On the bus on the way back home, Daniel and Abigail decided to share their suspicions with Feather about Heppenstall and Catherine.
‘For one thing, Scotland Yard have got the resources to mount a search for her.’
‘If she’s still alive.’
‘Exactly. And if she can’t be found, that will suggest she’s dead and her body’s been disposed of.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Abigail cautioned. ‘It may mean she doesn’t want to be found. She could well have taken on a new identity, and be anywhere. Liverpool. Manchester. Glasgow. She’s a performer, she can go anywhere.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ agreed Daniel reluctantly. ‘But I’d still like to find out.’
When they arrived home, an envelope marked ‘urgent’ was waiting for them on their doormat. Abigail opened it.
‘It’s from Mr Beckett,’ she said. ‘He asks if we can call to see him at the National Gallery immediately.’
‘Not another murder, surely?’ said Daniel. ‘If that was the case there’d also be a note from John Feather waiting for us.’
‘John’s not in the habit of leaving notes,’ Abigail pointed out.
In view of the urgency expressed in the note, they caught a hansom cab to the National Gallery, where they found an agitated Stanford Beckett eager to see them.
‘I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner,’ said Daniel. ‘We’ve been in Clapham. Your note said it was urgent. We assume something bad has occurred?’
‘Dreadful,’ said Beckett in anguish. ‘Not as bad as the murders, of course, but for the gallery it’s appalling. Last night someone managed to get into the gallery and slashed a painting, absolutely ruining it.’
Daniel and Abigail exchanged puzzled looks. ‘Surely that’s a matter for the police,’ said Daniel.
‘No, absolutely not,’ said Beckett firmly. ‘The gallery’s reputation has already been badly damaged enough by these appalling murders. It might frighten the public off completely from coming here if it gets out that some madman with a knife might be prowling around here. And I believe the slashing of the painting might be connected to the murders.’
‘How?’
Beckett walked over to where a cloth was draped over a framed picture leaning against the wall of his office, hiding it. He removed the cloth, and they recognised Sickert’s portrait of Anne-Marie Dresser. The canvas had been slashed from top to bottom repeatedly.
‘Was the other portrait of Anne-Marie damaged?’ asked Daniel. ‘The one by Degas?’
‘No,’ said Beckett. ‘Thankfully, that was spared.’
‘Then this attack was aimed at Sickert,’ said Abigail.
‘But why?’ appealed Beckett. ‘For the same reason the victims were chosen, to incriminate Walter?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘This is different. Those women were killed and their bodies transported here and dumped at your door calculatedly in cold blood. This attack was carried out in a passionate frenzy. Who hates Sickert with such intensity, apart from the killer?’
‘Simon Anstis?’ suggested Abigail.
‘Simon?’ echoed Beckett, shocked. ‘Surely not!’
‘How did the intruder get in?’ asked Daniel. ‘Were any windows broken, or locks forced?’
‘No,’ said Beckett. ‘It looks as if the intruder managed to get hold of a key to let himself in.’
‘Have there been any reports of keys being stolen from your staff?’ asked Daniel.
‘No,’ said Beckett.
‘Then it’s someone with an intimate knowledge of the gallery who’s been able to get hold of a key by some means, and knew which key opened which door, and where the painting was he wanted to attack.’ He looked at Abigail and nodded. ‘I agree with Miss Fenton, Simon Anstis is a very likely candidate.’
‘But there’s no proof!’ burst out Beckett.
‘No, but there’s no harm in us talking to him and gauging his reaction,’ said Daniel.
‘You can’t accuse him,’ warned Beckett nervously. ‘If you’re wrong, he’ll sue the gallery for defamation, and the resultant publicity will be a disaster for us!’
‘Leave it to us,’ Daniel told him reassuringly. ‘We won’t be accusing him of anything, merely asking him if he knows who might have done it in order to help us in our enquiries in case it’s associated with the murders. He came across to us as a very fragile person, his reactions to our talking to him will be interesting.
