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Chapter Twenty-four

The Death Inquest

T
he Coroner
'
s Court
for the death inquest of Mary Ann Nichols was being held at the Working Lads Institute in Whitechapel Road. Outside the brick building an excited crowd had gathered. It was Saturday morning, September 2. A cool breeze ruffled the black garments of the people standing in line waiting to be admitted.

A block away, the Duke's carriage disgorged the three teenagers, who hastened past a row of hansom cabs lining the curb. The horses chomped feed from nosebags tied around their necks.

“What's that?” Katie asked, jerking to a halt as a giant bicycle came barreling down the street toward them. Powered by a man pedaling furiously, the odd vehicle had a single front wheel and two enormous rear wheels. A yellow-striped awning with fringe shaded the driver's face from the sun. Katie laughed. The contraption reminded her of the paddle boats shaped like swans in the Boston Public Garden's lagoon.

Collin frowned at her. “It's a velocipede, of course.”

Toby, too, shot her a curious look, so Katie hastened to add, “We don't have centipedes . . . er . . . velocipedes . . . back home.”

“Odd,” Toby said, his voice low. “They were invented in the United States. Your President Cleveland rides one. Not a week goes by when a photograph of him pedaling a velocipede doesn't make front-page news.”

Kate shrugged and charged forward.
So
Grover Cleveland is president of the United States right now
, she thought. But for the life of her, Katie couldn't remember anything about President Cleveland except that he summered on Cape Cod.

Drawing closer to the front entrance of the Working Lads Institute, Katie noted that there were two separate lines of people queuing up outside the front doors.

“Looks to be a lot of ticketed folk waiting to be accommodated, to say nothing of the public,” Toby motioned to the two lines. “Far more than would regularly show up at an inquest. But the victim's death was unusual, and the victim was female. Let's hope Major Brown is as good as his word. We're to find the constable on duty and give him our names. Wait here.” Toby exchanged glances with Collin and lowered his voice, “Don't let our twist 'n' swirl out of your sight.”

Before disappearing into the crowd, Toby turned to Katie. “Remember, luv. You're supposed to be a feeble old woman, so squiggle your eyes and don't forget to limp. I brought along this curried egg so you'd smell like an old person.” He slipped something into Katie's pocket, winked at her, and scooted away through the crowd.

Katie reached into her pocket. If it was a curried egg, she was going to smush it in Toby's face when he returned. But when she tugged it out, it was nothing more than a small, round sachet tied on top with string. “What is this?” She wrinkled her nose at the rotten egg smell and held it out for Collin's inspection.

“A camphor baglet. Don't you have those in America? They're used in wardrobes to kill moth larvae. It's what old clothes always smell like.” Collin, too, wrinkled his nose at the pungent camphor odor.

Just then, Toby darted back through the crowd, followed by a blue uniformed police officer with a droopy moustache.

“Ma'am,” the officer nodded politely to Katie, believing her to be an elderly matron. “Name's Grub, ma'am. Officer Grub. I'll be taking you in along wi' me, orders o' Major Brown. Better take my arm,” he suggested. “It's a densely packed crowd today.”

Katie clutched Officer Grub's proffered elbow and, remembering to hobble, followed his lead through the throng of people waiting in line, all of them staring expectantly at the entrance door.

“Make way! Make way!” Officer Grub shouted, waving his wooden truncheon. Katie thought of the children's picture book
Make Way for Ducklings
and chuckled. Remembering that a murder inquest was no laughing matter, Katie pursed her lips primly.

And yet, Katie thought, glancing over her shoulder at the people queuing up all the way around the block. All these people were technically dead . . .
or will be by the time I return
. Long dead. So whether she laughed or not, it really didn't matter. Nothing matters here because it's already happened! Expressions like “make way” and contraptions like velocipedes were distant memories in the twenty-first century. If Katie managed to save Beatrice or any of the other Ripper victims, they would all still be dead for decades when Katie returned home. And Collin? Could she save him, too?

The other Toby, from the twenty-first century, had told her that she could change small things, tweak the past here and there, but she couldn't drastically change the future. And even if she were to change the past, the ultimate outcome of major world events would not change one bit.

But if that
'
s the case, why did I return to this century?
Why bother to catch Jack the Ripper at all? And yet she was here. No amount of logic could have dissuaded Katie from returning. She was here for a reason. She felt sure of that. The fissure in the ancient rock that was the London Stone had enabled her to travel back in time. There was a reason the Stone had sent her here. But what reason and why, she wasn't sure.

Katie took a deep breath and told herself she had to stay focused. She scanned the expectant crowd, and realized with a jolt that Officer Grub was speaking to her.

“Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but it's not a nice crowd, not by any manner of means. Step lively. There's a bit o' mud. There yer go.” The front doors parted at the sound of his commanding voice and the sight of his blue uniform. Once through the doors, Officer Grub marched them through a courtyard along a narrow, stone-flagged path, up a set of stairs, and through another set of doors into a raftered room that stood bleached in sunlight. Black-clad men in silk top hats were talking in subdued tones at the back of the room. The hushed but excited atmosphere reminded Katie of the Lyceum Theatre just before the curtain went up.

Officer Grub led them down the center aisle to an empty bench fitted against a whitewashed wall, several rows back from a semicircular raised platform. Hunkered at angles on this platform stood a trestle table, a wooden podium, and two Windsor-back chairs. As Katie sank down onto the bench facing the podium, Toby and Collin settled beside her, wedging her tightly between themselves like human shields.

