The Crack in the Lens

by Steve Hockensmith

  Leave it to my brother to wipe anyone’s grin away quick.

  “You got anything on Jack the Ripper?”

  “E-excuse m-me?” Krieger stammered, hazel eyes (or were they blue?) abulge.

  “Allow me to explain,” I said, throwing Old Red a glare that thanked him for his customary subtlety. “You see, I’m a writer under contract to Smythe & Associates Publishing of New York City, and…”

  I proceeded to explain that I was working on an article about Mr. Krieger’s fair city, and as part of my portrayal of a leading citizen—Mr. Horace Cuff of the San Marcos Free Press—I was in need of information on the outrages that had driven him from the practice of his profession in his native land. So it wasn’t the Ripper himself I was interested in so much as his depiction in the press. Having heard much local talk of Mr. Krieger’s impressive private library, I’d come to him to appeal for aid.

  Krieger’s alarm quickly evaporated, and by the time I was through he was nodding knowingly—if also sorrowfully.

  “We might have something of the sort you’re looking for. There’s a small stock of penny dreadfuls and detective magazines and other such low entertainments. However, you must understand—these things don’t belong to me. They’re the property of the subscription library, for members’ use only.”

  Old Red waved a hand at the books all around us. “You sayin’ all this ain’t yours to do with as you please?”

  Krieger shook his head. “It was once, but I couldn’t keep it all to myself. I handed over the collection when we founded the subscription library. I’m merely a caretaker now.”

  “Well, we’re just askin’ for a peek at one or two books,” I said. “Surely, as caretaker, it’s within your power to—”

  Krieger was shaking his head again. “I’m sorry, but no. I can’t make exceptions. This isn’t a public library. The books are for dues-paying members only. Although…” Krieger rubbed his nondescript chin, then brightened. “Yes, why not?”

  “You have an idea?” I asked dutifully.

  Krieger’s face may have been flat and bland, but his business instincts, I now sensed, were plenty sharp.

  “All you have to do is join the library and you can look at whatever you want!” he said.

  “Now, why I didn’t think of that?”

  That was a rhetorical question, of course. I didn’t think of it (or suggest it, anyway) because I knew it would cost us big. What I hadn’t reckoned on was how big.

  Two one-year memberships: forty dollars.

  Two “reading room fees” (necessary, Krieger said, because we weren’t San Marcos residents and therefore couldn’t remove books from the premises): four dollars.

  Two “one-time processing surcharges”: one dollar.

  The air we were breathing: free, believe it or not.

  Grand total: forty-five bucks.

  This was a sizable dent in the money we had left from the sales of my stories, and before forking it over, I peeked at Old Red for the go-ahead. He gave it to me with one jerky, sour-faced nod, and we were quickly forty-five dollars the poorer…without yet being any the wiser.

  I filled out some forms with our names and local address and whatnot while Gustav pretended to skim a randomly chosen book. (I had to stifle a snort when I saw it was Principles of Domestic Science: A Manual of Practical House Wifery.) When I was done, our host offered me his hand.

  “Welcome to the San Marcos Subscription Library,” he said as we shook. “Now if you’ll just wait here a moment, I’ll have a look through our archives and see if I can accommodate you.”

  “He don’t ‘accommodate’ us,” Gustav said once we were alone again, “I want that money back.”

  “I already want that money back. In fact, I never wanted it gone. Forty-five bucks to look at some books? What do you think we’re gonna find in ’em, anyway?”

  “Pages.” Old Red shrugged. “Words.”

  I didn’t bother with a “hardy har har.” My brother wasn’t just making a bad joke. He was admitting what I already knew: There was every chance no book on earth could help us.

  A moment later, Mr. Krieger returned.

  “I’m sorry. This was all I could find.”

  He handed me a single, slender, well-worn book. I looked down and read out the title.

  “The Whitechapel Mystery: A Psychological Problem by Dr. N. T. Oliver.”

  “Psycho logical?” my brother muttered skeptically. “What the heck does that mean?”

