A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper Read online

  Outside, the last vestiges of daylight were fast disappearing, and a light breeze had begun to disturb the branches of the trees in the garden. I noticed a few spots of rain beginning to appear on the window, and another involuntary shiver ran through my entire body as the day gave way to evening. Almost imperceptibly, I felt as though the whole room were being gently suffused with a faint red hue, as though the 'red mist' of the Ripper's dream was somehow flooding into my study, giving the task in which I was engaged the rather droll and gory title in my mind of, 'a study in red'. Reality dawned upon me with the realization that the redness in the room was simply caused by the reflection from the darkened window of the dancing flames of the gas fire, the colour highlighted by the low lighting I had settled for when turning on the lights. At least, that's the way I rationalized it at the time.

  1st October 1888

  Two in one night! A glorious if unintended double. Tracked one whore, and tempted the bitch with grapes. What whore can afford grapes? She could not resist my gift, and I should have had great sport with her carcass but for interruption. I slit her easy enough, though in the dark used the shorter knife, not so quick or sharp, and saw the blood spurt in a copious river from her neck. Then, damnation, couldn't begin to gut the whore. Heard sounds outside the yard, and horses footsteps on the stones. Had to flee, and quick, kept close to the wall as a horse and cart came close by and slipped away before the man raised the alarm. Had no blood upon me, so slipped into the nearest tunnel and kept invisible, rising soon in Mitre Square. God Bless Mr. Bazalgette! Another whore soon made herself available to me, and this time I made no mistake. This one bled as a stuck pig would, and the blood gurgled as it left her gashed throat. I ripped her face apart, and gutted her as easy as you like. The street was stained fair red, even in the dark I saw it. I could swear she moved as I sliced her innards, poor bloody little whore! Maybe not. Took no time at all, and this time sliced the ear as promised. Used the whores' own apron to wipe the knife, this one's blood was too sticky. Left the whore on display and tripped off home. The voices were so pleased with what we'd done, slept well, and woke as a new man, though my head throbs with the headache again, I shall dose myself once more, and sleep again until the pain subsides.

  Woke later, felt better, sent a card to the boss, wanted him to know it was me who did the deed as promised. I shall rest awhile, and sleep again, my exertions tire me.

  Two women, two murders, vile mutilation, and here was the killer dismissing the deeds in a few words. I admit that I was surprised by the lack of emotion shown by the Ripper to the double murder. There was a mild elation, yes, but more a sense of frustration in his words. I thought he was perhaps angry at being interrupted in his 'work' on Liz Stride, and felt grievously inconvenienced at having had to seek out a second victim, Catherine Eddowes. Perhaps, if a man named Louis Diemschűtz had not walked into the yard on Berner Street at the moment he did, thus allowing the Ripper to perform his grisly mutilations on Liz Stride, then poor Catherine Eddowes might never have become a Ripper victim. Such were the vagaries of fate.

  He had indeed used the sewers again, Bazalgette's fine creations, to effect his escape from Berner Street, but, just how close was Diemschűtz to him as he slipped out of that yard? Many experts have pondered over the years as to how the Ripper managed to get from Berner Street to Mitre Square so quickly between the murders, unseen by a soul. The answer was always there, staring them in the face. The sewers! He's been able to travel below ground, in a series of straight lines, without having to make recourse to the highways and byways of Whitechapel, thus probably shortening the distance and journey time considerably. It was also a fact that a piece of Catherine Eddowes apron had been found at 2.50 a.m. in the doorway of Wentworth Model Dwellings, underneath the so-called 'Goulston Street Graffito', the message scrawled in chalk on a wall which so baffled many criminologists of the time, and ordered to be removed without being photographed on the orders of Sir Charles Warren, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. It has long been thought that the writing on the wall was not, in fact , the work of the Ripper, and this thought became reinforced in my mind by the absence of any reference to it in the journal. I felt that, if the Ripper had indeed written the message, he would have made some reference to it in his journal. He did not; therefore I was sure the graffito was not his work.

