Last Nocturne

by M. J. Trow

  Batchelor knew that Grand was about to share his experiences, so spoke quickly. ‘Thank you, Alexander.’ He somehow thought Gan was not appropriate now that Wilde had moved on to more famous climes. ‘Well done.’

  Martin beamed; he loved nothing so much as praise.

  ‘I think we should perhaps go round to the Grosvenor one more time,’ Grand said. ‘I can’t help wondering whether Saunders might know more than he’s saying.’

  Martin chimed in. ‘When I was there with Mr Whistler,’ he said, ‘he struck me as a very short-tempered gentleman, but not one very au fait with art. He is a salesman more than an art aficionado, one might say.’

  ‘One certainly might,’ Grand said dryly. ‘I might say he is a barrow boy made good. The accent slips from time to time.’

  Batchelor was surprised and impressed. ‘How can you tell?’ he asked. ‘Don’t we all sound the same to you?’

  ‘James,’ Grand said, patiently. ‘You have known me, man and boy, for thirteen years now, and I know you love to think I am a Yankee in London who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. But I can tell accents, just like you can. And a man trying to sound as if he comes from one side of the tracks when he is clearly from another is as clear to me as the next cuss. Also,’ Grand smoothed an already perfect lapel, ‘he doesn’t have a tailor so much as a peg.’

  Batchelor decided to swallow his confusion and get on with the plan. ‘If he isn’t any good at judging art, then how can he help us?’

  ‘Just because he isn’t in their world, he might see things that the artists don’t. And also, I think he is a bit of a gossip. I would love to get inside that gallery out of hours, see what goes on.’

  ‘You could hide,’ Martin suggested. ‘It’s full of odd corners, stacks of canvases, packing cases, all that sort of thing.’

  ‘How would we manage to stay there, though?’ Batchelor wondered. ‘They count you in and count you out.’

  ‘Old Joe might be able to help,’ Grand said. ‘He isn’t much as regards security, but he must know that place like the back of his hand. He must be able to find us a place to hide.’

  ‘If he’ll help,’ Batchelor pointed out, remembering the drubbing he’d received at the man’s hands. ‘He does work for Saunders, after all.’

  ‘We’ll offer him a bribe,’ Grand said, bluntly. ‘Every man has his price. Let’s go round now and see what Joe’s is, shall we?’ He reached for his hat. ‘Coming, Alexander?’

  ‘May I?’ Martin was excited. This was real sleuthing, hiding and everything. Perhaps they would let him actually do the hiding. Though he wasn’t that keen on the dark …

  Grand and Batchelor had timed arrivals better in their careers. They got out of their cab outside the Grosvenor gallery as Joe stumbled out of the door carrying two bulging sacks, watched over by a very tight-lipped Terence Saunders, standing in the doorway with arms folded.

  ‘Joe?’ Batchelor held the man’s shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Sacked me, innee?’ Joe choked on a laugh as he held his sacks up. ‘Chucked me out on account of somebody messing with the gamekeeper’s daughter.’

  Batchelor blinked. He couldn’t immediately see how that could involve Joe. And how many gamekeepers were there in London, let alone ones with daughters.

  Martin helped him out. ‘I would imagine,’ he said, in the slightly automaton tones he affected when remembering something, ‘that he is referring to the study of The Gamekeeper’s Daughter, by Valentine Cameron Prinsep. It hangs in the Long Gallery here and is considered to be one of his best works.’

  Grand and Batchelor looked at Joe, who nodded and coughed again, spitting out the dog-end which had been adhering to his lip. ‘That’s the girlie,’ he said. ‘Somebody got in and painted lanterns in the background. His Nibs,’ he gestured with a thumb over his shoulder, ‘got his rag out well and truly. Said it was my fault.’

  Grand felt he must play devil’s advocate on this one. ‘Well, you are the nightwatchman,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Wuz,’ Joe said, bitterly.

  ‘You can see how he might be annoyed, though?’

  ‘Well … yeah. But if he puts me down in the basement to sleep, it’s no wonder I don’t hear what’s going on overhead.’

  ‘But you patrolled, though?’ Grand needed all his ducks in a row if he was going to plead with Saunders for Joe’s reinstatement.

