The Autobiography of Jack the Ripper (13 page)

I am well aware that nowadays my associates at the club regard me as a cynical old man with a perverse and almost malevolent sense of humour; they are too polite knowingly to betray this, but I am not deceived. And I am equally aware that they attribute my cynicism to my physical infirmity, and tolerate it largely on that account—and because I happen to play a good hand at bridge.

But although I was never of a sunny disposition, I can date a definite change in my outlook on life from that evening on which I realized that some warp or kink in my nature set me apart from my fellows or, if not entirely from my fellows, at least from certain amenities of life. To say that I was embittered would, perhaps, be hardly correct; for embitterment, as I understand the term, implies a certain misanthropy and possibly despondency. Perhaps embitterment is as good a term as any, but it was a cynical and devil-may-care bitterness, and once I had overcome my first access of horror I was able to leaven my attitude of mind with a certain spice of grim humour.

However, I had to look this fact in the face: that for a reason presumably due to hereditary influence I felt, on occasion, an almost overpowering urge to cut human flesh and to shed blood. What a penny-dreadful phrase that seems and how contemptuously it would be regarded by the gentle reader if encountered in a work of fiction!

I looked the fact in the face, as I say, examining it with cold calculation, and I arrived at the following conclusions:

That sooner or later I should yield to my obsession and cut a throat. I had already had one narrow escape in connection with my uncle; the incident with my fiancée would have been a second had a knife been then available. I must make it clear, however, that the actual deed to which I was tempted was not, in itself, unpleasant to contemplate. It did not fill me with revulsion even when looked back upon after the temporary feeling had passed. Nor did the result which my yielding to temptation would entail to my protagonist appeal to me as the stronger motive for the effort of withstanding temptation. I was not thinking so much of the effect upon my victim as the effect upon myself. For if I yielded to my urge in ordinary circumstances it was in the highest degree probable that I should be taken and hanged.

The foregoing being admitted, the question arose: could I overcome my craving by deliberately yielding to it in circumstances which would insure the minimum amount of risk to myself? Could I keep it in abeyance by “blowing off steam”? And would one indulgence still my craving? Having once experienced the sensation of cutting a throat, would my craving be satisfied? In other words, could I insure a higher degree of safety for myself and, incidentally, for other reasonably useful members of the community, by cutting the throat of a person who could well be spared in carefully arranged circumstances of secrecy?

This may seem a cold-blooded and callous speculation, but it was a logical method of dealing with a situation in which I had to think out things for myself. And I rather pride myself on my ability to grapple with personal problems uninfluenced by feeling, as opposed to pure reason. I like to worry out details, to exercise my foresight, to look at a thing from all sides. But in dealing with this particular problem, I was conscious of, but tried to keep down, the fact that I wanted to reach the decision that the solution lay in yielding to my urge in circumstances of secrecy. I craved for the experience of cutting a throat.

When I speak of secrecy in connection with the enterprise which I contemplated I mean, of course, that the circumstances of time and place must be so planned as to render detection improbable. For I was not so abstracted as to be unaware that what I had in mind—no matter what the status of my “subject”—amounted to the punishable offence of murder. For the community as a whole has for long professed to labour under the belief that all human life is sacred.

People refer occasionally to the sacredness of human life and appear to believe in it, but I see no reason to regard human life as any more sacred than animal life. A man is permitted to kill an amiable and inoffensive animal, such as a dog, because the dog's life is not “sacred,” but he may not kill a man who, by his disposition and habits, may be obviously far less fitted to live than is the dog. The life of the drunken, dissolute and dishonest scoundrel is “sacred.”

Apropos of this matter of life-taking: I remember that, quite recently, a fellow-member of my club mentioned to me the fact that a man with whom he had some slight acquaintance had been killed by an elephant in the “course” of the “sport” of big-game hunting. He referred to the accident with sorrow. I agreed that it was unfortunate for his acquaintance, but pointed out that had the latter succeeded in his enterprise of shooting the elephant it would have been equally unfortunate for the animal. (Not that an elephant is necessarily amiable and inoffensive, nor hunters necessarily scoundrels.) My fellow-member looked at me askance and moved away. Being quite unable to think for himself, he was obsessed with that idea: the sacredness of human life.

