Cornwell, Patricia - Portrait Of A Killer Jack The Ripper Case Closed(v1)

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PORTRAIT of a KILLER

JACK THE RIPPER

CASE CLOSED

PATRICIA CORNWELL

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Nea, Yori G. P. Putnam's Sons

Publishers Since 1838 a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014

Care has been taken to trace the ownership and obtain permission, if necessary, for the photographs

included in this book. If any errors or omissions have occurred, crediting will be corrected in

thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Published simultaneously in

Canada Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cornwell, Patricia Daniels.

Portrait of a killer : Jack the Ripper - case closed / Patricia Cornwell.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-399-14932-5 1. Jack the Ripper. 2. Serial murders - England - London - History - 19th

century.

3. Whitechapel (London, England) - History. I. Title.

Printed in the United States of America 13579 10 8642

This book is printed on acid-free paper. @

BOOK DESIGN BY MICHELLE MCMILLIAN, STEPHANIE HUNTWORK, AND

AMANDA DEWEY

To Scotland Yard's John Grieve You would have caught him.

CONTENTS

Chapter One: MR. NOBODY

Chapter Two: THE TOUR

Chapter Three: THE UNFORTUNATES

Chapter Four: BY SOME PERSON UNKNOWN

Chapter Five: A GLORIOUS BOY

Chapter Six: WALTER AND THE BOYS

Chapter Seven: THE GENTLEMAN SLUMMER

Chapter Eight: A BIT OF BROKEN LOOKING GLASS

Chapter Nine: THE DARK LANTERN

Chapter Ten: MEDICINE OF THE COURTS

Chapter Eleven: SUMMER NIGHT

Chapter Twelve: THE YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL

Chapter Thirteen: HUE AND CRY

Chapter Fourteen: CROCHET WORK AND FLOWERS

Chapter Fifteen: A PAINTED LETTER

Chapter Sixteen: STYGIAN BLACKNESS

Chapter Seventeen: THE STREETS UNTIL DAWN

Chapter Eighteen: A SHINY BLACK BAG

Chapter Nineteen: THESE CHARACTERS ABOUT

Chapter Twenty: BEYOND IDENTITY

Chapter Twenty-One: A GREAT JOKE

Chapter Twenty-Two: BARREN FIELDS AND SLAG-HEAPS

Chapter Twenty-Three: THE GUEST BOOK

Chapter Twenty-Four: IN A HORSE-BIN

Chapter Twenty-Five: THREE KEYS

Chapter Twenty-Six: THE DAUGHTERS OF COBDEN

Chapter Twenty-Seven: THE DARKEST NIGHT IN THE DAY

Chapter Twenty-Eight: FURTHER FROM THE GRAVE

There was a general panic, a great many excitable people declaring that the evil one was revisiting

the earth.

- H.M., ANONYMOUS EAST END MISSIONARY, 1888

CHAPTER ONE

MR. NOBODY

Monday, August 6, 1888, was a bank holiday in London. The city was a carnival of wondrous

things to do for as little as pennies if one could spare a few.

The bells of Windsor's Parish Church and St. George's Chapel rang throughout the day. Ships

were dressed in flags, and royal salutes boomed from cannons to celebrate the Duke of Edinburgh's

forty-fourth birthday.

The Crystal Palace offered a dazzling spectrum of special programs: organ recitals, military band

concerts, a "monster display of fireworks," a grand fairy ballet, ventriloquists, and "world famous

minstrel performances." Madame Tussaud's featured a special wax model of Frederick II lying in

state and, of course, the ever-popular Chamber of Horrors. Other delicious horrors awaited those

who could afford theater tickets and were in the mood for a morality play or just a good old-

fashioned fright. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was playing to sold-out houses. The famous American

actor Richard Mansfield was brilliant as Jekyll and Hyde at Henry Irving's Lyceum, and the Opera

Comique had its version, too, although poorly reviewed and in the midst of a scandal because the

theater had adapted Robert Louis Stevenson's novel without permission.

