The Night of the Ripper

~ SIXTEEN ~

Inspector Abberline wasn’t sure.

Waiting in the anteroom of Sir Charles Warren’s office he tried to find an answer. Could it be that meal at the Gravesend Inn, topped off by gooseberry fool? Maybe this was making his stomach growl.

The meal had been a mistake and the whole trip to Gravesend was a fiasco. They’d held a suspect for him there, and nothing would do but for him to jar his digestion with a long train ride to pick the man up. William Piggott was his name, and he’d been seen by the landlady of the Prince of Wales public house on the morning after Annie Chapman’s murder, disheveled and with blood on his clothing.

The accused fitted the description, admitting he’d been in Whitechapel that morning and quarreled with a woman who bit his finger. Other than this he refused to speak on the journey back to London and seemed to be in a state bordering on delirium tremens. It all added up until they learned he’d slept in a lodging house straight through the time of the murder. The blood on his clothing probably came from the finger bitten during the quarrel after he awoke. And when Piggott was brought in neither the landlady nor any of the public house patrons could positively identify him. To top it off, the divisional surgeon who examined the man certified he was quite insane.

No wonder Abberline had a bad stomach. And when he finally found himself ushered into Sir Charles Warren’s presence, matters only got worse.

Of course Warren knew about Piggott, and John Pizer, and another suspect — a barber’s assistant named Ludwig — who’d been arrested and released. He’d read it all in the papers.

“That’s what I want you to explain,” Warren said. “How does all this twaddle get into the hands of the press?”

Abberline stood there, hat in hand, forcing himself to remain calm, but his fingers twisted the brim of his bowler.

“I’m afraid there’s no help for it, sir. The way journalists keep swarming into Whitechapel asking questions they’re bound to turn up information. We can’t prevent that.”

“Information?” Warren fixed the monocle to his bad eye and regarded him with a steely squint. “It’s enough they know we’ve planted detectives working in the slaughterhouses, visiting all the butcher shops, questioning every lodging-house keeper in the district. Personally I think it a mistake to print such stories — they’re bound to put the murderer on the qui vive—but at least it shows we’re doing our duty.” He picked up a morning paper from his desktop. “What I can’t countenance is rot like this. Suggesting that whores should carry whistles and walk in couples, or that officers on patrol disguise themselves as common prostitutes!”

“I admit that isn’t practical,” Abberline said. “Speaking for my men I can vouch they’ll do almost anything they’re ordered to, but shaving off their mustaches is a bit much.”

“Damn it, man, are you trying to make sport of this?” Warren’s squint grew into a glare. “Leave the bad jokes to Fleet Street.” He opened the newspaper, riffling through its pages. “There’s more bilge here in the letter columns. Suggestions that we recruit prizefighters to dress as women. Or even enlisting effeminates to pose as streetwalkers, giving them spiked steel collars to wear because the murderer first attacks the throat. I tell you the whole city has gone crazy.”

“Agreed.” Abberline nodded. “But it’s a crazy man we’re after. And we’re bound to find him, sooner or later. I have some fresh leads—”

“Then go after them!” Warren’s maniacal monocle glittered. “But mind you, not a word to the press. They’re having a field day, blowing this whole affair up out of all proportion, and I know why.” His mustache quivered as he spoke. “You can see the reason behind this puffery, can’t you? They’re out to discredit me. Ever since those infernal riots last year they’ve been after my blood. Well, let them try and be damned to them!” Crumpling the paper, he threw it into the wastebasket beside his desk. “I won’t have it, do you hear? I won’t have it!”

A warning sounded in Abberline’s stomach and he covered it hastily, clearing his throat. No sense talking to Warren any further, but there was another alternative.

“I appreciate your feelings in the matter, Sir Charles, and I’ll not trouble you about those leads. But I do want an official opinion before I go ahead. Perhaps it would be best for me to discuss plans with the assistant commissioner. If he’s ready to assume charge of the case now—”

“Anderson?” Warren offered him a surprised stare. “Haven’t you heard? He left here the day after the Chapman murder.”

“Left?” It was Abberline’s turn to display surprise.

“I told you he was feeling poorly. His physician recommended a month’s holiday abroad. Switzerland, I believe.”

Something spasmed in Abberline’s gut and he turned away quickly without replying; a nod of farewell was all he could safely venture as he put on his hat and left the office.

Only upon reaching the outer corridor beyond the anteroom did he give voice to his reaction.

“Switzerland,” Abberline muttered. “All hell breaks loose in Whitechapel and he runs off to take a holiday.” His stomach rumbled in counterpoint to his words. “No hard feelings, but I hope he falls off an alp and breaks his bloody neck!”