[Oscar Wilde 07] - Jack the Ripper: Case Closed

by Gyles Brandreth

  The room was entirely lit by candles – there were scores of them: in two chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, in sconces on each wall, in gilt candlesticks on every surface – and it seemed so vast because on the long side walls and on the far wall facing the door were trompe-l’oeil windows filled with mirrored glass. In every direction the room appeared to continue to infinity. Above the gilded window frames were elaborate wooden carvings – not of fruit and flowers or harps and lyres, but of jugglers and acrobats, performing elephants on their hind legs and costumed dancing bears. On the ceiling, between the chandeliers, was a mock-baroque painting depicting what I took to be the sun god Helios and his sister Eos, the goddess of dawn. He looked not unlike Salazkin and her face was the face of Olga – or so it seemed to me. The whole extraordinary room might have been designed by Rastrelli himself in the mid-eighteenth century – with finishing touches supplied more recently by P. T. Barnum. I stood in the doorway, bemused, amazed.

  Oscar was already there – and in wine, I thought.

  He was seated at the head of a table at the end of the room, dressed in evening clothes, sporting the green carnation in his buttonhole that was a favourite affectation. (‘It means nothing,’ he liked to explain, ‘which is why people believe it must mean everything.’) He had a saucer of champagne in one hand and a lighted cigarette in the other. His face was flushed – and appeared orange in the candlelight. His eyes were glistening with tears. When he grinned at me I thought he looked like a pumpkin at Hallowe’en.

  Ivan Salazkin sat next to him at the head of the table. It can only have been a quarter of an hour since the ringmaster had taken his final bow in the centre of the sawdust ring – magnificent in his black riding boots, scarlet tailcoat, tall top hat and waxed moustaches. Now, the facial hair was all gone, his strong features had turned to putty and he cut a diminished figure, wrapped in a quilted dressing gown, with a towel around his neck, and carpet slippers on his feet. He, too, held a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Looking at the pair of them seated before me, the image of the Hallowe’en pumpkin vanished, replaced by Tweedledum and Tweedledee out on the razzle.

  And behind them, like the Frog Footman waiting at table, stood Michael Ostrog. Oscar had been right. This was certainly the man in the photograph in Macnaghten’s file.

  ‘Come in, Dr Doyle,’ cried Salazkin. ‘Did you enjoy the show? We saw you there.’ He looked up at his servant. ‘Ostrov – fetch Dr Doyle a glass.’

  ‘We have been having a political discussion, Arthur,’ said Oscar merrily. ‘Salazkin is remarkably well-informed.’

  ‘I know nothing about politics,’ protested our host. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to know much about British politics for sure. He thinks that I should become a member of parliament. He doesn’t appear to realise that only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons and only people who are dull ever succeed there.’

  ‘You are a public figure, Mr Wilde, and much admired. Your voice should be heard in the counsels of the land. England is the mother of parliaments, after all. England needs you. You would be an adornment to any government.’

  ‘I’m flattered, I’m sure,’ said Oscar, chuckling. ‘But I am Irish and an artist.’

  ‘And what difference does being Irish make? Are you not allowed to vote?’

  ‘Oh, I can vote, but do I want to? England is full of Irishmen, but we are all outsiders. Artists should be outsiders, I believe.’

  ‘And tell me,’ asked Salazkin, ‘what form of government is it most suitable for an artist to live under?’

  ‘There is only one answer to that question. The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all.’

  ‘You believe that?’ said the ringmaster, sitting up and looking at Oscar carefully, an eyebrow raised.

  ‘I do,’ answered Oscar solemnly.

  ‘You are an anarchist, then?’

  ‘I am,’ said Oscar, offering a modest bow at the accolade. ‘I even belong to the Anarchists’ Club. I know you know it. I have seen you there.’ He turned to me and explained in an aside: ‘It’s in Soho. Somewhat louche, but I think you’d like it. I will take you sometime. The conversation’s lively and it’s surprisingly well organised.’ He giggled at his own joke and then added: ‘I am a royalist as well, of course.’