Katie squirmed in an effort to negotiate some elbow room between the boys, but gave up and glanced around. The temporary courtroom was a big room with long, arched windows along an upper gallery running halfway around the room, like in a church. Katie half expected to hear an organ ring out, or a choir burst forth in song. Instead, a bell clanged, doors flew open overhead, and a swarm of people rushed forward pushing and shoving.

At the sound of their stampeding feet, Toby, too, glanced up and watched the trample of people elbowing one another for empty seats until the balcony was crammed to capacity. Their faces belonged to every class of people, young, old, rich, poor—and all united, Toby thought with a twinge of irritation, in their bloodlust and morbid curiosity. They were here to take in every last gory detail of a young girl's brutal murder.

Squished in between the two boys, Katie was thinking similar thoughts, only with a different perspective. In her own world, courtroom TV, crime dramas, and CSI shows were primetime hits. Katie had watched endless reruns of the famous Casey Anthony murder trial, so she understood the inquisitive faces peering down from the gallery above.
People are drawn to murder no matter what century they live in
, Katie told herself.

From a distance came the sound of a second wave of pattering feet, followed by a full-blown mad dash as the back doors banged open and a new horde of people stormed into the room, hastily snatching up every available seat.

Katie craned her neck around. Was that Reverend Pinker plunking himself down on a seat in the back row?

Collin nudged Katie to get her attention. “Here comes the jury.”

Katie swiveled back around, facing forward. With the courtroom crammed to overflowing, the smell of sweat wafting through the air was so pungent Katie had to remind herself that deodorant hadn't been invented yet. Most people bathed only once a week.

“And over there, next to the coroner's platform,” Toby said, pointing to a roped-off area, “are the witnesses.”

Katie looked across the room to where Toby was pointing. Huddled together behind a rope partition stood several people peering around nervously and shuffling from foot to foot. Katie's gaze was drawn to a girl of about nineteen, who stood in the front and looked very self-satisfied. Of all the witnesses she alone appeared to be relishing the excitement. And she had obviously taken great care with her appearance. Her shiny auburn hair was done up on the crown of her head in a dramatic mound of curls braided with paper flowers and butterflies. There was something familiar about her. . . .

Katie tugged at Toby's sleeve to ask why the witnesses hadn't been given chairs. Standing tethered behind the rope partition they looked more like convicts about to be herded off to the docks.

Toby, having anticipated her question (though wrongly) answered, “Yes, pet. That auburn-haired girl is well pleased with herself, happy to be the center of attention. What the witnesses say here today, what they look like, what they wear, will be chronicled in newspapers all across London. See that table . . .”—He pointed to where several men sat perched on stools, busily sketching.—“Those are pen and ink artists. And that lot over there are journalists.”

Oscar Wilde sat in the midst of the journalists, pencil and notebook at the ready, a floppy scarlet neckerchief billowing at his throat. Katie put her gloved hand up to wave, but Toby crunched her fingers between his own and placed her hand back on her lap. She was supposed to be incognito.

“And that's the witness stand, I'd wager,” Collin said, motioning to what looked like a prisoner's box.

Next to the witness stand police officers wearing bowler hats instead of helmets stood at attention. Messenger boys in knee breeches and tweed caps stood poised by the side doors ready to rush the news copy to Fleet Street.

“Over there are the constables of H-Division, Whitechapel,” Toby announced proudly. “And here comes Major Brown.”

Major Gideon Brown strode toward the coroner's platform and stood facing the crowd, tall, erect, and looking very polished in his dress uniform. He glanced neither to the right nor left but straight ahead at full attention.

“Why are they having a trial when there's no defendant?” Katie asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the din. The decibel level in the room was deafening. “Or do they have a defendant?” she shouted, blinking around, confused. “Who's on trial here, anyway?”

“Are you daft, Katie?” Collin hollered into her left ear, making her yelp in pain and clamp a hand to her ear. “This is an inquest, not a trial.”

“Yes,” Katie muttered, massaging her still-ringing ear. “But why is there a jury—” She stopped midsentence. For now, she would just have to watch and listen. Both boys were staring at her as if she didn't have all her tea cups in the upstairs cupboard.

A minute later a hush fell over the room.

“
Gentlemen of the jury
!
” A clerk strode to the podium and gaveled for order with a large brass mallet.
“
The coroner
!”

A tall, lean totem-pole of a man in a pinstripe tailcoat marched to the podium, and the jury of fourteen—all men—stood up, swaying a little, then sat down again. The smell of ink mingled with the acrid odor of perspiration in the air. Sunlight dusted every corner of the room, and the shuffling of papers and nervous clearing of throats could be heard throughout.

“
Oyez
!
” The court clerk bellowed to the jury.

Toby leaned over and explained to Katie that
“
Oyez
”
was the Norman-French summons to order that went back a thousand years.

“
Oyez!
” The clerk repeated. “You good men of the jury have been summoned here this day on the second of September in the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eighty-eight to inquire for our sovereign Lady the Queen of England, when, how, and by what means Mary Ann Nichols came to her untimely death. We hope to obtain such evidence today as will lead to the apprehension of the miscreant responsible.” The room was so quiet that a dropped pin could have been heard in the far reaches of the vast room.

A formal roll call and a swearing-in of jurymen came next, then a quick exchange between the coroner and the court officer.

“Everything is in order, Coroner Baxter,” the clerk pronounced, his side whiskers bristling like a peahen. “The jury has viewed the mortal remains of Mary Ann Nichols. Therefore, Coroner Baxter, I recommend that we proceed forthwith.”