Chapter 31
“Cheese and biscuits?”
“God no, I couldn’t eat another mouthful!” Buffy said, dabbing her mouth with her napkin
“Coffee then?”
“Hmm, love it”
William told the waiter.
“It’s a bargain, this eating dinner before 7.30pm!”
“Yes, well we did miss lunch…and it means the night is still young”
“So what are we going to do?”
“You’ll see!” William said cryptically smiling
The waiter deposited two coffees in front of them, and Buffy immediately began to undo the little Ameretti biscuit off the saucer.
“I thought you couldn’t eat another bite?!”
“This doesn’t count! – So go on tell me…where are we going?” She nibbled on the biscuit
“Well…you know that guy that pushed that flyer into my hand while we were in Oxford Street shopping the other day”
“What guy?”
“Tall, thin, dressed all in black, well at first I was just going to throw the paper away, and then when you went to get the coffees in the food court, I looked at it and decided we’d go”
“What to, a club?”
“Nope”
“Bar then”
“Nuh uh”
“Hold on…did you say he was all dressed in black – it’s not a Goth thing, is it?” Buffy asked wrinkling her nose.
“Now would I take you to a Goth thing? I’m not interested in that sort of stuff myself!”
Buffy waggled her feet like a naughty child
“Tell me!”
“You’ll find out when we get there!” Will said with a maddening grin
“Okay then, just tell me whereabouts then”
“Whitechapel” William said, signalling to the waiter for the bill
“Whitechapel? Buffy repeated
“Uh huh, Whitechapel………Keep the change, thank you” William put two ten pound notes onto the saucer for an ‘Early-bird’ dinner for two advertised at £8 each.
Slipping on his jacket, William held the door open for Buffy and they went outside. He then walked straight to the kerb, looked left and right and then hailed a black London cab.
“Whitechapel please, the…um Half Moon pub”
“But you said we weren’t going to a bar!”
“We’re not, it starts there, that’s all!”
When they got there, there was already a small crowd of people congregated outside the pub, all tourists, four Japanese, four Aussies, two French, and six other Americans, two Canadians, and a few English and Scottish.
There was woman dressed as a Victorian ‘lady of the night’ that took a hat round for the money for the tour…two of her front teeth had been blacked out… the tour guide was tall, thin and dressed in a long black frock coat, black drainpipe trousers and a top hat with trailing ribbons, like a Victorian undertaker – he had been the fellow handing out the flyers for the ‘Jack the Ripper’s Tour of Whitechapel’ in Oxford Street. He had greyish white face make-up, making him look really gaunt, and black eyeliner.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen (He bowed low, making a big sweep with his hat)…and welcome to the Jack the Ripper Tour…I’m your tour guide, Terry, and this is the lovely, Estelle…” he put his arm around the girl that took round the hat. Everybody had now quietened down and listened, and then they clapped.
“Right then, look lively me lovelies…and keep together, there’s some funny people around these parts…our story, starts in 1888…”
Everyone walked slowly down a narrow-ish ally way. Terry started his story…
“A blood curdling scream rent the air!” Terry said, and on cue, they heard,
“Aaarrrggghhh!” Everyone in the crowd gasped, Buffy smiled and held tight to William’s hand. Terry had stopped dead, and spread his arms out wide, preventing anyone from passing. Up ahead, a black-clad figure in a cape and top hat was bending over an unfortunate figure of a woman. He Stood, cloaked his face with his cape very theatrically, and then ran off. Terry slowly dropped his arms, and walked forward, turned to face his audience. On the ground behind him there was a tarty looking woman covered in fake blood, she stared up with open eyes. Terry said,
“His first victim, on 31st August, 1888 was a ‘lady of the night’, a tom, as they were known, by the name of Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols. Poor woman, she was 44, although she looked ten years younger, and a serving wench cum prostitute at a hostelry called the Dockers Inn. A well-dressed gent came along, and ‘happened’ on the body of our unfortunate victim. He stood, shouted………”
Terry stood to one side and a gent appeared, looked at the poor murder victim.
“Help…police, murder…murder I say – murder most foul!” Quickly a ‘Peeler’ appeared, and blew his whistle. Terry continued,
“Now…the motive wasn’t robbery…as the poor gal still had her purse, with tuppence-three farthings still in it…”
A Girl appeared with what was probably a broomstick, with a long black piece of fabric trailing down from it. She held it up to block the scene of the victim, the gent and the peeler from the crowd’s view. When she dropped her arm, they’d gone, and Terry proceeded to walk on, the crowd smiling and giggling followed, eagerly listening to the story.
