The Esther & Jack Enright Box Set

by David Field

  ‘But you weren’t the one using the knife, were you?’ Esther persisted, playing for time, although perhaps she was merely delaying the inevitable. Either way she didn’t want the sensation of that knife entering her soft flesh.

  ‘Why d’yer think it weren’t me?’ Poll leered back at her. ‘In my line o’ business, yer gets ter know where all the girly bits is positioned an’ it’s nice ter play around wi’ ’em. That’s summat I learned as I went along.’

  ‘But the one who died outside the club in Berner Street?’ Esther enquired, desperate in case the conversation was about to end and the slashings to begin.

  ‘Nowt ter do wi’ me,’ Poll insisted. ‘An’ the same night I were doin’ a little job on Cathy Eddowes, what brought me most o’ me customers fer bubby removals. Only she were that sozzled on the drink that it were only a matter o’ time afore she went ter the police. The night she finished up inside the pokey in Bishopsgate I reckoned she’d finally done it, but I mighta bin wrong there. An’ that’s the lot.’

  ‘Mary Kelly?’ Esther enquired in a desperate attempt at a delaying action.

  ‘I already told yer about ’er. An’ yer’ve run out o’ time, ’cos now it’s your turn.’

  She held the knife firmly in her right hand as she eyed Esther’s throat. Esther tried to scream again, but her throat seized up just as she became aware of an almost forgotten face over Poll’s shoulder and heard the heavy ‘thunk’ of wood on skull. Poll’s eyes glazed over and she fell sideways onto the floor, where Jack hit her twice more across the head before looking up at Esther, still lying flat out on the bed.

  ‘You all right?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes,’ Esther replied, struggling to sit up.

  Jack had a worried frown on his face as he stood up from where he had been examining Poll’s prostrate form. ‘I reckon I may have killed her,’ he confessed. ‘That’s going to take some explaining.’

  Jack walked over to a wardrobe that had its doors half open. Hanging from various pegs were a variety of men’s coats and army uniforms, while a selection of deerstalker hats and sailor’s caps lay on the shelf above them. They found false moustaches and beards in a paper bag and something horribly smelly and squishy wrapped in newspaper. Jack whistled softly and began reading several half-written notes that fell from the shelf.

  ‘I think we found not only the person who was writing to the newspapers, but also the guardsman, the sailor and every man described by the witnesses as accosting the victims shortly before they died. She must have used one of these disguises when paying the rent on this place.’

  Albert Preedy pushed his head round the door and looked down gloomily at Poll’s body on the floor.

  ‘Sergeant Enright won’t be very pleased,’ he advised them. ‘We were supposed to be following ’er, not layin’ ’er out cold.’

  ‘Go down and bring the sergeant up here immediately,’ Jack instructed him.

  ‘You’re not police,’ Preedy objected. ‘And there’s the little matter of me billy club what yer stole.’

  ‘Just do it,’ Jack insisted and Preedy shrugged his shoulders and wandered out. Jack looked at Esther. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he enquired.

  ‘Perfectly,’ she insisted, doing her best to suppress the shivering now that the delayed shock had set in. ‘How did you know which room?’ she enquired as the thought struck her.

  ‘You have a very distinctive scream,’ Jack grinned back at her as he nodded towards the wardrobe. ‘Looks like we’ve saved a few other women who might have been on her list as well.’

  ‘Just because you saved my life, Jack Enright, don’t think that we’re back to where we were,’ Esther insisted. ‘But in the circumstances, you’re entitled to one kiss, so make it a good one.’

  They were still locked together as Percy Enright arrived in the doorway and coughed politely. Jack broke the embrace and stepped back with another of his trademark grins. ‘May I introduce you to Jack the Ripper? Take a look inside that wardrobe.’

  Percy did as instructed and whistled softly as he took in the implications. ‘Her?’ he enquired as he nodded towards Poll’s prostrate form.

