Page 12 of Every Hour until Then (Timeless #5)

12

London, England September 28, 1938

The basement of Lancaster House was filled with the London Museum’s special exhibits. There was a cell from Newgate Prison, items from the Tudor Dynasty—including medical paraphernalia from Queen Elizabeth’s physician, Doctor Bromley—models of Old London, and even a Roman boat. Calan and I had been given a large, empty room in the corner to turn into an exhibit for Jack the Ripper. It was a dark, dank area and offered just the right amount of atmosphere to create a sense of foreboding. We’d decided to make the long, narrow room look like Buck’s Row, the site of Polly Nichols’s murder—the first of the canonical five victims that were attributed to Jack.

“On the left wall,” Calan said to the museum’s carpenter, who had joined us for a meeting in the basement, “we’ll want a facade of the brick buildings along Buck’s Row. At the end, we’ll re-create the gate that led into the stable where Polly’s body was found.” He pulled several photographs out of a file taken around the time of the murder. “The architecture was very simple,” Calan noted as he pointed to one photo. “Just keep it as true to the photographs as possible.”

“Alright, mate,” the carpenter said. “And what will we do for the floor?”

“We’ll keep the floor natural,” he answered.

“The concrete will do quite nicely as a road,” I added. “You’ll also find a rendering with proper measurements in the file for the brick facade. If you have any questions, feel free to ask either Calan or myself.”

The carpenter nodded as he looked over everything we’d given him.

“And when do you think you can get this done?” Calan asked.

The man shrugged as he scratched the stubble on his chin. “Three or four weeks.”

“The sooner the better,” I told him. “After the facade is finished, we’ll still need time to assemble the rest of the exhibit, and we hope to have the grand opening the first week of November.” I took a breath. “Around the anniversary of the last murder on November 9th.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

Calan and I left the empty room and walked up the stairs toward the main floor.

I tried keeping myself busy with work, but all I could think about was tomorrow in 1888. It would be September 29th, and Austen and I had plans to head to Whitechapel well before midnight to find a place to hide on Berner Street so we could watch for Jack the Ripper. I was so nervous in both paths, I hadn’t eaten in days.

But it wasn’t only visiting Berner Street that had me worried. Ever since we’d visited Mary at Miller’s Court, Austen had been distant. He wasn’t as unpleasant as before, but I knew what he was thinking. What we were both thinking.

Mary needed me to save her, and the only way to do that was to sacrifice my path for her.

“You’ve been quieter than usual,” Calan said, interrupting my thoughts. “Worried about Hitler?”

I almost laughed. Yes, I was worried about Hitler—but right now, I was more concerned about Jack the Ripper. I couldn’t tell Calan that, so I said, “Who isn’t?”

Neville Chamberlain was in Germany for a third visit because the Czechs and the French didn’t like the plan to hand over the Sudetenland to Hitler—and now Hitler was threatening an invasion on October 1st, only three days away. Chamberlain had called for a summit with Germany, France, Italy, and Britain. It was currently happening in Munich. If the prime minister couldn’t find a way to get Hitler to compromise, then war was inevitable, and Mama and Papa would insist we leave for home.

“I don’t want to go back to the US,” I told Calan as we walked across the main gallery of the London Museum toward the stairs that would take us to the second floor. “I could be on a ship heading home in just three days’ time. But there’s so much more to do here.”

“Hopefully Chamberlain can get a compromise,” Calan said, “though I’m in agreement with Winston Churchill. I don’t think appeasing Hitler is the answer. He’s a bully, and nothing is ever good enough for bullies. They take and take until someone stops them. Appeasement will only buy us a few more months. I think war is inevitable.”

I couldn’t let on that I knew he was right. I just didn’t know enough about the timeline to know when war would begin. Would it start in three days? Three months? Or three years?

“Is that all that’s bothering you?” Calan asked, his perceptive gaze on my face.

I smiled, despite the uncertainty of both my paths. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m not one to confide in coworkers.”

“Ah,” he said. “This has something to do with a man, doesn’t it?”

“What?” I frowned at him as we climbed the large staircase. Again, the museum was quiet as people continued to prepare for war. Several of the volunteers had even stayed home. “Why would you assume my unwillingness to confide in you is because of a man?”

“If it was about a friend or an elderly aunt, or some such thing, you wouldn’t have trouble telling me. But if it’s about a man, I could understand your reticence. You might be afraid that I would get jealous.”

I laughed. “That is the least of my concerns, Mr. McCaffrey.”

He joined in my laughter, and I appreciated a moment of lighthearted banter. It was difficult to come by on days like today, but Calan had become a good friend and had made many hard days bearable.

When we arrived in the office we shared, Calan went to the folder with some of the Jack the Ripper letters, which was lying on the desk. “I plan to go through more of these today.” He shook his head. “It’s a daunting task to sift through them and determine which ones are real and which ones were written by imposters.”

“Sir Rothschild brought another file over from the Crime Museum yesterday. There are hundreds of letters to comb through. I can look over the other file while you’re working on this one.”

