laclongquan
Arcane
ironyuri said:
Them. And:
4. Any underground tidbits? Like where Jack Pizer last night, for example?
-
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Let's Catch Jack the Ripper - 3
- Thread starter grotsnik
- Start date
Them. And:
4. Any underground tidbits? Like where Jack Pizer last night, for example?
A most disturbing lack of questions pollutes the air... I guess I shall enter Text Adventure mode ("ask about everything!") and attempt to rectify that.
Ask about recent "clients" of Polly's that weren't dirt poor.
Ask if she knows why Polly was confined, and where.
Ask about left-handed persons of common acquaintance.
Ask about the lodging house Polly was staying at.
Ask about the attacks which have occurred in the district over the last year.
Ask about recent "clients" of Polly's that weren't dirt poor.
Ask if she knows why Polly was confined, and where.
Ask about left-handed persons of common acquaintance.
Ask about the lodging house Polly was staying at.
Ask about the attacks which have occurred in the district over the last year.
Johnny the Mule
Educated
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2011
- Messages
- 567
Ask how much.
laclongquan
Arcane
Where. Is. My. SISTER!
:riot: 
:riot: 
grotsnik
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2010
- Messages
- 1,671
Wise runs his fingers thoughtlessly across his narrow chin, flecked with rough wiry stubble. It’s been too long since he cut his hair – too long since he could afford to cut his hair. But there were men in the ring who’d grab you by it and pull you to the ground. Men who’d use your own vanity to bring you down.
“Where did the bonnet come from, if she only had it with her the night she died?” he asks. “Did Polly give you any indication who might’ve bought it for her?”
Mary shakes her head.
“Had to be one of her gentlemen, though, ain’t it?” she says. “Cos she was drinkin’ up her money for the doss-house. ‘You keep on going,’ Ted at the bar says, ‘and you won’t be able to pay to sleep in no bed tonight.’ ‘Don’t you mind,’ she says, tapping at that new bonnet of hers, ‘I’ll soon make my money back. Do you see what a fine new bonnet I’ve got?’ She had some new gentleman, ‘s what it was, who was payin’ her, and her money all went to drink, so he bought her a bonnet instead. Wish I had a gentleman, Tommy,” she adds, with sad, hungry eyes, “who’d buy me pretty things.”
Wise smiles, gently.
“How much do you charge again, Mary?” he asks. "For your business, an' that."
The prostitute grins back at him, revealing a twisted hedge of a mouth; teeth in all of the shades and sizes, twisted and white and black and brown.
“Thruppence a fuck,” she says. “Good rates, they are. Cheaper than most.”
“And Polly would charge about the same.”
“Aye, suppose. Tuppence, perhaps – if he’s a smooth talker.”
It was as he’d suspected. A single fumble in an alleyway would barely pay for a night’s temporary lodging in the foulest doss-house in the district. The working girls of Whitechapel survived from day to day; it was a life Wise could sympathise with.
And now someone had taken one of these poor, starved, disappointed creatures, a failure of the great experiment of civilisation that was the city of London, and slit her throat, and split her belly open for all the world to see what lay inside.
Wise’s teeth grit, with sudden anger.
“Did Polly talk about a gentleman, then?” he says. “A regular, maybe? She’d gone steady with fellas before, hadn’t she?”
“Nah,” Mary says. “Nah – well, not in a long time, anyway. Back in March, I remember she was talking about someone. Well-to-do, she said, ran a butcher’s shop. Said he’d get her off the streets, told me she’d got him twisted around her finger. Said he’d pay for her from now on. Course, she was always lying, was Poll, so she stopped talkin’ about him after a coupla weeks. I teased her, she told me to piss off, and that was the end of it.”
“And the bonnet…it’ll still be with the Peelers, right?”
She shrugs.
“Spose so. In the station, maybe? Unless they buried her with it – ain’t like she had a lady’s wardrobe, is it?”
