I, Ripper

That tore it. I am not a violent man, I despise and fear confrontations, and too many times I’ve not stood up to bullies for my own interests, but at that moment something either heroic or insane arose in me, and perhaps they are the same thing.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll have no more of this. I don’t know how they do it in that rustic backwoods you come from, but over here we do not spread ugly rumors and attempt to ruin the reputations of men without foundation. We even have laws against it. Dare could sue you for slander, and if you were found guilty, you could end up in jail. It’s happened before, it will happen again, and it’s our good insurance against nasty buggers spreading nasty rumors.”

He looked at me, shocked-like. “Whoa, there, friend Jeb, I’m not here for my health and to put a bullet in the professor’s back. I’m just telling you, this guy is a little nuts. He goes off, loses control, all that crazy—”

“Mr. Dam, I must inform you I am no longer interested in this conversation, whose veracity I entirely doubt. I believe you’re trying to sabotage my superior efforts on solving this issue. It’s a low-breed stunt that only a Yank could come up with.”

“That’s right, we shot you guys from behind trees, and it wasn’t fair, was it?”

“Mr. Dam. I will leave now. Please do not approach me with any more discussion on this topic. I find it distasteful. Even allowing for your frontiersman’s ignorance, I find you distasteful. It’s not acceptable, and I will not be a party.”

With that I rose, feeling I’d broken all relations with Harry permanently. At least I had by English rules. Who knew what an American would do?

I stomped out self-righteously, only to hear him cry, “Friend, if I was you, I’d get a gun.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE The Diary

October 26, 1888 (cont’d)

went to my knees, down hard but not quite unconscious. The sensations of the blow were unpleasant. It had sounded like a locomotive crashing hard against my ear, all clang and gong, echoing around my brain at a hundred miles an hour. My will vanished in the pain, as did my ability to think clearly. The world went to blur and whiz as I blinked, blinked again, felt the urge to vomit, put my hand to the site of the blow to feel, thankfully, not a laceration spurting blood but the swelling of a knot. I looked up to see him towering over me, blunt fellow in black wool, black cap, black of eyes, and beefy-wide of face. I saw his boot come out, and he didn’t kick me but put it square on my back and crushed me to the earth.

“Go on, Rosie, get out of here,” I heard him say.

“Don’t kill him,” she said, then clarified so that her intent wouldn’t be taken for mercy, “that’ll get the coppers on us like buzzards.”

She skittered away, and he bent low and whispered into my ear, “Now, guv’nor, I can cosh you till your brains is scrambled good, or I can let you alone if you promise to be a proper fellow and do as you’re told.”

This was the bully game. It happened, not a lot, but it happened. A tart made an assignation and drew her John to darkness, and as he was about to hand over the coin, her bully jumped out and gave him a knot on the head. The robbery was clean and usually involved no more violence. The clouted knave would never go to the coppers, as to do so would involve confessing he’d been on the scout among the Judys, so he would just write off the six or eight quid or whatever it cost him, swear off the Judys, and limp home with a headache. This threat was always there, nothing to be done about it, but now I’d walked smack into it, obviously on account of my bad judgment in improvising off-plan and ending up in circumstances I couldn’t control. Fool! Idiot!

“Now, sir, you just stay where you is, flat as an empty sack, and reach back there for that wallet, and I’ll take all them bills. No fancy tricks or I cosh you again. I am a bloody artist with cosh, I am, and I know a fine gentleman such as yourself don’t want no more trouble. I’ll even leave you a thruppence for a stout after I’m long gone, that’s the kind of mate I am, guv’nor.”

“Don’t hurt me,” I said feebly.

“No need for hurting,” he said. “Who you think I am, Jack the Ripper? He’d cut you for the larfs it brung his lips. Me, I just want me pay and I’m off, and you and I are well quit.”

“So be it,” I said, rolling slightly, pulling myself up.

“Sure, make yourself comfortable, but no fast moves or I’ll do what I must. I’m a businessman like you, and I don’t want no trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Garn,” he said, a cockneyism that I believe means “Imagine that!” but loaded to brim with cynic’s irony, “a guv’nor like ’im calling a blackguard like me ‘sir.’ Who’d a seen that one coming?”