Rip and Blair sat in a hansom cab the next morning on their way to Doctors’ Commons. They both remained quiet, reflecting on the evening before.

Chief Inspector Sperry finally left after ascertaining that Rip’s alibi remained airtight. Too many people knew where he was all night. There had been no opportunities for him to sneak off to Whitechapel and murder a prostitute.

That still left the issue of his name scrawled in blood on the wall.

One of the officers coughed politely in his hand and said, “Perhaps it’s just the grave marker, sir.”

“Grave marker?”

“Yes, sir. You know, ‘Rest in Peace.’”

Sperry mulled over this possibility.

One of the other officers said, “More like ‘Rest in Pieces,’ am I right lads?”

Sperry whipped around and scowled at him with a glare that could curdle milk.

“Sorry, sir.”

At his favorite newsstand, Rip waved at the boy on the curb, who ran over with the morning edition of his paper.

“Big news, sirrah! The Trumpet received a letter from the Whitechapel killer!”

Rip gave the boy a coin and pulled the paper inside. He read the front page headlines with a sinking heart. He also noticed the lead story’s byline was Angela Fontaine.

“I hope they had the decency not to publish that awful photo,” Blair said.

“They didn’t.”

Rip sighed and said, “Unfortunately, this is following a pattern we first saw on my world a couple hundred years ago.”

“And what pattern is that, precisely?”

“A serial killer discovers the media.”

Blair remained lost in thought and Rip continued reading all the way to Doctors’ Commons.

A while later when they checked in at the reception desk, the young woman there recognized them.

“Lady Brooke, Sir Coulter, your presence is requested in a meeting this morning. Room 201.”

They glanced at one another but said nothing. Rip thanked the woman and they headed for the stairs.

Room 201 was a cozy room, featuring a large oak table with several chairs around it. They found members from both teams there, along with Hedgefield and Prescott, the Lord High Steward. Also, Lady Fisher, wearing an expression of boredom mixed with remorse on her face.

Hedgefield cleared his throat as the couple walked in.

He said, “Thank you for joining us. As you might infer, Sir Prescott’s presence lends the imprimatur of King Allo. Sir Prescott is authorized to grant us whatever we might need for the issue at hand.”

Hedgefield glanced at the paper under Rip’s arm and said, “I presume you are aware of the issue, if that is the Standard Trumpet.”

Rip nodded and pulled a chair out at the table for Blair, then sat down beside her.

“Then let us begin. The slash marks on that poor prostitute were either made by someone with tremendous strength, or someone with an enhanced blade. Based upon what we know from Lady Fisher’s experience on the black airships, an enhanced man with an enhanced blade fell out of one of the ships.”

Everyone looked at Marissa. She did not look back, but stared at the middle of the table.

“Therefore, I think we can infer the blade might well have been used, since the ships were recovered on the east end, whilst floating above Whitechapel. The question remains, did the enhanced man survive the fall? Lord Sharp? Lord Bixby? Your thoughts.”

Sharp sighed.

“Anything is possible. We have no idea of their enhancement process. Darhaven’s people have proven remarkably resilient, especially their upper tiers. If this was one of their lords, such as Dar Caul, I could believe the notion of him surviving a fall from that height. Perhaps something cushioned his fall . . .”

Bixby said, “If he fell in water, he almost certainly survived.”

“Are there any bodies of water large enough on that side of the city?”

Bixby shrugged and said, “I avoid the area, myself.”

Rip turned to Marissa.

“You said he wore a cloak of some sort?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Maybe he used it as a parachute.”

Everyone stared at him.

“Ah. You’re not familiar with the concept. Okay, a parachute is a large silk cloth, shaped like an umbrella. It slows a person while falling so they don’t die when hitting the ground. Other cloth can slow a person’s fall thanks to friction in the air. A large cloak on an enhanced man might be enough to keep him alive, especially if he landed somewhere soft.”

Hedgefield cleared his throat again.

“I think we shall go forward on the presumption our villain is alive and using his blade. Does anyone disagree with that assessment?”

No one said anything.

Prescott spoke up.

“Is there anything else from your world you can tell us that might help, Sir Coulter?”

“As a matter of fact, we had something very similar happen on my world. A man at about this time period started killing prostitutes in our version of Whitechapel. He came to be known as Jack the Ripper.”

This statement was met with stunned silence.

Bixby broke it by saying, “Whatever became of the scoundrel?”

Rip winced.

“He was never caught. It remains the greatest mystery of its age. I’ve read up on it, of course, and I’m familiar with the details. I can tell you he started writing letters to the press and the police, taunting them. Then others got in on the fun, pretending to be him. Hundreds of letters poured in, making any clues from the real ones useless. It became something of a circus, lasting for years. Like I said, he was never caught.”

A few people shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

The door slammed open, startling those closest to it. Sperry stood in the hallway, glaring at everyone inside.

The receptionist from the front desk said, “Room 201, sir.”

Then she scampered off, unwilling to face either Sperry or those in the meeting.

Hedgefield nodded at him and said, “Chief Inspector. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“My sources indicated you are meeting about the Ripper,” Sperry said, walking into the room and closing the door behind him. “I wish for the police to be involved in whatever actions the RVS takes.”

Hedgefield stiffened, as did Prescott. Bixby and Sharp did not look happy, either.

Sperry read the room and softened his tone.

“I believe that working together, our people can be more effective. The man threatens to do far more in the days ahead, if that letter is to be believed. If we’re not careful, we’ll have a full blown panic on our hands in my city.”

Hedgefield loosened up at the qualifying remarks.

He rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Very well, Chief Inspector. We are discussing the gathering of a team to go into Whitechapel and look for the man who fell off the airship while fighting Lady Fisher and her girls. We think he could have survived the fall, and we know he had an enhanced blade as well.”

Sperry said, “My men have canvassed the neighborhood. We’ve tried to find anyone who came in recently, anyone out of the ordinary. I have a list of people my men sussed out for us.”

He pulled a sheet of paper out of a breast pocket and handed it to Hedgefield. Prescott leaned over and they both looked at the row of neatly typed names.

Hedgefield passed it over to Bixby who shared it with Sharp. They passed it around the table to Marissa, Twig, Chance, Blair . . .

Finally Rip took it and scanned the names. His eyebrows went up.

“I recognize one of these.”

“You know someone on there?” Sperry said.

“Not personally, no. But it’s a name from my world.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

Rip looked up from the paper and blushed when he noticed everyone in the room staring at him.

“Yeah. So, there was a doctor . . . a physicker . . . in Canada on my world, living at about this time. He was a very bad dude.”

Twig and Chance shared a glance.

Twig mouthed, “Dude?”

Chance shrugged.

“He poisoned his wife and other women. Prostitutes. Girls seeking abortions. He fled to the states, to Chicago. He killed some more there. Then he made his way to London where the law finally caught up to him.”

Sperry nodded, his self-righteous expression indicating that certainly the police performed their job as expected, even if on another world.

“On the gallows, just before the rope snapped his neck, the man yelled out, ‘I am Jack—’ . . . And then he died.”

Blair said, “So they did catch your Jack the Ripper after all.”

Rip shook his head.

“There was never any proof beyond that. Not everyone believes he was the man. Remember, hundreds of people were writing letters to the papers, pretending to be Jack the Ripper. Most people decided he was just trying to get in on the fun. Although, no other murders attributed to Jack the Ripper occurred after his death.”

“What was this physicker’s name?” Sperry said.

“Thomas Neill Cream.”