  ‘’Course. He’s moanin’ I didn’t notice, but I can’t notice everything, can I?’

  Martin gasped slightly – the mere thought of that made him feel a little queasy.

  ‘Stay here,’ Grand said. ‘I’ll have a word.’

  Grand walked steadily up to the doors of the Grosvenor, blocked as they were by the seemingly implacable Saunders. He pushed and Saunders had to step back or be knocked over. Batchelor, Martin and Joe watched as Grand worked his magic and Batchelor thought again what a good job it was that he was on the side of the good guys; the man could sell sand to Arabs.

  Finally, Grand turned and waved Joe back inside.

  ‘Mr Saunders has decided to give you another chance, Joe,’ Grand said. ‘He realizes that perhaps asking you to stay awake all day and then check hourly all night is just too much and so he will employ cleaners for your day duties and you can just do the night shift. Because that might take a day or two, he will be doing the sweeping himself until that can happen. So, if you would like to take your things back to your room, we’ll say no more about it.’ Grand beamed at Saunders. ‘That’s about it, Mr Saunders, isn’t it?’

  Saunders nodded; the smile on his face was like the silver plate on a coffin. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m very sorry, Joe. I overreacted when I saw the damage to the painting.’

  ‘Which …?’ Grand prompted.

  ‘Which is easily put right, I’m sure.’

  ‘Thank you very much, guv’nor,’ Joe said, touching the brim of his cap. ‘And you, guv’nor,’ to Grand. ‘Come down and see me before you go. I’ll make you a cuppa tea.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grand, with his typical New World courtesy. ‘I believe I will.’

  Martin was open-mouthed and even Batchelor couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. Grand had excelled himself.

  Meanwhile, Saunders had regained his poise. ‘And of course, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I would be delighted if you would like to look around. The Gamekeeper’s Daughter is with the restorer in the rear workroom, but otherwise, I believe we are all present and correct. Ha.’ He ended with what at the moment was passing for a laugh. What he needed was a lie-down and a glass of something restorative. Then he would have to get on with the sweeping, he supposed. He turned an eye to the doorman, who read his mind.

  ‘No, Mr Saunders,’ he said, quickly. ‘I don’t do sweeping.’ He lifted one foot then the other, ‘Flat feet, see. Interferes with the bristles.’

  It sounded unlikely, but Saunders was almost beyond caring. He went to his office behind the reception desk and took out the brandy from the drawer marked ‘receipts’ and poured a hefty snifter. He lay back in the chair, his eyes closed and the brandy clutched to his chest. When, oh Lord, he asked no one in particular, was this all going to end?

  In the gallery, the three men wandered along the walls, looking at all the pictures with fresh eyes. Martin was murmuring to himself as he took notes. There were far more changes to the pictures – now he had his eye in – than he had seen before. Nothing huge and sometimes, he had to admit, the change was an improvement. Everyone knew Frederic Leighton was rubbish at feet, and yet here, in his painting of girls picking up shells, the one in the foreground actually had toes, instead of the fuzzy things on the ends of the other girls’ feet. He pointed it out to Batchelor, who nodded agreement.

  Batchelor waited for Grand to explain how he had achieved the impossible, but it was obvious he would wait all day, so he asked outright.

  ‘I just told him that if he didn’t reinstate Joe, I would take his largest canvas and shove i
t up his ass, frame and all.’

  ‘And there was me thinking you had sweet-talked him,’ Batchelor said, disappointed.

  Grand was surprised. He had thought he had sweet-talked him.

  After they had walked the length and breadth of the gallery, Martin showed his employers a list of paintings which in his opinion had been adulterated. It was every one within easy reach of the floor, as simple as that.

  ‘Alexander,’ Batchelor said, having checked the list, ‘is there anything else, apart from accessibility, that these painters have in common?’

  Martin’s eyes took on the rather glazed look the enquiry agents had begun to recognize. ‘One is by Whistler, who is a client of yours. One is by Ruskin, who is … whatever the opposite of client is.’

  ‘Anti-client?’ Batchelor suggested, but was ignored.

