The Ripper Secret

by The Ripper Secret (retail) (epub)

  Phillips muttered something inaudible under his breath, then nodded slowly.

  ‘I have to confess,’ he began, ‘that I was unaware of any of these witness statements. After I’d given my evidence at the first inquest, I left the building. If what you say is accurate, and if these three witnesses are being truthful, then it is very clear that my estimate should not be relied on. When I examined the body I tried to take into account all the factors that you mentioned, but it is certainly possible that the body might have cooled faster than I had expected.’

  Abberline nodded.

  ‘Thank you, doctor. That was all I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Was any of my testimony today of any help to you, Inspector?’

  ‘At this precise moment, Dr Phillips, all information is valuable. The problem is that no matter what information I seem to collect, and we have now amassed a very considerable amount, none of it seems to even suggest who the murderer might be. Good day to you, sir.’

  * * *

  Jurisdiction over Hanbury Street was the responsibility of H Division – the Whitechapel Division – of the Metropolitan Police, where the Criminal Investigation Department was headed by Inspector Edmund Reid. He was the officer who had conducted the investigation into the murder of Martha Tabram, but he had left London temporarily and was on his annual leave. So responsibility for that continuing enquiry, and for that of the murder of Annie Chapman, now fell upon the shoulders of Inspector Chandler, and Detective Sergeants Leach and Thick.

  Accordingly, Acting Superintendent West requested that Detective Inspector Abberline be formally deputed to head the Tabram and Chapman murders, as he was already leading the investigation into the killing of Mary Ann Nichols. In his official request, West stated exactly why he had specifically asked for Abberline’s assistance:

  ‘I believe he is already engaged in the case of the Buck’s Row murder which would appear to have been committed by the same person as the one in Hanbury Street.’

  In fact, Abberline had been instructed that very morning to take an active part in the Chapman murder investigation, an instruction which simply confirmed what he was already doing, along with the other two Metropolitan Police detective inspectors who had been seconded to the Bethnal Green station, Andrews and Moore.

  Wednesday, 19 September 1888

  London

  It was with this gruesome new evidence to hand, and with another matter which he wanted to discuss, that Inspector Abberline sought a further appointment with the commissioner, a request which Warren granted with a certain amount of reluctance.

  Warren had been singled out by the press and frequently vilified in the newspapers for his force’s failure to make any progress in identifying the killer, and he had proved himself to be an extremely accommodating target of such attacks, being aloof and autocratic. He also consistently displayed a complete and seemingly wilful lack of understanding of the situation in Whitechapel, and especially of the realities of daily life in that most depressed and desperate of London districts.

  Warren had been appointed Commissioner in 1886, and almost from the first had begun to alienate the people of London. His force had arrested an entirely innocent woman for soliciting during the 1887 Jubilee Day Festivities, and his attitude to the mistake was entirely unsympathetic and completely unapologetic. And after the ‘Bloody Sunday’ fiasco in November of the same year, almost every English newspaper, from the radical end of the spectrum represented by publications like the Star and the Echo, all the way to the conservative papers such as the Daily Telegraph, began attacking Warren and his methods. And as if that wasn’t enough, Warren also had frequent arguments and disputes with the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, the Police Receiver, Richard Pennefather, and the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, James Monro. In fact, there were remarkably few people employed by the Metropolitan Police with whom he had anything that even approached a satisfactory working relationship.

  One journal, the Pall Mall Budget, even went so far as to print a satirical letter purporting to have been penned by Warren:

  Notice to Murderers: The following is a proclamation which, it is said, will in the future largely diminish the number of undetected murders: I, Charles Warren, hereby give notice that from and after this date, all the loyal subjects are required, with the view of aiding the police in the discovery of crime, to leave on the body of any person they may have murdered their engraved or printed address card, or failing this, a paper with full name and address legibly written. Constables will be in attendance night and day at all police stations to receive murderers desiring to give themselves up. A list of the stations may be had on application. Scotland Yard, September 1888.

  He was also noticeably reluctant to even listen to any new ideas or suggestions for methods to help catch the killer, and it was that characteristic which Abberline found most difficult to deal with. In his opinion, the type of killings was new, the murderer was operating in a fashion which had never been seen before, and to combat this situation the Metropolitan Police needed to be innovative in its approach to the crimes. That was what Warren seemed completely unable to grasp.

  Inspector Abberline knocked on the commissioner’s door, then opened it and walked into the office. He knew how important smartness and discipline were to the man sitting behind the desk in front of him, and he made a conscious effort to march, rather than walk, across the office. Once he reached the desk he stopped. There were two chairs positioned there, one on either side of where he was standing, and he hoped that this time Warren would ask him to sit down in one of them, because his feet were already aching from the distance he’d walked that morning.