  And a little tipsy, too, I thought to myself. Feeling I should contribute to the conversation but not, in truth, much interested in it, I asked Salazkin: ‘Are you involved in politics at all in your own country?’

  The ringmaster smiled. ‘Who said, “What the people want is bread and circuses”?’

  ‘Juvenal,’ murmured Oscar, closing his eyes and laying his champagne glass on the table.

  ‘I give them circuses . . . ’ Salazkin paused and looked directly at me. His eyes told me nothing.

  ‘When what they need is bread?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding, and gesturing to Ostrog to pour out more champagne. ‘Life in Russia is hard for many people. There is starvation. We have the highest infant mortality in Europe. Life expectancy is little more than thirty years. We are still recovering from the great famine that killed more than half a million of my fellow citizens.’

  Oscar opened his eyes. ‘You see, Arthur. He is alarmingly well-informed. And he calls them “citizens”, not “subjects”. What would the Tsar make of that? He’s probably an anarchist himself, if not a Socialist.’

  ‘I am not one for politics, Mr Wilde, I do assure you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, my friend. I saw you yesterday at Nevill’s Turkish Bath hobnobbing with Henry Labouchere MP. I’ve seen you there before, gossiping with the great and not-so-good. You’re steeped in politics.’

  ‘Enough of this nonsense, Mr Wilde,’ said the ringmaster, sitting forward again and slapping the table with his hand. ‘You are here to interview my man Ostrov. You’d better get on with it.’ Oscar made no effort to rouse himself. ‘Sit, Ostrov,’ said Salazkin, ‘and answer Mr Wilde’s questions. He has been told that you could be the notorious Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘I know,’ said the servant. He seemed curiously unperturbed by the suggestion. He stood at the other end of the dining table, facing Oscar and his master. I considered his face: it was undoubtedly the face of a man defeated by life, but in his deeply sunken eyes I recognised a glimmer of defiance. He held his arms at his side and looked straight ahead, as though he were a man in the dock.

  ‘Sit,’ insisted Salazkin. Ostrog sat. ‘Proceed,’ said Salazkin.

  I glanced at Oscar and, realising that my friend was either too weary or too far gone in drink to conduct the cross-examination himself, reached into my jacket pocket for my pen and notebook.

  I looked down the table towards Ostrog. ‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to us,’ I began. The man said nothing.

  ‘May I start by asking your name?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Silence fell. I looked at the man through the flickering candlelight. His face was immobile, his gaze seemingly fixed on Oscar and Salazkin – but, in fact, I suddenly realised, fixed on himself. He was staring straight ahead at his reflection in the mirrored glass. ‘So, what is your name?’ I asked.

  ‘Michael Ostrov.’

  ‘Also known as Michael Ostrog?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled – not at me, but at himself. And added: ‘And Michael Hanneford and Bertrand Ashley and Ashley Nabokov and Claude Clayton and Max Gosslar and Count Sobieski and Dr Grant.’

  ‘You have many names,’ I said.

  ‘Not now. Now I am Michael Ostrov.’ His accent was thick, but his English was remarkably good.

  ‘But you have had many names?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘Because I have been many people.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said – not knowing what to say. I glanced towards Oscar. His eyes were half-closed, but there was a smile on his lips. He appeare
d amused by my predicament.

  ‘To begin with, who were you? Where do you come from? Where were you born?’

  ‘I was born in 1833 in Ostrog in the Ukraine. I am Ukrainian Jew.’

  ‘And when did you come to England?’

  ‘When the Russians burned down our house. They killed all the Jews, except for me. I escaped. On my horse.’

  ‘On your horse?’

  ‘My family were horse traders – for a thousand years. The Russians burned our house and our stables. They killed every Jew in Ostrog – except for me. I was in the hills on the morning that they came.’

  ‘And you escaped?’

  ‘I escaped. I was young. And I was strong. And I was clever.’ He smiled at himself in the mirror. ‘I am a Jew.’

  ‘How did you get to England?’

  ‘It took a year – two years. I came with the circus.’

  I glanced towards Salazkin. He was studying Ostrog with apparent satisfaction, as a master might a star pupil. ‘Not this circus,’ he said quietly.

