by Aiden James
“’Ow come a bloke like you isn’t married off? I’d expect all those fancy ladies would be ‘anging around like bees to ‘oney!”
I gave an excuse, I was fussy and particular. A woman who managed to steal my heart was to be very special, yet to be found.
“I bet yer she’s out there somewhere, you’ll see me old mate!”
I wished I had Mary’s optimism for my future, that I would have what I yearn for. I sunk into solace for a few moments.
“Do yer think I’d do all right in America? I’ve been ’earing that there’s these ships leaving all the time filled with people wantin’ a new life. I could clean ‘ouses over there and raise me baby proper.”
“Maybe a new life will be the answer. But you will need funds. Not only for your passage but for your arrival, you cannot be penniless.”
A look of disappointment came upon her, in a moment of dreams and wishes she forgot the practicalities. Money was needed, I could help. I had enough friends and acquaintances in America to secure legitimate employment for Mary, but first I needed to think, so I refrained from speaking out. If I were to change my mind she would be most let down and I would be the good for nothing scoundrel.
“It’s gettin’ late an’ I need me beauty sleep if I’m to get up tomorrow morning an’ go with you to get me bonnet.”
Mary was right; a quick glance at my watch told me it was well past midnight. We walked back to Whitechapel, arm in arm and joked most of the way. Arriving at her door, I felt a sense of achievement. I had kept her off the streets for a time- a moment less of danger. “Be sure to lock yourself in,” said I.
“Don’t fuss. I’m a big girl an’ I can take care of meself. I’ll see yer tomorra.”
“Sleep well, Mary Jane, and lock that door!” I hoped she would heed my warning.
Being with Mary had taken me off track, instead of doing what I set out to do I socialized. I spent the remaining night hours wandering streets becoming ever so more familiar with the passage of time. There was a deathly silence broken only by the occasional cough from a passerby, or the faint click of a woman’s heels in the distance. I feared I might be unfortunate to once more bump into a constable who would ask me prying questions. I was alone and frustrated. Where was he?
By dawn, I was exasperated, time to call it a day and proceed to my lodgings. I had made a pledge to Mary and could not let her down, a few hours of sleep would do the trick. I turned my exorbitantly priced key quietly in the door and tiptoed up the stairs so as not to disturb anyone. It was of little consequence the mattress was lumpy, sleep became heavy and dreamless… until, to my surprise, it was past ten am when I awoke. I assumed that in all likelihood Mary would still be sleeping. So I took my time, enjoying a leisurely breakfast, a fine haircut in one of the numerous barber shops and stopping by the telegraph office to see if there had been any communications. By the time I reached Thirteen Miller’s Court, it was a hive of activity. Crowds of people by the entrance, vying to see what happened were being pushed roughly back by the constables. I moved slowly forwards. “Mr. Ortiz, what are you doing here?” It was Inspector Drew, whom I met briefly the evening of my arrest
“I was passing and wondered about the commotion. What on earth has happened?”
He beckoned for the constable to let me pass and took me directly to Mary’s door. “In you go,” he said, which surprised me. Why was he letting a civilian enter what I imagined would be a crime scene?
What awaited me was something I could never have thought up in my deepest, darkest nightmares. It was a scene of utter carnage. A naked body lay lifeless on the bed, drenched in blood, the face hacked to pieces, unrecognizable with the stomach cut open. Its contents emptied out and both breasts cut off, one ghoulishly placed under the head. What appeared to be large pieces of skin were left on the table and I saw the other breast lying by the right foot. The entire body had been stabbed, and the throat severely cut. Blood was everywhere, on the floor, the walls and dripping from the table. “Mary…” I whispered. “Is this Mary Jane Kelly?”
“Yes, it is her,” said Inspector Drew, “we are searching for the man who lived with her, a Mr. Joseph Barnett. They were seen arguing last night outside The Bell.”
“I saw them and I intervened. I understood they were no longer together and Mary was angry about monies owed,” I replied.
Shaken by the horror of the most vicious and hellish act of murder I had ever witnessed. Sweet Mary, no more than twenty five years of age, dreaming of better times, butchered beyond recognition.
“Are you alright, sir? You seem very pale.” The Inspector could not mistake my shock.
“I was with Mary until midnight last evening. I was going to take her to Mile End to purchase a bonnet today. We had become friends, you see. I was attempting to help her, she wanted to leave England and go to America.”
“Where did you go after you left her?”
“I walked the streets for a long time after I dropped her at home. I urged her to lock the door and then I made my way back to my lodgings at dawn. I heard or saw nothing unusual in that time.”
“Mary left her lodgings around two am. She was back out on the streets.”
Foolish, foolish girl! I had warned her to stay at home and secure herself inside. Obviously the temptation to earn, or beg, extra money far outweighed any risks she may have had to endure. I pondered on the night before. Were we watched by the killer as we walked back through Whitechapel? Conceivably hiding in a darkened corner waiting for the opportunity to strike once I was out of the way? When Mary make the fateful decision to leave her dwelling the possibility he followed her was highly feasible. Then… the other side of the coin. Perhaps Mary found herself in the wrong place at the right time for Jack, who, by chance spotted her and seized the moment. There had been no signs of a forced entry. I could only conclude the careless girl had invited him in.
