Whitechapel (8 page)

“Good evening, ladies, may we join you?” Eddowes and Nicholls looked at each other with Cathy then speaking.

“Of course you can, gentlemen,” now waving her glass at them, “and you’re welcome to buy us both a drink too.”

“With pleasure,” responded Druitt taking both their glasses, bowing his head courteously and giving them a flashing smile. He made for the bar whilst Tumblety ingratiated himself upon the two women.

“Well hi, ladies, I’m Frank and that there is my good friend Montague. I’m a doctor and he’s a lawyer. We’ve money and time to spend on a couple of fine ladies like you.”

“Oh, ain’t you the sweet talker, proper smooth he is, eh Polly,” said Cathy Eddowes to Nicholls.

“He certainly is,” smiled Polly revealing a set of tarnished and uneven teeth. “But what the bleedin’ hell is a lawyer?”

“Oh, I’m sorry ladies we sometimes speak a different language, you might call him a barrister or solicitor. Let’s face it we are two nations divided by a common language,” Tumblety chuckled at his own humorous observation. Polly and Cathy just stared at each other blankly with his comment passing way above their intellect.

Druitt returned with a tray of drinks, beer all round, there was rarely ever anything sophisticated about these types of women. He had in fact only met one common East End prostitute who drank anything more ladylike. She was a young pretty auburn haired Irish girl known as Ginger. He had spent one evening with her and didn’t see her around too often probably because she could afford to charge more due to her good looks and therefore needed to work less. He had certainly never met her when in the company of Tumblety, only on his rare solo forays into the area. He sat down passing the drinks out to everyone and looked around the table and said “Now, where were we?”

“Your mate ‘ere says you do law, mister,” said Nicholls in a drunken slur.

“Please call me Montague, and that’s correct, I do practice law.” Eddowes bore her rotten teeth in a halitosis smile and spoke.

“Maybe you can give us your card and you can sort us out at the court or nick,” she turned to Polly, “Never know, Poll, we could give ‘im a freebie in return!” They both roared with laughter with Tumblety joining in while Druitt looked at all three of them unmoved. He was forced to see their side of it as they continued chortling and slowly he began to laugh with them.

The four of them continued inane conversation, mainly for the gents to placate their one night mistresses until the two women felt compelled to leave The Britannia to earn their doss money. Time had got on, Druitt and Tumblety had had to tolerate the women’s unintelligent and often unintelligible drivel for what seemed like several hours, all the while plying them with more alcohol.

“Right then,” said Cathy Eddowes, “Whose wiv me?” Being slightly less pox ridden overall in Druitt’s perception to the other woman he jumped at the chance and replied “Me, your lady,” a weak attempt at unnecessary flattery.

“Off we go then, my fine gentleman,” she said grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the pub and off to Red Lion Court, a quite alley where they could indulge in their vices.

Tumblety stood up, offered out his arm for Polly to join him which she did so obligingly knowing this would pay, and together, her a little unsteady on her feet, they left the pub. They headed south along Commercial Street towards Whitechapel High Street. It was around 11.p.m and the East End still seemed to be teeming with people.

‘Damn it,’ thought Tumblety anticipating his first chance to gain his own trophies tonight, ‘we might have to stroll around for a while.’ The trouble with that for Tumblety was that her intake of alcohol would wear off eventually out in the open if not kept replenished. The streets were full of people wandering around aimlessly such as drunken toms looking for a quick shilling knee trembler while stoned out of their minds on alcohol, drunken servicemen, street vagabonds looking to pray on the weak but also policemen, the only group with a legal purpose. Polly spoke drunken drivel to Tumblety as they entered Whitechapel High Street and then took him down George Yard. She fell with her back against the wall and began hitching up her skirt.

“Come on then, fancy Dan, come and give me my doss money and see what you get as change,” she carried on a drunken giggle as she revealed herself to him. Tumblety looked around up and down the yard. They were only a few yards from the main road, but at both ends he could see people passing. He spoke to her to try to take her off somewhere else.

“Come on, honey, this is too public, I need somewhere quieter to really help you earn that money, with interest even….What do ya say?” His American drawl tailing off questioningly.

