Abberline: The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper (19 page)

Unfortunately Dr Wiles was out, so his assistant suggested taking the box and its contents to Dr Thomas Horrocks Openshaw, a pathologist at the nearby London Hospital. Openshaw conducted tests on the kidney and stated that, in his opinion, it had almost certainly come from the body of Catherine Eddowes. Openshaw’s findings stated that the kidney was human and had been removed from the left side of the body of a woman within the last two weeks. The woman, he stated, would be approximately 45 years of age (Eddowes was 43). The kidney was ‘gin sodden’ (Eddowes’ favourite drink was gin). The kidney also showed an advanced state of Bright’s disease. Eddowes was suffering from Bright’s disease. Probably the most significant factor in proving the kidney had come from the body of Catherine Eddowes was the fact that the renal artery attached to the kidney is 3in in length altogether 1in was found still attached to the kidney, while 2in were found still intact within Eddowes’ body.

Lusk was visibly shaken by these findings, and took both the box and its contents, along with the letter, to the City of London Police, in whose jurisdiction Catherine Eddowes had been murdered.

The transcript of the note, which was also inside the cardboard box and later became known as the ‘From Hell’ letter, read as follows:

From Hell.

Mr Lusk,

Sor

I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer

signed

Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk

To say George Lusk was shaken by this event could be classed as something of an understatement, for while he relished in his new-found celebrity status, his name had also started to attract a different kind of ‘fan’, who today would possibly be termed as a stalker!

Just over a week before receiving the ‘From Hell’ letter and kidney, a man, described as aged between 35 and 40, medium height, with a florid complexion, bushy brown beard, sideburns and moustache, called at Mr Lusk’s house in Alderney Street, Mile End. Lusk wasn’t at home at the time, but his housekeeper told him that he was at a nearby tavern, owned by his son. The man went to the pub, where he found Lusk and started asking him all sorts of questions; he then tried to induce Lusk to enter a private room with him, but Lusk was repulsed by the man’s strange and somewhat foreboding appearance and felt that it would be better to talk where they could be observed by other people.

The man, who did not give his name, said he was interested in the work of Lusk’s Vigilance Committee, but all the time Lusk was talking to him, Lusk said he noticed the man’s eyes never stayed still for a moment, darting to and fro, as if his mind was elsewhere. The man then suddenly drew a pencil from his top pocket, as if he was about to take notes. He then dropped it onto the floor, which Lusk later said he thought was done on purpose, and quickly asked Lusk to pick the pencil up for him. Lusk thought this strange, as the man wasn’t particularly old or impaired in any way that he could see, so why had he asked him, instead of picking it up himself? Lusk, nevertheless, bent down to pick the pencil up, and as he did so he noticed the man make a sudden movement with his right hand towards his side coat pocket. Lusk became scared as he saw the man start to draw out an object from his pocket; it could have been a knife or a gun. Lusk didn’t wait to find out, and quickly got to his feet. The man by this time could see that whatever it was he had been intending to do, he had now been detected, and other people were also looking in his direction. The man swiftly took his now empty hand out of his pocket and gave Lusk a strange smile; he then got to his feet and mumbled something, which Lusk later said he thought sounded like, ‘Another time maybe’. The man then nonchalantly asked Lusk where the nearest coffee and dining rooms were. Lusk gave him directions to dining rooms in the Mile End Road and the man left. Lusk was so suspicious of the man by this time that he enlisted the help of one of his committee members, and together they followed the man. They unfortunately lost sight of him, but nevertheless went directly to the dining rooms that Lusk had described to the man, only to find that he was not there and never had been.

A few days after this incident, Lusk was seemingly targeted again. This time it involved yet another sinister-looking character who was seen acting suspiciously outside his house. Fearing for not just his own safety, but that of his family as well, Lusk reported the character to the police and a full description of him was circulated.

On 12 October Lusk received a letter in handwriting that some experts thought could be the same as the ‘Dear Boss’ letter.

The transcript of this letter is as follows:

I write you a letter in black ink, as I have no more of the right stuff. I think you are all asleep in Scotland Yard with your bloodhounds, as I will show you to-morrow night (Saturday). I am going to do a double event, but not in Whitechapel. Got rather too warm there. Had to shift. No more till you hear me again.

  
JACK THE RIPPER.

The Vigilance Committee had posters offering a reward for information about the murders almost everywhere in East London, and the little shop selling leatherwear in Jubilee Street, just a short distance from the London Hospital, was no exception. The young lady, Miss Marsh, who worked in the shop for her father, smiled and asked if she could help the man that came in that day, on 15 October, for she didn’t feel that she had anything to be afraid of, as he was wearing a clerical collar of the type the clergy might wear.

The man said he was interested in the Vigilance Committee’s reward poster in the shop window and asked if she knew the address of Mr George Lusk. Miss Marsh didn’t know this, but suggested he should enquire at the nearby Crown public house. The man was polite and even apologetic as he insisted he didn’t want to go into a pub. Miss Marsh understood, and obligingly got out a newspaper that gave Lusk’s address, although not the actual house number, but the man nevertheless made a note of what was there. Miss Marsh later described the man as being in his mid-forties, with an Irish accent, 6ft tall, of slim build, with a dark beard and moustache.

