by Andy Conway
The inspector stormed through to the cells, his boots sparking up cinders on the floor. Arthur watched the constable explain things to Desk Sergeant Wake, whose eyes fell on Arthur, and he knew it then — he knew that whatever had happened, it had proved that Daniel was innocent.
He shot up and approached the desk.
“What’s happened? I know it’s something regarding my friend.”
“Afraid I can’t tell you anything, sir.”
“I know it’s something. You, man, tell me what it is.”
The constable looked at Desk Sergeant Wake and opened his mouth to blurt it out.
“He can’t tell you either. You’ll know in due course.”
“He’s free to go isn’t he?”
They looked at each other and something in the way the constable blushed some more and looked at the floor made it clear to him. Arthur took off his boater and slapped it. “By Jove! He’s free!”
From the dark corridor leading to the bedlam of the cells, Beadle emerged, and in his tow was the giant bulk of Sergeant Macpherson who, with two constables, was leading Daniel, still handcuffed.
Arthur rushed forward to greet his friend, who was weeping.
“It’s all right, Daniel You’re free! Something’s happened.”
Macpherson pushed him back with an uncouth prod to his chest, and they led Daniel behind the desk, sitting him down facing Beadle.
“I demand to know what is happening!” Arthur yelled, banging his fist on the desk. He rather feared that several hours in this place had turned him into one of the raging drunks that he’d seen processed in large numbers.
Desk Sergeant Wake looked at Beadle, who nodded his assent.
“There’s been a development,” said the desk sergeant. “He’s free to go.”
“I knew it!” Arthur threw his boater in the air and danced a little jig around the waiting area. “I’m taking you home, Daniel!”
But there was something in their awkward deference. Something about this wasn’t entirely good news.
“It’s the killer,” said Beadle. “He’s struck again. But continue your merry dance if it pleases you.”
Arthur picked up his boater and stepped forward, drumming his fingers on the desk.
“Very sad news, of course. But not for my friend here, who is obviously innocent of all your charges and is now free to go. Come on Daniel, I’m taking you home this instant!”
“We need to ask some more questions,” said Beadle.
“Oh no you bloody well do not!” Arthur cried, anger boiling over in him, although he immediately regretted swearing so uncouthly. This place really had brought out the worst in him, as he imagined it must do with people of all classes. “I am taking him out of this madhouse. If you wish to interview him again, you can make an appointment to call. Now uncuff him, this instant.”
Beadle nodded to Macpherson and they unlocked the cuffs around his friend’s wrists. Daniel didn’t seem at all overjoyed at this turn in events, only stared ahead, vacantly. The shock had obviously addled his poor brain.
“You will be hearing more of this,” said Arthur. “But for the moment, you will take myself and Mr Pearce here, back to his dwelling in a private carriage as befits his status as a gentleman.”
Beadle nodded to one of his constables, who rushed out, presumably to hail a hackney.
“And you can use that dreadful prison on wheels with which you brought us here to load every single painting you took from his studio and return them with us, immediately.”
“I’m afraid that’s evidence, sir,” said Macpherson.
“It is nothing of the sort! It is an extremely valuable collection of art, and if there is one iota of damage to any of it, you are looking at a very large and expensive bill.”
“We’ll send them over in the morning,” said Beadle, wearily.
“You certainly will not! These are valuable paintings and we are not leaving them here in a common lock-up to be damaged and God knows what. Get them in that wagon right away!”
Beadle rose and screwed up his report and looked for his waste paper basket. He’d kicked it across the room. “Fine!” he shouted. “Get these men out of my station, and those obscene paintings too!”
Macpherson took two constables and headed to the interrogation room with them, and they appeared moments later carrying each painting.
Arthur put an arm around his dazed friend until the constable that had gone to hail the cab returned and informed him it was waiting outside.
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” he said and walked Daniel out of there.
Outside the evening air was crisp and chill for what had been such a warm day. The cab was a mere Victoria, but it didn’t matter. He made the driver wait while he watched them load every painting into the paddy wagon and instructed them to drive on to the address where they would follow.
He had put Daniel in the cab and was ready to board himself when Beadle walked out, approaching with quick strides. What fresh hell was this? He climbed in and was ready to instruct the driver to go. If Beadle wanted to drag Daniel back into the cells on some flimsy technicality he’d have a chase on his hands first.
“I should tell you,” said Beadle. “The news isn’t as good as you imagine.”
“The killer has struck again while you had Daniel locked in a cell,” said Arthur. “It means he’s innocent and is free to go.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
There was something about Beadle’s crestfallen manner. This wasn’t some bitter parting shot. That awkward deference again: the eternal pantomime of bad news.
“What is it?”
“It’s who he struck.”
“What’s happened?”
Beadle looked past Arthur at Daniel. “I’m afraid it’s your wife to be, sir. I’m afraid there’s to be no wedding tomorrow. I’m very sorry, sir.”
35
DANIEL EMERGED FROM his trance as if jolted with electricity. Was there no end to the horrors of this day?
