Was She Wrong?

[The Rookie Detective]

It means that either Kelly had a key and whoever said the key was lost, was a liar.

Or Mary Cox's account of seeing Kelly and Blotchy enter the room, needs to be scrutinised closer.

[c.d.]

It means that either Kelly had a key and whoever said the key was lost, was a liar.

Not necessarily. A lost key can be found.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Mary Cox witnessed Kelly and Blotchy go through the door.

No mention of Kelly going around to the broken window on the adjacent wall to reach through and open the door via the latch.

If the door locked automatically like a Spring lock, then Kelly needed a key to get in.

But the key was already lost....apparently.


So how did Kelly get into her room as witnessed by Mary Cox?

On some locks you have to flick some kind of stud or catch to make it lock when you close the door. Maybe Mary didn’t do this on that occasion?

[Herlock Sholmes]

The room locked automatically when Kelly left the room.

We are told the window was broken previously and that the room could be entered by reaching through the broken window and lifting the latch.

We are told the key was already lost.


Both of these are relevant.

The question is, what occurred first?


The lost key or the broken window?


If the key was lost first AND Mccarthy didn't have his own master key, then how did anyone get into the room?
Perhaps deliberately breaking the window was necessary to facilitate a lost key?

If the window was broken first and then the key, at what point did Kelly and Barnett realise they could enter the room by reaching through the already broken window?


The correct chronology is important to establish

I agree that chronology can be important RD but sometimes it’s impossible to establish one accurately without further information that’s unlikely to come to light so long after events. I’d suggest that either of your two options might have been the case.

If the key was lost first then Mary just might have had to put up with not being able to lock her room. Perhaps McCarthy had been promising to get her a new key but hadn’t gotten around to it or maybe he took the attitude “start paying off your arrears and I’ll get you another key”? Also we know that the window had been broken accidentally during an argument and that the key had been missing for some time (but we don’t know how long)

If the window was broken first it would have allowed Mary to have locked her door using the spring lock without the need for a key to unlock it.

So for me

Likeliest - the window was broken first then the key was lost.
Less likely - the key was lost, the window was broken accidentally, they realised that the door could be unlocked by reaching through the window.
Very unlikely imo - that they broke the window on purpose to facilitate the unlocking of the door.

[Lewis C]

The conversation of the last few pages flowed from the suggestion that McCarthy likely entered the room before the police got there. But isn't it the case that for that to be true, it must be that either McCarthy had a key or he knew how to open the latch through the open window? To reject both of those possibilities is to reject the possibility of McCarthy entering the room before the police got there, right?

[FrankO]

So how did Kelly get into her room as witnessed by Mary Cox?

She either had left the door uncatched, as Herlock suggested earlier, or she did enter her room by uncatching the lock through the window and that just wasn't witnessed by Cox. According to Barnett, moving back the catch was quite easy. Or she did have the key, which was then lost, but that doesn't fit the evidence we have.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The conversation of the last few pages flowed from the suggestion that McCarthy likely entered the room before the police got there. But isn't it the case that for that to be true, it must be that either McCarthy had a key or he knew how to open the latch through the open window? To reject both of those possibilities is to reject the possibility of McCarthy entering the room before the police got there, right?

He didn’t enter the room before the police arrived Lewis.

“When I looked through the window the sight I saw was more ghastly even than I had prepared myself for. On the bed lay the body, while the table was covered with lumps of flesh. Soon Superintendent Arnold arrived, and instructions to burst the door open were given. I at once forced it with a pickaxe and we entered. The sight looked like the work of a devil. The poor woman had been completely disembowelled. Her entrails were cut out and placed on a table. It was these that I had taken to be lumps of flesh. The woman's nose had been cut off, and her face was gashed and mutilated so that she was quite beyond recognition. Both her breasts, too, had been cut clean away and placed by her side. Her liver and other organs were on the table. I had heard a great deal about the Whitechapel murders, but I had never expected to see such a sight. The body was covered with blood and so was the bed. The whole scene is more than I can discribe [sic]. I hope I may never see such a sight again.”


Originally posted by Kattrup.

[GBinOz]

The question is, did he enter the room in the time between sending Bowyer to the police and catching him up. Perhaps he was closing his shop. Or perhaps he entered Kelly's room to check that there was nothing there to tie him to "immoral activities", or worse.

[The Rookie Detective]

The conversation of the last few pages flowed from the suggestion that McCarthy likely entered the room before the police got there. But isn't it the case that for that to be true, it must be that either McCarthy had a key or he knew how to open the latch through the open window? To reject both of those possibilities is to reject the possibility of McCarthy entering the room before the police got there, right?

Precisely correct yes.

I'm suggesting that Mccarthy used the pickaxe because he told the police he didn't have a key.

This then makes the police think that Mccarthy couldn't have entered the room prior to them arriving.

By proxy it then rules him out as the killer.

