The Black Cat Murders: A Cotswolds Country House Murder (Heathcliff Lennox Book 2)

by Karen Menuhin

  ‘Rather brave of them, to wander the streets in that get-up. It’s broad daylight out there.’ I didn’t like to say that I was surprised they hadn’t been arrested.

  ‘Oh, we have a large dressing room on the way in,’ Mildew explained. ‘It’s all part of the fun, you know.’

  Cigarettes had been lit, beer sipped and friends greeted as the audience settled in. It didn’t take long for the club to develop a warm smokey fug.

  One of the ‘ladies’ on stage called out to Mildew. ’Play it again, sunshine, we’re lined up, ready and waiting!’

  I looked over and indeed they were all linked arm in arm and making a very colourful spectacle.

  Mildew rapidly wound up the gramophone, I turned in my seat to watch from the bar as the other ‘chaps’ in the audience assembled around the circular tables. We were given a rollicking performance of a very loud can-can, complete with whoops, synchronised stomping and some very high kicks. It was marvellous!

  I stood up along with the rest of the audience and was giving my loudest applause with a few rousing ‘bravos’ when Swift appeared. He walked into the place and just stood and stared at the dancers, then me and then the empty glasses on the bar.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ Swift snapped.

  ‘No, nothing to declare,’ I told him, and introduced him to Mildew, Mildred, or whoever he was. A number of other chaps called out merry greetings too.

  Swift refused a drink; he got a bit stuffy, actually. I could tell it wasn’t quite his thing so I decided we’d better push off back to the house.

  We had a jolly drive through the countryside; I opened up the Bentley to give her a bit of a blast, roaring through the lanes, cutting across the corners – it was splendid fun. Swift rather spoiled it by turning curmudgeonly – I couldn’t hear his exact words, but I could spot he was in a sour mood.

  I trotted off to my rooms to greet Fogg and Tubbs and rang Dicks for some strong black coffee. I was on my third cup when Swift returned to disturb my peace.

  ‘The Bloxford Beauties,’ he said without preamble.

  ‘Ah, yes. The Gainsborough,’ I replied.

  ‘We need to see them,’ he rejoined.

  ‘Ah, yes, yes, good idea, old chap. Follow me,’ I said, and made for the door. I must admit I was not feeling entirely up to par, but I put on a game front.

  His temper had improved and he was almost civil by the time we reached the top floor. I assumed he’d been to visit the lovely Florence and that all was now going swimmingly. He told me he’d found a considerable number of items in Nigel’s books that corresponded to von Graf’s ledger, proving that many of the artworks had indeed been sold through the gallery.

  We rounded the corner to the hidden door and were met with an unpleasant surprise in the form of Dawkins. He was leaning against an oak coffer on the far wall, picking his nails. He scowled when he spied us.

  ‘Dawkins, clear off,’ I ordered him.

  ‘Can’t. Got me orders. Mr Benson says I’m to stay ’ere and not let no one up. You’ve got to go back down.’

  ‘You are relieved of your duties, Dawkins,’ I warned him.

  Swift took my arm. ‘Lennox …’ He shook his head and turned to descend the stairs.

  ‘Why the retreat, Swift?’

  ‘It’ll cause trouble if we barge in there. That idiot will alert the whole house, not to mention the murderer,’ he said as we reached my rooms. ‘You said one of the paintings was at the rectory, that means it must have been smuggled out. There has to be another entrance.’

  He was right – the brandy was fuddling my brain. I looked at him, trying to think it through. ‘Nursery,’ I said at last.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The Long Gallery was originally intended as a place for the children to play. There’s probably a staircase connecting the two, so the governesses wouldn’t have to drag the little blighters through the house.’

  ‘Right. That makes sense. Bring the painting,’ he ordered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we should return it,’ he said.

  ‘Ah. Yes. Very well.’ I fetched Lady Grace from under my bed and stuffed her, still wrapped, under my arm.

  The nursery rooms hadn’t been used since Caroline was a child, and the furnishings were draped in dull Holland cloth. My heart rather sank. I recalled the place being full of toys and games played before blazing fires while maids ran in and out with trays laden with hot milk and dainties for our afternoon tea. The gaily coloured wallpaper, decorated with depictions of ribbons, dolls and toys, was faded and streaked with damp. I could make out the shape of the old rocking horse under one of the covers, and the fort and dolls-house below others. I hoped Caroline and Hiram would pack the place with children and bring it back to life again.

