Whitechapel

by Sam Gafford

  *

  Hopelessly lost, I tried to find my bearings. Eventually, I was able to connect some of the places I had run through and started to follow what I thought was my trail back to Mitre Square. Even though I had no idea what I would do once I got back there.

  I’d lost track of time. Indeed, all the hours blended together in my mind to one amorphous mass. So it was with some surprise that I heard the street clocks ring a quarter after the hour of five a.m. when I came back to Goulston Street and an unexpected group of policemen standing about and arguing.

  “I don’t care what Anderson says,” Abberline was shouting. “This is important evidence and we shouldn’t be destroying it! This is the only example we have of the killer’s handwriting. In the very least, we need to take photographs of it.”

  Another man, one with a large, impressive moustache and a commanding military presence, was arguing with Abberline and was obviously his superior. They were standing just a little ways down from the corner where, I realised, I had seen Arthur pause hours before. Another P.C. was standing by, holding a piece of apron that he was clearly uncomfortable touching.

  “Don’t be a fool, Abberline! Look at that! Within less than an hour, this street will be full of people. Good god, man! Do you want to incite a riot against the Jews? This is just the thing that will do it. There’s no way to cover it up without it being ripped down. We have to erase it before everyone in the East End sees it.”

  “The sun will be up shortly, Commissioner Warren. Once there’s more light, we can take a picture and then erase it. Surely we can wait that long?”

  The street was relatively quiet at that hour, but a few people were lingering about, so I joined them. If I moved at an angle and turned my head the right way, I could see some chalk writing on the wall. It was written in medium-sized letters at roughly shoulder height of an average man. Except that what was written didn’t make any sense. In rather shaky letters, it read:

  “The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing.”

  I assumed that the writer meant “Jews” for “Juwes,” and so did Commissioner Warren, apparently. But did it mean that they would be blamed for something? The murders? None of that made any sense.

  Another inspector added his opinion to the mix: “This isn’t the only graffiti on this wall, Fred. How do we even know the killer wrote this?”

  Infuriated, Abberline grabbed the cloth from the P.C. and waved it at the other inspector. “Because of this! This is a piece of the Mitre Square’s victim’s apron. It was found right over there.” Abberline pointed to a spot a little before the graffiti.

  “We know he wiped his knife on this and stopped here. My man says there was no graffiti here earlier. The killer wrote this, and you’re aiding him if you erase this message!”

  Warren was outraged. “This is not a discussion, Abberline! I’m ordering you to have that graffiti erased now! You there with the bucket, get on with it already!”

  A P.C. standing nearby with a pail of water and sponge looked at Abberline helplessly.

  “What are you looking at him for? Didn’t you hear me? Erase it now!”

  The poor man, stuck between opposing forces, did the only thing he could and started wiping off the writing.

  Abberline let out an expression of disgust.

  “We’ve got it all written down, Abberline. That’s just as good. Now get out there and do your job. You’ve got a killer out there and now that he’s killed two in one night, there’ll be an outcry for someone’s head. At this point, I don’t particularly care whose head we give them as long as these murders stop.”

  Warren stormed away, leaving Abberline to shout out orders that, more likely than not, wouldn’t amount to anything. I walked up to Abberline, who was not happy to see me.

  “Besame? What the devil are you doing here?”

  “I’ve got to talk to you, Inspector. It’s vitally important!”

  In me, Abberline had found a handy outlet for all his anger.

  “Bloody hell! Haven’t I seen enough of you already? Barely two days after giving me some cock-and-bull story about your ‘abduction,’ and now here you are skulking about the back alleys of Whitechapel. Everywhere I look I see your bloody face, and I’m sick of it. Sick, do you hear?”

  “Please, Fred, you’ve got to listen to me.”

  “Fred now, is it? Right, I’ve had about enough of this and of you. P.C. Long! Front and centre! I’ve got a vagrant who needs locking up here.”

  The patrolman who had first been holding the cloth came forward and began to pull me away.

  “Right, then,” he said, “come along with me, sir. We’ll see you done right.”

  I tried to pull away, but his grip was like an iron vise. Abberline dismissively turned away and was walking back to the scene.

  “No,” I cried, “you’ve got to listen to me, Abberline! I know who the killer is. I saw him!”

  Abberline stopped in his tracks and came back to thrust his face menacingly in front of mine.

  “What did you say? What the bloody hell did you just say to me?”

  Even the P.C. had let go of my arm. I shrugged him away.

  “I saw him, Inspector. I saw him slit that tall woman’s throat in the street. I followed him, but he was too fast and I don’t know the area as he does. Then he ran into me running out of Mitre Square. I saw what he did to that woman. I chased him, but he escaped again. He knows the streets around here like no one else because he’s walked them every night.”

