The man, who did not give his name, said he was interested in the work of Lusk’s Vigilance Committee, but all the time Lusk was talking to him, Lusk said he noticed the man’s eyes never stayed still for a moment, darting to and fro, as if his mind was elsewhere. The man then suddenly drew a pencil from his top pocket, as if he was about to take notes. He then dropped it onto the floor, which Lusk later said he thought was done on purpose, and quickly asked Lusk to pick the pencil up for him. Lusk thought this strange, as the man wasn’t particularly old or impaired in any way that he could see, so why had he asked him, instead of picking it up himself? Lusk, nevertheless, bent down to pick the pencil up, and as he did so he noticed the man make a sudden movement with his right hand towards his side coat pocket. Lusk became scared as he saw the man start to draw out an object from his pocket; it could have been a knife or a gun. Lusk didn’t wait to find out, and quickly got to his feet. The man by this time could see that whatever it was he had been intending to do, he had now been detected, and other people were also looking in his direction. The man swiftly took his now empty hand out of his pocket and gave Lusk a strange smile; he then got to his feet and mumbled something, which Lusk later said he thought sounded like, ‘Another time maybe’. The man then nonchalantly asked Lusk where the nearest coffee and dining rooms were. Lusk gave him directions to dining rooms in the Mile End Road and the man left. Lusk was so suspicious of the man by this time that he enlisted the help of one of his committee members, and together they followed the man. They unfortunately lost sight of him, but nevertheless went directly to the dining rooms that Lusk had described to the man, only to find that he was not there and never had been.
A few days after this incident, Lusk was seemingly targeted again. This time it involved yet another sinister-looking character who was seen acting suspiciously outside his house. Fearing for not just his own safety, but that of his family as well, Lusk reported the character to the police and a full description of him was circulated.
On 12 October Lusk received a letter in handwriting that some experts thought could be the same as the ‘Dear Boss’ letter.
The transcript of this letter is as follows:
I write you a letter in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland Yard with your bloodhounds, as I will show you to-morrow night (Saturday). I am going to do a double event, but not in Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there. Had to shift. No more till you hear me again.
JACK THE RIPPER.
The Vigilance Committee had posters offering a reward for information about the murders almost everywhere in East London, and the little shop selling leatherwear in Jubilee Street, just a short distance from the London Hospital, was no exception. The young lady, Miss Marsh, who worked in the shop for her father, smiled and asked if she could help the man that came in that day, on 15 October, for she didn’t feel that she had anything to be afraid of, as he was wearing a clerical collar of the type the clergy might wear.
The man said he was interested in the Vigilance Committee’s reward poster in the shop window and asked if she knew the address of Mr George Lusk. Miss Marsh didn’t know this, but suggested he should enquire at the nearby Crown public house. The man was polite and even apologetic as he insisted he didn’t want to go into a pub. Miss Marsh understood, and obligingly got out a newspaper that gave Lusk’s address, although not the actual house number, but the man nevertheless made a note of what was there. Miss Marsh later described the man as being in his mid-forties, with an Irish accent, 6ft tall, of slim build, with a dark beard and moustache.
No one answering the man’s description ever called upon Lusk, but on the following evening, Tuesday 16 October, a small package, wrapped in brown paper and bearing an indistinct London postmark, was delivered to Lusk’s house. The package was addressed to Lusk by name, along with his address. There was one thing missing: the house number. This package turned out to be the now famous ‘From Hell’ letter, and the box contained the kidney. Could the man in the clerical collar, who called into the leatherwear shop, have possibly been the same man who sent the package? Could he have been Jack the Ripper himself?
Lusk and his Vigilance Committee seemed at this point to be doing more than the police were; that is if one took notice of the newspapers. Lusk himself had received visits from shady-looking characters, offered rewards and had allegedly received letters and threats through the post, not to mention what could possibly be vital pieces of evidence.
