Last Nocturne

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Near the river?’

  ‘That’s right. I seem to remember the usual argy-bargy between B Division and Daddy Bliss of the River Police over whose jurisdiction it all was. Of course, that was before the shake-up at the Met and the arrival of St Howard Vincent. Have you met him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Keep it that way,’ was Lawson’s advice. ‘The day we have to go cap in hand to the French to learn how to organize a police force … well, don’t get me started. The first dead girl had a book with her too. All right, she was lying on the ground, not sitting on a bench, but it’s the book that tells me our friend is back.’

  ‘Do you remember who handled the case?’ Batchelor asked, ‘from B Division, I mean.’

  ‘No,’ Lawson bit his lip trying to remember. ‘Useless bugger, whoever he was. Couldn’t catch a cold as it turned out.’ The door swung wide and a dapper young man stood there, an eye-shade strapped round his head and a pencil behind one ear. ‘Ah, Gan, we were just talking about you.’

  ‘You were?’ the young man said. ‘How jolly!’

  ‘This is James Batchelor,’ Lawson said, ‘an old Telegraph man from the days of my distant youth. James, meet Alexander Martin.’

  ‘My friends call me Gan,’ Martin said, extending a hand.

  ‘Do they, now?’ Batchelor shook it. The grip was firm enough, in a Magdalen sort of way. ‘John here tells me you have recently graduated, Mr Martin.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the boy beamed. ‘But I must say, Oxford seems a long time ago now.’

  ‘And how are you enjoying Fleet Street?’

  ‘Top hole,’ Martin said, a smile frozen on his face.

  ‘Hmm,’ Batchelor murmured. ‘Enjoying the cut and thrust of snooping, eh?’

  ‘Rather!’ Martin’s smile had not faded.

  ‘I should tell you, Gan,’ Lawson said, ‘that Mr Batchelor here is a private detective these days.’

  ‘Enquiry agent,’ Batchelor corrected him.

  ‘Really?’ Now, the smile was genuine. ‘How fascinating. I’ve never met one before. I couldn’t … er … do a story on you, could I?’ Martin was reaching for the pencil stub and ferreting in his pocket for a notebook.

  ‘No,’ Batchelor said, flatly. He caught the look of disappointment on the lad’s face. ‘Discretion, you see,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Vital in my line of work. Wouldn’t do to have my Agency all over the front page of the Telegraph.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Lawson said. ‘You’ll have to wait in line behind the Treaty of San Stefano and whatever the Iron Chancellor had for breakfast this morning.’

  ‘Bratwurst and American coffee,’ Martin said. Both men looked at him. ‘The Iron Chancellor,’ the boy went on. ‘Otto von Bismarck. It’s what he always has for breakfast. Ever since—’

  ‘The Cremorne Gardens murder,’ Lawson cut in. ‘What was the book found with the body?’

  ‘The Fruits of Philosophy,’ Martin told him. ‘An American publication initially, but it was republished last year by Mrs Annie Besant.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you happen to know the name of the book found near another body in the Cremorne eighteen months ago, do you?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘Oh, let me see.’ Martin closed his eyes tight. ‘Yes, if I remember the file correctly, it was Moby Dick by Herman Melville.’

  ‘The dead girl’s name?’ Lawson asked.

  ‘Mabel Glossop,’ Martin said. ‘Aged seventeen. Cause of death, believed poisoning.’

  ‘And the detective who worked the case?’ Batchelor asked. ‘Out of B Division.’ Martin didn’t seem to need clues, but Batchelor wanted to play fair.

  ‘Ah,’ Martin smiled broadly. ‘I couldn’t forget that. Meiklejohn. Inspector John Meiklejohn.’

  There was a silence. ‘You don’t know who the murderer is, do you?’ Batchelor asked, almost expecting an answer. It would have saved a lot of time.

  Martin’s eyes flickered open. ‘Er … sorry. No.’

  ‘Never mind, young man,’ Batchelor said. ‘Some miracles take a little longer. In the meantime … Gan, can I buy you a cherry bun at the Cheshire Cheese?’

  Matthew Grand was not usually that at home with artists. He justified it to himself, whenever justification seemed necessary, by saying that as James Batchelor was a writer of sorts, it was more his milieu. But this time, the artist in question had got in touch with him personally, as an ex-West Pointer, so he had little choice. He had dressed particularly conservatively for this interview, though; he had had an unfortunate experience in Chelsea before when inadvertently wearing a cravat and wasn’t really ready to repeat the experience.