In order to demonstrate the hypocrisy and cant behind this “sacredness of human life” plea it is only necessary to refer to one fact—the persistence of war through the whole history of civilization. It is true that at the time of writing a genuine attempt to “outlaw” war is being made in enlightened circles; but that there is no real belief in the wickedness of war is shown by the continued respect in which the professional killer is held. The army is still considered a respectable career. And not only do we respect these warriors, we also honour those ingenious fellows who add to the killing efficiency of their active confreres. Inventors of killing devices to be used in war are not boiled in oil; they are rewarded with riches (unless they are unbusinesslike enough to get exploited by a capitalist, in which case the exploiter is rewarded with riches).

Let it be understood that I am trying to indicate the impossibility of squaring the existence of war with a belief in the sanctity of human life; I am not stating that war is any sillier than the belief. For war, after all, is a result of the instinct to kill implanted by Nature in the human breast as a co-operator with pestilence, earthquake and so forth, for the limitation of the world's population.

Touching the “sacredness of human life” idea, I will produce another fact, though this is not necessary—the development of the motor-car.

Nobody will deny (and if anybody does there are statistics to confute him) that the motor-car is a dangerous device. In the hands of the unskilled—and, to a lesser degree, in those of the skilled—driver, the motor-car is a menace to human life. Every motor-driver is a potential homicide. In a community which really believed in the sanctity of human life, a man in a motor-car, driving at the speed at present permitted, would be regarded with as little favour as would a boy playing in Ludgate Circus with a loaded shot-gun.

I must admit to a strong prejudice against the automobile; not because it assists to thin the population, however, but because it has ruined our previously peaceful countryside. Where now in all England can I be free from this noisy, stinking and dust-raising contraption and from the horrible advertisements and petrol pumps which arise by its spoor?

—

However, I must not ramble from my point.

I was beginning to state, when my testiness led me afield, that I was under no misapprehension as to the lawlessness of the enterprise which I contemplated; I have no great respect for the lunatic laws of our civilization but I recognize that they exist. I knew that if I was convicted of killing even the most degraded outcast I should be hanged. This did not deter me from working out my plans; in fact, it added a sporting touch. Although I am no gambler in the accepted sense of the term—inasmuch as I never bet and am quite indifferent to the stakes when I am playing cards—I felt rather excited at the thought that I was contemplating an enterprise in which every man's hand would be against me, one in which my stake was the highest I could wager and an enterprise, therefore, which must be planned with every atom of foresight I could muster.

And in the early days of August 1888 I sat down and deliberately thought out the adventure to which I now felt practically committed.

In the days of which I write there was no supply of popular “detective” literature; the flood of studies in criminology disguised as novels which now cover our bookstalls had not then begun. Edgar Allan Poe was the only writer of note—or, at least, the only writer with whose work I was familiar—who had dealt with crime and its detection in the form of fiction. I do not include De Quincey with Poe because his “Murder as a Fine Art” has little bearing on the detection of crime.

In common with my contemporaries, therefore, I had received no priming in the technique of murder, such as is nowadays automatically acquired in the course of novel reading. In pitting my wits against the professional crime detectors I had nothing but my common sense to guide me; and being, as I have said, unprimed in police procedure I could only estimate the methods employed, though I had, of course, assimilated a few hints from my reading of criminal trials in the newspapers.

I could perceive, however, that the police, not being gifted with supernatural powers, could only arrest a criminal—let us say a murderer—in certain definite circumstances which could, I thought, be brought under three headings. First, they could catch their man red-handed; that is, in the actual commission of the murder or in an environment closely connected with it. Secondly, they could establish his identity by following up a clue to that identity such as a personal article left on the scene of the murder. Thirdly, they could reach an assumption of identity by establishing the motive of the murder, ultimately confirming the assumption by ascertaining the movements of the suspect at the time of the murder and examining any apparently suspicious circumstances connected with him.

I could think of no method outside these three classes whereby a murder could be brought home to the person responsible.

In examining the three possible circumstances likely to lead to detection, it seemed to me that in all cases of murder the strongest card in the hand of the police was supplied by motive. From my subsequent reading in the extensive crime literature of to-day, I think I was correct in my belief. So far as class number three was concerned, therefore, I was at an advantage; the murder which I meditated would appear to be motiveless; or rather, any motive which appeared to underlie it—such as revenge—would be erroneous. I may say, in passing, that the various motives attributed to me by ingenious theorists have afforded me considerable entertainment.

Feeling certain that detection through the channel of motive could be absolutely disregarded, I concentrated my thoughts upon classes one and two.

I must not be caught in the act; the precaution here was self-evident, for I did not propose to operate in the middle of a crowd. I should naturally choose a secluded spot and need only satisfy myself that it was secluded and that it could be vacated at an instant's notice, preferably by one of several directions.

