“The concrete will do quite nicely as a road,” I added. “You’ll also find a rendering with proper measurements in the file for the brick façade. If you have any questions, feel free to ask either Calan or myself.”
The carpenter nodded as he looked over everything we’d given him.
“And when do you think you can get this done?” Calan asked.
The man shrugged as he scratched the stubble on his chin. “Three or four weeks.”
“The sooner the better,” I told him. “After the façade is finished, we’ll still need time to assemble the rest of the exhibit, and we hope to have the grand opening the first week of November.” I took a breath. “Around the anniversary of the last murder on November 9th.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
Calan and I left the empty room and walked up the stairs toward the main floor.
I tried keeping myself busy with work, but all I could think about was tomorrow in 1888. It would be September 29th, and Austen and I had plans to head to Whitechapel well before midnight to find a place to hide on Berner Street so we could watch for Jack the Ripper. I was so nervous in both paths, I hadn’t eaten in days.
But it wasn’t only visiting Berner Street that had me worried. Ever since we’d visited Mary at Miller’s Court, Austen had been distant. He wasn’t as unpleasant as before, but I knew what he was thinking. What we were both thinking.
Mary needed me to save her, and the only way to do that was to sacrifice my path for her.
“You’ve been quieter than usual,” Calan said, interrupting my thoughts. “Worried about Hitler?”
I almost laughed. Yes, I was worried about Hitler—but rightnow, I was more concerned about Jack the Ripper. I couldn’t tell Calan that, so I said, “Who isn’t?”
Neville Chamberlain was in Germany for a third visit because the Czechs and the French didn’t like the plan to hand over the Sudetenland to Hitler—and now Hitler was threatening an invasion on October 1st, only three days away. Chamberlain had called for a summit with Germany, France, Italy, and Britain. It was currently happening in Munich. If the prime minister couldn’t find a way to get Hitler to compromise, then war was inevitable, and Mama and Papa would insist we leave for home.
“I don’t want to go back to the US,” I told Calan as we walked across the main gallery of the London Museum toward the stairs that would take us to the second floor. “I could be on a ship heading home in just three days’ time. But there’s so much more to do here.”
“Hopefully Chamberlain can get a compromise,” Calan said, “though I’m in agreement with Winston Churchill. I don’t think appeasing Hitler is the answer. He’s a bully, and nothing is ever good enough for bullies. They take and take until someone stops them. Appeasement will only buy us a few more months. I think war is inevitable.”
I couldn’t let on that I knew he was right. I just didn’t know enough about the timeline to know when war would begin. Would it start in three days? Three months? Or three years?
“Is that all that’s bothering you?” Calan asked, his perceptive gaze on my face.
I smiled, despite the uncertainty of both my paths. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m not one to confide in coworkers.”
“Ah,” he said. “This has something to do with a man, doesn’t it?”
“What?” I frowned at him as we climbed the large staircase. Again, the museum was quiet as people continued to prepare for war. Several of the volunteers had even stayed home. “Why would you assume my unwillingness to confide in you is because of a man?”
“If it was about a friend or an elderly aunt, or some such thing, you wouldn’t have trouble telling me. But if it’s about a man, I could understand your reticence. You might be afraid that I would get jealous.”
I laughed. “That is the least of my concerns, Mr. McCaffrey.”
He joined in my laughter, and I appreciated a moment of lighthearted banter. It was difficult to come by on days like today, but Calan had become a good friend and had made many hard days bearable.
When we arrived in the office we shared, Calan went to the folder with some of the Jack the Ripper letters, which was lying on the desk. “I plan to go through more of these today.” He shook his head. “It’s a daunting task to sift through them and determine which ones are real and which ones were written by imposters.”
“Sir Rothschild brought another file over from the Crime Museum yesterday. There are hundreds of letters to comb through. I can look over the other file while you’re working on this one.”
“Would you please?” he asked. “I’d like to put a few of them on display. TheDear Bossletter, theSaucy Jackypostcard, and theFrom Hellletter are the ones most likely written by Jack.” He had kept these aside, and I’d looked over them already. They were all written in similar handwriting, with words intentionally misspelled, and they each addressed information about the murders that wasn’t widely known to the public when they were written. TheSaucy Jackypostcard was postmarked October 1, 1888, and referenced the Double Event, but it appeared to have been written before September 30th, which was the date of the murders. People in 1888 questioned if the Double Event was intentional or accidental. Had Jack targeted Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, or were they random victims? If they were both linked to the Freemasons, then I knew they weren’t random. It was one of the reasons I wanted to be on Berner Street tomorrow. To see if I could figure it out.
“The others are harder to pinpoint,” Calan said. “They weresent from all over the place, but they all have such similar themes and wording.”
“I’ll grab the other file from Sir Rothschild’s desk,” I offered.
I left our office and entered Sir Rothschild’s. He left every Wednesday afternoon at the same time and didn’t usually return until close to four. He had told me that I could find the file of letters in his locked drawer and that the key to his desk was under volume one ofThe Building of Britain and the Empireon his bookshelf. Once I had the key, I took a seat at his desk to open the lock.
