The Inspector was also uncomfortable. “They were not raped, Mrs. Wickham.”
“But of course they were, Inspector,” I said softly. “They were raped with a knife.”
I had embarrassed him. “We should not be speaking of this,” he said, further chagrined at seeming to rebuke the vicar’s wife. “These are not matters that concern you.”
“All I ask is that you consider what I have said.”
“Oh, I can promise you that,” he answered wryly, and I believed him. “I do have some encouraging news,” he continued, desirous of changing the subject. “We have been given more men to patrol the streets—more than have ever before been concentrated in one section of London! The next time the Ripper strikes, we’ll be ready for him.”
“Then you think he will strike again.”
“I fear so. He’s not done yet.”
It was the same opinion that was held by everyone else, but it was more ominous coming from the mouth of a police investigator. I thanked Inspector Abberline for his time and left.
The one thing that had long troubled me about the investigation of the Ripper murders was the refusal of the investigators to acknowledge that there was anything carnal about these violent acts. The killings were the work of a madman, the police and the newspapers agreed…as if that explained everything. But unless Inspector Abberline and the rest of those in authority could see the fierce hatred of women that drove the Ripper, I despaired of his ever being caught.
10 NOVEMBER 1888, MILLER’S COURT, SPITALFIELDS.
At three in the morning, I was still fully dressed, awaiting Edward’s return to the vicarage. It had been hours since I’d made my last excuse to myself for his absence; his duties frequently kept him out late, but never this late. I was trying to decide whether I should go to Dr. Phelps for help when a frantic knocking started at the door.
It was a young market porter named Macklin who occasionally attended services at St. Jude’s, and he was in a frantic state. “It’s the missus,” he gasped. “ ’Er time is come and the midwife’s too drunk to stand up. Will you come?”
I said I would. “Let me get a few things.” I was distracted, wanting to send him away; but this was the Macklins’ first child and I couldn’t turn down his plea for help.
We hurried off in the direction of Spitalfields; the couple had recently rented a room in a slum building facing on Miller’s Court. I knew the area slightly. Edward and I had once been called to a doss house there to minister to a dying man. That was the first time I’d ever been inside one of the common lodging houses; it was a big place, over three hundred beds and every one of them rented for the night.
Miller’s Court was right across the street from the doss house. As we went into the courtyard, a girl of about twelve unfolded herself from the doorway where she had been huddled and tugged at my skirt. “Fourpence for a doss, lady?”
“Get out of ’ere!” Macklin yelled. “Go on!”
“Just a moment,” I stopped him. I asked the girl if she had no home to go to.
“Mam turned me out,” the girl answered sullenly. “Says don’t come back ’til light.”
I understood; frequently the women here put their children out on the street while they rented their room for immoral purposes. “I have no money,” I told the girl, “but you may come inside.”
“Not in my room, she don’t!” Macklin shouted.
“She can be of help, Mr. Macklin,” I said firmly.
He gave in ungraciously. The girl, who said her name was Rose Howe, followed us inside. Straightaway I started to sneeze; the air was filled with particles of fur. Someone in the building worked at plucking hair from dogs, rabbits, and perhaps even rats for sale to a furrier. There were other odors as well; the building held at least one fish that had not been caught yesterday. I could smell paste, from drying matchboxes, most likely. It was all rather overpowering.
Macklin led us up a flight of stairs from which the banisters had been removed—for firewood, no doubt. Vermin-infested wallpaper was hanging in strips above our heads. Macklin opened a door upon a small room where his wife lay in labor. Mrs. Macklin was still a girl herself, only a few years older than Rose Howe. She was lying on a straw mattress, undoubtedly infested with fleas, on a broken-down bedstead. A few boxes were stacked against one wall; the only other piece of furniture was a plank laid across two stacks of bricks. I sent Macklin down to fill a bucket from the water pipe in the courtyard, and then I put Rose Howe to washing some rags I found in a corner.
It was a long labor. Rose curled up on the floor and went to sleep. Macklin wandered out for a few pints.
Day had broken before the baby came. Macklin was back, sobriety returning with each cry of pain from his young wife. Since it was daylight, Rose Howe could have returned to her own room but instead stayed and helped; she stood like a rock, letting Mrs. Macklin grip her thin wrists during the final bearing-down. The baby was under-sized; but as I cleared out her mouth and nose, she voiced a howl that announced her arrival to the world in no uncertain terms. I watched a smile light the faces of both girls as Rose cleaned the baby and placed her in her mother’s arms. Then Rose held the cord as I tied it off with thread in two places and cut it through with my sewing scissors.
Macklin was a true loving husband. “Don’t you worry none, love,” he said to his wife. “Next ’un’ll be a boy.”
I told Rose Howe I’d finish cleaning up and for her to go home. Then I told Macklin to bring his daughter to St. Jude’s for christening. When at last I was ready to leave, the morning sun was high in the sky.
To my surprise the small courtyard was crowded with people, one of whom was a police constable. I tried to work my way through to the street, but no one would yield a passage for me; I’m not certain they even knew I was there. They were all trying to peer through the broken window of a ground-floor room. “Constable?” I called out. “What has happened here?”
