The Shadow

Morning - Thu 13th Sept 1888.

ing was up early, plenty to do and he felt that today would be the day. The day when the felons would meet their comeuppance!

At the docks, the harbour master provides Bing with a sailing schedule of the ships which sailed to Belgium on 31st August 1888. There were only two, The Tempest to Ghent and The Seawolf.

Further to this, Bing, with a little monetary encouragement of a few shillings found that one George B. Shaw and a woman answering the description of Kate Eddowes left England for Belgium on Monday in The Stonemason.

A quick chat with James Richardson over a coffee reveals the locations of the ball lightning.

The Science Museum, Foreign Office - Whitehall, an old warehouse in Millwall, a pub in Flower and Dean Street, Spittalfields, and a villa in Newington, quite a widespread distribution, with no obvious pattern perceivable. Mm maybe something will turn up later, and there has been a history of ball lightning up at Dower's shop for the last five years or so.

"Sir Albert. Good to see you again. How are you keeping ?"

"Fine my boy, fine. Never better."

"I'm afraid I'm here on business, it's not a social call."

"Never mind. Have a snifter ?"

"Don't mind if I do, whisker and soda please."

"There you go, now what can I do for you ?"

"I read in the paper that you'd fished Dower out of the Thames, can I see him ?"

"Ha ha ha. O dear, that's not the effect we had hoped for."

"I beg your pardon ?"

"It was a plan to lure out Eric and Camellia Dower or the various agents currently operating in London. O well it hasn't worked and now we know that Camellia is dead."

"Yes I know !"

"I'm sorry, how thoughtless of me."

"Quite alright, well I'll be off, plenty to do, don't you know."

Bing walks off his anger by striding through the alleys and lanes of Chigwell. A waste of time, deceived by those supposedly on my side.

A wild inhuman cry came from Bing's right, raising the hackles at the back of his neck. More human swearing and grunting could be heard under this bestial yell.

Sprinting down an alley, Bing is just in time to see two well dressed men wrestling with nothing ! There was nothing there, yet the men were holding something physical surely ?

The men bungled the struggling ghost into a waiting coach, which once the door was closed, sped off down the street at high speed. Bing was just quick enough to glance at the crest on the door. A crest he remembered belonged to the Kentish aristocrat Lord Caverswall. Perhaps it was the one poor Camellia saw ? Too much of a coincidence surely ?