Jack the Ripper Doesn't Exist

Scene 5

KELLY: You caught me! You seen my face.

ABBERLINE: Only in the Penny Dreadful’s.

KELLY: Taylor probably didn’t even read that letter. I bet he’ll mess hisself when you tell him I’m Jack. The doctors have finally started rememberin’ my name.

ABBERLINE: Well, I don’t.

KELLY: You did! You looked me right in the eye!

ABBERLINE: You’re getting it all mixed up. That was P.C. Wilkins, remember? “Bloody Water Swirling Where Jack Washed His Hands!”

Abberline inspects the artwork stuck to the walls.

KELLY: Do you like my art collection, Inspector?

ABBERLINE: Did you draw these?

KELLY: Oh no. Each was painstakingly plucked from the garbage cans of the asylum art room. A few of them were quite costly, but I think they really warm up the room.

ABBERLINE: What do you like to draw, Mr. Kelly?

KELLY: Nothing more’n you’d expect, I assume. Lot’s of red and blacks. Mostly scribbles. Nothing you’d want to proudly display.

ABBERLINE: Pictures of Katherine Eddowes?

KELLY: I thought it was my wife, but I was wrong.

ABBERLINE: Most people pick Mary Kelly.

KELLY: Naw. Jack the Ripper got her, not me. I was in America by then.

ABBERLINE: He got Katherine Eddowes too.

KELLY: Shall we make a list, Inspector? I don’t know if I can remember them all.

ABBERLINE: I can fill in the gaps.

KELLY: I don’t want to talk about them other girls. Just Kate.

ABBERLINE: Perhaps I’ll be home early enough to see my wife.

Continued tomorrow