A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (21 page)

I left the police station after almost two hours, two of the most depressing hours of my life. Ross's rigid stare, his silence, and the feeling that the police could somehow see straight through me to my own internal disturbances made me want to run from the place as though I were the criminal, as opposed to the man in the white boiler suit.

On arriving home, I unlocked the front door, entered the hallway, quickly locked it again, and sagged against the door, my back against its solid oak panels. The house felt cold and I shivered. Perhaps I was shaking rather than shivering, by then it had become difficult to tell one from the other.

I made my way to the study. I'd lost valuable time by visiting the police station, and I wanted to complete my exploration of the Ripper's world before Sarah returned in a day or two. It wouldn't do to have her exposed to the strange phenomenon that was the journal itself, or for her to see me in this state of heightened anxiety, bordering on panic.

I opened the study door, (I couldn't remember closing it when I left), and peered across the room towards my desk. The journal lay exactly where I'd left it, but as I looked at it I could have sworn that I'd heard a hushed whisper from within the room, and that the pages themselves were moving, gently rising and falling, as though infused with life, breathing softly on the desk. That was nonsense I told myself quickly, the movement was obviously stirred by the draught I'd caused by opening the door, and the sound was just my imagination. Rooms didn't whisper nor journals breathe, did they?

Despite the early hour, I poured myself a small whisky I felt I deserved. I sat in my chair once more, and reached out for the journal. It took quite an effort to stop my hands from shaking, but the warm pages of the Ripper's secret confession were soon in my hands again.

He had omitted to make any entries for three days since the 1
^st
October, and the next entry, dated the 5
^th
October was surprising in its literacy and in the revealingly chilling message it carried. Written like his letter to the press in red ink, with word-perfect spelling and punctuation, it read:

5
^th
October 1888

Blood, beautiful, thick, rich, red, venous blood.

Its' colour fills my eyes, its' scent assaults my nostrils,

Its taste hangs sweetly on my lips.

Last night once more the voices called to me,

And I did venture forth, their bidding, their unholy quest to undertake.

Through mean, gas lit, fog shrouded streets, I wandered in the night, selected, struck, with flashing blade,

And oh, how the blood did run, pouring out upon the street, soaking through the cobbled cracks, spurting, like a fountain of pure red.

Viscera leaking from ripped red gut, my clothes assumed the smell of freshly butchered meat. The squalid, dark, street shadows beckoned, and under leaning darkened eaves, like a wraith I disappeared once more into the cheerless night,

The bloodlust of the voices again fulfilled, for a while.......

They will call again, and I once more will prowl the streets upon the night,

The blood will flow like a river once again.

Beware all those who would stand against the call,

I shall not be stopped or taken, no, not I.

Sleep fair city, while you can, while the voices within are still,

I am resting, but my time shall come again. I shall rise in a glorious bloodfest,

I shall taste again the fear as the blade slices sharply through yielding flesh,

when the voices raise the clarion call, and my time shall come again.

So I say again, good citizens, sleep, for there will be a next time...........

Any doubts I may have harboured about the Ripper having been an educated man were dispelled by this horrendously gloating entry. He had written almost poetically of his crimes, and this one entry, perhaps more than any other so far, gave me a vivid and terrible insight into the mind of the notorious Whitechapel murderer. I presumed he'd written it immediately after the night of the double murder, (though I supposed it could have been written after any of the murders), and transferred it to his journal later. His reference to making his escape '
under leaning darkened eaves'
did, however, bring to my mind a picture of the yard in Berner street from which he'd so narrowly escaped detection. His illness was now plain to see, his mind probably beginning to finally give way under the weight of his appalling crimes. Having killed two women in one night, and with the mutilations and atrocities against his victims' bodies growing in ferocity with each murder, I knew that he was approaching a point where the sheer immensity and horror of his own wrong-doing would eventually overflow and lead to a massive breakdown. Though it was over three weeks away, I knew in my heart and mind that the murder of Mary Kelly, probably the most vicious and visually horrifying of the Ripper murders, had probably 'sent him over the edge', and that whatever came afterwards, hopefully to be explained either by the Ripper himself or in my great-grandfathers notes, would prove that final deterioration beyond a doubt, and reveal the reason for the Rippers' disappearance after the date of Kelly's murder. After all, there had been no arrest, no rumours of a strong suspect, and the murderer had simply seemed to fade away, back into the darkness from which he'd come, never to be heard from again. Why?

The journal was getting thinner. I knew the final answers couldn't be far away, and as I sat reading and re-reading the latest terrible entry, I was once again gripped by an inexplicable tension and a fear that I may not be prepared for what I was about to learn.

This last poetic entry had said that he was 'resting'. Was it a conscious and deliberate ploy on his part to disappear from view, escape the public's attentions before perpetrating his last and most gruesome killing? He'd written that the voices themselves had left him for the moment; that they, too, were at rest. It was clear that the voices were his motivation for the killings, 'the
bloodlust of the voices again fulfilled'
his own control over his actions by then were severely diminished, and his mind, close to its final descent into insanity was in need of time to recuperate, to regain a degree of normality, in order for him to plan and execute his next, and ultimately his last appearance on the streets of Whitechapel.

As I replaced the journal on the desk I found myself asking when my great-grandfather would make another 'appearance' in the journal. Would there be any further notes inserted into the pages of the Rippers words, or would I have to wait until the end in order to decipher whatever secret had been held so closely in the family for so long? Surely, the identity of the Ripper was there, waiting to be revealed to me when I reached that last page, the last note. Not only that, but my family's involvement, however small, must be there. How I resisted the temptation to flip through to the end at that point I don't know, but something stopped me doing so. I had to continue as I was, page by page, reading about and 'seeing' the horrors of the murders as they happened, before I could be allowed to witness the final revelations of the journal.

