Nine Buck's Row by Jennifer Wilde

very important—it’s the kind of bag doctors use to carry their surgical instruments. Do you follow me?”
    â€œI think so. All the victims were mutilated.” I shuddered, remembering.
    â€œAnd it was done so neatly . Jamie believes The Ripper has some knowledge of surgery. He suspects it might be a doctor. The London Hospital is right around the corner, you know, within easy walking distance of all the places where murders were committed.”
    London Hospital was a huge, towering collection of bleak, soot-covered brown buildings between Whitechapel Road and Oxford Street. The huge black iron gates and dark windows gave it a sinister look, and at night the feeble gaslights only intensified the shadows in the vast courtyard. An atmosphere of death and decay hung over the place, and East Enders were leery of it even though hundreds of lives had been saved within those forbidding walls.
    â€œA doctor—” I said, thinking aloud.
    â€œThey’re always cutting people up,” Millie said.
    â€œThey perform surgery, yes, but—”
    â€œIt sounds like a logical theory to me,” Millie continued, “although Sir Charles Warren would probably scoff at it. He ’s keeping his eyes on all the immigrants.”
    â€œI just hope they catch him soon,” I said quietly.
    We parted at the corner of Baker’s Row and Old Montague, Millie waving as I darted across the street between the passing horsecarts and carriages that rumbled over the stones. Dark stains streaked the sky as I turned down Buck’s Row and hurried toward number nine.
    Nicholas Craig wasn’t back in time to join us for dinner. Maggie and I dined alone, and immediately afterward she immersed herself in her accounts, adding up columns of figures and making notations on vouchers. I went up to my room and tried to read, but it was useless. I kept thinking about the man who was roaming the streets of East London, striking terror into the hearts of decent people, and I wondered what he was like. Was he a foreigner as Sir Charles believed? Was he possibly a surgeon from London Hospital or, as several believed, a religious fanatic punishing women whose lives weren’t proper? I frowned, wishing I could think of something else, but those questions kept coming into my mind.
    On impulse, I took the diamond bracelet out of the bureau drawer where I had placed it yesterday. It was heavy on my fingertips, diamonds sending out sparks of blue and violet and dazzling silver. Sir Charles had called it a cheap bauble, but he hadn’t actually seen it, and the men at the mortuary surely hadn’t the wits to know real diamonds from paste. They had assumed the diamonds were false, but I knew differently, even if no one else chose to believe it. I peered at the sparkling prisms, wondering about the mysterious man who had given Marietta this bracelet. Who was he, and what had become of him? Had he, too, stumbled upon the body and fled in panic, not wanting to become involved, or had he been waiting there in the fog, knife in hand?
    I remembered how evasive Marietta had been about the man. She had never before refused to discuss her gentlemen friends. He was someone very important, she told me, and if things worked out, if he was pleased with her, all our problems would be solved. She had been so excited as she rushed out to meet him, and then …
    I put the bracelet away, my face hard. I had to put it out of my mind. The police would find the man who killed Marietta, and I could do nothing. I knew nothing of crime and criminals. I couldn’t afford to let my imagination run away with me. If Marietta’s engagement had been important, surely they would have paid more attention.… I blew out the oil lamps and climbed into bed. Misty gray-black darkness filled the room, and there were strange silver patterns on the ceiling as the breeze caused the curtains to part and moonlight seeped in. This was the bad time.