  ‘The Hanneford Circus,’ said Ostrog. ‘They had a horse-riding show. Thirty years ago. I was a stable lad.’

  ‘A Jewish stable lad?’ murmured Oscar. ‘This is sounding a touch improbable.’

  Ostrog’s head turned suddenly. For a moment, I thought he was going to spit. ‘Yes,’ he said, his dark eyes suddenly blazing, ‘a Jewish stable lad. You don’t have that in England, do you? You have a Jew for prime minister but he has to call himself a Christian. We got to England and the Hannefords said they didn’t need me any more.’

  Oscar roused himself. He sat forward at the table and moved one of the candlesticks the better to see Ostrog. ‘And so you turned to a life of crime?’

  Ostrog said nothing and looked away once more.

  ‘I have read the police file,’ said Oscar. ‘In Oxford, as Max Gosslar, you worked as a College servant until you were arrested for theft and imprisoned for ten months. In Cambridge, a year later, you pulled the same trick – with a similar result. Next you turned up in Tunbridge Wells – as Count Sobieski.’

  ‘Why Count Sobieski?’ I asked.

  Oscar put his hand lightly on my sleeve. ‘Oh, come now, Arthur, it was Tunbridge Wells—’

  Salazkin intervened. ‘Ask him if he was guilty of all the offences for which he was imprisoned?’

  ‘A good question,’ said Oscar. ‘And what is the answer?’ He sat forward at the table, resting his chin on his hand, and looked at Ostrog intently.

  ‘I am a Jew. I plead guilty.’

  ‘In 1873,’ I said, ‘I seem to recall you threatened a policeman with a revolver.’

  ‘And I was sent to gaol for ten years.’

  ‘And when you were released, it started all over again,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Did you not learn your lesson?’ I asked.

  ‘I learned that no one will give work to a man who tells the truth. No one will give work to a Jew who has been in prison for ten years. Would you? Would you?’

  ‘But Mr Salazkin did,’ said Oscar. ‘I wonder why.’

  Salazkin spoke. ‘Because I am Russian and because he told me what the Russians had done to his family.’

  Oscar turned towards Salazkin and looked at him amiably. ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘He came to the circus, looking for work.’

  ‘Here in London?’

  ‘No, in Paris.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Tell them,’ said Salazkin.

  ‘I left England on the tenth of March 1888. When I went to prison they said I was a “homicidal maniac” – because I fired that gun at the police. I fired it to protect myself. But when they released me they said I was cured. I left England at once. I wanted to go home. I went to Paris. I looked for work. I speak English and Yiddish and Russian. I went to the Russian Circus.’

  ‘And I took him on,’ said Salazkin, ‘and he has been with me ever since.’

  ‘I thought he was imprisoned in France,’ I said.

  ‘He was,’ said Salazkin, ‘for two years. But when he came out of prison, I took him on again – and he’s stayed on the straight and narrow ever since. He looks after my carriage and my horses and he looks after me. He’s an odd-looking fellow, I agree, but I can vouch for him and I do.’

  Oscar laid down his champagne and threw up his hands. ‘So why on earth is he mixed up in this business of the Whitechapel murders? Why do the police reckon he is Jack the Ripper? Why do they believe that at this moment he is locked up in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum?’

  ‘I can tell you,’ said Salazkin. ‘Because when we brought the circus to London in the summer of 1888, Ostrov went to Whitechapel.’

  ‘I had heard about the Jewish market there – and the women. I wanted Jewish food. Bialys and chicken feet. And I needed a woman. And before I found the woman I went for a shave and to get my hair cut.’

  ‘And Kosminski was the barber?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you became friends?’

  ‘No. Never friends. We were Jews together, that is all.’

  ‘And together you hunted for prostitutes.’

  ‘We did not hunt. We paid. We paid money that we had earned – Kosminski cutting hair and Ostrov working at the Russian Circus.’

  ‘And you called yourself Ostrov here because it sounds more Russian?’

  ‘I can call myself whatever I choose. I can be whoever I want to be.’

