Read Online A Study in Red - The Secret Journal of Jack the Ripper by kindels - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: kindels
Tags: Suspense & Thrillers
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comfort of the day lies as a pall upon my heart. I am entombed in sadness. There's hopelessness in every breath I take, I want to be alive, I hate this place, I need to breathe fresh air, to taste just once the breath of goodness. These things are not me!
He was different, that was certain, at least for now. The rage displayed in every previous page was absent from this melancholy extract. These were the words of an unhappy, extremely depressed individual, who appeared to fear loneliness above all else. He saw himself as cut off from the world, as though living in it, but not really being a part of it. At the time of writing these words, I doubt he even knew or realized what he'd done in the last few weeks. There was a lucid calm, though his thoughts were still distorted by anxieties and repression. In addition to those other psychoses I suspected he suffered from, this individual could have also been afflicted by what today would be referred to as a multiple personality disorder. The change in handwriting, the alteration to his sentence construction, and the sudden switch from rage to depression could have been symptomatic of this; though I couldn't be sure of course.
Had no-one noticed this man's problems, I wondered? Surely, he must have had some day to day contact with friends, family or colleagues. From what I'd read so far, he was a deeply disturbed individual who must have had some difficulty in masking all of his symptoms from those around him. Had no-one suspected his dark secret, or had someone tried and failed to get help for this man, maybe attempted to obtain treatment for him? Perhaps though, if one analyzed his words a little further, he was indeed a lonely man and therefore in all probability a loner, living, working, and killing alone. I'd read that there'd been theories about the murders being some sort of conspiracy, two or more killers involved, but, if the journal were the real thing, then there had been just one man, but that one man may have had many different faces, as of now, I'd just met number two! He'd mentioned a cold and dark place. Was that his mind, or had he sought help as a voluntary patient in some respectable institution? Such places did exist, though only the wealthy could afford the luxury of such a retreat. I concluded that no, he wouldn't have placed himself within the reach of anyone who might have discovered his secret. The place he referred to had to be his own mind, the place where his thoughts and his 'voices' had entrapped and entombed him a web of evil beyond rational belief.
I paused to make a referral to my printed fact sheets. I'd heard in the past, and it was now confirmed for me, that throughout the course of the Ripper investigations a number of letters had been sent to the police and other agencies concerned with the case purporting to be from The Ripper. Many, if not all of these had at some time been dismissed as hoaxes, in no small part due to the differences in handwriting between them. It had been concluded that no one man could have been responsible for so many varying styles of handwriting, and therefore they couldn't all be the work of the murderer. Could it have been, I wondered, that one or more of those letters could have been from the killer, written whilst in the form of one of a number of distinctly different personalities? As I hadn't even got to the point in the case where the first of those letters had appeared, I decided to reserve judgment for the time being.
6 th September 1888
Where is peace? It eludes me so. Death would be such a release from this torment of perpetual agony. I have such a headache, throbbing in my skull. There's laudanum in the house. Took some. Better, much better. Saw no-one today, watched the world passing through the window, pretty girl selling flowers on the corner, clean girl, young, innocent as the blooms in her basket. Coaches and carts and barrows and life. All life, but not for me. A cacophony in my head, a kaleidoscope
He was different, that was certain, at least for now. The rage displayed in every previous page was absent from this melancholy extract. These were the words of an unhappy, extremely depressed individual, who appeared to fear loneliness above all else. He saw himself as cut off from the world, as though living in it, but not really being a part of it. At the time of writing these words, I doubt he even knew or realized what he'd done in the last few weeks. There was a lucid calm, though his thoughts were still distorted by anxieties and repression. In addition to those other psychoses I suspected he suffered from, this individual could have also been afflicted by what today would be referred to as a multiple personality disorder. The change in handwriting, the alteration to his sentence construction, and the sudden switch from rage to depression could have been symptomatic of this; though I couldn't be sure of course.
Had no-one noticed this man's problems, I wondered? Surely, he must have had some day to day contact with friends, family or colleagues. From what I'd read so far, he was a deeply disturbed individual who must have had some difficulty in masking all of his symptoms from those around him. Had no-one suspected his dark secret, or had someone tried and failed to get help for this man, maybe attempted to obtain treatment for him? Perhaps though, if one analyzed his words a little further, he was indeed a lonely man and therefore in all probability a loner, living, working, and killing alone. I'd read that there'd been theories about the murders being some sort of conspiracy, two or more killers involved, but, if the journal were the real thing, then there had been just one man, but that one man may have had many different faces, as of now, I'd just met number two! He'd mentioned a cold and dark place. Was that his mind, or had he sought help as a voluntary patient in some respectable institution? Such places did exist, though only the wealthy could afford the luxury of such a retreat. I concluded that no, he wouldn't have placed himself within the reach of anyone who might have discovered his secret. The place he referred to had to be his own mind, the place where his thoughts and his 'voices' had entrapped and entombed him a web of evil beyond rational belief.
I paused to make a referral to my printed fact sheets. I'd heard in the past, and it was now confirmed for me, that throughout the course of the Ripper investigations a number of letters had been sent to the police and other agencies concerned with the case purporting to be from The Ripper. Many, if not all of these had at some time been dismissed as hoaxes, in no small part due to the differences in handwriting between them. It had been concluded that no one man could have been responsible for so many varying styles of handwriting, and therefore they couldn't all be the work of the murderer. Could it have been, I wondered, that one or more of those letters could have been from the killer, written whilst in the form of one of a number of distinctly different personalities? As I hadn't even got to the point in the case where the first of those letters had appeared, I decided to reserve judgment for the time being.
6 th September 1888
Where is peace? It eludes me so. Death would be such a release from this torment of perpetual agony. I have such a headache, throbbing in my skull. There's laudanum in the house. Took some. Better, much better. Saw no-one today, watched the world passing through the window, pretty girl selling flowers on the corner, clean girl, young, innocent as the blooms in her basket. Coaches and carts and barrows and life. All life, but not for me. A cacophony in my head, a kaleidoscope
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