I, Ripper

When I was finished, I found myself exulted. I saw exactly how the professor thought the book would excite me to my best effort, as it was sure to do – I was so filled with energy, I was ready to buckle down right then and there! – but I had to admit there was more to Holmes than met the eye. Conan Doyle, as seen through the behavior of Mr. Holmes, was clearly a wise man and had thought at length about darknesses of the heart and the tricks to which so constructed people will go to achieve their own ends, and the responsibility of he who investigates to see the truth and not the illusion created. “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.” That was indeed what our real-life Holmes and Watson had done in re: Jack, was it not? That was what Professor Dare and Reporter Shaw had done, was it not? We had skillfully understood what Jack’s acts inferred of him as to experience, type of mind, and skills available, and using them as our guideline, we had uncovered a pool of such men and tested our thesis to the point where we had found the man with knife in hand – and stopped him by the intervention of good fortune. Subsequent information would only prove our point. It was a triumph of cool rationality over clumsy attempts at mantrapping, the only thing the police departments could manage.

I was most furiously proud of one thing. It was Holmes’s own description of method, and I saw how brilliantly we – the professor, that is – had put it to work. “Before turning to those moral and mental aspects which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering the more elemental problems.”

And what would the most elementary aspect of the case be?

What made Jack Jack?

It was not that he killed, as many have, and will, kill. That is the sad part of human nature. That was the scarlet thread. No, it was that he did so silently, efficiently, and then got away.

That was the elemental essence. He got away. How did he get away? Well, the professor had many ideas, all pertinent: He planned well, he had superb night vision, he had experience in night work and knew just how much moon he needed to give him advantage, he reconnoitered his sites, he was slight, so he could get out of tight spots as in Dutfield’s Yard, he was—

That was it. His slightness was key to the whole thing, and the professor had foreseen that, applied it to the case, and unlocked it. It was clear how Colonel Woodruff had used his slightness.

One thing lay ahead. I had to go to Dutfield’s Yard. I had not seen it, having spent that night first in Mitre Square, for the second of the “double events,” being the end of poor Kate Eddowes, and then on Goulston Street, where the dyslexic “Juwes” clue had been left. I must get to Dutfield’s, I thought, and have a look around and understand this aspect of the elemental.

I awoke merrily, had a nice breakfast and even a half-decent chat with Mother, who was all alight – knowing nothing of my triumph – because Lucy would sing a small role in La Traviata at the great Paris Opera House. She was beginning to make her way in the professional world.

I think that breakfast was the peak of glory for me. I remember thinking, Oh, but Mother, if you only know what your dim son, the failure, the disappointment, the bearer and inheritor of his drunken father’s dreams, has been up to and what glories await him.

It was brisk out, and I decided to walk. I had not gotten far when I came upon a crippled old gent by the wayside, his mangled leg affecting his whole progress, sending tremors through him, and suddenly he seemed to stumble, and I reached magnanimously to help him. He pivoted not to accept aid but to ram a Webley revolver into my guts.

“Ought to blow a big, bloody hole in you, sir,” he said, “and dance a jig as you empty out.”

It was Lieutenant Colonel H. P. Woodruff (Ret.) (VC, KCB).

PART III IN THE FORESTS OF THE NIGHT

CHAPTER FOURTY-SIX Jeb’s Memoir

ou are dead,” I gasped.

“It’ll take more than a locomotive to kill this old buzzard. I still have a cat’s reflexes. I went flat, and the beast lumbered over me. I crawled to safety.”

“Then, sir, you are Jack the Ripper.”

“I am no more Jack the Ripper than you are Queen Victoria. What madness has Dare infected you with, you bottlehead? Convince me you’re his dupe and not his partner, and maybe I won’t plug you before I plug him.” He rammed the hard barrel of the revolver deeper into my flesh.

My mind, as it so often does when confronted with naked aggression, simply collapsed into shards. I was worthless.

“Bunny brain! Cat ate your tongue, the whole thing? Now, you walk with me over to Russell Square all nice and happy-like, and we’ll sit under a tree and have a little chitchat. Move to get away, and I’ll finish you here.”