Quests of Simon Ark Read online

  “Yes. It is an eternal quest.” His face had gone solemn at my question. “Satanism has become a new fad among many young people.”

  “I’ve been reading about the resurgence of witch cults in England. Is that what you’re after?”

  He shook his head. “Something far more evil, my friend.” The old eyes flashed with a familiar fire. “The treasure of the late Jack the Ripper.”

  “At least you admit that he’s dead. Every once in a while someone tries to prove he’s still alive. But I never heard of any treasure.”

  “I have a communication from a man in London named Ceritus Vats. A collector of esoterica. He feels my presence is needed to forestall a murder. And to find a treasure.”

  I thought about it. I still had a week’s vacation coming, and June was a slow time in publishing. The autumn books were already in various stages of production, the concern of other people, and I wouldn’t have to finalize our spring list for months yet. Shelly would be at her mother’s place another week. There was no real reason why I couldn’t go, except common sense.

  And I’d never let that stop me before. If Simon Ark was going to find a treasure belonging to Jack the Ripper, I wanted to be along for the show.

  I phoned Shelly in Florida to tell her what was up. She’d always had mixed feelings about Simon Ark, and I knew she was far from delighted to have him back in our lives. But she didn’t argue about the trip. She only said, “Be careful,” and then, “I’ll see you next week.”

  At ten o’clock the following night Simon and I were airborne over the Atlantic. It had been a bumpy takeoff from Kennedy, in the midst of an early summer rainstorm, but the flight quickly settled down to a smooth uneventful crossing. “What have you been doing with yourself these past five years?” I asked Simon.

  He smiled. “Five years is merely a weekend to me, my friend. A pause, a rest from the search. As a matter of fact, I was studying at an Irish abbey for part of the time. I had only just returned to America when Ceritus Vats got in touch with me.”

  “What sort of man is Vats? And how did he know where to reach you? I’ve never known your address in all these years, except for the brief times you stayed with Shelly and me.”

  “Ceritus Vats is a bookseller among other things. He operates from a little shop off Hammersmith Road in London. He knows my wants in certain fields, and he knows an address where I may be reached.”

  “You mentioned esoterica. The mystic arts, I suppose.”

  “In this case, yes, though he deals in a wide range of books and maps. Anything old or rare.”

  I was prepared to meet a man who went with his name, but Ceritus Vats was a surprise. Our first afternoon in London was misty with a damp June rain, but the shop of Ceritus Vats was warm and brightly lit. He was a short handsome gentleman with white hair, who moved between the stacks of old books with a nimbleness born of long experience. Though the shop had the traditional hodge-podge look of a good second-hand book store, I never doubted that he could lay his hand on any title in the place at a moment’s notice.

  “So good to see you again, Simon,” he said with a smile. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  I shook his hand and sat down. “I noticed a few of our Neptune Books have drifted across the sea to England.”

  “Quite a few, actually. Neptune is a fine American house.”

  Simon cleared his throat, anxious to get down to business. “You can speak freely in front of my friend here. He’s shared many adventures with me.”

  Vats glanced at me a bit uncertainly, then replied. “Very well. Of course you’re familiar with Jack the Ripper and his crimes.”

  “I am,” Simon said. “Unfortunately I was not in London at the time, or I might have brought the criminal to justice.”

  I was used to this sort of talk from Simon, and apparently Vats was too. He hurried on. “Nowadays the killing of five prostitutes on the streets of London would hardly attract all that fuss.”

  “Perhaps it would,” Simon said. “If done in the manner of the Ripper’s killings.”

  “You mean the mutilations?”

  “And the letters to the newspapers. He was nothing if not a showman.”

  Ceritus Vats leaned back in his chair. “Suppose I told you I have evidence that the Ripper was neither a madman nor a sex fiend, but only a coldly calculating killer whose motive was financial gain!”

  “I’d find that difficult to believe,” Simon said.

  “And suppose I could name the Ripper?”

  “Do so, by all means!”

