Annie and the Ripper

by Tim Champlin

  Because the doctor determined 'Long Liz' was killed about fifteen minutes after Schwartz witnessed this exchange, the police thought the killer was not only a Jew, but had a Jewish accomplice named Lipski.

  Abberline knew better. Being familiar with the area, he knew an Israel Lipski was hanged for the murder of a Jewish woman last year. Since then, his surname had been used as an insulting epithet to Jews in the East End.

  He leaned back in his chair and kneaded the furrows out of his forehead. Even Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor Christian Edward, known as Prince Eddy, the Duke of Clarence, was suspected because he frequented whores and wild parties in the East End, and was known to have contracted syphilis. He even matched the general description of the killer. But when the police discovered he'd been in Scotland at the time of the murders, he was dropped as a suspect. For the sake of the elderly Queen and the Royal family, Abberline was relieved.

  On the way home that evening, he stopped at the Police Athletic Club, signed in and began his long-delayed process of getting fit. Stretching, bending, walking, running, and much to his embarrassment, playing a game of tennis with a young constable who eased up to keep from totally humiliating him.

  He finished up in the steam room.

  "Janelle, that was good exercise. I need to lose a few pounds and get my wind back."

  The young Canadian girl who checked in the members, monitored the equipment and managed the cloak room, smiled at him. "Inspector Abberline, I've not seen you in here before."

  "It's been a long time," he admitted. "How did you know my name?"

  "You signed the log. But, then, everyone knows who you are. You're famous." She turned, retrieved his black ulster and handed it across the counter. "You'll be back, won't you?"

  With a stunning smile like she had, how could he say 'No'?

  "Yes. I'll try to make this a regular thing—if I don't die from overdoing it the first day."

  The next morning he found out how badly he was out of condition when he could hardly get out of bed. Every muscle ached. He did some stretching exercises, but it only hurt worse. He knew from experience that it would get better with time. Meanwhile, he was in for a few days of pain.

  As the first week of October wore on, Sir Charles Warren put every available policeman, even those from other divisions, to the task of investigation. Besides the distribution of Jack the Ripper's two letters to the newspapers, 80,000 leaflets were delivered to households and lodging houses in the area, appealing for anyone with information to come forth. The police detained at least eighty suspects and were watching the movements of a further 300, all follow-ups to information received. With permission of the landowners, house to house searches were made. More than 2,000 lodgers were examined during the first half of October. Sailors were checked by the Thames Police. All Asiatics were checked after an Indian correspondent to the The Times wrote that mutilation to Eddowes' face seemed 'peculiarly Eastern'. Visiting Americans were checked, including three cowboys from Cody's Wild West Show. A total of 76 butchers and slaughtermen were questioned, as well as Greek gypsies.

  Abberline managed to get in one more session at the Athletic Club before the weekend, but was too tired to do anything at all on Saturday or Sunday.

  Abberline often went to Whitechapel and patrolled the streets himself until four or five in the morning. After one of these all-night sessions, he went home and slept a few hours, arriving back at his office in the early afternoon.

  He had nearly stopped perusing the newspapers since they were in full cry for the resignation of Sir Charles Warren. After what the papers were calling "The Double Event"—the two murders on the night of September 30th/October 1st--the papers indignantly called Charles Warren incompetent, and demanded his removal.

  The ground in Regent's Park was white with frost at 7:00 in the morning of Monday, October 8th.

  Abberline blew on his cold hands, wishing he were somewhere else, but Charles Warren had ordered him to be present, along with one constable, and three civilian officials from Scotland Yard. They were to witness the trials of two champion bloodhounds named Barnaby and Burcho. Their owner and handler, Mister Edwin Brough of Scarborough stood to one side, holding his dogs on leashes. A short, stocky man, he was dressed in tweeds and a soft cap, and sported a huge handlebar mustache .

  Sir Charles explained what they were about to do.

  "These are probably the best tracking dogs in all of England," the Commissioner declared. "Mister Brough has kindly agreed to let us test them to see if they might be useful in our search for The Ripper. First of all, I want Jim Carling to take off and run in any direction you wish. Just stay in the park." Warren pulled out his watch. "I'll give you a fifteen minute head start, then we'll turn the dogs loose and see if they can track you. Here, let them get your scent, Jim, so they'll be able to recognize it."

  Carling, a man in his thirties, dressed in charcoal overcoat and leather gloves, came up and held out his hand for the dogs to sniff. The noses ran up and down his arm and his trouser leg.

  "All right…Go!" Warren said.

  Carling jogged away and was soon lost in the early morning mist that blanketed the lightly wooded park.

  While the fifteen minutes dragged by, Abberline paced about, trying to stay warm and wished he had a good cup of tea.

  "Turn the dogs, loose, Mister Brough," Warren said, snapping his watch closed.

  Brough said something under his breath to the dogs, unsnapped their leashes and the ungainly looking animals trotted away in the direction of Carling who'd left an obvious track in the frosty grass. But the dogs kept their noses to the ground for a good distance before breaking into a run.

