Last Nocturne

by M. J. Trow

  ‘What about your other students?’ Grand asked. ‘Do you see them? Do they use the same models as you?’

  ‘I only ever had the three. And no, they don’t use the same models. I hate to see the same faces over and over again. That woman with the face like a spoon, that generic pre-Raphaelite person – what’s her name? Bound to be Jane or Lizzie, they all use the same names these days. Well, her; she’s in all the paintings which are hung in any gallery. It’s enough to give you the fits. I use models sparingly and then I don’t always do their faces as they are.’

  ‘But Evangeline was very recognizable …’

  ‘Is it the Ariadne you’re talking about?’

  ‘Yes,’ Grand said, assuming that was so.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t something I was particularly invested in, to be honest. I am more interested now in my allegorical works, proving that all emotion and all of the human condition can be shown through art. This one, for example,’ he gestured to the huge canvas behind him, ‘is the Angel of Death. My intention here is to show that death is not choosy. He – or she; you see I have made the angel androgynous and the face very vague – is not swayed by the human condition, but comes to all without fear nor favour.’

  ‘If Evangeline had been in it,’ Batchelor said, ‘it would have made it worth more money.’

  Watts looked at him as if he had passed wind in church. ‘More money?’ he said, horrified. ‘What need have I of more money? Again, the other artists seek the gold of the buying public, whereas I’ – he raised his chin and his beard stuck out like a bottle brush – ‘I am above all that. I am G.F. Watts, after all. Do you know,’ he lowered his chin again and spoke low, as if the walls had ears, ‘when I go out, I have to wear a disguise, for fear I am recognized and mobbed.’

  ‘My goodness.’ Batchelor managed to think of something to say, though he had to agree it wasn’t much.

  ‘Yes. When I go out sketching, I wear a cape and a wide hat, pulled low. There are so very many peculiar people about.’

  ‘I don’t expect that makes you look like an artist,’ Grand said, employing all his powers of irony.

  ‘Well spotted!’ Watts agreed. ‘Indeed it does not. With a cane in my hand, I look like any gentleman out for a stroll. And then, when I see a pretty girl, or an interesting face or figure, I whip out my notebook and charcoal and sketch a likeness. Parks are a good place. Gardens in squares. Public houses, at a pinch.’

  ‘I see.’ Batchelor tried not to sound excited. ‘Do you use the Cremorne?’

  ‘I do, sometimes. But that idiot Whistler has rather spoiled the Cremorne for me. That thing of his in Purple and Dun or whatever it’s called.’

  ‘Nocturne in Blue and Gold,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘If you say so.’

  Grand decided to move on. ‘So what model hasn’t turned up?’ he asked.

  ‘This one.’ Watts gestured to the bottom left of the painting to where a figure was roughly sketched in. ‘It’s a cripple, showing death has no mercy. He is in supplication. See, can you see the head twisted towards Death, but to no avail.’

  ‘A man?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Watts said, with acid sarcasm. ‘Not all paintings are full of nude women, you know, Mr Batchelor – except all of Leighton’s, of course – though that may be all you are interested in, of course.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Batchelor replied, hotly. ‘I think … well, our minds are rather more on female models just now.’

  Watts had the grace to look a little shamefaced. ‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I was very flippant about poor Evangeline earlier and that was wrong of me. A nice enough girl in her way and a good model. She could adopt the oddest poses for hours without complaint. The best models for that are soldiers, oddly enough. If that ghastly Butler woman hasn’t collared them all. This one,’ and he pointed to the painting again, ‘was to have been a private from the Twenty-First Hussars. They have barracks just—’

  ‘Yes,’ Grand said, with a sidelong look at Batchelor, ‘we know where their barracks are.’

  ‘I use their chaps a lot. I have to watch them; they are a bit light-fingered, some of them. But isn’t everyone, these days? And, I say these days …’

  Grand could smell an old man’s rant coming on. His father was much the same.

  ‘I gave up taking students because things kept going missing. They denied it, of course, and I suppose it could have been the servants, but I had had enough. And I didn’t need the money, as I may have said.’

  Grand and Batchelor nodded in solemn agreement.

  ‘So I just got rid of them. We’re friends now, I suppose. But mostly, I keep to myself.’ Watts suddenly and rather disconcertingly closed one eye and put his hands out in front of his face, the thumbs and forefingers making a frame. He lined Grand up and turned his head this way and that. ‘Do you have muscles under that coat?’ he asked, suddenly.

