Ethan laid on his back on the rug, still chuckling, finding the elusive answer in front of him. Time had always been the true killer. Ethan glared at the ceiling, yet, did not see wood and paint and nails. He saw the awe of his companion. Time was the greatest serial killer in the history of, well, time. Cunning and masterful, no one could ever see it coming or when it would target them. No mere mortal ever knew what weapon it would use, when or whether its attack would be slow and torturous or quick and painless. Time had no mercy or forgiveness, pushing on with macabre intent to eventually take the life of everything within reach.
Suddenly Ethan began to cry, weeping like a newborn baby. Rolling on his side into a fetal position, surrendering to the fact he was as controlled by Time as anyone or anything else. He was not guilty of these despicable acts he had committed and would still commit. He was the instrument of Time. To make sure he would fulfill his assigned tasks in history, it had murdered that policeman’s parents by burning them to death two years earlier, so his fictitious identity would never be divulged. Pulling his knees close to his chest, surrendering to an infinite power and persuasion of his friend, to the degree of being fully submissive to its control, as long as Ethan was obedient to what was already laid out in front of him he would preserve history as it was and return home unblemished from his venture. Tears rolled off his face as he brought his clenched hand up to his mouth, biting down on his knuckles in an effort to suppress anguished cries. It seemed to have no effect so he sought another alternative method of muting himself and promptly stuck his thumb in his mouth. Before he was aware of the action he was sucking it like an infant, cooing in lieu of crying, remaining in this position until he fell asleep in the middle of the floor.
He awoke somewhat lost in his day as there was still light outside. Had he slept through the night and it was Tuesday? Pulling his pocket watch, checking the time, it was 4:55 in the afternoon and probably still Monday. Ethan rose from the floor, walked over to the desk then sat in the chair by the window. The tears had dried on his face as he slept and the cool air penetrating his room breezed along his skin. He looked down upon the audience a floor below as he had done countless times prior but this time he heard a murmur of anti-Semitism rising from the chorus of voices, a circulating opinion, the view was such that “an Englishman” would never commit such heinous crimes, but a dirty immigrant with a sordid past could’ve been capable of it. From within the four walls of his own room, Ethan worked feverishly within his mind to understand what was happening to him.
If he was to be an instrument in the hands of Time he needed to comprehend the complexities of his role. His sudden awareness of surrender was the signal from his ally that the next two victims of Jack the Ripper were all about time and timing. In the span of forty-five minutes he would have to murder two women in two separate locations. He was already growing in his moustache for the plan he’d put in place, knowing every detail about a night in the past that was to come. The theatre curtain for the next act would be raised in less than two weeks and it was rehearsal time for Ethan regarding his role in the play. This was the third act and one of the trickiest. Two performances, back-to-back, the “Double Event”, as it was titled by the press. Ethan would have to become the master of Time, not subject to its whims. It was more than one mile between Berner Street and Mitre Street, far closer to the City of London. There would have to be time trials, walkthroughs during the middle of daytime traffic to gauge just how much of a pace he would need to maintain going from point “A” to point “B” in this short timeframe allotted between victims, only forty minutes total from one murder to the next murder. Other variables were taken care of by history, from precisely where the two women would be when it was time to strike, to the players and witnesses involved up to and after his performance and perfunctory bow. It was also the first time he needed to leave clues for the clueless, graffiti on a wall, streets away from the second woman’s body, a message written in chalk which he’d borrow from the public kitchen’s chalkboard downstairs. The clue he’d leave behind did not reflect his opinion nor was it a personal indictment or statement. It was merely of historical significance and a part of the timeline so it had to be written because his friend Time said so.
