"JACK R."

     (c)Copyright 1993 by Franchot Lewis

	 I know it is late, yet I have waited for some time in
     the street watching for you to return. Your housekeeper
     would not let me wait inside. She was rude and I became rude.
     I waited in the street. I made up my mind that if you were
     alone I would come and speak with you, Mr. Holmes. I have
     been watching your house for several days. You knew? You have
     observed me? I presume that you have looked into my back
     ground? The matter of my mustering out of my regiment and the
     disappearance of funds are in no way connected. You have seen
     my record? You know what the Army had to say. A man with your
     gifts for the art of reasoning sifted through the lies. You
     know the details as well as I - and the truth. The tragedy of
     history is that the Army has the uncommon skill of turning a
     complete lie in to an acceptable fact.

	  Everyday, Mr. Holmes, I saw you appear with Dr. Watson. I
     knew the time was not right. I turned on my heels and left.
     Yesterday, I saw Dr. Watson take the train for Scotland. I
     knew today I would wait until you returned to your rooms. You
     will see me, Mr. Holmes? Out of curiosity? You are eager to
     hear what I have to say. The days of observing me has increased
     your eagerness to hear me. May I come in? Yes, I am just
     recovering from an illness.

	 Thank you again, Mr. Holmes. Thank your housekeeper for
     the tea. I hope she accepted my apology. I am afraid I was
     most rude. You, Mr. Holmes, are a first-rate man, a strong
     son of Britain. A man of sense. There's no nonsense about you.
     English through and through. A gentleman. And you have a
     logical, analytical brain, one of the greatest. We have much
     in common, a love for our country. We, both are profoundly
     honest men, serious and sincere, hard-working and dedicated,
     and we both show an obsession with our work. I should be most
     happy to quickly state my business. If you should be in a
     hurry, I shall come back another time. But, please, Mr.
     Holmes, you would confer a great favor upon me by giving me
     a few minutes of your time.  And I think that your time
     shall not be misspent, for there are facts that I need to
     present to you. Please oblige me with a little of your
     excellent attention.

	 I am glad I am here, but maybe I should not have come. I
     have because I have longed so terribly to talk to someone.
     Yet, I know what I have done is right. I have the proof, the
     evidence of my mind from God that no question remains as to
     the right of what I have done. And you shall see the proof
     come in abundance, gushing forth and overflowing, of that I
     have no doubt. You shall be as certain as I. What? Have I
     committed a crime? A crime? No crime. There is no possibility
     of criminal intent. Yes, some call it a crime. But there was
     no conscious or unconscious criminal intent. In crime there
     must be criminal intent - real intent, premeditated and
     deliberate. But there is no crime in cases where one may
     commit an unconscious misdeeds, or where one is innocent, and
     is the victim at the mercy of mischievous, even downright
     wicked, outside forces. Mr. Holmes, there was no crime. I was
     aware of what I was doing, and I did it with no criminal
     intent. You look unhappy? I am not making myself clear? Oh, I
     did not tell you exactly what was my misdeed. You have been so
     patiently listening that I thought I had told you. I am he,
     the gentleman who has put the fear of God into the sluts of
     White Chapel. You do not look happy, why?

	 Have I made a blunder, Mr. Holmes? I would not have
     thought it possible that the most remarkable mind in England
     could not grasp what has until now remained concealed,
     especially in so Christian of head as yours. The gentleman
     of White Chapel is no murderer.

	 My love of God, England, and the Queen - That is not
     something unusual. That is not outstanding. Millions of
     patriotic Englishmen love God, country and Queen. But to do
     what I have done, why I have done it is indeed outstanding.
     To do what I have done and not love God, England and Queen
     is to mock God, England and Queen, and is to be guilty of a
     crime most odious and blasphemous as to make one a beast. Why
     do you still look unhappy, Mr. Holmes?
	 They were prostitutes, whores, sluts, vermin! They were
     not honest women. And not young girls who had been pulled into
     sin. They were well into the devil's work. Sluts with years of
     experience in the sewers, hag wrenches with life times of
     vileness behind them. Filthy fornication was not their only
     sin. Public drunkenness -  Drunkenness as well as lewdness,
     was the mess of their lives. They were Satan's harlots, tramping
     through God's world for two tupperants.

	 What are you saying, Holmes? You are not a happy man. I
     am beginning to realize that you, while logical and rational
     when fitting together pieces of puzzles, playing a parlour
     game, is innocent and child-like when face with questions of
     serious morality. You disappoint me, Holmes. I feel let down.

