They All Love Jack

by Bruce Robinson

  What followed that afternoon would barely have made it into a two-reel Keystone Kops. What the record presents us with is an absurdity. ‘On the 4th inst,’ wrote White, ‘I was directed by Inspector Moore to make further enquiries and if necessary to see Packer and take him to the mortuary.’ ‘If necessary’? That was the substance of the order? And what further enquiries? Moore wasn’t aware there had been any enquiries into Packer at all. But then, this was only the most important murder investigation in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police.

  White says he went to Berner Street, where Mrs Packer informed him that two detectives had taken her husband to the mortuary. On his way there himself, White ran into Packer and an unidentified man. Where had Packer been? ‘This Detective asked me to go and see if I could identify the woman.’ And did he? ‘Yes, I believe she bought some grapes at my shop about 12 o’clock on Saturday.’

  How could any honest copper swallow this, when only four days before he said he’d heard the opposite? Why didn’t White tear into the old bastard, threaten him with defamation of the police? That he didn’t answers the question. Sergeant White could say nothing about the grocer’s devastating revelations in the Evening News, because there was no previous statement.

  He now goes about writing one:

  Shortly after, they were joined by another man. I asked the man what they were doing with Packer and they both said they were detectives. I asked for their authority. One of the men produced a card from his pocket book, but would not allow me to touch it. They then said they were Private Detectives. They then induced Packer to go away with them. From enquiry I have made there is no doubt that these are the two men referred to in an attached newspaper cutting, who examined the drain at Dutfield’s yard on the 2nd inst.

  The implausible so infects this report that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Sergeant White is an officer of the Metropolitan Police, with the Queen’s initials on his helmet. In circumstances that are already extraordinary, he has been instructed by his superior to go down to Whitechapel and escort Matthew Packer to the morgue. In this he has singularly failed.

  Imagine, if you will, that you are such a police officer, engaged in perhaps the most incendiary enquiries of your lifetime, and that you are now re-engaging a man who previously told you he saw nothing, but who now says he saw everything, and moreover fills a page of a newspaper with it. Would you not caution him? Would you say nothing at all? Would you meekly defer all authority invested in you as a police officer to a pair of characters you had never seen before, and who refused even to properly identify themselves? Would you allow these two anonymous coves to usurp your witness, neglecting your orders in favour of a pair of strangers, staring gormlessly while they walk off with him?

  It is untenable, and by the end of the next sentence it becomes utterly incredible. These two men were not kosher private detectives: one of them was in fact a habitual criminal, currently being sought by the Metropolitan Police. But we’re in such a wonderland it hardly matters. Swanson was to claim that these ‘detectives’ were working for Mr Lusk’s Vigilance Committee in association with the press. This was to prove demonstrably untrue.

  Not many weeks before his encounter with Messrs Batchelor and Grand, Sergeant White had actually arrested a man for ‘representing himself as a detective’. White didn’t trust the man’s demeanour, and ran him in. This phoney detective, by the name of Louis Hahn, was found to have a book in his possession, ‘containing addresses, Sir Charles Warren’s among them’.5 We can be sure Mr Grand had Warren’s and Anderson’s addresses too.

  Mr Charles Le Grande, alias Charles Grandy, Colnette Grandy, Charles Grant, Charles Granby, Christian Nelson, Briscony and Neilson, of Danish birth, was a thirty-five-year-old professional criminal, presently on the run from the police.

  Le Grande’s enormous catalogue of offences is too time-consuming to get into here. But it kicked off in 1877 with eight years’ penal servitude, and would evolve by 1891 to twenty years in prison for various outrages including attempted murder of a policeman. This was one bad actor.

  On the morning of 4 October, having relinquished his witness to Mr Le Grande, Sergeant White returned to Scotland Yard to put in his noon report. Later that afternoon he was back in Packer’s shop, his purpose unknown – perhaps he had gone down there to discuss the price of seasonal fruits? Clearly no official instruction had been given ‘to bring the grocer in’, because at about 4 p.m. Batchelor and Le Grande turned up in a cab. White stood next to the cabbages while the wanted criminal and his sidekick ‘induced Packer to enter the cab, stating they would take him to Scotland Yard to see Warren’.

