Page 83 of The Business of Blood
“I’m not, but these were uncommon circumstances.”
He conceded with a few vigorous nods. “I’ll grant you that, Miss Mahoney. I’ll grant you that.”
“Inspector Aberline!” A stout, round-faced constable burst into the office without a cursory knock.
Astonishment drove us both to our feet.
“What is it, Johns?” Aberline asked in a voice that left thethis had better be goodunspoken but unmistakable.
“Another Whitechapel murder, sir. Inspector Croft sent for you.” Police Constable Johns glanced at me before muttering. “He says to prepare yourself. This one’s…right bizarre.”
Aberline was already punching his arms into his coat. “Ready a coach,” he ordered.
“Already done, sir.”
Patting different pockets of his vest, Aberline took stock of his office, conducting some sort of mental checklist. “This week has become nothing more than a constant stream of disasters interrupted by a few catastrophes.” He lifted the letter from his desk and handed it back to me. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that you’ll stay away from this murder.”
“I’m afraid not, Inspector.” I took the letter and tucked it into my pocket.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, swiping at eyes already burdened with bags of exhaustion before opening the door for me. “After you, then.”
* * *
Ghoulston Street was notunknown to me, nor to anyone familiar with the events of the Autumn of Terror. That a gruesome murder should have occurred here seemed both macabre and apropos.
Just after the bustle of Aldgate High Street gave way to the deteriorating Whitechapel High Street, Aberline and I turned onto the ghoulishly named road. It was positioned exactly equidistant from Mitre Square, where Catherine Eddowes’ mutilated body had been left on the night of the double event, and Miller’s Court where I—we—found Mary Kelly some weeks after.
Ghoulston Street struggled to accept our coach. It was an ancient place never destined for two-way traffic. On the east side of the road, lines of filthy tenements barely fit for human habitation waited. And to the west, a long, dilapidated building once used for industry stood, now abandoned by all but every imaginable sort of vermin.
Two years before, on a frigid Sunday in September, after the double event wherein Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes had been slaughtered, a police constable discovered a scrap of an apron soaked in blood in the stairwell of a tenement on this very street. Number 108, if I remembered correctly. The remnant of material was later confirmed to have belonged to Catherine Eddowes, taken from her apron at the murder scene. Above it, a graffito had reportedly been scribed in white chalk.
I sayreportedlybecause police Superintendent Thomas Arnold had ordered it scrubbed away before a photograph could be taken. It seemed like a right idiotic thing to do, but I believed his motives were pure. London had been plagued by riots then, as well, and they were largely anti-Semitic in nature. Three different versions of the graffito were noted by three separate investigators, who were supposed witnesses. They were as follows.
The first:The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.
The second:The Juwes are not the men who will be blamed for nothing.
The third:The Juws are not the men to be blamed for nothing.
This is relevant because the Jews—one in particular—were under intense Ripper suspicion at the time.
John Pizer, a bootmaker by trade, had amassed a reputation for violence against prostitutes. He’d been dubbedLeather Apron, by those who knew him, and his arrest resulted in several vicious anti-Semitic demonstrations even after he’d provided an alibi.
Israel Schwartz, a Jew of Hungarian nationality, had claimed to have interrupted the attack of Elizabeth Stride, but he ran instead of helping her. Louis Diemshutz stated that he interrupted her subsequent mutilation. It is believed that the Ripper killed Catherine Eddowes out of the frustration caused by the interruptions of two separate Hebrew men.
Three schools of thought circulate about the message:
One, that yet another Jew found the bloody scrap of apron, correctly guessed its origin, and hastily scribbled the message in a poor attempt to divert suspicion from his people.
Another, that upon fleeing Eddowes’ murder scene, Jack the Ripper wrote the cryptic message to illustrate his frustration at the Jews, who’d repeatedly disrupted his work that night.
And the third, that the faded and almost illegible graffito could have adorned the stairwell of Number 108 Ghoulston Street for any number of days, and that the Ripper had discarded his blood-soaked trophy there was happenstance—thereby unrelated.
Neither Aberline, Croft, nor I had seen the message with our own eyes, but I’d visited Ghoulston Street on a few occasions. If only to stand where the Ripper might have stood, looking toward the direction of Miller’s Court whilst contemplating what the message might have meant to him.
Had he been angry with the meddlesome Jews that night? Or…had he been one himself, and struck with a benevolent protectiveness of an innocent people suffering for his perverse deeds?
It all depended on numerous factors, I decided as I trundled up the filthy street with Aberline. I was still unable to make up my mind. To be honest, I’d always thought Jack a clever killer. At least literate, if not erudite. The rather crude execution of all three versions of the message never struck me as his.
