Ripping Time

by Robert Asprin

  The thought tickled Maybrick’s sense of humor, that this dirty little trollop would sell herself to the very man who was bringing about her murder. The thought excited him, almost as much as the thought of killing her did. He hoped Lachley dragged her to the nearest private spot and commenced banging her as hard as possible, toothless blackmailing bitch that she was.

  John Lachley gave her a wry little smile. “Indeed, madam,” he lifted his cap again, “little would give me greater pleasure, but duty recalls me to Eddy’s side, I fear.”

  “Oh! Well, then, tell Mr. Eddy I’m that grateful for the money and I’ll buy a proper bonnet before we meet again.”

  Maybrick reined in his seething frustration and disappointment with barely restrained violence. He gripped the wicked new knife inside his pocket until his whole hand ached. He wanted to strike now, curse it! But he had to wait until the tart found Lachley’s letters, had hours to wait, yet. I will rip her apart, he thought savagely, rip her wide open and let the rain wash the filth from the bleeding womb she sells so freely . . .

  Lachley gave her a courteous bow she did not merit and left her walking down Whitechapel Road. Maybrick’s clever mentor had carefully instructed him in the exact method he must use to murder this bitch, to keep the blood from splashing across his clothes when he struck. The brilliant physician and occultist had guided him to the worst of the slatterns walking these streets—deserving targets of the monumental rage he carried against the bitch who lay with her lover, tonight, in Liverpool. Maybrick almost loved his mentor, in that moment, as he thought of what delights lay ahead. As Polly wobbled drunkenly off into the night, Lachley circled around silently, sent a secretive little smile in Maybrick’s direction, and followed Polly Nichols once again.

  Maybrick trailed at a leisurely distance, smiling to himself, now, and caressed the handle of his concealed knife with loving fingertips. Polly Nichols, stumbling ahead of them, first visited an establishment that sold clothing of dubious origins. There she acquired a reddish brown ulster to keep off the rain, which fastened up with seven large brass buttons, and a fetching little black straw bonnet with black velvet trim and lining. She giggled as she put it on, then paraded down the wet streets to pub after pub, steadily drinking the remaining change from the silver florin.

  Twice, both he and Lachley paused in dense, wet shadows while she disappeared into a secluded spot with a customer to earn three or four pence “for my doss money” she explained each time. And twice, after she had earned a few more pence, they followed along behind again as she found yet another pub in which to spend the money on gin. Well past midnight, she staggered out of the locally famous Frying Pan Public House, just one more in a long series of pubs, and found herself another customer with whom to earn another fourpence. She spent this money just as quickly as she had the rest, pouring it down her alcoholic gullet.

  And so the night waned into the small hours. At nearly one-thirty in the morning, she returned to a lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street and remained inside its kitchen for several minutes, until the lodging house deputy escorted her to the door and said, “Get your doss money, ducks, an’ don’t come back ‘til you ‘ave it.”

  “Won’t you save a bed for me?” she asked the man. “Never mind! I’ll soon get my doss money. See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now?” And she touched the black, velvet-lined straw hat with caressing fingers. “I’ve ‘ad money tonight and I’ll get more just as easy, I will, an’ I’ll be back wiv my doss money soon enough.”

  And so out onto the streets she wandered again, clearly searching for another customer to procure more gin to while away the time before their three-thirty appointment—presumably having retrieved the letters Lachley sought from the room she was not yet able to pay for and would not be needing, ever again. Maybrick followed her silently, as did the all-but-invisible John Lachley, a mere shadow of a shape in the darkness ahead, the paler blur of Lachley’s skin lit now and again by the lightning flaring across the sky. The rumble of thunder threatened more rain. It would need rain, to wash away the blood James would spill into these streets . . .

  Polly Nichols stumbled and staggered her way through the better part of an hour, approaching and being turned down by one prospect after another, leading James and his mentor eventually toward the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street. There, she put out a hand to brace herself and greeted a woman coming up Osborn. “Well, if it in’t Emily ‘olland,” she slurred, “where you been?”