  ‘Sit down, Abberline,’ Warren instructed, and the detective inspector sank gratefully into the chair on his right.

  Warren was studying a handwritten report, which suggested it was a new case, as he normally preferred his paperwork to be typed.

  ‘I’m busy, Abberline,’ he said finally. ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I thought you ought to know, sir, that we’ve finally managed to find out from Dr Phillips exactly what else the murderer did to Chapman’s body after he’d killed her. Phillips and the coroner insisted on the court being cleared of women and children before the doctor would speak out. And it was pretty gruesome stuff.’

  Warren nodded for him to continue.

  Abberline described the mutilations in some detail, including the positioning of the woman’s intestines on her shoulder and the removal of some of her organs.

  ‘What particularly concerns me about this,’ Abberline finished, ‘apart from the fact that we still have no idea who the killer is, is that we’re now dealing with four unsolved murders, if you include the killing of Emma Smith, and the mutilations are escalating in their violence and ferocity. Martha Tabram was simply stabbed – stabbed many times, that’s true, but there was no mutilation as such. But Mary Ann Nichols was cut about quite badly, and Annie Chapman was simply butchered: there’s no other word for it.’

  ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘The point is that I believe we’re dealing with a very intelligent man who is also extremely cunning and clever, but one who’s probably insane, or at least whose mental state is likely to be deteriorating. There will be more killings, of that I’m certain, and I’ve no doubt that the butchery will get even more grotesque. But I also think that the murderer is working to some kind of a timetable, almost, that he’s following a predetermined plan. And he knows exactly what he’s doing and where and when he’ll carry out his next attack.’

  Warren shook his head.

  ‘We know all that, Abberline,’ he snapped. ‘We discussed it before, if you remember.’

  ‘I thought you needed to know the details,’ the inspector replied, ‘but there’s another matter which is troubling me. Rightly or wrongly, the perception on the streets of Whitechapel is that the police either don’t care about catching this murderer, or that they’re simply unable to do so.’

  ‘Th
at’s a wholly unreasonable attitude,’ Warren said. ‘I want nothing more than to see this man dancing on the end of a rope.’

  ‘I know, sir, but I’m just telling you what the people are saying. And not just what they’re saying: it’s also what they’re doing. After the last killing, another group of tradesmen in Whitechapel decided to set up their own vigilance committee under a man named George Lusk, and they intend to ask the Home Secretary to issue a reward for information that could lead to the arrest of the murderer.’

  ‘Matthews will never agree to that,’ Warren said.

  ‘Perhaps not, but Lusk told me that if he didn’t, then the committee would offer its own reward, and the Jewish community has already done the same. I’ve even heard that some of the officers from H Division in Whitechapel are raising money towards the same end.’

  Warren sat in silence for a moment, considering the information Abberline had given him.

  ‘Offering a reward is probably not a bad idea,’ he conceded eventually, ‘despite what the Home Secretary will almost certainly say, and I suppose that having even more groups of people out on the streets of Whitechapel searching for this man might well help us catch him.’

  ‘I can’t agree with you about that, sir,’ Abberline replied. ‘We’ve already had cases where entirely innocent men have been followed, sometimes chased and even on a few occasions physically attacked by mobs who believed they had found the killer. I really do not wish to see groups of vigilantes roaming the streets of London. That will undermine the work of the police, reduce public confidence in our efforts to catch this man, and could lead to assaults on innocent members of the public, and maybe even worse.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your opinion, Abberline. You’ve already told me that you have absolutely no idea who this man is or why he’s going around Whitechapel killing prostitutes, and as far as I can see that situation isn’t likely to change in the immediate future. If the local people want to organize groups to try to protect their womenfolk, I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I think it’s a good idea. Tell your men to remember that they are supposed to be finding this murderer, not obstructing these vigilantes.’

  ‘I still don’t like this, sir.’

  ‘I don’t care what you like or don’t like, Abberline. You will follow my instructions. Is that clearly understood?’

  Abberline nodded, obviously still unhappy with Warren’s decision, but knowing there was nothing he could do to change the commissioner’s mind. He’d just have to hope that no innocent men ended up lying dead on the pavements of Whitechapel because of attacks by an uncontrolled mob of armed and angry residents.

  After Abberline had left, Warren stood up, walked over to his office door and turned the key in the lock. Then he opened one of the drawers of his desk and took out the map of Whitechapel upon which he had plotted the locations of the killings, and for several minutes just stared at it, hoping for inspiration.

  All he could be certain of was that, assuming ‘Michael’ made good on his threat – and Warren had no reason to doubt the man’s resolve, because he knew exactly why he was doing it – the next murder would probably be committed somewhere near Commercial Road, and most likely somewhere to the south of it.

