Capturing the Devil Page 5

  My earlier worries came rushing back and I interrupted him before I lost my nerve. “Have you courted someone else?”

  “I—” He studied me in that swift deductive way of his. I expected to see mirth; instead he leaned over and kissed me chastely. “I have never officially courted or asked permission to court anyone. Only you.”

  I breathed out, though relief was short-lived. One little distinction caught my attention. He and I weren’t officially courting, either. At least not until my father agreed to it. Thomas ran a hand over his face and I finally noticed the worry he’d been hiding.

  “There’s something you ought to read,” he said. “I found this earlier and have been debating the best time to show you.”

  Something akin to hysteria writhed in my gut. He must have received an anonymous letter, too. My palms were suddenly damp and my mouth bone-dry. Someone was targeting us for reasons I dared not consider. “What is it?”

  “It’s—I think it’s best to see for yourself.” He flipped through a journal and removed an envelope, eyes downcast as he handed it to me. For a moment, it seemed as if the entire universe had drawn a breath, waiting for my response. My panic only increased when I removed the letter and was struck immobile at the handwriting.

  It couldn’t be.

  I blinked, certain I must be hallucinating. It was not written in the same hand as the letter I’d received. This one was much more familiar. I’d know it anywhere.

  “What is this?” I asked, my voice betraying my fear. Thomas shook his head and remained silent. I steeled myself. His demeanor indicated it would be worse after I read it.

  Blood rushed in my ears as I began reading. I now understood precisely why Thomas had held back from our clandestine moment. My limbs felt weak and I couldn’t decide if I wished to scream or cry or do some mad combination of the two. I fought the upheaval of emotion swirling in me, hoping I wouldn’t be sick this very second. Like a golden sun rising on the horizon, a new nightmare was dawning bright.

  My beloved brother had one more secret he’d been keeping.

  And it changed everything I thought I knew.

  Dearest Sister,

  If you are reading this letter, it means I’ve either been arrested or have already met with justice. What a pity. I suspect the queen and Parliament have been waiting to rip me apart for the trouble I caused. I imagine it’s been a hard time for you, but I ask that you remain strong of will and mind. Despite whatever circumstances have led us to this point, I hope this note finds you well, though perhaps you’ll feel a bit sick after you’ve finished it. It is one more regret to add to the list, I’m afraid.

  I know there’s a strong chance you’ll not be pleased by my deeds, but I have one final confession to make. I liked to fancy myself as Jekyll, really. My colleague, well, let’s call him Mr. Hyde, is returning to America soon and he’s promised to continue our work there.

  I love you, no matter what anyone may say—know that as truth. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, but I swear you will soon see the value of my work, even if you disagree with the methods. One day you’ll understand the truth of who Jack the Ripper is. Do not forget about my journals, dear sister. I wrote them for you and our family’s legacy.

  Love forever and always,

  Nathaniel Jonathan Wadsworth

  SIX

  A VICIOUS DISCOVERY

  THOMAS’S ROOMS

  FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

  21 JANUARY 1889

  There were two of them.

  I trembled violently, almost crushing the letter in my fist as I leapt from the edge of the bed. Pain lashed up my leg like a fiery whip, reminding me to be gentle with my body, though there was no protecting my heart. I tried to ignore the angry throbbing by reading the note again. And again, my pulse raced with each treacherous sentence.

  There were two of them.

  It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t. And yet… I couldn’t breathe. I could barely think through the cacophony in my head. I wanted to claw my corset off and set it on fire. I wanted to run from this room and my life, and never look back.

  “Audrey Rose?”

  I held up a hand, stalling Thomas from whatever he was about to say. An enormous pressure kept building under my ribs and the air suddenly felt too thin or too heavy. This had to be a nightmare. Soon I’d wake from it and all would be well. Soon I’d remember my beloved brother was Jack the Ripper and he was dead and my family was shattered, but we were slowly piecing our lives back together. We were broken but not defeated. We were—I pinched my arm and cried out. I was awake and this was happening. I swallowed hard.

  I could not accept this letter. I couldn’t. The implications were too much to bear. Without preamble, I dropped onto the mattress, head spinning. Though perhaps it wasn’t my mind that was under attack—my heart was close to breaking. Again. How many times would this case haunt me? How many secrets did my brother keep? Just when I thought I’d solved one mystery, another took its place, more brutal and vicious than the last.

  I focused on drawing in a slow breath and exhaling. A feat more difficult than it should’ve been. Jack the Ripper hadn’t committed his crimes alone. His reign of terror was not yet complete. That thought ripped the rest of my heart from my chest. Jack the Ripper was alive.

  All this time… all of these months I’d convinced myself that his horrors were over. That his death might offer a bit of solace to the spirits of those he’d slain, though keeping his secret didn’t offer me the same peace in return. Every ghost of the past I’d worked to fight against, every demon in my imagination—everything was rallying against this news, clawing its way up my throat, taunting me with an I told you so. His death was one more lie to choke down. Tears burned my eyes.

  Jack the Ripper was two depraved, twisted men acting as one. And I knew—I knew with every molecule of my body that he’d been with us on the Etruria. That crime was too much like him for me to have overlooked it. I committed the same mistake I had during our first case—I ignored the facts because I didn’t want to see them for what they were. I drew in one ragged breath after another.

