“Then you may have it all, sir.”
“I am no hog. I will share, I swear.”
“And we’d better hurry, Jeb. After all, the quarter-moon fast approaches, on October 28. Our soldier of night will soon pursue another mission.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Diary
October 26, 1888
* * *
It would soon be time again, since the campaign had obligations that needed to be met. I went on search, being careful to use what I had learned: I needed crowds—of Johns, citizens, and Judys—into which to melt anonymously. I needed quick access to dark streets. I needed at least one and possibly two escape routes. I needed to be cognizant of the police constables and their patrolling. I had to negotiate all these factors brilliantly, weighing them and finding a perfect balance, and remain aware that the task was made infinitely more difficult because Warren had put so many more blue bottles on the street, thinking the dragnet, the sheer number of uniformed men, plus a nice reward, would do the trick.
He was an idiot. For one thing, it is true of military and of police intelligences and also of engineers—and Warren was all three—that they conspicuously prepare for that which has already happened as opposed to that which has not. In my amblings around Whitechapel, I saw that the coppers were flooding the areas where I had already struck. They thought I was such a slave to habit (and as stupid as they were) that I would do the same.
It took no genius to look at the map and determine that aside from Long Liz Stride’s encounter, which had been governed by special rules, all the others had been north of the Whitechapel/Aldgate axis. So that was where the genius Warren deployed most of his troops. You could not go for a stout, or an apple from a coster’s stall, along the Whitechapel High Street without bumping into a constable with his ding-dong lantern and his whistle on rope. There were so many, they had naught to observe but themselves!
Meanwhile, as one progressed toward the southeast, the coppers seemed to dissipate, to thin, the spaces between them wider and yet wider again, block by block. At first I thought it might be a trap and that in some cellar along Stepney Way or Clavell Street he might have secreted a hundred men, ready to leap out upon the whistle and begin the hunt along the byways of the district’s quadrant, oriented southeast by compass. But he hadn’t the wit. Was the man stupid? Maybe he was merely slow and would eventually comprehend his own folly, but he lacked the adaptability and agility that the modern police executive needed. And who should know better than I?
My plans thus moved my area of operation away from the well used, down toward the river. For Jack, the area was virgin.
However, it did seem slightly different in element. Yes, dollies plied their trade down this way, but the road inclined toward the port, where the great ships bearing their Oriental loot tied up, and so the milieu became not only seedier but more infused with the accoutrements of maritime enterprise. The smell of riverine damp, that is, a kind of swollen density of water suspended in the atmosphere, seemed to fall like a curtain on these twisty streets, and the gist of retail somewhat altered, now presenting sailor’s dives with names like the Mermaid or the Bosun, or South of Fiji or Pitcairn’s Paradise, and as well what had to be Chinese opium dens (the smell outside started one hallucinating!) and places where tattoos could be inked on arms, chests, or, as I saw on one fellow, faces. If one looked during daylight hours down certain streets, or alleys or walkways between the humble buildings, one could see the maze of spars, masts, and rigging, the gathered, roped sails and crow’s nests of these behemoth vessels, as they berthed in the Western Docks in Wapping, or even farther out, on that strange near-island of wet creeks, swampland, and riverettes called the Isle of Dog, which offered a meander to the great River Thames and bent it around its own promontory and presented its own endless dockage. It was called Canary Wharf, where the East India Company, that grand circus of larceny and exploitation by armed robbery, unloaded, and where all the spices and silks and fruits and rice and whatnot were removed to be sold to poor Johnny English at sixteen times their cost in rupees or yen, and Johnny considered himself bargaineering in the process. This was the great mountebank’s engine that sustained our tight, lovely little land and, other than the dank warrens of Whitechapel and its brethren, kept it all green and happy, its victim-citizens as dim and blissful as mudlarks.
