The Story behind Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror
The evil and cruel party that came to be known as “Jack the Ripper,” England’s best-known serial killer, terrorized the streets of Whitechapel in London’s East-end during the fall of 1888, now referred to as The Autumn of Terror. The five “canonical” murders (those generally agreed upon by the majority of Ripper experts, known as “Ripperologists” as being committed by the infamous killer) took place during the exact period when legendary literary sleuth Sherlock Holmes would have been in his heyday as a thirty-five-year-old “private consulting detective” in London. In the series of short stories and novelettes penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle during those years, Holmes was often called in to assist the (portrayed as mostly incompetent) London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard in their more problematic investigations. Which begs the question; why did Holmes never take on London’s - and indeed the world’s - most infamous unsolved mystery, which would have taken place right under his very nose in 1880’s London? My answer; he did. And not only did he investigate it at the request of The Crown, but in my story, he also solved the case. However, like many of the fictional detective’s most puzzling and intriguing cases, the results of this investigation led Holmes to make connections to persons and events whose revelation could result in explosive situations which might have had serious ramifications on British politics and society. And so, in the same way a number of supposedly unreleased case outcomes mentioned through Watson’s narration in stories like The Problem of Thor Bridge, The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger and The Adventure of the Creeping Man, the results of the Ripper case have remained unpublished - “entombed in a tin box” - until such time that all concerned parties are long-since dead, or the implications of the investigation’s outcome could no longer be damaging or threatening to national security. Thus, 125 years after the fact, the Ripper’s identity could finally be revealed in the year 2017.
My story, Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror, is a fictionalized version of my own actual theory on the true identity of Jack the Ripper, which has never before been put forth, and is supported by the huge amount of irrefutable evidence I have amassed as you will see. It is based on years of investigation, numerous trips to the actual crime scenes in London, as well as the application of Holmes’ methods in my own experience as a Private Detective, my avid readership of all the Holmes stories and my love for foreign languages, solving puzzles and word games. I have used all of this, along with expert advice, to create what I believe to be a possible, plausible resolution to one of the world’s greatest unresolved mysteries. Many of the people, incidents and evidence presented in this tale actually existed, and are intermingled with characters, colloquial dialect and events taken from Doyle’s writings in order to create and maintain an air of authenticity. But reader beware - lest you condemn me for not having done my research in my contemporary usage of slang such as “nark of the police,” “crib” (in reference to someone’s home or apartment), “smash-and-grab,” “What’s up” and other modern-sounding words and phrases in the 1800’s, let me assure you that all of these - and many more - were borrowed directly from the pages of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own works. There may be two exceptions. Let’s see if you can tell which ones they are.
Also included in this novel is a short story-within-a-story called The Bogus Laundry Affair that was written from Holmes’ perspective, in the style of The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier. The reader may choose to skip directly over it or read it entirely separately from the rest of the book, as doing so will have no bearing on the outcome of the rest of the bigger story - it contains no spoilers. The only thing it has in common with Doyle’s original concept as introduced in The Adventure of the Cardboard Box is the name of the story, the mention of one DI Aldridge, and a generous sprinkling of Holmes- and Watson-isms as borrowed from a number of my favorite Sherlock Holmes tales as well as other writings of horror, mystery and imagination by Doyle.
It is with great honor that I am able to say that this book was written with the technical advice and inspiration of three men that I have held in the highest esteem for most of my adult life, and that I had the good fortune to have been able to meet through a wonderful series of events that began in February of 2015, when I was invited to a dinner at which Dr. Michael Baden, world-renowned Forensic Pathologist was present. He was a guest of a very close friend, Sam Sanguedolce, who happened to be First Assistant District Attorney of Luzerne County, near my home in rural Northeast Pennsylvania. Dr. Baden was in town to testify in the murder case of Hugo Selensky, a local man that, with an accomplice, had killed a couple in a very cruel manner, and had buried their corpses on his property. Dr. Baden had been originally called in on the case at its inception in 2002, and was in town to testify for the prosecution about the cause and manner of death, as well as other details about their autopsies, and what was found in those examinations. Through sheer luck, I found myself alone with Dr. Baden for the better part of two hours, as he had been barred from the courtroom during the testimony of another witness. During that time, we established a friendship that continues to this day, and which led to my meeting Dr. Henry C. Lee, and in turn, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, both of whom are known for their expertise throughout the world, and were great contributors to this book regarding the medical details of the murders, as well as crime-scene analysis in my fictional recreations of the crimes based on the actual reports of police and medical examiners from London during the period of the Ripper killings. Dr. Wecht helped me to recreate the murders in a manner consistent with the actual findings of the real medical examiners that worked on the case. Dr. Lee helped me greatly with the development of the Leu character, and was particularly enlightening in giving me an understanding of the nature of bullet trajectory and ricochet properties that in turn would help me explain Dr. Watson’s “wandering war injury” that certain Holmes “experts” love to point out as an error in Doyle’s writings. I hope to have resolved this issue once and for all, with the help of the world’s leading expert on the subject as a small tribute to the creator of the legends that are Holmes and Watson. I also hope to have settled a similarly pesky revolver issue.