	 Only five! I executed them! I humanely cut their throats
     with a clean knife. There was no needless suffering. Don't be
     duped by the accounts in the press that have me butchering
     hundreds, thousands, millions of innocent young virgin English
     girls! Girls! Virgins! Don't look offended. You repeat the press'
     rantings. Yellow journalism, Holmes. You are a detective, Man!
     Don't repeat to  me Fleet Street's negative look at my deeds,
     take the time to seek out the positive. You are a detective,
     are you not? Therefore, approach my case as a detective
     examining the evidence through a clean glass, and not an
     unthinking ass, yearning for the shelter of quick judgment.
     And let me see your common sense too. I want to see that.
     Bring forth objectivity, that is the only way to encourage
     truth to come. Antagonism and shallowness will surely drive
     truth away, and ruin your chance to understand my deeds, even
     before I have begun to explain them. Everything depends on
     objectivity, to ignore this is to bind yourself to untruth.

	 No mutilation! No mutilation of their bodies! None! I am
     puzzled that you still have not begun to listen!

	 I did not know any of their names. I did not know them.
     Execution is not personal. It is something that must be done.

	 There was no lust! No blood lust! No bloody lust of any
     kind! You should listen, attentively. No one hates killing as
     much as I. But I had a duty to perform. Do not look at me with
     that dirty, disgusting look of school boy rage, or say
     ridiculous sophomoric things about what I did. God shall be
     judicious to me, until then, my soul is guarded. So long I
     have hoped to be able to communicate. I dared not offend
     uninformed ears, but you, the most important detective in
     England - I had hoped.

	 What I did I did for England. Openly, so that all could
     see. I did not hide. I did not sneak around. I executed four
     of the five in the open on the street. I did it in White
     Chapel because it was White Chapel. A small rotten spot in
     this isle of the blessed that is sweet England. In London,
     itself, the capitol of sweet England. My England! The
     brightest star in God's Western sky! England! White Chapel
     was infested with Satan's slimy little crawlers! Prostitutes:
     rascals! Vagrants: dung! Down-and-outs: devils! Pickpockets:
     vileness! Thieves: terrible! I carried out the executions with
     all of England, and the world, watching. Policemen were out
     looking for me, but they could not see me because with me
     were God, and England and the Queen! And I was a frighting
     avenger! I was there and invisible like God's angels, executing
     the vile and the wicked. I stayed in White Chapel, that tiny
     little place, because God gave me the power to make White
     Chapel a place of His vengeance, to make of atonement a tiny
     little place for the wicked to be instructed in the God's
     Will. I was frighting. All of London stayed up all night
     watching, focusing in on White Chapel, as the coppers tried
     to catch me. They could not and I continued executing, openly
     in the streets, and not be seen and not be caught.

	 The police have not a clue to my identity. I stopped
     because I fell sick with the fever the second week of
     November last year. I was hospitalized for a while, then I
     was kept home in bed to recuperate. I had thought that my
     illness would have just been a pause, but I think I do not
     have the strength to carry on this duty alone. I came here
     to sound you out; you are a man of character, I had hoped.
     Do not worry about them.  My sources at Scotland Yard tells
     me that they have three suspects. All outsiders, none proper
     Englishmen. Some idiotic, stupid barrister who killed himself
     right after my last execution. The other two are foreigners.
     One is not only Polish but is also a Jew who I have seen and
     believe me, he is crazy. The other one is a very insane Russian
     physician, says he's a physician. A Jew Pole, a Slavic quack and
     an insane barrister, three typical monsters to the good English
     mind, three frightful villains that fit the crime.

	 I remain puzzled that you are still so hostile. I am
     astonish. My guiltlessness is so obvious. I simply can not
     understand why do you keep denying the truth. I am baffled
     by your ignorance.

	 No, I am not insane! I am as sane as you, as any
     gentlemen. These were executions, not lust crimes. I had no
     attraction to those sluts I slew. Their vileness repelled me!
     Steeled me to my resolve to dispatch them quickly! To put an
     end to their worthless lives!

	 What I did I did for England! I love England! As you know
     I have fought to defend England as a solider with my regiment
     in India and in Africa! I was wounded and I inflicted wounds
     to defend England!

	 I beg your pardon for shouting. I am not a rude person.
     Mr. Holmes, you know.

