GODS OF RIVERWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer

Following Gull’s secret orders, transmitted through the police commissioner, also a Mason, special police agents raided the apartments of Walter Sickert, Eddy’s old companion, and Annie Crook, they hustled Eddy off from Sickert’s to the palace and Crook to an asylum. Gull certified that Annie was insane, though she was not at that time, and she spent the rest of her life in asylums and workhouses. In 1920, truly mad, she died. Eddy never saw her again. The police had intended to pick up Mary Kelly, a young Irishwoman who had witnessed the illicit marriage. Probably, Gull would have certified her as insane, too. Whatever he intended for her, he was frustrated. Somehow, she escaped the police net and dived deep into the labyrinth of the East End. Later, she took care for a while of Alice Margaret, Eddy’s and Annie’s child. Both accompanied Sickert on his long trips to Dieppe. While in France, Mary Jane Kelly changed her name to Marie Jeannette Kelly.

Eventually, Kelly had to hide again in London’s vast people warren, the East End. Here she began the slide downward that ended with her becoming one of the many thousands of alcoholic and diseased whores living miserable and hopeless lives.

Like her sisters in the profession, she considered herself fortunate if she earned just enough money to buy gin for a few hours’ numbness, enough food to stave off outright starvation, and a roof over her head.

Kelly was not without friends, however, the closest of whom were Mary Anne Nichols, Anne Siffey, alias Chapman, and Elizabeth “Long Liz” Stride, all drunks, diseased, malnourished and doomed to die soon even if “Jack the Ripper” had not existed. When Kelly met these in taverns or in their lousy apartments and the gin bore discretion away on the golden waves of alcohol, she revealed to them the Prince Eddy-Annie Crook liaison and its terrible results. And, during one of these roaring sessions, the idea for blackmailing Prince Eddy was born.

Knight had suggested that the four had tried the extortion scheme because they were forced to do it by a group of dangerous thugs, the Old Nichol Gang.

Whatever the motivation, the idea was very dangerous and stupid. Salisbury had let the search for Kelly drop because he had not heard from her nor had his police spies heard that she was disclosing anything about the affair. As long as she kept her mouth shut, she was no peril to the establishment that Salisbury represented. Now, however, on receiving a message demanding money for silence, Salisbury put the machinery of retribution in motion.

Urged by Salisbury, Gull lost no time in reacting. The prime minister had given him orders to put the lid back on, but Salisbury probably had no glimmering of how Gull intended to do this. Certainly, desperate as he was to silence the blackmailers, he would have been horrified if he had known what Gull intended. It was one thing to imprison a lower-class woman in a series of hospitals and workhouses for life, a regrettable but necessary deed from Salisbury’s viewpoint. But to murder and butcher the women was a deed that Salisbury could not have ordered. Once the slayings had started, however, Salisbury could only let them go on and do his best to protect “Jack the Ripper.”

John Netley was the coachman who had driven Prince Eddy to the Sickert home and other places where Eddy did what a prince of the realm was not supposed to do. Gull had insured his silence with threats and bribes after Eddy and Alice Crook had been abducted. Knowing Netley’s character, Gull now told him, in general terms, what his plans were for the blackmailers. Netley was eager to serve him. And, since Sickert knew the principals in the affair, was well acquainted with the East End, and had accepted money to keep his mouth shut about Eddy and Crook, Sickert was enlisted by Gull. Though reluctant to take part in the murders, he knew that if he did not, he would himself be killed.

The coach, driven by Netley, holding Sickert and Gull, drove into the Whitechapel area. After a number of reconnoiterings, Gull and Sickert lured Mary Anne Nichols into their coach by requesting her services. Flattered that two such elegant gentlemen would even look at her, though doubtless wondering what kinky acts they had in mind, Nichols got into the coach. Gull offered her a glass of wine containing a drug (Knight had suggested he used poisoned grapes), and, when she was unconscious, he cut her throat from left to right, disemboweled her and stabbed her. Sickert leaned out of the coach and vomited.