Annie and the Ripper

by Tim Champlin

  Abberline sat back. "Relax and just tell me what you know. Take your time. We have all day."

  "I'm a simple man, sir. A laborer who works hard for a living."

  Abberline nodded.

  "I was in Romford on Thursday and I walked back to London. It's a good, long way, and I got back to Whitechapel about two the next morning on Friday. I saw Mary Kelly at Flower and Dean St. I've known her about three years, and give her money occasionally when she needs it. She asked me for sixpence, but I told her I'd spent all my money going down to Romford. She said she had to find some money and she started off toward Thrawl St. A man coming the opposite direction tapped her on the shoulder and said something. They both laughed and Mary said, 'All right'. The man responded, 'You will be all right for what I have told you'."

  "Those were his exact words?" Abberline had taken a pad from his desk and was busy scratching notes on it.

  "Yes, sir. I'd stake my reputation on it. Then he put his right hand around her shoulders. He had a small parcel with a strap around it in his left hand."

  "You're very observant."

  "Yessir. It's my nature. Besides, Mary Kelly was a friend, and I wanted to see who she was going off with. I stood against the lamp by the Queen's Head pub and watched them. As they passed me, the man hung his head so his hat covered his eyes. I stooped down to get a look at his face, and he looked very stern at me. I followed them and they turned into Dorset Street. They stood on the corner for a few minutes and the man said something I couldn't hear. Then Mary said, 'All right my dear. Come along and you'll be comfortable.' He put a hand on her shoulder and kissed her. She said she'd lost her handkerchief. He pulled out a red one and gave it to her. Then they both went into Miller's Court. I followed but couldn't see them. I waited around for about forty-five minutes to see if they'd come back out, but they didn't."

  "Can you describe him in a little more detail?"

  "Well, he was around thirty-five years old, medium pale complexion, about five foot, six inches tall, dark eyes, dark hair, a small mustache turned up at the ends. He was otherwise clean shaven. No side whiskers. He wore a long, dark coat, collar and cuffs trimmed with astrakhan. Underneath, he had a dark jacket, light waistcoat, white collar and dark necktie fastened with a horseshoe pin. Dark felt hat turned down in the middle. He wore button boots under spats with light buttons. He had a thick gold watch chain with a big seal and a red stone hanging from it. He walked softly, and gave sort of a respectable Jewish appearance."

  "Would you know this man if you saw him again?"

  "Yessir. I'll never forget the look of those eyes when I saw 'em close up. In fact, I thought I saw him again on Sunday in Petticoat Lane, but I didn't get a good look and couldn't be sure."

  "I see." Abberline was scribbling notes as fast as he could write. "Would you be willing to give this description to the press? You don't have to give your name.”

  "Yessir." Hutchinson nodded, emphatically. "I was a bit nervous about coming forward earlier because I thought somebody might've seen me hanging about Miller's Court and identify me as the killer. Mary Jane was a friend of mine, and if there's anything at all I can do to help you catch her killer, I'll do it."

  "Excellent. Wait right her a minute and I'll have my clerk take down your description in shorthand. He'll read it back to you to make sure he's got it right before it's given to the press."

  Abberline rose from his chair. "If you're serious about helping us find this killer, there's one more thing I'll ask of you."

  "Anything."

  "I want to send you with two constables to patrol the streets of the East End tonight to see if you can spot this man. Will you do it?"

  "Gladly."

  "Do you have any family obligations to tend to?"

  "I'm a bachelor, sir."

  "Good. I'll call the clerk."

  Abberline left the two alone in his office and walked outside into cold November air. He was more excited than he'd been in weeks. Here was a witness who apparently was very observant with an eye for details. George Hutchinson had to have seen The Ripper. His description even coincided, in most details, with the general descriptions of some other witnesses. This killer did not stand out in a crowd. He dressed and looked and acted like many other men, and passed unnoticed by the Whitechapel residents. Many outsiders passed through the district. Hutchinson, who lived in Whitechapel, had not recognized this man, so he was possibly a stranger or a visitor. But now that Hutchinson had gotten a good look at The Ripper, hopefully he could spot him again. Since the killer was apparently still confident he could avoid detection, he'd likely be on the streets, bold as ever. Abberline prayed The Ripper had satisfied his gruesome blood lust long enough for the police to get their hands on him before he struck again. They were as close now as they'd ever been.

