As the door closed behind them Kelly began to sing a popular music hall song: 'Only a violet I plucked from my mother's grave when a boy…' She was still singing about an hour later. Soon after that the light went out. About 3.30 a.m. someone heard a woman call out 'Oh! Murder!' Such cries were a common occurrence and it was ignored. Nothing more was heard but the sound of the rain.

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At 10.45 a.m. the landlord sent his shop assistant to the house to see if Kelly could pay her rent arrears. When nobody answered the door he pushed out the rags that were blocking the broken pane of window glass and pulled back the curtain inside. He reeled back at what he saw. On the bedside table were parts of Kelly's body; on the bed were her mutilated remains. The throat had been cut and she had been savagely ripped. The Ripper had, in fact, all night in which to work on her. In the fireplace was a grate full of ashes, among them parts of a woman's skirt and hat. The heat had been so intense that it had melted the spout of a kettle.

The Ripper had kept to his timetable. Not only was it 9th November but it was also Lord Mayor's Show Day when the Lord Mayor rides through the streets in a golden coach to the cheers of the Londoners. As the procession wound its way past St. Paul's the newsboys burst into the crowds with shouts of 'Murder. Another 'orrible murder.' The day was totally ruined. In the words of one contemporary, 'The Ripper had stolen the show,'

One minor sensation was that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren had resigned just a few hours before. Warren's internal disagreements with his subordinates and the Home Secretary, as well as the hostile press made his downfall inevitable. He went back to the army where he presided over the slaughter of British soldiers at Spion Kop.

Before doing so he issued a pardon which was little more than a public admission of failure.

Whereas, on November 8 or 9 in Miller's Court, Dorset Street, Spitalfields. Mary Jane Kelly was murdered by some person or persons unknown, the Secretary of State will advise the grant of Her Majesty's pardon to any accomplice not being a person who contrived or actually committed the murder who shall give such information and evidence as shall lead to the discovery and conviction of the person or persons who committed the murders.

Within a few months it was clear that the murders had stopped for good and it was widely assumed that Jack the Ripper was dead. Kelly's murder was the fifth and final one.

Ever since then the international guessing game of 'Hunt the Ripper' has grown and has continued to grow with unabated enthusiasm. The theories grow wilder year by year urged on by the entertainment industry which has portrayed him as everything from an Indian killer in Cimarron City to an evil spirit murdering his way through the galaxy in Star Trek, even pitting him in his own time against Sherlock Holmes or against H.G. Wells in The Time Machine. Ironically this success is despite the handicaps put in the industry's way. Until 1959 the three names that the British film industry was not permitted to use in film titles were God, the Devil, and Jack the Ripper!

Much of the reason for the wild speculation is that there is so little to build on. The key documents are kept in the Metropolitan Police file (three in all) deposited in London's Public Records Office. The very paucity of documents these contain has led in turn to allegations that Scotland Yard itself connived at a cover-up involving 'the highest in the land' which these days is generally thought to refer to Queen Victoria's grandson the Duke of Clarence. Perversely only a few years ago these same documents were being urged as proof that a failed lawyer who committed suicide soon after the Mary Kelly murder was the real Jack the Ripper.

The key document is a set of notes compiled by Sir Melville Macnaghten who joined the Yard in 1889 as an assistant chief constable. It is generally assumed that he must have consulted with the police officers who actually investigated the murders, in particular Inspector Abberline who was the front man.

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