The Other Teddy Roosevelts (3 page)

The man suddenly laughed and threw a huge arm around Roosevelt’s shoulders. “I like your nerve, Yank! My name’s Colin Shrank, and you and me are going to be great friends!”

Roosevelt grinned. “That suits me just fine. Let me buy you a drink.”

“A pint of ale!” Shrank yelled to the bartender. He turned back to Roosevelt. “You’re here too early, Yank. Old Jack, he only comes out at night.”

“But I see a number of ladies here, and at least some of them must be prostitutes,” said Roosevelt.

“They ain’t hardly ladies,” said Shrank with a laugh, “and they’re here because he’s got ‘em too scared to work at night, which is the proper time for their particular business.”

“Too bloody true!” chimed in one of the women. “You ain’t gettin’
me
out after dark!”

“I don’t even feel safe in the daylight,” said another.

“Did anyone here know Polly Nichols or Annie Chapman?” asked Roosevelt.

“I knew Annie,” said the bartender. “Came here near every night to find a new bloke. Nice lady, she was.”

“Why would she go off with the Ripper?” asked Roosevelt.

“Well, she didn’t know it was the Ripper, now did she?” answered the bartender.

Roosevelt shook his head. “Everyone in Whitechapel knows that prostitutes are at risk, so why would Annie go out with someone she didn’t know?”

“There’s thousands of men come here every night,” answered one of the prostitutes. “Maybe tens of thousands. What’re the odds any one of them is Jack the Ripper?”

“It ain’t
our
fault,” said another. “We’re just out to make a living. It’s the police and the press and all them others. They don’t care what happens here. They’d burn Whitechapel down, and us with it, if they thought they could get away with it.”

A heavyset woman entered the tavern, walked right up to the bar, and thumped it with her fist.

“Yeah, Irma,” said the bartender. “What’ll it be?”

“A pint,” she said in a deep voice.

“Hard night?”

“Four of ‘em.” She shook her head disgustedly. “You’d think they’d learn. They never do.”

“That’s what they’ve got you for,” said the bartender.

She grimaced and took her beer to a table.

“What was that all about?” asked Roosevelt.

“Irma, she’s a midwife,” answered Shrank.

“She delivered four babies last night?”

Shrank seemed amused. “She cut four of ‘em out before they became a bother.”

“A
midwife
performs abortions?” said Roosevelt, surprised. “Don’t you have doctors for that?”

“Look around you, Yank. There’s ten times as many rats as people down here. A gent’s got to be as well-armed as you if he don’t want to get robbed. Women are being sliced to bits by a monster and no one does nothing about it. So you tell me: why would a doctor work here if he could work anywhere else?”

“No one cares about Whitechapel,” said Irma bitterly.

“Well, they’d better
start
caring,” said Roosevelt. “Because if this butcher isn’t caught, you’re going to be so awash in blood that you might as well call it Redchapel.”

“Redchapel,” repeated Shrank. “I like that! Hell, if we change the name, maybe they’d finally pay attention to what’s going on down here.”

“Why do you think he’s going to kill again?” asked the bartender.

“If his motive is to kill prostitutes, there are still hundreds of them left in Whitechapel.”

“But everyone knows he’s crazy,” said Shrank. “So maybe he never had no motive at all.”

“All the more reason for him to strike again,” said Roosevelt. “If he had no reason to start, then he also has no reason to stop.”

“Never thought of that,” admitted Shrank. He gave Roosevelt a hearty slap on the back. “You got a head on your shoulders, Yank! What do you do back in America?”

“A little of everything,” answered Roosevelt. “I’ve been a politician, a rancher, a Deputy Marshall, a naturalist, an ornithologist, a taxidermist, and an author.”

“That’s a hell of a list for such a young bloke.”

“Well, I have one other accomplishment that I’m glad you didn’t make me show off,” said Roosevelt.

“What was that?”

Roosevelt picked his glasses up from the bar and flashed Shrank another grin. “I was lightweight boxing champion of my class at Harvard.”

***

My Dearest Edith:

I must be a more formidable figure than I thought. No sooner do I agree to help apprehend Jack the Ripper than he immediately goes into hiding.

