Druitt and Monro

[Fiver]

In the 1911 short story version of "The Lodger" by Marie Belloc Lowndes, the landlord is brought to see the body of the man who has been his dodgy lodger with deep pockets. The corpse has been recovered from Regent's Canal where Mr Sleuth has drowned himself because, the readers know, the maniac feared - wrongly - that a Police Commissioner (described as tall, handsome and charming) had recognised him at Madame Tussauds as an escaped and dangerous lunatic. The landlord identifies the soggy remains on the side of the embankment as his lodger, but in order to avoid reputational ruin an anxious Mr Bunting keeps to himself that he also believes this dead man is "The Avenger"; the religious fanatic who has been fatally stabbing drunken women he has found sleeping it off in London's meaner streets.

Why was this bit cut from the 1913 novel version, so that Mr Sleuth - much less satisfyingly - simply vanishes and presumed to be a suicide? Was it because it was too close to the Druitt knuckle...?

Do the Hainsworths realize that "The Lodger" was a work of fiction? The story was inspired by the Ripper killings, but the Ripper didn't leave three cornered pieces of paper with "the Avenger" written in red ink pinned to the clothes of his victims. Nor did the Ripper kill two people in Leipsic, and two more in Liverpool in 1884. Looking for Ripper clues in "The Lodger" is like looking for Lindbergh kidnapping clues in "Murder on the Orient Express".

[Fiver]

This is a fine example of the fact, that if something is repeated often enough people will begin to believe it.

I'm not sure how much we can trust AI, but if we pose various questions concerning homosexual murderers and female victims, the result pretty much confirms what we have suspected, it is rare.
Which does not mean it does not or has not happened, serial killers are a rarity in themselves, and sexual serial killers even more so, but they still do occur.

One contributing factor to this speculation is the fact Druitt appears to have got into serious trouble at the boys school in Blackheath.
The obvious implication being, Druitt might have been discovered in an intimate situation with any of the boys at the school.

What is never to my knowledge even considered is, the fact that this same boys school included six female servants and a female cook.
Which serves to demonstrate that if potential homosexual temptation is what you choose focus on, then that is what you will find.

There's also the possibility that Druitt never did anything inappropriate at Valentine's school, but was the victim of malicious gossip. Anything said about the reason for Druitt's dismissal or his sexuality is speculation, and often that speculation is heavily based on whether people want to prove or disprove that Druitt was the Ripper.

[Fiver]

fascinating thread. there seems to be an awful lot of talk by alot of different people at the time about druitt. But does it all just originate from MM? Is there any independent mention of druitt being the ripper that dosnt come from MM?

There seem to be several people at the time who believed various, often contradictory versions of the drowned doctor story. Macnaghten directly refers to Druitt, while Sims refers to a Dr D. Considering the number of errors and contradictions between the Macnaghten, Griffiths, Sims, and Farquharson, there's no way of telling who was the source, nor if there was any truth to the matter or of it was like the Leather Apron scare.

[Fiver]

But the absence of any intimacy allegations from the school committed by Druitt against any female members of staff I think it proves my original suggestion that he was a homosexual.

There were no intimacy allegations from the school committed by Druitt against any male students, either. That is speculation by people theorizing a reason for his dismissal.

[c.d.]

Do we know if the headmaster of his school was ever interviewed after Druitt's death?

c.d.

[Fiver]

I have nothing but respect for you as one of the few genuine sleuths attached to this subject; your impeccable and accomplished record as a police detective speaks for itself.

His record as a police detective does speak for itself, just not in the way you think.

[Fiver]

There is no more important document in the whole case. The entire effort in trying to dismiss Druitt is based on the wholly unfounded assumption that Macnaghten was lying. It’s nothing more than wishful thinking I’m afraid Chris.

The Hainsworths are the ones I have noticed saying that Macnaghton was lying.

You are being misled by Macnaghten; he is fudging because he is under acute pressure. Try and measure all the sources by him, about him and his proxies (J. F. Nesbit; Major Griffiths; George Sims - and rogue source, Frank Richardson). Otherwise none of it makes any sense.

Consider that the memoir chapter of 1914, "Laying the Ghost of ack the Ripper", is Macnaghten's de-facto 3rd version of his report. Except this time he was retired; he did not have to worry about losing his job. He could write more freely - up to a point - because he was clear of Warren, Anderson, the Vicar, the Druitts, even his close friend, Majendie, was long deceased.

Sure enough, Macnaghten finally admits what we can see confirmed by other contemporaneous sources: the 1894 versions of the report both deceitfully give the misleading impression that all there was to know about Druitt was learned by police in 1888. We can see from the way the police behaved this was not true: the autumn of terror is a handy myth created by Mac. He is lying when he claims the police knew Kelly had to be the final victim of this particular maniac.

In his 1914 version the retired, seriously ill chief admitted that the incriminating evidence against Druitt did not arrive until years later, that it was Macnaghten who learned it on a personal and private level from the man's "own people" and, embarrassingly, it meant the police had been fruitlessly chasing a phantom.

I don't think Macnaghten was lying about suspecting Druitt, just like I don't think Macnaghten was lying about suspecting Ostrog and Kosminski. Unlike Smith investigating Puckridge, Macnaghten didn't do enough investigation to discover that his suspect had an alibi. Macnaghten's statements on Kosminski and Druitt are so full of errors that he appears to have not have investigated them deeply, either. Those errors aren't enough to discard Kosminski or Druitt, but they do weaken the cases against them.