Peter Lovesey - Waxwork

‘From cyanide poisoning.’

‘The significance had not escaped me, Cribb,’ said Jowett stiffly. ‘But she was employed as a photographer’s assistant. We know that potassium cyanide is used in photography. It is not uncommonly used by people committing suicide. We must beware of reading too much into this. Coincidence is a snare, Sergeant, a snare.’

‘If it was just one coincidence … ’ said Cribb.

Jowett reddened. ‘Are you keeping something from me, Sergeant?’

‘I was coming to it, sir.’

‘Well?’

‘I was interested in the photographer who employed Miss Honeycutt.’

‘Ducane? How is he significant?’

‘I thought he might be able to tell me some more about the circumstances of Miss Honeycutt’s death.’

Jowett took out his pipe and knocked it noisily on Cribb’s mantelpiece. ‘Dammit, Cribb, isn’t it enough to know that the girl is dead? Our job is to inquire into Perceval’s death and there’s precious little time left for that.’

‘I’m aware of that, sir,’ Cribb said thickly. ‘I’m endeavouring to keep my report as short as possible.’

Jowett sighed and stuffed tobacco into the pipe. ‘Get on with it, then.’

‘I decided to go to West Hampstead, with the intention of calling on Mr Ducane. I found the road all right, but I couldn’t find the studio.’

‘He had sold the business and left, I suppose,’ said Jowett in a voice that had already moved on to other things.

‘Yes, sir. I talked to several of his former neighbours. There was plenty of sympathy for him in West End Lane, but he still lost most of his clients. You know how people are about photography. It’s enough of an ordeal having your portrait done, without going to a place visited by tragedy. Ducane waited only a few weeks, realised he was finished in Hampstead and sold the premises to an optician. Nobody could tell me what happened to him after that, but I had a theory of my own. I asked what Ducane had looked like, and between them they supplied me with a serviceable description. Five foot seven or eight. Medium build. Dark hair going grey. Brown eyes. Dapper in his dress. Aged thirty-eight or so.’

‘I don’t call that serviceable,’ said Jowett scornfully. ‘I could go out now and find you a dozen men like that inside ten minutes.’

‘Not in Bermondsey,’ said Cribb. “You don’t get nobby dressers in this locality, sir. I’ll grant you there are no other outstanding characteristics in the description, but at least it didn’t conflict with my theory.’

‘Which is …?’

‘That after Julian Ducane left Hampstead, he started up again as a photographer in Kew.’

‘My word! Howard Cromer?’

‘Look at it from Ducane’s point of view,’ said Cribb. ‘His business was in danger of collapse if he stayed in Hampstead, so he got out as quickly as he decently could. With his savings and the money from the sale of his studio he could afford to start again in another well-heeled locality. Obviously he didn’t want people to know what had happened in Hampstead, so he chose to live on the other side of London, across the river. And to make sure, I believe he changed his name.’

Jowett simply stared at Cribb, holding his unlighted pipe an inch from his mouth.

‘When I interviewed Howard Cromer earlier this week,’ Cribb continued, ‘he went to no end of trouble to cooperate-showed me over the studio, talked about his wife and got out their family photograph album. I’m not used to being treated like that by people of his sort, who like to think they have arrived in society. Usually as soon as I give my rank, it’s “Very well, officer, go to the kitchen and ask cook to give you a mug of tea and I’ll answer your questions when I can spare a minute.” I couldn’t decide what Cromer was up to-trying to sweeten me or lead me up the garden path. I’m inclined to think it was both. He didn’t lie to me exactly, but some of his statements could only be described as misleading, and that’s charitable. I wanted to find out which train he caught to Brighton on the day of the murder. I couldn’t get a straight answer, except that he left the house before ten. He may have done, but the fact is that he wasn’t expected in Brighton till half past two.’

‘There may be an innocent explanation for that,’ Jowett pointed out. ‘What was the phrase he used in the letter to the Portrait Photographers’ League?’

‘Prevented by another commitment.’

‘Have you asked him what the commitment was?’

‘I haven’t talked to him since Sunday, sir.’ Cribb pretended not to notice one of the Chief Inspector’s eyebrows shoot up. If Jowett wanted to criticise his conduct of the case, he could damned well come out with it in plain English. ‘But that wasn’t the only statement intended to mislead me. When he showed me the photograph album, he tried to give me the impression he first met Miriam in April, 1885, on the day her father brought the family to the studio at Kew for a group portrait. I believe he must have known her three years earlier than that.’

‘Really?’ Jowett sounded unconvinced. ‘What grounds do you have for saying that?’

‘First, I was suspicious of the album itself, sir. I noticed two of the pages were stuck together. Cromer had to separate them with a knife. He said something about glue on the mount, but as it was a photograph of the wedding, two and a half years ago, I couldn’t understand how glue had got on to it unless it had recently been pasted into the album. That set me thinking that he might have put the entire album together in the last day or so in order to illustrate his story, the story he wanted me to believe. He put the damned thing into my hands at the first opportunity, telling me it was his most precious possession. Naturally the first picture in it was the portrait of the Kilpatrick family.’

‘That’s a lot to deduce from one spot of glue, Sergeant.’

‘It isn’t the only thing, sir. There’s the matter of the photograph the headmaster showed me. The picnic outing on Hampstead Heath. It showed the three girls together, and beside them was Simon Allingham, Cromer’s oldest friend. If Allingham was known to Miriam in the summer of 1882-’

‘That’s speculation,’ cut in Jowett and there was a disagreeable note of triumph in his voice. ‘We cannot draw any such conclusion. The mere fact that they were situated in some proximity in a photograph could be accidental. There is no guarantee that the Allingham in the picture is the same person, since you admitted yourself that the figures were unrecognisable. It won’t do, Sergeant. Do you know what you are guilty of?’ Jowett jabbed his pipe-stem at Cribb. ‘ Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Do you have Latin? No matter. In short, your reasoning is founded on a fallacy. You have persuaded yourself that Cromer is not what he purports to be and you are fitting the facts to justify your prejudice.’

‘It’s true there isn’t concrete evidence-’ Cribb began.

‘Evidence of what?’ crowed Jowett without pausing for an answer. ‘That Howard Cromer was formerly known as Julian Ducane? Is that what you hope to prove, Sergeant? Even if he was, there is nothing very sinister in it, is there? People in trade frequently change the names by which they are known as they move up in the world.’

‘There is the matter of Judith Honeycutt’s death.’

‘Exactly! A very good reason for taking on a new name,’ said Jowett. ‘Frankly, if Howard Cromer was unfortunate enough to have had such a tragedy in his former establishment, it isn’t surprising that he is evasive about his past.’

‘He needn’t have been evasive about Brighton.’

Jowett asked, ‘Are you seriously telling me that you suspect him of being involved in Perceval’s death?’