I, Ripper

“Indeed. That was his exception. And why? Because he had already performed reconnaissance, like the good raider, and knew from observation that she would guide him to 29 Hanbury Street, through the passage, and into the yard. He knew there would be illumination from still-lit windows on the backsides of 29 and 27, next door. The moon’s light was not a consideration on that one. He made adjustments; he struck outside the range of his vision requirements. That, too, is what a soldier does, or he dies. He must adapt. So he found the generally correct range of illumination, when there’s enough to commit but not enough to give one away. He must have been on campaign in these conditions and gotten used to it and feels capable and more than equal to the police in the circumstance. On the other hand, being both resilient and inventive, he is supple enough to violate the dogma when he finds he must do so.”

I was writing this all down in the twisted dashes and swoops that formed the Pitman method; at the same time, I was hearing interpretations that fascinated me. He had seen so deeply into it! Was he the world’s greatest detective? Or was I the world’s greatest boob?

“Let me sum up: He is a very special sort of Britisher. He is comfortable among wild tribes and in desert or jungle wilderness. He loves desolate spaces. He yearns to be free of the filaments and silken bonds of our Victorian society, with its rigid caste system and its terrible hypocrisies, yet he’s willing to risk his life for those alone. He can live, even thrive, amid a native element, which means he has a quick ear for language. He is what might be called a pathfinder for empire. He was the first boyo to go beyond the frontier and reach out and open communications. He was a quick study on the intricacies of tribal politics and could play faction off against faction, all while keeping the agenda rolling to the queen’s good. He must have been adept, it follows, at the tricks of espionage, such as coding, signaling, assassination, subterfuge, camouflage, gambits of deceit, disguise. He must have a love of adventure and tire quickly of the nonsense that is spoken at balls and soirees and in Whitehall or Parliament or Buckingham. He has friends in intelligence or political circles, so he’s a public school man, where he met those he would be serving, and where they learned him to be a good man, reliable, loyal to the throne.”

“That plus his dyslexia,” I said, so excited I could hardly contain myself, “and by God, sir, we’ve got him.”

“Oh, I left out his most salient aspect,” said Professor Dare. He paused, for he was not without theatrical guile.

“What, dammit?” I said.

“As I said, the spiritual.”

The man was a sphinx with his mystery, playing me like a fool. And like a fool, I could not resist. “What, Professor? What are you—”

“Why, man, is it not obvious? The man indeed has a faith, and he has expressed it every time he has struck. It is his bedrock, his religion, his God. He is a true believer.”

The look on my face must have amused him. He finally took pity. “The man, above all else, is humanitarian.”

Humanitarian? A humanitarian throat cutter? At that point, I thought: Farewell, Sherlock Holmes!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Diary

October 18, 1888 (cont’d)

pulled my weapon. It was my cock.

“Here, then,” she said, “let Suzie put you to me and make you feel all good and warm, that’s what Suzie does, she does.”

Her hands upon me were indeed an angel’s. I felt each of them against my stout member. As she guided me into her, her fingers were gentle yet firm, kind yet serious, ideal yet sensual. I felt some wiggle as she found opening, acquired proper angle, pushed, pulled, guided, adjusted, corrected, bringing herself to me as much as me to her, and then she had me full in, set, and into her center I plunged. I felt it as satin on silk with some hint of lubricity, the surfaces meshing against a whisper of friction for the thrill of tightness, and we formed perfectly into a dynamo of smoothness, a sense of gliding, gliding, gliding until, in so far I felt I’d die, either she ran out of channel or I ran short on instrument.