A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (10 page)

I was still shaking, unnerved by my own terrible nightmares, and my imagined, though psychologically very real, encounter with the masked killer. My own mental equilibrium had certainly been profoundly disturbed by the last few hours, the letter from my father, great-grandfather's note, the journal itself, and the dreams. Though I wouldn't have cared to admit it, I was being drawn deeper and deeper into a world far removed from the reality of normal life, into a darkness not of my choosing, in short, I was identifying with, and being given a taste of the madness of the Ripper.

I was intrigued by the mysterious 'T'. He'd mentioned the man before, without a clue as to his identity. Once more he had referred to him simply by initial, whilst clearly identifying my great-grandfather by name. Why? He obviously felt a need to protect 'T' from exposure, even in his private journal. Was he a close relative, or perhaps a friend of some social standing? Maybe I'd find out as the journal progressed.

I had to admit that this entry was perhaps the most lucid so far. It certainly seemed to make more sense than some of his earlier entries; there was less rambling incoherence in his words. My great-grandfather had obviously offered to accept him as a patient, which he'd declined, indicating he must have had the financial means to pay for any such treatment. The Ripper had, however, seen some sense in great-grandfather's suggestion that he 'take the air'. His words indicated to me that perhaps he had family or friends both in the country and on the coast. I doubted he would have explored either option without knowing of some accommodating and friendly potential host. Was he, I wondered, becoming bored with the whole business of killing? His writing suggested that he was deriving no pleasure from the murders, and needed to refresh his blood lust. Even his voices were silent, his head probably so clouded by a laudanum-induced stupor that he was numb even to that part of his psychosis. I pitied the poor family member or acquaintances on whom he may foist himself in the near future. They would be totally unaware of the fact that the most notorious killer ever to walk the streets of London was their houseguest.

As for my great-grandfather, well, Doctor Burton Cleveland Cavendish did indeed live in a sumptuous residence. As a youngster I had been suitably impressed by old family photographs showing his house on a long disappeared tree-lined avenue in the Charing Cross area of London. The house did indeed have an imposing façade, with five or six steps, flanked by polished iron railings, leading up to the heavy oak double entrance doors, complete with gleaming brass letterbox and door handles. Though black and white, the photographs left no reason for doubting the wealth of its owner. Burton Cavendish had begun his career as a humble general practitioner, rising to become a skilled surgeon, and eventually deciding to specialize in diseases of the brain. As his wealth increased, so did his sense of philanthropy, and he would regularly devote a portion of his time to providing free consultations at the Colney Hatch Asylum. I doubt whether his reasons were entirely unselfish of course, as his visits to the asylum would have brought him into contact with many patients who would be suffering from far more diverse afflictions than he would be likely to encounter in his comfortable private practice. In short, the asylum was filled to the brim with an abundance of research material, human guinea pigs! If that sounds callous, I should point out that in the nineteenth century there were few psychiatric text books, even fewer hospitals specializing in the treatment of psychological disorders, and the only way for a doctor to study and therefore learn to treat such illnesses, was by contact with the sufferers of such ailments, and, the more severe the affliction, the greater the opportunity to study its effects and causes, the better to discover a cure.

Bearing in mind that in terms of distance the Charing Cross area was not far from Whitechapel, though in terms of its affluence it was a world away, I had no reason to doubt that the writer of the journal had indeed visited the home of my great-grandfather, and that thought in itself caused me to shiver once more. Though I had only seen photographs of the house, and never actually visited it due to it having been demolished years before my birth, it still managed to make me feel a strange sense of disturbance that the Ripper may have sat enjoying afternoon tea or some such social nicety with my ancestor while the entire population of London, and indeed the country, thanks to press reports in all the major newspapers of the day, were seeking his apprehension and conviction.