  CHAPTER 12

  But it was not to be. George Hutchinson, with two constables, patrolled the streets of the East End until three in the morning, part of the next day, and then until four the following morning. Nothing was seen of their quarry.

  Abberline's early enthusiasm gradually waned as the days wore on, and the man Hutchinson had seen was seen no more. Hutchinson's detailed description had been given wide circulation by the press. But there were no more sightings by several thousand pairs of eyes who were on the lookout. The publicity did produce several hundred letters and verbal reports from the public. He was seen in Dorset St. or in the Britannia pub, or in Buck's Row, or on Old Montague St. The police followed up on all these reports that had even the faintest chance of being true. But if The Ripper had ever been at any of these places, he was long gone. On several occasions, a nearby constable on the beat was called within minutes of sightings, but the suspect was always missing by the time he arrived.

  After two weeks, Abberline was on the point of despair. The police and Scotland Yard had done everything humanly possible to apprehend this criminal, but it seemed as if Divine intervention was going to be required for success.

  One afternoon Roger Clark entered his office carrying two folders. "Chief, what are we going to do with these two suspects? Nothing new has been added to these two files for several weeks."

  On the tab of the top file were the block letters, SICKERT, WALTER. Abberline flipped it open. "I don't recall that we have much, if anything, on this man."

  "He's a prominent English artist who has a studio in the East End and associates with a number of prostitutes in the district. A morally bankrupt profligate, if I may say so."

  "That's not a crime. What else?"

  "He's in his thirties, unmarried, paints rather strange, grotesque paintings depicting the lower classes, and is able to sell enough of his paintings to make a living. In fact, he has something of a reputation as an artist, although his paintings make my skin crawl."

  "Don't be a snob, Roger. We don't all have the same artistic tastes."

  "He has plenty of opportunity and always seems to be close by when a murder is committed. I'm told he actually admires the brutality and audacity of The Ripper and even wears a red scarf around his neck as a symbol of blood when he's creating some of his gruesome scenes on canvas."

  "Has he shown any antipathy toward prostitutes?"

  "Not to my knowledge. Although, since he's intimate with at least two of them, he's threatened those two when they go whoring with other men."

  "Not unlike a few of those prostitutes' husbands," Abberline said.

  "Perhaps jealousy to the point of murder?" Clark wondered.

  "Possible, human nature being what it is." Abberline said. "So he has been heard to threaten these women?"

  "Yes, on several occasions."

  "The Ripper would not likely do that. We're dealing with a man who would not go around growling or threatening. He'd more than likely be quiet, then explode when ready and the savagery would burst forth. More like a wolf with 'dumb rabies'."

  "He likes to dress up and play the part of an eccentric, arrogant artist, has even performed on the stage, bu
t not very successfully. He is a consumer of women. Has fathered more than one illegitimate child."

  "So, what we know for sure is that he is a painter with what's known as an artistic temperament who uses women, but doesn't necessarily harm them, physically. He's a braggart, a hedonist, a poseur, possibly a frustrated actor who likes to constantly play a role in his daily life and wear a red scarf to scandalize his friends and ape Jack the Ripper," Abberline summed up, leafing through the file. "Again, no hard evidence, but a man who will bear watching."

  "What about this man?" Clark said, sliding the other folder over. The name was KLOSOWSKI, SEVERIN A.

  "I've gone through this file thoroughly Abberline said. "Born in Poland, trained as a physician, abandoned a wife and migrated to London two years ago and located in Whitechapel earlier this year. Failed to make it as a doctor, so he's been working as a barber's assistant, doing things like lancing boils and other minor surgical procedures. He's been living and working in the district during the murders and worked in a shop under a public house at George Yard, very near the Martha Tabrum murder site." Abberline reeled off the information in a monotone, knowing it almost by heart. He looked up. "He had opportunity and he has the surgical skill. But did he do it? At this point, he's shown no signs of violence and we have nothing to connect him with any of the murders."

