Paula Cohen - What Alice Knew - A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

“Of course not,” said Alice.

“And theatrical talent means nothing. We don’t suspect Henry Irving.”

“Certainly not,” said Alice.

“And because the fact that his wife is older than he is shouldn’t be held against him.”

“On the contrary,” agreed Alice.

William intervened. “None of this is of any consequence unless we can find a motive that ties it all together. If our speculation about the murders is true, that they represent a kind of frustrated artistic expression, then there must be something to bear that out in this man’s career.”

“Sickert appears to be quite successful,” noted Henry. It struck him that he had more of a motive than Walter Sickert, if one went by that.

“External success and internal fulfillment can differ widely,” warned William. “He may feel himself inhibited or overshadowed in some way that we do not know.”

“The relationship to Whistler,” proffered Alice.

“Jimmy is overbearing and egotistical,” agreed Henry, “but this Sickert doesn’t seem the type to be intimidated.”

“Vulnerability is not always apparent on the surface,” William noted again. “Or at least not on the surface that we are aware of. One has to see the context thoroughly before passing judgment on a subject’s mental health.” He glanced at his sister who, by all accounts, was a strong-minded woman, apart from the fact that she could not get out of bed.

“We must find out more about Walter Sickert,” concluded Alice. “I will make it my business to speak to Jane Cobden about him. It is up to you to research his past—his career, his education, his friendships. He is no doubt entirely innocent. But…” Her face clouded. “What if he’s not?”

“I will ask Abberline to place him under watch,” said William.

Alice nodded. “One more thing,” she added casually, as they were about to leave. “I must meet him.”

The brothers stopped at the door.

“It is the surest way for me to know if there’s anything to it. Henry, you must have a dinner party to honor our brother’s visit to London, and you must invite Walter Sickert, perhaps as a stand-in for Whistler. I’m sure you and John Sargent can come up with a convincing pretext. Arrange it for Sunday evening,” she instructed peremptorily. “We cannot afford to waste time.”

Henry looked uneasy. He doubted very much if Mrs. Smith would be up to a dinner party. Especially on such short notice.

“Katherine will help,” said Alice, as if guessing his concern. “I know it is not in your line to host such things. It isn’t in my line to attend them. But we must both exert ourselves.”

The prospect of doing so, however, had already brought on a headache. She waved her hand to indicate that the visit was over. She would exert herself, as she said she would, to find out if Walter Sickert was involved in these heinous crimes, but that would be later; for now, she would rest.

“Asher Abrams?” said Sargent. “Of course I know him. He’s a dealer but also a generous patron. I’ve painted his family half a dozen times and been very well paid for it.”

William had explained his desire to trace the source of the De Quincey volume that had been stamped with the imprint of Abrams & Son, and Sargent had quickly gotten him an invitation for Friday dinner at the Abrams home on Connaught Square. “If you do not get satisfaction in your search,” his friend promised, “you will at least spend an entertaining evening. Asher Abrams has a lively family. They may not have pedigree, but they have life. Everything about them is colorful.”

As Sargent had promised, the Abrams home, into which William was ushered by a white-capped Irish maid, was a feast for the eyes. It was not just that the furnishings were lavish, though they were. There were marble floors and crystal chandeliers and furniture, rugs, and drapes of the most luxurious and costly variety. But there were also more exotic items mixed profligately with this opulent fare: inlaid furniture from Persia, screens and wall hangings from China and India, and large numbers of ornaments and relics—candelabras and samovars, scrolls and urns. Most compelling amid this riot of rare and exotic things were the pictures. Asher Abrams’s walls were covered in every possible space with paintings of the highest quality. Many featured biblical scenes, not just from the Old but the New Testament (for Abrams, art had obviously been uncoupled from its religious associations), but there were also still lifes and portraits by recognized old masters as well as paintings by more modern artists of note—the French Corot and David, the English Gainsborough and Reynolds.

As William was gazing at a painting by the hand of the Dutchman Vermeer, a young woman entered the room and walked with a purposeful stride to greet him. On Mansell Street, he had experienced a jolt at the thought that Cohen had fled the area; now, at the sight of the figure before him, he experienced another sort of jolt. The woman was young, in her early to midtwenties. She had dark, straight eyebrows, large, heavily lashed eyes that looked to be a bright violet, a coil of shiny black hair atop her head, a rounded face, square jaw, rather pointed chin, and an ample mouth that managed to be both extremely sensual and extremely refined. The nose was prominent and dipped slightly in the fashion he associated with caricatures of the Jewish physiognomy, but in this case, the effect was astonishingly appealing, giving a touch of dramatic vulnerability to the otherwise large, regular features. William thought of the Song of Solomon, that ode to female beauty. It must surely have been written to someone who looked like this.

The effect of the face on William was both delightful and disturbing, and he realized that this combination of feelings carried him back to his youth. When he had begun his medical training and linked himself in matrimony to his Alice, there had been a welling of relief at disaster averted. He had, after much thrashing about in turbulent waters, finally found the shore. But there had also been a residue of regret. He had left indecision and solitary search behind; had chosen science over art, the stability of the mind over the sensuality of the body. It was the exchange required for his sanity. Yet there were times, wandering through a museum or sitting at the opera, when he felt a surge of desire for the life he had not lived. It even struck him sometimes that his impatience regarding his brother’s writing was connected to his own buried past.

Looking at this woman brought his unsettled youth back to him in a rush. He did not know why he associated her face with that past life. Perhaps she reminded him of one of the artist models during his failed apprenticeship as a painter. Or perhaps her exotic beauty and her ethnicity suggested something forbidden, outside the realm of the familiar New England world in which he had settled. Or perhaps it was simply that her face, even at first glance, was so expressive that it seemed to have a capacity for the kind of deep and powerful feeling he associated with his younger self. Whatever it was, the face was arresting in its beauty and vibrant humanity in a way that drew him up short. Added to this was the disorienting impression that he had seen it before—an impossibility, surely, but an impression, nonetheless, of which he instantaneously felt certain.

As the woman approached, the contradictory feelings she aroused of both otherness and familiarity made him almost lose his balance, and he grabbed the back of the armchair close by.

“Are you well, Professor James?” she asked, raising a dark eyebrow as she registered his distress. “You seem agitated.” Her voice was low, and there was a touch of the melodious foreign lilt that William had noted in many Jews, even those native to a locale.