I have spent the past two weeks walking every foot of the shabby slum known as Whitechapel, speaking to everyone I meet, trying to get some information—any information—about this madman who is making headlines all over the world. It hasn’t been productive—though in another way it has, for it has shown me how not to govern a municipality, and I suspect the day will come when that will prove very useful knowledge indeed.

I know America has its rich and its poor, its leaders and its followers, but any man can, through his own sweat and skills, climb to the top of whatever heap he covets. I find England’s class system stifling, and I keep wondering where America would be if, for example, Abraham Lincoln had been forced to remain the penniless frontiersman he had been born. We have Negroes who were born into slavery who will someday hold positions of wealth and power, and while slavery is a shameful blot on our history, it was a system that men of good will and reason eventually destroyed. I see no such men attempting to bring about the necessary changes in British society.

I walk through Whitechapel, and I can envision what a handful of Americans, with American know-how and American values, could do to it in five years’ time. And yet I fear it is doomed to remain exactly what it is until the buildings finally collapse of their own decrepitude.

I have made some friends among the residents, many of whom have been extremely hospitable to an alien. (Yes, I know I was well treated by the Royal Society, but I came there with a reputation as an expert. I came to Whitechapel only as an outsider. And yet I find I prefer to rub shoulders with the common man on this side of the ocean, even as I have always done at home.)

One special friend is a day laborer (who seems to labor as infrequently as possible) named Colin Shrank, who has been my guide down the fog-shrouded streets and filthy alleys of Whitechapel. As I say, we’ve discovered no useful information, but at least I now feel I have a reasonably thorough working knowledge of the geography of the place, a knowledge I will be only too happy to expunge the moment I return to our beloved Sagamore Hill.

My best to Alice and little Ted.

Your Theodore

***

Roosevelt opened a letter, tossing the envelope carelessly on the bar of the Black Swan.

“Another note from your pal Hughes?” asked Shrank.

Roosevelt nodded. “He’s through asking who the Ripper is. Now he just wants to know if he’s through killing women.”

Shrank shrugged. “Could be.”

Roosevelt shook his head. “I doubt it. I think he takes too much joy in killing and disemboweling helpless women.”

“Up against a man with a knife like that, they’re
all
helpless,” offered Shrank.

“Not so, Colin.” Roosevelt looked around the tavern, and his gaze came to rest on Irma, the burly midwife. “The women he’s attacked have all been on the slender side. If he went after someone like Irma here, he might have a real battle on his hands.”

“I’m no whore!” snapped Irma indignantly. “I honor the Bible and the Commandments!”

“No offense intended,” said Roosevelt quickly. “I was just suggesting that perhaps being a prostitute is not the Ripper’s sole criterion, that maybe he goes after women he knows he can dispatch quickly.”

“Why quickly, if he’s having such a good time?” asked the bartender.

“Secrecy is his ally,” answered Roosevelt. “He can’t butcher them unless he kills them before they can scream. That means they can’t struggle for more than a second or two.”

“Ever been anything like him in America?” asked Shrank.

“Not to my knowledge. Certainly not in our cities, where such crimes would not go unnoticed and unreported.”

“They gets noticed and reported, all right,” said a woman. “Just no one cares, is all.”

Roosevelt looked out the window. “It’s starting to get dark.” He walked to the door. “Come on, Colin. It’s time to make our rounds.”

“You go alone tonight,” said Shrank, taking a drink of his ale.

“Aren’t you feeling well?”

“I feel fine. But I been walking those damned bloody streets with you every night since he chopped Annie Chapman. It’s been raining all day, and the wind bites right through my clothes to my bones, so I’m staying here. If you spot him, give a holler and I’ll join you.”

“Stick around, Theodore,” added the bartender. “He ain’t out there. Hell, he’s probably got his throat sliced on the waterfront.”

Roosevelt shook his head. “If I can save a single life by patrolling the streets, then I have no choice but to do it.”

“That’s the coppers’ job,” insisted Shrank.

“It’s the job of every civic-minded citizen who cares about the safety of Whitechapel,” replied Roosevelt.

“That lets you out. You ain’t no citizen.”

“Enough talk,” said Roosevelt, standing at the door, hands on hips. “You’re sure you won’t come with me?”

