He was of the opinion, he said, that all five of these women had been murdered by the same man. The cuts which had severed the throats of the previous four victims had been made from left to right, and had presumably been inflicted by the killer standing or crouching on the right-hand side of the victim. In the case of Mary Kelly, a different technique must have been used, simply because of the position of the bed in the tiny room, and so that attack must have been launched either from in front of the woman, or from her left hand side.
In Dr Bond’s opinion, the mutilations performed on Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes and Kelly were ‘all of the same character’ and had most probably been inflicted with the same knife or at least the same type of knife. This, he said, was a strong and very sharp knife, the end of the blade pointed, and the blade itself at least six inches in length and an inch in width, and probably straight.
But on the question of the anatomical knowledge displayed by Jack the Ripper, Bond was in complete disagreement with the other doctors who had examined the victims. Alone among these medical experts, he stated that the killer had neither anatomical nor scientific knowledge: most probably, he said, not even the understanding of anatomy that would be possessed by ‘a butcher or horse slaughterer or any person accustomed to cut up dead animals.’
But notably, after making this definitive statement, he failed to offer any explanation as to how an entirely unskilled person – as he was suggesting – could have successfully removed the left kidney from the body of Catharine Eddowes without damaging any of the surrounding tissues. Her kidney had been extracted through the vascular pedicle from the front, and the organ lay behind the peritoneum, the stomach, spleen, colon and jejunum, and was itself embedded in fat. Even a fully qualified surgeon would have found that a lengthy and taxing procedure to perform in a properly lit operating theatre with the correct surgical instruments to hand, and Bond seemed either unaware, or at least unwilling to acknowledge, the fact that the murderer had achieved this in a time of under ten minutes in the middle of the night on a stone pavement in a poorly lit square, working under the pressure of the danger of imminent discovery. Even at the time, the other doctors dismissed his opinion as both ill-informed and quite simply wrong.
The other question on which Dr Bond had been asked to give his opinion – this time by Inspector Abberline – was exactly when Mary Kelly had met her death, but the doctor was unable to provide a definitive answer. Bond had arrived at the crime scene at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and making an accurate determination of the time that had elapsed since the killing was difficult because of a number of factors.
When he’d seen the corpse, rigor mortis had already set in, and he noticed that it increased during his examination. The body had been found virtually naked and suffering from grotesque and severe mutilation. It was clear that a fierce fire had burned in the grate for some time following her death, which would have warmed both the room and the body. Another indicator was the partially digested food which had been found in her stomach. This suggested that death would have probably occurred about three or four hours after the meal had been eaten. All in all, Bond was unable to do more than suggest that the killing had most likely taken place roughly twelve hours before he saw the body, which probably meant between about one and three o’clock in the morning.
The latest killing appalled and terrified the residents of Whitechapel and even provoked a response from the government. Although the official position was that the Home Secretary’s decision not to offer a reward was still correct, it was agreed that a free pardon would be offered to any accomplice of the man who had killed Mary Kelly, and who would deliver that man to the police. Accordingly, later that day, Charles Warren was authorized by Godfrey Lushington, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Home Office, to issue a notice to be prominently displayed outside every police station in London, and also printed in the newspapers:
MURDER. – PARDON. – Whereas on November 8 or 9, in Miller Court, Dorset Street, Spitalfields, Mary Janet Kelly was murdered by some person or persons unknown: the Secretary of State will advise the grant of Her Majesty’s gracious pardon to any accomplice, not being a person who contrived or actually committed the murder, who shall give such information and evidence as shall lead to the discovery and conviction of the person or persons who committed the murder.
CHARLES WARREN,
the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.
Metropolitan Police Office,
4 Whitehall Place, S.W., Nov. 10, 1888
Whoever compiled the notice got Mary Kelly’s real name wrong, but that didn’t make any difference. It is doubtful whether anybody in authority seriously expected this somewhat optimistic offer to be taken up by anyone close to Jack the Ripper. Certainly Charles Warren knew for certain that there would be no response.
The fact was that most of the indications were still that the killer was a man who worked alone, without an accomplice or even a lookout. It was true that in the case of Elizabeth Stride, one of the possible witnesses, Israel Schwartz, had claimed to have seen two men near the scene, though there was no definitive proof that either of these men had perpetrated the crime, were acquainted with each other, or had been involved in the murder in any way.
And there would be challenges to this decision within days, the matter being raised in the House of Commons, when the Member for Aberdeen North asked if this pardon was retrospective and could be applied to the group of men who had been participated in the murder of Emma Smith the previous year. And certainly, in the case of Mary Kelly, there was no indication whatsoever that more than one man had been involved.
But they made the offer anyway.
Monday, 12 November 1888
London
The inquest into the latest killing was held on Monday, 12 November. Because Mary Kelly had been murdered in Spitalfields, her body had been taken to the Shoreditch Mortuary, and the proceedings were held in Shoreditch Town Hall under the auspices of the Coroner for the North Eastern District of Middlesex, Dr Roderick Macdonald.
