Diana's Altar Page 12

  Pertinax seemed pleased with his contribution. “Odd, isn’t it, Sandilands, the way a man responds to filthy words from a rosebud mouth? I see we share a taste for salacious seduction . . .”

  When Joe was a small boy he’d been having lunch with a corseted great aunt and on his best behaviour. Eating up his salad, he’d inadvertently speared a caterpillar lurking under a lettuce leaf. The forkful was half way to his mouth and the aunt’s beady eye on him. The conflicting needs to avoid putting the still twitching creature into his mouth, to avoid being sick and to avoid upsetting his aunt came back vividly to mind at this moment. He’d resolved the situation clumsily by throwing down his fork, faking a coughing fit and running from the room. None of these reactions was available to the mature man, but he revolted in the same visceral way at the sudden attempt to slide a parasitic thought into his head.

  The antidote was everywhere around him. “Now, Pertinax,” Joe looked at his watch, “much left to see and lunch time is almost upon us. I’ll follow at your heels, trying to keep up while we look at these gems one at a time until you get bored.”

  “The gong! We’re bidden to lunch,” Pertinax announced with no sign of relief that they had come to the end of their allotted time. Art lovers, like dog owners or stamp collectors, never wearied of showing off their possessions, Joe found. He didn’t think he’d bored Pertinax; he’d been a genuinely interested and admiring audience. Armed with Dorothy’s insights and wicked subtleties, he’d managed, he was sure, to impress and even amuse the undoubted authority he was fencing with, though the effort of putting on an act of amiable, silly ass with aspirations of art connoisseurship had taken its toll. It had left him feeling a little limp and dying for a stiff gin, but Pertinax had further to go.

  “There’s just one more item,” he announced. “You came here ostensibly to see my Watteaus, if I remember correctly. There’s one you haven’t even noticed yet. A double portrait in which you, Sandilands, play a starring role! Up there over the door where it was designed to hang.”

  Joe looked up and stared in surprise. “My God! It’s Zeus and Antiope!”

  “Or the Satyr and the Nymph, as I prefer. It’s never a bad idea to mask your identity if you’re a god.”

  “When you’re on mischief bent,” Joe added, peering more closely. “The horns are a good touch.”

  The picture fitted well into its allotted place in the oval- shaped gap over the door. Entering the room you were not aware of its presence and, once blinded by the richness of the delights on display at eye level, it went unremarked. Why on earth would one want to hang a superb Watteau with such reticence? Cynically Joe believed there could be a good reason for the positioning.

  “Do you see him? Your alter ego?” Pertinax was chortling. “Could this be your Dorian Gray moment, Sandilands?”

  A dusky satyr (or Zeus in disguise) was caught in the act of peeling a diaphanous fabric away from the sleeping form of a nymph (or Antiope, daughter of a river god). Joe checked the male figure’s undercarriage for the sure sign of satyrism—a pair of hairy goat’s legs—but his lower limbs were hidden in shadows and left to the imagination. Only his muscled upper torso was on view. The traditional horns were almost concealed amongst the tangled vine leaves of the wreath around his head. The two bodies echoed the oval shape of the frame and filled it with a symphony of subtle colour. The satyr, long, sinewy arms extending from powerful shoulders, could have been seen either as protective or lecherous, his sun-darkened skin and his black hair a contrast with the sugar mouse pinkness of the nymph. She was fast asleep, one arm tucked under her fair head; he was very much awake, handsome in his way and sharing an evil leer with the artist. And, yes, he had Joe’s eyebrows. And, yes, he had Joe’s empathy.

  Joe burst out laughing. “It’s a fair cop! ’e caught me bang to rights, tool in hand, M’Lud!” he said in the voice of a London thug in the dock. “That’s me for sure but who’s the strawberry blonde?” Then, more carefully: “I know there were several copies made of this painting at the time, but wouldn’t you say this is a copy of a copy? Why are you displaying it here amongst all these good pictures? Aren’t you afraid it might detract from your bona fides?”