Beadle quickly added that Arabella was alive. The killer had struck. The same killer, there was no doubt about that. But Arabella had screamed and alerted her father, who’d fought him off.
Daniel felt sobs of relief flood his throat. He had seen it happen. He had floated from his cell and swooped down like a bird of prey on her, attempting to kill her, but it had been foiled. Thank God, her father had stopped him.
No one was safe from him, not even his sweetheart. The police had let him free to kill again. There was only one thing he could do and that was to let Arthur take him home, pretend to be tired, let him put him to bed, then, as soon as his friend was asleep, take his razor and open his own veins and put an end to these killings.
He would write a long note confessing all and apologizing above all to Arabella. But it was best that he never lived to see the morning.
“Where is she?” Arthur demanded.
“He can’t see her,” said Beadle. “She’s at home, being attended by her parents. But I have to warn you that if he goes anywhere near the place, I’ll have him arrested again.”
“God damn you, man!” Arthur cried. “He has every right to visit his sick fiancée!”
“He does,” Beadle admitted. “And if it were up to me, I wouldn’t care. But I was instructed by her father this afternoon, that Mr Pearce be allowed nowhere near his daughter.”
This news, and the calm way in which Beadle had relayed it, took the wind out of Arthur’s sails. It felt like defeat. Bitter defeat. But it gave Daniel hope. It was best that he was nowhere near her in case Jack came out of him again. He would end it tonight, quickly and quietly.
“But that,” Arthur protested, “was after you arrested Mr Pearce for the murders, which you now know not to be the case!”
“Until I receive word,” said Beadle, “I shall have to continue as instructed. Go home and be thankful that you may do so.”
“This is a ridiculous technicality!” Arthur shouted.
Daniel
tugged at his friend’s sleeve. “It’s fine, Arthur. Let’s go. Let Arabella rest for the night. I rather think I am the last man she needs to see right now.”
“You are still her fiancé,” said Arthur. “Do not let anything that happened today change that.”
Daniel felt tears spring to his eyes. Arthur was such a sweet friend. He had done nothing to deserve him.
Beadle stepped back as the paddy wagon loaded with the paintings pulled out, horse hooves clopping on the asphalt. To Daniel, it looked like the inspector bore no malice. A killer was out there, and it had been proved, beyond all scientific and rational doubt, that Daniel was not the man. But he didn’t know that Daniel had the power to fly through prison bars and materialize anywhere he chose. How could he? How could any of them?
Beadle had failed to catch the killer, but Daniel knew it was now left to himself to solve this case and dispense justice, which he would perform at home with a razor.
“Drive on,” he said, and the cab pulled away.
36
ARTHUR SUPERVISED THE return of the paintings as far as Daniel’s living room. He did not want the clumsy policemen venturing any further into the house, certainly not clodhopping their way through to the garden in the dark and attempting to place them in the summer house.
So they were laid around the parlour as the two men slumped into chairs. Daniel had a strange smile on his face. It was altogether inappropriate, therefore worrying. But with the strain his mind had been through this day it could be a nervous tic. He had seen men laugh while surrounded by unimaginable horror, so this was nothing.
“A nightcap perhaps,” said Daniel.
He pointed to the ornate drinks cabinet where a bottle of Scotch sat all alone. Arthur fished it out with two shot glasses and poured it.
There was something about the taste of it that made everything seem better. It was silly and inappropriate, but there it was. He crossed his legs and sank back into the sofa and examined his old friend through the pleasant fog of peat and brine.
“She will be fine, old chap,” he said. “Thank God she was saved. Perhaps you’ll be able to see her tomorrow.”
Daniel shook his head, his smile fading. “Never. She is safer well away from me.”
“How so?”
“I am the killer.”
Arthur lurched forward, appalled. He had taken his friend’s calmness for certainty, but it appeared he still believed he might be the killer.
“But Daniel. You were in prison when the killer struck again!”
“I don’t think that matters, Arthur.”
“A man can’t defy the laws of physics. He can’t walk through a prison wall, attack a woman and then walk back through that prison wall again, all in the blink of an eye.”
Arthur smiled and tried to look jovial, but deep inside he felt the uncertainty of a man who expresses a truth he has known all his life but, once uttered, realizes he has been taught a lie.
“Can’t he?” said Daniel. “You see, I think I have. I think I’ve done that before. I think I’m a monster.”
The words that Arthur needed to say — the words that would dismiss Daniel’s belief as nonsense — spluttered and choked in his throat, and he knew suddenly that he had ceased to believe in them. He knew that this day had shaken his old certainties to their foundations.
He drained his glass and stood and picked up the pamphlet What is the Fourth Dimension? and felt his head begin to whirl.
“The paintings, Arthur. Look at them.”
Arthur did so, even though he had tried to avoid looking at them. They unnerved him, and it wasn’t merely the unsettling modern techniques on show and the clumsy nakedness of the models, which was anything but alluring. No. It was the impossible truth they represented.
“Only the killer could have painted them, Arthur. Beadle is right about that.”
