Two other events in 1920 contributed to Jack’s sense of omnipresent danger. On Sunday morning, April 18, an anarchist and escaped mental patient named Thomas W. Simpkin wandered into Saint George’s Church on Stuyvesant Square. The London-born Simpkin had been obsessed with death since the sinking of the Titanic. He later said he had come to America to kill Pierpont Morgan, only to discover he was already dead. On this Sunday morning, he was drawn to Saint George’s by its beautiful chimes. “The chimes were playing and I was soothed,” he said. “Then I went into the church.”17 He knew that it was
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