No, Wise thinks. You have the clothes on your back, and that’s all. Anything else is only ballast; you sell it in the markets before someone steals it from you in one of the doss-houses or the workhouses.
“You know any of the other girls?” he asks. “The ones that were attacked?”
Mary sucks at her teeth.
“Everyone knew Annie,” she says. “You remember Annie Millwood, Tommy? She was the first, I reckon – first they talked about in the papers, anyway. Wandered into the Infirmary back in February, bleeding from her belly, said some fucker’d just walked up to her on the street, pulled out a knife and stuck ‘er. Never seen him before in her life.”
“Could she describe the man?” Wise says.
“You’d have to ask the police,” murmurs Mary, “cos she ain’t around no more. Got out of the infirmary, went back to the workhouse at Mile End – then in March, a month later, she just keeled over. Dead in the yard, like. Bastards were probably driving her too hard, right?”
Wise cannot recall Annie. There have been too many sad, powdered faces in his life.
“Then there was Emma Smith,” Mary continues. “Now, the girls have been tellin’ the newspapermen this, because it’s true – if the fucker who got Polly got Emma too, it’s not a lunatic, like they keep sayin’. It’s several men. She staggered back into the lodging-house, blood dripping from her cunny from what they done to her, and said it was three or four men that did for her. She never made it through the night.”
“And Martha,” Wise prompts. “ Martha Tabram.”
“Didn’t know her,” says Mary. “But I think the papers got that wrong, too, cos everyone’s sayin’ it were a soldier that killed her. One o’ them outta the Wellington Barracks. White bands on their caps, the, uh-”
“The Coldstream Guards.”
“’S right, the Coldstream Guards. Stabbed her forty times. Now that – that sounds like a lunatic, don’t it, Tommy? Who’d feel the need to just…keep going like that?”
A soldier, Wise thinks. Perhaps. When you lose yourself in the moment, when all you can see in front of you is the enemy with frightened eyes, and all you can think is that you want to annihilate it.
“One last thing, Mary,” he says, “and I’ll be gone. Do you know where Jack Pizer was last night?”
Is that fear – a trace of fear, a fiery flash – that sweeps across the prostitute’s face as she shakes her head?
“Why you askin’ me?” she whimpers. “Go ask Pizer. I don’t want to know what that cunt’s up to. I’m glad enough he doesn’t come round with his belt tellin’ me I got to give him half of what I earn.”
“I could…take care of you myself, Mary,” Wise says, and half means it. “And I wouldn’t want half, neither.”
She giggles, childishly.
“You gonna protect me, Tom Wise?” she says. “You’re a man yourself, and a killer. Who’s to say you ain’t at the root of all of this?”
But before she goes, he gets a little more out of her; the address of Polly’s lodging-house, the details of her last confinement, which is hardly a surprise – having drunk too much, she was apprehended trying to sell herself in the street, and fell ill while in the local cells – and, at last, he asks her,
“Can you think of anyone round here that’s left-handed?”
That makes her laugh outright.
“Well, I don’t know, Tommy,” she says. “Can’t say I often look. I mean, them that’s educated, they get taught out of using their left, don’t they? So if this fucker’s left-handed…well, it’s cos he’s one of us.”
__________________________________________________________________________
Where to?
A) Head to the Wellington Barracks to investigate Martha Tabram’s attacker; Wise, as an ex-soldier, may get more out of fellow military men.
B) Head to the Mile End, to find out about Annie Milwood’s mysterious death.
C) Track down Jack Pizer.
D) Try and get in to speak with the police.
E) Visit Polly’s funeral to try and speak with her ex-husband and father.
F) Sustenance shizzle.
G) Visit Polly’s lodging-house.
H) Go to the papers.
“Where did the bonnet come from, if she only had it with her the night she died?” he asks. “Did Polly give you any indication who might’ve bought it for her?”
Mary shakes her head.
