Everything was swell, that is, until it wasn’t.

I had thought finding a dolly would be the least of my problems, but right off, it became the most of them. It was late, it was dark, it was empty. I think in daytime, when I had scouted, the area was more frequented, but now there was nothing to be found. My first plan perished before it was even tested.

I knew bad things were more likely to happen when I had to improvise, as my lucky escape at Mitre Square proved, and every sensible part of my being argued for a retreat and another foray tomorrow, when the conditions would be more or less as good. But I’m like a rat aroused by the smell of blood sometimes, and against my own better judgment, I kept coursing ahead, thinking one more block closer to the docks, that’ll be the ticket, that’ll get me what I want.

At last I reached St. George, with hardly any of London left between me and the basin, wherein was moored a fleet of pirate vessels otherwise known as British shipping. I swore I could hear the stretched rope squealing and the stressed wood squeaking. Possibly it was pure imagination. I wandered up St. George, a wide street of extreme maritime atmosphere, and found it crowded in its way with the colorful specimens of the oceangoing brethren, hats and all, and I was aware that my more civilized garb made me stand out a bit, always a mistake in the mad-killer trade.

She was neither older nor younger than the other birds. She was neither prettier nor uglier. She was simply there, a figure out of a socialist painting that might be called The Eternal Streetwalker, puffing on a cigarette, resting against a gaslight, one hip provocatively cocked. I could see a bit more of neck and shoulder, as that seemed to be allowed down here. I also thought it was illegal for the girls to stand still, but this brazen Bessie betrayed no fear of the blue bottles. She was eyeing the trade and the trade was eyeing her, particularly her bosom, which men, perhaps out of collective maternal nostalgia, seemed to yearn to bury themselves within. Hers was vast and deep. Fortunately I am not so mentally constructed, so the bosom, present or vanished, is of little interest to me. She looked tough, and as I drew near, her eyes fixed on me and mine on hers, and in a few steps I was at her but not with her. That is, I stood close but conspicuously oriented away from her as crowds of drunks wobbled by, rocking as uncertainly as the big ships at berth a few dozen feet down the black alleys.

“Now, dearie, would you be looking for a spell of fun?” she eventually said.

“I might be, madame,” I said. “The mood is presently upon me.”

“Come on over so Evelyn can get a look, then.”

“That I will,” I said, and broke my pose, and made an elaborate charade of orbiting her station so she could inspect my goods.

“You don’t look like Saucy Jacky,” she said. “These days a gal has to be careful.”

“I thought Jack worked up the street a bit,” I said.

“Maybe he’s come slumming, like you. We don’t get many gentleman. This is mostly sailortown.”

“I would never characterize my efforts as ‘slumming,’ my dear. To me, all women are equally beautiful and equally desirable but, alas, not equally available.”

“I’m thinking this is a night for availability, then, not beauty nor desire,” she said. She was a game one!

“Well said, my dear. A mile that way, the tariff is thruppence. What would it be closer to Mother Thames?”

“Can’t give you no discount for your long walk,” she said. “Ain’t my bother the coppers is all over that street up there. We’ve got our pride in Wapping, too.”

“So a thruppence, then, and both are happy.”

“I daresay.”

“Proceed. I’ll follow upon.”

She launched herself from the lamppost, tossed the cigarette, and I saw why she had elected to go permanently at mooring: She had a limp, some mangled business at the hip that probably was something tragic out of a Russian novel that I didn’t care to hear of. She made her progress at less than spiffy pace, up one block, up another, and at long last, she turned between two brick buildings a short distance away, whereupon we came to another street, small and darkish, and continued. Just a few more feet and I could see the gently rocking hulls of two great vessels at mooring on the quay.

It fell to darkness, and except for the heaving and cracking of the ships at rest, I could hear nothing and see nothing. We were in a passageway between the walls of two great warehouses, on cobblestones far from the interest of the street traffic. It was perfect.

She turned, exactly as Polly had turned, exactly as Annie had, exactly as Liz had, exactly as Kate had, and in turning offered me her long bare throat, and as my right hand slid inside my coat and I felt the grip of my Sheffield, I could see the tendons, the muscles, the softness of the skin, and knew exactly where I would drive the edge for maximum carnage.

“Now, guv’nor,” she said, “I’ll take me coin, if you please.”

And at that point, someone hit me hard on the back of the head, and all the stars in heaven exploded behind my eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Jeb’s Memoir

I confided to O’Connor what I was up to, omitting key details that I knew would bore a man with the attention span of a gazelle. He was substantially impressed, so he gave Henry Bright the word that I was to be left alone as I continued my individual inquiries; Harry Dam could cover the Yard and keep the fires stoked. O’Connor also set up a meeting with a man of our staff who covered military matters and was on good terms with a more august personage named Robert “Penny” Penningham, who had covered the War Office for decades for the Times and had been to more wars than most major generals and, it was said, had ridden unofficially with Cardigan at Balaclava. He knew everything there was to know about issues of war and more war, as waged by Her Majesty’s forces from the wedding-cake building at Whitehall called Cumberland House.

I loved Penny straight off. He was a bounder, a cad, a merry fellow full of grand gesture and good heart, and he drank fishlike in a rear room of a Fleet Street pub called the Pen and Parchment, where, it was said, Mr. Boswell had sat inscribing the words of Dr. Johnson. It was quite possible, judging from the ancient air of the place, and I was willing to play Penny’s Boswell.

He drank stout out of a monster pewter tankard with “47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot” inscribed in gold across it. No doubt there was a tale behind it. In fact, I guessed Penny to be a walking Canterbury’s full of tales of life on campaign or in barracks.

“Now, yes, I do know a fellow at the War Office. I made him to be a hero in Africa during the Zulu business, when he was actually a bumbler. I knew his da and couldn’t let that old color sergeant down. As per my account, the man was decorated and advanced, and now he occupies one of those key spots in Cumberland House where everything passes across his desk. He pulls strings far in advance of his rank and can ferret out anything. He would fetch this bit in a day or so, for me and me alone, if I asked him. But tell me again, laddy, why it is you’re needing it?”

I thought I had explained but evidently I had not, at least not clearly enough, or at least not clearly enough for him, or at least not when he was paying attention. This time he paid that attention, and I reiterated what Dare and I had worked out and what I had sold O’Connor on, which stopped one stop short of our ultimate destination. I told him that a “source” at university had looked at information I had assembled and, without realizing it was the Ripper I was describing, had concluded that the killings all bore the mark of a highly experienced military man of particular heritage, the raider type known to intelligence and reconnaissance. I hoped to locate a few experienced fellows in that subspecialty of the soldier’s trade, put it before them, and see if it rang bells; they might steer me in the proper direction. If Penny didn’t realize it was those men themselves who were suspect, all shame to him, but he played along just the same.