‘We have. Of course.’
‘He was partial to eviscerating his victims – removing their entrails, don’t you know.’
‘Quite so.’
‘And he was local. If I’d been able to display some of his trophies here – the Ripper’s off-cuts, as it were – I’d have had the public lining the street from Whitechapel to Ludgate Circus.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Oscar.
‘I asked the police about it, but they were most unhelpful. Said the body parts had been buried with the victims’ remains. No guts, no show.’
‘Indeed.’
‘We must go,’ I said, suddenly feeling that I had enjoyed more than a sufficiency of the company of this queer showman who laughed but never smiled.
‘Just before we do, Mr Norman,’ said Oscar, as we stepped towards the door, ‘I have a favour to ask. It’s the reason for our visit, in fact.’
‘I thought there must be one.’
‘I have written a play.’
‘Another one?’
‘This is in French and on a biblical theme.’
‘Ah,’ sniffed Norman, you are not planning to draw the town.’
‘But I’d like to,’ said Oscar. ‘What playwright wouldn’t?’
‘Forgive me, Mr Wilde, but yours does not sound like an obviously popular piece.’
‘Oh, but it might be – if well translated and with the right leading lady. And your assistance.’
‘My assistance? I am going to Chicago.’
‘The play tells the story of Salome, the daughter of King Herod.’
‘I know who you mean. She’s the one who asked for the head of John the Baptist – on a plate.’
‘Exactly. And to help “draw the town”, as you’d have it, I am in want . . .’
‘. . . Not of the plate, but of the head of John the Baptist?’
‘Can you help me? Can you supply the head – preserved in formaldehyde?’
Tom Norman giggled. ‘I can’t supply you with the original, I’m afraid.’
Oscar looked imploringly into Tom Norman’s yes. ‘Walter Wellbeloved thought you might be able to assist me,’ he said earnestly. ‘He told me you’d helped him in the past.’
‘Walter’s made some improbable requests in his time for his rituals – but always animals, never humans. You need a human head, do you? Male? What sort of age?’
‘Twenties, thirties, handsome, hirsute. There’s a fine Caravaggio in the National Gallery that will give you an idea.’
‘I’ll do what I can, Mr Wilde – since you’re a friend of Mr Wellbeloved. I make no promises, but I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Thank you,’ said Oscar, extending his hand towards Tom Norman. ‘Don’t say a word, Arthur.’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ I said. I was too bewildered to know what to say.
‘You’ll be in touch, then?’ said Oscar, pulling open the shop door.
‘I will be,’ said Norman. ‘If I make progress, I’ll send you a note to agree terms. You’re still in Tite Street, I presume?’
22
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
‘What on earth was that about?’
Oscar chuckled as, complacently, he settled himself back into our two-wheeler and carefully placed his yellow gloves across his knees. ‘On to Colney Hatch Lane, John,’ he called out to the cabman. ‘I was testing the temperature of the water, Arthur, that’s all.’
‘You were asking a man to supply you with a severed head,’ I hissed. ‘You were as good as commissioning a murder.’
‘Don’t be absurd, Arthur. Have a cigarette. These come from Algiers. They are rough and smooth at the same time – an intriguing combination. Tom Norman’s not a murderer.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because if he had been, he’d have protested at once that he couldn’t supply me with a severed head. Have a cigarette. It’ll soothe your nerves.’
‘I won’t have a cigarette, thank you. My nerves do not need soothing. I’m simply confused by your line of inquiry.’
‘Don’t be. If you’ll forgive me for adding a commonplace to a platitude and mixing my metaphors, as well as testing the water, I was scattering bread on the water in hope of getting a clearer picture of how the land lies. Tom Norman preserves body parts in formaldehyde. Does that have any bearing on our case?’
‘I don’t know. Does it?’
‘Tom Norman lives and works in Whitechapel. Business is not what it was. Could he have commissioned the Whitechapel murders to create a sensation in the hope of exploiting that sensation with a Jack the Ripper show for his emporium?’
‘That seems unlikely.’
