‘It never occurred to me that Ellen Sickert and her sister might be in danger,’ Daniel admitted unhappily as they left Scotland Yard.
‘If we’re right that the killer wants Sickert blamed, then they should be safe since he’s currently known to be abroad,’ said Abigail. ‘Surely O’Tool was killed in the hope that the police would think that Sickert could have been responsible, because at the time of O’Tool’s murder, Sickert was still in this country. At least, he was preparing to get his train at Victoria.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Daniel. ‘But I’m glad John put a police guard on them, just in case.’
‘Can we get to Bethnal Green by underground train?’ asked Abigail suddenly.
‘You like that way of getting around?’
‘I find it preferential for longer distances rather than sitting on a variety of buses for half the day.’
‘In that case, the answer’s yes. The Circle Line goes to Liverpool Street. It’s no distance from there.’
Ellen Sickert rose from the settee where she’d been reading a magazine as her sister returned from checking the post that had just been delivered. ‘Is there anything from Walter?’ she asked.
‘No,’ replied Jane. ‘It’s mostly political stuff for me.’ She looked at the return addresses printed on the envelopes. ‘The Congo Humanitarian Aid Society, Ireland, The Liberal Party.’
Jane had been elected as one of two women councillors to the Liberal Party at the inaugural London County Council in 1889, in spite of the fact that women were actually barred from sitting as county councillors. Legal action had been taken against the other woman who’d been elected, Margaret Sandhurst, and she’d been forced to stand down as councillor, but Jane had invoked a clause in the election law that said that anyone elected, even if illegally, could not be challenged at the council for a period of twelve months. As a result, she stayed away from all council meetings until February 1890, when she took her seat, to the fury of her political opponents. Jane had not stood for re-election at the 1892 elections, but remained a firm member and organiser of the Liberal Party.
‘I’m going out to meet Tom at his office,’ said Jane. Thomas Unwin was Jane’s husband, the avant-garde publisher of Nietzsche, Ibsen and H. G. Wells. She had adopted the surname of Cobden Unwin. ‘Would you like to come? It will make a refreshing change to staying here all day. Otherwise, this house will start to feel like a prison.’
‘What about the police constable outside the front door?’ asked Ellen.
‘He can come with us, if he likes,’ said Jane. She smiled. ‘Although I don’t think he’d care for the company. Tom is meeting a new young author he’s thinking of publishing. Somerset Maugham. He’d like me to cast my eye over him and tell him what I think. You can do the same. Tom values your opinion.’
‘Yes,’ said Ellen. ‘I could do with a break from all this dreadful business.’ She went to the coat rack and pulled on her outdoor coat. ‘What sort of person is this Somerset Maugham?’
‘Never met him,’ said Jane. ‘All I know is he’s in his early twenties and Tom thinks he’s got talent.’ She gave a wicked smile. ‘Perhaps we can get the policeman to walk behind us all the way to Tom’s office. That would set the cat among the pigeons when we arrived. Mr Maugham would think we were either spies being arrested, or a pair of streetwalkers being kept under observation.’
Jonas Barrowman’s tailor shop was in a narrow street in Bethnal Green, alongside another tailor’s, a hatmaker, two shoemakers and a shop that sold ties and handkerchiefs.
‘Everything for the well-dressed gentleman,’ remarked Abigail.
They pushed open the door of the shop and a bell attached to the top of door rang. A young man about twenty years old appeared from the back of the shop. In his hand was a large pair of tailor’s shears. He stopped and studied them for a second, then said: ‘If you’re looking for Mr Barrowman, he’s out.’
‘No, we’re looking for Henry Nichols,’ said Daniel. ‘Would that be you?’
‘It might,’ replied Nichols warily.
‘I’m Daniel Wilson and this is my partner, Miss Abigail Fenton. We’ve been engaged by the National Gallery to investigate two murders that have taken place there recently.’
Nichols shook his head.
‘Can’t help you,’ he said curtly. ‘I ain’t never been there. And I don’t know anything about no murders. So you can bugger off.’
Daniel and Abigail exchanged looks that said: We didn’t expect this.
‘Mr Nichols—’ began Daniel politely.
‘Oh, it’s Mr Nichols now, is it?’ the young man sneered. ‘I know who you are. I recognised you as soon as you came in from all them years ago, when you and that Abberline were in Whitechapel after my mum and them other women got killed by the Ripper. Asking questions, being seen to do all the right things, before you got bought off.’
Daniel bridled.
‘We were never bought off,’ he said, doing his best to keep his temper.
‘Oh no? Everyone knew it was the Queen’s grandson and her doctor, along with that painter bloke, but did they get nabbed? Did they hell! You and the others just let it go to one side until they died. At least, until two of ’em died. Now that painter bloke – Sickert – is doing it again, on his own this time, according to the papers. But they let him go again! Still being bought off!’
‘Mr Nichols—’ Daniel attempted again, but Nichols cut him off.
‘No! I ain’t talking to you! It was a waste of time talking to you nine years ago. And now it’s coming back to bite you. So, like I said, you can bugger off.’ He held the sharp point of the shears menacing towards them. ‘Before I show you how people down here deal with people like you.’
‘Very well, if that’s how you feel,’ said Daniel. ‘But we’ll be back. And next time with a Scotland Yard detective and you can show him how handy you are with those shears, which looks just the right sort of implement for the damage that was done to the two women who were killed.’
‘Oh no you don’t!’ snarled Nichols. ‘You ain’t pinning that on me. I’m as clean as a whistle. But I am telling you that if you keep poking your nose into my business you’re liable to get it cut off. Now get out!’
Daniel doffed his hat towards Nichols, then he and Abigail left the shop, the bell above the door tinkling as they did so.
