Jack had to slip up

[detective abberline]

Key for MJK's room

Sam, I think it is even more likely there. Those tenants were extremely high risk for flitting. So the landlord would have felt the necessity to be able to go in and check to see whether they looked like they were in funds or not. Certainly Rachman's people had keys in all those slums in the 50s. They were forever going down Notting Hill and beating the **** out of tenants in their own bedsits.

Hi. I agree with you absolutely. I'm sure that McCarthy would have had a spare set of keys to every room especially as I'm inclined to think he may have been a pimp or certainly, at least, he knew these were working girls who, as you rightly say, would have been up for a midnight flit. The fact that apparently she was in and out means she needed money and I don't think she would have cared two hoots if her client saw her open the door by putting her arm through a broken window.

However, I check back to "Jack the Ripper A to Z' and find in the entry under Bowyer: "Unabwle to get an answer or open the SPRING-LOCKED DOOR, he pulled back the coat and curtain ....." and found her.

But wasn't McCarthy's chandler's shop opposite or beside the entry to Miller's Court? These people ate late ( I'm thinking of the woman who went out to buy food when she and her husband returned home very late to George Yard
where Tabram was found dead.) I have never read about his shop being opened or closed. I'm assuming it must have been closed because it surely would have been mentioned somewhere.

Opportunistic crime for Jack. Right place right time. For him.

Cheers

[Jon Guy]

Why the dramatics on the part of John McCarthy.

The thought occurred to me that if McCarthy had known about the window trick, or even owned a spare key, he may, in order not to complicate his position further, even though totally innocent, have played dumb as to alternative possiblities to a locked door of a murder victim.

[paul emmett]

The thought occurred to me that if McCarthy had known about the window trick, or even owned a spare key, he may, in order not to complicate his position further, even though totally innocent, have played dumb as to alternative possiblities to a locked door of a murder victim.

The last few threads have suggested that guilty or not McCarthy might have not brought forth his spare key. OK. But why not tell the police what kind of lock it was and how close it was to the broken window? Same reasons? OK? But I still say, if the hand through the window process is really quite simple, why didn't the police, doctors, photographers, whoever, figure it out?

[Chava]

Detective Abberline, McCarthy's store was certainly open late into the night. I'll check, but I believe an inquest/police witness puts him there at around 1.00 am.

Jon Guy, I agree. He wouldn't admit to having a key. That's what made me look closely at him in the first place. That and the back-rent she owed him which has never been explained to my satisfaction.

Then you add in the stuff that was burnt in the grate. A ton of charred cloth which was clearly some of Kelly's stuff. And a 'quantity of ashes' which was something else. I believe that fire was lit in order to destroy something that linked Kelly to her killer. Could have been anything but was most likely some kind of paper. The material fulfilled its purpose, and the police don't seem to have paid much attention to the other ashes. Not that it would have helped them as they wouldn't have been able to get anything off it. But if there was simply a bunch of burned ash in the grate, they might have wondered why anything was burnt, and from there might have concluded that the killer was burning some kind of incriminating evidence. Ergo a link to Kelly. Because there isn't much that would link a casual killer to his victim beyond the murder itself.

None of that, of course, leads to McCarthy. But to me, it suggests some link between Kelly and her killer which might take it out of the series, or might mean that the Ripper killed her not just for the usual reasons.

All this just my own opinion, of course.

[Ben]

Just a note about Kelly's door.

As others have mentioned, it attached to a "spring lock" mechanism, but it may have been "on the latch" before the murderer gained entry, thus rendering the "window trick" unnecessary.

[paul emmett]

Just a note about Kelly's door.

As others have mentioned, it attached to a "spring lock" mechanism, but it may have been "on the latch" before the murderer gained entry, thus rendering the "window trick" unnecessary.

Ben, I know little of this, but I take it the door can only be put on the latch from the inside, and that when someone leaves the door locks automatically, right? Another issue: do we think that MJK who asked Barnett to read to her of JTR would leave her door on the latch?

Chava, your ideas have certianly made me look closer at McCarthy, but why couldn't the quantity of ashes be from the clothes--Kelly's, Harvey's or whoever's--that did burn?

[Ben]

Hi Paul,

Ben, I know little of this, but I take it the door can only be put on the latch from the inside, and that when someone leaves the door locks automatically, right?

Sort of, yes, although in order for the door to lock automatically when someone leaves, the door would have to be taken "off" the latch. My bet is the killer did precisely that upon departure. The notion that Kelly left her door on the latch is no more unlikely that the notion that she'd pick up random stangers in the small hours.

Best regards,
Ben

[paul emmett]

Thanks, Ben.

I just have one more question. If one did lock it with a key, then you could not just open it with your hand, right?

I'm not sure about MJK leaving it on the latch, though. "Pick[ing] up random strangers in the small hours" was her job--or at least a hazzard thereof. I've done crazy things out on the town, but no matter how I'm feeling, I always lock my door. Cox barricaded hers.

