Authors: Bryan Lightbody
“The Lord is forgiving, my son,” consoling words were so hard for the priest to speak. “And you shall be absolved as I come to perform your last rites. Who was this poor and unfortunate man that you engaged in your ungodly enterprise?”
The old man fell in to a fit of almost uncontrollable sobbing as the priest waited for him to answer. The priest with uncharacteristic reserve for his office slowly and tentatively held the old man’s right hand and felt a shiver run through him. Holding the hand of such a man was not comfortable but in return for this gesture of support the old man clutched his very tightly, fearing death was near.
“His name was Chapman, George Chapman. I then tried to stop him when I realised how wrong I had been but I was too late. I also killed a policeman in London and wounded others to evade capture. Father can the Lord ever forgive me? Could you? Please…” his voice was breaking heavily. “Please forgive me!” He sobbed uncontrollably.
For a moment the priest was very distant. He knew this man Chapman had been hung for other crimes in London. A comment he once heard by the great detective Frederick Abberline to George Godley back in London regarding the arrest of Chapman, ‘you got a Jack the Ripper then?’ had to have been true. He blurted out a question to the old man without thinking. “So who did this man kill then?” The priest already knew the answer. He wanted confirmation from the true Ripper’s mouth on his cowardly crime committed by proxy. Tumblety fought for breath to try to answer the priest’s question.
“It was Mary Kelly,” Tumblety again sobbed and could feel his heart beginning to race. His eyes were tightly closed as he wept so he never saw his end coming. He was unaware that the priest had let go of his wrinkled and heavily veined hand.
Next to the bed was a plain functional pine bedside cabinet on top of which was a jug and glass of water, a small vase with some red and white roses wilting within it and a cotton handkerchief. From the cabinet as he watched Tumblety sob the priest pulled out a spare pillow and held it in both hands pulling it quite taut. He stood and leaned forward and while Tumblety’s eyes were still screwed tightly shut he placed the pillow over the old man’s face. He then pushed down hard cutting off the air supply to the old man’s weakening lungs and driving his head deeper into the pillow below his head. For a few seconds there was a weak struggle; Tumblety grabbed the priest’s arms in a futile attempt to push him off, but his frail arms were no match for the strong and more youthful arms of his assailant. Very quickly the old man’s grip loosened from the priest’s arms and fell limply onto the bed and his entire body became still. The priest held the pillow in place for a good half of a minute when the struggling had stopped just to be sure. He moved it aside and checked for a pulse; there was none and no sign of any breathing activity. Francis Tumblety, alias Frank Townsend the instigator of the Jack the Ripper murders was dead. Justice, it seemed perhaps, had at last been done in that both he and Severin Klowsowki had met with either a vengeful or capital death before nature could take its course.
With that in mind Detective Inspector Robert Ford put the pillow back in the bedside cabinet feeling, at last, satisfied that he had brought justice for Mary Kelly and the other murdered East End women. It had taken him several years to amass the leave he needed to take from his position with the Metropolitan Police in London. He had always had the financial resources to do it as a result of the money he had invested that had been left in his lodgings fifteen years before by Mary Kelly. Ford had moved into the Special Branch at Scotland Yard and one day when casually inspecting exhibits in storage for the crime or ‘Black’ Museum he had found Tumblety’s arts bag. To have seen it again after so many years had brought a chill through his body and he was stunned that Sir Robert Anderson had failed to dispose of it, although in fairness to Anderson a man he had come to despise, he ultimately had left it’s destruction to others. For the first time he had decided to look the bag over in some detail and it was the manufacturers label on it that had brought him to the state of Missouri. It did, however, mean he could bring final shame upon Tumblety and a historical inference of guilt. He had been in the United States for nearly a month tracking Tumblety’s movements via the archives of the press and the judiciary since his return there. He was grateful he had at least been able to start in the right state of the union with the clue the bag had given.
