The False Ripper
I concluded that Vanessa intended to let the prostitutes die as humans before they turned into monsters. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for her to commit murder. Even so, several questions remained unresolved. First, records stated that Jack the Ripper had used a surgical scalpel as his weapon. Yet I had never once seen Vanessa wield such a blade. Second, Jack the Ripper had not merely killed the prostitutes. With clear intent, he had excised their organs. The Vanessa I knew was not the sort of woman who would do such a thing.
I had come to Conan Doyle seeking answers to all these questions.
“Who comes to see me at this late hour?”
“I’m here to make a request, Conan Doyle.”
Conan Doyle regarded me with wary eyes. “If you wished to make a request, you should have made an appointment. Why have you broken into my room?”
“I apologize for the rudeness. Time was short, and an appointment would have taken too long. I could not solve this alone.”
“You could not solve it?”
“Yes. There is something I must know.”
Curiosity flickered in Conan Doyle’s blue eyes. He was said to be an eccentric who lost all sense of propriety the moment a mystery was involved. As expected, he forgot I was an intruder and asked about the puzzle.
“What is it you wish to know?”
“I would like to ask about the destruction of the East End gangs.”
The curiosity drained from Conan’s face. “I am busy. Leave me. I have no interest in gangs.”
He turned his back completely and resumed writing Sherlock Holmes with his fountain pen. But my next words made the pen stop dead.
“It was the work of a single person.”
“……”
Conan Doyle turned to look at me, his blue eyes brimming with curiosity once more.
“I would like to hire you, Conan Doyle.”
Clink. A pouch of coins landed on the table.
“Find the culprit behind the Crime Pub massacre.”
[Complete Jack the Ripper’s Killings.]
The Crime Pub massacre had been dismissed as a gang war. In the lawless East End, where several gangs rose and fell every month, the disappearance of one large gang was hardly unusual. But once Conan Doyle became involved, the direction of the case changed.
“This was the work of one person.”
After surveying the wrecked interior of the pub, Conan reached that conclusion.
“The weapon was a knife… no, scissors.”
With nothing more than a glance, he had deduced exactly what Vanessa had used. It was the astonishing deductive power one would expect from the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
“An Awakener, then. Motivated by revenge?”
“She was trying to stop the spread of the Plum Blossom Plague.”
“The disease that has been circulating among the prostitutes.”
“Yes. The Crime Pub was selling it.”
“They were not the only ones selling it. Multiple gangs must have been involved.”
“That seems likely.”
Besides the Crime Pub, five other large and small gangs operated in the East End. The Plum Blossom Plague was an excellent source of income for them.
“Mr. Conan. Here are the requested pieces of evidence.”
A constable who had been assigned to the case handed Conan the weapons collected from the pub. Among the various implements, Conan picked up the envelope containing the scissors.
“Cheap scissors. Judging by the fact that they were discarded after a single use, she does not intend to reuse them.”
“……”
“If she is a seamstress who makes clothes, she probably does not want to sew with bloodstained scissors. That means she will need to buy new ones.”
Using only the clue of the “scissors,” Conan deduced Vanessa’s next destination. From the day of the incident onward, he searched every general store that sold those scissors and gathered information from anyone who had even the slightest acquaintance with Vanessa.
“Until she achieves her goal of eliminating the Plum Blossom Plague, the culprit will remain within the East End. Most likely within this area.”
Swish. Conan marked Vanessa’s area of activity on the map with a red circle.
“There is only one gang inside this circle.”
Conan tapped a single spot with his fountain pen.
“Dublin Pub. An Irish gang, is it?”
“……”
It took Conan only three hours to locate the scissors and deduce Vanessa’s position. Even that time had been spent gathering people. Jeanne’s eyes widened as she watched his deductions unfold.
“Did he use an ability?”
“No.”
Conan was known to be a non-Awakener. He had demonstrated an ability that surpassed Awakeners through pure deduction alone. It was a breathtaking display of reasoning, even to watch. Modern profiling techniques were said to be nothing more than a systematization of Conan’s instinctive sense. The god of deduction. Yet even this Conan had failed to catch “Jack the Ripper” in official history. Did that mean Conan had failed?
“……”
I would find out by watching. Together with Jeanne, I followed Conan toward the Irish gang’s hideout.
The gang’s hideout was in the basement of a tavern. It should have been protected by multiple layers of strict security. Yet now the hideout was filled with nothing but an ominous silence.
Vanessa was there.
Standing amid the corpses of the gang members, holding scissors dripping with blood.
“Don’t move!”
A constable aimed his gun at Vanessa.
“Miss Vanessa.”
“I do not understand why these people are not judged by the law.”
