The Big Book of Jack the Ripper

by The Big Book of Jack the Ripper (retail) (epub)

  “Well,” said Jenkins that night, after we’d put out the twelfth light and had to cut through fences because old Soakes had seen us and given the alarm. We’d heard some bobby-whistles and club-thumping a few minutes later, but by then we were holed up in the basement where we held our meetings.

  “Well what, then?” asked Neddie, all out of breath. “The coppers have put the kibosh on the fun tonight. They’ll be looking for us, sure.”

  “Let’s go filch from the pruneseller in the Square,” said Aubrey, who was older than me, but even shorter.

  “Aw, who wants prunes?” asked Neddie.

  Toldo Wigmore, who read a lot but didn’t say much, grunted.

  “What is it, Toldo?” asked Jenkins, all attention.

  “I’s just thinkin’ ’pon what we kin do tomorrer,” said Toldo. He hitched up the leg of his knicker and scratched. “We could all go out to Maxon Heath and see the new steam combine-tractor. It’s just in from Americker.”

  “Capital idea!” I said, and they all looked at me, expectant. “But you can’t. I re—” and you must remember I wanted to be one of the gang, so I couldn’t let on that I read, yet. My mother’d taught me to read before I was five, she was being somewhat of a progressive. So I caught my slip in time. “I mean, my mom told me it was stolen early this morning.”

  “Was not!” yelled Toldo. “Leastwise, I ain’t seen that in no newspapers. Yer mother’s lying!”

  Before the fight could start, there was somewhat of a noise upstairs, and Jenkins went to see what it was. He came bounding downstairs with a whoop in a few seconds. “Line up, men!” he hollers, all official like a sergeant major.

  We hopped to and stood before him in the basement.

  “We’ve been hired by a gentleman,” he said. We gave a ragged cheer. I joined in, though I’d only heard about working from one of the boys who’d been in the gang longer.

  “Alright, you newer members,” said Jenkins, pacing back and forth before us, looking especially hard at Aubrey and myself. “You’re to remember that we do anything within reason for the gentleman, and when we’re paid off, half the money is to go to the club funds.”

  I didn’t like that very well. I knew that meant Jenkins would end up with most of my money before this was over. And they’d told me about looking for tarbarrels all one night once, down at the quays and such. I didn’t look to have a very pleasant night ahead of me.

  “All right,” says Jenkins. “Let’s go!”

  We ran, whooping and hollering and raising a commotion through the streets and alleys, and got two more boys on the way. Our yelling caught in our throats, though, when we saw the bobbies and their lanterns ahead of us in the fog.

  We got very respectable. A sergeant of police stopped us. He was wearing his slicker and his hardpot hat with the shield on it. It was the first bobby I’d really seen up close. He had a great thick mustache. I was very impressed.

  “Here, boys,” he said, spreading his arms like a railcrossing signal. “You can’t come through here. There’s been a foul deed perpetrated.”

  “I’ll bet it’s the Ripper!” said Toldo, out of the corner of his mouth.

  Jenkins became very respectful-looking, and took off his cap. “We’ve been sent for by that gentleman over there, sergeant,” he said, pointing into the fog.

  “He sent for you, did he?” asked the policeman. “Just a mo’.” He walked to a plainclothes-dressed man and spoke to him. The fellow looked us over from under his bowler hat and said something to the sergeant. There were others moving around in the fog like ghosts. I couldn’t see what had happened, but there was a great knot of police standing toward one of the building corners.

  “All right, you boys,” said the sergeant, returning. “Stand about out of the way. And don’t you touch nothing.”

  “Fine, sir,” said Jenkins. “We sha’n’t.”

  We moved to the building wall opposite the gathering of policemen. Jenkins kept us all quiet and in line.

  There was a bluff-looking man with a mustache standing with the bobbies. He didn’t look like any policeman to me. He held one of his shoulders just a little higher than the other, and was talking with two of the plainclothes detectives.

  “Would you look at thart,” said Toldo, to me, and pointed.

  There was a man crawling around on the paving of the street.

