I swallowed my disgust down. Jack was coming undone, it seemed. Thomas passed the newest note from the murderer to me, averting his gaze as he did so. I wondered if he’d tell the police about my father. I wondered if I’d do the same if I were standing in his place. Guilt wrenched itself deep in my gut. Was I allowing sentimentality to stand in the way of justice? That made me as bad as the Ripper.
Except… what if police had already discovered the identity? I stole a glance at Superintendent Blackburn. I knew nothing of him, really, and remained wary in his presence. Perhaps he’d already seen this organ the night it was removed from its owner. He was rather stone-faced given what my uncle was saying. Which made me wonder if Father committed these acts himself or if he had Blackburn carry out his dark deeds. Was his squeamish reaction at the double event a mere act of deception?
I shook myself out of spiraling thoughts, relieved no one was paying me any mind. The letter was written in the same taunting red ink as the other two notes Jack had sent. I’d recognize that cursive in my nightmares, I’d gone over it so many times, trying to find similarities to my father’s own hand.
From Hell.
Mr. Lusk.
Sor
I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
Signed
Catch me when you can
Mishter Lusk
George Lusk was my brother’s friend and also happened to be the loudest member of the vigilante group Nathaniel was part of, the Knights of Whitechapel. If Father was indeed Jack the Ripper, sending someone close to our family a piece of evidence was rather brazen. Then again, claiming to have eaten the other half of a human kidney sounded as though insanity had overtaken him.
Cannibalism was a new low for the Whitechapel murderer.
I laid the letter back on Blackburn’s cluttered desk. The cursive didn’t look like Father’s, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t taken pains to disguise it. Perhaps whatever evil dwelled inside him had its own handwriting.
“I wonder,” I said aloud, not meaning to.
Thomas motioned for me to speak, but I wasn’t quite ready to. Thoughts and theories were taking shape and forming in my mind. Perhaps if I offered something up, I could study Blackburn’s reaction for deceit. A few seconds later, I began again. “Seems a bit odd, don’t you think?”
“No, Wadsworth,” Thomas said blandly, “sending a kidney through the mail is quite ordinary. I do it at least three times a week to remain fashionable. You ought to try it. Really impress the girls at tea.”
I made a face at him. “What I mean is, let’s say he’s been killing women and trying to perform an organ transplant, why eat her kidney at all? Wouldn’t that be a waste of a harvested organ?”
Blackburn’s color drained as if he were about to be sick. His reaction appeared genuine enough, but he’d fooled me before.
He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s barely two o’clock and I swear I already could use a pint. Is that what you think, Dr. Wadsworth? Jack is using human organs to transplant or sell?”
Uncle stared at the box, nodding absently. “I have a suspicion I cannot shake.” Uncle took his spectacles off, wiping them on the front of his jacket before securing them back on his face. “I fear he might’ve taken an extra kidney, but realized he didn’t need it, then decided to keep it from going to waste.”
A shudder wracked my body. If Father was Jack the Ripper, where was he keeping the organs? It’s not as if they could be stored in jars in our icebox without the cooks and maids seeing them. Was that the true reason why he’d never dismissed Martha, our cook? Was she privy to his monstrous secrets? The thought of having slept in the same house where this kind of horror could have been taking shape a few rooms away was too much.
Blackburn walked around his desk, dropping into the chair behind it and rubbing his eyes. “Perhaps running the estate as my father had wanted isn’t such a bad idea. I can handle a vast amount, but this is a bit much. How horrid can a life of leisure and politics be?”
Thomas ignored the superintendent, seeking my uncle’s opinion out again. He narrowed his eyes, his angular features sharpening his every thought. “Are you saying he’s finished with the killings, then?”
Uncle shook his head, and parts of my skin tried crawling away from my body. He had that bleak look in his eye, the one that spoke of worse things to follow. When he started touching his mustache, I wasn’t at all surprised by his next words. “I believe ther
e’s one final thing he’s in need of, then the murders may stop.”
A police officer walked over to Superintendent Blackburn and handed him a file, whispering some message in his ear before departing as quickly as he’d come. Whatever he said couldn’t have been too important, as Blackburn tossed the paper onto the desk and fixed his gaze back on Uncle. “I’m not sure I want to hear any more, Dr. Wadsworth. But I’m afraid I do not have the luxury of ignorance. Do enlighten us.”
I don’t know how, but I knew, with more certainty than I had any right to, exactly what Jack the Ripper was missing. It’d be the most impressive organ to transplant or steal. The words nearly gagged me on their way out, but I said them anyway. “A heart. He’ll need a heart before he’s through butchering women.”
I felt Thomas staring at me, his gaze searing a hole through my conviction to remain silent, but couldn’t meet his eyes for fear I’d confess everything I suspected to the police right then and there. Consequences be damned.
But the one thread of hope I held fast to was that Uncle hadn’t mentioned a thing about Father to police, either. I’d told him my suspicions last night in the laboratory, and though he was even more skeptical than I was, his face had paled.
Uncle told me not to worry, that we’d uncover the truth soon enough. That Father was simply unwell and everything mounting up against him only a coincidence.