‘Five dozen – five score. More! Hundreds, if you take into account all the speculative possibilities raised by a sensationalist press. Most, of course, are utterly fantastical and don’t merit a second glance.’
‘But how many do?’
Macnaghten hesitated a moment. About twenty individuals in all, no more.’
‘And of those,’ I asked, ‘how many are on your personal list of chief suspects, Chief Constable?’
‘Just five. I’m narrowing the field.’
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Oscar lightly.
‘Yes, Mr Wilde, several that you know. That is the point. That is why you are here.’
6
‘Am I a suspect?’
Oscar looked about Macnaghten’s study as though seeking an invisible audience whose applause he might acknowledge. ‘Am I a suspect?’ he asked, turning towards our host and widening his eyes. ‘I rather hope I might be. There’s only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.’
‘This is no laughing matter, Oscar,’ I said reprovingly.
‘You are not a suspect so far as I am concerned, Mr Wilde, but I do have to tell you that, as I work on my report and consider each suspect in turn, your name keeps cropping up.’
‘I’m intrigued,’ said Oscar. ‘Tell me more, Chief Constable. It seems I know all the wrong people.’
‘Oh no,’ said Macnaghten, with a dry laugh. ‘From our investigation’s point of view, you know all the right people, Mr Wilde.’
‘Is my friend Sickert, the artist, on your list? I imagine he is.’
‘He was, briefly, but he is no longer.’
Oscar turned to me to explain. ‘Wat Sickert lived close to Whitechapel and walked the streets – wearing a long great coat and a tall top hat. Some children caught sight of him and began shouting, “Jack the Ripper! Jack the Ripper!” That’s all it takes. Wat looks the part of a stage villain, I grant you, but he’s the sweetest creature underneath that curled and waxed moustache.’
‘ We ascertained that Mr Sickert was in France at the time of the murders,’ said Macnaghten. ‘He was never a serious candidate, but we try to follow every lead. We hear rumours: we investigate.’
‘I suppose poor Prince Eddy is on your list?’ said Oscar.
‘The late Duke of Clarence and Avondale does feature on the long list, unfortunately, yes.’
‘I barely knew him,’ said Oscar. ‘He was the heir presumptive so, naturally, I didn’t presume. He had a chequered career, I know, and a very weak chin, but I didn’t see him as a multiple murderer, did you? He was Queen Victoria’s grandson, after all.’
Macnaghten said nothing. He was now holding the file marked ‘Wilde’ in both hands.
‘Beyond Sickert and poor Prince Eddy, can there be anybody else on your list that I might know?’ Oscar asked the question looking genuinely puzzled.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the chief constable.
‘Who?’
‘You will see.’ The policeman leaned forward and presented the file he was holding to Oscar. ‘I have prepared these notes for you, Mr Wilde. Study them, if you will – at your leisure. They include the names of those I regard as the key suspects. You will find that more than one of them is known to you personally.’
Oscar took the policeman’s dossier and gazed down at it, seemingly bewildered. ‘Why are you entrusting me with this?’ he asked.
‘Quite simply, because I need your help, Mr Wilde. You will know some of these people and you will know them better than I do. You will know them and their circles. You may even know their secrets. I have read your novel, Mr Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray. You understand what moves a man to murder. I will be grateful for your thoughts.’
‘I am not a detective, Chief Constable.’
‘No, but you are a poet, a Freemason and a man of the world. All useful qualifications for the business in hand.’
Oscar made to protest, but Macnaghten stopped him. ‘You have a poet’s eye, Mr Wilde, and that means you can see the facts and then make a leap of the imagination beyond the reach of us mere plodding policemen. The detectives of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Metropolitan Police are not known for their intellectual acuity, whereas you are considered one of the most brilliant men of your generation. You have won every academic prize open to you and have secured a double first from Oxford University. I have not.’ Macnaghten stretched out his right hand towards Oscar. ‘Will you help me?’