Over the next two weeks Ethan would begin his rehearsal and run-throughs on Berner Street just off Commercial Road which was south of Whitechapel Road. In local attire, he would work in broad daylight during the busiest point of the day so not to draw attention, blending into the masses of traffic between Whitechapel and the main part of London. Between the 16th and the 29th of September, Ethan went through the paces with the accompaniment of his pocket watch, hoping to pin down a set time frame to proceed from start to finish. He even made runs during the rain on several occasions, as it was recorded that it had rained earlier on the night of the “Double Event”. Ethan walked the streets a dozen times or more, pacing himself at different speeds, searching for the path of least resistance as the most direct route, assuring his arrival at Mitre Street was not too early nor too late. Over twenty miles of round trip walks allowed Ethan to condition his legs, developing several painful blisters in the process. Ah, what actors will sacrifice and endure for the love of the craft, so to nurture the artist at heart!
Ethan claimed the day of September 29th to rest and relax, refocusing his mind and memory on files, the facts of the case. He had once again, if only for a moment, obtained the will to do “the job”, what he’d been tasked with, destined for in history. Lying prone on his bed, eyes closed, he visualized every nuance of a planned attack and route to and from each location. Accessing his memory for witness statements and historical accounts of what was to happen, he had masterfully planned how his role would play out later this evening and with a whimsical thought of himself being Dickens’ character the artful dodger, Time being his mentor, the elderly Fagin from “Oliver Twist”, he began to get ready.
There was not much left to chance and Ethan was not one for superstition where the facts were concerned, especially when laid out ahead of time by Time itself. His actions were based solely on historical accounts of the case. Deciding what to wear, he felt far more comfortable in his physician’s proper attire, what he wore for Polly Nichols’ and Annie Chapman. Earlier in the week, after a completion of one of his practice runs, Ethan had bought the pipe which he knew had relevance later on that evening. His moustache had also grown out considerably. Completing his ensemble for his night out, including preparing his medical bag appropriately for what was to come, he was ready, waiting for the play to begin, anticipating the opening act.
Knowing he would need to be more careful during his evening departures now, even though Time would never betray him, he would still have to remain vigilant, be pragmatic about intangibles, what role the unknown plays in history. Ethan had to be a sleuth, stealthy. If he were spotted leaving the lodging someone in the future might mention it to the local authorities in a bout of suspicion and fear for what was happening in Whitechapel. Prior to his departure, Ethan paced the room, returning to the mirror to revisit those eyes, someone he used to know. He gave himself the once over in his lucky suit but luck had nothing to do with it.
Slipping out the back exit near the outhouse, once more he made his way in the direction of the busy Whitechapel Road. It still was raining, wind bustling, causing the pedestrians to grab hold of their head covers so to protect them from lifting off into the air. Turning west on Whitechapel, journeying to Plumbers Row, he turned south then continued until he reached Commercial Road. His destination was just across the road on Berner Street. He opened his pocket watch while under the cover of a market canopy. It was 11:41 p.m. on a Saturday night. He was aware from his case study, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes had already been busy working several men that night. Miss Stride had been seen exiting with a man from a public house just down from him about forty minutes before. She had also been seen with a well-dressed man exiting the Bricklayer’s Arms, embracing and kissing. She was se
en soon thereafter on Berner Street with a man wearing a sailor’s hat, kissing and caressing each other. The rain had stopped. Drawing the curtain....
Ethan would be standing under a canopy between these two encounters, seeing the events play out in his mind. Even in his research he had always questioned the testimonies of witnesses to Elizabeth Stride’s whereabouts until just past midnight. On a Saturday night in the Whitechapel district one could throw a stone in virtually any direction and hit a woman working the streets, the majority of them dressed in very similar attire. Also, he had wondered how many of those making reports to the police or the local newspaper were simply seeking some attention in their otherwise monotonous lives or hoping some reward would be in order. If they were all correct in their testimonies, then either Elizabeth Stride had rejected these first two men or she was damn good, proficient in her profession. Either way, her proclivities prior to 12:30 a.m. really had no bearing on the case nor Ethan’s dutiful acts to come. He knew there were conflicting reports of the description of the man Elizabeth was last seen with; different heights, hats and details of attire were divulged by eyewitnesses including the officer Ethan met earlier, Police Constable William Smith. One report had the man holding an elongated package, another stated he was holding nothing. Only one testimony gave Ethan all the facts, information he needed to know.
