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As on previous occasions, news of the two murders spread throughout the city with alarming speed, despite the authorities' efforts to contain it.
At first fragmented, the information evolved as it passed from mouth to mouth. In every street, every market, every tavern, it gained new details, often invented, always more sordid.
In the printing houses, upcoming editions were hastily revised. At Samuel Loudon's shop, someone even had the idea of giving a name to this elusive killer. A short, common name, one that suggested he could be anyone.
Jack.
But to make it more memorable, to leave a stronger impression and sell more copies, they proposed adding a qualifier. Among the list submitted to the owner, only one caught Mr. Loudon's attention.
The Ripper.
Thus, the threat would no longer remain a faceless figure. This presence now had a name, one that could be feared and hated.
Convinced that this edition would meet with great success, Loudon ordered a larger print run than usual. He doubled it.
Meanwhile, the Sons of Liberty were organizing.
This affair went beyond a mere crime: it was an opportunity. A strategy had to be devised to use it as effectively as possible against the British authorities. Alongside other leading figures of the group, Isaac Sears intended to shake New York by rallying an angry crowd and leading it to the fort to demand results, while denouncing their inability to protect New Yorkers despite the weight of their forces in the city.
Such failure could only be the result of a lack of will on their part.
And if the authorities finally acted and caught the killer? Then their sudden zeal—provoked by the identity of the victim, the wife of the former British Superintendent of Indian Affairs—would become yet another weapon.
Not everyone saw things this way.
One man saw in this affair neither political leverage nor useful agitation, only loss.
William Johnson, his face rigid as though it were a mask and his eyes reddened, crossed a lively square without seeing anything around him.
Dressed, as often, half in European fashion, he was immediately escorted to the office of Lieutenant-Governor John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore. In the corridors, soldiers murmured among themselves as he passed. Only the newest recruits did not know who he was or all he had done for the Crown and the colonies.
He no longer held any official position, but his influence had not entirely vanished. He still had friends in New York, and his name still carried weight among the Iroquois.
He entered a large, sunlit office.
Already informed of his arrival, Murray stepped around his desk and approached him with measured gravity.
"Mr. Johnson. I am Lieutenant-Governor Murray. I have heard much about you. I would have preferred to meet you under better circumstances."
Johnson did not reply. He took the offered hand without strength, as if the gesture no longer held meaning.
Murray hesitated briefly, then continued in a lower voice:
"Please accept my sincere condolences. I have been married for several years… I would not presume to understand your pain, but—"
"May I see her?"
His voice was weak, almost extinguished.
Murray stopped at once and inclined his head slightly.
"Of course. Follow me."
They left the office without another word.
Once in the courtyard, the two men took a very narrow stone staircase that descended deep beneath the fort. The air was cooler there, and their footsteps echoed for a long time against the close walls.
Below, a silent corridor stretched into the dimness, lit only by a few openings high above.
"We have cleaned her body," the governor said at last, "and separated her from the other victim."
A soldier stood guard before a sturdy door. He straightened as they approached.
Murray gave him a nod, and the soldier produced a ring of keys. He selected one, plain and clearly old.
Click. Clack.
The door opened inward, revealing a room of about nine square meters, bare and cold like a cell. There was only a modest bed, upon which fell a pale, almost silvery shaft of light.
William Johnson stopped at the threshold, his gaze fixed on the form lying on the bed, covered by a white sheet. Murray murmured something, but he did not hear it.
The door closed behind him.
He was alone, facing the bed. The silence was absolute.
For a moment, he remained motionless. His mouth trembled almost imperceptibly.
He should have wept, but no tears came.
Slowly, as if afraid of making noise, he stepped forward. His throat tightened. It felt as though a rope were being placed around his neck to hang him.
The sheet traced the contours of the body without revealing anything. The face was entirely covered.
His right hand rose, hesitant. It gently grasped the fabric—and pulled, with infinite care.
Long black hair appeared first, then dark skin, closed eyes, a straight nose, a motionless mouth.
It was indeed Molly.
His lips parted slightly, but no sound emerged.
Still no tears. He had none left.
He pulled the sheet further down. Her hands were folded over her abdomen, where the blows had been struck.
Efforts had been made, but nothing could fully erase the violence of her death.