I mention this because it also somewhat changed the nature of the crowds one encountered, again a part of the element. One no longer saw the predominance of the top hat or the derby but, instead, the strange plumage of all the many jack-tars, the endless types of sailor caps the crew jerries wore. They came from all nations under these vagabond coverings, and one saw rounder eyes, bluer eyes, squintier eyes, darker skin, lighter skin, bigger skulls, smaller skulls, hair of blond and black and red and even shaved—the Russkies, I’m guessing, who like to show their skull in contrast to flowing mustachios, meant to frighten, as they were all huskies to boot. Conversely, one saw fewer and fewer of the square, dull symmetrical faces of typical Englishmen. I fancied I could smell foreign spicings in the air, and even the costers offered fruit from different parts of the globe, some strangenesses that I could not identify as being from our very planet. I was quite convinced that I was no longer in England, for the babel of foreign voices.
One was aware that it was different down here and that the customary precautions might not be enough to provide security, and so made a pledge to self to make certain, then doubly certain, then certain a third time, before committing to action. The chaps about here would be burlier and more prone to violence of their own, so it was incumbent upon me not to incite a mob of mariners, as they might turn immediately to rough justice of the sort the Peelers and a stickler like Warren would abjure. I could end my days decorating a yardarm as it steered south by Java Head.
I chose at last and after much consideration a block that might have been in Wapping, in the way that Mitre Square turned out to be beyond Whitechapel, which would bring in a set of detectives from a division other than Whitechapel’s H. That would be fine and good, for the new boys would get all mixed in with the old, the communications would be worse, the cabals of influence more diffuse, Inspector Abberline’s control might be challenged and in all it would be a merry festival of more mucking up, Sir Charles Warren–style.
I chose a street one could exit either by heading in one of two directions or cutting through to a street just behind and parallel. My plan was to unite with a gal, nudge her down William for the necessary dark, finish her there, and make it the most famous thoroughfare in the Western world for a day or so, while making my usual coolly nonchalant exit back to civilization by morning. I realized the street names meant nothing, nor should they; all were alike, tiny streets of humble brick abodes linked in long ungainly strands, sporting a castellation of chimneys, poorly lit, of course, peopled with the invisible of London living and mostly dying without notice in the great city’s most obscure precincts. Wapping? Who had ever heard of such a place? No one on the Times or the Star or the Atheneum or at the British Museum. Ridiculous name, no, Wapping? Is that not what you do to an unruly child, give it a wapping until it shuts its mouth?
Everything was swell, that is, until it wasn’t.
I had thought finding a dolly would be the least of my problems, but right off, it became the most of them. It was late, it was dark, it was empty. I think in daytime, when I had scouted, the area was more frequented, but now there was nothing to be found. My first plan perished before it was even tested.
I knew bad things were more likely to happen when I had to improvise, as my lucky escape at Mitre Square proved, and every sensible part of my being argued for a retreat and another foray tomorrow, when the conditions would be more or less as good. But I’m like a rat aroused by the smell of blood sometimes, and against my own better judgment, I kept coursing ahead, thinking one more block closer to the docks, that’ll be the ticket, that’ll get me what I want.
At last I
reached St. George, with hardly any of London left between me and the basin, wherein was moored a fleet of pirate vessels otherwise known as British shipping. I swore I could hear the stretched rope squealing and the stressed wood squeaking. Possibly it was pure imagination. I wandered up St. George, a wide street of extreme maritime atmosphere, and found it crowded in its way with the colorful specimens of the oceangoing brethren, hats and all, and I was aware that my more civilized garb made me stand out a bit, always a mistake in the mad-killer trade.
