Patricia Cornwell - Portrait Of A Killer - Jack The Ripper - Case Closed

Coroners of old were the equivalent of today's forensic pathologist having no medical training and driving a morgue van to a death scene, glancing at the body, listening to witnesses, finding out how much the dead person is worth, deciding that a sudden death from a bee sting was a homicidal poisoning, testing the wife's innocence by holding her head under water, and if she didn't drown after five or ten minutes, concluding she was innocent. If she drowned, wrongdoing was the verdict and the family estate was forfeited to the Queen or the president of the United States, depending on where the death occurred. In the coroner system of days gone by, jurors could be bribed. Coroners could increase their wealth. Innocent people could lose everything they owned or be hanged. It was best not to die suddenly, if possible.

Times did change for the better. In the sixteenth century, the coroner's role narrowed its focus to the investigation of sudden deaths and stayed clear of law enforcement and trial by ordeal. In 1860 - the year Walter Sickert was born - a committee recommended that the election process for coroner be treated as seriously as voting for Members of Parliament. A growing awareness of the importance of competent postmortem examinations and handling of evidence added further value and prestige to the office of coroner, and in 1888 - when the Ripper murders began - a governmental act mandated that death investigation findings by coroners would no longer render any sort of financial benefit to the crown.

These important pieces of legislation are rarely if ever mentioned in connection with the Ripper crimes. Objective death investigation became a priority, and the possibility of material gain by the crown was removed. The change in law meant a change of mind-set that allowed and encouraged the coroner to concentrate on justice and not insidious pressure from the royals. The crown had nothing to gain by interfering with the inquests of Martha Tabran, Mary Ann Nichols, or the Ripper's other victims - even if the women had been upper-class subjects with influence and wealth. The coroner had nothing to gain but plenty to lose if the freewheeling press depicted him as an incompetent fool, a liar, or a greedy tyrant. Men such as Wynne Baxter supported themselves through respectable legal practices. They did not add much to their incomes by presiding over inquests, but put their livelihoods at risk if their integrity and skills were impugned.

The evolution in the coroner's system had reached a new level of objectivity and seriousness in 1888, reinforcing my belief that there was no investigative or political conspiracy to "cover up" some nefarious secret during the Ripper murders or after they were believed to have ended. There were, of course, the usual bureaucratic attempts to prevent further embarrassment by discouraging the publication of police memoirs and classifying secret official memorandums that were never written for the public to see. Discretion and nondisclosure may not be popular, but they do not always imply scandal. Honest people delete personal e-mails and use shredding machines. But try as I might, for the longest time I could find no excuse for the silence of the elusive Inspector Abberline. So much is made of him. So little is known. So absent does he seem from the Ripper investigation he headed.

Frederick George Abberline was a modest, courteous man of high morals who was as reliable and methodical as the clocks he repaired before he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1863. During his thirty years of service, he earned eighty-four commendations and rewards from judges, magistrates, and the commissioner of police. As Abberline himself matter-of-factly put it, "I think [I] was considered very exceptional."

He was admired, if not cherished, by his colleagues and the public he served, and does not seem the sort to deliberately outshine anyone, but took great pride in a job well done. I find it significant that there is not a single photograph of him that anybody seems to know of, and I don': believe this is so because all of them "walked away" from Scotland Yard's archives and files. I would expect "pinched" pictures would have been recirculating for years, their prices mounting with each resale. It also seems that any existing pictures would have been published at least once somewhere.

But if there is even one photograph of Abberline, I do not know of it. The only hint of what he looked like is to be found in a few sketches published in magazines that don't always spell his name correctly. Artistic versions of the legendary inspector show an indistinct-looking man with mutton chops, small ears, a straight nose, and a high forehead. In 1885. it appears, he was losing his hair. He may have slumped a bit and doesn't impress me as particularly tall. As was true of the mythical East End monster Abberline tracked but never caught, the detective could disappear at will and become anybody in a crowd.

His love of clocks and gardening says a great deal about him. These are solitary, gentle pursuits that require patience, concentration, tenacity, meticulousness, a light touch, and a love of life and the way things work. I can't think of many better qualities for a detective, except, of course, honesty, and I have no doubt that Frederick Abberline was as true as a tuning fork. Although he never wrote his autobiography or allowed anyone else to tell his story, he did keep a diary of sorts, a hundred-page clipping book about crimes he worked interspersed with comments written in his graceful, generous hand.

Based on the way he assembled his clipping book, I would say that he didn't get around to it until after his retirement. When he died in 1929, this collection of newsprint remnants of his shining career remained the property of his descendants, who eventually donated it to a person or persons unknown. I knew nothing about it until early in 2002 when I was doing further research in London and an official with the Yard showed me the eight-by-eleven book bound in black. I don't know if it had just been donated or had just turned up. I don't know if it actually belongs to Scotland Yard or perhaps to someone who works there. Exactly where this little-known clipping book has been since Abberline pasted it together and when it turned up at Scotland Yard are questions I can't answer. Typically, Abberline remains mysterious and offers few answers even now.

His diary is neither confessional nor full of details about his life, but he does reveal his personality in the way he worked cases and in the comments he wrote. He was a brave, intelligent man who kept his word and abided by the rules, which included not divulging details about the very sorts of cases I expected and hoped to find hidden between his clipping book's covers. Abberline's entries abruptly stop with an October 1887 case of what he called "spontaneous combustion" and do not resume until a March 1891 case of trafficking in infants.

There is not so much as a hint about Jack the Ripper. One won't find a single word about the 1889 Cleveland Street male brothel scandal that must have been a briar patch for Abberline, as accusations included the names of men close to the throne. To read Abberline's diary is to think the Ripper murders and the Cleveland Street scandal never happened, and I have no reason to suspect that someone removed any related pages from the cuttings book. It appears Abberline chose not to include what he knew would be the most sought-after and controversial details of his investigative career.

On pages 44-45 of his diary, he offers an explanation for his silence:

I think it is just as well to record here the reason why as from the various cuttings from the newspapers as well as the many other matters that I was called upon to investigate that never became public property - it must be apparent that I could write many things that would be very interesting to read.