The Other Teddy Roosevelts Read online

  “Damn!” muttered Hughes as he joined the American. “Another one!”

  “Post a man to watch the body and make sure no one touches anything,” said Roosevelt. “The Ripper can’t be more than a minute ahead of us.”

  He trotted off down Mitre Street. The police began using their whistles to identify each other, and soon the shrill noise became almost deafening. Roosevelt had gone a short distance when he heard a faint moaning coming from a recessed doorway. He approached the source warily, gun in hand.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Thank God it’s you, sir!” said a familiar voice, and as he moved closer he realized that it was Irma, the midwife. He lit a match and saw a large bruise over her left temple.

  “What happened?”

  “I was coming back from Elsie Bayne’s when I heard a woman scream. Then a bloke dressed all in black run down the street and bowled me over.” She was overcome by a sudden dizziness.

  “Did you see his features?”

  “He had crazy eyes,” said Irma. “The kind what gives you nightmares.”

  “What color were they?”

  “I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “It’s dark.”

  “How tall was he?”

  “Taller than you, sir,” she replied. “Much taller. And thin. Like a skeleton, he was!”

  “Was there anything, however small, that you can remember?” demanded Roosevelt. “Think hard. It’s important.”

  “All I know is he wore black gloves.”

  “No distinguishing marks?”

  “Just the wound.”

  “Wound?” said Roosevelt, pouncing on the word. “What wound?”

  “On his cheek. It was dripping blood, it was.”

  “Which cheek?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Please try.”

  She frowned as if trying to recall, then whimpered in pain. “I don’t know, sir.” She looked down the street, where some bobbies were approaching them. “He done sliced another one, didn’t he, sir?”

  The American nodded. “Not far from here.”

  “These poor women!” sobbed Irma, starting to cry. “When will it stop?”

  Roosevelt stood up. “You’re our only eyewitness,” he said. “The police artist may want to speak to you later.”

  “But I done told you what I know!”

  “Other details may come back to you. Try to cooperate with him.”

  She nodded her head while rubbing her tears away with a filthy coat sleeve, and Roosevelt turned to the nearest officer. “When she feels strong enough, take her to the nearest hospital.” He turned and walked rapidly back to the latest victim.

  “He really did a job on this one, sir,” said one of the policemen, staring down at the corpse.

  The woman’s throat had been slit from ear to ear. The Ripper had then opened her up from neck to groin and gutted her like a fish. Each of her internal organs lay on the ground, neatly arranged in a seemingly meaningless pattern. A piece of her apron had been cut away; the Ripper had evidently use it to wipe his knife.

  “Jesus!” said another officer, staring in fascination. “I never saw anyone sliced up like this!”

  “You’re the taxidermist, Theodore,” said Hughes, joining them. “Can you tell if anything’s missing?”

  Roosevelt studied the organs. “A kidney, I think.”

  “I’ll have the police surgeon make sure,” said Hughes. He paused. “If you’re right, then we have to ask the question: as crazy as he is, why would he steal her kidney?”

  “I’d hate to know the answer to that one, sir,” said one of the policemen.

  “Does anyone know who she is?” asked Roosevelt.

  “If she’s got any identification on her, it’s too blood-soaked to read it,” replied Hughes. “We’ll ask around. We should know by morning.”

  Roosevelt walked away from the corpse, then signaled Hughes to join him.

  “What is it, Theodore?”

  “I wanted to speak where we couldn’t be overheard,” replied Roosevelt. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that we can definitely eliminate Prince Eddy from the list of suspects.”

  “I am, of course,” said Hughes. “But how do you know?”

  “I’ve met him,” said Roosevelt. “He’s a weak man, ravaged by disease. He could barely grip my hand.”

  “Are you saying he’s too weak to have killed these women?” asked Hughes, looking unconvinced.

  “Anyone can kill an unsuspecting victim with a knife,” responded the American.

  “Well, then?”

  “Your two witnesses,” said Roosevelt. “They were 28 and 34 years old, in the prime of life. They were healthy, and neither was carrying any excess weight. And they know their way around Whitechapel.” Roosevelt paused. “How could such an ill man, especially one who doesn’t know the area, outrun them? Remember, they said they chased him for three or four blocks. The Albert Victor I met couldn’t have run for one block, let alone four.”

  “Thank you, Theodore,” said Hughes, obviously relieved. “You’ve lifted an enormous burden from me.”

  “Forget about him, and concentrate on what we do know,” said the American. “For example, we know that the Ripper has an intimate knowledge of Whitechapel or he couldn’t have evaded his pursuers. In fact, he evaded pursuit twice in one night, because we couldn’t have been 60 seconds behind him at the site of this murder, and he vanished like an Apache in the Arizona hills.”

  “He probably ducked into a building after he bumped into the midwife,” said Hughes.

  “How would he know which ones were unlocked if he didn’t know the area like the back of his hand? Whatever else he may or may not be, the Ripper is a resident of Whitechapel.”

  “Blast!” muttered Hughes. “That probably clears a second suspect as well.”

  “Oh?”

