“Yes, please.”
Bell helped her work it inside the envelope. She hid it in the folds of her shawl.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“They give me a cot at the Salvation Army. I help in the kitchen.”
“I’ll walk you home,” said Bell.
“Why?”
“Because I am going to give this sack of half crowns to the Army commander to be sure you’re taken care of.”
Emily got a crafty look in her eye. “If you give it to me, I can take care of myself.”
“I would rather give it to someone I can trust to keep you safe.”
“You think I might spend it on laudanum.”
“No ‘might’ about it,” said Bell so firmly that she dropped the subject with an abject nod.
At the door of the soup kitchen, she blurted, “Don’t tell nobody what I said.”
“I won’t.”
“He’ll come for me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Isaac Bell, hearing his own words ring hollow, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t . . . Emily? What was the callboy’s name?”
“Jack.”
“Jack? Do you remember his last name?”
“Spelvin.”
“Jack Spelvin?”
“Handsome Jack.”
20
“Here’s a strange one,” said Harry Warren, reading from the Research Department report that Isaac Bell had ordered sent every morning to the Cutthroat Squad.
Helen Mills, James Dashwood, Archie Abbott, and several other detectives in the New York field office bull pen not of the Cutthroat Squad looked up from their work.
“What’s strange?”
“Woman throat slashed and carved up in Cleveland.”
“Sounds like our man.”
“Except she was a six-foot-tall brunette.”
“Prostitute?”
“Banker’s wife.”
“Crescent carvings?”
“None reported.”
“Shouldn’t Cleveland send a man to the morgue?”
“Already did. No carvings.”
“Sounds like a coincidence.”
“Who wants to tell Mr. Bell it’s a coincidence?”
A profound silence settled over them—the Chief Investigator took a dim view of coincidences in general and an even dimmer view of coincidences offered as explanations. The silence was broken suddenly by James Dashwood, who was thumbing through a pile of old issues of The Clipper, the actors’ weekly that listed jobs.
“There you are!”
“Who?”
“Stage manager I told you about. For Jekyll and Hyde? I knew I recognized him.” He held up The Clipper. “Henry Young.” He pointed to a line drawing of an actor playing a villain in an 1897 melodrama.
“That’s not a wanted poster.”
“I know. But now I know he was working in a Syracuse stock company in the late nineties.”
Joseph Van Dorn burst into the bull pen. Last heard from, the Boss was in Washington, and the detectives jumped to their feet. “Who’s heard from Isaac?”
Archie Abbott said, “He had Joel Wallace cable me to check up on Lord Strone. He’s the—”
“British spy. What does he want with a British spy?”
“To see if Strone’s still in business.”
“Is he?”
“He’s kind of disappeared on his yacht.”
“That’s all you’ve heard from Isaac?”
“Well, he cabled Marion when he arrived in London.”
“Maybe we should install his wife down here to keep up with him.”
Van Dorn stormed off. Looks were exchanged. The Boss was losing patience with the Cutthroat Squad.
Archie Abbott waited until the front desk telephoned that Van Dorn had gone downstairs for a late breakfast. Quickly, he stood up and gathered his things. “See you tomorrow.”
“You’re going home at ten in the morning?”
“I’ve got tickets to see Jekyll and Hyde again.”
“It closed. It’s on the road, remember?”
“I’m seeing it in Columbus.”
“You’re going all the way to Ohio to watch a play?”
“Lillian invited Marion Bell. Marion missed it in New York, and now she misses Isaac, so we’re taking her with us.”
“Still, a long ways to go for a play.”
“My father-in-law is lending us his train.”
Detectives who rode to work on streetcars rolled their eyes.
“It will get us there in time for the curtain,” Abbott explained blithely. “On the way home, we’ll tuck into bed for a good night’s sleep.”
Harry Warren said, “Of all the girls I could have married, why did it never occur to me to nail one whose father owns a railroad?”
“Numerous railroads.”
Marion Morgan Bell hung back a step when Lillian and Archie walked down the center aisle and the audience craned necks for a glimpse of the famously beautiful railroad heiress and the man who had been the New York Four Hundred’s most eligible bachelor before he fell for her. As Isaac put it, “Detective disguises don’t come better than man-about-town who married well.”
They were the last to take their seats. The orchestra began to play, and the curtain rose on a set that depicted a light and airy apartment in a New York City skyscraper, an up-to-date image that captured the attention of every Columbus lady in the audience. The story moved with great speed, and when night transformed the apartment for Mr. Hyde’s entrance, the modern home seemed deeply sinister. It was impossible to tell whether Barrett or Buchanan was playing Hyde, so convincingly evil was the character.
But only when women began gasping and crying out did Marion realize she was not as caught up in the play as the rest of the audience. She glanced at Lillian, a brave and steady young woman. Lillian looked terrified. Even Archie, who had seen it before, appeared so riveted that Marion half expected him to pull a pistol to protect them.
