Annie and the Ripper

by Tim Champlin

  "A man who'd contracted syphilis from a prostitute might be vengeful, or the disease could have caused a mental derangement…" His voice trailed off.

  "There's no real cure for that," Dr. Llewellyn said. "It can be latent in the blood for years while attacking the brain cells. Madness can come on gradually."

  Abberline sighed. "We could speculate 'til doomsday, and be no closer to the answer."

  "Unfortunately, medical science knows very little about the brain and its functions."

  "All logic is thrown out when dealing with a madman."

  "Some of them do follow a pattern of behavior," the doctor said. "At least I've seen the same bizarre actions being performed over and over by certain hospitalized mental patients."

  "Yes, whoever did this might repeat his performance in the near future if he's that sort of violent lunatic. If this man isn't caught right away, I'll discuss with my superiors some cautionary measures that might forestall future attacks. It'll involve more foot patrolmen in the district, a lot of door-to-door legwork and interviews, checking all the known felons, and released mental patients in Whitechapel."

  "Why only Whitechapel?"

  "I suspect the killer didn't travel far to commit this crime, that he lives in the area and is not someone who would arouse any suspicion among the shopkeepers, landlords or street women. It was done quietly, since no one nearby heard any kind of commotion or cry."

  "No woman cries out after her throat is slashed."

  "Wouldn't there be a spurt of blood if the killer gashed the carotid? He'd be covered in it."

  "Not if the attack came from behind, which I'd guess it did. Probably have some staining of the hands and arms, though, even if he wore gloves."

  "From all accounts, that man, Cross, came within a few minutes of encountering the killer."

  "Since my surgery is just down the street, I know of quite a number of rather odd people in this neighborhood--alcoholics, eccentrics with very strange obsessions, several teetering on the edge of sanity, barely able to function in their hand-to-mouth existence, men and women from sordid backgrounds to whom violence is a way of life." Dr. Llewellyn flicked the ash off his cigar and looked across at Abberline. "You think this is his first crime?"

  Abberline thought for a moment. "Possibly not. I recall at least two similar unsolved murders just recently. Last April a prostitute, who usually went by the name of Emma Smith, was attacked about this time of the morning. She died the next day from an infection due to a ruptured membrane. Then there was another murder earlier this month. A Martha Turner, or Tabram, was found on the landing of the stairs up to a lodging house. She'd been stabbed thirty-nine times."

  "Possibly the same killer?"

  "Hard to say. If so, he's becoming progressively brutal."

  The doctor nodded. "The man was either very insane or very enraged if he eviscerated a corpse."

  The Hansom cab stopped in front of the workhouse, Abberline paid the driver, and the two men waited in the side yard for the arrival of the inmates with the body on the stretcher. When it arrived fifteen minutes later, Dr. Llewellyn sent one of the men to fetch the director to unlock the mortuary and allow them to place the corpse on the examining table inside. The doctor turned up the gas jets to their brightest, stripped off his waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves.

  "If you don't mind, I'll pop across the street to the Boar's Head for a bite of breakfast," Abberline said, having seen enough gore for the moment. "I'll wait for you out here in the courtyard when I get back."

  "I'll be at least an hour," Doctor Llewellyn said.

  Abberline nodded and turned away, scrubbing a hand over his face. His bushy sideburns obscured the fact that the rest of his face was covered with stubble. With autumn coming, maybe he should grow a full beard and not have to shave at all. But a beard was nearly suffocating to him, and made him look older than his forty-six years. Sliding into middle age as a bachelor. At this time of night, in the darkest hour before dawn, his whole being was at its lowest ebb, and he almost wished he had a wife to go home to. Well, he'd chosen this way of life, and he'd stick with it. The only thing preventing him from becoming stodgy and set in his middle years was the complete unpredictability of his job that kept his mind sharp and his body active. No wife would take kindly to a husband who had to jump out of bed in the middle of the night and go running off to a dangerous part of the city to look at the bloody corpse of a woman.