Abberline felt thwarted; his bosses at Scotland Yard were telling him one thing, whilst the general public, egged on by the newspapers and Lusk’s Vigilance Committee, were telling him another. Not only was this affecting his work, it was also affecting his home life. He was having trouble sleeping, when he did manage to get home, and was arguing more with his wife as she was worried that it was affecting his health.
Ever the pragmatist, Emma listened to Abberline and told him he must do what he does best, and that was detective work; to pay no attention to rumours and scaremongers, and to get on with his work, for when it was finished, and the Jack the Ripper crimes, as they were now known, had been solved, then, and only then, could they return to normality in their daily lives once again.
10
The Final Ripper Victim
T he Ripper’s final victim was Mary Jane Kelly, who was approximately 25 years old at the time of her death although there doesn’t seem to be any record of her actual birth date, she would have been born sometime around 1863. She was said to be attractive to men, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. She was 5ft 7in tall, and described as buxom.
She was born in Limerick, Ireland, but moved to Wales with her family as a young child. By the time she was just 16 years old, she married an equally young coal miner named Davies. They were apparently happy, but just two years later Davies was killed in a pit explosion.
Kelly was distraught with grief and moved away to Cardiff, where she moved in with a cousin, who worked as a prostitute. This was probably where Kelly started out on her ill-fated career, although the Cardiff police have no record of her ever being arrested. By 1884, however, she had seemingly heard of the riches she could earn in London, and so moved there, allegedly working in a high-class brothel in the West End. There are, of course, no records to prove exactly what Kelly did, or where she actually stayed during her time in London, and it has been said that she was somewhat prone to exaggeration. Others who knew her later testified that at this time she was staying with nuns at the Providence Row Night Refuge on Crispin Street. One of the provisions for being allowed to stay at the Providence Row Night Refuge was that she would have had to scrub floors and carry out general menial tasks. Whatever the truth, Kelly was eventually placed, probably by the refuge, into domestic service in a shop in Cleveland Street, in the West End.
The other side to the story, which she often told friends, regarding her arrival in London, was that she had befriended a French woman who lived in Knightsbridge, and that it was this woman who encouraged her to pursue the lifestyle which would ultimately lead to her death. Kelly claimed that while she was with the company of this woman she would often be driven about London in a carriage. She also claimed to have made several journeys to Paris with a man she described only as a ‘gentleman’. In other words, if her story is to be believed, Kelly was at that time living the life ‘of a lady’.
For some reason, which she never explained to anyone, she met a woman named Mrs Buki, who in all probability was either a prostitute herself, a madam, or maybe even both. Mrs Buki lived in a house on St George’s Street, just off Ratcliffe Highway in the East End. Kelly moved into the house, which was a very big step downwards after living in Knightsbridge. It is thought that Kelly and Mrs Buki started working together as prostitutes. Just a week or two after moving into the St George’s Street house, Mrs Buki and Kelly went to the French lady’s house in Knightsbridge, where Kelly demanded a large clothing box containing a number of very expens
ive dresses, which Kelly claimed belonged to her. Kelly and Mrs Buki left in something of a hurry, minus the dresses, when the French lady threatened to call the police.
The relationship between Kelly and Mrs Buki isn’t quite clear; did Kelly befriend Mrs Buki purely because she had nowhere else to stay at that time or did Mrs Buki use her, possibly thinking that she had access to money? Probably the latter, as within weeks of visiting the French lady’s house in Knightsbridge, and being threatened with the police, Kelly found herself looking for somewhere else to stay once again.
Like so many women who take up prostitution, Mary Kelly always seemed to be searching for the one true love that she hoped would one day come her way.This is hard to imagine ever happening in the course of her chosen profession and an environment such as the East End of London at that time. From Mrs Buki’s, she drifted to another lodging house in Breezer’s Hill, and from there to a house close to Stepney Gasworks which she shared with a man named Morganstone.
Love, however, was still nothing more than just a remote memory to her, for the only real love she had ever known was that of her young husband. From Morganstone, she moved on to a man named Joseph Fleming, a stonemason from Bethnal Green, but again, this didn’t last, even though Fleming was very fond of her and still visited her from time to time, right up to just before her death.
