I found my fingers twitching somewhat to leaf through his array of books.
That would have garnered much more interest than I could answer for.
At the end, Mr. Lusk said, “Therefor, we have taken it upon ourselves to muster a reward. It was Mr. Aarons’ idea to post a notice with the collectors.”
“A good idea,” I assured him. I had made no move to take off my fog-protection, and so I felt able to study the man rather frankly. “Is there anything else you might know? No matter how small, Mr. Lusk, it could be important.”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. He propped one elbow atop his desk and scrubbed at his face, clearly too weary to fight the urge. “All we can do is keep involved, let the people know we’re watching, help the police where we can. Certainly, there’s no shortage of those willing to make a name for themselves over it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh.” A dismissive grimace. “No small amount of crackpots coming from all over to claim they know the face of the Ripper, or that they themselves are what done it.”
I mirrored his grimace, for all he could not see it. Folding my arms over my chest, now, I asked, “Any seem legitimately the sort?”
He laughed, but there was nothing amused or light in the sound. Fatigued, rather. Dismayed. A little bit bitter, unless I missed my guess. “How can one tell? One crackpot murdering is the same as one who’d claim to. There doesn’t seem to be a difference, does there?”
Something in the way he spoke drew my attention, something different than the manner by which he shared his information earlier. A line in his brow, a distasteful sneer as he shifted in his seat.
A wince, even. His eyes glanced left and low.
I approached the desk. “Is there something you know, Mr. Lusk?”
His gaze rose to mine—or the yellow glass, anyhow. I could see all right between the leather holding the fragmented lens in the other, but I could not rely on it. “What?” Then, just as quickly, a scoffed, “No.”
I did not believe him.
Planting my gloved hands upon the surface, just beside his blotter, I leaned over until I read wariness on his face—his mustache twitched, and his gaze narrowed in the way of a man who could not decide whether he would allow himself to be bullied in the name of peace or push back.
I did not afford him the opportunity to work it out. “Mr. Lusk,” I said quietly, “I do not mean to alarm you, sir, but you yourself have only just finished informing me how important this is. If you know anything, anything at all, I’d be well within my rights to extract that information however I please.”
His cheeks darkened, his scalp went red. “Now, you see here—”
I reached over and seized his loosened tie. A good tie, really. Narrow and sleek, exactly the sort of accessory I expected from a Freemason. The dues required of one suggested a certain standard.
It crumpled in my grip.
Mr. Lusk found himself not so much standing as leaning over his own desk, arms braced upon it and mustache vibrating with anger—and shock, I think. “How dare—”
“Your committee went to the trouble of posting a collection,” I told him. Another exclamation of outrage I did not allow him to finish. An interesting game, to my sparkling mind. “Upon accepting the collection, a collector may achieve the end using whatever means viable. Do you understand this?”
“Unhand me,” he sputtered. “Or else!”
“What say you show me what’s in your desk drawer,” I suggested mildly. My grip twisted in his tie. “Top left.”
Mr. Lusk did not seem inclined to argue. “All right. All right! There’s one thing.”
Ah. So my instincts had not yet abandoned me. Brilliant. “Yes?” I let him go as he asked, allowing him the opportunity to smooth his tie. I expected his anger to hold, but it faded quickly. With a nervous hand, Mr. Lusk opened his draw and withdrew a small parcel. Three inches square, with the remains of brown paper still folded about it, it seemed harmless enough to my eye.
“There. That’s all I have. A hoax,” he added, mopping at his brow with a kerchief pulled from his pocket, “but a grim one. Not the first I’ve received, either.”
I reached over to unfold the paper, opening the cardboard box.
The sight that greeted me forced a knot of bile into my throat.
I had seen kidneys before, I knew what it was I looked at. I was versed in anatomical matters, and there’d been a few kidneys on display in the falsely named Professor Woolsey’s exhibit of electrified anatomy.
I looked at what appeared to be half of a kidney, stained with some days of rot, and attempted to calculate what details I could. The organ was rather more purple than red, bloated as if its time in the box had only swollen it but not wholly ruptured the rubbery globule.
“Why is it that color?” I demanded. Yet even as I took a breath to ask it, as the words left my lips, I realized that what I smelled faintly through the ventilator in my mask reeked of alcohol.
Wine, to be precise.
“It’s been preserved,” I said, answering myself. “But why?”
Mr. Lusk proffered a bit of paper. “It was delivered by parcel from somewhere in London,” he explained, “though the writing’s so bad, I can’t make heads nor tails of it.”
I unfolded the piece, laid it flat atop the desk and squinted at the awful handwriting.
From hell, it began. An auspicious start.
“If you require me to read it to you—”
“I can mind my letters,” I said gruffly, tamping down my smarting pride. Of course I could mind my letters, I wasn’t a street-born waif, but I didn’t give voice to the waspish retort.
Mr Lusk, Sor
Some Irish had been known to use “sor” in place of “sir,” but it was possible that the handwriting had forced the letter i appear more an o. The style was not kind upon the eyes.
I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer.
“Charming fellow, isn’t he?” I murmured.
“What?”
I looked up, aware that Mr. Lusk had bent forward, an ear tilted. My mask had swallowed my sardonic attempt at levity. “The spelling appears to be strained,” I said, a mild enough observation.
“Oh, it is,” he agreed.
I studied the last line thoughtfully.
signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk
Very little punctuation, a love affair with lowercase letters, and some terrible spelling concluded one of two things. Either the letter the Leeds Mercury had printed, wherein the murderer had finally named himself Jack the Ripper, had only been a taste of this man’s terrible grasp of the Queen’s English, or it was another man entirely.
A third option occurred just as quickly. It could be that this note was poorly written by design.
“Why haven’t you brought this to the police?” I inquired.
His proud nose wrinkled deeply as he looked at the stained box. “I believe it a dog’s kidney, and the letter some fool’s attempt at a hoax.”
I could not completely dispute the idea. “When did it arrive?”
“Just today,” he said. “In the evening’s post.”
I looked from the box and its grisly contents to the letter, and back again.
That someone might go to the all the trouble to kill a dog, then slice its kidney and preserve it for a few days, wrap it up with a letter and send it seemed not entirely out of bounds. There were always those eager for a bit of fun—whatever fun that might be.