Maybrick trailed at a leisurely distance, smiling to himself, now, and caressed the handle of his concealed knife with loving fingertips. Polly Nichols, stumbling ahead of them, first visited an establishment that sold clothing of dubious origins. There she acquired a reddish brown ulster to keep off the rain, which fastened up with seven large brass buttons, and a fetching little black straw bonnet with black velvet trim and lining. She giggled as she put it on, then paraded down the wet streets to pub after pub, steadily drinking the remaining change from the silver florin.

Twice, both he and Lachley paused in dense, wet shadows while she disappeared into a secluded spot with a customer to earn three or four pence "for my doss money" she explained each time. And twice, after she had earned a few more pence, they followed along behind again as she found yet another pub in which to spend the money on gin. Well past midnight, she staggered out of the locally famous Frying Pan Public House, just one more in a long series of pubs, and found herself another customer with whom to earn another fourpence. She spent this money just as quickly as she had the rest, pouring it down her alcoholic gullet.

And so the night waned into the small hours. At nearly one-thirty in the morning, she returned to a lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street and remained inside its kitchen for several minutes, until the lodging house deputy escorted her to the door and said, "Get your doss money, ducks, an' don't come back ‘til you ‘ave it."

"Won't you save a bed for me?" she asked the man. "Never mind! I'll soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet I've got now?" And she touched the black, velvet-lined straw hat with caressing fingers. "I've ‘ad money tonight and I'll get more just as easy, I will, an' I'll be back wiv my doss money soon enough."

And so out onto the streets she wandered again, clearly searching for another customer to procure more gin to while away the time before their three-thirty appointment—presumably having retrieved the letters Lachley sought from the room she was not yet able to pay for and would not be needing, ever again. Maybrick followed her silently, as did the all-but-invisible John Lachley, a mere shadow of a shape in the darkness ahead, the paler blur of Lachley's skin lit now and again by the lightning flaring across the sky. The rumble of thunder threatened more rain. It would need rain, to wash away the blood James would spill into these streets...

Polly Nichols stumbled and staggered her way through the better part of an hour, approaching and being turned down by one prospect after another, leading James and his mentor eventually toward the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street. There, she put out a hand to brace herself and greeted a woman coming up Osborn. "Well, if it in't Emily ‘olland," she slurred, "where you been?"

Emily Holland was a woman considerably older than Polly Nichols, closer to Maybrick's own age, he suspected, although she looked considerably older than Maybrick's fifty years. Emily greeted the drunken prostitute with considerable surprise. "Polly? I didn't expect to find you at this hour! Whatever are you doing wandering around so late? Me, I've been down to Shadwell Dry Dock. To see the fire." Emily gestured toward the distant docks, where the sky glowed a sullen red from the dockside disaster. It was the second fire that night which had reddened the clouds scudding so low above Whitechapel's broken and dilapidated rooftops. "What are you doing out at this hour, Polly? I thought you were coming back down to Flower and Dean Street, with Annie and Elizabeth and me. You were at the White House with us last night."

" ‘At's right," Polly nodded, slurring the words. "But I've got to get me doss money, yet. Bastard wouldn't let me stay ‘til I've got it."

"Polly, it's two-thirty in the morning!" Almost as an echo, a nearby church clock struck the time. "Hear that? Why don't you have your doss money by now?"

"Oh, I ‘ad it. Three times today, I've ‘ad it." She touched her pretty new bonnet in an absent little gesture. But she didn't explain about the florin and the letters, which was just as well, since that would have required Maybrick to murder this new trollop, Holland, also. Lachley had made it clear that none of these filthy whores must be allowed to know about such important letters. Truly, Maybrick was doing all England a great service, ridding the streets of the kind of filth Polly Nichols represented.

Polly was saying in a deeply slurred voice, "Three times, Emily, I've ‘ad me doss money, but I've drunk it all. Every las' penny of it. Three times. Never you fret, though. I'll ‘ave my doss money before long, I will, and I'll be back wiv you and the girls." She patted her pocket and let out a drunken giggle. "Won't be long at all, now."

Whereupon Polly took her leave of Emily Holland and staggered away on a new course, down Osborn Street in the direction of the Shadwell dock fire, where she might presumably find paying customers in abundance. The other woman called a low-voiced "Good night!" after her and watched Polly for a moment longer, shaking her head sadly, then shrugged and pulled her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and continued on her way, down Osborn Street in the opposite direction. James Maybrick waited impatiently until Emily Holland had disappeared into the wet night before moving down Whitechapel Road in pursuit, once more. John Lachley also broke from hiding.

Polly's voice, badly slurred, drifted back to Maybrick. "Be nice, ‘aving an ‘ot fire to warm me cold fingers by." She laughed drunkenly and reached the edge of the crowd which had gathered at Shadwell to watch the docks burn. Utter chaos reigned. Firemen swept continuous streams of water back and forth across the blazing dry dock and several doomed warehouses. Fire boats in the river added their drenching spray, trying to contain the inferno before it spread to any other warehouses with valuable contents.

More than two centuries might have passed since the Great Fire, but London had never forgotten the devastation which had destroyed all but one tiny corner of Britain's capital city. The only good to come of that fire, which had forced thousands to flee, only to watch their homes and livelihoods burn to ashes, had been the complete eradication of the Black Death. Afterwards, plague had never broken out in London again.

Not a plague of that sort, in any case. A plague of whores and prostitutes and bitches, however, had swelled to number in the thousands. Tonight, Maybrick would begin his campaign to eradicate this latest deadly plague to strike the greatest city in the greatest Empire on the earth. He smiled, marshaled his patience, and kept watch on Polly Nichols as she trolled for customers.

Despite the late hour, thousands of spectators jammed the narrow streets to watch this latest London fire. The electric thrill of danger was a tangible presence in the wet night. Maybrick hung well back, as did Lachley, losing sight of the drunken Polly Nichols in the crowd. The atmosphere in Shadwell was a carnival madness. Alcohol flowed in prodigious quantities. Maybrick, seething like the jagged lightning overhead, downed pint after pint of dark ale, himself, feeding his rage, nursing the hunger in his soul. John Lachley, too, had vanished through the crowd, leaving Maybrick to wait. He wanted to shout obscenities, he was so weary of walking and endlessly waiting. He gripped the handle of his knife so tightly he was sure there would be bruises across his palm by morning.

Nearly an hour later, with the fire still blazing furiously, Maybrick finally caught another glimpse of Polly Nichols' black, velvet-trimmed bonnet. She was just emerging through the door of a jam-packed public house which had thrown open its doors in all defiance of the closing-hour laws. She staggered mightily under the influence of God-only-knew how much more alcohol. She passed Maybrick without even seeing him, stumbled straight past a doorway from which John Lachley subsequently emerged, and headed down Osborn Street toward Whitechapel Road.