  ‘Where would it be?’ Swift broke into my thoughts.

  I went over to the large windows and looked around the room, my hand to my chin. We’d never found a secret door when Caroline and I had played here all those years ago, but then we’d never thought to look. I recalled the maids coming and going and realised they hadn’t always used the main door. They had sometimes come from the direction of the day room where there were French beds for afternoon snoozes. I strode in that direction and found a dusty door part way down the corridor which opened onto a narrow staircase. It led downwards and had an air of mouldering redundancy. The back was closed off with a double panel that looked as though it was once an opening.

  I pushed my fingers into a gap at the side where the dark wood butted up to the rough plastered wall. It came away easily: it had simply been wedged in place.

  ‘This looks like it,’ Swift said as we tugged the second board away. A set of worn stone steps rose upwards. They were covered in a light layer of dust that showed signs of boots having been up and down fairly recently.

  I drew my flashlight from my pocket, lit it, and led the way up.

  The door at the top opened easily and silently, as though someone had oiled it. We walked into the room, staring around us. We were under the eaves of the roof, but there were tall mullioned windows built into the length of the outer wall. It gave onto a magnificent view – from this height we could see for miles across green fields and beyond the hills and woods to the villages in the vales. There was evidence that one of the windows had blown in because it had been crudely covered with a square of plain wood nailed across the broken panes. No doubt it was caused by the storm that the Brigadier had described.

  The room was rightly named the Long Gallery because it was indeed very long, and a good fifteen or sixteen feet wide. The walls were mainly panelled in simple yellow pine squares – it must have made a marvellous playroom and skittle alley; it was a shame Caroline and I hadn’t known about it, we’d have made this our childhood headquarters.

  Swift and I advanced into the centre where a large fireplace was filled with dusty pine cones. On the far side, the sun shone in dust-filled rays onto the gilt-framed portraits of the Bloxford Beauties. We approached into the light, suddenly aware of the jewel-like colours reflecting from the paintings. It was breathtaking; we paused for an instant and stood in silent admiration. There is nothing like an exquisitely painted lady in a state of undress to bring a smile to one’s face.

  They were, for the most part, quite alluring; a few were truly beautiful; and a couple were fulsome, if a little plain.

  ‘Artful,’ Swift remarked.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ I replied, standing with my arms crossed, taking in the dazzling array.

  ‘They’ve been cleaned,’ he said. ‘No dust or mould on the canvases.’

  ‘Hum,’ I bent to take a closer look at a buxom brunette. ‘Miss Jayne Spencer,’ I read out. ‘Must have been an early bride. The fan she’s holding in front of her, um, nether regions, looks like Regency period.’ It wasn’t a large picture, none of them were, the biggest being around three feet by two or thereabouts.

  ‘Yes,’ Swift mumbled, and bent closer to another p
ainting.

  ‘This one is even older,’ he said. ‘That’s a King Charles Spaniel held to her chest. They were the height of fashion during the Restoration.’

  We made our way slowly along the line – and I must say that it was quite the most pleasant afternoon I’ve spent in many a long day. I didn’t even mind missing lunch.

  ‘This is Miss Busby – look.’ I said.

  Swift looked, then looked again. ‘She was beautiful, wasn’t she.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I agreed. A young Miss Busby was smiling joyfully from the canvas, a gauze scarf tossed over one shoulder and draped across her strategic points. ‘Terrific figure, too,’ I remarked in admiration.

  ‘Which one is the Gainsborough?' Swift asked.

  ‘This one, probably.’ I returned to a lady wearing an elaborate white wig and not much else. ‘Think they all wore wigs at the time, about seventeen forty or fifty – before the French revolution, anyway.’

  ‘Can’t see a signature.’ he said as we scrutinised the canvas closely.

  ‘There’s a name, though,’ I added as I peered at the frame. ‘Lady Eleanor Braeburn. It must be this one.’ I took a step back to admire her.

  ‘Hum.’ Swift came closer and studied her face. ‘She has a resemblance to Florence, doesn’t she,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, and there was a touch of Ruth about her, too, but I thought it politic not to mention it.

  ‘Clegg said something about a harp, didn’t he?’ Swift added.

