To Kill the King

It was the knock which woke him up. It was loud and repetitive. He opened his eyes and saw Jones looking out of the window.
“Something interesting?” Selby asked.
“Look for yourself,” Jones said, half turning.
Yawning, the detective climbed to his feet and joined his partner.
“We have royal company,” he said.
“How do you know?” Jones demanded.
Selby pointed to the royal crest upon the carriage door.
“I hope nobody has stolen the Crown Jewels,” he said slowly, before breaking into a large grin.
“Come on Jones,” he said walking towards the front door. “No rest for the wicked.”
Jones shook his head sadly. It was going to be a long night.
Later, Selby returned with a gentleman, in a dark suit and tie of around fifty years.
“Please have a seat,” Selby said sitting opposite.
“I am Taylor Wyatt and...”
“Personal bodyguard to George V,” Selby interrupted. “Don’t look so worried. I read it in the London Times. Please continue.”
“It appears,” Wyatt said. “That His Majesty fears an attack by the so-called Cooper gang and wants you to look into it.”
Jones raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“What would that gang of misfits want with the king?”
“He did make a reference to them in last week’s speech,” Wyatt replied. “Now he has received this short note.”
Selby took it and read quickly. Then he said, “At least it’s to the point.”
“I agree,” Wyatt said. “Now what can we do about it?”
“Tell His Majesty that I will do my best,” Selby said scratching his head.
The bodyguard nodded and left.
“Where do we start?” Jones asked.
“Let’s pay Pinky a visit. He may have something.”
As the brougham took them towards their destination, Jones wondered what a petty thief would know about a gang of cut throats.
The cab stopped in Fleet Street, opposite an old man in ragged clothing and wild grey hair. As Selby approached he tried to run, but a single shot cut him down. The detective swung around to see a cab careering out of sight.
“Did you get the number?” Jones asked.
Selby shook his head.
“Not this time. At least they know we’re on to them.”
After the autopsy, Inspector Campbell handed Selby the single bullet which had killed Pinky.
“What do you make of it?” he asked.
“It’s made of silver,” Selby said, examining it closely.
“Correct,” the Inspector replied. “The trademark of the Cooper gang.”
Jones tapped Selby on the shoulder and whispered. Selby swallowed hard.
“Is there something I should know?” the Inspector asked, glancing between the two of them.
“They are going to murder the king,” Selby said slowly.
The Inspector stepped back, and Selby explained.
“In that case,” the Inspector said. “We can take over from here. I don’t think you will be needed.”
Once in the main street, Selby stopped dead.
“I’m a fool. If you were going to kill the king, where would you do it Jones?”
“The Mall. It’s wide open there.”
Selby gripped his shoulders.
“The king travels down that route on the morrow. According to The Times, he is off on holiday.”
“Good lord,” Jones replied. “We have to stop him.”
“Better than that,” Selby replied. “We can lay a trap. Come on. We have to tell Campbell. We need his men.”
The following morning, Selby and the Inspector stood among 300 plain clothes policemen who had been drafted in from the Home Counties to deal with the threat.
“I hope the gang turns up,” the Inspector said. “My reputation depends upon it.”
“As does my own,” Selby replied. “If I’m wrong, it’s a quick trip to the Tower for me.”
A moment later, the King’s carriage swung into view, and the detective rested his hand upon his concealed pistol. He scanned the opposite line of people and saw something that alarmed him considerably.
Three of them were moving forward slowly, and turning towards the approaching monarch. Without warning, Selby dashed into the Mall, making straight for the carriage.
Realising something was up, Campbell followed, only to see the detective cut down in a hail of gunfire.
“He’s one of ours you fools,” Campbell screamed, as he reached Selby’s prone body.
Then he saw three people with handguns drawn, running away through the screaming crowds. As he watched them depart, he knew what had happened. He turned his head wildly to see Jones running towards him.
“He put himself in the line of fire,” Campbell explained.
“I know old man. There is help on the way. He doesn’t look too good.”
A constable ran up to the kneeling pair.
“They got away sir. I doubt that we will catch up with them.”
Selby’s eyes flickered open, and from his cracked lips a single word drifted forth.
“Distillery.”
Jones turned to the Inspector.
“I’ve got it. Coopers make barrels.”
That night, the forces of law and order were massed outside a tall dark building with cracked windows. Jones produced his firearm and on a given signal, the twelve officers burst through the outer doors.
They were met by a hail of metal, and a number of officers fell, fatally wounded. The officers charged, and bullets crashed through the air, cutting down the Cooper gang.
At the end, the floor was littered with bodies, and fresh blood was flowing towards the Thames.
Jones looked around at the carnage.
“What a mess.”
Campbell asked carefully, “How is your partner?”
“He will be out in six weeks. Then we will be back on the streets.”
 