As it raced on, as a huge airplane swooped over the stage, as Hyde leaped on the roof of a speeding subway car, as the utterly compelling Isabella Cook came within inches of destruction—prompting more than one man to start from his seat to help her—Marion wondered why she was not quite so engaged as the others. The answer was simple, and no fault of the brilliant production. She so admired every bit of craft that was stirring the audience that her mind had shifted to the technical details of how she could re-create and embellish those effects on film.
The play ended to standing ovation, shouts, and cheers.
Lillian said, “Let’s go backstage and meet the actors.”
“No,” said Marion. “Not me.”
“Why?”
“I want to see them as I saw them.”
A little pout started to form on Lillian’s face, but it melted into a smile. They were very close, with Marion sometimes in the role of big sister. “I know what you mean. You’re right. Let’s remember them as we saw them.”
Archie said, “I sense a ‘Marion plot,’ don’t I?”
Marion Morgan Bell clutched the program in her fist. “I am going to make a movie of Barrett & Buchanan’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
Isaac Bell rode the London & North Western back to London, retrieved his clothing from Euston’s baggage office, and changed in the lavatory. Then he telephoned Joel Wallace from a coin-operated call box. The box he chose was at the end of the row, with cut-glass windows overlooking the station’s Great Hall.
Wallace asked, “How’d you make out in Manchester?”
“Found out why they hate each other. Otherwise, a bust. The poor girl fell for a good-looking theater callboy who may or may not have been the guy who tried to kill her. That’s who she remembered . . . Any more cables from New York?”
&n
bsp; “Testy one from the Boss.”
“Another ‘Report now’?”
“‘Report immediately.’”
“What does Research say?”
“No new bodies since you sailed. Except a tall brunette they don’t think counts.”
“Missing girls?”
“Chicago, Pittsburgh, Columbus.”
On Bell’s orders, Grady Forrer’s boys were querying field offices daily for reports of missing girls who resembled the fair and petite murder victims.
“None out west?”
“None we hadn’t heard about earlier.”
Bell pondered the report. Missing girls, no bodies. Young women disappeared for all sorts of reasons. But this murderer so often succeeded in hiding his victims.
“Have you ever been to Wilton’s Music Hall?”
“In Whitechapel? No, the Methodists took it over for a mission twenty years ago. Why?”
“Just a thought. Ever hear of a guy in the theater named Jack Spelvin?”
“On the stage?”
“Could be anything—an all-rounder, or even a scenic designer, director, actor, manager.”
“Not here in London. I think I heard of a George Spelvin back home. Not Jack. Why?”
“Emily’s crush,” Bell answered distractedly. His eyes roamed the train travelers crisscrossing the Great Hall.
“What’s the word on Lord Strone?”
“Out of business,” said Wallace. “The Secret Service Bureau gave him his walking papers.”
“Are you certain?”
“As certain as I can be about spies. Cabled a fellow I bank on to confirm. He cabled back that Strone’s gone fishing in Florida.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Bell. “I’ve got another job for you.”
“When?”
“Right this minute. On the jump!”
Isaac Bell took an escalator deep underground to the tube train and rode east for several stops. He returned to the surface at Moorgate. A misty drizzle mingled with the coal smoke. It was hard to see fifty feet ahead. He walked into the East End and onto Bishopsgate, a busy commercial street jam-packed with wagons and double-decker horse trams that cut through the Whitechapel district that Jack the Ripper had terrorized.
The Range Riders, a Tom Mix Western, was showing at the Electric.
Bell bought a ticket. The movie theater sat more than a hundred and was so recently built that he could smell the paint. He found a seat in the back row. Before the Western started, they showed a Picture World News Reel of “Old King Teddy’s”—King Edward VII’s—funeral processing through London. Bell grinned with delight. Wait ’til he told Marion that the newsreel she had shot a full year ago—five hundred and twenty feet of what the movie people call topical film—was still playing in the theaters.
A man in a bowler and a long black coat entered from the curtained lobby and took a seat one over in the row in front of Bell. In the light flickering from Marion’s film, Bell saw he was in his thirties and impeccably dressed. He had walked ramrod straight, and he sat similarly stiff and upright. Neither his bowler and walking stick, nor his civilian topcoat, could disguise the proud badge of lifelong military service.
Isaac Bell leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “My wife made this film.”
The icily supercilious retort matched his posture: “Are you addressing me, sir?”
“Why did you follow me from Euston Station?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You and I caught the Tube to Moorgate. Then we walked—London Wall on to Broad Street, Liverpool, and up Bishopsgate. We could have taken London Wall direct to Wormwood and Bishopsgate, but I wanted to be absolutely certain it was you again before I punched you in the nose.”
21
The shadow jumped up and sprinted from the theater.
Bell pounded after him.
Coattails flapping like a startled crow, the shadow fled through the lobby and out the door. He shoved through the rippling wall of pedestrians blocking the sidewalk and plunged over the curb into the truck and wagon traffic inching along Bishopsgate High Street. Isaac Bell was catching up when a burly man in a tweed coat and workman’s cap shot a scuffed, lace-up boot in his path. Bell tripped and went flying headlong into the street, rolling on his shoulder when he hit the cobblestones and tumbling under the ironshod wheels of a giant hay wagon trundling fodder to the horse-tram stables.