By 1886 she had started drinking heavily and found that she needed to move to cheaper lodgings. Spitalfields at this time was full of doss houses and cheap lodgings, which were usually not much more than filthy hovels. Cooley’s lodging house in Thrawl Street was one such place, and it was here that Kelly then rented a solitary room.
Now needing money more than ever, in order to feed her drink habit as well as pay the rent, Kelly was walking the streets on Good Friday, 8 April 1887, when she bumped into a man and started chatting to him. The man was Joseph Barnett, an Irish fish porter, who took her for a drink and then arranged to meet her the following day. Kelly could hardly believe her luck: Barnett was such a nice man, kind and considerate, and seemed to want her for who she was, rather than just for sex. Within hours of their second meeting, Barnett had asked her to live with him, and she had agreed.
Within days they had moved into lodgings in George Street, off Commercial Street, and from there to a larger flat in Little Paternoster Row off Dorset Street; but six weeks later, they were evicted for not paying the rent and for being drunk and making too much noise. Drink was their downfall as a couple; friends, who remembered them from this time, said they were a friendly and pleasant couple who gave little trouble, unless they were drunk. In fact, records for Thames Magistrate Court show that on 19 September 1888, a Mary Jane Kelly was fined 2s 6d for being drunk and disorderly.
Since she had moved in with Barnett, Kelly had given up prostitution and they had relied solely on his wages.Unfortunately the money he earned as a fish porter only just about fed and clothed them, and paid the rent, which left hardly anything for their ever-increasing drink habit. Their only option at this time was to move into cheaper accommodation, which they did; firstly in one room in Brick Lane, which was infested with rats, and from there, in March 1888, to Miller’s Court off Dorset Street. Again this was only a single room but at least it was reasonably clean and without rats. This new address was listed as 13 Miller’s Court.
In September 1888, Barnett was fired from his job for consistent lateness and time off, which was, once again, probably due to his drinking habits. Now faced with no money coming into the household at all, Kelly decided to do the only thing she knew, which was to return to the streets again; and if this wasn’t enough, she also decided to rent out a spare bed to other prostitutes. Barnett couldn’t stand this, as he now looked upon Kelly as his wife and absolutely hated the thought of any other man touching her. They had a blazing row, in which he told her that either she gave up the street life altogether or he would leave her. In defiance, Kelly grabbed a quarter-full bottle of gin from the sideboard and swigged it back in one go, before walking out smiling and waving goodbye to Barnett as she went. When she did return, some four hours later, Barnett was gone and Kelly broke down in tears, thinking she would never see him again. This wasn’t true, as Barnett still apparently loved her, and although he couldn’t bear to see her selling herself to other men, he continued to visit her and give her money whenever he could.
Throughout October, and into early November, at least two other prostitutes shared Kelly’s room with her, one being a woman known only as Julia and the other a woman named Maria Harvey.
At the later inquest into Kelly’s death, her ex-partner Joseph Barnett testified that it was because Kelly had allowed these other prostitutes to stay in their room that they had broken up. He stood up for her right to the end, saying that she would never have gone wrong again if it hadn’t been for the prostitutes staying at the house. She only let them stay there, he said, because she was so good hearted and did not like to refuse them shelter on cold bitter nights. He added that they had lived comfortably until Kelly had allowed a prostitute named Julia and then Maria Harvey to sleep in the same room.
The last known dates that Kelly was seen were on Monday 5 November, when Maria Harvey left her room and found lodgings elsewhere, and then again on Wednesday 7 November, when Kelly went to McCarthy’s, a local shop, to buy a candle for her room. Later that same evening she was seen in Miller’s Court by Thomas Bowyer, a pensioned soldier who also happened to work in McCarthy’s shop.
