“Oh, Kit,” Robert Li was wiping tears, he was laughing so hard. “I feel sorry for Joey Tyrolin when he sobers up! That lady is gonna make his life one miserable, living nightmare for the next two weeks!”
Kit chuckled. “Serves him right. But I feel sorrier for the porter, poor sap. He’s going to catch it from both of ‘em.”
“Too true. I hope he’s being well paid, whoever he is. Say, Kit, I haven’t had a chance to ask, who do you think the Ripper’s going to turn out to be?”
“Oh, God, Robert, not you, too?” Kit rolled his eyes and downed another gulp of firewater.
“C’mon, Kit, ‘fess up. Bets are running hot and heavy it turns out to be some up-timer. But I know you. I’m betting you won’t fall for that. Who is it? A deranged American actor appearing in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Mary Kelly’s lesbian lover? Francis Tumblety, that American doctor who kept women’s wombs pickled in jars? Aaron Kosminski or Michael Ostrog, the petty thief and con artist? Maybe Frederick Bailey Deeming, or Thomas Neil Cream, the doctor whose last words on the gallows were ‘I am Jack—‘? Or maybe a member of a Satanic cult, sacrificing victims to his Dark Lord? Like Robert Donston Stephenson or Aleister Crowley?”
Kit held up a hand, begging for mercy. “Please, enough! I’ve heard all the theories! I’d as soon believe it was Lewis Carroll or the queen’s personal physician. The evidence is no better for them than for anybody else you’ve just named. Personally? If it wasn’t James Maybrick, and the case against him is a pretty good one, if you don’t discount the diary as a forgery—and the forensic and psychological evidence in favor of the diary are pretty strong—then I think it was a complete stranger, someone none of our Ripperologists has identified or even suspected.”