Trouble at High Tide [antikvár]

Chapter One R was ahead of me in line. A stocky man with thin red hair parted on the side and muttonchop sideburns that reached up his cheek to cormect to a bushy mustache. He wore a heavy brown tweed suit, carried a book under one arm, and toted an old leather valise held closed by straps across the top. He was the image of a late-nineteenth-century traveler—and a strange sight to see as we inched our way forward toward the twenty-first-century customs agent in Bermuda. "Have your passport and other papers out and ready, please,'' an officer called to the crowd. The man in front of me set down his suitcase and groped around in his jacket for his papers, dropping his book in the process. I scooped it up and, startled, looked into the bleary eyes of the book's owner. Part of the title was spelled out in large red letters dripping with blood: Jack the Ripper. The man mumbled his thanks, and quickly turned his back to me.