Anno Dracula

A small group of urchins played marbles in a corner, while Diarmid Reed held court by an open fire. He sucked on a pipe as he lectured a circle of Grub Street toilers.

‘A story is like a woman, lads,’ he said, ‘you can chase her and catch her, but you can’t make her stay longer than she wants to. Sometimes, you come down to a kipper breakfast and she’s upped stakes.’

Beauregard coughed to attract Reed’s attention lest he embarrass himself before his niece. Reed looked up, and grinned.

‘Katie,’ he said, without a speck of regret for his indecent metaphor. ‘Come in and have some tea. And Beauregard, isn’t it? Where did you find my benighted niece? Not in some house hereabouts, I hope. Her poor mother always said she’d be the ruin of the family.’

‘Uncle, this is important.’

He looked benignly sceptical. ‘Just as your women’s suffrage story was important?’

‘Uncle, whether or not you agree with my views on that question, you must concede that a mass expression of them, involving many of the greatest and wisest in the land, is news. Especially when the Prime Minister responds by sending in the Carpathians.’

‘Tell ’em girl,’ said the man in the straw hat.

Kate gave Beauregard her umbrella and unbuckled her document case. She laid a paper on the table, between teacups and ashtrays.

‘This came in yesterday. Remember, you had me opening letters as a punishment.’

Reed was examining the paper closely. It was covered in a spidery red hand.

‘You have brought this straight to me?’

‘I’ve been looking for you all night.’

‘There’s a good little vampire,’ said a stripe-shirted new-born newsman with waxed moustache points.

‘Shut up, D’Onston,’ Reed said. ‘My niece drinks printers’ ink, not blood. She’s got news in her veins just where you’ve got warm water.’

‘What is it?’ LeQueux asked, breaking his telephone connection to catch up with the development.

Reed ignored the question. He found a penny in his waistcoat pocket and summoned one of the urchins.

‘Ned, go to the police station and find someone above the rank of sergeant. You know what that means.’

The sharp-eyed child made a face that suggested he knew all about the varieties and habits of policemen.

‘Tell them the Central News Agency has received a letter, purporting to be from Silver Knife. Just those words, exactly.’

‘Pr’porten?’

‘Purporting.’

The barefoot Mercury snatched the tossed penny out of the air and dashed off.

‘I tell you,’ he began, ‘kids like Ned will inherit the earth. The twentieth century will be beyond our imagining.’

No one wanted to listen to social theories. Everyone wanted a look at the letter.

‘Careful,’ Beauregard said. ‘That is evidence, I believe.’

‘Well said. Now, back off boys, and give me some room.’

Reed held the letter carefully, rereading it.

‘One thing,’ he said when he had finished. ‘This is an end for Silver Knife.’

‘What?’ said LeQueux.

‘“Don’t mind me giving the trade name,” it says in the postscript.’

‘Trade name?’ D’Onstan asked.

‘“Jack the Ripper”. He signs himself “Yours truly, Jack the Ripper”.’

D’Onstan whispered the name, rolling it around his mouth. Others joined in the chorus. The Ripper. Jack the Ripper. Jack. The Ripper. Beauregard felt a chill.

Kate was pleased, and looked modestly at her boot-toes.

‘Beauregard, would you care?’

Reed gave him the letter, exciting grumbles of envy from the rival newspapermen.

‘Read it out,’ the American suggested. Feeling a touch self-conscious, Beauregard tried to recite.

‘“Dear Boss,”’ the letter began. ‘The hand is hurried and spiky, but suggests an education, a man used to writing.’

‘Cut the editorial,’ LeQueux said, ‘give it us straight.’

‘“I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont” – no apostrophe – “they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track...”’

‘Bright boy,’ D’Onstan said. ‘He’s got Lestrade and Abberline bang to rights there.’

Everyone shushed the interruptor.

‘“That joke about Silver Knife gave me real fits. I am down on leeches and 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.”’

‘Degenerate filth,’ spluttered D’Onstan. Beauregard had to agree.

‘“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 wouldnt you...”’

‘Jolly wouldn’t you? What is that, a joke?’

‘Our man’s a comedian,’ said LeQueux. ‘Grimaldi reborn.’

‘“Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight.”’

‘Sounds like my editor,’ said the American.

‘“My knife’s so nice and silver and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck.” And, as Reed said, “Yours truly, jack the Ripper. Dont mind me giving the trade name.” There’s another postscript. “Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands, curse it. No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now, ha ha.”’

‘Ha ha,’ said an angry elderly man from the Star. ‘Ha bloody ha. I’d give him a ha- ha if he were here.’

‘How do we know he isn’t?’ said D’Onstan, rolling his eyes, wiping his moustache like a melodrama villain.

Ned was back, with Lestrade and a couple of constables, puffing as if they had been told the murderer himself, not merely a communication from him, were in the Cafe de Paris.

Beauregard handed the letter to the Inspector. As he read, his lips forming the words, the journalists discussed it.

‘It’s a ruddy hoax,’ someone said. ‘Some joker making trouble for us all.’

‘I think it’s genuine,’ opined Kate. ‘There’s a creepiness about it that sounds authentic to me. All that fake funny. The perverse relish drips off the page. When I first opened it, even before reading, I had a profound sense of evil, of loneliness, of purpose.’

‘Whatever it is,’ the American said, ‘it’s news. They can’t stop us printing this.’

Lestrade put up his hand as if he might have some objection, but let it fall before he said anything.

‘Jack the Ripper, eh,’ said Reed. ‘We couldn’t have done better ourselves. The old Silver Knife monicker was wearing thin. Now, we’ve a proper name for the blighter.’

21

IN MEMORIAM

Dr Seward’s Diary (kept in phonograph)