Page 77 of A Treacherous Trade
Every edge and swoop of the red scrawls was appallingly familiar to me. The Ripper had sent me letters before. He’d known things about me, about the murders I cleaned up after, that he couldn’t have known had he not been alarmingly close by.
“This… this camehere? Addressed to me?”
Beatrice Chamberlain inclined her head as she rested a hand on my shoulder. From my vantage, she looked like every merciful statue of Mary standing watch over Catholic graveyards back home. Round, pleasant features arranged in an expression of angelic benevolence.
I’d come to The Orchard after a late breakfast to tell her what we learned from Charles Hartigan. I found her alone, packing away Alys’s things in the decadent room the woman had inhabited during the last months of her tragically short life.
Bea had produced the letter addressed to me with the red wax seal intact. It’d arrived with the morning post.
“Some hateful joke, perhaps?” she considered.
“I’m afraid not.” My voice quavered. “I’ve received such letters from him before.”
“My God.” She plopped down next to me, scanning the letter with new interest. “So many of us in the business have spent years speculating as to the ultimate fate of the Ripper, wondering why he’d stopped with poor Mary Kelly. When or if he’d begin his reign of terror again. As time has gone by, we all assumed him dead, moved on maybe, or captured for other crimes… But this. This means he’s still out there. That he knows you’re looking for him.” The pity with which she regarded me was hard to witness.
“He writes to me as if we are acquainted sometimes,” I admitted. “His previous letters helped to solve a case to which I was too close to see the truth. He seems grotesquely fond of me and threatening all at once.”
“It’s just… vile.” Beatrice rubbed a motherly hand along my spine, warming the frigid chills coursing through my bones. “You poor girl. Must be a terrifying prospect to know the Ripper is watching you.”
It was.
But also thrilling. Because if he was close enough to watch, then he was close enough to be caught.
“Bea.” I glanced around the room, feeling as if the ghost of the vital Alys Hywel drifted somewhere above the filmy bed curtains. “I don’t like the fact that the Ripper’s attention has been drawn to this place. To these girls. If any other tragedies befell The Orchard because I was trying to help… I’d never forgive myself.”
She took one hand, and we both watched the letter quiver in the other. “That is good of you, darling. I wouldn’t fear him so much if it was only me I had to look after, but the girls… I bear the responsibility.”
I nodded, wishing everyone felt that way about those in their employ. I certainly did. “Inspector Croft is gathering evidence against Inspector Davies from Charles Hartigan.”
I’d no need to ask if she remembered the man, as her painful grip revealed so much at the mention of the name.
“Charles Hartigan?” she breathed. “That man is a toad. Worse than that, he’s—”
“We know, but I think he’s arranging some sort of deal with the police to go after corruption in their ranks.”
She made a face. “I detest that he’ll be walking the streets free to indulge his deviancies. Doesn’t seem right. If you were to ask me, he’s an excellent candidate for your Ripper.”
My Ripper?I certainly didn’t want him.
“What makes you say that?” I asked. “Salacious photographs do not a murderer make, though he is being investigated in regard to the deaths connected to this. Apparently, he took photographs of both Alys and Jane.”
“Have you seen the sort of photographs he took?” she asked, disgust gathering her lips into wrinkled grimace.
“I haven’t. Croft has taken over now that the main office is involved. I’m not allowed near anything deemed to be ‘evidence,’ more’s the pity.”
“Perhaps that’s for the best.” Bea patted my hand and stood. “I’d hate to think of you being a target for both the Ripper and Hartigan. Men like them… they are the reason all women are afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said.
“Are you not?” She lifted an eyebrow at my trembling hands. “Not after your attack? I’m afraidforyou, my dear.”
How could I tell her that my affectation might be just as vile to her as Hartigan’s? Of course, I was possessed of a healthy fear of torture and death. But my guile overpowered that.
I trembled as much from excitement as fear.
Searching the letter one last time, I debated what to do with it. “The galling idea that the Ripper would live a full life when he’s taken that from others… from Mary. Well, that is a world I don’t want to live in. It is a revenge I am willing to die for. I don’t know if he realizes that when he taunts me, he only renews my resolve.”
Beatrice bustled about, opening drawers and emptying them carefully into a paper-lined trunk. I wondered where she’d ship Alys’s things. Or if she’d store them.