“Now, one lady of the night killed would hardly make front page news, but when it came to the second, Annie Chapman on the 8th of September…it was in the papers about this poor woman 45, suffering from TB, murdered for no other reason than she was a woman was the thought…unless our perpetrator had been interrupted…Anyway, the chief of police, Sir Edward Monk, had nicknamed the murderer, the Ripper, on account of the way poor Mary and Annie had been cut up…
Terry stopped and turned. Everyone craned their necks to see the scene being acted out. A tall top hat wearing cloaked figure had a girl in a shop doorway. A saucy giggle and the snap of elastic, then a
“Oh, you are a naughty man aren’t y…huh…oh my gods, you’re the…(gulp) Arraaaagghhhhhh!” The girl staggered out, clutching her stomach, fell to the ground, again with fake blood gushing from the ‘wounds’ and the Ripper bent over her. Meanwhile, Terry carried on the commentary.
“Now, MP’s were writing to the Times no less…and it appeared that the murderer had got bold, and claimed another victim, and had written to the paper himself, poo-pooing all the pseudo ramblings and profiles on him.
‘You’ll never catch me…’ he boasted, and signed the letter, ‘Jack’ and in brackets, ‘The Ripper’ having quite liked the moniker that Chief Monk had given him. All of London Town was talking about him. (The girl with the stick appeared and masked the scene) when she dropped her arm, a ‘cardboard’ bar complete with barman and two customers talking, was the new scene.
“They reckon, ‘ee could be a doctor! He knows a bit about surgery and anatomy an’ that!” One drinker said to another.
“I read, that it could be one of Queen Victoria’s son’s!”
“Did yer?” The girl with the stick appeared, and then the scene changed again, when she dropped her arm, you could see a group of ‘ladies of the night’ in a huddle.
“So I sez, not on your bloomin’ nelly mate, this ‘ere’s me friend, and me and Stella ain’t going nowhere on our own, do you get it, you could be the Ripper for all I know!” They all giggled.
The scene change girl covered the departure of the actresses with her stick and black cloth, and then left, leaving Terry to walk on, the crowd following him.
“One night, the 30th of September old Jack, he was ‘lucky’ enough to snag two victims, a tom by the name of Elizabeth Stride, and surprisingly, a lady of rather good character aged 45, she was Swedish by birth, she cleaned for a Jewish family and was said to ‘Do a good deed for anyone’, and a Miss Catherine Eddowes, 43. It had eventually been established, that she’d been dropped outside her house by a Hansom cab driver, and the Ripper had unfortunately been passing and seized his opportunity to take cover in some rather thick bushes at the side of her house. She was cut up very badly.
“One of his final victims, Mary Jane Kelly was found just up ahead here…although Irish by birth, she spoke fluent Welsh and had sober habits…”
And so the tour went on, eventually ending up back outside the pub that they had congregated outside originally. Everyone clapped, and the ‘players all came and took a bow, the hat was passed around for ‘tips’. William put in £10 for the two of them.
“That was brilliant!” Buffy said.
“Come on, lets go have a drink” They went into the pub, which was decorated in a Victorian style, with photographs of some of the Ripper’s victims on the wall – they both found it fascinating.
While at the bar, they both got chatting to Terry, the tour guide
“Did you enjoy it?” Terry asked smiling
“It was brilliant!” Buffy said. She’d noticed that he’d lost his ‘Cockney-wide-boy’ accent, and his accent was much softer
William bought him and his girlfriend for real, Estelle a drink, and they sat chatting, Terry told them that he and Estelle were students at the London School of Economics, and they did the tour to make some money in the evenings, and holiday time. Terry then downed his pint, thanked them both and said they’d got one more tour to do while it was still light, and they left.
“What shall we do now?” William asked looking at his watch, adding,
“The night is still relatively young”
Buffy smiled, swirled the last mouthful of wine around in her glass and said,
“Let’s just go back to the hotel, and have an early night, shall we?” she’d got a real twinkle in her eye when she said it and William grinned and stood up
“I’ll hail us a cab!”
************************
They woke bright and early, after a fairly athletic night!
“Morning Miss Limber!”
“Morning Mr Athletic!” Buffy smiled and cuddled him up
“I wasn’t too much for you last night, was I?” William asked
“Nope…I think I ‘gave’ good as I got don’t you?”