Even two days after the murder, there was still huge public excitement and concern about the events which had taken place in Miller’s Court. Crowds of people meandered up and down Dorset Street throughout Monday, although they were prevented from entering the court itself, which was still protected by two constables. The second focus of public interest was Shoreditch Town Hall. When the inquest began at eleven o’clock in the morning, dozens of people tried to get inside to witness the proceedings, and had to be forcibly restrained from doing so. Eventually, the door to the building had to be locked and a police officer positioned outside to quell any further unrest. The room in which the inquest was to be held was already filled to bursting.
As was the practice in those days, once the men chosen for the jury had been sworn in, they were escorted by Inspector Abberline to the Shoreditch Mortuary to view the body of the deceased. She was a pitiable sight. The worst of her jagged wounds had been roughly stitched together and her body placed inside a coffin shell, with only her face left visible, a grubby grey cloth covering her torso and legs. The mutilations to her face were so brutal and extensive that, as the Pall Mall Gazette reported: ‘The eyes were the only vestiges of humanity. The rest was so scored and slashed that it was impossible to say where the flesh began and the cuts ended.’
Having viewed the remains of Mary Kelly, the twelve members of the jury were then taken to Miller’s Court, where they were led in single file down the narrow passageway and into the room the dead woman had called home. The room was so small that not all the members of the jury could be inside it at the same time, and so they viewed it in batches. The viewing was supervised by Inspector Abberline, who held a single candle aloft to provide enough illumination for the jury members to see by, while pointing out to them the important evidence – such as it was – at the murder scene. The wall was still splattered with bloodstains, and there had clearly been a large pool of blood under the bed, on the side n
earest the partition.
Back in the jury room, the first witness, Joseph Barnett, told the jurors something of Mary Kelly’s life, and Thomas Bowyer and John McCarthy explained how they had discovered her body. Various neighbours, nine of them in all, from Miller’s Court and Dorset Street, provided a little more information about her final hours. Their verbal testimony confirmed and supported the written statements they had already made to Inspector Abberline and other officers three days earlier.
Two of the neighbours told the inquest that they had heard a muffled cry of ‘Murder!’ in the early hours of the morning, but neither of them had reacted in any way. These putative witnesses to the time of the crime were Elizabeth Prater, a woman who had a lodging at 26 Dorset Street, the same building as Mary Kelly, albeit approached from Dorset Street itself rather than from Miller’s Court. She lived in room 20, located above Kelly’s lodging, and had known the victim quite well.
Her evidence was, by any standards, somewhat confused. In her initial statement to the police she had claimed that she heard a woman scream ‘Murder!’ two or three times between 3.30 and four in the morning, but at the inquest she modified her evidence.
‘And then you heard what, Mrs Prater?’ the coroner asked.
‘A woman crying “Murder!”,’ she replied.
‘Was that one cry, or was it repeated?’
‘I just heard it the once. I’m sure a woman shouted “Oh! Murder!” somewhere nearby.’
‘And what time was this?’
‘I don’t know exactly, but probably some time after four in the morning,’ Prater replied.
The other witness was a laundress named Sarah Lewis. She actually lived at 24 Great Pearl Street in Spitalfields, but was staying at a lodging in Miller’s Court which had been taken by her friends, a couple named Keyler. She had arrived there early on that Friday morning following a quarrel with her husband. The Keylers lived at number 2 Miller’s Court, and Lewis didn’t have a very good night there. There was no bed available for her to use, so she sat in a chair to try to get what sleep she could, but was awake by 3.30 and remained so until almost five in the morning. Just before four, she heard a cry of ‘Murder!’ from somewhere fairly nearby.
‘What did you do when you heard this?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘You didn’t, for example, get up from your chair and look out of the window?’
‘No, sir. I stayed right where I was. I’ve heard shouts like that at all hours of the night in Whitechapel and Spitalfields.’
Although Dr Phillips had been the first medical man – and indeed the first person – to enter the room, his description of the condition of Mary Kelly’s body at the inquest was hardly comprehensive. He contented himself merely by stating that the immediate cause of death was the severance of her right carotid artery, which was undeniably true, but which certainly shaded the truth, and again he deliberately suppressed any details of the mutilations which had also been visited upon her.
Calculation of the time of death was difficult because of a number of different factors. Dr Bond had suggested one or two in the morning at the earliest, while Dr Phillips, who had examined the body at just after eleven, believed that the woman had been dead for only about five or six hours, so possibly was killed as late as six.
The unspoken probability was that Elizabeth Prater and Sarah Lewis had both heard the victim’s desperate cry for help at four o’clock, and both of them, for reasons of their own, had ignored it.
Inspectors Beck and Abberline, in their turn, provided what little information was available about the police investigation. At the end of the proceedings, Dr Macdonald gave the jury members a simple instruction: all they had to do was to decide on the cause of Mary Kelly’s death, and leave the investigation of the crime in the hands of the Metropolitan Police.