  ‘Well,’ Grand was suddenly bashful. ‘I guess I’m not what I was …’

  ‘But still, muscles in all the right places?’

  Batchelor could see what was coming but Grand could not. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Perfect.’ Watts started to undo Grand’s coat. ‘Let’s get you stripped off and down on your knees. Look, I have a crutch and everything. There’s a robe, somewhere, but I could manage without if you’d rather be naked.’ Watts cocked his head like a robin spying a worm. ‘Well, come on. Sooner you’re done, sooner you’re done.’

  ‘But … I …’ An idea occurred to Grand and he snatched his coat out of the old man’s hands and started to do the buttons back up. ‘You said that character is a cripple, right?’

  ‘Right.’ Watts couldn’t see where this was leading.

  ‘Well, you said did I have muscles, and I do. So, you don’t want me for a cripple, do you? You want … well, you want a cripple.’

  Watts looked at him in horror and made another assault on his coat. ‘Nonsense! Whoever heard of anything so bloody ridiculous. Who wants a cripple up on their wall?’ He had managed to get the coat half off Grand’s shoulders. He was surprisingly strong. ‘You’ll be perfect.’

  Grand wrenched himself free. ‘No, I will not be perfect,’ he said. ‘I don’t have the time and, anyway, I am subject to cramp if I stay in one position. Mr Batchelor here will bear me out.’

  ‘Come, Matthew,’ Batchelor said, helping Watts divest Grand of his coat. ‘Just drop the kecks and let Mr Watts drape you in this toga thing here. That’s it. On your knees …’ Batchelor pushed him down. ‘What else, Mr Watts?’

  ‘Oh, oh,’ Watts was scurrying around gathering his paints, ‘if you can just lean on the knuckles of one hand … no, no, not that, the left. That’s it. And lean on the crutch under the other arm. Careful …’

  ‘God almighty!’ Grand said. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘There might be a few splinters. There. Now, lean over to the left. Not on the knuckles, no, leave those there. Just lean. Now, turn your head around and look up. At that point on the skylight, if you will. Perfect.’

  Batchelor looked down at Grand and knew he would not be forgiven for this for a good long while. But it was worth it.

  ‘You’ll pay for this,’ Grand muttered.

  ‘Yes, yes. Usual rates,’ Watts said. ‘Now, no talking. Genius is happening over here. And that’s all that matters, after all, isn’t it, gentlemen?’

  ‘Ah.’ Moses Metcalfe was waiting for the kettle to boil. The Walton Street nick wasn’t exactly state of the art, but the occasional mod con had crept in; a kettle was one example. ‘How’s the surveillance business, Twisleton?’

  ‘I think they’re on to me, guv.’ The constable was grateful to put his feet up. At least the weather was half decent – if it was raining it would be ten times worse.

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Metcalfe was lolling back in his chair, resting his clasped hands across his ample paunch.

  ‘They split up,’ Twisleton told him. ‘One on a bus, the other in a cab.’
>
  ‘Who did you follow?’

  ‘Batchelor. I figured I could watch the comings and goings off a bus easier than trailing a cab. I mean, they’re all so bloody alike, aren’t they?’

  ‘Seen one, seen ’em all,’ Metcalfe concurred. ‘Well, don’t make me suffer. Where’d they go?’

  Twisleton passed his notebook to his chief. Barnes arrived with two chipped cups. ‘Oh, didn’t see you there, Twis,’ he said. ‘Cuppa?’

  ‘Thanks. I’m parched.’

  ‘Hold that thought, Barnes.’ Metcalfe stopped the man in his tracks. ‘What’s this, Twisleton? Grand and Batchelor had breakfast with Daddy Bliss?’

  ‘Yessir,’ the tail said. ‘In the Inglenook as per my notes. Couldn’t quite make out what they had.’

  ‘Bugger what they had, Twisleton!’ Metcalfe snapped. ‘I want to know what they said. Next time, I’ll send somebody who can lip-read. Never mind, they won’t have got much out of Daddy; tight as a gnat’s arse, that one. Who’s this?’ Twisleton may not have been able to read lips, but he could read upside down, especially when the writing was his own.

  ‘G.F. Watts, guv,’ Twisleton said. ‘Painter.’

