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‘When I was doing some research into the Ripper murders a couple of years ago I came on a paper – or letter rather – addressed to the head of the CID in 1888 by a Dr Thomas Bond who was much concerned with the Ripper investigation. I was fascinated. What I had in my hands was a portrait of the murderer in words. The good doctor, as if by some magic it seemed at first reading, was sketching an outline of the man – his height, his weight, his disposition, his job, the place where he was to be found and the make-up of his family. Had I been on the strength in 1888 I could, on reading that letter, have walked down the Whitechapel Road and felt his collar! On second reading I was impressed for quite a different reason. The doctor was using nothing but sound common sense and inspired reasoning, drawing on information from the scenes of crime. And I could do the same.’
‘You’re about to tell us that you’ve solved our problem?’ Nancy asked.
Joe grimaced. ‘Your problem, I’m afraid, is a lot more complex than the Ripper case! There we had the same modus operandi – the same knife was used, the killings were done in the same framework of time and place and the motive was blatantly obvious. The killer experienced an ungovernable and psychotic rage against women – women of a certain type, that is.’
‘You mean he was trying to clean up the streets? Get rid of the prostitutes?’ said Nancy.
‘No. I’m certain there was no element of crusade in what he did. I think it was an outburst of sexually inspired fury against a class of women he had good cause to hate. I believe he had personal reasons, springing from his own early days perhaps, for hacking to death and obliterating these women. He was possibly the son of a prostitute, reared by a prostitute – certainly the man was a client of and probably actually knew the women he murdered. It’s my theory that he actually lived with one of them.’
‘But none of the ladies in this case was molested, sahib, and all were killed by different methods,’ said Naurung.
‘And that is what makes it almost impossible to explain,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s look for a moment at motivation. We have already ruled out the two most common ones – lust and financial gain. Not even the ladies’ husbands gained in the slightest by their deaths. So we are left with four: jealousy, elimination, revenge and conviction.’
‘Well, we can rule out jealousy, I think,’ said Nancy. ‘None of the wives had given cause for suspicion… At least I’m not quite certain about Dolly Prentice… There are stories that she was, well, a bit of a flirt… But about the rest there was no gossip at all. You’d say that all the men loved their wives and were quite devastated when they died. None has remarried and I think that’s very significant, don’t you?’
‘Yes, and that in a sense rules out the next motive of elimination. You know – “I will kill off my wife because I want to marry someone else or because she is in possession of a hideous secret concerning me.” Dr Crippen, for example, needed to eliminate his wife in order to marry his lover. But, no, the facts don’t support this explanation in any of the cases. None of our husbands would appear to have profited and flourished as a result.’
‘No. I agree,’ said Nancy. ‘Colonel Prentice, as witnesses claim, was horrified by his wife’s death and out of his mind for a fortnight. There are rumours that all was not well with that pair but, according to Kitty, he took it very badly.’
‘And yesterday I interviewed a wreck of a man. The husband of Joan Carmichael. You’d say he never smiled again after her death. He had some money from Joan but, as her husband, he could probably have had access to it at any time and he didn’t make use of it until two years after her death.’
‘And Dr Forbes whom I saw at the hospital yesterday. He’s thrown himself totally into his work which is his whole life now. His distress at Sheila’s death was still evident.’
‘Simms-Warburton, well, we’ll never know. He went straight into the war and never came home again but certainly there was no whirlwind remarriage, no instant elopement with the daughter of a subhadur-major!’
‘And lastly Billy Somersham. You’ve met him. I know him. He gained nothing but heartache from Peggy’s death. No, he had absolutely no reason to “eliminate” her. So that leaves only two motives – revenge and conviction, whatever you mean by that!’
‘Revenge? Would anyone, seriously, have cause to be revenged on these women?’ Joe asked. ‘What had they done? All perfectly i
‘So – you’re going to have to explain what you mean by your last motive, conviction.’
‘Conviction.’ Joe sighed. ‘This could take us into the realms of madness. If a person is convinced, for example, that he has a God-given right to kill for religious motives, I would call that a conviction killing.’
Naurung could not wait for the end of Joe’s explanation. ‘Suttee!’ he said. ‘As in suttee! The disgusting Hindu custom of burning alive a man’s widow on his funeral pyre! The British have tried to stamp it out but it goes on, oh, yes, it still goes on in the villages! Sometimes the lady goes willingly to her death as it brings great honour to her family but often her relatives force her. There was a case, in my father’s memory, where the widow escaped from the fire and ran away. She was found hiding by her own son who dragged her back and threw her once more into the flames.’
‘Yes, that would be, as far as an Eastern mind could encompass it, an example of killing for religious conviction.’
Nancy said angrily, ‘Not necessarily religious! I think that’s too convenient an excuse for such a revolting custom. Social, perhaps. A strong social reason – after all, who in a family wants to be saddled with a useless widow to support for the rest of her unproductive life? She ca
‘Which brings us to the second strand of “conviction”. The social strand. If our killer had an unshakeable belief that he was ridding society of an undesirable element – a belief so strong that he felt his actions were above all laws – he might kill off a series of similar victims. Prostitutes? Priests?’
‘Money-lenders?’ suggested Naurung.
‘Certainly money-lenders! But officers’ wives?’ Nancy exclaimed with derision. ‘We’ve all been irritated or bored out of our minds by them but hardly to the point of taking a knife or a cobra to finish them off!’
Joe smiled. ‘I agree. And this is where it all begins to get a little unreal. They are not just a series of officers’ wives. They are a very particular group of officers’ wives, chosen according to some obscure pattern. There are things they had in common, there are things they did not have in common. There are things a proportion of the group had in common – both Dolly Prentice and Peggy Somersham were pregnant. Is this significant or is it misleading? But there is one thing which I think is very significant. Naurung – Mrs Drummond and I have discovered that the ladies all had this in common – they had a phobia.’
Translations of the word rattled back and forward over Joe’s head until the satisfied nods of the two Naurungs encouraged him to go on. Nancy supplied the details of each victim’s special horror, linking it with the means of her death and the faces of father and son grew grim.
Finally, Naurung said seriously, “This is the work of a devil, sahib. I fear we have worked our way back to our first conversation if the sahib remembers?’
‘The Churel? Kali the Destroyer? I still do not accept this. But you and your father have added today another element to the motive of conviction killing and that is – political. To murder, not soldiers but soldiers’ wives and by subtle and repulsive means might be a calculated way of sowing terror and suspicion in the ranks of the British army. A way which would lead to the reprisals and overreaction we have discussed. But I don’t think the answer lies here either. For two apparently insignificant reasons. The murders have all occurred in March. On the grave of each victim has been placed a bunch of Kashmiri roses – all in March. This is a ritual aspect which rules out every one of the motives we have so far examined.’