A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper (29 page)

Feeling quite foolish at having allowed myself to become so spooked by a simple thing like a blown fuse I made my way sheepishly into the kitchen, in need of coffee, and its stimulating properties. I switched on the radio as the kettle boiled and sitting at the table with the hot steaming mug in my hand the late evening news was broadcast by the local radio station. In a grim voice the newscaster was announcing that the suspect in case of the two local murders, John Trevor Ross, had been found hanging in his cell that afternoon. He had been declared dead on arrival at the hospital. In a further revelation it appeared that Ross's family had been connected by marriage to the family of one of the original suspects in the Jack the Ripper case over a hundred years earlier, though the police refused to release the family name connected with the case.

I felt as though I'd been struck by a thunderbolt. I didn't hear another word as the newscaster continued with the bulletin. All I could think of was the fact that John Ross, like me, had some link with the Ripper, though admittedly the newscaster had only said that he was distantly related to one of the suspects, and hadn't been able to reveal which one. Somewhere, along the course of history's time line, both John Ross and I had been touched by the curse of the Ripper, and he had perhaps taken the only way out he knew in order to escape that curse, to prevent himself descending further into the insane madness that had suddenly and overwhelmingly taken hold of him. The coincidence of his having been brought to me as a patient was further proof, at least to my own way of thinking, that the Ripper had reached out across the years to take a hold on the lives of his distant, if only loosely related descendants. Perhaps, like my great-grandfather I had been given a chance to help John Ross, to save him from the awful illness that had taken hold of him and led him to commit such brutal murder. If that was the case, I appeared to have failed like my great-grandfather. The only help I'd given him had been to prescribe drugs to control what I thought was a mild paranoia, and eventually to advise him to co-operate with the police, when perhaps he might have benefited from a more sympathetic approach.

Reality seemed a million miles away as I made my way, with leaden feet, back to the study, chiding myself all the way to my chair. I had entered a world that was so far removed from the safe sane one I usually inhabited that I wondered if I'd blundered into a nightmare of my own making, allowing myself to have become so affected by the words of the Ripper as contained in the musty yellow pages. But no, it was more than that, I was sure, there was definitely something out of the ordinary taking place, and though I wasn't sure what it was or where it was leading me, I was now more determined than ever to see the whole thing through to the end. John Trevor Ross may himself have had some tenuous relationship to me but I was sure as hell not going to give up now! I made myself a mental promise to contact his mother in the next couple of days, make sure she was okay, though of course she couldn't possibly be. She'd just lost her son. Bad enough that he'd been diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness, but he'd gone on to commit two murders, he'd taken the lives of two innocent women, and probably destroyed the futures of their husbands and families. It was as if, even after all this time, the evil that was Jack the Ripper was still at work, and along with the two most recent victims, John Trevor Ross himself had fallen victim to the hands of the killer and become yet another gruesome addition to the list of those whose lives had been torn apart by the Whitechapel Murderer.

With a weary sigh, I switched on and re-booted the computer, in case I needed to refer to the Casebook website again, and reclined into the comfort of the leather chair. I had a feeling it was going to be a long night, and that it would be some time before I managed to lay my head down to sleep.

As I lifted the journal from my desk, I was once again subjected to the strange feeling that came from handling its strangely warm and sticky pages. I still couldn't get away from the thought that somehow it was infused or imprinted with the essence of the Ripper's evil. Despite, or perhaps because of that feeling, I was impatient to read whatever came next in his horrendous memoir, and to see if my great-grandfather would cast any further light on whatever other terrible secret he seemed to have previously hinted at.

14
^th
November 1888

I have languished these last days in a terrible state. Why hasn't Cavendish come? He must have received my letter, he must know by now that I have told him the truth. My head is in such ferment, such pain. I have done all that the voices have asked of me, and now they have deserted me, I am alone. They have not spoken one word to me since I put that whore Kelly to sleep. Have I displeased them? They do not even whisper in my head any longer. Shall I spill more blood, was it not enough that I sliced and butted the whore until I could scarce stand up, so weary did the work make me? And so deep did it run upon the floor that her blood fair made me slip upon it as I tried to stand still to complete the task. Two days I say, two days it took to finally wash the whore's blood from my self, and even though I removed and covered up my clothes still there was so much of the stuff that her blood stained even my shirt and my socks, so much that I have burned them.

