by Will Thomas
“You know, I rather believed Mansfield. It’s at least possible he’s telling the truth. Or his version of it, at least. The chances that an actor playing a monster should coincidentally be a monster are remote at best.”
“We’re overlooking something, lad. I don’t know what, but the facts don’t add up. It may be time to throw the pieces of the jigsaw back into the box and start again.”
“How many times shall we have to do that, sir?”
“Until the picture makes sense.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
As humble as it was, my mattress looked inviting after a long night at the theater. I doffed my finery and folded it carefully before pulling on a shirt and trousers, in case we should have to go out again. There was nothing prophetic about this; it was just a precaution, but I was glad I did so all the same.
Later that night we were awakened by a pounding on the door. For the first few seconds I didn’t know where I was. Nothing looked like my bed, or my window that faced the garden. Then I remembered where I was, just as Barker opened the door to whoever was knocking in the very middle of the night. I heard, but could not make out, a low conversation in the hall outside our doors. Something had happened. After a minute or two, I heard the man’s sturdy boots going back down the hall again and Barker returned.
“Thomas,” he said. “Dress yourself. There has been another murder.”
“An unfortunate?” I asked, hunting for my boots.
“In Dutfield’s Yard.”
“That’s off Berner Street.”
“I’m glad all that walking has taught you something.”
We dressed quickly and hurried out into the night. The sky looked blue with starlight. Orion spanned the horizon, as we jogged along swiftly. The area around Berner Street was full of people, though it was not even five o’clock. They start work early here, and somehow East Enders know when there is something nearby that would offer them a few moments’ entertainment.
We pushed our way through concentric knots of people until we came upon a still form which had been tented with a large piece of canvas and an overturned cart, guarded by two constables. I attempted to get close, but was warned away. We began to try to convince them of our identity, which was not easy for there were children running about, trying to get a view of the body, and a half-dozen others who felt their status or occupation entitled them to see it, as well.
“Let them in,” a gruff voice ordered. I turned and recognized Detective Chief Inspector Swanson puffing placidly on a bulldog pipe. We moved closer to hear what he had to say.
“Apparently, the victim’s name is Elizabeth Stride. ‘Long Liz,’ they called her. She was a Swede, about forty-five. An unfortunate, obviously. That’s all we have so far. We’re waiting for Warren to come and take over the investigation. We’ve been ordered not to move the body until he arrives.”
Barker and I took a moment to view the body in situ. It was in the same position as the others, with her arms down at her sides and her lower limbs drawn up and separated. The throat had been cut to the bone and a stream of blood ran like a long scarf toward the gutter. I could see bone through the gaping wound. There was no blood on her petticoats, however, to indicate she had been savaged. The victim had a long, thin face, which may have earned her the name. Like the others, she appeared to be old before her time and haggard, as if she had seen rough usage in life. Her features were almost mannish, and she looked as if she could have given anyone who tried to mistreat her a difficult time of it. I examined her hands, looking for wounds, or an attempt to ward off her attacker, but found none. There was only a little blood in the gutter by the wall near where she lay. I wanted to cover over her petticoats, but I couldn’t. It was all evidence.
“I’ve taken a witness into custody, but only to get a full statement. He’s in ‘H’ Division now. He saw Liz arguing with a man earlier this evening. Thought it was a couple having a row, and crossed the road to avoid getting involved. The suspect called out to a second witness whom the Jew noticed standing nearby, smoking a pipe. He called out ‘Lipski,’ and the second man began to follow. The witness, whose name was Schwartz, feared he would be attacked and fled.”
“Was it a case of mistaken identity?” I asked.
“No,” Swanson said. “They call all Jews ‘Lipski’ here. Both men he identified had fair complexions and brown mustaches. Proper Englishmen, according to Schwartz. That was close to midnight. She was found within the hour. She might have had time to find another client or she might have gone for a drink. That’s what we’re up against here. The clients won’t speak, the victims can’t speak, and the witnesses must be coerced or threatened. Nobody wants to help, but oh, they’ll complain that we aren’t doing our duty to protect them.”