  The journal did, however, confirm the assault on Eddowes, in particular the horrific mutilations to her face, and the severing of the ear. He was so matter-of-fact about the mechanics of his crimes that one couldn't help but shudder at the sheer barbarity of his actions. Catherine Eddowes had been subjected to the most vicious assault so far, and her injuries were many and various. Her intestines had been drawn out and placed over her right shoulder, the right ear almost severed, her face severely mutilated, her throat cut as in all the victims, and the poor woman's abdomen had been opened from the breast bone to the pubes. It's sufficient to say that no-one, police included, had ever been witness to such horrific mutilations.

  There was also a reference in the journal to the postcard received by the Central News Agency, postmarked 1st October, written in red, which read,

  I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip, youll hear about saucy Jacky s work tomorrow double event this time number one squealed a bit couldn't finish straight off, had not time to get ears for police thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again

  Jack the Ripper

  Many senior police officers felt that the previous letter and the postcard, which appeared to be in different handwriting, were hoaxes, but I thought that if that were the case, how on earth did the hoaxer know what the Ripper was intending to do, particularly the severing of poor Cathy Eddowes' ear? No, their dismissal was too quick and too illogical. The handwriting was easily solved. Here was an intelligent and devious mind at work, and it would have been a simple matter for him to disguise his handwriting, or to vary it as he did with the letter and the postcard. Though there were a number of apparent errors in punctuation and grammar, both were obviously written by someone with a good knowledge of the English language, as evidenced by the correct spelling of words such as 'straight' and 'squealed'. A person from an uneducated background would have found the spelling of such words difficult. No, I was sure they were genuine. The Ripper had applied a good measure of guile and cunning in his clever deceptions of the different handwritings and his so-called grammatical imperfections. I deduced the police were simply looking for 'a madman', a merciless killer who cut these poor women up for fun, 'just for jolly'. They unfortunately had no conception of who or what they were dealing with. Jack the Ripper was, I am sad to say, probably far cleverer and devious, as a result of his education and his illness, than those whose job it was to attempt to apprehend him.

  Suddenly, a wave of sadness welled up inside me. I felt an immense sorrow, firstly for the poor unfortunate victims of the Ripper, murdered, mutilated, and left to bleed upon the filthy, decay riddled streets of Whitechapel, and secondly, surprisingly perhaps, for the Ripper himself, the poor individual, wracked with an illness he couldn't control, undiagnosed, with no help available to him, and rapidly descending into irrevocable insanity.

  How much more could his brain take, I asked myself? The insanity was gaining pace every day, I knew that, and I guessed a time would come when his journal entries would become fewer, and less coherent. The journal itself was becoming thinner with each page I read, and felt I was drawing ever nearer to my great-grandfather's final revelation/confession, whichever it was. I needed to know more about his connection with the Ripper, how much closer he became involved before the end of the Rippers' killing spree. I still didn't know, but I would soon find out.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  'Murder, 'orrible murder!'

  I must admit that my own brain felt close to overload at this point, so much so that, despite my ever growing need to continue my strange journey through the journal, I felt in need of a break from the gruesom
e and grisly depictions which were being brought to life for me within its pages. Outside my window, the rain was beginning to increase in its intensity, the breeze had developed into a strong wind, and darkness had fallen like a pall upon the outside world. Despite the lights in the study, it was the darkness that gripped me and held my attention, as if, regardless of the illumination provided by the electric lighting, the power of the external darkness, of nature itself, was overpowering the man-made light, and the power of the night was invading my warm sanctuary.

  Leaving the journal lying in the centre of the desk, I decided to do a little more research into the case and once again logged onto the Casebook website. I wanted to know more about the contemporary reactions to the murders, and the Ripper's letters, to get the feel of how London and Londoners received the latest news at the time of his latest crimes.

