Prison. Twenty-five years old and surrounded by walls of stone and bars of iron. Me, in prison. Many people were surprised. I had quite the name outside of these walls. Thomas Matthews, "The Fixer," a nickname that I earned from the work that I did. People came to me when they had a problem, and my job was to fix it. I helped people with psychological problems, physical problems, people problems, you name it. This line of work had acquired me quite the fortune and a large number of friends. I attended the parties of the rich, I have even been a guest of honour once or twice for helping a wealthy associate. My calling card was owned by many high class men, but it was also owned by lower class men, criminals. Looking around, I actually saw many of my old customers, even my cell-mate was a customer of mine. It was nice to know that I had acquaintances in there.
In the underworld, I was quite famous for cleaning up crime scenes before any investigators could arrive. Unfortunately, that was not the case on my last job, I learned why you do not mix business and personal the hard way. I had been doing a few jobs here and there for my dear friend Nathan, or as he called himself, Jack the Ripper. Once I worked my magic for him after his first murder, something changed in that man. He developed a liking for the things he did, those mutilations, and I had to clean up after him. With each one, he grew more and more confident that he would get away with the murders. That is when things started going south.
Nathan started sending letters to the police. He began taunting the Scotland Yard, giving them the when and the where. Subsequently, he had made my job a lot harder. No matter how difficult my job became, I could not turn down the request of my friend; frankly, I wish I had. While I was cleaning up his last 'incident,' he caught sight of an investigator and he left me to get caught. Stabbed in the back by my closest friend. Because of him, I was thrown in jail and given a death sentence, there was no telling how long I had left.
It was not long after my incarceration that I received a letter from beloved wife Marie Jeanette. In it, she wrote of how she knew that I was not the ripper, but that she knew of my criminal activities, and loved me despite them. However; she was advised by Nathan to flee to America with him and the children. She sought it best that the children do not learn of their father's fate, so she agreed. My head was throbbing. I had been trapped in a cell a with an imbecile, I was served poor food, sentenced to death, and now my wife was leaving the country with the man who let me take the fall for his actions. I was not going to stand for this. I was going to get out of here. I was going to have my revenge. The only thing that Marie Jeanette was going to be hiding from our children was the fate of their Uncle Nathan.
From that moment, I began plotting my escape; I did not have much time. First I started with a letter. The letter caught the attention of my cell-mate, Frederick the Torso Killer, who inquired about what I was up to. He was a brutish man with a short temper and there was not much wit about him, which made this plan a lot easier. I explained to him that I was going to be escaping, and he practically begged to come with me. Two days after I had received the letter from Marie Jeanette, I set my plan into action.
I feigned illness, and he called for the guard passing by the cell to come and help me. Once the guard entered the cell, he came close to check on me, and that is when Frederick snapped his neck. Before any of the other guards had a chance to come by and see what had happened, I switched clothes with the dead man and took the revolver he had. Then I placed him in my bed so that it looked like I was there sleeping.
"We're free now?" Frederick questioned. He was far too eager.
I shook my head. "Hit me. I want a nice bruise right here," I told him, tapping my left cheek. He asked no questions, he simply did it. I fell to one knee, clutching my cheek and he just stared at me, waiting.
Slowly rising to my feet to face him, I gripped the weapon in my right hand. "You ignorant, brute!" I shouted as I pistol whipped him across the face. Frederick staggered back and looked at me. I could see in his eyes that he had snapped.
"You pale, two-timing rat!" he shouted as he threw me from the cell. Frederick came stomping out after me, only to see that many of guards were just outside of the cell, they had heard my shout. It was perfect.
The guards made an attempt to subdue Frederick, but the imbecile started fighting them. I rose to my feet and pointed my pistol directly at his face and he froze.
In that moment, everything was dead silent and still. There was only me and him. His eyes spoke to me a cold story of hurt and betrayal. I just smiled in reply and pulled the trigger. This was not murder; he too was on death row, I simply played the executioner.
The guards gathered his corpse, and I used that time to escape. I simply walked out the door. By the time they realized that I was not the man in the cell, I was already gone. With the corpse, I had left a letter, exposing the identity of the real Jack the Ripper and that I was going to bring him to justice myself. On November 9th, 1888, I had escaped the prison and next on my list was finding my family and Nathan.
