Authors: Bryan Lightbody
Sir Charles Warren, tall and thin with his large droopy Victorian moustache and spectacled face stood nervously to address the group.
“Brothers, I am feeling the pressure of what has become an onerous task being the Commissioner of the Metropolitan force at this time. I will tell you now that if the Ripper strikes once more I shall tender my resignation. However, I shall move the service forward thus; we will keep the uniform patrols at their current doubled levels, increased plain patrols by half and re-employ a limited number of decoys but highly supervised. I will ensure a closer relationship with the community by the use of occasional police briefings publicly for the local people to know about any progress.”
“Is there any progress, Commissioner?” asked Henry Matthews the Home Secretary. Warren was forced to pause and swallow hard.
“No, too many conflicting descriptions, most witnesses are drunk and no one has ever even heard an attack taking place. All we know is that he is always striking at old toms.”
“This is exactly my point, you must maintain a vigil on the unfortunates, you see. Dress decoys up as them,” interjected Gull.
“Decoys are dangerous, but if we must persist then as I said we will.”
“And what about Abberline, here we are two months on from Tabrum and we have no result,” continued Matthews.
“I dislike him, he is disrespectful and common, but he is a good detective by reputation and he has the support of his men and the community, so I am compelled to leave him in charge on the ground.”
A steward arrived with a tray of large brandy glasses all generously filled with brandy and a box of expensive cigars. Wynne Baxter noticed their arrival and as Warren sat and before the Duke could stand he stood up himself to address the group.
“I sense that we are drawing to a close on today’s business, but before we do there is a crucial observation I must make. At the Chapman inquest I passed on a snippet of information that I had heard within the medical circle. It may be poppycock fuelled by the crimes for no reason at all and spread as an old wives tale, I just don’t know, but Sir Charles you must compel Abberline to act on it. I have heard that there is an American in London, doctor or otherwise who it is claimed is paying money for examples of female uteri. If this is true it is an obvious motivation for some sick and misguided killer, please look into this matter and let me know for my own peace of mind.”
“Certainly, Mr Coroner sir, I will,” Warren replied respectfully with the coroner’s court being the highest court in the land.
“Now, brethren,” said the Duke, “let us enjoy a brandy and a quality smoke and discuss more ‘off duty’ issues, eh?” The gathered crowd chanted a uniformed ‘here, here’ and helped themselves to what was on the tray.
***
Sunday 13
th
October and the next round of decoy patrols began. Abberline had felt no choice but to re-introduce them as a result of the double event without any pressure from above, although he had been summoned to meet Commissioner Warren and Superintendent Arnold the next morning. Two more experience detective sergeants had been drafted in to conduct the next round of operations, one named Robinson who walked out in full female costume but including a veil this time, with the other, Mather, in regular plain clothes. The evening’s events for the pair were really not very encouraging as a result of one incident. They had a man under observation acting in a strange manner with a woman who was an obvious common prostitute. The suspect was a well dressed man wearing a bowler hat, suit, smart shoes and carrying a Gladstone type bag. The officers were concerned this may conceal the implements for wrong doing. Keeping their distance they were approached by a passing cab washer named William Jarvis concerned at their voyeurism who challenged them.
“Wot ya doing muckin’ about ‘ere for?” Presenting his warrant card Mather replied to the challenge.
“Detective Sergeant Mather, Scotland Yard C.I.D, fuck off and leave us to do our job, he might be the Ripper over there.”
“Oh, a rozzer,eh? He a rozzer too?” He lifted Robinson’s veil to see it was a man underneath. “Sick bastards!” and punched Robinson in the face. A considerable melee ensued as they arrested Jarvis for assault on police and interfering with an official investigation. They lost sight of the couple who made off on hearing their ruckus never to be seen again. Not a good result and Abberline wouldn’t get to hear about it until he had seen Sir Charles.