  This they certainly did. But as they gallop off, we might want to consider one or two questions. Why was no legitimate police officer sent to collect Packer? Why delegate the task to an arsonist, thief, bomb-maker and foreign scoundrel? We know Le Grande had no difficulty getting into Scotland Yard, but it is surely a wonder that he ever got out of it. From where did these two idiots obtain their authority? Lusk’s outfit couldn’t have given it, and neither could the press. The only authority that could empower such a villain as Le Grande was a policeman senior to Sergeant White himself. We’re looking at an authority who could leapfrog the System, which in this case wasn’t difficult, because it was the System. Here was a lowly fruit-seller, complaining that he never so much as had a copper knock at his door, now whisked away by a criminal to Scotland Yard to see the most senior policeman in England.

  A decidedly sinister circumstance was in progress, but as yet it had hardly begun. As the much-maligned Stephen Knight remarked, ‘Something peculiar was going on.’ What authority did Batchelor and Le Grande have for carrying out an investigation of Packer independently of the CID? How did they hope to get into the presence of Warren? In other words, by what official chicanery was this jailbird Le Grande involved?

  The London Post Office Directory has no listing for any ‘Le Grande’ in 1887 or 1888. It is not until 1889 that we find an entry, under ‘Enquiry Offices’, for ‘Grande Charles & Co., 238 Strand, London W.C.’. By the time this directory was published, Le Grande was back in prison, clocking up two years’ hard for blackmail. Whoever had hired him was working ex-directory.

  Who could be craven and corrupt enough to get into business with this reprobate? ‘Shifty Nib’ Swanson claimed that Batchelor and Le Grande were ‘acting conjointly with the Vigilance Committee and the Press, who upon searching a drain in the yard found a grape-stem which was amongst other matter swept from the yard after its examination by police & then called upon Mr Packer whom they took to the mortuary where he identified the body of Elizabeth Stride as that of the woman’.

  Swanson couldn’t look at a bottle of ink without fishing it for lies. Firstly, the Vigilance Committee. George Lusk was justifiably perceived as amongst the most zealous enemies of the criminal in their midst. No man could have done more to try to have him stopped. He called assemblies, instigated patrols, and was the author of innumerable letters to the powers in charge. In desperation, on behalf of the people of Whitechapel, Lusk had even petitioned Her Majesty the Queen. The ensuing cold shoulder, like that received from Home Secretary Matthews, may have been suitably regal, but was still a matter of Her Majesty’s regret.6

  Nobody was listening to Lusk. As a habitual fact, he sought maximum publicity for his cause, and by that alone he is exonerated from any involvement with Batchelor and Le Grande. Lusk put his money where his mouth was. If he was paying these goons, why the silence here? Nothing would have pleased him more than to have got a foot into Warren’s door, but regrettably his supposed employees had neglected to include him.

  George Lusk was one of London’s best. Despite the constant brush-offs, he remained indefatigable. He may have been an average man, but he was of above-average integrity. It’s true the Vigilance Committee hired private detectives, but no way was a man like Lusk going to rent a man like Le Grande. ‘Only those who are physically and morally equal to the task�
� was the criterion of the Committee. Le Grande was a moral degenerate who would spend more of his life in custody than out of it. Nobody knocking at the door of Scotland Yard would be stupid enough to arrive with a liability like him. Warren would have used Le Grande’s record to discredit both Packer and Lusk.

  But the vigilant Mr Lusk was nowhere to be seen, and was never told about his imaginary link with the two ‘private detectives’. Apart from the ink-stained fingers of Swanson, whose fictions would remain secret for another hundred years, there isn’t a scintilla of evidence to connect the Vigilance Committee with Batchelor and Le Grande, any more than there is with any newspaper.

