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

“My professional expertise is in the new field of psychology, which is, you know, something we Americans have pioneered in our limited sort of way. Seeing as I’m here at some expense to your government and would want to be of help, I feel inclined to make a few observations and pose a few questions, if you’ll indulge me.” He looked around innocently, and as no one said anything, proceeded. “First, it would be helpful in the case of an identification of a suspect to arrange a line of men of similar general appearance from whom he might be picked out. It’s something we’ve learned to do regularly on our side of the Atlantic, seeing as we have so much experience with violent criminals, ours being a more lawless and uncivilized society.”

He paused, allowing this observation to sink in, and then continued. “Could you tell me Mr. Cohen’s business?” He had overheard certain details relating to the investigation while mixing among the officers earlier that he now judged to be relevant.

The officer holding the folder coughed before responding. “He is a bookseller,” he finally said.

“A bookseller?” William lifted an eyebrow and looked around him in mock surprise, wondering, as he did so, if he ought to have pursued a career in the law (it was one of the few professions he had not considered, which, by itself, was something to recommend it).

The officer felt prompted to add, “There are quite a number of small book dealers in the Jewish quarter of the Whitechapel district.”

“I see,” said William, nodding encouragingly. “And where was the photograph found?”

The officer coughed again. “It had been found in one of the books in his shop.”

“A book that was for sale?”

The officer acknowledged that it had been in a book for sale.

William appeared to ruminate on this fact for a moment. “It would be odd, don’t you think, for a criminal to place on sale a book with a photograph of his victim in it?” he finally queried no one in particular. “And why were you looking through the books?” he asked abruptly.

There was a good deal of shifting and murmuring among the officers attached to Anderson.

“We were seeking evidence of the man’s conspiratorial activity,” said the officer under interrogation. “He had been involved in a protest against labor practices at a London factory, and we had been asked by the proprietor to investigate.”

“An employee labor squabble, of course.” William nodded. “And you have hit on an excellent pretext to put him out of commission as an agitator for workers’ rights.” He delivered this last observation with a bluntness that he had not displayed until now.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Anderson angrily, “but that is an unwarranted supposition.”

“I beg your pardon,” said William, resuming his previous humble tone. “What I meant to say is that it seems perfectly logical to assume that someone who agitates in one area might have socially aberrant impulses in another. I myself would have assumed as much until I became involved in psychological studies that contradict it. But our research has shown that the social protester, though an impediment to many established interests in society, is of quite a different mental composition from the psychopath. As to the witness you brought forward to support the identification, he never pretended to have seen either the victim or the perpetrator clearly.”

“The clannishness of these people is well-known,” insisted Anderson, whose face had grown as red as Abberline’s.

“Again, that sort of supposition is subject to debate. Indeed, to rely on it is likely, in my opinion, to instigate an insurgency among the Jewish population of the East End that might prove inconvenient and costly to your government.”

“You doubt that the perpetrator is a Jew?”

“Yes,” said William, assuming an authoritative tone. “I believe that the writing near the murder site is the result of Jew baiting rather than Jewish conspiracy.” He had, in fact, as Alice had recommended, queried a professor of Hebraic studies at the University of London as well as a local pawnbroker and been told that the misspelling of Jews had no correlation to any secret spelling in the annals of the race.

Anderson glared at William for a moment and then turned to the officer on his left. “Let Cohen go, but put him under watch. We will see where it leads us,” he instructed curtly and then gave a stiff nod, turned, and left the room, a phalanx of officers following sheepishly at his heels.

As soon as they were gone, Abberline stood up and shook William’s hand. “You have saved me from an outburst that might have ruined my career.”

William brushed aside his thanks, but Abberline insisted on explaining the reasons for his anger. Sir Robert Anderson had a deep-seated distrust of Jews and Catholics and had devoted his career in government to blocking parliamentary efforts to give these groups a greater voice. He had been involved in the false implication of Parnell in the Phoenix Park murders in an effort to thwart Irish Home Rule. His present vendetta against Cohen was probably connected to discrediting the admission of Jews to Parliament. “These people have a network of spies and coconspirators,” Abberline concluded. “Anderson has ties to the foreign office and is probably fed much of his material through that channel.”

William recalled that Mrs. Lancaster, the medium, was married to someone in the foreign office; she too had tried to finger a Jewish subject, although there had also been that odd moment when she veered off from this line, almost, it seemed, against her will. He could not forget her insistence on the killer’s stained fingers.

His thoughts turned to the nude photograph of Polly Nichols. He remembered the odd expression on the face of the woman in that picture who would become Jack the Ripper’s first victim. He was now convinced, with Abberline and Mrs. Lancaster, that Polly was the first, not the second. Despite her nakedness, she had looked dignified, even proud, in the photograph, not the usual expression of a prostitute who sold her body for money. William sensed this piece was important, though he did not know why. Where was the photograph taken? Who had taken it? And how had it gotten into Benjamin Cohen’s shop?

“The picture of Polly Nichols—I want to study it,” he said to Abberline. “And the address of Benjamin Cohen. Could you please make it available to me?”

It seemed he would get his chance to visit the bookstalls of Whitechapel after all.

Alice was perusing the letters that William had handed over, jotting down occasional thoughts between dozing, when there was a knock at her door, and Archie peeked in, a parcel under his arm.

“Pardon any disturbing of you, mum, but a man was by from Mr. John Singing Sargent who said as how I should give it to you.”

Alice beckoned to the boy to approach her bed and took the parcel, which she supposed was the painting John had promised to brighten up. She must remember, she thought to herself, to refer to John in the future as “John Singing Sargent.”

“Sit here a moment, Archie,” she said to the boy, patting the bed, “and keep me company for a moment. I get lonesome sometimes, you know.”

The boy perched himself on the side of the bed. “I have some tricks for keepin’ the lonesomeness away if you wanna hear ’em, mum,” said Archie.

“Please,” said Alice.

“Well, when my mum would leave me alone for days and days, I would tell myself stories. I’d make as I had friends comin’ by and ud tell ’em the stories bit by bit, like in them Arabian Nights that the ol’ lady told me ’bout later. It passed the time. But I don’ suppose you’d need that, seein’ as how you have your books and newspapers, and your brothers too. That’s nice to have family.”