The Lawrence Harpham Boxset

by Jacqueline Beard

  Lawrence found the absence of his tramp’s disguise liberating. He boarded the tram with a spring in his step and alighted near Aldgate, before walking to White’s Row. The journey was quick and comfortable although the unexpected presence of a group of women on the doorstep of the dosshouse delayed his progress. He loitered on the corner until they dispersed and watched them chatting together as they walked towards The Paul’s Head. Lawrence looked over his shoulder, checking the street for signs of life. All was still and quiet. He opened the front door of number 8 and let himself in.

  He had hoped that the building was empty, but it was not to be. Loud voices belonging to a man and a woman emanated from the closed kitchen door. They were arguing. Lawrence stood stock still in the hallway. If the kitchen door opened, he would be in full view with nowhere to hide. It was no time for caution. He padded up the stairs, wincing as they creaked beneath his weight and opened the right-hand door. The room was empty and icy cold. Lawrence counted the beds. As expected, there were twelve. He walked to the end of the bedroom where the beds were close to the window and stared outside. It had started to snow.

  Lawrence crouched by the left-hand bed. The thin, dirty mattress topped a bed frame, and he peered underneath. The wood was solid with no apparent flaws, so he ran his hand below the bed and pulled at the sides. Nothing. He turned his attention to the opposite bed. It was identical and consisted of a wooden carcass with another grubby mattress inside the base. Lawrence glanced at the wood panel nearest the window. Nothing looked out of place, but when he pulled the edges of the wooden side, it moved. It was loose. Lawrence dropped to his knees and gave it a thorough inspection. The panel was spongy, rotten in places and the nails that secured it sat above the wood. He pulled it again but harder, and it gave a little more. The nails only served to pin the wooden panel to the frame. Anyone could prise it apart and re-affix it with ease. He popped the panel out revealing a void under the bed and swept his hand through the gap. It closed on a cold metal object which he pulled free and examined under the window. In his hand was a small bronze key in the shape of an inverted ‘J’. It was unlike any key he had ever seen before, but he had seen a keyhole that shape recently. It was in the secret drawer in the library of the Headquarters of The Society for Psychical Research.

  Killing time had become a way of life for Lawrence. He paced the streets of London again trying to occupy himself until the light failed and he could be sure that the SPR building would be empty. Quite how he would gain access, was another matter but it had to be possible. Lawrence spent the daylight hours walking between coffee houses. He could have returned to The Regal but knew it would be difficult to leave with all the press attention. Besides, it would be impossible to justify his hunch to Violet. He was putting instinct above business sense again, and she would disapprove. As dusk fell, he circumnavigated the streets surrounding the building. The weather was getting worse. Snow had been falling for hours and had settled into powdery heaps. Lawrence hoped that the bad weather might encourage the occupants to leave early. But every time he passed through Buckingham Street, lights shone from the windows. Nobody seemed to want to go home. It was hardly surprising, he thought, as he walked around the Adelphi for the third time. Some of the members used the place as a clubhouse, and some rooms in the building belonged to other organisations. Small wonder they needed a doorman. Lawrence wondered how they were managing today. He didn't know whether Haim’s connection to the SPR was public knowledge yet. There was no evidence of reporters around the building, but it was only a matter of time until they came. If he was going to break in, it was now or never.

  Finally, just before midnight, Lawrence trudged up Buckingham Street to find the building in darkness. He approached the door and soon discovered that the large townhouse was impenetrable from the front, but there might be access at the rear. Walking towards the Victoria Embankment, he turned left. The gap at the end of the townhouses led, as he had hoped, to a narrow alley providing access to the yards. Lawrence located the gate most likely to belong to the Societies’ rooms. The latch on the door was open, and he entered with ease. The yard was small; less than the width of the building. He could have touched both sides with his outstretched arms. In front of him, was a door set halfway along the wall with double windows to the side overlooking a small square room. He tried the door which was solid and firm, and the windows were tightly shut. Lawrence felt in his pocket for the large rock that he had collected earlier. He had come prepared knowing that access was unlikely to prove easy. He wrapped the rock in his scarf and tapped it in the middle of the window. There was a muffled crack, and a jagged line appeared in the glass. He tried again, this time harder. Two large chunks of glass fell into the room. Lawrence cleared the worst of the remaining glass from the hole and reached for the latch. His thoughts turned to the actions of Edmund Reid at Haim's home the previous night. Breaking into two different properties on consecutive nights, was not something he had anticipated at the start of the week. He crawled through the window and slithered down, feet crunching on the broken glass beneath.

  Lawrence pulled a candle and matches from his pocket and surveyed the room. He was in a storage area containing all manner of household items neatly stacked around him. On a high shelf, above a dressing unit, three lamps stood side by side. He reached up, and eased one of the lanterns to the front, then used the candle to light it. He opened the door and ventured into a short passageway leading to the main body of the house. The hall, which he recognised, led to the library and he reached for the door. It was locked, but Lawrence had already noticed a collection of keys dangling from hooks in the storeroom. He returned, collected them and tried each in turn. The third attempt proved successful.