On this bank holiday there were horse and cattle shows; special "cheap rates" on trains; and the

bazaars in Covent Garden overflowing with Sheffield plates, gold, jewelry, used military uniforms.

If one wanted to pretend to be a soldier on this relaxed but rowdy day, he could do so with little

expense and no questions asked. Or one could impersonate a copper by renting an authentic

Metropolitan Police uniform from Angel's Theatrical Costumes in Camden Town, scarcely a two-

mile stroll from where the handsome Walter Richard Sickert lived.

Twenty-eight-year-old Sickert had given up his obscure acting career for the higher calling of art.

He was a painter, an etcher, a student of James McNeill Whistler, and a disciple of Edgar Degas.

Young Sickert was himself a work of art: slender, with a strong upper body from swimming, a

perfectly angled nose and jaw, thick wavy blond hair, and blue eyes that were as inscrutable and

penetrating as his secret thoughts and piercing mind. One might almost have called him pretty,

except for his mouth, which could narrow into a hard, cruel line. His precise height is unknown, but

a friend of his described him as a little above average. Photographs and several items of clothing

donated to the Tate Gallery Archive in the 1980s suggest he was probably five foot eight or nine.

Sickert was fluent in German, English, French, and Italian. He knew Latin well enough to teach it

to friends, and he was well acquainted with Danish and Greek and possibly knew a smattering of

Spanish and Portuguese. He was said to read the classics in their original languages, but he didn't

always finish a book once he started it. It wasn't uncommon to find dozens of novels strewn about,

opened to the last page that had snagged his interest. Mostly, Sickert was addicted to newspapers,

tabloids, and journals.

Until his death in 1942, his studios and studies looked like a recycling center for just about every

bit of newsprint to roll off the European presses. One might ask how any hard-working person

could find time to go through four, five, six, ten newspapers a day, but Sickert had a method. He

didn't bother with what didn't interest him, whether it was politics, economics, world affairs, wars,

or people. Nothing mattered to Sickert unless it somehow affected Sickert.

He usually preferred to read about the latest entertainment to come to town, to scrutinize art

critiques, to turn quickly to any story about crime, and to search for his own name if there was any

reason it might be in print on a given day. He was fond of letters to the editor, especially ones he

wrote and signed with a pseudonym. Sickert relished knowing what other people were doing,

especially in the privacy of their own not-always-so-tidy Victorian lives. "Write, write, write!" he

would beg his friends. "Tell me in detail all sorts of things, things that have amused you and how

and when and where, and all sorts of gossip about every one."

Sickert despised the upper class, but he was a star stalker. He somehow managed to hobnob with

the major celebrities of the day: Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, Aubrey Beardsley, Henry James,

Max Beerbohm, Oscar Wilde, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Rodin, Andre Gide, Edouard Du-jardin,

Proust, Members of Parliament. But he did not necessarily know many of them, and no one -

famous or otherwise - ever really knew him. Not even his first wife, Ellen, who would turn forty in

less than two weeks. Sickert may not have given much thought to his wife's birthday on this bank

holiday, but it was extremely unlikely he had forgotten it.

He was much admired for his amazing memory. Throughout his life he would amuse dinner

guests by performing long passages of musicals and plays, dressed for the parts, his recitations

flawless. Sickert would not have forgotten that Ellen's birthday was August 18th and a very easy

occasion to ruin. Maybe he would "forget." Maybe he would vanish into one of his secret rented

hovels that he called studios. Maybe he would take Ellen to a romantic cafe in Soho and leave her

alone at the table while he dashed off to a music hall and then stayed out the rest of the night. Ellen

loved Sickert all her sad life, despite his cold heart, his pathological lying, his self-centeredness,

and his, habit of disappearing for days - even weeks - without warning or explanation.

Walter Sickert was an actor by nature more than by virtue of employment. He lived on the center

stage of his secret, fantasy-driven life and was just as comfortable moving about unnoticed in the

deep shadows of isolated streets as he was in the midst of throbbing crowds. He had a great range

of voice and was a master of greasepaint and wardrobe. So gifted at disguise was he that as a boy

he often went about unrecognized by his neighbors and family.

