บทที่ 1
The first murders
Sherlock Holmes became a detective in 1877, four years before I met him. At first he enjoyed every case, but soon he began to find the work easy. Ten years later he was famous, but he was unhappy and bored.
'The modern criminal is so painfully slow and stupid,' he often said. 'I need an interesting case, Watson, one which will make me think. Are there no clever thieves or murderers in the world these days?'
It is dangerous for a very intelligent man like Holmes to become bored. Some days he grew violent and once he shot several bullets into the walls of his room. He also began to use cocaine.
Does my reader know about cocaine, I wonder? Perhaps it is no longer used in the world of 1976. It is a useful medicine, and doctors rightly give it to patients who are in pain. But Holmes had no disease of the body. He used cocaine as a drug, because he enjoyed it. It made the long days seem more exciting. Soon he needed it every day, and could not live without it.
I told him to stop, but he only laughed at me. 'My dear fellow, I wish I could! Only bring me an interesting case, a difficult problem, and I shall forget my cocaine!'
One day in 1888 a note arrived from Scotland Yard. When Holmes opened it, he laughed and jumped to his feet. 'Inspector Lestrade wishes to see me,' he said. 'The police need my help, Watson. You know, of course, that someone is murdering women in Whitechapel?'
'Of course,' I replied. 'The newspapers are full of it. Three women are dead, and the police seem unable to find the killer. Everybody knows this. Life is cheap on the streets of White chapel for women of that kind. What can interest you in their miserable deaths?'
'It is an extraordinary case, Watson,' Holmes cried. 'I have been studying it. I knew the police would need my help. Shall I tell you the facts?'
'Please do!' I said. Was this going to be one of Sherlock Holmes's great cases? I hoped that at last he had found something to interest him.
'The women who died were poor, and neither young nor beautiful,' he told me. 'So they were not killed for money or for love. Why were they killed? That is one mystery. There is another. Each woman was killed with a knife. The word "killed", Watson, cannot describe the violent and terrible ways in which they were murdered. They were cut up like meat. The stomach of one was opened, the head of another almost cut from her body. But this is not the worst. There are things that even the newspapers will not describe.'
He showed me a doctor's report on one of the bodies. As I read it, a sick feeling carne over me.
'What man could do this?' I asked. 'What possible reason could he have to do this to a woman? Why, Holmes, why?' He smiled coolly at me.
'Why indeed? That is the real interest of this case. In themselves, these deaths are not important. Women like that are murdered every week. But why does this killer cut them up? Why rip the bodies to pieces with a knife? That is the question which makes this case so exciting!,
If anyone can stop these terrible murders, Holmes is that man, I thought. This case could become his greatest success.
At that moment somebody knocked at the door.
'Ah, come in, Inspector,' Holmes said. 'I understand you have finally decided to ask me to help you catch this Whitechapel murderer.'
Inspector Lestrade did not look very pleased. 'Not at all, Mr Holmes,' he said. 'I was just passing Baker Street, and I know you find these cases interesting.'
'How kind!' Holmes said. 'Please tell us. When did you arrest the killer? I am a little sad, I must say, to find that you have done it all without me.'
'We haven't arrested anyone yet,' Lestrade said, 'but I am very hopeful, Mr Holmes. You see, I have in my pocket a letter from the killer himself.'
The smile left Holmes's face. He was suddenly serious. 'May I see the letter?' he asked.
It was written in red, and the name at the bottom was 'Jack the Ripper'. I still remember something of what it said:
I love my work. My knife is nice and ready for the next job. I can't wait to rip again.
Holmes turned to Lestrade. 'What are you doing to stop this murderer?' he asked. 'It is clear that he will kill again very soon.'
'Every extra policeman that we have will be in Whitechapel at night,' Lestrade said. 'And we have a little surprise for Jack the Ripper.' He looked at us importantly. 'Some of our best and bravest policemen will be dressed in women's clothes,' he said. 'We will stop at nothing to catch this criminal.'