Oscar took the proffered hand and shook it warmly. ‘Of course,’ he said with emotion. With his other hand he clutched the chief constable’s file to his breast. ‘I will study this material carefully and do whatever I can to assist you – though it may not be much.’ He glanced in my direction and then added, more hesitantly: ‘May I share the contents of the file with Dr Conan Doyle?’
‘I very much hope that you will,’ said Macnaghten, smiling. ‘When I discovered this afternoon that you and Dr Doyle were friends, I’ll confess that the notion of having both Oscar Wilde and the creator of Sherlock Holmes on the case seemed almost too good to be true. I will be most grateful for your joint assistance – and I know that I can rely on your complete confidentiality.’
‘Naturally, sir,’ I said.
‘Of course,’ said Oscar, more diffidently, adding, after a moment’s pause, ‘Though perhaps, in the fullness of time, as authors we might be permitted to use some of what we have learned ...’ My friend let his sentence trail off into a nothingness.
‘You want to write about all this?’ said Macnaghten doubtfully. ‘Let us cross that bridge as and when we reach it. We are conducting a murder investigation here, Mr Wilde, not conjuring up a murder mystery.’
‘I understand,’ said Oscar, duly chastened.
‘You may depend on us,’ I said, getting to my feet, sensing that our interview was at a close.
‘Let’s meet again shortly,’ said Macnaghten, ‘when you have had an opportunity to consider the file. We can meet here rather than at Scotland Yard. It’s more discreet.’ I nodded our agreement. ‘And you won’t forget to let me have your notes from this afternoon, will you, Doctor?’
‘You will have them tomorrow,’ I said, ‘without fail.’
Oscar drained his sherry glass and returned it to the sideboard. ‘May I ask one question,’ he said quietly, ‘before we leave you?’
‘By all means,’ answered Macnaghten amiably.
‘Why now? These foul murders took place in 1888, six years ago. Why this sudden renewed interest in them?’
‘I don’t think the interest in them has ever gone away, Mr Wilde. Our sensationalist press has made sure of that. Are you familiar with Mr George R. Sims?’
‘Of course. I know him personally, though not well.’
‘He has been the leader of the pack. Week in, week out, in his column in The Referee he returns to the subject of Jack the Ripper like a dog to a bone. There’s nothing new to be said, but that doesn’t trouble him. Gleefully he reports that the police continue to make no progress and then fuels empty speculation with lurid conjecture. Every paragraph he writes undermines the authority of the Metropolitan Constabulary. It’s bad and it’s set to get worse.’
‘Worse?’
‘You mentioned the Duke of Clarence. As you know, His Royal Highness passed away two years ago. He was just twenty-eight.’
Oscar shrugged. ‘The clap shows no respect for age.’
‘It was not gonorrhoea, Mr Wilde. It was pneumonia. There is no doubt about that.’
Oscar smiled.
‘But you are right,’ the chief constable continued imperturbably. ‘There were rumours ...’
‘There always are.’
‘And since you cannot libel the dead, now the young prince has gone, people are free to say whatever they choose about him – however outrageous. His Royal Highness’s thirtieth birthday would have fallen next week, on the eighth of January, and our understanding is that the Sun newspaper is planning to
run a scurrilous series of articles to mark the anniversary. The Prince of Wales is understandably concerned that newspaper stories linking his eldest son with Jack the Ripper could tarnish the crown ...’
Oscar raised an eyebrow. And might even threaten the throne?’
‘Look at France,’ said the policeman solemnly. ‘Look at Russia. We live in uncertain times, Mr Wilde. Even the oldest monarchies can take nothing for granted.’
‘The Prince of Wales has shared these concerns with you?’
‘No, he has shared them with certain senior politicians who have shared them with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who has instructed me to discover the truth of the matter – if I can. Or, if I cannot, at least to produce a report detailing exactly what we do and do not know, narrowing the field of suspects and eliminating all those we know for certain cannot possibly be this “Jack the Ripper” – the late Duke of Clarence being one such. “Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.” Isn’t that one of Sherlock Holmes’s maxims?’