Paul

[Ben]

Hi Paul,

I just have one more question. If one did lock it with a key, then you could not just open it with your hand, right

No. But it seems highly unlikely that Kelly did lock her door with a key.

It was Prater who barricared her door, not Cox, and there's no evidence that the former was a prostitute. Given the ripper's earlier practice of procuring victims under the guise of a client, venturing out into the killer's very hunting ground in search of noctural strangers entailed far more risk tham failing to lock one's door. She may have reasoned too that her broken window provided no deterrent whatsoever to any potential intruders, and if she was drunk and absent-minded, she may not have bothered.

All the best,
Ben

[paul emmett]

Of course, Prater--Catwoman. But I would think that the barracading still reflects the mood of the time. What is at stake with the door being on the latch? I think it would not be--just because you have to risk your life to make a living doesn't mean you would become risky in other aspects of living. But so what? It's on or off the latch. Do you want to say that JTR found an open door??

[Sam Flynn]

Jon Guy, I agree. He wouldn't admit to having a key. That's what made me look closely at him in the first place.

Chava - this was Scumsville, not the Park Lane Hilton. It's always dangerous when we apply our comfy, modern perception to what life must have been like back then.

[Ben]

I think it would not be--just because you have to risk your life to make a living doesn't mean you would become risky in other aspects of living

Hi Paul - There wasn't the same immediate necessity for street-walking in Kelly's case as there was with Nichols and Chapman, for example, who needed to solicit in order to get off the streets. Chief Inspector Moore also beomoaned the propensity among East End denizens towards failing to secure their doors, so no, it wouldn't be at all improbable for the killer to find a closed but unlocked door. It wasn't as if any stranger to Miller's Court would have had appreciable difficulty in figuring out the window trick, and as such, a latched door would have afforded her little security at all.

Best regards,
Ben

[paul emmett]

Hi, Ben.

You are right, clearly, about MJK not needing money as badly as the others. It seems that she didn't even have to pay McCarthy. Moore's complaint about the unlocked doors is curious: I wonder how he knew.
But I don't think "any stranger" could figure out the window trick. You said before that doors locked with keys could not be opened by a hand through the window. And Sam had said that key locked and bolted looked the same. And, of course, no passing stranger would know that the key was missing.
Are we really discussing whether or not JTR knew MJK?

Hi, Sam.

How was your day? It doesn't seem 21st century logic to say that if someone might abscound with your key, or you might need to sneak a peek, you should keep an extra key at the ready. I bet they even do that in East St. Louis.

[Chava]

Sam, it's not the stone age either. People lived a little differently then, but not that differently. It may have been Scumsville, and we know it was. But the door had a lock and it would not have been good business on McCarthy's part not to have a key for it. Suppose he has Tenant Y who rents the premises and then does a flit, taking the key with him. Then McCarthy has to get into the room probably by paying a locksmith to take the lock off the door, and then get said locksmith to put another lock on the door and give him the keys so he can rent it again. Much easier to have a key as any landlord I have ever heard of has, back to the beginnings of landlordry, and if necessary make a copy of it to give to the new tenants. After all, McCarthy's tenants may have been some of the lowest of the low, but McCarthy himself was a charming businessman with a shop and a bunch of rentals as well. He wasn't scum. He was positively bourgeois! I can't say of course he had a key. But I would bet a year's wages on it. Anything else doesn't make sense in terms of business. Which is why I'm so suspicious of the money Kelly owed him. Had to be a reason for that, I think. And what makes you think that the key issue speaks of a comfy modern existence? In uncomfy unmodern 19th Century Whitechape I believe it would have been even more essential for a landlord to have a key to his premises than it would be now.

Ben, Lizzie Prater doesn't come out and say she was a prostitute but she may as well have:

I left the room on the Thursday at five p.m., and returned to it at about one a.m. on Friday morning. I stood at the corner until about twenty minutes past one.

Note that she was married and her husband had deserted her. I imagine hooking is how she paid the rent. After all, she didn't say 'I left the room on Tthursday at 5.00 pm to go to my job at the buttonhole-makers'. In fact I'm pretty sure that she admits to prostitution somewhere else and I'm going to have to try and find it when I finally unpack from moving.

By the way, it's at the inquest that Prater says she saw McCarthy's store still open at 1.30 am and went in. I wish someone had asked her why she barricaded her door. That's always stuck with me as an unusual thing to say and I wish she'd been questioned further about it. People have explained it by saying that she was living in a rough area, and that is certainly true. But shoving two tabels in front of the door seems a little extreme...

[Ben]

Hi Paul,

It wouldn't have been necessary to lock the door with a key from the inside. If the latch was off, it would lock automatically. Our hypothetical stranger need only have registered the proximity of the broken window to the door, think "Aha!", and unlatch the door from the inside.

Cheers,
Ben