David Golemon - Ripper

Robert Louis Stevenson nodded his head in understanding. “Good luck, Chief Inspector.”

“I doubt if luck will have anything to do with this night’s work.” Abberline slapped the side of the coach and the sergeant whipped the horses away from the warehouse.

“I wanted that man to remain here,” Colonel Stanley said as he stopped and turned to face Abberline.

“I know you did, but Her Majesty’s letter said nothing about eliminating material witnesses.”

“You judge me too harshly, Chief Inspector.”

“I don’t judge at all, Colonel. I investigate, I discover who the rat is, and I suspect that the rats are not only inside the warehouse, but out here in this damnable fog also.”

Stanley smiled and then bowed his head and removed his black cap at the same moment. “Shall we see this business concluded?”

Abberline watched Stanley and his approach to the large, rundown building. He took Inspector Washington by the coat sleeve and stopped him.

“Stay close to me old boy. I don’t want any accidents to befall us.”

“You mean like a well-intentioned but stray bullet reaching out and finding us?”

“I knew there was a reason they made you inspector, Washington old boy. Now, as the colonel said, let’s finish this business.”

The warehouse was large and they could see lights streaming from several of the windows that looked out onto the street.

“You men have your orders. Shoot anyone on sight. He has a large man in his employ working as his assistant — he will not be allowed to live. He may have several more men inside, but we cannot be sure. Have no mercy upon these people. They are enemies of the Empire.” Stanley pulled out his own revolver that was attached by a cord to his polished holster. “Gentlemen, his workshop is located on the river side, but be careful as we move through the building; we don’t know what to expect. Now, let’s move.”

As the men started to move off, Abberline realized that Colonel Stanley had been to this particular warehouse before.

Two of the soldiers of the Black Watch approached the double sliding doors of the warehouse and used a large pry bar to tear off the hasp and lock that secured the building.

“Colonel, you have been here before,” Abberline said as the lock and hasp clattered to the roadway, making all of the twenty-three men cringe as the fog failed to cover the noise.

Stanley noticed that the statement from the chief inspector was not put into the form of a question.

“Yes, Chief inspector, I was here for the first time five months ago.”

“The day we found Mary Kelly in her room?” Abberline asked, his anger growing. “You knew who the Ripper was then?”

“Yes,” came the curt answer. “And I suspect I will burn in hell along with a lot of other people for knowing just that, sir.” He finally turned and faced Abberline as the twin doors opened to the foggy night. “And I will be happy for it just to get a chance at killing this monster. No matter what you think of me, know that I was never in favor of what you are about to see.” Colonel Stanley followed his men inside the massive warehouse.

“Inspector Washington?” Abberline called out.

“Sir?”

“Keep your pistol at the ready to defend yourself. If I fall, return to headquarters and start screaming your bloody head off about Colonel Stanley and the Black Watch’s involvement in this. The notoriety may protect you to some degree.”

“I will do just that Chief Inspector.”

Both men held their gaze a little longer, and then with Colonel Stanley waiting at the door, Abberline and Washington entered the lair of the man that had become the inspiration for one of the most horrific fictional characters ever — Dr. Jekyll, and his alter ego Mr. Hyde, who it seems became the very real — Jack the Ripper.

Abberline immediately felt the heat inside of the building and knew it not to be all natural. He was stunned to realize that the building was actually being heated, or better still, he thought, humidified. He looked at the men as they spread out on the lower floors of the warehouse with their Lee-Metford ten-shot repeating rifles at the ready. He saw that several of the men carried heavy fire, American-made Winchester Model 1887 single-barrel shotguns. He saw that Colonel Stanley and a few of his men were standing near several tables that stretched a hundred feet in length. As he and Washington approached he saw that the ridged tops of these tables were filled with dirt.

“They’re gone,” Stanley said as he grabbed a handful of the dirt and then let it sift through his fingers. Then he angrily slapped at the thick, rich soil. “They’ve all been removed. They cannot have acted so quickly after the murder … unless they knew they were leaving tonight!”

Abberline watched Stanley as he moved off to join the rest of his men. As Washington started to follow, the chief inspector reached out and took him by the arm.

“Look at this,” he said, reaching for something he had spied in the dark earth inside the table Stanley had been standing at.

“What is it?” Washington asked.

Abberline held up the long, thin stalk of a plant that had been partially hidden in the soil. He held it to his nose and sniffed. “I don’t know, but it does have a familiar smell to it.” He held the stalk out so the inspector could also smell the strange, yet familiar aroma of the plant.

“Yes, but like you I cannot place it.”

Abberline let the stalk fall back into the moist earth and then turned and examined the immediate area around them. There were bags of pig and cow dung and fifty barrels of fresh water. There were gardening tools and other instruments he did recognize upon an adjoining table. Then he looked up into the high rafters of the warehouse and saw the massive skylights that came nowhere near the age of the building itself. The answer dawned on him.

“A greenhouse.”

“Sir?” Washington asked.

“This whole building is nothing but a massive greenhouse.”

Suddenly a shout and then several curses were heard from a far corner of the warehouse. Both men turned and ran in the direction of the frightened and angry voices. When they arrived at the scene they were stunned, as were the red-clad soldiers at the sight they were witnessing.

“Oh, God,” Washington said when he saw what stopped the soldiers dead in their tracks.

As Colonel Stanley hurried over he saw two of his men, soldiers that had seen more than their share of military action, bent over double as they vomited up their evening meals.

“Why have you stopped searching, what is—?”

The question died in the colonel’s mouth as he saw the two severed heads sitting on either side of the staircase banister. They had been viciously jammed onto the twin railings with such brute force that the wood had been shoved through the top of their heads. One was a bearded man in his early twenties and the other a woman, complete with tattered hat still on her head with the wooden post sticking through its top.

“Colonel,” the sergeant major said holding out a piece of paper. “This was nailed into the head of the man.”

Abberline was shocked to see a nail still protruding from the forehead of the bearded victim. Without investigation he knew the young man to be one of his men. He had to turn away as the colonel took the note.

“What does it say?” Abberline asked, finally feeling that the heavy-caliber Webley was not such a burden after all.

Colonel Stanley, instead of answering the question, gestured for ten men to move to the far side of the building and use the wooden staircase at that end. He then handed the note over to the chief inspector and then quickly started taking the stairs two at a time.