“Did you have any reason to wait?” the inspector asked.
Hutchinson smiled sheepishly. “You know how it is. If the chap left, I meant to ask Kelly if I could spend the night in her room, me being skint and all.” His smile faded. “But the bugger stayed.”
“This man,” Abberline said. “What did he look like?”
“About five feet six or eight inches tall, and around thirty-five years old. He had a dark complexion and a dark mustache turned up at the ends. He was wearing a long dark coat trimmed with astrakhan, a white collar and a black necktie. There was a horseshoe pin fixed in it. He had a pair of spats over button boots. His coat was open, and I saw a gold chain on his weskit with a red stone in a big seal hanging from it. Looked like a foreigner to me.”
“You saw all this while they were talking?”
“Yes, they were under the light. And I noticed something else.” Hutchinson’s voice lowered almost to a whisper. “He was carrying a small parcel in his left hand, about eight inches long, with a strap around it, or a piece of string. It looked as though it was covered with dark American cloth.”
“Oilcloth?” Mark meant to speak further but Abberline silenced him with a warning look, then fixed his eyes on Hutchinson.
“Why didn’t you volunteer this information before?” he asked. “You could have offered it at the inquest.”
“And put my neck in a noose?” Hutchinson shook his head. “Much good that’d do me! I don’t mind telling you, or talking to the newspaper chaps, just to show I’ve nothing to hide. But how do I know a jury’d believe me?”
“What makes you think I do?”
“Because you’re a copper. You know a bloke doesn’t come forward with such a story unless he’s got nothing to hide.”
“I see.” Abberline rubbed his hand across his chin. “In that case, suppose you tell me something else. What time did you say you left off watching outside Kelly’s room?”
“Three o’clock. I can give you that for sure, because the church clock struck the hour just as I was leaving.”
“And where did you go then?”
“Like I say, I’d no money for a kip. I walked the streets until dawn. Then I spied a pile of sacks in an alleyway and curled up on them for a bit of sleep.”
“All right.” Abberline nodded. “I’m letting you go on about your business, though I warn you there may be need to see you again. Leave word at the sergeant’s desk where we can reach you.”
“At your service, guv’nor.” Hutchinson smiled in weary relief. “But I’ve told you all I know.”
When he left, Mark turned to the inspector. “Do you believe that fellow?” he said.
Abberline walked to the window and stood before it, staring out at the gathering darkness beyond. “If he wasn’t lying, it helps clear up some of the accounts we heard at the inquest.”
He retraced his steps, speaking slowly. “Let’s try to put the pieces together. Mrs. Cox sees Kelly outside Number Thirteen before midnight talking to a short stout man with a carroty mustache. They’ve been drinking, and Kelly takes him into her room for a bit of business.
“Elizabeth Prater hears her singing in the room when she steps out, but when she comes back there’s no sound or light coming from there.
“Kelly’s customer couldn’t have stayed long, because she goes out again and Hutchinson meets her on the street. Maybe the first chap doesn’t pay her, because she asks Hutchinson for sixpence. He watches while she picks up another man — taller, better-dressed, with a dark mustache. They go to her room and Hutchinson stands waiting outside.
“Most likely Hutchinson was the one Sara Lewis saw around two-thirty, since he says he stayed in the court until three. When he leaves all is quiet.”
Mark nodded. “That would explain discrepancies in descriptions of the man the witnesses saw. There were actually three different men — Kelly’s first drunken customer, the second fellow who accosted her in the street later on, and Hutchinson himself.” He hesitated. “But how can we be sure the women told the truth?”
“I think they did,” Abberline told him. “Because all of them — Mrs. Cox, Prater, Sara Lewis — say they heard a voice crying ‘Murder!’ at four o’clock or thereabouts. Which pretty much corresponds with the medical opinion as to when Kelly was killed.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Mark said. “The other woman, Mrs. Maxwell, swore she saw Kelly alive between eight and nine the next morning.”
“I’m not forgetting it.” Abberline’s face was grim. “And I don’t think the coroner forgot it either. If I’d been presiding you can be sure the inquest would never have been closed until we got to the bottom of that business. Just what did she see and what did she really say? According to her testimony, Mrs. Maxwell had only spoken to Kelly once before, but here she has the two of them calling each other by their first names, just as though they were well-acquainted. Is this the truth or was Mrs. Maxwell elaborating on the story to make sure she’d get her name in the papers? Believe me, I’d have asked a good many more questions before I was done with her. But the coroner chose to brush the whole thing aside, along with the missing key to Kelly’s room. There has to be a cover-up!” He shook his head. “Trouble is, I can’t prove it.”
“Perhaps you can.”
At the sound of the soft voice both men turned and stared at the man standing in the doorway — the man with the burning eyes.
~ THIRTY-FOUR ~
San Domingo, A.D. 1806. Pompee Valentin Vastey writes of French atrocities against blacks. “Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars? Have they not consigned these miserable blacks to man-eating dogs until the latter, sated by human flesh, left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard?”
As Robert James Lees entered the office, Abberline introduced him to Mark, then nodded at the medium. “What brings you here?” he said.
“Unfinished business, Inspector. You remember what I told you at your home the other evening? About the thread of evil?” Lees’ eyes glittered. “I’ve come to tell you that I’ve followed it.”
“Another vision?” Abberline frowned impatiently. “Look here, Mr. Lees. I’d be happy to listen, but it’s been a long day for me and the hour is late—”
“Later than you think,” Lees said. “And I’ve had no more visions. Not since the night before the murder, when I gave you the name and the number.”
Abberline’s frown was erased by recollection. “That’s right — McCarthy and thirteen.”
The psychic nodded. “It’s a pity I couldn’t have been more specific. If I’d only known then what I know now—”
“What do you know, Mr. Lees?”
“After I learned about the murder it weighed on my conscience. I felt that in some way I was responsible for not being able to provide the exact information which might have prevented this dreadful crime. The least I could do now was attempt to find the perpetrator.”
“That’s what we’re all trying to do,” Abberline said. “Of course the newspapers still speak of tracking him down with bloodhounds, though no one takes it seriously.”
“I did,” said Lees. “Yesterday I went to Miller’s Court to see if this faculty of mine would pick up the scent.”
“A human bloodhound, eh?” Abberline’s retort was more mocking than mirthful.
“You might call it that.” Lees spoke without rancor. “Needless to say, I failed.”