The Real Mary Kelly (22 page)

So why did Bulling not pass the actual letter to the police? We do not know for certain that he did not. He may have passed on a transcript as a temporary measure whilst the original was being photographed, and it could later have been lost from the police files as so many of the other Ripper letters were. Maybe, realising that the police had no great interest in it and thought that it was a fake, he decided to keep it as a souvenir or for sale if it later turned out to be genuine. In any event it attracted much less attention from the police, the press and from subsequent historians of the Ripper murders than the earlier letter and postcard and yet, in some ways, if it is genuine, it is the nearest we get to the actual writer. It marks him out as a scholar and a literate man since
there is little artificial attempt to disguise this as there was in the previous communications. Whether the author was Bulling or Francis, the letters are almost certainly by the same person that wrote the earlier ‘Dear Boss’ missives.

It is regrettable that the police did not take it seriously for several reasons. The salutation ‘Dear Friend’ does not seem to have been used in any of the other 600 or more letters sent to the authorities or the world’s press. It was a personal idiosyncrasy of the writer and, since none of the others used it, it must be assumed, unusual at the time. It was, however, one that Francis is known to have used on at least one other occasion as he addressed one of his three suicide notes to ‘Dear Friends’. Then there was the chillingly prophetic reference to sending ‘a bit of face’ with his next letter. Surely at that point only Mary Jane’s killer knew the details of what lay ahead.

Finally there is the point that this was the last letter that this particular writer sent to Central News. With, what only he knew to be, the last killing the letters ceased. Bulling, his colleagues and the general public could only assume that the murders would continue and, in fact, the vast majority of the hoax Ripper letters were received after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. Only the actual killer knew that with her death the job was done; any further letters were pointless and could only add to the risk of discovery. On balance it seems a fair assumption that one man was responsible for the ‘Dear Boss’ letters and that they were written for a very definite purpose, that of reinforcing the link between the five murders and making them appear to be the work of a maniac with no particular animus against any one of the victims.

As the inquests on Stride and Eddowes drew to their close the population of London, particularly those living in the East End, waited in anticipation. No-one seemed in any doubt that the Ripper would strike again and the possibility of the police apprehending him before he did so seemed to be diminishing by the minute. They did not have long to wait. On the night of 8th November, the eve of the Lord Mayor’s Show, the drama reached its gruesome finale.

As the world held its breath and the damp October days gave way to an even wetter November, Francis prepared for the final act. He knew, although no-one else did, that to fit the established pattern of them being carried out a few days before or after a new moon, it had to take place between 30th October and 9thNovember
¹¹⁹
. The night of 8th and 9th November was the most propitious. It was the eve of the Lord Mayor’s Show and from 4am onwards most of the City Police and their Metropolitan colleagues from the surrounding divisions – including H, the one in which Spitalfields lay – would be engaged in lining the route and controlling the crowds which some newspapers estimated (almost certainly overestimated) as numbering 3 million. The year of 1888 was the height of the Fenian troubles and the authorities in London were fearful that the terrorists would use the occasion to perpetrate a bomb outrage, perhaps even an assassination attempt on the Lord Mayor himself as an embodiment of the hated British occupation of their native land. He knew that only a bare minimum of officers would be left in Spitalfields in the early hours of that Friday morning
¹²⁰
.

By now Francis knew exactly where Elizabeth was living. He had kept watch and had seen her comings and goings. He knew her friends and her habits.
He knew that Joe Barnett had moved out of the room in Miller’s Court and that had been an unexpected bonus. Even though, when he was working, Joe was usually in the markets in the early hours of the morning, there was always the chance that he might not be working on that particular night or might chance to pop back during his meal break. With him off the premises a major risk had been removed.

