What Alice Knew

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  Alice had taken up a third letter on a larger sheet and scrutinized it, with Henry leaning over her shoulder.

  From hell,

  Mr. Lusk

  Sor

  I send you half the

  Kidne I took from one women

  prasarved it for you tother piece I

  fried and ate it was very nise I

  may send you the bloody knif that

  took it out if you only wate a whil

  longer

  signed Catch me when

  you can

  Mishter Lusk

  “The man certainly could use a spelling primer,” noted Henry. “Who is this Mishter Lusk?”

  “Mr. George Lusk,” explained William, “president of the community’s Vigilance Committee, whose assistance to the police the murderer was apparently very proud to thwart. The letter was received only a few days ago, along with a small parcel containing half of a left kidney. Catherine Eddowes’s left kidney was indeed missing. There is no proof, given the timing of these letters, that they could not have been written based on newspaper accounts, hearsay, or even presence near the scene upon the discovery of the bodies. The organ too could have been obtained from another source. Still, the handwriting in these letters shows marks of similarity which, though hardly definitive, are noteworthy.”

  “I see no consistency in the misspellings and punctuation,” noted Alice. “It looks like someone making up the mistakes as he goes along.”

  William nodded. “They’re erratic, extravagant sorts of mistakes: ‘sor’ for ‘sir’; ‘knif’ for ‘knife.’ He drops the e but keeps the silent k. It’s what I call ‘disingenuous illiteracy,’ the spelling and syntax errors of someone who knows language but wants to appear ignorant.”

  Alice had been fingering the letters ruminatively. “This one is on good vellum,” she noted. “Is there a stationer’s mark?”

  “What?” asked William.

  “The imprint that they put on stationery of a particular brand. It’s not readily perceptible, but held to the light, you can see it.”

  William looked interested, if slightly annoyed. “I don’t know that either Abberline or I took note of that. It would be hard to trace a piece of vellum in London.”

  “That depends on the quality. And certainly, if it’s good quality, it would help locate the killer as someone who circulates outside the East End.” She held the paper up to the light on her bed table and pointed to a mark that read “Pirie and Sons.” “It would be worth finding out how much of this paper they sell and the nature of their clientele. And if you had a suspect, you could check to see if his other correspondence comes from this particular stationer.”

  “Good point,” said William, a touch sheepishly. “Are you going to illuminate anything else?”

  “It seems interesting that the pens are different colors.”

  “As the first letter said, he tried to use blood but substituted red ink instead.”

  “True, but this ink on the postcard appears to be purple or brown. More than one colored ink was used, it would seem.”

  “Part of the fantastic nature of the creature,” said William.

  “Yes, but the inks themselves. Where did he get them?”

  “I don’t believe that they’re hard to find.”

  “But not in a cheap stationer’s.”

  “It supports my theory that the man is not a poor illiterate,” said William a bit smugly. “I’ve already suggested as much. The handwriting, even when it seems to be primitive, is too good. And the spelling seems too mannered in its inaccuracy to be genuine.”

  “Hmm,” said Alice. “What’s this?”

  “What?” William asked. He had begun to feel defensive in the face of his sister’s astute observations.

  “This mark near the bottom.”

  “I noted that.” William nodded. “Abberline and I assume that it’s glue. It’s clear and shiny, slightly raised. It might suggest that the writer is in one of the trades, a cobbler or furniture maker, for example.”

  “Possibly,” said Alice. “And this?” She pointed to a smudge on another letter.

  “It looks like dried blood,” said Henry, leaning closer.

  “Does dried blood look this way?” Alice asked William, assuming that, with his years of medical training, he could validate this fact.

  He paused. “Not really. I made a note to look into it. The police assume it’s blood, given the context, but blood generally dries darker. But if it’s not blood, I don’t know what it is.”

  “If it’s not blood, then what it is, is interesting,” said Alice a bit sharply. “I should like to study the letters this evening.”

  “I don’t think so,” said William, taking them from her, replacing them in the envelope, and putting them back in his pocket.

  “Were you planning to look at them tonight yourself?”

  “No, not tonight. I have an appointment with Professor Sidgwick of Cambridge University.”

  “Oh no!” groaned Alice.

  “Henry Sidgwick is a noted philosopher and classical scholar. A giant in his field.”

  “Also a spiritualist crank.”

  “Alice!”

  “I can’t help it. The man is president of the Society for Psychical Research—I believe that is the title chosen to dignify an interest in Ouija boards and crystal balls. For someone of your intellect and reputation to be drawn to that sort of thing is an embarrassment. I know that you mourn your Hermie; the loss of a child is more painful than any wound a human creature can suffer. But grief is no excuse for idiocy.”

  “I will not listen to you speak this way.”

  “All right. Just leave me the letters and go ask the spiritualists to solve the case.”

  “I am not asking the spiritualists to solve the case. I’m just leaving the window open.”

  “I never leave my windows open; surest way to catch a head cold,” commented Henry, but neither his brother nor sister were in the mood for his whimsy.

