names noted.
‘If I might be permitted to address the implied question raised by the gentleman,’ Dr Jekyll asked, eliciting a nod from Baxter, ‘a knowledge of the position of the major organs does not necessarily betoken a medical education. If you are disinterested in preserving life, a butcher can have out a pair of kidneys as neatly as a surgeon. You need only a steady hand and a sharp knife, and there are plenty of both in Whitechapel.’
‘Do you have an opinion as to the instrument used by the murderer?’
‘A blade of some sort, obviously. Silvered.’
The word brought a collective gasp.
‘Steel or iron would not have done such damage,’ Dr Jekyll continued. ‘Vampire physiology is such that wounds inflicted with ordinary weapons heal almost immediately. Tissue and bone regenerate, just as a lizard may grow a new tail. Silver has a counteractive effect on this process. Only silver could do such permanent, fatal harm to a vampire. In this instance, the popular imagination, which has tagged the murderer as “Silver Knife”, has almost certainly got its facts straight.’
‘You are familiar with the cases of Mary Ann Nichols and Eliza Anne Chapman?’ asked Baxter.
Dr Jekyll nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Have you drawn any conclusions from a comparison of these incidents?’
‘Indeed. These three killings are indubitably the work of the same individual. A left-handed man of above average height, with more than normal physical strength...’
‘Mr Holmes would’ve been able to tell his mother’s maiden name from a fleck of cigar ash,’ Lestrade muttered.
‘... I would add that, considering the case from an alienist’s point of view, it is my belief that the murderer is not himself a vampire.’
The anarchist was on his feet but the coroner’s extra constables were around him before he could even shout. Smiling to himself at his subjugation of the court, Baxter made a note of the last point and thanked Dr Jekyll.
Geneviève noticed that the man she had asked Lestrade about was gone. She wondered if Beauregard noticed her as she had noticed him. From her side, a connection had been made. She was either having one of her ‘insights’ or had gone too long without feeding. No, she was certain. The man from the Diogenes Club – whatever that really was – was materially involved in the affairs of the Whitechapel Murderer, but she could not guess in what capacity.
The coroner began his elaborate summing-up, delivering the verdict of ‘wilful murder by person or persons unknown’, adding that the killer of Lulu Schön was judged to be the same man who had murdered, on 31st of August, Mary Ann Nichols, and, on 8th of September, Eliza Anne Chapman.
7
THE PRIME MINISTER
‘W ere you aware,’ began Lord Ruthven, ‘that there are people in these isles whose sole objection to the marriage of our dear Queen – Victoria Regina, Empress of India, et cetera – to Vlad Dracula – known as Tepes, quondam Prince of Wallachia – is that the happy bridegroom happened once to be, in a fashion I shan’t pretend to understand, a Roman Catholic?’
The Prime Minister waved a letter selected apparently at random from the piles of ignored correspondence littering the several desks in his Downing Street receiving room. Godalming knew better than to interrupt one of Ruthven’s fits of loquacity. For a new-born eager to be initiated into the secrets of the elders, close attention to the centuries-old peer was a valuable, indeed indispensable, instrument of learning. When Ruthven talked a streak, volumes of ancient truth disclosed long-forgotten spells of power. It was hard not to be caught up in the force of his personality, to be transported on wings of rant.
‘I have here,’ Ruthven continued, ‘a missive from a miserable society devoted to the thin memory of that constitutionalist bore Walter Bagehot. They tactfully complain that the Prince accepted the embrace of the Anglican Church an indecently short
‘If I might be permitted to address the implied question raised by the gentleman,’ Dr Jekyll asked, eliciting a nod from Baxter, ‘a knowledge of the position of the major organs does not necessarily betoken a medical education. If you are disinterested in preserving life, a butcher can have out a pair of kidneys as neatly as a surgeon. You need only a steady hand and a sharp knife, and there are plenty of both in Whitechapel.’
‘Do you have an opinion as to the instrument used by the murderer?’
‘A blade of some sort, obviously. Silvered.’
The word brought a collective gasp.
‘Steel or iron would not have done such damage,’ Dr Jekyll continued. ‘Vampire physiology is such that wounds inflicted with ordinary weapons heal almost immediately. Tissue and bone regenerate, just as a lizard may grow a new tail. Silver has a counteractive effect on this process. Only silver could do such permanent, fatal harm to a vampire. In this instance, the popular imagination, which has tagged the murderer as “Silver Knife”, has almost certainly got its facts straight.’
‘You are familiar with the cases of Mary Ann Nichols and Eliza Anne Chapman?’ asked Baxter.
Dr Jekyll nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Have you drawn any conclusions from a comparison of these incidents?’
‘Indeed. These three killings are indubitably the work of the same individual. A left-handed man of above average height, with more than normal physical strength...’
‘Mr Holmes would’ve been able to tell his mother’s maiden name from a fleck of cigar ash,’ Lestrade muttered.
‘... I would add that, considering the case from an alienist’s point of view, it is my belief that the murderer is not himself a vampire.’
The anarchist was on his feet but the coroner’s extra constables were around him before he could even shout. Smiling to himself at his subjugation of the court, Baxter made a note of the last point and thanked Dr Jekyll.
Geneviève noticed that the man she had asked Lestrade about was gone. She wondered if Beauregard noticed her as she had noticed him. From her side, a connection had been made. She was either having one of her ‘insights’ or had gone too long without feeding. No, she was certain. The man from the Diogenes Club – whatever that really was – was materially involved in the affairs of the Whitechapel Murderer, but she could not guess in what capacity.
The coroner began his elaborate summing-up, delivering the verdict of ‘wilful murder by person or persons unknown’, adding that the killer of Lulu Schön was judged to be the same man who had murdered, on 31st of August, Mary Ann Nichols, and, on 8th of September, Eliza Anne Chapman.
7
THE PRIME MINISTER
‘W ere you aware,’ began Lord Ruthven, ‘that there are people in these isles whose sole objection to the marriage of our dear Queen – Victoria Regina, Empress of India, et cetera – to Vlad Dracula – known as Tepes, quondam Prince of Wallachia – is that the happy bridegroom happened once to be, in a fashion I shan’t pretend to understand, a Roman Catholic?’
The Prime Minister waved a letter selected apparently at random from the piles of ignored correspondence littering the several desks in his Downing Street receiving room. Godalming knew better than to interrupt one of Ruthven’s fits of loquacity. For a new-born eager to be initiated into the secrets of the elders, close attention to the centuries-old peer was a valuable, indeed indispensable, instrument of learning. When Ruthven talked a streak, volumes of ancient truth disclosed long-forgotten spells of power. It was hard not to be caught up in the force of his personality, to be transported on wings of rant.
‘I have here,’ Ruthven continued, ‘a missive from a miserable society devoted to the thin memory of that constitutionalist bore Walter Bagehot. They tactfully complain that the Prince accepted the embrace of the Anglican Church an indecently short
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