With that he arose, turned, and walked out.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Diary
November 19, 1888
The funeral. It seemed that once the papers recounted the thoroughness with which I had hashed poor Mary Jane, she became London’s favorite martyr. It was not to me to point out that, alive, she was invisible to the gentry who would not so much as spit in her direction, unless of a dark night they were tupping her sweet loins for a few pennies’ worth of ejaculate deposit, after which it was back to nothingness for her. In death she became magnificent, a star, however briefly, more so than any actress or opera singer. They had not read her letters to her phantom mum, they had not wondered at her addiction to demon gin, they had not missed her brothers and sisters.
When it turned out no money was available to send her on, a churchman named Wilson, the sexton of St. Leonard’s Church in Shoreditch, put up the sum. I’m guessing he thought it would get him to heaven, and I’m guessing that it will, assuming heaven exists, which it doesn’t. According to the Times, Mary Jane was laid into polished oak and elm, a box, that is, with metal fittings. A brass plate would accompany her into the dirt: “Marie Jeanette Kelly, died 9 November 1888,” so that He above would not get her mixed up with another Marie Jeanette Kelly, unless that one, too, had died on the ninth.
Sexton Wilson’s crown and pounds and guineas went rather far: They obtained two wreaths of artificial flowers and a cross made up of heart seed, which went upon the coffin, which was put into an open two-horse hearse to be drawn all the way from the mortuary to St. Leonard’s.
The crowds—I was one of the thousands, in a dowdy bowler, lumpy dark suit, and black overcoat, looking like the clerk of a clerk who clerked for a clerk, but a really important clerk—were quite hysterical with grief. A crowd is a fearsome thing. If you are in it, you cannot fight it, and I did not. It frothed and flashed and rolled and rumbled, filling all the streets around the mortuary and the path from that grim little house of the dead to the slightly more prominent St. Leonard’s, whose steeple, though a piercing construction, was no match for the Christchurch missile that soared Godward. But it was, as the shopkeeps say, nice.
Absorbed in the bosom of the crowd, I did note something of interest and must mark it down. In this case it was the women who were the driving force of that mass of flesh and sadness called The People, and you could feel them yearning to be close with Mary in her box, to touch it somehow. What possible motive did they have? To assure themselves that they were alive and that she was not? Or to remind themselves that as long as Jack was about, their own grip on life was fragile? No, I think it was something vaster, more universaclass="underline" They invested in her, poor Welsh-Irish whore given to song when drunk and knowing no way of saying no when a thruppence was offered by a cad who wanted to have a spasm of jizz with someone other than his dour old lady; they invested in Mary Jane, shredded and splayed in her box, as Woman Universal. Somehow, I don’t know how, it would link up with the suffragette movement and other uniquely feminine power dynamos who are only now finding the voice and the means to express themselves. Mary Jane was the eternal woman, I, Ripper, was the eternal man, even though sex had been quite far from my mind as I ripped.
I watched from afar as the coffin was removed from its transportation and borne by four men into the church, where presumably Sexton Wilson and the St. Leonard’s parish priest said the proper wording in our tongue and the ancient papal one, sufficient to consecrate the poor bird and send her on the next step.
In and out of the hearse, her journey was lubricated by gestures of universal pain and respect, as hats came off (including my own, for however unholy that may seem, I could not stand against the will of the mass without inviting severe repercussion), and from the women came such a wailing as had never been heard. “God forgive her,” they insisted, as if their words could so convince Him, whereas I believed that though He did not exist, had He, He never would have had need to forgive, for unlike our social lords, he understands that one does what one must to get through the lonely, dark night.
In a short time, it was over. She was transported by the same four back to the hearse and her intimates—the paramour, Joe Barnett, her landlord, McCarthy, and a batch of soiled doves who claimed to know her well—traversed the churchyard to clamber into the mourning carriages the sexton had acquired for their use, and the whole parade began the second part of its journey, to the St. Patrick’s Catholic cemetery in Leytonstone, six miles hence. At this point, the crowd began to fall away, I among them, though I stuck with the procession longer than most. But there seemed no point in watching the final act, as Mary Jane was slipped beneath our planet’s surface, there to begin her sure return to the elements of chemistry we all share.
Besides, I had more important work ahead. My campaign was almost complete. It had but one trick left to be brought off, and it was essential that it be done quickly, that is, within the mourning period, as again, a quarter-moon approached.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Jeb’s Memoir
How much more settled could it be? That discovery lifted tonnage from my shoulders. It was clear at last. Now to action.
At exactly ten P.M. on the night of the full quarter-moon, the colonel emerged from his building, an immense pile of brick and morticed stone called Fenster Mansions, on Finsbury Street, and began that instantly recognizeable walk. I was on one side of Finsbury, the professor on the other, and at first it was easy to keep up and keep in contact with the banty little chap. You would know him in an instant; one wondered how he could pass anonymously on his missions. That walk was the walk of a fellow in full command of all faculties, a stout-hearted, unquenchable fellow, born heroic and determined to beat all schedules to his destinations, actual or metaphorical. I couldn’t get a good look at his face, for he wore his bowler jammed seriously low, almost to the brow line, and he hunched as he proceeded. But it was familiar, I suppose, from a hundred odd nightmares: the man in black, dowdy and anonymous, yet with purpose, the knife concealed, swift of hand and sure of cut. Many a time it had jerked me from sleep. And now: no dawdler he, no meandering fool, no drifting sprig on the current. He plowed ahead, our colonel, cock of the walk.
It was on Bishopsgate that the trouble began, for he had a shrewd way of disappearing into crowds, and being of limited stature, he went invisible or at least under flag of camouflage rather adroitly. At least three times I lost sight, had a cold spasm of fear icicle its way into my colon, cursed myself for stupidity, but then caught sight of him and hastened to reacquire enough proximity to observe and trail but not to give myself away.
As for being followed, he gave no sign of notice. It was not in him to go cautious and look about nervously. At the same time, he didn’t walk directly anywhere. At Bishopsgate, as he coursed through the City, he took a hard turn down Houndsditch, then down another crossing street, evading Mitre Square, where poor Kate had taken the knife, and headed straight to the guts of Whitechapel. It was as if he had a course already set; he knew where he was going, and it was something well prepared for. I thought of the professor’s profile of the man: As a scout and raider, he would be aided by familiarity with terrain, knowledge of police pattern, drift of crowd, density of horse traffic, availability of midnight thrush for the plucking, and having settled those details far in advance, now had no doubt as to destination, approach, and execution.