  Alice glared at William. “Leave your window open, but close mine—bolt it, please,” she said sharply. “I don’t want some sniveling ghost rapping on my walls and chattering about how Father buttoned his jacket or Mother held her knife. If you want to talk that sort of palaver with a Cambridge don, you have my blessing. But I want the letters.”

  William looked at his sister, took the envelope out of his pocket, and handed it over. “Keep them tonight. But be careful with them.”

  “I’ll be sure to wash my hands.” Alice sat back on her pillows, looking pleased. “So now that that’s settled, what do you say to a cup of Moroccan coffee? Violet Paget brought the beans back from her last trip to the Orient. We could throw in a little eye of newt.”

  William scowled and got up from his chair. “I’m afraid I have to skip the coffee. I promised Sidgwick I’d meet him at the Oxford and Cambridge Club.”

  “I have tea if you prefer,” said Alice. “I’m told the leaves are very informative.”

  William, sensing that mockery of an escalating sort was in the air, grabbed his hat and strode to the door.

  “But if I can’t tempt you, then at least we can plan our next rendezvous.” She lowered her voice dramatically. “‘When shall we three meet again?’”

  Henry took it up, laughing. “‘In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’”

  “Oh shut up, both of you!” said William, slamming the door behind him.

  Chapter 15

  William left Alice’s flat and began to walk toward the site of his rendezvous with Henry Sidgwick. The prospect of meeting Sidgwick, with whom he had corresponded but never met, excited him. Both men were eminent in their fields of philosophy and shared, along with their respect for rational mind, a sense of great, uncharted vistas beyond the scope of the rational. People like his sister had no appreciation for this sort of thinking; they were grounded in practical reality. But William knew that the vast majority of human souls hungered for a belief in the unseen but feared how suc
h belief might be perceived. Henry Sidgwick had the courage to look foolish.

  William was entertaining these thoughts as he walked up Piccadilly toward Regent Street, where he intended to cross and make his way to Pall Mall. It was early evening, and large numbers of the workforce had left their place of employment. There were robed barristers and suited scriveners, men in shirtsleeves who had come out of the pubs, and ascotted gentlemen on their way to their clubs for drinks. There were elegant ladies who had just finished tea in Mayfair and governesses pushing their prams. The weather, as was usual for London, was overcast, and a light rain fell, enough to produce the bedraggled look that was characteristic of the English crowd. Some had their umbrellas up, though the rain was light enough that many simply walked quickly, collars up, hats pulled down.

  The crush of humanity felt novel to William. Boston was a large city but not a hectic one, and even there, he confined himself to the more rarified enclave of Cambridge, and within that, of Harvard College. This was where he lived with his family, where he carried on his work, taught, and entertained visitors. This was where he had established a fortress to protect his intellectual and personal aspirations. It was a site at once circumscribed and supremely free.

  Thrown into the hubbub of the London streets after a workday, he was struck by the reality of teeming human life that his daily existence tended to obscure. The difference, he also realized, was the difference between the New World and the Old. In one, the sense of the individual was paramount. “We are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights,” he quoted to himself proudly. In the other, the individual was submerged, not just in the density of population but the sheer weight of history. As an American, he had shed his old-world heritage as though he had nothing behind him beyond a vague loyalty to Ireland. He could stretch his arms and legs and do whatever he pleased. But here, the past was always present, pushing up against you in coats of arms and family estates, in portraits and heirlooms, and in the web of relations, near and far. Even among working people, the past hung heavy. They were pressed into age-old traditions and customs, following along, doing what was expected, doing what was always done. The idea of following the past because it was the past repulsed him, though he also knew that history was the resource, the supple clay, that he relied on for his intellectual life and that he needed to produce his work.

  He felt this duality now as he made his way through Piccadilly. London was truly the center of the Old World, in which the weight of the past and the richness of the past combined, where diabolical minds could operate unseen, and where the greatest, most penetrating intellects could be found and unite in brotherhood. It was exciting, this Manichaean city, this conjunction of evil and good, animal stupidity and godlike intellect. Yet he was glad, as he glanced around him at the scuttling populace, that he did not have to live here for any length of time.

  He arrived at the crossing at Piccadilly Circus with its circle of racing vehicles and lurching crowds. A policeman was directing the traffic, flicking a gloved palm to direct the throng to cross the thoroughfare and then holding it up stiffly to indicate that they should wait. The carriages were clattering past, including a large curricle with four horses, which the driver was whipping faster, so as to make the corner before the need to stop.

  William was standing with the crowd at the curb, waiting for the signal to cross, when suddenly he felt a quick but powerful shove to the center of his back that propelled him into the street. The jolt to his body was so sudden and so unexpected that he barely had time to realize what had happened. At one moment he was standing idly on the corner; at the next, he was lying in the dirt with the curricle about to bear down upon him. There was an enormous din, a chaotic clatter of wheels, and a piercing braying of horses as the carriage, its spokes stirring dust up into his nose and mouth, swerved to avoid hitting him. He could hear cursing as the driver, who had been in such a hurry, careened to the side of the road. William, meanwhile, lay dazed, his face pressed into the mud and gravel, until he was pulled to the side and helped to his feet. His suit and face were covered with dirt.