  ‘Yes, I know who he is, Constable, thank you. Young Barnes and I could only have left there half an hour before – if that – if your timings are correct.’

  ‘So he’s part of the Cremorne case?’ Twisleton asked.

  Metcalfe slurped his tea and looked at the man narrowly. ‘I’ve been telling everybody you’re a university graduate, Twisleton – Oxford. Is that true?’

  ‘Yessir.’ Twisleton sat upright.

  ‘Did you actually pass?’ the inspector asked. ‘Do you have a degree?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Twisleton acknowledged. ‘I went down.’

  ‘Went, or were sent?’ Metcalfe queried.

  ‘Er … technically, the former.’

  ‘Oh, now he comes out with the long words!’ Metcalfe was rummaging among his papers, looking for his pipe. ‘You’ll forgive me for saying this, Twisleton, but for an Oxford man, you sound very much like Walthamstow.’

  Twisleton shrugged. ‘It’s a persona I adopted,’ his accent was suddenly cut-glass, ‘so as to blend with the hoi polloi.’

  Metcalfe looked at him. ‘Stick to Walthamstow,’ he advised the man, ‘for fear I may have to start looking up to you. Why did you “go down”, as you snobby boys apparently say?’

  ‘There was a bit of a misunderstanding with a bedder – er, maid, sir. Put it about that I was the father of her child.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, at least,’ Metcalfe said. ‘I thought all you Oxford types were Maryannes.’

  ‘I didn’t go to Merton, Inspector!’ Twisleton reminded him.

  ‘Right,’ Metcalfe sighed. ‘So, Grand and Batchelor are half an hour behind us. But they don’t have’ – he slid a piece of paper across the table – ‘this.’

  Barnes had come back with Twisleton’s tea. He pulled up a chair and read the contents of the paper. ‘So, it was cyanide,’ he said, ‘Evangeline French.’

  ‘They don’t muck about at Tommy’s,’ Metcalfe said. ‘If St Thomas’s Hospital says “cyanide”, who are we to query it?’

  ‘So, why the lake, guv?’ Barnes asked. ‘It fits the pattern of the others, and yet …’

  ‘He’s experimenting,’ Twisleton said.

  ‘Do what?’ Metcalfe frowned.

  ‘The murderer. He’s trying out new ideas, a bit like a painter, talking of G.F. Watts. First he’ll try gouache, then oils, turn his canvas to landscape or portrait, try reds and blues or greens and browns, searching for just the right milieu.’

  ‘Walthamstow,’ Metcalfe reminded Twisleton quietly.

  ‘What suits him best,’ Twisleton lapsed effortlessly into his East London alter ego again.

  ‘So,’ Metcalfe was thinking it through, ‘he didn’t like leaving his corpses on dry land, so he dunks this one in the water.’

  Barnes was trying to piece things together. ‘First one, eighteen months ago, mind you, lying on the grass.’

  ‘Posed?’ Metcalfe asked.

  Barnes looked at him oddly.

  ‘Were her parts on display, Constable?’ Metcalfe had to spell it out.

  ‘No note of that, sir,’ he said, more than a little horrified.

  ‘What about the second one?’ Metcalfe asked. ‘The first in the current series.’

  ‘Sitting on a bench,’ Barnes reminded him.

  ‘And the fourth in the lake.’

  ‘What happened to the third?’ Had Twisleton left the bedder alone, he would have gained a BSc in Advanced Mathematics, so he couldn’t let that go. As he was usually on surveillance duty, he was not all that au fait with the Cremorne case.

  ‘Bloke,’ Metcalfe said. ‘Some sort of peculiar Maryanne.’

  ‘Found half-hidden under a bush,’ Barnes told him.

  ‘So, he’s different, then?’ Twisleton said.

  ‘Bravo, Constable.’ Metcalfe had at last found his pipe. Now the search was on for the tobacco. ‘I can see all those weeks at Oxford weren’t totally wasted.’

  ‘No, I mean, apart from the gender issue … er … the fact that he was a bloke. Hiding the body isn’t what our friend does, is it? He’s proud of his work, wants us all to see it.’

  ‘And there was no book,’ Barnes nodded.

  ‘Book?’ This was the first that Twisleton had heard of any books being involved.

  ‘Books were found near the deceased in the cases of all three women but not the man. These.’ He passed the list to Twisleton, miraculously to hand given the chaos of his desk.

