The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

I couldn’t blame you if you don’t come alone.

Or don’t come at all.

I ask too much of bravery.

/> One of us is immortal, and you know it isn’t you.

“Twenty-to-one, it’s a hoax,” he told Archie Abbott.

“You going anyway?”

“Have to.”

“Alone?”

“Like the man says.”

Bell recognized the handwriting as similar to the “My funny little games” letter that Jack the Ripper wrote to the Central News Agency in 1888—which Scotland Yard had thought authentic and put up on posters in the fruitless hope someone who knew him would recognize the handwriting.

A crescent was inked under Jack the Ripper’s signature, which anyone could have picked up reading the papers. But “Dear Boss” was more intriguing, as that first letter to the Yard had also been directed to “Dear Boss.”

“What the heck is ‘Mile 342. SP’?” asked Archie Abbott.

Bell showed him a map.

“The Southern Pacific Railroad counts track miles from San Francisco. That puts Milepost 342 a hundred and twenty miles up the coast from Los Angeles, between Gaviota and El Capitan.”

The tracks hugged the Santa Barbara Channel shore.

“Middle of nowhere,” said Archie.

“Nothing but a water tank.”

“What if he pulls something?”

“If he doesn’t, I’ll be mighty disappointed.”

“Why don’t I just tag along a ways back?” Abbott asked.

“He’ll be looking for you.”

Abbott knew his friend too well. Because he blamed himself for Anna’s death, Isaac Bell would go alone—rather than risk frightening him off—fight alone, and come back alone with a captive or a body—or alone in a coffin—and no force on earth could stop him.

“Twenty-to-one, it’s a hoax,” Bell repeated.

“By whom?”

“My old friend Abbington-Westlake is ‘having me on,’ as the Britons say. His forgers could imitate the Ripper’s handwriting. But they made a mistake with this word.”

“‘Immortal’?”

“The Ripper wrote slang: ‘Fix me’ and ‘buckled’ for ‘arrest’; ‘codding’ for ‘playing jokes’; ‘work’ and ‘job’ for ‘murder.’ Calling me Boss, they got right. But not ‘immortal.’ More to the point, he’s never sent a letter since he left London. Scotland Yard did him a huge favor claiming he was dead, and he’s kept it that way.”

“He can’t resist playing his games—like the crescent code—now he’s playing games with you.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Isaac Bell.

“Isaac, let me come with you.”