  “Who, Albert? Who is it? Who is the Whitechapel killer.”

  I hated saying every word, but I had to.

  “It was Arthur Machen. He’s the killer and he’s insane.”

  Chapter 64

  “Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake of saying something than for information.

  “You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are plenty of people anywhere, who’ll do that for you.”

  —Charles Dickens

  Abberline immediately dispatched Inspector Dew to bring me to the police station, where I was to await his return. As we rode, Dew looked at me suspiciously.

  “Don’t I know you?” he asked, somewhat on guard.

  I nodded. “Yes, we met the morning that Annie Chapman was killed. I was talking to you out on Hanbury Street when you were . . . suddenly distracted.”

  Dew, to his credit, was quick to take my meaning. The sting of his chase of ‘Squibby’ was still painful enough to cause him to refrain from speaking further.

  “Ah,” he said, “yes, right, then.”

  And he did not say another word for the rest of the trip.

  When we arrived, I was taken to a small, enclosed room and told to wait. There were no windows, just a small table and two chairs. The fact that there was nothing else in the room testified to my rise in importance. I was no longer relegated to some back filing room but front and centre, top billing in the circus.

  In my mind, I ran through the events of the evening and tried to compose the right way to present it all. My feet ached tremendously, and the evening’s strain had made it painful for me to breathe deeply. No doubt, I had made my wounds worse.

  Sometime later, Abberline burst into the room with Sergeant Godley following close behind.

  Abberline took the seat opposite the table from me while Godley stood near the door. The junior man was in a state of anxious readiness, waiting for any order from his superior.

  Looking me closely in the eye, Abberline began to speak in a voice that would brook no foolishness. “Right, then, Mr. Besame, what do you know about all this?”

  Slowly, I took him through the events of the night. I explained how I had been in the Bricklayer’s Arms Public House and seen the tall woman leaving with a companion.

  “But this man was not Arthur Machen?”

  I shook my head. “No, he was not. In build, perhaps slightly, but I had a good look at him and I can say that it was definitely not A
rthur.”

  “Describe him.”

  I was frustrated because I wanted to get on to the part that was important, but I checked my impatience and answered him. “The fellow was a short man, rather stocky in build but not fat. He had sandy hair and wore a billycock hat, morning suit, and coat. I’d say that he was cleaner than most in the place. His, um, eagerness was plainly evident.”

  “Right, go on.”

  “Well, I left the place shortly after them but didn’t see him or his companion outside. I wasn’t looking for them anyway. Then, when I was coming up Berner Street onto Commercial, I saw them.”

  “Hang on,” Abberline consulted his notes. “When did the pair leave the Bricklayer’s?”

  “Soon after eleven, I should think.”

  “And we have a report here from a Mr. Louis Diemschutz that, at 1 a.m., he was driving his cart up the road and, when he tried to turn into Dutfield’s Yard, his horse refused to go any further. He got off his cart and was trying to prod the horse on when he found the body. It was pitch-black, so he couldn’t see anything and assumed that the person was just drunk. So he went into the—what is it? Oh, yes, the ‘International Working Men’s Educational Club,’ to get help. That’s when they found her throat had been cut.

  “So my question to you, Mr. Besame, is where were you between the hour of ‘just after eleven’ and just before 1 a.m. when this woman was killed?”

  I was gobsmacked. It didn’t make any sense why he was asking me these questions.

  “What does it matter? I was there at the time and I saw the man bent over her. I even saw him shout at someone across the street to chase another man. He cried ‘Lipski!’ whatever that was supposed to mean.”

  “You’re sure of that? You’re sure he yelled ‘Lipski’?”

  “Yes. What does that mean?”

  Abberline straightened his back. “We’ll come back to that. What happened then?”

  “Well, I ran up to the man and could see that he’d committed some violence on the woman, so I shouted at him and he turned to face me. That’s when I saw, to my horror, that the man was Arthur Machen.”

  The inspector leaned forward. “Now you’re absolutely, positively sure it was Arthur Machen? You can’t be making any mistakes here, Mr. Besame. This is extremely important. That area was dark. Diemschutz says it was ‘pitch-black.’ How could you see his face?”

  “When I confronted him, he leaned back into the light. I cannot be more certain of this than I am of my name or that the sun will rise again tomorrow morning. It was Arthur Machen.”

  Abberline sighed and sat back. “Right, then. What happened after you confronted him?”

  “He—he hissed at me like some sort of beast. Then he ran up the rest of the street and disappeared.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I tried to chase him, but I got lost. I wandered aimlessly about and then, out of the darkness, he ran right into me. I tried to subdue him and threw him against the wall, but it only made him angrier.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No, just that animalistic hiss. But he had blood on him. He pushed me away and I went into the square that he had run out of, and that’s when I found her. It was a horrible sight.”