“Perhaps, you only saw what the killer saw,” Arthur stammered. “Through some process of premonition or telepathy?”
Daniel smirked again. “And this is your scientific, rational explanation for it?”
“It is surely more likely than your ability to fly through prison bars?”
“So what one person sees can be telegraphed into the mind of another person?”
“Telegraphed. Yes! Why not? Isn’t a telegraph an unimaginable process that is now invented, by science?”
“You’re forgetting that I painted them before they happened, Arthur. I saw them before the killer.”
“Premonition, then.”
“Which is hardly accepted by science.”
Arthur’s head swam and he crouched before one of the paintings only to steady himself. For the first time in his adult life, the scientific, the rational, had been torn asunder and found wanting in the explanation of what he could see with his own eyes.
“Your paintings,” he said, his words almost catching in his throat, they seemed such blasphemy. “If you painted them from your imagination, and they are the murder victims and their rooms, and we have proved that you could not have been the murderer, then it follows that there is only one conclusion. You saw the future.”
“Arthur,” Daniel laughed. “This is so unlike you.”
“Remember how I said that what remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
“Once the impossible was eliminated. And what you are proposing is the impossible.”
“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy. Isn’t that what Shakespeare tells us?”
“Through Hamlet, a character who is quite unhinged.”
“I think perhaps he is more sane than any of us.” He could see it now; he felt it course through him with utter and total certainty. “You painted them before they happened. Ergo, you painted not the past, Daniel, but the future. That means you saw it before it happened, and we know you were not present while the latest murder attempt happened. Therefore you are not the killer, Daniel. But you have seen what he has seen.”
He pointed to the paintings to emphasise that they displayed the incontrovertible truth of his assertion, and he saw the doubt in his friend’s mind. He fished for one more thing to convince him of his innocence. Arabella. Of course!
“Daniel, you said that when Arabella saw your paintings this morning she was shocked by them—”
“Disgusted, yes.”
Arthur gripped the arms of the chair. “And you said she was particularly disgusted to see herself as one of the models, yes?”
“That’s right, Arthur. What are you getting at?”
Arthur pointed to the paintings leaning against the far wall. “If you painted Arabella like that, and you painted others who were attacked by the killer, then doesn’t it follow that you painted the attack on Arabella tonight?”
Daniel’s face took on a certain look that Arthur had tried to describe in his stories: the look of a character who had just had a great mystery solved by the genius mind of Sherlock Holmes. Even as he gazed at his friend and felt joy that he was finally winning him over, he still found himself searching for the right words with which to describe the look.
“Which painting is it?”
Daniel pushed himself from his chair and crawled across the parlour rug, like a man twice his age. He took hold of a gloomy mess of muddy ochre and dirty blue and Arthur tried to discern what it depicted. A naked woman lying on a bed, hands behind her head, legs open. He felt the blush cover his cheeks and was relieved that Daniel was too engrossed in the painting to notice.
“Is, er, that her, ah, bedroom?”
Daniel shook his head. “No. I don’t believe it is. She has a brass bedstead. Very ornate. I have not seen it, you understand, but she has mentioned it as part of her dowry. It is to be our marriage bed. Was to be.”
“But in the painting there is no bedstead. Does she have that picture of Christ Church above her bed?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur rubbed his chin and paced the parlour rug as he imagined Sherlo
ck might, although it was more to avoid looking at the sight of his friend’s fiancée naked.
“Are you sure that is the painting of Arabella? You see, the painting of Christ Church was above Louisa Gill’s bed.”
“But she too had a brass bedstead. No, this is definitely Arabella. I didn’t know when I was painting it, but after she pointed it out to me, the likeness was obvious.”
“Hmmm, I see,” said Arthur, examining the opposite wall. “So why have you put the same painting above Arabella’s bed?”
“Look here,” said Daniel.
Arthur turned, although he very much didn’t want to. His friend was kneeling before the canvas, holding it in his hands, trying to decode the smears of paint.
“There’s no frame.”
“Should there be?”
“No, not this painting. There’s no frame on the picture of Christ Church above her bed. See?”
Arthur walked over and peered closely, desperately trying to force his eyes to look at the image of Christ Church above the bed, and nothing else. “Is it painted on the wall?
“It’s not painted anywhere,” said Daniel with a sudden gasp. “It’s Christ Church in the background.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you see? This is not a painting of Arabella lying on a bed, in a room, with a picture of Christ Church on the wall above her. It’s Arabella lying on something else, outside, in the open, somewhere near Christ Church.”
Arthur examined the grey mass around the woman’s naked limbs, squinting to make sense of it. “My word! It’s not a bed. It’s a gravestone!”
“She’s lying on a gravestone,” said Daniel. “Oh my God. I had a dream about her gravestone.”
“No, Daniel,” said Arthur, shaking his head and clapping his hands in triumph. “Don’t you see? This isn’t a picture of a dream. This is a painting of the future. It is yet to happen.”
Daniel dropped the canvas and stood, his face quite pale. “We must save her. Now!”