Текст книги "I, Ripper: A Novel"

Автор книги: Stephen Hunter

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

I rolled them up, slid them into my jacket, and quickly exited.

The night was fresh and clear. I didn’t look for a hansom but walked the mile and a half to my mother’s house, considering what to do next. I had the world at my fingers with the diary. I could reveal and publish and become rich, famous, powerful, godlike, whatever.

Yet the colonel’s words weighed heavily on my mind. Thus my decision: I leave the volume to my estate, and if it sees the light of day, it is on my descendants.

On the other hand, I give myself this gift. Having wrung it out in my own mind, I have decided I will proceed with my project. Art is made from life or it is no good, and all this happened to me, so it’s mine to use, even if I must force it into comedy to escape its darker implications. I will use the characters, the root situation, and avoid the slaughter: Distilled toward purity, it will be a tale of ambition, intellectual vanity, even relentless will, but also courage, the dignity of unfortunates, the wisdom of soldiers. It will end long before the murders begin, and to me at least, it will explain how such a thing could have happened. No one else will so understand. I will call it Pygmalion.

As for Dare, he lies undisturbed in the tunnel, if the tunnel lies undisturbed under the Anarchists’ Club and hasn’t been ruptured by the constant reconstruction of London. That I do not know. The fuss over his disappearance ended swiftly, and it seems he is forgotten, even if Jack, his creation, will never die. But that is a fraud, cake for the masses, so what difference does it make?

Indeed, only in one quarter does the memory of Thomas Dare persist, and it is not he that is remembered but the flavor of his flesh. For he can be commemorated only by his brethren, the other creatures of the dark Londontown Beneath, the black rats.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ripperologists will note, I hope, that in most cases I have stayed well within consensus regarding the Autumn of the Knife. There are a few “willed” inaccuracies that I had to insert to sustain a dramatic structure. In acknowledging them, I hope to stave off penny-ante criticisms.

–Mr. Diemschutz said in testimony that he went in the side door of the Anarchists’ Club, not the front door on Berner Street, as I have it. I had to move him out of the yard so that Jack could do what Jack did.

–The journey of the missing half of Mrs. Eddowes’s apron was more complicated (and more tedious) than the streamlined version I have provided, but it came to the same thing. Readers should thank me.

–No evidence was ever encountered suggesting a tunnel from the Anarchists’ Club.

–Contra my account, the newspapers paid no particular attention to Annie’s missing “wedding rings.” Also, all the headlines and news copy are of my own invention.

In one area I am apostate. That is the method of Jack’s attack on his first four victims. Consensus has decided that he knocked them to the ground first, muffled their screams with his left hand, and cut their throats, beginning under the left ear, with his right.

I believe, as I have dramatized here, his angle was directly frontal; he faced his victim as if to purchase service and attacked suddenly with a sideward snap of arm and wrist and essentially drove the blade into the throat under the ear in a vicious chop, then rotated about the stricken woman to draw it around as he eased her to the ground. I hope to find a forum to say more on this issue at a later time.

Now on to thanks. Lenne P. Miller was instrumental in the composition of I, Ripper. He researched it to breadth and depth, as the bibliography should make clear, and he read, reread, and rereread the manuscript, hunting for the errors someone as notoriously sloppy as I am is prone to make. It took at least three drafts for me to figure out how to spell “teetote.” If the book is as remarkably accurate as I believe it to be and as accurate as any fictional account, that’s because of Lenne. If there are mistakes, that’s because of me.

I should also mention the remarkable website Casebook: Jack the Ripper. Scrupulously maintained and scrupulously fair, it provided quick answers to basic questions and deeper answers to deeper questions, and gave me the sense that someone was watching over me. Hope the boys enjoy what I’ve done with their labors.

Besides his research, Lenne also came up with a great idea for the plot, which helped me keep it ticking along. Mike Hill, another good friend, pitched in with a keen idea, very helpful. I am notoriously prone to ignoring other people’s ideas, if I can even summon the patience to listen to them, but in these two cases, the ideas were so good, and so much better than anything I had or would come up with, I had to acquiesce. Guys, the check is in the mail.

One of the early champions of my take on Jack was James Grady, the thriller writer and a good friend; his enthusiasm actually carried me for years while I tried to work out a way to tell the story as it had occurred to me in a flash one night. Bill Smart was another early and vociferous backer, and his enthusiasm was such a help. Any writer stuck in a plot hole or a character swamp or an editor jam knows how much it helps to have a guy who’ll back you up, pull you out, tell you you’re the best (even if it’s not true!), and send you on your way. Bill was that guy for me.

Others include usual suspects Jeff Weber and Barrett Tillman. Newcomers (but old friends) were Frank Feldinger, Dan Thanh Dang, who supplied me with a crucial woman’s view of the proceedings, and Otto Penzler. Walt Kuleck, author of the Owner’s Guide and Complete Assembly Guide series of firearms books, provided invaluable expertise on a host of non-firearms issues. David Fowler, M.D., the Maryland Medical Examiner and a friend, advised on technical issues. My great friend Gary Goldberg kept the technical aspect of the operation going brilliantly. Someday he’ll have to explain to me exactly what “digital” means. My wife, Jean Marbella, brewed 240 pots of coffee, which got me up and got me upstairs. My thanks to them all. I am a fortunate man to have such folks in my circle.

One question you might have: Steve, since you’ve done all this research for a novel on Jack the Ripper, do you know who he really was?

My answer: Of course I do. Watch for it. It’s going to be fun.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

© KELLY CAMPBELL

Stephen Hunter has written twenty novels. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post, where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books, Journals, eBooks, and Web Articles

Ackroyd, Peter. (2011) London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets. London: Chatto and Windus.

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Echo, London, 1888

Evening News, London, 1888

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Essential Web Sites

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Letter from Thomas Bond comparing the murder of Marie Jeanette Kelly (Mary Jane Kelly) with four of the previous murders, and an assessment of the murderer (copy of same in MEPO 3/140, ff 220—223) http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C6222011.

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