The Ripper's Shadow

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Two constables stand outside the door to the adjacent druggist’s shop. One says, “We’re going house to house, looking for the Ripper. Mind if we have a look inside?”

  “You think I keep him tucked away here?” The proprietor cackles. “Be my guest.”

  I’ve no time for relief to sink in. As I run downstairs to make sure everything that needs to be hidden is hidden, I hear banging on the door. The man I see through the glass is PC Barrett. “Miss Bain!” he calls.

  Distrustful, I frown and shake my head.

  “Every house in Whitechapel is being searched. Let me in, and I’ll tell Inspector Reid I searched, but I’ll not touch anything, I promise.” He sounds desperate, like a fugitive wanting sanctuary.

  He thinks I’m that gullible. “Go away.”

  “I need to talk to you.” He presses his palms against the window. Their heat forms white handprints on the glass. “Give me five minutes. Please!”

  Two other constables materialize in the fog behind him.

  “Having trouble, Barrett?”

  “Want us to break in there?”

  Better the devil I know. I open the door. Barrett steps in and locks it. He’s breathing hard, anxious about something. When I move to block the darkroom, where the photographs I don’t want him to see are hidden, he doesn’t notice.

  He blurts, “I think he’s the Ripper.”

  “You mean Mr. Lipsky?” Remembering Mr. Lipsky hauled off to prison while Barrett silently stood by, I glare. “Is that why you came? To browbeat me into admitting he’s guilty?”

  “No,” Barrett says. “I mean Commissioner Warren.”

  This is so unexpected that I sputter. “Is this a joke?”

  “Do you see me laughing?” Barrett groans. “God, I wish it were.”

  Puzzled, I shake my head. “You didn’t believe me before. Why change your mind?”

  Barrett glances around the room, as if afraid someone is eavesdropping. He removes his hat and runs his hand through his flattened hair. Something momentous has shaken him. I dare to hope that he will, after all, be my ally against Commissioner Warren.

  “About that photograph of Warren,” he says. “I thought you must have faked it, but it looked so real. Those dead black women.”

  I want to ask him where the copy he took from me is, but I don’t interrupt him.

  “I knew Warren served in Africa during the Kaffir Wars. When he became Commissioner, it was all the talk at the station. He commanded troops against the black natives who were murdering white traders and missionaries and trying to drive the British out of Africa. He was seriously outnumbered, and he was wounded, but he won. He has all sorts of medals. He’s a hero. I wanted to prove you were wrong about him, so I did some checking. The landlord at my local pub has a friend who was a captain in the army in Africa while Warren was there. I went to see the captain. And he told me—”

  Barrett pauses, looking sick. “There were rumors that Warren was sent back to England because he was too cruel to the natives. Not the men he killed in battles, but the women. There was talk that he hunted and tortured and shot them, and he kept their gold earrings as trophies.”

  Feeling vindicated by this new, compromising information about Warren, I resist the urge to say I told you so.

  “But they were just rumors, and even if they’re true—even if Warren killed women in Africa—that doesn’t mean he’s doing it here.” Barrett flings out his palms. “This is England!”

  Warren must consider white prostitutes as less than human—fair game, like the black women. “Then why do you think Warren is the Ripper?”

  Dejection slumps Barrett’s posture. “Because of what happened after the double murders.”

  I frown, thinking over the news stories I’ve read. They reported nothing that should have caused Barrett’s change of tune. “What happened?”

  “The City Police got in on the investigation.” Barrett explains, “Kate Eddowes’s murder happened in their territory. That gives them a say in how the investigation is conducted, even though the other murders happened in Metropolitan Police territory. They’re not convinced that Lipsky is Jack the Ripper, because there’s no evidence placing him at the scenes of the other murders. And they’d like to solve the case themselves.”

  That’s why the investigation is still going on, why the police are rounding up Gypsies and foreign sailors, and why Mr. Lipsky hasn’t been tried, convicted, and hanged. Thank heaven for competing police divisions.