  ‘Her indeed,’ Jack confirmed. ‘But if you were thinking of hauling her in for questioning, I feel obliged to advise you that I think I killed her.’

  ‘In that case, Jackson Albert Enright, I arrest you on suspicion of murdering a murderer. Take him into custody please, Constable Preedy.’

  ‘You’re joking, of course,’ Jack began to protest with a look of pure amusement on his face until he realised that he wasn’t and turned to Esther. ‘Tell him, Esther — I did it to save your life.’

  ‘You’ll be required as a witness in due course,’ Percy advised her with a sly wink.

  ‘Of course,’ Esther replied, ‘but right now I have a business to run.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Esther awoke the next morning to a light tap on her open bedroom door and turned to see Isaac’s worried face in the doorway.

  ‘While it is always nice to have visitors,’ he remarked, ‘it is perhaps better if they do not arrive at your door in a police wagon. It is not good for business and I trust that you have not been transgressing the laws of this nation, tochter?’

  ‘Police? Here for me?’ Esther enquired sleepily. ‘Please tell them to wait outside while I dress.’

  ‘First you must have some breakfast,’ Isaac replied. ‘If they are intending to place you in a cell, it would be better to have food inside you.’

  ‘Just a cup of tea please, foter. I’m not hungry anyway and the longer that police wagon’s out there, the worse for the reputation of the business. You don’t want people thinking that you’ve been forging suits.’

  He chuckled and wandered back downstairs. Ten minutes later Esther presented herself at the front door of Rosen’s and smiled at the uniformed constable with the reins of the horse in his hands. ‘I take it that I’m not under arrest?’

  ‘Certainly not, miss. I have instructions to convey you to Leman Street. You must be very important to somebody.’

  ‘That’ll make a nice change,’ she joked as she opened the side door and stepped in. A distant clock somewhere was chiming nine as she announced her arrival at the front desk in Leman Street and was escorted up to the second level, down the inevitable long corridor and into a room that was already somewhat overcrowded. The man with the black handlebar moustache invited her to take a seat and seemed to be in charge.

  ‘I’m Inspector Frederick Abberline of Scotland Yard and I believe that you already know my Sergeant, Percy Enright, and Inspector Edmund Reid of the local Division.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Esther confirmed, just as a constable appeared in the open doorway loaded down with tea and muffins. As he placed them down deferentially on the table between them, Esther was reminded of a young parlour maid in Barking called Alice and wondered why Jack wasn’t in the assembled company.

  ‘First of all, my congratulations on your part in putting an end to the worst set of murders that the East End of London’s ever suffered,’ Abberline smiled as he reached across to the tea things. ‘How do you take your tea and would you like a muffin?’

  ‘Milk and one, please, and no,’ Esther replied with a smile. ‘As for catching the Ripper, I’d be dead now if it weren’t for Constable Enright. He was the one who caught her, strictly speaking.’

  ‘Unfortunately he was only a civilian when he did that,’ Reid advised her, ‘and so we need to take certain steps to cover ourselves in that direction.’

  Esther raised both eyebrows at Percy Enright, who simply smiled back at her reassuringly, but remained silent.

  Abberline coughed loudly and Reid muttered his apology for interrupting. Then Abberline continued where he’d left off. ‘Regardless of how Mary Connolly, to give her correct name, came to be apprehended, it most certainly does seem as if she was responsible for the recent spate of horrible mutilations that came to be associated with the name “Ja
ck the Ripper”. In the wardrobe in her room we found disguises to fit the descriptions we had of all the “men” seen with the victims shortly before their deaths and her long career as a street prostitute clearly gave her knowledge of all the back alleyways to be found in Whitechapel and Spitalfields. We can safely conclude that she also knew how to approach women of the same calling and each of the victims was in possession of information that could have led to her exposure, either as a murderer or as an abortionist.’

  ‘What about the so-called medical knowledge?’ Esther enquired meekly, before apologising with her eyes for having interrupted what had begun to sound like a public address by Abberline. Fortunately he seemed to be in the mood for explanations.