  “Recently a remarkable document—a handwritten journal—was offered to dealers in rare books and esoterica, like myself. Its author purports to be none other than Jack the Ripper himself. In this journal he explains the motive for his crimes, and reveals his identity. I must say that the handwriting compares favorably with that in reproductions of the Ripper’s newspaper letters.”

  “Who is offering this journal?”

  “A great-granddaughter of the man who wrote it. Her name is Glenda Coxe. His was Raymond Slackly.”

  “I’ve never heard of Slackly,” Simon admitted. “Nor the woman either, for that matter.”

  “According to the journal, Raymond Slackly was a small-time thief. He’d once knifed a man in a brawl, but he admits to no other prior violence. Sometime in the mid-1880s he teamed up with another thief named Hogarth, a smarter criminal who expanded both their horizons. After a number of profitable robberies they heard about the heist of a lifetime.

  “It seems that 1887 was Queen Victoria’s Jubilee year, the fiftieth anniversary of her coronation. To celebrate the event a merchant named Felix Rhineman collected contributions for the crafting of a solid gold lion encrusted with fifty diamonds. It was to be a surprise gift to Victoria from London’s merchants, presented during the summer Jubilee week. Only a few people knew of it in advance, but unfortunately one of them let something slip in a pub. Hogarth and Slackly learned of the golden lion and managed to steal it on the eve of the presentation. The matter was hushed up to avoid embarrassment and Queen Victoria never knew of it.”

  “Do you believe all this?” I asked with an editor’s natural skepticism. “That sort of thing went out with the Maltese Falcon!”

  Ceritus Vats merely smiled. “It’s possible your Mr. Hammett got his idea from legends about the golden lion. Certainly I demand proof for such a story—but the map is a proof of a sort.”

  “What about Jack the Ripper?” Simon pressed on. The lines of his face were deep and his eyes were veiled.

  “Hogarth and Slackly were afraid to offer the lion for sale once they’d stolen it. And they possessed neither the knowledge nor equipment to melt it down. They decided Hogarth would bury the treasure in a safe place for five years, at which time they would then take the lion abroad and sell it.”

  “Where was it buried?”

  Vats shook his head. “Hogarth never told Slackly. He claimed that Slackly drank too much and had a loose tongue. But Slackly insisted he draw a map of the location, in the event he was arrested for some other crime. Hogarth agreed to draw a map in five parts, and to leave one part with each of five London streetwalkers. They were paid to keep it, with more money promised in five years’ time. Only Hogarth and Slackly had lists of the prostitutes’ names.”

  “An unlikely story,” Simon remarked.

  “But is it? For the money, and the promise of more money, these women could be depended on. The parts of the map would remain safe. Hogarth seemed certain they wouldn’t be lost or misplaced. And even if one of the women died or disappeared, Hogarth himself still knew the location of the treasure. The trouble is, Hogarth died—he was killed in a pub brawl the following year. Slackly was left with five names and nothing more. According to the journal, he tracked the women down over a period of months but each one refused to give him her portion of the map—he hadn’t the money that was promised. So he was forced to kill them, all five, using the mutilations and his letters to the
press to hide the true motive.”

  “Is there any evidence besides the handwriting?” Simon asked.

  “The journal is curiously reticent about the specific details of the killings—almost as if Slackly himself could no longer face the memory of them. But he does say he strangled the women before using his knife. Donald Rumbelow’s recent book on the Ripper confirms that at least four of the victims were probably strangled first.”

  “Could I examine this journal?”

  Vats shook his head. “I was allowed to read portions in the presence of Glenda Coxe, but she would not let me keep it.”

  “And the map?”

  “That’s the strangest part of all. Once Slackly retrieved it and put the pieces together, he found he couldn’t read it. That’s why he wrote the journal, leaving the map for his heirs.”

  “I assume Miss Coxe can’t read it either, or she’d hardly offer it for sale.”

  “Correct. She feels the journal and the map themselves are of great value, even if the treasure is never located.”

  “And certainly they are valuable, if the story is true.”