  The library was freezing and judging by the temperature, had been empty for several hours. A shaft of patchy moonlight glowed against the bookcases in front of the window. Lawrence held the lamp aloft. Fat snowflakes fluttered from the sky, twirling and dancing before his eyes as the wind buffeted them. He tore his gaze away, shivering as he approached the narrow desk. The lamp flickered as he set it on top. He pulled a wooden chair towards the desk, stifling a yawn as he sat down with a sense of relief. It was late, and he had been walking for hours. He opened the desk drawer and felt for the button. As soon as he pressed it, the secret drawer sprang towards him. With bated breath, Lawrence removed the inverted J key from his breast pocket and compared it to the lock. It was a close match. He inserted the key, exhaling as it unlocked with a satisfying click and he slid the drawer open. Inside were pieces of folded paper covered in scratchy handwriting. A sealed cream coloured envelope written in a different hand lay on top of the letters. Lawrence pushed it to one side and unfolded one of the documents. He scanned it, frowning, as snatches of sentences passed his eyes leaving no doubt of their provenance. He was looking at the writings of a killer. Lawrence opened another paper dated August 1888. The graphic details of the murder could only have come from the perpetrator. Haim must have written them. But why? And why had he kept them? No matter, it would be useful proof for Scotland Yard. Lawrence shoved the papers into his coat pocket. He could read them at any time. Better to finish as soon as possible and get away. He ran his fingers along the bottom of the small drawer to check he hadn’t missed anything. It was empty, but the cream covered envelope still lay sealed on the desk. Lawrence reached for a letter opener and slit the flap before removing two sheets of thin paper. Writing covered both sides and the ink had bled making them difficult to read. Lawrence adjusted the lamp until it shone on the leaves of paper and peered at the pages. He read them, eyes wide, as the full horror of the words dawned upon him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Truth About Mary

  15th June 1889

  I write these words in shame and apprehension. The shame requires no explanation, but my anxiety is borne of fear. Fear of the man I am sworn to protect.

  What price loyalty? Does love outweigh truth? Or respect come ahead of honour? How ar
e these things measured? Pity me, for I have chosen loyalty over life, prepared to risk my freedom to protect my friend. We have stood side by side for so long that I feel compelled to safeguard his interests, and if all goes according to plan, we will both remain at liberty. But the extent of his failings has become more evident, and my life may be at risk. I have chosen to record the truth for posterity though whether anyone will read it, I do not know.

  Our friend, our dear friend, has ailed for some time. His affliction, though not widely known, was no secret from those of us who were close to him. But it grew worse, and the distortion of his personality became apparent, especially after dusk. We were wrong to conceal the murder of Edmund Gurney in June of 1888. We respected him, and he had been part of our organisation since its inception. There are some lengths to which I would not stoop. I want it known that I was not a party to Gurney’s murder. I did not become aware of it until after the fact. Gurney had discovered our friend’s involvement in the death of two women. Without wishing to sound trite, they were women of ill-repute. Their killings passed largely unnoticed. The police did not link the crimes to those that became known as the Ripper killings, and we did not connect them either. We would have been none the wiser if that weasel D’Onston had not become involved. D’Onston is a despicable man - a blackmailer and a fraud. I hold him partly responsible for the action I have taken which will be my undoing if my fragile mind survives it.

  We paid D’Onston to disappear, and for a while he did. We thought the matter was over, but a series of brutal killings occurred in the Autumn of 1888. D’Onston came to suspect the truth long before we, who should have known better, realised. When a double slaying occurred late in September, D’Onston approached us again through the personal column of the newspaper. It wasn’t until then that the three of us understood that the man they called Jack the Ripper was the man we were sworn to protect. We approached our friend and asked him outright, and he did not falter in his reply but confessed straight away. Our friend was contrite and terrified of exposure. He told us that a witness to one of the crimes had seen his face. He is not a monster, although he might seem like one. He is a good man afflicted with a terrible urge, but one that is containable. He trusted three of us with his secret, and we met that very night to discuss what we could do. We made two resolutions. The first was practical. At no time would he be left alone at night, and we arranged a companion to that end. The second resolution was to give him an alibi. To ensure his visibility elsewhere by reputable people in case D’Onston involved the police. It was a sound idea, but only achievable if there was another killing. We decided to manufacture one.

  How cold that seems in hindsight. How clinical and calculating. It is far easier to make a plan than carry it out. For the best effect, the killing would need to occur on a particular day. We selected the 9th of November as it was the Lord Mayor’s day and memorable. This death, unlike the others, must take place inside, where there was no chance of interruption. Somewhere that another man could replicate the previous murders. A man with no prior experience of killing. A man who had never even seen a dead body. A man who had never wielded a weapon in anger. I was that man. There was never any question of one of the others doing it. They were not practical men. Intellectual yes, but not cut out for the job in hand and the cold detachment it required. Neither, as it turned out, was I.

  We chose Mary Kelly because she lived nearby. Other fallen women lived closer, but none of them dwelled alone. Nor were they as accommodating and friendly as she. The location was important. Although I lived my life privately, a woman who lived in closer proximity might have recognised me. The time of the murder would not matter as long as it took place on the designated day. I prepared well, committing to memory details contained in a journal that our friend had foolishly written. His earlier entries were useless, but he committed the later murders with full awareness giving me an opportunity to duplicate them.