He knew me; he blocked the window with his body and said, “You don’t want to look in there, Mrs. Wickham.”
A fist of ice closed around my heart; the constable’s facial expression already told me, but I had to ask nonetheless. I swallowed and said, “Is it the Ripper?”
He nodded slowly. “It appears so, ma’am. I’ve sent for Inspector Abberline—you there, stand back!” Then, to me again: “He’s not ever killed indoors afore. This is new for him.”
I was having trouble catching my breath. “That means…he didn’t have to be quick this time. That means he could take as much time as he liked.”
The constable was clenching and unclenching his jaw. “Yes’m. He took his time.”
Oh dear God. “Who is she, do you know?”
“The rent-collector found her. Here, Thomas, what’s her name again?”
A small, frightened-looking man spoke up. “Mary…Mary Kelly. Three months behind in ’er rent, she was. I thought she was hidin’ from me.”
The constable scowled. “So you broke the window to try to get in?”
“ ’Ere, now, that winder’s been broke these past six weeks! I pulled out the bit o’ rag she’d stuffed in the hole so I could reach through and push back the curtain—just like you done, guv’ner, when you wanted to see in!” The rent-collector had more to say, but his words were drowned out by the growing noise of the crowd, which by now had so multiplied in its numbers that it overflowed from Miller’s Court into a passageway leading to the street. A few women were sobbing, one of them close to screaming.
Inspector Abberline arrived with two other men, all three of them looking grim. The Inspector immediately tried the door and found it locked. “Break out the rest of the window,” he ordered. “The rest of you, stand back. Mrs. Wickham, what are you doing here? Break in the window, I say!”
One of his men broke out the rest of the glass and crawled over the sill. We heard a brief, muffled cry, and then the door was opened from the inside. Inspector Abberline and his other man pushed into the room…and the latter
abruptly rushed back out again, retching. The constable hastened to his aid, and without stopping to think about it, I stepped into the room.
What was left of Mary Kelly was lying on a cot next to a small table. Her throat had been cut so savagely that her head was nearly severed. Her left shoulder had been chopped through so that her arm remained attached to the body only by a flap of skin. Her face had been slashed and disfigured, and her nose had been hacked away…and carefully laid on the small table beside the cot. Her breasts had been sliced off and placed on the same table. The skin had been peeled from her forehead; her thighs had also been stripped of their skin. The legs themselves had been spread in an indecent posture and then slashed to the bone. And Mary Kelly’s abdomen had been ripped open, and between her feet lay one of her internal organs…possibly the liver. On the table lay a piece of the victim’s brown plaid woolen petticoat half-wrapped around still another organ. The missing skin had been carefully mounded on the table next to the other body parts, as if the Ripper were rebuilding his victim. But this time the killer had not piled the intestines above his victim’s shoulder as he’d done before; this time, he had taken them away with him. Then as a final embellishment, he had pushed Mary Kelly’s right hand into her ripped-open stomach.
Have you punished her enough, Jack? Don’t you want to hurt her some more?
I felt a hand grip my arm and steer me firmly outside. “You shouldn’t be in here, Mrs. Wickham,” Inspector Abberline said. He left me leaning against the wall of the building as he went back inside; a hand touched my shoulder and Thomas the rent-collector said, “There’s a place to sit, over ’ere.” He led me to an upended wooden crate, where I sank down gratefully. I sat with my head bent over my knees for some time before I could collect myself enough to utter a prayer for Mary Kelly’s soul.
Inspector Abberline’s men were asking questions of everyone in the crowd. When one of them approached me, I explained I’d never known Mary Kelly and was here only because of the birth of the Macklin baby in the same building. The Inspector himself came over and commanded me to go home; I was not inclined to dispute the order.
“It appears this latest victim does not fit your pattern,” the Inspector said as I was leaving. “Mary Kelly was a prostitute, but she was still in her early twenties. And from what we’ve learned so far, she had no husband and no children.”
So the last victim had been neither middle-aged, nor married, nor a mother. It was impossible to tell whether poor Mary Kelly had been homely or not. But the Ripper had clearly chosen a woman this time who was markedly different from his earlier victims, deviating from his customary pattern. I wondered what it meant; had some change taken place in his warped, evil mind? Had he progressed one step deeper into madness?
I thought about that on the way home from Miller’s Court. I thought about that, and about Edward.
10 NOVEMBER 1888, ST. JUDE’S VICARAGE.
It was almost noon by the time I reached the vicarage. Edward was there, fast asleep. Normally he never slept during the day, but the small vial of laudanum Dr. Phelps had left was on the bedside table; Edward had drugged himself into a state of oblivion.
I picked up his clothes from the floor where he’d dropped them and went over every piece carefully; not a drop of blood anywhere. But the butchering of Mary Kelly had taken place indoors; the butcher could simply have removed his clothing before beginning his “work.” Next I checked all the fireplaces, but none of them had been used to burn anything. It could be happenstance, I told myself. I didn’t know how long Edward had been blacking out; it was probably not as singular as it seemed that one of his spells should coincide with a Ripper slaying. That’s what I told myself.
