Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte by Laura Joh Rowland

Author:Laura Joh Rowland [Rowland, Laura Joh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1590206282
Publisher: Overlook TP
Published: 2011-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

Catherine Meadows. Age 19, streetwalker. Height 4 feet 11 inches. Weight 100 lbs.

2 January 1850, initial contact, Old Montague Street. 3 February 1850, 1st examination; exposed. 7 April 1850, 2nd examination; sacrificed.

Jane Anderson. Age 29, streetwalker. Height 5 feet 4 inches. Weight 131 lbs.

13 April 1850, initial contact, Commercial Road. 17 May 1850, 1st examination; exposed. 20 June 1850, 2nd examination; sacrificed.

I puzzled over these cryptic notations. It appeared that Niall Kavanagh had known all three murder victims. His notes suggested a scientific rather than a sexual interest in them. I remembered Dr. Forbes telling me about the students who’d claimed they’d been poisoned by Kavanagh. They thought he’d made them unwitting subjects in his experiments. Had he done the same with Mary Chandler, Catherine Meadows, and Jane Anderson?

The three women had belonged to the most impoverished, desperate class of humanity; their kind was at the mercy of the men they solicited. A nauseous chill crept into my stomach as I envisioned the scene that must have taken place on the dates when Niall Kavanagh had his “initial contact” with each woman: On a dark, lonely street in Whitechapel, she stands under a gas lamp. His shadowy figure approaches her through the fog. She calls an invitation to him; he stops; they bargain. She takes his arm and walks off with him, never imagining what evil designs he has in mind.

I gazed upon the last word of each entry: sacrificed. One didn’t need to be a scientist to deduce what that meant. A parson’s daughter understood the word in all its permutations. To sacrifice was to destroy or surrender something for the sake of something else, as Jesus had sacrificed his life on the cross. To sacrifice meant to make an offering of a human, animal, food, drink, or other valuable thing, to a deity, as Abraham had been willing to slay his son Isaac at God’s bidding. Sacrifice had age-old associations with violence and murder. As my lips silently formed the word, I could almost taste blood. A thunderous shock reverberated through me.

Niall Kavanagh had killed those women. I’d come looking for a scientist who’d invented a gun that could change the world, and I’d discovered the identity of the Whitechapel Ripper.

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