He was confident that Elizabeth did not know he had her under observation. If she had suspected as much she would certainly have disappeared again. There were probably a few anxious moments when he thought she may have caught a glimpse of him, passing on the other side of the street or across a crowded bar in the Ten Bells or the Britannia. Possibly she did feel a faint uneasiness, a premonition that she was being watched, and she apparently said as much to her friend Julia Venturney. But it was not enough to make her move out of her room in Miller’s Court. She probably felt safe there. Although it was on the ground floor, the windows could be secured with catches and the door had a lock. Only she and Joe knew that it could be unlocked easily by slipping a hand through the broken pane of glass, moving the coat that served as a curtain aside and turning the knob on the inside. There were dozens of other people living in rooms within a few feet of hers and any attempt to break in would give her plenty of time to scream for help. The only way an unwelcome visitor could gain access to her bolt hole was if she let him in.

Much is known about the night of 8th November. At about 7.45pm Joe Barnett called in on Mary Jane and found her in the company of another woman. There is some doubt about who this was because both Maria Harvey, a washerwoman who gave evidence at the inquest, and Lizzie Allbrook, a 20-year-old friend of Mary Jane’s, claimed to have been there when Joe arrived and to have left shortly afterwards. Maria Harvey said that she had left some dirty shirts, a child’s petticoat, a man’s overcoat and a woman’s bonnet with Mary Jane; the shirts possibly for washing for which Mary Jane might have expected to make a few pennies.

Joe left soon after 8pm. Despite having split up with Mary Jane only eight days before on account of her habit of taking in other unfortunates for whom she felt pity, they were still on friendly terms and Joe was genuinely sorry that, as he was out of work again, he had no money to leave her.

Mary Ann Cox was another of the unfortunates who lived in Miller’s Court. At about 11.45pm she was returning along Dorset Street to dry out and get a little warmth back into her bones as the night was wet and raw. She spotted Mary Jane ‘very much intoxicated’ a few steps in front of her as she turned into the passageway leading to the court. She was in the company of a short, stout man with a blotchy face and a full carroty moustache. He was dressed in a shabby overcoat and a billycock hat and carried a quart can of beer. He was presumably Mary Jane’s next client of the night, although as she closed her door and said goodnight to Mary Cox she announced that she was going to sing. A few minutes later several people in the rooms off the court heard her sweet voice singing ‘A Violet Plucked from Mother’s Grave’ and she continued singing for at least an hour until Mary Ann returned for a second time at 1am. It is doubtful that the man with the carroty moustache remained to hear her entire performance although no-one saw or heard him leave.

Mary Ann, who appears to have been having a busy night herself, went out a third time returning at 3am. This time there was no sound from Mary Jane’s room and it was in darkness. For whatever reason, Mary Ann Cox was unable to sleep that night. She didn’t even bother to undress but lay in a restless slumber listening to the few sounds in the court until daybreak.

She was not the only resident of Miller’s Court who had a disturbed night’s sleep. It was as if a foreboding hung over the squalid dwellings and their wretchedly poor residents that night. Elizabeth Prater, who lived in the room above Mary Jane, came back at about 1.20am that morning after an unsuccessful night’s soliciting. The staircase to her room was separated from Mary Jane’s room by a partition so flimsy that even the faintest light, had there been one at that time, would readily have penetrated the chinks. She could, she said later, easily hear Mary Jane moving about in the room when she was up and about. Privacy was not a commodity that your few pennies rent could purchase in Miller’s Court. At 1.20am that morning there was no light in Mary Jane’s room and it was as silent as the grave.

Perhaps because of the presentiment that hung in the air like a miasma that night, Elizabeth barricaded herself into her room by moving two tables up against the door. She slept only fitfully and at about 3.40am she was
awakened by her kitten Diddles brushing against her face. Something, it seems, had disturbed her pet because a moment later Elizabeth heard a woman’s voice – she described it as a suppressed cry – calling, ‘Oh, Murder.’ It seemed to come from outside in the court but as it was muffled and it was not repeated she had difficulty in placing it. Elizabeth later said that because such cries were common around Dorset Street she took no notice of it and went back to sleep. The truth almost certainly was that she was too petrified to move until the grey light of dawn penetrated her grimy curtains. Then, at 5am, she hurried out to the Ten Bells, fortified herself with a glass of rum and hot water and retreated to bed again to catch up with her lost sleep. Later that day she watched the body being taken out of the court in a shell covered with a dirty tarpaulin before giving her interview to the reporter from
The Star
¹²¹
.