‘Also, the reason we were in Clapham was to pay a call on Mr Abberline, formerly my inspector in the original Ripper investigations. We sought his help because we think the latest murders are connected in some way to the Ripper murders.’
Beckett stared at them, horrified.
‘You mean … he’s back?’
‘We don’t think it’s the same killer, but it’s someone with an association with that original case. Possibly a relative of the victims. You recall that Sickert was a suspect at the time, and we feel that whoever’s doing this is aiming it at Sickert in order to get revenge on him. That’s why we’d like to bring in Mr Abberline.’
‘Bring him in?’ repeated Beckett, not fully comprehending.
‘There’s no one who knows more about the original Ripper case than Abberline. He’s already lent us his original notebooks from that time. We feel the key to this is going back to the original Ripper case, and for that we’d like him on board with us.’
‘We’re going to call on Ellen Sickert to see if she’ll approve him joining us,’ added Abigail. ‘She is the one paying for the investigation, after all.’
‘And if she says no?’
‘In that case we’ll pay him out of our fee,’ said Daniel. ‘But we are sure, with his help, we can solve this case and identify the murderer.’
Beckett sat, thinking this over. Finally he said: ‘Very well. If you think it will bring this dreadful situation to an end but Ellen says no to him, I’ll talk to the Board and see if they will cover his costs.’
‘Thank you,’ said Daniel. ‘But we hope that won’t be necessary. We’ve arranged to meet him here at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. We’ll see Mrs Sickert before then.’
‘If she says no, I won’t have an answer from the Board by tomorrow.’
‘That doesn’t matter. As we said, if they refuse, we’ll bear the cost of Mr Abberline ourselves.’
Simon Anstis was in his studio working on the portrait of Anne-Marie when Daniel and Abigail arrived.
‘I can’t help myself,’ he explained mournfully. ‘I’m trying to capture the perfection of her.’ He let out a painful sigh. ‘Have you caught the maniac who killed her? Is that why you’re here? To tell me his name?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Abigail. ‘We’re sorry to trouble you with this, but there’s been an incident at the National Gallery, which we feel might be connected to the recent tragedies.’
‘An incident?’ Anstis repeated nervously.
‘It seems that a painting was damaged during the night.’
‘A painting?’
‘Yes, the portrait of Anne-Marie by Walter Sickert.’
Anstis swallowed nervously and demanded: ‘Why have you come to me?’
‘We’re actually talking to everyone with a connection with the gallery,’ said Daniel in reassuring tones. ‘Especially those who knew Anne-Marie.’
‘Sickert knew her!’ burst out Anstis. ‘You say it’s his picture of her. He’s a violent man. Talk to him.’
‘Sickert isn’t in the country,’ said Abigail. ‘He left for Venice a couple of days ago. His departure was reported in the newspapers.’
‘I don’t interest myself in what the newspapers say,’ said Anstis stiffly. ‘But I can assure you that it wasn’t me who damaged the picture.’
Daniel smiled reassuringly at him. ‘Not to worry, Mr Anstis, we’ll know soon enough who did it. Have you heard about the new science of fingerprints?’
Anstis looked bewildered. ‘No. What is it?’
‘Various people believe they are the best method of identifying those responsible for crimes. Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, produced a book about it. According to Galton, a person’s fingerprints are unique to them. Some years ago, a chief police officer in Argentina created the first method of actually recording fingerprints, and he was able to use this method to discover a murderer. We’re going to do the same with the damaged painting of Anne-Marie at the National Gallery. We’ve arranged for someone to come in tomorrow with the necessary equipment and dust the frame of the picture for fingerprints. Once we have those prints, we shall be comparing them with people we think might be people of interest. Not just you, but everyone at the gallery. We’re sure you won’t mind.’
‘I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me!’ burst out Anstis.
‘Then you have no reason to fear. The science we are introducing will bear that out and will point us to the true culprit.’
