Last Nocturne Page 13

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Martin nodded, ‘but she has no brush, either. There was one, bottom right of the canvas, the one used to sweep up the bits of marble. The mallet’s still there, but the brush isn’t.’

  ‘Still think it’s Ruskin?’ Grand asked. ‘Defacing all these paintings. Is there any kind of link, Gan? Rossetti? Burne-Jones? Common ground?’

  ‘The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,’ Martin said, ‘their work is very distinctive.’

  Batchelor nodded. ‘It is,’ he agreed, ‘but James McNeill Whistler isn’t one of them; are you, Mr Whistler?’

  ‘Er … excuse me!’ The doorman at the Grosvenor became shrill at moments like this. He knew perfectly well that the visitors trying to enter his establishment had been banned by his boss, Mr Saunders.

  ‘Yes?’ Grand loomed over him. Establishments like the Grosvenor didn’t hire first-class muscle, largely because it was not necessary. The odd overwrought dowager in a bath chair, the occasional gaggle of giggling girls didn’t merit a heavy with shoulders like wardrobes. The doorman stared at Grand’s tie-knot, but he stood his ground nevertheless.

  ‘You gentlemen are not welcome here,’ he trilled.

  Grand looked down at him, picked him up by the shoulders and moved him to one side. The doorman gave a strangled cry and muttered something about assault, but by that time his face was pressed against a pretty awful Fantin-Latour and he wasn’t particularly audible.

  ‘Where’s Saunders?’ Batchelor asked.

  The doorman was trying to extricate his nose from the canvas when the manager of that name turned up. ‘What’s going on?’ he wanted to know, more than a little of his Stepney coming through as he spoke.

  ‘I assume you have an office?’ Batchelor said.

  ‘Or would you like us to have a conversation out here?’ Grand smiled at the horrified punters milling around. They would have liked to have scurried out before the obvious art thief and general miscreant set about them as well, but he was blocking their exit.

  ‘This way,’ Saunders said, sweeping to his left. Grand let the doorman go to recover whatever was left of his dignity and the pair followed the manager into his office.

  ‘I specifically told you two …’ Saunders began.

  ‘You did,’ Grand said. ‘We’ve just come to thank you in person for your letter.’

  ‘And to lodge a complaint,’ Batchelor added.

  ‘Complaint?’ Saunders grunted. ‘Complaint?’ His volume increased. ‘You’ve got a brass neck after your behaviour the other day. Not to mention just now.’

  ‘Ah,’ Batchelor beamed, ‘but this time, it’s about your behaviour, isn’t it?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘We are here to protest at the laxity of your security,’ Grand told him.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘On behalf of our client, Mr Whistler,’ Batchelor explained. ‘We have reason to believe that his work Nocturne in Blue and Gold has been tampered with. Along with others … what were they, Matthew?’

  ‘Rossetti’s Ghirlandata and Burne-Jones’s The Hand Refrains – both vandalized.’

  ‘Impossible!’ Saunders said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Grand sighed.

  ‘I did warn you, Matthew,’ Batchelor wagged his finger at him.

  ‘You did, James,’ Grand said, sadly, ‘you did.’

  ‘Inspector Metcalfe, then?’ Batchelor wondered. ‘Or should we go straight to Superintendent Williamson?’

  Grand feigned uncertainty. ‘I was wondering whether old Howie Vincent might want in on this. I mean, the man who created the CID deserves some credit in art felony cases.’

  ‘You’re right,’ and the pair turned to go.

  ‘Er … just a minute,’ Saunders said, his whole world collapsing. God alone knew what the Lindsays would say about all this. ‘I can increase security.’

  ‘How?’ Grand asked.

  ‘Wait here.’

  They did and weren’t waiting long before Saunders was back with a wizened old boy with white fuzz on his chin. ‘This is Joe,’ the manager said, ‘in charge of security.’

  Grand and Batchelor looked at each other.

  ‘So,’ Batchelor looked at Saunders, ‘when you say you can increase security, you’re what? Hiring ten young blokes to replace this old one?’

  Joe peered up at him. ‘Whaddya mean?’ he snapped.

  ‘Don’t take offence, old-timer,’ Grand said. ‘It’s just that … well, looking after valuable artworks is a full-time job.’

  ‘So?’ Joe blinked.

