1 December 1888
Night
Tea Room
💭 Gossip travels cleaner than blood. Fear screams in the streets. But gossip… gossip whispers in warm rooms. Softer voices. Sharper knives. If the pub gives us terror, the tea room will give us imagination. Horror dressed as polite conversation. Kim must not interrogate. Kim must belong.
📞 Kim (to you)
I’m inside. Wait. Don’t speak yet. Just listen. Porcelain against porcelain… do you hear that? That tiny ringing sound? Someone is stirring too quickly. The spoon taps the cup every second like a nervous clock. Someone else is cutting lemon peel too thin. It smells lovely in here. Like lemon and spices and too much perfume. Oh I love it. Can I stay here? It almost hides the coal smoke that followed me in from the street. Almost. The room is bright. Gaslight reflected in silver spoons. Tablecloths so heavily starched they could stand upright on their own. They are white as hospital sheets. Every chair has a lady in it. Respectable women. The most dangerous kind of observers. They pretend they are discussing harmless things. Embroidery patterns. Sugar prices. A dreadful cousin in Brighton. But every third sentence bends back toward the same word. Whitechapel. And every voice lowers when it does. And God help me… I actually want tea.
📞 Lady 1
They say he studied the rooms. Not the women, the rooms themselves. As though he had already memorized them before the blood ever touched the floorboards.
📞 Lady 2
Oh for heaven’s sake, Clara, do not begin that again. An artist painting a narrow room in London is hardly prophecy. London contains thousands of narrow rooms.
📞 Lady 1
Still. Artists are strange men. They look too long. They notice things decent men pass by.
📞 Kim to you
They’re respectable. Proper stitching on their gloves. Expensive thread. They are not panicking. But they are afraid. You can hear it in the pauses. They want the horror but in manageable portions. Small enough to sip with tea.
📞 You
Blend in. Compliment something.
📞 Kim
Oh pardon me, I could not help overhearing. But I must say your hat is quite exquisite. The stitching along the brim… that shade of blue is simply perfect in this light.
📞 Lady 1
How kind of you. My sister trims them. She has the steadiest hands in Kensington.
📞 Lady 2
You are not from this district.
📞 Kim
No, not at present. I am visiting family. A cousin in Whitechapel, unfortunately. And one cannot help hearing things these days. The streets feel… altered.
📞 Lady 1
Yes. They do.
📞 Kim
They’re assessing me. I feel like I’m back in high school. Am I sweating? I feel like I might be sweating.
📞 Lady 3
I am telling you it was that painter. It must be. No one else studies shadows the way he does.
📞 Lady 1
You mean the theatre painter? The one who paints dancers?
📞 Lady 3
Yes, yes! That one. Walter something.
📞 Lady 1
Sickert. Walter Sickert.
📞 Kim to you
They’re talking about Walter Sickert.
He is a painter. Known for gloomy interiors.
Interesting target for gossip.
📞 You
Ask why.
📞 Kim
Forgive me. What makes you suspect Mr. Sickert? Has something occurred?
📞 Lady 2
My dear, you must understand something about these killings. The newspapers describe them only in the most delicate language. But the truth is… grotesque. The women are not simply killed. They are… arranged. Cut. Displayed. Whoever does it understands bodies. And rooms. And light.
📞 Lady 3
And Mr. Sickert paints precisely those sorts of rooms. Small. Airless. Beds too narrow to sleep comfortably. Walls closing inward.
📞 Lady 1
He paints women lying down. Women slumped. Women diminished. It is unsettling how long he looks at them.
📞 Lady 2
And he lingers where the crowds gather. Where the murders happened. Watching. Observing. Like a man studying a subject.
📞 Lady 3
Half of London lingers where the murders happened.
📞 Lady 1
Yes but most men look horrified. Artists look… interested.
📞 Kim to you
This is exactly what gossip does. Someone behaves oddly once. And suddenly they’re capable of ritual murder. Still… I need them to keep talking.
📞 Waitress
Ladies, please keep your voices down.
📞 Lady 2
We are discussing art.
📞 Kim to you
I’m not inside their circle yet. They’re answering me, but they haven’t invited me to belong. I need to commit harder. Ahh I am not going to like this, am I?
📞 Lady 1
You are not one of us.
📞 Kim to you
Ah. There it is.
📞 Lady 1
This is a private table.
📞 Kim to you
If she dismisses me I lose everything. Ok that might be a bit dramatic but I need to blend in. What approach do we take?
Kim, become the worst kind of a respectable lady. Be diminishing about the victims. Talk down about the whole situation in Whitechapel. Make sure that you create dominance by tearing down others.
Kim, fully commit to the performance. Be polite, vulnerable and respectable. Pretend genuine concern for your family in Whitechapel and ask the ladies to help you understand what kind of man could commit such horrors.