  Despite the Chelsea address, Whistler’s house looked quite normal on the outside. Someone had hung some window boxes from the ledges which clearly led into the hall and from the basement area came the sounds of rug-beating and an untrained voice raised in song. The smell of toasting muffins wafted up as well and he could hear the crying of a child coming from an upstairs window. He was beginning to wonder whether he had the wrong house when a window flew up above his head and a maid’s face appeared, draped in a net curtain flapping in the spring breeze.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is this Mr Whistler’s house?’

  ‘It depends who’s asking.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

  ‘I never said it was.’ The maid was testy, as people often are when caught unaware.

  ‘No, but …’ Grand was getting a crick in his neck. ‘Look, my dear, I had a letter from Mr Whistler and I have come to discuss it.’

  ‘He ain’t …’ The maid was suddenly whisked from sight and a petulant argument echoed down to Grand, still standing on the step. The voices overhead stopped and the sound of light feet running downstairs and across the hall culminated in the door being flung open so sharply that the man holding the handle almost flung himself back up the stairs.

  ‘And who might you be?’ he said, in fluting tones. Even in those few words, he gave away his Massachusetts birthplace.

  Grand, used to damping his accent down in general company, racked up his native Boston. ‘I’m Matthew Grand, Mr Whistler, sir,’ he said, dragging out the a’s and swallowing the consonants. ‘I believe you wrote me …’

  ‘Matthew Grand!’ The artist grabbed him by the arm and whisked him inside. ‘It surely is good of you to call.’ He slammed the door behind the enquiry agent and the house seemed to shake. The crying baby overhead seemed to redouble its volume. Whistler went to the foot of the stairs. ‘Maud!’

  Silence, save for the baby and the distant singing from the basement.

  ‘Maud!’

  This time, a female voice answered, almost drowned out by the baby. ‘Yes, James? What is it? I’m trying to quieten little Ione.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Whistler looked over his shoulder at Grand and grimaced. ‘Any children, Mr Grand?’

  Grand shook his head.

  ‘A blessing, a blessing I do declare, but sometimes a tad loud.’ He turned his face upwards again. ‘Maud!’

  This time the woman appeared on the landing. She was tall, slim and elegant and held the screaming child to her breast, which gleamed white in the shadows. ‘James.’ She sounded at the end of her tether. ‘As you see, I am trying to feed your child.’ There was a wealth of meaning in the single word ‘your’, which even Grand did not miss. ‘If you will give me a moment, I will be down to’ – she saw Grand for the first time and smiled a smile of fake welcome – ‘greet your guest, if that is what you are yelling about.’

  Whistler was a little downcast. ‘No, no, my dear,’ he said, above the noise. ‘I was just asking that perhaps you could keep her …’

  At this moment, the child seemed to realize what was expected of her and, with a last yell, latched onto her mother’s breast and all was peace.

  ‘Quiet.’ Whistler’s voice screamed out in the silence and the voice downstairs stopped with a startled squeak.

  The woman on the lan
ding hitched the child more comfortably into the crook of her arm and with a magnificent sweeping gesture, disappeared into the shadows.

  Whistler stood for a moment, with one foot on the lower stair, the other on the Turkey rug which took the coldness from the black and white tiles of the hall. There were pictures on every wall, some of recognizable subjects, others not, and Grand found that some made his eyes go funny, so he tried not to stare. He was trying to place Whistler from back home; Mrs Grand was an inveterate soirée hostess and he was sure their paths would have crossed at least once, but he couldn’t bring an occasion to mind. Whistler was clearly thinking the same.

  In their own ways, each man was easy to remember, Grand for his broad-shouldered physique and profile tending to the Grecian, Whistler for his wild, tousled black hair and a figure so slim and willowy he could hide behind Grand simply by turning sideways. He was tanned to a shade impossible to obtain in the thin spring London sunshine, and had a flashing eye and a ready smile; though when he released it, his mouth was petulant and surly. Grand, looking at him as he posed blatantly in a shaft of light coming through the hall window, was very much afraid that this man would be joining the long list of clients that neither he nor James Batchelor could really stomach.