Then again, little was made, in his own words, of his relationship with my great-grandfather. They 'weren't close', he wondered how my great-grandfather perceived him, and yet he'd written they saw each other often, though they 'hardly knew each other'. Was there a professional link, (some thought the Ripper to be a doctor or medical man of sorts), a social connection, or worst of all, could Jack the Ripper have some tenuous link as a distant family member? My senses positively baulked at that last possibility. I couldn't even countenance such a thing, though I couldn't totally disregard it. It is possible after all to 'hardly know' a relative as the writer put it, if one has little or no contact with that person for a length of time, or indeed throughout the course of their life. Perhaps my great-grandfather would explain all in his own notes, to which I'd come in due course of my study of this incredible, horrifying, yet riveting document.

A quick reference to my research notes showed that there was in fact a lull of twenty two days between the killing of Annie Chapman and the next, (and violently bloody) murder, or should I say murders, as, on the night of 30
^th
September Jack the Ripper would commit not one, but two abominable atrocities. Could it be that between the murder of Chapman and the grisly double killing the Ripper actually went on holiday? Did he become so ill as to be incapable of continuing his murderous quest; was he indeed hospitalized, and, horror or horrors, released back into the community in time to kill again? What twisted path would the journal lead me down, what revelations might be lying in wait for me on the next, and subsequent pages of the astonishing story unfolding in words before my eyes. Was I about to discover the secret of this missing three weeks in the murderous career of Jack the Ripper?

Though tired, and to some extent numb from my broken sleep and nightmares, and the horrific thought that I may be connected by the ties of birth to the bloody slayer of defenceless women, I stretched my arms, reaching towards the ceiling, forcing my eyes to open, despite the unconscious desire to drift off again into slumber. Afraid to know what would come next, yet at the same time caught up in the intrigue of the journal, as the clock continued its inexorable ticking on the wall I prepared to turn to the next page.

A Pause for Thought

Don't ask me why, but just as I was about to turn to the next page in the journal, something stopped me. I couldn't to this day say what it was, perhaps it was the tiredness, the after-affects of the nightmares, or just a basic need to escape the intensity of the situation for a few minutes, but I decided to lay down the journal and instead look further into the environment, the world inhabited by the Ripper and his victims. Perhaps I was becoming more unsettled than I imagined by the journal and it's recurrent theme of bloodthirsty murder, the potentially insane ramblings of a man reviled by history, and the fact that here, in my study, on my desk, was a document that may have been handled by, and written in the hand of the notorious Jack the Ripper. Was I handling the same papers he had held, placing my own imprint, my fingerprints over those of the Ripper himself?

Of course, it was obvious that my own father and those before him had handled the documents, and there would be various prints upon the pages, but it seemed ironic that somewhere on these pages was the potential means of identifying the Whitechapel murderer conclusively, if only there had been a fingerprint record, a database of sorts from the time of the murders. No such records existed of course, and any fingerprints on the pages were irrelevant as a source of identification, and, at best, if made public, would merely have curiosity value. Enough of this speculation! I wanted to know and understand more of the world as seen through Victorian eyes, including those of my great-grandfather. I turned once more to the computer. Much of what I'd already gleaned about the Ripper and his victims had been found at www.casebook.org, an internet website devoted to the study of the Jack the Ripper case. With hundreds of members worldwide, The Casebook furnished those with an interest in the case with not only details of the crimes themselves, but also with a wealth of detail and information relating to Victorian London, accompanied by a collection of informative and evocative photographs. I clicked onto the site once more, and delved deeper into the world of the Victorians.

Certainly, the London inhabited by my great-grandfather would have seemed like another world to the average inhabitant of the East End. My grandfather's wealth and social standing in the community enabled him to live a privileged existence. He was able to afford the best of food and clothes, was attended by a retinue of domestic servants in his quite palatial London home, and his social life would probably have revolved around visits to friends, the theatre, the races, and of course his private gentlemen's club. My great-grandmother would have filled her time 'receiving' guests, taking tea with her visitors, and perhaps engaging in a little charity work. Even the slightly affluent middle classes would have thought nothing of employing at least one, and perhaps more servants in their comfortable homes, far removed from the slums of Whitechapel and its like. As for the real gentry, the royal family, the lords, ladies and gentlemen of the royal court, their lives would have been even further removed from the reality of the everyday drudgery that was the lot of their most humble fellow Londoners.