  “Is he hurt?” I asked Jenkins. “Maybe he’s the one that’s hurt?”

  “Naw. That’s the man who hired us,” said the leader. “That’s…”

  “Step over here a moment, Watson, and have a look at this,” said the man on the ground, peering toward the knot of policemen.

  “Of course, Holmes,” said the man with the off-shoulder. We were quite near them, so I heard all this.

  The man on all fours moved around until he got the gaslight shining before him.

  “This Ripper business is ghastly, what?” said the bluff man.

  “What do you make of these?” asked Holmes, getting to one knee above the cobbles.

  Watson peered at the uneven pavings. I couldn’t see what they were looking at.

  “Faint scratches of some sort,” he said.

  “Quite right, Watson, quite right.” Holmes dropped to the ground again and looked left and right.

  “Whatever are you doing, Holmes?” asked the other.

  “Be a good fellow and see if Lestrade needs any help. I should imagine your bedside manner could calm the woman,” said Mr. Holmes.

  For the first time I noticed there was a woman among the police. She seemed to be talking, and I heard some whimpers from the crowd. It may have been her, but the fog muffled voices so I couldn’t tell.

  Two of the plainclothesmen came toward Watson as he got up. As they left the group of constables, I saw a lumpy greatcoat lying on the street. Someone had thrown it over a body, for a great pool of blood was drying around it. I nudged Aubrey and he poked Toldo and Toldo jabbed Jenkins, but Jenkins just nodded his head wisely.

  That’s why he’s the leader.

  “Dr. Daniels agrees with you, Dr. Watson. However, it remains to be seen what will come out at the inquest. I’m not entirely convinced at all. Not at all,” said the plainclothesman in the bowler hat.

  “What do you propose is happening, Lestrade?” asked Holmes, getting up from the street and wiping his hands.

  “Certainly no mad Jack Ripper is committing these deeds. I refuse to believe a man to be capable of such violence.”

  “You may be right, there, Lestrade,” said Holmes, but I don’t think the policeman was paying any attention. He seemed to be waiting to be asked something.

  “Well,” asked Dr. Watson. “What’s your explanation, Inspector?”

  “Suicide,” said Lestrade, with a note of triumph.

  “Suicide?” asked Watson.

  Toldo started to giggle, but Jenkins silenced him with a foot in the ankle.

  “Certainly,” said the plainclothesman. “These unfortunate women of the streets, in remorse for having sunk to such a low level, drink themselves senseless, stumble to some doorway here in Whitechapel, and do themselves in with repeated jabs of large knives. It’s all very simple.”

  “So is the inspector,” whispered Toldo.

  “But, Lestrade, what becomes of the murder weapon?” asked Watson.

  “With their last ounce of strength, they fling the knives away from themselves. I’m sure my men’s search of the rooftops and curbs will reveal the instrument of suicide.” The inspector put his hands in his vest pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels.

  “Very interesting, Inspector,” said Holmes. “Might I now interview the woman you have there? I have certain questions of my own.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Though she claims to have heard this non-existent Leather Apron. She’s frightened, like the rest of the inhabitants of the district, by the newspaper headlines and the penny-dreadfuls. She’ll not be of any use to you if it’s the truth you’re after.”


  And, to this day, I’ll swear I heard Mr. Holmes say this to Inspector Lestrade. He said: “Often, in the search for truth, the frightened have more to offer than the brave.”

  A P.C. had finished taking down notes from the woman, and brought her toward us. She looked shabby-respectable, like someone’s great-auntie fallen on bad times.

  “She manages the doss house across the way,” said Lestrade to Mr. Holmes, under his breath.

  The woman was holding her head in her hands and moaning.

  “Oh, it was ’orrible, ’orrible!” she said.

  “Madame,” said Holmes. “Though I quite realize you are in distress, there are certain things I must ask you.”

  “Oh, it was ’orrible!” she said, as if Holmes were not there. Someone brought her some brandy from a house down the way. She drank at it and seemed to calm down. Holmes stood patiently, watching until she had finished. He was a tall man, with a nose like a beak. He reminded me of a heron, except that he had bright eyes, like a cat’s. They caught glints from the gaslamps and police lanterns as I watched. My knicker leg was working free of the sock and I bent to rebutton it. I didn’t hear the woman when she first started talking again.