  ‘She was once a midwife and then she turned her hand to abortion. There are various ways of procuring abortions, which we need not go into in detail, but there can be little doubt that she learned much about the internal layout of the female body during her previous activities, lawful or otherwise. We can only surmise that she coupled this with a strange fetish for anatomy. Enough to account for the injuries on the corpses of her victims, anyway.

  ‘I am led to believe that she drugged you before taking you into the room where you were found?’ Abberline enquired of Esther, who nodded.

  ‘I think she put something in my drink,’ she explained.

  ‘Probably a strong sedative of the type she employed on her abortion clients,’ Abberline explained, ‘but if you experience any untoward symptoms in the next few days, let Inspector Reid know and we’ll arrange for the police surgeon to look you over.’

  ‘So Pearly Poll did them all?’ Esther enquired.

  ‘Except, we think, the murder of Elizabeth Stride,’ Reid explained. ‘We’re still investigating her last co-habitee, Michael Kidney, over her death. But the others almost certainly.’

  ‘So the newspapers can be told that the streets are safe once again?’ Esther enquired proudly. It fell deathly quiet and everyone turned to look at Abberline.

  ‘That’s partly why we asked you to meet with us this morning,’ Abberline explained. ‘For various political reasons that I’m not at liberty to disclose, we cannot, at this time, disclose what we know, although we can be certain that there will be no more murders — of that type anyway.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ Esther replied. ‘Surely it’s a matter of considerable pride to the police to have caught the maniac and the public need to be reassured?’

  ‘It wasn’t the police who “caught the maniac”, as you put it, Miss Jacobs,’ Abberline explained. ‘It was a couple of civilians — yourself and former police constable Enright — and the culprit turned out to be a woman, despite all our previous assertions that it was a man with medical knowledge. And Mary Connolly wasn’t “caught” — she was killed, by an unauthorised civilian, while two Scotland Yard undercover officers and a constable from H Division, looked on from outside the building.’

  ‘But the public?’ Esther continued to insist, at which point Abberline’s face hardened.

  ‘The public must not be informed, Miss Jacobs. That’s why we had you brought here this morning, to secure your undertaking that you will say not a word to anyone about what happened.’

  ‘But how will you explain Pearly Poll’s death?’ she demanded, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing.

  ‘All that will be disclosed to the newspapers is that a woman was discovered by police officers running an illegal abortion operation from her residence in George Yard Buildings and that she unfortunately died when the lover of her “client” at the time attempted to intervene and was obliged to knock her senseless when she threatened him with a knife. Simple self-defence, no further questions asked, and no charges laid.’

  ‘So Jack will be released?’ she enquired.

  ‘If by “Jack” you mean Mr Jackson Enright, then yes, he will — provided that you go along with the version of events that I just outlined.’

  ‘But that will involve me admitting to requiring an abortion, which will bring my chastity into disrepute.’

  ‘Your desire to preserve your reputation is admirable, Miss Jacobs,’ Abberline assured her, ‘but it will only be necessary should the police be called upon to explain the circumstances of Miss Connolly’s death. That in turn will only be required if anyone — yourself included — suggests any other explanation for that death.’

  ‘Isn’t that called blackmail?’ she demanded, red in the face.

  It went quiet again, until Percy Enright muttered, ‘No, it’s called “police politics”, but it will result in Jack’s release.’

  ‘Where is he at present?’ Esther enquired.

  ‘In a cell four floors down,’ Reid advised her. ‘We couldn’t risk releasing him until we had your undertaking of silence.’

  ‘So you’re buying my silence with his release?’

  ‘Basically, yes.’

  ‘And no-one will be any the wiser that you’ve caught “Jack the Ripper”?’

  ‘No, but at least we know that the killings are at an end,’ Abberline reminded her. ‘Our primary duty is to protect the public, not tell them how clever we are.’

  Esther thought long and hard and the silence was becoming unbearable, before she raised her eyes to look at Percy Enright. ‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Percy replied, ‘but the family will be forever in your debt.’

