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.