“It seems very unlikely.”

“Or perhaps the regular Yarders spread the word that their peculiar amateur reinforcements frequent pubs of ill repute?”

“Even less probable.”

“I don’t imagine you’ve forgone your usual custom of appallingly florid biography and gone straight to the gutter press?”

“You may put the thought from your mind.”

“There is something about this article I do not understand,” Holmes confessed. “It is peculiarly malignant.”

“I don’t see anything so peculiar about that. Journalists rarely worry about malignancy,” Mr. Vandervent corrected him. “They are far too concerned with selling papers, you see.”

“I cannot help but think that the business of journalists is to report the news, and not to sell newspapers,” Holmes returned dourly. “Be that as it may, I cannot imagine any newsman would take it upon himself to write such rubbish without cause.”

“You have more faith in my industry than do I, perhaps because you have suffered from less prolonged exposure. Nevertheless, you are right in thinking he has a clever source. Apart from your friends and the Yard, who are diligently shutting as many open mouths as they can, it is difficult to know who could have dogged your movements that night. Speaking of your allies, I don’t suppose any of them are false?”

“I don’t suppose they are,” my friend stated flatly.

“Quite right. In that case, I believe we have exhausted the subject of your delightfully rendered portrait in the local press. Consider, then, a postcard we received the morning after. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading, but I am clearly no judge as to what will amuse you.”

Holmes’s face changed swiftly when he viewed the card, betraying his eager interest. After scrutinizing it, front and back, he tossed it to me.

I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, youll hear about saucy Jacky s work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldnt finish straight off. had not time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper

“Curiouser and curiouser,” mused Holmes. “The hand at first appears to differ, but on closer examination, it is merely very hastily and agitatedly written. What do you intend to do with this beauty?”

“The papers will be falling over each other to publish it. That previous letter has already been printed in facsimile by the Daily News. Every man, woman, and child is referring to the mad devil as Jack the Ripper.”

“So I observed. What do you hope to accomplish?”

“We shall sell newspapers, no doubt. In addition, I have not despaired that the handwriting may be recognized.”

“You have been of immense help.”

“Well, it was my duty to warn you and warn you I did. I was also determined to absolve myself of blame, and I congratulate myself on both counts. I shall see myself out, thank you. It would be a waste of ten minutes to accompany me, Dr. Watson. Good day to you both.”

Holmes lit a cigarette at the candle by his bedside. He then glanced at me with a shrewd smile. “You see the significance of these taunting missives?”

“Do they furnish any tangible clue?”

“No, but they indicate a trend. In the first case, they are localized; both are postmarked from the East-end, which is further confirmation that our man knows Whitechapel intimately, perhaps lives there. But more interestingly, these letters will accomplish a very specific purpose upon their publication.”

“What purpose, Holmes?”

“Terror, my dear fellow. Abject terror. I will be very much mistaken if the colour of this investigation, black as it was before, will not have darkened by this evening.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Miss Monk Investigates

I knew better than to think Holmes had been exaggerating for the purpose of effect, and soon word arrived from George Lusk that riots had flamed up in various East-end neighbourhoods, none of them fatal yet each an outpouring of impotent rage. A creeping fear now gripped half of London, and geographically speaking, the hysteria was spreading. Proposed solutions flooded into the Yard from all quarters and included, as I recall, dressing up male constables as female unfortunates, and spreading alarm wires throughout Whitechapel to serve as electric warning buttons.

On the following morning, at Holmes’s request, I set out for the East-end to retrieve Miss Monk, whose presence was required in order to lay out our plans. What these plans included the detective omitted to tell me, but I was easier in my mind merely knowing such existed.

When I knocked at the ground-floor room Miss Monk had taken for herself upon her improvement in fortunes, I half expected to find her still the victim of a morose nervous reaction. Instead, when the door opened, I discovered her neatly dressed, with a pot of tea on the stove and the gleam of fresh intelligence in her green eyes. She bid me sit with her usual blend of imitative elegance and habitual coquetry, then threw herself into the other of the two chairs flanking her roughly sanded table.

“And wouldn’t you love to hazard at what I’ve been about.” She grinned, pouring me a cup of tea. I assented with an encouraging smile.

“I’ve been out on the town with the likes of Stephen Dunlevy, that’s what.”

I started forward in some disquiet. “Miss Monk, surely you know how dangerous his company may be. We were in pursuit of Mr. Dunlevy when last we encountered…”

“Jack the Ripper?”

“Indeed, for want of a better name. Miss Monk, I don’t like to think what could happen.”

“Aye, I know,” she assented gravely. “It’s a funny thing, Doctor—I thought I’d be too terrified to set foot out of doors again. Spent half of Sunday starting at every creak and whisper. But now even when I am frightened, the devilish thing is that I’m too angry to notice.”

She looked me square in the face, and in that moment, Miss Monk and I understood each other. I had traveled through lands that she had never dreamed of in her most elaborate imaginings; she had lived a life whose sufferings I could not begin to guess at. Still, we understood each other, and I knew that whatever was asked of her in our increasingly desperate venture, she would perform to her utmost ability.

“Very well. You saw Stephen Dunlevy. You are far too pleased for the errand to have been fruitless.”

“You recall how his landlady let on he goes out more than he should, but never with any woman in mind?”

“Yes, she reassured you of his total devotion.”

Miss Monk laughed. “He don’t care ha’penny for me, Dr. Watson. But this tale he has, about his mate Johnny Blackstone killing that girl while he stood by—it’s true as gospel so far as I can tell, for after we’d had an afternoon pint yesterday, I doubles back and follows him again, and he walks straight over to—”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Monk, but how did you come to meet with him in the first place?”

“We’d arranged it when I left him to find you and Mr. Holmes. How is Mr. Holmes, then, Doctor?” she added apprehensively. I assured her that he would soon mend and requested she go on with her story.

“We’d set on two o’clock to have a glass of beer just round the corner, and after what happened I was fair sick over whether he’d show up at all, for there’s something in this business he knows more about than he tells. But at two there he is, sure enough, and when he sees me he smiles right out and calls my name. The Knight’s Standard is a right den of fighting cocks now, the ladies all huddled together, whispering over what’s to be done—the hop picking’s good as spent, so even the judies what prefer to leave the city won’t have any means to buy bread and tea. So there they are, wondering just as everyone is what’s best to do, though with a sharper interest than most.