A few minutes before three o’clock, PC 254A Alfred Long was patrolling in Goulston Street, and peered into the entrance hall of numbers 108 to 119 Wentworth Model Dwellings. There, sodden with blood, he discovered a section of a woman’s apron.
Long stared about him looking for any other signs of violence, another body or a weapon or any other suspicious object. He found nothing of that sort, but he did see something very different. The bricks which formed the wall on the right-hand side of the open doorway were black, and on them, written in white chalk, were the following words, written in cursive script:
The Juwes are
The men That
Will not
be Blamed
for nothing
At the end of the first line was the barely visible word ‘not’ which had clearly been written but then erased by the writer. Neither PC Long nor PC Halse, who arrived shortly afterwards, was in any doubt about the meaning the writer of the script intended to convey. It was a clear attempt to cast suspicion upon the Jewish community as a whole, and to suggest that one of their number was responsible for the Whitechapel murders.
Constable Long searched the staircases, but found nothing else. He summoned the constable from the neighbouring beat, told him to guard the entrance to preserve the piece of writing and also watch anyone who entered or left the building, and then took the section of apron to the Commercial Street police station, where he gave it to the duty inspector. Long arrived there at a few minutes after three in the morning.
Unsurprisingly, within a very short time the area around Wentworth Model Dwellings was busy with officers from both the City and the Metropolitan forces. Detective Constables Hunt and Daniel Halse went together to the Leman Street police station and then on to Goulston Street. They inspected the chalked message and then separated, Halse remaining at the scene to guard the message while Hunt returned to Mitre Square to report what had been discovered.
Inspector McWilliam had arrived at Mitre Square by the time Constable Hunt reached it and listened with interest to what the officer had to say.
‘Good work, Hunt,’ he said. ‘One more job for you. I’ll organize a photographer and get him down there as quickly as I can to record that message. You go back to Wentworth Model Dwellings. When you get there, you and Constable Halse are to search the buildings for anyone or anything that might be connected with this murder.’
The search was conducted by Hunt and Halse as McWilliam had instructed, but no suspicious individuals, objects or clues were found anywhere there.
But despite the order given by Inspector McWilliam, no photograph of the written message was taken, and for that decision, ultimately, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Charles Warren, was responsible, even though it actually wasn’t his idea.
News of the double murder had been transmitted to Warren at his home in the early hours of the morning, and for the first time – he had not visited any of the other murder scenes since the reign of terror in Whitechapel had begun – he decided to attend in person. Warren arrived at the Leman Street police station shortly before five, where Superintendent Thomas Arnold of H Division explained to him the circumstances of the two murders and also what had been discovered in Goulston Street.
‘I have already ordered one of my inspectors to proceed to the scene with a bucket and sponge, and to wait there until I arrive. I feel very strongly that we should wipe this message off the wall as soon as we can, and certainly before the daily activity starts in that area.’
‘Erase it?’ Warren asked. ‘It could be an important clue. It should be photographed at the very least.’
‘I don’t believe there’s enough time to do that, sir,’ Arnold replied. ‘My concern is with the possibility of civil unrest in that district if any of the residents see that message and realize exactly what it is implying.’
‘Which is what, exactly?’
‘You’ve seen the text, sir. It’s a very clear indication that the Jews of Whitechapel are responsible for the murders perpetrated by the killer we now know as Jack the Ripper. The fact that the blood-soaked missing section of the last woman’s apron was found directly below the message proves beyond any doubt that it was written by her murderer. It’s a crude attempt to throw us off the scent, and to throw suspicion onto an entire community. I fear that if the contents of the message become generally known, we could face a riot in the area, either one orchestrated by the Jews themselves, or by groups of English people manifesting their anti-Semitic feelings. Remember the problems we had with the “Leather Apron” situation.’
Warren didn’t reply for a few moments, mulling over what Arnold had just said. In fact, despite his apparent reluctance to have the message obliterated, he was absolutely determined that no record of it – or more accurately, no record of the handwriting – should be allowed to survive. He definitely wasn’t going to permit a photograph to be taken, just in case at any time in the future the handwriting on that message could be recognized as being the same as that on the letters which ‘Michael’ had sent him. He also made a mental note to burn all of the correspondence he had so far received from the man, and just to make a copy of the actual words he had used.
‘I understand your views, Arnold, but I think I should be the one to make that decision. I will accompany you to Goulston Street.’
Superintendent Arnold was later required to explain his recommendation to the Home Office, and the relevant section of his later written report read: ‘in consequence of a suspicion having fallen upon a Jew named John Pizer alias “Leather Apron” having committed a murder in Hanbury Street a short time previously, a strong feeling existed against the Jews generally and as the building upon which the writing was found was situated in the midst of a locality inhabited principally by that sect, I was apprehensive that if the writing were left it would be the means of causing a riot and therefore considered it desirable that it should be removed.’
