24 November 1888

Evening

Dutfield's Yard

🔔 Your phone rings. Kim is calling again. The line connects immediately. You didn’t even pick up. Good to know that free-will is not an option anymore.

📞 Call Connected

💭 You did some research. This will be the third victim. 30 September 1888. Dutfield’s Yard. She wasn’t mutilated. Which breaks the pattern of the 5 victims. You have been breaking your brain about this anomaly. But then you realized… Either the killer was interrupted… or this doesn’t belong to the same hand at all. This wasn’t the only murder of that night. If Kim has realized that, she knows this was the escalation night. You have been waiting for her call.

📞 You

Kim?!

📞 Kim (to you)

You! I am back. I’m in Dutfield’s Yard. Berner Street. I believe I have found the spot where she was found. It’s underneath the wagon wheel. I’m alone. But it feels like I am not. I wonder what it must have been that day.

This is where Elizabeth Stride was found. Long Liz.

📞 You

Are you ok Kim? How have you been?

📞 Kim (to you)

Ah! I am well. I believe I am closer then ever. Let’s get into it, right away.

The yard is deeper than the entrance suggests. The club building runs along the side. Windows above on the first floor. On that night, ninety to a hundred people were upstairs. Debating and singing. Some remained after midnight.

And yet. A woman’s throat was cut six to seven feet from the gate. And almost no one heard it.

📞 You

How horrible. She wasn’t mutilated, right?

📞 Kim (to you)

No. Only the throat. A six-inch incision. Clean and precise. Her windpipe completely cut. She was death in seconds. But no abdominal mutilation. No organ removal. Clothing undisturbed. She still had her bonnet near her head and a red and white flower pinned to her jacket. Her body was still warm when discovered at 1:00 AM. Doctors estimated she had been dead twenty to thirty minutes. That places the murder around 12:30 to 12:45.

💭 She is not talking about the victims as victims but as research-elements anymore. Interesting. I will comply for now.

📞 You

Which matches the witness statements?

📞 Kim (to you)

Exactly. PC Smith sees her at 12:35 with a man. Israel Schwartz sees a man throw her down in the gateway around 12:45. He hears the word “Lipski.” and he sees another man across the street lighting a pipe.

James Brown sees her earlier saying, “No, not tonight, some other night.” Multiple men. Multiple descriptions. Different heights. Different hats. Different coats. Either they all saw different men. Or memory fractures under gaslight.

📲 Text to Mr. Sterces

Sir, what does Lipski mean?

11.40 p.m.

📲 Text from Mr. Sterces

How dare you wake me up? Now I have to go downstairs in my face mask. Mrs. Sterces can’t see me like this!?

10.39 p.m

Fine. The term “Lipski” was commonly used as an anti-Semitic slur in the district after the execution of Israel Lipski in 1887.

10.45 p.m

Charming neighborhood. Shall I retrieve the Schwartz statement for you?

10.45 p.m

📞 You

Yes, please

Ignore him

📲 Text to Mr. Sterces

Yes, please

11.46 p.m.

📲 Text from Mr. Sterces

Great. Schwarz was the most important witness of Elizabeth Stride. He saw her 30 minutes before her body was discovered.

10.50 p.m

He described a man, in his thirties. 5 feet, 5 inches tall. Dark hair. Small brown moustache. He mentioned the man was appeared to be a bit drunk. The man was violent. He tried to pull the woman into the street and then threw her onto the pavement. Schwarz thought this was a domestic attack and he avoided getting involved.

10.51 p.m

Excuse me. What kind of man doesn’t get involved in situations like this? Different times..

10.51 p.m

He saw a second man with a pipe. The first man called out to the second man. Which is when the second man started to follow Schwarz. The second man was a bit older and taller. He had light brown hair, a brown moustache and a dark overcoat with an old black hat.

10.52 p.m

I do have a report here though saying that the police made a report on the 19th of October where they dismissed the second man as a suspect. We just don’t know why.

10.53 p.m

That’s all I know.

10.53 p.m

📞Man 1

They say the killer was frightened off.

📞Man 2

Or she wasn’t his.

📞Man 1

You think this is coincidence?

📞Man 2

How would I know?

📞 Kim (to you)

That’s the question. Does she belong?

If the killer intended mutilation… why didn’t he do it? Interruption theory says Diemschutz’s cart scared him off. But if he fled in panic… Why no abdominal attempt at all? Not even a beginning cut.

💭 She’s thinking like a profiler now.

📞 You

Interesting. What else?

📞 Kim (to you)

Listen carefully. Thirty to forty-five minutes after Stride is killed… Catherine Eddowes is murdered in Mitre Square. That one? Full mutilation. Kidney removed. Facial cuts.

So either: He was interrupted with Stride, then unleashed rage on Eddowes. Or Stride was not his victim at all.

📞 You

Right. What do we know about the club?

📞 Kim (to you)

The club members are still defensive when asked about that night. I can feel it. Police searched over 2,000 lodgers afterward. Distributed 80,000 pamphlets. But something else… I’ve heard whispers.

📞 You

From who?

📞 Kim (to you)

Men in the street. A constable mentioned Detective Frederick Abberline. They say he privately believed the killer was not a working man. That he suspected protection. That someone higher was shielding someone. That the culprit might be… untouchable.

📞 You

Untouchable how?

📞 Kim (to you)

Nobility.. Or even higher? A scandal buried before it surfaces. They say Abberline knew more than he ever said publicly. But they also say… That newspapers are manufacturing half of this. That they created a monster.

📞 Man 1

It’s the aristocrats!

📞 Man 2

It’s the papers selling fear!

📞 Kim (to you)

This is what makes it interesting, because on 30 September there were two murders. Stride. and later, Eddowes. If Stride was interrupted… that explains the lack of mutilation. If she wasn’t part of it… then the double event fractures. I don’t like fractures.

📞 You

Might I remind you that escalation patterns are not theatrical devices. They are human behaviors. And humans lie.

📞 Kim (to you)

Clever! You are absolutely right.

Now, there are two paths forming from this yard. One leads upward. A ballroom gathering tonight. If there’s truth to the nobility whispers, it’s there.

The other leads sideways. A journalist office printing the latest edition. Letters signed “Jack.”. If the monster was built in ink… that’s where we will find it.

📞 You

And you can just walk into either?

📞 You

No. The ballroom requires invitation. The press office requires trespass. Both require… persuasion. Or manipulation. And I need you to decide which game we play.

📞 You

Before you go. Do you believe in the interruption theory?

📞 You

I don’t know yet. But here’s what I do know. Stride’s death is quiet. Efficient.

If this is the same killer… then he can restrain himself.

📞 You

I brought something. I sketched the yard layout earlier today based on inquest diagrams. If I place the body here… And the gate here… Then Schwartz would have seen the altercation from this angle. Which means the pipe-lighting man across the street might have seen more than he admitted.

📞 You