Throughout his long and celebrated life, he was notorious for constantly changing his appearance

with a variety of beards and mustaches, for his bizarre dress that in some cases constituted

costumes, for his hairstyles - including shaving his head. He was, wrote French artist and friend

Jacques-Emile Blanche, a "Proteus." Sickert's "genius for camouflage in dress, in the fashion of

wearing his hair, and in his manner of speaking rival Fregoli's," Blanche recalled. In a portrait

Wilson Steer painted of Sickert in 1890, Sickert sports a phony-looking mustache that resembles a

squirrel's tail pasted above his mouth.

He also had a penchant for changing his name. His acting career, paintings, etchings, drawings,

and prolific letters to colleagues, friends, and newspapers reveal many personas: Mr. Nemo (Latin

for "Mr. Nobody"), An Enthusiast, A Whistlerite, Your Art Critic, An Outsider, Walter Sickert,

Sickert, Walter R. Sickert, Richard Sickert, W. R. Sickert, W.S., R.S., S., Dick, W. St., Rd. Sickert

LL.D., R.St. A.R.A., and RoSt A.R.A.

Sickert did not write his memoirs, keep a diary or calendar, or date most of his letters or works of

art, so it is difficult to know where he was or what he was doing on or during any given day, week,

month, or even year. I could find no record of his whereabouts or activities on August 6, 1888, but

there is no reason to suspect he was not in London. Based on notes he scribbled on music-hall

sketches, he was in London just two days earlier, on August 4th.

Whistler would be getting married in London five days later, on August 11th. Although Sickert

hadn't been invited to the small, intimate wedding, he wasn't the sort to miss it - even if he had to

spy on it.

The great painter James McNeill Whistler had fallen deeply in love with the "remarkably pretty"

Beatrice Godwin, who was to occupy the most prominent position in his life and entirely change

the course of it. Likewise, Whistler occupied one of the most prominent positions in Sickert's life

and had entirely changed the course of it. "Nice boy, Walter," Whistler used to say in the early

1880s when he was still fond of the aspiring and extraordinarily gifted young man. By the time of

Whistler's engagement their friendship had cooled, but Sickert could not have been prepared for

what must have seemed a shockingly unexpected and complete abandonment by the Master he

idolized, envied, and hated. Whistler and his new bride planned to honeymoon and travel the rest of

the year in France, where they hoped to reside permanently.

The anticipated connubial bliss of the flamboyant artistic genius and egocentric James McNeill

Whistler must have been disconcerting to his former errand boy-apprentice. One of Sickert's many

roles was the irresistible womanizer, but offstage he was nothing of the sort. Sickert was dependent

on women and loathed them. They were intellectually inferior and useless except as caretakers or

objects to manipulate, especially for art or money. Women were a dangerous reminder of an

infuriating and humiliating secret that Sickert carried not only to the grave but beyond it, because

cremated bodies reveal no tales of the flesh, even if they are exhumed. Sickert was born with a

deformity of his penis requiring surgeries when he was a toddler that would have left him

disfigured if not mutilated. He probably was incapable of an erection. He may not have had enough

of a penis left for penetration, and it is quite possible he had to squat like a woman to urinate.

"My theory of the crimes is that the criminal has been badly disfigured," says an October 4, 1888,

letter filed with the Whitechapel Murders papers at the Corporation of London Records Office, " –

possibly had his privy member destroyed - & he is now revenging himself on the sex by these

atrocities." The letter is written in purple pencil and enigmatically signed "Scotus," which could be

the Latin for Scotsman. "Scotch" can mean a shallow incision or to cut. Scotus could also be a

strange and erudite reference to Johannes Scotus Eriugena, a ninth-century theologian and teacher

of grammar and dialectics.

For Walter Sickert to imagine Whistler in love and enjoying a sexual relationship with a woman

might well have been the catalyst that made Sickert one of the most dangerous and confounding

killers of all time. He began to act out what he had scripted most of his life, not only in thought but

in boyhood sketches that depicted women being abducted, tied up, and stabbed.