‘It is, indeed,’ I said, as Macnaghten escorted us into the hallway. He handed me my overcoat and helped Oscar on with his.
‘May I ask a question?’ he added, as he opened the front door to see us on our way. ‘I know it was your little joke, Mr Wilde, but why, earlier, did you say, “Am I a suspect?” What made you think of such a thing?’
Oscar looked Macnaghten directly in the eye: A man has been following me for several months past. He has kept his distance. I have not seen his face. I do not know who he is, but he has something of the manner of a policeman about him. I thought perhaps he was one of your detectives, Chief Constable.’
‘No, Mr Wilde; whoever he is, he’s not one of mine. I can assure you of that.’
The heavy rain had stopped, but a drizzly fog had now descended on the darkened street. By the smudged pale yellow light of its lamps we found Oscar’s four-wheeler waiting for us exactly where we had left it five hours before. It took us forty minutes to travel back to the Langham Hotel.
‘Stay the night,’ said Oscar as the cab pulled away. ‘You will be my guest, old friend.’ Beyond that, he said nothing.
7
Five only
We stood in the gas-lit lobby of the hotel and bade one another goodnight. My friend, so exuberant for most of the day, looked weary.
‘Forgive me, Arthur. I am not in the giving vein tonight. We can talk it all through in the morning, can’t we?’
‘We can.’
‘You will stay the night, won’t you? As my guest.’
‘If they have a room, I’ll stay the night, of course. But not as your guest. You’re wanton with money, Oscar. You over-tipped the cabman quite ludicrously. Your extravagance will ruin you.’
He smiled wanly as we shook hands. ‘Surely, it is the ruins the tourists most want to visit.’
The Langham had a room and I took it. I ordered myself a simple supper of bread and cheese and pickle, and a glass of beer, and, as I had promised the chief constable, set about writing up my notes on the body of the murdered woman that I had examined at the beginning of the afternoon. As I worked, the poor unfortunate wretch’s scarred and bloodied face settled in my mind’s eye. I found the only way to shift the dreadful image was instead to picture the smiling face of Constance Wilde. I was reflecting on her uncomplicated loveliness – and on the sweetness of her nature – when there was a sharp knock on my bedroom door. It was Oscar.
He looked brighter than he had done an hour before. ‘Macnaghten’s file,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘I’ve read it.’
‘Already?’
‘I’m a quick study, as you know.’
‘You’ve read it all?’
‘I am leaving the details to you. I have the colour of it.’ He grinned and revealed his none-too-gainly teeth. And perhaps an answer to one of the mysteries, too.’
‘You amaze me.’
‘I have nothing to declare but my genius,’ he said complacently. ‘“It was the best of crimes, it was the worst of crimes”, as you’ll see. Goodnight, Arthur.’
I closed the door on my friend, sat back on my bed and opened the policeman’s dossier.
To: OW
From: MM
Date: 01/01/94 STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
Background
Whitechapel is the poorest parish in London’s East End. Drunkenness and vice are rife. Respect for the law is low and good policing consequently difficult to achieve. Violence is commonplace and murder far from unknown. Brewing, distilling, iron-founding, floor-cloth manufacture, dyeing and prostitution are the local industries. There are four churches in the parish and sixty-two known brothels. Some 1,200 women work the streets, notably in the areas close to the bathhouses, the sailors’ home, the workhouse, the boys’ refuge and the Jews’ orphan asylum.
Human life is cheap in Whitechapel. Women are the victims of assault on an everyday basis. Even when crimes are reported, most remain unsolved. Rightly or wrongly, the killing of a dozen females within a matter of months would not have been considered out of the ordinary in this district, but for two factors:
•the brutal nature of the killings and the degree of mutilation involved
•the notion that the killings were the work of one man, the so-called ‘Jack the Ripper’
My report is to be concerned with eleven deaths in all, but it is my firm belief that five of the murders – and five only – were committed by the same hand.
THE FIVE VICTIMS
MARY ANN NICHOLLS
Body found at 3.40 a.m. on Friday 31 August 1888 in Buck’s Row, Whitechapel.