  He glanced up and down the deserted street, seeing the wet paving stones shining under street lamps that barely penetrated the fog at each end of the block. Taking a deep breath of the cool air, he crossed the street, his rubber heels making little noise in the stillness. A cup of tea with biscuit and jam would set him right. He smiled grimly as he pulled open the door of the all night public house.

  "Find anything new?" Abberline asked the doctor ninety minutes later as they stood in the empty courtyard next to the workhouse.

  "Not much. Two women who're lodging next door showed up and identified her as Mary Ann Nichols. Went by the name of Polly. She was in her forties. She's borne children. The women said she'd shown up drunk earlier at the lodging house, but didn't have the price of a bed so she was turned away. 'I'll soon get my doss money,' the women quoted her as saying. 'See what a jolly bonnet I've got now? That'll fetch 'em.' One of the women tried to get her to come and share a room with her, but Polly refused and staggered off. She was found less than three-quarters of a mile from where she was last seen."

  The doctor paused. Abberline felt his throat tighten. The mutilated body was taking on the personality of one Polly Nichols, pitiful human being. Abberline thought he should be over such emotional reaction to every victim whose murder he investigated. But, then, if he distanced himself from all feeling, he might as well go home and work crossword puzzles.

  "I'm sure others will come forward and give us more details of her life, once her death becomes known," the doctor was saying. "I found damage to the laryngeal structures, and petechiae was present in her face and around the eyes…"

  "What's that?" Abberline interrupted.

  "Showers of tiny pin-point hemorrhages under the skin consistent with strangulation. She'd been choked, probably to unconsciousness, before her throat was slashed, so she very likely never knew what happened."

  In the graying dawn, the two men looked at each other and Abberline knew this last statement was meant to blunt his own horror of imagining what Polly Nichols must have suffered in her last moments.

  "You want the details?"

  He shook his head. "You summarized it well enough for now. There'll be a coroner's inquest in a few days. Unless we catch the killer first, the jury will conclude with those familiar words, '…death caused by person or persons unknown.'" He sighed. "I'll read your full report later. Right now, I'll be getting home. Have to be at the office in about two hours."

  "Good day to you, then," Doctor Llewellyn said, shaking his hand.

  "Thanks for your help."

  Abberline saw so sign of a cab at this early hour, so he decided to walk the mile to his lodging house.

  The sun was peeking over the roofline and dissipating the night mist. Its rays caught the colors of a garish poster plastered to a brick wall. Although it'd been there all summer and he'd passed it many times, he'd never bothered to look at it. The heavy paper was torn in places and showing the effects of rain and sun, but the huge lettering and bigger than life images were still strong. He paused and read: "BUFFALO BILL'S WILD WEST, And Congress of Rough Riders of the World".

  "Huh!" he snorted as his eyes glanced down over the rest. The poster was covered with scenes of Indians on horseback, wearing war bonnets and pursuing a stagecoach, covered wagons, mounted cowboys. In a circular frame was the now-familiar picture of Buffalo Bill Cody, big hat, goatee and all. Below Cody's face was the image of a long-haired girl in a wide-brimmed hat, medals pinned to her jacket, and the words, "Annie Oakley—The Peerless Wing and Rifle Shot". In the background were
smaller images of her firing a rifle and a pistol at various thrown and held targets.

  He yawned and moved on. Show business. These Americans had come to England to make money from thousands of his gullible countrymen. A bunch of whooping Indians and cowboys, riding around shooting blanks at each other and at buffalo. It was all a sham, like card tricks. Annie Oakley's fancy shooting was undoubtedly fake—designed to fool the eye. Nobody--especially a young woman in a man's sport--could be as good as she was reported to be. He had to admit she was good looking. But at that show, a spectator would never get close enough to really see her. He wondered how good he would be if pitted against her. He hadn't been on the practice range for months. His weapon was for self-defense only. And, although confident he was in no danger on the streets of Whitechapel, he was nonetheless reassured by the lump under his coat—a shoulder holster containing his Adams revolver.

  CHAPTER 2

  2:20 p.m.

  August 31, 1888

  Earl's Court, London

  The canvas door of the white tent was flung back and Annie Oakley strode out, cheeks flushed and full lips compressed.

