Death at Whitechapel (33 page)

Susan and I have not attempted to “prove” a particular theory of the Whitechapel murders of 1888. However, Ripperologists (as students of the Ripper killings playfully style themselves) will immediately recognize that our approach to the solution of these murders is not original with us. It is based on a group of related theories advanced over the last twenty-five years by five British writers:

 

We have treated these true-crime works as historical references and have endeavored to make our fiction consistent with the facts the authors compile and present.

Having said that we do not offer an original solution, however, I also have to say that as theories go, the Masonic conspiracy theory seems to us highly plausible, especially given the symbolic nature of the mutilations, which is itself powerful evidence for Masonic involvement. The chief argument against the theory—that a gang of “gentlemen Jacks” could not have successfully pulled off the crimes under the noses of the police—is countered by evidence that Chief Commissioner Warren and Assistant Commissioner Anderson (both advanced Freemasons) were involved in a cover-up that began and ended in the Cabinet. Other arguments (that Gull was incapacitated at the time by a stroke and that Walter Sickert and J.K. Stephen were themselves members of the Ripper gang) can either be rebutted or do not substantially contradict the basic theory. What is more, no one has ever satisfactorily explained how a single lunatic Jack could possess (all at once) the motivation to commit the killings, the skill and medical knowledge needed to perform what amounted to surgical operations under primitive field conditions, the foresight to organize the murders, and the physical strength to transport four corpses from unidentified murder sites to the places where they were discovered. The question of why the killings stopped so abruptly after the murder of Mary Kelly is also troubling, if one is arguing for a serial killer without a rational motive. Altogether, it seems to us that the Masonic conspiracy theory has a great deal going for it.

But we are novelists, not detectives or true crime writers. Among the dozens of possible approaches to the solution of the Ripper crime, we adopted the one that fitted most neatly into our main story line. For us, the primary attraction of the Masonic conspiracy theory—especially as it is presented by Melvyn Fairclough—was that it proposed Randolph Churchill as one of the Rippers. It provided a stage upon which we could confront our characters—Jennie and Winston Churchill—with a frightening threat to the Churchill family reputation, and see how they might act to protect themselves and each other.

Susan Albert writes about Jennie and Winston Churchill:

Jennie Churchill is one of the most interesting women of her time. She was the daughter of an American stock speculator, the wife of a renegade aristocrat, and the mother (and chief cheerleader) of one of Britain's most remarkable and controversial political figures. She was probably the lover of the Prince of Wales, certainly the long-time lover of a handsome Hungarian count (Count Charles Kinsky), and the beloved of too many men to count.

Apart from these relationships, however, Jennie defined herself by doing, after the age of forty-five, things that other women did not do at all. She started a literary magazine (1898); obtained, funded, and outfitted an internationally sponsored hospital ship to serve men wounded in the Boer War (the
Maine,
1899); wrote a memoir and several plays (1907-1910); and developed an Elizabethan theme park in the middle of London (1911), complete with a jousting tourney and full-size replica of one of Drake's famous galleons. Yes, she did indeed marry young George (1900), but the romantic marriage could not survive her fiscal extravagances and her husband's emotional extravaganzas.

In his memoir, George wrote that he “found it a bit thick” to have to pay for a barouche that Randolph Churchill had purchased nearly twenty years before, while Jennie confided sadly to her sister that she hated having to endure George's passionate affairs with actresses. They divorced in 1913, and George immediately married his current actress. In 1918, Jennie was married again, to Montague Porch, who was even younger than George. In 1921, she forgot Robert Lees's caution about watching her step, put on a pair of new Italian shoes, and fell down a stair, breaking her left leg. Gangrene set in, and the doctor amputated the leg above the knee. Two weeks later, on June 29, 1921, her femoral artery ruptured and Jennie Jerome Churchill died. To Lord Crewe, Winston wrote: “The England in which you met her is a long way off now, & we do not see its like today. I feel a very great sense of deprivation.”

Winston Churchill is often seen through the heroic lens of his actions during the Second World War, and people of our generation feel a particular affection for his courageous leadership in the face of the German threat. In this book, however, we were interested in an earlier Winston: the arrogant, ambitious, and opportunistic young man who had far more enemies than friends and whose impatience to get ahead created one furor after another. As an officer in training at Aldershot, Winston had a disgraceful record of pranksterism, race-fixing, and hazing. (Our fictional story about the bullying of Arthur and Manfred Raeburn is modeled on a similar incident that took place in 1896. The Bruce-Pryce affair ended in a lawsuit, rather than a suicide, however.) In India and Egypt, Winston made enemies by criticizing the military judgments of his senior officers in his newspaper dispatches and in
The Malakand Field Force
and
The River War.
(Winston took Charles's advice and changed the title.) In South Africa, during an escape from a Boer War prison camp, he used his brother prisoners shamefully. Through all his early years as a soldier, he was accused of being a medal hunter and a “glory hound” and of exploiting his Army experiences to launch and finance a political career.

Churchill was elected to Parliament as a Conservative, but that alliance didn't last long. In 1904, amid a great hoopla and hubbub, he crossed the floor to join the Liberals, and when they came into power a short time later, he was invited to join the Colonial Office. At the time, he was writing a biography of his adored father, Randolph, which Winston's own biographer calls “one of the most systematic whitewashings that any biographer ever attempted.” In 1910, he was named Home Secretary, a Cabinet position that gave him access to the police files on the Ripper and would have allowed him to remove any evidence that incriminated his father in the Whitechapel murders. Through the late 1920s and 1930s, Winston and his wife Clementine were often visited at the family home of Chartwell by a famous British Impressionist who taught Winston to paint.

The artist's name was Walter Sickert.

References

Here are a few books that we found helpful in creating
Death at Whitechapel.
Other background works may be found in the references to earlier books in this series. If you have comments or questions, you may write to Bill and Susan Albert, PO Drawer M, Bertram TX 78605, or E-mail us at [email protected] You might also wish to visit our web site,
http://www.mysterypartners.com
.

 

The British Journal Photographic Almanac & Photographer's Daily Companion.
London: Henry Greenwood, 1896 & 1897.

Cannadine, David.
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990

Churchill, Peregrine and Julian Mitchell.
Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill. A Portrait with Letters.
Glasgow: William Collins Sons & Co., 1974.

Churchill, Winston S.
Frontiers and Wars
(The Malakand Field Force, The River War, London to Ladysmith, Ian Hamilton's March). New York: Konecky and Konecky, 1962.

Churchill, Randolph S.
Winston S. Churchill Volume
I
Companion Part 1
(
1874-1896
)
and 2
(
1896-1900
)
.
London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1967.

Fairclough, Melvyn.
The Ripper and the Royals.
London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1991.

Jones, Edgar.
The Penguin Guide to the Railways of Britain.
Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books Ltd.,1981.

Jones, Elwyn and John Lloyd.
The Ripper File.
London: Futura Publications Ltd., 1975.

Knight, Stephen.
Jack the Ripper
—
the Final Solution.
New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1976.

Manchester, William. Winston Spencer Churchill: The Last Lion.
New York: Dell Publishing Group, 1989.

Martin, Ralph G.
Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972.

Morgan, Ted.
Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry 1874- 1915.
New York: Simon & Shuster, Inc., 1982.

Sutton, Denys.
Walter Sickert: A Biography.
London: Michael Joseph, 1976.

Wilson, Colin & Robin Odell.
Jack the Ripper: Summing up and Verdict.
London: Corgi Books, 1988.