What Alice Knew (26 page)

William rushed into Abberline’s office with Alice’s portrait under his arm. “We were wrong to release Walter Sickert,” he announced breathlessly, propping the painting against the wall and motioning to it excitedly. “He was painting this portrait of my sister just prior to the death of Mary Jane Kelly. It was clearly her room that inspired the murder. Don’t you see?”

Abberline looked at the picture and shrugged. “I see a woman in bed, and Kelly was in bed. But then, most women do go to bed on occasion,” he noted drily.

William waved his hand. “You’re missing the point! Look at the configuration of the room; look at the bedstead; look at the nightdress. My sister even resembles the victim in age and appearance. And look here.” He gestured to the bonnet that had been painted on the floor to the right of the bed. “My sister said he flung her bonnet on the floor before he painted her. Don’t you recall the photograph we examined together? There’s a bonnet on the floor in precisely the same spot. You noted it and said it was an incongruous sort of thing for the victim to wear.”

Abberline got up and studied the painting closely for a few minutes. “I admit the presence of the bonnet is odd, and the similarity of placement is provocative. But it could well be a coincidence. A night bonnet on the floor, after all…” He broke off and then chewed his lip for a moment. “There were items of women’s apparel in Sickert’s studio, no doubt bonnets among them. Such things are of course commonly in the possession of painters who use female models…” He paused again and then said, “But it does bring to mind another line of thought.” His voice became more excited. “Seeing as this Sickert had in his possession a variety of women’s clothes, it could be that he dressed himself in some of them to make his escape. We concentrated on the idea that he might have left in the cape worn by the woman he came with, which proved to be false, since your friend Miss Cobden said she left at the hour our man saw the caped figure leave. But perhaps Sickert dressed like another sort of woman—like a harlot, for example. The officer on duty that night said he saw women of dubious reputation coming and going throughout the evening. But it never occurred to him—and I can’t say I blame him—to imagine that one of them might be Walter Sickert.”

“Most certainly,” William agreed encouragingly. “We know Sickert was fond of performing music hall songs for his friends. Dressing in female garb of that sort was par for the course for him.”

Abberline nodded. This idea seemed to him of more importance than anything else he had heard. He tended to look at things from a practical standpoint. Where an alibi existed, it was useless to concoct a theory. But where there was no alibi, or an alibi destroyed, then one could begin to do some work.

There had been plenty of circumstantial evidence to link Sickert to the murders if one wanted that. As William had noted earlier, his notepaper was watermarked Pirie and Sons, the mark on some of the alleged Ripper notes. And then there were his paintings—they had been of precisely the sort of women that had been killed. Indeed, several of the subjects in his “music hall series,” as he had referred to them flippantly during interrogation, had resembled in age and physical appearance the murdered women. And there were his studios in the East End, providing ample opportunity for the man to know the area and to be known, so as not to elicit suspicion.

But Abberline had not given any of this much credence. He had learned from experience how easily a person could be led in the wrong direction based on predisposition and circumstantial evidence. William’s insistence on Sickert’s guilt had struck him as too adamant and therefore likely to be influenced by emotional factors irrelevant to the case. So long as Sickert had an alibi, he existed outside the realm of suspicion.

But things had now changed. Sickert’s alibi had proven to be less than sound, and as a result, what had previously been dismissed now seemed freighted with meaning. Abberline did not quarrel with his colleague this time but hurried to gather his men and send them in pursuit of their suspect.

William returned to Alice’s flat to find his brother and sister sitting together. He knew that neither was convinced of Sickert’s guilt and was thus prepared to be patient with them in discussing the case. But before he could speak, Henry motioned excitedly to him to approach the bed.

“I have a delicate question to ask you,” he said, glancing conspiratorially at Alice. “Popular wisdom has it that self-abuse causes insanity. Do you agree?”

William looked at his brother with surprise and exasperation. “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss your personal neuroses.”

Henry waved his hand. “This has nothing to do with me. It pertains to the case.”

William looked puzzled but responded, “The enlightened medical view is that the act of self-pleasuring is natural enough if there are no other outlets for such urges. Although anything to excess bears looking into,” he added with his usual tendency to caution. “Still, I can’t see what relevance this could possibly have—”

“Then where did the theory come from?” Alice intervened.

“From the fact that we stigmatize children and young people for the act, and the trauma that results can have lasting pathological effects. It’s a common logical fallacy of reversed cause and effect. But again, I can’t see—”

“Lasting pathological effects!”

“Did Sickert abuse himself?”

