Unsolved Crime
Had someone asked Guy Barrie when he was a boy what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have said he hoped to be a professional cricket player or a drummer in a rock band. At an early age, he had no idea he would eventually become an eminent criminologist and the world's leading expert on Jack the Ripper. But while still at university, he began reading books on the infamous Whitechapel killer, and the case eventually became a life-long obsession.
As the number one "Ripperologist" in the world, he was often interviewed or consulted by journalists, screenwriters, true crime authors, television producers and fellow Ripper enthusiasts. Whenever he was asked his opinion on the identity of the killer, however, he declined to give a name.
"I don't believe the real culprit has ever come to light," he declared. "The most widely known suspects are Prince Albert Victor, Montague John Druitt, Dr. T. Neill Cream and Patricia Cornwell's favorite, artist Walter Sickert. Unfortunately, I haven't discovered a shred of proof linking any of these men to the murders. As for the other suspects, they are downright ludicrous. Who could honestly believe Lewis Carroll or the Elephant Man was scouring the dark streets of East London for prostitutes to eviscerate?"
Guy did not believe his role as a criminologist was to come up with a new theory that had been overlooked for more than a century nor was it to link the murders to the royal family, the Freemasons or a famous Victorian painter. It was enough for him to have committed to memory every known detail about the victims, the suspects and the Scotland Yard investigation. Armed with cold, hard facts, he was able to successfully debate reporters, law enforcement officers, authors and psychological profilers.
His vast knowledge of the facts surrounding the murders was a source of great pride to Guy. Even though the case was so old there was little hope of ever discovering the killer's identity and no way of bringing him to justice if that identity ever did come to light, the criminologist considered Jack the Ripper the most fascinating villain in British history, even ranking above Guy Fawkes, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen and Richard III.
Perhaps someday, he thought, he would write the definitive book on the subject; but he was not quite ready to assume so enormous an undertaking. Until such time as he retired to the country with a laptop computer, ready to write, he would remain content to read and critique the writing of others and to guide students, documentary filmmakers and fellow criminologists through the frightening world of late-nineteenth-century London.
* * *
Guy's long-range plans changed one night when he returned to his London flat from a walk along the cobbled alleyways of Whitechapel—a jaunt he frequently took on warm summer evenings—and discovered an older but well-maintained Bentley in front of his building. As the Ripperologist reached for the handle of his front door, a uniformed chauffeur stepped out of the vehicle and addressed him.
"Are you Mr. Barrie, the expert on Jack the Ripper?" the driver asked.
"Yes, I am."
Guy's chest swelled. It was a heady feeling when people recognized his outstanding achievement in his chosen field.
"My employer was hoping to have a moment of your time, sir."
Barrie immediately assumed the car's passenger was a person of importance, possibly someone who had flown over from Hollywood.
"Why don't you and your employer come inside?"
The driver opened the rear door of the Bentley and helped the passenger out of the car. Although no Hollywood celebrity, the old woman—who Guy took to be well into her eighties—was clearly well-off, judging by the jewelry and expensive clothes she wore.
"Mr. Barrie," she said when she took a seat in the criminologist's parlor. "My name is Gwendolyn Bothwell. I wanted to talk to you about the Ripper case."
This was no surprise to Guy since many people came to his flat to discuss the murders.
"Are you planning on writing a book?" he asked. "Will it be fiction mixed with fact or will it be strictly nonfiction?"
"Good heavens! I'm not a writer," Gwendolyn laughed. "Besides, if I tried to write a book, I doubt I'd live long enough to finish it."
"You never know. People are living longer these days."
"Mr. Barrie," the woman said in a tone that brooked no argument. "I'm not here to discuss the time of my demise. I've come here because everyone I've contacted tells me you're the man to see about these horrid murders."
"Yes, I am," he replied, not wasting time with false modesty. "So, what is it you'd like to know, Mrs. Bothwell?"
Another laugh.
"I did not come here to question but rather to illuminate."
The old woman picked up her Gucci handbag and took out a small, leather-bound book, which smelled of camphor and stale perfume. The book showed signs of age: the leather was worn, and the pages were yellowed and brittle.
"This journal has been in my family for over a century, passed down from one generation to the next. Alas, I am the last of the line. I have no one to leave it to when I pass on, so I've decided to entrust it to you."
"What is it?" Guy asked, his curiosity piqued. "The diary of a Scotland Yard inspector?"
"No. It is the journal of my great, great ...."
Here the woman lost count of the generations.
"Suffice it to say it belonged to one of my ancestors, who was a doctor at Bethlem Royal Hospital."
"You mean Bedlam?"
Gwendolyn's aristocratic nose curled with distaste.
"I don't approve of that vulgar corruption of the hospital's name."
