Suppose, then, I worried, on the night hence when all was set for, I penetrated and she was not there? She and Joe were at the pier in Brighton or walking a country lane outside Dublin, as I had heard the Irish trill in her voice. Or some bully had coshed her and run off with her purse and she was nursing a lump in some charity ward. All could happen as easily as not, and that was the problem of orienting to a particular place and time. You could not control the comings and goings of others. The possibility simmered in my stomach like an undigested lump of beef, turning sour in the bile. Agh, the frustration in it jabbed me immensely, and the prospect of losing all the careful planning and reconnoitering I had invested in the effort irritated me considerably. It occurred to me that instead of my careful plan, I might have to improvise another. I determined to put one together now so that I didn’t have to, come the night in question, on the fly.
I reasoned that, were I in this neighborhood on the hunt for Mary Jane and I encountered her absence, the next place to go was the Bells, as it seemed to represent a coagulation of girls. The barman might recognize me, as unlikely as that might seem, for he was a man who daily encountered three hundred faces, but the place was so widely windowed, I could pass by on the outside and determine if the Judys at rest inside for refreshment might soon exit. Noting one, I could wait until she moved, and I saw in my mind’s eye a play like the others: I approach, utter a banal “how do ye do?”, receive an invitation to accompany, and begin a mosey down this part of Commercial, which, though closest to 29 Hanbury, was still virgin territory for Jack. Where would I take her, where was my goal? As I wandered back down Commercial after parsing it for signs of ladies of the trade—they were there, as usual, in abundance—and after passing the lofty and majestic Christchurch, which was the Bells’ next-door neighbor across Fournier, I passed another block and came across a nice little alley. I examined it. Ah, excellent. It was obscure, another brick passageway that almost certainly went undocumented on all but the most precise maps. Peeking into it, I saw how easily I could lure my theoretical Judy into it to do her job, and there do my job. It might be better, even, for so close to Commercial—it would be the closest yet to a throbbing concourse—it could have the impact I so desired and needed. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind for Mary Jane, but it would do, and it served the purpose of calming my apprehension.
Well satisfied with the day’s labor, I headed back to other duties. Whatever happened, I believed, I was well prepared.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jeb’s Memoir
I had my thumb splayed across the twin hammers of the Howdah, which I gripped by the wooden forearm under the double barrels. I could easily crank them back, and that momentum would drive my hand to grip and triggers, and I could dispatch Jack in under a second if it came to that.
Dare and I approached, and I felt my heart hammering against my chest, my breath hot and dry in my nostrils, the bitter cold of the rain having vanished in the urgency of the action unfolding in which I was a key player.
He stood over her, leaning against the brick wall, while she seemed to have fallen to her knees. Were we too late? Had he already unleashed the death strokes, and had she in turn tumbled to earth to spurt dry of blood in the falling rain while he looked down, watching her die? That was what the scene suggested to me, and it filled me with rage.
Here at last was the beast.
Here at last was Jack, in flagrante.
We were too late for this poor pretty bird, yes, but by God, there’d be no more gutted women in London, as we had tracked and felled the brute.
Without consciousness, I drew back the hammers and felt each lock in its place as my hand slid down, acquired the checkered curve of the wooden grip, grabbed it stoutly, felt my trigger finger extend to lay across the twin levers with just an ounce of preshot pressure, and braced myself for the explosions but an ounce or two away.
We moved on the oblique to see more clearly and . . . no, she was not dead. In fact, on her knees, facing him, she was quite active. My rage transmuted to befuddlement as I tried to make sense of the posture. Her face was close in on his waist, perhaps a bit below it, her hands were gripping tightly against his flanks, and her head seemed to be somehow pumping in a certain rhythm that was primitive, even elemental, in its need.
“Yes,” I head him cry, “my God, yes, oh yes, oh yes, so close,” and then a guttural shudder arose from deep in his being as he seemed to endure a spasm and undulated in one powerful thrust and his cry became “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“Come on, then,” said the professor in my ear. “This is not what we thought. Quick, turn and out.”
With that, we abandoned the alley. By now the rain fell in thunderous quantity, quite soaking us. It cut visibility. We got back to street, I with dangerously cocked and loaded Howdah pistol in my hand, now a veritable ticking bomb whose explosion could kill or maim, and would embarrass if we were spared those outcomes.
“Put that bloody thing away,” the professor said.
I dipped next to the building, under some sort of commercial overhang, and using both hands, I decocked gently, tripping one trigger with hammer secured, then easing that liberated arm down and repeating the ordeal for the other barrel. The weapon was appropriately rendered safe for holstering, which I did, and pulled my mac tight around it. The drama over, I could now feel the treachery of the rain. I shuddered even as, ahead of us, Major Pullham, just as jaunty and perhaps even jauntier than before, bounded out of the alley. His face was split by a large, happy grin, he seemed impervious to discomfort, and he passed us by without noticing our strangeness as he called, “Cab! Oh, say, cab!”
A hansom pulled up, and the driver leaned to pop the door. In leaped the major and was away in a trice, disappearing down Commercial in a glaze of rain. Meanwhile, his poor employee—or, I suppose I should say, his ex-employee—emerged and turned the other way, heading back to the Bells for a rest after her exertions and possibly to spend her thruppence on a nice gin.
“Look,” said the professor, “it’s late, it’s raining, we’re soaked, we almost killed a man innocently whoring along with his tart, and I suspect with the weather, Jack has awarded himself surcease. Let’s return to quarter, begin again tomorrow night, and this time focus on Colonel Woodruff.”
“Since he never goes out, that should be a boring sit,” I said.
“He will surprise you, I feel it. Cab?”
“Yes.”
He hailed a hansom and in we climbed. Since mine was the farthest out, the cabman took me home first, and I climbed out, a miserable wet rat, longing for tea, biscuits, and bed.
“Then tomorrow, eleven P.M., outside the colonel’s rooms, well dressed for night action in November.”
“Indeed.”
“And wipe down the Howdah before you retire. Drops of water can rust the finish.”
“I will,” I said.
With that, he tapped the roof of the cab, the driver’s whip snapped, and the vehicle lurched off. I turned up the walk to the dark house, entered, trudged up the stairs, and stripped my clothes off. The mac would be all right if I had need of it tomorrow; the wool suit might be damp. To hasten its return to norm, I hung it off a chair near the fireplace and lit a small log via some kindling, knowing that it would glow all night. I toweled off the Howdah and did not return it to holster, discerning that leather might attract moisture, but instead let it sit on the desk while the leather cured next to the suit on the chair. I trudged barefoot and naked to the bed, threw myself in it—it was close to five, according to my pocket watch—and pulled up the covers. I was asleep in seconds, though not without a return to the moment when I almost pulled the twin triggers and sent poor Major Pullham and his Judy to the next world, not that there was a next world.