The vast majority of those poor unfortunates unlucky enough to inhabit the East End of London in the late nineteenth century lived in an almost continual state of abject poverty. Housing, where it existed was of poor quality, and whole families would often be forced to live in one, cold, cramped, unheated room. Windows would often be glassless, and to keep out the draughts, many would stuff the gaps with old newspapers, or rags, anything indeed to keep out the biting cold of winter. Work was often transient, and always hard, with wages often barely enough to live on. Disease and general ill-health were rife, hardly surprising when one considers that the streets themselves were little more than the most squalid open sewers, and that personal hygiene was virtually non-existent.

Many of those with no home of their own would move from place to place, often sleeping in 'Doss' houses where a bed could be purchased for a few pennies a night. Quite often there would be sixty or seventy people sharing a communal bedroom in these houses, which were more like hostels than homes. Many itinerant workers and the women who prostituted themselves on the streets of the East End would utilize the Doss houses on a regular basis.

A number of dignitaries and celebrities of the day visited the East End, only to be appalled by the degradation and deprivation that existed there. The authors Jack London and Beatrix Potter, and Charles Dickens no less, had all attempted to draw attention to the poverty and poor standards of living of their fellow human beings in Whitechapel and its surrounds, but little was done to help alleviate their daily struggle for existence.

Women, of course, fared even worse then the men in this vast melting pot of disease and poverty. In the nineteenth century, a working-class girl was considered suitable for nothing more than the most menial of work, and then for eventual marriage. What little education available was directed towards boys. With a prolific death rate, and the possibility of widowhood at a young age (an everyday occurrence in this cess-pool of humanity), it was little wonder that so many women, either by choice or circumstance, were drawn into the murky and dangerous world of prostitution.

I felt it important to remember as I read these facts, however, that the Ripper's victims, like all those poor unfortunates who plied their trade on the streets by night, were not born into prostitution. In fact, many were born to respectable families, grew up to be married, bore children, and prostitution tended to be the last resort for many as their lives disintegrated around them through death, divorce, abandonment, alcoholism, or for many other reasons. I was struck particularly during my reading of The Casebook's files on the victims, to see a beautifully posed formal photograph of Annie Chapman and her husband John, a coachman, taken in 1869, and further photos of her children. The picture of normality, of domesticity evoked by these images served to remind me, and should remind others, that, like all the victims of both The Ripper and the system that produced them, these were normal everyday women, not some kind of misfits or rejects. History has, the thought struck me, dehumanized the victims of The Ripper to some extent. We've forgotten that they were living, breathing, warm and vital souls, wanting nothing more than to live, to eat, sleep, and exist alongside their fellow human beings, no matter how sad and squalid their lives may have become.

Annie Chapman had had her own fair share of unhappiness. One of her daughters had died of meningitis aged just twelve years, her son was a cripple, and her marriage disintegrated, (both she and her husband were reputed to be heavy drinkers). John Chapman apparently paid his wife maintenance of ten shillings (fifty pence) a week, which continued until his death from cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy on Christmas day 1886. Annie was said to be distraught upon hearing the news, and it was only after his death that Annie is known to have taken to prostitution, as the only means left to her to maintain herself. At the time of her death she had been living in a lodging house on the infamous Dorset Street in Spitalfields, a street comprising a labyrinth of poor quality lodging houses, the location of three taverns of less than good repute, and a notorious site for the operations of local prostitutes. Here, in these smoke filled microcosmic dens of iniquity, the jangling sounds of old, out-of-tune upright pianos would merge with the raucous voices of gin-soaked prostitutes and their equally drunken clients, where fights amongst the customers were a regular nightly occurrence. Whatever domestic normality Annie Chapman may once have enjoyed, it was sad to realise how far this once respectable woman had fallen in the two years prior to her eventual murder at the hands of The Ripper.