“You were pretty inventive! – With no complaints from me!”
“I’m starving!” Buffy said getting out of bed.
“Hmm, me too, must have been all that exercise we got last night!”
“Sexercice!” – So...what have you planned for today, hmm?” Buffy asked starting to get dressed.
“Well, I want to go to the bank, I think a new credit limit is in order now I’m going to have the rent money from the house paid into an account every month, and I’ve got to put those two cheques in too, the one from rent money already accrued and the other from the sale of the house in Stephenson Avenue, so now I’m rich, I thought you’d like to go shopping!”
Buffy grinned and said
“You know what I’d love?”
“What’s that kitten?”
“Tea at the Ritz…I know it’s well over a hundred dollars, but mom would be SO jealous, she’s always wanted to have tea there!”
“Okay, I’ll see what we can do. They probably do the same here, but if it’s the Ritz you want, then it’s the Ritz you’ll have my little one!”
Buffy swiftly moved round the bed and put her arms around William’s neck.
“You DO know if you were penniless, I’d still always love you” William smiled and gave her a squeeze
“I know babe…I‘ll always love you” he gave her a kiss and Buffy smiled
“Carry on like that, and we’ll miss breakfast!”
William looked out of the window and said,
“It looks glorious out there, shall we see about a trip on the Thames, after I’ve been to the bank?”
“Oh love it!”
On his way out, William had a word with the Concierge.
************************
“Phew – that was SO blowy!” Buffy said trying to calm her wild hair as the man helped her off the cruiser and onto the wharf steps.
“Great though, good way to see the Houses of Parliament and Westminster, from the river” William added.
“So, hungry yet sweetie, it’s nearly one o’ clock?”
“Um…shopping for a while?”
“Okay then…come on, I’ll get us a cab to Oxford Street”
In Oxford street they did some shopping, and as they decided to go back to the hotel, they walked passed a travel agents.
“Hold on….I’ve had an idea…”
Buffy sat and waited for William, having no idea what he was doing. When he’d finished he came and stood by her.
“What have you bought?”
“You’ll see – I must write a letter – they have stationery and stuff back at the hotel, don’t they?”
“Yeah – it’s in that bureau thingy by the window” Buffy said nodding
“Good – Come on then Muppet let’s get back” He slotted a long slim envelope into his inside pocket and they left the travel agents, and went back to the Savoy.
************************
Buffy opened the room door with the key-card and put her purchases on the bed. She yawned
“God, all this shopping has made me tired! – I think I’ll have a nap, then a shower…are we going out tonight – special I mean?”
“Oh yes! Dinner at Simpson’s no less, then dancing the night away at Aqua, the hottest new nightclub in town….look, I saw George, the concierge, he got me some tickets, (he showed her two salmon pink, gold edged tickets) these little beauties get us in AND a bottle of champagne there’s half price cocktails until midnight, we can celebrity spot – they’ve got a glass dance floor that lights up and everything!”
Buffy did a little dance of joy!
“Ooh – I can’t wait! So, are you coming for a lie down?”
“In a little while, I want to write a letter first”
“Has this anything to do with what you bought at the travel agency?”
“Yeah…you remember Mrs Samuels saying that they’d been saving their pennies to go see their new great grand son in New Zealand?” William asked, taking out the long slim envelope from his jacket pocket. Buffy nodded and said,
“Yes, and you’ve gone and bought them tickets to go there?” William nodded
“They were kindness itself to me, they’ve given me memories that I shall treasure for the rest of my life…do you think they’ll like it?”
Buffy came up to William and slipped her arms around his neck and said
“YOU, are the kindest, most generous soul I know, and no, they won’t like it, they’ll love it, and I for one think it’s a beautiful thing to do” She smiled up at him and then gave him a soft kiss.
William sat at the desk and wrote. He told them that their meeting had made him remember things he’d long forgotten, and had given him life-long memories to cherish, and now that he was in a good financial position, he’d like them to accept the two first class tickets to New Zealand with his love and gratitude – and to ‘Give Christine a kiss from me’, and also asked them to send him some photographs when they got back. The tickets were ‘open’, and they could travel anytime within the next eight months. He rang room service and a bell-hop came to the door. William gave him the letter to post.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
For those interested in the Whitechapel murders, go here http://www.casebook.org/intro.html
WARNING NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED if you read about the injuries inflicted..!!!!!!...
WARNING NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED if you read about the injuries inflicted..!!!!!!...