Her small room was let furnished and contained a bed, a cupboard, a couple of tables, a chair and a fireplace, and had two windows which looked out onto that section of the court where the water pump and a dustbin were located. It was hardly lavish accommodation, but it did give Mary Kelly a little privacy and also offered her a secure location where she could entertain her clients.
Or, to be entirely accurate, the room offered privacy, once the door was closed, but the location itself much less so. Of all the properties located in and around Miller’s Court, number 13 was by far the most visible, as its door and windows could be seen from all three of the tenement buildings on the opposite side of the court. The doorway could also be seen from the rear window of the shop on the left-hand side of the passage, and anybody entering or leaving number 13 after dark could be seen clearly in the light from the gas lamp which was positioned on the wall opposite the door.
The rent Mary Kelly paid for her room was four shillings and sixpence a week, significantly more expensive than the four pence a resident of a lodging house would pay for a single bed every night, and she had considerable trouble in keeping up the payments. In fact, she was over six weeks in arrears, and her only means of raising funds was to sell herself on the streets. To clear the backlog of her rent, she needed to find a lot of clients willing to pay her a minimum of four pence for her services. Just to maintain the status quo, she would have needed to have sexual relations with over a dozen men every week, almost two each night, and far more than that if she wished to earn enough to buy food and drink as well.
One reason for the arrears was that earlier in the year Joe Barnett, who could perhaps be considered to have been her common-law husband, had lost his job as a fish porter at the Billingsgate Market for some infraction of the rules. Since then, he had been out of regular employment and was no longer able to provide her with funds. Another reason was that Mary Kelly, like most of the other ‘unfortunates’ in Whitechapel, frequently sought solace in the oblivion provided by alcohol, and was often to be found drunk, either out on the streets or singing Irish songs in her room. Drink cost money, and buying alcohol was probably a higher priority for Kelly than paying her rent. When sober, acquaintances reported that she was a generally quiet woman, with only a few close friends.
By the end of October, Kelly was occupying the room by herself, Joe Barnett having walked out of the place after an argument. Barnett didn’t like Mary Kelly walking the streets, though in the absence of any other income, now that he was unemployed, it is difficult to see what other option she had, and he had frequently stated that he couldn’t live with her while she was pursuing that precarious lifestyle.
But in fact, it wasn’t Mary Kelly’s means of employment which had caused their separation. Mary had befriended a fellow prostitute, a woman named Julia Venturney, and had invited her to stay with her in the room in Miller’s Court. Barnett had endured the presence of this unwelcome visitor for a couple of nights, but had then left to find accommodation in Buller’s Lodging House in New Street in Bishopsgate. Despite their parting of the ways, the two remained good friends and Barnett was a frequent visitor to Miller’s Court, and continued to provide Kelly with funds when he could.
But it wasn’t just fellow ‘unfortunates’ and clients who shared Mary Kelly’s hospitality and her bed. She was very friendly with a laundress named Maria Harvey, and had allowed her to stay in the room at Miller’s Court on the nights of 5 and 6 November, though Harvey had subsequently found lodgings of her own at New Court in Dorset Street. On the afternoon of 8 November, Harvey called on Mary Kelly and the two friends spent the rest of the afternoon together. In fact, she was still there when Joe Barnett knocked on the door at about 7.30, though she left soon afterwards, leaving a few items of clothing in Kelly’s room. Another friend of Kelly’s, Lizzie Albrook, called round at Miller’s Court at just before eight, and spoke to both Barnett and Kelly.
The two of them had recently quarrelled, but they were then on good terms again. Barnett apologized that he still had no work and so was unable to give her any money. He didn’t stay at Miller’s Court very long, and left at around eight in the evening, the two of them having discussed the Whitechapel killings. Like all the prostitutes operating in the East End, Mary Kelly had taken a keen interest in the Ripper murders, for obvious reasons, and Barnett had frequently read the newspaper accounts of the killings aloud to her, as she herself couldn’t read.
That evening, Kelly was in a particularly good mood, as the next day was the Lord Mayor’s Show, when the new holder of that ancient office, the Right Honourable James Whitehead, would be driven along the Strand to the Royal Courts of Justice. It would be a splendid procession, and Mary was keenly anticipating the celebration. At about nine that evening, she called on one of her neighbours, Elizabeth Prater, who lived in one of the rooms above her in Miller’s Court and was another part-time prostitute, and told her that she was hoping it would be fine the next day ‘as I want to go to the Lord Mayor’s Show.’
Friday, 9 November 1888
Whitechapel, London
Joe Barnett’s lack of funds to support Mary Kelly meant that the young woman had no option but to try to earn some money walking the streets of Whitechapel yet again, and shortly before nine o’clock, after Barnett had left Miller’s Court, she got dressed and, after chatting for a few minutes with Elizabeth Prater, walked out into Dorset Street to search for clients and, predictably, enjoy a drink or two.