  "Damn!" Clark exploded, slumping back into his chair. "When are we going to get a break in this case? The public thinks we're not doing our job."

  "Besides writing letters giving us their favorite theories, the public is not doing the exhausting legwork necessary to pick up clues or evidence," Abberline said, with resignation. "Keep these two files active for now." He closed the folder and slid both of them across the desk.

  "Yessir." Clark picked up the files and left the office.

  A sense of frustration, bordering on despair, was creeping over Abberline, but he dared not communicate that feeling to his subordinate. He'd never been involved in anything that had taxed his energy and resourcefulness like this case. He could think of nothing the police or Scotland Yard had not done. Policemen disguised as women were sent out on patrol. Abberline smiled ruefully at the mental picture. The Ripper would have to be very drunk, indeed, to mistake one of those big-boned constables for a female prostitute. The Ripper struck where and when he chose, with no discernible pattern, except that most of the murders were on weekends, and between midnight and six in the morning. Apparently, he was driven by some perverted desire or compulsion that had nothing to do with logic. In the meantime, every prostitute lived on stolen time.

  From all available evidence, The Ripper was soft-spoken, genteel, wore the clothes of a somewhat down-on-his-luck gentleman. A cunning individual, he was nothing at all like Stevenson's Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde who drank a formula to change from mild physician to blood-lusting maniac. And he most certainly did not fit the description given to Abberline by Beth Hampton, a prostitute at the Three Bells. She'd been introduced to absinthe by some of her friends, and later told Abberline she'd had a vision of The Ripper. "He was coming for me like a hound from hell, in a halo of green marsh gas, wearing his bones and blood vessels on the outside like some ghastly coat. His hair was all asquirm with maggots and his eyes were ablaze like live coals. I could hear that foot-long knife blade whistling through the air when he slashed it back and forth."

  She went on to say she'd never touch absinthe again.

  Abberline checked his watch, then heaved himself out of his chair and headed for the door. Another frustrating day. He'd walk home, stopping on the way at the Whitechapel Workhouse where a man fitting The Ripper's description had been seen the previous night. A slim lead was better than none.

  By the time he reached the workhouse, the sun was only a red disc in the west, unable to penetrate the murky atmosphere of London's exhalations. A line of destitute men and women stretched from the door down the block and around the corner, queued up early, each hoping to obtain one of a limited number of available cots for a night's shelter in return for some kind of maintenance work in the morning.

  Abberline went to the head of the line, where a man sat behind a wire-grated window. "Wait your turn, mate. We ain't open yet." The man said without looking up.

  "Inspector Abberline of Scotland Yard," he said, flipping back his ulster to reveal the badge pinned to the back side of his lapel. "I'd like a word with the manager."

  The clerk got up, moved to one side and unlocked a door. "He's on the second floor. End of the hall."

  Abberline climbed the creaking wooden stairs and found a middle-aged man in a cubbyhole office. He introduced himself.

  "What's the problem, Inspector? We run a respectable place here."

  "We got a report that a man fitting The Ripper's description stayed here last night."

  "Is that a fact? Well, I wouldn't know nothing about that. What'd he look like, exactly?"

  Abberline described the man as being about five foot, six, slender, clean shaven except for a small mustache, dark hair, dark coat, possibly a gold watch chain.

  "Lordy, that description would fit arf the men who come 'ere, except for the gold watch chain. He'd uv had that stolen from him as soon as it got dark. If my clerk had seen that chain he wouldn't a let the man inside. We search 'em for weapons and such, ya know. Have to be destitute to stay here—no money atall."

  "Yes, you're right." Abberline, who'd been standing in the doorway of the tiny office, stepped around the corner and looked into the long room. "Your casual ward?"

  "That's it."

