Page 122 of If Looks Could Kill
One of the newspapers Pearl bought for him declares his presence in the city on the front page. It links him with the East London killings. Lists him as a passenger uponLa Bretagne. The “eccentric American physician,” it calls him. Suspected by Scotland Yard. Pursued by detectives. Ensconced in a boardinghouse on Tenth. Known for his “inveterate hatred for women” and his fondness for collecting anatomical specimens, including the parts taken from the Ripper victims.
Idiots. He’s not collecting beetles. He is saving the world.
The risk is staggering. But so were all the prior risks, and he laughed in their faces.
It’s her. It’s fate. Now, when his need is greatest, God—it has to be God; Jack believes absolutely in God—has sent him the sacrificial lamb he needs.
Every interaction he’s had with Pearl this afternoon, as he’s sent her for this purchase and that, has strengthened his conviction. She is strong. She is vital. She is even, he admits to himself, the nicer sort, in her wholesome way. She has a sweetness, a simplicity not often found.
More than suitable, she’s ideal. Her life is a light. Her spark will rekindle his.
And she’s right here, within his reach.
There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
If fate is the flood and Pearl the tide, then by heaven, he will take her.
But the body! What to do with the body when he can’t even leave this house? What good will it be to prolong his body’s life only to see it hang from a gallows?
God must show him the way. Fate must open a door.
The first pail of coal she brought him is burning low, and Jack has a long night ahead of him. He has a concoction to brew, and that will require heat. He calls for Pearl.
“She’s not here,” says Mrs. McNamara sourly, from the kitchen, where she’s attempting to roast a chicken and is in a foul humor about it. (A fowl humor. Jack smiles to himself.) “Don’t know why I hired myself a new servant just so’s you could take her for yourself.”
Jack can’t help it. He giggles at this. She’s more right than she’ll ever know.
“?’Scuse me,” the landlady says indignantly. “Didn’t realize I was so amusing.”
It won’t do to offend this woman. “I was looking for some coal.”
“It’s down in the cellar,” she says. “It’s black as pitch, so take a lamp. There’s a holder at the foot of the stairs and a few coal hods. Bring the lamp back.”
She wipes her hands on her apron and lets the kitchen door swing shut in Jack’s face.
Jack finds a lamp in the dining room and lights it. He adjusts the wick and then makes his way down the corridor and down the cellar stairs.
Darkness has never bothered Jack, but this cellar has a tomblike quality. The air is damp and fusty. Forgotten objects loom like sinister figures. His swinging light reveals them to be broken crates and abandoned tools, shovels and picks. Sounds echo. Wood posts creak. Off in one corner, a pair of rats holds a boisterous domestic dispute.
He remembers to put the lamp in its holder. It wouldn’t do to set it down near the coal dust he’ll make. He returns to the landing and secures the lamp. Walking back, he notices a change in the air. There’s a breeze or, at least, a movement. Cold air flows through this cellar.
If only there were another way out of this house.
He retrieves his lamp to explore the perimeter. Like the house, the cellar is long and rectangular. Stone and rubble foundations separate this house from its neighbors. He moves toward the airflow and finds, behind a stack of broken chairs, a gap in the wall. A sizable gap, as if large plumbing or sewer conduits once ran through it.
Carefully, he moves the chairs aside. He holds the light up to the hole and peers through. The neighboring basement is dark. Its owner has barricaded the opening with a tower of wooden crates on the other side of it. The opening could easily permit a well-grown child to crawl through. He probes the stone around it, and dry, porous mortar crumbles. The hole widens.
This is the house, he realizes, where carpentry work is being done. No one lives there now. The house will be empty overnight.
His mind spins. He canleave this house through the cellar. All he has to do is climb through this hole in the predawn hours and exit the adjacent house through its back door. Fewer watchers. He’ll walk away right under their noses, and they’ll never know it’s him.
This has always been his modus operandi. Work in the dark and walk away.
The sound of footsteps from the floor above jolts him back to the present. He’s been gone far too long, which will attract suspicion from that untamable shrew, Mrs. McNamara.
If only there were a way to dispose of the body.
He returns to the coal bunker, sets the lamp out of reach, and scoops up shovelfuls of coal, dumping it hastily into the hob. Pieces of coal clink against its copper walls and rattle loudly against one another. When the hob is full, he makes his way toward the stairs.