  “A Dr. Thomas Neill Cream. But he wouldn’t know Whitechapel any better than Prince Eddy. Furthermore, he’s quite fat. I doubt that he could have outrun anyone.”

  Roosevelt stared off into the distance, frowning.

  “Is something wrong, Theodore?”

  “Of course something’s wrong,” said Roosevelt irritably. “That madman has butchered two more women right under our noses.” He continued looking into the fog and frowning. “And I’m missing something.”

  “What?”

  He frowned again. “I don’t know. But it’s something I should know, something I’m sure I’ve overlooked.”

  “Can I be of any assistance?” asked Hughes. Roosevelt remained motionless for another moment, then shrugged and shook his head.

  The morgue wagon arrived, Hughes began supervising the removal of the corpse, and Roosevelt went back to his room where he replayed the events of the evening over and over in his mind, looking for the detail he had missed.

  ***

  My Dearest Edith:

  They identified the evening’s second victim, a poor prostitute named Catherine Eddowes. I know I said I would be coming home shortly, but I cannot leave while this fiend remains at large.

  There is no question that he will strike again, but when and where is almost impossible to predict. There seems to be no pattern to his murders until after he has dispatched his victim, and then the pattern is one that I shall not distress you by describing.

  There was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent the four murders, but I have the uneasy feeling that I have the ability right now to prevent any further killings, if I could but see the tree rather than the forest. I am certain I know something that might lead to his apprehension, yet I have no idea what that knowledge may be.

  Ah, well, there is no need to worry you with my problems. I shall be on the first ship home after this dreadful affair has been brought to a successful conclusion, hopefully in time to make a speech or two on Ben Harrison’s behalf, and then perhaps we’ll take Alice and little Ted on a vacation to Yosemite or the Yellowstone.

  Your Theo
dore

  ***

  “Where were you last night?” demanded Roosevelt when he entered the Black Swan on the morning of October 1.

  “Right here,” answered Colin Shrank. “You think I sliced them two women?”

  “I just want to know what time you went home,” said Roosevelt.

  “Two o’clock or so.”

  “The first of them wasn’t killed until almost three.”

  “Well, it weren’t me!” snapped Shrank. “I didn’t kill no bloody women!”

  “I never said you did,” said Roosevelt.

  “Then why all the questions?”

  “Because the one night you didn’t make the rounds with me, the Ripper claimed two more victims. I think I should at least inquire after your whereabouts.”

  “Where was you?” shot back Shrank.

  “I was in bed when Elizabeth Stride was murdered, but I was in Captain Hughes’ company when Catherine Eddowes was killed,” replied Roosevelt.

  “So are you saying I done it or not?” said Shrank belligerently, his hands balled into massive fists.

  Roosevelt stared long and hard at the man, then sighed. “No, I’m not.”

  “Good!” said Shrank. “And just to show there’s no hard feelings, I’ll let you buy me a pint of ale.”

  Roosevelt nodded to the bartender. “And I’ll take a cup of coffee.”

  “Ain’t got no coffee, Mr. Roosevelt,” said the bartender. “How about a cup of tea?”

  “That’ll do,” said Roosevelt, walking over to a table and sitting down.

  “Now we’re friends again, what made you decide I ain’t the Ripper?” asked Shrank.

  “Your education.”

  “What education?” laughed Shrank. “I ain’t never been to school in my life!”

  “That education,” said Roosevelt. “If you killed someone, could you find the spleen?”

  “What’s a spleen?”

  “How about the pancreas?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Point to where you think my lungs are.”

  Shrank pointed.

  “There’s your answer,” said Roosevelt. “The Ripper knows where those organs are.”

  “How do you know I’m not lying?” said Shrank.

  “Where would you have learned?”

  “Maybe I read it in a book.”

  “Can you read?”

  Suddenly Shrank laughed aloud. “Not a word!”

  Roosevelt smiled. “One more reason why you’re not the Ripper.”

  “One more?” repeated Shrank. “What was the first?”

  “I’ve seen you get winded walking three blocks. The Ripper ran for at least half a mile last night and eluded some very fit pursuers.”

  “Then why’d you come in asking questions like that?”

  “I’m just being thorough.”

  “I thunk we was friends—mates, you might say,” said Shrank.

  “We are. But if you were the Ripper, that wouldn’t stop me from putting you away.”

  “At least you give a damn. I can’t say as much for the rest of ‘em.”

  “You mean the police?” responded Roosevelt. “You misjudge them. They’ve got hundreds of men working on the case.”

  “Only because the press keeps goading ‘em,” said Shrank. “But they don’t care about us or Whitechapel. They’ll catch the Ripper and then cross us off the map again.”

  “What do you think would make them do something about Whitechapel?” asked Roosevelt.

  “It’ll sound balmy—but as long as Saucy Jack’s around, they pay attention to us. Maybe having him ain’t such a bad thing after all.” Shrank laughed bitterly. “He slices up another 40 or 50 women, they might clean this place up and turn it into Hyde Park.”

  “No,” said the bartender with a smile. “Mayfair.”

  “You really think so?” asked Roosevelt.