“Who found the body?” Barker asked.
“Another Jew, coming home a half hour later from some anarchist meeting or other. His pony shied on him as he turned into the yard. He got down to investigate and found her on her back, as you see. What do ye suppose the Ripper uses to cut a throat like this? A dirk, perhaps, or a sword?”
“That would certainly draw attention,” Barker said. “I doubt a man in a full kilt and dirk is out there taking lives, or a Coldstream Guard in his best ceremonials, though I suppose militaria is available for sale in Petticoat Lane?”
“Either weapon could be hidden under a cloak, but were he to be caught, the evidence would be very damning,” Swanson said. “This is not the day for a gentleman to be found with a sword case.”
“Indeed not, if he expects to survive an angry mob, aristocrat or no. Fear is one attribute that cuts across all classes. How can we help, Inspector?”
“Search the yard inch by inch for anything out of the ordinary,” Swanson said.
“Aye, sir,” Barker answered.
“Without a lantern?” I muttered to Barker when the inspector had left.
“Dawn will be coming soon. You must accustom your eyes to the gloom.”
I reasoned if he could see in the dark with his smoky quartz spectacles, I could do so without. We began to search, beginning with the area around the body and moving out in every direction, including upward where blood might have sprayed upon a wall. At the Guv’s suggestion, I touched nothing, but made a notation in my book of anything that looked out of the ordinary. It was difficult and backbreaking, stooping to examine minutely every inch of the courtyard. My eyes began to blur from focusing intently and from lack of sleep. It was just a bit of ugly paving, with bits of broken brick and cobblestones and mud. Anything of value whatsoever, from bits of broken glass from ale bottles to the very night soil left behind by workhorses, would be collected and sold by someone locally to whoever could turn a profit on it. When one came to think of it, it was efficient. Everything was used, and everyone employed collecting it or coming up with ways to benefit. The night soil would fertilize someone’s garden in Kent, and the broken green glass would end its days in a child’s kaleidoscope in Poplar.
“Sir!” I called out a half hour later to my employer, who was on the other side of the court. “I found something!”
He came trotting over, as did some of the constables who were searching nearby. They leaned over my shoulder, as I kneeled on the small grate of the sewer. One shone his regulation bull’s-eye on what I was pointing to.
“Some sort of stalk?” Barker asked.
“A grape stalk,” I said. “And still green. Who could afford grapes in Whitechapel? I doubt anyone even sells such a luxury in this district. Perhaps it was brought as a favor.”
“Who would buy a favor for a common streetwalker?” a voice asked behind us. It was Abberline, who had arrived from the station on Dutton Road.
“Someone who doesn’t know the ways here,” my employer answered.
“Like a rich man with money for fresh fruit in September.”
“Why would such a man need to come all the way to Whitechapel when the unfortunates in the West End are younger and more attractive?”
“Because they don’t fight back so hard here when you slit their throats, and cut out their privates for souvenirs,” Abberline said. “They are beaten down by life, not like some young chippy who takes offense when you start waving a knife in her face.”
“So, you’re convinced the killer is from the West End,” Barker said.
“I’m not convinced of anything,” the inspector replied. “And won’t be until I’ve got him jugged like a hare. Then you can ask him all the questions you like, Inspector Barker.”
The way he said the word, I suspected he thought the Guv was nothing of the kind. He also wanted us to know that he considered the case his, being in his jurisdiction, and while he might be polite enough to allow us to help him, that only went so far, and not a step further.
“Why don’t you hand that bit of evidence over to me?” Abberline asked me, as if it was really a question. I looked over at my employer for confirmation, not that I should give it to the inspector, for obviously it belonged to him, but that I should touch the thing at all, since we had been ordered not to. Gingerly, I picked up the fragile stalk with a handkerchief and extended it toward Abberline. Both were snatched from my hand.