There was a moment's silence. Then Holmes and I looked at one another and we both began to laugh. We could not stop.
Lestrade turned very red. 'I see you are amused by murder,' he said. 'You do not wish to work with us. Well, I am a busy man. I must leave you. Goodbye, Mr Holmes. Goodbye, doctor.'
Holmes stopped laughing immediately.
'Inspector,' he said, 'I want very much to work with you. Let us meet this afternoon to discuss our plans.'
This made Lestrade much happier.
When he had left, I said to Holmes, 'You have laughed at the police, but what ideas do you have about these crimes? Who do you think the murderer is?'
'I do not know who he is, Watson,' he told me, 'but I believe I know what kind of man he is. He is far too intelligent, too extraordinary a killer for our good friend Lestrade and his policemen in dresses to catch. No, he shall be mine. He is the criminal that I have waited for. To destroy him will be the greatest success of my life. I dream of it, Watson! I must destroy him! I cannot fail!'
He was shaking with excitement. I had never seen him like this before.
That afternoon he went to Scotland Yard. When he came home, he was very quiet. Next day he appeared dressed in old, dirty clothes.
I am going to Whitechapel,' he told me. 'As you know, I have rooms in several parts of London. For the next three days I shall live among the poor people of White chapel. Nobody will know who I am. I shall talk to them and listen to everything that they tell me.'
'May I come with you?' I asked, but he said, 'No, Watson, you may not. If there is a murder, I shall send for you. I shall need your help, old fellow, have no fear of that!'
I spent a lonely evening in Baker Street. I was asleep when, at half past two in the morning, a cab arrived to take me to Whitechapel. Another woman had met a violent death.
As I travelled through the dark, empty streets, London seemed a strange and ghostly place - it lay there like the body of a great animal, not sleeping but dead.
The driver took me east, towards the poorest parts of the city.
He stopped in a narrow lane off Leadenhall Street. I saw a group of policemen standing under a light, and went up to them. Holmes was not there, but I was introduced to the police doctor. He offered to show me the body.
'I know you are a doctor,' he said, 'but I must warn you. You have never seen anything like this before.'
He led me to a dark corner, where something lay covered on the ground. He held up a light for me to see and pulled back the cover.
No words can describe the awfulness of what I saw then, For a moment my head felt light, I began to shake and was afraid I would fall. The thing on the ground had been a woman, but it was not a woman now. It was no more than blood and meat, cut open and ripped up with a terrible, unnatural violence. I knew now why the killer called himself Jack the Ripper.
The doctor covered the body, and I walked back to the group of policemen.
'Have you seen Mr Holmes?' I asked one of them,
'Oh yes, sir,' he said. 'He was here with Inspector Lestrade.
They carne straight from the other murder.'
'The other murder!' I cried. 'Has there been more than one murder tonight?'
'Why yes, sir. Did you not know?'
At that moment I heard the sounds of a horse corning into the lane, and a cab appeared.
'Get in, Watson!' a voice shouted, and Holmes helped me into the cab.
'He has escaped,' he told me. 'We followed him, but we have lost him.' His face was sad and tired. 'I want to show you something interesting. Then we can go home.'
The cab took us to a dark and dirty yard. 'The first woman died here,' Holmes said.
A policeman was standing in the yard. Holmes took a light from him and shone it on the wall.
'Look at this, Watson,' he said.
These words were written on the wall:
No Time To Rip
'It is the murderer's hand-writing,' Holmes said. 'The same as in the letter that Lestrade showed us.'
'What is happening?' I cried. 'I cannot understand what this killer wants.'
'He wants everybody to be afraid of him,' Holmes told me. 'He wants to be the most evil killer in the world. He had to kill two women tonight, because he did not have time to cut and rip the body of the first. I think he heard somebody corning, and he had to leave the body and run. Then he killed a second time, and cut that woman's body to pieces in the way we have seen.'
We were both silent as the cab took us back to Baker Street, far from the narrow, dirty streets of east London.
I could not sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the body of a woman lying in a dark corner, covered in blood.