  “The Mile End Vigilance Committee people are also divided on the issue. That’s why they’re still patrolling. So there’s been a lot of debate about whether the case is solved. Add that to the women in Africa . . .” Misery suffuses Barrett’s expression. “I can’t help but think Warren killed Kate Eddowes. I think he’s afraid that somebody saw him with her before he killed her or leaving Mitre Square afterward. I think that’s why he’s so hot to close the case and hang Mr. Lipsky.”

  This surpasses all expectation: Barrett truly believes Warren is the Ripper. I eagerly lean toward him. “What will you do?”

  Barrett backs away, resisting the pressure to take action.

  “You have to report Warren!”

  “Warren will deny everything. Nobody will take my word over his.”

  “The evidence—”

  “Rumors from Africa. That doesn’t prove Warren is the Ripper.”

  “My photographs—”

  “Your photographs don’t show Warren killing anybody.”

  The anger flares up in me again. “So you’ll just let him go on killing and let an innocent man hang?”

  “Do you know what will happen to me if I accuse Warren of being the Ripper?” Barrett points at his chest. “I’ll be sacked, and he’ll go on killing anyway.”

  “It’s your duty to the public! But you would just rather protect yourself than protect innocent people from the Ripper—”

  He cuts me off. “There’s another problem besides the fact that the evidence against Warren is circumstantial. Liz Stride was killed at about one o’clock in the morning. It couldn’t have been earlier; people from the International Club would have seen. Kate Eddowes was killed between one thirty and one forty-five. We know that from the constable who was patrolling Mitre Square. It was empty at one thirty, and when he came back at one forty-five, he found her body. Commissioner Warren stalks and kills Liz, then stalks and kills and mutilates Kate within less than forty-five minutes.” Barrett shakes his head. “That’s implausible.”

  Despite a cold stab of apprehension, I say the only thing I can to persuade Barrett to report Warren. “Warren killed Kate but not Liz. I know.”

  “How do you know?” Barrett regards me with confusion.

  “Because I was there.”

  Barrett’s confusion deepens. “You were in Mitre Square. I saw you. How could you know Warren didn’t kill Liz in Dutfield’s Yard?”

  With a sense of crossing a line I can’t uncross, I answer, “I was in Dutfield’s Yard before Mitre Square.”

  “What were you doing there?” Barrett demands.

  “I was following Liz. I saw her go into Dutfield’s Yard with a man. When they didn’t come out, I went in and found her dead. The man was gone. He had to have killed her. And he wasn’t Warren.”

  Barrett sputters. “Why on earth were you following Liz?”

  “To protect her. Because I knew the Ripper was after her.” I voice the revelation I had that night. “There are two Rippers. The man I saw with Liz is one. Warren is the other.”

  His astounded expression turns ominous. “It’s time you came clean with me, Miss Bain. You can start by telling me how you knew the Ripper was after Liz.”

  He’s like a dog who won’t let go of a bone even when offered a bigger, meatier one. I’ve told him something that has major ramifications for the police’s investigation, but all he seems to care about is that now he’s got his teeth into me.

  “I took photographs of . . . Liz.” The facts I’ve
been concealing for so long are like rotten teeth in my mouth, and I’m afraid to have them pulled out because it will hurt.

  Barrett notices my hesitation. “Just of Liz?”

  “And Kate Eddowes, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, and Martha Tabram.” Confessing that they were partners with me in a crime can’t hurt them because they’re dead. I won’t implicate Mary Jane or Catherine.

  “So that’s how you knew them. They modeled for you. What sort of photographs?” When I hesitate again, Barrett says, “Tell me, or I’ll tear this place apart.”

  “All right. I’ll show you.”

  I back into the darkroom, shut the door, and pry up the loose floorboard. It feels like digging my own grave. I pick out some photographs, then replace the board and return to Barrett. I slap a photograph on the table. It shows Liz grinning in her chemise and petticoat.

  His eyes pop.

  I lay down a photograph of Kate unfastening her garters.

  His jaw drops.

  Confronted with Polly bare-breasted, Annie flaunting her naked buttocks, and Martha wearing only a paper leaf over her privates, Barrett plops into a chair and mutters, “Jesus.”

  I don’t think Jesus is in those pictures. I stifle a wild urge to laugh.