“This is all you have to show so far, a stalk of grapes?”
“I found it on the cobblestones.”
“Do you deduce the Ripper stopped for a nosh before cutting up his victim?”
“This one was not cut up, as you say,” Barker stated. “She was murdered with one slash and then left.”
That said, there was little to discover now that the grape stalk had been found. I examined the long slick of blood but found no foreign matter in it. Barker came up beside me.
We crossed the courtyard and approached the inspector, who had a dyspeptic look on his face.
“There is nothing more, Inspector,” the Guv said, not adding undue stress on the last word as Abberline had done to Barker. “Dutfield’s Yard has been swept thoroughly.”
Just then a constable came running up so swiftly that he skittered on the traffic-polished cobblestones and fell. He was one of the younger ones, like me, really, the kind that would be used for messenger work. He was back on his feet in a trice and running toward the inspector as fast as he could.
“What is it, Parker?” Abberline demanded. “What has happened?”
“Another one, sir!” the constable cried. “Two in one night!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Another one. My mind could not take it in. Was there more than one Ripper? A gang of them, perhaps? How many unfortunates would be found before the day dawned? I have rarely seen Barker stunned by anything, but he was stunned now. Jaw-dropping, pale-skinned, eyebrows-rising-to-the-hairline stunned.
“Where?” Abberline shouted.
“Mitre Square, sir,” the constable answered. “It’s horrible. He—he carved up her face and carried away her vitals entire. I never seen anything like it!”
“I don’t need your opinions, Constable!” Abberline barked. “Lead the way now!”
The young fellow stepped back and raised an arm as if to ward off an attack. I suspected his nerve had been shattered by what he’d seen. Police constables learn to see a great deal without displaying emotion, but apparently, this was something else again.
Mitre Square was several streets to the east. Abberline had no vehicle at his disposal, and at five in the morning, there were no hansoms available in Commercial Road. We were afoot, but if there is one thing men in our profession learn to do it is to walk long distances. I’m sure Abberline was accustomed to getting about his district à pied. There is the steady plod, learned as a constable while walking one’s beat, and the trot, when an emergency was occurring. This was naturally the latter. Two murders in one night. One could barely take it in. Apparently, one had not been enough for this killer. Soon he would be killing in droves.
The Guv took running in stride. I did my best to keep up, but then my gait is not as long as his. My emotions were a mixture of anticipation and dread. Something had shocked the constable, had set him on edge, and I was anxious to see what it was and experience it for myself knowing full well there would be an emotional toll afterward.
I admit there is within me a flaw, a desire to see things that are terrible, such as railway or carriage accidents, to see how bad they can be. My senses want to be stimulated, shocked, and appalled, and then of course, my heart goes out to the victims and I want to help. I do not wish that such a fate would fall upon them, yet the next time I pass a carriage accident, I know I shall gawk again. I do not believe I am alone in this weakness. We want to see for ourselves the very worst: the compound fracture, the injured horse, the aftermath of a drunken brawl, or the politician that falls at the hand of an assassin, the street Arab run over by a cab, the cow dead on the tracks. These are things from which society has done its best to insulate us, and yet, safe in our protected sphere, we crane our necks searching for the blood.
Aye, the blood. We had just come from a woman whose life’s blood had spilled out across a courtyard in a stream. There must have been a bucketful, at least. I have heard that in the body, encased within the veins, the blood is not red, that only when it comes in contact with air does it turn that particular shade of crimson that causes our heart to beat in sympathy and alarm when it splashes on the pavement. Staring down at Elizabeth Stride’s corpse, I felt as if we all are merely vessels of blood, beakers, flagons, tankards. Walking wine glasses, fragile as a brandy snifter, so easily dashed to the ground, splashing our contents everywhere for all to see.
