Alice twice but after the second unsuccessful attempt several witnesses chased Netley, who threw himself into the Thames and drowned. Gorman completes the story by saying that Alice lived well into old age, later becoming Walter Sickert's mistress, and that Alice and Walter Sickert are his parents. Knight's investigation Knight explains that at first he did not believe Gorman's sensational story, which seemed "arrant, if entertaining, nonsense", but was so entranced by it that he had to investigate further. In describing the progress of his investigation, Knight reveals a series of coincidences: both Albert Victor's mother and Alice Crook were deaf; both Albert Victor's mother and Walter Sickert were Danish; Sickert is obsessed by the Ripper; the murders ended with the death of Mary Kelly; there was growing republican sentiment at the time of the murders, as well as anti-Catholic prejudice; a woman named "Elizabeth Cook", who Knight claims could be Annie Elizabeth Crook misspelt, did live at 6 Cleveland Street; Annie Crook was institutionalised; rumours of the time link Prince Albert Victor to a scandal in Cleveland Street; Gull was fond of grapes, and one of the victims may have been eating some at the time of her death; Gull matches the description of an unnamed physician accused by clairvoyant Robert James Lees, who claimed to have identified the Ripper by using psychic powers. Eventually, as the circumstantial coincidences build up, Knight becomes convinced that Gorman's story is true. The lack of tangible evidence, he claims, is due to a government cover-up and deliberate misdirection of the police investigation. To back up the claims of a masonic conspiracy, he notes supposed similarities between the Jack the Ripper killings and alleged masonic ritual murders, and accuses Sir Charles Warren, Commissioner of Police, of destroying evidence to protect his freemason cronies. Knight points out that Stowell, who was apparently the first person to suggest Albert Victor's and Gull's involvement in the murders, was a freemason. Critical reception Reviewers at the time of first publication met the book with undisguised scepticism and satire, but felt that Knight presented his unlikely case with ingenuity. Quentin Bell wrote in The Times Literary Supplement: "[The book] begins bravely and fairly by presenting the greater part of the author's case and admitting at once that 'it all sounds terribly unlikely'. It does." Medical History stated: "Despite the author's ingenuity the case does not stand up to