The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

Davy Collins shrugged. “All I know is, he was quick.”

“Did you follow him?”

“Why would I? I didn’t know why he was running. They didn’t find poor Mary until the morning.”

Bell shook his head. “Wait. If they didn’t find Mary Kelly until the morning, then why was the Ripper running? What scared him?”

“The knock at the door.”

“What knock at the door?”

“The fellow who came to collect the rent.”

“At four in the morning?”

“She was behind in her rent,” said Davy Collins. “Dodging the landlord.”

“Did you see the collector?”

“No. But he would knock whenever he saw a light. That’s why the Ripper ran. The knock surprised him.”

“Did her room have a second door?”

“Not bloody likely.”

“Did he go out the window?”

“How would I know, guv? I’m just speculating.”

“The shadow waited until you came out of the Yard,” Joel Wallace reported when Isaac Bell got back to Jermyn Street.

“I saw him,” said Bell. “He followed me to the Red Lion.”

Wallace nodded. “I reckoned he was about to go after you, but then I think he spotted me because he suddenly hopped a tram.”

“You let him ditch you?” Bell hid neither his surprise—Wallace was top-notch—nor his dismay.

“The man knew his business. Timed it perfectly. Left me standing on the bridge with egg on my face.”

“Is he a cop?”

“Too slick. More like military.”

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; “Military?”

“There’s a war brewing. London’s full of dreadnought spies—Germans, mostly, but Frogs, Japs, Eye-talians, and Russians, too—tripping over each other looking to lift new battleship plans.”

“Was he shadowing you or me?”

“You,” Wallace answered firmly. “I’m not working up any spy cases.”

“Neither am I,” said Bell. “Besides, even Scotland Yard never suspected Jack the Ripper was a German spy.”

“Maybe whoever sicced him on you thinks you’re up to something else?”

Bell pondered that. It was the more likely scenario.