There were ways, even then, of erasing the problem he still represented.
The matter being as resolved as he could make it at this juncture, John Lachley set his horse toward Greenwich Village pier for the return trip to London and set his seething mind toward Polly Nichols and the problems she represented.
He was still wrestling with the problem when he returned home to find a letter which had arrived, postmarked, of all places, Whitechapel, London, Liverpool Street Station. “My dearest Dr. Lachley,” the missive began, “such a tremendous difference you have made! Many of my symptoms have abated immeasurably since my visit to your office, Friday last. I feel stronger, more well, than I have in many months. But I am still troubled greatly by itching hands and dreadful headaches. I wondered if you would be so good as to arrange another appointment for me in your surgery? I am certain you can do me more good than any other physician in the world. As I have returned to London on business, it would be most kind of you to fit me into your admittedly busy schedule. I eagerly await your response. Please contact me by return post, general delivery, Whitechapel.”
It was signed James Maybrick, Esquire.
John Lachley stared at the signature. Then a slow smile began to form. James Maybrick, the murderous cotton merchant from Liverpool . . . With his delightful written diary and its equally delightful confession of murder. And not just any murder, either, but the murder of a whore, by damn, committed by a man with all the motive in the world to hate prostitutes! Maybrick wasn’t a Jew, didn’t look even remotely foreign. But if Lachley recruited Maybrick into this hunt for Polly Nichols, worked with him, there would be two descriptions for eyewitnesses to hand police, confounding the issue further, throwing the constables even more violently off Lachley’s trail. Yes, by damn, Maybrick was just the thing he required.