“I can’t even keep up with you in
good
weather,” said Shrank.

Roosevelt shrugged. “Well, I can’t stand here talking all night.”

He turned and walked out into the fog for another fruitless night of hunting for the Ripper.

***

Roosevelt felt a blunt object poking his shoulder. He sat up, swinging wildly at his unseen assailant.

“Stop, Theodore!” cried a familiar voice. “It’s me—John Hughes.”

Roosevelt swung his feet to the floor. “You’re lucky I didn’t floor you again.”

“I learned my lesson the first time,” said Hughes, displaying a broom. “The handle’s two meters long.”

“All right, I’m awake,” said Roosevelt. “Why are you here?”

“Jack the Ripper has struck again.”

“What?”
yelled Roosevelt, leaping to his feet.

“You heard me.”

“What time is it?” asked Roosevelt as he threw his clothes on.

“About 3:30 in the morning.”

“It’s Sunday, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Damn! I only went to bed about half an hour ago! Where did it happen?”

“In a little court off Berner Street,” said Hughes. “And this time he was interrupted.”

“By whom?”

“We’re not sure.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Come with me, and I’ll explain.”

Roosevelt finished dressing. “Let’s go.”

***

“There it is,” said Hughes as he and Roosevelt stared at the woman’s body. The head lay in a pool of blood. “He cut her throat and slashed her face, but there’s no other damage. He’d pulled her dress up and was just about to cut her belly open when he was interrupted.”

“What makes you think he was interrupted?” asked Roosevelt. “Why couldn’t he just have stopped for some other reason?”

“Because those two gentlemen”—Hughes pointed at a pair of locals who were speaking with two officers—”heard the scuffle and approached from different directions. We don’t know which one startled him—for all we know, he might have heard them both—but he suddenly took flight. They saw the body, realized what had happened, and gave chase.”

“For how long?”

Hughes shrugged. “Three or four blocks, before they knew for sure they’d lost him.”

“Did they get a glimpse of him?” persisted Roosevelt. “Any kind of description at all?”

Hughes shook his head. “But one of them, Mr. Packer, alerted us, and the body was still warm and bleeding when we found it. We couldn’t have missed him by five minutes.” He paused. “We’ve got a hundred men scouring every street and alley in Whitechapel. With a little luck we may find him.”

“May I speak to the two witnesses?” asked Roosevelt.

“Certainly.”

Hughes accompanied Roosevelt as the American approached the men. “This is Mr. Roosevelt,” he announced. “Please answer his questions as freely as you would answer mine.”

Roosevelt walked up to the taller of the two men. “I only have a couple of questions for you. The first is: how old are you?”

“34,” said the man, surprised.

“And how long have you lived in Whitechapel?”

“All my life, guv.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s all you want to know?” asked the man.

“That’s all,” said Roosevelt. He turned to the smaller man. “Could you answer the same two questions, please?”

“I’m 28. Ain’t never been nowhere else.” He paused. “Well, I took the missus to the zoo oncet.”

“Thank you. I have no further questions.” He shook the smaller man’s hand, then walked back to look at the corpse again. “Have you identified her yet?”

Hughes nodded. “Elizabeth Stride. Long Liz, they called her.”

“A prostitute, of course?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time anyone saw her alive?”

“She was seen at Bricklayers Tavern just before midnight,” answered Hughes.

“With a customer?”

“Yes, but she’d already serviced him. He has an alibi for the time of the murder.”

“Which was when?”

“About 45 minutes ago.” Hughes looked off into the fog. “I wonder if he’s still out there?”

“If he is, I’m sure that—”

He was interrupted by a woman’s scream.

“Where did
that
come from?” demanded Hughes.

“I don’t know, sir,” said one of the policemen. “Either straight ahead or off to the left. It’s difficult to tell.”

He turned back to Roosevelt. “What do you…
Theodore!!!
”

But the American was already racing into the fog, gun in hand.

“Follow him!” shouted Hughes to his men.

“But—”

“He’s a hunter! I trust his instincts!”

They fell into stride behind Roosevelt, who ran through the darkness until he reached Church Passage. He leaned forward in a gunfighter’s crouch and peered into the fog.