The psychology of a violent, remorseless murderer is not defined by connecting dots. There are no

facile explanations or infallible sequences of cause and effect. But the compass of human nature

can point a certain way, and Sickert's feelings could only have been inflamed by Whistler's

marrying the widow of architect and archaeologist Edward Godwin, the man who had lived with

actress Ellen Terry and fathered her children.

The sensuously beautiful Ellen Terry was one of the most famous actresses of the Victorian era,

and Sickert was fixated on her. As a teenager, he had stalked her and her acting partner, Henry

Irving. Now Whistler had links to not one but both objects of Sickert's obsessions, and these three

stars in Sickert's universe formed a constellation that did not include him. The stars cared nothing

about him. He was truly Mr. Nemo.

But in the late summer of 1888 he gave himself a new stage name that during his life would never

be linked to him, a name that soon enough would be far better known than those of Whistler,

Irving, and Terry.

The actualization of Jack the Ripper's violent fantasies began on the carefree bank holiday of

August 6, 1888, when he slipped out of the wings to make his debut in a series of ghastly

performances that were destined to become the most celebrated so-called murder mystery in

history.

It is widely and incorrectly believed that his violent spree ended as abruptly as it began, that he

struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene.

Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and his bloody sexual crimes have become

anemic and impotent. They are puzzles, mystery weekends, games, and "Ripper Walks" that end

with pints in the Ten Bells pub. Saucy Jack, as the Ripper sometimes called himself, has starred in

moody movies featuring famous actors and special effects and spates of what the Ripper said he

craved: blood, blood, blood. His butcheries no longer inspire fright, rage, or even pity as his victims

moulder quietly, some of them in unmarked graves.

CHAPTER TWO

THE TOUR

Not long before Christmas, 2001, I was walking to my apartment in New York's Upper East Side,

and I knew I seemed downcast and agitated, despite my efforts to appear composed and in a fine

mood.

I don't remember much about that night, not even the restaurant where a group of us ate. I vaguely

recall that Lesley Stahl told a scary story about her latest investigation for 60 Minutes, and

everyone at the table was talking politics and economics. I offered another writer encouragement,

citing my usual empowerment spiels and do-what-you-love lines, because I did not want to talk

about myself or the work that I worried was ruining my life. My heart felt squeezed, as if grief

would burst in my chest any moment.

My literary agent, Esther Newberg, and I set out on foot for our part of town. I had little to say on

the dark sidewalk as we passed the usual suspects out walking their dogs and the endless stream of

loud people talking on cell phones. I barely noticed yellow cabs or horns. I began to

imagine some thug trying to grab our briefcases or us. I would chase him and dive for his ankles

and knock him to the ground. I am five foot five and weigh 120 pounds, and I can run fast, and I'd

show him, yes I would. I fantasized about what I would do if some psychopathic piece of garbage

came up from behind us in the dark and suddenly . . .

"How's it going?" Esther asked.

"To tell you the truth ..." I began, because I rarely told Esther the truth.

It was not my habit to admit to my agent or my publisher, Phyllis Grann, that I was ever frightened

or uneasy about what I was doing. The two women were the big shots in my professional existence

and had faith in me. If I said I had been investigating Jack the Ripper and knew who he was, they

didn't doubt me for a moment.

"I'm miserable," I confessed, and I was so dismayed that I felt like crying.

"You are?" Esther's stop-for-nothing stride hesitated for a moment on Lexington Avenue. "You're

miserable? Really? Why?"

"I hate this book, Esther. I don't know how the hell. . .All I did was look at his paintings and his

life, and one thing led to another. ..."

She didn't say a word.

It has always been easier for me to get angry than to show fear or loss, and I was losing my life to

Walter Richard Sickert. He was taking it away from me. "I want to write my novels," I said. "I don't

want to write about him. There's no joy in this. None."

"Well, you know," she said very calmly as she resumed her pace, "you don't have to do it. I can get

you out of it."