  A tear was forming in her eyes as she looked across the desk at Abberline. ‘You have my undertaking to remain completely silent about what happened yesterday evening, but you should know that Jack Enright displayed great courage in saving my life, for which I shall always be indebted to him. But that doesn’t mean that I want to see him again,’ she added with a sidelong look at Percy Enright.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘There are more flowers in your accounts department,’ Isaac advised her one afternoon several months after the death of Pearly Poll. ‘I have put them with the others and you will no doubt regard them as being of no account, as you did with all the others. But the man who is sending them — and the note is from the same person as before, who calls himself Jack — that man must hold you in very high esteem. Are you going to break my heart soon and tell your old foter that you will be marrying and moving to a new place?’

  ‘You need have no fear of that, foter Isaac.’ She smiled back at him from the sink where she was washing the lunch dishes. ‘Jack and I were once very close, but he thought of me only as a poor girl seeking a way out of Spitalfields and I could not allow our relationship to continue in those circumstances.’

  ‘And you loved this young man?’

  ‘I still do, in my memory and my heart. But it has been some months now since I saw him and who knows how I would feel if we were to meet again?’

  ‘And yet every young girl needs to find a young man who will make her his kale — his partner for life. Soon I will be gone and what will you do for companionship?’

  ‘You have many years left, foter, so don’t speak like that,’ Esther frowned. ‘But when you are gone, I will also need to find another living and then what?’

  ‘Perhaps I will leave you this business as your nadn, tochter.’

  ‘Forgive me, I am not as Jewish as I should be,’ Esther chuckled. ‘What is “nadn”?’

  ‘The goyim, they call it a dowry and I have no-one else to leave all this to. Without you, I would have had nothing anyway.’

  ‘Don’t talk in that way,’ she insisted with a slight shudder, ‘because without you I will have no one.’

  ‘Except this young suitor with the flower business,’ Isaac joked as he went back to his sewing machine.

  The New Year came and went, but the flowers never ceased arriving, every week and sometimes twice a week. They always had romantic notes attached to them and Esther couldn’t help wondering how Jack could afford them all and indeed what he was doing for a living these days. In saving her life he had ruined any chance of
resuming his police career and Esther could not recall him ever expressing a wish to follow any other trade or profession. Then one day that question was answered for her.

  She was head down over the weekly balance late one Friday afternoon when Isaac answered the hammering on the front door with his usual: ‘It is the Schabes tomorrow and this evening we close early for prayers at the synagogue. I can see you on Monday.’

  ‘By then these flowers will have wilted,’ a familiar voice insisted and Esther rose to her feet with a smile and walked through the curtain.

  ‘Percy!’ she exclaimed as she walked swiftly towards him, embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Have they finally thrown you out of Scotland Yard and have you opened a florist’s business? And is Jack your best customer?’

  ‘That’s three questions all in one,’ he reminded her, ‘and I’ll need to moisten my throat before I can answer them all.’

  ‘Come through the back and I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

  ‘This brings back memories of the kitchen in George Street,’ she commented as she laid the milk and sugar in front of his mug of freshly brewed tea.

  ‘Happy memories?’ Percy enquired with a challenging smile.

  ‘Of course, but ... well, you know.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do know,’ Percy replied, ‘but these will be the last flowers you’ll ever be receiving from Jack, so I took it upon myself to deliver them in person.’

  ‘Has he got someone else?’ Esther enquired as her heart sank to stomach level.

  ‘How would you feel if he has?’

  ‘I … I don’t … oh, please tell me he hasn’t!’

  ‘He hasn’t, but hold onto that feeling of utter panic and despair that you just experienced if the two of you ever meet up again.’

  ‘That’s not likely, is it? What’s he doing for a living these days?’

  ‘What he always did — policing, but in a better environment for a promising young detective.’

  ‘I thought he’d resigned before we caught Pearly Poll.’