The Ripper's Shadow

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “If he tries to kill me, I’ll cut him.” Liz hauls up her black skirt and shows me a knife tucked in the garter that circles her thin leg.

  Increasingly desperate, I say, “I saw Polly. There were stab wounds all over her body. Her head was almost cut off. She was no match for him. Nor would either of you be.”

  “You think so?” Liz says, belligerent now. “Maybe I change your mind.” She yanks out the knife and thrusts it at my face.

  I recoil and jump up. My chair crashes onto the floor. Conversation in the room fades; people turn to stare at me. The women laugh as they rise. “We’ll be off now,” Mary Jane says.

  I race out the door after them, calling, “Wait! Please!” Their attitude doesn’t lessen my responsibility toward them. No one else must come to harm because of me.

  Along Commercial Street, people are scarce now. The fog, thicker and colder, engulfs the women. “Where can I find Kate Eddowes?” I call desperately.

  “Beats me,” Liz says.

  I wonder if Kate is lying dead somewhere, slain by the man who killed Martha and Polly. “What about Annie Chapman?”

  Mary Jane’s voice drifts through the fog. “Try Crossingham’s on Dorset Street.”

  #

  Cheap lodging houses line Dorset Street. Most of their windows are dark, most of the prostitutes who live in them already out on the streets. I approach Crossingham’s via a stone-flagged passage. It is one of six brick tenements that face a small, paved yard. Shrill, angry voices emanate from Crossingham’s. I follow them through the open door, into a kitchen that smells of the tripe boiled with milk and onions in a pot on the stove. Two women face each other, hands on hips. One is, I’m relieved to see, Annie Chapman.

  “You said I could have the soap!” Barely five feet tall, plump as a pigeon, she wears a black jacket over a black skirt, both faded and stained. She has abundant, curly chestnut hair to which she owes her nickname, “Dark Annie.”

  Her opponent is fair, with a bony, pallid face, no better dressed. “I only lent it to you. Now give it back!” Glaring at Annie, she flings out her open hand.

  “Well, I can’t, Eliza. It were such a small piece, I used it up.”

  Eliza responds with a spate of cursing. Annie slaps Eliza’s face. Eliza shrieks, falls against the sink, and clasps her hand over her reddened cheek. “You bloody bitch!”

  “Bitch, yourself!” Annie reaches down the front of her bodice, pulls out a coin, and flings it on the table. “There! Buy a new piece of soap and sod off!”

  Eliza snatches the coin, then punches Annie in the eye and the breast. Annie screams, “Ow, ow!” Eliza cackles as she runs out the door. Annie sinks into a chair and sobs.

  “Are you hurt?” I ask.

  “Who . . . ? Oh. Miss Bain.” Her eyes are a deep blue, the whites veined with red, a bruise turning purple around the left one. Tears run alongside her thick nose, onto her puffy lips. When she came to pose for me, she told me she was forty-seven, but she looks older.

  I find a rag, wet it at the sink, and give it to Annie. She holds it over her eye while rubbing the breast that Eliza hit. Three crudely carved brass rings circle the third finger of her left hand. She once told me she bought them from a black man and wears them for good luck.

  “Oh God,” she moans, “how did I end up like this?” Annie had told me that her little boy is a cripple, her elder daughter died of meningitis, and her younger daughter ran off to France with a traveling circus. I believe it because she seems, unlike my other models, too simple to lie. She’s admitted that her drinking, her temper, and her incessant pleas for money drove her husband and relatives away. “Why’re you here?” she asks, suddenly suspicious.

  I tell her that Polly Nichols was murdered last night, I think it was the same person who murdered Martha Tabram, and I believe he is choosing his victims from among my models. “I’m afraid you’ll be next.”

  “Oh God.” Annie lowers the rag and stares at me in horror.

  Hopeful that she, unlike the others, will heed my warning, I say, “You must not go out at night until the killer is caught.”

  “But I have to. I need to pay for my bed here, and I just gave my last halfpenny to that bitch Eliza.” Annie says hopefully, “You wouldn’t be wantin’ any more pictures, would you?”

