The first person to examine the body was Inspector John Spratling, who had arrived at Buck’s Row a short time after the body had been removed, and who had merely examined the place where the corpse had been discovered, and had then proceeded directly to the mortuary itself. He made a series of notes about the woman’s appearance, estimated roughly what she weighed and her height, listed the clothes she was wearing and looked, without any particular hope of success, for any form of identification in her pockets. Then he slowly and carefully began to remove her clothes, examining each item as he took it off the body.
As he lifted away the woman’s skirts to reveal her abdomen, he blanched and took an involuntary step back from the examination table.
‘Oh my dear God,’ he muttered, then stepped forward again to take a better look at what he had discovered, and saw for the first time the full extent of the wounds which had been inflicted on her. Up to that point, both he and Dr Llewellyn had believed that she had simply died from having her throat cut.
That was quite probably still the case, but there were far more injuries than either man had suspected. There was a massive wound on her abdomen through which some of her internal organs could clearly be seen, a number of other deep cuts running both across and down her body, and even a couple of wounds to her private parts.
‘Constable,’ Spratling called out urgently, as he again stepped back from the table on which the body was lying. ‘Go at once to Whitechapel Road and request Dr Llewellyn to come here as soon as possible.’
Llewellyn appeared shortly afterwards.
‘What is it, Inspector?’ the doctor asked, as he approached the examination table.
Spratling pointed wordlessly at the extensive mutilations he had discovered on the woman’s abdomen.
‘I had no idea about any of this,’ Llewellyn said. ‘I thought it was just her throat.’
‘So did I, when I saw her,’ Spratling replied, ‘and we were both wrong.’
Together the two men carried out a full and detailed examination of the body, and recorded all of her injuries.
‘I can’t be certain until I carry out the autopsy,’ Llewellyn remarked, as he made his final notes, ‘but it looks to me as if most of these wounds were inflicted post-mortem.’
Spratling nodded. Although he had no medical experience, he had been wondering about that himself.
‘If you’re right, doctor,’ he said, ‘this could well be the work of the same man who killed the Tabram woman about three weeks ago. That was another frenzied attack with a knife.’
‘Possibly,’ Llewellyn agreed, ‘but as far as I recall, Tabram’s throat was stabbed but it wasn’t cut, so that’s one difference between the two murders. Other than that, though, I would have to agree. This degree of mutilation is very rare. I can’t recall seeing anything like this ever before, and to have two such killings in the same area in the same month – well, I’d be very surprised if both murders weren’t carried out by the same person.’
As well as the examination of the body, Inspector Spratling and a number of other officers also made a careful study of the dead woman’s clothes and possessions, mainly looking for some means of finding out who she was, but no obvious form of identification was found.
With the exception of her hat, which was a new straw bonnet in black and trimmed with black velvet, all her clothes were old and worn. She had been wearing a brown ulster coat with large buttons, a linsey frock, grey woollen petticoat, flannel drawers, brown stays, ribbed dark-blue woollen stockings and a pair of men’s spring-sided boots.
‘Nothing at all on this,’ Spratling said, folding up the frock he had been examining. ‘Anyone else found something?’
‘This might be something, John,’ Inspector Helson said. ‘It’s a bit washed out, but I can just about make out what it says.’
‘What’s that?’ Spratling asked.
Helson showed him the petticoat which he had been examining.
‘Just here,’ he said, ‘can you see it?’
Spratling bent forward to look at the faint laundry mark the other inspector had discovered.
‘It says “Lambeth Workhouse, P.R.”,’ he said. ‘That’s the one in Prince’s Road, isn’t it? Mind you,’ he added, ‘she might have borrowed or stolen the petticoat, or got it from a pawn shop, but at least it’ll give us somewhere to start looking.’
It was not uncommon for the lowest class of women to pawn items of clothing to raise money for food, lodgings and, most commonly of all, for drink. So it was always possible that the petticoat might have belonged to another ‘unfortunate’ who had lodged in that particular workhouse.
But at least they had some kind of a lead.
Saturday, 1 September 1888
Whitechapel, London
Detective Inspector Abberline strode along the corridor in the Scotland Yard headquarters to one of the doors near the very end, paused for a few seconds to straighten his jacket and ensure that he looked as smart as possible, rubbed the toe of each shoe down the back of the opposite trouser leg to remove any dust, then knocked.
‘Come.’
Abberline opened the door and stepped inside the office. With the commissioner away on leave, his ultimate superior was Superintendent Frederick Adolphus Williamson, who had been appointed Chief Constable (CID) by Charles Warren.
Abberline had a good idea why he had been summoned, because the corridors of the Metropolitan Police headquarters had been buzzing with the news of the third killing in the Whitechapel area in recent months, and most of the officers he had spoken to were already of the opinion that only one man had been responsible for the last two murders.