  Emily Holland was a woman considerably older than Polly Nichols, closer to Maybrick’s own age, he suspected, although she looked considerably older than Maybrick’s fifty years. Emily greeted the drunken prostitute with considerable surprise. “Polly? I didn’t expect to find you at this hour! Whatever are you doing wandering around so late? Me, I’ve been down to Shadwell Dry Dock. To see the fire.” Emily gestured toward the distant docks, where the sky glowed a sullen red from the dockside disaster. It was the second fire that night which had reddened the clouds scudding so low above Whitechapel’s broken and dilapidated rooftops. “What are you doing out at this hour, Polly? I thought you were coming back down to Flower and Dean Street, with Annie and Elizabeth and me. You were at the White House with us last night.”

  “ ‘At’s right,” Polly nodded, slurring the words. “But I’ve got to get me doss money, yet. Bastard wouldn’t let me stay ‘til I’ve got it.”

  “Polly, it’s two-thirty in the morning!” Almost as an echo, a nearby church clock struck the time. “Hear that? Why don’t you have your doss money by now?”

  “Oh, I ‘ad it. Three times today, I’ve ‘ad it.” She touched her pretty new bonnet in an absent little gesture. But she didn’t explain about the florin and the letters, which was just as well, since that would have required Maybrick to murder this new trollop, Holland, also. Lachley had made it clear that none of these filthy whores must be allowed to know about such important letters. Truly, Maybrick was doing all England a great service, ridding the streets of the kind of filth Polly Nichols represented.

  Polly was saying in a deeply slurred voice, “Three times, Emily, I’ve ‘ad me doss money, but I’ve drunk it all. Every las’ penny of it. Three times. Never you fret, though. I’ll ‘ave my doss money before long, I will, and I’ll be back wiv you and the girls.” She patted her pocket and let out a drunken giggle. “Won’t be long at all, now.”

  Whereupon Polly took her leave of Emily Holland and staggered away on a new course, down Osborn Street in the direction of the Shadwell dock fire, where she might presumably find paying customers in abundance. The other woman called a low-voiced “Good night!” after her and watched Polly for a moment longer, shaking her head sadly, then shrugged and pulled her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and continued on her way, down Osborn Street in the opposite direction. James Maybrick waited impatiently until Emily Holland had disappeared into the wet night before moving down Whitechapel Road in pursuit, once more. John Lachley also broke from hiding.

  Polly’s voice, badly slurred, drifted back to Maybrick. “Be nice, ‘aving an ‘ot fire to warm me cold fingers by.” She laughed drunkenly and reached the edge of the crowd which had gathered at Shadwell to watch the docks burn. Utter chaos reigned. Firemen swept continuous streams of water back and forth across the blazing dry dock and several doomed warehouses. Fire boats in the river added their drenching spray, trying to contain the inferno before it spread to any other warehouses with valuable contents.

  More than two centuries might have passed since the Great Fire, but London had never forgotten the devastation which had destroyed all but one tiny corner of Britain’s capital city. The only good to come of that fire, which had forced thousands to flee, only to watch their homes and livelihoods burn to ashes, had been the complete eradication of the Black Death. Afterwards, plague had never broken out in London again.

  Not a plague of that sort, in any case. A plague of whores and prostitutes and bitches, however, had swelled to number in the th
ousands. Tonight, Maybrick would begin his campaign to eradicate this latest deadly plague to strike the greatest city in the greatest Empire on the earth. He smiled, marshaled his patience, and kept watch on Polly Nichols as she trolled for customers.

  Despite the late hour, thousands of spectators jammed the narrow streets to watch this latest London fire. The electric thrill of danger was a tangible presence in the wet night. Maybrick hung well back, as did Lachley, losing sight of the drunken Polly Nichols in the crowd. The atmosphere in Shadwell was a carnival madness. Alcohol flowed in prodigious quantities. Maybrick, seething like the jagged lightning overhead, downed pint after pint of dark ale, himself, feeding his rage, nursing the hunger in his soul. John Lachley, too, had vanished through the crowd, leaving Maybrick to wait. He wanted to shout obscenities, he was so weary of walking and endlessly waiting. He gripped the handle of his knife so tightly he was sure there would be bruises across his palm by morning.

  Nearly an hour later, with the fire still blazing furiously, Maybrick finally caught another glimpse of Polly Nichols’ black, velvet-trimmed bonnet. She was just emerging through the door of a jam-packed public house which had thrown open its doors in all defiance of the closing-hour laws. She staggered mightily under the influence of God-only-knew how much more alcohol. She passed Maybrick without even seeing him, stumbled straight past a doorway from which John Lachley subsequently emerged, and headed down Osborn Street toward Whitechapel Road.