‘But how can they do anything with the frame? Surely if the portrait’s damaged it’s been removed.’
‘From where it hung, but it’s now in Stanford Beckett’s office waiting to be examined.’ He smiled. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Anstis. We’ll be in touch.’
As they walked away from the house where Anstis had his studio, Abigail asked: ‘What was all that stuff about fingerprints? Did you just make it up on the spur of the moment to unsettle him?’
‘Not at all, it’s a new science that is very real. Dr Henry Faulds, a Scottish surgeon, was one of the first to put forward the idea in about 1880 while working in a Tokyo hospital. His theory was that people had their own particular fingerprints, which were unique to them. He came up with the first classification and how to identify different prints. When he returned to England in 1886 he was in touch with Scotland Yard and offered them his system. They refused.’
‘So it’s not really being used as a system of detection.’
‘Not in England, but it is elsewhere. Dr Henry Faulds passed his information to Charles Darwin, who in turn passed it to his cousin, Francis Galton, who published a book about it called Finger Prints. This chief police officer I mentioned, Juan Vucetich, set up a fingerprint bureau in Argentina in 1892 after he’d read Galton’s book. I read a report about the first case in which Vucetich used the method. A woman was found in a house with injuries to her neck, along with her two sons, whose throats had been cut. She accused a neighbour of the crime, but Vucetich and his inspector found a bloody thumb print on a doorpost at the scene of the crime. When they compared it to the woman’s, it matched.’
‘She could have touched the doorpost after she’d got stained with blood from her dead sons.’
‘She could, but when they presented the evidence of the thumbprint to her, she was so shocked that she confessed that she’d carried out the murders. Reading that report convinced me that fingerprints could be the way forward in detection. The trouble is, for it to work you need a massive amount of fingerprint details, with names and addresses, to compare any fingerprints found at the scene of a crime with. And at the moment, Scotland Yard still aren’t interested.’
‘So telling Simon Anstis about them was a ruse.’
‘It was. You saw how rattled he was when I mentioned them to him. My guess is he’ll try and get in to the gallery tonight and rub down the frame with polish or something to get rid of his fingerprints.’
‘And we’ll be waiting for him?’
‘We will,’ said Daniel.
Joe Wallace had been sitting in The Flower Pot pub for over an hour, making one pint of beer last, and the barman was watching him warily. Mind, in the pub everyone watched people warily. And not just in this pub but in the whole of Seven Dials.
Seven Dials was in the heart of Covent Garden, so called because of the sundial on a post at the crossroads, the junction of seven streets, with seven dials, one for each of those streets. He was told that once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, it had been planned to make this an upmarket area to house the rich. Whether that was true, Joe didn’t know. What he did know, as did everyone else in London, was that Seven Dials was one of the worst slums in London, even worse than any in the East End. Every crook, every crime, every vice could be found here. There was no chance of the police coming in and checking on people, no police officer felt safe here. Joe didn’t feel safe here, he only felt safe on his home turf of Whitechapel. And he didn’t like the way the barman kept looking at him. Sooner or later he’d either have to leave or buy another drink, and he was short of money.
Where was his man? Joe had put a note through the letter box of the address he’d been given, with strict instructions only to make contact in an extreme emergency. Well, having the police chasing him all over Whitechapel, from Ramsden’s to Higgins’, and then to his own home, counted as an emergency in Joe’s book. And not just the local police, but Scotland Yard!
Suddenly he was there, looking down at Joe.
‘Where have you been?’ demanded Joe. ‘I’ve been here hours!’
‘I’ve been busy,’ said the man. ‘What’s so urgent that you felt the need to contact me? I told you, only in an extreme emergency.’
‘That’s what this is,’ said Joe. ‘The police are after me. I’ve got to get away. I need money. They know what we’ve been doing.’
‘Sssh!’ snapped the man sharply. He jerked his head towards the door. ‘We’ll talk outside.’