I called out in the night, but they will not come, my voices are so silent. Where are they, why have they left me alone? Where is Cavendish? He must come; he is the only one who knows. He will tell me what to do.

20
^th
November 1888

I am losing track of time and days. I can no longer work, and they will surely not let me back now. I have heard nothing from Cavendish, yet the whole of London is ablaze with news of the Ripper, of me, of what I have done to rid the city of the whores. Every newspaper, on every street corner screams out of my prowess, and the police still blunder forth in fruitless search for Jack, and I am here all the time, but where is Cavendish?

I found something almost pitiful about the latest entries in the journal of Jack the Ripper. He had become almost childlike in his cries for help. His voices were gone, as if in perpetrating the final and most hideous murder of his career to date his own mind had switched off that part of itself, perhaps in a sort of self-defence mechanism, as though Jack the Ripper had become appalled and revolted at the scale of his crime. He was crying in the night, crying for help that would not come, and he was certainly desperate for my great-grandfather to attend upon him, after all, over a week had now passed since the terrible night of Mary Kelly's death, and he would have expected some response from my great-grandfather by that time, assuming of course that he'd received the Ripper's letter.

I was intrigued by his mention of losing his job. This at least confirmed that up until some point he was engaged in gainful employment. I thought, having formed my own opinion of his identity that I knew exactly where he worked and in what capacity, and in some ways this admission in the journal further confirmed my thoughts of his identity. This fitted well with the facts I had ascertained from my notes.

There were now so few pages left in the journal, I was confident that I would be able to complete my reading of it by my own self-imposed deadline. I just wished, like the Ripper, that I could understand why my great-grandfather hadn't responded to the letter, to his advance warning of the murder of Mary Kelly. The answer to that question was soon to be revealed to me, and was almost as intriguing as anything I had read over the previous three days!

A Question of Ethics?

As I turned yet another page in the grim story unfolding before me the words of my great-grandfather were once again lying in wait for me, as before, tucked tightly between the pages of the Ripper's journal. The explanation for his not having responded to the Ripper's letter was staring at me as I began to read incredulously his latest addition to the journal.

My son,

It is well after the fact that I sit and write this note, which I hereby append to the awful tale you are now reading. As you know, events in London took a terrible turn in the weeks of Autumn,1888, and, after my dear friend Sir William was spoken to at length and on various occasions, it was of course my turn. As you know, the police interviewed me, in addition to any number of eminent (and not so eminent) members of my profession, it having been widely suggested by many so called experts that Jack the Ripper was a doctor. I cannot for the life of me conceive that anyone would seriously suggest such a thing, yet the official police force seemed to have granted the theory some degree of credibility. The inspector, whose name was Abberline, was quite polite, but seemed to carry out the interview with no great conviction, as though he deemed me irrelevant to the case, and was merely questioning me on the orders of some superior.

I am grateful to you for having received me so graciously after the ordeal of spending so many hours in the company of those worthy officers of the law, who I managed to satisfy as to my personal innocence. I cannot thank you enough for your warm hospitality and for allowing me to spend those few days in the comfort and sanctuary of your home.

You can imagine my disbelief, and my shock then, when, on returning home, I found there, lying in wait for me, a letter of the most heinous kind, and by its contents I was perplexed and at the same time damned by my previous inability to grasp the truth and to act upon it.

I insert this note at this point in the journal as it is to my mind the relevant location for it. Why did I not believe his earlier attempts to confess his guilt to me? I can never answer that, though now I will surely be damned for all time. He wrote to me in advance of the killing of the poor woman Mary Jane Kelly, and detailed for me the injuries and mutilations he fully intended to carry out upon the person of that poor unfortunate. Had I not been ensconced first of all with the officers of Scotland Yard, and thereafter a guest in your home, I would have found the letter the day after the crime. As it was, it had fallen to me to discover the awful truth too late, and my heart and mind were fearful and undecided as to the correct course of action to pursue.

