Free Medi-Evil 3 by Paul Finch Page B

horses.
      But the most alarming aspect of Spring-Heeled Jack remains his astonishing physical abilities. Some of his jumps have allegedly been prodigious. Heights of 35ft have supposedly been achieved, and talk that he has a supernatural, if not Satanic, power is finally circulating.
      So the question remains: Who can this weird criminal be?
      It is the opinion of this newspaper that the Metropolitan Police must commence a serious line of enquiry very soon. With so many eyewitness accounts, this bewildering matter can no longer be put down to the idle chatter of drunkards and opium addicts.
    Times Community Supplement, February 12th 1881
    *
     
    “Colonel Thorpe, isn’t it?” the young man asked.
      Colonel Thorpe glanced up from his copy of The Enquirer . The young man was tall and lean but with a straight, sturdy posture and strong, even shoulders. His clothes, though too fashionable for the colonel’s taste, were expensively cut. His face, which was clean shaved, was burned nut-brown and bore just below its left eye a curious triangular scar, though this only slightly marred the young man’s generally wholesome appearance.
      He spoke again. “I was wondering if I might sit? ”
      Colonel Thorpe took out his pipe. Over the last two decades, he’d come to regard this particular corner of The Union Jack Club as his own. For the young fellow to have been admitted in the first place however, required that he’d served the Colours , which ruled out most of the normal riff-raff the colonel had no time to be dealing with, and anyway, the newcomer’s intensity of gaze – he never once blinked as he stood there awaiting a response – implied that he had some serious purpose.
      Colonel Thorpe nodded. “Do I know you, sir?”
      The young man sat and offered his hand. “Charles Brabinger , sir. Of the Uxbridge Brabingers .”
      “Bless my soul, young Brabinger !” Thorpe folded his paper and shook hands. “The last time I spoke to your father, you were in Natal.”
      “My regiment shipped home less than a month ago.”
      The colonel nodded. Everything now was explained. The triangular scar on the young fellow’s cheek had probably been caused by the tip of an assegai spear. “I trust you played your part in thrashing those black devils?”
      “I did.” The young man hadn’t yet smiled, and he didn’t smile now. “I can’t say it gave me a great deal of pride.”
      “ Pah , nonsense!” The colonel turned in his armchair and signalled a waiter to bring more brandy. “An enemy is an enemy. He doesn’t have to possess guns to pose a threat to the lives of the Queen’s subjects.”
      “I suppose not.”
      “At any rate, you return to London in the midst of high excitement.”
      “So I see.” The young man glanced down at the front page of the newspaper. “In actual fact, that’s something I was meaning to speak to you about, sir. I wondered if a gentleman like yourself, who’s shot more than a few tigers in his time, might have some idea what this peculiar creature is?”
      He indicated the newspaper headline: Leaping madman seen on cathedral roof .
      Beneath it, a lurid artist’s impression portrayed a fellow with truly malevolent features, which included huge, glowing eyes, pointed ears and an evil, V-shaped grin, and wearing a black cape that was folded across his chest like a pair of giant bat wings.
      “What’s that?” the colonel said. “Great heavens, man! I’m not talking about this . I’m talking about Parnell and his wretched Irish militants causing all this trouble in the Commons.”
      “Ah, I see.” The young man seemed less enamoured by the more mundane issue of Anglo-Irish politics.
      “No, this other business is nonsense of the first order,” Colonel Thorpe concluded. “Scarcely worth worrying one’s head about.”
      “One theory is that it’s some scientist chap who’s maybe gone and built himself a jumping apparatus,” the young