The Time Travelers' Club: Chapter 29 -- Too Late

Chapter 29 – Too Late

Back in St. James Place, Sam read his notes aloud, still unaware that Mrs. Steers had left him.

"Catherine Eddowes' mangled body was found about two in the morning in Mitre Square.  The policeman had patrolled the area about fifteen minutes before..."  Sam muttered.  "We should go back there.  Hey, Mrs. Steers, do you know what time it is?"

There was no reply.  Sam flashed the light around looking for her. "Mrs. Steers?  Mrs. Steers?"

Jerking his flashlight from one corner of the square to another, Sam felt his anxiety rise.   "She must be here. She must be here.  Maybe she stepped out onto the street."  Sam ran about the square, but there was no sign of Mrs. Steers.  She was gone. Panic set in.

"Maybe she left without me?  Maybe I upset her?   Maybe she got tired and went home?  But how do I get home…  How do I get home?   What do I do?"

Sam put the knuckle of his left pointer finger in his mouth and bit on it.  He was trying to control his panic attack and hold back the tears then he remembered the slip of paper in his shirt pocket with the incantation to take him home.

"I have the spell to return home."  Sam felt for it in his shirt pocket. "Mrs. Steers told me to use if I needed it.  Maybe this is a test to see how I handle the situation?"

A bell pealed twice.  Sam stopped fumbling for the slip of paper.

"Two o'clock. It's two a.m. It's two a.m."  Sam repeated the time as if trying to connect with a forgotten memory.  He remembered. Glancing at his notes, he read aloud.  

"It was about two o'clock when Eddowes was murdered.  In Mitre Square…  The newspaper…"  Forgetting about the incantation along with his panic attack, Sam threw the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

"Let me think. We went out that passage, but Mrs. Steers remarked all we really needed to do was run to that... one." He pointed at another passageway which led to Mitre Street.  He ran out and looked both ways.

"We went that way.” Sam ran to his right. "Here it is."

Sam ran into the dark square. Once again, he recognized the business names. "Kearley and Tonge… Horner and Sons… Heseltine..."

"Which corner was it?  It's too dark to see.  I must get there before it's too late." He scanned the dark corners with his flashlight.  Its beam washed over something lying on the stone sidewalk.  Fixed on that spot, Sam crept towards whatever it was.  He realized what he was seeing.  It was the mangled body of Catherine Eddowes. He was too late. And worse, he had missed Jack the Ripper.

 "Oh!  Yuck!  That smell!" Gagging, Sam quickly turned away, trying not to look.

His stomach churned over the horrid smell of warm raw meat, urine, and body odor.  He knew if he moved closer to her, he would be sick.   He remembered from his readings that Eddowes' body had been ripped open and a kidney removed, taken by the Ripper as a souvenir.  Even worse, her intestines were yanked out and arranged like necklace around her slashed face.

Sam took several steps back. He didn't know her but felt sorrow for her. Tears welled in his eyes. Closing them, his dad's face came into his mind.

Sam saw his dad's cracked lips glistening with lip balm, his hairless head, and his sunken eyes barely open.  The shallow breathing echoed in Sam's head.  The death smell of cancer filled his nostrils.

  

Between the death rattles and the last gasps of air, his dad was able to talk to Sam one last time.  The nurse later said how lucky Sam had been for those last words since most cancer patients go into a coma-like state.  He hated that nurse.  How could she say the word 'lucky.'

Sam cried.  Mrs. Steers abandoned him in 1888 London.  He lost his dad.  Now, he stood alone once again with a lifeless body.  Sam wiped his eyes with his sweater sleeve and pulled himself together, realizing that he couldn't.  He still had the chance to save the last victim and maybe others from the wrath of Jack the Ripper.

Checking the squares' entrances, Sam knew from his research that a constable was nearby making his rounds and would arrive at any moment to discover the body. Sam reached into his book bag and pulled out the newspaper from the bottom.

This was it.  His moment.  He could leave the newspaper with the fingerprint. He would help solve the mystery of one of history's most notorious killers, Jack the Ripper!

As he bent over to put the newspaper near the body, a hand grabbed his wrist. He flashed the light into his captor's face.  It was Rose.

"No, Sam. You cannot do that. It cannot be changed.  Besides you do not know the incantation to force the object to stay in this time and place."

Rose snatched up the newspaper. "We must leave. They may find us. We cannot risk the slightest chance of being seen. They don’t know about you."

Rose tugged him along and slipped down a narrow passage just as a glowing lantern floated through the square's entrance.  It was the constable.  Spotting Eddowes' body, he swore under his breath then frantically blew his whistle, a signal for help.

Rose and Sam watched from their dark corner.   "Excuse me! Why are we hiding? He can't see us."  Sam questioned her.

"It is not the constable I am worried about.  There are others in the area we must fear and they can see us. We must get out of here quickly."