  "Uh, oh! Mad as a wet hen," Matt Vickers muttered, sliding behind the corner of a nearby wagon to avoid those flashing eyes that were probing for a target. Being her "gun boy" and messenger didn't mean bearing the brunt of her fury.

  But she didn't notice him. Smoothing her pleated riding skirt, she moved gracefully toward the entrance to the arena, the pearl studs on her hand-sewn leggings catching the light. Matt saw her shrug and flex her arms and shoulders under the doeskin jacket to be sure she was loose and ready as she poised like an athlete ready to spring.

  "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have the distinct honor of bringing you the world's greatest sharpshooter…" Harvey Archibald's voice boomed hollowly through the megaphone outside in the Earl's Court Exhibition Grounds. "…I give you the incomparable, Annie Oakley!"

  A roustabout pulled the canvas drape aside. Annie bounded into the arena and turned an acrobatic handspring over the gun table, snatching up a 16-gauge shotgun as she went. The drape fell back into place, blotting the sight, but Matt pictured her swinging the gun to her shoulder. Bang! Bang! Bang! He knew from the wave of applause that her wing shots had blasted 3 colored glass balls out of the air, tossed by her manager/husband, Frank Butler.

  Matt had seen her twenty-minute performance dozens of times, but he never tired of viewing her smooth display of skill.

  The big boss, Colonel William F. Cody, in an astute move to capture the audience early, had positioned her act at the top of the show, right after the grand parade, which opened every performance.

  "What's wrong with her?"

  Matt turned to see his 19-year old Sioux friend, Crowfoot, standing a few feet away, observing.

  "Nothing gets by you, does it, Crofe?" Matt said. "She's mad as hell."

  "What for?" the Indian inquired, gliding forward and pulling himself up to sit on the wagon's tailgate.

  " 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,' " Matt said.

  "Who said that?"

  "Don't know."

  "Who scorned her? She's married."

  "She and Frank just had a session with the big boss," Matt said. "Apparently, the meeting didn't go her way. You know how Cody is—nice fella, but his say is final. He don't cotton to being told what to do, or how to do it."

  Crowfoot waited for more.

  "Annie's furious about Cody hiring that sharpshooter, Lillian Smith, and giving her equal billing." He paused to let the approving roar of 30,000 people recede.

  "Little fat girl is good shot, but Annie is better," Crowfoot replied calmly, with barely a trace of his native accent. Straight from Pine Ridge Mission School to the Wild West Show two years earlier at the urging of retiring Sitting Bull, Crowfoot, at nineteen, was now a veteran performer. Leggings, beaded moccasins and fringed buckskin jacket were a perfect complement to his dark skin and eagle feather woven into a scalplock—enough to fool any stranger into thinking him a bloodthirsty savage.

  "Let's slip around the edge of the curtain and watch her," Matt suggested.

  Matt and Crowfoot worked around to the back side where they wouldn't be noticed by the audience, and pulled back the canvas about a foot.

  By this time, Annie had the spectators thoroughly warmed up. She rode her horse in a steady gallop in a wide circle around the arena. As they watched, she bent backward at the waist until she lay flat on the horse's rump. Raising the shotgun from her bouncing position, she shattered three clay pigeons Frank Butler fired into the air in quick succession with a hand trap.

  The audience roared.

  She tossed her 20 gauge to Frank as she passed him, then leapt off the horse, turning a somersault to break her momentum.

  She selected a .22 Marlin rifle from the gun table, and Frank placed an apple on the head of her dog, the young St.Bernard, Sir Ralph. The dog sat stone still while Annie stepped off twenty paces, turned her back and cocked the rifle, resting it on her right shoulder, pointing backward. She held up a hand mirror in front of her and sighted into it for several seconds. The rifle cracked and the apple went flying in pulpy pieces.

  "By damn!" Crowfoot muttered as the crowd went wild. "That woman is a shooter!"

  "She's automatic," Matt agreed. "Never misses. She has to miss now and then on purpose so the audience won't think her stunts are rigged."

  They looked again and Annie was already into her next trick.