My principal danger seemed to lie in class number two. I must not drop any personal article near my “subject” or allow him or her to clutch anything of mine—such as a handkerchief or button—during the throes of dissolution. Not that I imagined such a trivial article as a button or handkerchief (unless marked with my name) would afford any information, but the principle must be maintained consistently. Nothing whatever must be found on the scene except the remains of the subject. I could only guard against a mishap in this connection by keeping perfectly calm and free from nervousness and this, I had no doubt, I could do; for although my imagination is active enough I am able to keep my nerves under control by concentrating my thoughts entirely upon my actions. I am one of those fortunate persons whose “nerves” do not betray them in emergency; I seldom get excited, in spite of my alleged Gallic ancestry.

Touching this matter of leaving traces: it should be noted that finger-print identification was not at that time in use by the police.

Having carefully turned over in my mind the matters outlined above, I then began to consider who would be the most suitable subject for my purpose. It must, or at least should, be a person who could well be spared by the community; a person who would not lose much in losing their life. The state to which it had pleased God to call them should be such that death would be a not unwelcome release. Who would fill this description?

I decided instantly that so far as my limited experience and observation went, the middle-aged prostitutes of the East End of London are the most pitiable and degraded of our fellow-beings. They have nearly all sunk to depths of almost unimaginable misery and degradation: most of them are drunken and probably many of them are diseased. They must be a misery to themselves and, in some respects, a menace to others. What can life possibly hold for these women that it should be worth their keeping?

If any reader should doubt my conclusions let him pay a visit to the East End of London and exercise his powers of observation and inference. Let him remember, also, that bad as are the conditions there to-day, they were even worse forty years ago.

Not only would a woman of the class alluded to be the most suitable from the point of view of economics, she would also be the most convenient. She would be readily approachable and would, of her own free will, conduct me to a spot sufficiently secluded for my purpose. For a place suitable for bawdry is a place eminently suitable for throat-cutting.

I am not certain that up to this point in my reflections I had definitely determined to put my project into execution, though I write as if my thoughts were prompted by actual intent. I toyed with the idea as a possibility or a probability but more, perhaps, in a purely academic spirit. But I do know that after several days' consideration of the proposition and of carefully weighing the difficulties and risks, I had finally determined to put my plan into immediate operation. This was on the 5th of August, 1888.

—

In the early evening of August Bank Holiday I prepared to set out upon my enterprise. I had decided that until late at night, or even early on the following morning, the East End streets would be too crowded for the execution of my purpose; in that rabbit-warren of slums it would be difficult for me to work with the minimum risk of disturbance until such time as the bulk of the inhabitants had settled down for the night. If the woman I chose conducted me to some lodging of her own I might be seen entering with her or leaving, for so packed with humanity were all the buildings of the Whitechapel area that a strong probability existed of my being noticed unless I postponed operations until few people were about.

But I had worked myself into such a state of excited anticipation that I felt strongly the need of some means of occupying my mind during the evening. I determined to go to the theatre; the first performance of Daniel Bandmann's Jekyll and Hyde was billed for that evening and this I would attend.

I assumed a dark suit which, although not new, was not shabby enough to excite notice in the theatre—for I anticipated that I should be unable to obtain other than one of the higher-priced seats for a first-night on a Bank Holiday evening—but over this suit I put on a very old, long, black overcoat. This I could remove on entering the theatre and when, later, I went to Whitechapel it would conceal the relatively decent quality of my suit and should render me inconspicuous. Fortunately the weather had been particularly cold and miserable for the time of year, and there had been a tendency towards rain. An overcoat would not, therefore, seem out of place.

In the breast-pocket of my suit I placed my father's large scalpel; in the side-pocket of my overcoat a thin, straight knife or dagger of Malay origin which I had inherited, with other curios, from my uncle and which usually hung on the wall of my sitting-room. But then I hesitated; the knife was of an awkward length for my overcoat-pocket, and I perceived that when I removed and folded my coat there was some risk that the knife would fall out. I removed it and placed it with the scalpel in my breast-pocket.

I stood for some moments dressed for the street and pondered; another idea occurred to me. I went through all my clothing and emptied the pockets of every article they contained apart from the knives, my handkerchief, my latch-key and some money. A pen-knife, a pencil-case and one or two other oddments I carried into my bed-room and laid in a drawer. I would reduce the risk of dropping anything on the scene of my enterprise. Even a pencil-case might prove a danger.