  “Yes, I’m aware. I saw the body.”

  Abberline wrung his hands in frustration.

  “What,” he finally asked, “did you do after stumbling over the second body?”

  “I quickly ran off in the same direction that Arthur had gone, hoping to catch up to him. I saw him, briefly, in Goulston Street, right where that writing was; but when he saw me he ran off. I’m ashamed to say that I could not catch up to him. My injuries have served to keep me from preventing a murder. But he is still out there, Inspector. You can catch him now!”

  “You’re prepared to swear to all this, Mr. Besame? You’ll stand up in court and give evidence while your friend stands in the docks? You know he’ll hang for this.”

  A part of me had known that but didn’t wish to acknowledge it.

  “I know,” I said softly. “But I can’t stay silent.”

  “And,” Abberline said like a conspirator, “how do I know you weren’t both in on it together? After all, you’re thick as thieves, the both of you. I’m forever finding one or both of you at crime scenes and inquests. Maybe the two of you were having some fun, and now that the heat’s on you’re grassing on him. Give him up before he can do the same for you?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Inspector, you couldn’t really believe that!”

  The man shrugged angrily. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I know is that I now have four dead women. The Home Office is after me to put someone’s neck in a noose, and it doesn’t even matter if he’s guilty. Either Arthur or you would suit them just fine.”

  “I’ve had nothing to do with this! I’ve only tried to help!”

  “Help what? Bungle the whole case? I don’t know if anything you’ve ever told me is the truth, Mr. Besame. You wrap yourself in secrets and shadows and expect me to believe you.”

  “Everything I’ve ever told you is the truth!”

  “Oh, aye, is it? What about all the things you haven’t told me? Such as where you were between 11 p.m. last night and 1 a.m. this morning? Such as the real reason Edwards kidnapped you and let the Gaffer use you for a punching bag?”

  Abberline made a sound of disgust.

  “I can’t afford the luxury of dismissing anything that comes up in this case, much as I distrust it. Godley, bring Machen in for questioning. Besame, you follow me and we’ll get your statement written out and signed.”

  “What about ‘Lipski’? You never told me what it meant.”

  Abberline pushed away from the table and stood out. “It refers to Israel Lipski. It’s a racial slur. He was a Polish Jew who murdered his wife by pouring nitric acid down her throat. We executed him this past August. I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out yourself. It was in all the papers.”

  It was the thing that Abberline said next that froze me with fear.

  “Some thought that the judge wasn’t going to hang him, but eventually he put on the black cap. I’d heard that the Home Office was the one that actually made the decision, but they put enough pressure on Judge James Fitzjames Stephen that he had no choice but to go along.”

  The judge who condemned Lipski to death was the father of James Stephen.

  *

  They brought me out to the main room where they assigned a P.C. to write down my statement as I dictated it to him. It was a rather tedious task, and I wondered why I was not simply allowed to write it out myself.

  It had been a little over a half-hour when a tall, well-dressed man burst through the doors. A P.C. was trying to corral the man and get him out of the room. He was not having much success.

  “I’m not some buffoon who will be put off like some cretin searching for cheap thrills, you know! I am Charles Martin, senior editor of the Central News Agency, and I demand to see Inspector Abberline this instant!”

  I could almost see the fatigue descend over Abberline like a shroud, but, strong man that he was, he squared his shoulders and walked forward.

  “I’m Abberline,” he said firmly. “What’s this all about?”

  “It’s about this,” the editor announced, and he held out a piece of paper clipped to an envelope.

  “And what’s this, then?” replied Abberline, who took the paper and started at it oddly.

  “It’s a letter from the Whitechapel murderer,” Mr. Martin said. “We received it three days ago.”

  Abberline looked as if he was about to rip the paper apart and throw it in the dustbin.

  “So what? Do you know how many of these things we’ve gotten? Hundreds! Every bloody fool with time on his hands and a sheet of paper has been mailing us their idiotic confessions. And not one of them have been worth the time spent investigating them.”

  Martin pulled himself up stiffly.


  “I am aware of that, Inspector. We’ve sent many to you already. When this one arrived, we thought it was just another hoax and threw it on the pile. Then, when we started to get the details of last night’s murders, I remembered this letter and fished it out. I think, if you would actually read it, that you might find it worthy of your attention.”

  Abberline snorted and held out the letter. In a loud, clear voice, he read it aloud.

  “Right, listen up, lads. It’s a note from the killer we have here, so let’s see if he sent us his address, eh?”

  The men in the squad-room laughed.

  At first Abberline’s voice was tinged with ridicule, but as he read he became very serious and not a man there uttered a word until he was finished.

  Abberline read:

  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

  P.S. 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

  Abberline’s face had gone white as a sheet.

  “When did you say you received this?”

  “Three days ago,” Martin answered.