The Night of the Ripper

~ THIRTEEN ~

The lamplighter had just completed his task as Mark rounded the corner and stepped into the circle of golden glow.

He paused momentarily, staring down the street into the darkness beyond. The gas flame flickering above him lent luminance, not heat, but the illusion of warmth was there and he welcomed it.

Illusion.

Why do we seek light and shun the dark? Is it because our primitive ancestors huddled around fires in their caves as a protection against peril prowling the night? Light lends us security.

Mark shrugged. Security is an illusion too, he told himself. There never was a time when we were really secure, not in the rocky refuges of the past or the stone streets of today. Sunshine still gives way to darkness and in that darkness the beasts still prowl. Only now it’s the human beasts we fear.

Perhaps our longing for light is just an instinctive reaction. But what is instinct? Trepan the skull, then open it fully and examine the gray glob within; you won’t locate the seat of instinctual reaction there, any more than you’ll find the source of what we call the soul. Our sophisticated labels are no more exact than the fantasies of the phrenologists.

That much I’ve learned, Mark reflected. He’d come here hoping to master his physical repulsion at the sight of blood, the first requisite for objectivity in medical research. But the mechanics of surgery would never reveal what he sought; the brain could be dissected yet the mind withholds its secrets.

Mark moved forward into the shadowed street, his thoughts still churning. Secrets. Out loves, our hates, our dreams and desires — how are they formed and why does what we call intelligence give way to animal impulse? The human beasts out there in the night — what drives them to rend and tear and raven for the sight of blood which he so dreaded?

You’re a strange one. Now Eva’s words echoed in his ears. She was right, of course, but then all of us are strange, even to ourselves. Strange because all of us harbor secrets we cannot comprehend.

He thought of what he’d learned earlier in the day; of Dr. Hume haunting the shambles of the slaughterhouse and Trebor perching like a vulture over the lifeless flesh of those corpses at the inquests. Was it really the quest for knowledge that concerned them or were they prompted by darker needs? Strange ones indeed.

And Eva. She too was a strange one. He could have sworn she felt attracted to him from the first, just as he was to her, but now came this abrupt dismissal. She said she had a fiancé, but was she telling the truth? Behind her words he’d sensed a deeper import; it was almost as though she’d been afraid to reveal the real reason for rejection. If so, what did she fear? That was her secret.

And what is yours? Why do you walk the night?

Mark blinked as he found himself halting in the dark midway down the street. Old Montague Street. Wandering aimlessly, his thoughts a million miles away, something had guided his footsteps to this spot directly across from Eva’s lodgings. There again, the secrets of the human mind—

The sudden sound of a carriage in motion claimed his attention. He turned and watched as it came to a stop before the building across the way. And now, coming out of the entrance, he saw Eva.

The door of the waiting vehicle opened and a man emerged. Stepping to one side, he grasped Eva’s arm, assisting her into the carriage.

Turning, he climbed in after her, and Mark glanced quickly at the profile of his mustached face surmounted by a peaked cap very much like his own. Then the door closed. Mark stepped back into the concealment of the shadows as the carriage started off down the street.

Once again he was alone in the night, but not entirely so.

Something else lay hidden in the darkness ahead. Perhaps, if he dared venture into that darkness now, he might find other secrets waiting there.