“Had to be one of her gentlemen, though, ain’t it?” she says. “Cos she was drinkin’ up her money for the doss-house. ‘You keep on going,’ Ted at the bar says, ‘and you won’t be able to pay to sleep in no bed tonight.’ ‘Don’t you mind,’ she says, tapping at that new bonnet of hers, ‘I’ll soon make my money back. Do you see what a fine new bonnet I’ve got?’ She had some new gentleman, ‘s what it was, who was payin’ her, and her money all went to drink, so he bought her a bonnet instead. Wish I had a gentleman, Tommy,” she adds, with sad, hungry eyes, “who’d buy me pretty things.”
Wise smiles, gently.
“How much do you charge again, Mary?” he asks. "For your business, an' that."
The prostitute grins back at him, revealing a twisted hedge of a mouth; teeth in all of the shades and sizes, twisted and white and black and brown.
“Thruppence a fuck,” she says. “Good rates, they are. Cheaper than most.”
“And Polly would charge about the same.”
“Aye, suppose. Tuppence, perhaps – if he’s a smooth talker.”
It was as he’d suspected. A single fumble in an alleyway would barely pay for a night’s temporary lodging in the foulest doss-house in the district. The working girls of Whitechapel survived from day to day; it was a life Wise could sympathise with.
And now someone had taken one of these poor, starved, disappointed creatures, a failure of the great experiment of civilisation that was the city of London, and slit her throat, and split her belly open for all the world to see what lay inside.
Wise’s teeth grit, with sudden anger.
“Did Polly talk about a gentleman, then?” he says. “A regular, maybe? She’d gone steady with fellas before, hadn’t she?”
“Nah,” Mary says. “Nah – well, not in a long time, anyway. Back in March, I remember she was talking about someone. Well-to-do, she said, ran a butcher’s shop. Said he’d get her off the streets, told me she’d got him twisted around her finger. Said he’d pay for her from now on. Course, she was always lying, was Poll, so she stopped talkin’ about him after a coupla weeks. I teased her, she told me to piss off, and that was the end of it.”
“And the bonnet…it’ll still be with the Peelers, right?”
She shrugs.
“Spose so. In the station, maybe? Unless they buried her with it – ain’t like she had a lady’s wardrobe, is it?”
No, Wise thinks. You have the clothes on your back, and that’s all. Anything else is only ballast; you sell it in the markets before someone steals it from you in one of the doss-houses or the workhouses.
“You know any of the other girls?” he asks. “The ones that were attacked?”
Mary sucks at her teeth.
“Everyone knew Annie,” she says. “You remember Annie Millwood, Tommy? She was the first, I reckon – first they talked about in the papers, anyway. Wandered into the Infirmary back in February, bleeding from her belly, said some fucker’d just walked up to her on the street, pulled out a knife and stuck ‘er. Never seen him before in her life.”
“Could she describe the man?” Wise says.
“You’d have to ask the police,” murmurs Mary, “cos she ain’t around no more. Got out of the infirmary, went back to the workhouse at Mile End – then in March, a month later, she just keeled over. Dead in the yard, like. Bastards were probably driving her too hard, right?”
Wise cannot recall Annie. There have been too many sad, powdered faces in his life.
“Then there was Emma Smith,” Mary continues. “Now, the girls have been tellin’ the newspapermen this, because it’s true – if the fucker who got Polly got Emma too, it’s not a lunatic, like they keep sayin’. It’s several men. She staggered back into the lodging-house, blood dripping from her cunny from what they done to her, and said it was three or four men that did for her. She never made it through the night.”
“And Martha,” Wise prompts. “ Martha Tabram.”
“Didn’t know her,” says Mary. “But I think the papers got that wrong, too, cos everyone’s sayin’ it were a soldier that killed her. One o’ them outta the Wellington Barracks. White bands on their caps, the, uh-”
“The Coldstream Guards.”
“’S right, the Coldstream Guards. Stabbed her forty times. Now that – that sounds like a lunatic, don’t it, Tommy? Who’d feel the need to just…keep going like that?”
