Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes (38 page)
Read Whitechapel: The Final Stand of Sherlock Holmes Online
Authors: Bernard J. Schaffer
A variety of flavors is readily available for the discerning Ripper connoisseur.
All that is said for certain is that in 1888, from Friday, the thirty-first of August, to Friday, the ninth of November, five women were killed. Some were disemboweled. Some were harvested for specific organs significant to no one but the killer himself.
That is it. Officially.
Officially, the Jack the Ripper killings ended with the death of Mary Jane Kelly at Thirteen Miller’s Court, with no hope of ever definitively solving the crimes. But you and I know better. And nothing ended.
On the fourth day of June in 1889, three young boys were bathing in the Thames near Battersea Park when a severed limb went floating past them. Other remains were soon discovered in Horselydown. Police became inundated with reports of an armless, hollowed out torso found near Covington’s Wharf and a lower right leg washed up on the shore near Wandsworth Bridge. Arms, hands, buttocks, a pelvis, a liver and other organs all began popping up on the surface of the Thames all along the countryside. The victim was eventually identified as a missing homeless woman named Elizabeth Jackson. The killing remains unsolved.
On the sixteenth of July 1889, a Whitechapel prostitute named Alice McKenzie was killed by having her belly slit open. There were several stab marks to her genitalia. The killer was believed to have some degree of anatomical knowledge but not the skill of Jack the Ripper. The killing remains unsolved.
On the tenth of September 1889, a new torso was discovered under a railway arch on Pinchin Street. Its abdomen was heavily mutilated and the remains were never identified. The killing also remains unsolved.
And then, finally, on the twenty-fourth of April 1891, the body of an American prostitute named Carrie Brown was found mutilated in a room at the East River Hotel in Manhattan. The autopsy documented how her killer tried to gut her completely. Much to everyone’s relief, the American police proved much more adept at arresting suspects than their English counterparts. New York City Police Detectives swiftly arrested an Algerian named Ameer Ben Ali in a nearby hotel room.
Bloodstains were found in Ben Ali’s hotel room that matched the ones at the murder scene. Ben Ali was tried and convicted of the murder and promptly sent off to prison for what was thought to be the remainder of his life.
Eleven years later, an investigation into the murder investigation revealed that the bloody footprints found in Ben Ali’s hotel room were brought there by the detectives who had just left the body. Ameer Bal Ali was released from prison and vanished into history. The real killer of Carrie Brown remains at large.
Sometimes I wonder, what is Jack the Ripper?
Crazed killer preying on the downtrodden or progenitor of an entire cultural movement? I might suggest he is both. If Jack had been famous for painting, rather than killing, we would refer to those who picked up his mantle and continued his work as the students and successors of a genre-defining grandmaster.
“Jack,” you see, was neither Druitt, or Gull, or Sickert, or any of the usual suspects. Not any more than he is you, or me. I was there. I saw the results first-hand of Druitt’s madness, and there is no doubt that the Ripper was birthed by Druitt’s actions during that horrible autumn.
I’d argue that his true self manifested in the countless newspapers scurrying to cover every detail as if it were the most sensational event in all of history.
He festered in the mischievous minds of those who wrote fake “Ripper” letters for nothing but the thrill of partaking in the events surrounding the case. Jack the Ripper was formed in the consciousness of the gossip-hungry citizens of the world who fed on each prurient detail and harvested the body of evidence more hungrily than Jack ever did on his victims.
Long, stringing innards of fact were removed well after they’d grown cold and gray. Any tendons attaching those facts to reality were severed under the sharp knife of speculation. The tastiest organs were plucked out, and we savored each delicious bite. Dishes of this particular fare are still served, so many years later.
You are eating some right now.
These will be the last words written by Dr. John H. Watson. I will finish this manuscript while sitting in my rocking chair on the porch of the country cottage I share with my beloved wife of these many years. Mary is inside the house right now, making tea. When she finishes it, she will bring it out and sit in the chair beside me. We will not speak, but we will hold hands, and look out together over the fields of amber grain.
It has been a good life.
