"Resnick, Mike - Redchapel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

Redchapel
by Mike Resnick


an alternate history in which
Theodore Roosevelt, Esq.
encounters the hideous fiend
known only as Jack the Ripper

"From Hell, Mr. Lusk-- Sir, I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman, prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise I may send you the bloody knif that too it out if you only wate a whil longer signed Catch me when yu can Mishter Lusk"
--Jack the Ripper
October 16, 1888

"I have not a particle of sympathy with the sentimentality-- as I deem it, the mawkishness-- which overflows with foolish pity for the criminal and cares not at all for the victim of the criminal."
--Theodore Roosevelt
Autobiography


The date was September 8, 1888

* * * *

A hand reached out of the darkness and shook Roosevelt by the shoulder.
He was on his feet in an instant. His right hand shot out, crunching against an unseen jaw, and sending his assailant crashing against a wall. He crouched low, peering into the shadows, trying to identify the man who was clambering slowly to his feet.
"What the devil happened?" muttered the man.
"My question precisely," said Roosevelt, reaching for his pistol and training it on the intruder. "Who are you and what are you doing in my room?"
A beam of moonlight glanced off the barrel of the gun.
"Don't shoot, Mr. Roosevelt!" said the man, holding up his hands. "It's me-- John Hughes!"
Roosevelt lit a lamp, keeping the gun pointed at the small, dapper man. "You haven't told me what you're doing here."
"Besides losing a tooth?" said Hughes bitterly as he spit a tooth into his hand amid a spray of blood. "I need your help."
"What is this all about?" demanded Roosevelt, looking toward the door of his hotel room as if he expected one of Hughes' confederates to burst through the door at any moment.
"Don't you remember?" said Hughes. "We spoke for more than an hour last night, after you addressed the Royal Ornithological Society."
"What has this got to do with birds?" said Roosevelt. "And you'd better come up with a good answer. I'm not a patient man when I'm rudely awakened in the middle of the night."
"You don't remember," said Hughes accusingly.
"Remember what?"
Hughes pulled out a badge and handed it to the American. "I am a captain of the London Metropolitan Police. After your speech we talked and you told me how you had single-handedly captured three armed killers in your Wild West."
Roosevelt nodded. "I remember."
"I was most favorably impressed," said Hughes.
"I hope you didn't wake me just to tell me that."
"No-- but it was the fact that you have personally dealt with a trio of brutal killers that made me think-- hope, actually-- that you might be able to help me." Hughes paused awkwardly as the American continued to stare at him. "You did say that if I ever needed your assistance..."
"Did I say to request it in the middle of the night?" growled Roosevelt, finally putting his pistol back on his bedtable.
"Try to calm yourself. Then I'll explain."
"This is as calm as I get under these circumstances." Roosevelt took off his nightshirt, tossed it on the fourposter bed, then walked to an ornate mahogany armoire, pulled out a pair of pants and a neatly-folded shirt, and began getting dressed. "Start explaining."
"There's something I want you to see."
"At this hour?" said Roosevelt suspiciously. "Where is it?"
"It's not far," said Hughes. "Perhaps a twenty-minute carriage ride away."
"What is it?"
"A body."
"And it couldn't wait until daylight?" asked Roosevelt.
Hughes shook his head. "If we don't have her in the morgue by daylight, there will be panic in the streets."