  “Can you help me, Simon?” Vats asked.

  “Just what sort of help do you need? You asked me to forestall a murder.”

  Vats nodded sadly. “My own. It is depressing to reach this stage in one’s life and realize that a colleague would actually kill you for financial gain.”

  “And this colleague is—?”

  “Martin Rood, an antiquarian bookseller and dealer in esoterica like myself. We’ve been friendly rivals for years.”

  “Miss Cox showed him the journal too?”

  “Yes, indeed. She wanted us to bid against each other and she has succeeded admirably.”

  “Has Rood actually threatened your life?”

  “Yes. Last week we held a joint meeting with Miss Coxe. When I topped his bid he stormed out, saying if I cheated him out of the journal and map he’d see me in Hades. He was not jesting.”

  “But perhaps he’s cooled down by now.”

  “No. On the morning I cabled you I received a package at my shop here. It was an old leather-bound book with no indication of who’d sent it. When I opened the cover I saw the book had been hollowed out—to make room for a live black widow spider.”

  “My God!” I breathed.

  But Simon did not take it so seriously. “Hardly a serious attempt to kill you, Ceritus, or the book would have contained a bomb rather than a spider. Still, it’s a bit unpleasant. You think Rood sent it?”

  “Who else? The book was an old regimental history of little value. I almost think I’d seen it on his shelves.”

  “Have you spoken to him since then?”

  “I tried to phone him but he’s always out.”

  “Perhaps a visit to Mr. Rood is in order,” Simon decided. “Meanwhile, is it possible that Miss Glenda Coxe has shown this journal to other dealers?”

  “I doubt it. Both Rood and I made strong bids for it.”

  “And the map? Did she allow you to inspect that as well?”

  “No. Only the buyer gets to see the map, though she’s described it to us as a circle of dots with a horseshoe of dots inside.”

  Simon Ark lifted his head. “Is that so? And she was unable to identify it?”

  “So she says. Do you know—”

  “Just a thought. I’ll withhold comment for the present.”

  “Can you speak to Rood, Simon? Somehow get him off my back so I can close this deal for the journal?”

  “I can speak to him. But the police could have spoken to him too. Why didn’t you simply call them and tell them about the spider?”

  “If the police got wind of this Ripper connection they’d surely confiscate the journal and the map. The newspapers would get the story and no one would make a penny out of it!”

  “I suppose the monetary factor is important to you.”

  “Of course it’s important. I’m not in this business for my health, Simon! And neither is Rood. This is my chance to acquire the find of a lifetime!”

  “Have you and Rood considered sharing it?”

  “Share? With him? Never!”

  There seemed little more to be said. Simon and I left Vats with a promise to do what we could. But I detected in my friend a depression that our long journey had come to this. “I have known Ceritus for years,” he said finally, breaking the gloomy silence, “but I never realized the full extent of his greed. Rood resorts to spiders in hollowed-out books, and Ceritus resorts to me. I am to be the weapon to gain his ends.”

  “Do you really believe this business about Jack the Ripper’s buried treasure?”

  “Perhaps this solution is no more fantastic than the original crimes were. However it leaves one fact unaccounted for: if the Ripper was a sane and rational man bent only on finding that buried lion, why did he find it necessary to mutilate his victims after strangling them?”

  “He was crazy and this whole business is crazy, if you ask me. Let’s forget it and catch the next plane back to New York.”

  “I think first a few words with Martin Rood are called for. Then perhaps we will leave.”

  Rood’s Rare Books occupied a shop on Bayswater Road, opposite Kensington Gardens. In its cluttered shelves and haphazard piles of books it was much like Vats’s shop, but the lighting was dimmer and the odor a bit mustier. And Martin Rood, when he appeared, looked very much like the sort of person who would send black widow spiders in hollowed-out books. He was as tall as Simon, but much thinner, with sunken cheeks and a pale skin that gave him something of a cadaverous appearance.