	 Mr. Holmes, letters have appeared from time to time in
     the English Press written by gentlemen who have returned to
     England from their regiments abroad, stating that much harm
     is being done to England by the widespread exhibition of
     public lewdness, immorality, and downright sin in the central
     city of London. I am sure that you have seen several of these
     Press comments, particularly in recent years. This harm is
     being greatly expanded, owing to the fact that London is the
     center of the Empire, world commerce and modern
     civilization. Foreigners from all over the Empire and the
     world come to London. Many of these foreigners we are trying
     to save from the most barbaric savagery. Do you understand,
     Mr. Holmes, that we went into many of these dark savage lands
     as Christian soldiers bringing, light, civilization and God.
     Some of those people were living like animals, out in the
     wild. They did not know God. They were practicing heathen
     rituals, praying to idols, conducting human sacrifices. We
     put an end to that. Now, many of their kind are visiting us
     as representatives, coming to London for further
     indoctrination and for trade. These former heathens, now our
     pupils, are sending the best and brightest of their young to
     our schools and institutions here in England to learn. Owing
     to their differences in customs and outlook, and their
     beliefs, that what they see in Englishmen are what we are,
     they misunderstand a place like White Chapel. What goes on
     there tend to discredit England and Christian Civilization
     in the black, brown and slanted eyes of our foreigners.
     Particularly, the cheap sluts of White Chapel, their vileness
     on the whole degrade English womanhood and all white
     Christian women. Now you see, Mr. Holmes. We have beaten the
     foreigners on the battlefield with our superior weapons and
     tactics and higher moral principles. We have captured their
     bodies. God has given us stewardship for their souls. We bring
     their young to England so civilization can take root in their
     minds. We shall not, we must not, we can not allow our young
     charges to be confused. What I have done is a far-reaching
     thing; others should be encourage to pursue.

	 Hold, Mr. Holmes! Listen! Armageddon approaches: A world
     ablaze in war and death! The only path for deliverance is
     Christian morality. Providence has given us the responsibility
     to pursue a holy, cleansing crusade.

	 Still, Holmes, still you do not listen. You sit here in
     these rooms, these little rooms, reading your little books of
     obscure sciences and playing your little violin, and being an
     ass. With your dabbling in detective work you make asses out
     of Scotland Yard, but who doesn't? I am making a point! Now
     you are supposed to be brilliant analytical faculties. You
     waste them chasing petty criminals. You do not pursue anything
     greater than Moriarty. I invite you to join me and pursue
     morality, serious morality. Your brain is going soft in the
     glow of praises from your admiring friend Watson and an
     adoring public who know you from the magazine articles he
     scripted. Old Watson thinks that when you break wind that is
     a triumph over something malevolent. Is it that you have
     grown tired? Or is it the cocaine? Don't tell me that you
     don't use the stuff. I can see it in your eyes, the signs.
     I have known men in India with eyes like yours, good men who
     lost their nerve to cocaine.

	 No. As I have said: I hate to kill. I am a solider. I know
     a solider's duty. I had hoped that someone smart like you
     would take over this duty, or at the least share the
     responsibility.

	 I hate to kill. That first woman - Yes, was that her name?
     Polly Nichols? Well, I had gone down to White Chapel to see
     the filthy place for myself. I had no plan to execute anyone.
     I had gone in preparation for a speech I planned to make to
     the Lords. I was so out of place in White Chapel that I looked
     strange. Maybe, consciously so, to let the scum know that I
     wasn't a part of their world. I wore evening clothes: top hat
     and even a cloak. This uniform attracted the sluts like flies
     to sugar. Imagine, they thought I had come to that filthy
     place to be touched by them! Later when I visited the area I
     wore common clothes of ordinary workmen. I looked like I
     belonged in the area. I owe a large portion of my invisibility
     to the fact that I dressed ordinary. I fitted in, wearing the
     invisible Christian armour of an ordinary English yeoman. I
     looked absolutely ordinary, so ordinary as not to be noticed,
     and so invisible that I was not there. I was able to stand
     in the crowd and watch the police search the execution scene
     for clues.

	 I had not planned to execute anyone. My skin did boil
     when one of those diseased sluts tried to rub herself up
     against me. Not since the wars in Zululand had I felt so
     angry and threatened. A Zulu spear pierced my thigh. It was
     not a life-threatening wound, though there was much blood.
     This slut hand rubbing against my leg! God I cried! I pushed
     her away! How dare the slut! Holmes, have you ever seen a
     man infested with syphilis? So you know! It takes a young,
     beautiful man with the whole world belonging to him, with
     the brightest future, with his name inscribed in gold
     letters. Syphilis takes this golden young man and turns him
     mad. Syphilis is worst than having coal oil poured in an open
     wound. The misery has no consolation. The mind breaks and
     yields to the torment of pain. My younger brother was a young
     sub-lieutenant, a dapper and dashing fellow. To White Chapel,
     he went many times. It draws young lads, so busy by day who
     need a diversion at night. They go there looking for a warm body
     for recreation. Why do the police tolerate such places? Why
     does authority wink at the sewers that spread syphilis?
     It is a crying offense! The midnight garbage! My young brother
     jumped in the Thames. He went down into the fog, into the
     cold, bleak river. My brother was mad and he sought rest
     in the cold river. His body ached for the balm of death. The
     Almighty commands us not to kill ourselves, but that beloved
     lad-a-boy was too full of the rage of burning fire to obey.
     Who will be his judge? Life is only worth living as long as it
     is good. My brother, my dear, sweet, young brother was mad.
     He was alone to face the tormenting demon. I was still in
     Africa. I could not grab him and hold him, and keep him
     from the abyss. My shoulders were in Africa.  They weren't
     there for him. My two strong arms were in Africa.  I wasn't
     there for him.