"I apologize if I've offended you, but I just want to be certain we're talking about the famous—or infamous—insane asylum."
"Yes. That's the one. My ancestor helped care for the mentally ill of Victorian London."
Guy was intrigued. It was often theorized that Jack the Ripper suddenly stopped his reign of terror after brutally butchering Mary Kelly because he had been committed to an asylum. Could the journal—if authentic—support that theory?
The criminologist reached out his hand, eager to examine the book.
"Before I give this to you," the old woman warned, "I must emphasize that this journal is old and delicate; please take every precaution to ensure that it's not damaged."
"What am I to do when I'm finished reading it?"
The old woman shrugged her shoulders and rose from her seat.
"I'll leave that decision up to you. The truth, Mr. Barrie, is sometimes a heavy burden to bear. Having passed the secret on to you, I now feel as though a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders."
The purpose of her visit concluded, Gwendolyn Bothwell, assisted by her chauffeur, walked down the stairs toward the exit. When she reached the door, the old woman turned, bid Guy Barrie farewell and wished him luck.
* * *
After making himself a cup of tea and a cucumber sandwich, Guy returned to the parlor where he sat in his reading chair and picked up the journal. The name on the first page identified the writer as Dr. Reginald Goodhew, and the date was November 1908, which would put the journal twenty years after the Ripper's final victim was discovered.
Dr. Goodhew began his journal with a single sentence set apart from the others by capital letters, as though it were a title.
I FIRST MET NEVILLE BLOOM IN 1837 WHEN I WAS A STUDENT AT THE LONDON HOSPITAL MEDICAL COLLEGE.
Neville Bloom, Dr. Goodhew went on to explain, was a boy of only ten years, a local lad who was prone to getting into trouble for one thing or another. The boy was brought to the hospital by his mother when he fell from a wall and broke his arm. Dr. Goodhew had the misfortune of being the young doctor on duty and was called on to set the broken limb.
Though the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses were still in their infancy, Dr. Goodhew could tell there was something decidedly wrong with the boy, and he was not referring to his broken bone.
There was madness in his eyes, and he delighted in telling me of his exploits. He took great pleasure in running about the streets of London, terrorizing women. Although the victims were otherwise unharmed, they were frightened when the boy ripped the clothes from their bodies using a sharp, knife-like instrument.
I asked him why he enjoyed scaring women who were strangers to him. He insisted that it was nothing but an innocent prank, yet his eyes told me otherwise.
The doctor went on to describe his surprise a few months later when he read accounts in the newspapers of a creature named Spring-heeled Jack, who was credited not only with ripping the clothes off young women but also with such fantastic feats as running up the side of a building, leaping over ten-foot-high walls and even breathing fire. Dr. Goodhew immediately guessed the identity of the culprit: Neville Bloom, the mischievous boy with the broken arm.
When these bizarre attacks became more frequent and more widespread, Reginald went to Scotland Yard with his suspicions. Whether the authorities believed him, he could not be sure; but shortly thereafter the attacks stopped, so he chose to conclude he had done his part in ridding London of a troublesome hooligan.
The next pages of the journal detailed the completion of the writer's medical education and his reasons for choosing to care for the poor unfortunates at Bethlem Hospital rather than treating the physical maladies of Londoners at the Royal London Hospital. After several blank pages, the writing continued about one-third of the way into the book.
On the night of November 9, 1888, I had dinner with a colleague, a fellow doctor who lived not far from the Royal Hospital in Whitechapel. When we parted at the end of the evening, I headed out onto the street to hail a carriage. Suddenly, a man staggered out of the fog and bumped into me. When I saw that the stranger was covered with blood, I offered my services as a physician. The stranger then accompanied me to my apartments where, after a brief examination, I realized the blood on his clothing was not his own. At first, I was perplexed about how the man's clothes could be so drenched in blood, but suddenly I knew the terrible truth. Like most Londoners, I had read of the prostitutes murdered in Whitechapel, of the fiend the newspapers called Jack the Ripper.
I looked at the man's face and was alarmed by what I saw there. Only once in my life had I seen such madness: that was in the eyes of a young lad who came to be known as Spring-heeled Jack. Could it be the same boy now grown into a man? I did a quick mental calculation. The stranger looked to be around sixty, so the age would be about right.
"I think we've met once before," I told him. "Fifty years ago, I treated your broken arm."
"You have a good memory."
"You are hard to forget. As I recall, back then you liked to terrorize the young women of London."
"I still do," he said with a malicious laugh that sent shivers down my spine.
"You've graduated from misdemeanors to murder, haven't you?"
"How perceptive of you, Doctor! What gave me away, my bloody clothes? I'm afraid I've been up to mischief again."
"Mischief? Does that mean you have butchered another innocent victim?"