  It was time for her to keep her rendezvous with murder.

  The game was in Maybrick’s blood, now, the stop and start of shadowing his prey down wet streets with the growl of thunder snarling overhead like a savage beast loose in the night. They waited, strolling quietly along, until they were well away from the crowd at the fire. Polly reached the now-deserted Whitechapel Road and turned east, moving unsteadily toward the spot they’d agreed to meet. John Lachley started out into the open, making his move to retrieve the letters. Then halted abruptly. So did Maybrick, cursing their foul luck. A rough man dressed like a dockhand, also coming from the direction of the Shadwell Dry Dock fire, had appeared at the end of the block and accosted her first.

  Maybrick and his mentor melted back into the shadows of dark overhanging doorways, on opposite sides of the narrow street. The dockhand and the drunken whore bent their heads together and spoke quietly. A low laugh broke from the man and Maybrick heard Polly say, “Yes.” A moment later, the two of them sought deeper shadows, so close to James Maybrick’s hiding place, he could literally smell them from where he stood.

  Maybrick’s pulse flared like the lightning overhead as he stood there in the darkness, listening to the rustle of skirts and clothing hastily switched about, the sharp sounds of the dockhand shifting his hobnailed boots on the pavement as he pressed the cheap trollop back into a convenient corner, the heavy breaths and meaty sounds of flesh coming together, slow and rhythmic and hard. Maybrick’s nostrils flared. He gripped the wooden handle of his knife, listened eagerly to the gasp of breath as the whore ground her hips against her customer’s. He could all but see the clutch of the dock worker’s hands against a straining breast, a naked thigh, skirts and petticoats lifted high to either side to accommodate him. He imagined his wife’s face where the strumpet’s was, saw his wife’s glorious, strawberry blond hair falling down across her naked breasts as the unwashed dockhand shoved into her, took her right here on the street like the slut she was, heard his wife’s voice gasping in the close darkness . . .

  Low, breathy obscenities drifted on the night air, his voice, then hers, encouraging him. Hurry, she must be thinking, hurry up and finish, I’m drunk and need a bed for the night and they’ll be along with the money for the letters soon, so get on with it and spend your spunk, you great ugly lout of a dockhand . . .

  Maybrick clutched his knife, hand thrust deep in his pocket, and breathed hard as she whispered to the man using her. “ ‘At’s right, lovey, ‘at’s good, Friar me right good, you do, ‘at’s grand . . .”

  Friar Tuck . . . the rhyming slang of the streets . . .

  A low, masculine grunt finally drifted past Maybrick’s hiding place.

  He waited for their breaths to slow from the frantic rush.

  Waited for the sounds of clothing going back down, the jingle of coins in a pocket, the whisper of, “ ‘Ere’s three-pence, pet, and a shiny penny besides.” The sound of a wet kiss came, followed by the muffled smack of a hand against a cloth-covered backside. “An’ a right nice trembler it was, too.”

  Maybrick waited, pulse pounding like the thunder overhead, as the dockhand’s hobnailed boots clattered away down the pavement in the direction of the docks and the still-burning fire. As his footfalls died away, Polly’s low, slurred voice drifted to Maybrick. “Eh, then, got my doss money, just like I told Emily I would. I’ve ‘ad a lovely new bonnet tonight and a warm new ulster and thirty-eleven pints and still got my doss money. And there’s still the money for the letters to collect, too!” A low laugh reached Maybrick’s hiding place.

  He waited in a fever of impatience while she staggered out into the open again, heading down Whitechapel Road with the money she’d just earned in her pocket. Across the street, Lachley, silent on the rubberized overshoes they’d both bought, the same shoes worn by several million ordinary domestic servants to silence their footfalls, stole after her down Whitechapel Road. They crept up behind . . .

  “Hello, love,” Lachley whispered.

  She gave a tiny, indrawn shriek and whirled, with semi-disastrous results.

  Lachley steadied the small woman easily. “There, now, I didn’t mean to terrify you. Steady.”

  She peered up at him, face pinched from the shock. “Oh, it’s you,” she breathed out, “you give me such a fright!” She smiled happily, then, and touched her bonnet. “See? I got me that bonnet, just like you said. Innit a fine one?”

