The Big Book of Jack the Ripper
Page 102
“Ah, Wentworth.” This from Frederick Abberline, Inspector First Class. His office was just up the hall from Wentworth’s.
“Another.” Wentworth sighed.
“Indeed.”
“What carnage. Who is, was, she?”
“Mary Kelly, twenty-five. She preferred the name Marie Jeanette.”
“An unfortunate?” Wentworth asked.
“Yes. Worked most of her life on the streets.”
Wentworth glanced at a print, The Fisherman’s Widow, hanging above the fireplace, in which embers of what seemed to be smoldering cloth still glowed.
Abberline followed the direction of his gaze. “We believe it took him an hour and a half to two hours to complete his surgery, if you will. He wanted more light and had only her clothes to burn.”
“What was the time?”
“Between two thirty and eight this morning, the surgeon estimates. But we’ll know better after the inquest. Her landlord sent his man around about a quarter to eleven for the rent and he discovered her.”
“Witnesses?”
“Several. But some observations seem suspicious, if not wholly unreliable.”
A shadow appeared in the doorway, cutting off the glare from Miller’s Court. “Inspector.”
“Ah.” Wentworth turned to see Dr. Richard Adams. His eyes were on the victim.
“Well.”
“Come in, Doctor, please.”
Introductions were made and Wentworth described Adams’s role, and explained further about finding the chemist who had sold the preserving fluid and where that discovery led. “I have constables watching that shop, the warehouse we discovered, and the flat, but they’ve reported no reappearance.”
“Well done,” Abberline said. “We appreciate any assistance you might provide, Doctor. I’ll stand outside and let you examine the corpse.” He left the two men alone.
“A prostitute, like the others?”
“Yes. Doctor, do you think this is the work of the same man? The carnage is much more severe.”
Adams looked over the corpse.
“I have no doubt. The thrusts and sawing patterns suggest as much. I think the madness that comes over him varies—one night he is content to be more…deliberate, you might say. This? His fit possessed him to utterly destroy the poor creature. God only knows why.”
Adams frowned. “The heart?”
“Missing.”
“May I?” Adams asked, nodding toward the body.
“Of course.”
The doctor stepped forward, leaned down, and regarded the wounds. Using a handkerchief, he lifted the victim’s right hand and examined it. There was a knife gash on the palm. He manipulated the appendage and then replaced it. He did the same with her feet. Then he studied the body cavities.
Finally he stepped back and looked down at the Ripper’s handiwork as a whole.
“Any conclusions?”
Adams shrugged. “I may have. The scars suggest the use of a new instrument. I will need to look into it more. Perhaps we can stop by a surgical supply company.”
“Yes, we will do.” The inspector looked down upon the body. “Why, Jack? Why do you do this?”
Adams said, “I’m afraid the doctor within me is flummoxed, Inspector. The religious man, however, has an answer.”
“And what that might be?”
“It’s the hand of Satan.”
“Ah, but we will have a difficult time bringing him before the Queen’s Bench. So let us continue on our secular investigation.”
—
Inspector Wentworth returned home at close to 8 P.M.
The bad morning had turned into a worse afternoon and evening. His superiors clamored for answers, citizens demanded a suspect, and the reporters cried for details.
He was unable to provide satisfaction to any one of those needy assemblies.
Wentworth washed in the bathroom and returned downstairs. He sat at the dining table and struggled to put his cares aside—all the while wondering where Saucy Jacky might be at this very moment.
Still, he put a smile on his face and nodded as the maid set dishes before Wentworth and his wife. He looked up at the slim young servant. “Thank you, Jenny. You have prepared quite the sumptuous repast, as you always do.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
Supper was lamb and potatoes, a small dish of haddock, and grilled tomato.
Edith Wentworth, a handsome woman of Wentworth’s age, gave the girl a coy look. “And Mr. Hendrick’s son slipped some buns into the package of bread today. And he winked at her.”
“Ma’am.”
Wentworth turned to the blushing Cockney girl. “You could do worse than to marry into a baker’s family, Jenny.”
Edith said, “And he’s a nice boy and good looking too, Ras. You remember him?”
In fact, Wentworth had no idea who the young man was. But his wife had a keen eye and he knew she had passed an accurate judgment on the potential suitor.
He added, “And a hard worker, for sure. Though he won’t be forced to work the hours of a detective inspector. He will get home to you in the evenings.” This was said with a glance toward his wife.
“Please, sir. I hardly know the boy.” The housekeeper’s fiery face was, however, smiling.
The girl retired and Wentworth and his wife ate, speaking of her visit to their daughter-in-law in Islington and a new millinery shop that had opened up the road. She reminded Wentworth that they had committed to a trip to Leeds, where they would join friends on a river boat that weekend.
He began to say, I shall try with all my heart…But the word took him right back to the horrific murder of Mary Kelly, who had been robbed of that very organ.
“I will try, my dear.”
“I know of the new killing. I understand. It’s him?”
“Yes, there’s little doubt.”
“Are you any closer to finding who it might be? The papers are full of speculation.”
