he’s killed now, this Ripper,” I said. “You need all of your men for your investigation.”
The Inspector rubbed the side of his nose, a mannerism I was coming to recognize indicated uncertainty. “As a matter of fact, Mrs.
Wickham, I am of the opinion that only four were killed by the same man. You are thinking of the woman murdered near St. Jude’s Church? And the one on Osborn Street?” He shook his head. “Not the Ripper’s work, I’m convinced of it.”
“What makes you think so, Inspector?”
“Because while those two women did have their throats cut, they weren’t cut in the same manner as the later victims.” There is vicious-ness in the way the Ripper slashes his victims’ throats…he is left-handed, we know, and he slashes twice, once each way. The cuts are deep, brutal…he almost took Annie Chapman’s head off. No, Polly Nichols was his first victim, then Chapman. And now this double murder, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Those four are all the work of the same man.”
I shuddered. “Did the four women know one another?”
“Not that we can determine,” Inspector Abberline replied.
“Evidently they had nothing in common except the fact that they were all four prostitutes.”
More questions occurred to me, but I had detained the Inspector long enough. I bade him farewell and started back to St. Jude’s, a long walk from Golden Lane. The daylight was beginning to fail, but I had no money for a hansom cab. I pulled my shawl tight about my shoulders and hurried my step, not wishing to be caught out of doors after dark. It was my husband’s opinion that since the Ripper killed only prostitutes, respectable married women had nothing to fear. It was my opinion that my husband put altogether too much faith in the Ripper’s ability to tell the difference.
I was almost home when a most unhappy incident ensued. A distraught woman approached me on Middlesex Street, carrying what looked like a bundle of rags which she thrust into my arms.
Inside the rags was a dead baby. I cried out and almost dropped the cold little body.
“All he needed were a bit o’ milk,” the mother said, tears running down her cheeks.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” I gasped helplessly. The poor woman looked half-starved herself.
“They said it was no use a-sending to the church,” she sobbed,
“for you didn’t never give nothing though you spoke kind.”
I was so ashamed I had to lower my head. Even then I didn’t have tuppence in my pocket to give her. I slipped off my shawl and wrapped it around the tiny corpse. “Bury him in this.”
She mumbled something as she took the bundle from me and staggered away. She would prepare to bury her child in the shawl, but at the last moment she would snatch back the shawl’s warmth for herself. She would cry over her dead baby as she did it, but she would do it. I prayed that she would do it.
This morning I paid an out-of-work bricklayer fourpence to clean out our fireplaces. In the big fireplace in the kitchen, he made a surprising discovery: soot-blackened buttons from my husband’s missing chambray shirt turned up. When later I asked Edward why he had burned his best shirt, he looked at me in utter astonishment and demanded to know why I had burned it. Yet we two are the only ones living at the vicarage.
The chemist regretfully informed me that the price of arsenic had risen, so of necessity I purchased less than the usual quantity, hoping Edward would find the diminished volume sufficient. Keeping the vicarage free of rats was costly. When first we took up residence at St. Jude’s, we believed the rats were coming from the warehouses farther along Commercial Street; but then we came to understand that every structure in Whitechapel was plagued with vermin. As fast as one killed them, others appeared to take their place.
A newspaper posted outside an alehouse caught my eye; I had made it a point to read every word published about the Ripper. The only new thing was that all efforts to locate the family of Catherine Eddowes, the Ripper’s last victim, had failed. A front-page editorial demanded the resignation of the Commissioner of Police and various other men in authority. Three weeks had passed since the Ripper had taken two victims on the same night, and the police still had no helpful clues and no idea of who the Ripper was or when he would strike next. That he would strike again, no one doubted; that the police could protect the women of Whitechapel, no one believed.
In the next street I came upon a posted bill requesting anyone with information concerning the identity of the murderer to step forward and convey that information to the police. The request saddened me; the police could not have formulated a clearer admission of failure.
Edward is ill. When he had not appeared at the vicarage by tea time yesterday, I began to worry. I spent an anxious evening awaiting his return; it was well after midnight before I heard his key in the lock.
He looked like a stranger. His eyes were glistening and his clothes in disarray; his usual proud bearing had degenerated into a stoop, his shoulders hunched as if he were cold. The moment he caught sight of me he began berating me for failing to purchase the arsenic he needed to kill the rats; it was only when I led him to the pantry where he himself had spread the noxious powder around the rat holes did his reprimands cease. His skin was hot and dry, and with difficulty I persuaded him into bed.
But sleep would not come. I sat by the bed and watched him thrashing among the covers, throwing off the cool cloth I had placed on his forehead. Edward kept waving his hands as if trying to fend someone off; what nightmares was he seeing behind those closed lids? In his delirium he began to cry out. At first the words were not clear, but then I understood my husband to be saying, “Whores!
Whores! All whores!”
When by two in the morning his fever had not broken, I knew I had to seek help. I wrapped my cloak about me and set forth, not permitting myself to dwell on what could be hiding in the shadows. I do not like admitting it, but I was terrified; nothing less than Edward’s illness could have driven me into the streets of Whitechapel at night. But I reached my destination with nothing untoward happening; I roused Dr. Phelps from a sound sleep and rode back to the vicarage with him in his carriage.
When Dr. Phelps bent over the bed, Edward’s eyes flew open; he seized the doctor’s upper arm in a grip that made the man wince.
“They must be stopped!” my husband whispered hoarsely.
“They…must be stopped!”
“We will stop them,” Dr. Phelps replied gently and eased Edward’s hand away. Edward’s eyes closed and his body resumed its thrashing.
The doctor’s examination was brief. “The fever is making him hallucinate,” he told me. “Sleep is the best cure, followed by a period of bed rest.” He took a small vial from his bag and asked me to bring a glass of water. He tapped a few drops of liquid into the water, which he then poured into Edward’s mouth as I held his head.
“What did you give him?” I asked.
“Laudanum, to make him sleep. I will leave the vial with you.”
Dr. Phelps rubbed his right arm where Edward had gripped him.
“Strange, I do not recall Mr. Wickham as being left-handed.”
“He is ambidextrous. This fever…will he recover?”
“The next few hours will tell. Give him more laudanum only if he awakes in this same disturbed condition, and then only one drop in a glass of water. I will be back later to see how he is.”
When Dr. Phelps had gone, I replaced the cool cloth on Edward’s forehead and resumed my seat by the bed. Edward did seem calmer now, the wild thrashing at an end and only the occasional twitching of the hands betraying his inner turmoil. By dawn he was in a deep sleep and seemed less feverish.
My spirit was too disturbed to permit me to sleep. I decided to busy myself with household chores. Edward’s black greatcoat was in need of a good brushing, so that came first. It was then that I discovered the rust-colored stains on the cuffs; they did not look fresh, but I could not be certain. Removing them was a delicate matter. The coat had seen better days and the cloth would not withstand vigorous handling. But eventually I got the worst of the stains out and hung the coat in the armoire.
Then I knelt by the bedroom window and prayed. I asked God to vanquish the dark suspicions that had begun