My head had begun to throb once more as I realised that the Ripper had made no reference to laudanum in the last entry. Had he weaned himself off it? Surely not. Perhaps he was by now so used to taking it that he considered it irrelevant to include in his journal. More likely, his addiction was such that he barely knew he was taking the drug; it had become a part of his every day life, a part of him! Had the headaches stopped? Maybe I'd find out in the next entry. He certainly must have been fairly lucid and in control of himself to write that last macabre entry. I was so full of questions and devoid of any answers that my own senses were reeling.

I felt as though a gust of wind had suddenly swept through the room, and I turned to see where it could have come from. There was nothing, no open windows, and no doors that could admit such a gust. With the irrational fear that I was alone, yet not alone growing in intensity in my own overloaded mind, I raised myself from the chair, left the study, and began a search of the house.

There was no-one there, of course there wasn't, the house was empty, and I chided myself for my foolishness. I returned to the study, and as I walked in through the door, I swear that once again, those damned pages were rising and falling, and that the room whispered a welcome to me as I sat in the comfortable leather chair, and reached out to the journal.

Russian Roulette

The light of day quickly faded, the sky turning a dirty autumn grey as I turned the next page. Instead of the hand of the Ripper, the next thing I saw was another note from my great-grandfather, once again neatly tucked in-between two of the journal's pages. Perhaps now, I thought, the whole thing might begin to make sense. This note was undated, though its content was plain enough. The Ripper had suffered another amnesiac seizure!

Great-grandfather had added a note across the top of the paper, scripted by a different pen, in darker ink, obviously written on a later date than his original writings. The note read:

Had I known later the true nature of what I now know to be fact, I guarantee to any who may read this that my actions would have been wholly different. I apologize for my short-sightedness, my stupidity, my rank failure to see what lay before my eyes.

Note by Doctor Burton Cleveland Cavendish, November 1888.

Once again I have been called to attend upon this sad pathetic young man. He has allowed his life to be destroyed by not just one, but two unfortunate addictions! Despite having had a decent, God fearing upbringing, with many of the advantages denied to so many in our society, he has led a dissolute existence. It appears he has been too fond of visiting those poor unfortunates who inhabit the dark streets of our metropolis, and suffers from that vile disease so often associated with men who avail themselves of such women. He is in the terminal phase of the illness, and insanity is not far away I fear, though for now, I consider that he may live as he does, alone in his home, without recourse to hospitalization. In addition, I fear that he may have taken my previous advice too literally, and had developed an addiction for the laudanum, which I had suggested he take to alleviate the symptoms of his headaches, though at the time I gave such advice I was not privy to his deeper problems.

He is languishing once again in the day ward of the Charing Cross hospital, having been sent there once more after being found in a state of near collapse in the street. He appears to know nothing of how he came to be there, and was pleased to see me. I thanked Malcolm for sending for me once more, as I would not have wished a stranger to have perhaps requested that he be confined to the asylum, as surely he would never have exited from such a place, once admitted. His mother, surely would never have wanted to see him in his current position, it would have broken her heart, as it would do to see him in the pitiful state in which he now lies.

He has no recollection of his previous seizure, or his insane 'confession' to a murder no-one has any knowledge of. He does however, this time confess to a hatred for the woman who infected him with the syphilis, and all her kind, and has stated that he will not rest until all her kind are gone from the earth. He is fixated with the need for the trade of prostitution to be eradicated from the streets of London, though his language is quite coarse whenever he makes reference to this subject.

On my second visit, he once again 'confessed' to having rid the world of what he calls 'the whore pestilence', but this I take to be the ramblings of his dementia. He has no doubt been reading the horrific tales of the atrocious crimes currently being committed in Whitechapel, and I fancy that in his delusional sate, he may believe himself to be the murderer which all London is now calling Jack the Ripper! I fear that if he fails to show improvement in a short time, Doctor Malcolm may recommend him for committal to the asylum, and, in truth, as I am not in fact his physician, I will be unable to prevent such measures being carried out.

I have advised him on yet another visit to cease his rantings, to believe that he is hallucinating as a result of an excessive intake of laudanum, and to accept medication to help alleviate the worst symptoms of his other illness, on the premise that by so doing he may achieve his discharge from the hospital and be allowed to return to his normal life, though I fear for the length of time that is left to him before the syphilis begins to eat away at his body, as it is already doing to his mind.

He has, I believe, listened to my entreaties, and Doctor Malcolm professes himself much satisfied with his progress. I too found him much improved, though not particularly talkative; though this I took to be a part of his desire to recover from his illness by refraining from his previous nonsensical rantings. Malcolm suggests that if such progress remains evident, the patient may be allowed to return home in two days, to which suggestion I concurred, and offered to keep a watchful eye on him after discharge, which benevolent gesture was much appreciated by Malcolm, and, it seemed, by the patient.

He was subsequently discharged from the hospital after a stay of almost two weeks, quite a long time in my opinion. I will endeavour to pay occasional visits to his home, and have asked that he will see me in my consulting rooms on a weekly basis, to which he has agreed.

Another added note followed, again in the darker ink:

Oh, what a fool I was, to fail to recognize his words for the truth. I will be forever damned, and my name would surely be held in vile scorn by the whole profession of physicians were I to confess my transgression. Believe me, whosoever reads this, that this journal did not come into my hands until it was too late, had I known the truth, I would have acted sooner, though that is of no consequence nor help to anyone now. Whatever blood is on his hands is without a doubt shared by mine, I am complicit by my shame, and I am broken into many pieces by the force of the knowledge I must take to my grave. My wretched soul will surely burn in Hell, as unquestionably as will his, if that is any consolation.