‘But not impossible. The police have got nowhere, Arthur. We must look everywhere. I was merely lifting up a few stones to see what crawled out.’
‘I can’t say I took to the man,’ I said. ‘I didn’t care for his mirthless laugh.’
‘The vulgar only laugh, but never smile,’ said Oscar, drawing slowly on his Algerian cigarette, ‘whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.’
I shook my head. ‘He’s a queer fish.’
‘No, he’s a showman. He trades in queer fish – and mermaids.’ He smiled at his own joke. ‘Don’t concern yourself, Arthur. I was sounding him out, nothing more.’
‘You were playing a dangerous game at the end there, Oscar,’ I said, taking out my pipe. ‘How did he know your address?’
Oscar pondered for a moment. ‘He knows Walter Wellbeloved. Constance and I are friends of Walter Wellbeloved. People talk about me. If there is one thing worse than being talked about—’
‘Don’t say it. I know the line.’
‘Tom Norman will have learned my address from Walter Wellbeloved.’
I considered the point. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s possible.’
‘And we learned a little bit more about the nature of Walter Wellbeloved, did we not, Arthur? Wellbeloved sought animal parts from Tom Norman, but never human ones. That’s useful to know – and in Wellbeloved’s favour.’
‘We certainly learned that Wellbeloved’s another queer fish. A love affair with a mermaid? What was going on there, I ask myself.’
‘Not a great deal, I imagine,’ said Oscar, grinning mischievously. ‘L’amour de l’impossible . . . it’s a well-known phenomenon. Men yearn for what they know they cannot have.’
My friend exhaled a blue-black cloud of cigarette smoke and rapped me gently over the knee with one of his yellow gloves. ‘Close your eyes, Arthur, and picture that unknown land full of strange flowers and subtle perfumes, that land of which it is a joy of all joys to dream, that land where all things are perfect and poisonous,’ He closed his own eyes as he spoke.
‘I think I’ll smoke my pipe,’ I said.
It took us more than an hour to reach the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, travelling due north from the slums of Whitechapel through the suburbs of Islington towards the countryside. For much of the journey Oscar slept, holding his cigarette between his fingers all the while. I smoked my pipe and looked out at the passing scene and, when the motion of the carriage allowed, I read. I had brought with me a pocket edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. For some time I had been intending to reread it for professional purposes: the better to understand the secrets of its extraordinary popular success. I chose to reread it now in case it should have a bearing on our case. One line in particular struck me: ‘All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.’
‘I have been thinking,’ I said to Oscar, as we clambered out of the two-wheeler at our journey’s end, ‘these crimes – these Whitechapel murders – are acts of pure evil, are they not?’
‘One cannot think of them otherwise,’ he said, blinking in the sharp January sunlight and stamping his feet on the ground to return some life to them after our journey.
‘So whoever is responsible is
a creature of pure evil?’
‘Yes,’ said Oscar, ‘or a madman. And if he’s a madman, of course, it does make the story less interesting.’
We were standing on a gravel drive at the foot of a broad flight of shallow steps leading up to the high arched doorway of the asylum – the largest institution of its kind in Europe, we later learned. The building was huge and formidable – a curious cross between Wandsworth Prison and Blenheim Palace, but seemingly larger than either. The drive from the gates of the establishment to these front steps must have been at least half a mile long.
‘We are expected,’ I murmured.
Alone, at the top of the steps, gazing down at us, stood a figure in a frock coat that I took at once, and correctly, to be the asylum superintendent. He was a genial-looking man of about sixty, of medium height, portly, largely bald but heavily bearded. His benign appearance was belied by a brisk, businesslike manner.
‘Are we late, Dr Rogerson?’ cried Oscar, climbing the steps, hand extended.
‘You are here, Mr Wilde, and you are welcome,’ said the superintendent. ‘And you are welcome, too, Dr Conan Doyle. You trained in Edinburgh, I know. We must talk of that another time. I have Kosminski in the visiting room waiting to see you.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Oscar, as the superintendent led us through the main door into a large marble-floored hallway. We looked about us and marvelled at what we saw. The grandeur of the surroundings was overwhelming and the quietness of the place unsettling.