He remained there, leaning over her, as if still searching for something—an error, a sign of life.
At last, he placed his broad, dry hand over his wife's. It was cold. Rigid. Unreal.
She was not his only wife. Not the only mother of his children. But he had loved her.
And to see her lying there, lifeless… it hurt him more than all the hardships he had endured throughout his life, even combined.
His gaze slowly rose to her face, peaceful. She looked deeply asleep. But he knew she would never open her eyes again, nor hear the sound of her voice. He would never feel her warmth again.
His eyes stopped on the cross. Dark, brutal, indelible.
His expression changed. His jaw tightened, his fingers closing around Molly's hand.
This was not merely a murder. It was a desecration. An unforgivable insult.
His gaze hardened, colder than steel.
The one who had done this…
After an indeterminate time, with ceremonial slowness, he pulled the sheet back over Molly's face, exactly as he had found it.
He remained motionless for a moment longer, then left the room.
The corridor seemed narrower than before, and colder.
When he returned to the surface, Lieutenant-Governor John Murray, was speaking in low tones with an officer. At the sight of Johnson, he immediately ended the exchange and stepped forward.
"Mr. Johnson… once again, please accept my condolences. I give you my word: the man responsible for this act will be found and punished."
William Johnson did not answer immediately.
When he finally looked up, it was not the gaze of a broken man that Murray met, but something harder. Colder.
"Your time is running out, Governor."
Murray frowned.
"How should I understand that?"
Johnson briefly glanced at the uniformed men going about their duties within the fort. He chose his words carefully:
"My wife was the daughter of a great Iroquois chief. A very influential man in Canajoharie. She herself retained a certain authority, despite… recent setbacks."
He held the governor's gaze.
"I will have to inform them of her death. And they will demand answers."
Murray pressed his lips together but did not look away.
"I understand, but this kind of investigation takes time."
"No."
The word fell sharply, like an executioner's axe.
"You do not understand. They will send a delegation, and when they come… they will not accept leaving empty-handed."
Johnson took a step forward, slightly reducing the distance between them, though not enough to be provocative.
"I can wait," he said firmly. "A year. Ten years, if necessary. They cannot. Our relations have already weakened over the past decade. This event may be enough to break them."
John Murray remained silent for a moment. He knew little of the complex situation in the colonies, and in this province in particular, but he could measure the danger. The Iroquois Confederacy was not a force to be taken lightly. With war looming, even if the French did not seem eager to prepare for it, they could not afford to make an enemy of them.
"Suppose," he said at last, "that we were to present them with… an inadequate culprit."
William Johnson narrowed his eyes.
"That might suffice. For a time. They may doubt, but they will prefer that to having no answer at all."
He hesitated, then added in a lower tone:
"But do not attempt the same with the inhabitants of this city. At the next murder, everything will collapse. Your credibility… and the rest with it."
Murray was no fool. He could easily imagine the consequences.
He nodded slowly.
"Of course."
He straightened slightly, regaining a more official posture.
"I will take your warning into account."
He paused, then asked:
"How much time do we have?"
"A few weeks. A month, at most."
Murray inhaled discreetly.
"So little… Very well. I will speak with General Gage immediately. Naturally, you will be informed of every development."
Johnson inclined his head slightly and left the fort.
He went directly to the house he had purchased in the city years earlier for his wife and their six children. They were still there.
The youngest, Susanna, was only one year old. The eldest, eleven.
They did not yet know that they would never see their mother again.
Fortunately, the governess and several other servants were there to care for them. They, however, knew what had happened, the tragedy that had struck their home.
The house was no longer quite the same.
William Johnson did not stay long, but he spent a little time with each of his children. He gave a few instructions, then withdrew to prepare his departure.
Later that day, he left New York.
***
François's night had been long and had brought him no rest.
When he had finally fallen asleep, it had closed in on him like a trap.
He found himself back in the alley, at the very moment he stabbed the Iroquois woman.
Everything was there—the smells, the distant sounds, the sense of danger… He could feel the woman's short breath against his hand as he kept her from screaming, and the texture of the knife's handle in the hollow of his right palm.
But it was not the same woman.
At some point, without him finding it strange, her features had changed, as if an invisible hand were reshaping them before his eyes. Her hair had lengthened, her hairstyle altered. Her eyes, too.