Joe finished the remains of his pint, got up and walked after the man, who’d already left the pub and gone out into the street. I can’t leave without the kids and Lily, he decided. I need enough money to get us all safe. If he don’t cough up, I’m talking. That’s what I’ll tell him.
In his office at the National Gallery, Stanford Beckett stared at Daniel and Abigail, bewildered.
‘Fingerprints?’ he said.
‘They’re a scientific reality, but at the moment it’s a ruse to see if Simon Anstis returns to the gallery tonight to do something about them.’
‘You really think he was the culprit?’
‘We do,’ said Abigail. ‘At least, Daniel does, and I trust what he calls his policeman’s nose.’
‘So what do you plan?’
‘When the gallery closes, we shall situate ourselves here in your office with the door closed. If, as I suspect, Simon Anstis arrives to try and rub the frame of the damaged picture down and remove the telltale fingerprints, we shall apprehend him.’
Beckett looked unhappy at this. ‘If it was him, last night he used a knife. Who’s to say he won’t be carrying a knife again?’
‘I don’t believe he will, but just in case, do you have a night watchman patrolling?’ asked Daniel.
‘No,’ said Beckett. ‘So far there’s been no need for one.’
‘Is there anyone on your security staff who might agree to do some overtime tonight?’
‘There’s Ian Millen,’ said Beckett. ‘He’s a former soldier. He’s a bachelor who lives on his own, so he has no family to explain why he’d be needed.’
‘I’m sure he won’t be actually needed,’ said Daniel. ‘But just in case I’m wrong, can you arrange for Mr Millen to join us?’
‘What will you do with Simon if he does turn up?’ asked Becket anxiously.
‘Yes, that’s a difficult one,’ said Daniel. ‘If we just let him go there’s no knowing what he might do.’
‘You mean he might carry out another attack here at the gallery?’
‘It’s possible,’ said Daniel. ‘You have other paintings by Sickert here, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then my advice is to have him arrested and for him to spend the night in a police cell. That should frighten him off doing anything like it again.’
Beckett shook his head.
‘The National Gallery can’t afford the bad publicity such an arrest would have. Everyone would know about what had happened.’
‘Only if the National Gallery pressed charges,’ said Daniel. ‘If, as I suspect, you won’t, then there’s no reason for the case to come to court, and so no publicity of any sort about it. But I’m pretty sure it will put Mr Anstis off doing anything like it again.’
‘You can stop him being prosecuted?’ asked Beckett.
Daniel nodded.
‘I can arrange with Inspector Feather for a constable to join us tonight. If Anstis comes in, the constable can take him to the local police station in the Strand and put him in a cell. We can go in to see him in the morning and tell him that the National Gallery have decided not to press charges, providing he promises not to repeat the act. After a night in the cell, I have no doubt he’ll agree. He’ll be released and the story ends with no publicity for the gallery.’
‘You’re sure?’ pressed Beckett.
‘Absolutely,’ said Daniel.
‘Very well,’ said Beckett.
Daniel gestured around at the office. ‘It will also mean Abigail and I can be in here while Mr Millen and the constable are in the room opposite, ready to rush in when we call. Otherwise, there’s not going to be much room for all of us while we wait for what could be hours.’
Beckett got to his feet.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve taken a load off my mind. If you come with me, I’ll introduce you to Mr Millen.’
Ian Millen was a man in his early fifties, who looked every inch the former soldier: stiff-backed, a broken nose indicating he’d seen action, and very keen to get to grips with – as he described him – ‘the vandal who ruined that painting’.
Daniel and Abigail outlined their plan, that they’d return to the gallery just before it closed to the public at seven o’clock that evening and take up their positions in Mr Beckett’s office, while Millen and a constable waited in the room opposite.
‘It will give you a companion while we wait,’ smiled Abigail.
‘You really think he’ll come back again?’ asked Millen.
‘We hope so,’ said Daniel. ‘Let’s say, we’ve baited the trap.’