  The Casebook website contained a welter of facts and general information, and I soon found references to the information I sought. The Ripper's 'Dear Boss' letter had been printed in the Daily News on the morning of October 1st, and it wasn't long before the shouts and calls of the newspaper sellers on the street corners were announcing to the world the name of 'Jack the Ripper'.

  "Murder, 'orrible murder, read all about it!" I could almost hear the shrill tones of the young boys as they stood screeching excitedly at the passers-by, entreating them to purchase the paper, to read the latest reports on the killings shocking the whole of London, rich or poor. "Jack the Ripper butchers two more", and "Jack the Ripper, Jack the Ripper, Ripper taunts police," went another. Later that day the 'Saucy Jacky' postcard was reproduced in The Star adding yet more fuel to the fire of hysteria that was beginning to grow ever more rapidly with each passing day. It could perhaps be said that the streets of London, and the Whitechapel/Spitalfields areas in particular were ablaze, not with the flames that had razed much of the city to the ground some two hundred years previously, but this time with fear and uncertainty; citizens looking over their shoulders as night approached, and a growing anger at the seeming inability of the police to lay their hands on the heinous and bloody murderer who now had a name. Jack the Ripper had made his grand entrance!

  What the police thought of this new development is hard to say. Throughout the Ripper investigation there was much disagreement among the investigating officers as to whether these, or any of the other countless communications received, were actually by the Ripper himself. Of course, they were not blessed by the hindsight of history, nor were they privy to the words of the journal which now lay on my desk. Certainly, the leading detectives at the time were reported to believe that the publication of the letter and postcard would do little to help their investigations, merely seeing them as whipping up yet more public anxiety and animosity towards the police, who were being clearly taunted by the Ripper. There were now vigilantes on the streets of London. Gangs of so-called 'citizen peacekeepers' roamed Whitechapel by night, often roughly abusing anyone they considered to be acting suspiciously. Most prominent amongst these groups was the 'Whitechapel Vigilance Committee' whose president was a man by the name of George Akin Lusk, owner of a building and decorating business, specializing in the restoration of music halls. Lusk would be brought closely into connection with the case some time hence, so I shall leave that aside for now.

  The double murder had of course resulted in uproar, and feelings of resentment toward the police were such that many noisy and rebellious gatherings took place on the streets of London that day, and in Whitechapel in particular. Extra officers were drafted in to keep the peace under fear of general public disorder, and this in itself merely served to hamper the efforts of the police in their primary need to bring the Ripper to justice. The streets of the city were a ferment of fear, agitation, frustration and anxiety, and strangely, I could feel those sentiments being echoed within my own mind as I realised that once again, I felt as though I could see the demonstrations in the streets, hear the calls for action by the police, and most of all, I could hear the shouts of the news-sellers calling out "Murder, 'orrible murder."

  More than anything, I knew that the time had come to escape from the study for a while. For the first time in over twenty four hours, I ventured into the lounge, my legs shaking, and absent-mindedly switched on the television and sagged wearily into the corner of the sofa. At least the TV would provide a welcome distraction for a while. I could return to the journal soon, but I desperately needed a brief respite from its intensity, its power, from the strange hold that it seemed to be asserting over my mind.

  I had chosen that moment to tune into the news, and it wasn't long before I was plunged into yet more mental turmoil. Following reports of various international crises and a hurricane in the Caribbean, the newsreader switched to more local issues.

  There'd been not one, but two murders in Guildford the previous night! The second victim had been found less than a mile from the first, another woman, also a barmaid, and she, too, had had her throat cut. She had been subjected to what the newsreader referred to as 'a series of wanton and appalling mutilations'. Her body hadn't been found until close to noon, having been dumped in a rubbish skip behind a restaurant temporarily closed for refurbishment. Two workers had discovered the body when they'd arrived with their truck to remove the skip for emptying at a local refuse site. So frenzied had been the attack upon her that her body was virtually bloodless when discovered, the contents of the skip stained deep red by the outpouring from her numerous and viciously inflicted wounds. Identified as Angela Turner, a 32 year old mother of two young children, her family was reported as being 'distraught', an understatement if ever I'd heard one. The police had no suspects at this time!

