murdered,' Holmes said. 'The diagram shows the
place where each died.'
'And X, I suppose, is some unknown woman, the one
that he plans to kill tonight,' I said. 'But how do you
know where to put the X on your diagram?'
'Look again, Watson,' Holmes said with a smile.
Suddenly, I understood. 'It is a letter M!'
'Yes, Watson. M for murder, M for .. .' 'Moriarty!
Holmes, do you mean to say ... ?'
'Yes. He is writing his name in blood upon the face of
Whitechapel. And, as you see, I know where he will
try to kill tonight, and where I shall go to meet him.'
'Not without me,' I said. 'I must come with you.' We
left the police station just before midnight.
For the first time, 1 walked through the narrow streets
of east London, streets that I had seen before only
through the window of a cab. People think that
murders happen in dark, empty streets. That is not
always true. A strange and horrible fact about the
streets where Jack the Ripper murdered women is
that they were busier and better lit than most other
London streets. They were full of pubs and cheap
hotels. At all hours the streets were full of people who
were too poor to find a bed anywhere, drunks
looking for a bar that never closed, and all kinds of
criminals. Finally, there were the women - those
women who work only at night, when their more
honest sisters are asleep.
I studied medicine in London, and while I was a
student I saw something of the low-life of our capital.
I was, after all, a healthy young man, and young
men must amuse themselves. But I had never seen
women like these. Holmes stopped several to
question and to warn them, and I looked at their
faces carefully. They were old at the age of twenty,
dirty, diseased and hopeless. One thing was clear to
me - they were not like other women. Does it matter,
I began to think, if Jack the Ripper kills women like
these? Death by his knife is quick. It cannot be worse
than the slow and painful death from disease which
most often ends their short lives.
We returned to the police station after one o'clock. I
was tired and sick at heart. Lestrade did not stop
talking, telling us that we should catch no murderers
that night.
Suddenly, Holmes jumped up and walked out into
the street.
I followed him.