Jack the Ripper Doesn't Exist

Scene 14

KELLY: No joke! The knife I cut up Kate with. I saved it all these years.

ABBERLINE: You’d never get it in here.

KELLY: I walked right past the guards. I just told ‘em I was an ex patient checking myself in. No one even looked me over.

ABBERLINE: Show me.

KELLY: I keep it under my mattress.

Abberline looks under the mattress and lifts a foot-long piece of jagged wood.

KELLY: If one of the other patients came after me, I could put out an eye.

ABBERLINE: I’m letting the guards know about it.

KELLY: They won’t be happy with it. Luckily, my bones are weak, so they can’t beat me up too bad.

ABBERLINE: I’ll be sure to relate your self-defense story.

KELLY: They won’t care none. Alice may have thrown it away and said nothing, but the guards will be sure to tell Dr. Taylor after they have their fun.

ABBERLINE: If I told Nurse Crook, she might take my side.

KELLY: No way. She wouldn’t hear it. I could probably threaten to stick it in her, and she’d say I was joking.

ABBERLINE: She doesn’t seem the least bit suited to deal with men like you.

KELLY: The asylum is so short-staff that some people are admitted as administration rather than patients. She could get herself hurt.

ABBERLINE: I should have a talk with Dr. Taylor.

Abberline pulls a picture off the wall and examines it closely.

KELLY: Put her with the smaller animals.

ABBERLINE: I don’t imagine she’ll be here much longer.

KELLY: Alice is all we got in this place!

ABBERLINE: You'll look for hope elsewhere.

KELLY: That ain’t Jack’s knife, Inspector.

Abberline looks over his shoulder, angry.

ABBERLINE: I’m not an...!

KELLY: This is.

Kelly tears open his straight jacket, revealing a long knife in his hand. He attacks Abberline. The two struggle and Abberline easily overpowers Kelly, taking the knife. Abberline hesitates a moment, and stabs Kelly.

KELLY (cont): Kate forgives you.

Kelly dies. 

Concluded tomorrow