“All of it spurious. He’s quite the elusive one. Most criminals make the error of trying to be clever, though in fact they aren’t, and that approach trips them up. This fellow we’re after is either indeed clever or, not being so, makes no attempt to try. And thus he blunders his way along, engaging in behaviors that don’t give rise to clear evidence or witnesses.”
“Lucky, then.”
“Lucky in part, yes. The fact that there is no motive—other than butchery itself—for the killings is perhaps the most arduous obstacle.” He lowered his voice—Jenny could be nearby. “There is no apparent sexual activity. He does not rob them. He’s claimed, if the Dear Boss letter he sent be truly his, that he wants to kill prostitutes, but even the most fervent moralists would never cause such carnage because of an unfortunate’s profession. For heaven’s sake, that part of the city is infested with such poverty that I’m sure if my circumstances placed me in such a locale, I too would turn to crime to put bread in the mouths of my family.” He sipped from a water glass, his tongue locating the chipped spot to avoid it. Then sighed. “If we knew why, we could then find who. But, sadly, his purpose remains a mystery.
“Although I will tell you we have had some assistance from an unlikely source.” He told her about the famous doctor who was assisting them. “Brilliant fellow. Made a connection, thanks to his medical skills, to where the killer might have stayed for a time. Nothing came of it but I’ve stationed men nearby to see if he returns.” He lowered his voice. “He came at the recommendation of the Palace. Her Majesty’s advisor himself.”
“No, Ras!” Edith was delighted at this news.
“Yes.” Then he gave a dark smile. “Rather at the insistence of the Palace. That this fellow remains free is putting the royals and the government in a rather bad light not only here but on the Continent. Even in America too.”
“It is a difficult time for Her Majesty,” Edith pointed out.
This was certainly the truth. There was the incident of Abdul Karim, the Munshi, an Indian Muslim
who was an important clerk to Victoria and much favored by her—to the horror of her family and retainers. Then just months earlier the beautiful Princess Alix, sixteen, the queen’s granddaughter, had faced death from a horse-riding incident. Then there were the perennial problems of the socialists, the Irish, the poverty…and Her Majesty’s frustration at finding a suitable prime minister.
“You’re doing all you—”
At that there came a rapping on the back door of the flat.
“Who could that be? At suppertime?” Edith said. Then she called, “Jenny, could you please see who’s calling?”
“No,” Wentworth said, dabbing his face with his linen and standing. “I will go.” In a louder voice: “Jenny, I will attend to it. You go about your chores.”
“Yes, sir.”
He strode through the kitchen and down from the first floor to the ground. The mews where the Wentworths lived was decent and generally safe, and it was possible that the visitor was nothing more than a grindler, hoping for food. But London was London, and this was hardly Mayfair; it could be a lurker with criminal designs. Hence, his attending to the caller.
Wentworth approached the back door, undid the dead bolt, and lifted the bar. He pulled the door open.
The empty alley greeted him.
Curious. He stepped outside. No one.
But ten yards away, something small sat on the cobblestones where the alleyway turned a corner. The evening was foggy, as often at this hour, and he could make out only a shape about eight inches in length. The color was gray, but so was the hue of almost everything here at this time of night in this bleak month.
“Hallo?” he called.
No response save for his own echoing voice.
Wentworth squinted through the mist. Curious. The object seemed to be a purse. Who could possibly have dropped it here?
He looked around him once more.
“Hallo?”
—
Jacques LaFleur—the Ripper, Saucy Jacky—waited around the corner from the back door of the flat of Detective Inspector Wentworth. A lovely blade was gripped tightly in his hand. Not a surgeon’s knife but a proper one, more than a foot long.
He’d found the man’s flat with little difficulty. That morning, approaching noon, Jacques had been across Dorset Street, by Mary Kelly’s room, and he had watched the policeman walk from the front door of the flat where he’d created such a beautiful object in blood.
The slim officer, in a tweed suit and no overcoat against the chill, had called over several constables and sent them in different directions. Jacques deemed it best to repair to his flat at that time. He had all he needed, anyway—in his mind an image of the detective inspector who was pursuing him.
Later, sitting at his table in his Somerset Street rooms, surrounded by close to one hundred newspaper and periodical articles about the Whitechapel killings, Jacques had skimmed them quickly, regarding the illustrations only. And soon he’d matched the face he recalled with a name. Erasmus Wentworth. One publication, the Police News, gave his address.
Now, he listened carefully and heard the Yarder’s footsteps approaching the purse he’d left as bait cautiously.
From Jacques’s observation of the goings-on in the inspector’s flat that evening, he had noted that there might be several permutations that could unfold. The pretty young servant girl might open the door and see the purse and step forward, hoping it would contain a few pence or shillings, or even a sovereign or two. Or the older woman, who he guessed was the inspector’s wife, might do the same.
Slitting their throats and then ripping open bodices to swiftly remove their maternal breasts, or slice their bellies, smooth the one, wrinkled the other, would have been delightful too.
But the outcome he truly hoped for was that which was now unfolding.
The copper himself.
Jacques heard the officer say, “Hm.”
He’d be wondering who would have rapped on his door, then dropped a purse. He might be concluding it was revelers in their cups.
From the sound of footsteps grating on the alleyway floor, he was almost to the shadows where the bag lay.
