Abberline nudged Mark, whispering. “Somebody wanted to keep Baxter out of this — he asks too many questions. McDonald’s an M.P., you know. I think they picked him because he’d cooperate.”
The jurors had been sent to the morgue to view the corpse, then to the scene of the crime. When they returned the proceedings began.
The first witness was Joseph Barnett, the unemployed fish porter who’d been Mary Jane Kelly’s lover. He spoke of their relationship and quarrel, but added nothing that Mark hadn’t already heard from Abberline.
Then came the women. A neighbor named Cox saw Kelly just before midnight, standing outside her room with a short, stout man who had a carroty mustache and wore a long coat and billycock hat. He had a pot of ale in his hand, and she seemed to be drunk. Mrs. Cox hailed her and she said. “Goodnight. I’m going to have a song.” Kelly started to sing, and Mrs. Cox went out. When she returned at three in the morning all was silent inside the room. Around four o’clock she heard a woman’s voice call “Murder!” but such shouts were commonplace during quarrels between tenants, and the sound seemed to come from outside the court. Since there were no further cries she didn’t bother to investigate and went back to sleep.
Elizabeth Prater, another neighbor, also heard singing from Kelly’s room that night. She went out for a while, but when she came back around one-thirty there was no light or sound from the room. At four in the morning she also heard the scream of “Murder!” but, like Mrs. Cox, she ignored it when silence followed.
Sara Lewis, a laundress, came to visit a woman living across the court from Kelly at two-thirty. Why she chose to pay a social call in the middle of the night wasn’t explained, but as Mrs. Lewis came into the court she saw a man standing outside Number Thirteen. “He was stout, not very tall, and wore a billycock hat.” It being none of her affair, she went on inside to see her friend and later the two women retired. Shortly before four Mrs. Lewis was awakened by a scream. This too was none of her business, so she dismissed it.
A Mrs. Caroline Maxwell, wife of a lodging-house keeper next door, had a different story. She’d seen Kelly around the court for about four months but had only spoken to her once. Mrs. Maxwell said she came outside between eight and eight-thirty in the morning and saw Kelly across the street and called out to her.
“What brings you up so early, Mary?”
“Oh. Carrie, I do feel so bad. I’ve had a glass of beer and brought it up again.”
Mrs. Maxwell went on to Bishopgate to get her husband’s breakfast from a shop, but on her way back around a quarter to nine she noticed Kelly standing near the Brittania pub, talking to a man.
Mark heard the jury murmur as she spoke, and he listened intently when the coroner questioned her. “What description can you give of this man?”
“I couldn’t give you any. They were some distance. But I’m sure it was the dead woman. I’m willing to swear to it.”
“You are sworn now,” Dr. McDonald reminded her. “Was he a tall man?”
“No. He was a little taller than me — and stout.”
“What clothes was he wearing?”
“Dark clothes. He seemed to have a plaid coat on. I could not see what sort of hat he had.”
There was confusion in the room, compounded when the coroner reminded Mrs. Maxwell that Mary Jane Kelly had apparently met her death before dawn. But Mrs. Maxwell stuck by her guns.
Then Inspector Abberline was called to the stand. His statement followed along the lines of what he’d told Mark on the way over, only adding that a man’s clay pipe had been found in Kelly’s room. But Joseph Barnett said it was his; he’d smoked it many times.
Finally Dr. Bagster Phillips was summoned. He described how the room was broken into and the body was found, but the coroner cautioned him not to give the gruesome details — these could be described at a later date. Phillips stated that the immediate cause of death was severance of the right carotid artery.
Now Coroner McDonald took over. In his opinion there was no need for further testimony. “If the coroner’s jury can come to a decision as to the cause of death then that is all they have to do. From what I have learned,” he continued, “the police are content to take the future conduct of the case.” He didn’t want to take it out of the jury’s hands, he said, but unless they wanted to meet again in a week or a fortnight, they could deliver a verdict now.
Mark glanced at Abberline sitting across the way, and read his reaction. The coroner was making it all quite simple, merely a cut-and-dried matter of confirming the cause of Kelly’s death. Obviously he wanted the inquest closed now, once and for all.
And the jury didn’t argue. The foreman delivered the expected verdict — willful murder by some person or persons unknown.
The inquest was ended.
As the spectators filed out of the room, Mark joined Abberline. Neither man spoke until they reached the carriage and started off for Scotland Yard.
”Well?” Mark said.
Abberline’s forehead furrowed. “It’s a cover-up. The whole thing was prearranged, starting with the order to take the body to Shoreditch. I still don’t know who was behind that move, but my guess would be Salisbury himself.”
“The Prime Minister?”
“I’m not sure, but it must have been someone very high up.”
“For what reason?”
“God only knows.” Abberline winced as though in pain, and Mark noted his reaction.
“Never mind me.” the inspector said. “It’s just that stomach of mine.”
“Something you ate?”
“Something I can’t swallow.” Abberline grimaced. “Did you hear how those witnesses contradicted each other about the last time they saw Kelly? And the contradictions in their descriptions of the man they saw with her?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Mark said.
“That’s why I asked you to come along to the Yard with me now. I’m told there’s a chap waiting who has more to tell. Perhaps he can shed some light on the confusion.”
But in Abberline’s office at Scotland Yard. George Hutchinson only added another piece to the puzzle.
He was an unemployed laborer who’d known Mary Jane Kelly for some time, or so he claimed. Around two o’clock on the night of the murder, walking the street with no place to sleep, he saw a man standing on the corner at Thrawl Street. Moving past him, he met Kelly at Flower and Dean Street. She asked him for sixpence but he told her he had nothing. “I must go and look for some money,” she said.
“Then what happened?” Abberline asked.
“She went on toward Thrawl Street. The man standing there came up and put his hand on her shoulder. He said something I couldn’t hear and they both burst out laughing. They went past me together, he with his hand still on her shoulder. He had a soft felt hat on. drawn down over his eyes. When they walked across the road to Dorset Street I followed them at a distance and watched. They stood at the corner of Miller’s Court for about three minutes and I heard Kelly say she’d lost her handkerchief. The man pulled a red handkerchief out of his pocket and gave it to her. Then they went up the court together.”
“You say you stood at a distance,” Abberline murmured. “How could you see a red handkerchief so far away?”
“It caught the lamplight,” Hutchinson told him. “He waved it about like a bullfighter and made her laugh.”
“And then?”
Hutchinson shrugged. “I went into the court to see if I could see them, but I couldn’t. The light was out in Kelly’s room and I heard no sound. I stood outside for about three quarters of an hour to see if they’d come out again, but they didn’t, so I went away.”