  “No. I wish I’d never taken them. I shan’t be doing it again.”

  Annie’s battered face sags with disappointment. She tosses the rag in the sink, and we gaze out the door at the dark, cold, dripping fog. Somewhere out there is the Ripper. We shiver, as though we can feel his black shadow creeping toward us. Annie twists the three brass rings on her finger.

  “Walk me to Commercial Street, would you please?”

  6

  After leaving Annie, I head back to Whitechapel Road. I glance constantly around me, fearful that the killer is abroad and watching me. Police officers are patrolling the alleys, stopping and questioning people. The killer won’t dare strike while they’re here, but I fear them even more than usual after this morning’s brush with the law.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” a man’s voice calls, close behind me.

  I start as I look over my shoulder. Three constables stand under the yellow halo of a gas lamp. The one who spoke wasn’t addressing me, thank heaven. He and his comrade face the third man, whom I recognize as PC Barrett.

  “I’m looking for witnesses,” Barrett says.

  “Not on our patch, you don’t,” says Barrett’s interrogator; he has a long mustache.

  All appear oblivious of me. I could go on my way, but I’m curious and, I must acknowledge, not exactly displeased to see Barrett. Fear and attraction are disturbingly intertwined with my anger toward him. Concealed by the fog, I pause to listen.

  “You lot at H Division had your chance with the last case,” says the other constable, a big, brutish fellow. “Leave this one to us professionals at J.”

  They’re referring to the murder of Martha Tabram, I deduce. There seems to be rivalry between different police jurisdictions.

  “It’s the same killer,” Barrett says hotly. “We should work together.”

  “We don’t need the chap who bollixed things up last time.”

  I wonder what Barrett did wrong. Perhaps that’s why he is so eager to catch the killer, to make up for it. Despite my dislike of him, sympathy stirs in me. He’s not the only one living with a mistake.

  “Get lost.” The big fellow shoves Barrett.

  “Or we’ll tell your guv we caught you, and he’ll pull your badge.”

  They stride off. Muttering under his breath, Barrett stalks in my direction. My heart lurches. I duck into an alley. The sound of his boots on the cobblestones fades. Oddly, I feel almost as much disappointed as relieved to avoid another encounter.

  An omnibus stops at the corner; I board, pay my fare, and sit on a hard wooden bench. The horse-drawn coach is jammed with other passengers. As we ride, the tenements give way to the elegant townhouses of the West End. People in evening dress flock to the theaters and music halls. Cultured accents inflect their chatter and laughter. Women who are expensive versions of Annie, Liz, and Mary Jane congregate outside the Oxford Music Hall. Every man who arrives alone goes in with a girl clinging to his arm. He may take his pleasure with her in a luxurious bedroom instead of against a cold brick wall, but the business is the same.

  After buying my ticket, I enter the Hall as the dim, cavernous room bursts into applause. People cheer from the balconies. All the benches on the floor are filled. I crane my neck to see over the standing audience at the back of the theater. Barmaids carry trays laden with glasses through the crowd. I breathe the smells of beer and perfume, the vapors from the gaslights that blaze around the stage. A glamorous brunette occupies center stage, flanked by chorus girls. Her yellow frock is cut so low that her ample breasts spill out the neckline. She sings, with broad winks and saucy smiles, in a gay, lilting voice:

  “I always hold in having it if you fancy i
t,

  If you fancy it that’s understood,

  And suppose it makes you fat?”

  She gestures with her hands, suggesting a pregnant belly. The audience roars.

  “I don’t worry over that

  ’Cause a little of what you fancy does you good!”

  The chorus harmonizes the next lewd verse. My attention focuses on the girl at the singer’s left. Even amid this confection of painted faces, pastel ruffles, and youthful prettiness, Catherine Price stands out. Eighteen years old, she has the roses-and-cream beauty of angels painted by William Bouguereau. Her luxuriant hair is pale gold, done up in a pile of cascading ringlets. Her face is delicate and perfect, her figure slim but rounded. I think of the negative I set aside in my darkroom this morning. It was a photograph of Catherine—young, sweet, and innocent, unlike my other models. It is she for whom I fear the most. As I watch her sing, I remember how we first met.

