'I hadn't noticed,' Berrigan said sarcastically. He grimaced at the weather, though the rain was now spitting rather than cascading. 'And talking of complications,' he went on, 'Mister Sebastian Witherspoon was not a happy man. Not a happy man at all. In fact, if I was to be accurate, he was bloody annoyed.'
'Ah! He has adduced that I am not behaving as he expected?'
'He wanted to know what you were bloody up to, Captain, so I said I didn't know.'
'He surely refused to accept that assurance?'
'He could do what he bloody liked, Captain, but I told him yes sir, no sir, I don't know a blessed thing sir, up your back alley, sir, and go to hell, sir, but all of it in a deeply respectful manner.'
'You behaved, in other words, like a sergeant?' Sandman asked, and laughed again. He remembered that subservient insolence from his own sergeants; an apparent cooperation masking a deep intransigence. 'But did he tell you where the Home Secretary will be on Sunday?'
'His lordship won't be at his home, Captain, on account that the builders are putting in a new staircase in his house which they promised to have finished last May and which they ain't even painted yet, so his lordship is borrowing a house in Great George Street. Mister Witherspoon said he hopes he don't see you any day soon and, anyway, his lordship won't thank you for disturbing him on Sunday on account that his lordship is of the Godly persuasion, and anyway Mister Witherspoon, like his holy lordship, trusts that the bloody pixie is hanged by his bloody neck till he's bloody well dead like what he bloody deserves to be.'
'I'm sure he didn't say the last.'
'Not quite,' Berrigan admitted cheerfully, 'but I did, and Mister Witherspoon began to think well of me. Another few minutes and he'd have given you the butt end and made me the Investigator instead.'
'God help Corday then, eh?'
'The little bugger would go to the gallows so bleeding fast that his twinkle toes wouldn't touch the ground,' Berrigan said happily. 'So where are we going now?'
'We're going to see Sir George Phillips, because I want to know if he can tell me exactly who commissioned the Countess's portrait. Know that man's name, Sergeant, and we have our murderer.'
'You hope,' Berrigan said dubiously.
'Miss Hood is also at Sir George's studio. She models for him.'
'Ah!' Berrigan cheered up.
'And even if Sir George won't tell us, then I've also learnt that my one witness was carried away in the Seraphim Club's carriage.'
'One of their carriages,' Berrigan corrected him, 'they have two.'
'So I assume one of the club's coachmen can tell us where they took her.'
'I imagine they might,' Berrigan said, 'though they might need some persuading.'
'A pleasing prospect,' Sandman said, arriving at the door beside the jeweller's shop. He knocked and, as before, the door was answered by Sammy, the black page, who immediately tried to shut it. Sandman bulled his way through. 'Tell Sir George,' he said imperiously, 'that Captain Rider Sandman and Sergeant Samuel Berrigan have come to talk to him.'
'He don't want to talk to you,' Sammy said.
'Go and tell him, child!' Sandman insisted.
Instead Sammy made an ill-judged attempt to dodge past Sandman into the street, only to be caught by Sergeant Berrigan, who lifted the lad and slammed him against the door post. 'Where were you going, boy?' Berrigan demanded.
'Why don't you fake off?' Sammy said defiantly, then yelped. 'I wasn't going anywhere!' Berrigan drew back his fist again. 'He told me if you was to come again,' Sammy said hastily, 'I was to go and fetch help.'
'From the Seraphim Club?' Sandman guessed, and the boy nodded. 'Hold onto him, Sergeant,' Sandman said, then began climbing the stairs. 'Fee, fi, fo, fum!' he chanted at the top of his voice, 'I smell the blood of an Englishman!' He was making the noise to warn Sally so that Sergeant Berrigan would not see her naked. Sandman had no doubt that Berrigan would be getting that treat very soon, but Sandman also had no doubt that Sally would want to decide when that would be. 'Sir George!' he bellowed. 'Are you there?'
'Who the devil is it?' Sir George shouted. 'Sammy?'
