by kindels
Evening came quickly on Skerries Rock and, as the darkness slowly overwhelmed the fading twilight, I closed the door and returned to my chair by the fireside. Forbes continued to snore and I forced myself to rein in my own frustration. As much as I wanted to hear the rest of his story, he so obviously needed to sleep. Putting my feet up once again I felt my own eyes growing heavy. Surely if my guest could enjoy a much needed sleep, a short nap couldn't hurt me either, could it?
The scream that brought me back to the land of wakefulness a short time later made a mockery of my innocent thoughts of restorative sleep!
Chapter Seven
The Crimes of Jack the Ripper
"William! Mr. Forbes! For God's sake, snap out of it. It's okay, you're safe. You're with me, David Hemswell, remember?"
The terrible sound that Forbes had unleashed, and which had woken me from my all too brief slumber, continued unabated as I leaped from my chair and gripped the hysterical man by the shoulders, doing my best to calm him down and bring him back to reality, for it was plain to me that he'd entered some dark, nether world where his own personal demons were playing havoc with his mind. His eyes, though open, appeared to be looking at something that I, in my own, safe, sane, and ordered world, could only guess at. The terror that lurked within his mind had taken full hold, and Forbes appeared lost to reality, at least for the time being. Had I been possessed of neighbours in close proximity to my home, they would have been fully justified in calling the police under the assumption that a horrific murder was taking place within my walls. There are times when solitude and isolation can be a blessing. This was indeed one of them.
I tried again. "William. Please, listen to me. Nothing is going to happen to you. You're perfectly safe and secure. You're on Skerries Rock, not in London. No one can harm you here."
The man's terror showed no sign of abating as his body began to shake, uncontrollably, and he continued to stare at something I possessed no comprehension of. I thought that, perhaps, he was in the throes of a psychotic seizure; such was the intensity of the spasms which now rocked his body, and I began to fear for the man's sanity.
Had I done the right thing in allowing him to come to my home? If indeed the man was deranged in some way. It would take a great effort for me to summon the specialist help he would require. The nearest hospital, which might be in a position to help him, stood on the mainland, in the village of Durness, the most north westerly village in Scotland. I doubted that they would possess a psychiatric unit, however, and envisaged a long and perhaps disturbing journey ahead for the man, if he were to require specialist treatment. Durness itself is a bleak and lonely enclave of civilisation, with the remaining area of the north west of the country being off-limits to ordinary folk, such as me, due to the presence of the nearby military base.
As I pondered on the options for a medical evacuation of William Forbes, the man's seizure began to dissipate. The glazed and fixed look in his eyes began to soften and the muscle spasms that wracked his body began to subside. Slowly, almost ponderously, physical normality returned to my guest. I looked at my watch, surprised to discover that barely two minutes had passed since his screams had wrenched me from my brief sleep. It felt as if I'd battled with his terror for more than an hour. Such is the power of the mind to confuse and distract any one of us from reality!
I continued to kneel before the man as a modicum of mental equilibrium returned to his troubled mind. At last, the fear appeared to depart from his eyes and he looked around, as though unsure of exactly where he was. As his eyes locked on to mine, realisation dawned on him and his entire body visibly relaxed. William Forbes had returned from whatever dark place had held him captive. Now I needed to discover just where or what that place might be, and how it connected with the story he was attempting to relate to me.
As his breathing returned to a near normal rhythm, I at last ventured the simple question, "Feeling better?"
"Yes, thank-you. I'm so awfully sorry you had to see all that. I've hardly slept for so long, because I try so hard to stay awake. As soon as I fall asleep, it begins, slowly at first, and then the intensity grows and grows and I get dragged deeper and deeper in to the filthy, degraded world of that vile, evil monster!"
"You mean Jack Reid?" I asked.
"No, David, not Jack Reid, I'm talking about Jack the Ripper!"
"But how, William? How on earth do you expect me to believe that somehow you're being used by, or haunted by, the ghost, the spirit, call it what you will, of Jack The Ripper?"
"That's what I tried to tell you," he said, breathlessly. "It's that damned paper." He pointed at the plastic sleeve containing the page he'd entrusted to me.
"Somehow, and don't ask me how, but it seems to carry all the malevolent evil that existed in the black heart of The Ripper. When I've told you my tale, perhaps you'll understand. At least, I pray to God you will, for if you don't, and you say you can't help me, I don't know what I shall do."
In my own heart, I wanted to tell him not to be so irrational, that a piece of paper couldn't possibly be responsible for what was happening to him. I truly believed that William Forbes was experiencing some form of psychological breakdown and, for that reason, decided to keep quiet, for now, and try to get him to reveal everything in the course of his story.
"Then, perhaps, you should continue to enlighten me, William, but, before you do, please tell me what you saw in your dream that so disturbed you."
"Oh, my God, I can't possibly tell you what I saw. The mere thought of it is simply, so horrendous, so absolutely, disgustingly terrible that you would never believe me."