  “Psychology is a new field of science,” Krieger said. “The study of human behavior.”

  Gustav actually perked up upon hearing that. “So this Dr. Oliver’s tryin’ to figure the Ripper out scientific-like?”

  “I assume so,” Krieger said. “I haven’t read it myself. Does it sound like the kind of thing you’re looking for?”

  “Not really,” I said at the very moment Old Red was popping off with a “Yessir!”

  “Well. I’ll leave you to it.”

  Krieger backed out of the room and was gone.

  “Alright—now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” Old Red said.

  “We are?”

  “We are,” Gustav said. “The killers and thieves Mr. Holmes rounded up always did things for a reason. If you could put your finger on their purpose, you could put the finger on them. But the Ripper, or anyone tryin’ to act like him, ain’t got no reason I can see other than…fun, I guess you’d call it. And that don’t leave no trail to backtrack. There ain’t no why to nothing.”

  I gave the book a little waggle. “You think we’ll find a why in here?”

  “We’d better.”

  Old Red stomped off and plopped into one of the room’s overstuffed armchairs.

  I sighed and took a seat myself and commenced to reading.

  It didn’t take long to know that the why Gustav wanted so bad wasn’t there.

  The who, though—that seemed plain as day.

  20

  Psychological Problems

  Or, Our First Stab at “Psychology” Just About Drives Us Nuts

  It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say there was no why to be found in The Whitechapel Mystery: A Psychological Problem. True, I couldn’t find the why we were looking for—the one that might explain a man turning mad dog—but there were plenty of others. They started cropping up from the first sentence, and all were aimed at the author, Dr. N. T. Oliver.

  “Why can’t you use words a fellow can understand?” came first. Followed by “Why don’t you just say what you mean?” Then on to “Why would anyone read this tripe?”

  After that it was all one big what: namely, “What the hell is this SOB talking about?”

  “While alienists would attribute the horrific Whitechapel murders of recent months to the specific, exclusive ‘psychoses’ or ‘mania’ of a single dement,” the book began (more or less), “psychology, as a natural science devoted to the phenomenological study of, as James put it, ‘finite individual minds’ (plural) must take a broader view, and the treatise which follows will, I hope, serve as contraindication to conclusions that discard empiricism in favor of quasi-metaphysical tenets that…”

  Oh, I give up. Even faking this much required the borrowing of a thesaurus, and it still doesn’t get across how deep the hogwash was we had to wade through.

  I would provide some actual quotes from the book itself, but I have neither a copy at hand nor a mind equipped to memorize long stretches of what was, to me, not just Greek but Greek as babbled by Athens’s resident village idiot. Certain phrases I have retained, though: “transcendental ego,” “elementary units of consciousness,” “deterministic assumptions,” and, most puzzling of all, “the Spatial Quale.”

  To describe the book as highfalutin doesn’t do it justice—the falutin was so high-flown it left earth altogether, outward bound for parts unknown. If Dr. Oliver in any way explained the “psychology” of the Whitechapel killer I can’t even say, for I’m in need of a separate book entirely to explain the p
sychology of Dr. Oliver.

  In fact, the only parts I could understand at all were the letters reproduced in the book—the ones written by Jack himself and sent to the police. That I had an easier time following the thoughts of a “Ripper” posting letters “from hell” than a (one assumes) qualified doctor/scientist is something I prefer not to dwell upon.

  Gustav did his best to ride it all out with me, but his best didn’t get him far. Four turgid, interminable pages into it and he was rolling his eyes and telling me to “skip to the parts in English.”

  Such parts I never found, aside from Saucy Jack’s contributions.

  “That they call scientific?” my brother finally spat. “It ain’t nothin’ but a buncha two-dollar words glued together with horseshit.”

  “You’re bein’ overcharitable. It’s all horseshit. I mean, my God…I feel like I know less now than I did before we started.”

  This set me up for an easy jab of the “You can’t take nothing from nothing” variety, but Old Red was too incensed to notice the opening.