And in reality Arnold had a point. There had been such an outburst of anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions in Whitechapel after the killing of Annie Chapman that he feared the consequences if the contents of the chalked message became public knowledge amongst either the Jewish or the Gentile communities in the East End or, even worse, in both, especially when the citizens of London learned the details of the two murders which had taken place that night.
Warren had listened carefully to Arnold’s recommendation, despite having already decided exactly what he was going to do about it. In his written report, he later stated that it was ‘desirable that I should decide this matter myself, as it was one involving so great responsibility whether any action was taken or not.’
Accordingly, when he left the Leman Street police station, he and Arnold proceeded first to Goulston Street, after which he planned to continue on to Berner Street, the site of the first murder that night.
The two senior officers arrived at the location of the chalked message in Goulston Street shortly before 5.30, to find officers from both the City and Metropolitan forces in attendance. Warren inspected the writing – written in a hand that was unpleasantly familiar to him – and decided that it had to be obliterated immediately. When he announced his decision, the only dissenting voice was that of Daniel Halse, the City of London Detective Constable, who wanted it to remain, at least long enough for Major Smith to see it, but he was both outranked and outside his jurisdiction and he knew it.
‘Sir, couldn’t we just rub out the top line and leave the rest?’ he suggested. ‘This looks like a valuable clue to the killer, and I’m sure that Major Smith would want to inspect it.’
Warren shook his head and pointed out of the doorway, where the group of men was clustered around the chalked message, and gestured into the street beyond.
‘We can’t take the risk, Constable. It’s already starting to get light and people are out there walking the streets. If any of them see and read what it says here, we could find ourselves in the middle of a riot.’
Warren turned to one of the Metropolitan Police constables standing in the hallway.
‘Use that bucket and sponge, and clean that wall completely. I don’t want to see a single white mark left on it anywhere.’
By half past five, the chalk message had been deleted from the wall.
The last clue from Goulston Street was the section of bloodstained apron. Although there was little doubt about what it was and where it had come from, it was passed on to Dr Phillips. When he placed the piece of material against the rest of the apron found on the body from Mitre Square, it was a perfect match. There was therefore no doubt that the section of apron had been removed from the body by the killer after he had finished his mutilation, and had afterwards been placed in the entrance of the Wentworth Model Dwellings.
There was of course no absolute proof that the chalked message had been written on the wall by the murderer, but the obvious presumption was that it had been, and none of the officers involved seriously doubted that this was the case.
Once the message had been obliterated, Charles Warren drove on to Dutfield’s Yard, off Berner Street, the site of the first murder of the night, and then continued to the headquarters of the City Police in Old Jewry. There, both Inspector McWilliam and Major Smith told him that his action in deleting the message had been a bad mistake. Smith would later describe this in writing as both a ‘fatal mistake’ and an ‘unpardonable blunder’.
But Charles Warren was perfectly content with his action. A possible link between him and Jack the Ripper had been permanently eliminated.
As he had expected, and feared, when Charles Warren returned to his home later that morning, there was another handwritten and hand-delivered letter waiting for him on the hall table.
As soon as he stepped inside the house, Ryan apologized to him.
‘I’m sorry sir,’ he said, ‘but I simply never saw this letter arrive. There was no knock at the door, and it was only when I was walking through the hall that I saw it had been delivered.’
Warren didn’t reply, just picked up the sealed envelope and carried it upstairs to his study.
Before he even opened it, he first collected the previous missives he had received from ‘Michael’, wrote down on a clean sheet of paper exactly what each of them said, and the dates on which they had arrived, then took the originals and their envelopes over to the fireplace set in one wall. He screwed up the letters, placed them in the grate, then lit a match and touched the flame to the paper. When they had been entirely reduced to ash, he used the poker to crumple them into dust.
Only then did he slice open the latest letter from his nemesis, take out the note and read it.
It was composed in the same cryptic style which he had become used to, but was significantly longer than any of the previous messages. The text read:
Not an exact square, but almost. The symbol of the Masons, the two triangles completed. A reminder on the cheeks of the last one. Now we start with the star of the Jews. Two more triangles and six points. Look out for the kidney. The next one will be worse, because I will take my time. You can stop this whenever you want. Just follow my instructions. You have a month.
As he had done before, Warren copied out the text onto the sheet of paper and then consigned the original to the flames.
Then for several minutes he simply sat at his desk with his head in his hands, trying to decide what he should do.