There were more sensations when the inquest opened on the following Monday morning at Shoreditch Town Hall. The hearing, to everyone’s astonishment, lasted less than half a day. Several newspapers commented unfavourably on the unnatural brevity of the proceedings and on the behaviour of the coroner, who told the jury that he was going to take only the preliminary part of Dr Phillips’s evidence, which would be heard in full at an adjourned date. His abrupt termination of the hearing thus allowed for only a minimum of evidence to be given, and he went out of this way to stifle the criticisms from the inquest jury.
The jurors’ main objection to the hearing was that it should not have been held in Shoreditch at all. The murders had happened in Whitechapel and came within Mr Wynne E. Baxter’s district. Some of them resented having to hear cases which didn’t properly belong to their district, and others to the hearing being presided over by Dr McDonald instead of Mr Baxter. Dr McDonald was a former police surgeon for K Division and was clearly determined to have his own way from the beginning:
JUROR: I do not see why we should have the inquest thrown on our shoulders when the murder did not happen in our district, but in Whitechapel.
CORONER’S OFFICER (severely): It did not happen in Whitechapel.
CORONER (severely): Do you think that we do not know what we are doing here? The jury are summoned in the ordinary way, and they have no business to object. If they persist in their objection I shall know how to deal with them. Does any juror persist in objecting?
JUROR: We are summoned for the Shoreditch district. This happened in Spitalfields.
CORONER: It happened within my district.
ANOTHER JURYMAN: This is not my district. I come from Whitechapel, and Mr Baxter is my coroner.
CORONER: I am not going to discuss the subject with the jurymen at all. If any juryman says he distinctly objects, let him say so. (After a pause). I may tell the jurymen that jurisdiction lies where the body lies, not where it was found.
He stressed this point a little later by saying that he hadn’t been in touch with Mr Baxter, as some newspapers had suggested. ‘The body is in my jurisdiction, it was taken to my mortuary, and that is the end of the matter,’ he said stiffly.
Before the evidence was given, the jury were taken to the mortuary to see the body. A dirty grey sheet covered it to the neck, so that the mutilations mercifully couldn’t be seen. The face itself was slashed and disfigured beyond recognition. Only the eyes showed any signs of humanity. It resembled, according to the Pall Mall Gazette, ‘one of those horrible wax anatomical specimens’.
After viewing the body, the jurors went on to Miller’s Court and then back to the town hall to hear the first witness, Joseph Barnett. He told the court that he had last seen Kelly alive between 7.30 and 7.45 p.m. on the Thursday evening when she was talking to Maria Harvey. He was questioned in some detail about her background. He said she had told him several times that she had been born in Limerick but had been taken when she was quite young to Wales, where her father had been employed at an ironworks in Carmarthenshire. She had also mentioned that she had six brothers and sisters; one of the brothers was in the army. When she was sixteen she had married a collier named Davis but a year or two later he had been killed in an explosion. Apparently it was the delay in paying her compensation which first drove her onto the streets. This is unconvincing, as she had no children of her own to look after, wasn’t quite eighteen and was capable of earning a living other than as a prostitute. She was twenty-one when she moved to London in 1884. It is difficult to separate fact from fancy at this point, but she allegedly lived in a ‘gay house’ (a high-class brothel) in the West End and then for a short time with a gentleman in France, but she didn’t like the life and returned to England. Hard facts creep into her story once again with Barnett’s disclosures that she had subsequently lived with a man named Morganstone in the infamous Ratcliffe Highway running east from the Tower of London, and in Bethnal Green with a mason named Joseph Fleming.