Between about ten and eleven, she was in the Horn of Plenty pub with a group of companions, including Julia Venturney. At about fifteen minutes before midnight, a woman named Mary Ann Cox met Kelly in Dorset Street, in the company of a man, who was presumably a client. Cox, a widow of 31 whose only source of income was prostitution, and who would later be described by the Star as ‘a wretched-looking specimen of East End womanhood’, had known Kelly for about eight months, and also lived in Miller’s Court, at number 5.
Cox had been looking for customers along the pavements of Commercial Street, but because the night was so cold she decided to return to her room and get warm before venturing out once again. She saw Kelly walking along with a man beside her when she entered Dorset Street, and saw that her neighbour was clearly intoxicated. The couple continued along the pavement and then entered Miller’s Court a short distance in front of Mary Cox. By that time, Cox was close enough to call out a greeting to Mary Kelly, but the young Irish prostitute was so drunk she could barely even manage a reply.
Cox described Kelly’s client as a short and stout man in his mid thirties, with a thick reddish moustache and a blotchy face, who was shabbily dressed and carrying a quart can of beer. Kelly was evidently enjoying the man’s company, as Mrs Cox reported that she was singing, and the sound could be heard in Cox’s own lodging, a short distance away.
Mary Cox remained in her room for a brief period, then returned to the streets shortly after midnight, staying out looking for clients until about one o’clock. She then again returned to her room to get warm before trying her hand once more at soliciting. She left her room shortly after one, at which time she saw a light burning in Mary Kelly’s room, and the Irish girl was still singing. When she returned to Miller’s Court shortly after three in the morning, the light in number 13 had been extinguished and the room was quiet, which could have suggested that Kelly was in bed with a client with her candle extinguished, or asleep alone, or back out on the streets.
Although she was tired, Mary Cox found it impossible to get to sleep that night, possibly because it was then raining hard. Throughout the rest of the early morning hours, she heard the sound of loud footsteps as visitors – presumably men visiting one or other of the prostitutes who lodged in the court – came and left. She heard the last man leaving at about 5.45.
Mary Cox might have assumed that her neighbour had remained in her room, but by about two in the morning, while Cox herself was out soliciting, Mary Kelly was also back on the streets of Whitechapel.
‘Mr Hutchinson,’ Mary Kelly asked him, ‘can you lend me sixpence?’
‘I cannot,’ Hutchinson explained, ‘as I am spent out going down to Romford.’
‘I must go and look for some money,’ Kelly said, and headed off towards Thrawl Street.
Almost immediately Hutchinson saw a man who had been standing on the corner approach Kelly and tap her on the shoulder. He said something to her and they both began laughing, and then the two of them walked down Dorset Street and entered Miller’s Court, where Hutchinson lost sight of them. Something about the man interested or bothered the labourer, and for some three-quarters of an hour he loitered outside the court, waiting for either the man or Mary Kelly to reappear. But eventually, at about three in the morning, he gave up and continued on to his lodging.
If Hutchinson had waited perhaps fifteen minutes longer, he would have seen the man open the door to number 13 and bid farewell to Mary Kelly. And if he had stayed for a further half hour after that, he would have seen the young Irish girl emerge from her room and head back towards Dorset Street. She hadn’t had a bad evening, managing to attract two clients who had each paid her the usual fee, and perhaps she thought she might find a third man out on the streets.
Perhaps she thought it was her lucky night. If she did, she was sadly mistaken.
* * *
The killing spree that Alexei Pedachenko had embarked on had had one predictable and extremely unwelcome – to him – effect on the traffic on the streets of Whitechapel. Groups of men wandered along the pavements during the early hours of the morning clearly looking out for any individual who aroused their suspicions by either his appearance or his conduct, and Pedachenko was no longer able to appear in his own persona in the area for fear of attracting such unwelcome attention. His adoption of a female disguise had proved to be very effective, as he became yet one more ‘unfortunate’ roaming the streets in the hope of earning a few coppers, and in consequence was essentially invisible and ignored by almost everyone.
But the other consequence of the murders was that he no longer felt safe in attacking a woman actually on the streets. There was just too much activity, too many people walking the pavements, and too many eyes that might see him performing his task. That was one reason why the Russian had refrained from carrying out a further attack after the so-called ‘double event’. He had been waiting for the vigilante action and increased police patrols to be scaled down to a level where he felt he would be able to find his next victim without being observed.
That hadn’t happened, and there were still too many people wandering the streets for Pedachenko to be able to risk carrying out another attack in the open air, and with the next one he also wanted to take his time. So he had decided to find a prostitute who had her own accommodation, a private room somewhere, a place to which he could accompany her and where he could carry out the murder and then mutilate the body at his leisure without any fear of being interrupted. And he was determined that this killing should be so shocking, and the mutilations so massive and so brutal, that Charles Warren would then have absolutely no option but to accede to his demand.
He had hoped that the man would already have resigned his post as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police following the last note he had sent him, but this hadn’t happened. Or, at least, that event had not yet been published in newspapers. But it didn’t matter. After what he intended to visit upon the first suitable woman he found, he had not the slightest doubt that Warren would be forced to do his bidding.