The night had exhausted me. I had no appetite but a cup of fresh tea would be welcome. I was on my way to the kitchen when a knock at the door stopped me. It was the constable I’d spoken to at Miller’s Court.
He handed me an envelope. “Inspector Abberline said to give you this.” He touched his cap and was gone.
I went to stand by the window where the light was better. Inside the envelope was a hastily scrawled note.
My dear Mrs. Wickham,
Further information has come to light that makes it appear that your theory of a pattern in the Ripper murders may not be erroneous after all. Although Mary Kelly currently had no husband, she had at one time been married. At the age of sixteen she wed a collier who died less than a year later. During her widowhood she found a series of men to support her for brief periods until she ended on the streets. And she was given to strong drink, as the other four victims were. But the most cogent revelation is the fact that Mary Kelly was pregnant. That would explain why she was so much younger than the Ripper’s earlier victims: he was stopping her before she could abandon her children.
Yrs,
Frederick Abberline
So. Last night the Ripper had taken two lives instead of one, assuring that a fertile young woman would never bear children to suffer the risk of being forsaken. It was not in the Ripper’s nature to consider that his victims had themselves been abandoned in their time of need. Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes had all taken to drink for reasons no one would ever know and had subsequently been turned out of their homes. And now there was Mary Kelly, widowed while little more than a child and with no livelihood—undoubtedly she lacked the education and resources to support herself honorably. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary…they had all led immoral and degraded lives, every one of them. But in not even one instance had it been a matter of choice.
I put Inspector Abberline’s note in a drawer in the writing table and returned to the kitchen; I’d need to start a fire to make the tea. The wood box had recently been filled, necessitating my moving the larger pieces to get at the twigs underneath. Something else was underneath as well. I pulled out a long strip of brown plaid wool cloth with brown stains on it. Brown plaid wool. Mary Kelly’s petticoat. Mary Kelly’s blood.
The room began to whirl. There it was. No more making of excuses. No more denying the truth. I was married to the Ripper.
For twelve years Edward had kept the odious secret of his abnormal inner being, hiding behind a mask of gentility and even godliness. He had kept his secret well. But no more. The masquerade was ended. I sank to my knees and prayed for guidance. More than anything in the world I wanted to send for Inspector Abberline and have him take away the monster who was sleeping upstairs. But if the laudanum-induced sleep had the same effect this time as when he was ill, Edward would awake as his familiar rational self. If I could speak to him, make him understand what he’d done, give him the opportunity to surrender voluntarily to the police, surely that would be the most charitable act I could perform under these hideous circumstances. If Edward were to have any chance at all for redemption, he must beg both God and man for forgiveness.
With shaking hands I tucked the strip of cloth away in my pocket and forced myself to concentrate on the routine of making tea. The big kettle was already out; but when I went to fill it with water, it felt heavy. I lifted the lid and found myself looking at a pile of human intestines.
I did not faint…most probably because I was past all feeling by then. I tried to think. The piece of cloth Edward could have used to wipe off the knife; then he would have put the cloth in the wood box with the intention of burning it later. But why wait? And the viscera in the teakettle…was I meant to find that? Was this Edward’s way of asking for help? And where was the knife? Systematically I began to look for it; but after nearly two hours’ intensive search, I found nothing. He could have disposed of the knife on his way home. He could have hidden it in the church. He could have it under his pillow.
I went into the front parlor and forced myself to sit down. I was frightened; I didn’t want to stay under the same roof with him, I didn’t want to fight for his soul. Did he even have a soul anymore? The Edward Wickham I had lain beside every night for twelve years was a counterfeit perso
n, one whose carefully fabricated personality and demeanor had been devised to control and constrain the demon imprisoned inside. The deception had worked well until we came to Whitechapel, when the constraints began to weaken and the demon escaped. What had caused the change—was it the place itself? The constant presence of prostitutes in the streets? It was beyond my comprehension.
The stresses of the past twenty-four hours eventually proved too much for me; my head fell forward, and I slept.
—
Edward’s hand on my shoulder awoke me. I started, and gazed at him with apprehension; but his face showed only gentle concern. “Is something wrong, Beatrice? Why are you sleeping in the afternoon?”
I pressed my fingertips against my eyes. “I did not sleep last night. The Macklin baby was born early this morning.”
“Ah! Both mother and child doing well, I trust? I hope you impressed upon young Macklin the importance of an early christening. But Beatrice, the next time you are called out, I would be most grateful if you could find a way to send me word. When you had not returned by midnight, I began to grow worried.”
That was the first falsehood Edward had ever told me that I could recognize as such; it was I who had been waiting for him at midnight. His face was so open, so seemingly free of guile…did he honestly have no memory of the night before, or was he simply exceptionally skilled in the art of deception? I stood up and began to pace. “Edward, we must talk about last night…about what you did last night.”
His eyebrow shot up. “I?”
I couldn’t look at him. “I found her intestines in the teakettle. Mary Kelly’s intestines.”
The Big Book of Jack the Ripper Page 98