Castle Rouge by Carole Nelson Douglas

Author:Carole Nelson Douglas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2003-09-14T22:00:00+00:00

28.

“X” Marks the Spots

And the crew were very much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

—LEWIS CARROLL, THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK, 1876

FROM A JOURNAL

That afternoon Bram Stoker was replaced by Quentin Stanhope as we huddled over a map of London in our hotel room in Prague.

The influence of Mycroft Holmes was not in the power to move mountains, or to transmit a map upon a beam of light. It was in mobilizing the sources closer to hand.

Within hours of Quentin cabling the foreign office and mentioning the magic word “Sherlock,” we had a modern, pristine map of London’s Whitechapel district in our hands, courtesy of the Prague royal library.

We also had a cable Quentin had received back, listing the cross-roads where the women of Whitechapel had died, and including the location of the “Juwes” doggerel.

“This is incomplete.” Irene stared down at the map and the cablegram that lay atop it. “Sherlock Holmes made quite a point to Nell that murdered women and Whitechapel are synonymous. They have been so long before Jack the Ripper appeared on the scene. The crimes that are attributed to the Ripper by the British police are arbitrary at best, and severely underestimated at worst.”

“This is what we have to work with, Irene,” Quentin said. “However unconvinced Nell might be, she would not quibble to use the tools at hand were it another’s life in the balance.”

“No. Nor shall we. All right. Mary Ann Nichols, known as ‘Polly,’ is designated as the first Ripper victim, though she may not be. She was slain here at Bucks Row, just off Whitechapel Road on the high, eastern end of the district.”

Irene made a large “X” to mark the spot.

“The next victim was Annie Chapman at Hanbury Street. Look! Almost on the same east-west axis as Mary Ann Nichol’s death scene, but dead center of the district.”

I winced at the unintended aptness of her American usage, “dead center.” Irene drew another “X” on the map.

“Third. Elizabeth ‘Long Liz’ Stride, at Fairclough and Berner Street.”

Irene marked the third “X” and drew back from the map to study it. “These three points make an upside-down pyramid, almost an equilateral triangle. What is the fourth location, Quentin?”

He read from the cable. “Catharine Eddowes, on Mitre Street, near Aldgate.”

Irene drew a double “X” there. “And near here the chalked lines about the Juwes were discovered. Look, the Eddowes site is almost across from Stride, as east-west goes, but a long, long walk. Eddowes was the Ripper’s second victim that night, before he presumably turned to scrawling ambiguous statements about Jews.” She frowned at her series of “X”s. “Four points now, and if you connected them, you would have a rectangle, a skewed rectangle, although I believe there is exactly such a construction. I don’t believe that geometry is Jack the Ripper’s field, however.”

She shook her head, disappointed. “Number five.”

Quentin consulted map, cablegram, then map again.

“Dorset Street. Mary Jane Kelly. Almost directly northeast of the Eddowes site, although a shuttlecock of confusing streets lay between them.

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