Chicago was a fine place. Near the stockyards the reek of slaughtered hogs rose like a miasma in the congested air. It was a city of butchers, where Hare felt very much at home.

This evening he dined alone, as was his custom, in his room at the Lexington Hotel. He had taken up semipermanent residence at the Lexington shortly after it opened in ’92. He rented his room by the month, and found it most satisfactory. From his window he could gaze down on the ceaseless flow of traffic on the wide thoroughfare. Everyone was on the move, pursuing wealth with the fanatical ardor that medieval saints had brought to the pursuit of grace. It was all so very American.

He had become something of an American himself. The constant throbbing beat of the city had quickened something in him, made him a new man, a practical man on the rise in the great world of business. His drab and studious ways seemed far behind him now, as distant as the swing of the bat on the cricket field. He had nearly forgotten his former life.

But he did not mean to be forgotten by those he had left behind.

Hare dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, savored another bite of the excellent roast pheasant, and wondered what the police in London thought of his latest letter.

He had sent only a handful of previous communications under his nom de plume. In his first missive, mailed in the heady days of 1888, he merely wished to introduce himself to his public. He posted the letter to the Central News Agency, because he was afraid the police would hush it up if it went to them directly. It was a bit of a lark. He played loose with grammar and punctuation, preferring to pass as a less educated man. It would hardly do to have the authorities hunting a schoolmaster.

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet... I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn’t you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work then give it out straight. My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.

Yours truly

Jack the Ripper

Don’t mind me giving the trade name

Jack the Ripper—a fine sobriquet, he had always thought. Jack was a name long associated with the criminal class, most famously with the legendary Springheeled Jack, the terror of Britain in the 1830s. And the Ripper—because he ripped up his victims, of course, but ripper was also street argot for a well-dressed gentlemen, a man about town. The name blended violence and mystery, and was spiced with humor. He really was most fond of it.

When his letter did not appear in print directly, he followed up with a postcard that further established his bona fides.

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip. You’ll hear about saucy Jacky’s work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number one squealed a bit. Couldn’t finish straight off. Had not time to get ears for police. Thanks for keeping back last letter till I got to work again—Jack the Ripper

He’d been pleased with that one. The nickname “saucy Jacky” had come to him from Shakespeare’s sonnets—sonnet 128, if he was not mistaken: Since saucy jacks so happy are in this... A marvelous touch, but unappreciated. To his knowledge no one had picked up the reference.

That message, at least, did the trick. The two communiqués became famous throughout England—even throughout the world.

Except for his regrettable decision, taken while inebriated, to post the better part of Eddowes’s kidney to Mr. Lusk, he had not felt the impulse to write again until a year later, when the whore Alice McKenzie fell to his knife. By that time the police were saying old Jack was no longer at his game, and Alice was the work of some other “fiend.” This was most unfair. A man wanted credit for his work.

DEAR BOSS,

I am very sorry I have given you all the trouble I have, but my thirst for blood must be satisfied, when I have slaughtered 6 more I shall give myself up to your dogs, before this month is gone you will hear of me again, this time it shall be Kings Cross where a few of the whores want thinning. Boss your dogs are too hot for me at Whitechapel or I should have done the rest there...

He had intended never to write again. The business had become altogether too risky. Innovations were in the wind. People spoke of detecting a man’s finger marks on items he’d touched and matching them to the man himself; it was claimed no two men’s digits bore the same pattern of loops and whorls. And to think he had intentionally stamped his bloody thumb print on the postcard sent in 1888... The card must still be on file in the police office, and if he were ever apprehended, some enterprising detective might think of making a comparison.

In spite of his misgivings, he did send another message. Honor required it. In September of ’89 a woman’s torso turned up on Pinchin Street, and some fool suggested that Jack the Ripper did the deed. Of course it was not his work at all. Most likely the bitch fell prey to the criminal gangs that sought to control the prostitution trade. Determined to escape blame for such an inartistic piece of work, he scribbled a quick note in pencil on a postcard and dropped it in the nearest pillar-box, addressed to the Evening News and Post.

Dear Boss

The Ripper scare this morning is an infernal scandal on me you know. I never do my ripping in that fashion but give them a chance to catch me ha ha I’d show you again soon won’t be long...

His last victim in London was nearly his undoing. By sheer bad luck a constable came plodding by while the blood was fresh. Then there was the business with Vole and the police, and he made his desperate flight to New York City.

He had expected never to see London again. But his prospering business enterprises had widened his circle of friends and opened up many new opportunities. It was in the pursuit of one such venture that he had made a brief return to England within the past two months.

Naturally he used his “American” name, as he thought of it. And just as naturally, he meant to combine business with pleasure. He meant to see Kitty again.

And he brought his knife.

Tracking her down was more difficult than he anticipated. She was long gone from her lodgings, and now married. But he sniffed out her hiding place, a cottage in a respectable neighborhood, with a fenced-in garden blooming with roses.

Through the decorative loopholes in the garden gate he spied on her. She wore a bonnet and a pale blue dress, and she was singing songs to a child, a girl of two or three who giggled riotously on any pretext.

None of this was what he had expected. He felt the passion die in him. She was not the girl he remembered. She meant nothing to him now, either for good or ill.

He did not enter the garden, nor did he return at night.

But before leaving for the States, he did post two quick notes. The first was addressed to Kitty's husband.