I was absolutely appalled to read (The Argus, December 8) that US crime fiction writer Patricia Cornwell has had the temerity to smear the good name of Walter Sickert - who is to English art what Edward Elgar is to music - by suggesting he might be responsible for the 1888 Whitechapel (Jack the Ripper) murders.
She will be suggesting it was Gladstone next.
Yes, there are superficial pointers in both instances, admittedly. Gladstone, however, was on the threshold of his 80th birthday at the time.
As for Sickert, I suggest Ms Cornwell would do well to take a look at George Moore's rhapsodic eulogy on Sickert in Chapter IX of his Conversations In Ebury Street before she attempts further to calumniate the reputation of a magnificent painter no longer able to defend himself against these ridiculous, malignant and totally unfounded accusations.
-Roy Branden, Pevensey Road, West Worthing
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