“Hurry, Thomas!” Barker called. “Don’t lag behind.”
Are we congratulating ourselves that it wasn’t us? Is that why we stare? Do we not know that the probability that we will be next improves with every attack? Are we glad to cheat Death and Injury again? Is it bravado on our part? Do we revel in a feeling of false invincibility? I ask this because we were all running, our faces flush with exertion, and I never felt more completely alive. Then we turned the corner into Mitre Square and came up to a large group of people milling about and there we met Death. In spite of everything, I was not prepared for it.
A woman lay there, like the others, on her back, with her hands down at her sides and her limbs splayed open, resting on her outer heels, but the Ripper had not spared this one. Great gobbets of flesh had been cut from her body as if she were a pig on a butcher’s block. It stained her petticoats and lay in puddles about her. Her throat had been cut and yet still these were not the worst things about this tragic death. The killer had seen fit, when going about his work, to entertain himself by carving shapes in her face. A vertical slash had been sliced in each eyeball, the ears had been nearly severed. An inverted V had been cut in the flesh of each cheek. Had she still been dying when her face was first incised with the blade which had killed three other women?
It was too much. That is the thing about terror. One reaches a point and it isn’t academic anymore. It seizes us in its skeletal claws and shakes us by the throat. I cried out involuntarily as I saw the poor drab laying there.
“Merciful heaven,” Abberline muttered under his breath. As for the constable who led us here, he stumbled to a nearby wall and became ill.
Barker squatted on his haunches and put a hand on the cooling ankle of the victim. I don’t know if there is a Baptist version of last rites, but he lowered his head and prayed over her body.
“Don’t touch her, sir,” a man said beside us. I turned and regarded the speaker. He was sketching the body in a notebook with colored pens, every horrible and disgusting detail. It seemed an invasion of the corpse’s privacy. I wanted to rip the notebook from his hand and toss him over my shoulder, using the Japanese method Barker had taught me. My employer stood again and regarded the artist.
“Surely this is not for the newspapers,” he said.
“No, sir,” the man said. “For Scotland Yard. The commissioner wants an exact representation, he said. Apparently, they bundled off the first two victims t
oo quickly. Said he wanted things done thoroughly and scientifically.”
“As you were, then,” Barker said.
I returned to glaring at the unfortunate again. It was another woman in her forties, this one looking a trifle underfed. A bonnet had been pushed to the back of her head. Unlike the others, this poor woman might have been handsome for her age. Her hair was chestnut and her skin was fair. The blade had cut through her eyelids and cut off the tip of her nose, but the wounds had not bled. She had been disfigured after death. The Ripper, or whatever name the Guv would call him, had become a consummate professional now at cutting throats. In every case one slash had extinguished life, or at least I hoped it had.
The body had been illuminated by a full-sized oil lantern a constable had liberated from somewhere. Barker took it by the wire and moved to the other side, near the victim’s left hand. Objects that belonged to her had been spread out beside her, but not taken. There were coins, a comb, a pocket handkerchief, and a small envelope containing lozenges.
“Who spread them out like this?” he demanded. “Was it you?”
“No, the Ripper,” the artist replied.
The Guv sighed. I began to think that whether the killer had sent the red-inked letter to the newspapers or not, he was going to be known by that sobriquet forever.
“Interesting.”
“What is, sir?” I asked.
“How everything is spaced. There doesn’t appear to be any pattern, but he set everything out deliberately. I cannot fathom why he should care to examine the contents of her pockets.”
“Why should he want to carve up her face, for that matter?”
“What do you suppose he does with the parts he cuts out and takes away?” Abberline asked at my shoulder. He had an unsettling habit of moving without a sound, but perhaps my nerves were merely ajangle. “Some sort of trophy, perhaps? Does he preserve them in a jar?”
“He’s mad as a hatter,” I said.
“Or he wants us to think he is,” Abberline answered. “Who found this body?”