A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper by kindels Read Free Book Online Page A

Real Work Begins

    In a move intended to calm my own nerves slightly, and to compose myself for what I was about to read, I gently laid the journal down on the desk, and took up the printed fact sheets I'd printed out earlier. I wanted to acquaint myself with more of the facts of the case before returning to the words of 'The Ripper'.
    History records that on the night of the 30 th of August 1888, Mary Ann Nichols, (known to all as Polly), was seen walking alone in Whitechapel Road at about 11.30 p.m. At 12.30 a.m. she was witnessed leaving a public house in Brick Lane, and last seen alive by her friend and sometimes living partner Ellen Holland at 2.30 a.m. at the corner of Whitechapel Road and Osborn Street. She was drunk, and steadfastly refused to return with Holland to their shared room in Thrawl Street.
    Her lifeless body was found in Buck's Row, a dark and lonely street known today as Durward Street, at about 3.40 a.m, with her skirt pulled up. Three policemen were soon in attendance, and one of them, police constable Neil noted that her throat had been cut. She was pronounced dead at the scene by Doctor Rees Llewellyn, the duty police surgeon, and her body removed to the mortuary shed at the Old Montague Street Workhouse Infirmary. It was during a subsequent examination of the body in the mortuary that the horrific abdominal mutilations, soon to become the trademark of the Ripper, were discovered.
    At the hastily convened inquest into her death, (that very day), it was revealed the poor woman had suffered two cuts to the throat, so deep as to reach the vertebrae, her abdomen had been slashed, and her left side had received a gash that ran from the base of her ribs almost to her pelvis. There were numerous cuts to her right abdomen, and, horrifically, two stab wounds directly in her genitals. Though initially it was thought she'd been killed elsewhere, and the body dumped in Buck's Row, due to the small amount of blood found on the street, it was later deduced that her clothing had absorbed much of the blood and that Buck's Row, was, in fact, the scene of her murder. One important attendee at the inquest was Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline, who had been brought in to co-ordinate the investigation. At this time however, the police had nothing to go on, no witnesses, no suspects, and no evidence.
    Had The Ripper ended his slaughter with the death of Polly Nichols it is likely the crime would have remained unsolved and forgotten, and the killing would have been no more than a footnote in the dark criminal history of the East End of London, and the name of Jack the Ripper would have never been known to the world.
    I returned to the journal. Strangely, there was no entry for the latter part of the night of the 3Oth August, when he so obviously must have left his home and prowled the dark streets in search of his victim. Had he been too excited to write on his return home? Had he been so preoccupied by his task that he'd forgotten the very existence of his journal? In light of my theories on the state of mind of the writer, I presumed that to be the most likely conclusion. He was so wrapped up, so totally absorbed by his cause, his 'work', that the journal would have been insignificant to him, barely worth a thought, as indeed I believed to be the case. He had, however, returned to his literary account the next day, and the entry, though short, was as chilling to me as if he'd written a five page dissertation on the killing of that poor unfortunate woman.
    31 st August 1888
    Am well. Continued the work last night. After the first whore this was easy, like gutting a fish! Slash, slash, slash, so easy, so quick. The whore never saw me coming, lying drunk in the filthy doorway of the hovel. This is the real thing, now I can't stop, for the whores are ripe for plucking, and I'll reap a bloody harvest. Her blood was sticky warm upon my fingers, but the whore is cold, cold as the grave, good job.
    I even walked back to