The social life of the unfortunates and destitutes of Spitalfields seems to have paid scant regard to the hours that ruled the lives of the ordinary men and women of Britain. Sarah Lewis, who described herself as a laundress but in reality was probably another unfortunate, decided to pay a call on her friend Mrs. Keyler at 2 Miller’s Court at 2.30am. After talking for a while, Sarah decided to pass the rest of the night in a chair whilst her friend presumably returned to her bed. Sarah too could not sleep. The clock of All Saints in Spital Square striking 3.30am woke her and she remained awake until shortly before 4am when she too heard a cry of ‘Murder’. It seemed to her to be outside the door of number 2, which was almost opposite Mary Jane’s room. Like Elizabeth Prater, she also decided that discretion was the better part of valour and did nothing about it.

It was not until 10.45am the next morning – when Mary Jane’s landlord, John McCarthy, decided to have one last despairing attempt to get the twenty-nine shillings due in back rent from her – that the dreadful truth was discovered. He sent his assistant Thomas Bowyer to number 13 with instructions to wake her up and not to take no for an answer. Bowyer knocked repeatedly on the door that opened onto the passageway, then tried it and found it locked. He went into the court and crouched down at the smaller of the two windows to peer in through the broken pane, having pushed aside the coat that served as a curtain.

As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light in the room, a scene of such dreadfulness gradually materialised as has never been equalled in the history of crime.

By the time John McCarthy and Thomas Bowyer recovered sufficiently to make their way to Commercial Street police station, the procession for the Lord Mayor’s Show had reached Leadenhall Street and was snaking its way down Fenchurch Street just a few hundred yards from Mitre Square, where Catherine Eddowes’s body had been found less than a month before. The sound of the marching bands and the roar of the crowds that packed the narrow streets could easily be heard on the moisture-laden air.

Inspector Beck quickly returned to the court with the two shaken men. He too peered through the broken window and was no less shocked by what he saw. Although McCarthy and Bowyer had been careful not to say a word to anyone else, it was obvious now that something was up and a small group of people started to gather in Dorset Street and peer down the narrow passageway. At 11.15am Dr. George Bagster Phillips, the senior police surgeon to H Division, arrived. As he later told the inquest with masterly understatement, ‘I looked through the lower of the broken panes and satisfied myself that the mutilated corpse lying on the bed was not in need of any immediate attention from me, and I also came to the conclusion that there was nobody else upon the bed, or within view, to whom I could render any professional assistance.’

A few minutes later, Detective Inspector Abberline arrived and took charge of the crime scene. Beck told him that the bloodhounds had been sent for and were on their way and, after consulting with Dr. Phillips, he decided to defer forcing the door until such time as they arrived in order to give the dogs the best chance of picking up the Ripper’s scent before anyone else entered the room. They did not know that at that moment one hound was in Brighton and the other in Scarborough. Nor did they know that Sir Charles Warren, the commissioner, had tendered his resignation a little over 12 hours before and that this time it had been accepted by the Home Secretary.

It was now 11.30am and Inspector Beck had secured the court, giving orders that no-one other than the police and others on official business were to be allowed to enter or leave. Word was beginning to spread throughout the area that another Ripper murder had taken place and the small knot of people in Dorset Street had now grown to a crowd of several hundred. Abberline ordered that the street be sealed at both ends allowing no-one to pass except
bona fide
residents. Uniformed constables were posted and the street was cordoned off with ropes.

Then the waiting began.

For two long hours the group of men in the court waited, tense, white-faced, each with his own private thoughts. They had all peered through the broken window and none of them would forget what they had seen for the rest of their lives. Inside lay the remains of a young woman who a few hours before had been alive and singing, brimming over with life by all accounts even if her particular way of life was not one that most people would have condoned. Abberline must have been wondering how much longer this could all go on before his own job was in jeopardy.