She was neither older nor younger than the other birds. She was neither prettier nor uglier. She was simply there, a figure out of a socialist painting that might be called The Eternal Streetwalker, puffing on a cigarette, resting against a gaslight, one hip provocatively cocked. I could see a bit more of neck and shoulder, as that seemed to be allowed down here. I also thought it was illegal for the girls to stand still, but this brazen Bessie betrayed no fear of the blue bottles. She was eyeing the trade and the trade was eyeing her, particularly her bosom, which men, perhaps out of collective maternal nostalgia, seemed to yearn to bury themselves within. Hers was vast and deep. Fortunately I am not so mentally constructed, so the bosom, present or vanished, is of little interest to me. She looked tough, and as I drew near, her eyes fixed on me and mine on hers, and in a few steps I was at her but not with her. That is, I stood close but conspicuously oriented away from her as crowds of drunks wobbled by, rocking as uncertainly as the big ships at berth a few dozen feet down the black alleys.
“Now, dearie, would you be looking for a spell of fun?” she eventually said.
“I might be, madame,” I said. “The mood is presently upon me.”
“Come on over so Evelyn can get a look, then.”
“That I will,” I said, and broke my pose, and made an elaborate charade of orbiting her station so she could inspect my goods.
“You don’t look like Saucy Jacky,” she said. “These days a gal has to be careful.”
“I thought Jack worked up the street a bit,” I said.
“Maybe he’s come slumming, like you. We don’t get many gentleman. This is mostly sailortown.”
“I would never characterize my efforts as ‘slumming,’ my dear. To me, all women are equally beautiful and equally desirable but, alas, not equally available.”
“I’m thinking this is a night for availability, then, not beauty nor desire,” she said. She was a game one!
“Well said, my dear. A mile that way, the tariff is thruppence. What would it be closer to Mother Thames?”
“Can’t give you no discount for your long walk,” she said. “Ain’t my bother the coppers is all over that street up there. We’ve got our pride in Wapping, too.”
“So a thruppence, then, and both are happy.”
“I daresay.”
“Proceed. I’ll follow upon.”
She launched herself from the lamppost, tossed the cigarette, and I saw why she had elected to go permanently at mooring: She had a limp, some mangled business at the hip that probably was something tragic out of a Russian novel that I didn’t care to hear of. She made her progress at less than spiffy pace, up one block, up another, and at long last, she turned between two brick buildings a short distance away, whereupon we came to another street, small and darkish, and continued. Just a few more feet and I could see the gently rocking hulls of two great vessels at mooring on the quay.
It fell to darkness, and except for the heaving and cracking of the ships at rest, I could hear nothing and see nothing. We were in a passageway between the walls of two great warehouses, on cobblestones far from the interest of the street traffic. It was perfect.
She turned, exactly as Polly had turned, exactly as Annie had, exactly as Liz had, exactly as Kate had, and in turning offered me her long bare throat, and as my right hand slid inside my coat and I felt the grip of my Sheffield, I could see the tendons, the muscles, the softness of the skin, and knew exactly where I would drive the edge for maximum carnage.
“Now, guv’nor,” she said, “I’ll take me coin, if you please.”
And at that point, someone hit me hard on the back of the head, and all the stars in heaven exploded behind my eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jeb’s Memoir
I confided to O’Connor what I was up to, omitting key details that I knew would bore a man with the attention span of a gazelle. He was substantially impressed, so he gave Henry Bright the word that I was to be left alone as I continued my individual inquiries; Harry Dam could cover the Yard and keep the fires stoked. O’Connor also set up a meeting with a man of our staff who covered military matters and was on good terms with a more august personage named Robert “Penny” Penningham, who had covered the War Office for decades for the Times and had been to more wars than most major generals and, it was said, had ridden unofficially with Cardigan at Balaclava. He knew everything there was to know about issues of war and more war, as waged by Her Majesty’s forces from the wedding-cake building at Whitehall called Cumberland House.
I loved Penny straight off. He was a bounder, a cad, a merry fellow full of grand gesture and good heart, and he drank fishlike in a rear room of a Fleet Street pub called the Pen and Parchment, where, it was said, Mr. Boswell had sat inscribing the words of Dr. Johnson. It was quite possible, judging from the ancient air of the place, and I was willing to play Penny’s Boswell.
