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

Chapter 27

It was past ten p.m. when William left the Abrams home on Connaught Square, and it was a beautiful night. In general during his visits to London, the weather was foggy or rainy, a contrast to the refreshing climate that he associated with his own country. But tonight was an exception; the gray limestone of the buildings, so different from the bold newness of Boston’s red brick, shimmered under the soft moonlight.

He considered hailing a cab and then decided that he would walk to Henry’s flat across Hyde Park. It was not a long walk, and he felt energetic and ebullient as he strode under the lush autumn foliage. He knew, the habit of self-scrutiny being well developed in him, that his high spirits were the result not only of the weather but also of the feelings engendered in him by Ella Abrams. Her vibrant beauty had impressed itself upon him forcefully. Even her unease with regard to the De Quincey volume intrigued him, suggesting something withheld and secretive that added to his fascination with her. He was a husband and a father, a devoted one on all counts, a man who would never dream of wandering from the path of righteousness, yet he felt, as he strode into the park, that there was no harm in the feeling of attraction he was experiencing. So long as it was not to be acted upon, it was a natural sort of thing. Ella Abrams, with her dark eyes and full mouth, her darting intelligence and humor, her exoticism and mystery, stoked his imagination and made him feel vital and glad to be alive. He would see her again on Monday, and the thought pleased him—that was all there was to it. There was a degree of self-deception in his thinking—he knew that—but he did not care.

It was quite dark as he entered the park and made his way along the main path. A few couples were walking arm in arm, and there was a smattering of beggars of the West End variety, well brushed in the manner of gentlemen fallen on hard times. They murmured discreetly their need for a bit of assistance, and William gave each of them something; he was in a magnanimous mood.

When he approached the center of the park, he veered off onto one of the side paths that would lead him to the avenue nearest to his brother’s flat. The gas lamps that lit the main path did not extend to this one, so the area grew darker as he moved farther along. The sounds of the street began to recede, and the trees seemed to grow thicker and more luxuriant. It was nice to have such lush greenery in the center of the city. New York had Central Park, and Boston had its Commons, but Hyde Park was different in the degree to which it could suddenly seem remote from the urban hubbub that surrounded it. Only the English could feel confident enough to allow the wild to encroach so far within a civilized space. It was the first time that he had acknowledged that this country might surpass his native land in some respect. Perhaps he would take a flat in London after all; so much coming and going to conferences and meetings was wearing. And it would be convenient to be near Henry and especially Alice, given her condition.

He paused to be sure that he still had the card for Ella Abrams’s shop in his pocket. It pleased him to finger it and remember its gold border and simple black script: “Abrams & Son.” Despite the appellation, the card put him in mind of Ella; gold and black were colors one would associate with her. He recalled the painting Sargent had done in which her arms were encased in gold bracelets, and her hair, emerging from a colorful scarf, was jet-black with flecks of white. It was Sargent’s hallmark to do hair that way so as to suggest thickness and glossiness and thus flatter his sitters, though in this case, there was no need to flatter; if anything, the representation fell short of the original.

He was thinking of how much nicer Ella’s hair was in reality than it was in Sargent’s painting, when he heard it, and the lurch of fear it precipitated was greater, in coming in the midst of such pleasurable calm. What he heard was breathing, soft and regular, faint yet distinct. There was no body attached to it, no evidence of anyone in the vicinity, no footsteps. If someone was near, it was someone who had matched William’s tread so as to follow unnoticed. Only now, pausing, he could hear the soft intake and outlet of breath.

Where was this person? William’s mind raced. He must be very near, in the trees a few feet away. He might be only a thief, he tried to assure himself, yet he knew it was unlikely. His mind had gone immediately to the letter Abberline had passed on to him. Until now, he had pushed that threat to the back of his mind. It was the familiar reflex of denial, a defense against the kind of morbid thinking that had engulfed him at the time of his breakdown, yet he ought to have understood that to push the possibility of danger out of consciousness was as foolhardy as to see danger everywhere.

He began to walk faster, panic beginning to mount in his body. No one was about. The prospect of calling out would be of no use. His hands reflexively burrowed in his pockets, but all he found there was the card for Ella’s shop. He felt a welling of sadness as the thought occurred to him that he might never see her again—not her, not his wife and children, not his brother and sister. He felt his shirt grow hot with perspiration against his chest, and for a moment wished only to be able to remove his coat and jacket. What a relief it would be to strip off these clothes, to stop planning and desiring and thinking, to be done with it all at last.

He realized that the predator was holding off attack until the edge of the path, where, at the turn, he would be enclosed entirely by trees. In the shrubbery, the violence could take place with no possibility that a passerby would see. He could picture his own death in his mind’s eye, the pale throat beneath the thicket of whiskers suddenly spurting bright red. His hand automatically went to his neck, touching the solid flesh that might, in a few seconds, be ripped open. The image brought a wave of pity for his own frailty. He felt his skin turn cold under the wetness of his perspiration; his teeth began to chatter, and his head grew light as the pressure in his body dropped.

He slowed his pace. He could make out over the din of his pulse that the person behind him was light-footed and agile. He could hear the other’s breathing, loudly now; he even imagined he could feel the breath on the back of his neck.

The turn was less than twenty feet away. He had perhaps three seconds before he reached the spot where he would be set upon. In the nightmare ordeal of his youth, when he had suffered from a lack of will, the crisis had been long and difficult, a slow and fitful return from numbness and inertia to active life. But there was no time for such a recovery now. He must either fight against what threatened him or succumb to it. It was the simplicity of the choice that galvanized him.

It happened with remarkable speed. He spied a large branch on the side of the path and made a quick lunge to reach it; then, with it firm in his grasp, he swung. It was the same movement he had once used in his youth to swing a baseball bat. The movement had been embedded deep in the memory of his muscles.

As he pivoted on his soles, turning his body almost completely around, he saw the figure who had stalked him, enveloped from head to toe in a thick cloak. From the folds of the cloak an object flashed, sweeping in countermovement to his own. There was a tremendous crack as he completed his swing. The figure staggered back.

William dropped the branch and ran, not stopping until he had reached the other side of the park. When he glanced down, he saw there was a tear of about four inches across the breast pocket of his coat. The copy of Marx’s Capital, the gift from Benjamin Cohen, had been sliced neatly in half.

Even as the horror of what he had escaped coursed through him, he felt gripped by a sense of wonder. How fortuitous life was, how sublime the conjunctions of divine intervention: American baseball and a German utopian philosopher had saved his life!