Meanwhile on the advice of John Netley, Tumblety had found himself smart new lodgings in Graham Road in Hackney which allowed him to be comfortably in distance of Whitechapel, but he was forced not to act as a result of his injury. He had heard from Netley of a new co-operation developing between the police and the Vigilance Committee in Whitechapel a matter which concerned him. There was only one way to fuel further unrest and dissent and that was to write to Lusk directly and shock him deeply. He opened the murderous bag he carried so frequently with him and looked at the jars of specimens from his last foray a fortnight earlier. The idea struck him instantly and with the gift of ambidexterity he sat down at the desk in his room to write another chilling letter albeit in not as good a handwriting and with no red ink left to use. He marked it from a chilling address.
From hell
Mr Lusk
Sir
I send you half the
Kidne I took from one woman
Preserved it for you, tother piece I
Fried and ate it was very nise. I
May send you the bloody knife that
Took it out if you only wate a whil
Longer.
signed Catch me when
you can
Mishter Lusk
As a well known local community leader it was very easy to know where to send the letter and a parcel too and adding the hint of cannibalism was designed to shock and outrage the staid Victorian society even further. He picked out the specimen jar that contained the kidney he had removed from Cathy Eddowes and opened the lid allowing the smell of formaldehyde to emanate from it into the room. Using a set of surgical tweezers he lifted it out of the jar and placed it on the desk and then swapped the tweezers for a large surgical knife, the one he most commonly used the Listern, and cut it longitudinally in half. It oozed stale blood as he did so and placed half of it with part of the renal artery attached in a small cardboard box and folded the letter up placing it on top of the kidney and closed and sealed up the gruesome package.
He addressed the box and satisfied with his work tidied away the mess he had created and placed the other half of the kidney back in the jar. In so doing with his cannibalistic comment in the letter he paused as he replaced the lid wondering how it would taste, after all lambs kidney was rather tasty….
***
The Sunday evening performance at the Lyceum theatre of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ was under way with the audience in virtual trance by the mesmerising evil and convincingly transformed Mr Hyde portrayed Richard Mansfield. The rest of the cast, including the noted Agnes Carew and Gabriel Utterson, despite sterling performances, were overshadowed by the masterful and terrifying Mansfield. It was during the transformation scene in the second act that it occurred to Will Bates in the audience exactly why Godley must have been there days earlier. The play was built around the premise that every human being has a demon imprisoned within them and that the right concoction of chemicals could release it on society to gorge itself in an orgy of debauchery and violence. During the play the evil dark side portrayed by the transformation into Mr Hyde commits a violent murder showing that this uncontrolled demon is capable of any unspeakable act. It occurred to Bates that Mansfield must either be a suspect or had been consulted over his knowledge of this form of behaviour. From a headline perspective it made much exciting press to write story about Mansfield as a suspect and the bonus for him, Bates naively considered obsessed by the next big story, was that this sort of press could get people flooding in to see the play. The evening’s production finished to a standing ovation with Mansfield and his cast enjoying a total of three curtain calls.
***
Monday 14
th
October and Abberline was surprised by the news the Commissioner broke to him feeling pleased he had pre-empted his major suggestion.
“Abberline, the truth is I don’t like you and I don’t like your ways but you are popular in the environment where you work with both police and public alike. Apart from the resolution of the decoy patrols, which I am pleased you have begun, you must forge greater links with the Vigilance Committee and Mr Lusk in particular as he could be a valuable ally in the investigation. Meet with him and his people and anyone else from the community who wish to attend at a suitable venue and let them know what is going on, everything except the decoys. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Commissioner, absolutely. I will see to those issues as a priority. May I ask, sir, will you deploy anymore resources?
“Yes, I am assigning more detectives to boost your plain patrols by half and maintaining the high level of uniform presence.”
“Thank you, sir, will there be anything else?”
“Abberline, my reputation lies heavily with this matter. I have tendered to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary that they can have my resignation should this fiend strike again, so keep on it, urgently.”
“Yes, sir. We are all doing our best.” As Abberline was about to leave, Sir Charles spoke once more.
“One more thing, Inspector, will you send someone to follow up on this story about the specimen collecting American. The whole thing has been put to me again by Wynne Baxter.”
“Oh, when was this, sir?” Warren paused before answering.
