Free City of Darkness (City of Mystery) by Kim Wright

back to the present.  “Aloud, so
Emma and Gage can hear.”
    Leanna swallowed, and reached for the
front page of the Star. “Last night,” she read, “the following letter was
delivered to the Central News Agency of Fleet Street.”
     
    Dear Boss:
    I keep on hearing that the police
have caught me.  But they won’t fix me yet…I am down on certain types of women
and I won’t stop ripping them until I do get buckled.
    Grand job, that last one was.  I gave
the lady no time to squeal.  I love my work and want to start again.  You will
soon hear from me, with my funny little game.
    I saved some of the proper red stuff
in a ginger beer bottle after my last job to write with but it went thick like
glue and I can’t use it.  Red ink is fit enough, I hope.  Ha, ha!
    Next time I shall clip the ears off
and send them to the police just for jolly.
    Jack the Ripper
     
     
    “Hmmm…” Leanna finished, letting the
paper drop, “It’s been a few days since they’ve reported on the killings.  Jack
the Ripper, he calls himself? It’s very fitting.”
    “It’s absolutely ghastly!” said
Gerry, “and whatever does he mean ‘I’m down on certain kinds of women?’”
    “Prostitutes,” Emma said shortly. “He
hates prostitutes.”  Gage rose and silently left the table.
    “Well he has certainly given Scotland
Yard fair warning that he plans to try again,” Leanna said. “It is a schoolboy
taunt, is it not?  Like he’s rubbing their noses in the fact they haven’t been
able to catch him.  Oh, look, farther down, they quote one of the detectives. 
‘Trevor Welles…’” she began.
    “Trevor Welles!” Emma and Gerry cried
in unison.
    “He’s a dear friend of mine,” Gerry
said, “and he’ll be your dinner partner on Sunday.  Trevor being quoted,
imagine that.  I knew him when he was just a bobby.”  Emma gave a little
snicker.  “Well go on, Leanna,” Gerry insisted, “What does he say?”
    “He says Scotland Yard has every
intention of apprehending the Ripper,” Leanna said, dropping the paper again. 
“He’s certainly a talkative sort, isn’t he?”
    “Tell Leanna how you and Trevor met,”
Emma said innocently.
    “He arrested me,” Gerry said.
    Leanna raised her eyebrows.
    “No, truly, some time back Tess and I
and several of the other women in the suffragette movement were protesting the
fact women weren’t allowed to row on the Thames -“
    “Row on the Thames?” Leanna asked
skeptically.
    “Yes, can you believe it?  Any fool
or drunk of a man can take a pleasure craft into the water but no woman can
steer a boat on the Thames.  So we went to Hyde Park and we chained ourselves
to trees and we said we would not leave until Parliament -“
    “Aunt Gerry,” said Leanna, half
amused and half impressed.  “You chained yourself to a tree outdoors in the
elements without food or water or any…facilities?  However did you manage?”
    “Oh I doubt we were there more than
ten minutes,” Gerry went on, so absorbed in her story she was oblivious to Emma’s
muffled giggles.  “They sent out the bobbies and Trevor was the one who
arrested me.  Quite the gentleman he was, and as he was loading me into the
wagon he said ‘Stick to your guns, ma’am,’ rather low under his breath.  I’ll
never forget that.  He gave me a bit of courage just as I needed it.”
    “They seriously took you to the
prison?”
    “To Newgate, worst in the city.”
    “Gage and I had to go down and post
her bond,” Emma said dryly. “She wasn’t in a cell.  Mr. Welles had taken her
and the others into a private room and even fetched them a spot of
refreshment.”
    “I was incarcerated, nonetheless,”
Gerry said, pulling herself up with great dignity.
    “And now he’s a detective on the
Ripper case,” Leanna mused.  “This is going to be quite a party.”
    “Oh dear,” Gerry said, peering at her
grandniece.  “I have two young men coming, but it has suddenly struck me that
the