From my chair, I watch John walking to the far end of our property while arm-in-arm with Johanna Adler. Her beautiful features remind me at once of two people I have loved and lost.
They look happy. They look like they are sharing things that young people only tell one another when they are truly in love. John leans forward to whisper in Johanna’s ear, and she wraps her arms around him in a passionate embrace.
Could it be that some strange twist of fate winds up intertwining all of us?
For a moment, I imagine that particular future, and am astonished at the possibilities it reveals. I chide myself for being foolish to even consider it.
“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, Watson?”
I turn in my chair to see Holmes sitting beside me. He looks young. Vibrant. Alive.
There is a soft rustle of wind that crosses the porch, carrying the scent of lilacs. “Am I dreaming again, Holmes?” I say.
“No, Watson.” he says. “Not this time, I’m afraid.”
“Is it time, then?” I say.
He stands up and buttons his long houndstooth coat. “Indeed it is, my dear fellow. What do you say? Once more unto the breach?”
“Of course,” I say. I look down at someone lying crumpled on the porch beneath my feet, and suddenly our little cottage is far below us and far away. The fields surrounding it glow in hues of both red and gold that across the countryside. I see London, with her tall buildings casting shadows on the people below.
There are people lurking in those shadows who make sport of the weak and vulnerable, preying on them for sport. And there are those who make it their business to seek out those who would harm the innocent and bring them to task.
The sun has nearly set now, and it is time for me to go.
Whitechapel was edited by the great Bill Thompson. Working with Bill was a dream come true that first began when I read Stephen King’s ON WRITING and it was my great privilege learn from such a master.
Tony DePaul made it all possible and top of all that, he married my mom. Thanks for both.
This is the first large-scale project that Karen (The Angry Hatchet) S. and I worked on together. She was with WHITECHAPEL from the very beginning, back before it was even a novel. Karen insisted on a whole series of editing suggestions to the first draft that that I foolishly ignored.
It was much to my chagrin and her eternal credit (and amusement) that Bill ordered me to make the same exact changes. I was left with the unenviable task of confessing to her that she had been right the whole time. That she continues to put up with me is a miracle.
Donna Laing provided the final proofread/edit of the manuscript after finding one too many spelling errors in WOMEN AND OTHER MONSTERS. It was her solemn vow to rid WHITECHAPEL of any offending typos, so if you find any, don’t tell her. It’s probably something she told me to do and I missed it.
Author Tom North gave the manuscript a good British scrubbing. He changed my “drapes” to “curtains” and my “pants” into “trousers.” I owe him immensely for the time he took to save me from embarrassment.
To Maxim Jakubowski, Philip Sugden, and Alan Moore. I relied on each of your works regarding the Ripper crimes, and could not possibly have attempted this without being able to rely on your research and efforts.
Steve Colon of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit, who was kind enough to return my phone call and spend a good deal of time helping me figure out who Jack was. Not the actual historical Ripper’s identity, but the type of personality he would be. Up until I spoke to Steve I was spinning in circles trying to wrap my head around why Jack did this, killed that, and ate the leftovers. Steve told me it didn’t have to make sense to me. It just had to make sense to the killer. And after that, I was on my way.
To Morrissey, who kept me company while I wrote this in my lonely run-down apartment. Thank you for creating the soundtrack to WHITECHAPEL.
To my entire family, including Izdehar and my two children, you are the light that never goes out.
And finally, to Arthur Conan Doyle and all of my fellow Sherlockians. Thank you for creating and maintaining such a wonderful cast of characters throughout these many years. My heart rests firmly in your camp, and I will always consider myself a Baker Street Irregular.
The Official Bernard J. Schaffer website:
Email:
[email protected]
For the victims of Whitechapel,
both then and since.
You are not forgotten.
Bernard J. Schaffer is the author of the critically-acclaimed short-story collection WOMEN AND OTHER MONSTERS, and GUNS OF SENECA 6.
The Official Bernard J. Schaffer website:
Email:
[email protected]
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@ApiarySociety
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Table of Contents
ACT I: PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES
ACT IV: NOVEMBER SPAWNED A MONSTER
