Tales of Jack the Ripper Read Online Free PDF Page B

make your way towards it, squelching. It looks chewed by time, and you wonder how long it’s been there. Perhaps it was dumped here recently; perhaps it was thrown out by the river; possibly the Thames, belabouring and dragging the mud, uncovered the box. As the water has built the box a niche of mud so it has washed the lid, and you can make out dates scratched on the metal. They are almost a century old. It’s the dates that provoke your curiosity, and perhaps also a gesture against the dull landscape. You stoop and pick up the box, which frees itself with a gasp of mud.
    Although it’s only a foot square the box is heavier than you anticipated. You skid and regain your balance. You wouldn’t be surprised if the box were made of lead. If anyone had thrown it in the river they would certainly have expected it to stay sunk. You wonder why they would have bothered to carry it to the river or to the marshes for disposal. It isn’t distinguished, except by the dates carved on the lid by an illiterate or clumsy hand—just a plain box of heavy grey metal. You read the dates:
    31 / 8 / 1888
    8 / 9 / 1888
    30 / 9 / 1888
    9 / 11 / 1888
    There seems to be no pattern. It’s as if someone had been trying to work one out. But what kind of calculation would be resolved by throwing away a metal box? Bewildered though you are, that’s how you read the clues. What was happening in 1888? You think you read somewhere that expeditions were returning from Egypt around that date. Have you discovered an abandoned archaeological find? There’s one way to know. But your fingers slip off the box, which in any case is no doubt locked beneath its coat of mud, and the marsh is seeping into your shoes; so you leave off your attempts to open the lid and stumble away, carrying the box.
    By the time you reach the road your excitement has drained somewhat. After all, someone could have scratched the dates on the lid last week; it could even be an understated practical joke. You don’t want to take a heavy box all the way home only to prise from its depths a piece of paper saying APRIL FOOL. So you leave the box in the grass at the side of the road and search until you find a metal bar. Sorry if I’m aborting the future of archaeology, you think, and begin to lever at the box.
    But even now it’s not as easy as you thought. You’ve wedged the box and can devote all your energy to shifting the lid, but it’s fighting you. Once it yields an inch or two and then snaps shut again. It’s as if it were being held shut, like the shell of a clam. A car passes on the other side of the road and you begin to give in to a sense of absurdity, to the sight of yourself struggling to jemmy open an old box. You begin to feel like a tourist’s glimpse. Another car, on your side this time, and dust sweeps into your face. You blink and weep and cough violently, for the dust seems to have been scooped into your mouth. Then the sensation of dry crawling in your mouth recedes, and only the skin beneath your tongue feels rough. You wipe your eyes and return to the box. And then you drop the bar, for the box is wide open.
    And it’s empty. The interior is as dull as the exterior. There’s nothing, except on the bottom a thin glistening coat of what looks like saliva but must be marsh water. You slam the lid. You memorize the dates and walk away, rolling your tongue around the floor of your mouth, which still feels thick, and grinning wryly. Perhaps the hitch-hiker or whoever finds the box will conceive a use for it.
    That night you’re walking along a long dim street towards a woman. She seems to be backing away, and you can’t see her face. Suddenly, as you rush towards her, her body opens like an anemone. You plunge deep into the wet red fronds.
    The dream hoods your brain for days. Perhaps it’s the pressure of work or of worry, but you find yourself becoming obsessive. In crowds you halt, thinking of the dates on the box. You’ve consulted such books as you