  He would have to take a chance, he decided, and begin concentrating the efforts of his officers in that area, and just hope for the best. He looked again at the map, and made his decision. He would order increased patrols and all the extra officers he could spare to operate in the area bounded by Commercial Road to the north, the railway line to the south and between Leman Street and Cannon Street. Without any additional information, that was the best that he could do. And he would order the extra patrols to begin that very night.

  Friday, 28 September 1888

  Whitechapel, London

  Charles Warren would never know whether it was the increased numbers of police officers on the streets in the area he had selected, or for some other reason, but since the killing of Annie Chapman almost three weeks ago, no other murders had been reported in the Whitechapel area. He began to wonder if ‘Michael’ had met with an accident, had given up or had left the city, or if there was another explanation for the cessation of his murderous activities.

  By the end of the month, both because of the lack of any further atrocities, and also the escalating cost, he’d had to scale back his extra patrols. The number of police officers on the beat returned to more normal levels, and were again concentrated in the areas where the earlier killings had taken place.

  On the streets of Whitechapel, the tension began to ease as night succeeded night and the pale light of morning failed to reveal another mutilated corpse. The feeling in the area was that the killer was still out there, somewhere, and that his knife was still sharp, but for some reason he had stopped his campaign. Life went on, and the ‘unfortunates’ continued to ply their trade in a slightly more optimistic, though still very cautious, frame of mind.

  The story of the Whitechapel murderer began to fade from the front pages of the newspapers, though speculation about the killer’s identity and motive continued to be the subject of articles and stories.

  But all that was about to change.

  On 27 September, a somewhat stained envelope was received at the Central News Agency in London, addressed to ‘The Boss, Central News Office, London City’, and postmarked the same day.

  The writing on the envelope appeared to be the product of an educated hand: the capital letters were clear and precise, written in a copperplate script, and the lowercase letters were consistent in shape and size. The writer had even indented the left-hand edge of each line, and used a double indent for the word ‘Office’ when there was insufficient space to write the word on the same line after ‘News’.

  The letter inside was dated 25 September 1888 and, like the envelope, was addressed to ‘Dear Boss’. It also appeared to have been written by an educated person, from the appearance of the handwriting, though the text itself contained a number of punctuation and grammatical errors. The full text of the letter read:

  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 hear 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 ha. ha. 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 so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance.

  Good luck.

  Yours truly

  Jack the Ripper

  Dont mind me giving the trade name

  And below that, written vertically under the rest of the text, was a short postscript:

  wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it

  No luck yet. They say I’m a doctor now ha ha

  Suddenly, the ‘fiend of Whitechapel’ had a name, and it was a name that fitted him and would endure.

  This was not the first letter which had been received by either the police or the newspapers purporting to have been written by the Whitechapel murderer, and it was certainly not to be the last, but what marked this letter as being unusual, and what ensured that its contents would eventually receive the widest possible distribution, was the signature. The name ‘Jack the Ripper’ was so hideously appropriate as a description of the perpetrator of the murders which had been committed in the East End of London that it quickly caught on.

  Soon everybody would be talking about ‘Jack’.


  What was obvious to everyone who saw the letter was that there was no guarantee whatsoever that it had been written by the murderer, and almost immediately a strong suspicion grew that it had actually been written by a journalist intent on reviving a good story that was seen to be flagging. People pointed out various inconsistencies in the text, the way that some sentences were perfectly correct grammatically, while others contained unusual forms of words, and the fact that the writer had obviously known enough grammar to correctly write ‘knife’s’ and ‘I’m’, but had also used the incorrect contractions ‘shant’, ‘dont’ and so on. This could not, it was argued, be the work of a man who was only partially literate. More than anything else, the letter looked as if had been written by someone who was undeniably literate but who was trying to make the letter appear to have been written by such a person.

  One aspect of the letter which did suggest it might have been sent by the murderer, by Jack himself, was the statement that he would ‘clip the lady’s ears off’ his next victim. And if this action were to be performed on the subsequent killing – assuming, of course, that there would be another murder – would go a long way towards proving the letter’s authenticity. There was also the somewhat enigmatic statement about him doing ‘a bit more work’ in the near future, which was a clear statement of intent.

  The newspaper editor who had received the letter hung on to it for a couple of days, and then forwarded it to the police. But in accordance with the stated wishes of the writer, for the recipient to ‘keep this letter back till I do a bit more work’, no statement or report was published in the press or elsewhere stating that the letter had been received, so the only people who knew about it were the police themselves and those people at the Central News Agency who had seen the document.

  Inevitably, the letter ended up in front of Detective Inspector Abberline, and as soon as he received it, he showed it to the other senior detectives.