"Try me."
"All of the horrors of The Ripper's crimes are revealed to me in those dreams, David. Not only the blood and the gore and the awful mutilations, but I see the spirits, if that's what they are, of the women he murdered, being tortured and tormented in a perpetual and blood-soaked carousel of terror. Where they are, I have no idea, but they are like unearthly wraiths, formless, and yet solid enough to grip my heart, my soul, and my mind, to take a hold of the very fabric of my being, and they try to drag me into their horrific world. For what purpose? I have no idea. You have to help me David, really, please you must!"
"William, calm down, please. I've already told you that I'll listen to your story and, if it is in any way possible for me to help you after hearing what you have to say, then you may rest assured that I shall do so. Now, what you tell me is indeed a horrifying and terrifying thing to dream of, a nightmare of truly great proportions, but it is still just a dream. You mustn't allow it to affect you so much."
"I know you don't believe me," he went on, "but maybe you will when I finish telling you my story."
"Then I implore you, William. Please continue your intriguing story."
With that, William Forbes once again began to speak in that characteristic, soft and melodic voice of his, and I found myself once again being transported back in time to the streets of Victorian Whitechapel, to the world of the infamous and, as yet, unidentified, Jack the Ripper.
***
"In order for you to fully understand the full horror of the terrible story I've found myself wrapped up in, I really do have to make sure you know just how all of this came to pass. I assume you know something of the Whitechapel Murders of 1888?"
"I know of Jack the Ripper, and I know he went on a murderous spree on the streets of Whitechapel, killing prostitutes, and I even know some of their names, Mary Kelly and Catherine Eddowes for example. I'm not fully conversant with all that took place, but I do know that the police never apprehended or charged anyone with the crimes. There've been numerous theories as to his identity over the years, even some who've tried to implicate royalty, or who have hinted at a Masonic conspiracy, but that's about the full store of my knowledge on the subject."
"Okay, David, please listen most carefully. I've learned these events so exactly, the fact that I can recite them back to you without notes is scary enough as it is. When I tell you t
hat I've actually 'seen' some of these events in my mind, it will give you an idea just how terrible a mess I've become caught up in."
I said nothing in reply to Forbes's outlandish claim to have seen the events of 1888 'in his mind'. I merely listened as he took up his tale once more.
"The crimes of Jack the Ripper took place against the backdrop of filth and degradation that pervaded the Whitechapel and Spitalfields areas of Victorian London. In what became known as The Autumn of Terror, the world's first, officially acknowledged serial killer stalked his prey, carrying out his hideous campaign of murder and mutilation amidst the streets and alleyways of a veritable rabbit-warren of streets that reeked of human effluent, mirroring the poverty and deprivation that stared out at the rank thoroughfares from the windows of squalid, bleak buildings that housed the employed, the unemployed, and the unemployable of the city's vast underclass of the poor.
Even regular employment provided no guarantee of a healthy or long life on those mean streets, with the work available to the denizens of Whitechapel usually being that of the manual labourer, back-breaking work with long hours, poor pay, and no assurance of job security. Often, such work, perhaps in the markets of London or at the vast docks that served the capital city of the British Empire, via the comings and goings of the great ocean-going ships that carried goods to and from the capital, was of the casual, transient kind, a day here or a day there, if the worker was lucky. Every single day, huge queues would build up wherever the prospect of earning a few shillings, or often no more than a handful of pennies, presented itself.
Women's prospects were even worse. Education was certainly not universally available to girls, particularly those of the working classes, and marriage often proved the only means of escape from total destitution. Such marriages, in themselves, would often lead to the eventual descent of many a young (and often not-so-young) woman into the ancient art of prostitution. Sometimes, it would be the only way for a woman to supplement the meagre earnings of a poorly paid husband, or, often tragically, the only way for a widow (and there many), to keep body and soul together after the loss of a husband's earnings. You may be surprised to learn that the majority of the victims of Jack the Ripper were, at one time, married women, mothers, and with the exception of the final victim, Mary Jane Kelly, all were what today would be termed mature women.
So, the streets of Whitechapel literally teemed with those least able to cry for help, in a society that cared little or nothing for the common people whose efforts powered the great city's factories and dockyards, or for those who worked in the great houses of the rich, returning home each night to the squalor and deprivation of their so-called homes in the East End of London. Many of those homes were nothing more than a single, rented room which might house a family of, perhaps, seven or eight persons, living in filth and with no sanitary provision. Even the dubious luxury of having such a place to call home was denied to thousands more, who spent their lives on the excrement-strewn streets, who would try to raise a few pence a day to rent a bed in one of the many foul-smelling, overcrowded doss houses that had sprung up in the area to cater for the basic needs of this pitiful underclass of the poor.
Little wonder, David, that disease and crime was rife, given the appalling conditions in which those poor souls attempted to eke out their miserable existence.
