A fist of ice closed around my heart; the constable’s facial expression already told me, but I had to ask nonetheless. I swallowed and said, “Is it the Ripper?”
He nodded slowly. “It appears so, ma’am. I’ve sent for Inspector Abberline — you there, stand back!” Then, to me again: “He’s not never killed indoors afore. This is new for him.”
I was having trouble catching my breath. “That means…he didn’t have to be quick this time. That means he could take as much time as he liked.”
The constable was clenching and unclenching his jaw. “Yes’m.
He took his time.”
“The rent-collector found her. Here, Thomas, what’s her name again?”
A small, frightened-looking man spoke up. “Mary…Mary Kelly. Three months behind in ’er rent, she was. I thought she was hidin’ from me.”
The constable scowled. “So you broke the window to try to get in?”
“’Ere, now, that winder’s been broke these past six weeks! I pulled out the bit o’ rag she’d stuffed in the hole so I could reach through and push back the curtain — just like you done, guv’nor, when you wanted to see in!” The rent-collector had more to say, but his words were drowned out by the growing noise of the crowd, which by now had so multiplied in its numbers that it overflowed from Miller’s Court into a passageway leading to the street. A few women were sobbing, one of them close to screaming.
Inspector Abberline arrived with two other men, all three of them looking grim. The Inspector immediately tried the door and found it locked. “Break out the rest of the window,” he ordered. “The rest of you, stand back. Mrs. Wickham, what are you doing here? Break in the window, I say!”
One of his men broke out the rest of the glass and crawled over the sill. We heard a brief, muffled cry, and then the door was opened from the inside. Inspector Abberline and his other man pushed into the room…and the latter abruptly rushed back out again, retching.
The constable hastened to his aid, and without stepping to think about it, I stepped into the room.
What was left of Mary Kelly was lying on a cot next to a small table. Her throat had been cut so savagely that her head was nearly severed. Her left shoulder had been chopped through so that her arm remained attached to the body only by a flap of skin. Her face had been slashed and disfigured, and her nose had been hacked away…and carefully laid on the small table beside the cot. Her breasts had been sliced off and placed on the same table. The skin had been peeled from her forehead; her thighs had also been stripped of their skin. The legs themselves had been spread in an indecent posture and then slashed to the bone. And Mary Kelly’s abdomen had been ripped open, and between her feet lay one of her internal organs…possibly the liver. On the table lay a piece of the victim’s brown plaid woolen petticoat half-wrapped around still another organ. The missing skin had been carefully mounded on the table next to the other body parts, as if the Ripper were rebuilding his victim. But this time the killer had not piled the intestines above his victim’s shoulder as he’d done before; this time, he had taken them away with him. Then as a final embellishment, he had pushed Mary Kelly’s right hand into her ripped-open stomach.
I felt a hand grip my arm and steer me firmly outside. “You shouldn’t be in here, Mrs. Wickham,” Inspector Abberline said. He left me leaning against the wall of the building as he went back inside; a hand touched my shoulder and Thomas the rent-collector said, “There’s a place to sit, over ’ere.” He led me to an upended wooden crate, where I sank down gratefully. I sat with my head bent over my knees for some time before I could collect myself enough to utter a prayer for Mary Kelly’s soul.
Inspector Abberline’s men were asking questions of everyone in the crowd. When one of them approached me, I explained I’d never known Mary Kelly and was here only because of the birth of the Macklin baby in the same building. The Inspector himself came over and commanded me to go home; I was not inclined to dispute the order.
“It appears this latest victim does not fit your pattern,” the Inspector said as I was leaving. “Mary Kelly was a prostitute, but she was still in her early twenties. And from what we’ve learned so far, she had no husband and no children.”
So the last victim had been neither middle-aged, nor married, nor a mother. It was impossible to tell whether poor Mary Kelly had been homely or not. But the Ripper had clearly chosen a woman this time who was markedly different from his earlier victims, deviating from his customary pattern. I wondered what it meant; had some change taken place in his warped, evil mind?
Had he progressed one step deeper into madness?
I thought about that on the way home from Miller’s Court. I thought about that, and about Edward.
It was almost noon by the time I reached the vicarage. Edward was there, fast asleep. Normally he never slept during the day, but the small vial of laudanum Dr. Phelps had left was on the bedside table; Edward had drugged himself into a state of oblivion.
I picked up his clothes from the floor where he’d dropped them and went over every piece carefully; not a drop of blood anywhere.
But the butchering of Mary Kelly had taken place indoors; the butcher could simply have removed his clothing before beginning his “work.” Next I checked all the fireplaces, but none of them had been used to burn anything. It
I didn’t know how long Edward had been blacking out; it was probably not as singular as it seemed that one of his spells should coincide with a Ripper slaying. That’s what I told myself.
The night had exhausted me. I had no appetite but a cup of fresh tea would be welcome. I was on my way to the kitchen when a knock at the door stopped me. It was the constable I’d spoken to at Miller’s Court.
He handed me an envelope. “Inspector Abberline said to give you this.” He touched his cap and was gone.
I went to stand by the window where the light was better. Inside the envelope was a hastily scrawled note.
So. Last night the Ripper had taken two lives instead of one, assuring that a fertile young woman would never bear children to suffer the risk of being forsaken. It was not in the Ripper’s nature to consider that his victims had themselves been abandoned in their time of need. Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes had all taken to drink for reasons no one would ever know and had subsequently been turned out of their homes. And now there was Mary Kelly, widowed while little more than a child and with no livelihood — undoubtedly she lacked the education and resources to support herself honorably. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary… they had all led immoral and degraded lives, every one of them. But in not even one instance had it been a matter of choice.
I put Inspector Abberline’s note in a drawer in the writing table and returned to the kitchen; I’d need to start a fire to make the tea.
The wood box had recently been filled, necessitating my moving the larger pieces to get at the twigs underneath. Something else was underneath as well. I pulled out a long strip of brown plaid wool cloth with brown stains on it. Brown plaid wool. Mary Kelly’s petticoat. Mary Kelly’s blood.
The room began to whirl. There it was. No more making of excuses. No more denying the truth. I was married to the Ripper.
For twelve years Edward had kept the odious secret of his abnormal inner being, hiding behind a mask of