Who Killed the Time Traveller?

The door opened and Inspector Campbell strolled in with a smirk upon his chubby face.
“Morning Inspector,” Selby said looking up from his book.
“You look well,” Campbell said. “What are you reading by the way?”
“He’s into time travel now,” Jones said smiling.
“The Time Machine is a good novel,” Selby replied scowling.
“Ah...H G Campbell replied. “Great man. Read him myself you know.”
Selby put down the book and said, “Have you come to exchange common niceties, or is there a purpose to your visit?”
The Inspector sat down and tossed a coin onto his lap.
“What do you make of this?”
Selby picked it up and examined it.
It was a simple bronze coin showing a crown and the number two with a woman’s head on the obverse side.
“1998? Queen Elizabeth the second? Where did you get this little gem?”
“From a body we pulled the Thames this morning. He’s in the morgue now.”
Selby sprang to his feet.
“Come on Jones, I have to see this.”
The dead man was around thirty, with flowing blonde hair and a severe wound upon his skull. Selby examined his clothes and remarked that they were quite odd.
“Single piece garments like these don’t belong to our time you know.”
“Oh come on,” Jones said. “I reckon those bullets did more damage than we thought.”
“So what do you think?” Selby demanded, turning on him.
“A prank that went wrong perhaps. How about you Inspector? Believe in time travellers?”
The Inspector shuffled his feet but did not reply.
“So you found no identity on him?” Selby asked.
“Nothing. Not even cigarettes.”
“So we have a mystery,” Jones said.
Selby turned away and stared into space.
“Who killed the time traveller?”
As they were leaving, Selby asked the Inspector, “Exactly where was the body found?”
Campbell stopped for a moment and said, “Just down the river from Tower Bridge.”
“I would suggest that we check the hotels in that area then,” Selby suggested. “After all, he had to stay somewhere.”
They had checked most of the hotels when they found themselves outside the Charles Hotel in Whitechapel High Street.
This was a modern building with an unusual crested roof. As they wandered inside, they met a thin woman at the reception desk.
After a bit of questioning, they established that their victim had been staying on the premises. When they entered his room, they got quite a shock.
“Have a look at this,” Jones said pointing to the bed.
Selby picked up the object and examined it.
It was a silver flat screen watch with a number of buttons on the side. Selby was about to press a few when Campbell stopped him.
“Is that wise?”
“We have to. There is no other way.”
The first button did nothing but the second activated the screen. Upon its surface, a small map appeared with a flashing cursor.
The Inspector gazed at the device and asked, “What do you make of it?”
“It looks like Greenwich Park, where the observatory is.”
“Let’s go there. Now we might get an answer.”
They took a brougham and arrived within half an hour. As they gazed across the park, they wondered what they were looking for.
“Just what does a time machine look like?” Campbell asked.
“I have no idea. Just look for something that shouldn’t be there.”
As they walked across the green grass, they saw a six foot triangular object nestling under the branches of a tree. They approached it slowly and stopped less than a foot away.
“Now what do we do?” Jones asked.
Selby took the watch from his pocket and pressed another button. Immediately, the side vanished and revealed a glittering interior. The three men walked inside and saw a young woman standing beside a control panel.
“You found his body then” she said casually.
“Who was he?” Selby wanted to know.
“It doesn’t matter now,” the woman replied. Then she brushed back her brown hair and said, “His death was an accident. A levitating device failed.”
“He could fly?” Jones asked incredulously.
“In a way,” the woman replied. “It is a waste really. It will set the project back a decade.”
“What project?” Selby asked moving closer.
“I cannot answer that,” the woman replied. “It would divert the time line.”
“I think I understand,” Selby replied.
The woman looked at him strangely.
“You understand the multiplicity?”
“Only vaguely,” the detective said.
Then on a hunch, he told her his name.
The woman turned away from her controls and walked up to him. As his companions looked on, she raised her left hand and stroked his cheek.
“I see good looks run in the family.”
“Then you are...”
The woman stepped back with a grin.
“Carla John Selby. You are my great, great grandfather. It was you we came to see.”
The shock was almost too much.
He reeled back and would have fallen, had Jones not caught him.
“What is it like in your time?” he managed to ask.
“It’s hell John. Pure hell.”
The woman returned to her control panel and Selby moved to hand over the watch. She shook her head.
“If I ever return,” she said. “I will send out a signal and the watch will tell you where I am.”
Selby nodded as she said, “It’s time to go.”
They walked from the craft and Selby had a terrible feeling in his bones. It was still there when they watched the vehicle vanish a few minutes later.
Back in his flat, Selby picked up the ‘Time Machine’ and threw it across the floor.
“It’s just fantasy,” he muttered.
Jones patted his back.
“She was real John. She was too real.”
 