  ‘As I said,’ Whistler said, finally relinquishing his pose and leading the way into an over-furnished sitting room, ‘thank you so much for calling. I have a little … problem with John Ruskin which you may know about …’

  Grand shrugged. He had found over the years that a well-timed shrug could speak volumes, especially when the other person liked the sound of their own voice as much as Whistler clearly did.

  ‘Exactly.’ The artist cast his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘The whole art world,’ he swung his head down and round, setting his curls bouncing, ‘the whole art world and beyond knows what that animal, that monster, said about me and my painting. I shall sue, of course. Am suing, I should say, as it is in the hands of my attorneys’ – he chuckled and corrected himself – ‘I mean solicitors – when in Rome, Matthew, when in Rome – as we speak. But what I need from you, if you would be so good as to take the case, is for all the dirt on Ruskin you can find.’

  Grand had been thinking while Whistler had been playing to a non-existent gallery. This man was not a natural for currying favour with a judge or jury, should it come to that. Many of the paintings in the hall seemed to have been done by a crazed baboon who had got into the paintbox. He kept a house where half-naked women shouted at him in front of guests. The little he had been able to find out about Whistler had not mentioned a wife, and yet there was clearly a wife-equivalent on the premises, unless he had guests who were unusually relaxed under his roof. So, Ruskin would have to be extremely louche and unusual to be worse. Yes, yes, Batchelor had told him all about the pubic hair or lack thereof incident, but did that make a man a bad critic? Was this a job that Grand and Batchelor, enquiry agents to the gentry, really needed? They were taking on staff. They were going up in the world. But there again, his mother and Whistler’s mother, before she moved to England to look after her darling boy, had been friends, in a going-to-the-same-soirées kind of way.

  ‘You look doubtful, Matthew,’ Whistler suddenly remarked, leaning forward and scanning Grand’s face minutely. ‘A painter knows every thought in your head, did you know that? You have millions of tiny muscles which all have a tale to tell. For example, at this moment, you are wondering how anyone who is sane could possibly say anything untoward about a painter as wonderful as myself. You are thinking, would it be fair to investigate Ruskin when he is so clearly unbalanced?’ He leaned back with a wild gesture of his arms and knocked several silver vases over, which crashed into the hearth and rolled irritatingly to and fro. ‘Am I right? Or am I right?’

  Grand smiled indeterminately. ‘Partially,’ he said and indeed, that wasn’t a lie. Some of the words had featured in his thoughts, just not in that order.

  ‘And of course, our mothers were friends, back in the day. I believe they still correspond.’

  ‘Oh.’ Grand was crestfallen. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Still firm friends.’ Whistler looked at Grand, lifting his rather hooded lids and staring intently.

  Grand wanted to say that his mother didn’t choose his clients for him, that a whole Atlantic sat between the two women and then some, but somehow, his heart wasn’t in it. He had intended all along to shift this one to James, to the lad who they would hopefully have employed before the day was out, at a pinch. So he smiled again and nodded.

  ‘We’d be delighted to help, Mr Whistler …’

  ‘Oh, please, James.’

  ‘If we might keep this on a professional footing, I think we will do better,’ Grand said, on his dignity.

  Whistler tossed his head and his curls bobbed theatrically. ‘As you wish. Anyhow, you’ll have no problem finding the dirt on Ruskin …’

  ‘We’re not looking for dirt,’ Grand reminded him. ‘We are investigating Mr Ruskin, no more, no less.’

  ‘As I said,’ Whistler continued as though Grand had not spoken, ‘you’ll have no problem finding the dirt on Ruskin. The man is as mad as a tree and he can’t keep his tongue behind his teeth for ready money, so you’ll find scads of people he has vilified already. We could all sue him, perhaps!’ Again, the hooded lids opened and the eyes flashed fire. ‘Imagine. We could ruin the little—’

  The door was barged open by the woman from the landing, a baby on her hip. ‘Not still going on about Ruskin, James, surely?’ she asked. ‘I do apologize, Mr …?’

  ‘Grand.’ Grand had bobbed to his feet at her entrance and she waved him back to his seat.

  ‘Mr Grand. I am afraid my …’ She paused, glancing at the painter.