  Frank was tossing silver dollars into the air, one at a time, then two at a time, then three. The rifle fire was unerring as the silver coins went spinning, struck by lead bullets.

  The audience was roaring continuously now, drowning out everything else, including the popping of the gunshots. She faced the open end of the arena to be sure no bullets or lead shot landed in the grandstand.

  Before the applause could die down, Annie and Frank worked quickly to set up three spring-loaded skeet traps on the ground. Annie took a few seconds to look around and Matt knew she was setting up the audience, pausing like a dramatic actress to get the spectators' full attention. The vast throng grew gradually silent, anticipating something big was about to happen.

  Annie bent and set off the first, jumped to the second, then the third, and all three clay pigeons went arcing against the blue sky, one behind the other. In a flash of brown doeskin, she dashed to the gun table, turned a flip over it, snatched a pistol off the ground, lay prone and fired—Bang! Bang! Bang! The first, second and third discs exploded in a shower of clay fragments before they could fall, intact, to the ground. There was no containing the audience now. She could have declared herself Queen Victoria's successor, and everyone in that British audience would have approved.

  "She's close to the end of her act," Matt said. "Let's get out of here. I don't want her to see me just now."

  "I go on next," Crowfoot said, as the two of them headed toward the staging area. "I attack a helpless woman at the sodbuster's cabin."

  Dozens of Indians in traditional dress and war paint were milling around, talking and preparing their mounts for mock battle.

  "Cody's nearly three times my age," Matt continued, picking up an earlier thought, "but he doesn't know a dime novel from a Bible if he thinks it's a good idea to hire a younger woman to compete with an older one." He shook his head at the painful ignorance of his elders. "A fifteen-year old who wears all her medals on her chest, shoots off her mouth…"

  "A performer must have confidence," Crowfoot observed, running his hands down the flanks of his paint pony, and bending to check the unshod hooves.

  "Annie's confident, but she's also very quiet and lady-like. She lets her guns do her bragging," Matt said.

  "If she’s so confident, why does she now tell everyone she is twenty-two years old instead of twenty-eight?" the Indian asked.

  Matt nodded. "Reckon she is running a little scared, no matter how well she's shooting."

  Crowfoot nodded. "Females—human, wolf, buffalo
, mountain lion—have an instinct about such things. They do what they must to protect their young, their mates, their territory. For Annie, it is her position and her name."

  "Fact is, Crofe, if Cody doesn't get rid of Lillian Smith, I'm afraid Annie and Frank'll quit the show. Then where will I be? Feeding and watering the buffalos and shoveling manure?"

  "You’re already doing that," Crowfoot grinned. "Maybe Cody will make you Lillian's errand boy."

  Matt let the horror of that image sink in. "Whew! She's nearly two years younger than I am. And she's used to getting her way. I didn't hire on to baby sit a spoiled brat."

  Crowfoot straightened up. "You’re the same as me--hired on to do what the boss tells you. You and I are not big and strong to be roustabouts, not good shooters to be marksmen, not horsemen to be trick riders, not rich to be owners. Your God--or my Great Spirit--made me a Sioux and that's what I play in this show." He looked at Matt with obsidian eyes. "When Annie was just a little girl, Captain Adam Bogardus was world champion marksman. Ten years ago, the great Doc Carver challenged him for top spot. Bogardus won and was the bright light of this show. But time goes like the big river," he made a flowing motion with his arm, "and drowned the steamboat with all Bogardus's guns and gear. Everything wound up on the bottom of the Mississippi. Just then, Annie asks for a job. Manager, Nate Salsbury, sees her perform and hires her on the spot. Borgardus goes from big man to nobody, just like that." Crowfoot made a chopping motion with the edge of his hand. "All things have their season. I will know when the day comes for me to live other lives and change from Crowfoot to my white mission name, Frank Thomas."

  "Yeah, reckon I need to make the most of every minute I live. I'm lucky to have any job with this show. Being a gun boy for the great and famous Annie Oakley will be something I can tell my grandkids someday."

  Popping of rapid gunfire from the arena indicated Annie's show had reached its climax.