📞 Kim
Please forgive me. I would not intrude if it were not… personal. I have family in Whitechapel. Women. A sister and her girls. And these killings… they feel so random. I lie awake wondering what sort of man walks those streets at night. What sort of face one should fear. Oh dear. What must I do to keep my family safe?
📞 Lady 1
Sit, dear.
📞 Lady 2
It unsettles us all.
📞 Lady 3
Especially because no one can agree what he is. Everyone thinks they know!
📞 Kim
What do people believe?
📞 Lady 2
Some say he must be a doctor. Or at least trained in surgery. The cuts are… precise. Too precise for an ordinary man.
📞 Lady 1
The newspapers refuse to say exactly what was done to those poor women. But my brother knows a police constable. And the constable says organs were removed. Almost professionally.
📞 Lady 3
Yes. Which means knowledge. And knowledge means education. Which means he cannot possibly be some drunken dock worker.
📞 Lady 4
Unless he worked in a slaughterhouse. Butchers learn similar skills.
📞 Lady 2
No butcher writes letters.
📞 Kim to you
Yes, yes we have heard these theories already. I need to stir it to another direction.
📞 Kim
Letters? Oh dear. Those letters can not possibly be his work.
📞 Lady 1
Oh no. I think they are. He definitely sent those letters to the newspapers. They are signed by the killer himself.
📞 Lady 3
“Jack the Ripper.”. Such a theatrical name.
📞 Lady 4
Anyone could have written those. Schoolboys. Journalists. Half of London wants to claim the murders.
📞 Lady 2
Still… Some believe the letters are genuine. And they are… strange. Playful. Almost proud.
📞 Lady 1
Which is why some say the killer is educated. A man who enjoys the attention.
📞 Lady 3
Or a madman
📞 Kim
A madman?
📞 Lady 3
There is a Polish man. A barber. George Chapman. Lives near Whitechapel. Keeps very odd hours.
📞 Lady 4
Yes I heard that too. A woman in my church says he watches people in the street. Just watches.
📞 Lady 2
Foreign men often bring… strange customs with them.
📞 Kim to you
They’re suspicious of foreigners. I’m so over it. But they do say something interesting about George Chapman. He commits terrible crimes… in the future. But still they think he is odd already.
📞 Lady 1
But personally… I still believe it may be the painter.
📞 Kim
A painter?
📞 Lady 1
Yes. Mr Stickert. Have you heard the story of his childhood?
📞 Kim
No. But please do tell.
📞 Lady 2
A terrible surgery. When he was a boy. It was something… delicate. Something humiliating.
📞 Lady 3
An injury that left him… incomplete.
📞 Lady 1
A man humiliated young may grow to resent women.
📞 Kim to you
Medical trauma turned into motive. Victorian psychology at its finest.
📞 Lady 3
But there are stranger theories still.
📞 Kim
Stranger? I am all ears.
📞 Lady 3
My niece swears she heard from a clerk at Scotland Yard… that the killer may be connected to the royal family.
📞 Lady 4
Emily!
📞 Lady 3
What? I am only repeating what I heard.
📞 Lady 2
Explain yourself.
📞 Lady 3
A prince. Something about a secret marriage. A scandal that could destroy the crown. The women killed because they knew something.
📞 Lady 4
That is absurd.
📞 Lady 3
Is it? Have you noticed how quickly the police close certain streets? How little the newspapers say?
📞 Lady 1
I refuse to believe royalty is involved in such barbarity.
📞 Lady 2
Still… Powerful men do strange things to protect themselves.
📞 Kim to you
Royal conspiracy theory. I was wondering how long it would take.
📞 Lady 4
My husband says something simpler.
📞 Kim
What does he believe?
📞 Lady 4
That the killer is simply… ordinary. A clerk. A neighbour. A man who walks past you in daylight.
📞 Lady 1
That is the most frightening possibility of all.
📞 Kim to you
Now that… That one might actually be true.
📞 Kim
Oh goodness, please forgive me if I gave the wrong impression. I certainly did not mean to intrude upon a private circle. It is simply that one cannot escape the conversation anywhere in London these days. Every carriage ride, every dinner table, every salon. Someone eventually lowers their voice and begins whispering about Whitechapel.
And I confess… I find the whole situation rather fascinating.
Not frightening, you understand. Merely… fascinating. The newspapers speak as though the entire city is under siege, yet when one looks closer it seems the matter concerns a very particular corner of London and a very particular sort of life.
📞 Kim to you
I feel physically ill saying that. This is like wearing someone else’s skin.
📞 Lady 2
You mean the women themselves.
📞 Kim
Well… one cannot pretend that the victims were society ladies. The streets of Whitechapel are not exactly known for… propriety.
📞 Kim to you
I hate this. I absolutely hate this. But they’re leaning in. So I’m going to keep going. I hope the victims won’t haunt me tonight.
📞 Lady 1
You are quite right. It is dreadful of course, murder always is, but one must be honest about the circumstances. Those women lived dangerous lives long before the killer arrived.