From the medical and other evidence, the time of death had been established as being between 3.30 and 4 a.m. The laundress Sara Lewis was one of the witnesses who confirmed this timing. She lived at 24 Great Pearl Street but had gone to Miller’s Court at 2.30 a.m. on Friday morning to visit Mrs Keyler, who lived in the house opposite Room 13. One strongly suspects that she was a prostitute and that possibly she had gone there to shelter from the rain or, like Mrs Harvey, who had shared Kelly’s room for a while, had nowhere else to sleep. She said that she had seen a man standing outside the lodging-house door. He was stout, not very tall and had on a black wide-awake hat. She didn’t hear any noise as she went down the court, but she heard a woman’s scream later on. At the time she was sitting in a chair in Mrs Keyler’s house, having been unable to sleep, and it was just before 4 a.m. when she heard a woman’s voice shout ‘Murder!’ quite loudly. Her impression was that it was a young woman’s voice and that it came from just outside the door.
She was asked if she was frightened or if she woke anyone up. Mrs Lewis shrugged her shoulders. ‘No,’ she said. She had taken no notice as the woman screamed only once. Mrs Prater confirmed that she had heard the scream at about that time.
Yet the evidence of another witness, Mrs Maxwell, contradicted them both. According to her, she had spoken to Kelly at 8 a.m. the next morning. This was in such direct conflict with all the evidence that had already been given – including the medical – that the coroner warned her to be careful about what she said. She told him that she was the wife of the lodging-house keeper at 14 Dorset Street and had known Kelly for about four months although she had spoken to her only about twice. She was positive that she had seen Kelly between 8 and 8.30 a.m. at the corner of Miller’s Court, less than three hours before her body was found, as this was the time that her husband normally left off work. It was so unusual to see her at such an hour that Mrs Maxwell had asked her to have a drink. Kelly explained that the reason why she was up so early was because she felt so bad. She had drunk a glass of beer and brought it up again. Mrs Maxwell sympathized and said that she could pity her feelings. Half an hour later she saw her outside the Britannia public house talking to a man. She could see that Kelly was wearing a dark skirt, velvet bodice, maroon shawl and no hat. The man she was with was wearing dark clothes and seemed to have a plaid coat on. He was little taller than Mrs Maxwell herself, and stout.
Almost the last witness was Dr Bagster Phillips. The coroner said that he would not go into all the medical details at this stage and that his more detailed evidence could be given at a later date. Dr Phillips complied with this directive and said that the immediate cause of death was the severing of the carotid artery.
Shortly after Phillips finished giving his evidence, the coroner, to the astonishment of his listeners, said that he did not propose to take any more evidence that day and, turning to the jury, asked if they had heard enough to reach their verdict. He said that if they were satisfied that Mary Kelly had died as the doctor said, by having the carotid artery cut, then they could bring in a verdict to this effect and leave the rest of the investigation in the hands of the police. Of course, if they disagreed with this he would adjourn the inquest for a week or fortnight, when they could hear the evidence they wanted.
The foreman stood up and said that the jury considered that they had heard enough to return a verdict of wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.
This abrupt termination of the inquest was instantly criticized by several newspapers including the Daily Telegraph, which gave a plain hint that the Home Secretary should order a new inquiry. By hurriedly closing the hearing, it pointed out, the opportunity had been lost to take statements while the evidence of witnesses was still fresh in their minds. Such mishandling of the most sensational murder of all might, if the killer was ever caught, materially affect the outcome of any further trial and might possibly be the flaw in the case which could lead to his acquittal.
Incredibly there was one witness who didn’
t come forward until after the inquest. His name was George Hutchinson and he had been out of work for several weeks. He had known Mary Kelly for about three years, and was occasionally able to give her a few shillings. Whether this was meant to imply that he was a casual client is not clear. His statement to the police was the most important one to date as he said that he had met Kelly at 2 a.m. in Thrawl Street, about an hour and a half to two hours before she was murdered. If true, he was the last man to see her alive, apart from the killer.
He said that at 2 a.m. he was walking down Thrawl Street, without the money for a bed, and just before he reached Flower and Dean Street he met Kelly who asked him to lend her sixpence. He told her, ‘I can’t. I have spent all my money going down to Romford.’ She shrugged and said, ‘Good morning. I must go and find some money.’
