MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

Year 1891. In “The Times” of October 12, the population is informed that Spring Heeled Jack, the famous fictional character, is on the loose again in the streets, or rather in the skies of London. In the Society for Psychical Research the news produces a sudden stir. The members believed that Jack had been killed by a duck hunter. (This may serve you as a lesson: one should never trust duck hunters.) They rush up the stairs to the attic. From there they peer over the rooftops of London amid the smoke that flows from the innumerable chimneys. Dr. Lodge thinks he distinguish the evildoer perched on the cross that crowns the dome of St Paul's Cathedral. But Gurney observes with his binoculars and denies it: it is certain that there is someone perched on top of the dome, however it is not Spring Heeled Jack but Gurney's uncle, Joe. Suddenly, they hear a powerful flutter behind their backs and, when they turn around, they find themselves face to face with the sinister character, who...

In 1890, on the outskirts of Croydon, South London, stood a stately mansion of victorian style surrounded by a six-meter wall. The exaggerated height of the wall was due not to the fear that someone would slip into the mansion but that someone could escape from it. No, it was not a prison: it was the most elitist asylum for men in all of England. It was such a select establishment that it was only allowed to madmen who thought themselves to be historical figures of lineage such as  Henry VIII, Benjamin Franklin, Ramses II or Frederick the Great. When several individuals coincided with the same obsession, a court of experts decided which of them was the real personality, and the impostors were rejected. However, the case that we will now deal with is not that of a historical celebrity but that of a fictional character of the time, protagonist of a series of famous cheap serialized booklets, named Spring Heeled Jack. Since in the asylum there was already a Spring Heeled Jack, the co...