I looked at myself in my wardrobe mirror, examining my person critically. Did I look shabby enough in my long coat to pass unremarked in the East End? I could not visualize a typical East Ender for comparison, because there is no typical East Ender. The types and nationalities to be encountered in that district were so mixed that almost any type of dress could be seen. The sole distinguishing point was a universal shabbiness. My long seedy coat, my rather short figure—for I am slightly below the medium height—my sallow complexion and my longish black hair gave a total effect suggestive, in an indefinite way, of a Jewish type. Certainly I could see nothing in my appearance to attract notice.

My rooms were on the first floor and as I passed downstairs I called over the banisters to my landlady, whose presence below was indicated by a rattling of crockery, telling her I was going to the theatre and that I might be very late. I purposely omitted to enlarge upon this statement, for I had thought the point over with other details. If, I argued, I told the good woman I was going to a friend's house, or invented some other explanation of my probable lateness, it might look suspicious. I was not in the habit of giving any explanations, and I had frequently been away from my rooms until the early hours of the morning. A gratuitous statement to-night might seem unusual, and I was unwilling to risk even such trifling possibilities as this. Let my landlady suppose I was engaged in the bawdy pleasures of a bachelor. When I came home with the milk, my landlady would probably suspect me of wenching, but she would certainly not suspect me of that which I had really done. And for me to vouchsafe an unusual and uncalled-for statement would entail the remote possibility of speculation on the woman's part.

I let myself out into the street and took my way to the Opera Comique Theatre.

I had previously seen Richard Mansfield in “Jekyll and Hyde” and was interested to be able to compare Bandmann's version with it. But the curtain had not been up for half an hour before I appreciated that here was no sinister drama of psychology, but something which soared almost into the regions of classic harlequinade. I gave myself up to pure enjoyment; when Mr. Bandmann carried out his metamorphosis from Jekyll to Hyde by the simple expedients of turning up his collar and inserting a set of grotesque teeth while the footlights were conveniently lowered, I crowed with delight. When, in the character of the ogre-like Hyde, he hopped about the stage uttering hoarse crooning sounds, I momentarily lost sight of my ultimate aim that evening in the entertainment immediately provided.

I know the moralist would prefer to learn that the play was a well-handled commentary upon my own existence; that I recognized in myself the dual personality of Stevenson's sinister puppets and that, filled with self-loathing at the thought of the thing I contemplated, I resolved to stifle the evil Hyde in my own nature. That I left the theatre a changed man, the tears streaming from my eyes. Such a reaction would be so obviously the right and proper treatment in a fictional account of such a man as I that I almost feel I should apologize for writing the truth. But I am sure that even a moralist would have laughed at this “dramatization” of “Jekyll and Hyde.”

But sometimes my chuckles would be cut off short as a wave of excitement swept over me induced by a sudden recollection of what lay before me that night. The scene on the stage would be blotted out as my thoughts turned inwards to a predictive tableau of a dark slum, with a slinking slattern and a dark figure with his hand on that which lay within his coat-pocket—and then the vision would fade and the glare of the footlights would appear again. I would continue my interrupted chuckle.

It may seem unkind for me to write so disparagingly of Mr. Bandmann's production, but that my personal opinions as to its demerits were also the opinions of others was clearly indicated by the tone of the critiques which I read on the following morning in the course of my search in the papers for news of a death in Whitechapel.

Towards the end of the play a choir of boys was introduced to sing, inconsequently, “Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top,” and this definitely recalled me to reality. For my wriggles of merriment were such that the point of the dagger which I carried in my pocket penetrated the lining, and I felt it pressed uncomfortably against my ribs. I stiffened, and cautiously inserted my hand to adjust the position of my weapon.

I remained in my seat until the apotheosis of Dr. Jekyll concluded the performance in a kind of transformation scene and then, not waiting to hear Mr. Bandmann's speech before the curtain, I left the theatre.

As I came out into the dark street and my mind leapt again upon that which faced me, as a dog leaps instantly upon a bone which has been for a time withheld from him, I realized that I had made one slip in my planning. A trivial, almost negligible slip, but in my circumstances was it possible to say that anything was quite negligible?

Suppose my landlady entered my sitting-room during my absence and noticed that the Malay dagger was not hanging in its usual place! I paused in my walk and turned the matter over in my mind. But my mistake could not be remedied now, I decided. I could not return home at this time; I could not postpone my enterprise. To live through another day of anticipatory excitement was unthinkable. I must rely upon the extreme improbability of my landlady entering the sitting-room where she had normally nothing to do in the evening; and, even if she did enter it, on the unlikelihood of her noting the dagger's absence. Nevertheless I was annoyed; I, who had pondered details so carefully, had made a childish blunder. I should have taken the scalpel only!