What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

Chapter 17

At ten minutes to seven the next evening, Mrs. Lancaster was standing in the foyer of Alice’s flat. “I like to be punctual,” she announced blandly, “which means I take into account the possibility of delay and thus tend to arrive early.”

The announcement was not what one might have expected from a spiritualist medium as Alice imagined her. She had in mind bangles and scarves as well as a greater vagueness regarding time, and was, in truth, a bit disappointed with the unfestooned and uninflected person of Mrs. Lancaster.

Alice had spared William the difficulties he had imagined when he announced his intention of holding a séance in her apartment. Partly it was because of her guilt for being hard on him the day before. Partly it was because she was curious to see what a séance was like. She had heard about such things from her friends, and it all sounded very foolish, but it was, after all, a sort of adventure, even if a bogus one. If she could not climb a mountain or ride a horse, she could at least sit at a table as alleged spirits played with the lamps and banged on the walls.

To prepare for the event, she had gotten out of bed and dressed in the Chinese silk robe her aunt had sent her for her last birthday. It was an indeterminate sort of garment—something between an evening gown and a dressing gown—that had the advantage of being comfortable and hiding a body debilitated by erratic nourishment and lack of exercise. It had the additional value of giving her the free use of her limbs, should she want to move them under the table in an effort to explore (she had read about these psychic ladies and knew something of their modus operandi). She had thrown on a string of her mother’s pearls and had Katherine put up her hair in an elaborate chignon. In a word, she looked ready to preside over the séance herself.

The contrast, in fact, to the actual medium was noteworthy. Mrs. Lancaster was wearing a long, mustard-colored dress, an unflattering shade under any circumstances (Alice’s favorite color was pink), but particularly so given the woman’s sallow complexion. She was tall and angular, with the kind of unprepossessing features that one associates with a New England schoolmarm: thin lips, bushy eyebrows, and a nose that was extremely long and aquiline and of the sort likely to get very blue at the tip during the winter. She moved her mouth only slightly when she spoke, suggesting that she had bad teeth and, given the nasal quality to her voice, possibly a serious sinus condition. She had on a pair of worn black shoes that looked too large for her feet. Not at all the sort of woman one would have imagined channeling spirits, Alice thought, though with the secondary observation of the inveterate skeptic that this was precisely the get up that a shrewd operator in this line might choose to put her audience off their guard.

The round table normally in the corner of Alice’s bedroom had been moved into the adjoining study, where Katherine did household accounts. The room had been cleared of its books and papers, and five chairs had been arranged around the table. Mrs. Lancaster immediately took the seat facing the door, and Henry and William, who had been standing off to the side looking uncomfortable, sat down next to each other opposite her. This left Katherine to sit on Mrs. Lancaster’s left and Alice on her right. There had been some discussion about inviting the Sargents, but it was finally agreed that the fewer participants, the better. Sally had been told to remain in the kitchen and keep an ear open in case she was needed.

Mrs. Lancaster indicated that the lights in the room should be dimmed and the shades drawn. The result was dark, though not as black as Alice had heard some mediums required in order to work.

“We must all hold hands,” said Mrs. Lancaster, taking Alice’s hand in her bony fingers. “The spirits find it consoling to know that we are united.”

“Is there music?” asked Henry. “I like a bit of music.”

“No music,” said Mrs. Lancaster curtly.

Henry coughed and then sniffed slightly. “Can I get out my handkerchief, or will that bother the spirits?”

“Shh,” said William. “You don’t have to play the prima donna all the time. Just sit still and be quiet.”

The group remained silent for a few minutes.

“I don’t know that I’m getting anything,” said Mrs. Lancaster. “There is a great deal of negative energy in the room.”

“Maybe if I could blow my nose?” asked Henry.

“Blow your nose, for God’s sake, and be done with it,” snapped William.

Henry blew his nose, and the group returned to silence.

Suddenly there were two loud raps that Alice felt must have come from under the table. She moved her leg quickly against Mrs. Lancaster’s and felt a tremor in the muscles of the woman’s calf, though so slight, it seemed hardly enough to produce the loud noises she had just heard. There was no time to explore further, for Mrs. Lancaster began to shake violently. She continued to hold Katherine’s and Alice’s hands, but the shaking grew so violent that everyone around the table was pushed from side to side.

