Beside the school rose a tall warehouse belonging to Kearly and Tongue. Opposite, facing the warehouse and school, stood another Kearly and Tongue warehouse, the Orange Market along King Street, and a house belonging to Police Constable Pearse. Along Duke Street, the fourth border of the square, stood the Great Synagogue. Narrow, lightless Church Passage—a covered alleyway—led into the square from Duke Street, past the southern edge of the synagogue.
The tiny "square" thus formed, a secluded island cut off from the busier streets surrounding it, was where Lachley and Maybrick would lead their second victim of the night. There was a sickening symmetry, Dominica realized, to their revolting anti-Semitism. They were murdering Eddowes within view of a synagogue. And given their narrow escape from Dutfield's Yard, these men possessed a terrifying confidence, to kill her within plain view of a policeman's home not half an hour after nearly being caught dead to rights. That alone shook Dominica as she and Guy Pendergast fled Dutfield's Yard before Mr. Diemschutz could bring help. She and her partner sped along side streets, running to get ahead of the murderous Ripper duo, literally racing the whole distance to Mitre Square to get into position for the best vantage point to film Eddowes' death.
In front of the school, a waist-high iron railing partitioned off half the available pavement. Because of minor work being done, a much higher temporary fence had been erected along the line of that railing, effectively cutting the broad pavement in half and sealing off the entire corner of the elbow. It was behind this temporary fencing Dominca and Guy chose to conceal themselves, less than six feet from the spot where Catharine Eddowes was slated to die.
Five minutes after they went into hiding, Constable Watkins appeared in Church Passage, doing his rounds and peering dutifully into the square. And not two minutes after Watkins retreated down Church Passage again, John Lachley appeared, escorting the unsuspecting Catharine Eddowes. Dominica held her breath, trembling slightly in the cold, wet air. Lachley and Eddowes paused within whispering distance of Dominica's hiding place, while James Maybrick slipped up silently behind them, knife already out of his pocket.
Dominica knew what was coming. But the shock left her trembling when John Lachley smashed Catharine Eddowes to the pavement, strangling her right in front of them. The woman struggled, flailing her arms and kicking helplessly, while Lachley snarled into her face and crushed her throat under his hands. Kate Eddowes finally went limp, arms falling lifelessly to the pavement at her sides. Lachley rifled her pockets for his letter even as the slavering Maybrick struck with his knife, too impatient to wait any longer.
And it was that, watching the infuriated and massively frustrated Maybrick, which finally broke through Dominica's tough professionalism and left her trembling and sick behind the high, temporary schoolyard fence. This was no make-believe movie, no documentary on ordinary little murders. Not even the impersonal blowing apart of a solider by an artillery round. This was a frenzy of psychopathic hatred, a man who was no longer fully human, slashing at an innocent woman's face, cutting an inverted "M" straight through the flesh of her eyelids, hacking off ears, nearly severing the head from its neck. And when he jerked up her skirts...
Dominica couldn't watch, squeezed shut her eyes and swallowed hot bile, tried hopelessly to force away the image of him snatching out Catharine's intestines, tossing them across her shoulder, cutting part of them loose and arranging them beside her. Don't gag, don't heave, they'll hear you, oh, dear, God, the smell... Guy Pendergast's hand was bruising her shoulder, the fingers digging in and flexing as he, too, fought to remain silent during the ghastly ritual Maybrick and Lachley were enacting beyond the fence. She could hear low voices, almost whispers, and didn't want to distinguish individual words.
When at last their footfalls moved away, she opened her eyes. She tried not to look at the mangled shape lying huddled in front of the empty cottages. Dominica was violently atremble, dizzy and light-headed. She wasn't sure she'd be able to take a single step without collapsing. "They're gone," Guy whispered directly against her ear, to prevent the sound from carrying. She nodded. Time to leave. Get the hell out of here, Dominica, because Police Constable Watkins is going to walk into the Square down Church Passage in about two minutes, discover the body and raise all bloody hell... come on, legs, move it!
She'd taken one step, no more, when racing footfalls thudded back into the Square. Her vision greyed out for just an instant and only Guy Pendergast's grip kept her on her feet. Maybrick had jogged back to the body, was hacking at it again, tearing away part of her apron and wrapping up something... oh, Christ, something he'd cut out of her, he was carrying part of her insides away with him...
"James!" An all-but-silent hiss of fury broke through the shock. It was Lachley, white-faced. "Get the hell away from her! Come on, man, before a copper strolls in here. They do a patrol past the Square every few minutes and they're bloody well due!"
"Forgot my dinner," Maybrick said calmly.
If Guy hadn't been behind her, propping her up, Dominica might well have fallen against the fence, giving them both away. The pistols she and her partner had concealed in their pockets were utterly useless against these two. The men out there arguing over the remains of Catharine Eddowes literally could not be killed, not by anyone from up time. Maybrick wouldn't die until 1889, of arsenic poisoning, and until Mary Kelly was murdered more than a month from now, neither of these men could be so much as harmed.
But Dominica certainly could be.
"If you want to make off with her kidney and uterus, fine!" Lachley snapped. "But I'll be damned if I go walking along with you while you carry them! I'll meet you back at Lower Tibor, as usual."
The two halves of the team that comprised Jack the Ripper split up, Lachley pale with anger, Maybrick flushed and euphoric. Lachley uttered one short curse, then strode off through the broad opening to Mitre Street, vanishing to the southwest, walking fast. Maybrick thrust his bloody prize under his coat, shoving the knife into a deep pocket. Something dark fell out as he pulled his gloved hand free again. It landed with a dull sound against Eddowes' mangled body. Something small, made of leather... Dominica had to stifle the wild, hysterical impulse to laugh as Maybrick strode jauntily down Mitre Street, following Lachley's route at a more leisurely pace. Maybrick had dropped a red leather cigarette case, the one experts had puzzled over for a century and a half. It was far too expensive for a destitute woman like Catharine Eddowes to have been carrying. She'd have pawned it for cash in a heartbeat. It lay, now, amidst the contents of her rifled pockets, which Maybrick had set out neatly beside her body.
Then Maybrick's footfalls died away and they had scant seconds in which to make their own escape, before the momentary arrival of PC Watkins stirred this whole neighborhood to a frenzy. There were only two ways out of Mitre Square and the constable would be arriving through Church Passage. They had no choice but to follow on the heels of the killers.
"Well, come on, then," Guy hissed, dragging her toward the exit to their hiding place. "You're the one who wanted to follow those damned lunatics!" His anger stung her pride fully awake. She jerked away from his supporting grasp and stalked out from behind the temporary fencing. After what she'd been through tonight, Maybrick had better not give her the slip! Concentrating fiercely on Carson Historical Video Prizes and million-dollar movie advances, Dominica Nosette eased past the pitiful remains of Catharine Eddowes and set out down Mitre Street. I can still find out how they pull that disappearing act, in the middle of a crowded city...