No one answering the man’s description ever called upon Lusk, but on the following evening, Tuesday 16 October, a small package, wrapped in brown paper and bearing an indistinct London postmark, was delivered to Lusk’s house. The package was addressed to Lusk by name, along with his address. There was one thing missing: the house number. This package turned out to be the now famous ‘From Hell’ letter, and the box contained the kidney. Could the man in the clerical collar, who called into the leatherwear shop, have possibly been the same man who sent the package? Could he have been Jack the Ripper himself?

Lusk and his Vigilance Committee seemed at this point to be doing more than the police were; that is if one took notice of the newspapers. Lusk himself had received visits from shady-looking characters, offered rewards and had allegedly received letters and threats through the post, not to mention what could possibly be vital pieces of evidence.

Abberline felt thwarted; his bosses at Scotland Yard were telling him one thing, whilst the general public, egged on by the newspapers and Lusk’s Vigilance Committee, were telling him another. Not only was this affecting his work, it was also affecting his home life. He was having trouble sleeping, when he did manage to get home, and was arguing more with his wife as she was worried that it was affecting his health.

Ever the pragmatist, Emma listened to Abberline and told him he must do what he does best, and that was detective work; to pay no attention to rumours and scaremongers, and to get on with his work, for when it was finished, and the Jack the Ripper crimes, as they were now known, had been solved, then, and only then, could they return to normality in their daily lives once again.

10

The Final Ripper Victim

T 
he Ripper’s final victim was Mary Jane Kelly, who was approximately 25 years old at the time of her death although there doesn’t seem to be any record of her actual birth date, she would have been born sometime around 1863. She was said to be attractive to men, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. She was 5ft 7in tall, and described as buxom.

She was born in Limerick, Ireland, but moved to Wales with her family as a young child. By the time she was just 16 years old, she married an equally young coal miner named Davies. They were apparently happy, but just two years later Davies was killed in a pit explosion.

Kelly was distraught with grief and moved away to Cardiff, where she moved in with a cousin, who worked as a prostitute. This was probably where Kelly started out on her ill-fated career, although the Cardiff police have no record of her ever being arrested. By 1884, however, she had seemingly heard of the riches she could earn in London, and so moved there, allegedly working in a high-class brothel in the West End. There are, of course, no records to prove exactly what Kelly did, or where she actually stayed during her time in London, and it has been said that she was somewhat prone to exaggeration. Others who knew her later testified that at this time she was staying with nuns at the Providence Row Night Refuge on Crispin Street. One of the provisions for being allowed to stay at the Providence Row Night Refuge was that she would have had to scrub floors and carry out general menial tasks. Whatever the truth, Kelly was eventually placed, probably by the refuge, into domestic service in a shop in Cleveland Street, in the West End.

The other side to the story, which she often told friends, regarding her arrival in London, was that she had befriended a French woman who lived in Knightsbridge, and that it was this woman who encouraged her to pursue the lifestyle which would ultimately lead to her death. Kelly claimed that while she was with the company of this woman she would often be driven about London in a carriage. She also claimed to have made several journeys to Paris with a man she described only as a ‘gentleman’. In other words, if her story is to be believed, Kelly was at that time living the life ‘of a lady’.

For some reason, which she never explained to anyone, she met a woman named Mrs Buki, who in all probability was either a prostitute herself, a madam, or maybe even both. Mrs Buki lived in a house on St George’s Street, just off Ratcliffe Highway in the East End. Kelly moved into the house, which was a very big step downwards after living in Knightsbridge. It is thought that Kelly and Mrs Buki started working together as prostitutes. Just a week or two after moving into the St George’s Street house, Mrs Buki and Kelly went to the French lady’s house in Knightsbridge, where Kelly demanded a large clothing box containing a number of very expensive dresses, which Kelly claimed belonged to her. Kelly and Mrs Buki left in something of a hurry, minus the dresses, when the French lady threatened to call the police.

The relationship between Kelly and Mrs Buki isn’t quite clear; did Kelly befriend Mrs Buki purely because she had nowhere else to stay at that time or did Mrs Buki use her, possibly thinking that she had access to money? Probably the latter, as within weeks of visiting the French lady’s house in Knightsbridge, and being threatened with the police, Kelly found herself looking for somewhere else to stay once again.

Like so many women who take up prostitution, Mary Kelly always seemed to be searching for the one true love that she hoped would one day come her way.This is hard to imagine ever happening in the course of her chosen profession and an environment such as the East End of London at that time. From Mrs Buki’s, she drifted to another lodging house in Breezer’s Hill, and from there to a house close to Stepney Gasworks which she shared with a man named Morganstone.

Love, however, was still nothing more than just a remote memory to her, for the only real love she had ever known was that of her young husband. From Morganstone, she moved on to a man named Joseph Fleming, a stonemason from Bethnal Green, but again, this didn’t last, even though Fleming was very fond of her and still visited her from time to time, right up to just before her death.

By 1886 she had started drinking heavily and found that she needed to move to cheaper lodgings. Spitalfields at this time was full of doss houses and cheap lodgings, which were usually not much more than filthy hovels. Cooley’s lodging house in Thrawl Street was one such place, and it was here that Kelly then rented a solitary room.

Now needing money more than ever, in order to feed her drink habit as well as pay the rent, Kelly was walking the streets on Good Friday, 8 April 1887, when she bumped into a man and started chatting to him. The man was Joseph Barnett, an Irish fish porter, who took her for a drink and then arranged to meet her the following day. Kelly could hardly believe her luck: Barnett was such a nice man, kind and considerate, and seemed to want her for who she was, rather than just for sex. Within hours of their second meeting, Barnett had asked her to live with him, and she had agreed.