  Two years ago, I was at Euston Station, taking photographs. I snapped a picture of the train roaring into the station, then turned my camera on the passengers as they stepped onto the platform. Catherine appeared in the viewfinder. She wore a white dress and a straw bonnet trimmed with a blue ribbon. Her beauty was so bright and startling that I lifted my gaze for a better look. She stood alone on the platform amid the gray, rushing crowds, a wicker hamper gripped in her hands. Her expression alternated between rapture and terror. She personified all the country girls new to London. As I composed a photograph, a man in a striped coat joined her in the frame, tipped his hat, and said, “I bet you’ve come to London to be an actress.”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, I recognize talent. I’m a scout for the best theaters in town. Come with me. I’ll take you to a nice boardinghouse. Then I’ll set up some auditions for you.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir! That would be wonderful!” Catherine was breathless with joy.

  I don’t usually interfere in anyone’s life, let alone a stranger’s, but I couldn’t allow her to fall for a trick that has been the downfall of so many girls. I hurried to her and told the man, “Go away!” I grabbed Catherine’s arm and marched her into the station.

  “I don’t even know you,” Catherine said, bewildered and resentful. “Why did you do that? The nice man was going to get me a part in a play.”

  “He isn’t nice, and he’s not a talent scout. Men like him prey on girls getting off the train. If you went with him, he’d have you working at a house of ill repute before sundown.”

  She stared at me in horror as she understood what I meant. “Oh. Thank you for saving me,” she said, polite even as her face crumpled.

  “Do you know anyone in town?” I asked. “Have you someplace to stay?”

  She shook her head. Tears spilled from her eyes, which were cerulean blue. I couldn’t leave her on her own, so I took her home with me and let her live in my flat for three months. I fed her, showed her around London, and helped her find work in a tea shop. She auditioned at the theaters, where her beauty and her sweet, true voice earned her bit parts. She was soon able to afford her own room in a boardinghouse in Holborn with other actresses. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t thought she would go away as soon as she was financially independent. But Catherine frequently came back to visit me; she wanted a confidante, adviser, and friend. I grew alarmed. The same protective impulse that made me decide not to tell the police that Mick stole my satchel made me bring Catherine under my wing—into my shadow. Also, I experienced in my relationship with Catherine a disturbing echo of my relationship with my mother. My mother had been distant, critical, and harsh. She often said she was preparing me for adult life in the cruel world. Whenever I said I wanted to be a photographer, she would say, You’ll never make a living at it. Don’t be silly. After my father was gone, she sold his equipment to a junk dealer for pennies, and when I tried to stop her, she scolded me and spanked me while I wept. I had a strange feeling that it wasn’t photography she objected to; she didn’t want reminders of my father.

  I found myself behaving in the same harsh manner toward Catherine. I finally told her that it was time for her to grow up and be on her own. She stopped coming. Now I wonder if she would be safer if she’d never met me. I certainly wish I’d brushed her off before the day she walked in on my photographic session with Liz Stride.

  Catherine’s brows flew up. She’d seen many shocking things since her arrival in London, but never a naked harlot in my studio. “Sarah, what is this?”

  Liz chortled. “Now there’s a pretty model for you, Miss Bain.”

  After I explained about the boudoir photographs of the streetwalkers, Catherine said, “Why don’t I model for you? It’ll be fun, and my pictures should earn far more than theirs.”

  She acted on the same rash, naïve impulse that put her on the train to London. I, who should have exercised wiser judgment, agreed. Catherine was between roles and hard up, and I was afraid she would fall to the fate from which I’d tried to save her. One of the resulting photographs was a reenactment of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Catherine stood nude on a large papier-mâché scallop shell. One hand rested against her bare breasts; the other modestly covered her pubis. It was my best boudoir photograph, and it did indeed fetch a high price.

  Now I fear that it has brought Catherine to the attention of a murderer.