Throat severed by two cuts; abdomen ripped open; assorted abdominal knife wounds.
No worthwhile witnesses.
ANNIE CHAPMAN
Body found at 6.00 a.m. on Saturday 8 September 1888 at the rear of 29 Hanbury Street, Whitechapel.
Throat severed by two cuts; abdomen ripped open; private parts mutilated; uterus removed; entrails placed around victim’s neck.
Witness saw a dark-haired man of ‘shabby-genteel’ appearance with the victim at about 5.30 a.m.
ELIZABETH STRIDE
Body found at 1.00 a.m. on Sunday 30 September 1888 in Dutfield’s Yard, off Berner Street, Whitechapel.
Throat severed by one cut only and no mutilation to abdomen. It would seem that the murderer was disturbed by some Jews who drove up to a Jewish club nearby and that he then, mordum satiatus, went in search of a second victim – see below.
Witnesses give differing accounts of seeing Elizabeth Stride on the Saturday night – some say with a fair-haired man, some with a dark, some say he was well-dressed, some say shabbily dressed; estimates of his age also vary.
CATHERINE EDDOWES
Body found at 1.45 a.m. on Sunday 30 September 1888 in Mitre Square, City of London.
Throat severed by one cut; abdomen cut open; uterus and left kidney removed; severe mutilation to body and face.
Witness claimed to have seen victim in the square with a fair-haired man of medium height, aged about thirty, dress suggesting a sailor, not long before the murder, but his two companions at the time could neither confirm nor deny.
Part of the victim’s clothing – a bloodied piece of her apron – was found later in Goulston Street, Whitechapel, with near it, on a wall, a message written in chalk: ‘The Juwes are The men That Will not be Blamed For nothing’.
On 1 October, a postcard claiming responsibility for these two murders and referring to them as a ‘double event’ was received at the offices of the Central News Agency in Hew Bridge Street, Ludgate Circus, London EC. It was signed ‘jack the Ripper’. It followed an earlier letter to the Central News Agency, also claiming to be from ‘jack the Ripper’, received on 27 September, though dated 25 September. It was this letter and postcard – published in facsimile by the Metropolitan Police in the hope that a member of the public might recognise the handwriting – that gave common currency to th
e name ‘jack the Ripper’. (I shall include the facsimile among the papers in this file.)
MARY JANE KELLY
Body found at 10.45 a.m. on Friday 9 November 1888 on Kelly’s bed in her room at 13 Miller’s Court, off Dorset Street.
Throat severed to the spine; abdomen cut open; abdominal organs removed; heart removed. Mutilation of the most horrific kind.
No useful witnesses.
Attached you will find the coroners’ reports for each of these five murders. They make grim reading. You will notice that the fury of the mutilations increased in each case, the appetite seemingly sharpened by indulgence.
Also attached are the more relevant ‘witness statements’ secured by the police – such as they are.
THE INVESTIGATION
In the history of policing in this country, I do not believe any investigation has been conducted as exhaustively as in the case of the Whitechapel murders. The husbands, lovers, relatives, clients and associates of the women have all had their stories and alibis tested. Because of the nature of the mutilations, butchers, slaughtermen, surgeons, physicians and medical students have been questioned. (The London Hospital is located in Whitechapel.) All types and conditions of men have been interviewed – from gentlemen known to frequent the locality after hours to vagrants, Poles, Russians and sailors passing through – upwards of 2,000 individuals in all. More than 300 potential suspects have been investigated. Of those, eighty were detained for detailed examination. No stone has been left unturned – and yet no worthwhile evidence of any kind has been found to link anyone with these horrific crimes.
Of all the material I have considered while preparing my report, the most useful, in my estimation, has been the following from Dr Thomas Bond, the police surgeon who conducted the post-mortem examination of the last victim, Mary Kelly. One of my predecessors in charge of the matter, Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson, provided Dr Bond with the papers relating to the earlier Whitechapel murders and asked for his considered opinion. This was his reply:
Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper Page 4