  Rather than wait, the assembled men began walking in the direction the dogs had taken, though the animals were quickly lost to sight.

  More than a mile farther on, they came upon Carling standing by a tree with the dogs wagging their tails around him.

  "Excellent! Excellent!" Warren enthused, rubbing his hands as he came up. "They came straight to you."

  "Right you are, sir," Mister Brough said, his face somber. "Bloodhounds are not put off by anything once they get the scent and I give them the order. Hares, birds, squirrels, other dogs, cats—nothing turns them aside."

  "We'll try it one more time, and then have you come back tonight after dark and we'll give it a go to see if darkness makes any difference. And, if there is no frost tomorrow morning, we'll try it again."

  The group dispersed, only to reassemble at ten that evening. The frost was gone and this time Warren, himself, took the part of the quarry. "I'll twist and turn and dodge and do whatever I can to throw them off the scent, just as the Ripper might do if he knew he were being tracked by dogs. Give me a fifteen minute head start."

  For a middle aged man with a sedentary job, Charles Warren seemed very athletic, Abberline thought as he watched his boss run off into the dark, wearing a dark coat and pants.

  The allotted quarter hour passed, and Brough released his dogs who put their noses to the ground, circled around a bit, then took off in a straight line like they were on rails.

  More than a mile later, they found the bloodhounds who'd found Warren in spite of his having jumped across a small stream, walked up a sloping dead tree, backtracked and did whatever he could to throw off the trackers. To no avail. He was delighted with the result.

  Twice more the experiment was conducted, both times successfully. Warren could not have been happier.

  "Barnaby and Burgho are the best, sir," Mister Brough said. "If they can't track it, then it likely isn't there."

  "We'll try it three more times in the early morning before any people are in the park," Warren said. "If they perform as well as they have so far, we'll have you keep them on standby in case there is another murder. Then the department will call on you to bring them quickly, Mister Brough. This killer won't get away again."

  "I live a good ways away, Commissioner," Mister Brough said. "Wouldn't it be better
if you was to take m'two dogs and put them up in a kennel someplace closer by in Whitechapel, so they'll be Johnny-on-the-spot, so to speak?"

  "No, no. You take them home, Mister Brough. Just bring them back in the morning for one more trial. Then I'll be satisfied the police will use their services. I'm nearly convinced right now. In fact," he turned to Abberline, "I'm issuing an order tonight that nothing is to be touched at the scene of any future murders until we get these two dogs there and put them on the trail."

  "Yessir. Do you think the dogs should be tested in Whitechapel first? This park is rather empty of other humans. Whitechapel is crowded with people who could be a distraction, plus the many conflicting smells and odors of humans, manure, dead fish, cooking. Might be a good idea to test them in that environment."

  "Inspector Abberline, the tests here are sufficient. This park is frequented by many people whose scent probably lingers."

  "Don't have a worry, inspector," Mister Brough said. "Once my dogs pick out a scent, it doesn't matter how many smells are mixed up with it. They can track it to the end."

  "Your word is good enough for me," Abberline said. He was ready to go home.

  "We'll try it once more tonight," Warren said, just getting warmed up to his task. "This time we'll have one of our constables who's very fleet of foot."

  Abberline stood back to watch, wondering what the dogs would do if their quarry were to climb up a ladder to a pitched roof, or was picked up in a carriage. Controlled tests were fine as far as they went, but if The Ripper read in the paper that tracking dogs were to be used, he'd counter with some human ingenuity to elude them. Abberline was certain of that.

  CHAPTER 9

  Abberline was slumped at his desk several days later when Clark entered the office.

  "Sir, this was delivered yesterday to George Lusk." He placed a small package, wrapped in brown paper, on the desk.

  "Lusk? The man who heads the Mile End Vigilance Committee?"

  "The same."

  Abberline reached for the package. Lusk had no official status; he'd formed a vigilance committee on his own and set up shop in a pub, advertising a reward for any information or evidence submitted to him about the murders. At first uneasy about this vigilance committee, Abberline was now welcoming any help the police could get.

  He opened the small box and recoiled slightly at its noisome, bloody contents. He looked up at Clark.

  "Lusk took that to Doctor Llewellyn, sir, who had it examined at the City of London Hospital last night. It's the left kidney of a human."

  Abberline felt a slight chill. "What else?"

  "It's been preserved in spirits of wine."

  "Not preserved well. It's half rotted."

  "The package contained a letter also," Clark said, handing over a wrinkled sheet of paper.

  Abberline took it without looking as he examined the package wrapping for a postmark. Only two stamps and an illegible postmark, apparently smudged in transit.

  He turned his attention to the letter. The script looked familiar, but he'd have to get their handwriting expert, Frank Evans, to compare this letter with the last one warning them of the last two murders. The letter read:

  "From Hell

  Mr. Lusk

  I sent you half the Kidne I took from one women prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nice I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

  Signed Catch me when

  You can

  Mishter Lusk"

  "Doctor Llewellyn said the adult this kidney belonged to was in advanced stages of Bright's Disease," Clark said.