  “You scoff too soon, Sandilands! I’ve always considered it one of the original works. Doubt was, however, cast a while ago by none less than Despond senior. I went to the best for an opinion. Ha! Damn him! No one would dare support me in my claim if it meant contradicting the Master. Can you imagine how many collections would have to be unpicked and at what expense if Despond himself were discredited? He’s made himself an impregnable authority and his nod is the most solid guarantee in an uncertain and scurrilous art world.”

  “The art world closed ranks?”

  “Inevitably. So that’s an end of it. Pertinax is in possession of a fake. The word was out. The best description Despond could come up with was pretty weak: probably from the studio of Watteau . . . by a pupil of the master . . . Blah, blah! Whatever its true status, it had little monetary value. So I hide it over the door. No one knows he’s up there but me. We exchange a wink when I walk by. And now you know.” He shrugged. “Who cares? I like it and I know it to be right. But I have to say, Sandilands, you put your finger on it when you said you fear for the rest of my collection. One bad apple is all it takes . . .” He went silent for a moment, in deep thought. “Look here,” he said finally. “I’ve been thinking about this for some time. It isn’t a rash decision. If you would like to make me a reasonable offer for this painting I’ll accept it.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “One can’t put such a disputed canvas up for auction. One can hardly sell it to a friend without being accused of unfair influence and scurrilous double-dealing. Men who have clubs get drummed out of them for much less.”

  Joe thought he detected a passing bitterness before Pertinax fixed him with a smile full of challenge and excitement. The face of a man about to land his fish.

  “But if a man with a certain position in society, a man acknowledged to know his art, a man hard-nosed enough to carry a gun in his briefcase were to recognise its quality and name his price . . . ? What do you say?”

  “Well, as your gun-toting, nonfriend, I say two hundred pounds.”

  “Two hundred guineas and the nymph is yours.”

  “Done! With one proviso—the usual paperwork. In my line of business, I have to be meticulous, as I’m sure you’ll understand. My Browning is nestling next to my cheque- book and a bill of sale. The work of a minute to fill it in and sign after lunch.”

  “Well, bugger me! Is this how you always do business, Sandilands?”

  “No. Sometimes I have to apply Browning to temple,” Joe said baring his teeth in what he was sure Bulldog Drummond would have called a vulpine grin.

  Chapter 12

  “Let me help you with that, sir.”

  James, who’d been waiting at the open door of the Lagonda he’d carefully parked by the front door ready for take-off, hurried forward at the sight of Joe staggering from the house hefting a brown-paper-wrapped parcel. A yard long but of shallow height, it just about fitted under his arm.

  Pertinax followed on, jovial and smelling lightly of brandy and cigars, offering a useful pair of hands and advice for the chauffeur. “No! Not in the trunk. Inside, man! It’s not a shove ha’penny board in here! Put it on edge along the backseat . . . Yes, like that. Sandilands, sit next to it and support it.”

  Brisk farewells followed. From Joe, a cheerful, “So I’ll put a date for next Midsummer in my diary. I shall start working on my costume. It may take me some time to locate a goat’s hide supplier.”

  “Do that! Meanwhile, you could start growing the horns. But I hope to see you again before then. In fact, very soon. I know where to send the invitation.”

  A mile down the road, Joe pointed to a cart track screened from the road by a tall hedge. “Pull off the road and park ther
e, James—er, Constable, I suppose I can call you again now that’s all over!”

  Risby grinned and removed his peaked cap. “Just as I was getting into the role, sir. Trousers a bit on the short side but I don’t think anyone noticed. Mr. Simpson’s son’s on to a cushy number with this chauffeuring business! I’m thinking of applying for a transfer. Driving this beauty, stuffing my face with Victoria sponge, flirting with ladies who don’t see a real man from one year’s end to the next! Whew! I’ve had a lovely morning! You, sir?”

  Joe was digging about crossly in his bag, finally producing a flask of hotel coffee and two silver cups. “Bloody awful! Three hours of torment! Face to face with one of the world’s ghastliest rogues and being made a fool of. I remind myself I wasn’t there to do any serious detecting. I was just setting myself up as an Aunt Sally for his shafts of rancid humour, an audience for his preening egotism.” Joe shuddered.