She could have gotten me out of it, but I could never have gotten myself out of it. I knew the

identity of a murderer and I couldn't possibly avert my gaze. "I am suddenly in a position of

judgment," I told Esther. "It doesn't matter if he's dead. Every now and then this small voice asks

me, what if you're wrong? I would never forgive myself for saying such a thing about somebody,

and then finding out I'm wrong."

"But you don't believe you're wrong. ..."

"No. Because I'm not," I said.

It all began innocently enough, like setting out to cross a lovely country lane and suddenly being

hit by a cement truck. I was in London in May 2001, promoting the archaeological excavation of

Jamestown. My friend Linda Fairstein, head of the sex crimes unit for the New York District

Attorney's Office, was in London, too, and asked if I'd like to drop by Scotland Yard for a tour.

"Not right now," I said, and even as the words left my mouth, I imagined how little my readers

would respect me if they knew that sometimes I just don't feel like touring one more police

department, laboratory, morgue, firing range, cemetery, penitentiary, crime scene, law-enforcement

agency, or anatomical museum.

When I travel, especially abroad, my key to the city is often an invitation to visit its violent, sad

sights. In Buenos Aires, I was given a proud tour of that city's crime museum, a room of

decapitated heads preserved in formalin inside glass boxes. Only the most notorious criminals made

it into this gruesome gallery, and they had gotten what was coming to them, I supposed, as they

stared back at me with milky eyes. In Salta, in northwestern Argentina, I was shown five-hundred-

year-old mummies of Inca children who had been buried alive to please the gods. A few years ago

in London, I was given VIP treatment in a plague pit where one could scarcely move in the mud

without stepping on human bones.

I worked in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond, Virginia, for six years,

programming computers, compiling statistical analyses, and helping out in the morgue. I scribed for

the forensic pathologists, weighed organs, wrote down trajectories and the sizes of wounds,

inventoried the prescription drugs of suicide victims who would not take their antidepressants,

helped undress fully rigorous people who rigidly resisted our removing their clothes, labeled test

tubes, wiped up blood, and saw, touched, smelled, and even tasted death because the stench of it

clings to the back of one's throat.

I don't forget the faces of or the smallest details about people who are murdered. I've seen so

many. I couldn't possibly count how many, and I wish I could fill a huge room with them before it

happened and beg them to lock their doors or install an alarm system - or at least get a dog - or not

park there or stay away from drugs. I feel the prick of pain when I envision the dented aerosol can

of Brut deodorant in the pocket of the teenaged boy showing off and deciding to stand up in the

back of a pickup truck. He didn't notice it was about to drive under a bridge. I still can't

comprehend the randomness of the death of the man struck by lightning after he was handed a

metal-tipped umbrella as he got off a plane.

My intense curiosity about violence hardened long ago into a suit of clinical armor that is

protective but so heavy sometimes I can barely walk after visits with the dead. It seems the dead

want my energy and desperately try to suck it out of me as they lie in their own blood on the street

or on top of a stainless-steel table. The dead stay dead and I stay drained. Murder is not a mystery,

and it is my mission to fight it with my pen.

It would have been a betrayal of what I am and an insult to Scotland Yard and every law enforcer

in Christendom for me to be "tired" the day Linda Fairstein said she could arrange a tour.

"That's very kind of Scotland Yard," I told her. "I've never been there."

The next morning, I met with Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Grieve, the most respected

investigator in Great Britain, and, as it turned out, an expert in Jack the Ripper's crimes. The fabled

Victorian killer interested me mildly. I had never read a Ripper book in my life. I knew nothing

about his homicides. I did not know his victims were prostitutes or how they died. I asked a few

questions. Perhaps I could use Scotland Yard in my next Scarpetta novel, I thought. If so, I would

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PORTRAITofaKILLERJACKTHERIPPERCASECLOSEDPATRICIACORNWELLG.P.PUTNAM'SSONSNea,YoriG.P.Putnam'sSonsPublishersSince1838amemberofPenguinPutnamInc.375HudsonStreetNewYork,NY10014Copyright©2002byCornwellEnterprises,Inc.Carehasbeentakentotracetheownershipandobtainpermission,ifnecessary,forthephotographsinclu...

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