  ‘One is by a student of G.F. Watts, whose model was killed in the Cremorne, which also, by the way, links to Whistler, as his painting is set there. Umm …’ Martin felt there were more links, but he needed to sit down and work them out in diagram form. In a perfect world, he would be able to liaise with his old mathematics mentor from Cambridge, Dr Venn, but he knew that wasn’t possible this time. Even so, there was a pattern there, he knew.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Batchelor said. ‘That there are any links at all is quite remarkable.’

  Martin looked at him with pitying eyes – the man clearly had no idea.

  ‘The thing is, how are we going to find out in the first place who is doing it; secondly, why; and thirdly …’

  ‘The ghost of the Grosvenor!’ Grand clicked his fingers.

  ‘Are you serious?’ Martin might be afraid of the dark, but without empirical evidence, he found it hard to believe in ghosts.

  ‘No,’ Grand said. ‘But many people are.’

  ‘Thirdly …’ It upset Martin’s psyche to leave a list incomplete.

  ‘Sorry,’ Batchelor said, kindly. ‘Thirdly what?’

  Martin’s shoulders sagged. ‘I can’t remember. Perhaps there wasn’t even a thirdly.’ His eyes were haunted. ‘This gallery is very odd. There is something about the dimensions, I don’t know … it’s lopsided, somehow.’

  ‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Grand said, shepherding the lad towards the exit. ‘I’ll be along in a minute. All I need to do now is to ask Mr Saunders what would be the best night for a séance.’

  Terence Saunders leaned on his broom and shook his head. ‘Absolutely not!’ he said. ‘It is totally and categorically out of the question. Sir Coutts and Lady Blanche would never allow it.’

  ‘What, not even if I told them that Lady Mary Wentworth would be of the party?’

  ‘Is she? Of the party?’

  ‘I have no idea. But as the affianced of her daughter, I have a certain amount of clout, wouldn’t you say?’

  Saunders risked a snort. ‘As her daughter seems to be some kind of insane lush, I really wouldn’t know.’

  Grand closed to him and grabbed him so that his collar studs popped. ‘I happen to love that insane lush dearly. And if I hear another word against her, you will find your head where the sun don’t shine. So,’ he dropped the gallery assistant back onto his feet and pulled his jacket straight, ‘do I get my séance, or don’t I?’

  Saunders coughed. ‘Would Thursday evening suit?’

  ‘Thursday would be dandy. And by the way,’ Grand pointed into a corner, ‘you’ve missed a bit.’

  ‘So the séance, again?’ Batchelor and Martin were both fairly agog. It seemed to be counter-productive, to fill the gallery with people when all common sense pointed to the damage only happening when it was empty.

  ‘At a séance,’ Grand began, then had a sudden thought. ‘Have you guys ever been to a séance?’

  They both shook their heads. Miss Wolstenholme coughed lightly.

  ‘Yes?’ Grand looked at her as she sat, half turned from her spread page of practice Pitman’s.

  ‘We sometimes use a Ouija at my lodgings,’ she said. ‘We have found some very interesting things. Mostly about the Prince of Wales; our control is very in tune with the royal family. Apparently,’ she leaned further back out of her chair so she could lower her voice to a conspiratorial husk, ‘he likes to …’

  ‘I think we all know that about the Prince of Wales, Miss Wolstenholme, but thank you all the same. At a séance,’ Grand went on, ‘people drop their guard. They get carried away with the proceedings and they let out all kinds of things that they would keep to themselves under other circumstances. My mother loves nothing better than turning the odd table, and she’s been doing it since I can remember. My sister and I often had to make up numbers and I have to say, it’s not always easy to explain what goes on.’

  Martin rolled his eyes. ‘Everything has an explanation, Mr Grand,’ he said. ‘Nothing on this earth is totally inexplicable.’

  ‘I daresay you’re right,’ Grand agreed. ‘But you have to allow for human nature, Alexander, and that is a many-headed monster. Many people when sitting in the dark come out with things they would never usually utter. They kinda forget that anyone else is there.’

  Batchelor laughed. ‘That’s funny,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’ Grand was confused.

  ‘Well, isn’t the usual question “Is there anybody there?”’ Batchelor checked.

