Chapter Fifteen. An Ominous Incident.

On the evening of the day after my return to London, I was passing down the Strand, intending to seek Bob Nugent at the Junior Garrick.

The utmost excitement was prevalent.

Something startling had been published in the evening papers. Dozens of newsboys were rushing about amongst the throng of foot-passengers crying “Spe-shall! ’nother ’orrible murder!” Every one was purchasing copies, reading them in doorways and under street-lamps, and my curiosity being aroused at the unusual commotion, I did likewise.

Opening the paper, my eye caught the bold headlines, “The Mystic Seal again. Another Mysterious Murder.”

The account was too long to be read in the street, so turning into the nearest restaurant, and flinging myself into a chair, I read it from beginning to end; for I, of all men, was interested in these almost superhuman crimes.

Briefly told, they were the details of a curious but atrocious crime, committed with great daring. Shortly before one o’clock that morning, a constable on his beat, while passing through Angel Court, Drury Lane, noticed the form of a woman lying in the shadow of a doorway. He at first thought it was one of the wanderers so numerous in that neighbourhood, and was about to rouse her, when he was horrified to discover that she was dead, and that blood was flowing from a deep wound in her throat.

The body was in a pool of blood, and it appeared as if the fatal gash had been inflicted with a razor. The officer at once gave the alarm, and within a few minutes several other constables were on the spot, as well as the divisional surgeon. Nothing could be ascertained in the neighbourhood regarding the murdered woman, who was aged about twenty-five. But on the body being removed to the mortuary, there was discovered pinned to the breast, and soaked through with blood, a small piece of paper which had evidently borne the repulsive seal. Although the latter had been torn off, a portion of the wax still remained.

The narrow passage in which the murdered woman had been found was little frequented, it being extremely secluded, and, except at the outer portion, the houses were not inhabited.

How the deed could have been committed without any sounds having been heard by those who lived near was regarded as a mystery by all who knew the neighbourhood, and, of course, there were the usual wild rumours afloat as to the probable identity of the murdered woman.

In a leading article, the journal said:

“It seems pretty certain that this last atrocity must be ranked with the others. Committed with the same startling rapidity, with the same disheartening absence of traceable clues, this latest crime was probably perpetrated by the same scoundrel or maniac as the one who horrified and puzzled the world last year. The murderer goes about his work with much deliberation, and effects his escape with great skill, and even takes time and trouble in pinning the cabalistic sign of the seal to the breast of his victim. The meaning of that sign it is impossible to tell. We have steadily asserted, before and after the occurrence of these murders, that the police force of London is not adequate in numbers to the duties imposed upon it. It is the business of the police, if it cannot prevent crime, at least to detect it.”

It was the eighth murder, and still the authorities were as far off bringing the guilty one to justice as they were when the first victim was discovered.

After eagerly reading the report I placed the newspaper aside and sat in silent meditation. There was something so curious, almost supernatural, in these crimes, that I could not reflect without a shudder upon the horrors of that night a few months before when I was instrumental in bringing the previous work of the mysterious, assassin to light. Every detail of that terrible crime surged through my brain as plainly as if it were but yesterday, and the face of the man who left the house, and whom I followed I could see as vividly as if he were still before me, for his features were graven too deeply upon my memory to be ever effaced.

I sat utterly dumbfounded. The problem was growing even more complicated, for it struck me as something more than a strange coincidence that the Bedford Place murder should have been committed immediately before I left London, and that the murderer should have thought fit not to add another victim to his ghastly list until immediately upon my return.

Somehow I could not help feeling convinced there must be some occult reason in this.

On the former occasion I had carefully studied the theories put forward, especially that urged by an eminent medical man, that the murderer was a homicidal maniac. This, I felt assured, was totally wrong. The man the doctor had in his mind was a type well-known to those who have made a special study of murder-madness. But such a man does not work with the skill displayed by this assassin—he does not arrange his entrance, his “picture,” his exit, so carefully. Misdirected enthusiasm may prompt to murder, but it does not run side by side with cunning deliberation and desire for effect.

No! I maintained in my own mind that when, if ever, the author of the murders was arrested, he would be found to be a man who was perfectly sane, and who had gloated over the extraordinary skill with which he had thrown the London detective force off the scent.

I did not seek Nugent that night, but returned to my rooms, and sat far into the early hours, soliloquising upon the mystery.

At last, wearied out, I rose, and, taking down a pipe, filled it. There was a mirror over the mantelshelf, and as I was in the act of lighting my pipe, I caught sight of a countenance in the glass, and paused to reflect. The vesta burned down till it scorched my fingers; but, fascinated by what I saw, I stood motionless, staring into the glass.

It was not upon the reflection of myself that I gazed, but on the face of the man I had seen coming from the house in Bedford Place!

I am aware there are some events in our lives, of which each circumstance and surrounding detail is indelibly impressed upon the mind, and, on reflection, it was easy to account for this strange and startling fantasy. So petrified had my mind been during the past few hours, that, in my imagination, the image of my own facial expression closely resembled his. Still, there was yet another more urgent aspect, which caused me to consider seriously. Such a freak of the mental faculties I had never before experienced; nevertheless, I knew the symptom to be precursory of madness.

Was I doomed to insanity?

Sinking back into a chair and smoking my pipe, I calmly reviewed the situation. My inner conscience seemed to tell me—though, to this day, I have never been able to account for it—that the key to the mystery was in my hands. By mere chance—or was it Fate?—I had discovered one of the murderer’s victims, and had seen the miscreant himself leave the house—a man whom I should be able to identify anywhere. No one else had seen him, I argued with myself, so it was a duty towards my fellow-men to bring him to the punishment he so well merited. That is what conscience urged me as I sat smoking through the long night, and before the dawn I had made up my mind again to try my hand at elucidating the fearful mystery, and spare no effort towards its accomplishment.

With that object, I obtained permission of the police next morning, and viewed the body which was in the mortuary awaiting identification. It lay in the chilly chamber, stretched upon the dark slate slab, the face covered with a white cloth. This the constable removed, revealing the features of a dark, rather handsome, young woman, evidently of the poorer class, and a denizen of that quarter of the city.

As I gazed upon the body I wondered who she was. What was she? What was her history? Could even such a plebeian woman be missed by her friends, and no inquiries made after her? It seemed almost incredible, yet it was so; for when the coroner held his inquiry a few days later, she had not been identified, so the verdict of “Murder” was given, photographs were taken of the dead unknown—one of which I have before me as I write—and she was conveyed to her last resting-place in Nunhead Cemetery.

It was no isolated case. Every year numbers of bodies of men and women are found by the London police and buried unclaimed, at the expense of the parish; until one is at a loss to know where are the relatives of the unfortunate ones that they make no sign, and take no trouble to make known their loss.

It is one of Babylon’s unfathomable mysteries.

For days—nay, weeks—afterwards, I continually devoured the information contained in the newspapers regarding the eighth murder, but the victim remained unidentified; and although I frequented the busiest haunts of men in the City and its immediate suburbs at all hours of the day and night, in the hope of meeting the murderer, my efforts were so dispiritingly futile that more than once I was sorely tempted to give up in despair.