“Not Sickert,” said Alice, for whom everything had now become clear. “Henry just visited Legros, who told him that not long before Sickert left, a student named Peter Newsome was expelled from the Slade. He was caught abusing himself after a life-drawing class. Whistler took him on and then let him go when he found he could no longer draw. That’s the ‘pupil of Whistler’ we should be looking for.”

“Another ‘pupil of Whistler’?” said William. “But you’re forgetting the room and the bonnet on the floor. We’ve established that the murderer of Mary Jane Kelly had to have seen your bedroom. Only Sickert was here.”

“It’s true that only Sickert saw the room,” said Alice quietly, “but you are concentrating on the wrong element. It’s the mistake you just mentioned…what did you call it? ‘A logical fallacy of reversed cause and effect.’”

“I don’t follow,” said William.

Alice and Henry looked at each other as though enjoying the uncharacteristic slowness of their brother. “Don’t you see? The murderer didn’t have to see the room…if he saw the painting.”

The statement struck William with the force of a blow. As always, when he got something wrong, he felt how narrow and stupid he had been. He had forgotten the primary factor necessary in solving any human problem: the element of motive. There had never been one with Sickert, just an array of contributing circumstances and a desire on his own part to find the man guilty. He felt shame for his stupidity, but also for his excessive emotional involvement in the case; the former had followed directly from the latter. One became stupid when emotion blocked reason.

But now, Alice’s news had had an amazingly equilibrating effect. The sense of feverish excitement he had felt only moments before had receded, and he felt he could see plainly for the first time in a while.

“Did Sickert show your painting to anyone after he finished it?” he asked Alice. His voice had returned to the calm, measured tone of the academic researcher.

“I’ve been considering that,” she responded. “I’m sure he didn’t show it in any general way. He said he didn’t like a portrait to be seen before it was framed.”

“But did he frame it himself?”

“
That
is the key,” she agreed. “I don’t know, but he did say the picture would be framed by the time he returned from Cornwall. He didn’t go to Cornwall, as it happens, but I do think he dropped it off somewhere for the purpose.”

“We know that he used someone to do his framing,” piped in Henry. “I recall he was late to my dinner party because he was waiting for a framed painting to be delivered. He said he had gone to school with the framer.”

William nodded. He had already known that the theory would be confirmed. He had accepted it at once, as soon as Alice had uttered it. It was that way with a scientific truth: one tried and tried to understand how something in nature worked, and then once one did, the process became entirely evident, as transparent as glass.

The atmosphere in the room had changed; the sense of disagreement and distrust had evaporated. For a moment, William felt great exhilaration, less regarding the case than because of the sense of reunion with his brother and sister. It was as though his family, long fractured, had been repaired.

William seated himself on the edge of the bed, Henry drew his chair closer, and Alice leaned forward so that their heads were almost touching. Calmly and carefully they pieced the thing together. A young man named Peter Newsome, studying under Alphonse Legros at the Slade, was caught abusing himself after a drawing lesson. He was thrown out of the school and shamed terribly. Whistler took him on as an apprentice. But the trauma affected the boy’s mental state, which in turn affected what was most important to him: his art. He could no longer draw. To make a living, he resorted to framing pictures, since it was something he could do, yet he continued to try to paint. Meanwhile, Sickert became the new “pupil of Whistler.” He had met Newsome at the Slade; perhaps they even overlapped in their apprenticeships. In any case, Sickert employed his colleague to frame his work, and that work became a source of envy and frustration to Newsome. Whenever he saw one of Sickert’s paintings, it reminded him of his earlier promise and prompted him to attempt something similar. Polly Nichols posed for him because Sickert had recently painted a woman of Polly’s general appearance and profession. There was the music hall sketch in Sargent’s studio, no doubt preliminary to a series of paintings in that line. The other victims reflected the same impulse.

“Perhaps all the murders were inspired by Sickert’s paintings,” noted Alice. The idea seemed grotesque yet logical. It had the added element of making Sickert complicitous, if not consciously so, in the murders.

“It’s possible,” agreed William. “But no doubt your portrait is a special case, since Newsome knew that I was involved in the investigation and wanted to retaliate against me as your brother. That would also explain the gruesome package. But the key to everything is the strength of the motive—extreme shame and loss of vocation, with a trigger in the form of a successful artist with whom he continued to be in contact.”

“The friendship also gave Newsome access to Sickert’s stationery and inks,” speculated Henry.