  Abberline pulled out his scribbled notes he'd jotted down in the autopsy room. "Hmmm…Wonder how long the renal artery is?" he muttered.

  "I'm sure I don't know, sir."

  Abberline took a six-inch rule from his desk drawer. "This kidney has one inch still attached." He flipped over a page. "Catherine Eddowes still had two inches of the renal artery. If the entire artery is about three inches long, and her remaining right kidney shows evidence of Bright's disease, we can probably assume this is her kidney."

  "The doctor at the hospital said it had been preserved in wine, sir. Aren't organs destined for dissection preserved in formaldehyde?"

  "I believe you're right. If this was removed at the scene by the killer, he would have attempted to preserve it fairly soon by using whatever he could get—probably wine.

  "Except for the fact that this note was inside the package, I'd dismiss it as another crank letter," Abberline said. "Strange spelling of some of these words," he added. "Most people tend to write as they speak. This man writes as if he has an Irish dialect."

  "We can get Frank Evans in on this."

  "Yes. Our resident handwriting expert can enlighten us as to whether this is an educated man trying to throw us off by trying to write like an ignorant person, or if he's really semi-literate, as this letter seems to indicate."

  Frank Evans bent over his desk, magnifying glass in hand, the top of his bald head shining like polished mahogany in the yellow light from his desk lamp.

  Finally, he laid the glass aside, propped his spectacles up onto his forehead and looked at Abberline and Clark. "The 'Dear Boss' letter signed 'Jack the Ripper' and the 'From Hell' letter with the kidney, were written by the same man. No doubt about it. See that little loop on the bottom of the capital 'R'? And notice the distinctive way he starts the 'J' in Jack with the tiny curl at the top." He turned the letters around so the two men could see. "More importantly, observe the way the writer makes heavy strokes at the beginning of his words and thins to a point at the ends in a downward, slashing motion. These are known as stabbing, or slashing strokes. This style indicates the writer has a nasty temper, and may like sharp knives."

  "How appropriate," Clark murmured.

  "What about this postcard that predicted the 'double event'?"

  "Definitely not the same person, even though all of the writers are right handed."

  "I brought along a random sampling of other letters the police have received. There are hundreds more. These have been dismissed as crank letters. See what you think." Abberline handed them over.

  Evans spread them out on his desk, dropped his gold-rimmed spectacles onto the bridge of his nose and quickly scanned the missives. "One or two here are indicative of real personality or mental problems, but not nearly the same as those first two letters," he said. "For example, see this backward loop on the tail of the 'y' and the 'g'? That's what we call the 'felon's claw'. This was written by a person who has deep feelings of guilt. As an adult, this writer would set himself up for punishment by creating situations that result in familiar feelings of shame. Deep down, this person would believe he is worthless."

  "It's amazing what you can glean from a few marks on a page," Abberline said.

  "People have no idea how much of themselves they reveal when they put pen to paper," Evans replied.

  "Are these just theories, or have they been proven?" Clark asked.

  "Hundreds—no, thousands—of test cases have been studied through the years," Evans said, shoving his glasses up out of the way again. "It pretty much checks out. That's why a thorough study of handwriting can be a lifelong passion or profession." He pointed a pencil at the first two letters. "It's considerably more difficult to determine if a writer is trying to disguise his handwriting--for example, a natural right-hander writing with his left, or the other way 'round. Or, by slanting the letters at an odd angle. In my opinion, that was not done with the first two letters, and with the postcard here. The writers of those were writing their normal way. They are not well educated."

  "Thanks, Frank, that's exactly what we needed to find out. Your expertise is invaluable."

  "You're welcome."

  Abberline started up the stairs to his office. "That helps confirm those letters are from the Ripper himself," he said to Clark.

  "What about the postcard?"

  "That doesn't fit the
pattern. Could be we're dealing with more than one killer. Or, the original Ripper might have an accomplice."

  "Then, again," Clark said, "who knows but what the Ripper might be completely illiterate and just dictated those letters to one of his semi-literate, nasty partners in crime."

  "You're right. None of this really leads us any closer to the identity or capture of this maniac."

  "If he's a maniac, he's a cunning maniac."

  "As we both know from experience, they often are—clever, cunning, wily—while they're violent, anti-social misfits who become obsessed with something outside normal behavior."

  "The human brain is probably going to be the next great study in medicine."

  "Stop by my office, and bring those files on four of our primary suspects. We need to talk."

  Ten minutes later the two inspectors were seated at each side of Abberline's desk with the office door closed.

  "Look at these two photographs. This is Montague J. Druitt, and this is the Prince Eddy, Duke of Clarence," Abberline said, sliding two pictures, side by side.

  "My God, they could be twins!"

  "Exactly. Both have lean, handsome faces, each has short, dark hair, parted the same way, and each has a small mustache. The noses are nearly identical. They are near the same size and age as well. To make matters even worse, a face very much like both of these, has been identified by eyewitnesses as The Ripper."