sharp knife.
By the time he reported the next victory in his war against the “unfortunates” of the streets, his mood was giddy.
To-night a triumph-two of them dead-Berner-street and Mitre-square-two of the filthy creatures permanently suppressed-two less of the deuced vermin to fill the cots of the padding kens-
Couldn’t finish the first as I’d hoped-she was a fighter, had a knife of her own-I snatched it away, used it on her ha ha turnabout is fair play-short knife, not like mine-didn’t cut deep-no good for draining blood-would have done her properly but some Yid carman interrupted-him and his pony and cart-
Damnable shame not finishing the first but it turned all right-
My blood still hot I found another-did her good-she had no more blood in her than a stone when I was through-I took away a piece of her in my tobacco pouch-
She had eyes like Kitty's-wide staring eyes-
According to the timeline, two prostitutes-Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes-were killed on the same night. Eddowes’ kidney had been taken.
Fried up part of the kidney. Was greasy. Needed salt.
Jennifer felt her stomach recoil.
Now they say I hate Jews. All because of some nonsense scribbled on a doorway. Donkeys!! I left no message. The bit of bloody apron they found by the door-I must have dropped it-carelessness, no more.
Anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered near a scrap of Eddowes’ apron.
The woman on Berner-street is said to have been accosted by some ruffian while another lurked in the shadows-ha ha- another false trail for the bloodhounds. It must have happened before I met her. No wonder she had her short knife ready.
The diarist no longer bothered to record his victims’ names. They were not people to him.
They make it all so complicated-conspiracies-slanders on the Jews-lookouts in the shadows- political motives, religious mania. They can not conceive of how simple it is.
Betrayed by a whore, I seek satisfaction from all their kind. And from Kitty herself, one day.
But not yet. Not whilst she still may be linked to me. I am clever, superlatively crafty. I bide my time and outwit them all.
His megalomania was escalating. She expected further signs of overstimulation and personality disintegration.
Drinking too much. Can’t sleep. Out at all hours. Come home late. Pace floor.
Passed woman on street. She shrank from me. Saw something in my eyes. Must beware of giving myself away.
Wisp and the others regard me strangely. Students whisper. They don’t suspect. They only know I’m not myself.
Kidney is gone. What happened to it? I remember nothing.
Mystery solved. Lusk, head of the vigilance committee, got the kidney in the post. Wrapped in a note. I have no memory of writing it. Damned lucky I didn’t give myself away.
Half a kidney in a brown pasteboard parcel was mailed anonymously to George Lusk, who had started a kind of neighborhood watch organization to combat the Ripper. It was accompanied by a semicoherent note datelined “from hell.”
The note gave her an idea. She opened a book that reproduced letters purportedly from the Ripper. Thumbing through the pages, she found a large photo of the most famous one, known as the “Dear Boss letter,” in which the name Jack the Ripper first appeared. She compared the handwriting with that of the diarist.
She was no graphologist, but as best she could tell, the writing matched the careful copperplate of the diary’s earlier entries. There were the same oversized capitals-especially the word I, narcissistically enlarged-the same dangling descenders, the same tendency to underline key words for emphasis, the same minuscule periods and apostrophes that often nearly vanished altogether. There was minimal punctuation, notably a scarcity of commas. And there was the repeated and underlined interjection ha ha.
A postcard followed the letter. Though it had been lost, a photo of it, taken by police at the time, remained extant and was reproduced in the book. The card had been written quickly, with none of the panache of the first letter, but the writing seemed to match that of the Dear Boss letter and the less disciplined diary passages.
She kept turning pages until she found the cover note from the package with the kidney. This one was written in a frenetic scrawl. The diarist had implied he was drunk when he composed it. The ragged scribbles matched the wildest entries in the diary, the ones showing the greatest decay of self-control.
In the days after mailing his ominous parcel, his condition worsened.
Go out nightly. Roam the streets. Constables everywhere. No opportunities. My head rarely clear. Thoughts run like a millrace. Too much gin and ale. Insufficient nourishment. Wasting away. Must put myself together. Scarcely recognise myself in the cheval-glass. Even Vole remarked on it. Asked if I were ill. Smirked when he said it. They mock me. They don’t know who they are dealing with. I am more than any of them. I have thrown the city into a panic. Every policeman hunts me. Every whore imagines my fingers on her throat. Newsboys cry themselves hoarse on every footway seeking to slake the disgustful curiousity of the multitude.
His penmanship was wildly erratic now, many of the words barely legible. He was breaking down-breaking apart.
This night will bring a great new victory. I sense it. As if with psychical powers I foresee the future.
Oceans of blood.
A blank page followed, as if to mark the momentous event. On the next page there was just one line of small, neat, careful script.
Done. It is done. Can not write of it this morning. There are no words…
The Ripper’s fifth victim was Mary Kelly. Photos had been taken of the crime scene, grainy black-and-white images of appalling slaughter. The woman had been torn to pieces in her bed.
Her pretty face-now no face at all. In the dance of the fireglow from the hearth I obliterated her. She did scream once. ‘Murder’ she cried. I feared someone would come. But this was Miller’s-court. The inhabitants are animals. They cowered in their dens.