Ripper

Selby watched as Jones strode into the room with water dripping from his new suit.
“I told you it would rain,” Selby commented smiling.
Jones gave him a sideward glance, and produced the paper from beneath his jacket.
“Read that,” he said, throwing it onto his friend’s lap.
Selby glanced at the headline and inhaled sharply.
“That is the third this week. So what are we going to do about it?”
Selby climbed to his feet and replied, “See Inspector Campbell of course. He needs our help.”
The Inspector handed the detective the latest report on the victim, which Selby read with grim determination. Then he put it down and said quietly, “I need a map. Have you got one?”
Campbell opened his desk drawer and produced the article, which Selby rolled out.
As Jones stood beside him, Selby pointed to various locations.
“Bizzard was killed in Kensington Park. The second victim died in Hyde Park. The last met her end in Green Park. Now that indicates that the fourth will die at St James.”
“He dislikes parks?” Campbell asked.
Selby shook his head slowly.
“Not the parks Inspector. It’s the women she hates.”
“A woman did these?” Jones spluttered.
“A well built woman in her early fifties, I would say,” Selby replied.
“That is unlikely,” Campbell told him. “We are dealing with a madman.”
Selby rolled up the map and for once decided to explain himself.
“I believe that this woman cannot have children of her own, hence the brutal removal of the victim’s sexual organs. Call it a kind of psychological self mutilation. She must be well built to overpower the victims and it’s twenty-four years since her last escapade.”
The Inspector raised his eyebrows.
“Jack the Ripper? Are you serious?”
“Never more so. That letter to Scotland Yard was written by a woman. I have studied it, you know.”
“So Jack is short for...?”
Selby turned to his companion.
“Who else but Jaqueline.”
The Inspector broke into uncontrollable laughter before managing to pull himself together.
Selby scowled and tapped the desk twice.
“Are you going to deploy your men, or shall you leave it to me?”
“I’ll deploy them all right. But I swear this to you. If it turns out to be a bloke, your reputation will be in tatters.”
“I can live with that. Just make sure you get her.”
With that short statement the detective strode out.
“Bungling fool,” he muttered as they strode down the packed London street.
“You’d better calm down,” Jones replied. “People are starting to stare.”
“Then let them. Tonight my friend,” he said raising his voice, “We are going to get that demented woman.”
St James was deadly quiet. Selby, Jones, and the Inspector were resting against one of the many trees.
“I’ve got this place sown up so tight that not even a spider could get in undetected.”
“You think so Inspector?,” Selby said, crouching down and pushing his hand into the soft earth. He pulled out a handful of dirt with spiders in abundance.
“These got through.”
Jones shook his head as Selby stood up.
“Do you need to show off?”
The scream prevented his reply.
“Come on this way,” Selby said, bounding into the dark.
They followed until within 100 yards they found him standing over the body of a twenty year old woman. She was smartly dressed and very dead.
Selby’s torch danced over the corpse as the shrill of police whistles ripped through the night.
“Her womb has been removed,” Selby said before swinging his torch around the scene. Then he gasped.
“Blood spatters. Stay here.”
Before they could react, he had darted off in hot pursuit. He followed his quarry into George Street, through Parliament Square, and onto Westminster Bridge. Then he stopped dead. Just ahead of him, a hooded figure stood, menacing and silent. Then the hood was pushed back and the face was illuminated in torchlight.
Short dark hair, a brutal nose, and blazing eyes. In short, a vision of hell.
It strode towards him, an arm pointing towards the heavens.
“Why should they have children when my womb is barren?” it screeched.
“That is no reason to murder the innocent,“ Selby screamed back.
“You support them,” she screamed. “You will be my first male victim.”
Before Selby could react she was upon him. Long sharp fingers smashed the torch from his grasp before plunging into his unprotected throat. Brute strength lifted him from the ground, and the detective felt himself rapidly suffocating.
In a final desperate attempt to save himself, he lashed out with his right foot, which connected with the killer’s groin.
The grasping hands let go, and Selby collided with the hard path, gasping for life giving air.
He looked up and saw the Ripper bent over in agony. As approaching steps signalled the arrival of the cavalry, he threw himself at her. Arms outstretched, he pushed her violently against the waist high balustrade. She turned, snarling like an animal, just in time to receive his right hook. Her head shot back and her body overbalanced.
With a long, panic stricken scream, she plunged into the freezing water of the Thames. A moment later, Campbell, Jones and four policemen arrived on the scene.
“You’re too late,” Selby gasped.”The Ripper is dead.”
“Was it a woman?” Jones asked.
Selby nodded before turning slowly and walking away. Alone once more in their flat, Selby put his feet up and seemed to lapse into deep sleep. Then he opened his eyes and whispered, “I think we need a holiday.”
Despite an intensive police search, the woman’s body was never recovered.