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COMMERCIAL STREET BLUES

At Commercial Street Police Station, Lestrade introduced her to Frederick Abberline At the sufferance of Assistant Commissioner Dr Robert Anderson and Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, Inspector Abberline had charge of the continuing investigation Having pursued the Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman cases with his customary tenacity but without notable results, the warm detective was now saddled with Lulu Sch?n, and any yet to come

&039;If I can help in any way,&039; Genevieve offered

&039;Listen to her, Fred,&039; Lestrade said, &039;she&039;s wise to the ways&039;

Abberline, obviously unimpressed, kneas politic to be polite Like Genevieve, he could not see why Lestrade wanted her dogging the case

&039;Think of her as an expert,&039; Lestrade said &039;She knows vampires And this case comes down to vampires&039;

The inspector waved the offer aside, but one of the several sergeants in the room - Williaht&039; - nodded agreement He had interviewed Genevieve after the first murder, and seemed as fair and smart as his reputation would have him, even if his taste in suits did run to lamentable checks

&039;Silver Knife is definitely a vampire-slayer,&039; Thick put in &039;Not so to cover theft&039;

&039;We don&039;t know that,&039; Abberline snapped, &039;and I don&039;t want to read it in the Police Gazette&039;

Thick kept quiet, satisfied that he was right In their interview, the sergeant adined he had been wronged - or, ed - by Vlad Tepes&039;s get Genevieve, expert enough to know the capabilities of her kind, agreed, but knew the description fit so many in London that it would be fruitless to extrapolate a list of suspects froht,&039; she told the policeive an order to his own pet sergeant, George Godley Genevieve smiled at Thick and saw him shiver Like most of the warm, he knew even less about bloodline, about the infinite varieties and gradations of valut of new-borns Thick looked at her and saw a vahter, violated his wife, taken his promotion, killed his friend She didn&039;t know his history but supposed his theory foruessed the murderer&039;s motive because he could understand it

Abberline had spent the day interrogating the constables ere first at the scene of the round hi of any relevance and was even holding off on co to a statement that Sch?n was indeed another victim of the so-called Whitechapel Murderer On the short walk fro about Silver Knife; but the official flannel was that only Chapman and Nichols were demonstrably dead by the same hand Various other unsolved cases - Sch?n now joining Tabram, Smith and sundry others - linked in the press could conceivably be entirely separate crimes Silver Knife hardly held the patent on homicide, even in the immediate locality

Lestrade and Abberline went off to have a huddle Abberline - without realising it? - elaborately cas to do with his hands whenever the possibility of pressing flesh with a vampire was raised He lit a pipe and listened as Lestrade ticked off points on his fingers A jurisdictional dispute was in the offing between Abberline, head of H Division CID, and Lestrade The Scotland Yard interloper was assumed to be one of Dr Anderson&039;s spies, dispatched by Swanson to check up on the detectives in the field, ready to swoop in whenever glory was to be clai Anderson, Swanson and Lestrade were the Irishlishman of the music hall stories, and had been pictured as such by Weedon Gross clues to the annoyance of a local copper who somewhat resembled Fred Abberline Genevieve wondered if she, hardly the epitoirl from the same stories, fitted into the scheme Did Lestrade intend her for a lever?

She looked about the already busy reception roohts, and banged shut Outside were several groups of interested parties A Salvation Are, supported a Christian Crusade preacher who called down God&039;s Justice on va Silver Knife as a true instrument of the Will of Christ The Speakers&039; Corner Torqueed-trousered longhairs of various socialist or Republican stripes, and ridiculed by a knot of painted va Many new-borns paid to beco i

&039;Who&039;s the reverend gentlelanced out at the roaned &039;A bloody nuisance, Miss Nao was a notorious slule of tiny courts and overpopulated rooms It was undoubtedly the worst rookery in the East End

&039;Any rate, that&039;s where he cohteous and proper about shoving a stake through some trollop He&039;s been in and out of here all year for fire-breathing And drunk and disorderly, with the odd coo was a wild-eyed fanatic but soo, he would have been preaching against the Jews, or Fenians, or the Heathen Chinee Now, it was vao cried &039;The unclean leeches, the cast-outs of Hell, the blood-bloated filth All must perish by fire and the stake All must be purified&039;

The preacher had a fewenough to blur the line between extortion and collection

&039;He&039;s not short of a few pennies,&039; Thick coet his bread-knife silver-plated?&039;