The House That Jack Built by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, really . . .”

“Just shut up, James, for God’s sake, just shut the bloody hell up!”

He considered arguing, but one look into Lachley’s eyes told Maybrick that his mentor was in no mood for trouble, not even from him. He walked along in broody silence, the blood on his hands drying into a sticky mess. When they passed a gutter with a broad puddle, he paused and glanced both directions down the street, then crouched and rinsed off his hands and his whore’s knife. Her blade was sticky with its owner’s lifeblood. His hands were still unsteady as he shook the muddy water off and thrust the prostitute’s knife back into his other coat pocket, opposite his own, longer-bladed weapon. He shoved his hands into his pockets to hide the bloodstains on his white cuffs.

“I want to get right out of Whitechapel,” Lachley muttered, moving steadily west. “Forget about your rooms in Middlesex Street. If there’s an inquiry, if that bloody Jew on Berner Street identifies us to the constables, I want to be out of Metropolitan Police jurisdiction, fast.”

They were already in Commercial Road, walking steadily west toward the point where Commercial Road took a sharp bend toward the north to become Commercial Street. Once past Middlesex Street and the Minories, along Aldgate, they would be in the jurisdiction of The City of London, with its own Lord Mayor, its own city officials and—ah, yes, Maybrick smiled, clever Lachley!—its own constabulary. As they passed a nasty little alley, they nearly stumbled over a drunk, who lay snoring in the gutter. Lachley paused, cast a swift glance around, then stooped and pulled the drunken sailor deeper into the alley.