  “…way she was screaming. Like the devil himself was after her. And he was, too. Him with his satanic whistle. He…”

  “Whistle? Whistle, did you say?” asked Mr. Holmes, all rushing. “What type of whistle? Any melody?”

  “No, no tune to it, at all. That’s what made it so eerie. That, an ’im sharpenin’ ’is knives again and again, over and over…”

  “A sound like, say, someone using a large whetstone? Like scissors-grinder?” asked Holmes, all nervous-like.

  “That’s it! That’s it exactly!” said the old woman.

  “Just as I thought!” yelled Mr. Holmes. “Watson, you have your revolver?”

  “Yes, Holmes, of course. What is it?”

  “No time, Watson. The game’s afoot.”

  Jenkins snapped to, with a call of “Attention!” This made the police and some of the bystanders jump.

  “Ah,” said Holmes. “Jenkins.”

  “Baker Street Irregulars reporting for duty, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Good,” said Holmes. “Then I shan’t worry about needing reinforcements from the Yard.

  “Inspector,” said Holmes, turning to Lestrade. “If I remember correctly, the lowest road to be reached from here, by…say, a coach and four…is Bremick Road. Do…”

  I spoke before the Inspector. “The lowest place is near the drain into the river, Mr. Holmes.” I stumbled, then continued. “In the alleyways across from the pier. Though a coach-and-four would have to take several short streets between here and there.”

  “Good!” said Holmes. “Bright lad.” He turned again to Lestrade. “Meet me, then, at Bremick Road with five armed men as soon as you’re done here. Come, Watson! Irregulars, ho!”

  “But where?” asked Lestrade, as we hurried away.

  “The Irregulars will lead you,” yelled Mr. Holmes, as we ran into the thickening fog.

  It made me proud.

  —

  We all ran so fast I was winded quickly. But it was Doctor Watson who began to slow after we had run twenty blocks. “Dammit, Holmes,” he yelled. “I’m afraid I can’t keep this up much longer. The jezail bullet in my shoulder, you know?”

  “Quite alright,” said Mr. Holmes, bending low to the cobbles as he had every hundred feet or so since we left the police. “The fog is thickening. I propose the Ripper will come with it. We’re quite close enough already. I’ve lost the trail some time back. I must station the Irregulars and flush out our Cheeky Jack.”

  We rushed onto the Road. Holmes surveyed about him through the fog. “Station yourself there, Watson, with your revolver handy. You—” He pointed to me.

  “Malone,” said I.

  “Malone, keep watch with Dr. Watson. Be his ears and eyes if he needs them.”

  He turned, motioned to Jenkins and the others, then faced back to Watson.

  “When the Ripper comes, Watson, and he surely shall, you must aim for the glasses.”

  “His glasses? Whatever do you mean, Holmes? What? How will I know the Ripper when he comes?”

  “You’ll know him well enough, Watson. He’ll be whistling and sharpening his knives.”

  “But Holmes!” said Watson, frustrated.

  “He shall come from that alley, and you’ll know him, Watson. Be a steady fellow.” And then he was gone with the other members of the gang into the roiling fog.

  “But, Holmes…” said Dr. Watson, into the mist.

  I was shivering with excitement and the cold.

  Dr. Watson turned to me. “What the devil did Holmes mean I must aim for his glasses? And how does he know where the Ripper will come from? And why with the fog?”

  “I—I’m sure I don’t know,” I said to him.

  “Oh…oh. Pardon me, lad,” he said. “I’m quite sure you don’t.” He had the air of someone distracted. He was a large man himself, and his greatcoat made him seem all the larger. He had a reddish mustache, blockish features, and reminded me of an uncle of mine on my father’s side.

  “There’s danger here, er…Malone,” he said. “We must wait quietly and make no noise. You’re up to danger, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, very resolutely, though my heart was in my throat.

