I, Ripper полностью

One was aware that it was different down here and that the customary precautions might not be enough to provide security, and so made a pledge to self to make certain, then doubly certain, then certain a third time, before committing to action. The chaps about here would be burlier and more prone to violence of their own, so it was incumbent upon me not to incite a mob of mariners, as they might turn immediately to rough justice of the sort the Peelers and a stickler like Warren would abjure. I could end my days decorating a yardarm as it steered south by Java Head.

I chose at last and after much consideration a block that might have been in Wapping, in the way that Mitre Square turned out to be beyond Whitechapel, which would bring in a set of detectives from a division other than Whitechapel’s H. That would be fine and good, for the new boys would get all mixed in with the old, the communications would be worse, the cabals of influence more diffuse, Inspector Abberline’s control might be challenged and in all it would be a merry festival of more mucking up, Sir Charles Warren–style.

I chose a street one could exit either by heading in one of two directions or cutting through to a street just behind and parallel. My plan was to unite with a gal, nudge her down William for the necessary dark, finish her there, and make it the most famous thoroughfare in the Western world for a day or so, while making my usual coolly nonchalant exit back to civilization by morning. I realized the street names meant nothing, nor should they; all were alike, tiny streets of humble brick abodes linked in long ungainly strands, sporting a castellation of chimneys, poorly lit, of course, peopled with the invisible of London living and mostly dying without notice in the great city’s most obscure precincts. Wapping? Who had ever heard of such a place? No one on the Times or the Star or the Atheneum or at the British Museum. Ridiculous name, no, Wapping? Is that not what you do to an unruly child, give it a wapping until it shuts its mouth?

Everything was swell, that is, until it wasn’t.

I had thought finding a dolly would be the least of my problems, but right off, it became the most of them. It was late, it was dark, it was empty. I think in daytime, when I had scouted, the area was more frequented, but now there was nothing to be found. My first plan perished before it was even tested.

I knew bad things were more likely to happen when I had to improvise, as my lucky escape at Mitre Square proved, and every sensible part of my being argued for a retreat and another foray tomorrow, when the conditions would be more or less as good. But I’m like a rat aroused by the smell of blood sometimes, and against my own better judgment, I kept coursing ahead, thinking one more block closer to the docks, that’ll be the ticket, that’ll get me what I want.

At last I reached St. George, with hardly any of London left between me and the basin, wherein was moored a fleet of pirate vessels otherwise known as British shipping. I swore I could hear the stretched rope squealing and the stressed wood squeaking. Possibly it was pure imagination. I wandered up St. George, a wide street of extreme maritime atmosphere, and found it crowded in its way with the colorful specimens of the oceangoing brethren, hats and all, and I was aware that my more civilized garb made me stand out a bit, always a mistake in the mad-killer trade.

She was neither older nor younger than the other birds. She was neither prettier nor uglier. She was simply there, a figure out of a socialist painting that might be called The Eternal Streetwalker, puffing on a cigarette, resting against a gaslight, one hip provocatively cocked. I could see a bit more of neck and shoulder, as that seemed to be allowed down here. I also thought it was illegal for the girls to stand still, but this brazen Bessie betrayed no fear of the blue bottles. She was eyeing the trade and the trade was eyeing her, particularly her bosom, which men, perhaps out of collective maternal nostalgia, seemed to yearn to bury themselves within. Hers was vast and deep. Fortunately I am not so mentally constructed, so the bosom, present or vanished, is of little interest to me. She looked tough, and as I drew near, her eyes fixed on me and mine on hers, and in a few steps I was at her but not with her. That is, I stood close but conspicuously oriented away from her as crowds of drunks wobbled by, rocking as uncertainly as the big ships at berth a few dozen feet down the black alleys.

“Now, dearie, would you be looking for a spell of fun?” she eventually said.

“I might be, madame,” I said. “The mood is presently upon me.”

“Come on over so Evelyn can get a look, then.”

“That I will,” I said, and broke my pose, and made an elaborate charade of orbiting her station so she could inspect my goods.

“You don’t look like Saucy Jacky,” she said. “These days a gal has to be careful.”