The Ripper's Shadow

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “There.” Mick points to a desk.

  Newspaper clippings are taped to the cracked plaster wall above it. They’re stories about the murders of Martha, Polly, and Annie. Boudoir photographs, not mine, are scattered on the desk. The images of the nude strangers are blurred by movement. The sense of not normal is stronger now. Panic clangs in my mind, tenses my leg muscles to run, and jars loose a memory from a lesson that my father once taught me, on photographing objects in a still life. He said that the darkest area within a cast shadow is the area where the light doesn’t reach because the object blocks the source of illumination. The darkest area of the shadow is called the umbra.

  This room is in the umbra of the shadow of the house, the city, the world. The man who lives here is surely the Ripper. He must have used boudoir photographs as a guide when choosing his victims. Maybe he chose my models because in my photographs, the faces are clear enough for him to identify them.

  “Look at that.” Mick points to a large photograph in a silver frame on the desk.

  The picture shows a laughing man dressed in an army uniform. He leans on a rifle. His eyes squint in bright sun that shines on some hot, southern bush country. At his feet lies a pile of something I can’t immediately identify. Mick holds the lamp closer. The pile is bodies of Negro women. I can tell they are dead from their vacant eyes and slack faces. Their corpses are riddled with bullet holes and knife wounds that have bled onto the white blouses and printed skirts they wear. Their stomachs are gutted. Horror fills me as I see, superimposed on the photograph, an image of Annie laid out on the slab in the morgue. Nauseated, I close my eyes for a moment and take deep breaths before I can look again.

  “It’s him,” Mick says. “The chap I followed from the bookshop.”

  The man in the photograph has a square face, light hair clipped short, and a long nose. A mustache covers the upper lip of his laughing mouth. Under a wide forehead, his brows bristle low over his narrow eyes. He looks exultant, like a hunter posing with his trophies. It’s as though killing the women wasn’t enough; he needed to mutilate them and record it for posterity.

  “Is this in Africa?” Mick asks.

  I vaguely remember that England has waged wars in Africa. “I suppose so.”

  “He killed over there. He must be doing it here.”

  I take out my camera and photograph the picture of the man. I wonder who took it, but I don’t dare remove it from the frame and look for a signature; I’m afraid to touch it, be poisoned by the evil portrayed in it, and leave some trace that will alert the man that we’ve been here. Next, I photograph the newspaper clippings and boudoir photographs. Waiting out the long exposures, I hope he doesn’t return before we’re gone. If he catches us, he’ll kill both of us to protect his secrets. Finished, I say, “Let’s see if he’s left any clues to his identity.”

  The desk drawers are empty. The clothes cupboard yields nothing. Mick points at the washstand and asks, “What are those?”

  Beside the china water bowl and jug sit three carved brass rings. “They’re Annie Chapman’s rings!” They left indentations on her swollen, dead fingers after her killer pulled them off.

  Mick and I look at each other. His face wears the same goggle-eyed, open-mouthed expression that I can feel on mine. We begin laughing uncontrollably, our hands pressed over our mouths. This man whose house we’ve broken into is the Ripper, and we have found the proof! We can hardly believe our good luck.

  We abruptly stop laughing as we remember that the Ripper is still at large and we are trespassers in his den. We are in the umbra, and if he finds us here, we won’t get out alive.

  I aim the camera, open the shutter, and capture the image of Annie’s rings on my last negative plate.

  #

  “Excellent job, young man!” Hugh says to Mick.

  He was waiting outside my studio when Mick and I returned. Now the three of us are in the darkroom, where my wet prints of the newspaper clippings, the African photograph, and Annie’s rings hang on the line.

  Hugh claps Mick on the back, and Mick grins proudly. “This calls for a celebration,” Hugh says. “I’ll send for Catherine and the Lipskys.”