  Though there was a light cold breeze off the River, the fog grew thicker than it had been all evening. I stood in place and trembled.

  We had been waiting about ten minutes, I guess, when we both thought we heard something. Was that a whistle? My skin went as gooseflesh. Coming face-to-face with Jack the Ripper would not be as much fun as I had once imagined. Doctor Watson cocked his head and gripped his Webley revolver more tightly. Little beads of moisture were collecting on his hand and dripping down his coatfront. I was becoming soaked through, and my teeth began to chatter.

  Then the sound came to us again. It was like the old lady said, a high, keening tuneless whistle. I looked toward the fog in the alleyway across from us, the place Mr. Holmes said the Ripper would come from. I could barely see the buildings to each side.

  Doctor Watson regripped his pistol. The tuneless whistle came, now soft, now loud, as if the Ripper were moving to and fro across the alley, perhaps checking doorways for victims. I could see him in my mind: a huge formless man, all covered with gore from head to heel, eating the liver…

  I jumped as Doctor Watson brushed my arm.

  The sound was coming toward us.

  It was then I heard the sound with it, as must have the doctor. A sharp clicking sound. I had heard sounds like it, but much smaller, when on vacation at Blackpool with my mother and father.

  I could only liken it to the opening and closing of the claws of a giant crab.

  I saw Doctor Watson take aim along his revolver barrel where the alleyway entered the thoroughfare. Then the mists thickened, and all across the street was lost to view. He lowered his pistol and stepped into the roadway from our hiding place. I went out with him. My heart wasn’t in it.

  The noises came louder. The eerie whistle sent shivers along my damp spine. The tenor of the clicking grew and changed; they now sounded exactly as if someone were sharpening a large knife again and again. What a sound…

  I started to wet my pants but held back.

  I could see now why those poor women the Ripper killed must have frozen in their tracks when they heard him coming, while he bore down on them and perpetrated his outrages.

  The fog roiled. The whistling grew louder. A shape moved at the edge of the alleyway, and the whistling and whetting fairly screamed toward us.

  Doctor Watson braced his legs, swung his barrel in line with the shape. He fired twice, the discharges lighting his face and arm pure white. He couldn’t have missed, that close.

  Like a juggernaut of doom, the Ripper came down at us. He was immense. I couldn’t see anything distinct, but sensed some
thing big, like in a nightmare, coming for me. He was whistling louder, sharpening his knife like a demon as he charged across the alley for me and the doctor.

  A voice on the rooftop behind us yelled, “The glasses, Watson! The glasses!”

  At the same time, I saw a glint of light above the ground, reflected from the gaslight down the way, as the Ripper came for me.

  So did Doctor Watson. He emptied his Webley at it.

  There was a loud shrill whistle and a scream, and the Ripper slowed his movement. A few seconds later, the sound of whetting died away in the fog.

  “Good show, Watson,” said Mr. Holmes, climbing down from the rooftop. “Well done, old man.”

  Through the fog, I heard police whistles, pounding of feet and nightsticks, and the yells of the Irregulars coming toward us.

  I had wet my pants.

  —

  “You mean to tell me, Holmes,” Watson said loudly as the detective examined the silent machinery with Lestrade and the constables, “that you were watching all the time! Why, we might have been killed!”

  “Things were well in hand, Watson. If you failed to shoot out the pressure glasses on the combine machine, I was prepared to jump from the rooftop and engage the hand brake, there.” He pointed to the operating levers of the steam behemoth.

  “What a ghastly machine,” remarked Lestrade. “Five murders, by this?”

  “Wrong, Lestrade,” said Holmes, examining the tractor. “The Ripper still stalks Whitechapel. This steam combine is responsible only for the death of the streetwalker tonight.”

  “Whatever put you on to it, Mr. Holmes?” asked Lestrade.

  “The marks in the street, and the mutilations of the body,” said the detective, lighting a pipe with a match struck against the boiler of the tractor. “That, and the comment of the witness to the whistle and continuous sharpening of the knives. Whistles suggest steam, continuous motion suggests machinery. Steam-driven machinery, simply.