For the past week he had been patrolling the Whitechapel area in his female disguise, and especially Dorset Street and Flower and Dean Street, taking mental note of which prostitutes took their clients into the nearest convenient alleyway or open doorway to perform their services, and which of them linked arms with their customers and walked them to their lodgings.
Pedachenko had several times seen a young Irish girl who was addressed by her acquaintances as either ‘Mary’ or ‘Marie’, and he had even established that she lived in one of the rooms off Miller’s Court, though he hadn’t so far discovered which one. But that didn’t matter. She was a working prostitute, young and attractive by the standards of her class, and with her own room. That was all that concerned him.
The other difficulty he faced was that although in his female disguise he was able to walk the streets of Whitechapel without interference, he doubted very much if the Irish girl would be prepared to take a fellow ‘unfortunate’ back to her room during her working hours: in other words, from about midnight until four in the morning. But if he presented himself to her as a man, he had little doubt that he would be able to persuade her that he was a genuine client.
And once he was inside her room, there would be nothing to stop him.
At two o’clock that morning, the Russian was still wearing skirts and a bonnet, though with his male apparel underneath. He could change his identity – and effectively his sex – in a matter of minutes. He was strolling down Flower and Dean Street, looking for Mary or one of the two other possible victims he had already identified, when he saw her at the end of the road.
For a couple of seconds, Pedachenko considered removing his disguise immediately and approaching her straight away, but then he paused, because he’d just seen Mary walk up to a man on Dorset Street and greet him in a friendly fashion. He wondered if the man was a regular client of hers, or just an acquaintance, and in moments he saw that it was the latter, because the two spoke together briefly and then separated.
But almost immediately the woman was accosted by another man, in such a friendly fashion that she burst out laughing, and together they walked away along Dorset Street, clearly heading in the direction of Miller’s Court. As they strode along together, the girl said something and the man pulled a dark-coloured handkerchief, possibly a red one, out of his pocket and gave it to her. Oddly enough, the first man Mary had spoken to walked in the same direction, and it almost looked as if he was following them.
Pedachenko brought up the rear of the procession, and watched as Mary turned into the narrow passage which gave access to her lodging, holding the man firmly by the arm. The other man took up a position from which he could see into the court, and appeared to be waiting for either the man or the prostitute to come out again.
For a few moments, the Russian halted in indecision, but then he realized that fate had probably delivered the Irish girl into his hands. He knew exactly where she was, and precisely what she was doing. He anticipated that within about half an hour to an hour her client would leave her room, and then she would either remain inside for the rest of the night or step back out onto the streets. And there were now far fewer people walking the pavements in Whitechapel, so he felt safer in removing his disguise.
The only problem was the second man, the man who was still standing at the entrance to the passageway, leaning against the wall, and clearly waiting for one of the two to emerge. He could, Pedachenko supposed, perhaps be a friend of Mary’s client, and simply be waiting for the other man to complete his recreational activity and rejoin him. Or perhaps he wanted to take his turn with Mary when the first man had finished. Whatever the truth of the relationship between the three of them, for the moment Pedachenko felt content to just watch and wait.
And within about forty-five minutes, at just after three in the morning, his patience was rewarded. The ‘watcher’, whoever he was, apparently got bored or tired of waiting, and continued on his way along Dorset Street. There was no sign of either Mary or her client, and the street was almost empty of pedestrians. The Russian realized that this would be the ideal time to strike.
He headed away from Dorset Street and made his way down one of the innumerable alleys, then slippe
d into the doorway of a building only a few tens of yards down Dorset Street from the passageway entrance to the court, and swiftly removed both his bonnet and the skirts, and tucked them into a corner where he could retrieve them later: he intended to walk away from the scene dressed as a woman, for his own safety.
He straightened his clothes, checked up and down Dorset Street to confirm that he was still unobserved, and then began walking casually towards the entrance to Miller’s Court. As he did so, a male figure stepped out of the passageway, turned to his left and began striding away.
Pedachenko recognized him immediately as the client Mary had taken to her room, and muttered under his breath. He had hoped to be in position, either in the passageway or in the court itself, before the man emerged, so that he could identify the room from which he had come, just in case Mary decided to remain in her bed rather than seek out another customer.
He would just have to hope that she needed more money than she had so far earned that night.
The Russian turned down the passageway leading into Miller’s Court and paused at the end to look around him. There was a single gas lamp on the wall to his left, and the backs of tenement houses, each with windows and a door, in front of him and lying along the left-hand side of the court. To his right was a short and wider blind alley, at the end of which was a water pump.
All of these details Pedachenko registered, but his attention was drawn to the faint illumination he could see near the pump, illumination which was obviously coming from two small windows of the room on his right, probably from the flame of a candle. No other lights were visible anywhere in the court, and it was a reasonable assumption that he was looking at the room occupied by the Irish girl, and that she was still inside.
The Ripper Secret Page 35