  When we’re all gathered at the table in my studio, we toast our success with champagne that Hugh bought. We gobble sliced brisket, potato pancakes, and pickled beets furnished by the Lipskys, as Mick and I relate every detail of our expedition to Stepney. The food is delicious, my appetite keen; my stomach, once constricted by anxiety, has relaxed, as have the tensions between my friends. Mr. Lipsky claps a brawny hand on Mick’s shoulder. A smile transforms his sinister face; he looks touchingly sweet. Mrs. Lipsky heaps more food on the young hero’s plate. Mick basks in the Lipskys’ esteem; he’s forgotten his antipathy toward Jews. Catherine, giggly from the champagne, has put aside her pique at Hugh and me. Our euphoria even soothes my turbulent feelings about PC Barrett. A kind of golden haze softens the edges of everything outside our circle, including the past. We stop celebrating just long enough to discuss what to do with our evidence.

  “Tomorrow, Sarah and I will go to the police station,” Hugh says. “We’ll show the photographs to Inspector Reid and tell him about the house in Stepney.”

  “He’ll ask how we found the house and how we got inside,” I say.

  “I’ll bring my solicitor,” Hugh says. “He’ll negotiate a deal with the police—the goods on the killer in exchange for letting us go, no questions asked.”

  I am so grateful to Hugh. With him and his solicitor by my side, I need not fear the law. I am grateful to Mick for his intrepid bravery and to the Lipskys for helping me when they needn’t have. Tonight we seem a family. My tears of happiness blur the smiling faces shining in the gaslight. I can almost feel the warm, loving presence of my father, and I think the others are similarly comforted by our friendship. Mick and the Lipskys have also suffered losses—Mick his parents, the Lipskys their daughter. Catherine’s relations are far away in the country, and Hugh must feel some estrangement from his because of the secret he keeps from them, but tonight none of us is alone. Our sense of accomplishment is more exhilarating than I have felt after anything I achieved by myself. How glad I am that I opened my heart to these friends!

  “Inspector Reid will be so glad to take credit for catching the Ripper, he won’t care how we got the evidence,” Hugh says. “Catherine and the other models will be safe, everyone in Whitechapel will breathe a sigh of relief, and Sarah will have seen the last of the police.”

  That I won’t see PC Barrett again is an added blessing. I have a glimpse of my life as it could be after tomorrow—a life filled with luminous scenes such as this. Perhaps someday there will even be a man whose motives I need not question when he kisses me.

  A cheer goes up around the table. “Another toast!” Hugh pours the last of the champagne, then says, “Wait! We need a photograph. Quick, Sarah!”

  I jump up from the table, position my tripod and large camera. I set the timer device, then hurry back to my place. The others lean toward me. Glasses raised, we freeze and smile. The flash powder explodes, dazzling our eyes, the light like fireworks.

  I still have that photograph. It immortalized the joyful, innocent moment in our lives when we did not know what lay ahead of us, when we could look at one another and not think of the things we did to stop what I unwittingly started and what those things cost.

  18

  I am looking forward to giving Inspector Reid the surprise of his life.

  Last night, Hugh said that he and his solicitor would call for me at nine o’clock this morning. It is now eight thirty. The fog dissipates, and sunlight shines through the window of my studio. I’m actually excited about visiting the police station, and I wish I could see the look on PC Barrett’s face when he learns that I’ve tracked down the Ripper. How I will relish knowing I stole his chance to solve the crime! It will be retribution for his robbing me of my dignity and peace of mind.

  The doorbell tinkles. Hugh is early. But
when I open the door, there stand two police constables I’ve never seen before. One of them says, “Miss Sarah Bain?”

  Warm, happy excitement vanishes as if a blanket were snatched off me during a winter night. “Yes?”

  “Come with us.”

  This is the summons I thought I’d managed to avoid. Stricken by fear, I look outside for Hugh, but there’s no sign of him. “I have to wait for my friend.”

  “Sorry, that’s not possible. We have orders to place you under immediate arrest.”

  “Arrest?” This is even worse than I first thought. My heart is a cornered animal bounding against my ribs. “What for?”

  “Obstructing police inquiries.”