Had I disclosed the information I am now privy to it would not only have destroyed the good name of our family, but would doubtless lead to the arrest, trial, and probable execution of the man who was after all, your half-brother, my own son. Despite the fact that he was most seriously ill with the most foul disease of the mind, I knew that the cries for retribution would have led to his being denied the defence of insanity, the public needed revenge, and I am sure it would have swift and terminal. I wished to spare him, and his mother's memory that disgrace. Though I do not expect you to have any thought or feeling for the man, who you have never, and will never meet, please think of the quandary that so beset my mind. If I turned in evidence against him, and my own shortcomings in the case were revealed, not only would my professional reputation be visibly and most publicly brought into disrepute, but think also of the effect that such a revelation would have had on your poor mother. She of course knows nothing of his existence, and I intend that she never will.

I had to decide what best to do, for I could not of course allow him to continue to kill and mutilate his fellow beings; that goes without saying. His employer, a man of great compassion and forbearance would appear to be losing patience with his continued absences caused by his 'illness'. How he has continued to even attempt to carry on with his daily routine of life is beyond my ken. He has duped not only me, but the entire world around him. How could he have perpetrated such fiendish crimes and continued to live a normal life in the face of such damnable acts? Time was running out, for me and for him, I had to act, to put an end to the killing, and to prevent a scandal that would destroy your mother, you, and everyone connected with the family.

Read the conclusion of the journal my son, and then let my actions be judged by you alone, for it is with your future in mind that I have done the things I have done. When you have read what is yet to be revealed I beg of you to forgive me, and, if it possible, somewhere in your heart, forgive the man who was your brother, for he was incapable of preventing the fate that destroyed his life.

Your father, Burton Cleveland Cavendish

A sense of fear and helplessness was beginning to envelop me as I placed the journal down lightly on the desk. My own great-grandfather had himself been interviewed and questioned by the police, and by Frederick Abberline himself, famous as one of the leading detectives in the hunt for Jack the Ripper. My great-grandfather had missed receiving the Ripper's letter because he had gone to stay with my grandfather, Merlin Cavendish after his discharge from the police station. He'd spent a number of days there; that much was plain by his words and in so doing had perhaps made his own position harder to sustain when he eventually did receive the letter. The police may have wished to know why he had delayed in passing on the information supplied by the Ripper, and may not have immediately believed his story of having stayed with my grandfather without having returned to his own home first.

Not only that, but I understood how he must have felt, finally realizing that his own bastard son had been telling him the truth all along. He really was Jack the Ripper, and my great-grandfather could, as he had said in his original letter at the beginning of the journal, have done something to stop him! I could only begin to imagine the turmoil he must have felt. How does one admit, and then decide what to do when faced with the fact that one's own son is the most hated and evil murderer in living memory, with all of London holding its breath as they followed the police investigation, waiting and hoping for the arrest of the monster they lived in fear of?

A greater fear had griped me, however; the fear that a far greater secret was hidden just around the corner, that my great-grandfather was still holding something back. Now that his connection to the Ripper had been most firmly established in my mind, I needed to know what had happened to both of these antecedents of mine after the conclusion of the murders. I knew of course, roughly, what had happened to my great-grandfather. Burton Cleveland Cavendish had retired in 1889, (I think), and had left the city of London, settling with my great-grandmother and his son, (my grandfather) not too far from where I live today. Of course, it would have been far more 'countrified' in those days, and they would in all probability have lived a fairly comfortable, almost idyllic life. He had died at home peacefully not long before the outbreak of The Great War, soon after my great-grandmother, (it was said by my father that he had died of a broken heart, unable to go on without the love of his life). No major events in his life had been recorded or passed down in the family history, and until now, I had never had reason to think of him as being any different from any other respectable Victorian medical professional. That left me with the one burning question. What had happened to the Ripper after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly? The thought suddenly struck me that the journal or my great-grandfather's notes may not be completely comprehensive on the matter, and that thought terrified me more than I can possibly relate in words.