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“I’m afraid I’m not quite following, Wadsworth. Do you believe your brother was using gothic novels as his source material for his killings?”
“Not entirely. I believe Nathaniel might be responsible for Miss Emma Elizabeth Smith’s death. He was obsessed with fusing machine and human together. Her attack fits with that. It also fits seamlessly with Galvani’s experimentations. Dr. Galvani demonstrated that a dint of electricity could make a frog’s muscles twitch postmortem. Nathaniel tried to improve upon his theory and take it even further by bringing humans back to life using a larger electrical charge.”
“I thought we established Miss Smith as a likely Ripper victim,” Thomas said carefully.
“We did. But it doesn’t fit. Even if his met
hod of killing shifted as his deadly talents grew, her murder was not the ultimate goal. Not like the others. She’d been brutalized, but I don’t believe he wished to slay her. He wanted her to live. That was his entire point. Nathaniel wasn’t interested in killing things. He longed for a way to bring them back.”
Thomas was quiet and perfectly still.
“Nathaniel killed Emma, but he was never Jack the Ripper, Thomas. He was the man who made Jack the Ripper. Or perhaps befriended him.”
Thomas glanced at the dates I’d hastily scrawled. A battle of emotion crossed his features. “If Nathaniel attacked Emma in April, perhaps her death disturbed him. It would seem that there may have been a part of him that couldn’t cross that line again. At least not himself.” He looked me over carefully. “Did he exhibit any early behaviors that would hint to savior ideologies?”
At first I went to shake my head, but a memory surfaced. “When we were children, he used to become physically ill if he couldn’t save a stray cat or dog. The thought of something dying was unbearable to him. He’d lie in bed for days, crying or staring at the ceiling. It was terrible and there wasn’t anything I could do to bring him out of that dark place.” I inhaled deeply, trying not to get lost in thoughts of the past. “If Miss Martha Tabram is the first true Ripper victim, that means Nathaniel had nearly four months to create his own monster. He says in his own words”—I jabbed the letter—“that he worked with another. I imagine my brother urged these killings on and profited scientifically from the organs acquired, but another person actually committed the rest of the murders.”
“That does not make your brother innocent,” Thomas said gently.
I lowered my head. If my theory was correct, Nathaniel had forged a person into a blade, making him far from innocent. And yet confronting his guilt—yet again—caused a visceral ache I didn’t anticipate. We humans could not help loving our monsters. “I know.”
Thomas rolled his head from side to side. “There’s still a possibility Nathaniel only followed the murder of Miss Smith from the papers. Perhaps the true murderer sought him out, or vice versa. At present, we’re speculating. You know what your uncle says about that.”
Speculation was pointless. Facts were what we needed. I looked at the stacks of journals on Thomas’s bed. My brother had written volumes of notes. I feared it would take years to unravel each new thread he’d knotted away. Thomas stood behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, slowly working the tension from them.
“It’s only a puzzle in need of solving, Wadsworth. We’ll figure it out together.”
I fought a fresh wave of tears and reached up to hold Thomas’s hand in mine. “I—”
“If you’re both so inclined to join us,” Uncle said, entering the chamber, eyes flashing at Thomas’s other hand still touching my shoulder, “Inspector Byrnes is in the parlor.”
Bellevue Hospital, circa 1885/1898
SEVEN
MISERY LANE
GRANDMAMA’S PARLOR
FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
21 JANUARY 1889
Inspector Byrnes stood with his large hands clutched behind his back, staring at a portrait of my grandfather that hung like a warning over the fireplace. Judging from the straightness of his posture and the way his muscles looked ready to spring forward at the smallest hint of trouble, his news wasn’t good. Not that I expected it to be.
“Thank you for calling on us so late, Inspector,” Uncle said by way of greeting. “Would you care for a drink?”
The inspector turned and removed a folded newspaper from his coat. He leaned over and slapped it onto a rather delicate end table, his cheeks deepening to near purple as he read the headline through clenched teeth.
JACK THE RIPPER HAS COME TO AMERICA.
“This abomination of a headline will be shouted by every newsboy in the city come dawn. I don’t know what happened in London, but it won’t stand here!” He straightened and took a moment to compose himself. “I won’t let Jack the Ripper strike fear into the heart of my city, Dr. Wadsworth.”
A muscle in Uncle’s jaw twitched, the only indication he was getting annoyed. “I am a man of science, not a portending device. If you’d like to give me more details, perhaps I can help craft a better understanding or profile of who this killer is. Differences in wounds left on the victim could help alleviate hysteria. Unless you share your findings, I’m afraid I have nothing else to offer.”
“Fine. You want more facts? We confirmed the victim’s identity as a Miss Carrie Brown, a local wh… prostitute,” Byrnes said, clearly shifting his words because of my presence. What a pleasant gentleman. I all but rolled my eyes. “Friends called her Old Shakespeare, since she used to quote him when she was deep in her cups.”
Thomas and I glanced at each other. Now that there was a significant potential that the Ripper was alive and well, ignoring the parts that fit with his previous killings was difficult. He was known for victimizing prostitutes who’d been heavy drinkers. Just like this murderer.
