What Alice Knew Read Online Free PDF Page B

Abberline.
    “What’s that?” said Warren, who had been refilling his glass, which he raised to William before he could respond. “Some spirits, sir, after your arduous journey?”
    “No, thank you,” said William. “Given that I am on an abbreviated visit, I should like to begin work on the case at once.”
    “Certainly, certainly,” said Warren. “Inspector Abberline will tell you everything you need to know. You have my full approval to go anywhere and see anything. If nothing else, you will be able to report that you have been privy to the inner workings of the famed Scotland Yard. And don’t feel undue pressure with regard to the case. It’s a knotty one, you know, and if we do not solve it, it means only that it cannot be solved.” At this, Warren rose to leave. “I am at your disposal, sir, should you need me,” he said, “but Abberline here is a capable second.” He gave a short nod in the direction of the inspector, who also rose from his chair. “No, stay where you are.” Warren waved regally. “I shall have your men show me out.”
    As soon as he was gone, Abberline, who had seemed frozen in his upright posture until now, jumped up with alacrity and strode over to the closet, where he took out his coat. “I will take you to see her if you like.”
    “What’s that—who do you mean?” asked William.
    “Catherine Eddowes,” said Abberline brusquely. “The last victim. You can still see her. She’s been on ice for more than a week, and they plan to bury her tomorrow. It won’t be pretty, but as you’re a scientist with medical training, I thought it would be useful. I’m going over to the mortuary now.”
    William expressed eagerness to accompany the inspector and, after a short hansom cab ride, found himself walking through the dank halls of the London morgue. He was not unfamiliar with morgues. While in medical school, he had been lectured on muscular disease at the Boston City Morgue, and on the process of rigor mortis at the morgue of Harvard Medical School. But both places had been relatively benign settings, more reminiscent of a hospital or a laboratory, with scrubbed floors and whitewashed walls.
    The London morgue was entirely different. The building was in a state of extreme decrepitude, the stone walls crumbling and mildewed. As William followed Abberline through the dingy corridors, a feeling of oppressive gloom descended on him. Hard as he tried to push the image from his mind, he was reminded of the nightmarish episode of his youth, when, lying in bed, he had sensed the presence of a monstrous creature, the very embodiment of undiluted evil, lurking in the corner of his room. That creature, though a figment of his deranged mind, had resembled a real figure he had once seen as a child, and that had impressed itself indelibly in his memory. He had been walking with his father on a street in New York when he had noticed a young man, practically naked, huddled at the side of a building. The man was shivering and covered with sores, and when they had approached nearer and were about to pass him by, the man had suddenly bared his teeth and growled with animal ferocity, turning his face upward so that it seemed to engulf William’s vision. The image had engraved itself on his consciousness, so that he never forgot it. It had returned in his illness and, since then, had presented itself to his imagination as what the devil must look like, the devil in the form of a ferociously desperate and suffering human being.
    It was just such a figure, he thought now, that had lain in wait for the poor women of Whitechapel, and he was about to see one of these women after she had been visited by this diabolical creature.
    For a moment, he felt prompted to tell Abberline that he must turn back; he could not view the body after all. But as soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew that he would not act on it. His fears were psychic phantasms, and horrifying though they were, his rational will