As she walked away, a man coming in the opposite direction tapped her on the shoulder and said something, and they both burst out laughing. Hutchinson was surprised to see her with such a well-dressed man and he stared curiously at them. The man was about thirty-five years old, 5 ft. 6 ins. tall, with a pale complexion, dark hair and a slight moustache which was curled up at each end. He wore a long dark coat, with collar and cuffs of trimmed astrakhan and a dark-coloured jacket underneath, and a light-coloured waistcoat holding a very thick gold chain. He also wore dark trousers and button boots and gaiters with white buttons. His white shirt and black tie were fastened with a horseshoe pin. In appearance he was Jewish and quite respectable.
In his left hand he had a kind of parcel with a strap around it.
Hutchinson heard her say ‘All right,’ and the man reply ‘You will be all right for what I have told you.’ He then placed his right hand around her shoulders and Hutchinson, who was standing against the lamp outside the Queen’s Head public house, watched them as they walked back towards him. The man kept his head down and his dark felt hat over his eyes. Hutchinson was so curious to know what he looked like that he bent down and looked him in the face. This would explain the ‘surly face’ in his description. He followed them into Dorset Street and watched as they stood talking at the corner of Miller’s Court for about three minutes. He said something in a low voice and Hutchinson heard Kelly say, quite clearly, ‘All right, my dear. Come along, you will be comfortable.’ He then placed his hand on her shoulder and gave her a kiss. She said that she had lost her handkerchief, whereupon the man pulled out his, a red one, and gave it to her before they went up the court together. Hutchinson was curious enough to follow them, but he couldn’t see them. He waited for about three-quarters of an hour to see if they came out again, but they didn’t. And so he went away.
It is probable that Hutchinson was the man whom the laundress saw waiting outside the court when she went in to Mrs Keyler at 2.30 a.m. The probable sequence of events that night was that Kelly took home a man from the pub and got rid of him pretty quickly. This would be sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. when she met Hutchinson. She told Hutchinson that she hadn’t got any money and so we can assume that either the first client didn’t pay her, which is unlikely, or that she was pretending poverty and had some reason for doing so. At this point it is worth referring back to the lodging-house keeper McCarthy and his behaviour the next day. Both he and Joe Barnett tried to pretend ignorance of the fact that Kelly was a prostitute or, in McCarthy’s case, that he had only just learned that she walked the streets in Aldgate. As almost every woman in Miller’s Court was a known prostitute this is hard to believe, especially as he rented them their rooms and houses; these were known locally as McCarthy’s Rents, which was probably a local phrase referring to the prostitutes in Miller’s Court controlled by McCarthy and not the houses that he owned, as has been often assumed.
This interpretation might explain certain other puzzling facts about the Kelly case. All the sources agree that she was owing three months’ rent to McCarthy, amounting to twenty-nine shillings. However, according to the Illustrated Police News, Mrs McCarthy adhered very ‘strictly to the principle of “ready” cash in dealing with lodgers. It is usually her practice to wait on them in the course of the morning, and receive each day’s rent in advance.’ This was normal practice throughout the area. Why then was Kelly privileged? According to neighbours, Barnett had done his best to keep her off the streets. In spite of his efforts she might have continued with a certain amount of casual prostitution, but her earnings would have been minimal.
The room was in Kelly’s name and possibly she was drinking the money that Barnett gave her for the rent. McCarthy probably allowed her to run up the debt so that he could make even more out of her when he chose. From the facts it seems likely that at the end of October, to get her back to work, he told her that she had to share her room with Mrs Harvey, knowing that this must force Barnett to leave until the debt was paid. This was possibly what the real quarrel with Kelly was about, that they were twenty-nine shillings in debt to McCarthy and that Kelly had to pay it off the only way that she could. This would also explain why, even after Mrs Harvey had moved out, Barnett did not move back into Room 13 and why he continued to visit Kelly almost daily to give her money and even, the last time that he saw her alive, to tell her that he had not got any.