“I ain’t got time to walk around, Mister Yankee, it’s ‘ere or find someone who can.” There was impatience in her tone. She was stubbornly drunk and wanted her money. Tumblety could feel rage developing inside him, but last time he was nearly caught out, it must not happen again. He surveyed up and down the alley again. There were some openings he could try to take her to.

“Okay, Polly, lets move up a bit.” He took hold of her arm. She didn’t like this action and pulled her arm away protesting violently; but Tumblety held on.

“Take your fuckin’ hands off of me, you bleeder. Who the fuck do you think you are, manhandling a lady!”

“Some Goddamn lady,” Tumblety mistakenly said under his breath.

“Right, get your hands off of me and fuck off!” Polly pulled away from him violently and struck out with her right fist catching the side of his face. He let go and she stormed off back to the High Street, Tumblety turned and gave chase. As they both rounded the corner and he was about to pull her back a constable came in to view from Osbourn Street. It was PC John Thain. She ran up to him yelling.

“Oi, that fucker tried to hurt me, constable, whatcha going to do?” She was pointing back towards Tumblety seemingly frozen to his spot nervous of the intervention of the law.

PC Thain looked her up and down and could immediately smell drink from her. He looked at Tumblety and knew exactly what was going on between them, or so he thought. He spoke to the two of them, gesturing with his finger to Tumblety to approach, which he reluctantly but pragmatically did so as not to court unwanted attention.

“Now then, mister, I know what your here for and I know what she’s offering and that’s fine. But don’t hurt the ladies here plying their trade, or you’ll feel the wrong end of my companion,” he revealed his truncheon just slightly from underneath his beat duty cloak. “And the two of you if you kick up a fuss will see the wrong side of the cell doors at the nick. Do I make myself understood?”

“Yeah, all right then Thainey, just get him to piss off,” said Polly in a low tone.

Tumblety nodded his head in acknowledgement.

“Now watch your tongue, Polly. Now you go that way, and you that way,” Thain said, gesturing them to each take the opposite directions along Whitechapel High Street. They both did so, Tumblety somewhat reluctantly, but knowing he would walk around the block and follow her off afterward. He would have to jump her and drag her off.

Tumblety walked around the block north of the High Street and ran parallel through Wentworth Street, Old Montague Street and eventually back down into the High Street near The White Swan pub, one of his haunts, and hopefully one of hers. She would be looking for a client, although it was now getting very late. He stood in a doorway opposite the pub and waited, donning a deerstalker hat from his Gladstone bag to disguise his outline from her a little more in the dark. Over an hour went by and Polly eventually emerged with a rather grubby little man, distinctly foreign looking dressed very shabbily and with somewhat of a hunched and furtive walk.

They headed back along the High Street towards the scene of Tumblety’s near disaster. He followed them at a discreet distance.
T
hings were looking up as she was now much more drunk than before. Eventually they were passing Church Lane and laughing and staggering Polly steered her client into the lane and then into the church yard. Tumblety waited outside of the church yard listening and able to gain the occasional glance through some railings which were mainly shrouded with bushes.

He could see her hitching her skirt up and leaning herself back against a gravestone for support. The rather odd looking client approached masturbating violently. Polly looked on and said, “Come here lover and let me do that.” The man walked up to her and as she lent forward he ejaculated all over her arm and face as she’d lent down. She pulled herself back, screaming at him, whilst he laughed at her.

“You filthy Jewish, fucker, I pull your bleeding’ cock off come ‘ere!” Aaron Kosminski backed away from her fastening up his trousers. She very bravely got up and lunged at him scratching his face with her nails deeply across his right cheek.

“Whoring bitch!” he shouted as he slapped her back knocking her to the floor. He went to kick her but Tumblety called out disturbing him. He entered the yard to confront Kosminski.

“Leave her alone, you bastard!” said Tumblety very menacingly. Kosminski turned to face Tumblety looking him up and down. He squinted at the American, hissed at him and spitting at the floor in front of where he stood and then barged past and disappeared into the night. Polly was on the floor sobbing and holding her face. In her drunken state she didn’t recognise his form especially with him having changed his outline with the hat to be sure of the deception. Tumblety began to speak to her in quite an accurate English aristocratic accent.