  “Nobody paid no attention to us before the Ripper, Mr. Roosevelt, and that’s a fact,” said the bartender.

  “That’s a very interesting outlook,” said Roosevelt. “But I’ll keep trying to catch him anyway.”

  “Maybe old Jack is really your pal Hughes,” offered Shrank. “Y’know, he’s always the first one at the body.”

  Roosevelt shook his head. “I was with him when the second woman was killed last night.”

  “It’s a puzzle, all right.”

  “There are a lot of puzzles in this case,” said Roosevelt.

  “You mean, besides who is he?” said Shrank.

  “Yes,” said Roosevelt. He frowned again. For example, he thought, why would he have walked off with Catherine Eddowes’ kidney?

  ***

  It took 16 days for Roosevelt to get his answer. Then Hughes summoned him and showed him a crudely scrawled message that had been sent to George Lusk, the head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee.

  “From Hell, Mr. Lusk—

  Sir, I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman,

  prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was

  very nise I may send you the bloody knif that too it out

  if you only wate a whil longer

  signed Catch me when yu can Mishter Lusk”

  —Jack the Ripper

  October 16, 1888

  “Well, at least now we know why the kidney was missing,” said Hughes. A look of disgust crossed his face. “Do you really think he ate it?”

  Roosevelt shrugged. “Who knows? He’s certainly capable of eating it.” He stared at the letter. “Does the handwriting match the previous messages?”

  Hughes nodded. “It’s the same man, all right.”

  Roosevelt lowered his head in thought for a moment. “All right,” he said. “Here’s what you must do. Make copies of that letter and give it to every newspaper in London.”

  “We can’t do that, Theodore! There would be widespread panic.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I beg your pardon!” said Hughes heatedly.

  “Try to understand, John,” said Roosevelt. “Everyone in Whitechapel has been aware of the Ripper for more than a month. Prostitutes know that they’re his quarry, and yet they continue to ply their trade and put themselves at risk. Maybe if they read this, if they get a brief peek into the mind of this madman, we can keep them off the streets until he’s apprehended.”

  “Keep prostitutes off the streets?” laughed a nearby policeman. “You might as well try to keep the sun from rising.”

  “It’s that, or prepare yourselves for more murders.”

  “It’s not my decision to make,” replied Hughes. “You’ve been working on this case at my request, and I’ve been your sole contact, so you can be forgiven for thinking that I’m in charge…but in point of fact we have more than 500 police officers working around the clock on the Ripper murders. I’ll have to go through channels before we can get it published.”

  “What if I just took it to the papers, and said that I hadn’t told you what I’d planned?”

  “You’d be on the first ship back to America, and I doubt that your presence would ever be tolerated in England again.”

  That’s no great loss in a land that worships royalty and allows something like Whitechapel to exist, thought Roosevelt. Aloud he said, “All right, John—but hurry! The sooner this is made known to the press, the better.”

  Hughes picked up the letter and stared at it. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

  “So will we all,” replied Roosevelt.

  ***

  Nothing happened.

  A day passed, then a week, then three. The police again began suggesting that the Ripper might have been killed by some other member of the criminal class—there were enough stabbings and bludgeonings in Whitechapel and on the waterfront to write fini to a dozen Rippers.

  Even Roosevelt relaxed his guard. He spent a day birding in the Cotswolds. He made a speech to the Royal Zoological Society, and another to Parliament. He found the time to write three articles
and more than one hundred letters.

  And still, he couldn’t rid himself of the nagging feeling that this was the calm before the storm, and that he possessed some small but vital piece of the puzzle that could help him prevent another murder.

  On the evening of November 8, he sat down to write a letter to his wife.

  ***

  My Dearest Edith:

  It has been almost six weeks since the fiend last struck, and most of the authorities here have convinced themselves that he is dead, possibly by his own hand, possibly murdered. I don’t agree. There was no pattern or regularity to his prior killings. The first and second were separated by nine days, the second and third by 22 days, the third and fourth by no more than an hour. Since there has been no pattern, I don’t see how they can conclude that he’s broken one.

  As I mentioned in previous letters, some of the police still lean toward Prince Albert Victor, which is simply beyond the realm of possibility. All of their other suspects also seem to come from the upper classes: a doctor, a lawyer, a shipbuilder. They mean well, the London Metropolitan Police, but they simply lack American practicality as they go about this most important and onerous task.

  I may not send this letter to you at all, because I do not want the details to cause you dismay, but I need to clarify my thinking by putting things down on paper.

  I begin with the question: what do we know about Jack the Ripper?

  It’s true that there is an eyewitness account that makes him a head taller than myself, and thoroughly emaciated, but it was made by an hysterical woman whose veracity cannot be relied upon. Still, it’s all the police have to go on, and that is the man they are searching for.

  But that is all we know empirically. The rest comes from logic—or the science of deduction, to borrow from Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective who has made such an impact here in the past year.

  And what can I deduce?

  First, he has at least a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy. The nature of the mutilations implies that he takes pleasure in removing certain internal organs—and he was able to tell a kidney from other organs in near-total darkness on the night of September 30.