A Colourful Death_A Cornish Mystery

by Carola Dunn

  “Do you hear that?” Eleanor asked.

  “The church clock? Five o’clock. We’ve made reasonable time considering. Stella will still be at the shop. Like LonStar, I don’t close till half past at this time of year. Oh, by the way, though I didn’t tell Mrs Stearns, I did tell Stella about Alarian’s offer when I rang up to say I’d be back this afternoon.”

  “Of course, she’s a colleague. There, listen!”

  But Nick was concentrating on parking—on the wrong side of the narrow street, with two wheels on the pavement and the car’s nose inches from a no parkingsign outside the LonStar shop. At the same time, a bustle of chattering pedestrians flocked out of the bakery opposite after their Cornish cream teas. Never mind, Eleanor thought. In the mysterious way of such things, the rattle might well disappear by tomorrow.

  “Damn!” Nick exclaimed, putting on the hand-brake and turning off the ignition. “She’s shut up shop early.”

  And indeed, the glass door of the next shop down the hill displayed a closedsign and the blinds were down.

  Frowning, Nick opened the car door and twisted to get out in the narrow space between the car and the LonStar shop window. Teazle jumped over the brake and sprang down after him. Luckily Nick remembered her just in time not to shut the door on her. By the time Eleanor had climbed out on the street side, Nick was unlocking the door to his gallery, the dog at his heels.

  “I’ll just see if she’s still here,” he called over his shoulder to Eleanor. “I’ll be back in a minute to help you unload.”

  “Teazle, come!”

  Eleanor’s words were drowned in a burst of laughter from some happy people full of splits with strawberry jam and clotted cream. Longing for a cup of tea, she followed Nick to retrieve Teazle, who by then had gone with him into the gallery.

  “Bloody hell!” Nick stood just inside the door, gazing around wildly.

  For a moment Eleanor couldn’t see what was wrong. Then the first thing she noticed was that all the sculptures were gone. They had occupied a shelf on the wall to the right of the door—sleek seals, seagulls, and dolphins, carved from serpentine mottled and streaked in blues and greens and browns. Still there, drawing-pinned to the shelf, was the card with the sculptor’s name: Stella Maris.

  Star of the sea, Eleanor thought irrelevantly. Surely a pen-name, or the sculptural equivalent.

  “Bloody hell!” Nick repeated violently, striding round behind a three-panelled screen hung with pictures.

  Looking after him, Eleanor realised that the paintings hanging on the outer panels of the screen had been slashed. Someone had taken a knife to the two landscapes, making three parallel diagonal cuts in each canvas. The wildflower miniatures on the centre panel had been spared, perhaps considered insignificant.

  Speechless, she followed Nick. White-faced, fists clenched, he was staring in stunned silence at three of what he called his “serious” paintings. Eleanor didn’t understand or properly appreciate them, but these were the sort of things Alarian had chosen to hang in his prestigious London gallery. They, too, had been sliced diagonally but cross-wise, so that a sad triangle drooped from the centre of each.

  “Oh, Nick!”

  “I know who did it.”

  “Not Stella?”

  He shook his head. “There’s only one possible person. And he’s going to get what’s coming to him!”

  TWO

  “Yoohoo, Mrs Trewynn!” Donna, the teenage daughter of the landlord of the Trelawny Arms, stood on the threshold, her plump form barely encased in an op-art mini-dress. Eleanor hurried to stop her coming any further into the gallery. “I saw you come in here. D’you need help unloading?”

  “Yes, dear. That would be very kind. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Thass all right, take your time. You left the car windows open, so I can get in okay.” She raised her voice. “You coming up the Arms tonight, Mr Gresham?”

  Nick achieved no more than a strangled grunt. Fortunately Donna was quite accustomed to receiving no more by way of response from him. Besides, she had confided to Eleanor a few days ago that Mr Gresham, though dishy, was really too old for her. She went off happily crooning something about love, which Eleanor assumed to be one of the Beatles’ songs rather than a personal declaration.

  She turned back. “Nick,” she said urgently, “you mustn’t do anything hasty.”

  “Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to cut his throat with his own knife, no matter how much I feel like it.”

