His beautiful Greek prisoner had known, somehow; had seen clairvoyantly into his future and known he would not succeed tonight. Curse it! He would have to question Ianira more closely about what she had seen in that vision of hers. Clearly, he could do nothing further today. It would be getting light soon and Maybrick had to return to Liverpool today, to meet social and family obligations.
Lachley was tempted to find these women himself, to end their miserable lives with his own hands, without waiting for Maybrick's return. But that was far too risky. Maybrick must be involved; that was critical to his plans. He must have a scapegoat on which to pin blame for these murders. All of them, including the next two. He narrowed his eyes. Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes... He'd never heard of either woman, but he was willing to bet they were common prostitutes, same as the recently departed Polly Nichols and the even more recently departed Annie Chapman. Which meant they ought to be quite easy to trace and just as easy to silence. Provided the bitches didn't tumble to the truth of what they possessed and run, bleating, with it to the constables or—worse—the press.
It was even possible that someone would connect "Eddy" and Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward. Lachley shuddered at such a monstrous vision of the future. These filthy whores must be silenced, whatever the cost. He made for his own little hovel in Wapping, beneath which was the entrance to the sewers which led to his underground sanctuary. James Maybrick knew the way there, already. Lachley had shown him the route shortly before Polly Nichols' murder, introducing him to Garm, to help him escape detection. Since Maybrick couldn't very well walk around with blood on his sleeves, he'd needed an escape route that was certain. The sewers were the most sure escape route possible.
So he'd showed Maybrick how to find his hideaway where Morgan had passed his last hours screaming out his miserable little life, and had arranged to meet Maybrick there again, after Annie Chapman's murder. Maybrick ought to be arriving there shortly to change his clothes and rid himself of any physical evidence connecting him with the murders, including the knife. He'd left the long-bladed weapon at Lower Tibor after Polly's death and collected again this evening, before setting out in pursuit of Annie. Lachley had planned to drug Maybrick after this latest murder, to use his mesmeric skills to erase the merchant's memory of Lachley's involvement, then send the knife and an anonymous tip to the Metropolitan Police's H Division with the instructions that a search of Battlecrease House in Liverpool would yield written evidence of the identity of the Whitechapel Murderer.
Putting that plan into action was clearly out of the question, now, at least until he had obtained the letters from Stride and Eddowes, curse them. It was now September the 8th, nearly two weeks since he'd first determined to kill Morgan and finish up this sordid business. Yet he was no closer to ending this miserable affair than he'd been the day Eddy had arrived at his house with the unpalatable news in the first place. He wanted this over with! Finished once and for all!
When James Maybrick finally arrived in his underground sanctuary, only to break the news that he couldn't possibly return to London until the end of the month, due to business and social commitments, it was all John Lachley could do not to shoot the maniac on the spot. He stood there breathing hard, with the gnarled oak limbs of his sacrificial tree spreading toward the brick vault of the underground chamber's ceiling and the smell of gas flames and fresh blood thick in the air, and clenched his fists while James Maybrick changed his clothes, burned the coat and shirt and trousers he'd been wearing, and secreted some hideous package that reeked of blood in an oilcloth sack.
"Took away her womb," Maybrick explained with a drunken giggle. "Threw her intestines over her shoulder, cut out her womb and her vagina." He giggled again, hoisting the grotesque oilcloth sack. "Thought I'd fry them up for my supper, eh? Took her wedding rings, too," he added, eyes gleaming in total madness. He displayed his trophies proudly, two cheap brass rings, a wedding band and a keeper. "Had to wrench them off, didn't want to leave holy rings on a dirty whore's hand, eh? Went back for a second helping of her, took part of the bladder, when I realized I'd forgotten my chalk. Wanted to chalk a message on the wall," he added mournfully. "To taunt the police. That fool, Abberline, thinks he's so very clever... not nearly so clever as Sir Jim, ha ha ha!"
Lachley thinned his lips into a narrow line, wishing to hell the maniac would simply shut up. God, the man was sick...
"Can't be here next week," Maybrick added, pulling on clean clothes Lachley had laid out for him. "But we will kill the other dirty whores, won't we? You'll let me rip them?"
"Yes, yes!" Lachley snapped. "When can you be back, dammit? I'm tired of waiting for you! This business is urgent, Maybrick, dammed urgent! You'd bloody well better be here the first day you can get away!"
Maybrick drew on his overcoat, left behind earlier. "Saturday the 29th," Maybrick replied easily. "You have my medicine ready?"
Lachley thrust the stoppered bottle into Maybrick's hand and watched narrowly as he drank it down. The potent mixture which allowed Lachley to place his patients into such a deep trance was even more critical with this patient, giving Lachley the means by which to accomplish his murderous ends without being mentioned in Maybrick's written record of his deeds. "Lie down on that bench," Lachley said impatiently when Maybrick had finished it all.
The cotton merchant slid up onto Lachley's long work bench and lay back with a smile, clearly pleased with the night's work and equally clearly looking forward to another two repeat performances of the evening's fun. Lachley stared down at the insane insect and loathed him so intensely, he had to clench his fists to keep from closing his hands around the man's throat and crushing the life from him, as he'd crushed it from Annie Chapman. Maybrick's eyelids gradually grew heavy and sank closed.
Lachley took Maybrick through the standard routine to bring about trance, went through the litany designed to abate his physical complaints, then repeated his injunction against ever mentioning or even hinting that Lachley existed when he wrote out his diary entries. "You will wake naturally in several hours, feeling refreshed and strong," Lachley told the drugged murderer. "You will leave this place and go to Liverpool Street Station and take the train for home. You will remember nothing of your visits to Dr. John Lachley, nothing except that he is helping you with your illness. You will not mention Dr. Lachley to anyone you know, not even members of your family. You will remember nothing about this room until the twenty-ninth of September, when you will receive a telegram from your physician informing you of an appointment. You will then come here and meet me in this room and we will kill more whores and you will enjoy it immensely. You will write of your enjoyment in your diary, but you will mention nothing about your London physician or the help I give you. In your diary, you will write of how pleasurable it was to rip your whores, how much you look forward to ripping more of them..."
Maybrick, lying there in a drugged stupor, smiled.
Maniacal bastard.
Lachley flexed his hands, clenching them into fists and glared down at the pathetic creature on his work table. I'll personally certify your death after they've hung you on the gallows. It can't be too soon, either, damn your eyes.
Two bloody weeks... and two more dirty whores to be killed. Preferably, in one night. If he didn't destroy them both on the same night, God alone knew how long it would be before Maybrick could tear himself away from business and family in Liverpool and return to finish this up. Yes, they would have to die on the same night, next time. Bloody hell... and they would have constables crawling like roaches through these streets, by then.