'Sammy's a prisoner,' Sandman shouted.
'God's bollocks! It's you?' Sir George, for a fat man, moved with remarkable speed, going to a cupboard from which he took a long-barrelled pistol. He ran with it to the head of the stairs and pointed it down at Sandman. 'No further, Captain, on pain of your life!' he growled.
Sandman glanced at the pistol and kept on climbing. 'Don't be such a bloody fool,' he said tiredly. 'Shoot me, Sir George, and you'll have to shoot Sergeant Berrigan, then you'll have to keep Sally quiet and that means shooting her, so then you'll have three corpses on your hands.' He climbed the last few steps and, without any fuss, took the pistol from the painter's hand. 'It's always best to cock weapons if you want to look really threatening,' he added, then turned and nodded at Berrigan. 'Allow me to introduce Sergeant Berrigan, late of the First Foot Guards, then of the Seraphim Club, but now a volunteer in my army of righteousness.' Sandman saw, with relief, that Sally had received enough warning to pull on a coat. He took off his hat and bowed to her. 'Miss Hood, my respects.'
'You're still limping, then?' Sally asked, then blushed as Sergeant Berrigan arrived.
'He's bleeding hurting me!' Sammy complained.
'I'll bleeding kill you if you don't shut up,' Berrigan growled, then he nodded to Sally. 'Miss Hood,' he said, then he saw the canvas and his eyes widened in admiration and Sally blushed even deeper.
'You can put Sammy down,' Sandman said to Berrigan, 'because he won't go for help.'
'He'll do what I tell him!' Sir George said belligerently.
Sandman crossed to the painting and stared at the central figure of Nelson, and thought that since the admiral's death the painters and engravers had been making the hero ever more frail so that he was now almost a spectral figure. 'If you tell Sammy to go for help, Sir George,' he said, 'then I shall spread it abroad that your studio deceives women, that you paint them clothed and, when they are gone, you turn them into nudes.' He turned and smiled at the painter. 'What will that do to your prices?'
'Double them!' Sir George said defiantly, then he saw that Sandman's threat was real and he seemed to deflate like a pricked bladder. He flapped a paint-stained hand at Sammy. 'You're not going anywhere, Sammy.'
Berrigan put the boy down. 'You can make some tea instead,' Sandman said.
'I'll help you, Sammy,' Sally said, and followed the boy down the stairs. Sandman suspected she was going to get dressed.
Sandman turned to Sir George. 'You're an old man, Sir George, you're fat and you're a drunkard. Your hand shakes. You can still paint, but for how long? You're living off your reputation now, but I can ruin that. I can make quite certain that men like Sir Henry Forrest never hire you again to paint their wives or daughters for fear of you doing to them what you would have done to the Countess of Avebury.'
'I would never do that to…' Sir George began.
'Be quiet,' Sandman said. 'And I can put in my report to the Home Secretary that you have deliberately hidden the truth.' That, in reality, was a much lesser threat, but Sir George did not know it. He only feared prosecution, the dock and jail. Or maybe he saw transportation to Australia, for he began to shudder in unfeigned terror. 'I know you lied,' Sandman said, 'so now you will tell me the truth.'
'And if I do?'
'Then Sergeant Berrigan and I will tell no one. Why should we care what happens to you? I know you didn't murder the Countess and that's the only person I'm interested in. So tell us the truth, Sir George, and we shall leave you in peace.'
Sir George sank onto a stool. The apprentices and the two men portraying Nelson and Neptune gazed at him until he snarled at them to go downstairs. Only when they were gone did he look at Sandman. 'The Seraphim Club commissioned the painting.'
'I know that.' Sandman walked to the back of the studio, past the table heaped with rags, brushes and jars. He was looking for Eleanor's portrait, but he could not see it. He turned back. 'What I want to know, Sir George, is who in the club commissioned it.'
'I don't know. Really! I don't know!' He was pleading, his fear almost tangible. 'There were ten or eleven of them, I can't remember.'