Based on this eyewitness account, Ethan knew precisely where to stand, lying in wait, since this particular witness would likewise witness him. Casually strolling down Berner Street in an attempt to appear as if he was going on a nonchalant walk late in the evening, he’d found his way to the spot where he’d watch it all transpire, reminiscent of being a Scope instead of a murderer. Ah, the good old days. Standing in a small alcove across the street from where he spotted Elizabeth Stride poised in her proper position, it is where he saw a shorter man approaching her. He need only wait for the director, Time to set the stage for his grand entrance in the opening act. His performance would follow that of the next character in the play who was now walking down the alley towards center stage and into his important supporting role.
Israel Schwartz was a Jewish immigrant who had no idea he was walking into a passion play, that obscure part in strolling down Berner Street, he would become a part of history, a part of the play. Ethan had the perfect stage cue to enter the act from the wings. In Schwartz’s testimony to the police (through a translator because he spoke no English), he stated that he walked up upon Elizabeth Stride and a man who was trying to pull her into the street from the alley. As she struggled and turned away the man grabbed her from behind with his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down forcefully onto the cobblestone street at the entrance to the alley. Hearing the woman make three soft outcries, he crossed the street to avoid the altercation. Not knowing the relationship, not wanting to get involved, Schwartz made his exit. As he did so, he was spotted by the brute who was accosting Stride. Pointing at Mr. Schwartz from across the road, he yelled one word:
“Lipski!”
That was it, Ethan’s stage cue. Having looked at every single perspective of this particular event, he came down on the side of Inspector Abberline who believed the man shouted “Lipski” in epithet towards Schwartz, a man with pronounced Jewish features. A year before, a Polish Jew named Israel Lipski murdered a neighboring woman in a lodging there on Berner Street by pouring nitric acid down her throat. The assailant was captured and hanged for his crime but the act outraged the local residents, inflaming anti-Semitism towards the Jewish immigrants. Londoners were known to create phrases from events, thus Lipski was used to identify an unsavory or unwelcome person of a certain appearance. Ultimately, Abberline’s investigation concluded there was no one by that name living in the area during the Whitechapel murders, leading once again to a logical deduction: the man who threw Miss Stride to the ground was using that name as an indictment, most likely to chase him away. A safe enough assumption to make, Ethan had drawn his own conclusions. The way he saw it, when the man was observed accosting Stride, he yelled out the infamous epithet in an attempt to blame Schwartz for his own sinister assault.
Right on cue, the name Lipski called out, Ethan lit the pipe he’d bought just for this special occasion. He knew that Schwartz, in a panic hearing that name shouted at him, would walk right past Ethan which he promptly did. Perfect stage directions. Schwartz gazed at Ethan who brazenly stared right back at him as he passed. Israel reported the man he had seen as five-foot-eleven in height. Ethan was six feet tall, only a slight miscalculation on the part of the witness present at the scene of a crime. Schwartz broke the gaze first, obviously thinking Ethan and the man who yelled at him were together. He kept on walking, picking up his pace. As Ethan had expected, the attacker disappeared into the alleyway behind where he’d beaten Miss Stride to the ground then blended into the shadows, never to return or be heard from again. Once word got out that she’d been murdered, obviously not wanting to be punished as, at least, an accomplice, the less than gentlemanly sort probably left the country.
On cue, Ethan hit his mark. After Schwartz passed him, he immediately crossed the road, heading over toward Elizabeth Stride, knocked out cold. She looked dead already. Without breaking his stride he arrived beside her. Crouching down, Ethan opened the medical bag, retrieving the familiar blade. Though he had his timepiece in his possession, it was not a stopwatch he could click to gauge his pace from there to Mitre Street for his next appointment with destiny. Instead, his start time would have to be the completion of the killing of this helpless woman. In an instant, Time took the lead.
