with his birds. I told you before – as the supreme ruler of an empire, he was a plonker of the first order.” Summerfield sucked his whiskers, thinking. “Suppose this bloke Whitstable chose Waterhouse for the painting, and then the artist discovered something unpleasant about his patron? Talk about having your cake and eating it! Waterhouse got to keep the commission by producing this wonderful, satisfying piece of work, and the artist got back at his patron through the insulting classical allusion contained within the picture.”
“There’s no way of proving that.”
“Perhaps not, until you remember what the finished painting looked like.” Summerfield scrabbled beneath the study and produced a crumpled colour photocopy, which he proceeded to flatten out on a cleared part of the bench.
“Here,” he said, pointing at the copy. “Remember I told you that the key character changes? In the study, the central figure is the emperor’s attendant. In the end result, he’s been relegated to the background. The former picture shows a group of men in repose. The allusion is greatly reduced in terms of offence. The latter shows a master surrounded by sycophants. It’s as if Waterhouse was intending to have a gentle dig at his patron, as many artists did, but then – some time between 1882 and 1883 – discovered that the situation was far worse than he had imagined. So he changed the finished picture.”
“James Whitstable was an educated man, by all accounts. Surely he would have understood the allusion and taken offence?”
“I think that’s exactly what happened. The painting was sold to an Australian gallery soon after its completion. Waterhouse remained true to his ethical code. He produced a magnificent work of art. He simply went too far.”
“Which helps to explain why William Whitstable threw acid on the picture. The painting was an affront to his ancestor, and by extension to his entire family. It was the first time it had been exhibited in this country for a century.”
“I have another ‘seven’ for you,” added Summerfield. “John Waterhouse was a Royal Academy painter. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was begun by seven men. Rossetti, Millais, Holman Hunt, and four others dedicated themselves to a ‘childlike submission to nature.’ The actress Ellen Terry once told Bernard Shaw that she always visited Burne-Jones at his studio when it was foggy, because he looked so angelic painting by candlelight. Subsequently the group was joined by many other artists, and Oscar Wilde started poncing around with his sacred lily, wetting himself over the Pre-Raff sensibility because it neatly fitted in with the fact that he was horribly camp. It didn’t help having a fat old queen as a spokesperson, even a brilliant one, and pretty soon everyone started taking the piss out of the Pre-Raffs.”
“Including Gilbert and Sullivan…”
“That’s right. One of their productions parodied the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.”
“…at the Savoy Theatre.” Arthur reached for his cap and adjusted it on his head. “Peregrine, I can’t tell you what a help you’ve been.”
“Let me know how you get on,” shouted the historian. “I want to see how this one turns out.”
But by then his friend had already left the gallery workroom.
? Seventy-Seven Clocks ?
30
Machinery in Motion
Her eyes flicked wildly back and forth, searching the darkness for demons. The wall clock read four fifty-five a.m. She forced herself to focus on it, driving out the hallucinations. A nurse would call to check on her in five minutes. Perhaps she could find some way of communicating her pain. The muscles in her arms and legs felt like twisting bundles of hot wires. Her brain seared with hellish images. Five more minutes. It wasn’t long to have to hold on.
‘Mad Margaret’ lay in the psychiatric ward of the Royal Free Hospital, not a stone’s throw from the cemetery where she’d been attacked. Her teeth were covered with soft rubber shields to prevent her from chewing through her tongue. Restraining straps crossed her chest and pelvis, locking her into the bed. She wanted to scream, to tell them she was not mad. She feared they would take her frantic signaling as proof of insanity.
Three minutes to go. She tried counting to a hundred, remembering the names of TV programmes, anything to stay awake and aware, at least until –
¦
Moments before the nurse entered the room to check on her patient, Peggy Harmsworth slipped into a coma, as the chemicals ravaged her nervous system with renewed force and filled her sleep with unimaginable nightmares.
¦
Ever since the murders had been reported in the newspapers, Gwen Gates had gone out of her way to avoid any mention of them. This morning, Jerry had interrupted her father’s breakfast to draw attention to the subject, only to hear Gwen hurriedly change the conversation to something less controversial. Jerry looked around the dining room, at the cut-crystal candlesticks set on the polished mahogany table, at the cherub-encrusted mirror above the marble mantelpiece, at the sheer weight and age of the household, and hated the permanence of what she saw.
Everything her parents owned was built to outlive them. Her father had told her that “One doesn’t buy furniture, one inherits it.” They were pleased to think of themselves as snobs; it meant they had standards worth preserving. Unable to have any more children after the birth of their disastrous daughter, her parents were determined to leave something of value behind.
Jerry wondered what her mother would say if she knew there was a spy in their midst. Right now, she was waiting for them to leave the house so that she could begin a search of her father’s private study. She had seen Jack clipping newspaper articles, but what did he do with them? She felt sure she would find something interesting in his desk.
If the Whitstables recognized the cause of their destruction, wouldn’t they take steps to prevent further deaths occurring? What could the family have done that was so terrible they were still being persecuted for it?
The slamming of the front door as her father left was the only signal she needed to begin burrowing from within. Jack’s study was his private domain. The door was never locked, but it was understood that no one should enter uninvited.
The book-lined room was richly textured with inlaid wooden panels. A Victorian escritoire stood on a heavy Chinese rug near the far window. Along one wall stood a pair of Georgian side tables, one of them supporting a nondescript marble bust of Disraeli. A blue crystal ashtray was filled with butts. It was the one room in the house where Jack was permitted to smoke his cigars.
Jerry made her way over to the desk and tried the drawers. None was locked. She removed the contents from each in turn and studied them, but found nothing of interest.
When she was younger she had often wondered what her father was doing in his study all afternoon. Riffling through the bills and business correspondence, she saw now that Jack had used the place as a refuge from his wife. Suddenly the room seemed less exotic, diminished by mundane matters.
She pulled out the lowest drawer, expecting nothing more than correspondence. Instead, she found an old photograph of her mother, in her early twenties. She was standing in a garden with a cluster of anemones in one hand, smiling tightly, shading her eyes from the sun. Jerry had never seen the picture before. It was hard to believe that her mother had ever been this young.
As she studied the picture, she realized that another quality shone through it. Gwen looked happy to be alive. She radiated joy. Before the thwarted ambition, the bitterness and the recriminations, she had been attractive and carefree. Then had come a series of setbacks: the knowledge that she could have no more children; the fading of Jack’s interest in her; and the contemptuous, destructive anger of her only daughter.
Suddenly Jerry was filled with remorse for the grief she had caused her family.
¦
“My God, it’s cold in here,” complained Bryant, clapping his arms around his shoulders. “If I’d known I was going to be standing in a crypt on Christmas Eve I’d have worn a thicker vest. Did you see the crowds waiting