“Er,” thinking hard not to give away his Masonic connection “Um, by ….post. A letter I received yesterday.”
“Certainly, sir, we’ll get right onto it.” Abberline took his leave of the Commissioner knowing full well the story of the letter from Baxter was a lie and left The Yard to hail a cab to take him back to The Street.
He stood at the pavement side looking for an empty cab to hail when an empty Royal Mews carriage pulled up beside him and the driver spoke.
“Mr Abberline, looking for lift, sir? I am not busy for a little while if I can help.” Abberline looked at his watch and considered the fact he had never ridden in a Royal carriage before.
“That’s very kind, Mr Netley; I think I will. Commercial Street nick please.” He jumped on board and luxuriated himself on the quilted leather seat.
“Anything new then, Mr Abberline?”
“Well, not really but you might be able to help me. You said you move in medical circles, do you know anything about some American looking for anatomical specimens at all.”
“I know about two American blokes in the City at present. One is a bloke with a broken arm who I have helped move out to Hackney, keeps his self to his self though, ex-Yankee army bloke or something. The other of course is Richard Mansfield, the actor. Driven him in my mate’s cab to the East End, likes a good tom and things see, but now he’s in the shit ‘cos of you lot it would seem.”
“What? We haven’t nicked him or accused him; George Godley went to have an informal chat with him.”
“The Star says on its headline ‘American Actor accused of Ripper Murders!’ Bloody all over the billboards it is. Thought it was down to you, like.”
“But they didn’t even know we were talking to him.”
“Well old Will Bates says in his story he saw your Sergeant Godley leaving the theatre after a long and protracted interview. Don’t reckon Mansfield can be too pleased.”
“Right, change of plan; take me straight to The Star’s offices.”
Within twenty minutes they had pulled up outside the offices of The Star.
“I can’t wait, Mr Abberline.”
“All right, thanks for the ride, come and see me about that other bloke if you get to know anymore.” With that Abberline strode purposefully inside and was met as luck would have it by Bates who was just leaving.
“Inspector…” He was cut short as the fiery tempered Abberline pinned him against one of the walls of the entrance way.
“You shit stirring, hack bastard! What the hell is today’s story about!”
“Oi, oi! Off the suit, copper, else you’ll be headlining tomorrow.” Abberline reluctantly relaxed his grip but still forced Bates to be close to the wall.
“Fair game. I saw your bloke Godley at the theatre when I was getting my complementary tickets and put two and two together. Foreigner in town, with an uncanny ability of disguise and to become a monster? Seemed like a natural line of enquiry.”
“You had no business printing that, Bates, he knocks at our door for slander we’ll point him to you. Do this sort of thing again and I’ll make sure the edition is seized you will run up a big debt for your bosses.” Abberline pushed him in the chest back against the wall and stormed out.
Across town ironically in a sumptuous town house just outside Regents Park, Richard Mansfield had just been brought the morning edition of The Star by his dresser, an effeminate middle aged balding man called Dennis Biggleswade.
“I don’t fucking believe this, I’ll be ruined! We’ve run for six weeks with rave reviews and now this! I will be lambasted by all and no one will come thinking I’m the Goddamn Ripper. This is the fucking cops’ fault, wait until I’ve seen the ambassador! Then they’ll pay.”
“What about the press? Surely the fault lies with them?” said Biggleswade.
“I’ll see to those bastards too. Get me my grey suit ready I’m going to Scotland Yard and call me a cab!”
Within the hour Mansfield had been to Scotland Yard and had received a full apology from Sir Charles with an assurance things would not be so indiscreet in the future, but advised the fault for the story lay fairly and squarely with The Star and its staff. The Commissioner advised him to speak to Abberline as a further and next course of action if he wasn’t satisfied with his personal and highest assurances. Mansfield made for Commercial Street Police Station arriving to add to the Ripper investigation’s list of troubles. Abberline, who was sat in discussion with Godley, Mather and Robinson over the events of the day before with the latest decoy patrol, was called to the front counter to speak to him. Godley joined him to assist with a police perspective on it.