Authors: Bryan Lightbody
Pizer brought a tray to the couch consisting of a large surgeon’s knife, three scalpels, scissors and a basic suture kit, all a little old and slightly tarnished but surprisingly clean, especially by the standards of the Russian army Ostrog observed. In addition to this were some gauze pads, a bottle of surgical spirit and some fairly clean looking bandages. Ostrog was determined to watch as the work began and progressed through to the end and to assist in the whole process if necessary. To try to preserve his meagre clothing he removed his coat and two shirts despite the fact they were already damaged. It also gave him a clear view of the surgery being conducted in case he wished to try to interject with points of advice or direction.
Pizer gave Ostrog a thick piece of rubber cosh to place in his mouth to bite on and then set to initially with some gauze and spirit to clean away congealed blood and give him a clear view of what he needed to cut away. Immediately as he applied pressure Ostrog flinched in pain and remained tense with his face grimacing tightly and biting hard on the rubber with as yet no sound as the wound was cleaned. Veins protruded in his neck and along his temples as he strained to take the pain the procedure was so far inducing. Following this action for several minutes Pizer stopped to change implements and the pain for Ostrog temporarily subsided and he relaxed but for only a few moments. Pizer then picked up one of the scalpels to have a go at cutting away the infected skin at Ostrog’s request. The Russian shut his eyes and pre-empted the pain by beginning to bite harder on the rubber as he felt the blade begin to slice into the healthy skin just below the dead and infected layers, a process in which there was no choice if this method was to be successful. Tears streamed from Ostrog’s face as he felt the scalpel running into the muscle tissues of the upper parts of his tricep, bicep and in the main deltoid muscle. He knew his arm would have to be immobile for sometime and he would have to work slowly to resume strength in it. But if it meant ultimately keeping his arm the short term inconvenience was obviously worth it. Pizer had nothing as clean as a kidney bowl to discard surgical remnants in to, so dead flesh and other bodily deposits he threw to the floor to clear up later.
Ostrog felt the pain subside as Pizer finished cutting and opened his heavily watering eyes to take a look at the work done and also noticed Pizer preparing the suture kit to close the wound up. He was surprisingly pleased with what he saw as the wound although prominent was not as wide as he might have first suspected and the smell from it seemed to have dissipated. As he carried on studying the wound he was hit by the shock of Pizer cleaning the wound out again with some fresh gauze and spirit; it stung immensely as his surgeon unsympathetically wiped it firmly although he appreciated the benefit it should bring prior to suturing. Pizer put the gauze down and picked up the primitive needle and thread from the tray and pierced one side of the wound and passed the needle and thread through it twice before starting to pull the wound together and stitch each side to the other. The pain that this caused was minuscule in comparison to that Ostrog had felt whilst the wound was cleansed. It took about an hour from start to finish for the whole process to be complete and for Ostrog to be pulling his clothing back on and Pizer to be placing his instruments into a bucket to be cleaned later, he also used a coal shovel and dustpan to pick up the flesh from the floor and discarded it into a dustbin in the rear of the room.
Pizer wiped his hands over with some old cotton sheeting but his apron and his shirt were smattered in blood as a result of the process which for the time being he disregarded focusing on getting payment from his client. Ostrog was straightening his clothes looking at himself in a faded mirror on one side of the room scanning the reflected image of the room for potential weapons for himself as he had no intention in paying for the service he had received. His view was that ‘Leather Apron’ should be grateful for his life.
“Right then, squire, that’ll be six shillings.”
“Yes, right,” said Ostrog falsely searching each of his pockets with his good arm whilst noticing the blood stained coal shovel just a few feet to his left. He felt two loose pennies in his trouser pocket and jangled them together to relax the tense looking Pizer and then dropped them as he withdrew his hand from his pocket ensuring they were landing near the vicinity of the shovel.