“Oh my!” said Henry. “I’m not cut out for so much exercise.”

“Shh!” said William.

Mrs. Lancaster’s teeth began to chatter, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets. If she had not been much to look at before, she was definitely not a pretty sight now.

“Perhaps we should call a doctor,” murmured Henry.

“Shh!” said William.

Mrs. Lancaster sat bolt upright, her eyes wide open. Her face, harsh and bony in its natural outline, appeared to soften. Her eyes grew bright, and her mouth shaped itself into a pout. In an uncanny eruption, a child’s voice suddenly cried out, “I wants some cake! I wants some cake!”

Everyone looked at Mrs. Lancaster in wonder.

“Mayn’t I have some cake?” the voice cried again.

“It seems she wants cake,” murmured Henry.

“Mayn’t I have some cake, mum, please?” The voice, which had been demanding, had turned to a plaintive whine. “It’s cake I want; please, Mum, please!”

Alice, who had been staring raptly at Mrs. Lancaster’s transformed features, called out to Sally, who appeared in the doorway, and at the sight of the medium’s contorted visage, looked like she was about to faint.

“No need to be frightened, dear,” said Alice, who herself sounded a bit shaky. “Please go to the cupboard and bring some of that lemon cake that Mrs. Woolson brought over the other day.”

Sally disappeared and returned with a platter with a cake on it.

“Put it in front of the lady,” instructed Alice, so that Sally, her hands trembling, deposited the cake in front of Mrs. Lancaster and then quickly ran from the room.

“There’s your cake, dear,” said Alice. She took hold of Mrs. Lancaster’s arm and directed it toward the cake. Mrs. Lancaster placed her hand in the cake and began to shovel it into her mouth. She kept shoveling until the cake smeared her face and the front of her dress.

“Someone needs to learn some manners,” murmured Henry.

“Shh!” said William.

After several minutes of cramming the cake into her mouth, Mrs. Lancaster leaned back. “Good cake,” said the child’s voice.

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Alice. “Now tell us your name, little girl,” she said.

“I’s Cassie Bartram,” said the voice.

“And how old are you, Cassie?”

“I be nine or ten, not sure which one,” said the voice.

“And why are you here?”

“I comes here sometimes to speak through this lady. Don’t know why I do, but she’s easy to go through when I’s something I need to say.”

“And you have something you need to say now?”

“I do. I do. It’s from Annie—that’s a lady here I know who had a hard time of it. She been good to me, and so I said I’d do as I can for her over on this side.”

“What do you need to tell us about Annie?”

“I gotta tell that she been killed. Like me. On’y worse than me. Me dad, he jus’ hit me real hard, and it kinda busted my head. It weren’t that he meant to kill me; he just got mad like he always done, but this time he hit too hard. But Annie, she got stabbed with a knife. That’s worse than hitting.”

“Where was she stabbed?” asked Alice.

“Well, first in the neck, and then he cut her up down below in the privates.”

“She told you that?” asked Alice.

“That she did. Said as he cut things out of her horrible.”

“And what did the man look like who did this? Did she tell you?”

“He was dark and kinda small and spoke in that funny language them people speak.”

“A Jew, you mean?” asked Alice.

“I guess as it was, since he spoke them funny words, and he may’ve had the horns too, though she weren’t sure about that.”

The voice stopped, and Mrs. Lancaster shook again, more violently than before.

“What is it, Cassie? Is there something wrong?” asked Alice.

The voice suddenly grew shrill and upset. “No, no, I says it wrong! That wasn’t it as I wanted to say!” Mrs. Lancaster’s face contorted as if struggling to break free of something. “It was his hands I wanted to tell of. They was pretty hands, small and delicate-like—white, but not the fingers. They was stained.”

“With blood?” asked Alice.

“No, not blood. More black or sootish. Maybe tar or somethin’ like.”

There was more violent shaking, and Mrs. Lancaster frothed at the mouth. Something viscous emanated from her lips. She coughed a few times and took her hand away from Alice’s. The medium’s voice returned to its flat and nasal tone. “There it is: Annie Chapman.” Reaching up into the air, she grasped hold of a small image, seen in the dim light to be a picture of a woman—Annie Chapman, it appeared to be, if one had seen the woman’s face in the newspaper. As Mrs. Lancaster held the image a moment in front of her face, it just as suddenly disappeared.

