Steampunk Jack

Chapter Eight: Psychic Impressions

“It was a right tragedy, what happened to her.” John McCarthy, owner of the premises at Thirteen Millers Court, said seriously. “Fair Emma was a lovely girl, though a bit bad with money, if’n you know what I mean.”

“Were you the one to find her?” Emily asked, eager for grisly details of the murder. Her strange cheer had caused James to question bringing her, though Anne had strangely defended the girl’s behavior as being simple curiosity.

“No, little miss, I did not. I fortunately never had a look at the grim matter with my own eyes. My man, Tom Bowyer, had that particular bout of misfortune. He quit working for me only a few weeks later, claiming the nightmares were too much. Last I heard he had moved out into the country.” The older man shook his head.

“What prompted you, well… leasing it out for an entertainment?” James inquired. That had been troubling him for quite some time.

“Honestly, it’s been the devil’s time finding tenants for the room.” He admitted. “I had finally found a woman willing to let it out, she was a friendly lass if you get my meaning, but when the murders started again…” He shrugged.

“So it’s been empty, most of the time.” The scientist observed.

“Indeed.”

“Why would that matter?” Anne asked only to wince as the scientist shot her a dirty look out of the corner of his eye.

Still, while Emily was asking other inane or sinister sounding questions, he muttered “Because the less activity in the area, the better. If there is no haunting, the day to day lives of other people might lessen the strain. If you imagine the tragic event as a kind of psionic stain, the day to day lives of innocent people might act as a bleaching agent.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” She acknowledged.

“Well, here we are. You did say you wanted the room for at least thirty minutes?”

James managed to not show his disdain as the man licked his lips, instead handing the man the two quid he was so subtlety demanding. “You have the key?”

“Of course I have the key… why?”

James held out his hand. “I did insist on private, so I will want to lock the door from any onlookers who might wander past.”

The man frowned, but handed over the iron key. “I’ll be back in a half an hour, then.” And with that the older man was gone.

“What a reprehensible little man.” Anne observed, Emily mirroring her a bit more crudely with “He’s a wanker, isn’t he.”

“Ladies, please. Every man is allowed the right to make his living.” James corrected them. “Rather or not the bastard in question is a disgusting little troll.” He unlocked the door, shooting the two a wry grin, and slid inside.

Once they were all in, Anne the last and hanging back near the entrance, James locked it quickly and turned to Emily who had already begun setting up the camera.

“Why did you bring the developer? You already know it works, and we could have waited till we returned to Craft Street to develop the photographs.” She asked, as she spread the wood and brass tripod.

James, who was setting the developer up on a rickety wooden table in one of the cramped room’s corners shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t think Anne would want to wait.”

“I can understand being a touch impatient.” Emily conceded. “Which direction should we point the lens?”

“According to the witness reports I could gather from old issue newspapers in the Universities stacks, she would have been in that portion of the room.” He gestured, away from the developer and the door. “Move the pod back about one pace, towards me, and we should be in a good place.”

She did as he instructed, and soon they had assembled the whole contraption. He slid the ground glass plate into the back and screwed in his lens before carefully aiming it around where he thought the murder occurred. Absently he noted the plaster was still stained, likely by the poor woman’s blood, even two years past. “Lovely property.”

“Hey, shouldn’t you see things through the camera? I mean, you are using the spirit lens.” Emily observed.

“You’re right… I didn’t when I took the picture of Anne, either.” James observed. “I wonder why that is…”

“It’s because the lens is meant for photographs…” Anne commented weakly. “James, are you sure we should be here?”

“No, I’m most certain we shouldn’t be. That man leasing a room for gawkers is simply atrocious.” He shook his head.

Emily wryly observed. “Aren’t we gawking, Professor?”

“Well… yes… but only with the most moral and ethical of goals.” James sputtered. “It’s entirely different.”

“If you say so Professor.” The girl grinned.

“No… I mean…” Anne stuttered softly, only to be interrupted by James.

“Anne, we’ll just snap a few quick portraits and be on our way. If you’re uncomfortable, you can wait out in the courtyard. No one will judge you.” James said, though he didn’t look back at the woman. Instead he slid a prepared photographic plate into place. “Emily?”

The girl held up a flash pan, which she had filled with powder. “Ready.”

“Now.” The girl fired the pan, and he depressed the plunger on his camera. With a firm click of the shutter the first picture was made.