  “Just going to ‘pop him on the nose’? I realise I can’t possibly understand how you feel, but really, my dear, that’s not a good idea.” She didn’t want to sound goody-goody, but she had seen too much of the effects of violence ever to be complacent about it. “Please, at least come and have a cup of tea before you do anything you’ll regret.”

  He scowled. “Tea! You’d have better luck dissuading me if you got me too sozzled to ride my bike.”

  “I knew we should have stopped for a bottle of Asti.”

  His lips quirked and he said more calmly, “It’d take more than a few glasses of wine—”

  “Then it’s just as well I didn’t buy it. I don’t want you pot-valiant. Where does he live, the man you suspect?”

  “Padstow.”

  “I’ll tell you what, if you’ll come and drink a cuppa, I’ll drive you down there.”

  “Oh lord, Eleanor,” he groaned, “if you’re present, I won’t be able to sock him one.”

  “Exactly. Come on, lock up so no one can get in and see.” She nearly suggested that he should go round by the back doors, but the need to seem normal to Donna would probably do him good.

  Reluctantly he followed her out. Teazle scooted past them and through the open door just past the LonStar shop. She’d go and wait at the top of the stairs, outside the door to Eleanor’s flat, out of the way of people tramping back and forth. Donna had already cleared out the interior of the Incorruptible, with the assistance of Ivy and Lionel, the children from Chin’s Chinese. Having just opened the boot, the obliging teenager was tugging with both hands at Nick’s rucksack.

  “Golly, it’s heavy. Whatcher got in there, Mr Gresham?”

  “Among other things, books. Ever heard of them?”

  She giggled. “Yeah, like we’re s’posed to read at school.”

  “Oil paints, too. They weigh a ton. Leave it. I’ll get the rest.”

  He went round to the back of the car and lifted out the rucksack, easily, with one hand. Donna didn’t kid him about his muscles, as she usually would have. Eleanor had never considered her sensitive, but obviously, though he had teased her, she had seen something in his face that told her this was not a good moment for joshing.

  While Nick deposited the rucksack just inside the door and returned for the box of books, Eleanor thanked Donna and the children.

  “Me and Ivy put your shopping on your stairs, Mrs Trewynn, so’s they wouldn’t sell it with the rest of the stuff.”

  “Thank you, Lionel. That was very thoughtful. I’d quite forgotten I went shopping before I met the train.”

  “It was down on the floor behind the seats,” Ivy explained kindly, “where you couldn’t see it.”

  “That’s right. I remember putting it there to leave room for Nick and his … luggage.”

  “You ought to put the frozen stuff away in the fridge right away, or it’ll melt.”

  “Thaw,” her brother corrected her.

  “You’re quite right,” said Eleanor. “I’d better go and do it this very minute, before I forget.” She escaped.

  In the passage she met Nick on his way out. “I’d better take the Incorruptible down to the car-park,” he said. “It’d be a pity if Bob Leacock came by and felt obliged to give you a fine. I’ll drop off my rucksack.” He reached for it.

  Eleanor put her hand on his arm. “No, leave it here. Don’t go back in there till you must. Perhaps I’d better take the car down while you make the tea.”

  “I promise I won’t
hop it to Padstow without you, however great the temptation.”

  She followed him to the street door and watched him drive off down the hill, till he turned into the field on the far side of the stream, the only flat space in the centre of Port Mabyn. Then she went into the shop.

  Jocelyn was behind the counter, ringing up a sale. She nodded and smiled at Eleanor. Having completed the business, she asked, “Good haul?”

  “Not bad. I didn’t fill the car, as I had to leave room for Nick and his baggage. Joce, my friend, the London art dealer, has accepted the paintings he took with him!”

  “I trust Nicholas is duly grateful for the introduction. What’s up next door? I noticed the gallery closed early, and Nicholas came past with a face like thunder just now.”

  “He’s annoyed because of the early closing,” Eleanor hedged. Sooner or later, Jocelyn—and indeed the entire population of Port Mabyn—would find out what had happened, but with luck not until Nick had simmered down. Though she might have told Jocelyn, another volunteer and two customers were at the back of the small shop. “His friend promised she’d be able to cover for him the whole time he was away.”

