Riptide

Sirk gave her a quizzical look. “Now, how is it that you would happen to have that obscure item of information at your disposal?”

She hadn’t meant to quote the diary. “It’s just something that came up.”

“Did it?” He watched her for a long moment. “You’re aptly named, Miss Silence. You do like to keep mum. Well, you’re right. The actor Richard Mansfield brought a dramatization of Robert Louis Stevenson’s story to the Lyceum Theatre. Many people ventured the opinion that the play had warped the killer’s mind. The stage manager of the Lyceum, by the way, was an Irishman named Bram Stoker, who later wrote Dracula. Was Stoker inspired by Jack the Ripper’s deeds? Perhaps he was Jack the Ripper himself.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“It’s no more far-fetched then some of the other candidates. Lewis Carroll, Arthur Conan Doyle, the royal physician Sir William Gull, the Duke of Clarence, the seer Madame Blavatsky, a mad midwife, a Russian eunuch, and an escaped orangutan reenacting Poe’s ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ have been among the suspects proposed.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“In my opinion, Jack the Ripper was a mere nobody, some disappointingly run-of-the-mill psychopath who would be altogether forgotten had it not been for his nickname-a nickname that quite possibly was the invention of a letter-writing hoaxer. Really, as multiple murderers go, he is quite routine.”

His hand was now up against her leg. She glanced down at it, then caught him watching her. His expression was hard to read, some mixture of amusement and need.

“Well,” she said briskly, rising from the sofa, “you’ve certainly brought him to life for me. Thanks for your time. I’d better be going now.”

Disappointment crossed Sirk’s face. “So soon?”

It couldn’t be soon enough. “Afraid so.”

He rose. “Please call if you need further assistance. Or if you choose to unburden yourself of your secrets.”

“I will.”

He smiled suddenly. “You won’t solve it, you know.”

“What?”

“The Ripper case. It’s a set of Russian dolls. Those peculiar dolls that nest, one inside the other. The whole matter seems so simple when you first look at it, but as you take it apart, you find another doll, and another. Yet there is an irresistible compulsion to keep working on it. To pull one more thread, if I may mix my metaphors, in the hope that the entire mystery will magically unravel.”

“Maybe someday it will.”

“I very much doubt it.” His gaze was far away. “Some years ago there was a series of novelty books called Whatever Became Of. They would tell you what had happened to the actor who played Sam in Casablanca or the gypsy woman in The Wolf Man. Which was all very interesting, but it was never the question I wished to have answered.”

He looked at her and smiled again, almost fondly.

“Whatever became of Jack the Ripper? Now there’s a mystery worth solving. Whatever became of dear old Jack?”

1896

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 communiques 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