  Jack the Ripper lived. I couldn’t stop repeating it in my mind.

  “Wadsworth… please, say something.”

  I clamped my mouth shut. If I opened it now, I might start screaming and never stop. I didn’t know who my brother or the real Ripper was. I barely recognized myself in this moment. Who else in my life wasn’t what he or she appeared to be? I closed my eyes, forcing myself to become a solid block of ice on the inside. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart.

  “On the ship,” I said through gritted teeth. “He’d sat in the shadows, night after night, watching, lurking, probably enjoying the chaos of another career murderer putting on a show.” I shook my head, anger filling the space where hurt had resided moments before. I wondered if my rage was hot enough to set others on fire. “Does he know me? Was he stalking me across the sea, or was it simply a twist of fate that our paths crossed once more?”

  I set the letter down and gripped the rose knob of my cane until my fingers went numb. I wanted to bash it into the Ripper’s skull. I wanted—

  Thomas slowly placed his hand over mine. He held it there until the violence left me. “There’s more, I’m afraid. In his journals.”

  I fought a bitter laugh. Of course there was more. It seemed this nightmare was only just beginning. Each time I thought I closed a chapter, there was a new twist waiting to reveal itself. I didn’t bother asking for details. If there was more, it involved another person, and another tragic loss of life. Another brutal murder to add to the Ripper’s blood-soaked résumé.

  “Who?”

  “A Miss Martha Tabram. She was a prostitute who earned a living in the East End.” Thomas watched me carefully before rummaging through the stack of journals, finding the one he’d been reading. “Nathaniel saved several newspaper clippings discussing her death. Apparently she’d been stabbed thirty-nine times with two different knives. One was
thought to be a pocketknife, and the other was described as a dagger. Judging from what we know of the other Ripper killings, it was probably a long, thin surgical knife.”

  I turned the information over in my mind. The urge to scream was still present, but the need decreased as I shifted into mystery solving. “Did Uncle attend the murder site?”

  “No.” Thomas shook his head. “A Dr. Killeen was called to inspect her body at the scene, and another coroner is quoted in a second article. I’m not sure why Dr. Wadsworth wasn’t consulted.”

  “Probably because Scotland Yard had no need of his expertise yet.” I stared at the headline. My uncle was a brilliant professor of forensic medicine and often assisted on a case when invited, but he was not an official member of Scotland Yard. “As you’re well aware, prior to Jack the Ripper, a repeat murderer was practically unheard of. I imagine they used whichever coroner was available and didn’t give it a second thought.”

  Neither one of us mentioned a more glaring reason why they hadn’t called in an expert: our society was unkind to women. Especially those who were forced to survive any way they could. Sure, the papers would claim they’d exhausted all possible inquiries, but it was another filthy lie told to enhance their tale. To sell their papers. To make them sleep better at night.

  I inhaled deeply, channeling my returning rage into something usable. Anger wouldn’t resolve problems, but action would. I inspected the first article with a cool head.

  THE HORRIBLE AND MYSTERIOUS MURDER AT GEORGE’S YARD, WHITECHAPEL ROAD.

  “‘The August Bank Holiday murder took place in George Yard Buildings.’” I read the first few lines of the article aloud. “Her body was discovered in the morning of the seventh of August.” My blood chilled. “That’s nearly three weeks prior to Miss Mary Nichols.”

  The first—supposed—victim of Jack the Ripper.

  “What’s interesting,” Thomas said, grabbing another journal from the pile, “is Miss Emma Elizabeth Smith was also murdered during a bank holiday.”

  I closed my eyes, recalling all too clearly that she’d died on the fourth of April. My mother’s birthday. Another fact from her case rose to the surface of my mind. “She lived on George Street. This murder took place in George Yard. It might mean something to the killer.”

  Thomas seemed intrigued by this new thread. He got off the bed and sat at a small writing desk, jotting notes down. While he lost himself with that task, I turned my attention back to the newspaper clippings regarding Miss Martha Tabram’s death. My brother didn’t claim her murder in his journal—at least he hadn’t done so in this volume—but his interest was no coincidence.

  The East London Advertiser proclaimed:

  The circumstances of this awful tragedy are not only surrounded with the deepest mystery, but there is also a feeling of insecurity to think that in a great city like London, the streets of which are continually patrolled by police, a woman could be foully and horribly killed almost next to the citizens peacefully sleeping in their beds, without a trace or clue being left of the villain who did the deed. There appears to be not the slightest trace of the murderer, and no clue has at present been found.

  I rubbed my temples. I hadn’t heard of this murder, though if I recalled correctly, the first part of August had been unusual in my home. My brother was preoccupied with his law studies, and my father was in one of his especially gruff moods. I’d attributed Nathaniel’s absences to Father’s growing agitation and had thought my father was upset by the approach of my seventeenth birthday. Every morning, he’d taken the newspapers and had them burned before I could read them.

  Now I knew why. It wasn’t madness, but fear. I turned the next page of the journal and silently read a quote clipped from an article.

