Ok Ady, since you like CH I will work with CH, and to make your life easier, I will work with GCH.
Since I do not expect that everybody in MO is aware of various Banach space constructions, let me give some information on James tree spaces which are relevant to the question.
A tree is a partially order set $(T,<)$ such that for every $t$ in $T$ the initial segment $\{s\in T: s < t\}$ is well-ordered under $ < $. A segment of $T$ is a subset $S$ of $T$ which is:
- linearly ordered under $ < $ and
- for all $s, t, w\in T$ if $s < t < w$ and $s, w \in S$ then $t\in S$.
The completion of $T$, usually denoted by $c(T)$, is the collection of all initial segments of $T$ ordered by inclusion. Notice that $c(T)$ contains $T$ and is much larger than $T$. For instance, if $T$ is the tree of all finite sequences of natural numbers (usually called the Baire tree, which is clearly countable), then its completion is the Baire-tree together with its branches (i.e. the Baire space) and so it has the cardinality of the continuum.
For every tree $T$ the corresponding James tree space $JT$ is defined to be the completion of $c_{00}(T)$ with the norm:
[ |v| = \sup{ (\sum_{i=1}^d (\sum_{t\in S_i} v(t) )^2 )^{1/2} } ]
where $$\|v\| = \sup\{ (\sum_{i=1}^d (\sum_{t\in S_i} v(t) )^2 )^{1/2} \}$$ where the above supremum is taken over all finite families $(S_i)_{i=1}^d$ of pairwise disjoint segments of $T$. Basic facts (I can provide appropriate references to anyone who is interested):
- For every tree $T$ the space $JT$ is hereditarily $\ell_2$; that is, every infinite-dimensional subspace of $JT$ contains a copy of $\ell_2$.
- For every tree $T$ the second dual of $JT$ is linearly isometric to the James tree space of the completion $c(T)$ of $T$. In particular, neither $JT^* $ nor $JT^{**}$ contain a copy of $\ell_1$.
Now we come to the specifics of the construction. Remember that we work with GCH. This implies, in particular, the following: if $X$ is a Banach space of cardinality $\kappa$, then the algebraic dual of $X$ has cardinality $kappa^+$$\kappa^+$.
Let $T$ be the tree of all countable subsets of $\omega_1$ equipped with the partial order of end-extension. We have GCH, hence, the tree is just all sequences of real numbers, and so, it has cardinality $\aleph_1$. The cardinality of the corresponding James tree space is also $\aleph_1$.
The completion $c(T)$ of our tree $T$ is the set of all subsets of $\omega_1$. Hence it has cardinality $2^{\aleph_1}$ which is, under GCH, $\aleph_2$. It follows that the cardinality of $JT^{**}$ is $\aleph_2$.
Now consider cases.
Case 1: the topological dual $JT^* $ of $JT$ has cardinality strictly bigger than $\aleph_1$. Then we are done: our counterexample is $JT$.
Case 2: the topological dual $JT^* $ of $JT$ has cardinality $\aleph_1$. We are also done: our counterexample is $JT^* $.