میدان میتر

CHAPTER FOUR

MITRE SQUARE

After the murder of Elizabeth Stride, Jack the Ripper went to look for another victim. He walked west towards the City of London. It is only twelve minutes’ walk from Berner Street to Mitre Square, where the second murder happened.

Although we do not know what time the killer arrived there, we know what his victim did and can follow her movements on the night of September 29-30th.

At 8/30 on Saturday night Constable Robinson found a woman lying on the pavement in Aldgate High Street. She was completely drunk. With the help of another constable Robinson took her to Bishopsgate Street Police Station. She slept in a police cell for three hours.

Then she started singing quietly, and at 12/30 she asked the policeman on duty when she could go. Twenty-five minutes later the policeman took her from her cell to the office. She asked him the time and he said nearly one o’clock, which was about the time of Elizabeth Stride’s murder.

The woman said her name was Mary Ann Kelly, but her real name was Catherine Eddowes.

‘This way, miss,’ said the policeman. He went with her to the street door and asked her to shut it when she left.

Catherine said, ‘Good night.’ And she went to meet her fate at the hands of Jack the Ripper.

Mitre Square is eight minutes’ walk from the police station. Perhaps Catherine arrived there at 1/10 a m perhaps later. We can imagine her singing to herself as she walked along, a small woman, about 1/52m, and thin. She looked about forty, and had dark brown hair under her black bonnet. Her clothes were old and dirty.

She was wearing a red handkerchief around her neck, a black jacket, men’s boots, and an old white apron. This apron had an important part to play in the murder.

Around 1/33 three men came out of the Imperial Club in Duke Street. They passed a man and a woman at the corner of Church Passage that led into Mitre Square. The couple were talking quietly, and the woman had her hand on the man’s chest.

The place was badly-lit, but one man, Joseph Lawende, gave a description of them. He said the woman was short, and wore a black jacket and bonnet. The man was aged 30, 1/70m tall, medium build, with a fair complexion and moustache. He wore a grey cap with a peak, a red handkerchief around his neck, and had the appearance of a sailor. Mr Lawende told the police later, ‘I don’t think I can recognise him again.’

The three men passed on. The time was 1/35 a.m. Nine minutes later Constable Edward Watkins of the City Police walked into Mitre Square. Everything seemed quiet. It was the same dark, silent square of 14 minutes before, when he had walked around it.

But this time he got a terrible shock. In the darkest corner of the square he saw the body of a woman in the light of his lantern. He ran to a warehouse nearby and called out for the night watchman, a man named Morris.

Mr Morris ran for assistance and soon returned with two policemen. Then Inspector Collard arrived from Bishopsgate Police Station, and Dr Brown came at 2/18 to examine the body.

There were also three plain-clothes detectives on the streets that night. They were part of the police hunt for the Whitechapel killer. At the time of the murder they were only a few streets away from Mitre Square. Hearing about the murder, they went to the square. Then they went off to look for the killer.

One of them walked through Goulston Street just before 2/15, but saw nothing suspicious and returned to Mitre Square.

At 2/20 Constable Alfred Long also walked along Goulston Street and saw nothing unusual. His beat took him there approximately every thirty minutes, so at 2/55 he was back in Goulston Street.

This time he saw a piece of bloodstained apron in an open doorway. Near the piece of material, in white chalk on the wall, was a message: The Juwes are the Men that will not be blamed for nothing.

When Constable Long reported this graffito, an Inspector McWilliam sent orders to photograph it. But the chief of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Charles Warren, changed the order. He was afraid about anti-Jewish demonstrations, so he ordered his men to rub out the message. He destroyed an important clue. But he knew about the strong anti-semitic feelings in the area.

The piece of bloodstained apron fitted exactly into a missing section of the victim’s apron. The killer evidently took it with him and cleaned his hands on it. At some time between 2/20 and 2/55 he was in Goulston Street.

He threw the piece of apron, wet with blood, in the doorway and wrote the message. But perhaps he did not write the message. Perhaps it was already there and the murderer dropped the apron near it by chance. Or did he see the graffito and leave the apron there to put the blame on the Jews?

We shall never know the answer. But we know that Jack the Ripper was an extraordinary killer - cool, daring, and efficient.

He came and went invisibly. Constable Watkins saw nothing in Mitre Square at 1/30 He did not see or hear anything when he entered it and discovered the body at 1/44.

And only minutes before at 1/41 or 1/42 another officer looked into the square from Church Passage. ‘I saw no one and heard no cry or noise,’ he said later. Mr Morris, the night watchman in the warehouse, went to the door and looked into the square ‘two moments before Constable Watkins called him. Everything was quiet and deserted.

So in less than fifteen minutes the Ripper took Catherine into Mitre square, killed her, mutilated her horribly, and escaped - right under the noses of the police! His escape was amazing. Immediately after the discovery of the murder the streets were full of policemen.

The police were already everywhere in the area after Liz Stride’s murder. But the discovery of the apron shows that the killer was out in the streets at some time between 2/20 and 2/55 36 to 71 minutes after Watkins discovered the body.

Goulston Street is only five minutes from Mitre square. So what was the murderer doing? To the police Jack the Ripper was a mystery. He is still a mystery today.

Catherine Eddowes was the Ripper’s fourth victim. She was 42 and lived in a lodging house.

People said she was ‘jolly’, always singing. Her partner was John Kelly. When they parted at 2 p.m. on Saturday 29th, Kelly told her to be careful about the Whitechapel killer.

‘Don’t you worry about me,’ replied Catherine. ‘I’ll take care of myself, and I won’t fall into his hands.