Read Ripper for Free Online Page A

Webley was not such a burden after all.
    Colonel Stanley, instead of answering the question, gestured for ten men to move to the far side of thebuilding and use the wooden staircase at that end. He then handed the note over to the chief inspector and then quickly started taking the stairs two at a time.
    “Chief Inspector?” Washington said as he watched the blood drain from Abberline’s face. Instead of answering, he too handed over the note, not wanting to utter the written words aloud. Washington read the note as his boss followed thesoldiers up the stairs. The words were scrawled as if they were written by an untrained, brutish hand.
    Colonel Stanley, if I may presume this is who the ministry of defense has chosen to terminate my contract, please join me in the laboratory at the head of the stairs. I am available for a demonstration of the work I was so well compensated for. It is shameful that I am not allowed to completemy assignment, but tonight you can have the results as promised.
    —A
    Washington was as confused as ever as he allowed the note to fall from his hand. He went up the stairs, but not as enthusiastically as the rest.
    Abberline heard the men on the upper floor as they moved about. He gained the uppermost floors and then looked out onto the warehouse. Half the building had a second floor; the otherhalf was a high roof with the new skylighting used for the greenhouse. Abberline aimed his pistol ahead of him. The building lacked the gas lighting of the more modern warehouses that lined the river, so in every corner and underneath every table, chair, and barrel, he saw moving shadows. He finally spied Stanley as he kicked over a small table that held beakers and glass tubes of every shape andsize. He seized the colonel’s arm.
    “We must leave the building and surround it with more men. This is a trap and we’re walking right into it.”
    “My orders are to kill this maniac, and that is exactly what we are going to do. If you have doubts as to our abilities, perhaps it is a good time to leave.” Stanley shook Abberline’s hand free of his arm. “But you can also expect a visit from the palaceas to why you refused to assist Her Majesty in this apprehension.”
    Abberline was about to explode. Now Stanley was even veiling his threat with word games—it was real; they would kill him and Washington and think nothing less of themselves. He opened his mouth to speak, but a thickened, rich, booming voice froze every man on the second floor.
    “Your men seem to need some of the fire I could haveprovided them and the Defense Ministry paid for if I had not been betrayed by those very same men, Colonel Stanley.”
    The voice echoed in the almost-empty building. Abberline was sure that it emanated from a megaphone at the very least. It swirled and then settled upon the twenty-three men as the fog had done outside.
    “This was supposed to end many months ago; you gave your word to the ministry.Now come Professor Ambrose, let’s finish this business.”
    “Very well, but allow me my medicinal interlude.”
    Abberline jumped when the sound of breaking glass broke the silence after the words were spoken. As he looked he saw the vial in pieces on the floor at the colonel’s booted feet. He watched as Stanley went to a knee to examine the broken glass. He reached out and retrieved a small pieceof the shattered vial. He sniffed and then he stood so suddenly that his men jumped.
    “Professor, you did not drink the whole of this did you?”
    Silence.
    “It will not avail you, tonight you die.”
    It seemed every man saw the shadow as it fell from the rafters above their heads. The darkened mass hit the floor and then vanished into the blackness at the far end of the warehouse. Three shots rangout from the nervous soldiers to Abberline’s left. Washington stepped forward and stood by the chief inspector.
    Suddenly the sergeant major and two men skirted the colonel and ran forward on the right at Stanley’s