  “I’m not surprised he’s annoyed. It may not be the height of the holiday season yet but business has been pretty brisk this afternoon. I even managed to get rid of that appalling muu-muu, the one with palm trees and Hawaiian dancers in grass skirts.”

  “Congratulations! It’s amazing what people will buy. I must go and put on the kettle. Nick’s coming to tea. He’s going to tell me all about Mr Alarian,” Eleanor invented hurriedly, hoping Jocelyn wouldn’t wonder why Nick hadn’t told her everything on the way home from Launceston.

  Fond as she was of Joce, she didn’t want her popping in for a cuppa while she was trying to smooth Nick’s ruffled feathers. The vicar’s wife wouldn’t be interested in the artist’s negotiations with the London gallery owner.

  “Tomorrow’s Mrs Davies’s day for the shop,” said Joce. “Come and have a cup of coffee with me at eleven.”

  Eleanor accepted and went upstairs to her flat.

  Teazle was on the landing outside the front door, impatient to get in. She headed straight for her water bowl in the kitchen, the front part of the room that stretched from back to front of the cottage. The windows were open and the breeze blowing off the sea was beginning to feel a little chilly, so Eleanor closed the back ones. She paused for a moment to enjoy the view up the rough slope to Crookmoyle Point and down to the left to the inlet and harbour with their sheltering cliffs. How lucky she was that this cottage had been vacant just when she needed it!

  Returning towards the kitchen, she stopped again, to study the painting over her mantelpiece. Nick had given it to her. It was one of the “tourist” pictures he scorned, but which provided his bread and butter. A little grey-brown donkey trotted down a steep cobbled street in Clovelly, between white-washed stone cottages splashed with the scarlet of geraniums in window-boxes. Eleanor loved it and didn’t care if it wasn’t high art.

  She put on the kettle, and stowed away her shopping, remembering with a smile Ivy’s grave warning. Her father, Mr Chin, though born in London, was an excellent Chinese chef. No doubt he’d impressed on the children the care that must be taken in storing food.

  Her smile faded as she took down a plate for the chocolate digestive biscuits she had bought to welcome Nick home. His favourites—but the present circumstances were not conducive to the enjoyment of simple pleasures.

  Who was the man he was so sure had wrecked his work? Why had he done it? Could Nick find proof of his being responsible, so as to be able to demand restitution? Was the damage repairable, or would all those beautiful paintings have to be thrown away?

  More important, who could possibly dislike Nick so much, and why?

  Surely such destruction must be a crime. Vandalism, perhaps? As soon as he came in, Nick ought to report the damage to Bob Leacock.

  She looked out of the window into the street. Nick was just crossing, from directly opposite the passage door below, thus avoiding having to walk past his desecrated gallery. He didn’t even glance that way, his gaze fixed directly ahead, his face set. Several people in the street, a couple of them local, gave him curious looks.

  “Wuff? ”

  “Do you want your dinner, girl? It’s a bit early, but we’ve had a busy day.” She was opening a tin of Chum when Nick came in.

  The kettle began to whistle, a wavering, rising note that would quickly become a shriek. Nick turned down the gas. “I’ll make the tea.”

  “Thank you, dear. I must just grate a bit of carrot for Teazle’s dinner, and reach me down the rolled oats, would you?”

  “Nauseating mess,” he said, “but she seems to thrive on it. Eleanor, what am I going to do?”

  “Concentrate on making the tea,” she said sharply. “Scalding your hand won’t help matters.” Or perhaps it would, preventing serious mayhem.

  “No. Sorry. I must sound very self-indulgent. When I think of the people LonStar is trying to help—”

  “Nick, it was a beastly thing for anyone to do. Who is it you suspect? And why?”

  Without replying, he set the teapot on a mat on the table between kitchen and sitting room. He added mugs, milk jug, sugar basin, and the plate of biscuits, and pulled out a chair for Eleanor. Too well-mannered to sit down before she did, he waited for her to finish preparing the dog’s dinner. However, he absently took a biscuit and crunched, too accustomed to the casual ways of the times to be conscious of the lapse from old-fashioned etiquette.