A soldier, Wise thinks. Perhaps. When you lose yourself in the moment, when all you can see in front of you is the enemy with frightened eyes, and all you can think is that you want to annihilate it.
“One last thing, Mary,” he says, “and I’ll be gone. Do you know where Jack Pizer was last night?”
Is that fear – a trace of fear, a fiery flash – that sweeps across the prostitute’s face as she shakes her head?
“Why you askin’ me?” she whimpers. “Go ask Pizer. I don’t want to know what that cunt’s up to. I’m glad enough he doesn’t come round with his belt tellin’ me I got to give him half of what I earn.”
“I could…take care of you myself, Mary,” Wise says, and half means it. “And I wouldn’t want half, neither.”
She giggles, childishly.
“You gonna protect me, Tom Wise?” she says. “You’re a man yourself, and a killer. Who’s to say you ain’t at the root of all of this?”
But before she goes, he gets a little more out of her; the address of Polly’s lodging-house, the details of her last confinement, which is hardly a surprise – having drunk too much, she was apprehended trying to sell herself in the street, and fell ill while in the local cells – and, at last, he asks her,
“Can you think of anyone round here that’s left-handed?”
That makes her laugh outright.
“Well, I don’t know, Tommy,” she says. “Can’t say I often look. I mean, them that’s educated, they get taught out of using their left, don’t they? So if this fucker’s left-handed…well, it’s cos he’s one of us.”
__________________________________________________________________________
Where to?
A) Head to the Wellington Barracks to investigate Martha Tabram’s attacker; Wise, as an ex-soldier, may get more out of fellow military men.
B) Head to the Mile End, to find out about Annie Milwood’s mysterious death.
C) Track down Jack Pizer.
D) Try and get in to speak with the police.
E) Visit Polly’s funeral to try and speak with her ex-husband and father.
F) Sustenance shizzle.
G) Visit Polly’s lodging-house.
H) Go to the papers.
Tigranes
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 10,350
Great storytelling, I really enjoy the small details that fit the setting. 
D), G) & H) seem rather unproductive, comparatively. F) Sustenance is now a concern since if we don't do it this time, we will have to next turn, right? And we don't know if we'll get 2 actions or 1 next turn.
I'm unsure about B) as it seems like Wise doesn't have much to go on for Annie Milwood. A), C) and E) seem the most sensible options if we don't go for sustenance - A) because Wise has an entry point, E) because it's another now or never thing, and C) because we have to do this at some point.
A for now, just so we can start learning about more than just Polly.
D), G) & H) seem rather unproductive, comparatively. F) Sustenance is now a concern since if we don't do it this time, we will have to next turn, right? And we don't know if we'll get 2 actions or 1 next turn.
I'm unsure about B) as it seems like Wise doesn't have much to go on for Annie Milwood. A), C) and E) seem the most sensible options if we don't go for sustenance - A) because Wise has an entry point, E) because it's another now or never thing, and C) because we have to do this at some point.
A for now, just so we can start learning about more than just Polly.
A) Head to the Wellington Barracks to investigate Martha Tabram’s attacker; Wise, as an ex-soldier, may get more out of fellow military men.
And possibly bum a pity-meal in exchange for tales of our service to the crown etc.
Go for F, to get that sustenance up.
WetWorks said:
This. Better do it now.
grotsnik
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2010
- Messages
- 1,671
Tigranes said:Great storytelling, I really enjoy the small details that fit the setting.
D), G) & H) seem rather unproductive, comparatively. F) Sustenance is now a concern since if we don't do it this time, we will have to next turn, right? And we don't know if we'll get 2 actions or 1 next turn.
Cheers!
You won't actually die when your Sustenance reaches 0 - you'll just, er, start starving to death.
laclongquan
Arcane
We get two actions per turn, for Wise. So
A. Military lead. Reason as above.
F. Time to work for our living. Even if we can bum a meal off our fellow soldiers, doesnt mean a spare coins or two for rainy days doesnt help.
Although it's reassuring to have mil training, this wasting an action for food money is damn annoying.
