Paula Cohen - What Alice Knew - A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

Alice cut him short. “Of course, you were right to send the boy to me,” she reassured him with a wave of her hand. “There’s not much work for him here, but I can always find something for him to do. He can wash down the front steps and scrub the walkway. Those tasks supply endless labor, since they are no sooner done than they have to be done again.”

“So many things people do are useless,” noted William. “Their only purpose is to demonstrate that one has the time to do them or the income to have them done.”

“But it’s the gratuitous that constitutes civilization,” objected Henry airily.

“There is such a thing as too much of the gratuitous,” countered William.

“And who’s to determine what is too much?”

“We have only to follow Aristotle: ‘Everything in moderation.’”

“I’m afraid that maxim would not produce much art,” asserted Henry, growing more adamant. “One isn’t likely to write or paint very well on a Fletcher diet.” He was referring to the strict regimen of food and exercise that William and his wife followed and had tried to impose on him, needless to say, without success.

“To return to the subject at hand,” said Alice, interrupting an argument that she knew was capable of producing hurt feelings on both sides, “tell us, William. Have you and your police inspector come to any noteworthy conclusions about this Jack the Ripper?”

William considered the question. He had returned to headquarters with Abberline after viewing the body on Latham Street and had met with Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon in charge of the case. Phillips continued to forward the opinion that had been voiced by Sir Charles that the murderer had knowledge of anatomy. “The general belief is that he is a doctor, perhaps a coroner’s assistant, or at the least a butcher,” reported William. “Abberline and I disagree.”

“You see no surgical acumen involved in the cutting?”

“No. Just because the bodies have been cut and organs removed does not necessarily mean that the murderer knew what he was doing. Indeed, the amount of gratuitous cutting”—he glanced pointedly at Henry—“suggests the opposite. What struck me upon looking at the poor mutilated body of Catherine Eddowes was that the wounds reflected no sense at all of the body in its depth, but a powerful if demented sense of the body as a surface. As Abberline pointed out, the knife follows in certain broad, repetitive strokes. They are utterly uneconomical with regard to surgical procedure, but they still reflect a kind of pattern, though not one proper to a doctor or a practiced butcher.”

“So you’re saying that the murderer may be viewing the body from a context which is not clinical but has its own logic.”

“Precisely.”

“A ritual murder, perhaps? Something with political or religious symbolism attached?”

“Possibly. There was the incident, which you may have read about in the papers, of a message written on the wall near the site of the Eddowes murder. It was a strangely worded piece of writing.” William flipped open his notebook and thumbed through until he arrived at the desired page. “‘The Jews’—spelled here, J-u-w-e-s—‘are the people who will not be blamed for nothing.’ Those were the words written on the wall.”

“Perhaps the work of a Jewish cabal,” Henry suggested.

“Please!” said Alice irritably. “It’s obviously not the work of Jews, but of someone venting hatred against Jews.”

“But the wording of the message is odd,” said William. “It sounds like a formal proclamation.”

“On the contrary,” protested Alice vehemently, “its syntax is common to the lower orders of society.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I know because I read the newspapers and listen to people.” As she spoke, she picked up the little bell on her night table and rang it. “But I don’t need to argue this with you. I can demonstrate.”

A few seconds after the ringing of the bell, a strapping girl of perhaps sixteen, whom Alice and Katherine had hired from one of the local orphanages, came bustling into the room.

“Did you call, mum?” asked the girl, making an awkward curtsy.

“Yes, Sally dear. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“I’m not agin you asking me nothin’, mum.”

“You’ve been here six months now, dear, and I must say you’ve done fine work. Do you think you would like to stay on?”

“I woulden want to be goin’ nowhere, mum.”

“So you would like to stay?”

“I’m far from unhappy, mum.”

“Let me be perfectly clear on the matter now. You’re satisfied with your employment?”

“Oh yes, mum! That’s what I said. Everything at your house is so lovely and refinedlike, and you treat me so nice and polite. I’ll be grateful till my dying day, mum.”

“Well, you’ve been a great help in the household, Sally, and a great comfort to me. Now there may be a boy coming by to help you with some of the housework. I know there’s not much for him to do, but he’s a poor soul who needs to be occupied. His mother did away with herself, you see. I trust you’ll be kind to him.”

“I woulden be nothing else, mum, seein’ as I’m a poor soul myself.”

“Thank you, Sally. And by the way, what are we having for dinner tonight?”

“The oysters with mushrooms, as Miss Katherine taught me, if yer not agin it, mum. I know Mr. James likes it. I think he diden say no to two helpins last time.”

“The oysters with mushrooms?” recalled Henry, pleased. “I think I didn’t say no to three helpings, now that you mention it.”

“You mayn’t be wrong there, sir.”

“Thank you, Sally. I think that will do for now,” said Alice.

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed William, after the girl left. “I’ll have to write a paper on the use of the double negative locution in lower-class British speech.”

“It could be a boon to your social reformers,” said Henry. “Teach the unfortunate to speak in positive declarative statements and eradicate poverty.”

“There’s something to that, you know, language as social destiny,” mused William. “I wonder what Spencer and the Darwinians would make of it—”

“Yes, well, you can debate the linguistic fine points of the impoverished classes another time,” Alice intervened. “I was only proving the point that the message you mentioned was probably written by an illiterate cockney with a conventional grudge against the Jews. The Jews and the Irish are always useful scapegoats when there’s no one else to blame.”

“But there was also the odd spelling of the message,” noted William. “As I said, Jews was spelled J-u-w-e-s. Warren thinks that it may be some secret reference, perhaps from some book used in the inner circles of the race.”

“Nonsense!” asserted Alice angrily. “It’s simple illiteracy. Besides, the point could be easily checked. Don’t you know any Jews you can query on the subject, Henry?”

“I could ask Lady Asbury. She was Jewish once.”

“Not Lady Asbury!” said Alice. “She’s the last person who would know. Either the chief rabbi of London or Samuel Isaacson, who owns the pawnshop down the street. But certainly not Lady Asbury.”

“Perhaps the murderer is an anarchist,” Henry proffered, changing tacks. “Very unpredictable sorts of people. Or a member of one of the purity leagues. Some of those women are lunatics; give them a knife—”

“I believe your imagination is running away with you,” chided Alice brusquely. “As I see it, the idea of a conspiracy is unlikely. The letters printed in the newspapers make no mention of a cause or an allegiance. And there hasn’t been any of the secret insignia or code words that such groups go in for. No—as I see it, the murders are the work of a singular, demented individual. But even a demented mind must have a motive in order to kill with such regularity and pattern.”