But IF Mccarthy did enter before the police got there, then it makes his entry into the room all the more suspicious

[The Rookie Detective]

She either had left the door uncatched, as Herlock suggested earlier, or she did enter her room by uncatching the lock through the window and that just wasn't witnessed by Cox. According to Barnett, moving back the catch was quite easy. Or she did have the key, which was then lost, but that doesn't fit the evidence we have.

But the flint lock mechanism surely made the door lock automatically once it was closed?

I may be wrong of course.

[The Rookie Detective]

If Kelly had left the door unlatched when Mary Cox saw Kelly and Blotchy enter the room, then how was the door locked when Mccarthy discovered Kelly?

This could have only been done by the killer after he left.

[c.d.]

Precisely correct yes.

I'm suggesting that Mccarthy used the pickaxe because he told the police he didn't have a key.

This then makes the police think that Mccarthy couldn't have entered the room prior to them arriving.

By proxy it then rules him out as the killer.

But IF Mccarthy did enter before the police got there, then it makes his entry into the room all the more suspicious

But again, R.D., a landlord saying he does not have a key is more suspicious than saying he has one.

It is a story that can easily be checked and if it is determined that he does have one he has now lied to the police.

Since it was later determined that the room could be entered from the window or that Mary invited her killer into room it does not rule him out as the killer especially since he knew Mary and interacted with her.

c.d.

[The Rookie Detective]

But again, R.D., a landlord saying he does not have a key is more suspicious than saying he has one.

It is a story that can easily be checked and if it is determined that he does have one he has now lied to the police.

Since it was later determined that the room could be entered from the window or that Mary invited her killer into room it does not rule him out as the killer especially since he knew Mary and interacted with her.

c.d.

I agree that Mccarthy shouldn't be ruled out, far from it.

In terms of the key, one of the first things the police.would have wanted to establish, would have been...

"Who had access to the murder scene?"

The landlord should have been included in that shortlist of individuals who could have accessed the room to murder Kelly.

But when Arnold arrives and the use of a pickaxe is required to get into the the room, there must have been a point whereby Mccarthy tells the police....

"Sorry, I don't have a key"

But rather than consider this suspicious, the police appear to have accepted his story. That includes him not having a key to access the room.

When this information is relayed to Arnold, it seems that he was only focused on getting into the room, and presumably wasn't bothered about the absence of a key.

Mccarthy then uses a pickaxe to break thorugh the door.

But imagine if Mccarthy had said...

"Don't bother with the air, I've got a key for the room"

From an investigative point of view, this would have at some point been reported back to the police that Mccarthy had a key, and therefore he would then be added to the shortlist of individuals who had access to the room without requiring the victim to be alive to facilitate entry.

In that regards, having a key would be more of a problem for Mccarthy.

But by saying he didn't have a key, he must have been damn sure that this couldn't be countered and that the key wouldn't somehow reappear (until at least after the inquest had concluded)
In other words, by using the pickaxe he must have known the key wouldn't suddenly.appear and prove him to be a liar.
He also couldn't be added to the shortlist of individuals who had access to the room.

Anyone who had access to the room would have automatically been considered a suspect.

Mccarthy wasn't included in that list.

But he was also a man of influence and power, so it's also fair to suggest that he may have pulled a few strings to ensure he wasn't in the frame for the murder.

So I guess it's a matter of glass half full, glass half empty.

I see your point, and I agree that if Mccarthy was found to have lied to the police about the key, then that would have been far more suspicious.
But because he needed a pickaxe, it's clear that he must have told the police that he didn't have a key, knew the key wouldn't appear, and knew that he couldn't be found to have lied to the police as a result.

It's for the reasons above that I believe that declaring he had a key, would have automatically put him on the police radar.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is too much made of the supposed gap between Bowyer and McCarthy going to Commercial Street Station? Was it really much of a gap?

McCarthy said: “You had better fetch the police."

then: ““I followed Bowyer to Commercial-street Police-station, where I saw Inspector Beck. I inquired at first for Inspector Reid. Inspector Beck returned with me at once.”

Then Bowyer said: “We both went to the police-station, but first of all we went to the window, and McCarthy looked in to satisfy himself. We told the inspector at the police-station of what we had seen.”

It seems to me that McCarthy suggested that Bowyer go for the police and McCarthy either went with him at the same time but at a slower pace or that he followed close behind after doing something…perhaps he first went to tell his wife where he was going? The fact that Bowyer said “We both went…” suggests to me that if there was a gap between the two men it wasn’t a significant one.

[c.d.]

But he was also a man of influence and power, so it's also fair to suggest that he may have pulled a few strings to ensure he wasn't in the frame for the murder.

Given the horrific nature of the murder and the whole Ripper scare that would seem to take some serious string pulling. And is there any evidence of that?

I have seen nothing to indicate that somehow McCarthy was the Don Corleone of Whitechapel.

c.d.