Vanessa regarded the gun-wielding officer with indifferent eyes.
“So I decided to judge them in their place.”
She looked at me and smiled brightly.
“Was I wrong?”
“……”
I could not answer. The British government’s approach to the East End had always been one of indifference. Even when people died, even when crimes occurred, the government had always looked the other way. Vanessa had resolved to become an executioner in place of that indifferent government. Even if she lacked the power to help the victims the way Jeanne could, she could at least deliver hell to those who created the suffering.
Bang—!
By the time the constable fired, Vanessa had already vanished from the spot. The ghost of death—or rather, the one who had chosen to become an executioner within indifference—disappeared without a trace.
At 4 a.m. on August 31st, the body of a woman was discovered in a back alley of the East End. The dead woman lay with her eyes open, staring blankly into the air. Her name was Mary Ann Nichols. She had been a prostitute. Officially, this was recorded as Jack the Ripper’s first murder.
I decided to track Mary Ann Nichols’s movements before she was killed. If I followed her, I would surely encounter Vanessa.
Late at night, I waited in front of the hotel where Mary was staying. When she finally came out, I quietly tailed her. Drunk, Mary staggered through the alleys of the East End. About ten minutes later, a woman appeared from the opposite corner. Even in the dark night, her golden eyes gleamed. It was Vanessa.
She seemed to notice me as well; her steps halted. At the moment our gazes crossed in the air—
“Kyaaaaah!”
A scream erupted. The instant Vanessa heard it, she vanished without a trace.
“A-a body!”
Mary, who had fallen on her backside, stared at the alley Vanessa had emerged from with a face drained of color.
“……”
There lay the corpse of a dead woman.
Jack the Ripper’s first victim had not been Mary Ann Nichols.
Was this a parallel world? Jack the Ripper’s first victim was a different prostitute, not Mary Ann Nichols. The police treated the incident as a simple murder. After all, killings and robberies occurred frequently in the slums of the East End. However…
“How strange.”
Conan, who had been examining the scene, tilted his head.
“What do you mean?”
“Was this truly the work of that woman?”
“Are you saying it was not?”
“The method is completely different.”
“Pardon?”
“This was done by someone else. They used a surgical scalpel. And with professional skill, at that.”
What was he talking about? Vanessa had come out of the murder scene. I had seen her disappear, and I had seen the body appear. Yet Conan concluded it was someone else’s doing.
—I saw it! A person with red hair……!
Meanwhile, Mary, the first witness, was describing Vanessa’s appearance to the constable.
[The culprit behind the Dublin Pub massacre—a prostitute killer!]
[The method was too cruel……]
[Jack the Ripper, the murderer of the East End!]
[The same person as the Crime Pub suspect?!]
The moment Jack the Ripper became known to the world.
One week later, another prostitute was murdered. The killings continued, and the streets of London were crushed beneath the terror of the name “Jack the Ripper.” Newspapers competed to publish sensational articles about Jack the Ripper, as if fanning the flames of fear. But Jack the Ripper always operated in darkness, so no one had ever seen his face clearly. Various individuals were named as suspects—from doctors to high-ranking dukes to the British prince. Over a hundred people were mistaken for Jack the Ripper and suffered for it.
While London was suffering under the terror of Jack the Ripper, I came across one strange article.
[Jack the Ripper—believed to be retaliatory killings against the government’s policy of encouraging prostitution……]
“Encouraging prostitution?”
It was strange. Why would a government that disliked the growing population of the East End encourage prostitution?
“No, not prostitution—the Plum Blossom Plague.”
Those addicted to the Plum Blossom Plague turned into monsters. This served to naturally reduce the exploding population of the East End. But the Plum Blossom Plague was, after all, a “monster.” It was connected to the Demon of Despair, Astaroth. What confidence did the British government have to encourage the Plum Blossom Plague?
“Does that mean they have a way to control the monsters?”
Or perhaps the Plum Blossom Plague was not a natural occurrence, but an artificially created phenomenon manufactured by the British government to reduce the population.
“……”
All the pieces fell into place. If the Plum Blossom Plague was an artificially created monster phenomenon by the British government, then there must be a “host.” A host that mass-produced the Plum Blossom Plague. If that host was cooperating with the British government, then the government’s encouragement of prostitution made sense. A “controllable monster” was an effective card for population reduction.
In that case, the reason Conan Doyle had failed to catch Jack the Ripper could also be explained. If the opponent was the government, even Conan would have had no choice but to remain silent. In the end, I reached one conclusion.
“Vanessa is not Jack the Ripper.”
History had recorded her as Jack the Ripper, but that was a stigma stamped by the British government.
Perhaps this “killings” did not refer to the prostitutes after all.
“The host, then.”