His ploy worked perfectly as he could tell that Pizer had completely dropped his guard believing that the Russian was obviously going to pay. He and was looking away from Ostrog towards an old faded clock ticking away indicating the early hour on the wall. Ostrog took a firm grip of the shovel handle as he bent down as if to pick up the money. He was raising himself back up again as Pizer turned to face him. At that very moment in a swift action Ostrog drew the shovel slightly back and then swung it forward heavily striking Pizer right on the top of his head sending him sprawling limp to the floor completely unconscious with a slight gash which began seeping blood down his forehead and onto his face.
Nonchalantly Ostrog now took his time to search the entire premises to see if he could find any money ‘Leather Apron’ might have stashed away, a common man such as Pizer would not use any form of bank. It took him some time but pacing out the area behind the shop counter carefully he found a particularly squeaky floorboard which by pulling away the hessian matting on the floor and lifting the floor board he found held Pizer’s stash of money. There was only about fifteen pounds which he felt although a significant amount of money was probably not all of it. A man as slippery as Pizer must have had more but he didn’t want to risk him now coming out of his temporary coma. Pizer was fully able bodied unlike him at present. Although a dangerous man he felt not worthy of murder as it could bring unnecessary attention to himself as a result of having been seen in public with a known local figure.
He took one more look at Pizer still prostrate on the floor in the back room. “Dos vadonya,” he said as he walked casually by his victim and out from the rear of the premises, as despite the hour he did not want to draw attention from the front.
Some hours later Pizer came to realising within seconds where he was and what had happened. He rubbed the top of his head which felt damp and received a shooting pain from the bruising he had received and discovered his hand thick with congealing blood from his wound. Immediately he knew he needed to check to see if his patient had ripped him off and discovered his money hide plundered; he moved straight away to his second hide behind a vent brick in his festering outside toilet and to his relief at least found that safe.
His only real chance of revenge against this dangerous man was to make a robbery report with the police and deny any counter allegations about illegal surgery if his assailant was caught. Covered in a significant amount of blood on his apron, shirt and hands, he rushed into Mulberry Street unaware of the night’s gruesome murder which had taken place less than five minutes walk from his premises the other side of the Whitechapel Road. The time was now 8.a.m and many folk were out and about their daily business and the news had already spread about the murder.
Pizer staggered into the Whitechapel Road looking for a local constable to report his robbery to but in seconds was being demonised by a prostitute in the street. On seeing him she cried out with a shrill loud scream and pointed to him with manic arm actions, emotions undoubtedly derived from being an associate of Chapman.
“There he is, the fucking murderer, look at the state of him, where’s the filth! Look at him, covered in blood someone grab him, him in the leather apron!” Crowds of people turned their attentions to her and to him and he could see that a sense of agreement to her observations was very swiftly developing. Pizer couldn’t turn behind him the shortest route to the refuge of the shop because of the following crowd beginning to gather so he had to run towards the City Of London.
A screaming mob began chasing him, clipping at his heels, the shrieking unfortunate amongst them and the most vocal. “Look at the fucker, all covered in poor old Annie’s blood, let’s get him and tear him limb from limb. Get the leather apron, that’ll be justice!” In Whitechapel at the time there was a rumour of an individual who wore a leather apron and a deerstalker hat threatening the prostitutes with a knife demanding money or else he said he would ‘Rip them up!’ No one had actually seen this man in action to report him to the police but word had spread that, if he existed, he maybe responsible for the murders of Martha Tabrum and Mary Nichols. Pizer may have fuelled this story as a result of his own drunken deeds. Often when drunk he would insult and man handle some of the prostitutes hoping for a ‘freebie.’ These actions elaborated on by the prostitutes to the police and their pimps may have created the legend of ‘Leather Apron’. To this point no one had ever formally identified anyone with this alias but with the current atmosphere of unease in the area coupled with Pizer’s bloodied appearance the scare mongering people of the East End needed little provocation to find a foil. This morning, following a third murder and Pizer unwittingly being spotted in the state as he was in the street, the rumour now amongst the populace had a basis in fact. If he didn’t get away he was sure to be killed by the mob.