  “The man must have been a perfect savage to inflict such a number of wounds on a defenseless woman in such a way.” This from a George Collier, deputy coroner for the district.

  Hastily scratched below, in Nathaniel’s frantic hand, was a passage from our favorite gothic novel, Frankenstein.

  … if our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us. We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep. We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day. We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep, Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away; It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free. Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but mutability!

  I’d read the book so many times during chilly October evenings that it took only a few moments to place the scene. Dr. Victor Frankenstein had traveled to a land of snow and ice to confront his monster. Before his meeting with the creature he so despised, he’d hinted that nature could heal a man’s soul. Did my brother fancy himself as Dr. Victor Frankenstein?

  I’d always thought he’d considered himself the monster based on previous passages he’d underlined months ago. How well could I claim to know him, though? How well did any of us truly know one another? Secrets were more precious than any diamond or currency. And my brother had been rich with them.

  I found a nib of ink and began scribbling my own furious notes on a blank page, adding dates and theories that seemed as unhinged and untamed as Frankenstein’s monster. Perhaps I was becoming my own mad, feral creature.

  Movement caught my attention a second before Thomas knelt in front of me, his expression uncharacteristically kind. For a fleeting moment, I wondered how I looked through his eyes. Did I seem as wild as I felt? My heart thumped as quickly as a rabbit’s, but my instincts weren’t to flee; I wished to draw blood. Thomas touched my brow, then traced his finger across my hairline, soothing a knot I hadn’t realized was forming. I relaxed at his touch. Marginally.

  “You’ve got a certain aura of murder that’s—quite honestly—a strange mixture of alluring and troubling. Even for me. What is it?” he asked. I turned the journal around, pointing out the Frankenstein passage. He read it, then searched my face. “I remember your brother was intrigued with Galvani’s experiments with electricity and dead frogs, and Shelley. But that isn’t what’s bothering you.”

  “In one article the wounds described on Martha’s body were focused around her throat and lower abdomen.”

  Thomas’s gaze moved back over the Frankenstein passage, his own brow creasing at my seemingly abrupt change in subject. “Emma’s wounds were thought to be too different from the five murders that took place in Whitechapel,” I said, growing more confident as I spoke. “Her attacker neither went for her throat nor stabbed her.”

  Thomas swallowed hard, no doubt remembering with vivid detail the atrocities that had been done to her. “No, she’d been brutalized in other horrific ways.”

  “Indeed.” Someone had ruptured her peritoneum by inserting a foreign object into her body. We’d never been sure if it was machinery or something else that had done the damage. Gears were found at the scene, something we later realized were part of my brother’s plan to pass electricity into dead tissues. “Nathaniel speaks of Jekyll and Hyde in his letter,” I continued, “but this passage points back to his preoccupation with Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not quite following, Wadsworth. Do you believe your brother was using gothic novels as his source material for his killings?”

  “Not entirely. I believe Nathaniel might be responsible for Miss Emma Elizabeth Smith’s death. He was obsessed with fusing machine and human together. Her attack fits with that. It also fits seamlessly with Galvani’s experimentations. Dr. Galvani demonstrated that a dint of electricity could make a frog’s muscles twitch postmortem. Nathaniel tried to improve upon his theory and take it even further by bringing humans back to life using a larger electrical charge.”

  “I thought we established Miss Smith as a likely Ripper victim,” Thomas said carefully.

  “We did. But it doesn’t fit. Even if his met
hod of killing shifted as his deadly talents grew, her murder was not the ultimate goal. Not like the others. She’d been brutalized, but I don’t believe he wished to slay her. He wanted her to live. That was his entire point. Nathaniel wasn’t interested in killing things. He longed for a way to bring them back.”

  Thomas was quiet and perfectly still.

  “Nathaniel killed Emma, but he was never Jack the Ripper, Thomas. He was the man who made Jack the Ripper. Or perhaps befriended him.”

  Thomas glanced at the dates I’d hastily scrawled. A battle of emotion crossed his features. “If Nathaniel attacked Emma in April, perhaps her death disturbed him. It would seem that there may have been a part of him that couldn’t cross that line again. At least not himself.” He looked me over carefully. “Did he exhibit any early behaviors that would hint to savior ideologies?”

  At first I went to shake my head, but a memory surfaced. “When we were children, he used to become physically ill if he couldn’t save a stray cat or dog. The thought of something dying was unbearable to him. He’d lie in bed for days, crying or staring at the ceiling. It was terrible and there wasn’t anything I could do to bring him out of that dark place.” I inhaled deeply, trying not to get lost in thoughts of the past. “If Miss Martha Tabram is the first true Ripper victim, that means Nathaniel had nearly four months to create his own monster. He says in his own words”—I jabbed the letter—“that he worked with another. I imagine my brother urged these killings on and profited scientifically from the organs acquired, but another person actually committed the rest of the murders.”

  “That does not make your brother innocent,” Thomas said gently.

  I lowered my head. If my theory was correct, Nathaniel had forged a person into a blade, making him far from innocent. And yet confronting his guilt—yet again—caused a visceral ache I didn’t anticipate. We humans could not help loving our monsters. “I know.”