  “Psycho logical,” he fumed. “Ain’t nothing logical about it I can see. If that’s the best science can do, I may as well try hoodoo.”

  “Now, now. Don’t go speakin’ blasphemy. Holmes’s method’s plenty scientific.”

  “Yeah,” Gustav said bitterly, sinking deep into his plush seat, “and just look how far that’s got us.”

  I had no ready reply. Griping about detectiving’s always been my job.

  While Old Red slumped there silently, I skipped to the index at the back of the book hoping to find entries for “Holmes, Sherlock” or “Prostitutes, Explanation for Murders of” or even “Sense, Common.” There was nada on anything of use…while “the Spatial Quale” got its very own chapter.

  I flipped to the front to see who’d put out such an unreadable brick of BS as this. I could only hope it wasn’t Smythe & Associates Publishing of New York. My pride wouldn’t survive the blow.

  As I flicked past the first page, I noticed something I’d overlooked before: a little yellow sleeve glued to the paper. Sticking out of it was a small, stiff card.

  “What’s that?” Gustav asked.

  “Index card.” I slipped the paper from the sleeve. “I’m guessin’ Krieger uses…whoa.”

  Old Red sat up straight.

  “What?”

  “Looks like these are for trackin’ who’s borrowed which books. Only this one’s just been out to one member…and he’s had it three different times.”

  I held up the card and pointed at the name printed neatly on line after line.

  “Milford Bales…Milford Bales…Milford Bales.”

  Gustav snatched the card from my hand. Sure, he can’t read a word, but he still likes to see things with his own eyes.

  “Might just be another coincidence,” I said, not even half believing it myself.

  “Like Adeline dyin’ forty feet from Bales’s barbershop? Then Bales doin’ us like he did last night?”

  Gustav gazed hollow-eyed out one of the room’s high-arched windows. Outside, the bright shine of the clear-skied afternoon was giving ground to twilight.

  “Pile up enough coincidences,” my brother said, “they make a fact.”

  “That don’t sound like something Mr. Holmes would say.”

  I thought I heard a “fff”—the beginnings of an emphatic “Feh!”—but the door opened before Old Red could finish.

  “Gentlemen,” Mr. Krieger said. “How goes your research?”

  “Can’t say we think much of the book,” Gustav said, “but this makes for mighty interestin’ readin’.”

  He gave the index card a wave.

  “Oh,” Krieger groaned with a rueful shake of the head. “I really must change that system. Not everyone would want their reading habits to be public knowledge.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the marshal wouldn’t mind,” Old Red said. “Readin’ up on murders and such would just be part of the job for him. Why, I bet he’s in here all the time lookin’ over all kinds of gruesome whatnot.”

  Krieger spread out his hands helplessly, lips pressed together in a prim pledge of silence.

  “Protectin’ folks’ privacy, huh?” my brother said. “I understand. So let me ask you something you can talk about: When did Milford Bales become town marshal?”

  “He was first elected in the fall of 1890, and he was reelected last year.” Krieger turned to me. “I thought you said you were doing research related to Horace Cuff.”

  I shrugged. “We got sidetracked.”

  “Did you now? If I may ask, Mr. Amlingmeyer—what kind of writing do you do again? These questions, your interest in Jack the Ripper…it doesn’t seem to fit.”

  As will sometimes happen when I’m stuck for a fast answer, I reluctantly resorted to the truth. Of a sort.

  “To be honest, sir, we haven’t been entirely forthcomin’ with you. It’s not an article about the town or Mr. Cuff we’re here for. I write what I guess you’d call ‘low entertainments.’ ‘Detective yarns’ others might call ’em. True-to-life stuff, such as Dr. John Watson has in Harper’s Weekly. We’re here in San Marcos to look into an old case.”

  Krieger didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t rush to show us the door, either.

  “What kind of case?” he said.

  “Murder, I’m afraid.”

  “A murder? In San Marcos?”

  “It was five years ago,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t have known her,” Old Red added, voice flat. “Just a poor farmgirl. They didn’t even write it up in the paper.”