  I frantically look around for rescue. Neighbors stand on the sidewalk, eavesdropping. They won’t intercede; they don’t care about me. Now I regret not making friends with them. My only coin with which to dissuade the constables is the information that Hugh and I planned to give Inspector Reid. Breathless with desperation, I say, “If you’ll not take me to jail, I can tell you who the Ripper is.”

  “Oh, aye. So can everyone else in Whitechapel.” He and his partner exchange amused glances. “We’re swamped with false tips.”

  They apparently haven’t been told that Inspector Reid thinks I have valuable information about the murders. “But I have proof! If you’ll just allow me to—”

  The constables seize me, clamp shackles around my wrists, shove me into a prison van—an enclosed, horse-drawn wagon with barred windows—and lock the door. The empty van smells of urine, liquor, and vomit. I sit on the dirty plank floor. As the van rattles through the streets, I peer out the window for Hugh, but I see only strangers jeering at me. A rotten apple flies between the bars. When the van draws up outside Newgate prison, fog closes in on the massive brick fortress. In the distance, the hazy domes and spires of London swim in the mist like a mirage. Disbelief compounds my anguish. This can’t be happening.

  Shouts from inside Newgate fade without echoes, as if absorbed by the prison’s own deadening atmosphere. The constables pull me from the van. Catcalls from gawkers outside the prison walls follow me through the gate. Wrists shackled, my head ducked, I’m as ashamed and terrified for my life as if I were a criminal. Inside the prison courtyard, my escorts leave me with the guards, one a female warder who runs her hands over my body to search for hidden weapons or other contraband. I flinch. From barred windows above, men call out lewd remarks to me. I dredge up the courage to speak.

  “There’s been a mistake. I’m supposed to give a statement, not go to jail!”

  The warder marches me through the jail beneath galleries of cells three stories high. My ears are deafened by chatter from hundreds of women prisoners. The stink of privies turns my stomach. We progress via a dim corridor to a quiet wing of the jail. The warder removes my shackles, pushes me into a cell, and locks me in. I’ve lost my freedom and my chance to save my models. I’ll never see Hugh, Catherine, Mick, or the Lipskys again. The new life that I envisioned last night is over before it started.

  I sink onto the iron bed and calm myself by inspecting my surroundings as if to compose a photograph. I turn an imaginary lens on the small window that’s cut at eye level in the door and crisscrossed with bars. At the far end of the narrow cell, foggy daylight seeps through a larger barred window. A wooden chair stands opposite the bed. As I focus in on illegible words scratched on the plaster walls, I think of my father, who spent a night in jail twenty-two years ago. Was he as terrified as I am? Will I be beaten as he was? When he came home the next morning, he and my mother had an argument while she bathed his wounds, and they sent me outside so I wouldn’t hear what they said. Now I resist the urge to dissolve into helpless tears and try to think.

  Inspector Reid is bound to come sooner or later. When he does, I will tell him about the man who has Annie Chapman’s rings in his house and about the photographs in my satchel at my studio. Surely that will buy my release.

  Hours pass. At last, I hear footsteps outside the door and a key rattle in the lock. I spring to my feet as Inspector Reid opens the door. I’m happier to see him than I ever thought possible.

  “Good morning, Miss Bain,” he says. “The Chief Commissioner of Police, Sir Charles Warren, will take your statement.”

  I am too disconcerted to speak. Reid stands aside to let in another man; then he departs, closing the door. Chief Commissioner Warren is tall; his long-legged gait is unhurried, but each step covers a wide distance, and he is instantly in front of me. At first, all I see is his uniform, decorated with badges and medals.

  “Sit down, Miss Bain.” His voice is a resonant baritone with a Welsh accent.

  I perch, tense and wary, on the edge of the bed. Why would such a senior official take my statement? This must be a tactic designed to intimidate me into surrendering information. Revived courage straightens my spine. This time I have something to tell the police, and it will rock them on their heels. I only wish I had the photographs with me.

  Chief Commissioner Warren sits in the chair. His knees jut upward because the chair is too low for him. The light from the window strikes his features.

  Instant, shocking recognition stabs me.