He stepped back from the bed and looked down on the lifeless aged man who lay there. He looked remarkably peaceful and strangely innocent under the crisp white linen sheets of the convent hospital and seemed far removed from the man who had killed so many including his own true love and best friend. He felt no remorse for his actions. Due to the interference of the Freemasons within the Police Force he knew that justice was never to be done if left to the legal system as the years had proved. He had left no bruises no sign of obvious foul play with the lack of forensic evidence that existed in 1903. He looked around the room. It was quite sparse but had a cupboard and a wardrobe either of which would prove appropriate to deposit Tumblety’s bag of ‘trophies’ from the years gone by.
The wardrobe held only a few hanging garments; a suit, some breeches, a hunting jacket and a military style tunic. He moved across to the plain wooden cupboard and opened its double doors. It seemed to be the best place to leave the bag for which Detective Constable Parish had lost the sight in one eye for at the hands of the determined thief who had burgled the incident room at Commercial Street Police Station to clear the last traces of Tumblety’s guilt. He had always found it hard to bring himself to touch it. He would leave it here to bring shame upon the dead man when the nurses discovered it. For the final time he picked up the tatty leather arts bag, with memories flashing through his mind of when he had discovered it in Hackney fifteen years previously, and placed in the cupboard. The final physical connection with it made his blood run cold as it had when he had first seen it again in the Museum store. Shutting the cupboard door, curiosity got the better of Robert Ford and decided just to check the single drawer above the doors of the unit slowly pulling it open. It was empty barring what appeared to be a battered photograph laying face down in its centre. It seemed odd that it was the only item that it contained so he picked it and turned it over very casually. He could not have been prepared to see the image it contained.
Staring back at him was a beautiful sepia image of a youthful Mary Kelly. She was dressed in a fine costume like the one she had worn on the day they had gone boating together fifteen years previously; probably the happiest day of his life he could remember. She so looked perfect and to find this image of her was the most miraculous emotional experience he had undergone since that halcyon day. With an even greater sense of fulfilment he placed it carefully in his jacket inside pocket with tears running down his cheeks and a lump constricting his throat.
At last in Robert Ford’s mind justice was done; it was time to go. He had to leave. Now. He had completed his life’s pursuit. He walked to the door, cautiously grasped the handle and slowly opened it and looked out. No one in the corridor; just the smell of clinical sterility from the obsessive cleanliness of the religious nursing staff, and the brightness of the lightly coloured walls echoing the light along it. Closing the door behind him he entered the corridor leading to the main reception where one of the sisters was sat busily writing at the desk. The nun working there looked up, although he had silently walked along the corridor, as if she possessed a sixth sense.
“Are you leaving now father?” she spoke to him with familiarity, obviously used to the frequent presence of priests at the hospital.
“Yes, my work here today is done,” confidently replied Ford, looking very natural in his religious garb. A result, no doubt, of his years within the detective department and the hard lessons he learnt during the Whitechapel investigation.
“Good day to you, father. We hope to see you again soon. You all bring such comfort to our patients.” Ford was a little taken aback by this reply. Not being a real priest and with the nature of his visit he felt uncomfortable at deceiving someone so honest. He felt trying to answer would be unfair to her and inappropriate and said nothing. He nodded and gave a faint smile and exited through the double doors out into the open air.
Walking out along the cinder path that led from the front of the building to the main street, the warm May Missouri air he felt was comforting on his face having committed such a cold and calculating deed. But, despite of the nature of his actions he felt that a weight had been lifted from his mind and he could press on and live his life. An aspect of the day’s events did, however, trouble him. No one would ever know that today in relation to the crimes of fifteen years ago justice had finally been done. The other publicly suspected Ripper murderer had been hung just before Ford had left for America and now The real Jack the Ripper had finally been brought to task for his crimes. It made him feel somewhat unfulfilled that the public could never know. He turned out of the grounds of St John’s Hospital into South Euclid Avenue and disappeared into the city, absorbed by the crowds of people on the pavements and the rattle of the traffic on the cobbled streets.
