Whitechapel (50 page)

“What about trades? Is it Chapman’s with particular trades, Boss?” asked Mather, note book at the ready for the answer, possibly protracted.

“No, all Chapmans. The trade has to be consideration but also a side issue, could be like our friend Netley and have a sick non-professional interest.” Another question came from Robert Ford.

“Sir, what about Tumblety? Are we going to do any hands on to find him ourselves? Any luck on the handwriting?”

“No on both counts. Ports have been put on alert to stop him if they find him and we’re expecting the handwriting result at anytime,” replied Abberline. “Anything else, gentlemen?” The gathered officers looked round at each other and were individually shaking their heads in acknowledgment of his question. “Right, unless you come up with something I’m not looking to reconvene until we’ve all finished our parish sweeps.”

The individual teams all began getting their stationary, notebooks and outdoor clothes ready to leave to get on with their tasks. Abberline stalled ensuring everyone else had got their things and left leaving only Godley and himself as he wanted to chat to his old friend and confidante briefly before leaving to put his own mind at rest over his leadership and actions.

“George, was that all right? To the point? A good plan of action so far?” Godley nodded his head and considered his answer.

“Yes, absolutely. Not much else we can focus on right now as a small unit, so I think it’s good. Tell me, why have you given us part of the largest single parish in the district plus a whole other then?”

“You don’t miss a thing, old friend, do you?” he replied chuckling. “I know of a foreigner who set up a barber shop in Cable Street near Dock Street who christened the shop ‘Chapman’s Barbers’. I reckon a sound first port of call for us as he certainly has a background in using sharp implements. Some of these foreign barbers have a varied tradesman ship in their own places so he’s my priority today.”

The senior detectives were just donning their top coats when there was a knock on the door and a young uniform constable entered carrying an official looking brown envelope. Abberline and Godley looked at each other both sensing this package may contain the information they needed to start to break open the case and dropped their coats onto the desks.

“Thanks, lad,” said Abberline taking the envelope from him. The constable left the office encouraged by a nod from Godley to dismiss him. Abberline tore at the seal and opening it swiftly and pulling out a neatly finished report on beige coloured paper in impeccable Victorian handwriting and began to read intently. It was what they had been waiting so long for and so overdue. Godley watched with apprehension waiting for Abberline to voice the findings.

After what seemed like an eternity Abberline looked up with a knowing and satisfied grin and spoke with a sense of absolution.

“In short, George, the writing expert says that without a shadow of a doubt the writing on the ‘Dear Boss’ letter and on the ‘from Hell’ letter are the same as Tumblety’s signature.”

“Bugger me, Fred! Is it worth us all going out then?” asked Godley with an air of triumph starting to read the report as Abberline finished a page and passed it to him.

“Oh hell, yes, mate. I want as much against this bloke as possible and there may be something in this Chapman connection bearing in mind that Dr T was in custody that night. But, later today we have got to go and search his last lodgings. We’ll see everyone here later.”

They left the office and the report on Abberline’s desk to head off to Cable Street.

10.a.m. Abberline and Godley arrived by cab outside what had been Chapman’s barber shop in Cable Street both dismounting from the hansom looking at the building in astonishment. What had been a flourishing small independent business only days before, something they could both subconsciously recollect, was now a newly derelict building; the name sign ripped down from above the windows and door leaving only a blank wooden panel, the windows painted from the inside with whitewash so no one could see in and the front door securely locked.

“Right, round the back, George, we need to see what’s been going on here to make him shut up so suddenly.” Both began strolling round the block via Dock Street to gain access, Godley speaking in response to Abberline’s lead.

“Any idea of what this bloke looks like, mate?”

“No, we’ll have a look round the place and then ask the neighbours.”

A narrow alley way took them around to the back of the former barber shop and having counted how many it was in from the front before going round the back Abberline easily determined which rear gate they needed to enter the yard. Trying the latch the wooden gate didn’t move so Godley reached over and felt for a bolt which he found securing the gate; undoing it they entered the desolate yard. It was small only about 12 feet square but not unusual for the type of building it served with a door centrally at the rear of the shop entering the yard with small windows either side of it. Nothing was present in the yard apart from a few papers blowing in the slight breeze that created a small vortex moving them in circles with the dust all around. Godley was the first to try the door which at odds with the gate was open but he discovered why as they entered; there was no lock fitted to the rear door. The building was of a two rooms up and two down layout with the front room downstairs forming the working public area with the rear room in which they found themselves as a living room. It was laid out with a set of stairs to one side and some very shabby furniture scattered around; a table with two chairs, a high backed bench against one wall with an old sideboard against another and a weathered armchair in a corner.

“Where do you want to start, Fred?”

“We’ll do a room at a time together so we don’t miss anything, and then see the neighbours.” Abberline made straight for the sideboard while Godley went to look at the armchair.

To Abberline’s utter amazement the sideboard was empty of anything except a few scraps of paper which must have been used to wrap china or glass at sometime, and he found quite a lot of dust. Godley in the meantime had pulled the equally dusty cushion from the armchair and keeping on his leather gloves he had worn because of the November temperatures, he slowly and carefully began to feel down the sides of the frame and coverings of the armchair. He did it methodically to avoid missing anything and to avoid injury on anything sharp. He could feel the usual odd coin and matchstick along the left side and around the back as well as the worn springs, but it was as he ran his hand slowly along the right that he made a discovery that would remain a matter of suppression. He could feel the rounded handle of some kind of knife which by its size he could tell it was more than a domestic table knife. He took hold of the handle fully and slowly drew the item from the chair and called to Abberline to come over as he did so. In the shock of his own actions on the night of the murder of Mary Kelly, Klosowski had dropped the knife into the chair when he slumped into it following his return from Millers Court, an action that later Abberline could only surmise about.