	 I knew that White Chapel sluts had given my brother
     syphilis. Yes, my brother left a note. I had gone to White
     Chapel, not to execute, but to gather material for a speech.
     I had planned a crusade. That peculiar sensation of revulsion
     came over me the moment that the slut touched me. "Does the
     gentleman want to service?" she cackled. Yes, I wanted to serve
     her liver to the fishes of the Thames. My hands shook I was
     so angry. The die was cast. To keep from delivering that
     slut to hell that instant and in front of several amused
     slutty and dirty and mean witnesses, I fled. The slut mocked
     me. Her cackling laughter trailed behind as I fled. The
     toothless bitch screamed: "Lost something, Governor? Lost
     your way!" Fortunately, I hailed a cab. The horse was so
     slow; probably, it had been working all day. The poor thing
     with its head drooped down barely pulled the cab.

	 Yes, it was for England and my brother. For my brother,
     for all the young men of England, they too are all my
     brothers. This was for them and England. Polly Nicholas was
     the first. It was a cool act and done quickly. It was a
     ritualistic execution. Done as painlessly as possible and to
     look as frightful as could be possible as a warning. I got
     the idea to sliced opened the sluts' abdomens from Zulu
     tribesmen who cut opened their victim's abdomens. Well, now
     you know, the next step is up to you, Mr. Holmes.

	 Holmes, Holmes, you are not listening.

	 Holmes, Holmes, Holmes, you are an intelligent man,
     well-read, thoughtful,  but your opinions on politics stinks.
     Gracious, man, we have been talking politics. Would you argue?
     So I am a criminal mad man who deludes himself? You believe
     that England doesn't need me? I am England's!

	 Salvation army generals like you win no wars. I am
     talking. Holmes, have you ever been in the army? I thought
     not.

	 I am making a point. Will you listen? So what if I am
     repeating. You are listening? The point is about empire
     keeping, and building, and keeping our skirts clean. Indeed.
     My deeds as I have said are for that. I have said this: I am
     talking about our public morality. How can we go out there
     and tell them what to do if we are not taking the proper care
     of our own morality?

	 Old Lord Palmerston, he was a jack. Henry John Temple, the
     Viscount Palmerston. Oh, What a glorious name!

	 Listen and I shall tell you how Palmerston fits in to
     this.

	God love him. God bless him. God has him now, since nearly
     forty odd years. He saw to it that England's interests were
     protected. His whole life was devoted to the defense of
     England and her interests. If England is to stay where we are
     meant to be, we must be quick to redress by force an
     infringement on our rights that give us our bounty and our
     empire. Take any part of the empire building, any incident
     along the way. Go back to that China business, and old
     Palmerston.

	 Opium for tea. It was opium for tea, Holmes. Opium for tea.
     We forced the Chinaman to take opium for tea. We threw in
     progress and civilizing, not for free, he paid for it. There
     were some MP's like that petticoat waist, old Lord Shaftesbury,
      who said that opium for tea was an immoral bargain. But it
      was Palmerston to whom England listened. It takes a high
      degree of public morality to accomplish this. Holmes, more
      than gun boats and daring calvary charges, it takes a people
      whose home front is clean.

	 Sure, Holmes. Sometimes, we, English use force out of all
     proportions to the infringement. You know for yourself that
     the world hates us, because we are proud, and --

	 Yes, yes. Vigorous, unquestioned self-righteousness, you
     hear it. Yes, I am convinced. Morally, socially, I have done
     right.

	 Holmes, you haven't listened to a word I have said. I am
     not here to confess.

	 You see, Holmes, I am a jack, another of John Bull's
     jacks. John Bull, himself, is the boss jack, you are aware of
     that. All English gentlemen are jacks. Jack. Hello,  you're a
     Jack too.


      {END}
     (c) Copyright 1993 by Franchot Lewis. All Rights Reserved.