  Amid cheers, applause, and foot-stamping, the curtain comes down. The audience streams out of the hall, and I walk against the tide to the dressing room. The chorus girls chatter as they remove their costumes. I spy Catherine, her blue coat thrown over her fluffy pink dress.

  “Sarah!” She looks delighted to see me, then wary; she hasn’t forgotten how we parted. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “About what?” Catherine’s manner turns cool; she’s not the same girl who was once eager to discuss with me every aspect of life.

  We leave the theater via the back door. As we emerge into the alley, I say, “I’ll walk you home. I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “I’m not going home yet. I’ve met the most divine new man, and he’s taking me out for a bite to eat.”

  Apprehension creeps along my nerves. “Who is he?”

  “There you go again.” Catherine sounds impatient. When she lived with me, she chafed at what she thinks is my overprotectiveness. She once told me that she left home because her parents were too strict, and they wanted her to marry a man who owns a farm near theirs instead of going on stage. Other than that, she hasn’t spoken of her family. I don’t press her; I never told her about mine.

  “His name is Randolph,” Catherine says.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “At the park today.”

  “You hardly know him, and you’re going out alone with him?” I exclaim in dismay. “Have you heard that Polly Nichols was murdered last night?”

  “Who? Oh, that whore in Whitechapel. Isn’t it gruesome?” She seems mildly titillated, mostly indifferent.

  I lower my voice as I say, “She was one of my models. So was Martha Tabram, who was murdered a few weeks ago. So are you. You may be in danger.”

  “Oh, pooh! I’m not like them. And Randolph isn’t like the men they pick up in the streets. He’s clean, and rich, and nice.”

  “It isn’t only dirty, poor, obvious scoundrels who patronize streetwalkers in Whitechapel. Randolph could be the one who killed Polly and Martha. Please, come home tonight.”

  “But I promised Randolph I would go out with him.” We arrive in the street. “Look, he’s waiting for me.” Catherine points to a carriage parked outside the theater.

  A man inside opens the door. I envision Polly walking the streets last night and a carriage drawing up beside her. “Please. Don’t go.”

  Catherine turns on me, suddenly angry. “You said it was time for me to grow up and be on my own. That’s exactly what I did. So you’ve a lot of nerve showing up now and telling me how to run my life.” Sh
e dashes to the carriage, climbs in. Never able to stay angry for long, she smiles at me from the window and calls, “I’ll be fine. I’ll come over first thing tomorrow morning and prove it. Don’t be such an old worrywart.”

  7

  The next morning I breakfast in my studio and listen to the knocker-uppers rapping on windows along the streets while I wait for Catherine. Finally, at eleven o’clock, the doorbell jingles. I look through the window and there is Mick the street urchin. My spirits plunge. I thought I’d seen the last of him, and I’m afraid that Catherine has fallen prey to the Ripper.

  Mick opens the door and offers me a newspaper from a stack he’s carrying. “I got me a job selling papers, Miss Sarah. Want to buy one?”

  I give him coins and take a copy. He smiles expectantly. I sigh. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “Yes, please!”

  He hovers in my kitchen-darkroom while I fry eggs and bacon. They’re barely on the table with bread, butter, and jam before he devours the whole meal. I bought the food for myself, and my funds are scarce, but I don’t begrudge Mick the food; he’s hungrier than I am.

  “Here’s a story about the murder.” Pointing at the newspaper, Mick reads aloud, “‘The inquest for Polly Nichols will be held at the Working Lads’ Institute at one o’clock today.’ What’s an inquest?”

  “It’s a kind of court that’s held after someone’s died.”

  The doorbell jingles again. Catherine bustles into the studio, dressed in a rose-colored, lace-trimmed frock, smiling and scented with lavender perfume. My relief is tremendous.

  “Here I am.” She spreads her arms and pirouettes. “The Ripper didn’t kill me.”

  She doesn’t notice Mick. His face takes on the open-mouthed, dazzled expression that virtually every male wears when seeing Catherine for the first time.

  “You mustn’t keep testing your luck. Someday it may fail you.” My tone is sharp.

  “Pooh! Look what Randolph gave me.” She holds out her wrist to display a bracelet.