“Would you please?” he asked. “I’d like to put a few of them on display. The Dear Boss letter, the Saucy Jacky postcard, and the From Hell letter are the ones most likely written by Jack.” He had kept these aside, and I’d looked over them already. They were all written in similar handwriting, with words intentionally misspelled, and they each addressed information about the murders that wasn’t widely known to the public when they were written. The Saucy Jacky postcard was postmarked October 1, 1888, and referenced the Double Event, but it appeared to have been written before September 30th, which was the date of the murders. People in 1888 questioned if the Double Event was intentional or accidental. Had Jack targeted Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, or were they random victims? If they were both linked to the Freemasons, then I knew they weren’t random. It was one of the reasons I wanted to be on Berner Street tomorrow. To see if I could figure it out.

“The others are harder to pinpoint,” Calan said. “They were sent from all over the place, but they all have such similar themes and wording.”

“I’ll grab the other file from Sir Rothschild’s desk,” I offered.

I left our office and entered Sir Rothschild’s. He left every Wednesday afternoon at the same time and didn’t usually return until close to four. He had told me that I could find the file of letters in his locked drawer and that the key to his desk was under volume one of The Building of Britain and the Empire on his bookshelf. Once I had the key, I took a seat at his desk to open the lock.

The drawer was full of several files. I set the key aside and began to look through them to find the one I needed.

One of the folders wasn’t labeled, so I took it out to glance at the contents and was surprised to see a familiar name on several newspaper clippings. Michael Maybrick.

But what was even more shocking was the contents of the file. From what I could gather, Michael’s brother, James Maybrick, a cotton merchant, died of arsenic poisoning on November 10, 1888, and his wife, an American named Florence Maybrick, went on trial for his murder. The case was made even more high-profile because of their connection to Michael, the famous composer. Michael believed Florence was guilty and was one of her biggest adversaries in court and in the newspapers. It was known that Florence had cheated on her husband and that she wished him dead.

“May I help you, Miss Voland?” Sir Rothschild stood at his office door wearing his coat and hat, carrying a walking stick.

I jumped, though I hadn’t been doing anything wrong, and glanced at the clock. I’d been looking through the file for over half an hour. “I’m sorry. The time slipped away from me. I was looking for the Ripper letters, and I stumbled upon this, instead.”

He took off his hat and set it on the coat-tree in the corner of the room. “Are you familiar with the history of the Maybrick trial?”

“This is the first I’ve learned of it, though I am familiar with Michael Maybrick.”

“Ah, yes, the composer.” Sir Rothschild took off his coat and hung that up next. “An exceptionally talented man. Some think that if he wasn’t part of the trial, Florence Maybrick would have been acquitted. She spent fourteen years in prison before her sentence was overturned and she was released.”

“She didn’t do it?”

“Who is to say? The courts decided that she was guilty, and then they overturned their verdict years later.”

What would Sir Rothschild think if I told him I knew Michael personally? That I’d heard him perform in my mother’s drawing room?

“It was a sad case,” Sir Rothschild said. “But nothing you need to concern yourself with. The file you’re looking for should be clearly labeled.”

“Of course.” I tucked all the newspaper clippings back into the Maybrick file and returned it to the drawer before finding the file I’d come for.

“Would you like me to relock the drawer?” I asked him.

“It’s not necessary. I have some work to do with the files. Feel free to leave the key on the desk.”

I smiled and then stood, trying not to feel awkward. Even though I had been in the drawer before and Sir Rothschild had shown me the key, I still felt like I was trespassing.

When I was just about to leave the room, Sir Rothschild’s voice stopped me. “Will you be joining us at Cliveden again this weekend?”

“That is the plan. Though I suppose it will all depend on whether we’re at war with Germany by then.”

“Ah yes, that. One can only hope that Chamberlain is doing the right thing. It would be a shame to go to war again when Hitler is only trying to take care of the Germans in the Sudetenland.”

“You think it’s wise to give in to Hitler’s demands?” I asked, a little surprised.

“I don’t think they are unreasonable. He just wants what is his. Can you fault him for that?”

“The Sudetenland belongs to Czechoslovakia.”

“Only since the Great War.”

“I suppose I don’t know enough to make an informed opinion.”

“No, you do not, Miss Voland.” He smiled, and his mustache curled up, but there was no warmth in his gaze. “I do not mean to insinuate that you are incompetent, on the contrary. But this is so much bigger than it appears on the surface. Millions of lives will be affected by the decisions made in Munich. We can only hope that things turn out for the best.”

I returned his smile, though I sensed condescension in his voice. It was the first time I’d heard it since I’d met him.

I left his office, wondering not for the first time where Sir Rothschild placed his allegiances. He’d spoken highly of Hitler at the Astors’ house party a couple weeks ago, and again today. Did he really think the German dictator was a good man? Or that Fascism was a smart move for Europe? He wouldn’t be the only one, but it was still alarming. My grandmother Maggie had lived through WWII and watched the fall of Fascism, claiming it had become disgraced after the war. But here in 1938, there were still many who applauded its ideals.

I was not one of them.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Calan asked as I reentered our office.

“Yes,” I said, holding up the file of Ripper letters.

“That should keep you busy for a while.”

As I sat at my desk, I was thankful for the letters, hoping they’d distract me from thoughts of tomorrow in 1888.

If all went as planned, I would see Jack the Ripper in person.