Cornwell has many such elasticated explanations throughout her book as well as further spectacular revelations. Sickert's famous painting 'The Camden Town Murder' of 1909 is, she believes, not only a re-creation of the killing of a prostitute, Emily Dimmock, on 11 September 1907 but one based on personal observation: Sickert had murdered her himself (nearly 20 years after the Ripper series he was 'back in business') and, as part of his alibi, had gone to sketch Dimmock's body in her bedroom an hour or two after she was found. This grisly morsel comes from a report in the Evening Standard (to this day, famously inaccurate on matters of art) for 29 November 1937. Leaving aside the fact that Sickert was almost certainly in France at the time of the murder, Cornwell's deductions show a complete misunderstanding of Sickert's art and his method of working. Menacing though the 'Murder' painting and related works may be, they cannot be read literally as scene-of-the-crime illustrations. Sickert's chosen title was opportunistic - he was always terrific at publicity but never, I believe, at the expense of his integrity as an artist. But this is a concept foreign to Cornwell in her pursuit of his integrity as possibly 'the most original and creative killer to ever have come along'.
Many lives when probed retrospectively are full of gaps, inconsistencies and puzzles. These are increased in Sickert's case by his often erratic and impulsive behaviour and his need for solitude within a hugely busy social life. While such duality fuels Cornwell's picture of him as a man leading a double life, it provides no shred of proof that he was a hardened serial killer. Her fabulously expensive DNA tests in several areas have led to nothing save an unworkable connection between Sickert and one of the Jack the Ripper letters. But even if Sickert had written all those letters, it would not prove his guilt. To attribute those murders to any person without cast-iron evidence or due regard for what is known rather than what is speculative, as Cornwell has attempted, is an act of irresponsible cruelty. Ironically, her book may well have a value in years to come for its few new facts on Walter Sickert rather than as the definite solution to an unsolvable mystery.
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