Jacques inhaled a deep breath and tensed his legs, picturing the inspector’s terror as he lunged forward, slashing, slashing, slashing, painting a beautiful crimson design upon the scaly cobblestones.
Ah, another pleasing thought: the copper would, of course, not die immediately but would scream for assistance.
And his wife, perhaps the servant girl too, would appear.
They, as well, would contribute to the canvas of blood.
Imagine those news accounts!
The footsteps stopped. He’d be standing over the purse.
Steady yourself. One…two…
Jacques stepped forward one pace.
And then: “No,” came a firm whisper near his ear.
He turned fast, raising the knife.
There, leaning on his cane, was Dr. Richard Adams. An Enfield revolver was in his hand, pointed at Jacques’s heart.
The man smiled and lowered the blade.
The doctor led him back into the shadows, away from the alley and toward the street. He whispered, “There’s a constable not twenty feet from here. The officers investigating the Whitechapel killings all have a guard. And there is a regular patrol not far, as well. Give me the knife.”
Jacques turned it handle first and passed it over.
Hiding behind an evergreen, and obscured by the mist, they could just make out Inspector Wentworth picking up and examining the bag, which was empty. He called “Hallo” once more, and when there was no response turned and walked back to the house.
Adams gestured toward the street with the pistol and said sternly to Jacques, “You’ll come with me. Now.”
—
The smell in the small, exceedingly damp room was of fish. The place was shadowy. Electric lighting was becoming popular in London—Dr. Richard Adams had it in his practice and soon would in his home near Grosvenor Square—but this was the East End, and some said service would not come here for ten years. Others said it never would.
The illumination in the warehouse tonight came from an oil lamp, not even gas.
Adams looked outside, then pulled together the burlap curtains and turned back to Jacques LaFleur. He pointed to a chair. The killer sat. Adams noted he was dressed well, the garments pressed and clean. He was in a white shirt and ribbon tie. Beneath his checkered suit was his trademark leather waistcoat.
The door opened and Henry Gladbrook entered. He too eyed Jacques and then turned away, hanging up his own greatcoat. He sat down on an unsteady chair, looked down. Removed a match from a box and slipped it under the short leg.
Jacques said to Gladbrook, “Well, sir, the good doctor here found me. Tracked me down, didn’t he? Won’t tell me how he did it. But here I am.”
Adams, assisted by his cane, hobbled to a bench, dusted it with a kerchief, and then sat. “He was about to eviscerate Inspector Wentworth.”
Gladbrook shook his head. “We’ve been having a rather difficult time because of you, my friend,” he said. “You didn’t quite follow the plan, now, did you?”
Jacques—Jack the Ripper, Saucy Jacky, Leather Apron—gave a faint shrug.
The plan…
One month ago, Gladbrook and Adams found themselves in need of a dangerous man, one not afraid to use a knife to kill. A man with no family, no friends…an invisible man.
Discreet enquiries among gaolers led to the fellow before them now. He was in Newgate for murdering a solicitor in London during a robbery. Gladbrook had spoken to him and decided he would suit. A word to the Crown Prosecutor and he was released (on the claim he was wanted in Ireland, and was being handed over to authorities there for political expediency).
And so Jacques LaFleur was set free to help the men on their mission.
Yet the instructions were that the hound was to track and kill one fox and one only.
Mary Ann Nichols.
“No, no, no. Three only. Miss Stride I was interrupted during. Only had time to slice her. Still piqued by that, I must say.”
“Are you mocking us?” Gladbrook raged.
“No, sir.” Jacques fell silent.
“One killing and the incident would have been noted in the public eye for a day or two and then drifted into obscurity. But four others? What would have been a minor crime has gone on to become the talk of the world!”
Adams asked bluntly, “Answer us! Why did you keep killing?”
“Just what you said, governor,” Jacques said, eyeing Gladbrook. “The talk of the world.” His eyes blazed. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a number of folded sheaves of paper.
Adams could see they were newspaper clippings.
Lovingly the killer spread them out on a nearby table. “Look! Look at this! They are telling my story! I’m the hero of all of them.”
Hero? thought Adams.
The small man, his face indeed weaselly, looked up at the two men fiercely. “I was nothing as a boy in Manchester. And I was nothing coming here. I could work only menial jobs…I was even condemned to mundane crimes in the Chapel. Mug-heading, pinching, flying the blue pigeon—stealing roof lead! That murder I was in Newgate for? It was thanks to my clumsiness. I dropped the pistol I was robbing the old barrister with and we both leapt for it. It went off by itself! Lor’, there’s a twist for you!
“I knew I was smart. I knew I was meant for greatness but nothing ever came my way. It was damned unfair! But when I killed Mary Ann? Why, the very next day I was the king of London.”
“And the bloodier the crimes, the more your star shone.”
“That’s right.” His face darkened. “Oh, governors, the truth is I hated the blood, hated the cutting, hated carting back this part and that part. That’s why there were gaps—August to September to November. I hated it.”
Adams laughed coldly. “And that’s why you sent the taunting letters. When interest flagged, and the scribblers moved on to other stories, you stirred the pot.”