📞 Lady 3
Exactly. That is what I have been saying for weeks now. Everyone insists on imagining a single monstrous man stalking the alleys like some theatrical villain, but Whitechapel at night is full of drunken men and desperate women. It is entirely possible that these killings are not the work of one person at all.
📞 Kim
What do you mean?
📞 Lady 3
Well think about it carefully. Those women met dozens of men every week. Customers, companions, men whose names they never learned. If one of those encounters turns violent, who is truly surprised?
📞 Lady 4
Quite. And if a woman refuses a man or insults him, tempers can flare very quickly. It would not require some mysterious fiend. Only several angry men, on different nights, making terrible decisions.
📞 Lady 2
The newspapers simply find it more exciting to invent a single monster. “Jack the Ripper.” Such a dramatic title. Much better for selling papers.
📞 Kim to you
That’s actually interesting. If multiple men committed separate murders, the pattern could be coincidence. Or the police forced the crimes into one story.
📞 Lady 1
And honestly, one must also consider the victims themselves.
📞 Kim
In what way?
📞 Lady 1
They lived among dangerous people. They drank heavily. They quarrelled with customers. And if someone disappears from that world, there are not many witnesses eager to step forward.
📞 Lady 3
Precisely. Which means we might be searching for a single killer when the truth is simply… chaos.
📞 Lady 4
Although I must say, I have another thought entirely.
📞 Lady 2
Oh?
📞 Lady 4
Why does everyone insist the killer must be a man?
📞 Lady 1
A woman?
📞 Lady 4
Why not? Women move through those streets without suspicion. A woman could approach another woman easily. No one would think twice about it.
📞 Lady 3
But the violence…
📞 Lady 4
Women are capable of violence. History is full of it. Poisoners, nurses, jealous wives.
📞 Lady 2
And perhaps someone who hates what those women represent. A moral crusader. A woman convinced she is cleansing the streets.
📞 Kim to you
That’s actually not a terrible theory. A female killer would move differently through the district. And no one would expect it.
📞 Lady 1
Still… the organs being removed… that part troubles me.
📞 Lady 4
Yes. Why would anyone take pieces of the body? That suggests intention. What was the purpose?
📞 Lady 3
My niece insists it might be something unnatural.
📞 Lady 1
Emily, do behave.
📞 Lady 3
No, listen to me before you dismiss it. What if the organs are not trophies? What if they are… food?
📞 Kim
Food?!
📞 Lady 3
There are old stories. Creatures that must feed on blood. Creatures that move through the night unseen.
📞 Kim
Are you suggesting a vampire?
📞 Lady 1
Emily, we are respectable women. We do not discuss fairy tales at the tea table.
📞 Lady 3
I am merely saying that something strange is happening. Why else would someone remove organs? Why else would the killings happen in darkness with such… theatrical brutality?
📞 Lady 2
Because humans are capable of monstrous things. We do not require vampires for that.
📞 Kim to you
Victorian vampire theory. I did not expect that to arrive before the police did.
📞 Lady 4
I believe something much simpler.
📞 Kim
Which is?
📞 Lady 4
The killer may simply be an ordinary man. A clerk. A shopkeeper. Someone who appears completely harmless during the day.
📞 Lady 1
Yes… that possibility is deeply unsettling.
📞 Lady 2
London is full of invisible men. Men who pass unnoticed because they look respectable.
📞 Kim to you
That theory again. The ordinary man. It’s frightening because it’s believable.
📞 Lady 3
But I have one final thought. And I cannot believe the police have not explored it.
📞 Kim
Please.
📞 Lady 3
What if the women knew their killer?
Those women had husbands once. Some had lovers. Some had regular clients. Men who visited them again and again.
📞 Lady 1
You mean jealousy?
📞 Lady 3
Possibly. Or obsession. Or a man who became possessive and violent.
📞 Lady 2
Or the same client visiting several of them. A man who returned again and again until something inside him… snapped.
📞 Lady 4
Which would explain why the victims did not run. They may have trusted him.
📞 Kim to you
Now that… That might be useful. If the victims recognized the killer, they wouldn’t scream immediately.
📞 Lady 1
Unless, of course… he was not strange at all.
What if the most dangerous man in London is simply the one no one notices?
📞 Kim to you
And just like that… they’ve circled back to the same fear.
📞 You
What do you think?
📞 Kim
This room isn’t giving us facts. Which is good because we already have so many facts. They do give us some interesting theories. Man I love tea. Women surely know how to talk.
I need air. This place is suffocating. All these polite voices whispering about mutilation while stirring sugar into tea. I never imagined myself to behave as a posh Victorian Lady. It was horrendous.
I should go somewhere quieter. Somewhere that actually saw what happened.
The second murder site from that night. Two women were killed within an hour of each other. Same killer. Or maybe not. If these women are right about anything… the street might still remember something the tea room does not.
I’ll call you again when I get there. My head is starting to pound. Even quiet rooms can be loud when people are afraid.
📞 Call Disconnects
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