What Alice Knew by Paula Marantz Cohen Read Free Book Online

not up to par when it came to doing what they were hired to do. Secretly, however, he was pleased for the opportunity to dress himself. It was an aesthetic pleasure to put his outfit together—an elegant, leisurely assemblage of pieces, not unlike the assemblage of words in the construction of a well-turned sentence.
    He chose the silver cuff links that had belonged to his father. He had worried that William would want them, but William did not appear to care. As they moved into middle age, his older brother had become even more oblivious, if possible, to everything except his work and, at sporadic intervals, his family. The patterns of their boyhood had persisted but mutated as well. William had always been the more daring and insouciant of the two, but Henry, once timid and negligible, had come into his own. He was proud to think that his brother occasionally took notice of how well regarded he had become in certain circles, how nicely his particular brand of courtliness conformed to the manners of the British gentry among whom he had chosen to live.
    He heard the door open and a rustle of garments in the front hall. Mrs. Smith had come in. He glanced at his watch…late again. He must have a talk with her about her laxness with regard to hours—and other things. As for her husband, his chronic absence was certainly annoying, especially since he was being paid a considerable stipend to be present.
    Henry walked tentatively into the front hall, where Mrs. Smith was busily hanging up her mackintosh and shaking out her umbrella. The umbrella was leaving a large puddle near the door.
    “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll mop it up,” said Mrs. Smith cheerfully. She was always promising to do things that she never got around to doing.
    Henry looked at his watch and coughed. “Your husband is…indisposed?” he asked.
    “He’s walking Mary home,” said Mrs. Smith blithely. “Worries himself sick with that Jack the Ripper loose. Can’t say I’m not without worries myself. Mary’s the age he likes, you know.”
    Henry considered this. “Doesn’t Mary live in Lambeth?” he asked. “This Ripper creature…operates…in Whitechapel.”
    “For now he does,” said Mrs. Smith, “but he’ll be in Lambeth soon enough. He’ll be wanting a wider berth.”
    Henry nodded at this geographic logic. “But he’s killing women of a certain type,” he added. “Mary’s not…” He paused. Perhaps Mary was. He didn’t know much about Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s daughter beyond the fact that she was often their reason for being elsewhere. He had met her once. She was a blowsy, unkempt young woman; the word “slatternly” came to mind, which was why he had stopped himself so abruptly in noting that Jack the Ripper’s victims tended to be of an unsavory sort.
    “For sure, he’s killing off those types now,” said Mrs. Smith, as though she had access to the modus operandi of the killer. “They always start low and work their way up.”
    “Ah!” said Henry, wondering how far up Mrs. Smith imagined Mary was.
    “These sorts aren’t easily satisfied,” Mrs. Smith continued sagely. “There’s the lustful part, of course, but they don’t go after us women just for that.”
    “No?” said Henry. He was uncomfortable with the line the conversation was taking but still eager to hear more.
    “No,” asserted Mrs. Smith. “It’s for we’re weaker and more sensitive-like, as sets ’em off. I once been with a man who beat me most every night, not ’cause I did him no harm, but as he thought to be rid of his own weakness that way. Couldn’t be the man he wanted, so he blacked my eyes to make him feel strong. Thank God I got away afore he killed me. Mr. Smith’ll drink himself to a stupor, but he don’t see no need to beat me, God bless ’im.”
    Henry coughed uneasily, wondering if he was expected to praise Mr. Smith for this. Still, there was something to what Mrs. Smith said. “Manliness”—he disliked even the term—had