The foreman duly returned a verdict of ‘wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.’ One witness whose evidence was not heard at the inquest was George Hutchinson, and this was simply because he did not come forward until six o’clock that evening, when he walked into the Commercial Street police station to make a statement. That same evening, Detective Inspector Abberline, who had been informed that the man had possibly seen the murderer with his victim, interrogated the labourer.
‘We’ve established that you had this man in clear sight for some time, Mr Hutchinson,’ Abberline said. ‘So can you please give us the most accurate description that you are able.’
Hutchinson nodded.
‘I’ll do my best, sir. The man was about five feet six inches in height and I think about thirty-four or thirty-five years of age,’ he began, ‘with a dark complexion and a dark moustache that was turned up at the ends. He was wearing a long dark coat, trimmed with astrakhan, and a white collar with a black necktie affixed with a horseshoe pin. He wore a pair of dark spats with light buttons over button boots, and displayed from his waistcoat a massive gold chain. His watch chain had a big seal, with a red stone, hanging from it. He had a heavy moustache curled up and dark eyes and bushy eyebrows. He had no side whiskers, and his chin was clean-shaven. He looked like a foreigner.’
It was, by any standards, an extremely comprehensive description, but if the events had taken place as Hutchinson had described, then he had must have had the man in view for some considerable time, and if he was possessed of keen observational skills, and if – of course – this man was the person who killed Mary Kelly, it was vital information for the police.
Certainly, Inspector Abberline believed him. Following his interview with Hutchinson, the Detective Inspector forwarded the statement to Scotland Yard that same evening, together with a note in which he stated: ‘An important statement has been made by a man named George Hutchinson which I forward herewith. I have interrogated him this evening, and I am of the opinion his statement is true.’
And for Abberline, it wasn’t just a case of circulating the detailed description which the labourer had provided to the police. For that same night, Abberline sent Hutchinson out onto the streets of the East End in the company of two detectives in a search for the man who’d been seen entering her room. The three trudged around the streets until about three in the morning, but without success, and they would repeat the exercise, with the same lack of a positive result, on the following night as well.
George Hutchinson’s evidence was later discovered by the London press and the description he had provided of the man he’d seen was widely published and circulated as a result of the various interviews which he gave to the newspapers.
But no trace of the foreign-looking man with the moustache with the turned-up ends and wearing an astrakhan coat was ever found.
Tuesday, 13 November 1888
London
Alexei Pedachenko read the reports in the newspapers with a good deal of satisfaction. The news that Charles Warren had resigned from his post as the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police had been announced the previous day, and was vying for space with further details about the murder of the woman he now knew had been named Mary Kelly.
That was the result he had been hoping to achieve from the very first, signifying the Englishman’s agreement to hand over the relic he had stolen in Jerusalem so many years earlier. The fact that the man’s resignation had ostensibly been due to a difference of opinion with the Home Secretary was of no interest to Pedachenko, because he had expected Warren to produce some kind of a believable excuse for leaving his post. The important thing, as far as Pedachenko was concerned, was the simple fact that he had resigned.
He wasn’t sure how long it would take for Warren to recover the menorah from wherever he had placed it for safekeeping, but his ultimatum had given the man ample time to place the relic in a box and have it delivered to the warehouse in Bermondsey within the week he had specified.
Although news of Warren’s resignation hadn’t appeared in the newspapers until 10 November, all the reports stated clearly that he had actually resigned two days earlier,
on the 8th. That meant that he should be delivering the menorah to the warehouse on the south bank of the Thames seven days later, on the 15th. Pedachenko decided he would make absolutely sure they were both working to the same timetable, and penned another short note to Warren, which he would arrange to have delivered by one of the street urchins who were always hanging about in the area. The note read:
Bermondsey. 15th, by three after the noon.
By that time, he was certain, the box would have been delivered, and he would be able to complete the task he had set himself. And if for some reason the box wasn’t there, both he and Warren knew he still had his knife, which was still sharp, and if it was necessary he could resume his work among the ‘unfortunates’ of Whitechapel, and as a further refinement apply further pressure on Warren by threatening to reveal his secret to the newspapers. But he didn’t think that would be necessary. That final killing, of Mary Kelly, would have clearly shown Warren exactly what Pedachenko was capable of, and the last thing the – now former – commissioner would want would be a series of similar murders across London.
The Russian nodded to himself. It was all, he was sure, going to end in an entirely satisfactory manner.
* * *
When Charles Warren returned to his home that evening after another frustrating day at Scotland Yard, he found the note from his nemesis waiting for him. As was his habit, he took the letter upstairs and read it in his study. Then, again as usual, he copied down the contents and burnt the original in the fireplace.
In fact, the instruction from ‘Michael’ pleased him, because it eliminated the one uncertain element in his plan. And now it was time to put that plan into operation.
Warren rang the bell and about a minute later Ryan knocked on the study door and entered the room.
‘I have a job for you,’ Warren began. ‘It will probably take you most of tomorrow to complete it, and it must be done no later than midday on Thursday. What I want you to do will also probably seem most peculiar to you, but all you need to know is that the task is essential, so please do not ask me any questions about it.’
The Ripper Secret Page 38