And it was too late when he recognized her.
It was Onatah.
The shock did not wake him immediately. He would have preferred it had. In the dream, he kept acting, trapped in his own gesture. And every time he tried to rewind time to change the outcome, he returned to the exact moment he struck.
He woke in the middle of the night, perhaps around three in the morning, and could not fall back asleep. He lay still in his bed, heart unsettled, eyes open in the darkness, staring at the ceiling even though he could not make it out.
At daybreak, despite his exhaustion, he got up and resumed his routine.
After a light meal, swallowed without appetite or taste, he went to old Seamus's shop. It was Saturday, the first day of September.
François followed his usual route, without altering his pace or expression. Nothing in his demeanor betrayed what he had done the day before.
But he listened more than usual.
In the still-cool streets, and later in the shop, every conversation revolved around the two murders that had taken place during the night. The killer had struck again, yet no one seemed to doubt that one of the victims was the work of someone else.
For now, there were only fragments of information—imprecise, contradictory, and often false. Some claimed the killer had stripped his victims, scalped them, or gouged out their eyes.
But everyone lingered on the particular identity of one of the victims: an Indian woman. That detail appeared in every rumor.
As he rearranged the shelves without breaking anything, he heard one claim that the woman belonged to an influential Iroquois family and was connected to an important figure in the colonies—some former intermediary with the Confederacy.
Only then did he realize there would be a reaction.
The only thing that reassured him was that he would no longer be in New York to witness the consequences of his actions. If everything went as planned, he would already be on his way to New France, or across the border. In any case, he would be far from New York.
As the morning wore on, the agitation in the streets became harder and harder to ignore. Groups formed and merged, swelling into a noisy mass. By noon, the movement had grown so large that even old Seamus left his shop to see what was happening.
François took advantage of the moment to step outside.
He did not have to search long.
The crowd was immense, dense, made up of several hundred people, all moving toward the fort: Artisans, dockworkers, merchants, apprentices—pressed together and gravitating around a few key figures.
François immediately recognized Isaac Sears.
He truly earned his nickname, "King Sears."
At his side, other Sons of Liberty marched, feeding the flames. François identified them one by one: John Lamb, Edward Laight, Thomas Robinson, Charles Nicoll… and farther back, even more famous names: Samuel Adams, Benjamin Church, John Hancock, James Otis, Paul Revere, Thomas Young, Alexander McDougall.
Their voices rose, echoed, amplified by the crowd, rebounding off the façades of Broadway Street.
"How long are we going to tolerate this?"
"Unable to protect us!"
"They claim to govern us, but they control nothing!"
"Accomplices!"
It was like a wave, rolling straight toward the old walls of the fort. François chose to stay back and observe, wondering whether he was about to witness its collapse... and with it, the beginning of the revolution.
He noted faces, gestures, reactions.
The anger, though manipulated, was real.
"Is this what we pay taxes for? They do nothing! They protect no one! Our lives mean nothing!"
Insults now flew freely.
Then, a man in the crowd—anonymous, swallowed and protected by the mass—threw a stone toward a group of soldiers standing at a distance.
It did not reach them.
The stone rolled across the cobblestones, coming to a stop a few feet from the polished shoes of a young soldier, pale as a sheet.
He tightened his grip on his weapon and cast a quick glance at his comrades, as tense as he was. He bit his lip, waiting for the order to fall back.
The officer behind him, a captain, did not look any calmer.
All the redcoats still remembered the tragic events of the previous year: the New York Massacre.
Even though most of the accused soldiers had been acquitted, thanks to the remarkable defense of the lawyer John Adams, no one ignored what another incident would cost.
More stones followed. Then bottles.
The tension rose another notch, exactly as the Sons of Liberty intended.
Now, all it would take was a spark.
One wrong move.
"What are you going to do?! Shoot us?!"
François felt his heart pounding, with the impression that he was witnessing a historic moment.
The moment when everything would tip over.
But it did not come.
An order was given, and the soldiers stepped back.
A ripple ran through the crowd.
In a way, it was a Patriot victory.
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In the days that followed, calm did not return.
The city seemed unable to regain its balance, as if something had shifted permanently, and no one knew how to set it back in place.
