Here at last was the beast.

Here at last was Jack, in flagrante.

We were too late for this poor pretty bird, yes, but by God, there’d be no more gutted women in London, as we had tracked and felled the brute.

Without consciousness, I drew back the hammers and felt each lock in its place as my hand slid down, acquired the checkered curve of the wooden grip, grabbed it stoutly, felt my trigger finger extend to lay across the twin levers with just an ounce of preshot pressure, and braced myself for the explosions but an ounce or two away.

We moved on the oblique to see more clearly and . . . no, she was not dead. In fact, on her knees, facing him, she was quite active. My rage transmuted to befuddlement as I tried to make sense of the posture. Her face was close in on his waist, perhaps a bit below it, her hands were gripping tightly against his flanks, and her head seemed to be somehow pumping in a certain rhythm that was primitive, even elemental, in its need.

“Yes,” I head him cry, “my God, yes, oh yes, oh yes, so close,” and then a guttural shudder arose from deep in his being as he seemed to endure a spasm and undulated in one powerful thrust and his cry became “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“Come on, then,” said the professor in my ear. “This is not what we thought. Quick, turn and out.”

With that, we abandoned the alley. By now the rain fell in thunderous quantity, quite soaking us. It cut visibility. We got back to street, I with dangerously cocked and loaded Howdah pistol in my hand, now a veritable ticking bomb whose explosion could kill or maim, and would embarrass if we were spared those outcomes.

“Put that bloody thing away,” the professor said.

I dipped next to the building, under some sort of commercial overhang, and using both hands, I decocked gently, tripping one trigger with hammer secured, then easing that liberated arm down and repeating the ordeal for the other barrel. The weapon was appropriately rendered safe for holstering, which I did, and pulled my mac tight around it. The drama over, I could now feel the treachery of the rain. I shuddered even as, ahead of us, Major Pullham, just as jaunty and perhaps even jauntier than before, bounded out of the alley. His face was split by a large, happy grin, he seemed impervious to discomfort, and he passed us by without noticing our strangeness as he called, “Cab! Oh, say, cab!”

A hansom pulled up, and the driver leaned to pop the door. In leaped the major and was away in a trice, disappearing down Commercial in a glaze of rain. Meanwhile, his poor employee—or, I suppose I should say, his ex-employee—emerged and turned the other way, heading back to the Bells for a rest after her exertions and possibly to spend her thruppence on a nice gin.

“Look,” said the professor, “it’s late, it’s raining, we’re soaked, we almost killed a man innocently whoring along with his tart, and I suspect with the weather, Jack has awarded himself surcease. Let’s return to quarter, begin again tomorrow night, and this time focus on Colonel Woodruff.”

“Since he never goes out, that should be a boring sit,” I said.

“He will surprise you, I feel it. Cab?”

“Yes.”

He hailed a hansom and in we climbed. Since mine was the farthest out, the cabman took me home first, and I climbed out, a miserable wet rat, longing for tea, biscuits, and bed.

“Then tomorrow, eleven P.M., outside the colonel’s rooms, well dressed for night action in November.”

“Indeed.”

“And wipe down the Howdah before you retire. Drops of water can rust the finish.”

“I will,” I said.

With that, he tapped the roof of the cab, the driver’s whip snapped, and the vehicle lurched off. I turned up the walk to the dark house, entered, trudged up the stairs, and stripped my clothes off. The mac would be all right if I had need of it tomorrow; the wool suit might be damp. To hasten its return to norm, I hung it off a chair near the fireplace and lit a small log via some kindling, knowing that it would glow all night. I toweled off the Howdah and did not return it to holster, discerning that leather might attract moisture, but instead let it sit on the desk while the leather cured next to the suit on the chair. I trudged barefoot and naked to the bed, threw myself in it—it was close to five, according to my pocket watch—and pulled up the covers. I was asleep in seconds, though not without a return to the moment when I almost pulled the twin triggers and sent poor Major Pullham and his Judy to the next world, not that there was a next world.

If there were dreams or nightmares, I have no memory of them. Instead, it seemed that not ten seconds later, Mother was shaking me hard, pulling me from sleep. I uttered unintelligible sounds as I emerged from unconsciousness and found her over me, the usual look of contempt and dismissal on her severe and formerly beautiful face.

“Get up, get up,” she said. “There’s a cabman here. Dress and be gone. I cannot have strange cabmen standing around in my foyer.”

It took a few seconds as cobwebs full of butterfly wings, fly legs, dustballs, and the odd dead leprechaun cleared themselves from my mind. Finally I achieved a version of clarity. “What’s he want?” I said.

“He says he’s from O’Connor, and he’s here to take you somewhere you’re needed. I must say, this whole newspaper business you’ve got yourself in is very annoying to me. Now I find you have a Goliathan pistol over there, capable of blowing down a wall.”

“I’d be happy to loan it to dear sister Lucy, Mother. Perhaps she can play with it in the garden. Do tell her to look down the barrels and pull the triggers to see if it’s loaded.”

“You are too loathsome for words,” she said. “Now hurry. I am giving the cabman your tea this morning because he is working and you are lazing about like a dog. Hurry, hurry.”

She left in high snoot, as if that were different from any other form of being for her, and I pulled on my clothes, locked the Howdah in the desk drawer on the general principle that anything so dangerous should be locked away, and headed downstairs.

“Now, then, what’s all this about?” I demanded of the cabman.

“Sir,” he said, “Mr. O’Connor has requested that you be conveyed swift as possible to 13 Miller Court, Whitechapel.”

“God in heaven, man, why?”

“Sir, there’s been another one, that’s what Mr. O’Connor told me to tell you. This one beyond imagination, so the early reports suggest. You’re to get to it and get details fast for the next edition.”

November 8, 1888

Dear Mum,

I ain’t sent you the other letters but now my plan is to wrap them up with this one and send ’em all along, so you and Da can have a good laugh.

It’s a happy time down here. It’s been such a while since Jack has been about, we girls are sure he’s gone. They say he favors a quarter-moon, coming or going, but he’s missed a couple now.

Maybe he’s gone to try his luck in America! Maybe Sir Charles’s Peelers have done scared him off, as they’re everywhere these days. Maybe he fell in a hole and got eaten by rats, the cheesy bugger.

Joe says we are quit of him, and that he’s a lucky lad, because if Joe had gotten ahold of him, he’d of hammered and chopped him so bad, wouldn’t be enough to put on sale at the fish market.

Anyhow, thought you’d want to know.

I did get a little rowdy tonight after my gins, but didn’t have no customers, as it’s raining. I sang too loud and Liz upstairs pounded on the floor to get me quiet. Sorry, Liz! Hope I didn’t wake Diddles the cat! Sorry, Diddles!

Anyhow, I’m feeling right safe and good now. It’s pouring out and not even the Ripper would go out in that cold soaking. I’m locked in my little room, I’ve had my gin, the fire’s burned low and tomorrow’s a new day and I am full of hope.