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So what are we to make of Patricia Cornwell's full-page advert in today's Independent, in which she proclaims her devotion - not to her partner - but to an idea? That idea, of course, is that Jack the Ripper was the painter Walter Sickert. Does this mean the novelist's cherished theory is about to go the same way as the relationships of Richard and Cindy et al? Or is some clinching piece of evidence about to emerge linking Sickert to the Ripper that will vindicate Ms Cornwell at last? For the sake of troubled celebrity marriages and amateur sleuths everywhere, it is to be hoped the latter.