But how could we be sure?
“Your post man’s name,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your post man.” I shoved the box back along the desk. “What is his name?”
“Girard, I think.” A pause. “Or is it Gerald? Something of the sort. No idea of his given name. I’m sorry, I can’t be sure. But,” he added quickly, “it won’t help to speak to him. I happened to catch him before he left again.”
“What did he say?”
“The box started reeking half through its carrying,” Mr. Lusk said, frowning thoughtfully. “He said it came from the eastern or eastern central districts.”
All too big to pinpoint. Bloody hell, I could not afford to chase down a clue that would lead nowhere.
Frustrated, I thrust the letter at him. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Lusk.”
“Did anything help?”
“If it did, you’ll soon know.” I turned, and polite as he was, Mr. Lusk escorted me to the door. “In the meantime, you’d best be careful.”
“Careful?”
“If the Ripper is aware of you, he like as not reads the papers. Preening, no doubt. He’ll know your address, same as I.”
That did not have the effect I was aiming for. Mr. Lusk nodded most solemnly. “I suspect,” he told me, quite seriously, “that I am already watched.”
“Watched?”
Another nod. “I’ve sensed it, of late. Being watched, from out there.” This time, the bob of his chin was aimed for the door he opened for me. “I’m not afraid. Let the murdering swill know we’re on to him.”
I looked out into the fog, filthy yellow and thicker than paste. If it held the Ripper, only I knew that he wasn’t the worst out there. I hesitated on the stoop, turned and suggested, “You should show the box to your committee.”
“You think so?”
“I do,” I said flatly. “If it is not a hoax, then perhaps it’s your best lead. I suspect that it’s exactly what the Ripper wants, anyway.”
“For me to tell the police?”
“Attention,” I corrected him, once more glancing out behind me. A shudder walked icy fingers along my skin. Now I felt watched. Infected by Mr. Lusk’s paranoia?
Or was this another sampling of an opium dream in waking form?
Once more, I found my ears straining to hear beyond our conversation. A footstep, an echo.
A whistle.
A laugh.
Weep for the widowed bride!
“Strange,” Mr. Lusk told me, his expression one of wry resignation. “The last fellow suggested it to be no more than hoax. Said I’d be better off tossing it out with the rubbish.”
Very slowly, I turned my gaze away from the roiling miasma filling the street. Away from the dark places, and the lamplit yellow bloom. “Last fellow?” I repeated softly.
“Another collector,” Mr. Lusk explained, as if wholly unaware of the gravity that shaped my words. The intensity with which I listened. “You don’t communicate with each other?”
I shook my head, but did not explain. “This collector. What of him?”
I was proud that my question fell from my tongue without strain. Without effort. As if my lips were not thinned and trembling with exertion, as if the blood had not drained from my head and left behind a dull roaring in my ears.
“Oh, a tall bloke,” Mr. Lusk responded, one hand upon his door. “Taller than I, anyway, and thinner. Though that’s no trial,” he added with a briefly amused chuckle. “Plain enough, I suppose. Didn’t remove his bowler, but pleasant spoken. Wore a greatcoat seeing some wear and shook my hand firmly. Well-mannered, too, not unlike yourself.”
“Any distinguishing features?”
“None that I recall.” His smile was somewhat awkward, as if unsure what it is I asked of him. “I’m afraid I did not ask a name.”
“No,” I agreed hoarsely. I cleared my throat, my body as tight as a coiled spring. “Did he say where he headed?”
“Afraid not.”
Though Mr. Lusk continued to wax lyrical on the nature of us collectors for a few moments more, I did not hear it. I let the words glaze off me, unable to pick out a single helpful syllable from the lot.
None of it mattered. Fluff, worthless. As if in a daze, I said my farewells, stepped off the stoop and paid no mind when the door clicked shut behind me.
My rival had been here. Here. Before me.
How?
Was it him? Of course it was him. Greatcoat, bowler hat. Thin. In my occasional tussles with the man, I’d pegged him for a man whose build tended towards thin. I didn’t know how thin, or whether much could be attributed to athleticism, but he was not squat or stocky. As always when I met him, he’d worn a bowler hat pulled low and a large greatcoat, standing collar shading his face in every encounter. It frustrated me that Lusk could provide no greater detail.
Save that he was so polite. Bollocks!
My hands shook as I jammed them under my chin, my gaze pinned on the fog that I did not see.
He’d been here. I knew it. I could feel it. He must have found my challenge sooner than I expected; come to Mr. Lusk while I’d brawled with the Bakers and wasted time with Ishmael.
Had he learned something of the kidney? Is that why he’d counseled the man give it up as a hoax?
Had he hoped it would be destroyed before I arrived?
How recent had I missed him? I spun, ready to return to Mr. Lusk’s door, hammer at it until it came off its blooming hinges, but I stopped mid-turn.
Took a breath.
It stank of acrid air, of damp refuse and always of coal, but it cleared a path through my stormy feelings. Carved a swath of logic.
I could do nothing now. Even as I thought it, the bells of Westminster bonged faintly from up on high. Three, and then no more.
It had taken me too long to deal with the Bakers, and longer still to cross the London Borough of the Tower Hamlets. Small enough as each district seemed, they were a right devil to cross on foot with any precision or haste.
I could not waste the coin on a hackney.
For now, I had no choice. I could not stay within Baker land, and I could not risk anywhere else. Spent, frustrated beyond measure, I returned to the Menagerie.
If I was careful, quiet and blessed with a little bit of luck to offset my continued misfortune, I could slip into the sweets’ quarters and find a bed.
It would not end here. I would not let this go. I did not like the feeling of being one step behind my rival, and I feared what might happen were he to locate the Ripper before me. Everything I planned rested on my outwitting the monster.
I stepped into the fog. It swirled and danced about me, bloomed from the lamps flickering madly. Though I watched the shadows, half-expecting a rush from each pool of black I passed on my journey out of Whitechapel, no opponent made himself known—Ripper or otherwise.
If I was followed this time, I did not sense the trouble. Perhaps I should have listened to my own warnings. Opium to sleep—laudanum or smoke, resin or distilled—was one thing. This habit I’d developed of licking it direct might be turning into a hindrance.
I clenched the ball in my palm, hand fisted in my pocket, all the way back to the Menagerie.
I would ease back on the tar. Of course I would. Once the sweet tooth was finally caught, I would return to the medicinal use Fanny had worked so hard to mitigate.
In the interim, I would focus on the task at hand. No more sloppy collection work. No more jumping at shadows. The sweet tooth was in my grasp, and I’d be damned to perdition if he got another leg up on me.