Harrow was torn from a restless sleep by a succession of firm, irregular knocks upon the door. There was, in that summons, something more than mere urgency: a note of disarray that betrayed either imminent panic or the inability of the caller to master his own emotions.
He sat up abruptly in bed and, by instinct, turned his gaze toward the window. Through the narrow slit between the curtains, he perceived that the early hours remained dense, saturated with a thick fog that clung to the glass in trembling droplets. London, once again, seemed to conceal itself from itself.
The knocking persisted.
Harrow rose, draped his robe over his shoulders, and moved to the door, opening it without hesitation. Outside stood a young police officer—a face vaguely familiar to him—whose expression, however, left no room for doubt: the young man was visibly shaken.
"It has happened again, sir," he said, nearly out of breath. "The butcher has claimed another victim."
Before Harrow could formulate any question, the officer extended a folded note.
"Inspector Abberline requests your immediate presence at the scene. These were explicit orders."
He did not wait for a reply. Having delivered the message, he withdrew with the same haste with which he had arrived.
Harrow closed the door slowly, his eyes already scanning the contents of the note with the speed of one who anticipates the worst. He then returned to the bedroom and began dressing with precise and economical movements. As he adjusted his collar, he allowed himself a brief reflection:
"Abberline has decided to share the investigation… curious."
There was no time for further conjecture.
Minutes later, already in the street and enveloped by the cold fog that permeated the air, he signaled to the first available carriage and gave the address.
The journey was brief, though sufficiently long for the silence to become oppressive.
Upon arrival, he found the scene already in a state of contained activity. A photographer—an experienced man, recognizable by the almost reverential care with which he handled his equipment—was adjusting his camera to record that which should never be forgotten. Harrow nodded discreetly to him and proceeded.
He then approached Inspector Abberline, who stood beside Whitcombe and a physician whose arrival had preceded Harrow's by no more than thirty seconds.
Several officers present cast less than friendly glances in Harrow's direction—an unmistakable expression of suspicion or resentment. Still, none dared to challenge him.
The silence that hovered over the place was, in itself, an accusation. Dr. George Bagster Phillips had to lower his head slightly as he passed through the narrow corridor leading to the back yard. The air there seemed denser, as though it refused passage. It was not merely the odor—though that alone was sufficiently offensive—but an almost physical sensation of disturbance, as if that space had been recently violated by something that did not belong to the world of ordinary men.
Upon emerging into the yard, his eyes immediately found the body.
He stopped.
Not out of hesitation—for his profession had trained him against such impulses—but out of instinct. A brief, almost imperceptible pause, in which the mind attempts, in vain, to reorganize what it sees before allowing knowledge to assume control.
There lay Annie Chapman.
On her back. Her legs arranged indecorously, not by choice, but by design. Her head slightly inclined. The throat… he did not look directly at it at first. Not yet.
He knelt carefully, as though the ground itself might give way beneath the weight of reality.
First, the protocol. Always the protocol.
He extended his hand, touching the skin of her arm. Cold—but not entirely rigid. Rigor mortis had not yet fully set in. He performed an immediate mental calculation, automatic, like an equation solved countless times over the course of his career.
"Only a few hours," he murmured, more to himself than to those present.
Then, by duty—and not by inclination—he turned his attention to the throat.
The cut was deep. Excessively deep.
This was not the work of a hesitant hand. The blade had been applied with determination, from left to right, traversing tissue with a certainty that betrayed the total absence of doubt. There was no sign of prolonged struggle. The silence of the victim seemed to echo louder than any scream could have produced.
Phillips frowned. This was only the beginning.
His gaze descended. And then, for an instant—only one—the physician ceased to be a physician.
The opened abdomen was not merely a wound; it was an exposure. A violation that transcended the act of killing. Tissues carefully separated, organs displaced with an intention that could not be mistaken for disordered savagery.
This had required time. And method.
He leaned in further, examining with growing attention. The cuts… were not irregular. There was a line of action, a sequence. As though whoever had made them knew precisely where to touch, where to press, where to separate.
"This…" he began, interrupting himself.
He quickly composed himself. The tone that followed no longer bore hesitation, but weight.
"This was not the work of an ignorant man."
The men around him remained silent. Phillips gently touched the abdominal region, confirming what his eyes had already perceived.
Absence. The uterus had been removed.
He withdrew his hand slowly, as though any abrupt movement might disturb something invisible still hovering over the body.
At that moment, the case ceased to be merely another murder in the alleys of Whitechapel. There was intention here. Purpose. Perhaps even… study.
The physician rose, discreetly wiping his fingers with a handkerchief already compromised. His eyes, now colder, scanned the surrounding space—the walls, the ground, the fence. They sought not only evidence, but understanding. A silent attempt to reach the mind that had orchestrated that act.
And he failed.
For the first time that morning, George Bagster Phillips felt something he rarely admitted, even to himself: not ignorance, but unease.
For behind the precision he had witnessed, there was something more. Something that did not belong to medicine—and that, perhaps, could never be fully explained by it.