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By Root 850 0

seeing a grotesque figure leaping over the gate of a cemetery near the Bedlam mental hospital. A few days later, it was October, a fifteen-year-old servant girl named Mary Stevens, who'd just visited her parents in Battersea, was returning to her employer's home on Lavender Hill via Cut Throat Lane when she was grabbed by someone-or something-fitting the same description as your attacker. It was a sexual assault, Captain Burton-her clothes were ripped from her body and her flesh was squeezed and caressed in an aggressive manner. Not surprisingly, the girl screamed, which attracted the attention of several local residents, who came to investigate the commotion. Upon hearing them approach, the assailant bounded away, making tremendous jumps, and is said to have vanished in midair.

"The following day, in the same neighbourhood, the creature sprang out of an alleyway onto the side of a passing brougham and demanded to know the whereabouts of `Lizzie,' whoever she may be. The terrified coachman lost control of his horses and crashed the carriage into the side of a shop, suffering serious injuries. There were a great many witnesses, all of whom reported that the `ghost'-as it was referred to at the time-escaped by vaulting over a nine-foot-high wall. According to one witness, the creature was laughing insanely and babbling in a fairly incoherent manner something about history and ancestors."

"And its appearance?" interrupted Burton.

"Again, apart from minor variations which can be attributed to the usual unreliability of witnesses, the various descriptions are remarkably consistent and tally with what you saw. Can I offer you a drink? There's a decanter of red wine in the top-left filing drawer."

Burton shook his head. "No thank you. I must confess, I rather overdid it last night."

"It happens to the best of us," replied Trounce, with a wry smile. He reached across to a brass lid on the desktop, identical to the ones Burton had seen on the wall downstairs, and lifted it. A tube snaked out from the desk. Trounce opened the lid and blew into the tube. A moment later, a voice answered.

"Pepperwick," the detective inspector said into the mouthpiece, "would you have a pot of coffee and a couple of cups sent up? And give my appointments to Detective Inspector Spearing until further notice. I don't want to be disturbed."

He put the tube to his ear; back to his mouth; said, "Thank you"; then replaced the lid and put it back on the desk.

"So, to continue: throughout late 1837 and early '38 there were a great many sightings of this so-called ghost or devil, which seemed to be haunting an area within the triangle formed by Camberwell, Battersea, and Lambeth, and, incidentally, it was during this period that it acquired the nickname by which we still know it. Several young girls were attacked but all escaped physically unharmed, though molested. However, the shock caused a couple of them to lose their minds. In addition, two witnesses to Jack's 'manifesta- tions'-if I may refer to his appearances that way-died of heart failure. I point this out because some newspapers reported the incidents as `wicked pranks.' Personally, Captain, I cannot classify as a prank any action that results in the loss of life or sanity.

"We now come to one of the most well-documented and widely reported cases: that of Jane Alsop. On February 19, 1838, at a quarter to nine in the evening, the bell was rung at the gate of a secluded cottage on Bearbinder Lane in the village of Old Ford, near Hertford, north of London.

"Jane Alsop, an eighteen-year-old, was inside the cottage with her parents and two sisters. She went to the front door and opened it, walked down the path, and approached a shadowy figure standing at the gate. In her statement to the local police, she said that it appeared to be an extremely tall, angular man who was wrapped in a cloak and wearing some sort of helmet.

"She asked what he wanted and he replied that he was a policeman and that he needed a light. He told her that someone had been seen loitering in the neighbourhood.

"The girl