  ‘At the moment,’ Saunders said, ‘Joe’s only here until soon after the gallery closes, sweeping up, that kind of thing. How about … how about we get him to live in? There’s storage space in the attic.’

  ‘You’re missing the point,’ Grand said, ‘Okay, let’s suppose you get a room for Joe. Let’s suppose he hears something in the night. Let’s suppose he approaches someone – oh, I don’t know, to pick a name at random, John Ruskin – what does he do? Assuming he can find his false teeth in time, of course.’

  Only one person in the room was ready for what happened next. Joe grabbed Batchelor’s arm and wrenched it behind his back. He swung the man so that he landed flat on his face on Saunders’s desk, papers and pens flying in all directions. ‘I seen that Mr Ruskin here from time to time,’ Joe said, pinning Batchelor down. ‘He’s about the same build as this bloke here. That’s what I’d do, sonny,’ and he beamed at Grand, whose mouth was still hanging open.

  Joe let Batchelor go and the ex-Fleet Street man brushed himself down. ‘You’re lucky I controlled myself there,’ he said, but the bravado fooled no one.

  ‘I’ve been lifting canvases for more years than you boys have been alive,’ Joe grinned, ‘and I grew up in Bermondsey. All right, I’m a bit slower than I used to be, but I can still handle myself, I reckon.’

  ‘You reckon right,’ Grand smiled. ‘And you don’t mind living in, Mr … er …?’

  ‘Just Joe will do,’ he said. ‘That depends on whether Mr Saunders has it in him to up the porridge. Security don’t come cheap.’

  ‘Mr Saunders?’ Batchelor raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I’ll talk to Sir Coutts and Lady Blanche. I’m sure we can come to some arrangement.’

  ‘Then we’ll bid you good afternoon, gentlemen,’ Grand said. ‘But, rest assured, we’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Sweeping,’ Joe said to Saunders. ‘North Gallery.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Saunders said. ‘Thank you, Joe.’

  As the three of them left together, Joe patted Batchelor’s arm. ‘Sorry about that, young feller,’ he said. ‘Had a bit of a point to make.’

  ‘You surely did that,’ Grand chuckled. ‘Mr Saunders was well impressed.’

  Joe snorted. ‘He don’t know his arse from his chiaroscuro, that bloke.’

  EIGHT

  After a fine spring day, the Cremorne Gardens were doing a brisk trade. The Chinese lanterns bobbed bravely on a little westerly wind, sneaking through the houses from outside the city and bringing some freshness with it. The grass was starred with fallen blossoms, the last to fall as the trees came into full leaf. Around the lake on the eastern side, the swans and geese were beginning to seek the safety of their nests in the reeds and the last carousers were making their way home, before the Underground stopped running. Cabs were lined up at the gates to bear the better-heeled walkers back to their homes. Some gentlemen, looking rather more satiated than might be explained by a simple walk in the park, adjusted their clothing and left the hansom blinds open to dissipate the smell of cheap perfume.

  The groundskeepers made their way around the perimeter, starting at one gate and walking round to the next, widdershins, locking it from the outside when they reached it and going home, another long day over and all’s well. The League for the Right to Wander could do their worst – sometimes, safety really did come first. Harry Brownthorne lived just across the road from the lake side of the p
ark, in rooms above a grocer. Although he and his wife didn’t have much money, they were as snug as bugs and he knew he had a lot to be thankful for; a simple job, with no worries, simple pleasures and …

  Harry Brownthorne stopped in his measured walk. Somebody had done in one of the swans again; there it was, floating, caught in the branch of a willow leaning over the water. He bet he knew who it was, too. It was those boozy lads who had mistaken a very respectable lady for a lady of the night and had had to be seen off the park. He knew they were trouble, the moment he saw them. He was in a quandary about the swan, though. If he left it, it would have attracted all sorts of vermin by morning. If a dead swan was likely to give the vapours to elderly ladies giving their lapdogs a morning constitutional, that was nothing to the shock which a swan mauled by foxes and displayed in its component parts over the path could provide. He sighed. He didn’t fancy wading in, but he saw no real option. He unlaced his boots, rolled up his trousers and left his jacket on a nearby bench, noting as he did so a bit of lost property to deal with later. The pleasant day had a bit of a sting in its tail.