  Alarmed by the unexpected rush of emotion from the assistant commissioner and putting it down to an excess of alcohol taken, the constable reached over and took the flask from Joe’s shaking hands. “Shall I pour, sir? Don’t want you scalding yourself,” and, lightly to defuse Joe’s anger, “That bluff old stick? Seemed nice enough to me . . . jolly like . . . Can’t see as I’d like to meet him halfway down a dark alley in Newmarket, mind! Did you see the hands on him, sir? Boxer’s hands!” After a few sips of coffee, Risby jerked his head at the parcel. “Well you seem to have got something out of it at least, sir.”

  “A forged painting. Not worth a tenth of the price I paid for it. Must have been mad! Still—that was the point of the exercise: to persuade him that the man he was dealing with was an impressionable nutcase. What better way to do that than by chucking two hundred quid at him on a whim?”

  Risby gave a quiet whistle. “Two hundred? Oh, well, I expect you can always claim it back on expenses, sir,” he said comfortably.

  “Sadly, no. Can you imagine the enquiry: ‘So you think your ventures into the art world should be subsidized by the public purse, Sandilands?’ I’d be a laughing stock! Is my reputation worth two hundred pounds, Risby? That’s what I have to decide.”

  Risby gulped and gave him a puzzled look. “Is it a nice painting at least? You might like it when you get it up on the wall. And who’d know the difference? Pertinax is never going to split.” He eyed the parcel with curiosity.

  “No. You’re not going to take a look at it. Your ma wouldn’t like you to be exposed to a scene of debauchery, even though I could describe it as an elegiac composition of characters from classical antiquity disporting themselves in a woodland setting.”

  “Oh! That sort of picture! Plenty of those in the Fitzwilliam. There’s a Sickert I’m particularly partial to . . .”

  “It’s still—no! Sorry, Risby. Farting about and indulging in salacious old gents’ chatter for three hours leaves me feeling soiled and . . .”

  “A bit overwrought?”

  “I was going to say drunk! He keeps a damned good burgundy and pours with a generous hand. The things I do for England! But I’ve survived at least. That’s the best I could have hoped for. Now . . . I hardly dare ask . . . tell me how you got on. You roused no suspicions?”

  “Nah! They’ve entertained Jameses before. The housekeeper came to check me over before they let me in . . .”

  “Housekeeper? Did you catch her name?”

  “Mrs. McGregor. Marsha. Fifties. Tough. Bossy. Face like a boot. She gave me the once over, decided I’d probably not come for the silver and told me to wait in the kitchen. Then I had a stroke of luck. The cook, nice woman, told me to take my cup of tea with one of the maids. Little thing called Pearl. When Pearl came trotting up I thought I’d blown it. A girl from my school! A year below me but she remembered me. Canny lass! She said nothing while the cook was in the room but when we were alone she said, quiet like: ‘How’re you doing, Rex? Thought you were going to join the police.”

  “Nasty moment. What did you tell her?”

  “I said I’d thought about it but discovered the pay was too low and the hours too long and given up the idea. She believed me. Well, why wouldn’t she? I blathered on a bit about how good the tips were in the driving business and how I’d do anything to get my hands on a steering wheel. I switched as soon as I could to her situation. She wasn’t easy. She went quiet on me in fact and it took a bit of glad eyeing and reminiscing to get her to open up. She doesn’t like working there. Scared of the master, the butler, the housekeeper. Plain scared.”

  “Did she say why? And why would she stay?”

  Risby was almost scornful. “It’s a job. Nothing else she could do. Recessionary times, they tell us. Country’s debts to pay off and all that. It’s people like Pearl who are . . . Never mind. She keeps her nose down and sees and hears nothing. Sir Gregory at least pays well. Over the odds. But he expects total loyalty from all his staff. Any hint of insubordination or talking out of turn calls for a sacking. Or worse.”

  “What’s worse, Risby?”

  “Not easy to understand her. She knew she was going too far and started burbling a bit. She only confided as much as she did because I was a familiar face and I think she always fancied me at school. That and I was totally unconnected with the house . . . There was a footman. The footmen are never local. They’re always brought in from London, though I think ‘London’ was Pearl’s way of saying anywhere but Cambridge. They’re always good-looking she says.”

