The subdued murmur in the yard seemed always to circle the same words: brutality, savagery, horror.
Dr. George Bagster Phillips, still bent over Annie Chapman's body, wiped his hands with a handkerchief already rendered useless as he spoke with the authority of one describing the unacceptable:
"There is no doubt, Inspector… this is violence of an extreme nature. A brutal attack, almost—"
"No."
The interruption was low, yet firm.
The alienist did not raise his voice. He did not need to. Standing a short distance away, his hands clasped behind his back, he observed not the body, but the whole—as though the entire scene were an experiment.
"Allow me to correct you, Doctor," he continued, with a calmness that jarred with the surroundings. "What you call brutality… is, in fact, consistency."
Frederick Abberline turned toward him, attentive.
The physician frowned.
"Consistency?"
"Yes." The alienist's gaze finally lowered to the corpse. "There is sequence. There is selection. There is repetition with controlled variation. This is not fury… it is refinement."
A brief silence settled.
"Refinement of what, precisely?" Abberline asked, in a lower tone.
The alienist inclined his head slightly.
"Of a practice."
His eyes then shifted.
Not to the body—but beyond it.
Leaning a few steps away, motionless like a statue forgotten by time, stood Harrow.
His eyes were closed.
His breathing so faint as to be nearly imperceptible.
His hands relaxed, yet not loose—there was tension in them, a deliberate restraint. As though his entire being were turned inward. Detached. Or apparently so.
The alienist observed him for several seconds. And in that interval, something in his expression changed—not into surprise, but recognition. He took a step toward Abberline, drawing close enough that his words would reach no one else.
He spoke almost in a whisper:
"Observe him."
Abberline discreetly followed the indicated direction.
"He is not seeing what we see," the alienist continued. "Nor is he hearing. At this moment… he is not here."
A pause. Then, with unsettling precision:
"He is reconstructing."
The inspector narrowed his eyes.
"Reconstructing?"
The alienist nodded, very slightly.
"Not as a policeman would… but as the author himself would."
The silence that followed was heavier than any description of the corpse.
"He is embodying the murderer," he said at last.
Abberline turned sharply toward him.
But the alienist did not take his eyes off Harrow.
"Placing himself in his position. Reenacting his gestures. Feeling… what he felt."
The inspector drew a deep breath, as though the air had suddenly become insufficient.
"Is that… a method?" he asked, uncertain.
The alienist took a second before answering. When he did, his voice carried something new. Not doubt. Caution.
"It is a door."
Another pause. His eyes remained fixed on Harrow.
And he has just crossed it."
Then, almost inaudibly, only for Abberline:
"This is terribly dangerous… because if he goes too far… he may no longer know how to return."
In the background, Dr. George Bagster Phillips continued speaking. But in that moment, neither of them heard him.
When Harrow's eyes finally opened, they revealed not confusion, but a man dangerously serene—self-aware with almost calculated precision. He knew he was being observed. He felt it on his skin, like a faint cold current running along the nape of his neck. Every gesture, every hesitation, every deeper breath would be weighed, interpreted, perhaps even condemned.
He needed to act—but not as they expected.
He would divert their gaze. He would guide their attention. As one moves an invisible piece upon a board that only he seemed able to see.
Dr. Phillips was already rising, concluding that portion of the examination. The air around them still seemed heavy, dense, as though the very atmosphere resisted accepting what had been done there. Harrow approached with caution, sensing the faint tremor threatening his fingers.
"Would you mind if I…?"
The physician stepped aside without hesitation, though fatigue weighed upon his eyes.
"By all means."
It was not an invitation. It was a concession.
Frederick Abberline, who had observed everything with his penetrating gaze, leaned slightly toward Whitcombe.
"Why is it, I wonder, that at times you make such an effort to persuade me that you are a man given to superstition?"
Whitcombe did not reply. His eyes remained fixed on Harrow, as though witnessing something beyond a mere examination. To him, there was an almost superhuman effort there: that of remaining standing before such a spectacle. As though no man, however disciplined, could face that macabre display without something within him yielding.
And, for a brief instant, it almost did.
The smell—metallic, thick—seemed to cling to the throat. The sight… no, one must not dwell on the sight. Harrow knew this. He also knew that time was not his to waste. The police needed to conclude this stage, remove the body, end that moment before it became even more unbearable.
He straightened with a restrained, almost rigid motion, and stepped away without a word.
Behind him, Abberline was already reasserting control, issuing orders with firmness. He was, there, the central figure—the axis around which everything turned. For much of the time, he had accompanied the physician not as a specialist, but as a silent hunter, alert to any trace, however slight.
Also present were Detective Edward Spitalfield, representative of the local force—responsible for a visibly flawed isolation of the area—and Henry Moore, of the Metropolitan Police, who moved between the scene and the witnesses, gathering fragments of testimony as one attempts to assemble the pieces of a shattered mirror.
Harrow withdrew discreetly, opening his notebook as a pretense. He feigned writing, but his hands lingered longer than they should have over the blank page.
Outside, the world seemed different—and yet no less disturbing.
A crowd had gathered in the street: onlookers, vendors, pale faces marked by morbid expectation. There were also journalists and photographers, all hungry—not for bread, but for details, for any fragment that might be turned into a headline.
It was then that he saw them.
Two men. Familiar. The same from the Ten Bells.
Now, their names emerged with clarity: Lincoln Springfield and Harry Dan, reporters for The Star. They worked with an unsettling, almost predatory skill. They approached the most vulnerable—the elderly, women, drunkards—and cast insinuations with the precision of those who already knew the answer they wished to hear.
And they heard it.
Harrow caught a fragment:
"You wouldn't have seen… or perhaps heard a carriage, shortly before the body was found?"
The woman hesitated. Her eyes wavered. And then…
She confirmed it.
It was enough.
The two men exchanged a quick glance, laden with triumph. They already had what they wanted—or, at least, what they would make seem true.
Harrow continued walking slowly, feeling the noise of the crowd dissolve behind him, as though swallowed by an invisible fog.
It was then that something stopped him.
His eyes fixed upon the ground.
There, near a pool of dark mud, lay a white tulip—or what remained of it. The petals were stained, sullied by the dirt of the street, as though purity had been dragged there against its own will.
He picked it up. Carefully. Almost reverently.
For a moment, he turned it between his fingers, observing every detail, as though that silent object had something to say—something all the others had ignored.
Then he placed it in the inner pocket of his coat. And, without realizing it, his mind returned. The image. The body. Violated. Silent. Irremediable.
He remained there, motionless for a few seconds, as though the world itself had taken a step back.
His lips moved almost soundlessly:
"What kind of human being are you…?"
But deep down, the question did not seem directed solely at the murderer.