  Since Eleanor had spent a good deal of time in cultures where no mere female would dream of touching a morsel before every male had eaten his fill, she paid no heed.

  She sat down and poured. “Is it someone I know?” she asked, passing over his tea.

  He stared into his mug. “I think you’ve met him. I’m pretty sure it must have been Geoff, Stella’s boyfriend.”

  “The rather greenery yallery young man?”

  Startled, Nick looked up with a laugh. “That’s him. ‘Greenery yallery, Grosvenor Gallery.’ A would-be Pre-Raphaelite, born a century too late. Corduroys, flowing cravats, and a velvet beret, and he spells his name the mediaeval way, G -e -o -double f -r -o -i -e, though to my certain knowledge it’s r -e -y in his passport. His real surname isn’t Monmouth, either.”

  “Why him?”

  “He’s always been—I suppose you’d have to call it envious. He makes a lot more money than I do but it’s from commercial art, paintings for adverts. His other work just doesn’t sell. He has an inferiority complex or something because I can actually live on the proceeds of my work, even if most of it comes from tourist stuff. He’s always making snide comments, supposed to be joking but … You know?”

  “With an edge?”

  “Exactly. I don’t think I’m being oversensitive…”

  “I shouldn’t think so, dear. I really didn’t take to him.”

  “Of course that’s not enough to make me suspect him, but if you add that Stella’s the only person I’d told about Alarian and that Geoff’s quite likely to have popped in to see her in the gallery. On his way to Tintagel, perhaps. It’s a favourite haunt. If he came, she’d have told him.”

  “And you’re afraid your prospective success in London would be enough to incite him to violence?” Eleanor asked doubtfully. She took a comforting gulp of tea.

  “Violence! I’m not saying he’d have slugged me if I’d been there, but attacking my work … Well, I can’t read his mind. Who can tell what will be the tipping point for someone else?”

  “Surely Stella wouldn’t stand by and let him do it?”

  “No, of course not. We’ve always been on reasonably friendly terms and she’s done quite well by selling her things in my shop. Perhaps she went upstairs to the loo, or to get a cuppa or something, leaving that stupid nit in charge. In any case, I wouldn’t expect her to shield my stuff with her body against a knife-wielding maniac.”

  “
Good heavens no! But don’t you think it’s odd that she just walked out, without a word to you? And taking her sculptures, too.”

  “He may have made her. She may have left a note, in the cash register or the studio. I didn’t look.”

  Eleanor felt herself pale. “We didn’t look in the studio. Oh, Nick, what if—?”

  “For pity’s sake, don’t start imagining horrors,” Nick said irritably, taking another biscuit, his fourth. “He’s crazy about her.”

  “It was you who talked about a knife-wielding maniac.”

  “True. I was exaggerating. I can’t really see Geoff running amok. Slashing pictures, yes. Slashing throats, no.” He didn’t sound entirely convinced by his own argument. He stood up, half the biscuit in his hand. “All the same, before I go to Padstow to confront him I’d better look around—just in case Stella left a note.”

  “Nick, you ought to report the damage to Bob Leacock.”

  “The police? Later.” Suddenly he was in a hurry. “I’ll be right back.”

  His haste suggested to Eleanor a possibility much more disturbing even than Stella lying dead on the studio floor. Suppose she was injured, quietly bleeding to death while Nick and Eleanor indulged in tea and biscuits?

  She decided she had better go, too, in case her help was needed.

  THREE

  Nick had picked up his rucksack from the landing and was at the bottom of the stairs before Eleanor shut her front door behind her. She was too flurried to make Teazle stay behind, so the dog was at her heels as she rushed down. Her regular practice of Aikido kept her fit enough to take the stairs at speed, but Nick had much longer legs. When she reached the street door, he was already unlocking his shop door. The bell jangled as he opened it.

  Turning to lock it behind him, he found Eleanor right behind him. He was pale.

  “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “If she needs help…”

  His face turned—as Eleanor had once heard Donna singing—a whiter shade of pale. “I wish you hadn’t said that! I was thinking of my stuff in the studio. I hadn’t thought—Stay here. Keep Teazle here.”