Some inhabitants continued to gather, to talk, to demand results. Crowds formed faster and dispersed more slowly.
Others, on the contrary, chose caution. Some shops, especially near the fort, remained closed at certain hours, sometimes even all day. Groups, whether linked to the organizers or not, took advantage of the unrest to sow further disorder and loot businesses.
In the streets, wary glances gradually replaced ordinary exchanges. People spoke more quietly, watched for unusual behavior, kept guard over their homes, their streets.
During this short period, several official buildings were targeted, particularly near the port. Doors were broken down, windows shattered, documents trampled, furniture overturned. Yet even then, despite these bursts of violence, nothing truly collapsed.
The city was stretched to the extreme, like an overdrawn elastic band ready to snap at any moment. Many clearly feared that moment.
The redcoats, for their part, did not remain idle.
They increased patrols and made them more visible. Soldiers marched in tight formations, weapons on display, eyes alert. Their nervousness was unmistakable, almost tangible.
They were searching for troublemakers… and for the killer, who now had a name.
One man was arrested on Maiden Lane simply for being outside well past curfew. The next day, another was taken from Garden Street, where Molly Brant had been killed, for a look and a few ill-chosen words.
Quick arrests, not always discreet, and sometimes brutal.
Under such conditions, time seemed to contract.
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The days passed incredibly fast, with no visible improvement.
For his part, François did his best to remain discreet. He limited his movements and focused on his second network. He may have been too cautious before. Now, time was running short.
The day of his departure was fast approaching.
He abandoned complex strategies, staged setups, and tests. He needed efficiency. Corruption, especially in a city like New York, remained a simple and devastatingly effective tool.
He recruited a small craftsman he had spoken with several times and whose ambitions he understood, and a farmer outside the city burdened with serious debts, which he erased in an instant.
As it stood, this network would probably not last for years. It might not even survive the winter. But he needed results to report to the governor and the marshal.
He only hoped they would hold at least until then. Otherwise, the failure would fall squarely on his shoulders.
Meanwhile, the Sons of Liberty continued to observe him, to probe his views, and test his loyalty. Every exchange, every sentence had a purpose. But knowing he was being tested stripped it of much of its effectiveness: he only needed to think before speaking.
Until the evening when, at the Queen's Head Tavern, the conversation took a slightly different turn.
At first, the topic was trivial: a rumor about a possible bill on imported coffee. A few sharp remarks, bitter comments… then the tone shifted, and his next test was presented.
The word was not used, but it was clearly one.
The narrow-faced man leaned slightly forward.
"It's not complicated," he said calmly. "All you have to do is post a few notices in well-chosen places."
He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet, which he placed on the table.
François lowered his eyes.
The drawing was simple, yet unmistakable.
A dead snake, cut into several segments, each marked with one or two letters. And below, in bold characters: "JOIN, or DIE."
He understood immediately. Each segment represented a British colony.
He slowly raised his eyes to the few people present.
"You want to unite the colonies…"
"An old idea the Crown has always refused to hear," the man replied with a faint smile. "Master Benjamin Franklin fought for it, on the eve of the last war. I don't share all his views… but on this point, he was right."
He tapped the paper.
"And we saw the result. His Majesty and Parliament preferred divided colonies, even when they were threatened by the French and the Spanish."
A brief silence followed, immediately broken by a colder voice.
Alexander McDougall.
"They were afraid," he said. "Afraid of what we might become. Afraid of losing control."
His gaze settled on François.
"Today, the snake is smaller… but their fear is greater than ever. And they are right to fear. To resist the unjust laws imposed on us, we must unite."
François nodded slowly.
On the surface, he followed. In reality, he calculated. The risks, the gains, the consequences, the implications…
"Will I be alone?"
"No."
The narrow-faced man gestured toward someone with a slight tilt of his chin.
"He'll be with you."
François turned his head and looked at the young man seated across the table. A face still marked by youth, flushed cheeks, eyes burning with nervousness.
They exchanged a brief nod.
"It won't be without danger," McDougall added firmly. "The redcoats are on edge."
He glanced at the young man, who lowered his head.
"Young Thomas has already proven himself. He has shown courage."
He turned back to François.
"I hope you have as well."