  ‘Say it, say it, my dear!’ he carolled in his odd, high voice. ‘You are with like-minded people, don’t forget.’ He turned to Grand. ‘Maud here is my mistress, Matthew, my inamorata, my helpmeet, my querida, if you will. But though she has honoured me by harbouring in her body my children, the fruits of our love, she is a little shy over what to call me. One day, she may be honoured to call me husband, but … I am sorry, my heart’s delight, what did you say?’

  Grand, who had heard the woman’s muttered epithet, was too much of a gentleman to say and Whistler’s mistress shook her head, gesturing generally at the sleeping child.

  ‘Where was I?’ Whistler asked the pair, the room, the street, the city, the cosmos, his arms above his head and his voice fluting into almost impossible registers.

  ‘We were agreeing terms,’ Grand said, quickly, and couldn’t help but notice the desperate look of gratitude on the woman’s face.

  ‘Were we?’ Whistler was puzzled. He had no memory of that part of the conversation at all.

  Grand put his hand into the inside pocket of his coat and drew out a folded paper. ‘These are our standard terms,’ he said. ‘The minimum we work for is one week, but after that you can cancel at no notice. Terms are strictly cash, one week in advance and then on invoice. I do appreciate that you won’t have that kind of money on you today’ – and indeed, Whistler’s eyebrows had shot up a little as he unfolded the paper – ‘but by the end of business today to the address on the letterhead will ensure our prompt attention from first thing tomorrow morning. Should you decide not to go ahead I do understand, and a note to that effect before the start of business tomorrow will mean that no monies will be owing.’ Grand reached for his hat from where he had stowed it under the chair. ‘I hope that is all in order.’ He stood and bowed slightly to Whistler, raising his hat to his inamorata. ‘Good day.’

  ‘My, you’re your father’s son right enough,’ Whistler said. ‘Heredity’s a wonderful thing, sure enough.’ He was reminded of his mother’s Southern heritage and it showed in his speech. Maud sighed and hefted her daughter to a more comfortable position on her hip. This would mean biscuits and gravy for dinner and she would have to be prepared to repel not just her lover but the entire Army o
f West Virginia tonight, unless she missed her guess.

  Grand stepped gratefully out into the fresh air of Chelsea with misgiving; he wasn’t sure this was going to end well. Apart from anything else, he didn’t have the first clue what Ruskin was supposed to have done. He had better pop round and see Caroline.

  James Batchelor had been to Newgate before. It was a grim, grey, flat-roofed building under the dome of the Old Bailey and he hadn’t had to walk far from the Cheshire Cheese to get there. Gan Martin, with his Fox Talbot lens memory, was going to prove useful, but he was still a lad from Eton and Oxford and Batchelor wasn’t sure he was ready for the lowlife of the ancient prison, so he had sent him on his way, at least for now. William Penn, the Quaker, had done time here for preaching in the street. So had the playwright Ben Jonson, for killing somebody in a duel. The difference in these men’s crimes spoke volumes for the fads and prejudices of the society that put them there. Jonson had, bizarrely, pleaded benefit of clergy and got away with it; John Meiklejohn had no such excuses.

  ‘Tell me why I should talk to you at all,’ he said to Batchelor, sitting on the narrow iron bed-frame in Cell 312, the one with the rather desirable view of a grey stone wall, just like all the others.

  ‘Because, before the events of last year,’ Batchelor told him, ‘you used to be an inspector of the Detective Branch at Scotland Yard.’

  ‘And?’ Meiklejohn’s face showed no sign of regret, or remorse, or indeed, any emotion at all.

  ‘And I need to know about the Cremorne case – Mabel Glossop.’

  Meiklejohn looked again at the carte de visite that Batchelor had given him. ‘“Grand and Batchelor”,’ he read aloud, ‘“Enquiry Agents”. Good money in that, is there?’

  ‘We get by,’ Batchelor told him. He knew perfectly well that money was everything to Meiklejohn. That was why he was here, serving his two years with hard labour. And that was why he had agreed to see Batchelor in the first place. Spending half an hour with some nosy bastard was at least a break from the creaking grind of the treadmill, hands on the bar, knees buckling under the strain of kicking down the planks for fifteen minutes, climbing a thousand stairs to nowhere. Then, the pause. Two minutes to sit, to flex the fingers, to ease the back, unlock the elbows. And, just when you have, the whole thing starts all over again.