And that had added a new dimension to the situation. In most of the murder investigations Abberline had been involved in, it was usually clear from a very early stage who the perpetrator was, and why the killing had taken place. When a man was killed, if the murder hadn’t been the work of his wife or female friend, it was usually the result of some kind of a business deal which had gone bad, or a revenge attack, or something of that sort. And when a woman died, the first person the police always interviewed was her husband or any close male friends.
But if the killing of Martha Tabram and the murder of the so-far-unidentified woman in Whitechapel early the previous morning were linked, then that suggested the killer might have been a stranger to both his victims and, if that was the case, Abberline frankly had little idea how best to proceed.
‘It’s this business in Whitechapel,’ Williamson began. ‘Have you heard about it?’
The detective inspector nodded.
‘Everybody in the station has been talking about it, sir, and I’ve seen some of the statements by the constables who found the body and the officers who examined it in the mortuary. The story doing the rounds is that she was ripped up pretty badly, and that was confirmed at the inquest this morning. I asked for an adjournment to give us time to make some further enquiries, but Baxter, the coroner, wouldn’t agree, and it’ll resume on Monday morning.’
‘What further enquiries? Do you have a lead on the killer?’
Abberline shook his head.
‘Not yet, sir, no, but we’ll be questioning residents and local tradesmen. Hopefully somebody in the area will have heard or seen something.’
Abberline hoped so, anyway, though the initial reports had all proved negative.
‘I hope you’re right,’ Williamson said, in a discouraging manner. ‘Have you identified the victim yet?’
‘Not yet, no, but news of the murder spread very quickly after the body was discovered and a lot of people were on the scene even before the dead woman was removed to the mortuary, so the press got hold of the story almost immediately. According to the officers at Bethnal Green, several women came forward yesterday with the potential identity of the deceased, though none were absolutely certain. Several supplied information we could check, like their belief that the victim had been a lodger at the doss house at 18 Thrawl Street. That’s being looked
into now.
‘There was also a bit of good work from Inspector Helson. He found a laundry mark on the petticoat the woman had been wearing, and that led him to the Lambeth Workhouse, and enquiries are also being made there at the moment. We’re pretty certain we’ll have her identified later today.’
‘Who’s working on the case at the moment?’ Williamson asked.
‘John Spratling – he was the first senior officer on the scene – and Joseph Helson are in charge,’ Abberline replied. ‘They’re both from the Bethnal Green station, and they’re both good, reliable men.’
‘Good. Now, the newspapers are all over this already. Have you seen the latest editions?’
‘Not today, sir, no. I’ve had other things to do. Attending the inquest and so on.’
‘Let me give you a summary, then. There’s already been speculation about the identity of the killer. Some of the papers are suggesting that she might have been killed by a rampaging gang, just like that murder earlier this year. You remember – a woman named Emma Elizabeth Smith was attacked on the street in Whitechapel and she later died from her injuries.’
‘From what I’ve seen of this case, sir, that doesn’t sound likely. There’s no evidence that this woman was attacked by more than one man.’
‘I agree with you,’ Williamson said. ‘But other newspaper reports are linking this latest killing only with that of Martha Tabram, and they’re suggesting that both of these women were murdered by a single assailant who was working alone. I don’t like the sound of that, though from what I’ve read so far, I think it might well be the truth in this case. I think we’ve got one man out there who’s decided to target a particular class of woman.’
‘You’re referring to prostitutes, obviously.’
‘Exactly,’ Williamson said. ‘I’ve got one of the first statements here. It looks as if the woman was almost certainly a prostitute, which would explain why she was out on the streets at that time in the morning. She was apparently killed by having her throat cut, but then the killer mutilated her body as well. Her injuries,’ Williamson added, an expression of revulsion on his face, ‘were apparently very severe.’
Abberline nodded again.
‘They were, sir. It was clear from the evidence given at the inquest that she was ripped apart. And some of my colleagues agree with the newspapers. They also think that this murder might well be linked to Tabram’s killing.’
Williamson grunted.
‘It’s bad enough that another “unfortunate” has been murdered in an area like Whitechapel,’ he said, ‘and the mutilations obviously add an extra dimension of horror to the killing. But the last thing we want is for people to get the idea that there’s a murderer out there who’s attacking prostitutes.’
‘That might well be the case, though, and I suppose it might help clear some of them off the streets.’
Williamson looked at him sharply.
‘I hope that was meant as a joke, Abberline. I’m well aware of the squalid conditions in Whitechapel. But if the people there believe that there’s a multiple killer haunting the streets and hunting down women, we could have civil unrest on an unprecedented scale. We could see vigilante action, rampaging mobs attacking innocent men, and a complete breakdown of law and order in that part of London. At all costs, we must prevent that from happening.’
The superintendent looked down again at the hand-written report in front of him, then back up at Abberline.
‘And that’s why I’m sending you over to the Bethnal Green division to assist in solving this murder. We want you to coordinate the investigation. I’m also sending Andrews and Moore with you, so hopefully the three of you, working with those two local inspectors, will be able to solve this case quickly. This is to be your highest priority, Abberline. We must have a swift result. The commissioner will be expecting it.’
