Jack the Ripper: The Hand of a Woman

with a good description of him. While we do not know if the third man was an associate of the assailant or just an innocent bystander, there is at least a possibility that he was the latter. Stride’s attacker knew that he had been seen by one witness, possibly two, and could, consequently, be identified. We think it unlikely, therefore, that he would have risked the hangman’s noose for the murder of a prostitute that night.
    A far more likely possibility, we thought, was that the motive for the attack was robbery, and the man in the peaked cap stole from Stride any money she might have had when he threw her to the ground (because none was found on her corpse when the police noted the contents of her pockets). Afterwards, he had departed, leaving Elizabeth Stride where she lay in the yard, dazed, but otherwise unhurt, and the street was then both quiet and empty.
    Fate had placed Lizzie Williams’s next victim on her back, in the very same position she had persuaded her first two victims to adopt, so her task would be that much easier to perform. She went to Elizabeth Stride and knelt or crouched by her side; then perhaps she asked her if she was hurt and reassured her that she meant no harm. It is likely that the sound of approaching hooves may have sounded on the stone cobbles, though they were still some way off. Seconds were all Lizzie Williams needed. Stride, still shocked by the attack, might have expected Lizzie Williams to help her get to her feet, but instead Lizzie Williams pulled out her knife and pressed the blade against her throat where a silk scarf was tied about her neck. There was little time, but no need to move the scarf out of the way because the knife was strong and the blade, well ground, was sharp, and it sliced through silk, skin, flesh and tissue. Seconds were all that were needed, and by the time Louis Diemschutz with his pony and cart pulled to a halt in the gateway, the woman was dead, and of the murderer there was no trace.
     
    It was past 12.46 a.m. and if Mary Kelly was released at 1.00, as Stride had told her she would be, Lizzie Williams had less than a quarter of an hour to get from Berner Street to Bishopsgate Police Station, almost a mile away.
    If she had been lucky enough to catch a carriage immediately on reaching Commercial Road at the junction of Berner Street, she might have told the cab driver that she needed to get to Bishopsgate Police Station quickly. She had witnessed a fight, a woman wearing a red rose in her lapel had been injured, and she wished to report the crime. It would have been a plausible enough explanation, and it was, of course, based on truth.
    It must have been a rapid carriage ride, and at that time of night the journey could have been accomplished in ten minutes or less. So it was at least possible for Lizzie Williams to have arrived in Bishopsgate before, or very soon after, Kelly’s release. Time was indeed short, and if she had arrived later, Lizzie Williams might have missed Kelly and the fourth murder would never have happened. But the fact remains that her next victim was murdered, which means, we believe, that Lizzie Williams got there in time.
    The woman wearing the green and black bonnet was released from custody at around 1.00 a.m., and soon afterwards Lizzie Williams approached her. Once again, two women out walking together would barely have been noticed; they could have walked though the police cordons unhindered and past the numerous plain-clothes detectives, who were already combing the streets for the murderer of the Buck’s Row and Hanbury Street victims, and now for the murderer of the Berner Street victim too.
    The woman might have confirmed, if and when Lizzie Williams asked, that her name was Mary Kelly and that she lived in Spitalfields. Lizzie would then have been sure that she had found the right person. The distance from Bishopsgate Police Station to Mitre Square is four hundred yards, so the walk would have taken them no longer than five minutes, even walking at a slow pace – though speed was less critical than timing, as would soon become apparent.
    But the woman was not Mary Kelly and 6 Fashion Street was not her address, as she had told Sergeant Byfield upon her discharge from custody, though she did live in Spitalfields. Her real name was Catherine Eddowes and she lived in Crossingham’s, a common lodging house in Dorset Street. Catherine Eddowes, also known as Mary Kelly, may have been seen on the short journey by