  “The usual thing. Tall, handsome blokes are guaranteed a footman’s position. Good wages they get too. Twins command a particularly high price.”

  “This one died suddenly. Got above himself, Pearl says. One day they hear the master bawling at him, the next they find his body in the wood. Shooting accident. One of the keepers pulled the trigger. The man’s own fault is the general opinion. They’re always warning the staff not to go gallivanting out on the estate.”

  “Name of the footman and dates?”

  “Got ’em, sir. Jeremy Newcombe, last August. The week after the shooting season opened. There was a big house party in full swing.”

  “These house parties, Risby . . . any comments forthcoming?”

  “Interesting for the reaction, sir, when I put a careful question. Clammed up at once. ‘A whole lot of extra work for the staff,’ was all she would share with me.”

  “Mmm . . . Well done, Constable. It’s not much to work on and I expect he’s covered his tracks, but it’s a start.” He sighed. “Did your girl have any information about the visitors to the house? Would that be too much to hope for?”

  “Far too much. I didn’t even try. I knew she wouldn’t tell me and she’d be suspicious and scared if I asked.” Risby waited for the glow to dim in Joe’s eyes before adding with a sly smile, “But I’ve done better than that, sir. I’ve saved the best for last!” He fumbled in his pocket and took out a small, grubby, dog-eared diary.

  “What’s this you’re handing me?”

  “A year’s worth of visitors! Everybody who’s been to Madingley Court since the first of January.”

  Joe took the book dubiously and riffled through the pages.

  “These aren’t names in here, Risby. Every date filled in but with . . . What the hell! Oh! Crikey! Is this the gold mine I think it is? How did you get your hands on this?”

  Expansive with quiet triumph, Risby began his succinct and modest account. Making his way round to the back on arrival, his eye had been caught by a stirring in the shrubbery. Using his police training, he’d whistled his way past, made a swift turn on his heel and dived on the shadowy presence. A very alarmed small boy had been caught in the act of writing down the number of the Lagonda in his notebook. Risby explained, “It’s a harmless hobby, sir. Kids are mad about cars. They write down the number and make. It’s like train spotting.” With Joe’s encouragement he pressed on. He’d reassured the lad, who was the son of Pertinax’
s own chauffeur, by embarking on a chaps’ chat with him about cars, confiding a driver’s impression of the Lagonda, asking what the best car in the boy’s collection was and so on. He’d ascertained that the boy, who’d been given the diary as a Christmas present, had used it to record not his day-to-day activities, which ceased to feature after the first week, but the more enthralling comings and goings of glamorous motorcars. He was skulking in the shrubbery because no one was supposed to hassle the guests. Visits were private and if anyone found out he’d even clocked their cars he’d get a hiding and his dad would get the sack.

  “Here we are, Risby,” Joe said. “November the second. Lagonda 45 and the number.” He worked his way back through the pages. “My word! We’re small fry. Have you had time to look at the contents? Rolls-Royces, Hispano-Suizas, Mercedes, Dodges . . . Laundry and fish-delivery vans make regular visits, Mondays and Fridays respectively. Ah, here are one or two cars with diplomatic plates. Lord! While I was stepping my way delicately through a minuet upstairs in the gallery, you were downstairs unearthing—did I say a gold mine just now? Snake pit, more like! But utterly fascinating. Pour us another cup of coffee, Risby. I want to drink to your success!”

  “Can you trace all these people at the Yard?”

  “No bother at all. I can have the owners of the vehicles named over the phone. Who precisely was travelling in them is less simple. But this is wonderful! It may not put me on the inside of the bend, but it puts me on the track at least.”

  Joe closed the book then re-opened it at the front page. Samuel Smith. His Diary 1933, he read. “How on earth did you get Samuel to part with it?”

  “I told him I was an enthusiast. I specialised in Rolls-Royce numbers. If he lent me the book to copy them I said I’d buy him a new diary for next year. I promised I’d get it back to him by next Friday, ready for the weekend arrivals. Don’t worry, sir. Young Sam’s got every reason to keep quiet and besides—he’s a cub scout with good field craft. We’ve agreed on a drop spot for the return. All part of the game. Leave that to me, sir.”