The first times I received phone calls from each of the three doctors will forever remain etched into my memory. My heartfelt thanks go out to these three men, as well as Samuel Sanguedolce, without whom I’d have never had the opportunity to meet the Doctors. My thanks also go out to Detective Michael Dessoye - Chief of Detectives for the Office of the Luzerne County, Pennsylvania District Attorney, who also worked with Sam and Dr. Baden on the Selensky case, which was the model for some of the crimes I have dramatized here. I also wish to thank my long-time dear friend Mr. Chris Short of Derby, England, whose London research on the International Men’s Educational Club was crucial to the development and direction of my actual theory of the true Ripper crimes.
Also of great assistance to me in the writing of this book were the remaining members of the Panel of Ten - a group of men that I had enlisted to help me maintain accuracy in matters of historical detail, London police procedure, Toxicology and the study of the effects of certain poisons. I chose a rather quirky method of inviting them to be a part of my project, by sending them weekly installments of the story for their approval, but rather than doing so as myself, all of my communication with them in that regard was done via e-mails written to them “from the desk of John H. Watson M.D. through the offices of Black Stallion Security and Investigations” - my own firm (clue!). Besides those already mentioned, the members of that panel include Kenneth Widman, Douglas Zahn, Gary Angove and Ryan Sutliff. I must also include my thanks to my good friend Matt “Murdoc” Savory for his invaluable help with my Cockney rhyming slang and all things British. Finally, to Richard Jones, Ripperologist extraordinaire, who took the time to hear me out and help me present my theory to the public via Adam Wood and his online magazine. Thank you, men.
In order to avoid confusing the reader by explaining in detail each archaic term, person or historical fact I refer to in the text of my story, I have opted to use footnotes to which the reader can refer for more information about those items at the back of the book.
Lastly, I would like to point out that for dramatic purposes, the chapters are not necessarily always in chronological order, and that those attributed to the actual writings of Dr. John H. Watson, Sherlock Holmes and the actual Jack the Ripper will appear in a different typeface (known as “Baskerville Old Face” HA!) and use the British system of spelling and punctuation to separate them from other narration. I ask the reader to take into account the dates that head each chapter, as I have remained as true to the actual story of Jack the Ripper as I have been able to do, with as much attention to historical detail as possible, while fictionally bringing the famous Baker Street detective into the picture to present my own actual theory of the killers’ true identity and methods. I hope that by bringing together my favorite real-life mystery and my favorite fictional sleuth, I may introduce one or the other to friends around the world, many of whom I have not yet met.
RW
Forest City, PA. 8 October, 2016
Sherlock Holmes and the Autumn of Terror
Would Sherlock Homes be able to catch Jack the Ripper?
Everyone knows the name of Sherlock Holmes -- the fictional detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle with his superhuman powers of observation and unbeatable methodology for solving crimes. But could his 1800’s philosophy really work in the modern world to solve genuine crimes?
That’s the very question that a real-life US-based private detective asked himself before embarking on the adventure of a lifetime by stepping into Holmes’ shoes and using his mindset to solve real crimes. So effective was this method that he decided to turn his attention to the greatest set of crimes known in history -- the brutal murders perpetrated by the criminal who came to be known as Jack the Ripper.
The author, along with a team of three of the world’s top forensic scientists and criminologists, Dr. Michael M. Baden, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht and Dr. Henry C. Lee, have convincingly solved the infamous Jack the Ripper murders of 1888 London – arguably the world’s most talked-about unsolved murder mystery. But their true-life resolution of the case is presented here in the form of a Sherlock Holmes novel, painstakingly penned faithfully in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In it, the author – who actually used Holmes’ methods to uncover the killers’ identity – explains exactly how the crimes were committed and by whom, all in the form of a fast-paced thriller featuring the world’s most beloved detective along with Dr. Watson, from whose point-of-view most of the tale is told. Once the reader has finally been clued in on the final solution, the murders are then revisited from the killers’ perspective.
The story opens in the year 2017 with the sealed box of Holmes’ most controversial cases being opened by Watson’s great grandson Jacob, and among those cases is that of London’s Ripper murders that took place in what was then and has forever after been known as the “Autumn of Terror.” Jacob is shocked to learn the true story, as well as the reasons Holmes deemed the case’s explosive resolution too shocking and incendiary to have been revealed to the public in Victorian England and so to be sealed “entombed in a tin box” for 125 years, as were a number of other cases that are mentioned in some of Doyle’s Holmes stories. Along the way, the actual facts of the case and the evidence that led Randy and his team to the real killer will be revealed to the reader through Holmes’ investigative methods.
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