After he left, I took a seat and pulled the book toward myself, careful not to damage the pages. It was a thick tome with a red cloth cover and gold lettering. If it was one of only two copies that still existed, I didn’t want to be the person to ruin it.
Immediately, the name Sir Bernard Kelly jumped out at me, and next to it, Sir Robert Baird—Austen’s father.
In 1874, I took a team of amateur archaeologists and Freemasons to the site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Each was intrigued by the work I’d previously done, starting in 1867 with my first trip to Jerusalem, and some were invested financially in the Palestine Exploration Fund. Others had interest in biblical archaeology for various reasons. Several of the team members brought their wives, and we spent many enjoyable days exploring Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside before we began our explorations into the tunnels in the Temple Mount.
Among those present with me in 1874 were Sir Bernard Kelly and his wife, Agatha; Sir Robert Baird, and his wife, Madeline; Mr. William Nichols, and his wife, Polly—
I stopped reading as my mouth fell open, and then I quickly reread the last line. Polly Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper, was on the same trip to Israel as my parents! Father and Mother hadn’t once hinted that they knew Polly Nichols after she’d been murdered in Whitechapel—but then, why would they? She was a fallen woman and a murder victim. They wouldn’t want anyone to associate them with her. I continued to read, my pulse skipping with both fear and excitement as the pieces of a confusing and heartbreaking puzzle began to fall into place.
Mr. John Chapman, and his wife, Annie, were also in attendance, as were John Stride and his wife, Elizabeth. Thomas Conway was another member of the team, and he brought his wife, Catherine.
I reread the entry three times before I believed what I was seeing. Along with mine and Austen’s parents, the Nichols, Chapman, Stride, and Conway families were in Jerusalem with Sir Charles Warren in 1874. Thomas Conway was Catherine Eddowes’s common-law husband, and she sometimes went by Conway, though was back to Eddowes at the time of her death.
I could hardly wrap my mind around the information. There was no question that Jack the Ripper was somehow involved in the trip—and that the murders he committed were not random, but were intentional, calculated, and premeditated. He knew exactly who he was killing, but the question remained, why? And why were Sir Charles Warren and the other Freemasons covering up the murderer’s identity? Was Jack responsible for the Bairds’ murders? And why was my sister a victim, when she wasn’t on the trip to Jerusalem? If the pattern was repeated, it should have been my mother who was a victim, since she had been with the team.
But that begged yet another question. Why had all those women ended up in Whitechapel? They were from well-respected families, and none of their husbands had ended up in the poorest district in the city.
There had to be answers to my questions. But I wouldn’t get them from my parents in 1888. The only person who might know and might answer me was Austen. His parents had been there—perhaps he knew something. Was he aware that all these families had been with our parents on that trip?
I needed to ask him as soon as possible. Part of me wanted to look for him in 1938, to confront him and demand he tell me the truth. But I couldn’t risk being seen by him. I would have to wait until I woke up in 1888 tomorrow.
I scanned the rest of the chapter in the book, but I didn’t see anything else of importance. Sir Warren didn’t list any other members of his team, nor was there mention of Robert and Madeline Baird’s deaths. Instead, he discussed all the technical information about the archaeological dig and the treasures that had been discovered.
After taking up my purse, I found Mr. Hornby.
“Done so soon?” he asked as he rose from his desk.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Even more,” I told him. “I appreciate your help.”
He frowned at me, but then nodded and said, “Any time. Be sure to come back if you need anything else.”
I left the Masonic Peace Memorial with more questions than when I had arrived. But at least now I knew there was a connection between the Ripper victims, and that it had something to do with Freemasonry and the trip to Jerusalem fourteen years ago. I just didn’t know what it was.
Yet.
I was preoccupied with what I’d learned at the Masonic Peace Memorial as I entered the Lancaster House later that morning. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t piece all the women’s murders together. What could have happened in Jerusalem that led Jack to kill five women fourteen years later in Whitechapel?
“I think I’ve found them,” I overheard Sir Rothschild saying as I entered my office, where he and Calan were speaking. Calan was sitting at the desk, and Sir Rothschild was standing on the other side of it.
“Found what?” I asked as I took off my hat and put it on the hook near the door.
“Good morning,” Calan said with a smile as he rose from the desk.
“The paintings,” Sir Rothschild said. “It appears that they’re in a warehouse in Liverpool. I’m not sure how the mix-up happened, but I’ve been assured that the shipment will be on the next available train to London, and we should have the paintings by the end of this week.”
“That’s good news,” I said, though the paintings were of little consequence to me.
“Where were you this morning?” Calan asked, changing the subject. “You looked deep in thought when you entered.”
I’d been replaying everything I’d learned about the five victims in my mind—yet, nothing made sense. Polly Nichols’s husband was a printer on Fleet Street. Annie Chapman’s husband was a driver for a wealthy family in Windsor. Elizabeth Stride’s husband was a furniture maker and the son of a wealthy property owner. And Catherine Eddowes’s common-law husband had been in the military. How had each of those men been involved in the trip to Jerusalem with my parents, the Bairds, and Sir Charles Warren?
“Did you know that each of Jack the Ripper’s victims—at least four of them—were on a trip to Jerusalem in 1874 with Sir Charles Warren?”
Calan frowned as Sir Rothschild asked, “Are you serious?”