“And to the De Quincey volume,” said William. He thought of Asher Abrams. Perhaps Sickert had introduced Newsome to Abrams, who employed him as a framer. He recalled that Ella had met him in Whitechapel on that shameful day because she had business with a framer.

The siblings had fallen silent. If their hypothesis was correct, Newsome would have had access to everything within Sickert’s sphere. No wonder they had made the mistake. Sickert was the successful incarnation of what Newsome wanted to be, and Newsome was Sickert’s obverse self, his doppelgänger.

They sat together thinking about this for a few minutes, until Alice spoke abruptly. “If what we suspect is true, we are wasting valuable time. We must alert the inspector. Walter Sickert is temporarily out of reach for questioning, since he is in Cornwall. Who else can lead us to the suspect? Who else knows Peter Newsome?”

Ella Abrams
, thought William. Ella would know where to find Newsome. He felt a tightening in his throat at the idea that he would have to contact her again.

Before he could speak, there was a rustle in the corner of the room. It was Archie, who had been napping under the table and was roused by the urgency in Alice’s voice.

“Peter Newsome?” He looked around, bleary-eyed. “I knows Peter Newsome.”

Everyone looked at Archie with wonder.

“How do you know Peter Newsome?” asked William.

The boy had gotten to his feet and come to the side of Alice’s bed. He stood there as he often did, waiting for her to pet him and offer him sweets. Katherine had warned that he ought not to be fed so much sugar; it ruined his appetite and would rot his teeth, but Alice explained that the psychological benefits of a piece of candy outweighed any physical harm it might do.

“’E’s a friend of Mr. Sickert and an artist too,” said Archie, eyeing the two chocolates on the little dish next to Alice’s bed.

“And you know him?” Alice asked quietly.

“Well, sure. ’E’s been by when Mr. Sickert was painting, to drop off brushes and such. ’E told Sally she’d make a fine subject for a picture. ’E’s paintin’ ’er now.”

There was a hush in the room.

Sensing that he had said something wrong, Archie spoke quickly, as if to cover his tracks. “I told ’er ’e probly couldn’t draw a pot and sure couldn’t make such pretty things as Mr. Sargent or sing songs like Mr. Sickert, but she says as she don’t care. She wants to ’av ’er portrait painted like the mistress. That’s all.”

He paused and looked around him and, seeing that the faces of the adults remained taut and anxious, added quickly, touching on the subject that he assumed was the source of their concern. “She said takin’ yer clothes off fer an artist ain’t bad. Even the fine ladies does it. So’s I believed ’er.”

“Where did she go, do you know, Archie?” asked Alice. She had taken hold of his arm and was gripping it tightly.

He did not answer but sniffled loudly and squirmed under her grasp.

“Can you tell us where Sally’s gone?” William asked sharply.

The adult behavior must have reminded him of calamitous events in his former life, for his eyes darted about, as if looking for a means of escape. “I hope Sally ain’t come to no ’arm,” he wailed.

Henry interceded. He held out the plate of chocolates and waited calmly for Archie to take one, and then he spoke with stern directness. “We need to find Sally so she
won’t
come to harm. We need you to help us. Can you do that?”

The boy nodded, though he continued to sob. He forced himself to speak. “I followed ’er once. I knows I’m not supposed to spy. But I did it with my mum, so I do it automatic.” He whimpered in fear.

Henry assured him that in this case they were happy he had spied. “Now, we need you to tell us where you followed her. Is it far?”

“Far enough. It’s near to where me mum died.” Archie whimpered. “I thinks,” he amended.

“Would you be able to find it if we took a hansom cab to your mum’s street?” asked William.

“Dunno,” said Archie. A look of panic crossed his face again. “Don’ want Sally to come to no ’arm!”

“Can you remember how to get there by foot?” asked Henry, realizing that the boy would be best going the way he’d gone before.

Archie nodded, still whimpering.

“Just lead us there, then,” said Henry. “Don’t worry about how far it is. Go the way you went when you followed her. I’m sure you can remember.”

The boy nodded, his face white, as the brothers urged him down the stairs and to the door. William paused only to instruct Katherine, who had been busy in the kitchen, to go immediately to Scotland Yard and alert Abberline. “Tell him to look for the shop of a framer named Peter Newsome in the vicinity of where the poor woman killed herself last week,” he explained. “Tell him to waste no time.”

There was hubbub as hats and coats were hastily put on, the front door noisily opened and shut, and then, silence. Alice was left, propped up in her bed, alone in the flat. As always, it was her fate to stay behind and wait.