  Barrett looks up at me, and I watch him realize I’m not the person he thought I was. His face shows confusion, chagrin, even fear. He must also be thinking that if I’m unchaste enough to take photographs like these, then why did I run from him that night?

  Blushing furiously and afraid of what he’ll do, I say, “The Ripper saw these photographs. He’s choosing his victims from them. After Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols were killed, I was afraid my other models would be next. After Annie Chapman was killed, I knew I was right.”

  Elbows planted on the table, Barrett holds his head between his hands, as if his brain is too heavy from all the information it’s absorbing. “Where did he see these photographs?”

  I tell him about Russell’s Fine Books and my surveillance.

  Barrett lowers his hands and sits upright. “Quite the amateur detective, aren’t you?” Grudging admiration colors the disapproval in his voice. Then he reverts to his officious police manner. “You know these are illegal, don’t you?” His fingers tap the boudoir photographs.

  “Why else do you think I didn’t tell you and Inspector Reid?”

  “Was it really better, keeping the information to yourself? While you were trying to protect those women, two more of them were killed.”

  My guilt weighs upon me even as I say, “We did our best.” It’s small consolation that after Annie Chapman’s murder, there wasn’t another for three weeks, and Catherine and Mary Jane are still alive.

  “‘We’?” Barrett pounces on the word. “So your friends are in on this. The actress, the street urchin, and that swell who got caught in the raid on the Thousand Crowns Club.” His eyes shine with enlightenment, then narrow. “Is that what Abraham Lipsky was doing in Mitre Square—bodyguarding Kate Eddowes?”

  “No. He was following Commissioner Warren.”

  Barrett mixes a laugh with a groan. “I see—he was trying to catch Warren in the act.”

  “He did! He saw Warren kill Kate. You heard.”

  “And he got caught himself.” Barrett rubs his temples, as if our mishaps have given him a headache. “He’s in solitary confinement. No one’s allowed to talk to him except the officers assigned by Commissioner Warren.”

  “Because Warren doesn’t want Mr. Lipsky spreading his accusations. He’s afraid somebody important might hear about them and believe them.” It’s small consolation that Mr. Lipsky is separated from the other, dangerous prisoners. He’s alone, terrified, and helpless. “You know he’s innocent! You have to help me save him!”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  “Please!” Desperate, I grab Barrett’s wrist. The feel of his warm, solid flesh and bone sends an electric jolt through me despite my unwillingness to experience such sensations with him, now or ever.

  Barrett rises; he looks down at my fingers clasping him. I feel him tense. When he raises his gaze, the heat in it brings the blood rushing to my cheeks. Now I know for certain that he’s thinking about the other night, and his lust for me is real. But lust without respect or affection is dangerous.

  I let go of his arm as if burned. I’ve already told him the address of Warren’s house in Stepney, but I recite it in case he’s forgotten. “The African photograph is there. So are Annie’s rings. They’re evidence you can use.”

  He shakes his head. “This is too much.” He doesn’t ask how I found out about Warren’s house or how I know the evidence is there. He doesn’t want to hear something that will force him to jeopardize his career. Although he believes Warren is the Ripper, he desperately wants not to believe.

  Although I don’t believe he’s going to help me, I play the one card I have left. “I think I know who the other Ripper is.”

  A loud knocking at the door drowns out my voice.

  Barrett turns; he doesn’t hear me say, “Doctor Henry Poole.” Through the glass, we see a constable who calls, “Barrett! Get a move on! We’ve hundreds more houses to search.”

  Barrett puts on his hat. “Coming.” As he heads for the door, he adjusts the front of his uniform coat. The look he flings at me over his shoulder is the look of a man fleeing the hellhounds of his conscience. Then he’s out the door, slamming it.

  I hear the other constable say, “Find anything in there?”

  “Nothing,” Barrett says.

  He’s gone before I notice that my boudoir photographs are no longer on the table. He stuffed them under his coat while I wasn’t looking. He now has the goods on me that could send me to prison.

