Lachley strode past without a second glance.
Malcolm peered over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of Marcus, who had been joined by Benny Catlin and the other man from the Egyptian Hall. They trailed Lachley straight past the carriage, Marcus and the others passing literally within touching distance. Margo was wailing, "But I must have my muff, Geoffrey, I simply must! Oh, you beastly man, I cannot face Lady Hampton without it, after that dreadful creature showed me up last Saturday with her ermine..."
The moment Marcus and his companions had passed, Malcolm handed both ladies down. "We dare not follow in the carriage," he murmured, securing coin to pay the driver. "I fear you ladies are not dressed for hiking, but there's no help for it."
Margo said cheerfully, "I'll worry about blisters on my heels after I've got 'em."
The driver was shaking his head, mystified, as he drove off. Malcolm set out briskly, feeling some affinity for the tail end of a freight train as they whipped through the streets in pursuit. Lachley, far ahead, was moving rapidly. Both Margo and Dr. Feroz had difficulty keeping up. Their fashionably tight skirts and heeled shoes forced them to trot along with mincing little steps.
"Where the devil is he heading?" Inspector Melvyn wondered aloud as they moved steadily eastward, angling down toward the river. "It's the wrong night for another Ripper strike."
"Maybe he's hunting for Mary Kelly?" Margo suggested.
"Without Maybrick? Deuced unlikely, I should think. He kills to a pattern."
"Perhaps," Shahdi Feroz mused, "he works alone to locate the women, then strikes with Maybrick as his weapon?"
Margo put in suddenly, "Maybe the Whitehall torso is one of his victims? Somebody he meets tonight? The torso will be discovered just two days from now, after all."
"Another of these unfortunates in possession of his letters?" Inspector Melvyn frowned. "Blast, I wish we knew what these letters were!"
"You said a mouthful," Margo muttered, struggling to keep up.
As they trailed their double quarry steadily eastward, into increasingly poorer districts, Malcolm's misgivings increased just as steadily. They were dressed to the nines, all of them, and Lachley was leading them straight toward the East End, where gentlemen in fancy dress coats and ladies in silk evening gowns would stand out like beacon fires, inviting attack by footpads. Lachley took them down Drury Lane, echoing another night's anxious search, when they'd trailed Benny Catlin with bloodhounds. Tonight, at least, Catlin was in plain sight. They emerged, as they had that previous night, onto the Strand. Lachley headed down through Fleet Street, moving briskly.
Malcolm plunged into the crowds thronging the jammed pavements, trying to keep the others in sight. As the heart and soul of the British printing industry, Fleet Street was clogged by literally hundreds of newspaper reporters, ink-stained printers' journeymen and apprentices, bootblacks, newsboys scurrying along with stacks of the latest editions piled high, and women of dubious status all jostling elbows as they fought for space in the pubs, comandeered hansom cabs, and paid street urchins to run errands for them—all struggling to outwit one another in the business of keeping the Empire apprised of the latest news. From here, reports of the shocking, double Ripper murders had raced outward by telegraph to claim massive headlines across the length and breadth of the British Isles and far beyond.
From out of pubs with names like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese wafted the multitudinous smells of cheap sandwiches, greasy fried potatoes, and enough alcohol to inebriate several herds of elephants. Malcolm wondered fleetingly just how many journalists affiliated with newspapers like the prestigious Times and the Star or penny dreadfuls with lofty-sounding titles like the Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times or the Illustrated Police News were combing the East End tonight, looking for leads to the Ripper case? Given the number of men and boys crowding these pavements, only a fraction of those he'd expected to cover the case. Fleet Street seethed.
"The ladies can't keep up!" Conroy Melvyn called above the roar of voices and bar songs, the rumble of carriage wheels, and the neighing of several hundred, snorting horses in the street. Margo and Shahdi Feroz were struggling through the thick crowds, falling farther and farther behind. Malcolm craned for a glimpse of Benny Catlin and Marcus. "Blast it, we'll lose them! Margo, we can't afford delays. Hire a cab and take Dr. Feroz back to Spaldergate. Let them know what's happening."
"But—"
"No argument! We haven't time!"
"Oh, all right!" she snapped, cheeks flushed with temper as well as brisk walking. "Come on, Shahdi, let's go home like good little girls!" She stormed off in search of a cab for hire, taking the Ripperologist with her.
"I shall pay for that, presently," Malcolm sighed, hurrying after their escaping quarry. The Scotland Yard inspector gave him a sympathetic glance as Lachley led them down past Shoreditch into the heart of Whitechapel, moving steadily eastward and skirting his way closer to the river.
"He isn't going anywhere near Miller's Court, is he?" Malcolm muttered.
Before the inspector could reply, a roar of angry voices erupted from the street just ahead. An immense crowd of angry men spilled out into their path, shouting demands for better police patrols, more gas lights, for a reward to be offered by Her Majesty's government for the Ripper's capture...
"Hurry!" Malcolm cried, darting forward. He shoved his way into the mass of shouting workmen who were still spilling out onto the street, unable to push his way through. "Mr. Lusk!" someone was shouting at his elbow. "Mr. Lusk, is it true you asked the authorities to offer a reward for information on the Ripper's accomplices?" The man shouting the question held a notebook and a stub of pencil, trying to scribble down information as he was jostled by the swarm of angry Vigilance Committee members and loiterers swept up in the crowd.
"They told me t'bugger off!" Lusk shouted back, whipping up a roar from the crowd. "Aren't goin' to pay blood money, they said, t'catch nobody!" The head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee was furious, justifiably so. As a prominent East End businessman, Lusk had to live and work here, wondering which of his friends or family members might be butchered next, while police officials like Sir Charles Warren sat safe and insulated in their headquarters and stately homes to the west.
Malcolm fought his way past angry tradesmen, struggling to reach the far street corner where Marcus and the others had vanished. Several men flung curses after him when he shouldered past and one beefy lout swung at him, but by the time the punch landed, Malcolm had dodged past. Shouts erupted in his wake, then he was finally through the mass of seething protestors. Conroy Melvyn struggled out on his heels, panting. "Where'd they go?" the inspector gasped.
"I don't know! Dammit, I can't see them anywhere!" Malcolm plunged down the street at a run, heedless of stares, but within three blocks, they had to admit defeat. Marcus and Benny Catlin and the other gentleman trailing John Lachley had vanished into the maze of dark alleyways, swallowed alive by the black gloom which lurked just beyond Whitechapel's major thoroughfares. Malcolm kept hunting, stubbornly, for nearly an hour, while Conroy Melvyn questioned passers-by in search of clues, running into suspicion and close-mouthed wariness again and again. Not even the lure of shining crowns—coins worth more than a month's good wages in these streets—shook loose any information.