The Ripper's Wife(63)

Take it and make of it what you will, you damned, bloody fools with all your speculation about doctors, butchers, Jews, and Yids! You’ll stop and scratch your confounded heads and beat them bloody against the wall trying to figure it out, and I’ll be on to the next whore and then the next while you’re still trying to make sense of it.

If the fools have wits enough to realize it really is a message from me, I hope it will free the Jews from suspicion. They’re hated enough as it is and I’ve nothing against them.

When I was an apprentice lad, so hot for Sarah but unable to have her, I used to notice the Jewesses walking through Whitechapel in their black wigs. Their religion decrees that they must shave their heads after marriage and let no man but their husbands see them uncovered.

There was one young, shapely wench I always admired. A young bride with a face as pretty as a cameo beneath her black wig. One day, when I was burning with pulsing, mad lust for Sarah and sure I would go mad if I did not soon possess her, the beautiful young Jewess crossed my path. Acting on a sweet, mad impulse, I snatched the wig from her head and ran up an alley. Of course, she followed me.

Weeping with shame and trying to shield her naked head with her shawl, poor thing, she begged me to give back her wig. I backed her against the wall and hoisted her skirts. Tears ran down her face and she wouldn’t even look at me as I filled her. When I tried to caress her face, she jerked her trembling little chin away, still refusing to look at me. That only excited me more! I pushed her to her knees and spent all over her sacred bald scalp.

She never let me catch her alone after that; I never saw her again except in a gaggle of Jewesses. I’ve always remembered her fondly.

“For the fair Jewess,” I saluted my scrawl. I wouldn’t want one of her relatives to be molested or hanged for my naughty deeds. My soul is still kind, after all! It’s only whores I’m down upon.

I flung the scrap of bloody-shitty apron I’d used to wipe my knife down beneath it, another calling card from Jack the Ripper.

I heard the church clock strike three. Maybe they had bloodhounds after me? I’d read some such speculation in the newspapers. But I was like a bloodhound myself, relentlessly drawn to the scent of sex. Mary Jane was near. I was so close, I fancied I could almost smell her cunt. I thought of my succulent ginger tart—my spicy, ribald Mary Jane lying in her bed with her gin bottle, a song on her lips, her stained and sweaty shift hiked up to her hips, and her fingers fiddling away like mad. It was a most amusing habit she had; some women fidget with a lock of hair, a piece of jewelry, or the trimmings on their gown, but Mary Jane plays with herself. There was a little fountain set just a few feet off the road, for the denizens of Dorset Street to wash in, and I quickly peeled off my gloves and washed my hands and made myself presentable. I remembered to take the prayer book and brooch from my pocket and lock them in my black bag where Katie’s kidney was biding its time, waiting to become my dinner.

What a rare treat it would be for me, juicy with blood and red, red wine. I couldn’t wait to taste it! Maybe I would share it with Mary Jane or take it home to dine with my wife-whore? Or maybe the press or police would care to partake? Wouldn’t that be jolly? Let’s all make a feast of Katie’s kidney! So many men have had her in life, why not a few more in death? My bag was equipped with a good, sturdy lock. As an added precaution, I had left the key back in my bolt-hole. You can never trust a whore, and if I fell asleep Mary Jane might riffle my pockets. I smoothed down my clothes. The best thing about black is that it doesn’t show blood, especially in the dead of night. If there was any spot of blood on my white shirt, cuffs, face, or hands I would claim a nosebleed, mention it even before the bitch had the chance to notice it.

I plunged boldly into the darkness of the narrow archway leading to her room. Number 13, lucky for some, unlucky for others. I peeked through the window, around the makeshift muslin curtain, worn thin as a bridal veil. I was in luck. I caressed the diamond horseshoe on my tie and smiled like the Devil. She was alone. Fishmonger Joe was nowhere in sight. I’d been half-afraid that he would spoil everything. I’d thought about watching them f-uck through the window, the way I fantasized about my wife-whore and Alfred Brierley. The candle in the ginger beer bottle was burning bright and Mary Jane was lying there on the rumpled bed just as I had pictured her. I could hear her singing softly and slurrily about that damned, infernal violet on her mother’s grave.

Let the police go on playing hunt the Ripper, let them have their fun, while I had mine.





With the dawn I rose and left Mary Jane sprawled in sweet drunken slumber. On my way back to my cozy little bolt-hole in Petticoat Lane, I passed a policeman. He handed me a handbill. On it was my letter, printed in facsimile, in red ink no less, above an urgently worded request for any who recognized the writing to come forward. As I walked along I saw that they were also pasting posters on the walls. I wanted to laugh right in their stupid faces. Safely back in my bolt-hole, I took a postcard and my bottle of red ink from my travel desk and sat down to write:



I wasn’t codding dear old Boss when I gave

you the tip. Youll hear about Saucy Jackys

work tomorrow double event this time

number one squealed a bit couldnt finish

straight off. Had not time to get ears for

police thanks for keeping last letter back till

I got to work again.