  33

  On Tuesday morning, the newspapers contain the usual stories about the police’s fruitless search for Jack the Ripper. I spend that day and the next looking for a new studio. The places I can afford are dumps with no running water and no space for a darkroom. By Thursday morning, 18 October, it’s apparent that Barrett has decided to keep to himself the information I gave him and the photographs he stole. I’m disappointed in him yet relieved because the police aren’t going to arrest me, and there’s still time to save Mr. Lipsky.

  On Thursday afternoon, Mick bursts into my studio, where Mrs. Lipsky and I are preparing our tea party for Ida Millbanks. “Something’s going on in Whitechapel Road!”

  I rush there with Mick. The fog is dense; I don’t see the crowd of neighbors and reporters until we’re upon it. At the center is George Lusk of the Mile End Vigilance Committee.

  “Two days ago, I received through the post a small package,” George Lusk says. “It contained a letter and half of a kidney. I turned them both over to the police. This is what the letter said.” He unfolds a paper and begins to read aloud:

  Mr. Lusk, I send you half the kidney I took from one women and preserved it for you. The other piece I fried and ate it was very nice I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer. Catch me when you can, Mister Lusk.

  Reporters shout, “Was the kidney human?”

  “Could it really have come from one of the Ripper’s victims?”

  Puffed up with self-importance, George Lusk says, “The kidney was examined by Dr. Thomas Openshaw of London Hospital. He pronounced that the kidney belonged to a woman who’d been in the habit of drinking, and she died at about the same time the murder in Mitre Square was committed.” He adds, with dramatic emphasis, “You will recall that the dead body of Kate Eddowes was missing a kidney.”

  As we troop back to my studio, Mick and I debate whether the kidney was really Kate’s or a mere hoax. “Commissioner Warren might enjoy taunting George Lusk,” I say.

  “Mr. Lipsky couldn’t have sent the kidney. He was in jail,” Mick points out.

  “The police apparently don’t think that’s enough reason to let him go,” I say.

  At my studio, Catherine has arrived; she’s setting
the table. There are Victoria buns, gingerbread, and a caraway seed cake that Hugh and I bought. Mrs. Lipsky and her friends have contributed turnovers filled with mashed potato and ground meat. I build up the fire with precious coal. Everything must be nice for Ida.

  Mick tells Mrs. Lipsky and Catherine about the kidney. “If this Dr. Poole really is Ripper Number Two, how can Ida stand working for him?” he asks.

  “If he is, she probably doesn’t know it,” I reply.

  Mick pinches a currant off a Victoria bun and eats it. Catherine says sharply, “Don’t do that! Mind your manners!”

  His face turns as red as his hair. I feel bad for him, but I don’t scold Catherine because then she would treat him even worse. I admire his steadfastness. He could justifiably turn his back on her and leave her at the mercy of the Rippers, but he won’t.

  Pretending to ignore Catherine, Mick says to me, “Bet you ten pence Ida and her boss are in it together.”

  “You’re on.” But even though I’ve heard no news of a woman possibly being involved in the murders, I’m suddenly afraid of the woman I’ve waited a week to meet. Glancing out the window, I see a carriage, its lights blurred by the fog, stop in front of the studio.

  “They’re here,” Mick whispers, his eyes wide and bright.

  The dank breath of the fog ushers in Hugh and Ida. “Hello, sister dear.” Hugh’s eye twitches in a conspiratorial wink at Mick and Catherine. He hands Mrs. Lipsky a bottle of wine, then kisses my cheek. Ida Millbanks stands with her hands clasped, wearing the same old-fashioned cloak and a hideous new bonnet trimmed with fake cherries.

  “Ida, this is my sister,” Hugh says, “Miss Sarah Bain.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I say, shaking Ida’s hand.

  I think I’m a good judge of faces. When my customers sit for photographs, they put on expressions designed to make them look their most attractive, but rarely can they hold those expressions for long. Their faces settle into lines that reveal insipidity, avarice, cruelty, or other bad qualities. But in Ida Millbanks, I see only a decent woman who’s eager to be liked. She seems unsuspicious; she apparently hasn’t read the news stories about the police investigating my father and me in connection with the Ripper case. It’s obvious that she doesn’t recognize the surname “Bain”—which Hugh claimed as his own when he first introduced himself to her—or doubt that he and I are siblings.