  Late walkers in Cheyne Walk were startled to see a man, barefoot, bare-headed and with his trousers rolled up to the knees, suddenly barrel out of the gates of the Cremorne, his mouth working soundlessly as he waved his hands above his head. Locals had got used to all sorts of things happening in the Gardens, but, thus far, not too much that was untoward had sullied their pavements. The majority of the passers-by swept aside their skirts or coats according to their sex and passed by, but a constable of B Division, strolling round the corner at his usual steady pace, saw a madman rushing towards him and leapt on him with no fear for life or limb. The madman seemed quite lucid when he got his breath back, though, and the constable slackened his grip on the man’s throat so he could speak.

  ‘A body,’ Brownthorne gasped. ‘A body in the Gardens.’

  The policeman clambered to his feet and dragged Brownthorne upright. ‘A body?’ he asked, and took in the man properly for the first time. He appeared to be soaking wet, was the first thing he noticed, just before he noticed the clinging clumps of duckweed on his uniform. He would get stick for that, he knew. Then, looking even more closely, he recognized him as one of the park keepers.

  ‘Harry, is it?’ he ventured.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Brownthorne shook himself to rearrange such of his clothing as he had on. ‘There’s a body in the lake.’

  ‘So you said,’ the copper said. He took out his notebook and a pencil. ‘Now, let’s see. Name?’

  ‘For God’s sake! There’s a body …’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Harold Brownthorne.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘There’s a body …’ Brownthorne pointed desperately into the Gardens. ‘I’ve left her on the bank. Anyone could find her. For God’s sake …’

  ‘Oh ho!’ The policeman was triumphant. These criminals always gave themselves away in the end. ‘You left her on the bank, did you? After you had done with your foul … doings.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her, you idiot!’ Brownthorne was almost hysterical now. ‘I thought she was a swan at first …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I thought my little Lottie was a swan until the teacher told me she was actually a goose.’ He wrote down, ‘Suspect delusional.’

  ‘But when I went in to get it in, so the foxes didn’t get it, it wasn’t a swan at all. It was a woman.’

  ‘Dressed as a swan?’ The policeman was not of the park persuasion, but he had heard stories. ‘Like that Greek bloke.’

  ‘Greek bloke?’ Brownthorne’s patience had snapped and he ran off up the street, hopping occasionally as something stuck in his bare foot. ‘Greek bloke?’ he yelled in the face of an innocent gentleman walking his lady friend home after a night out. ‘They’re all mad!’

  The policeman, giving chase, soon caught his quarry, hampered as he was by bare feet.

  ‘That’s enough of that, my lad,’ he said, in his best police jargon. ‘You’re nicked.’

  Matthew Grand was a gentleman but not particularly innocent. But he knew that it wasn’t necessary to be an enquiry agent to find it odd when a man with pond weed all over him, trousers rolled up and no jacket suddenly yelled ‘Greek bloke’ in your face. He and Lady Caroline had had a fairly stressful evening with three of her bridesmaids, one a clear nymphomaniac, one with a face only a mother could love and the other an annoying bluestocking with a fixation on the breeding cycle of the newt; he couldn’t remember which was which but hoped he would not see them often enough for that to matter. He knew that he had blotted his copybook in countless unknown ways and so didn’t just drop her at her door and race back to the scene. He merely tucked her hand more tightly into the crook of his elbow and walked on.

  Eleanor was waiting for them in the hall.

  ‘Oh, Miss Caroline, Mr Grand. What was all that shouting?’

  ‘Shouting?’ Grand said, looking around. ‘Was there shouting?’

  Caroline pulled off her gloves and put them down on the console with a slap. ‘Mr Grand is pretending he didn’t notice, Ellie,’ she said, with the mock calm that showed a storm was coming. ‘A madman shouting about Aristotle or some such thing.’

  Grand was amazed – and not for the first time – at how witnesses embroidered the simplest fact.

  ‘But Mr Grand could see that there was nothing he could do to help and so here we are. Aren’t we, Mr Grand?’

  ‘We are indeed, Lady Caroline,’ he said, with a bow.

  Eleanor, with the storm-awareness of a petrel, bobbed a curtsy and bolted through the green baize door to safety.

  ‘I daresay Eleanor has left a tray,’ Caroline said, with deadly politeness. ‘Would you like to join me?’

