Whitechapel Read Online Free Page B

before she grew very tired with his company let alone being disturbed by his medical obsessions.
    One day when he was out and she was on her own in the hotel accommodation they shared in the Monmartre district of Paris, known for its association as the artist’s centre of the city, she opened the art materials bag. Below the pencils, pastels and brushes with paint she found a false bottom. Curiosity now aroused, she removed it and on seeing the contents felt a chill run down her spine. Already disturbed by his behaviour she now found what seemed to her untrained eye to be surgeon’s knives, some forceps and one of his mysterious specimen jars wrapped in brown paper. Ripping the packaging away from around the jar she exposed what was floating inside it in a light brown coloured medical fluid. Not having any anatomical knowledge Mary initially saw the contents merely as folds of flesh, disturbing enough to her before the shock realisation of what these folds of flesh were. Although a simple girl she knew enough to recognise these folds on one side with its orifice as being the same as she possessed to ply her trade. Mary almost paralysed with fear and beginning to panic, considered in her mind his possibly horrific intentions for her. She hurriedly and chaotically gathered and packed her meagre belongings, shoving them with no methodology into her one battered leather case.
    She realised during this process that she needed money to return to England and with her pulse now beginning to quicken s a result of her discovery, she rifled through her companions belongings finding £50 in Dr Tumblety’s brief case. Whilst searching for his travel papers, Mary came across a dark blue leather jewellery box just the right size to house a necklace and broach or perhaps a dress watch. Dr Tumblety had never expressed any interest in such finery only ever making use of a fob watch on a silver chain, which puzzled Mary as to what he might keep in the box. It was locked with a small brass padlock really more for show than as a deterrent as it appeared too weak to stop it being opened. Mary grabbed her own bag and pulled out a nail file with a hooked cuticle end jammed this hook into the lock’s key hole and with a brisk turn of the nail file the latch popped opened and fell away onto to the richly carpeted French hotel’s floor.
    Her heart started to pound as one hand continued to grasp the base of the box and the other dropping the file now took hold of the lid to pull it open. Initially very stiff, the spring loaded lid began to ease back to reveal its hidden secret inside. Her eyes widened and her lower jaw fell open as she spied for the first time the contents of the box, fearing he maybe likely to return at any minute her amazed admiration was short. Inside sat on a bed of crushed black velvet were the largest single diamond and two huge pieces of emerald stone she had ever seen in her life. These precious gems were surrounded by a ring of what appeared to be smaller diamonds round them in a circle. The large diamond itself was about one and a half inches round and cut in a perfect circular fashion. Knowing that diamonds were very valuable and they could resolve all her troubles, especially the largest, she pulled the centre stone from the box and took a handful of the small diamonds and tossed the now significantly emptier jewellery box back into Tumblety’s bag.
    Looking out of the hotel room’s window to see what the weather was doing she saw that it was dry and bright accentuating the beauty of the classical Paris skyline; but sending a shiver through her body, Mary also noticed that Tumblety was returning along the road she overlooked in a carriage. She grabbed her case from the bed that she had now unceremoniously packed and fled the room. Finding the back staircase she made her way down the stairs but too quickly losing her footing and falling as she neared the bottom from becoming entangled in the voluminous skirt of her