As if by Magic Read Online Free

he’s doing.’
    Jack felt his throat tighten. ‘You mean he kills for pleasure? Like a treat?’ Rackham nodded. ‘You’ve got to find him, Bill.’
    â€˜How?’ demanded Rackham bitterly. ‘I tell you, this bloke’s sane. He doesn’t leave clues. After all, we never found Jack the Ripper and he was barmy. There’s damn all to go on. If you only
knew
. . .’ He stopped and looked ruefully at his friend. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off. It’s just that everyone at the Yard wants this swine stopped and we haven’t a clue how to go about it. That’s the truth but it’s hard to admit.’ He blew out a mouthful of smoke with an irritated sigh. ‘Forget it, Jack. It’s not your sort of case.’
    Jack’s mouth twisted. ‘No, thank God, it’s not. If this bloke really is sane, then the only chance you’ve got is a lucky break and lots of police work.’ He looked at his friend. ‘No wonder you’re looking so done in.’
    Rackham stretched his shoulders. ‘It’s been tough. And, of course, I’ve got my naked man in the Thames.’ He very nearly smiled. ‘At least they can’t blame Jack the Ripper for that one. Not that that’s any help, particularly. So far we haven’t been able to identify him. He had his face battered in very thoroughly. At first sight it looks like the work of a maniac, so what with a possibly insane killer and a probably sane Ripper, us poor beggars at Scotland Yard have got our work cut out. All we actually know is that his body was pulled out of the Thames at Southwark Bridge steps at just gone nine yesterday morning. The doctor thinks he had been dead for about nine or ten hours at that stage, which gets us back to eleven o’clock or midnight at the absolute outside. He didn’t want to commit himself any more definitely than that because of the action of the water retarding the progress of rigor and so on.’
    â€˜Could his face have been bashed in to conceal his identity?’
    â€˜Well, I thought of that, of course, but his hands are still intact. Mind you, we haven’t got his fingerprints on record, so that doesn’t help much. The odd thing about him is that the surgeon states that the beating he got wasn’t the cause of death. What’s even odder is that the surgeon – it’s Dr Harding, Jack, and you know he’s good – can’t say how he did die. Apparently he had some sort of heart problem so Harding’s put it down as heart failure for the time being and that’s as much as he can tell us.’
    â€˜Heart failure?’ questioned Jack.
    Rackham half smiled once more. ‘Technically he’s correct, of course. I can’t say I’ve come across many dead men whose hearts are still up and running. It’s simply medical terminology. Harding knows as well as I do that heart failure doesn’t strip a man naked and cave in his face.’
    â€˜What about his teeth?’ asked Jack. ‘Or were they too damaged to help you identify him?’
    â€˜He didn’t have any teeth. Presumably he had a dental plate but that’s gone. All we can really say is that he’s a middle-aged man, about five foot eleven and well-nourished, to use the usual formula. He’d eaten well before he died and was killed about eleven o’clock the night before last.’ Rackham picked up his beer. ‘Oh, forget about him, Jack. He’s not your sort of case, either. I imagine what’ll happen is that someone will eventually notice they haven’t seen so-and-so for a time and tell us about it. We’ll match up the description with our Mr X and that’ll be it. It’s a matter of simple police work.’
    â€˜And once that happens you can start to look for whoever bumped him off. Which might not be so simple.’ Jack leaned back against the oak of