“Bloody hell, Fred, I think we’ve found where Jack the Ripper has been working from!” Abberline said nothing initially and took the knife slowly from Godley’s hand, looking the blade up and down, noting the faint residue of dried blood along it. Could the doctors in some way link this blood with that of one or any of the victims? If not now then perhaps this would something they may be able to discover to aid investigation in the future; the thoughts raced through Abberline’s mind for some moments before he voiced rational thought.

“Right, this bloke is a serious fucking suspect for Kelly’s murder and we need to find out where he’s gone, but so is that American bastard. Let’s face it, he’s done a runner and his signed his own death warrant with that signature. We have to set out to find them both ‘cos they might each have responsibility. Tonight back in the office we get teams together to trace them.”

Abberline and Godley finished their search and took the damning evidence with them, arranging for the neighbours to be interviewed by some of the junior detectives to establish Chapman’s background. He hoped that they might even know where he had gone but certainly they would be able to help with a description that would then be circulated nationally on the police gazette. The most serious suspects in what was London’s or even Britain’s most notorious murders needed to be found urgently. Having now discovered Chapman’s complicity in the gruesome events of the last twelve weeks, they now had to search Tumblety’s premises to conclude once and for all who was ‘Jack the Ripper.’

***

Wednesday 21
st
November; the door to Tumblety’s former lodgings in Graham Road, Hackney burst open as sections of the frame around the lock’s strike plate and catch shattered and splintered across the reception room as Godley forced it open with a violent kick. He entered closely followed by Abberline and Ford; all of them setting to methodically searching the premises for any clue of Tumblety’s whereabouts or further guilt in the murders. The handwriting had proved to be a damning piece of evidence but there had to be more to prove his guilt unless he had been very thorough in covering his tracks. Tumblety had occupied what amounted to being the first floor of a three storey single fronted Victorian town house. It consisted of a comfortable reception or living room, a single bedroom with a sink and a kitchen. The toilet was shared with the residents of the other floors and sat at the rear of the premises.

Three rooms, three officers. Abberline took the bedroom, Godley the living room and Ford under their directions was despatched first to the kitchen and once finished there he had responsibility for the toilet. No where that Tumblety may have used was to be left unturned. They were fortunate to find that the whole place was quite sparsely furnished but every inch had to be scoured to find any clue whatsoever that would lead them to Tumblety’s whereabouts or movements.

Abberline walked into the bedroom to find it laid out with a single bed, a bureau, a tall boy chest of drawers and a dining chair in a corner looking as if it was positioned for use as a clothes horse. Abberline made straight for the bureau and began with its three drawers; it was constructed from mahogany with each section available to be locked but none of it having been secured. This immediately led Abberline to assume little would be found in it but he would persevere knowing that complacent assumptions could lead to missed opportunities; something that could be ill afforded.

None of the drawers was lined and all were completely empty leaving no clue of what use the American might have made of them. He opened the writing section which activated supporting arms as it was lowered into a horizontal position revealing the compartmentalised section situated at its rear behind the leather covered blotter surface. He felt more hopeful of something here as two of the sections held papers which he pulled out and sat flat on the blotter to leaf through. At first they all seemed quite innocuous revealing only blank writing paper and some matching envelopes; the thought struck him ‘could it be the same paper Tumblety had written the Ripper letters on further fuelling a case against him?’ He seized it as potential evidence. The other papers turned out to be some folded sketches of sights he recognised as Parisian another more vital clue that could infer guilt. There was also a sales receipt made out for three medical specimen jars from a supplier near the London Hospital but with no client details entered on it. There was nothing else in the bureau but the discoveries were essential.

Abberline turned to the bed looking underneath it finding nothing except bare floorboards and then stripping it and turning the mattress again revealing nothing. A rug lay on the floor on either side of the bed both of which he moved and analysed the floor boards in the room to see if any had been disturbed. There was no sign of any of them having been lifted for use as a hiding place underneath but the removal of one of the rugs exposed a tiny edge of a piece of paper sticking up from between two of the boards. So little was exposed that Abberline couldn’t get hold of it between his index finger and thumb so he removed the pin from his neck tie pin and gently speared the edge of the paper with it and pulled it free. It proved to be a crucial find; a sales receipt made out to ‘Frank Townsend’ from a company called ‘The Transatlantic Line’ for a first class single sea view cabin to America. The only frustrating element to the receipt was the lack of a name for the ship upon which the journey would take place. There was nothing else left for Abberline to check within the room so he returned to living room to see how Godley had been getting on there and young Ford in the kitchen.

While Abberline had been working in the bedroom Godley had been making an extensive sweep of the living room and had finished dealing with all the furniture and now went on to the floor and a walk in cupboard. Abberline was free to assist him move the rugs and the items of furniture to examine the floor boards. Between them it took another five to ten minutes to do this and check the cupboard to reveal nothing. They were passed by Ford who was now making his way to the outside toilet who said nothing on his way through.

“Anything in there then, Rob?” asked Abberline.

“No, Boss, nothing. Be back in moment just going out to the bog,” replied Ford. Abberline shared his finds with Godley while the lad went outside.

Ford made his way to the rear of the premises via the communal corridor and found the rear door unlocked. He opened it and went outside to find the exterior lavatory situated next to a coal bunker; there was access to this yard from an alley way between blocks. He opened the door of the toilet and found it unusually clean for a communal facility. Looking round there was virtually nowhere to conceal anything; he moved the coarse mat on the floor to reveal only a stone floor, the walls were bare and there was no false boxing built around the pipe works. The only possible place was the toilets cistern. He stood on the rim of the lavatory bowl and lifted the lid to look in. He was hit by the smell of its rotten water with its film of scum floating on the top as he looked in, but there was nothing to be discovered.