  The long room contained two opposing rows of bunks. Each was actually a set of square iron frames bolted to the floor. A three-foot wide strip of canvas was rolled up on one frame. To form the cot, this strip was unrolled and fastened to its opposite square frame six feet away. A blanket was supplied to each sleeper.

  It reminded Abberline of his time in the navy, except the sailors' bunks had been suspended from the overhead. He'd enlisted at age seventeen and served four years in one of Her Majesty's smaller war ships, helping police the British Empire. He glanced out one of the shadeless windows at the glowing red ball that seemed to be resting on the rooftops. He'd seen just such a hazy sun sinking into the sea off the Azores. With little stretch of his imagination, he could still hear the bos'un's pipe shrilling across more than a quarter-century of time. It sounded very similar to the police whistles he heard nearly every day now.

  "Anything wrong, inspector?"

  The manager was standing at his shoulder.

  "No. No. That's all, thanks. If you happen to see a man meeting the description, I gave you, please send someone 'round to Scotland Yard right away."

  "I'll do that, sir."

  He clumped down the stairs and out to the street. Now to the athletic club for a hard, fast workout, home for a light supper and then bed.

  Tomorrow he'd get up and do the same thing all over again.

  "Ad in," Abberline called to his opponent across the net, a young, lithe constable. The man bent at the waist, standing flat-footed to receive the service, looking as tired as Abberline felt. The cement floor was painted a light green to make it easier on the eyes and to simulate a grass court. Several gas lights in sconces around the walls gave a semblance of daylight.

  It had been a grueling, best of three set, two-hour match. Abberline stepped back from the baseline, wiping sweat from his brow and stalling to catch his breath. His opponent was twenty years his junior and Abberline had never defeated him. But now he was within one point of winning the match.

  He toed the baseline, tossed the tennis ball into the air over his head and brought the racket through, slamming the ball into the opposite court. The constable caught it back-handed at the last instant and flicked it back. Then they had it back and forth--baseline shots, corner shots, short drops, forehand cross-court shots, dashing front to back and side to side in desperate lunges to make impossible returns of almost sure winners.

  Finally, Abberline saw a slig
ht opening and slammed a forehand with all his strength down the line and past the constable for the deciding point. It was all he could do to walk to the net without staggering to shake his opponent's hand.

  "Great match, inspector!"

  "Tom, admit it now," Abberline gasped, "you were sand-bagging, weren't you? You let me win."

  "On my honor, I was playing as hard as I could, inspector." The two men walked toward the dressing room. "You've come a long way since we started hitting a few balls in here weeks ago."

  Abberline nodded. "Hope I've made some progress. I was in pitiful condition."

  "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were picturing me as Jack the Ripper tonight," the constable laughed. "I could see that hate in your eyes."

  "I have to take out my frustrations on somebody, Tom. Thanks for understanding."

  "I think that's one reason this club is here."

  "Janelle, you're still working?" Abberline asked, twenty minutes later as he was checking out. "I thought the night shift would be on by now."

  She smiled, handing over his topcoat. "I'll be leaving in ten minutes. But I'm applying to change my shift so I'll work from midnight until eight in the morning."

  "Why?"

  "Less work. Fewer men come in during those hours to work out. I'm studying up to go back to school, and I have time to read during those quiet hours." She hesitated, looking serious. "I haven't read or heard about any progress in the Ripper case the past week or so."

  "There hasn't been any." He lowered his voice. "I get the uneasy feeling he's about due to strike again, although he doesn't follow any kind of time table." He shrugged into his coat. "The days are getting short. You don't have to walk far in the dark, do you?"

  "Oh, no. I room with an aunt, and she has her own conveyance. Picks me up right at the door in a closed carriage."

  "Good."

  "You know, Inspector, I suppose everyone is giving you advice about how to catch The Ripper, so I won't add to that. I'm sure you know your business better than anyone else. I will say, though, that maybe a woman would be able to bait him, bring him out of hiding. These prostitutes know how to lure men. It's an instinctive thing with women."