  Late on the 8th of November, I tracked Mary to her squalid room off Dorset Street. I could not find her, at first. She was out and had been drinking, so I waited nearby, and she went off with yet another man. She was absent for several hours. If she had been any later, I would have abandoned the task, but in the early hours of Friday morning, she staggered up the road, singing. I was standing in the shadows on the corner of Thrawl Street. I tapped her on the shoulder as she passed by and held out my palm containing twice as much money as she could expect to earn in a night. She reached for the coins, and I closed my fist. “You will have to earn it,” I said. She giggled and took my hand and led me to her room in Millers Court.

  It was that easy. Even with all the warnings and newspaper reports about the fiend of Whitechapel, she went like a lamb to the slaughter, the lure of money surpassing any fear. Yet it was that innocence, that willingness to please that almost stopped me in my tracks. When we arrived at her room, she reached for me, pulling me to her bed. She kissed me and began to remove her clothes. She was gentle and tender, and I recoiled from her. To commit the crime that I had steeled myself for, I could not afford to become attached. Her kiss, the feel of her warm hand on my face, had already unnerved me. It was the closest contact I had with a woman in a long time, and Mary Kelly was neither dirty nor unkempt. She smelled clean, and she dressed well. In another world, at another time, I might have been tempted.

  She reclined on the bed smiling. “Don’t be shy,” she said, beckoning me towards her. I removed my heavy overcoat and hat, discarding them by the door and felt for the knife that I had secreted in the back of my trousers. I knelt beside her, and she reached towards me. Time froze as my heart thudded against my chest, and a momentary battle raged between my conscience and loyalty. Loyalty won. I grasped my knife and sliced it into her neck. She barely had time to register what was happening before a thick slew of blood gushed from the wound, and her head dropped to one side. Her dying eyes stared as I removed my shirt and trousers and steeled myself for what was to follow.

  Before beginning, I reached into my coat pocket and removed the cork from a blue glass bottle I had stashed earlier. I drained the bottle dry and waited a moment for the laudanum to take effect. Then I stood over her and began. At first, I attempted to replicate the killing of Catherine Eddowes, but I knew little about the interior of a human body. I had memorised every detail of the injuries I was required to mimic, but when I slit her abdomen open, she became less human. Viewing her like an animal to butcher, overcame my repulsion but not my confusion at the volume of blood and the complexity of her internal organs. After a while, the Laudanum took effect. A wave of euphoria came over me, and I became careless, less concerned by detail as I worked to make this woman resemble the last Ripper victim. The task was all-encompassing, and time sped by. Memories blurred as if I was in a dream, but I was not afraid or even revolted, not while the laudanum protected my mind and induced a reverie.

  After what must have been several hours, but seemed like a whole night, I stood up and surveyed my work. The mass of flesh before me no longer resembled a human being. I cannot bear to recount the details of what I did to that woman. Thank God some memories are clouded forever by the drug-induced haze. I can still recall dressing, leaving, and walking home. And I have woken almost every night since haunted by the sight of her broken body. In every dream, I watch her through clawed hands dripping with blood. My hands, her blood, my living nightmare.

  We made an alibi that night. The others were grateful, but we never spoke of it again, and they left me to deal with my demons alone. I never used laudanum again. My drug of choice was gin.

  Though we cleared suspicion from the one we protected, his killings remained a burden for the organisation in general. D’Onston hadn’t gone away. He kept needling, provoking us with his pointed newspaper articles. We met again. It was tempting to see D’Onston off once and for all, but he told us that he had made plans in the event of his sudden death. We had no reason to doubt him and decided, instead, to provide a murderer.

  Montagu
e John Druitt was known to the organisation and indulged in behaviours not approved of by many, but for which we were tolerant. The young man was a schoolteacher. An unknown member of staff had become aware of his conduct and was threatening to reveal what he was. The young man was in crisis and had written to us about his unhappiness. He was on the verge of suicide and felt there was no other choice. The last letter he wrote indicated that he was going to die. We took this opportunity to tell D’Onston that we had meted out justice to a killer who was one of our own and a body would soon appear. Whether Druitt took his own life, or we helped him, I cannot say for I was not directly involved. But his corpse weighed down with stones, turned up in the Thames in December of 1888. We gave D’Onston a final instalment of money. He must have believed that Druitt was the Ripper and to our relief, communication ceased.

  Time has moved on and the summer of 1889 approaches. Our plan was successful, and our work continues. We are all safe. Our friend is still admired and continues to live as always. He is seldom left alone at night and will need a companion for the rest of his life. On the rare occasions, he is home alone, we lock his bedroom door at ten and open it at daylight. He has never reverted to the savage he became when allowed to prowl through Whitechapel. We three do not meet to discuss him anymore. There is no need, but Mary Kelly haunts my every waking thought, and I have nobody with which to share my burden. I tried, once, to talk about it. To relieve myself of the loneliness but I was the recipient of a stern frown and a shake of the head. I never tried again.