"I choose not to answer that. Instead, I have a question for you. Ask yourself why I came back to your home, knowing full well you might deduce my identity?"
I was at a loss for an answer.
"I don't know. Perhaps you just wanted to brag about your crimes as you did when you were a boy."
"No. You see I made that mistake fifty years ago, and you informed the police. When I bumped into you tonight, I recognized you and decided to silence you for once and for all."
The Ripper made a quick move with his knife, but even though I was at least ten years his senior, my reflexes were quicker than his. Having worked in a lunatic asylum for so many years, I had learned several self-defense techniques. With surprising ease, I soon had my would-be attacker helpless on the floor.
Dr. Goodhew's narrative stopped mid-page, only to be continued at the top of the next. Apparently, he had taken a break from writing. When his tale resumed, the setting switched from his London home to his office in Bethlem Hospital.
After a night of soul-searching, I decided not to reveal the Ripper's identity to Scotland Yard. Instead, I had him committed to the hospital where he would be under my direct care. I swore an oath before God that my patient would never be free to hurt another living soul.
Alas, I did not anticipate the pure evil that lived in Neville Bloom's heart. It was not only London's prostitutes that were in danger but everyone on God's good earth. He was in the asylum for less than a week when he murdered an elderly woman, a fellow patient with the mind of a child. That devil ripped her apart not with a knife but with his bare hands.
"I've been up to mischief again, Dr. Goodhew," the monster told me, his hands red with the poor woman's blood.
"I suppose I shall have to order you be put in chains."
The eyes stared at me with malevolence.
"Oh, you can try to stop me from killing, but you'll never succeed. Sooner or later, I'll find a way out, and the blood will run again."
I knew he was right. I was already in my seventies and thinking about retiring. I could not tell my replacement that I was keeping the infamous Jack the Ripper in the hospital. If I did, I would more than likely be prosecuted for interfering with a Scotland Yard investigation, perhaps even harboring and abetting a killer.
I fretted over my decision for days, barely sleeping at night. Was it too late to turn Neville Bloom over to the police? And if I did, was there any guarantee the monster would be convicted? Surely he should never be allowed to walk free among the unsuspecting women of London. If I were absolutely certain Bloom would hang, I would immediately hand him over to Scotland Yard, regardless of the consequences to my reputation or my liberty.
But even though there was no doubt in my mind that Neville was Jack the Ripper, I had no real proof of this other than my own certainty. Even if I could produce the blood-stained clothes he wore to my home after disemboweling Mary Kelly—which I could not do because they were destroyed when I committed him to Bethlem Hospital—would they be enough evidence to hang him?
No, I could not, in all good conscience, risk letting Neville Bloom, the infamous Jack the Ripper, slip through the cracks of the British justice system. It was for this reason that I made the monumental decision to take the law into my own hands. For more than fifty years I had dedicated my life to helping the poor unfortunates in my care, to treating them with compassion and charity. Yet once I made my decision to rid the world of the evil lunatic who was killing prostitutes in Whitechapel, I did so without hesitation or remorse. I snuffed out his life with the same unemotional efficiency I used in extinguishing the flame of a candle.
As was apparently Dr. Goodhew's practice in writing his journal, he left several blank pages before concluding his narrative, pages that were most likely meant to indicate the passage of time.
I had hoped that with Neville Bloom dead and with the absence of any new victims, the Ripper case would eventually fade from both the newspapers and the public's mind. There were, after all, other crimes and social woes for people to fret over. Yet for some strange reason, people are still trying to ascertain the identity of the knife-wielding fiend. Perhaps they still fear he will emerge from the fog on a dark night, strike without warning and disappear again.
The son of a former colleague of mine is now an inspector at Scotland Yard and is hell-bent on bringing the Ripper to justice, unaware that I had accomplished that task. When I had the opportunity to speak with him after his father's funeral, the chief inspector informed me that there were a number of suspects in the case and that there was a good possibility one of them would swing for the murders.
I had never considered the fact that an innocent man would be charged with Bloom's crimes, possibly even lose his life for deeds he did not commit. How could I prevent such a terrible injustice without ruining my good name in the process?
If it were only my burden to carry, I would not think twice about turning myself in and admitting that I had killed Jack the Ripper, suffocating him while he slept, chained to his bed like the dangerous lunatic he was. But I had a family to consider: a wife, children, grandchildren and even a great-grandchild on the way. How could I bring such ignominy to them? It did not seem fair that they would have to carry the stigma of being the progeny of a doctor who killed a lunatic in his care, a coward who had murdered a sleeping man who had no possible way to defend himself.