  ‘He did,’ I said, still gazing at the lady, who was smiling gaily, her chin resting on her crossed arms, leaning on the top shaft of a gilded harp. Her naked body was hazily indistinct behind the strings. I regarded her face: it really was quite astonishing the way the artist had caught her expression with a few simple brush strokes. I knew very little about painting but it seemed terribly clever the way the whole portrait had been devised in light and shade. The face and harp were in bright colour, but the body and background melded together into suggestive shadows rather than precise forms.

  ‘It’s good, isn’t it,’ Swift observed.

  ‘And it’s here,’ I commented.

  ‘Yes, assuming it is the Gainsborough,’ he replied, ‘it hasn’t been stolen.’

  ‘Mm,’ I agreed, thinking that it rather destroyed our theories about von Graf and Jarvis’s motives.

  ‘They’re…’ Swift started to say something then fell silent.

  ‘They’re what?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re having fun, aren’t they?’ Swift spoke thoughtfully. 'As though it’s all done in jest. And I suppose their new husbands must have felt the same way.’

  ‘Yes, what of it,’ I replied.

  ‘Well,’ he started and stopped again. ‘It’s not how people see them. I don’t mean literally, like this, in the altogether, I mean just in general. They’re usually seem so remote and stuck up.’

  ‘Toffs are people too, Swift,’ I told him. ‘It just that the circumstances are different. Try not to see us through blinkered eyes.’ I nearly added that he should stop being so judgemental, but suspected the comment wouldn’t be well received.

  He walked up and down the gallery again, stopping here and there to observe the finer details of the portraits.

  ‘This one looks like Lady Caroline, but it’s not her, is it?’ Swift stopped in front of another painting. I moved to join him.

  ‘No, it’s Lady Grace,’ I replied, ‘which is most remarkable because I have another one here.’ I unwrapped the picture I had been carrying under my arm and placed it on the floor.

  We stood and stared at them both; they were virtually identical. It felt rather surreal to see them together.

  ‘One of them is a copy,’ Swift said, stating the obvious.

  ‘And a damn good one,’ I agreed.

  ‘That’s what he did, didn’t he,’ Swift mused.

  We moved back to the Gainsborough.

  ‘Yes,’ I said with my hand to my chin. ‘So – is this a copy? And if so, where’s the real one?’

  Chapter 23

  ‘We’ll try the theatre first. Clegg may be there,’ Swift said as we jammed the boards back into place across the hidden staircase.

  ‘I think we need some lunch first, old chap,’ I reminded him. ‘Rather peckish, you know.’

  ‘No, Lennox, time is passing, we need to nail this.’ Swift strode off down the stairs.

  I had brought Lady Grace back with me. Leaving her there would have been too peculiar, and besides, she was evidence.

  ‘I’m going to leave the painting in my rooms, Swift,’ I told him, and went off in that direction. He followed, though I could hear him grumbling.

  Dicks had left a tray of cold cuts, including some excellent ham, two large pieces of pork pie, sliced apples, cheese of three varieties, Cook’s best pickle and some bottles of beer. Dicks may have his idiosyncrasies, I thought, but he was a sound chap. I placed the painting on my desk and we both tucked in with Fogg and Mr Tubbs in attendance. Despite Swift’s griping at the delay, we both set off with a more energetic step.

  The theatre was bursting with theatricals. The whole troupe was present and most of them were prancing about in full costume. Some were being sewn into their garments by the wardrobe master, others were adjusting straps and stockings. Lizzie, dressed as Carmen in her scanty scarlet frock, spotted us first.

  ‘Yoo-hoo,’ she called. ‘I say, darlings, are you sleuthing – ha-ha!’ she trilled. Heads turned in our direction.

  ‘Police business,’ Swift growled, and stalked onto the stage to continue straight down the wooden side-stairs behind the curtains to the area below without saying another word. I hastily followed suit as Lizzie advanced with a gleam in her eye.

  Clegg was indeed there, shifting props under the eye of the moustachioed baritone, attired for his role as a toreador.

  Swift butted in: ‘Need to question this man,’ he snapped at the toreador.

  ‘Well, how rude. We are preparing for the performance, you know,’ the toreador grumbled. ‘It is tonight and I don’t see –’

  ‘Out,’ Swift ordered him, pointing toward the stairs.