Bell heard shouts of alarm. Traffic came to a standstill. People reached under the wagon and helped him to his feet. He looked around confusedly, retrieving his hat and assuring passersby that he was not injured. He could see neither the shadow nor the backup operator waiting to trip him. But Detective Joel Wallace’s broad back was disappearing into a lane on the far side of Whitechapel, hot on the trail.
Isaac Bell chased after Joel Wallace, who was following the man in the bowler hat. The operator in tweed had peeled away early on, scurrying up Bishopsgate without looking back. The Van Dorn stayed with his boss as the man negotiated the ill-clad crowds on greasy cobblestone streets littered with scrap paper and horse manure. Bell caught up when Wallace stopped behind a cart with a broken wheel that was blocking the sidewalk.
“Heck of an acrobat,” Wallace said over his shoulder, his eyes fixed on an alley. “For a moment there, I thought he really got you.”
“Ran off with the circus once— Where’d he go?”
“Ducked into that beer house. We’re looking at the back door. Ought to be out any sec.”
The drizzle changed abruptly to cold rain that poured down from the dark sliver of midday sky that showed between the houses. “Here we go! No, that’s not him— Wait, who is that?”
“Quick-change artist,” said Bell. “Turned his coat inside out.”
Their quarry edged from the alley, wearing what appeared to be a light-colored canvas raincoat. He looked around the lane and stepped briskly away.
“I’m getting me one of those,” Joel Wallace whispered.
As the Van Dorns trailed the shadow through Whitechapel, trading the lead, and several times removing their hats and exchanging them with one another, it occurred to Isaac Bell that Jack the Ripper would not have worn gentleman’s clothing when he haunted these streets. Certainly not after the first killing. Even procuring prostitutes, he would have stood out like a sore thumb. He had to have blended with the poor. Or had Ripper outfitted himself with a shabby variant of the shadow’s reversible coat?
“Spotted us!” said Bell. The man had glanced over his shoulder at just the wrong moment and glimpsed Joel Wallace sprinting for a doorway. He ran.
“Get him!” So much for following him back to whoever gave him his orders. They would have to interrogate him instead.
Ironically, they caught up with the shadow on Hanbury Street, and when he sidestepped into an alley, it was not Number 29—but close. Bell tore in after him and grabbed him by his canvas collar.
“I beg your pardon. What do you think you are doing, sir?”
“Interviewing you.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I will when I’m done.”
“I am a police officer.”
“No you are not,” said Bell. “Police officers work shifts. They spell each other. You’re shadowing me around the clock. You followed me around London; you followed me to Manchester. About the only place you didn’t follow me was into Angel Meadow, where I could have used a hand. Now you’re following me in London, again. All by your lonesome. That makes you a freelance. If you’re freelance, I want to know who’s paying you. If you’re working for Military Intelligence, I want to know what the blazes you think you are doing shadowing an American citizen on legitimate business.”
Bell lifted him an inch off the ground and shook him hard.
“Which is it?”
“I could
have you shot!”
Bell lowered him until his feet touched the mud, loosened one hand, and drew his derringer. “I’m better fixed for shooting.”
He let the operator peer into the immensity of twin barrels, each nearly half an inch wide. “Who are you?”
The man dropped his gaze. “Freelance.”
It was almost certainly a lie, but Bell went along, asking, “Who are you working for?”
“Military Intelligence.”
Bell regarded him sternly. “That is ridiculous. I have nothing to do with Military Intelligence, if such a thing even exists.”
“I’d expect you to deny it.”
“Deny what?”
“We know who you are.”
Bell tightened his grip and backed him hard against the bricks. He pressed the barrels to his cheek. “Tell me who I am.”
“We know who you are, Mr. Isaac Bell. What we don’t know is who you are spying for. The United States or Germany. Or both.”
Bell snapped his fingers in sudden comprehension. “Abbington-Westlake.”
The operator’s eyes widened. He recovered in an instant and desperately tried to backpedal from his mistake. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Tell that underhanded rat I know he’s your boss,” said Bell, and stalked away.
Joel Wallace trotted after him.
“What the heck was that about?”
“Commander Abbington-Westlake, British Admiralty, Naval Intelligence Department, Foreign Division.”
“Fancy name for ‘Royal Navy spy.’ Told you, it was dreadnoughts.”
“I caught him snapping Kodaks of ours in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Back in aught eight.”
“Wha’d you do to him?”
“Promised I’d throw him off the Brooklyn Bridge if he tried it again. He turned out to be very helpful.” Bell shook his head. “Abbington-Westlake is one of those operators who acts like he’s a stuffy old duffer before his time. Behind the bumbling front he’s slick as ice. Should have thought about him first time around. I just assumed he was too sharp to make this stupid a mistake.”