  The officer directing the traffic had run up. “Are you daft!” the officer shouted, pushing him angrily onto the curb. Then, seeing that he was a gentleman and an American, took a more conciliatory tone. “You Americans got to watch yourselves,” he said, making a show to dust off William’s jacket. “We lose more of you that way than even we would like. Keep back from the street and look both ways, I tell your people, if you don’t want to be sent home in a box.”

  William murmured a vague thanks for this piece of wisdom and took a moment to regain his bearings and review what had happened. Looking back and recalling the jolt that had hurtled him into the street, he could not be sure if it was the definite pressure of a hand pushing him forward or merely a jostling elbow or carrying case that some careless member of the crowd had swung in his direction. The whole incident was a blur, though the pressure, as he recalled it, had seemed definite and purposeful. Regardless of its meaning, malevolent mischief or accident, there was no possibility of tracing its source. The crowd in which he had stood had already moved on, and whoever or whatever had pushed him was lost in the vast sea of undifferentiated humanity.

  Chapter 16

  Nora and Henry Sidgwick were waiting for William in the large front room of the Oxford and Cambridge University Club overlooking Pall Mall. Nora Sidgwick, the former Nora Balfour and sister of the eminent politician, was a tireless advocate on behalf of female suffrage. Learned in the fields of history and literature, she had helped found and was about to take on the principalship of Newnham College, the first women’s college at Cambridge University.

  Her husband, Henry Sidgwick, was one of the foremost philosophers of his day. Early in his career, he had been a member of the Cambridge Apostles and had broken with the Church of England, but after a short hiatus when he was stripped of his professorship, according to university rules, he had been reinstated as an honorary fellow and then as a chaired professor. He had built his reputation in the field of ethical philosophy, where he had managed to reconcile the utilitarianism of Bentham with the idealism associated with more romantic and aesthetic currents in English thought. But his real interest—if “real” was the proper term for it—was as a founding member and current president of the Society for Psychical Research, the organization devoted to the scientific exploration of spiritual phenomena for which Alice James had expressed so much disdain.

  As William entered the room, he noted that the Sidgwicks, whom he recognized from photographs, were seated at a central table and that groups of men at the other tables were glancing in an unfriendly fashion in their direction. There were perhaps four or five such groups, several older, venerable-looking types William vaguely recognized from academic conferences, and some younger ones he imagined to be university men. All were staring angrily at the couple at the center of the room and whispering among themselves.

  Spotting William as he approached, Sidgwick stood up and waved a greeting. He was a large, bearlike man with an unruly beard; he seemed to exude goodwill and affability, making the angry stares of his peers that much more puzzling. His wife, Nora, seemed equally pleasant, if less effusive. She was a small, delicately pretty woman some years younger than her husband, with an alert, confident manner. Neither, however, seemed to notice William’s disheveled appearance or the fact that he had a large mud stain on his sleeve. It struck him that it was typical of such people, their minds fixed on the larger issues of philosophy and social justice, to miss the details of ordinary life. He had been prepared to discuss the accident that had sent him practically under the wheels of the curricle, but it seemed that he would not have to do so. He was grateful for that, for he was eager to put the incident out of his mind.

  He shook Sidgwick’s hand warmly and congratulated Nora on the strides she had made in the area of female education. It was a cause that he publicly championed but privately questioned. He knew that his sister woul
d have benefited from such opportunities, but then, she was the exception. His wife, like most women he knew, preferred her quiet, domestic role to a larger, more active one, which was just as well; how could he do his work if she had research of her own? It was a selfish thought, but he would not feel guilty for it.

  As he sat down with the Sidgwicks, he noted that the other members of the club continued to glare in their direction. He could only imagine that they were registering their distaste for Sidgwick’s spiritualist interests, though the thought struck him as odd. Since when would such an interest provoke animosity? Ridicule, yes; scorn, possibly, but venom?

  “Have a cognac,” said Sidgwick cheerfully. “Or better, a whiskey. That’s what I’m drinking. You need it to fortify yourself against the rancor that surrounds us.”

  “But why such rancor?” asked William. “You and Nora are respected figures in your fields. I’d think they’d be eager to talk with you.”

  “Normally they would be,” said Sidgwick blithely, “but not now. It’s Nora’s presence in this room that enrages them. The Oxford and Cambridge Club has been designated an all-male bastion, and she refuses to honor the gentleman’s code.” He pointed to a youth in livery cowering in the corner. “When the waiter over there politely informed her that ladies were not welcome, she told him that he would have to call a constable if he wished to remove her.”

  William nodded. It was clear now. He knew, from experiences in America, that the female issue was a lightning rod among even the most enlightened men, for whom superiority to the other sex was the one thing to which they felt entitled; their very definition of masculinity seemed to turn on it. He sometimes wondered if it was a requirement of a democratic nation to maintain this one site of hierarchy as a kind of structural support, much as a house must have one weight-bearing beam. From a rational point of view, of course, it was nonsense, as oppressive and unfair as any other sort of enforced hierarchy, but as a practical fact, he had sympathy for it, if only because his gender disposed him that way. “Is it in the club bylaws to exclude women?” he asked. He was used to the reflexive tendency to invoke university regulations as though they were universal laws.