  In fact, rather the opposite. On 3 October the Morning Advertiser had reported a special meeting of the Committee held the previous evening. ‘An intimation at this stage reached the meeting that some private detectives wished to be engaged in the case on behalf of the Vigilance Committee, but Mr Reeves and Mr Aarons announced they already had three detectives at work and the services of these gentlemen were therefore declined.’

  The identity of these gentlemen isn’t hard to divine. On 5 October the Daily Telegraph published a lengthy report on the Committee and an update on its progress. There wasn’t a great deal to celebrate. ‘Suspicions, surmises’ was just about the substance of it, with no mention of any excursions to Scotland Yard.

  The explosive intercession of Matthew Packer came between 2 and 5 October. At no time on, before or after 4 October did the Vigilance Committee acknowledge any association whatsoever with Packer, Batchelor, Le Grande, grapes, a grape-stem, or the drains at Dutfield’s Yard. Nor did it claim any association with any newspaper, just as no newspaper claimed any association with it. Had such a union existed, the Evening News, of all journals, could hardly have been unaware of it – it would be bragging about it – because via their ‘conjoined efforts’, according to Swanson, it was supposed to be the News and the Vigilance Committee that had hired Batchelor and Le Grande.

  It’s all the usual Swanson rubbish. No way did anyone associated with the press get anywhere near Warren. Examples of his virulent antipathy towards the newspapers are legion. A Home Office memo demonstrates the point: ‘Sir Charles came to see me both yesterday & today about the Whitechapel murders.’ The Boss apparently had things under control, ‘but he remarked to me very strongly, upon the great hindrance which is caused to the efforts of the police, by the activity of agents of the Press Association & newspapers. These “touts” follow the detectives wherever they go in search of clues, and then having interviewed persons with whom the police have had conversation and from whom enquiries have been made, compile the paragraphs which fill the papers.’7

  Which brings us back to Batchelor and Le Grande. Swanson tells us they were working with the Vigilance Committee and the press, precisely the breed Scotland Yard had locked out. Blackmail and bomb-making aside, were these two not classic examples of ‘touts’? And yet these ‘pressmen’, as Swanson called them, were able to breeze through the sacred portals of Scotland Yard? I don’t think so.

  So who were these two ‘private detectives’ actually working for? According to Sergeant White, they were the men ‘who examined the drain at Dutfield’s yard’, and according to Swanson they ‘found a grape-stem’. Who could have had authorised access to this ‘zealously guarded’8 crime scene, and what was their interest in grapes well before Packer had made himself known to the Evening News? Of one thing we can be certain: these two slippery bastards were not working for any newspaper, but for someone of more circumspect authority.

  At the hub of the rot was Robert Anderson. Later down the line we’ll arrive at this sordid ‘Christian’s’ sub-life. His predecessor and associate in the burgeoning secret police, Sir Edward Jenkinson, said of Anderson’s appointment in 1888: ‘If it were known what sort of man he is, there would be a howl all over London.’ Anderson was corrupt and a creature of the gutter, spending most of his career floundering in its trash. Touts, narks, spies and hoodlums like Le Grande were right up his street. But exposure of the Pulpiteer and his crooked menagerie must wait.

  Warren’s anti-press bleat was written ten days before the ‘Double Event’. From the beginning there was police reticence to share information, but after Annie Chapman, resistance to Fleet Street became endemic. A rolling catalogue of press grievances makes the point. ‘On pain of dismissal’, officers were instructed not to talk to representatives of the press. The order in action was ubiquitous. 1 October, the Daily Chronicle, re Dutfield’s Yard (where Batchelor and Le Grande poked about at their leisure): ‘Police have taken great precautions up to the present to exclude all representatives of the press.’ 3 October, the Echo: ‘Of course no information as to what has transpired is offered by any of the officers, who – as evidenced by their attitude towards the press – very zealously obey the stringent orders they have to “give nothing to reporters”.’

  Except for Batchelor and Le Grande?