  I was incredulous! Two murders in one night, the news of the second killing coming just as I'd read the Ripper's account of his own double killing. My head throbbed; I could barely take it in. This was stretching coincidence too far, surely, and yet the reality was there, staring me in the face, being reported in the cold, matter-of-fact words of a newscaster who had probably reported on hundreds of similar killings in the course of his career. Somewhere in the vicinity of my home, a few miles away at most, someone was slaying innocent women with all the hallmarks of the Ripper himself clearly in evidence. Who, in this day and age, would be so callous as to commit such acts? Sadly, there are all too many disturbed individuals in the world capable of such wanton and terrible murder. Whatever the motivation for these latest killings, the result was shattered families, motherless children, and untold grief and loss. I turned the TV off, I could watch no more. My entire body felt as though it were shaking, not visibly perhaps, but certainly deep within. I could barely comprehend what was happening to me. Was the Ripper somehow reaching out across the years, his soul embedded in the psyche of some poor, sad individual of the modern age, driven by his impulses to commit these horrific crimes? Impossible, at least that's what I told myself. I tried to force myself to be rational about the latest killings. They could have no connection to what had occurred back in 1888. I concluded that reading the Ripper's journal had set my perception towards such events. Such news had sadly become a common occurrence, not in my village of course, but rather on the national news. It was all a ghastly, gruesome coincidence, and yet, at the back of my mind, a fear and a nagging terror that there was something other-worldly about the whole situation in which I found myself just wouldn't go away. I had to ask myself if I was attempting to rationalize where there was no rhyme or reason but only a cold hand reaching out from the murky mists of centuries past. I had no real answers.

  You may think me crazy, but I just couldn't shake that feeling, and as a cold, grave-like stillness filled the room, and me with it, I felt a physical sensation of all pervading helplessness and terror take hold of me. I felt as though I was sliding ever downwards, like an out of control aircraft as it dives headlong toward the earth before smashing itself into a thousand pieces from the destructive impact as it finally collides with solid ground.

  Nothing in my own
training as a psychiatrist could have prepared me for this situation, primarily because no-one had ever experienced such a thing, except perhaps my own father, and his before him, and I had no idea how they would have dealt with it; or had they been immune to the effects of the journal? Was it just me, was I so susceptible to the Ripper's words that I had allowed myself to fall under his long-dead spell? All I knew was that I was alone, afraid and becoming more and more disturbed by the hour, as the events of a century ago and those of the present day appeared to be merging into one long, waking nightmare!

  I could take no more, not that night, and leaving all the downstairs lights on and the documents in the study lying exactly where they were, I surmounted the stairs, stopping long enough in the bathroom to take two rather strong sleeping tablets that had been prescribed for Sarah some time ago. My mind in a state of almost complete mental exhaustion, I slipped into bed, and, perhaps because of the poor night I'd suffered the night before, I slept long and hard, without dreaming.

  If I'd thought that sleep would cure what ailed me, that the morning would bring a bright and refreshing light to my newly disturbed world, I was to be severely disappointed, but for a few hours at least, my mind and body were at rest.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  The Morning after the Night Before

  I don't know how long I slept that night, I'd made no reference to the time before my head hit the pillow and the sleeping tablets took over, sending me into that long, dreamless sleep. I know that I looked at the clock when I woke, and it was seven a.m. give or take a minute. My first sensation on waking was that my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, which itself felt as dry as the Sahara desert. My head ached, and I felt a degree of disorientation akin to that accompanying a severe hangover, though I swear not a drop of alcohol had touched my lips the previous night. It was the sleeping tablets of course.