“A prostitute?”
“Possibly, but not necessarily. Perhaps the women he kills remind him of someone in another sense. But like Pizer, I surmise it’s a pattern of substitution. We substitute in the present for people in the past. What happens with men like Pizer—and I suspect, Jack the Ripper—is that love and hope turn to resentment and hatred. Who knows what instigates this transformation, trauma or abuse or simple abandonment. Whatever it is, the emotions continue to haunt the victim and can be relieved only through violation of something that stands in place of the original source of pain.”
He paused a moment and then added, “There’s something else as well. Pizer’s attack was triggered by my shoes. He had worked as a boot maker, and his job became a conduit for his rage. Minor’s case is an example in reverse, of how gratifying work can relieve and rechannel destructive tendencies. Our vocation, in large part, makes us who we are. Pizer learned to use a knife as a boot maker, and it gave him his name, Leather Apron. One would want to know what this murderer did for a living and how it informs his crimes.”
Abberline considered this information. “There may be something to your ideas,” he acknowledged, “but I can’t say I’m convinced. Who among us hasn’t been shamed in some way? Or frustrated in work? I have, and I daresay you have too.”
“And both of us might have become murderers had our shame and frustration been great enough,” asserted William. “We were fortunate to have been loved enough to counteract our shame, and to have our work become a source of gratification and pride. Had that not been the case, who knows? Evil men are not born, but made.”
“You Americans think tolerance and justice can change things,” said Abberline with a touch of scorn in his voice. “It’s a pretty theory, but I’ve known plenty of evil men in my time, and it’s my opinion they came into the world that way.”
They had arrived at an impasse and, realizing that no amount of talk was going to make them budge in their views, retreated into silence for the remainder of the journey back to London.
Chapter 20
No sooner did William walk in the door of Henry’s flat than his brother announced that a man had been by to report an arrest in the Whitechapel murders. William was half inclined to ignore the message. He was tired from his journey and had become familiar with false leads and the sort of mistakes the police were prone to make. He had just spent the day with Abberline, who had not mentioned that anyone was under investigation. And since when would a serious suspect be apprehended when the inspector was out of the office?
Henry insisted that the man had come directly from Abberline, though, who had made a point of requesting that William report to police headquarters at once to observe the interrogation.
When William arrived at Scotland Yard, he found that, indeed, an interesting scene was in progress. A swarthy young man with disheveled hair, hollow cheeks, and dark, flashing eyes stood flanked by two officers in one corner. He was wearing a long, shabby coat that suggested that he was a university student, a Jew, or an anarchist, and since the uniform of these groups overlapped, the young man could conceivably belong to all three.
On the other side of the room, some four or five officers were attending to an older man in uniform with a puffed-up manner. He was barking orders, and they were scurrying in and out of the room, handing him notes and official documents.
In the midst of this scene, William spotted Abberline seated alone in a corner. He walked over to the inspector. “Is it possible that you have a suspect?” he asked.
“I don’t have a suspect,” replied Abberline testily, “but our assistant commissioner, Sir Robert Anderson, apparently does. He has just come back from the Continent and assumed control of the case. Commissioner Warren is perfectly satisfied to hand over the reins, so long as he isn’t bothered. The result is that Sir Robert,” Abberline spit out the honorific, “has arrested someone who suits the cut of his prejudices. I thought you might find his methods of interest, given your work in psychological deviance.”
He made this assertion with a sneer but seemed disinclined to say more, and William felt it best to leave him alone and mix among the officers nearby. He did this, as he sometimes did at professional meetings when he wished to get a sense of prevailing opinion or pick up salient facts. He walked about with an indifferent air, peering casually over the shoulders of the milling officers, glancing at the documents in their hands, and eavesdropping on their conversation.
After an interval of perhaps a quarter of an hour, Anderson suddenly spoke to the assembled group. “Welcome, gentlemen,” he began in the pompous, affected tone that William had come to associate with higher ranking officials in this country. “In the short time I have been back on English soil, I am pleased to have made significant headway in the Whitechapel case that, until now, has baffled some of our allegedly best officers.” He glanced superciliously at Abberline, who glared back at him. It was clear that the two men loathed each other.
“I now present to you Mr. Benjamin Cohen, a suspect whom we apprehended only this morning.” Anderson gestured with a flourish in the direction of the young man in the long coat who had been led to the center of the room.
“Upon what evidence do you arrest this man?” demanded Abberline angrily.
Anderson turned to the inspector and spoke slowly, as though to a dimwit. “A plethora of evidence, sir, which I will now enumerate for you.” He gave a nod to one of his officers, who handed him a sheet of paper. “First, Mr. Cohen’s knowledge of medicine. He is said to have helped a local physician with stitching and dressings and to have accompanied the local midwife on some of her cases.”
Abberline mumbled under his breath, “No good deed goes unpunished,” but Anderson ignored him and moved on. “Secondly, Mr. Cohen has frequented Zionist meetings and, not satisfied with the extreme forbearance of our government toward his people, has protested at various rallies regarding what he deems the ill use of his race. This deep-seated hostility toward Christian society conforms to the message that was written on the wall near the site of the Eddowes murder.”
Abberline seemed about to speak, but Anderson continued without pause.
“Thirdly, there is the suspect’s socially incendiary tendencies. I have the exhibits here of the books found in his room.” He again nodded to the officer next to him and was handed a number of books that he held up by way of demonstration. “Darwin, Marx, Fourier. He is also a member of a Masonic society and is a known freethinker.”
Abberline muttered, “First a religious zealot; now a freethinker,” but was ignored.
“Finally,” pronounced Anderson, casting a triumphant glance at Abberline, “we have an irrefutable piece of material evidence in our possession.” He motioned in the direction of another officer, who came forward and handed him an envelope. Anderson opened it and extracted its contents. “I will pass among you these two photographs, one that was found on the premises of Mr. Cohen’s business and the other that you may recognize from the newspapers if you did not see it here already.”
He handed the photographs to the officer to his right, who passed them to Abberline. He and William looked down at the photographs together.
The first was of a woman seated on a chair. She was naked, though her posture was rather formal and unrevealing, the body positioned sideways, so that only one breast was discernible, and the legs crossed in what might even seem like a prudish posture. The face, however, was turned directly to the camera and registered no embarrassment. The woman was not pretty and not young, but her expression commanded attention, as though, for the purposes of the photograph, she held herself in some esteem.
The other photograph was of a woman stretched out on a slab in the London morgue, her eyes closed, her head thrown back. A line of stitches across the throat indicated where the head, almost severed by the knife’s incision, had been stitched back into place. It was not immediately evident that the two photographs were of the same woman, but a moment’s inspection made clear that they were. It was Polly Nichols.