David Dickinson - Death Called to the Bar

If he went round the building anti-clockwise he would be in the Great Gallery, where most of the finest paintings were hung, almost at once. If he went in the other direction he would go right round the first floor before he reached it from the other end. He decided on the long route and glided off through another roomful of Dutch paintings. Dimly on the walls he could just make out a loaf of bread being brought into a house, the interior of a church, a woman making lace, a girl reading a love letter. Any dark paintings, some of the most celebrated Rembrandts, would soon be almost invisible as the daylight began to fade. He checked his watch. A long time to go before the arrival of the nightwatchman. Then it was past the Canalettos, the blue-green water and the blue cloud-speckled skies and the public buildings of Venice rendered immortal under the artist’s brush. Powerscourt paused again. The footsteps were still marching up and down in the Great Gallery, almost as if the man was on sentry duty. Perhaps he knew that Powerscourt was bound to arrive there sooner or later. All he had to do was to wait for his prey. He glanced quickly at the Canaletto by his side. For no reason at all he suddenly remembered recently seeing a painting of Eton College done by Canaletto during his years in London. Even that most English of buildings under Canaletto’s hand looked as if it really belonged in Venice, somewhere behind San Zaccaria in the sestiere of San Marco, or floating improbably on its very own island like San Giorgio Maggiore. He pressed hard up against the wall by the door and made a rapid inspection of the landing. It was empty.

Powerscourt crossed the landing at a run, bent almost double. He was now trespassing in the improbable world of Boucher, naked gods floating in the skies without visible means of support, pagan heroes living out the myths of ancient Greece in a naked innocence charged with considerable erotic force. Still he could hear the footsteps, slightly closer now. He wished he had the same means of upward propulsion as Boucher’s characters and could float right through the ceiling and the roof and alight in Number 8 Manchester Square. Then a room full of Greuzes, rather sickly portraits of young girls’ faces that looked as if they were designed to appeal to women and middle-aged and elderly men rather than to the young of either sex. He listened for the footsteps again. They seemed to have stopped. He stood absolutely still for two minutes to see if they started again. They did not.

Powerscourt was now in a kind of magic kingdom, the creations of Antoine Watteau making music and love in the open air in some enchanted fete champetre . He remembered reading somewhere that with Watteau, as with Mozart, one could learn that sincerity in art does not have to be uncouth and that perfection of form need not imply poverty of content. Then there was Fragonard, a painter of such sensuous indulgence, such glorious decadence that the French Revolution might have been created in order to abolish him. Why, Powerscourt said to himself, did his brain wander off into artistic thoughts when death might be just a corridor away? He listened again. Still no noise.

When he reached the Great Gallery that ran right across one side of the house he lay down on the floor. He inched his way forward until his head just poked round the corner. At least I’m a smaller target this way, he said to himself. Nothing stirred. On the walls the Van Dycks and the Rembrandts, the Hals and the Gainsboroughs kept to their frames. Powerscourt watched the far door with great care. Maybe his opponent was hiding behind there, biding his time before an exploratory shot down the room. Suddenly Powerscourt wondered if the man might not have taken his boots off and crept round to take him from the rear. He looked behind. Only Watteau on guard there, though Powerscourt doubted if those effete-looking lovers and musicians would have been much good in a fight. He wondered what to do. Charge straight down the Great Gallery? Wait? Go back he way he had come? To his left an austere Spanish lady with a fan and a rosary, painted by Velasquez, was taking the register of his sins. Still there was silence at the far end. Suddenly Powerscourt decided to take the initiative. He rose to his feet, took his pistol in his right hand and ran as fast as he could down the gallery. Fifteen feet from the end he fired two shots just past the door. Then he kicked the door as hard as he could and peered round. There was nobody there. Only some Dutch peasants, too preoccupied with their own world to have any time for his, lounged about on the walls. Powerscourt stood still and locked the Great Gallery door behind him. He was worried about being outflanked to his rear. So where was the man? Had he given up and gone home? Had the nightwatchman arrived? Powerscourt rather doubted it. He feared he had somehow lost the initiative, that his enemy had the upper hand. Even the views of gloomy Dutch churches, peopled with sombre worshippers dressed in black, would not be enough to save him now. There were only two players left in the Wallace Collection game of hide and seek, and death might be the prize for the loser.

Carefully, cautiously, he made his way along the East Galleries. Powerscourt was concentrating so hard on his opponent’s whereabouts that he scarcely looked at the paintings at all. He had his gun ready to fire in his right hand. He feared that if he left it in his pocket he might be wounded before he had time to reach it. Maybe his last stand was to be on the landing above the ornamental staircase that led to the ground floor. Maybe he needed some armour. He checked his watch again. If the nightwatchman came at seven he would be here in less than fifteen minutes. You could, he realized, go round and round the Wallace Collection just as easily as you could go round and round the mulberry bush.

As he rushed out – slow progress affording the enemy too much time and too much target – he saw his opponent at last halfway down the stairs, but facing upwards. He too had his pistol in his right hand. Both men fired at almost exactly the same time. Powerscourt’s bullet caught the man at the top of the stomach. He turned round and fell down the stairs, rolling slowly down until he came to rest under an ornate fireplace in the hall. A trail of blood followed him down the steps. Powerscourt was hit in the chest and collapsed on the floor, knocking his head against the marble floor with a mighty crack. Neither man made a sound.

Albert Forrest, nightwatchman to the Wallace Collection, liked to reach work a little early. That way he could feel he was ahead of his timetable. He wouldn’t be rushed. He was at an age now, Albert, when he liked to take things at his own pace and in his own time. So it was about five minutes to seven when he opened the great door that led into the Wallace Collection from Manchester Square. The blood had continued to flow from the man by the fireplace. It had now spread all over the floor. Albert Forrest took one look and hurried to his tiny office at the back of the Armouries. He did something he had wanted to do ever since they had installed the thing just before the house was opened to the public in 1900. He pulled the alarm. Then he pulled it again. The noise, meant to warn of fire or flood, of Armageddon or the Second Coming, sounded as if it might wake the dead. Even as Albert was making his way back to the front door – that fellow looked pretty dead to Albert, no point in hurrying – Johnny Fitzgerald was coming down the stairs of Number 8 Manchester Square four at a time. He exchanged alarmed looks with Lady Lucy, who was already concerned that Francis had not come home, and rushed across the square. A small crowd was beginning to form outside the front door. The hotel behind seemed to be emptying all its guests out on to the street. Drinkers from the pub across the road were peering in through the doors, glasses in hand. Johnny took one look at the villain in the hall and shot up the stairs, pausing only to apprehend his pistol.