Scotland Yard
4 Whitehall Place
October 1, 1888
Professor William James
Department of Philosophy
Harvard College
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Dear Sir:
It has come to our attention from a variety of reliable sources that you are engaged in important research in the new science of the mind. In light of this expertise, we find ourselves prompted to solicit your help. You have perhaps heard, through the reporting of your own newspapers and from your contacts abroad, of the cruel and repulsive Whitechapel murders, the devilish work of a creature (I hardly deem him a human being) who calls himself Jack the Ripper. Five murders of an especially ghastly and unusual sort have occurred to date, and there is every indication, according to our officers at Scotland Yard, that more such murders are likely to occur in the next several weeks. It therefore behooves us, in light of this possibility, to seek the aid of your scientific acumen, your training as a physician, and most significantly, your unique understanding of the human mind in its deviant manifestations, and request that you review the facts of this case with an eye to discerning what may have escaped the perception or eluded the understanding of our otherwise well trained and industrious investigators. We acknowledge that the failure on the part of our investigative body to resolve this case has caused some consternation among the general populace and has been a source of dismay to our governmental body at the highest levels. We feel, in short, that we must put aside any false pride, the excrescence of an undue nationalist sentiment, that might impede us from reaching across our national borders to a citizen of that young country which once fell under the beneficent domination of our crown.
We have enclosed relevant background material on the case for your perusal, along with a voucher for your passage on the Cunard Line, of which we sincerely hope you will avail yourself as soon as you receive this missive. Although we cannot reimburse you for your services to the degree that you no doubt richly deserve, please rest assured that the moral debt incurred by Her Majesty, by the prime minister, and by myself will, if you should be so gracious as to respond to our appeal, be great indeed.
I close in the hope that you may present yourself, as soon as it may be possible to effect a transatlantic voyage, at our offices in Scotland Yard, where you will be granted access to any and all information regarding this profoundly troubling and intractable case.
Yours sincerely,
Sir Charles Warren,
Metropolitan Commissioner of Police
Chapter 4
Alice James sat propped up by two pillows in the large wooden bedstead in her flat on Bolton Street, Mayfair. An autumn breeze lifted the curtains of the windows behind the bed, sending a pleasant chill into the room. The Japanese lacquered lamp on the bed table was lit, and a fire was in the grate, so that the walls flickered with a soft, pink-tinged glow.
Alice was not a pretty woman, but her face exuded intelligence and a good deal of unsentimental kindness. It was a round face, with the high forehead and deep-set eyes of all the James children. But her eyes were brighter and more alert than those of her brothers, which tended to a vaguer, more distracted gaze.
She was the most Irish of the children and, since settling in London, had acquired the hint of a brogue, as though intent on making her loyalties clear at once. She also voiced these loyalties directly whenever she could: her admiration for Gladstone, her passionate support for Irish Home Rule, and her outrage at the condition of workhouses and orphanages. She read three newspapers a day, received a steady stream of visitors, and wrote frequent letters to Parliament and regular entries in her diary. The rest of her time was spent prostrate from a headache, a fainting spell, or an attack of nervous palpitations. And since these debilities struck unexpectedly, she had found it convenient, except on special occasions (a birthday dinner for her brother Henry, an exhibition of John Singer Sargent’s work) to remain in bed.
Today, though ensconced as usual in that place, she had gone to some trouble with her appearance. Her hair was neatly combed and shining from a special rinse that had been sent to her from Paris. She wore a crisply pressed nightgown with a bed jacket and night bonnet of white piqué. She was sitting up very straight against the pillows, her hands clasped tightly over the coverlet, as her eyes darted happily back and forth between the two visitors seated on either side of her bed.
On the right side, in an armchair angled to take in the view through the open windows, sat her brother Henry. There was a bandage affixed to the left side of his face, the result, he had explained brusquely, of an accident with his razor.
“Clumsy of you,” noted Alice.
“Quite,” said Henry.
Alice looked at him quizzically but said nothing. His uncharacteristic terseness suggested that there was more to the injury, but she knew to respect his privacy, as he knew to respect hers.
Ever since she had moved into this apartment on Bolton Street, a five-minute carriage ride from his rooms in Kensington, they had come to an excellent understanding of each other. As children, they were separated by an unbreachable wall of differing family loyalties. Alice had been assigned to her father and her oldest brother, William, and Henry had belonged to his mother and his aunt Kate. The division meant that they had viewed the world from different angles. As Henry observed, “It’s as though, as children, we saw things lit from only one side, and that now, being together, we can see them completely illuminated. It’s a special kind of binocular vision.”
“We should use our binocular vision to do some good,” Alice had noted, her sense of the suffering larger world being acute. “And think if we had William’s vision too, how well we would see. We could solve the deepest mysteries!”
Now, miracle of miracles, William was with them! He had telegraphed a few days earlier that he was making the crossing, without specifying why, and had burst in upon them that afternoon, greenish and disheveled from a bout of seasickness, but full of his usual nervous exuberance. After embracing Henry (with a concerned nod to the bandage and an amused pat to his brother’s waistline), he had pulled a chair up to the other side of Alice’s bed and examined her closely for a few moments. She was reminded that he had trained as a physician, though he had never formally practiced medicine.
“You look very well,” he finally concluded after studying her.
Alice laughed. “You should never tell a professional invalid she looks well. It’s the last thing she wants to hear.”
“But you do. You look the best I’ve seen you look since Father died.”
“It’s living near me,” Henry boasted.
“Or away from me,” noted William wryly.
Alice waved her hand, pleased to be fought over but not wanting to see her brothers begin their familiar sniping. “First,” she asserted, “I’m not well. Second, if I am, it’s not because of either of you; it’s the London air.”
“So American air isn’t good enough for you?” demanded William. “There’s nothing better than American air. It’s the best air in the world!”
“The problem,” Henry soberly addressed his brother, “is that American air is too good. Alice and I can’t take it. We need to breathe our air secondhand in the conservatory and the drawing room.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said William.
“Whether the air is good or bad is not a subject worth quarreling about,” interceded Alice. “I’m just glad you’ve come. I never feel entirely myself when I’m not with you both. The three of us are like an old plate that was broken and glued back together. You see the cracks and know you can’t use the plate, but when you see it on the shelf, it’s a joy to behold.”