“That’s it. It’s done,” said Mrs. Lancaster drily. “You can turn the lights on now.”

Katherine turned on the lights. Everyone was silent for a few moments.

“Impressive!” William finally said.

“Strenuous!” said Henry.

“Very interesting,” said Alice. She addressed Mrs. Lancaster. “I want to thank you for giving us your time.” She went over to the desk drawer and took out a bank note, which she handed to the woman, who nodded stiffly in response and turned to go.

“Not quite yet,” said Alice. “Would you mind, please, removing your shoes?”

“Excuse me?” said Mrs. Lancaster, looking offended.

“Remove your shoes. It shouldn’t be difficult. They look rather loose.”

“I will not remove my shoes!” declared Mrs. Lancaster.

“Then I must assume that you have practiced upon us through that means,” said Alice. “I have read about an American spiritualist who does all her tapping with her big toe—a highly developed big toe, not the sort one finds on most people, but a big toe nonetheless. Could we look at your big toe?”

“You most certainly cannot!” said Mrs. Lancaster.

“All right,” said Alice. “I’ll let you escape with your big toe unexamined. But there is one more thing.” She moved closer to the woman and then suddenly, with a surprisingly quick movement, squeezed her cheeks with one hand and with the other reached inside her mouth. She extracted a small piece of rubbery cloth and, opening it, displayed the imprint of a face. “Annie Chapman,” she announced. “Excellent sleight of hand and control of your jaw muscles for that trick.”

Mrs. Lancaster, the tip of whose aquiline nose had turned bright red, grabbed her coat and seemed about to flee the room when a tremor passed through her, and she stopped and turned to Alice. Once again, her angular face seemed to undergo a change, to soften in some inexplicable way. Although she spoke in her own voice, the words came slowly, as if they were being dictated. “He says he’s sorry,” she said, her eyes staring at Alice’s face, which had suddenly gone very white. “He says as he didn’t know what to do with a girl like you, so quick and nervous and bright. He appreciates the care you took of him at the end, but he couldn’t stay. He’s sorry, he says, he couldn’t give you what you needed. His heart aches for it.”

The two women stood for a moment in complete silence, staring at each other dumbly. Mrs. Lancaster then shook herself. Her soft gaze hardened into an angry glare, and turning on her loose pumps, she walked rapidly from the room.

“What in God’s name was that about?” said William.

“Nonsense,” said Alice softly.

“You’d think she was giving you a message from Father,” said Henry. “Not that it was particularly specific. ‘He’s sorry.’ What parent, I’d like to know, isn’t sorry?”

“Yes,” murmured Alice. “Anyone might have come up with that.”

“I have to say that you did an impressive job debunking her,” continued Henry, “though your method was a bit foolhardy. The woman could have bitten your fingers off.”

“You certainly humiliated her,” said William gruffly.

“Humiliated her!” Henry exclaimed. “She had the audacity to try to dupe us!”

“It may be more complicated than that,” said William.

Alice looked at her brother and seemed to pull herself out of a stupor. “The woman is a fraud,” she pronounced tersely. “She makes her money by taking advantage of people who are bereft or desperate or simply, like us, seeking the truth. How is that complicated?”

“Because there may be some truth mixed with the falsehood.”

“That’s absurd. The whole thing with the child reporting on what Annie Chapman said—there was a logical fallacy in it. Annie was dead after her throat was cut, and the premise of these things is that the spirits can report only what they saw while alive. But the child said Annie had been cut down below. That happened later and completely destroys the premise.”

“I noticed that,” said William. “But I also noticed the strange way in which she reported on the murderer’s hands. There was something oddly compelling there, almost as though she was being forced to tell the truth.”

“That was a dramatic touch,” piped in Henry. “The stained hands. I should like to use it in a story.”

“I say it’s all nonsense!” said Alice, addressing William irritably. “You cling to the notion that there is something beyond the simple reality of our existence; I am reconciled to the fact that there is not. I do not believe in fairy tales, but I do believe in evil men. And this one must be caught. Unfortunately, no spirit from another world is going to help us do it.”