  That got rid of him, leaving only poor Clegg looking nervously from behind round spectacles at the Inspector.

  ‘Don’t worry, Clegg,’ I reassured him. ‘We know it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Oh, sir,’ he smiled beneath the beard. ‘I’m that relieved to hear it. Been worrying myself to death, I have.’

  ‘Lady on a harp,’ Swift said.

  ‘Ay? What of it?’ Clegg replied warily.

  ‘What did you mean, Clegg?’ I asked him.

  He sighed and looked at his feet. ‘It were that painting – the one I found. Beautiful, she is. Like an angel from heaven.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Swift snapped.

  ‘In my work shop. She makes for pleasing company while I’m making and mending.’

  ‘I think you’d better show us the way, Clegg,’ I told him.

  He led us to the small, arched door set into the walls, paused to extract a large key from his waistcoat pocket, unlocked the door, then pulled it open. A worn track wove through bright spring grass to a low barn between tall trees. The building was ancient, made of honey-coloured stones, its roof dipping almost to the ground. It was probably a tithe barn once, I thought, some time in the past when the monks tilled the land and sang softly in the chantry for the souls of the dead.

  ‘Come through here, mind ye heads,’ Clegg called as he led us into the dark interior where rough-hewn planks were stacked each side of a narrow walkway. It smelled of freshly cut wood, sawdust, mice and old birds’ nests in the rafters. He kept going until we came to a smaller room, filled with light from two large windows cut into one wall. The other walls were hung with tools of every sort — chisels and chippers, hammers and punches, pincers and hand-drills and more. I would have spent happy hours looking around, had my eyes not been drawn to the canvas propped up in the corner on a makeshift easel. It w
as the Gainsborough – or an exact copy of it.

  We stopped and stared. The image seemed to fill the small space with vibrant colours and the pure beauty of the subject. It was a plain canvas without a frame, but the same lovely lady smiled out at us.

  ‘Where exactly did you find her?’ Swift asked.

  ‘Behind the Tosca painting,’ Clegg replied.

  ‘Not sure what you mean, old chap,’ I told him. None of us had taken our eyes off the Gainsborough.

  ‘But you know the story of Tosca - don’t you?’ Clegg said as he noticed our blank looks.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  He turned to eye me closely. I suppose he thought people from the house would have accumulated some culture in their time, but most of it had entirely passed me by.

  ‘Tosca is by Puccini - he was a clever chap, he was. Romanic it is, but tragic,’ he began with enthusiasm. ‘The leading man – that being Sir Crispin – was playing an artist called Cavaradossi. In the first scene, Cavaradossi is in a church painting a picture of the Mary Magdalene – you know who she is, don’t you?’

  He looked at me as though I were some dim-witted schoolboy.

  ‘Yes, Clegg, of course I do,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, an old friend of Cavaradossi’s comes in – he’s called Angelotti – and he’s on the run from the police so Cavaradossi has to hide him. Then Tosca comes in, she’s the leading lady – that’s who Dame Gabriel was playing. Anyway, Tosca sees the painting and realises Cavaradossi hasn’t used her as the model for Mary Magdalen, he’s painted another lady – a much prettier one. Now, Tosca’s the jealous sort, so she gets herself in a bit of a lather …’

  ‘Wait.’ I held my hand up. ‘We only need to know about the painting, not the whole opera.

  ‘But it’s a wonderful story. You’d be right glad if ye heard it, Major Lennox.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, Clegg.’

  ‘How did you find this painting?’ Swift demanded, indicating the Gainsborough.

  Clegg sighed heavily, causing sawdust to drift from his beard. ‘That Chaplain, Jarvis, he painted the backdrops and the picture for the opening scene. Had a talent for it, never seen no one so good as what he did. Anyhow, he brought the Mary Magdalene here a few days before the show so they could use it for rehearsals. He told me to put together an easel cos he didn’t have one to spare, so I said I would. And I did. But I wanted to make sure the picture wouldn’t be falling off, so I was tryin’ to make some stays to fix it in place. While I was moving the painting on and off, the back came loose – it were only held on with tape and a few staples, which weren’t right to my mind. So I prised it away and that’s where she was –’ he nodded towards the Gainsborough ‘– wedged into the back of the frame.’