‘You’ve been in communication with him, sir?’
‘No, but he left orders that if there was another murder you were to be placed in overall charge of the investigation.’
Abberline was silent for a moment.
‘Do you think he knew the killer was going to strike again?’
Williamson shook his head.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Abberline. How could he possibly have known that?’
* * *
As he left the office, Frederick Abberline shook his head. That wasn’t really an answer to the question he’d blurted out, and until the second murder had been committed, he’d assumed that the first had been just an isolated occurrence, a very unusual crime of passion, if you like. But it looked as if Charles Warren had predicted something rather different, and that was interesting. Maybe the commissioner wasn’t the autocratic idiot that so many officers of the Metropolitan Police believed him to be.
Privately, Abberline believed he was being sent on a fool’s errand to Bethnal Green. As far as he knew, there had been no witnesses to the murder, and no clues found at the scene, though it was always possible that the local investigating officers might have discovered something new that would help identify the perpetrator. The unfortunate reality, though, was that unless the killing had been witnessed by somebody, or the murderer had been seen running away from the body, they would have almost nothing to go on.
Most murders were solved in that way, by the killer being seen in the commission of the act, and being apprehended quite literally ‘red-handed’, with the blood of his victim still on his hands. The only other avenue likely to be open to the detectives was if somebody was known to bear a grudge against the victim, and even then there might be no proof that the man had actually committed the crime.
And despite his suggestion to Williamson about local enquiries, Abberline had already talked to both of the inspectors at Bethnal Green, and he knew that nothing had been found anywhere near the body to indicate the identity of the killer. He also knew that constables had been sent to check on all the premises around the scene of the crime, and the adjoining areas, which included Essex Wharf, the East London Railway, the District Railway and the Great Eastern Railway, had been searched for the murder weapon, bloodstains and any other clues, all without the slightest result.
Inspector Spratling had independently searched Buck’s Row and Brady Street and had only discovered one small stain in Brady Street which might have been blood. But he was unsure of that conclusion, and even if he was right, the source might have been an animal or, if it was human in origin, it could have come from a fight in the street or from somebody completely unconnected with the murder.
As far as Abberline could see, the only thing that he and the other two detective inspectors – Walter Andrews and Henry Moore – would achieve when they got to Bethnal Green would be to irritate the local inspectors and other members of the force, and get in each other’s way.
But he could hardly have said any of that to Williamson, because he knew that the Superintendent would probably have been acting on Warren’s orders, orders written before the commissioner had left London, and possibly even supplemented by instructions sent over the telegraph from his holiday destination in France.
And Warren was famous – or perhaps infamous – for never accepting, or even listening to, suggestions from other members of the force, or indeed from anyone else. As well as being profoundly unpopular as a man, the commissioner also seemed able to alienate almost anybody by his autocratic and aloof attitude to his job. He was one of those people who didn’t just believe that he was right: he knew that he was right, despite his almost total lack of experience of police work, and because he knew he was right, anybody who disagreed with him very obviously had to be wrong.
He was not an easy man to get along with.
Sunday, 2 September 1888
London
Early that evening, Alexei Pedachenko, dressed in smart but casual clothes, left his lodgings to walk the streets in search of a newspaper vendor. He had been reading the press reports of the murders with a good deal of interest. Reading what the news
paper reporters said about the killings obviously wasn’t the same as knowing the collective opinion of the Metropolitan Police Force, but it certainly gave an indication of the way that his actions were being perceived.
He bought every edition of the newspapers that he could find. And what he read was entirely to his satisfaction. There had now been three killings of women in the Whitechapel area – the murder of Emma Smith on the night of Easter Monday 1888, which had been nothing whatever to do with Pedachenko, but which had given him the idea for the killing spree upon which he had now embarked, and then Martha Tabram and the unidentified woman who he had chanced upon in the early hours of Friday morning – and all the newspapers had been quick to see the connection. It was front-page news in every paper that he bought.
Some of them were claiming to see a link between all three murders, suggesting that the killing of Emma Smith had been some sort of trial run for the two attacks carried out over five months later. Precisely how they could make such a connection, Pedachenko really didn’t know, because it was perfectly clear from what he had read that the Smith woman had been attacked by a gang of men, men who had raped, robbed and then violently assaulted her, but none of whom had used a knife. And, of course, she had survived the attack long enough to explain what had happened to her, although she had died of her injuries a few days later.
But the more sensible and responsible of the newspapers – if those two adjectives could ever be applied to a sheet of newsprint – had entirely discounted the first murder, and had instead concentrated their righteous indignation and fury on the unknown killer of Martha Tabram and the ‘mystery woman’ as one or two of them had referred to the latest victim. All of these newspapers had pointed out the similarities between the last two killings, concentrating on the idea that a knife-wielding maniac was loose on the streets of Whitechapel, and asking what, exactly, the Metropolitan Police were doing about it.
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