‘A very angry young man,’ observed Abigail. ‘He’s obviously angry about Sickert. Do you think he’s capable of carving up those women to try and get revenge on him?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Daniel. ‘I still think the butcher is the more likely candidate.’
‘They both come from the same area. Both are about the same age, and with the same burning anger of injustice. Maybe they’re working together.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Daniel. ‘When Joe attacked me, he had a companion with him. Another man who held me down.’
‘Nichols?’ suggested Abigail.
‘Maybe,’ said Daniel. A grim expression came over his face. ‘I can’t get over what he said about me and Abberline being bought off. It’s virtually the same accusation that the butcher made when he attacked me.’
‘They were both children at the time,’ said Abigail.
‘So they’re repeating what the adults around them said at the time.’ He shook his head, angry. ‘I can’t believe that’s what the people of Whitechapel thought of us. We spent every waking hour on the case. We followed up every lead, however flimsy it seemed. We pulled in for questioning everyone whose name came up.’
‘Not everyone would have thought that about you,’ said Abigail. ‘Sergeant Whetstone certainly doesn’t.’
‘I expect they thought he was in it with us!’ burst out Daniel. Then he turned to Abigail. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to lose my temper like that.’
Abigail slipped her arm in his and drew him to her.
‘I know you didn’t,’ she reassured him. ‘And I’d have acted the same if someone said the same thing about me.’
‘I can’t get over the fact that for the past nine years, Henry Nichols has believed that I was crooked. Taking bribes to let Gull, Sickert and the prince go free.’
‘Don’t let it get to you,’ said Abigail. ‘In fact, when we get home I’ll give you a special treat which will cheer you up.’
‘I doubt if even sex will make me feel better,’ said Daniel sourly.
Abigail removed her arm from his and looked at him disapprovingly.
‘I was going to suggest pie and mash,’ she said primly.
Daniel gave her a sheepish smile. ‘Perhaps with sex afterwards?’
‘Don’t push your luck, Daniel Wilson,’ said Abigail. She took his arm again. ‘You are such a peasant.’ Then she grinned at him. ‘But I like that about you.’
Chief Superintendent Armstrong scowled as he entered Scotland Yard, and he continued scowling as he walked up the wide marble staircase towards his office. He noticed that the officers he passed took care to stay away from him, those he passed on the staircase giving him a wide berth and doing their best to avoid eye contact with him in case he barked at them for some misdemeanour. Everyone at Scotland Yard knew of the chief superintendent’s temper.
He considered going to Inspector Feather’s office and demanding what progress had been made on the murders – ‘The National Gallery murders’ as some of the papers were calling them, while one or two insisted on describing them as ‘The New Ripper strikes’. In the end he decided against it. The inspector would only ask him how he’d got on with the police commissioner and the home secretary, and the truth was it had been a painful experience and one he’d prefer to forget.
They’d blamed him for the lack of progress. The home secretary, particularly, had not been impressed.
‘The National Gallery is an iconic place,’ he’d said. ‘It is more than a building, it is at the heart of our culture. It has been defiled, and not just once, but twice. It was reported in the press that Walter Sickert had been arrested, but the next thing we learn is that he has been released and allowed to go to Venice. This is a disaster, Chief Inspector! To arrest and publicly name one of this country’s greatest artists, to libel him, and then be forced to backtrack with no apology, makes us a laughing stock.’
‘With respect, sir, we had information naming him.’
‘Information? A scrap of paper from some illiterate who obviously holds a personal vendetta against Sickert.’
‘We were just following procedure, sir.’
‘Well in this case the procedure was stupid and ill-advised and badly carried out. And what’s this I read about these Museum Detectives, Wilson and Fenton, being brought in? This doesn’t look good for the Metropolitan Police, Chief Inspector, if the National Gallery prefer an investigation by these amateurs over that of the official police. As a trustee myself of the National Gallery I am outraged, and I have written to Stanford Beckett demanding to know why the National Gallery has taken this decision without consulting the Board.’
‘I believe it was Mr Sickert’s doing to engage them, sir, rather than the National Gallery itself.’
‘Why? Was that because he wanted to revenge himself on Scotland Yard after the public humiliation of his arrest, or because he feels that Wilson and Fenton are more capable of finding the murderer of these two women than the official police?’
‘With respect, sir—’ began Armstrong, but he was cut off by the home secretary banging his fist down impatiently on his desk.
‘Damn your respect, sir!’ he raged. ‘We are talking about the reputation of Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police. The nation’s guardians! You will find and charge the person who carried out these hideous and heinous crimes and you will do it before the so-called Museum Detectives. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Armstrong had replied.
But how? he wondered as he sat in his office, an air of gloom hanging over him. And though neither the home secretary nor the commissioner had put it into words, the threat was implicit. His job was on the line.
When Daniel and Abigail got home, they found a letter waiting for them.
‘It’s from Fred Abberline,’ said Daniel, pleased. ‘He wondered if we might be in touch. He looks forward to seeing you, as does Emma. She says she’ll do you lunch. He asks when we plan to call.’ He looked at Abigail. ‘When shall we go?’
‘The sooner the better,’ said Abigail. ‘How about tomorrow?’
‘Excellent,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ll go to the post office and send him a telegram telling him we’ll call on them tomorrow morning.’
‘And while you’re doing that, I’ll make for the pie and mash shop and have it ready for when you get back.’ She kissed him on the cheek, then whispered in his ear: ‘And afterwards, a little extra delight.’
He gathered her in his arms and whispered back: ‘Or, perhaps, put the pie and mash in the range to keep warm for afterwards.’
She grinned at him and said: ‘I’m glad it doesn’t take much to put the smile back on your face.’