Stephen Hunter - I, Ripper

“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.

Iconfided 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.

“It’s not a thing the army wants out, you see. It could help the foe, this year’s or next year’s.”

“I do understand that, Penny,” I said, although it had just occurred to me, for concerns of empire had never been prominent in my thinking, “and I can assure you that the interest is purely domestic, in re: our Jack. The only nation of concern is the nation of Whitechapel and its civilian population of twelve hundred whoregirls.”

“They be citizens, too, even if they pay no taxes, and they deserve the same protection of any major general surrounded by Lancers. Can’t say I’ve never had a bounce in my long gaudy life, so you’ll get no moral posturing from me.”

“I’ve seen the bodies, Penny, hacked as if in the cross fire at Balaclava.”

“All right, that’s a good case you make.”

“So you’ll assist?”

He considered, quaffing and squinting, quaffing and squinting, and at last said, “All right, if only because I think you’ve done bang-up work, and I love to see a professional breaking the news. You’ve given that dumb bugger Warren a few hard, dry shits a long time over the hole. And you’ll not be giving my name to nobody, is that understood? I can’t give up my fellow, so you can’t give me up.”

“It’s a bargain,” I said.

Feeling quite healthy toward myself, I set out to return to the office. My step was light, almost a dance, a waltz, say, full of love, not for women but self-directed, toward me, Jeb, hero of the Jack saga, and I was so in love with myself that I paid no attention to what lay about. In a few days, Penny would give me his list, and with the professor, we would somehow examine the lives of each man on it, and surely if one were Jack, there’d be a manifestation available to plain eye. We’d inform someone we trusted at the Yard – Ross, I was thinking – and he’d go and arrange a meet with the mystical Inspector Abberline, and the trap would be set. A raid would spring it, for surely the knife, bloody clothes, perhaps even, God help us, Annie’s wedding rings or, as we referred to them in the Star, ANNIE’S WEDDING RINGS would be found, and then the world was ours. I was famous, I had entree everywhere, my good friend Professor Dare would go emeritus at any Oxbridge house he chose, and Saucy Jacky would go for a long walk off a short gallows, to everybody’s pleasure. It might even be that his horrors, horrific horrors though they be, would shine light enough on the appalling reality of Whitechapel that some benefit to the population, especially those hard workers of Angel Alley and Fashion Street, might come about.

Yes, I was mighty pleased and—

A hand clapped hard and sudden upon my shoulder. “’Ello, your ’onor, ’ow’s about a nice sip with your fine friend ’arry.”

I feign the swallowed H’s here to convey the comic fraudulence of the attempt at cockney. Harry thought it was funny because it was so grotesquely unfunny in his Yank accent, full of elongated vowels, misunderstood rhythms, and fractured timing; perhaps it was also an indicator of the full strangeness of the American mind. I turned, and yes, it was he, Harry Dam, in full boating regalia, waiting for the coxswain to start beating time so that his eight could beat Magdalen’s eight. He came stepping out of an alleyway across from the Pen and Parchment, where he had clearly followed me.

“Harry, where’s your megaphone?”

“Eh?”

“To count cadence for the oar strokes.”

“Oh, the boating stuff. You guys sure think that’s funny! Come on, chum, I’m serious. We need to powwow.”

“What on earth does ‘pow-wow’ mean?”

“You know, chitchat, palaver, yakkity-yak, have a sit-down, that sort of thing. A meeting!”

“Not now. It’s late and—”

“It may be later than you think,” he said. “Really, this is for your own good, pal. I could be with my girl – let’s see, Tuesday, yes, that would be Fran – I could be with Fran, but I’m here looking out for you.”

He was so absurd, standing there in his comically inappropriate wardrobe, complete with white suede shoes and straw boater, but nevertheless so beaming confidence and self-adoration that I let him steer me into a place called the Farmer’s Pig, and there we found a booth in a dark corner, and he went and got a beer for self and a frothy ginger beer for me.

“This ain’t the moment for you to start drinking, friend, believe me,” he said, and drained half his glass, then licked the foam from his upper lip. I assumed he was cheesed off because I was on this “secret project” and he was not, and I was off “making inquiries” while he was not. He was planted at the Yard, waiting for something to happen, a hard sit for a go-and-grab-it fellow like him.