“This is the worst one yet,” I was informed, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Questions raged furiously in my mind, anger at boiling point and determination to catch the monster who committed such an evil crime increased ten fold. I became concerned I had gotten myself in hot water again. The police may consider bringing me in for more questioning on my whereabouts, after I honestly owned up to being with Mary on her last evening.
“We may need a statement from you, Mr. Ortiz, as you are indeed a witness. Are you still residing in Whitechapel?”
I assured the Inspector by giving the address of the boarding house, he urged me to be very careful with my investigation. However, he was unable to stop himself from indulging in sarcasm.
“This Ripper fellow is extremely dangerous, just looking at this scene tells you what he is capable of. I do not understand exactly what it is you do, but playing cops and robbers as a child may do, does not make a detective, sir.”
Outside Mary’s lodgings the crowd had increased and there stood Daisy, her eyes streaming with tears. “Why ‘er? She was a good soul an’ she ‘elped me when I and’t a penny to me name. Mary took me in she did, fed me and everything.” I did my best to console her, but it was to no avail. She became hysterical with shock.
“The evil bastard, I’ll kill ‘im meself if I get me ‘ands on ’im, I swear to God I will!”
People stood quietly watching, nodding their heads. Most of them were in the same state of shock and any complacency that had come about with a lull in the murders was gone now. He had struck again,-this time with a vengeance.
There would be no walking to Mile End to buy the red bonnet with her arm through mine. She was gone and he was still out there. I had to stop him!
I thought about her family, she had refused to speak of them, and I knew so little of her life before she had become a prostitute, only what little she chose to tell me. What of the unborn child she was carrying? Was the child’s life better stopped in the womb than be subjected to a life of extreme poverty and prostitution? Only God knew the answer. I was desolate and
without answers.
“We will be in touch, Mr. Ortiz. Thank you for your cooperation,” said the Inspector.
My thoughts centered on Chief Inspector Swanson, the man would now have an increased weight on his shoulders. I imagined what was going through his troubled mind, that he and Scotland Yard were failing in their responsibility to catch the Ripper. The world’s press would make a meal of this one, its front pages asking once more the pertinent question,
“Why is he still at large?”
Without hesitation, I took a carriage to Bond Street. The urge to remove myself from what I had seen loomed uppermost in my mind. I needed to be somewhere clean and bright, where I could block out the sight of so much blood and gore. I needed Roderick.
He was alone in the office, unaware of what had happened as it was far too recent to go to print.
He was please and relieved to see me and listened as I poured out anger and frustration, bluntly describing the horrible state of Mary’s body.
“That’s a sad fate for the poor girl, and what an insane act of murder. Did the police not suspect you, seeing as you confessed to being alone with her the evening before?”
“For reasons unbeknown, they saw me as a witness, not a possible suspect.”
“I don’t think they know what they are doing, Manny. They’re at a loss. Jack has them in the palm of his hand and he’s playing them for fools.”
“I am making my way back to Whitechapel. There is not a chance I will relent on this hunt. More so now he has killed Mary.”
“I think, though I know you will deny it, you had a sweet spot for the girl?”
He was wrong, my intentions were honorable, and I only wanted to help her escape a bad life. To go to America, where, like others in the New World, she would have had a good direction, a chance. My notion or fantasy of putting Mary on a boat was not perceived as a gesture of goodwill by Roderick. It was, in his eyes, nothing more than my male ego wanting to take on the role of a knight in shining armor. Charging in on a white horse to accomplish a successful rescue and proclaim myself the hero of the hour. He would be wrong; my intentions had been genuine all along. I pleaded my case.
“Then you must be changing, Manny my boy, having a soft spot for a fallen woman and wanting to help without any advantage to yourself is a sign I’ve never seen in you before.”
“Then it will be a new chapter in my immortality. I will shed my old skin for new!” I replied with good intention.
It was good to be involved in business for a time, it served as a distraction from my sorrow. We talked about a new import contract, looked at the finances then closed the office and went for an early supper. It was a relief to be able to eat digestible food once more, but Roderick was determined to remind me of my social impropriety.
“Can you imagine the scandal if one of your acquaintances heard you walked out with a common street girl? You’d be shamed and cut off from society. Even Marianne would be shocked and forced to reject you to save even her questionable character. “
“Then I would live with the consequences and, let us face facts here, God almighty did not intervene and save either Mary or the others. Do you know, sometimes I am so angry when I speak his name I want to scream. I care not for his judgments on me, nor others. They can say what they want. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ as Jesus once said in the Mount of Olives, when they brought the adulterous woman to kneel by his feet!”’
“Manny, I have read the bible, I’m not an idiot. Tell me, what you were thinking when you offered to help her start a new life in America? Did you seriously consider that you could parade her on the streets of Manhattan and pass her off as a lady?”
I was not thinking. I only wanted to do what I thought was right, a just cause. Now I had to run the gauntlet of Roderick’s sharp summary of the situation. Dare I argue with the feisty Irishman, no!
