The Trial of Elizabeth Cree by Peter Ackroyd Page B

12, 1880: What a wonderful spread in the
Police Gazette
, although the rough engravings scarcely did justice to the business. They had depicted me with a top hat and cloak in general theatrical representation of a swell or masher—I suppose that I was grateful for the recognition, since only a member of my class could have performed such a delicate feat, but I would have preferred more authenticity in the composition. Dear Jane’s body could also have been more perfectly drawn, and lacked certain subtle effects of light and shade; mezzotint or stipple are so helpful in conveying atmosphere without the general prettifying of color, although I suppose that an act such as mine can be represented by the simple force of the engraver’s old-fashioned burin. There was also something wanting in the style of the newspaper reports: they smacked too much of the Gothic, and were woefully inadequate in syntax. “Two nights ago, a human fiend perpetrated the foulest and most horrid murder ever seen in this city …” and so forth. I knew that the common people preferred to turn their lives into the cheapest melodrama, with the taint of the penny gaff, but surely the more educated classes of the newspaper world might aspire a little higher?
    And then I recalled the scholar. It was an easy thing to kill a whore, after all, and there could be no real or lasting glory in it. In any case, so strong is the public lust for blood that the whole city would be waiting in anticipation for the killing of another flash girl. That would be the beauty of the Jew: it would throwall into confusion, and lend such splendor and excitement to my progress that each new death would be eagerly awaited. I would become the model of the age.
    S EPTEMBER 16, 1880: By a stroke of luck my darling wife, Lizzie, decided to spend the evening with a friend in Clerkenwell—one of her old theatrical pals who, I suspect, has become an inebriate. But it gave me a wonderful opportunity to create my little surprise. I knew Scofield Street well enough, and I perfectly remembered the house where I had left the Hebrew on that foggy night, so I decided to spend the day in the Reading Room to complete my study of Mayhew before embarking on my quest. I saw him in his customary place; he did not notice me at all, but I marked him well. When he left his seat to consult the catalogue, I made my way over to his desk as casually as if I were merely walking by—who could resist the temptation of seeing the last book on earth such a man was about to read? He had left one volume open, and its title was obscured—I glimpsed only tables of cabbalistical and hieroglyphical figures which were no doubt the offspring of some Asiatic mind. But there was also a new book lying on top of a catalogue from Murchison’s in Coveney Street, so I knew that he had just purchased it. It was entitled
Workers of the Dawn
; I could not make out the author’s name as I passed by, but it seemed a peculiar choice for a German scholar. Then I returned to my own place and read Mayhew until my friend left the Reading Room and walked out into the dusk.
    There was no need to follow him, since I knew his destination, and on such a fine night I decided to stroll towards the river with my bag of tricks. (Perhaps someone would need the services of a surgeon along my path!) I came up by Aldgate and the Tower before turning down Campion Street. It was so clear anight that I could see the towers of the churches of the East, and it seemed to me as if the whole city were trembling in anticipation of some great change; at that moment, I felt proud to be entrusted with its powers of expression. I had become its messenger as I walked towards Limehouse.
    There was a gas lamp at the top end of Scofield Street where it comes out by the Commercial Road, but the patch which led down towards the river was now quite dark: Number 7, with the brown door, was situated just on the borders of light before the street melted into