A. Military lead. Reason as above.
F. Time to work for our living. Even if we can bum a meal off our fellow soldiers, doesnt mean a spare coins or two for rainy days doesnt help.
Although it's reassuring to have mil training, this wasting an action for food money is damn annoying.
Nevermind, saw grotley's reply above.
laclongquan
Arcane
Damn, F then. Curse Poverty, CURSE YOU!
Johnny the Mule
Educated
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2011
- Messages
- 567
grotsnik said:
for doing it, gracefully at that.
Heard for the first time.I dont read much, fiction at least.
B) Head to the Mile End, to find out about Annie Milwood’s mysterious death.
Her death feels like the first time of a serial killer, especially of Jack's profile. Jack supposedly suffocated his girls before cutting em.
In the other old cases one got raped and 40 stabs victim got rage murdered. Meh.
Our Jack is a 'noble'/upstanding citizen and ambidextrous. Former lefty maybe.
Even if the real Jack is only lefty if he killed standing from behind. Our is different.
ironyuri
Guest
Johnny the Mule said:grotsnik said:
I dont read much, fiction at least.
B) Head to the Mile End, to find out about Annie Milwood’s mysterious death.
Her death feels like the first time of a serial killer, especially of Jack's profile. Jack supposedly suffocated his girls before cutting em.
In the other old cases one got raped and 40 stabs victim got rage murdered. Meh.
Our Jack is a 'noble'/upstanding citizen and ambidextrous. Former lefty maybe.
Even if the real Jack is only lefty if he killed standing from behind. Our is different.
For once I'm with Orgasm.
B
A is a false lead, that grotsnik has attached a carrot to in order to lure us into wasting a turn. Soldier gets angry, soldier stabs prostitute 40 times. End of.
It's not the same modus operandi as the recent murders, and surely you can all tell from what grotsnik wrote about Wise knowing the feeling, that he's basically hinting he knows what rage is like. In the meantime, we know and Wise does too, that the Ripper is a calculating killer.
B or F will serve us much better, but for now, we might as well go for B. Follow the lead up while we can, get some information.
Gondolin
Arcane
Indeed. 40 stabs doesn't sound like JtR.
B.
Let's hope not picking F won't bite us in the ass.
B.
Let's hope not picking F won't bite us in the ass.
Kz3r0
Arcane
- Joined
- May 28, 2008
- Messages
- 27,017
Actually I voted A because can combine sustenance and gathering informations, we are not limited to ask only about one thing after all, aren't we?
About B, it just sounds as a professional hitman or a jealous lover more than a serial killer, A also can be the work of serial killer, not only an enraged soldier, the first time is messy for everyone, you know.
About B, it just sounds as a professional hitman or a jealous lover more than a serial killer, A also can be the work of serial killer, not only an enraged soldier, the first time is messy for everyone, you know.
ironyuri
Guest
Kz3r0 said:
derp
If they know who it was and know a soldier killed her, it'd be fairly easy for them to catch him.
Martha was killed in either a drunken rage or because she insulted an edgy soldier, or because he raped her.
Annie was stabbed in the stomach (same m.o.) by a stranger she'd never seen before and who no one is sure about.
Emma was raped and probably had something sharp inserted into her vagina as sexual punishment by a group of men.
Grotsnik didn't give us an option to investigate Emma, and Martha is a dead end. It's a carrot on a stick, more than likely.
Wise, an ex-military man, gets to investigate a murder by another military man of a prostitute in the slums and maybe he'll get sustenace too? Doesn't that sound too good to be true?
He also left us a hint that Annie was the first the papers talked about. She has linked the two for us, or rather grotsnik has.
ironyuri
Guest
Grot-bro:
Could you purpose change the thread title to include that there is a vote taking place? Not many participants have voted before the next update because of their general retardo.
Thanks bro.
Could you purpose change the thread title to include that there is a vote taking place? Not many participants have voted before the next update because of their general retardo.
Thanks bro.
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