Fanny Rice was thrown out by her parents, when she was found to be with child at aged twelve. The charity helped her through the baby’s birth, brief life, and death. Fanny had become a Whitechapel prostitute but eventually went missing. Her parents learned about her from the local constable, who read it on her police record.
Finally, Lizzy Gilbert, the last name on the list, was a good girl, her parents maintained, and would not hear otherwise. We were obliged to ask a neighbor about her. The girl, as it turned out, was given freedom to act as she pleased, and she did. She also had a police record at the tender age of thirteen.
Afterward, we were seated at a table in a public house called the Bread and Treacle, overlooking the Thames. Barker was finishing a plate of fried potatoes and egg. As with most meals, he pushed everything together. I prefer space between my food.
“Impressions?” Barker asked, patting his pockets for his tobacco pouch.
“Mine?” I foundered for a moment. “Well, sir, either accidentally or intentionally, they all are linked to the C.O.S.”
“We should continue to consider the connection between it and Mr. Miacca,” the Guv replied.
“He seems to hover over it like a malevolent spirit.”
“Apt, if a trifle flowery,” Barker said around the mouthpiece of his pipe. “Can you picture him putting gifts on the windowsills of good children in the area?”
“Yes, and punishing those like Ruth Scoggins.”
“It is not true, however, that all of Miacca’s victims were kept women. Gwendolyn DeVere certainly was not. I would think that while they are valuable mistresses they are safe, but once discarded by their patrons, they become candidates for Miacca’s attention.”
I looked at Barker, knowing some connection had just occurred in his brain.
“Blast!” he bellowed, shocking everyone in the room. He pulled a letter out of his pocket and opened it so quickly it ripped. It was Miacca’s last poem.
“What is it?”
“He’s toying with us.”
“Sir!” the manager said, coming to our table. “I must ask you to modulate your voice or leave.”
“Pay the man, lad,” my employer said, rising. “We’ve stayed here too long as it is.”
I paid him and followed the Guv outside. “What is it?” I asked. “Show me.”
“Look here,” he said. “‘I’m going on a killing spree.’ Do you see how the ‘a’ is out of place here. It’s too close to the word ‘on.’ Miacca is speaking of Ona Bellovich.”
23
“Ona Bellovich,” I repeated in horror. “But she’s a good child. Everyone at the charity says so.”
“Not by Miacca’s standards, lad. She helped Gwendolyn DeVere escape and then sold her clothes. That would be enough to merit punishment in his book. We must go now. I just pray we are not too late.”
We squeezed our way through the narrow alleys until we came into Green Street. There were few cabs in Bethnal Green at this hour, but neither was there any decorum to uphold. Barker turned and began to run. I could do no more than follow as best I could.
We made our way to the tenement in Cheshire Street and plunged into it. The corridors were filled with loungers, most of them smoking or talking. Barker pushed his way through like a whaling ship breaking through Arctic ice. The Belloviches’ door was open. If I had any doubts the child was really gone, they fled now.
Svetlana Bellovich was seated at the table with a look of stark tragedy on her face. Her kerchief was off, her black hair wild and uncombed. Within a few hours fear and grief had etched circles under her eyes, and yet there was a grace to her grief that I believe Hypatia DeVere had not possessed. Tears poured down her face, but she sat rigid in her chair with her hands in her lap.
She looked up as Barker came toward her, and I wondered what he would do. He was not a comforting sort and always avoided emotion in others. He bent down and spoke quietly in her ear. After a moment, she rose from her chair and reached for him, clutching his lapels. In a shrill voice, she responded vehemently, and then my employer nodded and gently removed her hands. Then he turned, and the two of us quitted the room. I had misgivings about what had just occurred, but waited until we were in the street again before I voiced them.
“You promised her, didn’t you, sir?” I asked. “You promised you would bring her daughter back alive.”
“Aye,” came the impassive response.
“But you’ve warned me about making promises I was not sure I could keep.”
“I know, lad,” he said.
“You cannot guarantee the girl’s safety,” I pointed out.
“No,” he replied, swinging his cane as he walked. “I can only pledge that I will give my life, if necessary, to stop that monster from harming her. I have but one assurance.”
“What is that?”
“His pattern. At one point, he keeps his victims drugged. It’s likely they undergo some sort of ceremony or ritual. Then I suspect almost immediately afterward, his lusts become uncontrollable and he violates and murders them. Finally, sated, he clips off an extremity as a souvenir and discards the bodies, probably in a different place each time. He might even carry them in a sack. A young woman is generally small and light. Since the bodies have always been found on a Saturday or Sunday, the ceremony is probably held on a Friday, and this is but Thursday.”
“Are we going anywhere in particular, sir?” I asked.
“Of course. We’re not walking for our health. I am looking for the last place Miacca was seen. The child, Esme, said she met him in Collingwood Street.”
We headed south in the direction of the Jew’s burial ground. Slowly, we inspected each alley. Most were doorless or featured lodgings that were too well lit or cheerful for Miacca’s purposes, that is, until we came to the foot of the street, not far from Mile End Road, and found one that was narrow, dark, and crooked, perfect for the archfiend’s purposes. We passed into it and walked until we came to a heavily shadowed doorway with an overhanging eave. Barker stepped forward and seized a few boards that had been fastened across the door, rending them off the frame.
“They were screwed in,” he said, lighting a vesta, “and the brass heads are still new.”
“No tarnish on them,” I noted, shaking my head.
He blew out the match and dug in his waistcoat pocket. He generally kept a skeleton key there.
“Keep an eye out,” he ordered, going to work on the lock.
“You’re sure this is his lair?” I asked.
“It’s either his, or it’s deserted, if these boards are any indication.”
He worked on the lock for a few minutes before the door opened soundlessly in his hands.
“The hinges have been oiled,” my employer pointed out. “People don’t generally oil doors in the East End, unless they don’t want something to be heard.” The Guv pushed the door open with his arm against it, while I leaned over his shoulder. I got a glimpse of a dingy room with faded wallpaper and a few pieces of furniture. Then there was a loud pop, and suddenly my hat was knocked from my head.
“Damn and blast,” Barker growled. “You’re bleeding.”
My knees started to quiver, and the top of my head suddenly went cold. I could feel the blood seeping through my hair.
“Who-” I began, but Barker held up his hand.
“Nobody. It is a device, set to go off when the door was opened. Come here.”
Barker pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and laid it atop my head. “Hold it there,” he told me. “’Tis but a scratch. It is fortunate you’re such a wee lad, but then the bullet wasn’t meant for you, but Swanson or me. It would have caught either of us square in the face.”
I was only half listening, because I was staring at the engine that had tried to part my hair. It stood in the middle of the room, a vertical mass of planks and rusty gears, which cradled an old hunting rifle, still smoking and filling the room with the scent of gunpowder. There was a long dowel of wood projecting from it, with a tennis ball