  ‘Very funny,’ Grand said. ‘But, as I was saying, it’s like when you lie in the dark next to someone, you say things you’d never say in the daylight.’

  Miss Wolstenholme yelped. She had never heard anything so filthy in all her life.

  ‘My first thought was to hide in the gallery, as you know. But I don’t know whether Joe has the mental wherewithal to help us hide, and certainly not to carry on as normal with us hidden somewhere. He’d give us away, for sure. But if we hold a séance, with all the suspects and a few others for good measure around the table, we should be able to see – I say should, but with Alexander’s computing skills and our knowledge of people and their expressions, James, I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to find out who is the perpetrator of not only the art mutilations but the murders too.’

  ‘Is it one and the same?’ Martin asked. ‘The crimes are very different.’

  ‘I agree,’ Grand said. ‘And I am sure you have done this calculation already, Alexander, but I am prepared to bet that you won’t find another single case in all these filing drawers where there are so many interlocking facts.’

  Martin cast his eyes up till only the whites showed and muttered to himself.

  ‘He’ll be a natural at the séance,’ Batchelor muttered in Grand’s ear.

  After a moment or two, Martin came back to earth. ‘I believe you’re right,’ he said. ‘Taking the criteria we have, there is no other case on the books which comes close. Always allowing that there is no such thing as coincidence.’

  ‘And for these purposes, let’s say just that,’ Batchelor said. ‘So, given that a séance is a good way to test our theory, who are we actually going to be watching?’

  ‘Watts,’ Grand and Martin said together.

  ‘I would have said Whistler, myself,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘He came to us, though,’ Grand pointed out.

  ‘True. But then, that’s not unknown. Hiding in plain sight.’

  Grand shrugged. ‘You could be right. And then there’s Saunders, of course. He could be doing it.’

  ‘Or Ruskin. He’s as mad as a box of frogs and the stick could be just a prop.’

  ‘Oscar Wilde’s an odd one, too,’ Grand added, ‘no offence, Martin.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘It could be the Lindsays. Or one of them, anyway.’

  Batchelor looked doubtful. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well,’ Grand wasn’t sure either but he preferred to leave no stone unturned, ‘Their names naturally crop up whenever the Grosvenor is mentioned. I wondered whether perhaps they were planning some big press announcement. That’s more in your province, James. Would that increase t
akings at the gallery?’

  ‘It might,’ Batchelor conceded. ‘There are people who would want to own a piece which had been adjusted, if that’s the word. A talking point. Rarer than an unsullied piece by the same artist. Yes, I could see that.’

  ‘But surely,’ Martin was the voice of reason, ‘murder for a few more sales is going a bit far?’

  Grand and Batchelor looked at him as if he was a favourite nephew who had suddenly learned to juggle.

  ‘Shall I?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘Be my guest,’ Grand said.

  ‘There is, quite literally, no limit to what people will do for gain,’ Batchelor explained. ‘Murder is only one on the list. Sorry, Alexander, but welcome to the world of the enquiry agent.’

  Martin was stunned to silence. He had always known people could be cruel and unusual, but this was almost a learning curve too far.

  ‘I could go on,’ Grand said, ‘with reasons for everyone linked to this case to have done it. And I don’t exclude the police. Metcalfe put a tail on us. Why would he do that? No one has ever done that before. Might it be so he knows what we know, knows whether we are getting close?’

  ‘And what about that soldier, the one with the odd name?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘Willoughby Inverarity.’ Martin inevitably filled in the missing information.

  ‘That’s the feller. He pretended to be someone else and then that someone else turns up dead. Oh – and the lawyer, Keen, he of Keen, Griswold; denying you know anything isn’t exactly a defence.’

  ‘All in all,’ Grand said, ‘I think we agree that the séance might be something that will work. So, shall we plan some strategies?’ He pulled open his desk and invited Batchelor and Martin to gather round. ‘Would you like to practise your shorthand, Miss Wolstenholme?’ he said.

  She leapt up immediately. Perhaps this could be the start of her new career as a lady enquiry agent? But then, she thought again – she had never heard of such a thing in any of the books she read, so it was unlikely there could be such a thing.