“It was a silly notion after all and, sadly, never to come to fruition. Perhaps with hindsight I would have given up the idea, in fact I’m sure I would have done just that,” I relented, leaving Roderick to have the upper hand. Well deserved after what I put him through.
We parted company in better spirits than our previous encounter, and I walked alone in Bond Street resigned to Mary’s fate. There would be an enquiry into her death and a funeral I had to detach myself from. It was imperative I kept an unobtrusive distance so as not to arouse any more suspicion, but Scotland Yard could decide I was indeed a suspect. I had appeared again on the streets of Whitechapel the same night of the murder. A truthful confession, I spent the evening with Mary, may be viewed as a strange coincidence, and pressure was still building for the case to be solved.
Time could become my enemy for as long as Jack was at large and I remained in my lodgings doing nothing. I did not wish to dwell on my morbid thoughts of possible arrest and prison, instead preferring to feel the full force of my determination to seek out the monster who, in all probability, was basking in his glory of being free to continue his murderous acts. My mind was taken away from serious thoughts by the sight of a young woman walking toward me. With her svelte figure adorned in a red velvet coat, she walked elegantly through Bond Street, leaving me captured and enchanted by her beauty. A woman for any man’s dreams, including mine. The sight of such beauty prompted me to think of Marianne and what might have been in another time and place. With strong concern, I asked myself what was wrong with me. Swept away so easily by the sight of a beautiful woman, while someone I had known was lying cold on a mortuary slab. Where was my conscience?
Whitechapel was just as I left it, a hive of activity. Constables were going from door to door making enquiries, detectives milling on every street corner close to Millers Court and a larger police presence as constables were brought in from outside the area. People were standing around in groups talking, each with their own conclusion as to who killed Mary. My heart was ill at ease when I heard her name being spoken and thought it best to return to the lodgings for some tranquility. The landlady sent her son to light the fire in my room, no more than a slip of a boy, tall and thin. He paid attention to making sure it was well lit and chatted with me in the meantime.
“Terrible goings on there was this morning. Did you ‘ear about that woman murdered? Another one.”
“Yes, I heard the news. A dreadful crime; it had to be the work of Jack the Ripper.”
“I’ve ‘eard that it’s a toff, someone from ‘igh society, loaded with money.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear. There are many rumors about Jack and who it might be, I’m inclined to take most of them very lightly.”
“I reckon it’s one of them doctors from the ‘ospital, the way the bodies were cut up.”
Everyone had a theory of who it could be, from the man in the street, the newspapers and Scotland Yard. It was becoming the biggest unsolved case England had ever seen.
he night brought fresh terrors as fog enveloped the entire area, thick as pea soup. So thick, I was forced to cover my mouth with a handkerchief.
I could barely see in front of my face and struggled to find my direction, certain Mary’s murder brought me a disadvantage concerning a larger police presence. I was more likely to be stopped and asked to explain my reason for what was perceived as loitering than previously. I would need to have just cause for my presence. It was imperative to remain vigilant and avoid ‘the coppers’ at all costs. There were fewer prostitutes to be seen, fear driving them to hide for their own safety. But the noisy ale houses were full and, after recent events, I expected full of talk. Jack had struck their streets once again. Temptation to enter and listen was thwarted by my past violent encounter. I continued to walk on. A brawl with the police in such close proximity would be out of the question. Around eleven pm, I heard a scream from an alley to my left and I immediately went in the direction of where I thought it could be. On the ground, against a wall, was a girl, her clothes torn from her body and her face covered in bruises. Barely out of her teen
s and judging by her style of clothes, was it plain to see she walked the streets, as a prostitute.
“Can I be of assistance? What happened to you?” I asked urgently.
“It was a bloke it was, ’e came from behind an’ I fought ‘im off. ’Ee tore me clothes and punched me a few times,” she sobbed.
“Please, can you tell me what he looked like?” I assisted her to stand, and as a true gentleman, ignored the sight of her exposed breasts.
“A short fella, wearing a trilby ’at and a long overcoat. ’E ’ad black eyes ’e did. I ‘eard ’im say something, it sounded like… what was it… oh yeah… ’e said it were time to die.”
I had at long last found him, and my assumption was right. Ratibor! That was his signature announcement to anyone luckless enough to be at the end of his wrath, time to die!
I aided the poor girl to her lodgings close by and, just as I warned Mary, I insisted she was to firmly lock her door. She told me her name was Gwyneth, she was orphaned at twelve and had been selling her body ever since. I was perturbed to be standing in the face of child prostitution-sadly a common practice. Fortunately, she had survived, but the reason why she had been spared when he killed so many others eluded me. It was a mystery soon to be horribly revealed as I experienced a sense of foreboding that something else was about the happen.
“Thank you, kind sir,” said the girl, her face stained with tears as she hurried safely inside.
I moved on, determined to find Ratibor. If he had been disturbed in the attack, and scuttled off, he was not far away. More than likely searching for another victim with his lust for murder unquenched. Knowing him as I did, I was certain he was boiling, pushed into an ever deeper rage. The fog had driven most people off the streets with visibility almost non existent. I took direction to Berner Street when, passing through an alleyway, a voice came from behind.