“Come, my dear, let me take you home.”

“I haven’t got one, sir, just need to go to the doss house.”

“I can help you get there, come let us walk together.” He held his hand out to her and taking hold of it she brought herself up onto her feet. They walked out of the church yard arm in arm, Tumblety shrewd enough to choose the arm that Kosminski had not soiled. She steered him the direction that she wished to go in which eventually took them along Bakers Row, and then she turned them into Whites Row which in turn led into Bucks Row.

Tumblety couldn’t believe his luck, they were in an ultra quiet back street and he had seen no one near them for quite some minutes, and there was no one in view. Almost time to strike, but first some conversation.

“Do you know a girl called Mary, sometimes referred to as Ginger or Fair Emma?” he asked of her.

“Oh, I know a few Ginger’s me, sir,” Polly answered drunkenly.

“This one is a very pretty Irish girl.”

“Yes, I do know her I think, sir; she drinks in the pubs along Commercial Street. Don’t know where she dosses mind.” Tumblety had suspected as much, but the confirmation helped. “That’s very helpful, Polly, thank you.”

“How do you know my name then?” this was her last ever question.

“Well, lady, fortune favours the bold,” he said in his usual accent.

Before Polly could react he grabbed her by the throat completely restricting her wind pipe, and at the same time dropping his bag and pulling a knife from his coat pocket. He pushed her towards some gates to a yard. In one swift movement he pulled the knife across her throat striking deep into it with such ferocity that he cut her neck right back to the vertebrae of her spine. He pushed her almost immediately lifeless body away from himself to avoid the worst effects of the arterial spray. She fell in a crumpled heap on the cobbles of the street which began to fill with rich red arterial blood; her body resting against the yard gates. Her body shook violently in the last throes of life as she made a hideous sucking noise which was the failing attempts to breathe.

Tumblety, unbeknown to Druitt or anyone else, was wearing a very thin cotton copy of his usual tunic over his main garment to take the worst of the blood flow, which he could then stuff into his Gladstone bag. This was a measure he had learned to take from the last time.

Still no one around; he could comfortably get down to his grisly work undisturbed, this time not making the mistake of waiting but going straight into it. He raised her skirt up to reveal her abdomen and as was often common practice Polly was not wearing any underwear. With the knife in his hand he cut deep into her stomach making a clean incision which plunged into her intestines resulting in a massive blood flow oozing down either side of her body onto the floor rapidly forming an expanding crimson puddle. Tumblety was careful to be squatting on his feet as opposed to kneeling so as not to soak his trousers in her blood. Coupled with the out pouring of blood was the stench of her digestive system now opening up to the elements and with a few more deep slashes across her body quite clearly on display. The smell made Tumblety wretch and he began indiscriminately cutting into her organs and pulling tissue and loose flesh out of his way and placing it on the inside of her upturned skirt upon her chest along with an ever increasing amount of stomach material, frantically cutting and searching for her uterus the prize for which he committed these ghastly crimes.

Being an untrained and self professed doctor his knowledge of anatomy was not particularly precise and he was now frustrated by lots of intestinal matter which seemed to be clouding his quest. He cut more with greater ferocity and purpose ripping her internal organs to pieces and creating more mess to be followed by an attempt to search through with his bare hands. He had been working for quite some minutes now not taking much notice of his surroundings and was startled by distant footsteps as he worked. He looked around taking stock of his environment but could not see anyone. He was growing frustrated and felt he would shortly have to give up, vowing to prepare himself better next time with greater anatomical study prior to embarking on another such quest.

‘Damn!’ he thought, ‘I cannot work any longer without risking certain discovery,’ this rational thought wasn’t even opposed by his dark alter ego. He began racking the disgorged flesh and other matter back into her now hollowed stomach and pulled her skirt down to somewhat sickeningly cover her modesty; a measure of how his ever increasing twisted mind was working and demonstrating a macabre sense of decency. He pulled off his lightweight tunic and wiped the knife blade and his hands down on its body and stuffed the whole lot somewhat unceremoniously into his Gladstone bag.