Running, his lungs within seconds were short of breath from physical exertion and fear and Pizer thought he would die innocently in his eyes at the hands of a frenzied mob. He didn’t even know another murder had taken place. Up ahead he could see a horse drawn omnibus pulling off from a stop and he was slightly out pacing the crowd. With a desperate spurt of effort and his lungs and leg muscles burning he managed to grab the back of it and begin to make good his escape. The bus was moving off at sufficient speed for it’s passengers to be oblivious to the mob.
The bus pulled into Leman Street and Pizer jumped off of it knowing he could make it swiftly back to the rear of Mulberry Street from there and lay low for a few days. This he did so carefully navigating the route from there via Commercial Road having taken off his leather apron and rolled it up to try to detract attention from himself. He was pretty much home free as he turned into Adler Street which led him through to the rear of his shop. Once inside number 22 Mulberry Street Pizer collapsed onto his own couch to recover from his double ordeal. He would have to clean himself up and then find the police.
Meanwhile Police Sergeant Kerby and Constable Thain and made heir way to the commotion in Whitechapel Road and were now surrounded by the shouting mob all trying to tell their stories at once. Kerby lost his patience with the shouting and eventual jostling they were receiving within minutes of arriving; he blew hard on his whistle to silence the crowd so that he could address them.
“Right, shut up the lot of you and we’ll get through this one at a time.” The unfortunate who started it piped up. “The murderer, he was here, dark haired bleeder with a leather apron all covered in blood. He run off. Dark hair I say and about thirty-five.” The officers turned to each other and John Thain spoke first.
“Sarge, sounds like John Pizer, old Leather Apron.” A dark featured diminutive ill looking man with a foreign accent spoke with venom from the crowd. He had been seen by Thain first of all scavenging in the gutter.
“That’s him. Leather Apron, I saw him too. Covered in blood. Better get him before we do.” Aaron Kosminski then melted back into the crowd having shouted his bit. He carried on ferreting in the gutter for food, for his mania did not allow him to eat food given to him by another.
Thain and Kerby spent the next half an hour amassing a story against John Pizer. They would need to pass this information onto the detectives for them to act on. They’d have to do it soon before this ‘Leather Apron’ ended up the way of Tabrum, Nichols and Chapman. While they collated this evidence William Bates a sensationalist journalist from ‘The Star’ newspaper arrived on the scene to try to get an exclusive story but in his usual way also whip up the crowd to sell more papers. He was about thirty years old, intelligent, ambitious and well groomed and dressed. He looked like the sort that usually frequented the area at night for business which belied his own humble East End origins not unlike young Ralph’s the paper seller. Bates was well known locally having graduated from reporting in low key publications in the area to the big league of journalism and always put a massive human interest slant on all stories, sometimes not only exaggerating actions but downright lying about them. Kerby was not pleased to see him there and instructed Thain to say nothing to him. When they were asked to comment both declined any comment which was subsequently reported the next day as:
‘LEATHER APRON EVADES POLICE’,
And in a smaller sub text left as
‘LOCAL POLICE WITHOUT A CLUE,
THANK GOD FOR ABBERLINE.’
***
Back at The Street, Abberline and Godley were in the incident room along with the now significantly mellowed Dr Phillips who had taken on a better humour as a result of a healthy amount of macaroons and several large cups of tea. Godley had been unable to get bacon and eggs on the short walk back to The Street so he had to settle for buying more macaroons, a fortunate purchase as all of the others had been eaten by the doctor. He was now enjoying a large cigar left in his overcoat pocket from the night before and a glass of whiskey which he claimed was as a medicinal ‘hair of the dog’ from one of the detective’s desks. There was an amiable atmosphere in the office but a serious discussion between Abberline, Godley and Phillips about motive and motivation for the murders.
“So, Doctor, what’s your take on all this, do you think it’s the same man, or co-incidental and conducted by many men?” enquired Abberline.
“Well, Inspector, if you had asked me after number two I would have said two unlinked crimes. But number two and three follow the same hallmarks in many ways so I really don’t think anyone can comment accurately. I think you either have to catch one in the act or see what follows, hopefully nothing.”