James found himself holding his breath, but after several seconds without the sound of glass breaking he laughed. “It worked! Never let me suggest your alchemy is a foolish endeavor Anne. It worked like a charm… well; in retrospect I suppose it was one.” He chuckled as he slid the first plate into the developer and set the clockwork machine whirling, before sliding another plate into place.

Adjusting the camera slightly, but without bothering to us the ground glass for aiming, he snapped a second shot. Then he pulled the camera body off of the tripod. “Emily, please move the tripod into that corner, near where the bed’s headboard would have been.”

“Why?” The girl asked, though she hurried to obey.

James shrugged. “It just occurred to me. If we want a picture of the killer, we probably want to look the direction poor Miss Kelly was looking. Since she was found on the bed…”

“He was probably standing over her.” Emily nodded. “Do you suppose he did his business first?”

“I’m sorry?” James blinked, looking at the girl. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, she was a scarlet woman, wasn’t she?” Emily asked. “Do you suppose he dipped his wick before killing her?”

“Ms. Porter! What the devil are you doing imagining such a thing!” James yelled.

“It’s a valid question!”

“Not for you, young lady!” James growled. “And when we get back, I’ll just have to have a word with Mr. Sullivan about his intentions and expectations with courting you.”

“You do that, James St. Cloud, and I’ll give you a beating about the head and shoulders!” Emily declared.

James, ramming a photographic plate into place, laughed at that. “You, a little slip of a girl?” He teased. He grunted a moment later when the girl punched him in the gut.

“I might be a slip of a girl, but I work a fair day while you’re busy flapping your lips.” The girl snarled. She held up the flash pan, right in front of his face. “Ready!”

“Wait, don…” The pan flashed, and more from a reflexive jerking then any plan James released the camera’s shutter once again. Then he staggered back into the wall, rubbing his eyes. “You could have set my eyebrows alight, you lunatic!”

“It would have served you right, too.”

The bell of the developer went off, distracting both of them from their argument. James crossed the room, and pulled out the photograph. “Behold! Jack the… what the hell?”

“What?” Emily asked, rushing over to peer over his arm. “That’s… passing odd.” She observed.

The photograph did, indeed, show a woman locked in the throes of terror, her throat slit. The details were slightly fuzzy, but what was happening to the woman was clear for both of them to see.

What was strange was that the shape of a man, while visible above the woman and holding an object that held the distinct shape of a knife was a shadow with no detail. In fact they’d have both assumed it to be nothing but a shadow except one of Mary Kelly’s legs were closer to the camera, between it and her killer, while the other was not. The shadowy object was three dimensional, and had to be the killer.

“Why does it look like that?” The girl asked.

“Maybe enough time has passed that the image is beginning to fade?” James observed. “Or perhaps… only the one who dies leaves a strong enough imprint to be detected. That form is the killer, but it’s as though her death is a lanterns light. It is strong enough to produce a shadow, but not to truly lighten his face.”

“So we can’t know who Anne’s killer is, then.”

“He wasn’t here.” Anne, who had been silent while the two technicians worked, spoke up. “This isn’t the work of the one who killed me.”

“What do you mean?” James, turning to look at her, asked. “This is one of Jack’s murders!”

“Then I wasn’t killed by Jack the Ripper.” She said.

Anne had felt vaguely ill since she had first come into the dingy room, and she could see an almost transparent shadow of how it had been when Mary Kelly was murdered. She knew that Mary Kelly was gone, that what she was looking at and hearing was the psychic stain that James had described. Indeed, it was almost gone. Her gaze ran over the photograph, realizing that the spirit lens had actually enhanced the intangible image. Staring down at the other dead woman she wondered if Mary Kelly had lingered then went away to the light…or wherever ghosts, other then she herself, go.

“How can you be sure Anne? It’s not a very good portrait of him. Awful, if I am to be totally honest.” James mused.

“There was a passion…anger in this man, the one who killed Mary. He was like fire in a windstorm. The man who killed me was ice. Cold, logical, not a movement, or moment wasted.” She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing someone could touch her, wishing she could bury her face in someone else’s arms. “The…impression is almost gone, but I can…feel them. It makes me feel ill. Can we please go? Now?”

“What’s wrong Professor?” asked Emily. “Anne’s not feeling well.” He replied softly, nodding for the ghost’s sake. “Pack up the developer.”

Emily didn’t have to be asked twice. “I wouldn’t feel well either looking at the shadow of the blighter that killed me.” She stated emphatically.

“She says that Jack…the man who killed Mary… was not the one who murdered her.”

“Bugger.” Anne felt the girl had summed the situation up quite succinctly