THE RIPPER AND THE WHONIVERSE, Part 3

Concluding my analysis of Doctor Who:

Matrix by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry

In "a sudden swirl of wind and leaves" the

Doctor now transforms fully into the Ripper

(page 73), an event foreseen in Mark

Michalowski's Relative Dementias (2002).

He attacks 'Dorothy' with a glass shard and

she flees, now cut and bloodied. Ace runs

into horse-slaughterer Henry Tomkins, who

presumes that 'Leather Apron' [i] has

attacked her. "They say he's a medical man"

he states, which was a common assumption

from 1888 onwards. Tomkins [ii] is the only

real-life person connected with the case to

appear in Matrix, whilst the generic Scotland

Yard detective who later questions Ace

remains anonymous).

Later Ace takes a room in Whitechapel Road,

but she finds the area so different to the East

 End seen in Illegal Alien (also by Tucker and

Perry, 1997). When Jed retrieves the TARDIS telepathic circuit he has a

vision of the London Blitz, as well as seeing the "Cheetah girl" Ace (see

Survival).

The next day sees Kelly's murder in Miller's Court [5] - the only one

committed indoors - so we can assume that the time-travellers arrived

on Thursday November 8th 1888. Now posing as Dorothy Gale (the

heroine of The Wizard of Oz), Ace finds work in service at Treddle's

Wharf, and later befriends Peter Ackroyd. Meanwhile, the amnesiac

Doctor is sheltered and christened Johnny by his new friend, Joseph

Liebermann (who claims to be over 1,900 years old and may be the

Wandering Jew of Biblical legend).

The funeral conducted at Christ Church, Spitalfields (p. 173) must

be Kelly's, since she was buried on November 19th [iii]. In attend-

ance at the graveside are the Doctor, Liebermann, and Malacroix,

who remarks that "the Jews will be blamed for this". This echoes

the real 'graffito' chalked on a wall at Goulston Street on the night

of the double event. Recorded thus (and removed on Sir Charles

Warren's orders): "The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed

 for nothing" the misspelling is believed to be deliberate. Allegedly

scrawled by the murderer, this message was left on a wall above

another clue, Eddowes' [4] bloody apron, wth an apparent double

meaning. It served as an anti-semitic reference left near Jewish

dwellings, besides containing the Masonic phrase "Juwes".

Malacroix then acquires Nichols' [1] blood-stained dress, adding

that "some people claimed that Martha Tabram had been the first

[victim], nearly a month earlier. They were wrong" (p. 204). He

seems well informed because many contemporaries assumed that

Tabram [iv] (along with at least three other non-canonical victims

[v]) was indeed killed by the Ripper.

When the Doctor eventually discovers the telepathic circuit, he

regains his memory. He recalls his last trial, and even senses his 

future gunshot injuries and consequent eighth incarnation. The 

Time Lord then confronts the Ripper in the crypt of Christ Church.

The killer is revealed as the Valeyard (see The Trial of a Time

Lord), and his lair is in fact the Doctor's warped TARDIS which

now houses the Dark Matrix. They battle on the bell-tower as the 

corrupted time-ship dies, and the Valeyard falls to his death.

As they prepare to leave London, the Doctor tells Ace that "those

particular five women had to die. Simply because that's the way it

happened". This reinforces the belief that there were indeed five

Ripper victims.

TO BE CONTINUED

KEY Canonical Murders:

[1] Mary Ann Nichols - Buck's Row, Friday August 31st 1888

[2] Annie Chapman - Hanbury St. Saturday September 8th

[3] Elizabeth Stride - Berner St. Sunday September 30th

[4] Catherine Eddowes - Mitre Square, also September 30th

[5] Mary Jane Kelly - Miller's Court, Friday November 9th

Notes

[i] Contemporaneous suspect John Pizer (1850-1897) was known in the

East End as Leather Apron and was arrested by Sergeant William Thicke on

September 10th, but was later cleared of all suspicion.

[ii] Tomkins was a witness at the Nichols inquest, and worked in Winthorp

Street at the time of her murder in neighbouring Buck's Row (now Durward

Street).

[iii] Kelly was actually interred at St. Patrick's RC Cemetary, Leytonstone.

[iv] Tabram was slain at 37 George Yard (now Gunthorpe Street) on Tuesday August 7th.

[v] The eleven homicides known as the Whitechapel Murders (a purely

collective term for the concurrent police files) were committed in or near that district between 1888 and 1891, and is ascribed to an unknown perpetrator.

The first victim in the series was Emma Smith (attacked on Osborne Street on Tuesday April 3rd 1888), whilst Frances Coles was the last (slain at Swallow Gardens on Friday February 13th 1891).