  “Very fine. Very becoming. Velvet-trim, isn’t it? A lovely bonnet. I trust you have the letters we discussed earlier?”

  A crafty smile stole across the woman’s face. “I’ve got one of ‘em, so I ‘ave.”

  Only Maybrick saw the flicker of murderous wrath cross Lachley’s face. Then he was smiling down at her again. “One of them? But, my dear, there were four! Mr. Eddy really is most anxious to obtain the full set.”

  “Course ‘e is, an’ I don’t blame ‘im none, I don’t, but y’see, I only ‘ad the one letter. An’ I’ve looked for my friend, looked an’ looked everywhere, what ‘as the other three—“

  “Friend?” Lachley’s voice came to Maybrick as a flat, blank sound of astonishment. “Friend?”

  The stupid whore didn’t even notice the cold rage in her murderer’s voice.

  “I ‘adn’t so much as a single ‘apenny to me name and it were ever so cold an’ raining ever so ‘ard. An’ I ‘adn’t drunk no gin in an whole day, y’see, so I give three of the letters to Annie an’ she give me a shilling, so I could pay for a doss ‘ouse an’ not be caught by some constable sleepin’ rough and get sent back to Lambeth Work’ouse. She’s only ‘olding ‘em for me, like, ‘til I get the shilling back to repay ‘er the loan . . .”

  Lachley touched her gently, tipping up her chin. “Who is this friend, Polly? What is her name?”

  “Annie. I said that, Annie Chapman, what lives in the doss ‘ouses over to Flower and Dean Street, same as me. She’s ‘oldin’ the other three letters for me, but I’ll ‘ave ‘em back by tomorrow morning, swear I will.”

  “Of course you will.” Lachley was smiling again.

  Maybrick’s hand was sweaty where he gripped his knife.

  Polly blinked anxiously up into Lachley’s face. “Say, you finish up your business with Mr. Eddy for the night?” She leaned against Lachley, still reeking of the dockworker’s sweat. “Maybe we could go someplace b’fore I go back to me doss ‘ouse an’ find Annie?”

  “No, my business tonight is not quite finished,” Lachley said with fine irony. Maybrick admired the man more and
more. He gestured Maybrick forward with a motion of his head. “But I’ve a friend here with me who has a little time in hand.”

  Polly turned, so drunk on the gin she’d guzzled that Lachley had to keep her from falling. “Well, then, ‘ello, luv.”

  “Good evening, ma’am.” Maybrick tipped his hat.

  “Polly,” John Lachley said with a faint smile, “this is James. He is a dear friend of mine. James will take care of you this evening. Now. Here is the money for the letter you have with you.” Lachley held out a palmful of glittering sovereigns.

  Polly gasped. Then fumbled through her pocket and produced a crumpled letter.

  Lachley took it gently from her, swept his gaze across what had been written on the grubby sheets of foolscap, and put the money in her hand, then glanced up at Maybrick with a quirk of his lips. Polly wouldn’t be keeping her money long.

  “There, now. First payment, in good faith. Payment in full very soon. Shall Mr. James, here, escort you someplace quiet?”

  Polly smiled up at Maybrick in turn and moved her hand downward along the shapeless workmen’s trousers he wore. “Grand.”

  Maybrick’s breaths came faster. He smiled down into her eyes, pulse beating a savage rhythm at his temples. He said to his whore, “This way, my dear.”

  They had timed the rounds of the constables of the H Division all through this area, he and Lachley. Maybrick knew very well that the next few minutes would provide him with exactly the opportunity he needed. Lachley doffed his cap and bid Polly goodnight and disappeared down Whitechapel Road at a brisk walk, whistling merrily to himself. James knew, of course, that his mentor would circle around to Buck’s Row by way of quiet little Baker’s Row and meet him again soon . . . very soon.

  Maybrick took Polly’s arm and gave her a brilliant smile, then guided her off the main road, down Thomas Street, a narrow bridge road which led across the rail line of the London and Northern Railway, twenty feet below. Beyond the railway line lay the exceedingly narrow street known as Buck’s Row, lined by high brick warehouses, a board school, and several terrace houses, which served as cottages for the tradesmen who worked in Schneiders Cap Factory and several high, dark warehouses: the Eagle Wool Warehouse, which supplied fabric for the cap factory, and the massive warehouse called Essex Wharf.