‘This is impressive,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ replied Dr Rogerson. ‘Prince Albert didn’t entirely approve. He came to open us. He couldn’t really complain. He chose the architect. This way.’
‘You received my telegram,’ said Oscar. ‘You understand what we’re about.’
‘Perfectly,’ said Dr Rogerson. ‘Follow me.’
The superintendent marched us across the empty, echoing hallway and, taking a small bundle of keys from his waistcoat pocket, unlocked an elegant side door that led immediately to a second, plainer, sturdier inner door. He unlocked this with two further keys. ‘Go through,’ he commanded, ‘cross the corridor and wait by the door that faces you.’
We did as we were instructed while Dr Rogerson locked the doors we had come through behind him.
‘Oh my,’ murmured Oscar, ‘we have stepped from the anteroom to Elysium onto the pathway to Hades.’
The corridor we crossed did indeed resemble a hellish highway of sorts. It stretched out to either side of us – apparently infinitely – and along it walked and wandered, ambled and jigged, strolled and strode, a multitude of madmen. Each seemed lunatic in a different way. One marched by, with wild staring eyes, muttering menaces. Another ran forward on tiptoes, then stopped, bent down to kiss the ground, rose again and ran on in silence. A third stood close by the door where Dr Rogerson had instructed us to wait, banging his head rhythmically against the whitewashed brick wall.
The superintendent rejoined us, still sorting his keys. ‘Miss Terry said the problem with our lunatics is that they are all far too theatrical. If you tried playing them like this on the stage, no one would believe you.’
‘Ellen has been here?’ asked Oscar, wide-eyed. ‘Not as a patient, surely?’
Dr Rogerson laughed. ‘No. She came when she was studying to play Ophelia. She wanted to see for herself the reality of madness. She decided it would be too much for the paying public to cope with.’ He held up a key. ‘Kosminski is in here. Are you ready, gentlemen? I don’t think this will take long.’
Oscar stayed the superintendent’s hand. ‘Does he know why we have come?’
‘I have told him, but what he understands and does not understand is difficult to tell.’
‘But he was ready to meet us?’
‘He made no objection.’
I looked into the face of Dr Rogerson and sensed that I recognised the eyes of an honest man. ‘May I ask your professional opinion, Doctor?’
‘By all means.’
‘Could this man Kosminski be the notorious Jack the Ripper? Does the nature of his madness suggest to you the characteristics of a homicidal maniac?’
‘No. At least, not now.’
‘Then why is he here?’ exclaimed Oscar.
‘Where else is he to go?’ said Dr Rogerson simply. ‘He is certainly not in his right mind. He was in the workhouse until they could manage him no more. He was committed here by the local magistrate at the instigation of the police.’
‘Was he violent?’ I asked.
‘He had been, apparently. And he had filthy habits. Self-abuse was the worst of them.’
‘The police believe he may be the Whitechapel murderer,’ said Oscar.
‘I know,’ said the superintendent. ‘But on what grounds I don’t know. He was questioned, but never charged.’
‘He lived and worked in Whitechapel,’ I said, ‘and because he worked as a barber he had ready access to an assortment of blades and scissors and knives.’
‘I believe I visited his barber’s shop on one occasion,’ said Oscar.
‘I wonder if you’ll recognise him now,’ said Dr Rogerson, putting his key in the lock and turning it.
He pushed open the door and ushered us into a large, light-filled room. The sun poured in through tall, wide windows covered with a lattice of white-painted grilles. It was an elegant room, sparsely furnished but with a fine Adam-style fireplace and a small Murano glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Arranged around the room were half a dozen occasional tables with a pair of upright wooden chairs on either side of each of them. Seated on one of these chairs, dressed in striped pyjamas reminiscent of a convict’s uniform, was Aaron Kosminski.
‘Oh,’ whispered Oscar, ‘he’s not run away to the circus. That’s him. Without a doubt.’