Grabbing Elizabeth Stride by the hair, he pulled her head back as she lay there, face down, unresponsive to the tug. Ethan began to slice back and forth across her throat, severing the left carotid artery and continuing the sawing motion until he hit bone. As he held her hair firmly in his grasp, her neck bent back more and more as the muscle and tissue were severely separated by the piercing blade, exposing bone. The crunching sound of the knife against her spine told him he’d completed the job in a timely manner, what was required of him by his taskmaster. Though he couldn’t see her enchanting light gray eyes, the color of storm clouds brewing, releasing her beautiful curly brown hair signified the start of the race like a gun going off. Placing the knife in the bag, hastily gathering himself, Ethan began his trip to the outskirts of the city of London, over a mile away. His encounter with Elizabeth Stride took a total of thirty seconds. 12:46 a.m.
One, two, three, four, five, six. Ethan counted his steps as he quickly exited this stage for the next, in route to another victim. Wanting to smile, knowing Schwartz’s statement that the “taller” man had followed him for a bit, then stopped, obviously Israel mistook Ethan’s pace along the same route as somehow connected with him, when in fact, he was not being pursued by a stranger because of what he witnessed. In fact, it was a mere coincidence. Their paths crossed, that was all. Ethan tried to find the humor in it but he could not smile. There was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, an emptiness. A lack of fulfillment. He had an emotional reaction to the murder of Elizabeth Stride, a woman who he did not get to see before he’d claimed her life. Other than the police postmortem photographs, he never truly saw her face, just a glimpse of her profile as blood spurted from her neck. No! He was angry at his accomplice! Not at the man who took her down but at Time for not arranging the history in such a way he could have completed a full mutilation of this victim. Ethan took pride in his precision technique replicating the autopsy reports, the facts of the case, doing so to exact specifications. He could not linger at the first body. Time did not allow it and history never recorded it. He felt robbed.
Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. His pace had quickened, not because he was late or falling behind, but due specifically to his increasing angst. Ethan not only felt Time kept him from proving his devotion to the cause by having him perfect another mutilation down to the last nick of the blade but he also thought of Elizabeth Stride’s pligh
t. Time never gave her the just recognition she deserved because she wasn’t torn apart like the others. She would always be the appetizer as opposed to the main course that night, namely Catherine Eddowes. How fair was it that this woman had her life taken and was a bit player in this theatre, second even to Israel Schwartz because he was the only living person who witnessed the alleged attack on her? There was nothing fair about it. She paid the same price and should have been immortalized just like all the rest. But they weren’t, really, and he knew it. Sure, he knew all their names but how many mortal souls never bothered to know them? They were the victims of Jack the Ripper, tossed in a file, into a pile together; tossed out with the trash of history. Lost to time and a character who upstaged them from the start. Nobody knew who he really was but everyone knew his name! “Pace yourself, mate.” Ethan spoke to himself, alone in the dark.
Eighty-seven, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, he kept on moving. Pulling his pocket watch out and opening it, he measured the checkpoints along the way from his rehearsals so to time it perfectly for his arrival in Mitre Square. Too soon or too late and he could run into one of the roving policemen such as Constable Edward Watkins who’d been conducting a fifteen minute patrol of the area and who would also be the one to come upon Miss Eddowes’ body quite soon. Ethan knew his judgment on timing was probably predestined and would really have no bearing on any fluctuation in his arrival. Time would not allow him to be apprehended, not before, during or after the killing. Everything happening as it always had was both liberating and confining for Ethan. His practiced pace brought him to the edge of Mitre Street in nineteen minutes, well within the estimated times from rehearsals. In fact, a little early as he walked with a huff for a time along the more than a mile trip. Who would have thought he’d have to come back to the 19th Century to really get in shape?
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