The Other Teddy Roosevelts by Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online

Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. 

    “From Hell, Mr. Lusk—

    Sir, I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman,
    prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was
    very nise I may send you the bloody knif that too it out
    if you only wate a whil longer
    signed Catch me when yu can Mishter Lusk”

    — Jack the Ripper
    October 16, 1888

    “Well, at least now we know why the kidney was missing,” said Hughes. A look of disgust crossed his face. “Do you really think he ate it?”
    Roosevelt shrugged. “Who knows? He’s certainly capable of eating it.” He stared at the letter. “Does the handwriting match the previous messages?”
    Hughes nodded. “It’s the same man, all right.”
    Roosevelt lowered his head in thought for a moment. “All right,” he said. “Here’s what you must do. Make copies of that letter and give it to every newspaper in London.”
    “We can’t do that, Theodore! There would be widespread panic.”
    “I hope so.”
    “I beg your pardon!” said Hughes heatedly.
    “Try to understand, John,” said Roosevelt. “Everyone in Whitechapel has been aware of the Ripper for more than a month. Prostitutes know that they’re his quarry, and yet they continue to ply their trade and put themselves at risk. Maybe if they read this, if they get a brief peek into the mind of this madman, we can keep them off the streets until he’s apprehended.”
    “Keep prostitutes off the streets?” laughed a nearby policeman. “You might as well try to keep the sun from rising.”
    “It’s that, or prepare yourselves for more murders.”
    “It’s not my decision to make,” replied Hughes. “You’ve been working on this case at my request, and I’ve been your sole contact, so you can be forgiven for thinking that I’m in charge…but in point of fact we have more than 500 police officers working around the clock on the Ripper murders. I’ll have to go through channels before we can get it published.”
    “What if I just took it to the papers, and said that I hadn’t told you what I’d planned?”
    “You’d be on the first ship back to America, and I doubt that your presence would ever be tolerated in England again.”
    That’s no great loss in a land that worships royalty and allows something like Whitechapel to exist, thought Roosevelt. Aloud he said, “All right, John—but hurry! The sooner this is made known to the press, the better.”
    Hughes picked up the letter and stared at it. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.
    “So will we all,” replied Roosevelt.
    ***
    Nothing happened.
    A day passed, then a week, then three. The police again began suggesting that the Ripper might have been killed by some other member of the criminal class—there were enough stabbings and bludgeonings in Whitechapel and on the waterfront to write fini to a dozen Rippers.
    Even Roosevelt relaxed his guard. He spent a day birding in the Cotswolds. He made a speech to the Royal Zoological Society, and another to Parliament. He found the time to write three articles and more than one hundred letters.
    And still, he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging feeling that this was the calm before the storm, and that he possessed some small but vital piece of the puzzle that could help him prevent another murder.
    On the evening of November 8, he sat down to write a letter to his wife.

    ***

    My Dearest Edith:

    It has been almost six weeks since the fiend last struck, and most of the authorities here have convinced themselves that he is dead, possibly by his own hand, possibly murdered. I don’t agree. There was no pattern or regularity to his prior killings. The first and second were separated by nine days, the second and third by 22 days, the third and fourth by no more than an hour. Since there has been no pattern, I don’t see how they can conclude that he’s broken one.
    As I mentioned in previous letters, some of the police still lean toward Prince Albert Victor, which is simply beyond the realm