‘He’s strapped in,’ I said, appalled to see that the hapless creature’s arms were pinioned to the back of his chair. I looked to the floor and saw that each of the chairs in the room was fixed where it was by lock and bolt.
‘He might be Jack the Ripper,’ said Dr Rogerson quietly. ‘We don’t know.’
‘But if he is,’ said Oscar, ‘he is not going to harm us, is he? We are not women of the night. And he’s an old man.’
‘He’s not yet forty.’
‘Look at him,’ said Oscar. ‘He’s a broken man.’
He was certainly a forlorn figure. His lank black hair was streaked with grey. His moustache drooped around his half-open mouth. He seemed to have no teeth. He seemed to have no life. He sat, as slumped on his chair as the tethers allowed, his eyes cast down, his beaky nose pointing towards the ground.
‘We secure all patients with a history of violence like this,’ explained Dr Rogerson.
‘But does he have a history of violence?’ I asked.
‘Not a recent one, no. He has been consistently placid since his arrival here. If he were admitted today, he’d be classed as a harmless imbecile. But, by definition, mania comes and goes. Five years ago, he will have been a different man. The magistrate who committed him believed he was a threat to others as well as to himself.’
‘He looks very weak,’ I said.
‘He eats very little.’
We looked at him. We stepped towards him. We introduced ourselves. We asked him his name. We asked him if he remembered his life in Whitechapel. We asked him a dozen questions and more.
He did not move. He did not say a word.
Eventually, Oscar turned to the asylum superintendent. ‘Does he ever speak?’
‘Rarely,’ said Dr Rogerson. ‘Sometimes at night he calls out in his sleep, but we can make no sense of what he says. None of us speaks Yiddish. By day he is as you see him now.’
‘As if in a trance,’ I said.
‘Exactly so,’ said the superintendent, stroking his beard reflectively while gazing fixedly at Kosminski’s impassive face.
‘He’s not registering our presence,’ said Oscar.
‘He’s not registeri
ng anything,’ said Dr Rogerson. ‘Watch.’ Suddenly, the superintendent leaned forward and clapped his hands together loudly in front of his patient’s face. ‘Not the flicker of an eyelid.’
‘How long has he been like this?’ I asked.
‘Since he arrived.’
‘And will he be like this always?’ asked Oscar.
‘There is no reason to suppose not,’ said Dr Rogerson. ‘I think we can assume he will be like this until the day he dies.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Oscar quietly. ‘This has been most helpful.’
23
Olga
‘I’m not sure I’d call that interview “helpful”, Oscar,’ I said, as we climbed back into our two-wheeler. ‘We learned nothing.’
‘On the contrary, Arthur. We learned a great deal.’
‘Did we?’ I protested. ‘I don’t think so. The wretched man is dead to the world.’
‘Yes. And firmly under lock and key – and consequently incapable of committing this week’s killings in Chelsea. At least we learned that.’
‘True enough,’ I conceded. ‘But we learned nothing about his life in Whitechapel.’
‘Not so,’ purred my friend complacently. ‘I visited his barber’s shop in Whitechapel once, as you know, and I remember nothing about it. What does that tell us?’
‘That you have a poor memory?’
‘No. It tells us that nothing occurred that was out of the ordinary. Kosminski was simply a nondescript Whitechapel barber. Now he’s a wreck of a man, dead to the world, locked in a trance. What trauma was it that induced so great a change in him?’
Having asked his question, Oscar closed his eyes and left me to ponder it. I did so, as we journeyed back from Colney Hatch to central London. Was Kosminski our murderer? Had an eventual realisation of the horror of his crimes brought him to his present state? I did not know the answer. Nor, I reckoned, did Oscar.
As finally we reached our hotel once more, my friend, beaming blithely, evidently refreshed by his further sleep on the homeward journey, announced that he had ‘business to attend to’ and, without further explanation, proposed that we meet, after dinner, at around ten o’clock’.
Oscar Wilde and the Return of Jack the Ripper Page 15