worry. My Susannah’s gone, rest her. The children are with family for the moment.”
A recent loss, then. Something in me softened—something I could ill afford to nurture, and had no intention to share with this stranger.
My throat tightened. “Right,” I said, rather than give voice to the condolences I wasn’t sure how to shape. Would a collector care? Like as not, no. Therefore, as a collector, I resolved not to. “Tell me what you know of this murderer, then?”
“Most the same as you and probably all the rest of your sort,” he said, easing his not overly extravagant bulk into his chair. He ran a hand over his balding head with weary dismay. I could read it in his bearing, hear it in his confession. “What’s done in the papers is as what we’ve got. Every day, another rumor of a sighting.”
“No truth to it, then?”
“None.” He rested his hands over his middle, studying me with more curiosity, now, than the fear he’d initially displayed. “I suppose you’re here to ask about the reward too?”
It’d seem odd not to, and I did need the bounty. I nodded.
“If that bastard Matthews had his way, there’d be none to have.” Mr. Lusk grunted his ire on the subject. “How many letters must we pen for him to understand the gravity of the need? People need incentive. It’s not enough to want to protect our homes and businesses.”
I confess to a momentary loss of understanding, but it faded quickly as I recalled the name. The Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, had flatly refused to fund a reward for capture of the Ripper.
“I take it you are funding the reward yourself?” I asked, surprised.
“That we are,” Mr. Lusk confirmed, his pride so palpable that I could have reached out to touch it. “The lot of us, the whole committee, each pitched in a bit to make a decent purse. I assure you, sir, you will not be shorted.”
That was in the eye of the beholder—or he who held the purse. Still, I did not pry more. The coin, at this point, was only an extra that I would be glad to have. It would not take much to acquire the opium grains I needed.
“Good,” I said. “Now, tell me all.”
He did, and I listened quietly, standing with my hands clasped behind my back as I’d seen men do. To be perfectly honest, he did not tell me anything I did not already know. It was simply that I enjoyed the sound of it. The words, oh, not so much, but the way his soft-spoken voice spilled forth, strained over some of the less delightful details, rose when he allowed his anger to color his comportment, delighted my opium-tinged senses.
He spoke of the first murders, which I recalled reading of quite clearly. He spoke of the troubles he’d had with the police, and the private detectives the committee had hired. He spoke passionately, but with a gentleness that someone else may have mistaken for weakness were they not paying close attention. The plight of the working class, the business all affected by the murderer’s rampage, and if the doxies being slaughtered did not rank very high in his list of reasons to care, I could forgive him the slight.
Few enough favored the women who chose—or were forced—to earn their keep between their legs. His lapse seemed rather more thoughtless than malicious.
I did not wander the study, because there was precious little room to do so, but I did scrutinize my surroundings. It was charmingly decorated, with bobs and ends tucked here and there, paintings framed upon the striped papered wall. I did note more than a few indications of Freemasonry about the decor.
I found my fingers twitching somewhat to leaf through his array of books.
That would have garnered much more interest than I could answer for.
At the end, Mr. Lusk said, “Therefor, we have taken it upon ourselves to muster a reward. It was Mr. Aarons’ idea to post a notice with the collectors.”
“A good idea,” I assured him. I had made no move to take off my fog-protection, and so I felt able to study the man rather frankly. “Is there anything else you might know? No matter how small, Mr. Lusk, it could be important.”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. He propped one elbow atop his desk and scrubbed at his face, clearly too weary to fight the urge. “All we can do is keep involved, let the people know we’re watching, help the police where we can. Certainly, there’s no shortage of those willing to make a name for themselves over it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh.” A dismissive grimace. “No small amount of crackpots coming from all over to claim they know the face of the Ripper, or that they themselves are what done it.”
I mirrored his grimace, for all he could not see it. Folding my arms over my chest, now, I asked, “Any seem legitimately the sort?”
He laughed, but there was nothing amused or light in the sound. Fatigued, rather. Dismayed. A little bit bitter, unless I missed my guess. “How can one tell? One crackpot murdering is the same as one who’d claim to. There doesn’t seem to be a difference, does there?”
Something in the way he spoke drew my attention, something different than the manner by which he shared his information earlier. A line in his brow, a distasteful sneer as he shifted in his seat.
A wince, even. His eyes glanced left and low.
I approached the desk. “Is there something you know, Mr. Lusk?”
His gaze rose to mine—or the yellow glass, anyhow. I could see all right between the leather holding the fragmented lens in the other, but I could not rely on it. “What?” Then, just as quickly, a scoffed, “No.”
I did not believe him.
Planting my gloved hands upon the surface, just beside his blotter, I leaned over until I read wariness on his face—his mustache twitched, and his gaze narrowed in the way of a man who could not decide whether he would allow himself to be bullied in the name of peace or push back.
I did not afford him the opportunity to work it out. “Mr. Lusk,” I said quietly, “I do not mean to alarm you, sir, but you yourself have only just finished informing me how important this is. If you know anything, anything at all, I’d be well within my rights to extract that information however I please.”
His cheeks darkened, his scalp went red. “Now, you see here—”
I reached over and seized his loosened tie. A good tie, really. Narrow and sleek, exactly the sort of accessory I expected from a Freemason. The dues required of one suggested a certain standard.
It crumpled in my grip.
Mr. Lusk found himself not so much standing as leaning over his own desk, arms braced upon it and mustache vibrating with anger—and shock, I think. “How dare—”
“Your committee went to the trouble of posting a collection,” I told him. Another exclamation of outrage I did not allow him to finish. An interesting game, to my sparkling mind. “Upon accepting the collection, a collector may achieve the end using whatever means viable. Do you understand this?”
“Unhand me,” he sputtered. “Or else!”
“What say you show me what’s in your desk drawer,” I suggested mildly. My grip twisted in his tie. “Top left.”
Mr. Lusk did not seem inclined to argue. “All right. All right! There’s one thing.”
Ah. So my instincts had not yet abandoned me. Brilliant. “Yes?” I let him go as he asked, allowing him the opportunity to smooth his tie. I expected his anger to hold, but it faded quickly. With a nervous hand, Mr. Lusk opened his draw and withdrew a small parcel. Three inches square, with the remains of brown paper still folded about it, it seemed harmless enough to my eye.
“There. That’s all I have. A hoax,” he added, mopping at his brow with a kerchief pulled from his pocket, “but a grim one. Not the first I’ve received, either.”
I reached over to unfold the paper, opening the cardboard box.
The sight that greeted me forced a knot of bile into my throat.
I had seen kidneys before, I knew what it was I looked at. I was versed in anatomical matters, and there’d been a few kidneys on display in the falsely named Professor Woolsey’s exhibit of electrified anatomy.
I looked at what appeared to be half of a kidney, stained with some days of rot, and attempted to calculate
