He did not know. He did not know if he himself could bear the knowledge which he had shouldered. He knew only that he could pray for Mark Mallow’s soul—and probably for that of a man named Blackland.
The man who usually kept his face in the shadow had the decency to attend Jerome Blackland’s funeral. He always did this for his clients. It was a sort of professional ethics.
A purist of professional ethics might suggest that he should have warned Blackland of the dangers inherent in bestowing the vital virtues of one’s blood to animate printer’s ink. But why? Half the time the charms worked imperfectly if at all; and you do not wantonly frighten away customers.
He too said prayers, of his sort, for the souls of Blackland and Mallow.
A Kind of Madness
In 1888 London was terrified, as no city has been before or since, by Jack the Ripper, who from April through November killed and dissected at least seven prostitutes, without leaving a single clue to his identity. The chain of murders snapped abruptly. After 1888 Jack never ripped again. Because on 12th July, 1889 . . .
He paused on the steps of University College, surrounded by young ladies prattling the questions that were supposed to prove they had paid careful attention to his lecture-demonstration.
The young ladies were, he knew as a biologist, human females; dissection would establish the fact beyond question. But for him womankind was divided into three classes: angels and devils and students. He had never quite forgiven the college for admitting women nine years ago. That these female creatures should irrelevantly possess the same terrible organs that were the arsenal of the devils, the same organs through which the devils could strike lethally at the angels, the very organs which he . . .
He answered the young ladies without hearing either their questions or his answers, detached himself from the bevy, and strolled towards the Euston Road.
For eight months now he had seen neither angel nor devil. The events of 1888 seemed infinitely remote, like a fever remembered after convalescence. It had indeed been a sort of fever of the brain, perhaps even—he smiled gently—a kind of madness. But after his own angel had died of that unspeakable infection which the devil had planted in him—which had affected him so lightly but had penetrated so fatally to those dread organs which render angels vulnerable to devils . . .
He observed, clinically, that he was breathing heavily and that his hand was groping in his pocket—a foolish gesture, since he had not carried the scalpel for eight months. Deliberately he slowed his pace and his breathing. The fever was spent—though surely no sane man could see anything but good in an effort to rid London of its devils.
“Pardon, m’sieur.”
The woman was young, no older than his students, but no one would mistake her for a female of University College. Even to his untutored eye her clothes spoke of elegance and chic and, in a word, Paris. Her delicate scent seemed no man-made otto but pure essence de femme. Her golden hair framed a piquant face, the nose slightly tilted, the upper lip a trifle full—irregular, but delightful.
“Ma’m’selle?” he replied, with courtesy and approbation.
“If m’sieur would be so kind as to help a stranger in your great city . . . I seek an establishment of baggages.”
He tried to suppress his smile, but she noticed it, and a response sparkled in her eyes. “Do I say something improper?” she asked almost hopefully.
“Oh, no. Your phrase is quite correct. Most Englishmen, however, would say ‘a luggage shop.’ ”
“Ah, c’est ga. ‘A luggage shop’—I shall remember me. I am on my first voyage to England, though I have known Englishmen at Paris. I feel like a small child in a world of adults who talk strangely. Though I know”—his gaze was resting on what the French politely call the throat—“I am not shaped like one.”
An angel, he was thinking. Beyond doubt an angel, and a delectable one. And this innocently provocative way of speaking made her seem only the more angelic.
He took from her gloved fingers the slip of paper on which was written the address of the “establishment of baggages.”
“You are at the wrong end of the Euston Road,” he explained. “Permit me to hail a cab for you; it is too far to walk on such a hot day.”
“Ah, yes, this is a July of Julys, is it not? One has told me that in England it is never hot, but behold I sweat!”
He frowned.
“Oh, do I again say something beastly? But it is true: I do sweat.” Tiny moist beads outlined her all but invisible blonde moustache.
He relaxed. “As a professor of biology I should be willing to acknowledge the fact that the human female is equipped with sweat glands, even though proper English usage would have it otherwise. Forgive me, my dear child, for frowning at your innocent impropriety.”
She hesitated, imitating his frown. Then she looked up, laughed softly, and put her small plump hand on his arm. “As a token of forgiveness, m’sieur, you may buy me an ice before hailing my cab. My name,” she added, “is Gaby.”
He felt infinitely refreshed. He had been wrong, he saw it now, to abstain so completely from the company of women once his fever had run its course. There was a delight, a solace, in the presence of a woman. Not a student, or a devil, but the true woman: an angel.
Gaby daintily dabbed ice and sweat from