  His hair and mustache are darker; lines crease his wide forehead and radiate from the corners of the narrow eyes beneath the low, bristly eyebrows; but Chief Commissioner Warren is the man in the African photograph that Mick and I found.

  For a moment, I cannot move or breathe.

  He is the Ripper.

  As I stare at him, petrified by incredulity, he leans forward. His eyes twinkle with the same cruel humor he displayed while standing over the corpses of the black women that he killed. For once, my fear for myself is greater than my fear for my models. I am now the one in the Ripper’s sights, and the Ripper isn’t some cretin from the underbelly of London; he’s an important, powerful man—a more formidable adversary than I ever imagined.

  He sees, and enjoys, my sudden terror. Does he know why I’m terrified? “You’ve been taking an interest in the Whitechapel murders,” he says. “Why is that?”

  My plan for delivering the murderer to the police dissolves like coins in acid. I can’t tell them about the house in Stepney, the African photograph, or Annie’s rings. I can’t tell them that Chief Commissioner Warren is the Ripper. They won’t believe me. The idea that today would bring a welcome end to maneuvering behind the scenes, and a new, better life for me, seems pathetic now. If Chief Commissioner Warren learns that I know he’s the Ripper . . .

  He has already killed Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, and Annie Chapman as well as the African women. He will never let me leave Newgate alive.

  Thank Heaven that I wasn’t allowed to bring my pictures of the rings and the African photograph! He would destroy them, and then seek out and destroy the negatives stored in my darkroom. I want to avert my face for fear that Commissioner Warren will read my thoughts; I want to run to the door and call Inspector Reid to come back, but I am as immobilized by Commissioner Warren as a butterfly pinned on a velvet-covered board. My heart flutters like helpless wings. Verbal evasion is my only defense.

  “I’m interested in the murders because I knew the women.” The trembling inside me afflicts my voice.

  Warren’s eyes are colorless, as if bleached by the African sun, and unnaturally bright, as if they absorbed its fierce radiance. “Is that the only reason?”

  “Yes.” I mustn’t think of the African photograph or Annie’s rings.

  “You claim that the women told you sad stories about their pasts. It would seem that you and they were quite the bosom friends.” Warren’s smile is as false as his friendly tone. I suddenly understand why he’s interested in me: he suspects that I took the photographs from which he selected his victims. I’m a photographer; I work in Whitechapel; I knew Martha, Polly, and Annie. A fool could draw the obvious conclusion, and Warren isn’t a fool. “Did they also confide in you about their customers?”

  I am too ashamed
to recount their sordid descriptions of their relations with men. “No.”

  His eyes narrow further, in distrust. “Did they ever describe the men?”

  Martha joked about their anatomy. Polly complained because some had the pox. “No.”

  “How about the places where they solicited the men? Did they mention those?”

  I am so preoccupied with trying not to think about Mick and me breaking into his house that a moment passes before I answer, “No.”

  The distrust in Warren’s gaze deepens. The skin on his face and thick, strong hands is leathery from exposure to the African sun. “Think hard,” he says with the stern impatience that an army commander must use to coax dull-witted soldiers through drills. “Those men are potential suspects in the murders. Any details about them could help solve the case.”

  “I’m sorry; I have none.” I also gather why Warren is asking me about the women’s customers: he was one of them prior to the nights on which he killed Martha, Polly, and Annie. I envision Annie going with him into the yard on Hanbury Street, unafraid because she’d been with him before. When he attacked her, nobody heard anything because she, like Martha and Polly, was too surprised to scream. Warren wants to know if the women said anything to me that could incriminate him. This means that I am not the only one of us who is afraid of the other.

  “If you did remember any details, would you tell me?”

  Emboldened because the balance of power between us has tilted a bit in my favor, I lie, “Yes.” But why would he risk confronting a witness who may suspect what he’s done?

  Warren rises, drops all pretense of civility, and stands over me the way he stood over those mutilated black women. “Forget about the Whitechapel murders.” Savagery as hot as the African sun blazes from him. “Mind your own business.”