  “What may I help you with today?” he asked. “We have some fine leather-bound volumes of Sir Walter Scott, just purchased from an estate.”

  “I’m more in the market for regimental histories,” Simon remarked. “Perhaps something on the Black Widows.”

  “Black Widows?” Rood seemed puzzled. “I don’t believe I know that regiment.”

  “Strange. Ceritus Vats thought you could help me.”

  At the mention of Vats’s name, the bookdealer’s whole manner changed. I could see the veins in his temples beginning to throb as he said, “I have no dealings with Vats! I know nothing of the lies he may have told you!”

  “They concern a certain Miss Glenda Coxe and a handwritten journal dating from the last century.”

  “Miss Coxe has contacted me, yes. I believe the entire matter to be a hoax. If Vats wishes to spend his money on it, so be it!”

  “You didn’t mail him a spider in a book?”

  “A spider? In a book? What a quaint idea!”

  Simon and I exchanged glances. Either Vats or Rood was a consummate liar. And maybe it didn’t much matter which one. But then Simon said something which surprised me. “I’m quite interested in Miss Coxe’s journal myself. I’d like to make a purchase offer on it.”

  “You? Who’d you say you were?”

  “The name is Simon Ark.”

  “American?”

  “Most recently.”

  “You don’t exactly sound American.”

  “I’m a mixture,” Simon answered with a smile. “Now about this journal—”

  “You can’t really believe in it? Jack the Ripper and all that?”

  “But if it’s true, the journal could be worth a fortune.”

  Rood considered. “How to prove it?”

  “Dig up the golden lion. That should prove it.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  Simon turned to me. “Come along, my friend.”

  “Where are you going?” Rood asked.

  “To see Miss Coxe, of course. To put in my bid on Jack the Ripper’s map.”

  Simon’s performance may have galvanized Rood into some sort of action. We were only a block away from the shop when I turned to see him lowering the sunshade on his front window and putting out the lights. “Looks as if he’s decided to close early,” I remarked. “Maybe he wants to beat you to Miss Coxe’s place.”

&n
bsp; “Or else he’s planning another little surprise for Ceritus. In any event, I think it’s time we called on Miss Coxe. She obviously holds the key to this entire matter.”

  Glenda Coxe was a psychologist doing basic research in animal behavior at a university laboratory located in London’s East End. We found it without much difficulty, and after being announced we were greeted by a cool young woman wearing a white lab coat. Her dark hair was pulled up in a knot at the back of her head, and I had the impression that she might be far prettier if she allowed her hair to hang free. It took me a moment to remember that this was, supposedly, the great-granddaughter of Jack the Ripper.

  “Gentlemen, I hope it won’t take too long. I’m timing an experiment with some rats.” Her voice was cool and dispassionate, like the rest of her.

  “In a maze, no doubt,” Simon said.

  “What?”

  “The rats are in a maze.”

  “Yes, they are. But I’m sure you didn’t want to talk about rats.”

  “As a matter of fact, we came to talk about this journal which has suddenly come to light. And a map, I believe.”

  “That’s correct. Do you wish to purchase them?”

  “Could we sit down?” Simon asked, indicating some chairs in one corner. When we were seated he continued, “You realize that this journal of yours could be immensely valuable if it’s what you say it is.”

  “My dear man, I don’t say it’s anything at all! Perhaps it was a novel my great-grandfather was attempting to compose. I am simply offering it for sale.”

  “I see. Then you don’t believe you’re a descendant of Jack the Ripper?”

  “I ceased speculating on it long ago. My uncle—” she stopped.

  “Your uncle?”

  “I was going to say that my uncle does enough speculating for both of us. But that needn’t concern you.”

  “Your uncle believes the journal to be authentic?”

  “He does. It’s become an obsession with him.”

  “I’d like to meet him,” Simon said.

  “That would accomplish nothing.”

  “Something puzzles me about this whole business, Miss Coxe. When you found this journal, why didn’t you take it to the newspapers—or even to a book publisher? Why offer it surreptitiously to a couple of old booksellers?”