  ‘Well, look at that!’ Twisleton chuckled.

  ‘What?’ Metcalfe was losing his grip on the conversation.

  ‘King of the Golden River by John Ruskin.’

  ‘So?’ Metcalfe snapped.

  ‘I don’t think you got to the end of my report, guv,’ Twisleton said. ‘Altercation … um … punch-up between two geezers in the Aldwych – Whistler and Ruskin.’

  Metcalfe pursed his lips. These university men needed keeping in their place. ‘Common enough name,’ he said, tapping some papers into a neater pile and inadvertently finding his tobacco. ‘I had an old teacher called Ruskin.’ This was a lie, but it needed saying. Altogether too uppity, some of these youngsters.

  ‘Well done, sir.’ Twisleton realized he was letting his sarcasm show and carried on, more humbly. ‘Be that as it may, though – this was not just someone called Ruskin; this was the John Ruskin. Author of this book. And he was fighting with a client of Grand and Batchelor.’

  Twisleton waited for the penny to drop and had the pleasure of seeing Metcalfe’s eyes start out of his head. ‘Do I still have to follow them, guv?’ He realized as he spoke what the answer would be.

  ‘Still have to follow them?’ Metcalfe said. ‘Keep on their trail even more, Constable Twisleton. Don’t take your eyes off them.’ He slammed his hand down on the desk and his tobacco pouch jumped off and scattered its contents on the floor. ‘I knew there was something dodgy about those two. Enquiry agents, my arse. I’ll have them in quod before this week is out, or my name’s not Thomas Fazackerley Metcalfe.’

  Batchelor looked at his friend with a smile on his face, but it wasn’t unkind. He had always stood out among the reporters at the Telegraph as being reasonably fit, but next to Grand, he was a weakling. So to see the American hobble from the drinks tray, using the furniture for support, and then have to lower himself onto his chair with muted cries of pain did make rather a pleasant change.

  Stifling an urge to laugh, he said, ‘Are you all right, Matthew? Really, don’t just grunt.’ He’d had little else as response ever since the cabbie had helped him half carry the American in that evening. ‘I will be the first to admit it didn’t look very comfortable, but you didn’t complain at the time.’

  Grand took a huge swig of his bourbon and leaned carefully back in
his chair. ‘At the time,’ he said, not moving his head, ‘it didn’t hurt. There were pins and needles for a while, but after that, nothing. I think the splinter in the armpit was the worst, but even that went away after a bit.’

  ‘You should have said,’ Batchelor said with exaggerated sympathy.

  ‘Every time I opened my mouth to speak, that mad old bastard told me to be quiet.’

  ‘You didn’t have to stay,’ Batchelor pointed out. ‘You weren’t doing it for the fee, after all. You could have just got up and walked away.’

  Grand closed his eyes. ‘I could,’ he agreed, ‘I could. Looking back now, I don’t know why I didn’t. But there’s something about him, I don’t know – he doesn’t shout, and he isn’t very big, but you don’t want to cross him. Do you know what I mean?’

  Batchelor did. He hadn’t been half naked on his knees at the time, but even so, the strength of the man’s personality had been very strong. He nodded, then realized that Grand couldn’t turn his head to the right yet to get him in his eyeline, so added, ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘I reckon he’s our man,’ Grand said, sipping his drink. He really wanted to knock it back in one, but just didn’t have the neck muscles for it right then.

  ‘No!’ Batchelor laughed. ‘Of course he isn’t. Look at him – he’s old.’

  ‘He looks old,’ Grand corrected him. ‘Did you see him wrestle me out of my coat? And shinning up and down ladders all day for those big canvases. Moving the big canvases, if it comes to that. No, mark my words, he’s our boy.’

  ‘Why?’ Batchelor thought that was a perfectly reasonable question.

  ‘Why? When did “why” ever matter? Because he’s bonkers. Because Evangeline French had something on him and so he wanted her dead.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Time will tell,’ Grand said, portentously, ‘that they were also his models. As was,’ he waggled his glass at Batchelor who took pity and refilled it for him, ‘Anstruther Peebles.’

  ‘Unlikely?’ suggested Batchelor, handed him his glass.

  ‘Why? His regiment supplies models to Watts. Why not him?’

  ‘Well, he’s a lieutenant. Surely, it’s only the ranks who model for pocket money.’