Fact: Frederick George Abberline was promoted to Chief Inspector in 1890. He retired on a full police pension in 1892 (a year short of official pensionable service) having received 84 commendations and awards during his service. He then worked as a private enquiry agent including three seasons in Monte Carlo. In 1898 he accepted the European agency of Allen Pinkerton’s famous detective company. He died in 1929 in Bournemouth and left little in the way of memoirs. No photograph of Abberline has ever been discovered.
Fact: George Godley eventually gained the rank of Detective Inspector and retired in 1908 after 31 years service. He arrested Severin Klosowski alias George Chapman in October 1902 for the ‘Borough Poisonings’ of three women.
Fact: Francis Tumblety died in The St Johns Hospital, South Euclid Avenue, St Louis on Thursday May 28th 1903 having failed to recover from the shock of a fall in the grounds.
Fact: According to Masonic tradition Hiram Abiff, the architect of the Temple of Solomon, was murdered by the ‘Juwes’ (Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum). The events of his murder form part of Masonic ritual which include ‘the Fellow Craft [Mason] to have his heart torn from his breast; the Master Mason to have his bowels burnt to ashes.’
Fact: Aaron Kosminski has been considered a strong suspect by many retired senior detectives of the period in their memoirs. In 1891 he was placed in the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum from where in 1894 he was moved to Leavesden Asylum following a violent attack on an attendant. He died of gangrene of the leg in 1919 following a period where he suffered from ‘aural and visual hallucinations’.
Fact: Inspector Walter Andrews did lead a team of detectives to New York in late 1888.
Fact: John Netley was a self employed cab driver during the time of the Whitechapel murders. He died in a road accident in Park Road near Baker Street after a wheel of his van hit an obelisk and he was thrown under the horse’s hooves and his head crushed by a wheel.
Fact: Sir Charles Warren did, co-incidentally, step down as Commissioner following the Mary Kelly Murder.
Fact: The investigation into the Whitechapel Murders was continued until 1892, the same year that Chief Inspector Abberline retired.
Fact: Many original papers from the investigation are missing; some there are still facsimile copies of. No one has, as yet, been conclusively identified as ‘Jack the Ripper’.
Bang-tail – harsh slang term for prostitute
Beat – the posted area patrolled by a constable
Black Mariah – a secure carriage made specifically for the transportation of prisoners
Bloke – An English slang term for man
Bobby/bobbies – slang term for policeman/men derived from Sir
Robert
Peel, founder of the Metropolitan Police Force
Brief – slang term for lawyer or solicitor
Charge room or custody office – the area in a police station were prisoners are received and charged with offences.
Chinese whispers – slang for rumours
C.I.D – the Criminal Investigation Department
Copper – slang term for policeman
Cunny – coarse slang term for vagina
Drop of bail - slang for granting a prisoner bail to return to a police station or to appear in court
Early house – a pub that opens early in the morning to service the night workers of the markets
Freebie - slang for something given without charge
Ground – a colloquial term for the catchment area of a police station
Hansom – a horse drawn cab
Lipski – harsh slang term for Jew
Mucher – a person who robs from drunks (verb - muched)
Mucker - colloquial term for friend
Nick – slang for a police station
Old Bill – slang for police
Piece of cake – colloquialism meaning easy
P.M – short for post mortem (also known as an autopsy)
Pogrom – term referring to the wholesale murder of Jewish people
Pub – short for public house a licensed drinking establishment
Relief – term for team of police officers working a shift together
Shag – slang term for sexual intercourse
Squaddie/s – slang term for a soldier or soldiers
Square him up – a slang expression for getting even with someone or putting them in their place
Steerage – poorest class available on Trans-Atlantic shipping lines
Tom – slang for prostitute
Unfortunate – a low class prostitute
Wanker – coarse term for someone who masturbates, usually used as an insult
Wicket – small lockable window in a police cell door