Possibly Kelly had been given an ultimatum that she had to earn more money or get out of her room. This would explain why she was so desperate for money on the night she was murdered and why she was ready to pound the streets on a rainy night long after everyone else had gone to bed. It might also offer an explanation for the behaviour of McCarthy’s other ‘rents’ who felt equally impelled to stagger about the streets until after 3 a.m. and then get up to go to work only two hours later.
In fact, Kelly needed quite a lot of customers to raise the twenty-nine shillings owing in rent. Barnett had given her all the money that he could, and she might have been paid something by the man she took home from the pub, but Hutchinson could give her nothing. And then she meets the stranger. There is some haggling, which Hutchinson witnesses. Probably it was about how much he was willing to pay for spending what was left of the night with her. This might explain the remark that Hutchinson overheard him make: ‘You will be all right for what I had told you.’
Between 3.30 and 4 a.m., according to an independent medical report, Mary Kelly’s killer partly smothered her with a sheet as he killed her, probably by stabbing. Because of the extensive mutilations it was not possible to say how the first blow was struck.
At 6.15 a.m. Mrs Cox heard someone walking down the court. As she didn’t hear a door bang it might have been the local policeman but she couldn’t be sure. It might just as easily have been Jack the Ripper. This, like so much else, is only conjecture.
One of the mysteries the police found when they broke down the door was the remains of the fire in the grate. According to Inspector Abberline the heat had been so intense that it had burnt off the handle and spout of a tin kettle. The ashes were still warm when they entered the house at 1.30 p.m. Assuming 6 a.m. to be roughly the time that the killer left Miller’s Court, this means that the ashes had been cooling for over seven hours. When the ashes were sifted they found some pieces of skirt and the brim of a woman’s hat, the latter presumably one of the items of clothing left by Maria Harvey. At the inquest she said that it consisted of two men’s dirty shirts, a boy’s shirt, a black overcoat (which was all the police could find) a black crepe bonnet with black satin strings and a girl’s white petticoat. Yet this would not have created a great blaze. Mary Kelly’s own clothes were lying folded up on the bedside chair, and so the unanswered question is: what had been burnt in that grate?
There have been various suggestions. It might have been clothing that the killer himself wore. But the only reason he could have for burning it would have been if it was bloodstained; and as such it is only likely that it would smoulder, and not flare – certainly it would not throw out enough heat to burn the handle and spout off a tin kettle that was designed to withstand intense heat. Even ordinary combustibles such
as coal and coke would have to have the help of a bellows to throw out that sort of heat. Another suggestion is that these things were burnt to give him light. If light was what he needed, why had he not used the candle which stood there? Surely the risks were much smaller with one small flickering flame than with a roaring fire?
While Inspector Abberline was busily following up these clues, the newspapers and public at large were rejoicing over the downfall of Sir Charles Warren. Punch jeeringly published a parody of the nursery rhyme which they called ‘Who Killed Cock Warren?’:
Who chased COCK WARREN?
‘I’, said the Home Sparrow
‘With my views cramped and narrow,
I chased COCK WARREN.’
And who’ll fill his place?
‘I’, said Monro,
‘I’m the right man, I know,
And I’ll fill his place.’
And who’ll tie your hands?
‘I’, said Routine,
‘That my business has been,
So I’ll tie his hands.’
Who’ll see fair play?
‘I’, said John Bull,
‘For I’m quite a fool;
I’ll see fair play!’
Warren had tendered his resignation on 8 November but he didn’t remove his papers from his office until 12 November when it was officially announced in the House of Commons to the cheers of the Opposition.
One of his last acts had been to put his name to a document that was nothing more or less than a confession of a failure. It was an official pardon and read:
MURDER – PARDON. Whereas, on November 8 or 9 in Miller’s Court, Dorset Street, Spitalfields, Mary Jane Kelly was murdered by some person or persons unknown, the Secretary of State will advise the grant of Her Majesty’s pardon to any accomplice not being a person who contrived or actually committed the murder who shall give such information and evidence as shall lead to the discovery and conviction of the person or persons who committed the murder.
The Complete Jack the Ripper Page 11