Ripping Time

Lachley wished he'd taken the satisfaction of punishing that blackmailing little bitch, Polly Nichols, himself. He'd enjoyed Morgan's final hours, had enjoyed them immensely, and regretted having allowed Maybrick all the fun in killing the loathsome Polly Nichols. He wondered what it had felt like, ripping her open with that shining, wicked knife, and found that his pulse was pounding raggedly. This time, he promised himself, I'll do the killing myself this time, I'm damned if Maybrick shall have all the fun, curse him for the maniac he is.

Lachley's lethal little merchant with the unfaithful wife might be dull as a butter knife when it came to social matters, but give him a belly full of hatred, an eight-inch steel gutting blade, and a hapless target upon which to vent that explosive rage, and James Maybrick was a man transformed. A true artiste... It was almost a pity Lachley had to ensure the man's execution by hanging. Controlling a mind like James Maybrick's was intoxicating, far more satisfying than controlling a dullard like Eddy—even if Albert Victor Christian Edward did have prospects far beyond anything the Liverpudlian social climber could ever hope to achieve.

Men in the baggy clothes of the common factory laborer and women in the shabby dresses of cheap kerb crawlers prowled up and down Dorset Street, intent on enacting mutually attractive financial transactions. Maybrick, Lachley noted, followed the prostitutes with a hungry, predatory gaze that boded ill for A

But to do that, they first must find Dark A

And that, Lachley had discovered over the course of the previous week, was no easy task. A

Her friend had given her a little money and warned her not to spend it on rum.

John Lachley had not seen Dark A

So he set out down Dorset Street, casting about like a hound seeking the fox, and led James Maybrick into the opening steps of the hunt. And on this night, after many dark and frustrating hours, luck finally returned to John Lachley. He and Maybrick, on edge and all but screaming their tense frustration, returned to Dorset Street shortly after one-thirty in the morning and caught sight of her at long, bloody last.

A

Maybrick slipped his hand into his coat pocket, where he kept his knife, and smiled slowly. Mr. James Maybrick had seen the face of his new victim. Maybrick's face flushed with sexual excitement in the light from the gas lamp on the street corner. Lachley restrained a slow smile. Soon... They waited patiently across from Crossingham's and within minutes, their quarry came out again, evidently not not in possession of enough money to pay for the room. They heard her say, "I won't be long, Brummy. See that Tim keeps the bed for me." Whereupon she left Crossingham's and turned down Little Paternoster Row, toward Brushfield Street, where she headed out towards Spitalfields Market.

They followed her quietly on the same rubberized servants' shoes they'd worn the night they'd stalked Polly Nichols to her death. It was clear to Dr. John Lachley that A

Playing God was a sweetly addictive game.

John Lachley was well on his way to becoming a sweetly addicted player.

From where he stood in a grimy doorway, John Lachley couldn't hear anything of A

A

She remained with her customer from Spitalfields Market for the whole frustrating night, drinking and eating at his expense, disappearing with him once for nearly half an hour, presumably to renew their intimate acquaintance. Then she and her customer sat down to another round of rum, listening to the piano and the pub songs sung by drunken patrons, watching other prostitutes enter the place and find customers of their own and disappear outside again to conduct their sordid business, until the pub closed its doors. When A

He gave her a rough caress and said, "You ought to see a doctor about that cough, luv. I'd give you sixpence if I ‘ad it, but I spent all me ready cash on your supper."

"Oh, that's all right, and thank you for the food and the rum."

"Well, I've got to be off or they'll lock the factory yard gates and dock me wages."

They separated, the man hurrying away down Hanbury Street while A

"Well," she muttered to herself, "you've had a good supper and the rum's been a great help with the pain, but you've still got no money for your bed, A