Somewhat perversely overlooked from almost every angle by the spire of Christ Church, Spitalfields, Jack the Ripper's killing ground covered only a small geographical area and spanned only a few weeks in time, yet his reign of terror would reach out to touch the hearts and minds of almost everyone within the vast metropolis of London, and far beyond, as the notoriety of his crimes became known throughout the country and afar. There were those who would later attempt to attribute other, later killings to the Whitechapel murderer, but most scholars are of the opinion that the murders of Jack the Ripper ended with that of Mary Kelly on the 9th November 1888.
There was some speculation and disagreement, at one time, as to who was, indeed, The Ripper's first victim, with many wishing to blame the killing of Martha Tabram on some other, unknown assailant. It's now generally believed and accepted, however, that Tabram was The Ripper's first victim, and so we will take the date of her murder, 31st August 1888, as the beginning of The Ripper's terrible killing spree, ending with the butchery of the unfortunate Mary Kelly on 9th November, a mere ten weeks from start to finish.
The murders of Martha Tabram and Mary Ann Nicholls took place on the 7th and the 31st of August, respectively. Following the death of Nicholls, a mere eight days passed before the killer struck again, this time with even greater severity. Annie Chapman's injuries showed the gathering intensity of the killer's bloodlust, and sent shivers down the spine of every right-thinking citizen as they were revealed, in graphic detail, both at the inquest into her death and in the pages of the popular press. At that time, the name Jack the Ripper hadn't yet been coined for the murderer. The name only began to be applied to the killer after the receipt of a letter, mailed to the Central News Agency on 27th September, and reproduced in the morning newspaper, The Daily News, on 1st October, the day after the so-called Double Event, to which I shall refer in a moment. Often regarded as a hoax by modern Ripperologists, the Dear Boss letter, nonetheless, identified the killer by the name with which he will always be remembered, being signed 'Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper'.
"I have memorised that fearful text, which was full of apparently random spelling and grammatical errors, and read as follows, though I've also written it out for you as the killer wrote it."
Forbes passed me a piece of paper, that he'd drawn from his pocket, and I read it as he continued:
25 Sept 1888
Dear Boss
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon here of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope haha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get the chance. Good luck.
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper
"With those few words, a new terror was born, and a name was given to the faceless assailant who appeared free to roam and kill at will. The people of London, and the rest of the world, would forever associate the crimes of that autumn with the man who, though never captured, identified, or brought to justice, will always be known as Jack the Ripper.
That terror, the fear of the ordinary citizen and the anger at the police force's seeming inability to apprehend the killer, grew to massive proportions when, twenty-two days after the murder of Annie Chapman, the night before the letter was delivered to the press agency, the as yet un-named Whitechapel murderer claimed not one, but two victims in one night.
Swedish born Elizabeth Stride (nee Gustavsdotter), aged forty-five, became the third victim of The Ripper, her body being discovered in Dutfield's Yard by Louis Diemschutz, a street seller of cheap jewellery, as he drove his horse and cart into the yard at around 1 a.m. Her body had not been subjected to the mutilations present in the bodies of Tabram or Chapman, but Diemschutz testified that he believed he may have disturbed the killer before he was able to carry out such mutilations and so, perhaps, fuelled the killer's need to find another victim upon whom he could satisfy his evil lust that night.
That second victim of the night, and the fifth victim in Jack's reign of terror, was forty-six-year-old Catharine Eddowes, a native of the city of Wol
verhampton, who had long since descended into a life of prostitution on the streets of the capital. Her savagely mutilated body was discovered by a police constable, Edward Watkins, at around 1.15 a.m., in the southwest corner of Mitre Square. Watkins saw and heard no one as he entered the square, and Eddowes proved to be the most brutally mutilated victim of the killer thus far, perhaps a victim of his fury at being interrupted in his work upon the body of poor Elizabeth Stride, a short time earlier.
The post mortem examination of Catharine Eddowes' remains was carried out by Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, and his report provided disturbing reading, to say the least. Her throat had been cut, 'to the extent of about six or seven inches.' The big muscle, across the throat, had been completely divided on the left side. The large vessels, on the left side of the neck, were severed. Her larynx had been severed below the vocal chord, and all the deep structures of the throat were severed to the bone. The cause of death was haemorrhage from the carotid artery. Brown estimated that death would have been immediate, and that the mutilations were carried out post mortem.
On examining the deceased's abdomen, he found that the front walls had been opened from the breast bone to the pubes. The liver had been stabbed and slit through by a sharp object. Her intestines had been drawn out and placed over the right shoulder, with one section having been cut away completely and placed beside the poor woman's body. The face had been heavily mutilated, with the nose almost being cut away, one ear virtually severed, and mutilating cuts about the face resulting in flaps of skin being formed around much of the face. The womb had been cut through horizontally, and the woman's left kidney had been carefully and precisely removed from the body. These were but some of the injuries listed in Brown's post mortem report and serve to show the escalation in severity of The Ripper's attacks and, I ask you, who on earth could do such things to another human being?