“I’m a teetote, sir,” I said. “My drunken father, this day sleeping under Dublin soil, drank more than enough for not only my own life but the lifetimes of any sons I might have.”
“Suit yourself. Have you met Harry? You two fellows ever cross each other in the newsroom? Though Harry is no newsroom rat, I know.”
“Hiya, pal,” said Harry, rising, putting out a big American hand. It must have been his straw boater’s hat on O’Connor’s desk, for only an American would wear a boating hat where there were no boats to be found. He had a big, raw-boned face and a winning smile under a droopy red mustache, which displayed spadelike, rather gigantic teeth. He was wearing an Eton rowing blazer edged in white, a white shirt, a deep blue cross-hatched waistcoat, a tie of color (red), trousers of white with dark blue stripes, and white shoes and socks. Was there a regatta? Was he going picnicking with a lady on the Thames, or perhaps coxswaining a boat in the big tilt against Balliol’s eight? I put it all on loathsome American crudity; as a people, they seem to lack any sense of tradition and are utterly incapable of reading the cues and learning from what they see. They’re entirely bent on results or, rather, money. What they like they take and make their own, regardless.
“Nice coat,” he said as we shook. “Can I get the name of your tailor?”
“Alas,” I said, “a German madman.”
“Too bad,” he said. “I like the sort of belted, harnessed look that thing has. Is it for some kind of fishing?”
“Hunting jacket,” I said. “Vented shoulders, gives one more flexibility on the turning shots. It’s said the coloration dumbfounds the grouse, but even if their brains are the size of a pea, they cannot be that dim.”
“You never know. Good shooting?”
I had no idea. I’d never done it, would never do it. “Quite jolly,” I said.
“Now, fellows,” said O’Connor, “glad to have us together for our little chat. Jeb, as I’ve been telling Harry, I’m proud of what you fellows have done. You’ve lit this place up and set the pace for the whole town. We’re driving the story, and all the other rags are following us. And I know, if anything breaks fast and sudden-like, whichever of you is here will get it first, hard and straight. And we’ll continue to drive, which means we’ll continue to sell, which means my investors will shut up and leave me in peace.”
Neither Harry nor I said a thing.
“However,” said O’Connor, “I don’t mind telling you, we have a problem.”
He paused. We waited. He took up and sucked on his cheroot, and its glow inflamed as he drew air through it, then exhaled a giant puff of smoke.
“The problem is: Where is he?”
“In hell, hopefully,” I said.
“Good for the world, bad for the Star. These greedy investors I have, they’re like opium addicts. They get a whiff of the profits when something this bloody-wizard big happens, they want that to be the norm. So they put the squeeze on. You have no idea what I go through.”
It occurred to me that it was quite wrong to hope for the killer to strike again as an aid toward boosting sales, but that was the reality of the business; O’Connor had no moral problem stating it so baldly, and the American wasn’t about to make a speech, so I kept my own mouth sealed tightly.
“Boss, do you want me to go out and slice up a dolly?” said Harry, and we all three laughed, for it somewhat ameliorated the anguish in the room.
“No, indeed,” said O’Connor. “The lawyers would never approve. But I want us to put our heads together and come up with an angle that we can push to heat things up again. The rings gag was a start, but there’s more we can do. That’s what this meet is about.”
It never occurred to me. Covering the killer was enough; the idea of generating news, presumably of some sort of fabricated nonsense, struck me as appalling. Yet again, because I am who I am and lack certain moral strengths, and because I had gotten so much out of the killer’s campaign against Whitechapel’s Judys, I said nothing.
Dam mentioned something about a special edition that put the pictures of the two victims on the front page, to be run in black borders, with comments from the various children.
“Not going to do it, I’m afraid,” said O’Connor. “Our readers don’t want maudlin, they want mayhem. They want the red stuff sticky on their hands.”
We batted it around for a bit, nice and easy-like, and I popped up with a few absurdities—what would the day’s leading intellectuals, such as Mr. Hardy, Mr. Darwin, Mr. Galton, think, for example.
But the chat ran down sadly, and gloom filled the room. And then—hark, the herald angels sing!
“I got it,” said Harry. “Yes, I do. Okay, what’s this missing? It’s even missing here in this room, and we’re talking around it.”
Silence, not of the golden sort.
“It’s a story,” said Harry finally. “It needs a villain.”
“Well, it’s got a villain,” I said. “We just have no idea who it is.”
“But he’s not a character. He’s an idea, a phantom, a theory, an unknown. Sometimes he’s ‘the fiend’ and sometimes ‘the murderer,’ but he has no personality, no image. We can’t get a fix on him. It’s not enough that he’s an Ikey, even if the folks do hate their Ikeys. He’s still blurry, indistinct.”
“I don’t—” I started to say.
“He needs a name.”
It was so absurdly simple, it brought conversation to a halt.
O’Connor sucked the cigar, Harry tossed down more brown and looked up, smiling. I sat there, feeling like a conspirator against Caesar, but then remembered I hated Caesar, so it would be all right. I also hated Harry for coming up with such a great idea. He was not without ability.
He was so positive. It’s an American trait. Doubt is not in their vocabulary, nor half-speed ahead, nor anything that smacks of consideration, context, contemplation. They leave that for the poofs. For them it’s always Dam the torpedoes!
Harry went on. “It can’t just be any name, like Tom, Dick, or Harry. It needs to be special, clever, the sort of catchy thing you remember and that sticks in your mind. It’s got to have that ring to it. I thought of ‘Ike the Kike,’ but that’s too ridiculous.”
“And suppose he turns out to be a High Church Anglican bishop,” I said. “How embarrassing.”
“Good point,” said Harry. “That’s why it has to be a good name. We need a genius to figure it out.”
“I’ll drop in on Darwin,” I said, “and if he’s not busy, I’m sure he’ll pitch in. If not he, perhaps Cousin Galton will join our campaign.” Sarcasm: last redoubt of the utterly defeated.
“I don’t know those guys, but I get your point. We need something thought up by someone who’s got a big talent.”
“Harry,” said O’Connor, “do go on. I like this, even if I can’t yet see where it’s going. And I’m confused how to make it happen.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “Here’s how I see it. We come up with a letter from the guy, and he signs it with a name that will ring bang-on through the ages. No advert can top it, it’s so perfect. Now, we can’t run it ourselves, because everyone would sniff a phony. So the letter goes to the Central News Agency. You know, they’re such hacks, they won’t think twice about spreading it throughout the town. And now he’s got a name, he’s hot again. It bridges the gap until he strikes.”
“Suppose it makes him strike again,” I said.
“Come now, man,” said O’Connor. “You saw the wounds. This darling rips them up so bad, he’s obviously mad as a March hare. Nothing we do is going to influence that degree of insanity a whit.”