He drank stout out of a monster pewter tankard with “47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot” inscribed in gold across it. No doubt there was a tale behind it. In fact, I guessed Penny to be a walking Canterbury’s full of tales of life on campaign or in barracks.
“Now, yes, I do know a fellow at the War Office. I made him to be a hero in Africa during the Zulu business, when he was actually a bumbler. I knew his da and couldn’t let that old color sergeant down. As per my account, the man was decorated and advanced, and now he occupies one of those key spots in Cumberland House where everything passes across his desk. He pulls strings far in advance of his rank and can ferret out anything. He would fetch this bit in a day or so, for me and me alone, if I asked him. But tell me again, laddy, why it is you’re needing it?”
I thought I had explained but evidently I had not, at least not clearly enough, or at least not clearly enough for him, or at least not when he was paying attention. This time he paid that attention, and I reiterated what Dare and I had worked out and what I had sold O’Connor on, which stopped one stop short of our ultimate destination. I told him that a “source” at university had looked at information I had assembled and, without realizing it was the Ripper I was describing, had concluded that the killings all bore the mark of a highly experienced military man of particular heritage, the raider type known to intelligence and reconnaissance. I hoped to locate a few experienced fellows in that subspecialty of the soldier’s trade, put it before them, and see if it rang bells; they might steer me in the proper direction. If Penny didn’t realize it was those men themselves who were suspect, all shame to him, but he played along just the same.
“It’s not a thing the army wants out, you see. It could help the foe, this year’s or next year’s.”
“I do understand that, Penny,” I said, although it had just occurred to me, for concerns of empire had never been prominent in my thinking, “and I can assure you that the interest is purely domestic, in re: our Jack. The only nation of concern is the nation of Whitechapel and its civilian population of twelve hundred whoregirls.”
“They be citizens, too, even if they pay no taxes, and they deserve the same protection of any major general surrounded by Lancers. Can’t say I’ve never had a bounce in my long gaudy life, so you’ll get no moral posturing from me.”
“I’ve seen the bodies, Penny, hacked as if in the cross fire at Balaclava.”
“All right, that’s a good case you make.”
“So you’ll assist?”
He considered, quaffing and squinting, quaffing and squinting, and at last said, “All right, if
only because I think you’ve done bang-up work, and I love to see a professional breaking the news. You’ve given that dumb bugger Warren a few hard, dry shits a long time over the hole. And you’ll not be giving my name to nobody, is that understood? I can’t give up my fellow, so you can’t give me up.”
“It’s a bargain,” I said.
* * *
Feeling quite healthy toward myself, I set out to return to the office. My step was light, almost a dance, a waltz, say, full of love, not for women but self-directed, toward me, Jeb, hero of the Jack saga, and I was so in love with myself that I paid no attention to what lay about. In a few days, Penny would give me his list, and with the professor, we would somehow examine the lives of each man on it, and surely if one were Jack, there’d be a manifestation available to plain eye. We’d inform someone we trusted at the Yard—Ross, I was thinking—and he’d go and arrange a meet with the mystical Inspector Abberline, and the trap would be set. A raid would spring it, for surely the knife, bloody clothes, perhaps even, God help us, Annie’s wedding rings or, as we referred to them in the Star, ANNIE’S WEDDING RINGS would be found, and then the world was ours. I was famous, I had entree everywhere, my good friend Professor Dare would go emeritus at any Oxbridge house he chose, and Saucy Jacky would go for a long walk off a short gallows, to everybody’s pleasure. It might even be that his horrors, horrific horrors though they be, would shine light enough on the appalling reality of Whitechapel that some benefit to the population, especially those hard workers of Angel Alley and Fashion Street, might come about.
Yes, I was mighty pleased and—
A hand clapped hard and sudden upon my shoulder. “’Ello, your ’onor, ’ow’s about a nice sip with your fine friend ’arry.”