  ‘And why do the police think you are Jack the Ripper?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I was in Whitechapel when the killings happened and I went with prostitutes and I am a foreigner and a convict and a Jew.’

  ‘But you are not Jack the Ripper?’ said Oscar.

  Ostrog said nothing.

  ‘Answer,’ said Salazkin.

  ‘Jack the Ripper? It’s a stupid name,’ said Ostrog contemptuously.

  ‘I agree,’ said Oscar, now lighting another cigarette. ‘But for the sake of clarity: you are not he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how do you explain the bag of knives you were carrying when the police first arrested you?’

  ‘They were clean knives. There was no blood on them.’

  Oscar chuckled. ‘Had there been, I imagine you’d have been arrested, charged, tried, convicted and executed by now, my friend.’

  Ostrog stood impassively still gazing at his own reflection in the glass.

  ‘What on earth were you doing traipsing through Whitechapel with a bag full of knives?’ Oscar persisted. ‘According to the police, you were frequently seen in Whitechapel with your bag of knives. What was going on?’

  ‘You told the police you were a doctor,’ I said.

  ‘That was a lie,’ said Oscar.

  ‘That was to protect me,’ said Salazkin. ‘They were my knives. They are my knives. You saw them tonight, Dr Doyle – in the show. I threw them at the girl, do you remember? The girl turning on the Catherine wheel.’

  I remembered the routine. It was impressive. ‘You use real knives?’ I said.

  ‘We do. And they need to be sharp – and to shine in the lights. And one of Ostrov’s tasks is to keep them sharp and in good repair. He takes them to the knife-grinder for me.’

  ‘And the knife-grinder plies his trade in the back streets of Whitechapel?’

  ‘No,’ said Ostrog. ‘The knife-grinder is near here in Hammersmith. I took the knives to Whitechapel to show Kosminski. He liked the knives. He liked to look at them and play with them. He used to shave with them. He cut marks in his body with them. He was a strange man.’

  ‘You’re not entirely Old Uncle Normality yourself,’ said Oscar, smiling.

  Ostrog turned again and looked at Oscar. ‘You patronise me because I am a Jew. I speak good English, I know I do, but because I have a Yiddish accent, I am a funny foreigner to you. My ancestors were nobles. I could have been a doctor. But my parents were burned to death, Mr Oscar Wilde. I lost my inheritance. I am a servant now. I serve you your champagne.
I bring caviar to your house. And from your great height you patronise me.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Salazkin. ‘You were wrong to take the knives to Whitechapel and you know it.’

  Oscar closed his eyes. ‘Is Kosminski Jack the Ripper, do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘I do not know,’ said Ostrog. ‘He is a sick man. Strange and sick. When the police could find no evidence against us, they got the magistrates to put us away as lunatics. With Kosminski, that was the right thing to do.’

  ‘But not with you?’

  ‘I am not mad.’

  ‘And you are not the Michael Ostrog who is now languishing in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He is a sick man. It is right that he should be there.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I do not know his name.’

  Salazkin got up from his chair and fetched the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket on the sideboard. He came behind me to refill my glass. He put the bottle on the table next to Oscar so that he could refill his own. ‘We found the man underneath the railway arches in Pinchin Street. He was more dead than alive. He was a drinker, but he was past drink. He was a beggar, but he was past begging. He had nothing. He was waiting to die.’

  ‘He was a Russian Jew?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Salazkin. ‘Whitechapel is full of them. The East End is their home now. Russia does not want them. As our Tsar likes to say, “Let us never forget that it was the Jews who crucified Jesus.” There is no place for a Jew in modern Russia.’

  ‘Whitechapel is where they come to die,’ said Ostrog.

  ‘At least we saved one of them,’ said Salazkin, resuming his seat. ‘I knew that Ostrov was not Jack the Ripper. I knew that Ostrov was not mad. He’d been my good and faithful servant – he’d looked after my carriage and my horses, he’d sharpened my knives, he’d delivered gifts of caviar to the homes of my friends. I wasn’t going to let him be taken off to the lunatic asylum, so on the day when they came in their Black Maria with their straps and their straitjacket to take him away I handed him over . . . ’