  “I see,” Krieger said, nodding gravely. “I must say…Kriegers have been in San Marcos from the very beginning. I suppose you could call us one of the town’s first families. So you can imagine how displeased I’d be to see the community painted in an unflattering light.”

  I smiled reassuringly…which can be tricky to pull off when lying through one’s teeth.

  “You have nothing to worry about. I have been charmed—absolutely charmed, sir—by the beauty of San Marcos and the warmth of its people. In fact, I’m thinkin’ of callin’ this case ‘Death Comes to Paradise.’”

  “Where would this ‘case’ appear?”

  “In a special issue of Smythe’s New Detective Library. That’s where all my other yarns have been published.”

  Or will be published, I should have said—but why muddy the waters with wearisome details?

  Krieger closed his eyes, his already colorless, characterless face going slack. “Amlingmeyer…Amlingmeyer…,” he said slowly, chewing on each letter like he was trying to taste the sound of it.

  His eyes popped open and met mine. “‘On the Wrong Track’?” he said.

  I blinked at him, stunned. “Yessir. That’s one of mine.”

  “We got in a copy on Wednesday,” Krieger said. “It’s already been checked out.”

  My fingers took to tingling, then my face, and a lightheadedness came over me it usually takes half a bottle to bring on. It was a good thing I was already sitting or my knees would’ve buckled.

  At last, it was real. Something I’d written had been published—printed out in something other than my shoddy chickenscratch. If Gustav and I hadn’t been making our way to Texas the past week, I might have had copies of my own already.

  I looked over at my brother, an idiot grin glued to my face. Old Red scowled it right off.

  Something was stuck in his craw. Something uncommonly bothersome even for a craw as sticky as his.

  He jerked his head at the nearest window—and the graying sky beyond—then flicked the index card back to me and got to his feet.

  It was time to meet up with Bob and Lottie.

  “Well, thank you for your help, Mr. Krieger,” I said. “We best be goin’ now.”

  I walked The Whitechapel Mystery over to Krieger, and the two of us shook hands again.

  Gustav was already halfway to the door.

  “That’s really all you need?” Krieger a
sked. He actually looked disappointed by our departure—a first for us in San Marcos. Whatever his misgivings, meeting a bona fide (dime) novelist seemed to have put them to rest. “There’s nothing more I can do to be of service?”

  Old Red paused in the doorway.

  “Mr. Krieger, what we need now ain’t in no book.”

  Then he looked at me again—looked at me hard, in a way that made a promise.

  “Any book.”

  He was through with research and data and talking and thinking. Maybe even through with Mr. Holmes.

  As of this moment, my brother was ready for action…and he was going to see that we got it.

  21

  The Plan

  Or, Old Red Hatches a Plot to Net a Soiled Dove

  It would take ten minutes of fast walking to get to the meeting spot: the San Marcos Springs, headwaters of the San Marcos River. I proposed to pass the time discussing my brother’s plan of action—his response being, “There ain’t no plan yet…but there will be if you shut up and let me think.” After that, we made the trip in silence, aside from some huffing and puffing on my part.

  By the time we got out to our rendezvous, it was dusky-dark. I was a little disappointed to have lost the light, for I’d pictured the springs as bubbling, roiling, geysery things, clear-pure and alive.

  As it turned out, I wasn’t missing much, sightseeing-wise. The springs were hidden beneath a swampy, brackish lagoon, and if not for the name of the place—Spring Lake—you’d have had no idea it was anything other than an overgrown pond. Down at the bottom, seething-hot streams gurgled up through invisible cracks in the earth, but the surface was as smooth as black glass.

  Bob and Lottie were waiting for us in a beat-up buckboard at the southern end of the lake, near where the river snakes off into the hills. I waved and smiled, but my heart didn’t know whether to soar or sink.

  We had allies at last. Faithful friends.

  Faithful, generous goat-ranching friends in the market for a partner. “Really, now. A cowboy travelin’ on foot?” Bob chided my brother as we came up close. “What would the boys in the bunkhouse say?”