Jack

Jack
By Mark Spencer

My name is Percival Westerbrook,
I am a novelist by trade.
Though I dabble in detective work,
When Scotland Yard requests my aid.

It’s taken me years to uncover,
Discoveries that came too late,
The identity of the killers,
Who were assigned six women’s fate.

Five mutilated bodies were found
Around London’s lower East side.
In areas heavily patrolled,
With no doubt as to how they died.

The sixth was found one year earlier,
She had been murdered with a knife.
Dismembered and dumped in a river,
Believed to be the killer’s wife.

He was Robert Donston Stephenson,
One of two connected to Jack.
They prowled the shadows of Whitechapel,
Stalking prey they sought to attack.

They fooled us all in the beginning,
To my utter shame and regret.
Though justice has caught up to them.
For, like me, it couldn’t forget.

making mistakes, they left clues behind,
Which, one day, fell into my lap.
Measuring distance between bodies,
I used a compass and a map.

The first four bodies had been arranged,
They pointed North, South, East and West.
They removed one’s kidneys, another’s womb,
And cut one’s heart out of her chest.

They took another’s genitalia,
As only a skilled surgeon could.
Symbols of Satanic ritual,
A rite Stephenson understood.

He had learned his craft in Africa,
As a military surgeon.
The kind of rituals he performed,
Rarely ever used a virgin.

Two equilateral triangles,
On my map had been uncovered,
By drawing a line from point to point,
Where the victims were discovered.

This was a very common symbol,
Of worship in Satanic rites.
And the occult was his obsession,
It’s the subject on which he writes.

Connecting the dots a different way,
Creates the symbol of a cross,
The fifth point reveals the Christian fish.
When drawn around and not across.

Concluding my investigation,
I knew I was on the right track.
Grabbing my hat and coat, I stepped out,
In pursuit of a man named Jack.

I followed him to his London home,
And waited till he went to bed.
Weapon in hand, I sat on his chest,
With a pillow over his head.

And there I killed him in nineteen twelve,
My opportunities were rife.
His accomplice was already dead,
Poison brought an end to his life.

Francis Tumblety will kill no more.
Saint Louis was where I found him.
I pretended to be a butler,
My method for murder was grim.

An extract from the Castor Bean plant,
Would become my weapon of choice.
He screamed in agony as he died,
All heard the torment in his voice.

I saw my mission through to the end.
Time to don my robe and slippers.
I will rest, content, knowing that I’ve
Closed the book on Jack The Ripper.

End.