  ‘Love to.’ Grand opened the door to the drawing room and there, sure enough, was a small spring fire lit in the grate and a covered tray of sandwiches and a kettle simmering on its burner. He lifted the cloth. ‘Ham. My favourite.’ He helped himself to a couple and plonked down in what was fast becoming his usual chair.

  Caroline made the tea and joined him by the fire. ‘I think this evening went well,’ she said, still on her dignity.

  ‘Don’t be crazy, Caro,’ Grand said, his mouth full of sandwich. ‘They all hated me and you know it. And I can’t say I was crazy about them. To be honest, I kept waiting for Hecate to turn up.’

  She looked at him, an eyebrow arched in query.

  ‘You know.’ He clawed a hand and hunched his shoulders. ‘“When shall we three meet again …?”’

  She was so pleased to hear him quote Shakespeare that she let her guard down and laughed. ‘They are my dearest friends,’ she said, but with a smile.

  ‘Well, your pals don’t have to be mine,’ Grand said. ‘And,’ he was now serious, ‘my job doesn’t have to be yours, though you mustn’t mind when I do my job, Caro. Like tonight.’

  ‘He wasn’t a client,’ she said, looking away.

  ‘No. He wasn’t. But we are investigating a case which seems to be linked to the Cremorne, and a half-dressed man just ran out of there and shouted in my face. You can’t blame me for showing an interest.’ He put on his most winning smile and waited. She always came round in the end. The only question was when the end would arrive. This evening, it didn’t take long.

  ‘Point taken,’ she said. ‘I actually did some sleuthing myself today.’

  That stopped him in mid-chew. ‘You did?’

  ‘Effie Millais’ – she saw his blank expression – ‘wife of John Millais the painter, and previous wife of John Ruskin …’ She was rewarded by a gleam of interest in his eyes. ‘Effie Millais has Mornings and I went to one today.’

  ‘And?’ Grand was pretty sure that wasn’t all.

  ‘Well, I was asking about ghosts and things, really, but I met the strangest people.’

  ‘There are no such things as …’

  ‘Strange people?’ she said with a laugh. ‘There certainly are. Mrs Stanhope fo
r one, but I don’t think she would interest you much. So much name-dropping! Burne-Jones, Watts – his model was there, but that’s as near as we got to anyone famous. But they are all living in each other’s pockets all the time. It’s a bit like incest.’

  ‘My word!’ Grand was a little taken aback. ‘I must say, when it comes to incest, I can take it or leave it alone.’ He saw her face. ‘Joke.’

  ‘I had meant to do some sleuthing for you.’

  He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a manly hug. He had a choice of either condescending to her or treating her as one of the chaps, and the latter seemed the best course of action.

  ‘But once I got there, it seemed a bit rude to ask her about Ruskin – it was a long time ago, of course – but it seems to me these artists do tend to marry young women very briefly; Ruskin, Watts, Rossetti. They’ve all done it in their day. So I don’t think we could really make that a black mark against him.’

  ‘I suppose young women are more beautiful.’ He heard the words leave his mouth but didn’t seem to have the power to stop them. Lady Caroline was twenty-seven but carried it with style and grace. He looked at her from under his lashes. She seemed to be taking it in the spirit in which it was meant.

  ‘So,’ she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘I’m not sure I found out much, except that everyone knows the Grosvenor is haunted.’

  He slid out of his chair, brushing crumbs from his vest, and went across to her on his knees. He put his arms around her waist and kissed her. ‘Do you fancy making my spine tingle?’ he whispered in her ear.

  And her reply would have made Eleanor run for cover.

  ‘So …’ Inspector Metcalfe, called in specially, steepled his fingers as he leaned his elbows on his desk and stared with gimlet eyes at the constable standing to attention in front of him. ‘So … a known Gardens employee, who you agree you recognized, comes running up to you – make a note of that, Barnes, because it is an important clue – and says there is a body in the lake.’

  The constable snapped his heels together and barked, ‘Yessir!’

  Metcalfe closed his eyes. ‘Just a simple “yes” would do,’ he murmured. He had been fast asleep in the bosom of Mrs Metcalfe when the hammering at the door had come to waken him and he wasn’t happy. It wasn’t often he got an early night. ‘So, you manhandled him here and threw him in a cell.’