  I leave it to Robert Anderson to vanquish the silly lies of Swanson in respect of Batchelor and Le Grande being pressmen: ‘The activity of the police has been to a considerable extent wasted through the exigencies of sensational journalism, and the action of unprincipled persons, who, from various motives have endeavoured to mislead us.’9

  Meanwhile, a pair of unprincipled persons, together with a person in the vegetable trade, were tramping up the stairs of Scotland Yard. Sir Howard Vincent would not have been impressed.

  But this wasn’t about policing – it was about something of an entirely different complexion. It was about the System protecting itself from an enemy within by protecting the enemy. Packer had seen Jack the Ripper, and it brought the System to the brink of panic. The man they didn’t dare put in front of a jury was instead ushered into the presence of the world’s most compromised policeman. Here was a humble grocer holding his hat, facing the power of the Victorian state with a medal on its tit. Downstairs (if not actually in the room), a dangerous criminal was perhaps looking at himself on a wanted poster, and this is beginning to feel like something out of Kafka.

  It isn’t clear who was in the room. The ‘pressmen’ said they were taking Packer to see Warren, so he was either there or he wasn’t, according to your point of view. His second-in-command was most certainly present, a lawyer and Assistant Commissioner by the name of Alexander Carmichael Bruce.

  There is no indication that Packer had made any previous statement, or that the police were aware of one. White’s ‘special book’10 was as elusive as he was. But at last the Met had an opportunity of getting a signed document confirming what this witness had or hadn’t seen. An honest cop would have countenanced nothing less. But this old grocer was in the presence of the bewitched. Under the embossed seal of Metropolitan Police stationery, Carmichael Bruce scribbled some barely legible notes. No time. No place. Just a name.

  Matthew Packer

  Keeps a small shop in Berner St. has a few grapes in window, black & white. On Sat night about 11 p.m. a young man from 25–30 – about 5.7. with long black coat buttoned up – soft felt hat, kind of Yankee hat rather broad shoulders – rather quick in speaking, rough voice. I sold him ½ pound black grapes 3d. A woman came up with him from Back Church end (the lower end of street) She was dressed in black frock & jacket, fur round bottom of jacket a black crepe bonnet, she was playing with a flower like a geranium white outside and red inside. I identify the woman at the St George’s Mortuary as the one I saw that night – They passed by as though they were going to Com-Road, but – instead of going up they crossed to the other side of the road to the Board School, & were there for about ½ hour till I shd. say 11.30. talking to one another. I then shut up my shutters. Before they passed over opposite to my shop, they waited near to the club for a few minutes apparently listening to the music. I saw no more of them after I shut up my shutters. I put the man down as a young clerk, He had a frock coat on – no gloves. He was about 1½ inch or 2 or 3 inches – a little higher than she was.

  A
CB 4.10.88.

  This confection debases the paper it was written on. It’s doubtful Packer ever saw it. He certainly didn’t sign it. Without his signature it was worthless, as everyone in that room well knew. But this rubbish was soon on its way to Swanson, where that shifty little ink-monger would make much of it. I will get into the ‘statements’ attributed to Packer when they become the focus of Swanson’s fictions. However, a couple of points demand attention now.

  Bruce’s sheet of paper concedes that Packer saw a man with Elizabeth Stride, and sold him grapes. It is the timing of the event that the Met is so anxious to change. Had it really been 11.30 when he shut up shop, nobody would have given a toss about Packer. 11.30 was ninety minutes before the murder, and grapes or no grapes, Stride could easily have met another man before her death. 11.30 dismisses Packer as irrelevant. 12.30 is a whole different ball-game.

  If he sold grapes to the man around midnight, Packer’s suspect becomes dynamic. It in fact meshes with the evidence given by Police Constable Smith. Both say they saw Stride with a man at about 12.30 a.m. It is therefore simply incredible to put up Smith at Baxter’s court while simultaneously gagging Packer.

  If Packer was lying, like Mrs Mary Malcolm, let his lies be put before a jury. What aberrant species of policeman could have a problem with that? Look no further than Bro Sir Charles Warren. It’s the grapes clutched in Stride’s right hand that he cannot concede. The grapes, confirmed by a galaxy of similarly suppressed witnesses, could have caught the Whitechapel Fiend.