Bowyer later stated at the inquest that on Wednesday night he saw a man speaking to Kelly in Miller’s Court. Bowyer’s description of the man, matched almost exactly, to a witness’ description of the man who was seen talking to Elizabeth Stride on the night of her death. He described the man’s appearance as very smart, and drew special attention to his very white cuffs and large white shirt collar, which came down over the front of his long black coat. The man was not carrying a bag or a package of any description.
A number of witnesses saw Kelly on Friday 9 November, including her ex-partner, Joseph Barnett, who called in to see her at about 7.45 p.m., but he couldn’t speak to her at any length as she was talking to another woman. Maria Harvey later said that she was the woman Kelly was speaking to, and that she had left her about ten minutes later. There is some discrepancy about this, however, as firstly, Barnett knew Harvey and would have instantly recognised her, and secondly, another woman, Lizzie Albrook, who lived at 2 Miller’s Court, said it was her who Kelly was talking to when Barnett had arrived. She said that Kelly had said to her, ’What ever you do Lizzie, don’t you go doing wrong and turn out as I did’. Albrook said that Kelly was a very caring person and had often spoken to her in this way. She went on to say that Kelly had warned her against going onto the streets, as she had done. She had apparently said that she was heartily sick of the life she was leading and wished she had enough money to go back to Ireland where her family lived.
November that year was a very cold and damp month, and housing conditions in London’s East End were far from adequate, especially amongst the poor. One needs to remember that what we today class as our normal everyday rights were practically non-existent during this time. There was no television or radio or central heating; in fact, people were lucky to be able to afford coal or wood to burn on their open fires, if they indeed even had a fireplace. Entertainment was restricted to a visit to the local pub, when one could afford it; other than that there was nothing, which meant that many people tucked themselves up into their beds, sometimes as early as 8 p.m. during the cold weather, in order to escape their humdrum existence, and to try to keep warm.
The streets of Whitechapel that Friday night, 9 November, were particularly quiet, with just the odd straggler here and there. The scene inside the Ten Bells public house, which was on the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street, and just a stone’s throw from Kelly’s lodgings, was a completely different story. Bearing in mind that, being a Friday night, when most workers got paid, the pub was absolut
ely thriving and heaving with customers.
The Ten Bells was a very popular pub, which the women who worked the streets used quite often. Being directly opposite Spitalfields Market, it naturally attracted a great deal of market workers, who not only supplied the ladies with a few free drinks, but also some extra custom to their trade. Kelly was seen in this pub drinking with a well-known prostitute from the area, Elizabeth Foster; the exact time isn’t known, but there didn’t seem to be any men with them. It was just the two women, chatting and having a drink.
By 11 p.m., Kelly had moved on to another nearby pub, the Britannia, where she was seen drinking with a youngish man, with a dark moustache, and described as quite well dressed. The witness said that by this time Kelly appeared to be very drunk.
Another prostitute, 31-year-old Mary Ann Cox, who lived close to Kelly at 5 Miller’s Court, was just returning home at about 11.45 p.m. after a very unsuccessful night. It had now started to rain and all Cox could think about was getting indoors and hopefully warming herself up a little. As she turned into Dorset Street from Commercial Street, she noticed Kelly and a man walking ahead of her. The man was carrying a pail of beer, and Kelly was carrying a package, which looked like it could be fish and chips. Cox described the man as rather stout, with a blotchy face, small sideburns and a ginger coloured moustache.
Mary Ann Cox wasn’t exactly enamoured by the man’s looks, but then who was she to pick and choose on such an awful night, and at least Kelly looked happy with her fish and chips and pail of beer. Cox smiled and called goodnight to Kelly as she passed her. Kelly smiled back and started to sing as she opened her door for the man and herself to go in.
About half an hour later, and probably still thinking about the beer and fish and chips, Cox decided to go out and try her luck on the streets again. As she went, she could still hear Kelly singing from inside her room. She was singing an old-time music-hall song called A Violet from Mother’s Grave. The song had very poignant lyrics, which brought tears to Cox’s eyes as she heard it, and probably also had a special meaning to Kelly as well. The first verse went as follows:
Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper Page 14
