“If you are implying that I understand the killer’s mind too intimately, I was asleep when Rose was murdered. Also, I’m not strong enough to strangle someone Archie Evans’s size.”
“Ah, but you did fight off a killer. I believe you underestimate your strength. No, I don’t suspect you of these murders. The killer must have been sizable enough to carry her to the scene, as a cart would have attracted notice. Therefore, it could not have been you. Unless you have developed superhuman strength as a side effect of your memory loss.” He peers at me. “Have you?”
I smile. “Sadly, no, though I do seem quite capable of lugging around buckets of soapy water.” I glance at him. “How far couldyoucarry a woman of her size?”
His startled look makes me laugh. “I was not insinuating that you might be responsible, sir. I mean that you are larger than the man who attacked me in the alley. You seem quite physically fit. I believe Detective McCreadie mentioned something about a propensity for brawling.”
“Lies, lies, and damnable lies. I take your meaning, though. How far could I carry this woman? It is an excellent question.” He looks down at her. “One that is best answered through experimentation. Sadly, she is in no condition to be slung over my shoulder.”
“Yeah, I’m not running along behind, collecting her entrails.”
That gets a full sputtered laugh from him. “Such a lack of appreciation for science. You are nearly as bad as your predecessor, young James.” He eyes her. “How much do you think she weighs?”
“One thirty,” I say. When his brows shoot up, I say, “Uh, nine stone.”
“I am not surprised at the unit of measurement but at the speed of your assessment. You are quite good at that.”
“I used to work in a carnival, guessing weights.”
His eyes spark with interest. “Did you?”
“That was a joke, sir. Is there such an occupation?”
“Of course. It is extremely popular, primarily as a way of discovering one’s weight if one does not possess a scale.”
I’m not sure whetherhe’sjoking, so I make a noncommittal noise.
“How much do you weigh?” he asks.
I raise my brows in mock horror. “A gentleman never asks a lady such a thing.”
His look of confusion tells me that’s not the invasive question it will be in a hundred and fifty years.
“I’d need a scale to be sure,” I say. “Probably about the same.”
I catch his look and lift my hands. “Oh, no, if you’re suggesting—”
“I must conduct the experiment in some fashion. And youaremy assistant.”
“No.”
“But science.”
His eyes sparkle with mischief, and my heart does a little flip. Oh, no. There will be none of that, Mallory. That way lies madness. Also, serious disappointment, because when he looks at me, he sees his teenage apprentice, nothing more.
“Fine,” I say with a sigh. “After you are done checking Dr. Addington’swork, you may test how far you could reasonably carry my dead weight. Preferably when I’m not actually dead.”
“Butscience.”
I shake my head, and we get back to work.
There is no doubt Rose was killed by strangulation. Gray confirms all the signs that allow him to make that determination. Strangled first, and then methodically stabbed to match the marks left on Polly Nichols, which means I’m not the only one who studied the Ripper’s crimes.
I am going to speculate further that the killer didn’t leap straight into Ripper-style killings because he considers Jack a hack. A butcher, chopping up victims for maximum carnage and shock value. Oh, I know the theories about the Ripper being a doctor, but with Gray I can see a live nineteenth-century surgeon at work, and I can question him under the guise of the current crime. That’s a little harder when this victim—unlike the Ripper’s later ones—hasn’t had any organs removed, but Gray isn’t the kind of guy who suspects the motivations of anyone seeking knowledge.
He says that a surgeon would certainly know where to find organs. A doctor should, but the amount of anatomical and surgical experience a regular physician has depends on where and when he was trained. A butcher would have more, at least in the sense of being able to infer anatomical placement from the similarities between humans and pigs.
By no means, then, did the Ripper need to be a surgeon to remove organs from human bodies. And there’s no surgical skill displayed with Rose’s death. Two slashes to her throat, one twice the length of the other. One long, savage slice to the abdomen and several smaller stabs, plus two to the groin. It’s butchery so basic that I suspect an actual butcher would take offense at the comparison.