No, I could never do that to the people I loved most in the world. Yet, I still had to be sure no innocent man was hanged for Bloom's foul murders. That is why I have written down the circumstances of my actions in this journal, which I shall give to my descendants for safekeeping. Should someone be arrested and charged with the Ripper's crimes, let this serve as testimony to Neville's guilt and as a confession of my own. Let it be known that Neville Bloom, under the identity of Jack the Ripper, murdered at least five women—possibly more—in the Whitechapel district of London in the year of our Lord 1888, and that I, Reginald George Goodhew, M.D., formerly of the Bethlem Royal Hospital in St. George's Fields, Southwark, did execute said Neville Bloom for his evil doings.
Therefore, I pass this journal on to my children with the instructions that it be delivered to Scotland Yard in the event of an arrest of a Ripper suspect or passed on to future generations to guard against such blame being posthumously laid on an innocent party.
The doctor's narrative concluded, Guy closed the journal and placed it on his coffee table. Was this tale a hoax, a clever deception to humiliate or trip up the world's leading authority on Jack the Ripper? Before he announced to the world that he had solved the crime of the millennium, Guy thought it best to check (and recheck) all the facts. He had no intention of making himself a laughingstock in the eyes of his colleagues or a subject of tabloid newspapers around the world.
* * *
A month later, Guy Barrie sat at his desk, surrounded by photostatic copies of documents and computer printouts—all of which pointed to the authenticity of Reginald Goodhew's journal. There had been a doctor of that name at Bethlem Royal Hospital, schooled at the Royal London Hospital. Also, there was a patient named Neville Bloom, who had been committed to the asylum the day after Mary Kelly was murdered. Furthermore, it was noted in the patient's record that he died in his sleep one night, shortly after he attacked and killed a fellow patient, an elderly woman.
In today's world of high-priced defense attorneys, televised trials and courtroom theatrics, juries wanted to see physical proof: fingerprints, DNA tests, blood spatter patterns, as well as psychiatric evaluations and criminal profiles. A book written by a man—even a respected doctor—who claimed to see insanity and evil in another man's eyes would most likely not carry much weight and would undoubtedly be suppressed by the defense.
"But I believe this doctor nevertheless," Guy announced as he picked up all the papers and placed them in a large manila envelope. "His story makes more sense than any theory yet proposed."
Gwendolyn Bothwell had given him the journal and instructed him to do what he saw fit. Should he announce to the world that he had solved the century-old case? Perhaps he would do better to publish the journal as it was written, including an introduction stating the incontrovertible facts and instructing the reader to draw his own conclusions about its veracity.
That afternoon he walked the familiar streets of Whitechapel, taking the route traveled by many Jack the Ripper guided tours. The face of London had changed a good deal since Dr. Goodhew's day, as had the public's perception of Jack. Like Jesse James, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, the world's first serial killer had evolved from a brutal fiend to something of a folk hero. He has become the subject of hundreds of books, dozens of movies and even several plays. His nickname has adorned tee shirts and baseball caps. There have been dolls, paintings and wax figures of his likeness or, more accurately, the caped, top-hat-wearing stereotype most people imagine when they envision the killer. Jack has become not only a key figure in criminal history but also a superstar in our popular culture.
Guy suddenly wondered if the world really wanted to know the killer's identity. Many Americans prefer to believe President Kennedy was assassinated by an unknown gunman on the grassy knoll, working in conjunction with the military, the mob and the FBI, rather than by lone nut" Lee Harvey Oswald, just as many Brits continue to question whether Princess Diana's death was the result of an ordinary car crash.
Ripper enthusiasts all had their favorite theories and pet suspects. Whether they believed the murders were an attempt to cover up an unpopular marriage between Prince Albert Victor and a Catholic prostitute or the work of a homicidal London painter, it is doubtful they would want to learn that the culprit was nothing more than a lunatic who began his criminal career as a delinquent boy tearing the clothes off the women of East London.
"I don't want to be the kid to break the news that Father Christmas is only a myth, that there's no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. If I announce that Neville Bloom was Jack the Ripper, I have a feeling people will never forgive me for it. I won't be respected as a criminologist who solved the most famous cold case in criminal history; I would be vilified as the man who shined the cold blinding light of reality into the dark, dank fog of the Whitechapel mystery."
Like Dr. Goodhew, once Guy made his decision, he acted without hesitation or remorse: the world's foremost Ripperologist picked up Dr. Goodhew's worn leather journal and the corroborating papers and threw them into the fire. He then stood beside the hearth, watching the flames consume the answer to a question that would for centuries to come continue to tantalize criminologists and amateur sleuths alike.
As is the case with Jack the Ripper, Spring-heeled Jack was an actual person who once terrorized London.
I never had to fear Spring-heled Jack or Jack the Ripper, but for more than 300 years I've had to put up with Salem the Scratcher.
